Coastal villages may not remain villages for long

Bangladesh does not make the headlines in foreign media much. But in the international edition of the New York Times on 29 June, the front-page headlines ran across six columns: 'Water Troubles: A Preview.' Four days ago, the same report appeared in a single column of the front page of the US edition of the newspaper, headed 'Here's a look at the water crisis that might be coming to you soon.'

The main theme of Somini Sengupta's report was that almost all of Bangladesh's rivers flow down from the Himalayas and, before reaching the Bay of Bengal, branch out into tributaries and streams, creating wetlands. But the biggest threat that Bangladesh faces at present is water.

There are droughts at times when water falls short, and then deluges with onslaught of excessive waters. There are cyclones and the threat of salinity in the coastal areas. The cause of these threats is climate change. The 170 million people are struggling desperately, tackling this crisis. The problem that Bangladesh faces today, will be faced by many other countries tomorrow.

The report highlights the coping strategies developed by the coastal people to survive the disasters. It points to the transformations in their lives. The correspondent has elaborately described the strategies adopted to deal with the high and low tide, the floating beds to grow vegetables beyond the reach of floodwaters, cultivating crops where the shrimp farms have turned the soil too salty for cultivation, harvesting, treating and storing rainwater and other detailed strategies.

While reading the New York Times, the names of two people came to my mind. One was Shapan Adnan, a professorial research fellow of development studies at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and the other was Kasia Paprocki, associate professor of environment, at the London School of Economics. I recently read Shapan Adnan's book 'Grambanglar Rupantar' (Transformation of Rural Bengal), where there is detailed description on the excess of water, the flaws in the plans taken up at various times to control floods, and how the people of the villages had to bear the brunt of this and are still bearing the brunt. His book focuses on building communities centered on land ownership, the power structure, the culture of corruption and politics of patronage, and the farmers' struggle for survival. But within that, it deals to a great extent with the problems and crises that emerge due to water. He has also highlighted the issue of shrimp cultivation in the coastal region of Greater Khulna and the impacts of its ensuing salinity.

Kasia Paprocki has worked for over the past 15 years on the impact of climate change and ways to tackle it. She had books on the issue and research articles published in several journals. I met her when I attended a seminar at SOAS a few months ago where she presented findings of her latest research.

I grew up in Khulna and I have no hesitation in saying that I have learnt many things anew from the knowledge and experience of these two, on the struggles and changes in the lives of the farmers and fishermen of Khulna's coastal region. The tidal ebb and flow of the coastal region has had an extreme impact on lives and livelihood and this continues. Their socioeconomic analysis of this situation will alarm anyone.

Kasia has been rather merciless in her blunt analysis of just how misleading and flawed are the plans to tackle climate change taken up by development partner countries and institutions as well as private-sector businesses. She says that many of them take rural Bangladesh as an experimental lab for development. They even feel that any effort to try to save Khulna's rural life is futile. There is even talk and plans of industrialisation, creating special economic zones and high-rise housing plans to thwart the rising tides and sea level.

Kasia's research has highlighted how climate change and export-oriented shrimp cultivation has rendered huge numbers of agricultural labour unemployed and forced them to migrate. While the New York Times report did not focus on this, it did mention that many persons of the southwest region have shifted from the precarious coastal areas to relocate in Mongla.

In his book 'Grambanglar Rupantar', Shapan Adnan throws light on the social, political and economic changes in the rural areas, mentioning the salt-water shrimp farming which began in Khulna's coastal areas in the eighties, as well as the faulty plans of the sixties to use polders or reservoirs purportedly for flood control. The flood control plans resulted in harming the lives and livelihood of thousands of people and the extensive analysis of their resistance movement is a valuable contribution to development studies. His writing also includes details on how, in a similar manner, international institutions like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank provided all sorts of policy support to encourage export-oriented shrimp cultivation, though this has a detrimental effect on the environment as well as the livelihood and health of the people.

In his book he has deliberated in detail on the predicament of the Beel Dakatia wetlands to illustrate how the so-called beneficiaries of development have no role in development planning and how disastrous the flawed plans can be for them. In the sixties, polders were constructed in Beel Dakatia for flood control and water extraction under the Coastal Embankment Project as part of the master plan. As a result, in the eighties an unexpected surge of water was created there, steadily increasing in volume and depth. Around 30,000 to 80,000 acres of land was inundated and public life was met with disaster. In 1990, mass resistance grew there and the protestors declared they would destroy the embankment. The administration took up all sorts of stern measures to suppress the protest of the suffering masses, but they failed to thwart the movement.

Shapan Adnan wrote, the government experts and officials countered the public demands with a warning that damaging the embankment would be suicidal. But the rural people said that if the embankment was broken, the water's natural flow would eliminate the waterlogging and salinity would drop too. After two decades, through natural land formation, the waterlogging was overcome and the land was recovered.

His book also has special significance regarding strategies and plans to tackle climate change. He very lucidly explains the difference between, what he calls "government science" and "people's science". There are many plans drawn up for development in the country where the so-called beneficiaries' views have no value whatsoever. Despite opposition from environmentalists, the Rampal power project was established, the Mongla export processing zone was set up. Now there are plans in the pipeline for a dozen or so more special economic zones in Khulna and Barishal divisions. Then surely a new chapter will have to be authored on the transformation of rural Bengal.

* Kamal Ahmed is a senior journalist

* This column appeared in the print an online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir