The crying hills of India

Epic disasters in the Himalayas call for a new, climate-resilient development

Alok Tiwari

The hill regions of India, particularly the Himalayas, have always been a source of joy and pride. Their breathtaking beauty, enjoyable weather, and wonderful people have mesmerised visitors for centuries. These days, though, they have been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Last month has seen a string of disasters from Uttarakhand to Himachal to Jammu and Kashmir. In Uttarakhand, a possible breach of glacial lake swept away part of Dharali village. The disaster was recorded in real time by onlookers on a nearby hill as a wall of mud and water overwhelmed the village. Officially the toll was put at six even though nearly a hundred remain missing and are presumed dead.

Shortly afterwards, record heavy rains caused flooding, landslides, and sinking of land is several parts of Jammu and Kashmir. The combined toll of these as of now has been put at 122 and will almost certainly rise as many more remain missing. Also, the rain havoc has not quite ceased. Even as catastrophe continues to unfold in J&K, Himachal has been added to the list. Flooding in popular tourist destinations Kullu and Manali and nearby region has resulted in loss of lives and property at a massive scale. Raging Beas and its tributaries washed away entire localities. Roads disappeared or got buried under landslide debris. In human terms, the state is the worst sufferer with over 320 fatalities and dozens more missing.

These are staggering figures even for a disaster-hardened country like India. In a sign of times, a large chunk of fatalities has been of tourists and pilgrims. It is thus a national calamity in every sense. It might take years for the affected areas to return to business as usual. But should they? It will be easy to call it a natural disaster. After all, everything was triggered by rains. It is even easier to blame climate change.

Yet, everyone who lives in the region or has visited it knows that humans are just as much responsible, if not more, as nature. India’s hills have been under siege for decades. This is true not just for the Himalayan region but everywhere including Satpuras in the West and Nilgiris in the south. Latest to experience the ‘development’ push is the Northeast as roads expand, become wider, and railways makes forays into hitherto sparsely connected areas.

All this is great for the economy. There is a tourism boom in all these areas. Locals have got employment even though bulk of profits may be going to outsiders. It has also left these places exposed and vulnerable to vagaries of nature. Roads and hotels can only be built by cutting hills. Timber for the hotels and new houses can only come by chopping down forests. All this means that when rain arrives, it is more than just water that runs along the slopes. Increasingly, it is chunks of earth and soil.

Despite their imposing looks, hills are a very fragile area. Himalayas, particularly, are a young range and made up of sand that erodes quickly. We have already had warnings from places like Joshimath that had seen lands sinking. Yet, we are continuing to build more. In all three affected states, roads are being built to make tourism and pilgrimage easier. Hotels can be seen perched at impossible places. Local ecosystems are being trampled upon and ruined.

Now not only there are more humans in inhabited areas, but there are also more of them where none should be. One evidence of how haywire our planning has gone is that every time a road cuts off due to flood or landslides, it causes miles long traffic jam of vehicles both fleeing and trying to enter the affected area. Earlier these used to be resolved quickly. Now we have day- and night-long traffic jams with those producing their own victims.

From pristine Meghalaya, India is exporting, literally, millions of tonnes of earth and coal to adjacent Bangladesh. Travelling through the states one can see flattened areas in place of forested hills. The states rivers, once so clean that one could see the riverbed, now flow muddy. Hillsides in capital Shillong are so fully built up that all you see is buildings. Streams already carry sewage. This is pretty much the story not just in entire Northeast but everywhere from Ooty to Mahabaleshwar.

The tragedy is that this is happening when we are fully aware of the climate going berserk. Indeed, officials and ministers are quick to blame it after each calamity. Yet, instead of making these areas more climate resilient, they are doing everything to make them more vulnerable. Forget new extremes of weather that loom on the horizon, most of the areas are not left able to withstand even the normal weather patterns. Scientists and environmentalists are sidelined as naysayers.

Clearly, a big change in approach is needed. Instead of building in a manner that blocks the flow of water, we need to think of ways in which we can increase the drainage capacity of hills. The natural streams should be augmented, not blocked. There need not be four-lane highways everywhere. Even narrow but well maintained and managed roads can serve.

We have seen homes, hotels, and temples built right up to the riverbanks and often in riverbed too. Floodplains have disappeared. This is as disastrous as it is crazy when we know every river will occasionally flood. These constructions are first to be washed away. Even if they withstand the flood, they increase its intensity downstream. The normal slackness in development control seen across India turns fatal in the hills. There must also be far better enforcement of rules and far less tolerance of violations. There are plenty of places in the world that have maintained charm of the hills while welcoming tourists in even larger number that ours. We need to learn from them.

This column was published in Lokmat Times on Sept 4, 2025