Reminders that never quite sank in

“In the Deosar tahsil,” Lawrence went on, “a bear and a panther were found drowned side by side, while in the Uttar Machipura, a huge python was carried down to the plains.”

Lawrence’s words could have been written by a journalist now reporting the tragedy unfolding in Jammu and Kashmir — with a key difference. Though great floods aren’t unprecedented in the state, the scale of the devastation in 2014 is likely the highest in recorded history.

The colonial bureaucrat would likely have been unsurprised.

For generations now, the impact humans have made in manufacturing disasters has been well known. “I have pointed,” Lawrence wrote, “… how generation after generation has hemmed in the river as it passes Srinagar, and have shown that the Wular lake, which is the natural delta of the river, is gradually filling up from silt. The flood of 1893,” he noted with optimism, “was a great calamity, but it has had the good effect of warning the State that valuable house property in Srinagar was inadequately protected.”

Each generation in fact ignored those warnings — with the tragic outcome being seen now.

Kashmir’s great floods

The anti-flood works Lawrence called for didn’t start in earnest until 1903. That July, two weeks of rain turned the Kashmir valley into a giant lake. Forty miles of road — a significant proportion of the total at the time — was destroyed. In Srinagar, more than 3,000 houses collapsed. The summer crop was wiped out.

In his contemporary chronicle The Charm of Kashmir, V C Scott O’Connor records local testimony that the Dal Lake rose 10 feet in 30 minutes — an improbable claim, but one that illustrates how deeply the disaster was embedded in popular memory. Hakim Habibullah, a Kashmiri poet, wrote the Sailab Nama, an account of the events of this great flood, which claimed over 80 lives.

Maharaja Amar Singh called science to his aid. Dykes were put up to guard the banks of the Jhelum. In 1904, a spill channel was cut bypassing Srinagar, which still runs on the road from the airport to the city. In 1906, a weir was built at Chhattabal, and the following year, dredging works were started from the Wular Lake to Baramulla.

“Looking back,” says Iftikhar-mulk Chishti, a visiting professor at the School of Planning and Architecture, and an urban planning expert, “this was the genesis of the problem. The dykes built at that time allowed the city to expand into low-lying paddy fields, vulnerable to flooding. From the outset, the city spread out into land that just wasn’t suitable for habitation. You’ll find the same thing happened in every major city in South Asia — but Srinagar’s topography renders it especially vulnerable.”
Floods arrived regularly — 1905, 1909, 1912, 1918, 1926, 1928, 1929, 1932, 1948, 1950, 1951,1953,1957. The lessons of earlier disasters, though, were soon forgotten.

In 1959, another great flood breached the dykes and killed an estimated 82 people. The state government again began a flood control programme, ordering automatic dredgers and shovels from the United Kingdom and the United States.

The new engineering helped protect Srinagar until 1973, when yet great flood killed 21. By 1986, though, the dredging programme had all but come to a halt. In addition, urban planners blasted a road over the Nullah-e-Mar, one of the waterways that linked the multiple minor lakes which provided hydrological balance to the region. Lakes and canals inside the city were filled up, while larger water systems, like the Wular and Anchar, diminished.

“Planners haven’t respected Srinagar’s basic topography and hydrology,” says Chishti, “and the price is being paid with human lives. To really address the problem, city planners need to revive the systems of canals and lakes which regulated water levels, and revive the great lakes. There’s no quick fix.”

Lessons to learn

From Lawrence’s account of the 1893 flood, there are lessons other than the need for urban planning. People in the 19th century were quick to cash in on human suffering, just as they are likely to do today. “All roads to the city were closed,” Lawrence wrote, “water-mills had been washed away in the villages and prices at once began to rise. Rice, the staple food, rose from 26 seers to 18 seers per rupee, wheat rose from Rs 4 to Rs 5 per kharwar. Oil rose from Rs 1½ to Rs 2 per six seers.”

Srinagar boatmen, too, “took advantage of the situation and charged exorbitant prices for taking people from trees and housetops, and in the city itself these parties refused to ferry persons across the river unless they paid extravagant fares”.

For the city’s power elite, there were, however, special arrangements — much like the way high officials and politicians were evacuated over the weekend. “The European visitors were all prepared,” Lawrence noted, “and thanks to the foresight and energy of Raja Sir Amar Singh, boats were provided for all.”

People turned their faith from their rulers to a higher power. “Marvellous tales were told of the efficacy of the flags of saints which had been set up to arrest the floods,” he observed, “and the people believe that the rice-fields of Tulamula and the bridge of Sumbal were saved by the presence of these flags.”

This time around, there’s a century and a quarter of historical experience to guide administrators down a wiser path — but whether they’ll chose to walk it, once the waters have receded, is far from clear.