THE RIVER REFUGEES

At least 700,000 people in Bengal have lost their homes in four decades due to unpredictable changes in the Ganga’s course. The Centre and the state can’t agree on who’s to blame

- Romita Datta

The river they once knew so well now seems to be turning on the people living on either side of the 150-km stretch of the Ganga upstream and downstream of the Farakka Barrage in West Bengal. Bit by bit, it has been shifting course, and eating into their lands. Some 400 square kilometres of it, to be precise, across 15 blocks in the Malda, Murshidabad and Nadia districts. So reveals a recent report by the West Bengal government. Even places that saw no erosion in the past six decades have now become vulnerable, it seems.

As a result, lakhs of people in the vicinity of the river live with the constant threat of erosion and the consequent loss of home and hearth. Heavy sedimentation upstream, multiple dams on the river that do not leave enough water for the sedimentation to be pushed into the delta, and an erratic weather pattern are altering the river’s natural course, forcing it to breach the banks and dislodge the soil. That, in turn, has led to widespread displacement of people, with neither the Centre nor the state offering them anything by way of succour, monetary or otherwise.

SAJIDA KHATUN, 8

Sitting by the river bank, little Sajida holds her baby sister and looks out to the now calm river, hoping it will return her dolls. Sajida’s father and his six brothers from Paschimpara village in Samserganj lost their homes and cultivable lands to the river. When the water had come flooding in the early hours of morning, destroying everything in its path, Sajida had been barely awake. All she remember hearing was some commotion and the next thing she knew, her mother ws dragging her out of the house. Sajida’s only regret? That she did not have the chance to save her dolls.