The catastrophic floods in Nepal should end a dangerous illusion in India: that Himalayan disasters can be neatly contained within national borders or explained simply by blaming an upstream neighbour for “releasing” water. The Himalayan river system does not recognise political boundaries. What happens in Nepal’s mountains can shape the fate of millions in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, just as infrastructure decisions on the Indian side can worsen flooding across Nepal’s Terai.

The growing volatility of this shared ecosystem demands a fundamental shift from reactive disaster management to cooperative risk management. India has long treated floods largely as a domestic engineering problem, responding with embankments, barrages, relief camps and compensation. Yet the record suggests that controlling rivers is not the same as understanding them. The 2008 Kosi catastrophe remains an uncomfortable reminder. It was not simply an overwhelming volume of water that devastated Bihar; institutional failure and a breach in an inadequately maintained embankment transformed a manageable river flow into a humanitarian disaster. That distinction matters even more today.

The Himalayas are producing hazards........

© The Statesman