A bus is parked beside the bank of the Padma. The spot is in Rajshahi city. It's springtime. The passengers are all out and gone down the riverbed. They came from northern Rangpur district for picnicking on the desert-like bosom of the Padma.
The scene described above was seen a year back. It shouldn't be any different in 2015. Well before the advent of the dry season, over the years, a vast expanse of the riverbed begins to turn into sand-mass, and in the summer, it gives the look of a veritable desert. Catkin covers vast swathes all over the miles of dry bed of the Padma river from Chapainawabganj border point down to the Hardinge Bridge between Pabna and Kushtia.
Such sad metamorphosis of the mighty river-- not through natural process but for unfortunate change in nature of humans-- signals an end to a golden era when swarms of fishes, including the national fish of Bangladesh, Hilsa, used to abound all the year round. Fishermen would eke out a living and boatmen would earn their bread by ferrying people and goods. Waterway trade was so buoyant.
Fishes aren't there, and the fishermen have turned into farmers. The boatmen have long lost their vocation and waterway trades are now done by truck. Had he lived to this day, what Manik Bandapadhaya would have writtten! His famous fiction Padma Nadir Majhee has lost much of its appeal as the perspective is lost with the sad demise of the river's prime life.
Oh! All's not lost, however, for the litterateurs. A new stuff has evolved with the creation of a new setting-a pastoral one. The celebrated writer might have written another novel under the title Padma Nadir Chashi. All the vocations of the old times, based on the Padma, have been replaced by farming on the silted-up riverbed. Various dry-season crops, including groundnut, are cultivated on the sands of Padma. Farmers have little stake in it though. They are all but modern-day serfs. Land-grabbers have their day. The influential occupy blocks of the char-land and engage poor farmers in cultivating the crops.
The sad narrative of the Padma speaks volumes about the urgency of its rescue, which is still possible, in the greater interest of the peoples on both sides of the common river with India. It's a mother river of the rivers that the two countries share. It's a revered river to a religious faith. Mother Ganga (Ganges) takes on the other name, Padma, after crossing the Farakka point. It has mothered numerous rivers, rivulets and streams that crisscross Bangladesh.
The self-same persons who revere the river, who greatly value its boon virtually look on as its defilement, debasement go on-- leading to its slow but sure death. Death of the vital source of life and livelihood would result in the destruction of flora and fauna in the northern and north-western regions --extending up to the Sundarbans, a world heritage site. Many see signs of desertification process in the offing.
Not that there have not been voices of conscience heard. There have been appeals, protests from both sides of the frontier. It merits mention here that the late leader Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani had led a 'long march' towards the Farakka barrage over the river, demanding its dismantling to free the natural flow in the Ganges. There was also a campaign spearheaded by Arundhati Roy against adverse impacts of dams, including the Farakka barrage.
The barrage also remains a woe of West Bengal as well as Bihar, Orissa and their environs. As to its impact in India, the South Asian Network on Dams, Rivers and People report (November 1999) to the World Commission on Dams is quite revealing. It says, 'Farakka Barrage Project taken up for the resuscitation of the navigational status of the port of Calcutta has resulted in massive devastation in Malda on its upstream and Murshidabad on its downstream in West Bengal. Huge sedimentation, increasing flood intensity and increasing tendency of river bank erosions are some of its impacts. Erosion has swept away large areas of these two districts, causing large- scale population displacement, border disputes with Bihar and Bangladesh, pauperisation and marginalisation of the rural communities living by the river and creation of neo-refugees on the chars.' ?
So far, there has not been any effective move to address the situation. The Ganges Water Sharing Agreement signed on December 12, 1996 provided little solace. After Sheikh Hasina was elected prime minister in the first term, she visited India and signed the treaty with her counterpart in the then Indian government, Deve Gowda. It brought 35,000 cusec water for the five months of the dry season from January to May. But it's not a fully effective remedy for the death throes the Padma suffers in the summer. The desertification signs in North Bengal (also in parts of West Bengal and Bihar) are clearly visible.
Outcry, demonstrations won't help. They didn't in the past since 1975. These went down as footnotes of history. Then, what? Experts from both the countries ought to hold a grand conference, work out the dos and place with the two governments for a Dhaka-Delhi consensus on a permanent resolution of the problem.
Many experts are of the opinion that the Farakka barrage has outlived its purpose. It's no brainchild of any of the Indian governments since the 1947 partition. It was originally planned by the colonial British Raj. So, it's time the scholars, rulers and civil-society promoters of human welfare rethought its worth.
Also important is another option -- a joint project for re-excavating the river from its origin down to the outfall. This is thought as an immediate viable task to resurrect the Padma.
Its revival into full flow would yield economic boon for both the neighbours. The Hilsa would swarm and swim up to its once-natural habitat up to the Rajshahi-Nawabganj range. Barges, ships of cargoes and ferries of passengers would anchor at the river port in Rajshahi and on the other side of river in West Bengal. We, thus, would be able to avert an impending climatic disaster.
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