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A Tribune Special
Indo-Nepal bone of contention |
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Valley on the edge
Profile
On Record
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A Tribune Special
On August 8, the Kosi picked up a channel that it had abandoned over 100 years ago near the Nepal-India border. Lakhs of people on both sides of the border were affected as the river broke its embankment at Kusaha in Nepal, thus submerging several districts of the two nations. About 95 per cent of the total flow of Kosi is now passing through the new course. The Kosi, which flows from Nepal into India, is a major tributory of the Ganga. Over the last 250 years, it has shifted over 120 km, from east to west. The unstable nature of the Kosi — one of the world’s most violent river — is attributed to the heavy silt which it carries during the monsoon season. The Kosi figures in Mahabharata and Rigveda. The flood mafia of Bihar love Kosi-type calamities. Bihar is known for all kinds of mafias — fodder, education, health, irrigation, flood, and so on. Each mafia use government funds to siphon off money. Tragedies are also a source of making money — the sufferings of men, women and children wading through flood waters mean nothing to the politician-contractor mafia nexus. The picture of a man in waist-deep water, carrying a calf on his shoulders, in newspapers moved everyone. Questions are asked how is it possible that the people are suffering silently for decades without any protest and how does a government in a civilised society desist from its obligations to the people? Nepal’s former Water Resources Minister, Dipak Gyawali, told this correspondent that “the entire Kosi project has become a synonym for the corruption that goes by the name of Bihari politics, which ‘New Nepal’ seems to be importing with glee.” “When the lateral, left-bank embankment (not the barrage across the river) collapsed on August 18, it was not a natural disaster, but a man-made tragedy,’’ said Gyawali adding “it was waiting to happen…it is a man-made tragedy because of embankments’ poor maintenance over the years.” The Bihar government in the past has passed the buck to rats and foxes for digging holes in the embankments, anti-social elements, Nepal for releasing waters, and now the latest excuse is global warming. Also known as the “Milk River”, Kosi has now been dubbed as “The River of Sorrow” as it has caused widespread human suffering in the past due to flooding and very frequent changes in course. The river travels a distance of 729 km from its source to the confluence with the Ganga. The Kosi has breached its embankment several times since India and Nepal signed the Kosi treaty in 1954. Were they caused only by fast surging downstream waters of the river? Nepal’s experts allege that Bihar’s flood mafia has been responsible for causing many breaches in the past, not only in the Kosi, but also in the embankments on the rivers flowing from Nepal into India. They say that an inquiry must be made to check whether the flood mafia caused the tragedy this time. Some Indian experts agree with their Nepalese counterparts and point out that there is massive corruption in works related to the taming of the rivers, especially in Bihar. There were 105 breaches in 1987 in Bihar and in 2004 the figure was 60. Many more breaches, like the current one in the Kosi embankment, have taken place since then. There are many precedents of deliberate neglect by Bihar’s officials resulting in breaches of embankments on the Kosi and its tributaries. In 2005, the District Magistrate of Darbhanga made a statement that two officials in charge of maintaining the embankments deliberately damaged the one at Dewanaa causing widespread damages, but instead of punishing them, the DM was transferred. Many top officials have been caught red-handed in Bihar’s flood scam from time to time, including an IAS officer. The flood mafia relishes embankment breaches, because flood relief is a lucrative business: there is no regular audit of flood relief. On the other hand, Indian engineers say that anti-social elements in Nepal do not allow them to repair the embankment. Actually, these so-called anti-social elements are the victims of the Kosi embankments who have been forced to bear Sunami-like floods every year. Now, they are happy that the river is changing its course, away from their homes and fields. Eight of the 10 highest mountain peaks in the world are located in Nepal, which has three biggest river systems — the Kosi, the Gandaki and the Karnali — originate in high-mountain glaciers and eventually flow into the Ganga. The worst affected districts included Supaul, Araria, Saharsa, Madhepura, Purnia, Kathiar, parts of Khagaria and northern parts of Bhagarpur, besides adjoing regions of Nepal. A high-level Nepal government team that inspected areas devastated by the floods in the Kosi river has held India responsible for the havoc. The devastation took place as the Indian side did not carry out repair and maintenance work on the Kosi barrage and the embankment along the river, thereby violating the Nepal-India Kosi agreement. As per the bilateral agreement of 1954, India is entirely responsible for repair and maintenance work and operation of the barrage. Kathmandu has alleged that there was no effort by the Indian officials to save the breach in time, though Kosi took 15 days to make the breach! Prachanda, who is expected to make his first official visit to India shortly, is likely to discuss the Kosi issue with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to find out a permanent solution to the problem which has been affecting both the nations for decades. A Nepali local development officer says that the Kushaha barrage, built with the assistance of the Indian government, had used inferior construction material, causing the quick erosion of the spurs. Calling it the worst flood in the area in 50 years, Dr Manmohan Singh on August 28 declared it a “national calamity” and the government earmarked Rs. 1000 crore in aid for the region. How seriously the governments take these breaches — or such tragedies — are evident from the fact that when the Moloney embankment breached in Gorakhpur in 1955, an enquiry was conducted by eminent engineer, Dr A. N. Khosla. Now the embankments breach every year and nobody bothers. While Nepal, India and Bihar state are busy finding excuses, the people continue to suffer. Wherever the Kosi flood waters made their way downstream, wheat and paddy crops stood destroyed., hitting the people hard.
