The first civilizations formed on the banks of rivers. The most notable examples are the ancient Egyptians based out of river Nile, the Mesopotamians in the Fertile Crescent on the Tigris/ Euphrates rivers, the ancient Chinese on the yellow river and the ancient India on the Indus. These early civilizations began to form around the time of the Neolithic age (12000 BCE). Rivers being a steady source of drinking water made possible rearing of animals and crops not to forget the water transportation made easy topped up with a rich bounty of fishes and marine life as a side kick.  

There are certain things that never change. Peanut butter and jelly make a great sandwich, salmon can swim upstream, and river valleys are usually pretty great places to live. Beyond hunting and fishing, the early river valleys also gave people a place to grow crops as mentioned above. Ironically the secret to this was the flooding; although this flooding was dangerous it also carried some real benefits for the ancient people. To explain, as the ancient rivers of our world overflowed their banks, they dredged up nutrient- rich earth from their floors. As this earth re-settled on the land, it made the river valleys perfect places for the crops to take root. These crops made it possible for early farmers to provide enough food for themselves and their families.

Being the northernmost river of the sub-continent; on its 3,100 km course from the mountains of Tibet to the Arabian Sea the mighty Indus river flows through foot hills and plains, national parks & lands that have been denuded of their forests, fertile farmlands, and bustling towns. I had the first look of river Indus in 1995 from the glass bubble window of AN-32 aircraft while going to Siachen glacier. From more than 25,000 feet it looked like a silvery ribbon criss crossing the mountainous valleys of Ladakh. The Indian sub-continent as also one of the oldest human civilizations i.e. the Indus valley civilizations associated with its name; has sanctified the river Indus in the very sinews of this south Asian region.

Nowhere in the world has this been ever achieved where a nation state as well as one of the oldest human civilizations derives their very existence from this very river. A whole lot of narrative is weaved around this mighty river spanning hundreds of centuries with names like Alexander the great, King Porus etc immortalizing it with their valorous deeds.  Nonetheless Indus has its share of sorrows too. One may categorize these sorrows as a byproduct of unbridled human footprints that naturally give rise to dams, and barrages, with large hydropower and irrigation projects affecting the natural flow of water.

The Indus provides almost 90% of the water for agriculture in the UT of Ladakh with the same percentage in neighboring Pakistan. For the herders, farmers, and fishers of the UT of Ladakh as also for the people living along the Indus basin in Pakistan, the river is a way of life providing with them livelihoods and sustenance, yet it possesses the power to strip them of their homes, businesses and livestock with just one flood. They fear as well as revere this mighty river.  Floods are an ever looming threat in the vicinity of river Indus as also in the Indus basin. Not only  Indus river but its numerous tributaries like viz Shyok, Nubra & Zanskar etc are ever ready to spring a surprise on its hapless citizens that have made the valleys going by these names as their holy abode. About 14 years back in 2010, in the dark of the night there were flash floods due to a cloud burst in Leh in Ladakh region of north India. It rained 14 inches in a mere 2 hours causing colossal damage to life and limb of the locals, badly damaged and rendered the civil hospital of Leh dysfunctional.

The most intense part of the storm was focused in a 6- km wide band parallel to the river Indus that had major settlements in the area including Leh. The airstrip of Leh, the local bus stand, and the town itself were severely damaged. In neighboring valleys large number of smaller villages which lay under the main rainfall band were also damaged with large number of casualties. Fast forward a decade and step into the year of 2021 when disaster management authorities of Leh district of Ladakh UT alerted residents living downstream of this mighty river to gird up their loins for an impending flooding due to the creation of an artificial lake in the ‘Zanskar river’.

There was an impending danger of this artificial lake getting burst and consequently flooding areas like Neemo. Zanskar River is a tributary of Indus and the confluence of the two is located at the Nemoo valley of Ladakh region.  As far as floods in the Indus –basin are concerned between 1950 and 2010, 21 major floods killed a total of more than 9000 people, while immense floods in 2022 caused deaths to more than 1,700 people and displaced more than 8 million. Not only the people of Ladakh but even those of ‘Gilgit-Baltisthan are at the mercy of river Indus.

Most people living in these areas are surrounded by towering granite grey peaks where the relationship between them and the river is that of fear and destruction. Here most of the water comes from the glacial melt in the Karakorum Mountains. The devastating floods of 2010 not only wreaked havoc in Ladakh region of India but also that of neighboring Gilgit-Baltisthan. Having cut through the Himalayan, Karakorum and Hindu-kush mountain ranges, the Indus reaches ‘Kohisthan district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The Indus is an integral part of this landscape, but people of Kohisthan prefer to keep a safe distance from this mighty river.

Ways to earn a living in such areas are limited, with people barely able to grow just enough maize, wheat, and vegetables on their small terraced farms to sustain themselves. Floods have hit Kohisthan 4 times since 2010, and in 2022 a place known as ‘Dubair bazzar’ located close to the Indus was washed away. Dubair is the location of the 130 megawatt (MW) ‘Dubair Khwar’ hydroelectric project that became operational in 2014. The village of ‘Dubair is also located 75 kilometers downstream of the under construction 4,800 MW ‘Diamer Bhasha’ dam scheduled for its completion in 2027.

I had written an article on this dam few years back that was proving as a nemesis for the countless as well as priceless Buddhist rock edicts, sculptures and such like artifacts that will get drowned in the waters of this dam once its comes to fruition. People living down the river Indus as it meanders its way towards Pakistan’s Punjab near ‘Kot Addu’ used to live out of their boats indulging in water transportation job , but the same became less lucrative when once the roads became good with high speed  trucks taking over the transportation of goods across the length and breadth of Pakistan.  This forced these hapless Punjabis of south Punjab taking up fishing as their profession.

For more than hundred centuries, this mighty river has sheltered civilizations and washed them away too. Today it is both a boon and bane for the inhabitants of both India and Pakistan that reside alongside its banks. As the river reaches its end, spreading shallow and wide across the delta in Sindh before vanishing into the Arabian sea, the connection between the people and the river is at its strongest .Here in the Sindh region of Pakistan the river is venerated as ‘Uderolal’ or Jhulelal, Zindapir, Sheikh Tahir, or Hazrat Khizr depending upon their religion. Something on the similar lines way back in 1996/97 in Ladakh region a religious cum national extravaganza was initiated in the form of the famous ‘Sindhu Darshan’; which was the brain child of LK Advani the BJP Patriarch and Tarun vijay the famous journalist when both of them visited Leh in 1996.

Both of them conceived this idea of hosting a grand festival on the banks of river Indus as the source of identity for India as the names Hindu, Hindustan, are derived from Indus or Sindhu. Since then this festival has been attracting scores of people from all walks of life, castes, religions and places, especially becoming a pilgrimage for ‘Sindhi Hindus’ who in pre-partition days used to worship the river in their homeland of Sindh now in Pakistan. It is people’s and governments unnecessary intervention bordering on engineering intervention that has caused major disruption in one of the gigantic natural flows of this sub-continent with ominous repercussions that is now being felt not only in the river basin of Indus but also all along the labyrinthine of Himalayas from Chitral to Kibithoo . The earlier this intervention stops the better it would be for the humanity residing in this part of the sub-continent.

(The writer is a retired army officer and can be approached on his email at: slalotra4729@gmail.com)