The flood havoc in Kerala, which has killed hundreds and displaced a million is a man-made disaster, and is therefore a warning to India’s neighbours, including Pakistan, that tinker with ecology in the rush to urbanise and build large dams, environmental experts say.

“Disasters such as this can bring out the best as well as the worst in people,” wrote Arundhati Roy whose Booker-winning first novel was situated in Kottayam, which is currently coping with the flood havoc.

“This year in Kerala, the monsoon that we long for and the rivers that we pretend to love, are talking back to us,” she wrote in Malayala Manorama’s English portal.

“Certainly, for me, the rain was the ink in my pen, and the river, the Meenachil, drove my story. They made me the writer that I am.

Now their fury is unimaginable, and the scale of the disaster and peoples’ suffering is still unfolding.”

Arundhati Roy, whose Booker-winning novel is based in Kerala, wonders how dams supposed to control floods ended up releasing water from their reservoirs at the height of the catastrophe

Experts she quoted have said that in the era of global warming and climate change, the mountains and the coastal areas will be the first to pay the price. The intensity and the frequency of climate catastrophes will only increase.

“California is burning. Kerala is drowning. Our beloved Kerala is a strip of land sandwiched between the mountains and the sea. We could not be more vulnerable. Landslides were reported from various parts of the state.”

The Madhav Gadgil Committee Report had anticipated just such a scenario if the government did not take serious steps to control unplanned development propelled by corrupt politicians and avaricious businessmen and industrialists.

“How could it be that the Central Water Commission did not predict this flood? How could it be that dams that are supposed to control floods ended up releasing water from their reservoirs at the height of the crisis, magnifying the disaster several times over?” Ms Roy asked.

Pakistani environmentalists have warned that the country is located in a region prone to severe climate change impacts, and want the entire water sector management regime to be revisited in the light of the emerging phenomenon.

“Climate change will have significant impacts on water resources in the region, requiring a review of all water engineering projects,” a report in Dawn had warned recently.

“Projects like large dams on the Indus River system must be based on a thorough understanding and research on climate change impacts” the report had said.

This may call for searching more viable options for water conservation.

“Another dimension may be added to the conflicts on water distribution among the stake holders, if the right option is not exercised by policymakers.”

The Dawn report noted that over the past three decades, the construction of new dams on the Indus River system has particularly been a major source of conflict between the upper and lower riparian. Sindh, the lower riparian, has been strongly opposing new dams on the Indus. It has argued against big dams because of their socio-environmental impacts on the province especially on flood plains and delta.

Ms Roy’s worries lend weight to the fear of Mr Gadgil who says that if it is Kerala today, tomorrow it could be Goa.

“Unbridled greed, the shocking denuding of forest land for mining and illegal development of resorts and homes for the wealthy, illegal construction that has blocked all natural drainage, the destruction of natural water storage systems, the blatant mismanagement of dams, have all played a huge part in what is happening in Kerala,” Ms Roy lamented.

As the rescue work continued at full throttle in Kerala, the communist government was facing another deluge in the form of fake news from rightwing Hindutva groups. A senior central official considered close to Hindutva groups said the disaster was punishment for not letting women into a Hindu temple.

A report in the National Herald said how on Sunday, the Additional Directorate General of Public Information issued a warning against an imposter wearing Army combat uniform in a video spreading misinformation about rescue efforts underway in the southern state.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2018