socio-political causes with remedies

Analysis of causes manifest that flood-furies shall continue in India

Professor Dr. Devendra S. Bhargava

Recently, there had been a very severe flood disaster in UttaraKhand which had been in
controversy for over a decade due to the construction of several dams on the Ganga River and its
various upland tributaries in the Himalayan region. These numerous small and big dams were planned
and constructed with great hurry but without proper hydrological, geological, hydraulics related
investigations including geological mappings for selection of dam sites and expected implications after
the operation of the dams. Below the earth’s surface exist aquifer the water-bearing strata of the earth
in which water are contained and moves/flows like in a river, such as, mythologically, the underground
Saraswati river confluence Ganga-Yamuna rivers at Allahabad. One notices springs when an aquifer
outcrops the ground and encounters a free fall. The construction of dams alters the flow regime of the
rivers and if a thirsty aquifer is encountered in the process of dam construction then most river water
gets lost in such aquifers and later on it is felt that the river has vanished due to dam-constructions as
also the lost river water is manifested when the outflow from the dam becomes mush less than the
water inflow into the dam. This may also result in river diversion situations. Apart from these

UPLAND FLOOD-FURIES: pseudoism and the flow

regimes and catchment areas of the region gets severely disturbed, and thus when heavy rains occur,
the floods enter in unknown and unwanted areas which no one had even visualized. In the stated
upland regions, thunder strikes are a common phenomenon during the monsoon season as a result of
which the earth surfaces get shattered and the super-saturated aquifers get exposed on the earth and
huge amounts of aquifer contained river-water starts flowing on the earth’s surface. In the stated
regions, cloud-bursts resulting in a dropping of huge amounts of water are another common event
during the monsoon times. The mammoth water flows with very high velocities cause loose-sand caving-
in and equalizing of ground levels and/or the blocking of some water-outlets This is what had happened
in UttaraKhand when heavy rains of extremely high intensity coupled with cloud-bursts and huge
quantities of groundwater released from water saturated aquifers exposed by the thunder-strikes,
blocking of some water-ways, together making an extremely large volume of water flowing all around in
unexpected and unknown areas causing severe flood fury. Thousands of pilgrims visiting Kedarnath and
other holy shrines of the region were washed away or buried alive in the debris brought in by the flood-
waters and in land-slides but lacs got stranded for weeks, no where to go, nothing to eat or drink.
Unfortunately, rescue operations started late and most operations got concentrated in the Hemkund
area while the largest chunks of pilgrims were stranded at Kedarnath and its downsides. Such a severe
tragedy could have easily been avoided if the following techno-scientific and socio-political causes and
their remedial measures were taken care of at the national level. It is never too late.
(i) Concerned ministries especially the ministry of environment and forests (MOEF, granting disaster-free
environmental clearances) instead of having their decision makers from civil engineering, hydrology,
hydraulics, environmental engineering, geology, etc., banks only on pseudo-environmentalists (with zero
knowledge of hydraulics without which no environmental or water-resource project can ever be
planned, executed or investigated) who cannot even understand literature or identify real experts or
professional bodies like IPHE. Unabated degradation of environmental engineering education is the sole
reason. A Master of Public Health Engineering (PHE) or Sanitary/Environmental Engineering course (first
started at AlIH&PH Calcutta) required sound knowledge of hydraulics, the mother of PHE. Hydraulics is
most major discipline of civil engineering, the essential prerequisite for admission into Master's degree
in PHE. For PG course in water treatment, the prerequisite will be UG course in water treatment whose
prerequisite will be hydraulics needing prerequisites of mathematics. Few decades back, mindlessly and
without anticipating consequemces/impacts/induced-corruption (in environmental clearances, grant of
consents to polluting industries, testing of treated effluents), admission of students of almost all
science/engineering disciplines was allowed into Master's Course in Environmental Engineering on
pretext of interdisciplinary approach without enforcing the stated prerequisite concept and author
wonders why only arts/music/dance students were left-out. Even lITs, the savior, ignored this concept of
prerequisites and thus started the. Adulteration/degradation/dilution, etc. of environmental
engineering education and pseudo-environmentalists were born, thanks to lobby of money/power-
hungry non-environmentalists apparent from officers/staff composition in MOEF where the real
environmental engineers are considered outcastes and virus which fact is manifested from the
Uttarakhand flood-fury and failure of several Ganga Action Plans despite all possible efforts at all levels.
Lured/trapped scapegoat-made science students madly rushed to join this diluted master’s course in
environmental engineering being golden opportunity of obtaining master's engineering degree without
having competed for difficult engineering admissions. It is not understood how such students could clear
examinations. Likewise, teachers (in dilemma) if teach for science student then civil engineers feels
cheated and if teaches for civil engineers, then science students will understand nothing. Unfairly
appointed pseudo-environmentalist teacher criminally impersonated by designating himself ‘professor:
civil engineering’ on his letter-head to misguide industries for obtaining remunerative consultancy apart
from teaching some courses involving hydraulic. Perhaps such teachers misuse the academic
autonomy/freedom of their IITs/Universities in managing to teach as-well pass all students. Most Indian
Universities, to create confusion, started master’s course in Environmental Science and the pass-outs
became neither scientists nor engineers. UPSC does not differentiate between Master degree in
environmental engineering and environmental science or between real and pseudo environmentalists
and call both together for interview for same post. How can same duty be performed by candidates of
both backgrounds? Ex-hon.CJI Anand (different birth-date in UK/India controversy) hearing author’s in-
person PIL for staying admission of non-engineers into M.Tech course, tossed the PIL when asked if a
B.Tech can directly be admitted into LLM course? This manifested the severest disregard for academics.
One has to be cautious while recruiting an environmentalist qualified from India as also Indian PhD
engineering students exploited the situation maximum by registering in India/abroad under pseudo
guides such that neither understands the other. The government banks only on yes men type officers,
committees most often not of real experts (unable to argue and only obey commands) or of those
occupying high positions/chair such that right people not at the right places becomes motto. As a result,
appropriate investigations and impacts on river flows, water balances, etc. are not done prior to
planning/construction of dams.

