Could you ever believe that Nepal crisis began 60 years or more earlier in 1960s?
Yes, it is recorded to have begun then. It has relations to ratholing of the Himalayas too. That has only accentuated what has already weakened.
It is an interconnected global event and not an isolated Indian subcontinental disaster. The post-1960 developmental fad has accentuated a cataclysmic situation overlooked most of the people except a select group of ignored experts.
The glacial plates clinging to the Tibetan wall for millennia on August 26 seared, as if someone has hammered it out, causing a massive chain of events that has disrobed the Tibetan high rocks protected for millennia inspiring Kalidas of its magnitude sheltering the Himalayas to the Indian shelf as a constant sentinel.
Related incident is happening now in the pristine Nicobar forests, Chhattisgarh’s elimination of tribals, a bit rebellious as their habitats are disturbed, uprooted, killed for forced takeovers as they get a criminal tag and the proposed shrinking of the Kaziranga forest. The green is being cleared for profits and the society or may say those in governance are not hearing. Causing the same devastation. Mere 1500 km not far to change the ecology around the mainland India, Himalayas or Indian Ocean included. Aral teaches it.
Syr & Amu – None cared
None cared when the erstwhile Soviet Union experimented with diverting sweet waters of Syr Darya, flowing through Fargana, the land of Babur, the adventurous emperor who conquered India, and Amu Darya feeding one of the largest lakes, the Aral, as a hub of port systems, business, agriculture, pisciculture and a thriving civilisation. None imagined that dams and diversion of the aquifers could cause an immense disaster that could change the face not only of the Central Asia.
Yes, it turned into one of the raging saline deserts gobbling up hectares around the Aral Sea region but not confined to it.
Its salt dusts are visible in Greenland, 5628 km away in a straight line. Would it melt? Would it collapse? What would be the impact on Europe? Visible now that the European drought and heating up is related to Aral Sea. The 3,497 miles (5,628 km), supposedly distant, in human terms. Actually, not so. Distances are illusions. The nature even in Antarctica is hit by this innocuous event.
And it is only 1500 kms in a straight line from Tibet, half of Greenland. In 65 years, the Central Asia has been eroding. Not alone. But with the land mass from Central Asia to the Himalayan mountain ranges from Pamir to the eastern most Himalayas beyond – Ladakh, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Bengal; Nepalese, Bangladeshis, Myanmarese or Thais, all are experiencing a catastrophic deluge, draining away rare large fish, 15 to 50 kg or more, millions of other aqua lives, land mass, roads, railways, farmlands and what not. The estuarian Gangetic plate is shearing off at all places, smallest and largest dams have gates collapsed, life shattered.
The disaster is comparable to the 1934 Bihar earthquake that changed the topography of the region. The 1934 – was a nature’s fury, none could have prevented. But 2026, is the creation of human greed across the globe. Today, none could save it.
The saviours are in a political slugfest, scoring, blaming China, India, each Indian states, Pakistan, Afghanistan, war in Hormuz-Iran to Ukraine. Each has its toll. Each country, has its vested, most corrupt, construction industry and quick profits on a competitive bidding race to destroy the world for parochial benefits maximising profits.
Large biz houses are fattening and the poor are bearing the brunt.
Who is Silent? Least Carbon Users
The greatest responsibility rests not with the rest of the world. It is with the cradle of the human civilisation – India, believing in vasudhaiva kutumbakam. World awaits its leadership. It has to be alert. It has to galvanise. Let it start with, as we discuss, the subcontinent, the SAARC region. The Nepal-Tibet-Indian-Pakistan-Bangladesh-Myanmar developments hit the core of the region.
The subcontinent uses the least carbon, Nepal only 0.1 percent. It pays the highest price. The poorest anywhere in the world have nobody to care. The 1.95 billion people of the SAARC are the most vulnerable. They have to be united. Call upon the world environmental system to change the global campaign – not just the Save India-Saarc. It is much wider neighbourhood calling upon Europe and the West to heavily cut down on development, indiscriminate mining, ban on lithium and rare earth prospecting and mining, carbon emission. Not an easy task.
Countries around India, in Asia from Arabia, even Northern Africa to Southeast Asia, East European countries – Russia, erstwhile Soviet republics, Central Asian countries, across the Himalayas and more have to be brought into a global league to Save the World, along with Iran and fringe countries to effectively alter the face of the globe.
An intense humanitarian and diplomatic exercise fraught with problems, contradictions, deep western prejudices. Have to change and widen the vision of the UNFCC COP to make it implementable. The theme, if Indian subcontinent- Indian Ocean is saved, the world could be saved.
If Aral Sea-Tibet-Greenland climate sinkhole is ignored, Noah or Manu have to reincarnate and the world may have to rewrite a new Bible or reincarnate the Matsyavatar, the giant fish prophet of the Indian folklore.
An ignored Aral Sea is catastrophic. It does not end here. India is devastating the pristine Andaman and particularly Nicobar for quick profits of a business house, devastates Bastar forests in Chhattisgarh, tagging the tribal saviours, sometimes angry-rebellious, or eliminating rare Arunachal and Kaziaranga, Assam, forested glories.
Are we heading for a faster disaster? Aral Sea devastation of humanity took 65 years, but the next disaster may start in the Indian subcontinent, far sooner. Await the doomsday.
Neither India is learning nor. Asia, nor the subcontinent nor even Europe, all busy wiping the pugmarks. Could Indian Ocean may be the last vestige? Wars would end as Noah possibly reincarnates!
Shivaji Sarkar