Chapter-7 Conclusion

CHAPTER-7

CONCLUSION

ashmir has witnessed a large number of disasters so far. It is the inter

linkage of its topography, geology, environment and other anthropogenic
factors which have turned it into a disaster zone. Apart from the source of
damage which is a natural phenomenon, disasters have been mostly a social
phenomenon because things like choosing vulnerable area and materials and failure to
overcome the natural challenges are all community influenced.

In case of floods though the threat was always there but for the most part of history no
mitigation steps were taken. The rulers were totally indifferent to this problem. In
ancient times with the exception of Suyya’s scheme in ninth century A.D. nothing is
known what so ever about disaster management. Medieval rulers totally lacked this
disaster management sense. The Mughals, Afghans, Sikhs and early Dogras were only
interested in revenue maximization. As disasters don’t come each year, hardly any
governor had the sense of the devastation caused by the disasters in the reign of his
predecessors. Thus the flood problem remained totally untamed in medieval times.
The situation however changed after British intervention in the affairs of Kashmir.
Experts were called from India and latest knowledge and technology was put to use.
Though the State focused on a permanent solution to the flood problem, it could not
materialize due to inadequate knowledge of the occurrence of floods coupled with
social and economic issues. As a result there was neglect of immediate disaster
management issues because of which every new disaster turned to be a fresh and more
devastating one; increase in population led to encroachment of floodplain and swamps
which increased vulnerability and owing to emergence of complex economy every
new disaster caused more and more damage to economy. The state no doubt focused
on relief measures, but it never legislated on preventing the disasters caused by floods
and earthquakes. The relief and rehabilitation measures evolved over decades. The
accession of Kashmir to India changed the whole response to disasters as now
disasters became national events which obviously led to the increase of material

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support to people and change in response measures. Though there has been disaster
politics in Kashmir but it could hardly make any marked impact on the politics of
Kashmir. The disaster politics revolved around whether to save or not to save the city,
focus on areas represented by ruling party, favouritism and misappropriation in relief
measures, neglect of south Kashmir and accusing ruling party of not taking any
mitigation steps. In Kashmir, disasters have been events of the State, by the state and
for the state. As social crisis are created and no one cares except for himself/herself
and his/her family and property. It is because of this thing that army had to be
regularly called for help from the third decade of twentieth century for rescue and
patrolling bunds. Common people never think of any of their role in disasters. Thus
State is solely thought to be responsible for controlling disasters and quite often its
performance has fell short of expectations.

As perception is relative to knowledge and as up to recent past there was no change in

knowledge about disasters and social time remained same thus societal perception and
response remained uniform throughout history. Disasters were thought to be divine
punishment and if they were of devastating intensity the only response was to run
away. Societal and even State response should be seen in the context of non-
uniformity of flood events and the habit of forgetting past events. Though flooding
has been uniform but independent flood events are seldom uniform as is evident from
our discussion that it is sometimes South Kashmir and other times Central or North
Kashmir that is affected. Rarely does a flood affect all parts of Kashmir uniformly or
does it occur in a specified time; in 1893 prior to occurrence of big July flood, there
occurred a small flood which made people negligent. The flood of 1903 affected
mostly Central and North Kashmir thus people of South Kashmir totally under looked
management issues and the flood of 1928 disastrously affected them. In the same way
due to poor understanding of frequency recurrence interval people often think that
next disaster would occur after 20 or 50 years. This ultimately led to collective
negligence of social action in preventing the disasters. In the same way disasters occur
sometimes after decades and people forget about them after short time. Disasters
deeply impacted Society in the form of causalities and short term migrations.
However, history has proved the resilient nature of Kashmiris and they consistently

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coped with the disasters which led to the increase in intrinsic as well as extrinsic
religiosity of people and led to extra ordinary importance of Sufi Shrines into the lives
of people. Frequent occurrence of disasters has led to the emergence of disaster
culture in Kashmir which found its place in day to day lives of people as it impacted
the psyche and nature of people. Disasters also found place in the Kashmiri literature.
Though at the time of onset of disasters be it water currents or shaking, the disasters
are social levelers but in terms of impact, response and recovery measures disasters
have been mostly undemocratic in nature as rich could ensure quick evacuation,
resistant material and technology and quick rebuilding. The disasters widened the
rich-poor gap in Kashmir. Disasters have also led to social mobilization after 1950 as
now people started taking part in patrolling and repairing bunds, demanding relief and
alternative sites for settlement and taking part in anti-profiteering movements.

Economy has been the worst affected sector in Kashmir. Through centuries with
economy getting more and more complex the range of damage done to economy has
enormously increased especially post 1990 when suddenly damage done to economy
turned into hundreds of crores of rupees. As already said, it has been continuous cycle
of economic rebuilding for people due to loss of structures, crop, infrastructure,
diluvium and absence of any insurance scheme. The recurrent nature of disasters has
been a big hurdle in capital accumulation in the valley and as it brought people again
and again to zero level thus they could never come out of this vicious cycle of
poverty. Disastrous floods put tremendous pressure on state exchequer from 1890
onwards and the budget had to be consistently adjusted and funds diverted to meet the
requirements created by floods.

Our discussion makes it clear that the earthquake of 1885 and floods of 1959 and
2014 have been the biggest disasters of history of Kashmir. Though 2005 earthquake
was also devastating but it mostly affected the other side of the Kashmir. There has
been increase in both vulnerable area and people over the decades. Flood frequency
has also drastically increased in twentieth century

Our discussion makes it clear that floods are impossible to be stopped and are likely
to occur again and again. In case of floods no short term measure has worked and it
has become quite difficult to carry out any long term measure in the future. As the

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situation stands today the State needs to look more seriously into the mitigation,
response and recovery measures. Thus it is not before the flood rather during the
course and after the flood that State has to perform. In the same way earthquakes are
also impossible to be stopped. Proper guidelines regarding soil, building material and
structural deigns and knowledge about the precautions at the time of shaking needs to
be made accessible to the people. Moreover, state needs to build up its machinery for
proper evacuation, relief and rehabilitation measures.

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