Every Stream Sees A Capsize

India can truly be the big brother and offer generous terms and benefits to Nepal when newly elected prime minister Prachanda visits New Delhi in mid-September. The Kosi will be on top of the agenda as will be the proposal to build a high dam in Nepal to rein in the river. It might be an auspicious time for the Indian hydrocracy to be magnanimous as befits a large country and counter the enduring narrative in Nepal that it got shortchanged on the earlier Kosi and Gandak barrages. Experts say India must abandon the narrow and extremely technical approach, which is designed to give bureaucratic cover and not to solving the problem.

Why? Because the rivers—and there are 200 small and large ones between India and Nepal—are whimsical and don’t follow boundaries. And human interventions to tame them have to be based on political and national boundaries. The more the trust between neighbours, the better the river management. "You have to win Nepal over," says one official familiar with Kathmandu’s psyche. India’s pride and sovereignty can’t be proven by imposing "equal" costs on Nepal. Negotiations between India and Nepal are often a contest of who can throw more technical data at the other and with what alacrity.

The two sides haven’t reached an agreement on building the Kosi dam despite years of talks. Nepal is not keen because it will mean dislocation of people even though it would generate power. In 2004, a solution seemed near for a detailed survey but Maoist insurgents prevented any progress. A dam may not solve the entire problem, officials say, a combination of decelerating water flows and massive reforestation in Nepal are also needed. Diplomats and water officials have been talking for a while but there is no real push on implementation. India could garner support there by creating stakeholders through poverty alleviation projects instead of just being mired in technical reports. For its part, Nepal could shed some of its reflexive anti-India attitude on every issue.

Meanwhile, India also needs to evolve a larger, integrated water management strategy that involves China, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Two flashfloods in Himachal Pradesh on August 1, 2000, and June 26, 2005, in the Sutlej, were caused by the formation of a glacial lake in Tibet in the Pareechu river, a tributary of the Sutlej. The 2000 flood was seen as a freak accident by both India and China until ISRO scientists proved otherwise. China has refused permission to Indian experts to go and study the lake, which is expanding. In June, though, a small beginning was made with an agreement to share hydrological data on the Brahmaputra.

Deft diplomacy is needed on the part of all countries concerned to tackle the Himalayan rivers, their basins and their tracts, especially with climate change rapidly melting the glaciers. Leaders will have to go beyond narrow bilateral approaches, envision a master plan involving all countries. As a start to that, they could perhaps stop treating hydrological data as defence secrets.