by Mohammad Zubair Ud Din
This unplanned development actively makes Kashmir more prone to floods. The construction of buildings, both residential and official, in designated flood basins must be met with a zero-tolerance policy.
In the first week of September, a few days of relentless rain caused the Jhelum River to swell, returning Kashmir to a tense and anxious vigil. As the water rose with each passing hour, a deep apprehension and a collective memory of the 2014 deluge gripped the valley. The entire region held its breath, praying desperately that the impending disaster would not recur. Thousands gathered along the banks of the Jhelum in Srinagar and around Kandi Zaal.
Each passing minute evoked traumatic goosebumps and the haunting spectre of a catastrophe on the scale of 2014. This time, Srinagar was spared by what can only be described as a whiff of luck. But luck is not a strategy. Not everyone was fortunate. Areas such as Zinipora and Tengan in Pampore succumbed to floodwaters after a protective bund breached. The narrow escape forces a haunting and unresolved question upon us: What have we truly learned since the last disaster? How far have we genuinely come in building real resilience against such recurring calamities?
The September 2014 floods were a watershed moment, devastating Kashmir on an unprecedented scale. The deluge, described by some officials as the region’s Hurricane Katrina, exposed critical vulnerabilities in the disaster management framework. It screamed the urgent, non-negotiable need for comprehensive and proactive flood preparedness. Yet the most chilling aspect of that catastrophe was that it was not entirely unforeseen.
A prescient warning published by Greater Kashmir in 2010 had explicitly predicted a major flood for Srinagar within five years. Despite this foresight, the sheer magnitude of the destruction revealed a society tragically unprepared for nature’s wrath, relying on hope rather than infrastructure.
At the heart of Kashmir’s flood vulnerability lies the Jhelum River system. The recent event, where water levels rose alarmingly after only a few days of rain, serves as a stark reminder that the relationship with this vital waterway demands careful, scientific, and proactive management. Efforts such as the dredging of the Jhelum, Wullar Lake and various flood channels are not administrative projects. They are fundamental to flood mitigation. Similarly, the construction and meticulous renovation of protective bunds are essential infrastructure investments capable of dramatically reducing the impact of rising waters. These projects cannot be half-measures. They demand engineering perfection, requiring durability and effectiveness with no compromise on quality.
Compounding this engineering challenge is the unchecked human encroachment on nature’s own defence mechanisms. The systematic filling of wetlands for residential and commercial development has been a recurring and grave concern. Wetlands are natural sponges, designed to absorb and hold excess water during monsoon seasons. When compromised for short-term gain, they lose this innate capacity, displacing the water into homes and streets.
This unplanned development actively makes Kashmir more prone to floods. The construction of buildings, both residential and official, in designated flood basins must be met with a zero-tolerance policy. The parallels are already evident elsewhere. The 2013 Kedarnath tragedy in Uttarakhand was widely attributed to a combination of heavy rainfall and unregulated construction that narrowed river flow paths.
There is no denying that since 2014, our capabilities in crisis management have improved. Rescue teams are better equipped, coordination has strengthened, and monitoring systems provide more timely data. Yet this progress reveals a profound failure. We have become skilled at managing floods after they occur, but remain profoundly poor at preventing them in the first place. The approach has been to treat the symptoms, evacuating people and providing relief, while ignoring the root causes.
It is a bizarre and alarming reality that in the twenty-first century, after centuries of accumulated knowledge, the Kashmir Valley stands on the verge of disaster after just three days of rain, with climate change often invoked as a convenient scapegoat for deeper, self-inflicted vulnerabilities.
This struggle is not new. To find a blueprint for genuine resilience, one must look back to the ninth century AD, during the reign of King Avantivarman. The Jhelum River was blocked near Baramulla, resulting in the flooding of the valley. The solution did not come from a temporary relief package but from the visionary medieval engineer, Suyya. He diagnosed the root cause and engineered a lasting solution by clearing the obstruction, draining the valley, and instituting sophisticated irrigation works. Suyya, remembered as a messiah, did not merely manage a crisis.
He solved it. His systematic approach, which included constructing protective dykes around villages, offers timeless lessons in pragmatic and preventive flood management. He understood the river, he respected its power, and he worked with the geography, not against it.
This is the spirit that must urgently be reclaimed. A genuine, tangible commitment to preventive work needs to be infused across all government agencies. This means moving beyond rhetoric to the rigorous enforcement of bans on destructive practices such as illegal mining in water bodies using heavy machinery. It means executing retention walls and bunds with impeccable, uncompromising engineering standards.
The responsibility does not rest with the government alone. With increasing construction, citizens must also exercise vigilance, ensuring that the natural width and breadth of local streams and drains are maintained for the smooth flow of rainwater. Individual accountability, combined with a committed and scientific governmental approach, can collectively build the resilience that is so desperately needed.
Until the root causes of our vulnerability are confronted, the unscientific development, the degradation of natural flood buffers, and the acceptance of substandard infrastructure, Kashmir will remain a prisoner to the weather forecast, perpetually living in the shadow of the next three-day rain spell. The lesson from Suyya and the repeated warnings of our own time are clear.
The seasonal rains can be transformed from a constant threat of death and destruction into a source of life and nourishment for the valley only through a sustained, steadfast commitment to comprehensive and preventive flood management. The time for learning lessons is over. The time for acting on them is now.
(The author is an Assistant Professor of History at the Jammu and Kashmir Higher Education Department. His research and writing focus on regional history and the socio-political dynamics of Kashmir. Ideas are personal.)
