It is unusual to say the least that the annual saga of Bihar floods finds itself in the conversations happening in the national capital. But the media and Delhiites were forced to stop and take cognisance of recurring floods in the country’s poorest state where about 34 per cent of the population experiences one kind of deprivation or the other be it in health, education, or living standards (officially known as multidimensional poverty).
The interest in Bihar was piqued when Eklavya Prasad held his photo exhibition, titled Portraits of Persistence, and Enduring Communities of North Bihar, at The Art Gallery in Delhi’s India International Centre (Annexe) on Lodhi Road from December 5 to December 12.
The exhibition, inaugurated by environmentalist Sunita Narain, is a part of a series called Visual Kathã initiated by Prasad, and saw hundreds of visitors. The photographs captured glimpses of the lives of the people in Bihar who have lived with the rivers and their floods for centuries.
“Through their lived experiences, people in North Bihar have developed their own detailed systems of pre-flood, during-the-floods, and post-floods lives and livelihoods,” says Prasad, founder of the non-profit Megh Pyne Abhiyan that works with communities most impacted by floods.
“These communities are some of the poorest in the country, but they are also one of the most resilient people from whom we need to learn, especially in the context of challenges posed due to climate change. This is one of the reasons to hold this exhibition in the heart of the country,” he adds.
Prasad is an extraordinary storyteller. I have known him for over 24 years and have seen first hand his ‘mad passion’ for water and sanitation issues in his home state.
I call it ‘mad passion’ because few people would give up a high-paying, city-based, jet-setting life to return to the grassroots, to try and improve the lives of the marginalised and vulnerable communities. Prasad has been doing it for twenty years now and it has not been an easy journey.
“This is the first time I have put 19 years of my work on floods in Bihar in the form of a photo exhibition with 49 frames. And these frames together tell a compelling story,” he says.
Portraits of Persistence has managed to bring people who live on the margins and away from the media spotlight, to the centrestage in Delhi and its power corridors. On December 12, when I visited the exhibition, a senior central government official had come there too and he spent a long time going through each and every frame as Prasad connected the dots for him and presented the story of floods in North Bihar and its people.
Most of the photographs on display had women in them, who, according to Prasad, share the maximum load of floods and are the most resilient. Through his organisation Megh Pyne Abhiyan, Prasad has been working with rural women of Pashchim Champaran district in North Bihar to build flood-resilient toilets known as Phaydemand Shauchalaya. I have visited and reported on these ecosan (ecological sanitation) toilets, which are a game changer.
A wall at the art gallery was dedicated to Phaydemand Shauchalaya and pictured community members (such as Yogendra Nath and his wife, residents of Kairi village near India-Nepal border) who have adopted these eco-friendly toilets and have become agents of change in their villages. I was happy to spot faces of those I had spoken to for my stories on the ecosan toilets of North Bihar!
One frame that particularly caught my attention had a young girl, maybe eight or nine years old, wearing only her underpants and standing at the edge of a wooden boat with a long bamboo in her hand to manoeuvre the dengi (boat).
I had met her in 2017 in Sahorwa, a Musahar village, in Ghongephur panchayat of Saharsa district. Prasad and I had visited the village to report on a flood-resilient variety of paddy (locally known as desariya dhan) cultivated by the most backward and impoverished community in the state.
Another photograph at the gallery reminded me of Kushwant Singh’s Train To Pakistan. Prasad’s picture had a train bursting at seams with passengers, with their bicycles and baggage, hanging from its doors and windows, while others squeezed in on the train’s roof. The poignant image told the story of how floods in Bihar are directly linked to outmigration.
Prasad’s photographs chronicle the harsh realities and at the same time the indomitable spirit of communities living with the floods. Climate change is making matters worse as rainfall patterns change, and droughts and floods become unpredictable and more devastating in the state.
Portraits of Persistence raises questions around the flood management practices that the government has been pushing in the form of embankments along the rivers for the past several decades. Another photograph is a telling commentary on the flood-management practices. It is of a villager riding his bicycle on an elevated mud-and-brick road, which is an embankment, with river water on either side.
Prasad asked me, “Can you tell me which is the ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ side of this embankment? You can’t because the river is flowing on both sides.”
I have documented stories of how embankments have often made floods worse in North Bihar. They have created a false sense of safety. The embankments have led to the silting up of the rivers making matters worse, complain river activists. Lakhs of villagers in Bihar still live inside embankments and face the brutal brunt of floods.
Portraits of Persistence is a reminder that the people affected have to be kept at the centre of any plans whether it is to manage floods or mitigate droughts. “The enduring spirit of people of North Bihar should not be taken for granted. While changing rainfall patterns 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,” Prasad concluded.
(Nidhi Jamwal is a Mumbai-based journalist who reports on environment, climate change, and rural issues. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @JamwalNidhi)
All photos/Nidhi Jamwal
Eklavya Prasad held his photo exhibition, titled Portraits of Persistence, and Enduring Communities of North Bihar, at The Art Gallery in Delhi’s India International Centre from December 5 to December 12.
A villager riding his bicycle on an elevated mud-and-brick road, which is an embankment, with river water on either side.
Yogendra Nath and his wife, residents of Kairi village near India-Nepal border, who built Phaydemand Shauchalaya.
Phaydemand Shauchalaya is an ecosan toilet that separates urine and faeces at source, which are used in agricultural fields.
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