The heavy price in terms of loss of lives, property and livelihood that the economically disadvantaged and politically ignored people of Bihar have paid, following the River Kosi breaking its upper riparian banks in Nepal and charting an entirely new course on the north eastern plains of this state (pop. 82 million), which has become synonymous with poverty, lawlessness and illiteracy, cannot but move the stoniest of hearts. Over 2.5 million already poor people living in north-east Bihar have lost their homes, crops and livestock and are precariously dependent upon the mercy of the state’s notoriously corrupt and callous politician-bureaucrat nexus which has bled Bihar (per capita income: Rs.6,610 per year) dry.
The unprecedented floods which have irrevocably ruined the lives and futures of an estimated 500,000 households in north and eastern Bihar were not an act of God, but the consequence of inherent government sloth and ineptitude, a heavy cross that the people of the state have patiently borne for over half a century. The danger posed to the people of Bihar by the Kosi had been envisaged as early as 1953, when an Indo-Nepal treaty was signed to erect a dam in the catchment area of Kusaha. That this treaty has never been implemented by New Delhi, which was obliged to erect the dam, is a measure of utter government indifference to the people of this minerals rich state.
The beginnings of the breach which completely changed the course of the river forcing it to carve out a new channel, 120 km from its normal course, was reported to the state government as early as August 5 and again on August 9, but no action was taken by officials to warn the people or begin mobilisation of material to provide for contingencies. On the contrary on August 17, the day before the leaking eastern embankment of the Kosi in Nepal collapsed, the state government’s irrigation and flood control department issued a bulletin certifying all embankments of the river as safe.
Unapologetic misgovernance and lack of official accountability across the subcontinent, of which contemporary Bihar is symptomatic, raises larger philosophical questions about the substance of the social contract between people and government, and whether democracy Indian style, is worthy of preservation. Quite evidently given the nationwide moral and ideological leadership drift, there is little awareness in New Delhi and the state capitals about the implicit contract between government and the citizenry under which, in consideration of the huge tax revenue paid by the latter (Rs.403,000 crore to the Centre in addition to taxes levied by state governments), government is obliged to provide law, order and justice delivery services.
Shorn of peripheral niceties, in the final analysis the flood disaster in Bihar is a law, order and justice issue. Government officials across the board paid to discharge their duty have abjectly failed. They need to be given exemplary punishment, including dismissal from service, and subjected to heavy fines as a stern warning to the 18 million government employees countrywide who enjoy great power without responsibility, to perform or perish.