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The new regime in Kathmandu is spitting fire over the calamity caused by the Kosi floods following a breach in its embankment. Nepal has termed the 1954 Kosi Treaty with India as a “blunder” and is going to push India for its review for amendments. Nepal’s perspectives on its water relations with India are partly rooted in what it sees as the unsatisfactory outcome of past engagements. These relate to the Sarada river agreement of 1920 and the Kosi and Gandak agreements of 1954 and 1959. In each case, Nepal feels aggrieved by the far larger water use by India as compared to the more limited area it has been able to irrigate. On the other hand, Indian experts point out that “this is obviously a fact of geography…Nepal’s mountainous landscape limits its arable and irrigable area as compared with India’s vast and sprawling Ganga plains.” While New Delhi maintains that “any sense of hurt on this score is misplaced,” it appears that Maoist regime now playing in the erstwhile Himalayan kingdom is going to spit more fire over trans-boundary river treaties, especially the one related to the Kosi. The real problem is that the institutional arrangements for implementing several Indo-Nepal treaties, agreements and understandings are weak. Over 14 joint committees exist to manage, develop and implement cooperation between India and Nepal in the field of water resources. But the outcome of these committees has not been satisfactory.By looking at the number of joint committees formed earlier, it seems that whenever problems emerge the existing committees are keen to form another committee to look after the issues without trying to solve them. Performances of many of these committees are never monitored. Some of these committees have not met since their formation while others meet infrequently. Since the beginning of the last century, India and Nepal have entered into several treaties on the trans-boundary Rivers to share benefits from the rivers. They include: the Sarada Agreement (1920) on the Mahakali river; the Kosi Project Agreement (1954); and the Gandak Project and Power Agreement. The Kosi Project Agreement was signed on April 25, 1954, to control the floods and to prevent free oscillation of the river over time. It was revised on December 19, 1966 following the Nepalese people’s protests. The agreement allowed India to construct at its own cost a pair of embankments to confine the Kosi river in its course, and a barrage across the river in Nepal close to the international border. Construction works were completed in 1959 and 1963 respectively. The Kosi barrage also provides irrigation water to Bihar through eastern and western main canals. The salient features of the Kosi agreement are: Nepal has every right to withdraw water from the Kosi river and its tributaries for irrigation and other purposes in Nepal; India has the right to regulate the balance in the Kosi river at the barrage site for irrigation and to generate hydropower from the eastern main canal. The Kosi Project Agreement of 1954, subsequently revised in 1966, “made no provision for irrigation in Nepal from the project.” However, agreements and understandings through an exchange of letters made the following provisions: An understanding reached in 1971 allowed Nepal to withdraw 400 cusecs of water from the western main canal to irrigate about 25,000 ha of land in Nepal, through a project called the Western Kosi Canal Project, which was developed by India at its own cost; and an additional agreement between India and Nepal as of April 7, 1978, made provision for the renovation and extension of irrigation facilities developed earlier in Nepal. India met the entire cost. Recently, India and Nepal agreed that the investigations of the Kosi multipurpose project be undertaken jointly. It includes a Kosi dam in Nepal upstream of the Kosi barrage near Barakshetra, as a long-term measure to augment the lean season flow for irrigation, to control floods with specific flood cushion in the reservoir and for power generation. The multipurpose project also includes trans-basin transfer of water from the Sun Koshi to the Kamala river in Nepal for irrigation development in both the countries. A navigation canal access from the Kosi high dam, along the left bank, up to the Ganga, is also being considered, which could provide navigation access to the sea to the land locked Nepal and north India. Experts believe that it could also benefit Bangladesh as it could provide the much-needed augmentation of lean season flow in the Ganga at Farakka and also flood control benefits. The outstanding issue in this case is that India wants to develop this project with a concept of providing a “flood cushion in the Kosi high dam to provide flood relief to Bihar.” Nepal wants to maximise its own benefits from the project. Nepal is keen on developing the Sun Koshi-Kamala diversion independent of the Kosi high dam, while India thinks that both the Kosi high dam and the Sun Koshi-Kamala diversion be taken up together. India is also interested in the Kamala dam project in addition to the Sun Koshi trans-basin diversion into the Kamala. But Nepal has raised some environmental problems with this dam. Between 1960 and the mid-1990s, several multipurpose water resource projects were studied in Nepal for their joint development with India. These included the Kosi river project. Despite several levels of talks and negotiations, further cooperation between New Delhi and Kathmandu in the field of water resources did not materialise till the signing of the Mahakali Treaty in 1996. Though part of the reason, says experts, may have been political, an important factor was the “lack of mutual trust” between the two nations in resolving several issues.
