September 2014 Floods – Then and Now

From what I gathered on the streets, a significant proportion of the population believed that the catastrophic flood of 2014 was not just a natural calamity but had a man-made aspect to it as well.

Sometimes it is important to look back at the past in order to have a better understanding of what is going on in the present and what might happen in the future. 

History, after all, does have a tendency to repeat itself.

Taking a cursory look at history, it is interesting to note that Kashmir witnessed its earliest recorded flood as far back as 2082-2041 BC. 

In the recent past, Kashmir witnessed major floods in 1841, 1893, 1903, 1929, 1948, 1950, 1957, 1959, 1963 and 1992.

Historical records also reveal that the areas left of the Jhelum once formed its flood basin. 

Walter Lawrence, the famous British land revenue commissioner of Dogra times, has mentioned in his book “The Valley of Kashmir” that it is this flood basin that took the major brunt of the devastating floods of 1893 and formed a huge lake right up to the present Budgam district.

A lot has changed since then, and Lawrence’s flood basin does not exist anymore. 

Coming back to the streets, people were recalling their personal experiences from the past. 

The elders would talk about how during their own lifetimes, Kashmir would record even heavier rainfall than that witnessed in the first few days of September 2014 but still no floods would be witnessed. 

People were of the firm belief that somewhere, the buck stopped with the people themselves.

Invoking a blend of spirituality and philosophy, citizens talked about how the balance of nature had been disturbed over the years. 

‘We’ve earned it for ourselves,’ I remember one aged man sitting at the cusp of flood waters saying. 

He said it with a heavy heart while watching others being rescued by boat. 

Many were of the opinion that it was a disaster waiting to happen. 

It was only a matter of time before something as devastating as the flood of 2014 shook the people out of their deep slumber. 

The reason they gave was that nature would not take kindly to its boundaries being trespassed.

One argument that often fell on my eardrums during my sojourns around town those days was that the angry waters of the Jhelum had actually done nothing wrong; they were only reclaiming lost course. 

The logic given was also pretty simple: ‘If somebody occupies your house by force, would you not make an effort to drive him out?’

I remember driving in the outskirts of the city one day with a friend when a man asked for a lift. 

He had a couple of bags with him which apparently contained salvaged belongings. 

‘We used to live like kings,’ the man said with a sigh while narrating his experiences. My friend was quick to reply: ‘That is the mistake we made. We actually started believing we were kings.’

A friend of mine who lives in Delhi called me about a month and a half after the flood. 

He did not mince any words and told me quite bluntly that he was not surprised about what had happened. 

‘We humans,’ my friend said, ‘are naive to think that nature will not retort if we mindlessly and repeatedly keep poking our noses into its affairs.’ 

What I have described above may seem like superficial statements, but they have deep meanings. 

It is important that we understand the message and take corrective steps before history repeats itself again.