Imkong Walling
Monsoon floods go back a long, long way. Rainwater and overflowing rivers inundating the Brahmaputra floodplains seldom fail to leave a trail of destruction.
The scale of the July 2026 floods in Upper Assam was unprecedented. The lives it claimed, the thousands it displaced, and wiping out of livelihoods had angry fingers pointing towards coal mines up in the hills in Nagaland through which rivers like the Dikhu drain into the plains. Some of the accusatory rhetoric were however downright absurd, with one standing out— the MLA from the Sibsagar Assembly seat blaming a non-existent Dikhu Hydro power project.
While the allegations of unregulated coal mining and stone quarrying in the hills are not bereft of truth, those making the claims should not forget that market syndicates — either legit or illicit — in Assam towns bordering the coal belt in Nagaland are also profiting from the very trade they choose to deplore today.
Anger and passing culpability in dire situations is a natural human reaction. However, communities on both sides reaching out would have been the wiser approach, taking a leaf out of the border peace committees in the Disputed Area Belt. They could work together to manage their shared rivers than allowing ill-advised individuals drawing hypothetical conclusions in a region already marred by a long-running border dispute.
Building more and more riverine embankments has been the default response to controlling floods. But geoscientists warn that this approach has limits. Sarat Phukan, a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at Gauhati University, references the 2008 Kosi River breach at Kusaha, Nepal, in an article titled, ‘The River Remembers: What the Flood in Upper Assam Should Teach Us,’ published on lamjai.in, a webzine published from Assam. He writes that high sedimentation raised the Kosi riverbed well above the adjoining floodplain rendering the artificial embankments helpless and giving way.
According to him, Assam faces the same reality. Rivers from the hills carry massive sediment loads. When boxed in by embankments, the sediment builds up raising the riverbed higher than the surrounding land. A weak spot eventually gives way like the Jhanji (Milak) river embankment at Chikirichuk in July, which destroyed over fifty homes.
As Phukan writes, “A flood is never only an excess of rain. It is also a record of how people, institutions and governments have treated rivers, hills, wetlands and floodplains over many years. Roads and highways are necessary, but when they cross natural drainage without adequate openings, they hold back water that once moved freely.”
In the plains, wetlands, which act as natural sponges, are being transformed into real estate, while up in the hills, rampant coal mining and boulder extraction weakens the top soil. The loose soil washes down, making the rivers shallower and cutting down their capacity to hold water.
A clear parallel is the frequent flooding in Dimapur, exacerbated by land encroachment that has narrowed drains, and the practice of building houses right on the banks of naturally existing drainage systems like streams.
Rivers have a mind of their own, they cannot be walled out. As much as roads, waterways need right of way, too.
The writer is a Principal Correspondent at The Morung Express. Comments can be sent to imkongwalls@gmail.com
