The land of five rivers known as Punjab drowned in the flood waters of the five rivers which started on August 10, 2025. The cause has been a matter of grave concern and people’s response to these unprecedented floods has been heartwarming. Punjab is reeling under one of the worst flood disasters in its recent history, with all twenty-three districts impacted. As of 8 September 2025, nearly twenty lakh people across 2,050 villages have been affected, and 3,87,898 individuals displaced from their homes.

Source: United Sikhs
website: https://unitedsikhs.org/united-sikhs-continues-to-lead-relief-efforts/

The official death toll has reached 48, while three persons remain missing. The agricultural sector has suffered massive losses, with more than 1.76 lakh hectares of farmland submerged. Alongside crop damage, livestock has been badly hit, with over 2.52 lakh animals and 5.88 lakh poultry birds affected due to waterlogging, fodder shortages, and lack of shelter. Besides this, the damage to movable and unmovable property has been colossal. It has been the worst flood in last four decades.

This is the story of the east side of the Redcliffe line, the border that divided Punjab in 1947, which has only two of the five rivers. On the other side of the border with the other three rivers the situation is equally worse. With an evacuation order issued to communities near the swollen Chenab, Sutlej, and Ravi rivers in West Punjab. We can imagine the magnitude of the catastrophe with deaths, properties, businesses, crops submerged, impact on livestock, health crisis when the waters recede, and people try to their lives together again. The present estimates of the losses in East Punjab are a whopping Rupees 13,000 Crores (Source: The Hindu). While the sufferings are of an unimaginable scale some political elites on either side of border are upping the blame game against the other.

Let us look at the five causes and five responses that that we are seeing being played out in the land of five rivers.

Five Causes

1. Unprecedented and concentrated monsoon rains this year.
    
2. Global warming is producing climate change altering monsoon patterns, increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme events.
    
3. Ill-timed water releases of the excess water from the reservoirs, only intensified the flood’s impact and damage. From the news coverage the impression is gained that the residents were not warned of floods.
    
4. Infrastructure management exists only on paper, but in reality everything is left to nature to take care of it. The embankments and drainage systems are poorly managed, desilting of water bodies non-existent. Metaled roads made with no drainage or culverts for channeling the rain waters.
    
5. Urbanization and Encroachment. Also, many types of obstructions in natural drainage routes, especially structures that obstruct the flow of drains.

While the major causes of flooding have been listed above, the experts committees will be formed and recommendations will be submitted, but the implementation of the recommendations will still remain unfulfilled. Then we will be witnessing a repeat of this scenario.

Five Responses

1. The central Government was missing from the scene for 22 days. However, the public rose to the occasion to help the flood victims. Even the NGOs stepped forward to help the marooned. The outpouring of the comradery and concern for fellowship was a heartening spectacle.
    
2. The outpouring from the singers, movie stalwarts, sport icons was truly inspiring. We can say that humanity is alive as even those living in glass houses are coming out and helping.
    
3. Where are the rescue boats? Rusted, in bad condition, not working, and some are missing engines to power them. What about the manpower (operators) needed to run the boats? Do we have the fuel to run those, with everything under blanket of water.
    
4. After the immediate needs such as water, food, shelter, sanitation are taken care of, the next phase of rehabilitating the affected who lost everything back on their feet will be herculean effort. The problem is that many NGOs and other welfare efforts wind down after taking care of immediate needs. This will be like putting a Band-Aid but not healing the wound.
    
5. The Punjab may be broken but the spirit of Punjab is still alive. The hallmark of Punjab always has been to come out of the rubble, and expectations are that it will be happening again with this flooding situation.

Let us all support Punjab to stand on its feet again. The grain basket of two countries is in a state of peril, and we cannot afford to see them get ruined by the floods. Let us not allow the politics of votes, coupled with pervasive corruption, cause an economic and environmental disaster to the land of five rivers. Out of the original land of seven rivers, Saraswati has already been lost, which has dried up centuries back and Indus is not part of the five which constitutes Punj.

References:

1. Sphere India, 12 September 2025. https://reliefweb.int/report/india/punjab-floods-secondary-data-analysis-report-september-2025
2. Sajwan, Raju. Why does Punjab flood? It is not just nature; serious mismanagement is also to blame. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/natural-disasters/why-does-punjab-flood-it-is-not-just-nature-serious-mismanagement-is-also-to-blame
3. https://khalsaaid.org/projects/panjab/2025/panjab-floods-2025?campaign=panjab-floods-2025
4. https://unitedsikhs.org/united-sikhs-continues-to-lead-relief-efforts/