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Valley on the edge
THE settlement at Jammu that there would be no transfer of land and that the pilgrims would only use the government-built facilities, pre-fabricated huts, etc. for three months has nothing in it to which the people in the Valley could object. Yet the original handling of the land issue has aroused misgivings in the Valley. Unfortunately, most political parties in the Valley have rejected the settlement. They could have begun a new chapter in good relations by welcoming it. In this way, the Valley might have spanned the distance with Jammu, without which the state of Kashmir is incomplete. After living hundreds of years together, the two cannot go apart. Their equation has been an example for the rest of India. At one meeting when I spoke about only Kashmir while discussing the state, Syed Shah Gillani corrected me saying that it was Jammu and Kashmir. Today he favours Kashmir for Islam. Religion does not provide the sinews for the country’s integrity. Bangladesh had to liberate itself from the Islamic Pakistan when the former felt exploited. That both avowed the same religion could not ward off the breakup. The problem with those who are today in the limelight in the Valley is that they have allowed their secular movement to be hijacked by those who talk in terms of religion alone. Only a secular Valley can impress the other parts of the country, not an Islamic state of Kashmir. Looking back, one can surmise that if Pakistan had been patient after its formation on August 14, 1947, the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir would have fallen in its lap. It could not have survived independently, land-locked as it is. The pressure of population — the majority was Muslim — would have made it join Pakistan. But it messed up things. After the lapse of British rule the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir did not join either India or Pakistan and preferred to stay independent. It wanted to enter into a standstill agreement with both countries. Pakistan agreed to it. But India did not since Sheikh Abdullah, the popular Kashmiri leader, was for the rule of people. Unofficially, Sardar Patel, then India’s Home Minister, sent a message to Qauid-e-Azam to persuade the Nizam of Hyderabad to join India on the understanding that it would not claim Kashmir. Jinnah did not agree to this on the consideration that Kashmir was bound to come to Pakistan while independent Hyderabad might create problems for India. Yet Pakistan did not wait after independence and sent its regular troops and tribals to occupy the state forcibly. As the forces of occupation are, they only looted, killed and raped women on way to Srinagar. People in the state build up resistance under the leadership of the Sheikh. This delayed the troop’s advance. New Delhi could not intervene because the state was under the Maharaja. India sent its troops only after he acceded to India. Pakistan has never admitted that its forces went to Kashmir. Asghar Khan, former Pakistan Air Chief, has for the first time said in his book how Pakistani forces fought inside Kashmir: “In October 1947, my brother Major Aslam Khan was actively involved in the fighting in the Muzafferabad sector of Kashmir where he led a group of Pakistani army volunteers and tribesmen. After the capture of Muzafferabad he led the assault on Baramula and moved on to a spot just a few miles from Srinagar. Indian army reinforcements had by that time begun to arrive and Brigadier Sher Khan, Director of Military Operations at GHQ, decided to move Major Aslam Khan to Gilgit to organise and lead the operations in the northern areas of Kashmir.” Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru promised, reportedly on the advice of Lord Mountbatten, India’s first Governor-General, that after the end of hostilities, India would hold in Jammu and Kashmir a plebiscite to know the wishes of people, whether they wanted to stay with India or join Pakistan. However, when Pakistan joined in 1954 the US-sponsored military pacts against the then Soviet Union and received the latest weapons from America, Nehru said that in the light of the “new situation” the US arms supply to Pakistan had created in the subcontinent, there was no question of a plebiscite. By this time Shiekh Abdullah had got disillusioned with New Delhi. He wanted India to adhere to the Delhi agreement which had delineated powers between Delhi and Srinagar. The Sheikh’s protest became strident. Nehru detained him at Kodaikanal in southern India for 11 years. In his letter to chief ministers, Nehru explained: “The Kashmir government could not function and everything was disintegrating. Sheikh’s attitude became more and more bitter and he seemed to be bent on upsetting everything. In the course of a conversation with a friend, Sheikh said he would set fire to the state. I do not know what he meant but it indicated the state of his mind which was almost functioning as if it were unbalanced. So, we came to live under constant apprehension of an impending disaster. It was a very difficult and distressing situation. To allow things to continue as there was to invite disaster and, in any event, that was a feeble way of meeting a