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Environment
River Kosi:
If this isn't Hell, What is?
by
Manisha Prakash
It was not a homecoming
any mother would like her children to witness. In fact, it was not a
homecoming befitting the living.
Neelam Devi, one of the thousands of survivors displaced by the flooding
of the River Kosi in September has returned home. She had seen the
worst, having gone hungry for days until she and her family found refuge
in a relief camp. Or so she had thought. But the return home proved to
be a shock.
A tiny empty house, in village Panchgachiya, district Madhepura, with
its damp and crumbling walls, beckoned its owners. When Neelam Devi, her
three sons and two daughters stepped into the courtyard, the sight that
greeted them was a painful reminder of the calamity that had forced them
to leave it in the first place. There were swarms of buzzing mosquitoes
over puddles of filthy water, soggy school books strewn across the
floors, and algae all over the walls. But it was the foul and unbearable
stench from the decaying carcass of a cow that left the exhausted family
even more traumatized.
All this was a few weeks ago. The floors and walls have since been
cleaned, but the ubiquitous stink still pervades the house, settling in
the pit of the stomachs of those forced to live within its walls. Today,
the family spends most of its time up on the small roof of their
single-floor tenement, hoping that the feeble winter sun will dry out
the books, the clumps that were once mattresses and the now-moldy 'khaat'
(low poster bed with coir weave in place of a plank). It was the same
roof on which they had climbed when the waters of the swelling river had
inched higher and higher.
Neelam Devi's roof had, in fact, provided a base for many families, as
they huddled together marooned in their village, peering at the surging
waters down below. Their only link with dry land was the radio that
blared the words of Bihar Chief Minister (CM), Nitish Kumar. "Jaan
Hai to Jahan Hai," he had said, urging people to flee their homes
and belongings and to evacuate the flooded areas. Neelam Devi and the
rest had then climbed down into the rescue boat that had sailed into her
courtyard.
The CM's public address over the radio may have saved many lives, but
the poor villagers now wonder when - and whether at all - he will
address the issue of recovery in these flood-ravaged areas, now that the
receding waters have left behind a nightmare of disease and poverty. For
thousands of villagers in remote corners, the horror threatens to
persist.
As for Neelam Devi, with hardly any money, resources or even the
prospects of a livelihood, she is trying desperately to piece together
her life. To add to her woes is a daughter who is reluctant to answer
nature's call even at the cost of her health. Pinki Kumari, a Class
Eight student, declines to go into the open fields, any more. The slush
and animal carcasses that the Kosi has left behind makes her demand a
toilet within her home.
Basic sanitation for the survivors, a human right, now seems mere words
carried in one of the soggy textbooks drying on the roof. "The floods
have broken us. We can't think of spending on keeping our homes clean.
We have to manage with whatever little we have. My husband earns barely
enough for food," Neelam sighs, as she looks at her daughter.
Some children in Panchgachiya village of Murliganj block try to wring
dry their yellow-brown jute school bags in the innocent presumption that
school may soon reopen. But the signs of normalcy - a bustling local
bazaar, cheerful children charging out of school, newly washed clothes
fluttering on a washing line - continue to elude these villages.
Even the simple pleasure of washing with soap is an unimaginable luxury,
when there isn't enough for lifesaving medicines or even a daily meal.
The unhygienic mud easily available in the backyard is the only cleanser
for the body, the kitchen utensils, and clothes. "How can we talk of
soap? We don't even get clean water... the water is unsafe even for
drinking," says an extremely impoverished Shalo Devi.
Living off the meager earnings that her migrant labor sons sent back
from Delhi and Punjab, Shalo Devi took care of her mentally-challenged
husband, Kishor Shah. When the Kosi flooded, Shalo sold her cow at a
throwaway price and dragged her husband to safety. Having returned to
their now-stinking home, Shalo now suffers from profuse and erratic
uterine bleeding. How does she manage in unhygienic conditions and
without clean water? She replies, "I somehow manage with torn saris,
whenever I bleed."
There is misery all around but the absence of sanitation and clean water
adds to the physical woes of women, who have to walk miles to fetch
water or to answer nature's call in some privacy, sidestepping the
carcasses, snakes and flies in the process. But if nature's fury and
administrative apathy were not enough, caste squabbles over relief
material make things almost impossible.
The 2,500-strong Panchgachiya village houses various communities -
Dalits, Thakurs, Muslims and OBCs. Today each community fights the other
over the sharing of the relief material being distributed by the
government. And, as is usually the case, those that are better connected
politically get to keep the lion's share of such relief.
December 21,
2008
By arrangement with
WFS
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