WEST CHAMPARAN, Bihar: Smoke from a makeshift firewood chulha pervaded the air as a young woman cooked rice for her family. A six-year-old boy stuffed his mouth with chivda (flattened raw rice) mixed with jaggery while an old woman rocked a baby to sleep. The mood at this shelter camp for flood-affected people in northern Bihar in early October was not as much of anxiety as that of indifference to an all-too familiar tragedy that had befallen them. They had just lost their home to a flood, one of many in recent years.
“During monsoon, we keep our valuables ready in a trunk. Just when the water level starts to rise rapidly, we leave with those essentials to a higher ground, which is either a road or an embankment,” said Manju Devi, a resident of the village.
Just across the Gandak river, on its right bank, in the district’s Bhaesaya Reta Tola village, Brijesh Nishad had returned home in the beginning of monsoon to cultivate kharif crop but the flood deluged his house. Brijesh is from the community of boatmen or ‘Nishads’ as they are known, and is a seasonal migrant. He works for 8-9 months as a daily wage labourer in faraway Gujarat, Maharashtra or Punjab. During the monsoon months, he returns home to grow paddy for his family and migrates again after Diwali and the Chhath festivities.
The people of Bhaesaya Reta and Naya Tola Bishambharpur have a common predicament – that of the lakhs of migrant workers in Bihar who carry the double burden of internal displacement due to floods and land erosion, and outmigration to earn a living.
Climate change is only making things worse.
Multiple rivers and streams criss-cross the fertile silt-laden plains of North Bihar where West Champaran is located. The large rivers are Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Kosi, Kamla Balan, Mahananda and Bagmati-Adhwara that originate from the Himalayas in Nepal and drain into the Ganga in Bihar. The massive floods this year hit 26 districts and affected 4.5 million people in Bihar.
“Since the past few years, we are seeing a new trend in monsoon rainfall in Bihar. Throughout the monsoon, from June till early September, the state receives deficient rainfall and drought-like conditions affect the Kharif crop. But towards the end of the season, very heavy rainfall leads to flooding,” said Eklavya Prasad, managing trustee of Megh Pyne Abhiyaan, a non-profit working on water and sanitation issues in Bihar. “This catches people unaware and also washes away their standing crop. This is what happened in the recent flood too,” he said.
In Bhaesaya Reta, meanwhile, 500 families lost their homes, stored food grain and standing paddy. For the migrant men from this village who work in Mumbai, Delhi and even Kashmir, the idea of home is never one place.
Chhatu Nishad, in his 70s, has relocated 17 times. “Every time we rebuild our home, Ganga ji (Gandak) washes it away,” he said. His misery did not seem to shake his reverence for the Gandak that originates in Nepal and spans seven districts in Bihar and two in Uttar Pradesh.
It was only when Bhaesaya Reta finally hit the forest boundary after multiple displacements, the state government allocated them land in Semra Labedaha Panchayat of Piprasi block on the border of Bihar’s West Champaran district and Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar district. “Each household was allotted four Dismil land (1742.4 square feet) on the right bank of the Gandak and we had been living there since 2009. Our original village has been submerged in the river for the past many years,” said Brijesh.
House reconstruction, sans the men who would leave soon to earn, is the woman’s responsibility, said Manju Devi. “During floods, there is no place to defecate. Floodwater brings snakes and we have to keep our children safe. Once the water recedes, we leave our children and husband on the embankment and make daily visits to our flood-hit homes. Snakes and scorpions hide inside. We spend the day cleaning the house and rebuilding a portion of it, and return to the embankment in the evening,” Manju Devi said. Often women have to ask their mayeka (parents) for money to rebuild the house, she added.
“Majority of the youth from Naya Tola migrate to Punjab, Haryana and to southern Indian states to work as agricultural and construction labour. Because of frequent floods, there is no livelihood here and farming is not profitable,” said Kumod Kumar Das of Megh Pyne Abhiyaan.
The deal is worse for landless people. Rita Devi from Marjadi village in Gaunaha block stood outside her kachcha hut, visibly worried about the overcast sky. “My husband has gone to Punjab to harvest paddy. There isn’t enough farm labour work in and around the village. Daily wage is just Rs 200. So even during chaumasa (four months of monsoon), he doesn’t return home. But whenever he does, he brings Rs 6,000- Rs 8,000,” said Rita.
“As the floods occur year by year, North Bihar faces a mounting crisis of socio-economic fragility, accelerating a wave of climate-induced migration,” said campaigner Prasad. “At the same time, many migrants who leave the region in search of better opportunities send home remittances to invest in agriculture and build houses, only for these investments to be repeatedly destroyed by the floods. These recurring disasters not only erase years of hard-earned progress but also deepen the cycle of displacement and poverty,” he added.
Another 2024 paper, Climate variability and migration in Bihar: An empirical analysis studies the relationship between climate variability, hazards and migration in Bihar. The researchers found that relative deprivation and growth prospects are not the only factor behind mobility, but climatic variability plays a role too, and that flood disaster is a significant reason for out-migration in Bihar.
Ramesh Sah, his fellow villager, pointed out Kataha had already brought ten flood events this year. “No one sleeps in the village when it rains. Water levels can rise in a matter of minutes,” said Sah.
IS IT JUST CLIMATE CHANGE?
Even though the 2024 floods in North Bihar highlight the increasing impacts of climate change, they also reveal how the climate narrative is sometimes misused to mask the failures of our flood management systems, said Prasad.
Several rivers run through the plains of Bihar that have their catchment in the Himalayas of Nepal. They carry a high level of sediment load which is deposited on the plains of Bihar. “All the rivers in North Bihar are heavily silted — unka pet bhara hua hai [their stomach is full]. How will they carry excess water from floods? The Ganga itself is heavily silted and imagine it has to carry all the water of several rivers that drain into it, and there is Farakka barrage downstream,” said Ahmad.
But this sediment load does not spread on the floodplains, due to embankments that restrict the river’s flow.
In 1954, embankments were planned as a flood control measure along the Kosi river. The embankments are a mud and stone earthen wall usually 10-12 metres wide at the base and 5 metres wide at the top. Over the past few decades, embankments have been built along all the major rivers of Bihar, including one running through a 510 kilometres stretch along the Gandak.
“While more intense and late rainfall can be attributed to global climate shifts, the region’s vulnerability has been exacerbated by years of poorly planned embankments, inadequate drainage systems, and unregulated construction on the floodplains,” complained Prasad.
“It is crucial to recognise that addressing climate change alone won’t solve the issue. Without reforming the flawed infrastructural systems and creating a resilient, adaptive approach to flood management, the investments of migrants and local communities will continue to be washed away year after year,” he warned.
Nidhi Jamwal is a Mumbai-based journalist who reports on environment, climate, and rural issues.