(ii) Merit (manifested through an index representing integrated effect' of all essential quality/job
requirements), a bygone word in Indian system infested with nepotism/regionalism/casteism, and right
persons not in right places together make India a third world developing nation despite its highest
qualified hard working genius man-power in every discipline. Thus, much smaller but merit minded
neighboring countries have their leaders/drivers of better merit (manifesting superiority in sports,
diplomacy, decision making, politics, academics, cleverness, etc.) although persons of much higher merit
are easily and abundantly available in India who are only forced to make dustbins as their habitat or
migrate to even less developed nations to work almost double at half wages compared to their local
counter-parts. The most rampant corruption wastes most money allocated to projects. Former PM
Rajeev Gandhi stated that only 15% (reduced to 5% by his son, Rahul) of allocated public funds reach
project execution stage. Mammoth projects cannot be completed when so many public funds are
siphoned off through corruption which can vanish if all selections/decisions are made through an index
that will eliminate human factor in decision making, the root cause of corruption. Like-wise, the fine
collectors will become honest/duty-bound if hefty bonus is paid to them which will immediately
discipline the public and revenue collection will increase

(iii) An opaque judicial system makes legislative approaches ineffective through extra-ordinary delays
and politically motivated judges and lawyers. Administrators deliberately ignore principles of natural
justice to victimize/harass their non-favorites. Indian hon’ble courts need to be liberal in accepting
criticism without contempt threat, avoid media censuring, classify and train themselves for criminal,
education, environment, taxation, etc., appoint mobile magistrates for immediate evidence’ recording
before evidence dies or is killed, and judges be paid reward-honorarium per case for timely disposal of
pending 100 million cases. Indian Lawyers not understanding technicalities/implications argue cases only
to extort money on pretexts, delay matters for regular income, misuse power of attorney by getting
blank papers signed, and hob-knob with opposite parties. RTI Act 2005 could make
government/judiciary more transparent, but its implementation is excruciatingly slow/tardy apart from
easy evasion on any pretexts (In Uttarakhand High-Court Writ-Petition.726/08, information pertaining to
events of 1994 were accepted to be more than 20 years old in 2006). RTI requests have incurred police
wraths, harassments, bribes and assaults.

(iv) Unstable Indian political system thriving on muscle-money-caste-region-religion powers, can be

mended only through a Presidential form of democracy wherein PM/CM commands mandate of entire
nation to fearlessly work with chosen team uninterruptedly for the term, and a concept of weighted
votes starting from lowest 1 to highest of 1000 or even 100000 equivalent votes (linear or exponential
variation) based on person's contribution just as persons of different academic credentials get different
salaries. This will eliminate communal/caste/money politics and encourage literacy to increase one’s
equivalent votes. The politics of regionalism like anti-Hindi-speaking-people movement in
Maharashtra/Punjab/etc. can most effectively be curbed through a 'national integration model' wherein
every state will employ/promote its own natives (main cause of unrest/fear of native's job being taken
by outsiders) but 50% employees in each state come for 3-5 year turns proportionately from all other
states to understand each others culture/habits/etc. In Delhi and metropolis, entire population is taken
proportionately from all states to manifest real Indian culture to a foreign visitor. Constraint of
extremely high population can effectively be controlled only by limiting the privileges such as voting-
rights/ration-card/free-education/reservations/etc. to only one or two children.
(v) Ineffectiveness of Indian public in building pressures to remedy situations while saints now prefer
political leadership. Increased awareness through seminars/media/NGOs/public-education can build
pressures. Government needs a will to remedy.

Prof. (Er.) Dr. Devendra S. Bhargava former Environmental

Professor of IIT Roorkee & AIT Bangkok authored 470 research papers and received 32
academic awards including from UGC and IE(I). He is jury member for the Albert
Einstein award in science (World Cultural Council) and included in the prestigious
Marquis Who's Who in the world.

Bhargava Lane, Devpura, Haridwar-249401 dsbhargava@yahoo.co.in +91-9412074331