situation. To take any steps to check it also meant inviting trouble. The choice in our times was one of the lesser evil.” Despite a special status (Article 370) for the Jammu and Kashmir in the Indian Constitution, the state became increasingly a preserve of New Delhi after the Sheikh’s arrest. His successor Bhakshi Ghulam Mohammad was beholden to it and frittered away the state’s autonomy at New Delhi’s asking. Still the people in the Valley did not respond to Pakistan’s call in 1965 when the infiltration led to the war between the two countries. However, India did not gauge the alienation of the Valley. The 1987 election in the state was a test. When the polls were rigged, people’s faith in the ballot box was shaken and some among them took to bullets. Pakistan had been egging them on to get training and weapons to revolt. A few hundred young men responded to this. Then came the demand for azadi which changed the mood to join Pakistan into a feeling of independence. Azadi does not mean secession. The Kashmiri leaders know that India would never accept another partition. They are also conscious that India has to stay secular for the entire region to feel secure. Azadi can be within limits. The problem with the Centre is that it is surrounded by hawks. Their mindset bureaucrats have pushed things to the precipice where the Valley stands today. It can be retrieved provided the valley is confident that the autonomy it gets today will stay tomorrow and the day after.
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Profile Someone asked him if he would like the two movies to be coloured? Pat came the reply, “it would only spoil their essence”. Kabuliwala is based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore. The film was subsequently made in Hindi by Bimal Roy, featuring Balraj Sahani. It won the music award at the Berlin Film Festival, demonstrating its sharp sensitivity. The movie also won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Festival. Sinha has won 19 national awards and several laurels abroad but he is not overwhelmed. “I won’t deny that I am happy but at 84, I am content with what I have achieved. My health is not good…I just want to relax”, he says. On June 20, Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi and West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandihi visited him at his Kolkata residence, where he was recuperating following a heart attack, to give him the Lifetime Achievement Award. Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities and cinematic version of this novel inspired Tapan Sinha to join films. He became a Sound Recordist and gradually shifted to direction. Sinha visited London in 1960s. The purpose of his visit was to learn filmmaking and embark upon a career of making good films. On reaching London, he contacted Cry Hearsth, Manager, Pinewood Studios. With his help he managed to bag his first film assignment. He got work in director Charles Cryton’s unit as Sound Engineer. Cryton, who had produced good British comedies, was the working for a film, The Hunted. In his youth, Tapan Sinha was greatly influenced by contemporary American and British cinema. Among his favourite Directors were John Ford, Carol Reed and Billy wilder. They provided him the incentive to venture into filmmaking. He used to think that he had to take films on those lines. Rabindranath Tagore’s work had been a great source of inspiration to him. Each Tagore work had a special significance in various moments of his life. No individual has ever influenced him on a personal level. Tapan Sinha’s first film, Ankush, was based on Narayan Ganguly story, Sainik, which had an elephant in the central character. His next film, Uphaar featured Uttar Kumar, Manju Dey and others. His Aaadhar Periye featured Madhabi Mukherjee, Subhendu Chatterjee, Sumitra Mukherjee and others. It was based on a story by Chitaranjan Maity. Tapan’s, Hatey Bazar was based on an autobiographical story by Banophool. Ashok Kumar and Vyjayanthimala were the central performers. His yet another movie, Ek Je Chilo Desh, was a fine fantasy film. It was based on a story by Sankar. It was about a mad scientist who discovered a drug that could reveal the past dishonest life of an individual. Sinha’s Louho Kopat was based on the story of the Bengali writer, Jorasandho. Jorasandho, who used to write mostly about life i.e. with life of people revolving around crimes, wrote one of the best novels in Louho Kopat. Sinha’s Sabuj Deeper Raja was shot in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, and was a children’s film. Sinha’s Arohi was remade in Hindi by Hrishikesh Mukherjee as Arjun Pandit. It’s the story of an elderly person, played by Kali Banerjee, who had a zest for learning. Kali was working as a servant in Bikash Roy’s house. Roy, a doctor by profession, sends his son to medical education. Kali learns English and becomes a compounder. Soon after, Bikash Roy dies. His son, final year medical student in Calcutta, wants to take his mother to stay with him. But Kali advises her not to commit this great mistake. If his mother goes with him and stays there, his studies will be hampered. How much of a sagacious advice can come from a man who was uneducated in his earlier life?
