By Narayan Prasad Mishra
Like forests, jungles, ponds, lakes, waterfalls, and seas, rivers and streams are equally enjoyable and fascinating to human beings. Since rivers, whether small or large, provide the essential flow of water that sustains human beings, animals, birds, plants, and all other living things, their importance is indescribable. In addition, they maintain a peaceful and beautiful environment, making them attractive and pleasant places for all living creatures. Their beauty gives human beings a special sense of pleasure. That is why we all enjoy visiting riverbanks.
Although our country has no sea, we have many large and small rivers. Although the Kathmandu Valley has no major rivers, the Hanumante, Khasangkhusung, Manohara, Bagmati, Bishnumati, and other rivers here have not made the valley any less beautiful or enjoyable. Outside Kathmandu, our country has large rivers such as the Trishuli, Narayani, Koshi, Karnali, and Rapti. Major monasteries, temples, religious sites, and places associated with the rituals, religious practices, and ceremonies we observe from birth to death lie along these rivers. Our riverbank cremation ghats, temples, rest houses, and public shelters, which have existed since ancient times, reveal our country’s river civilization.
Born in Bhaktapur, I joined Tribhuvan University as a service member. In the course of my service, we came to reside in the TU Professor’s Residential Complex at Chobhar Sundarighat. As a result, I began living along the Bagmati River in 1970. In 1969, I purchased land in Balkhu, on the banks of the Bagmati, to build a house. After building a house there around 1973, I moved from the Professor’s Residential Complex and became a permanent resident of the Bagmati riverbank.
I have therefore observed the nature, character, and behavior of this river from very close quarters. I have seen the Bagmati in the dry season, when it carries so little water that it hardly appears to be a river; in the rainy season, when it is filled with water from one bank to the other; and during periods of heavy rain and flooding, when it assumes a terrifying and fierce form. Thus, I am to some extent familiar with the life and activities of a river.
Based on these observations, I feel that a river, like various other living creatures, is a living entity, but one that is immortal. We living beings are mortal. Since every living creature must one day give up its life, we eventually die. But a river, although a living entity, appears to be immortal, continuing its life forever.
As someone who has lived near a river, I have clearly understood that the limited land surrounding a riverbank serves as the river’s field of activity and exercise. Although the river may lie dormant during the dry season, it rises, surges, plays, and leaps during the rainy season. When it surges and leaps, no one has the strength to stand before it and stop it.
Our ancestors must have understood our country’s history and the nature of rivers very well. It is therefore clear that they must have preserved the areas along the riverbanks where rivers could surge and overflow during the rainy season, as well as some surrounding land, for agriculture or forests rather than human settlements. Because there were no settlements or industries along our riverbanks, we were safe from the risks of floods and other disasters. That is why, until a few decades ago, our rivers were clean and pure.
Even many people today may find it difficult to believe that, until around 1975, when I moved to Balkhu, the Bagmati was still clean and pure, and the residents of Balkhu village used its water for their daily needs and drinking. No private wells existed around Balkhu Chowk. There were no public water taps either. We were the first to build and maintain a well there.
Over the past few decades, a misguided political system and policy have pushed the country into decline in the name of democracy, as though party politics, leader-centered politics, arbitrary rule, favoritism, dishonesty, wrongdoing, lies, and fraud were the very definition of politics. As a result, the streams and rivers of the Kathmandu Valley have also been destroyed.
Unplanned settlements sprang up in various places. Roads were expanded everywhere at people’s convenience, without proper planning. Sewage from city toilets, garbage, and drains were discharged directly into streams and rivers. Even worse, under the plans and with the so-called bravery of Kathmandu Metropolitan City itself, garbage was dumped and used to fill the riverbanks. Roads were then constructed over that garbage, an act treated as an achievement.
The riverbank land, thus encroached upon and turned into sewage-filled areas, was occupied by many clever squatters with close contacts and connections to political parties and leaders. Alongside them, some clever people who had come from villages and other places also occupied land in the name of being landless squatters. The government ignored this. Even in the capital, the country’s laws went unenforced.
Instead of living in fear that they would one day have to leave government land, they became intoxicated with the belief that they were its absolute owners. They began constructing concrete houses and shops and living there. Even those who had become, or had previously been, prime ministers of the country and were called leaders began supporting this entirely illegal and condemnable activity for the sake of their party interests.
Contrary to the rule that land around rivers, where rivers could flow during periods of high water and flooding, should be preserved for agriculture, arrangements were made to allow houses to be built and settlements established there.
The beautiful and pleasant rivers and streams of my country thus became so heavily encroached upon and polluted with sewage that the once beautiful and pleasant settlements on both sides of the river became foul-smelling places where it was difficult for people to live. Foreign visitors began covering their noses and making faces when they came there.
As a result of encroachment and pollution across the entire Bagmati River area, one part became a road and another a squatter settlement, leaving only one part for the river to flow through. Consequently, settlements along the riverbanks have been repeatedly hit by floods every year.
As a result, the unimaginable flood of September 28, 2026, entered not only my neighbor’s low-lying agricultural land but also my garden and house, which are situated much farther from the river and on ground 15 feet higher than the riverside land. During my 53 years of residence there, what I have seen and experienced makes it difficult to believe this disaster was caused only by rising temperatures or excessive rainfall. It is clear that encroachment into the Bagmati River area and insufficient space for the river to flow were major causes.
The recent destruction of lives and property caused by the Bhotekoshi flood has shown not only us Nepalis but the entire world how dangerous it is to encroach upon riverbank land for various purposes, to build roads and operate transportation along riverbanks, and to establish settlements there, however convenient, beautiful, or attractive such places may appear. The recurring landslides at Krishnabhir have also demonstrated this danger.
Recently, various newspapers have reported that the Supreme Court of Nepal has issued a verdict directing the Government of Nepal to protect rivers and streams, clarifying that streams and rivers have rights of their own, that their natural flow must not be obstructed, and that rivers and streams have been recognized internationally as living entities for the protection of their rights.
Our country’s current respected Prime Minister, Balen Shah, emerged as a leading figure in the effort to preserve river civilization when he was the Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City. In this context, I do not doubt that he will honestly, actively, and effectively implement the Supreme Court’s recent verdict and directives.
I hope that the political parties of our country, which previously created obstacles and difficulties in the name of various excuses concerning the rights and interests of squatters and others, will now support and assist him in the speedy implementation of the Supreme Court’s recent verdict, having learned from the devastation caused by the Bhotekoshi flood and the disaster of the September 28, 2024, flood in the Kathmandu Valley.
About the Author: A non-partisan writer of several books and numerous articles in Nepali and English; former Chief of the Tribhuvan University Service Commission Office; and a senior citizen in his mid-eighties.
Login to add a comment