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In Birbhum after the FloodsAuthor(s): Partha ChatterjeeSource: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 13, No. 49 (Dec. 9, 1978), pp. 2001-2002Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4367161

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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY December 9, 1978extent of bank credit, his produce andthe rate of disposal with the corres-ponding prices.The point is that much remains tobe done and have to be done if theindustry is to survive. In raw jute,

unlike in cotton the co-operative orga.nisations have not yet played an effec-tive role. And it looks as if the burdenof giving a new look to the jute tradeand industry would have to be borneby the public sector.

WESTBENGALIn Birbhum after the Floods

ParthaChatterjeeIT is twelve days after the final deva-stating assault of the rivers on theunsuspecting landscape of southernBengal. Our truck turns off the GrandTrunk Road at Panagarh to take theroad to Ilambazar. The evening still-ness is eerie, because we do not passanother vehicle. The approach roadto the bridge on the River Ajoy hadbeen washed away, but news had reach-ed Calcutta that morning that adetour of some sort had, been con-structed and that we could cross Ilam-bazar and move on to Suri, the dis-trict headquarters. The forests end,and suddenly, two miles before thebridge, we see sand, huge stretches ofit, glistening in the moonlight. Weremember villages on the banks of theAjoy. They are not there any more;instead, there is only sand.

A policeman stops our truck. Wetell him we are a relief team carrying'medical supplies for the Central Storesin Suri. Two others walk up. Theyinspect our papers and wave us on.We turn off the road and down theembankment along the detour, freshlyconstructed, because there is no road,just a huge yawning chasm where theAjoy had bludgeoned its way through.At Hetampur we see lights in thedistance, and music and drums, andhuman voices. The Pujas are over,

and it is immersion day for GoddessDurga. We approach the processionof dancing, singing, screaming, gyrat-ing men and women blocking the road,and we have to stop. - Tapan leansover the side of the truck and asksabout flo6ds. They point this way andthat, and talk animatedly about deva-stated villages and hundreds washedaway. We ask about the incongruityof a Puja celebration at a time likethis. An elderly man wipes the beadsof perspiration off his brow and saysphilosophically, "Well, life must goonA youngish man in embroidered silkkurta,a gleamingwatch on his wrist,

carefully trimmed moustache on aglistening face, walks up to the truckand asks "What relief have you got?Food or clothes?" "Medicines", wesay, "and doctors from Calcutta".Respectfully, he steps back and wavesand shouts at the processionists; thecrowd parts and we pass through.

Block Mayureshwar II on the north-ern bank of the River Mayurakshi.The irrigation project on this river hasin the last two decades brought pro-sperity to many in Birbhum. On thenight of the 27th, after unprecedentedrains and sudden discharge from theMessanjore dam, the Mayurakshi hadburst the northern embankments acrossSainthia and raced along a completelynew course to devastate this region.The primary health centre at Kotasurhas shifted to the local high schoolbuilding, its own building having col-lapsed, only the long corrugated tinsheets which used to be the ceilinglying stupidly on the ground. We areshown another two-storeyed brickbuilding which used to house a localco-operative bank and where, on thatfateful night, a young auditor, fromCalcutta had perished under a fallingroof.Kalikapur, a large sprawling village.The Bauri hamlet, populated mainly

by agricutural labourers, on the out-skirts of the village is ravaged, not asingle structure is left standing. Thepeople were crowding under the shadeof a newly constructed shelter, ricketyand unstable. An old woman showsus how, with the waters rising menac-ingly from the ricefields just belowher house, she had buried her onlyvaluables, a few brass and aluminiumpots and plates. The women andohildren had taken shelter in the brickhouses of the 'Babus', but many of themen, busy conducting rescue work,had found that it was too late to crossto the other half of the village andhad spent the next day on top of the

tall coconut trees until the watersreceded sufficiently. All of last weekthey had eaten at the community kit-chen opened by the Byabasayi Samitiat Kotasur, and now at last, they wereon government relief.The 'Babu' neighbourhood of theprosperous middle peasants presents amore stunning picture, for here therewere more imposing houses, two-storeyed mud buildings with woodenbalconies and beautifully trimmedstraw chala roofs. "Three generationsit took to put up this house. It'll takeanother three to build it back again."Except for five brick buildings, every-thing else has collapsed.

There are many accusations. "Onlythe evening before we had wadedacross the river, as we always do. Andby midnight the embankments arebreached! Why did they let out theexcess water all at once?" "Of courseit's negligence, or else sheer perversity.How else did the dam burst at Til-para?" Official enquiries are nowunder way into what happened at Til-para and Hinglow. But then there aremore long-standing reasons for thefloods this time - the decay of thenatural drainage systems, the rapidlyrising river beds, the incomplettimplementation of various river pro-jects. But these seem academic con-troversies, for the people here do netknow how such decisions are madeon their behalf; they only suffer theresults.

Village after village on the northbank of the Mayurakshi, it's the samestory. How does it look like in war,after a bombing raid? I have neverseen one, but it could not be muchworse than this. I had seen Divitaluka in Krishna district a week afterthe tidal wave had hit coastal Andhrain November last year. It looked muchlike this; only, 30,000 had perishedthere. Mercifully, the death toll hereis much lower; official estimates nowput it at around 3,000. The devasta-tion is the same, but spread over 12districts in one of the most denselypopulated regions of the world. Thegovernment has now sanctioned uptoRs 400 for rebuilding each house. Itseems a pittance. For, more than aweek after the waters had left, thevillages were a huge pile of earth,rubble, bamboo poles, wooden beams,tin sheets, and no one knew how thedebris would be cleared. Many hadbegun pu.tting up a shelter on top ofthe remainsof their old dwelling.At

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December 9, 1978 ECONOMICAND POLITICAL WEEKLYone place, a cow and a calf were stilllying under the ruins of a house overwhich the family had begun to liveagain, and there was no putrid odourin the air, so well were the bodiesburied.