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On Record
THE economic situation in India will only improve by early next year. However, oil prices, high subsidy burden and laxity in tax collection will pose a challenge, says Dr M Govinda Rao, Member, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and Director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi. In an interview to The Sunday Tribune, he says inflation will be contained by early next year, food prices will come down due to good agrarian growth, the real estate prices will be checked and the economy will look positive by March next year. Excerpts: Q: Will the US economic situation continue to affect India? A: The recessionary environment in the US will continue to pose problems till such time the elections are not over and a new government is formed. Despite the attempt to diversify, the US continues to be a predominant source of export demands for many countries. Naturally, whenever the US sneezes, other countries catch cold. Inflationary concerns have prevailed upon the RBI and hence it has become important to increase interest rates. There will be a further increase in interest rates, but by the year-end the situation will start changing and the rate cuts will begin. There will be slackness in capital flows to India and this will be reflected in the stock market situation. Despite the interest rate differential between the US and India, there has been no flow of funds as was expected. Real estate prices will continue to come down further as the interest rates keep going higher making credit dear. The prices will come down by 15-20 per cent but they have gone up by nearly 300 per cent. This downward trend will continue till March 2009. Crude will also have stabilised to lower levels till mid-next year. So the inflationary impact in the economy will come down. Q: Will high oil prices trigger an economic crisis in future? A: The sharp increase in global prices can be ignored at our own peril though they are falling. The international oil prices is a national problem and the political parties should collectively deal with it. The inability to make periodic revisions in oil prices commensurate with international prices is now pinching. Artificially suppressing the prices will only culminate in real shortages that beyond a point the government cannot support. At $135 a barrel, the price of crude oil has increased by over 35 per cent this year alone and this is nothing short of an international crisis. Q: What will be the impact on fiscal deficit? A: The adverse impact of large fiscal deficits and off Budget liabilities like oil and fertiliser bonds on economic growth may not be severe in 2008-09, but is likely to intensify and last longer. The hardening interest rates and lower international demand are likely to decelerate both manufacturing and service sectors. With exports unable to keep up with increasing important bills, the current account imbalance is likely to widen and the rupee depreciation may continue even against the weak dollar. Q: Could there be a crisis situation because of the subsidy burden? A: The government recently issued oil bonds of Rs 35,000 crore, estimated at only half the payable for 2007-08. Continued inaction on price increase is estimated to cost oil bonds worth Rs 200,000 crore to the oil companies in 2008-09. In addition, there are unpaid subsidies to food and fertiliser companies, farm loan waiver, and pay revision cost, which could aggregate another Rs 100,000 crore. All these constitute almost 6 per cent of GDP and we seem to be approaching a crisis situation. Although on the foodgrains front building up comfortable stocks can help to ease inflationary expectations, the continued inaction on oil prices could precipitate a fiscal crisis. Q: What will be the impact of falling industrial production on the state exchequer? A: The budgetary forecast of revenue collection from taxes is high but the collection may not be as high from the industrial segment i.e. corporate taxes. The income tax revenues will continue to surge on an average of 30 per cent as it has been for the last six years. Manufacturing sector will continue to contribute around 11 per cent. The services sector will also contribute handsomely to the revenue growth of the government. But the real problem is with the tax information system which is, unfortunately, shoddy and is also a reason for revenue leakages. Huge refunds from customs and excise are claimed for taxes not paid by the corporates. This happens largely due a big gap in the information system. Indeed, much of the increase in the income-tax revenue during the last few years did not come about by changing the tax structure but by strengthening the information system. Therefore, there is no need to make large-scale changes in the structure of taxation.
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IS the Kosi river calamity man-made? This fear has started lurking in the minds of water resources experts in India and Nepal. Or were the rats and foxes responsible for the worst floods in living memory? How about anti-social elements? Don’t laugh — such ‘causes’ have been shown in the past as “ground realty” in the Bihar government records related to river breaches and flood relief money matters.
THE grand old man of Indian screen, Tapan Sinha, who was decorated with the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award by President Pratibha Patil is the most uncompromising filmmaker outside the orbit of parallel cinema. His awe-inspiring work can, possibly be matched by only a Mrinal Sen or a Satyajit Ray. He is the producer of the black and white classic, Kabuliwala and Khudito Pashan (Hungry stones). 