Rivers are lifelines of a country. Bangladesh could not be the land it is if its major three rivers the Padma ---main distributary of the Ganges, Jamuna ---main distributary of Brahmaputra, and Meghna along with the numerous small rivers did not flow like its veins all across its land. But many of the tributaries and distributaries are dying right now and some have already become extinct. One of the rivers immortalised by Rabindranath Thakur in his Chinnapatra to have lost its physical existence is the Gorai in Shilaidah, Kushtia.
Another river so sweetly named is the Dhansiri and equally enshrined in his poetry by Jibanananda was reported to have been in death throes way back in March, 2019. Is the river so sublimely celebrated by the poet of the keenest of feelings still maintaining its existence in any form? A picture then carried in a contemporary showed how the 130-km river's bed dried up. The poet hoped to return to the river once again but what he would have seen now if he were to take a nostalgic journey there!
Many such rivers have either become extinct or waiting to be no more soon or later. Some have become so shrunk courtesy of faulty plan, mismanagement and encroachment that they give the impression of a canal or even a ditch in the lean season. Not all the local rivers received such tributes because of the unfamiliarity between the living entities and poets who adored the former because they discovered in them something unique. Something common used to pulsate between the flowing rivers and people of deep feelings.
Yet there were people who loved the rivers and felt they were a part of life. Gone are those days when Nature was a treasure trove for growing children who were on expeditions to explore their surrounding with keen eyes and a keener heart. That warmth of heart appears to have vanished with the development of modern gadgets. Now the High Court has to remind the people that rivers are living entities but the hardened souls wait for their chances to grab unclaimed portions of a river.
Even the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) which is supposed to ensure proper management and use of surface and ground waters is often found to do exactly the opposite of its avowed mission. As many as nine rivers in Rajshai were reported to have been killed by the BWDB in the name of flood protection. The Chotto Jamuna in Satkhira is all set to be the latest victim of its mindless mayhem. Now the river's size has been reduced to a canal and the excavated earth is being deposited haphazardly on its banks. This means with rains the river will once again get filled.
Unsettling reports on rivers from all over the country are coming on a regular basis. Utter neglect, land grabbing, sand lifting and all sorts of anti-river activities are taking away life from the living entities. The Narasunda, a distributary of the Brahmaputra, in Kishoreganj is fated to embrace a death because of a dam that was built in a place called Kauna in the 80s. Since then the river has lost its strong flows and now its river bed at many places is being used for cultivation of Boro paddy.
It is not the only river to have been brought under cultivation of different crops including paddy. Newspapers are carrying pictures of different rivers, the beds of which have dried up and influential people are using those for cultivation of crops or even illegally occupying parts of the river banks for building constructions.
The river commission set up to identify the dying rivers did what it could do but without follow-up the whole exercise is proving fruitless. Commercial and economic interests have made a section of people blind and they cannot think of common resources in terms of anything other than their paternal property. Such a vicious view of life is responsible for killing the rivers, denuding forests and polluting the environment. If people become heartless and go berserk in exploiting common resources so rapaciously, this small landmass has no power to replenish its lost natural wealth. Those who acting mindlessly to secure their immediate gains are actually destroying their future. The next generation will curse them for such mindless acts.
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