*Outside flood-ravaged Beluti village,PWD contractors have engaged work-ers to repair the vital road links.Santal, Bauri and other landless menand women dig and carry, dump andbeat back into existence a road wherenow there are only craters. The vil-lagers queue up for innoculation, theirfaces grave and serious, the womenbusily herding together their reluctantchildren, for they know they must takethe 'needle'. In between jabs, we talk.We hear a complaint that while theByabasayi Samiti gruel kitchen, orga-nised by the Congress (I) MLA ofSuri and financed by the big rice-millowners of Sainthia, had fed them rice,the CPI (M) was only giving niilo.Local political rivalries seem to sur-face, and there are recriminations,although tensions do not rise verymuch. An old man says of the localCPI(M) anchal panchayat president,"Oh, he's a good man, but he's no dif-ferent from us. He too has lost every-thing. How is he going to feed us?You youngsters are hot-headed andstupid. It's only at, a time like thisthat one realises that rich people tooare needed in the country. In a cala-mity, it's only they who have themeans to save the poor. How canyou do without rich people?" Ayounger man argues with him. "Howlong would the rich feed you? Sevendays, ten days? What happens afterthat? They go back to their old ways.This is just a ruse, a clever ploy; theywant to use this disaster to regaintheir popularity - it's just cleverpolitics. But they won't feed you forlife. It's only our government whichwill look after the poor." The oldman, unconvinced, shakes his head.It is an 8-mile trek from Kirnaharalong what used to be a bus route,but is now a twisted, upturned, mis-shapen coil of hard clay stretchedacross the fields where a ripe goldencrop had stood only a few weeks agoand where now there were marshy pud-dles, rotten stalks, and patches wherethe crop could be seen flattened com-pletely into the hard layer of freshclay. We cross the Kuye, now aplacid stream hardly twenty yardsacross, and it seems incredible thlat

this innocuous river had in one suddenassault devastated miles on both itsbanks.Village Thiba is on the edge of alarge stretch of low-lands that usedto be a lake perhaps only a few decades)ago. The people here are used tofloods, for the rainwaters accumulateevery year in the ricefields. The cropsare always uncertain, but every threeor four years, the rains are just rightand the yields are rich.But this flood was unprecedented,the worst in living memory. We aretold about the floods 22 years ago al-most to a day, Asvin 10, 1363. Thentoo it had rained continuously forthree days, and the Kuye had over-flown its embankments. But there wasnot this mad rush of water, sweeping

up into the homesteads on high ground.This time the water had stayed foralmost a week - 7, 8, 10 feet insidetheir homes - and the walls hadstarted to collapse on the third day.But people had taken out the hugeiron pans in which the sugarcane juiceis boiled to make gur, and had raisedfunds to procure rations for their vil-lages and row them across in the float-ing karai.

The cattle population had beenhalved. The young men here weretalking of pooling together the cattlestock, getting government help toprocure seeds for a quick ploughingand planting for a winter crop. "Ifthe winter crop succeeds, we'll get bythis year. Or else, it'll be tough. Butwe're survived. No one died. Let'ssee what happens now".

MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRSDEPARTMENT OF PERSONNEL AND ADMINISTRATIVE

REFORMSASSIGNMENTS OF INDIAN EXPERTS, ABROAD

The Department of PersoAnel and Administrative Reforms registersexperts with educational qualifications of the graduate level and abovedesiring to take up assignments in the developing countries of Asia,Africa and Latin America, for a period of two to three years. Candi-dates who are so registered are sponsored as and when demands suitedto their qualifications and experience are received from foreign govern-ments. Applications for registration are invited from :-1. Medical Personnel holding at least the qualifications of MBBS orequivalent. 2. Engineering and other technical personnel holding atleast bachelor's degree or equivalent. 3. Teachers in different sub-jects holding B.Ed. degree or equivalent. 4. College/University Lec-turers and other academic personnel holding post-graduate qualifica-tions. Chartered Cost Accountants, Statisticians, Economists and otherpossessing qualification equivalent at least to a bachelor's degree andexperience of a specialised nature. Persons with less than three years'professional experience after obtaining the requisite qualifications neednot apply. Experts wishing to be enrolled in the Foreign Assignmentpanel may obtain the necessary forms from the Foreign AssignmentSection, Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, NewDelhi-lO00l, by sending a self-addressed, stamped (60 paise) envelopesize 10 x 22 Cms. Forms can also be similarly obtained from the Gov-ernments of Andhra Pradesh (General) Administration Department,Uttar Pradesh (Karmik Anubhag), Haryana (Political Department),Tanmil Nadu (Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department),Himachal Pradesh (KarmikVibhag) and Tripura (Appointment and Ser-vices Department). Applications from persons employed by the Centralor State Governments, Public Sector Undertakings, Universities andQuasiGovernmentalOrganisations should be supported by a certificatefrom the employer that the applicant will be released for service abroadon foreign service terms in public interest (i.e. retaining the appli-cant's lien and protecting his seniority) within thirty days of selectionif need be and also stating the total period for which the applicant couldbe released for service abroad. Registrations are valid for a period ofthree years. Candidates registered prior to 1st September, 1975 shouldapply afresh. Persons registered after that date need not apply afreshuntil the expiry of three years from the date of registration, when theirregistration will lapse. Persons who attained the age of 60 years neednot apply. Applications of persons registered earlier will also not beconsidered after they attain the age of 60 years.

davp 561 (186)/78

2002