Teesta, the story of a river from East Himalaya

The Coronation Bridge (Baghpool) on River Teesta is a popular photo-spot about 25kms from Siliguri, Teesta enters the foothills here

This is the story of a small mountain river from the East Himalaya which recently came into global highlight with the Chief Minister of the State of West Bengal in Northeast India saying ‘no’ to the sharing of the Teesta River waters with the neighbouring country of Bangladesh. This like a mother in dilemma who had to say ‘no’ to provide water to her own children (people living in the North of West Bengal) at the cost of a global mother image, where she could have easily said ‘yes’ with the rest of the country, the heads, who fail to understand the plight of the local people living around the Teesta River. The matter has reached so far that even the US official mission to the Indian subcontinent  led by Hillary Clinton made it a point to visit the Chief Minister of West Bengal first, on her way from Dhaka, Bangladesh to New Delhi, India, while the usual trend is that in such official visits the country capital is touched upon first.  While building the dams for hydroelectric power, no one is consulted, whereas as in principle, all the stakeholders living along the rivers should be made part of it. The economic part of the river is mostly highlighted on; the ecological part is almost forgotten.

As per the global data, 24% of land resource is in the mountains, 12% of the total world human population lives in mountains and 40% of the total world human population directly or indirectly depend on mountain river water. The mountain river water is mainly used by the human population in general in their diet, urbanization, agriculture, energy etc. Forest cover and mountain rivers have a symbiotic relation, hence healthy forest covers are a must to confirm healthy mountain rivers. It is the lack of balance between human population needs, forest covers and Mountain Rivers that we are losing our chances to ‘Climate Change’. Studies suggest that the demand for water from Mountain Rivers will double by 2050.

We have divided land politically, now we are dividing water, with our so called development we will probably divide our skies, but who is going to listen to the life and stories of people who live beyond the politics of the world. This is an effort to listen to the people who live or lived along the wonderful river Teesta landscape, which originates from the glaciers of Sikkim and flows down about 315 kms to meet the River Brahmaputra (Jamuna in Bangladesh). Several river and stream networks meet the River Teesta at different parts of her journey. These are the roots of human life through ages. Please follow the Teesta in this blog. 

Bangladesh Independence

The people of Bangladesh have a more aggressive emotion in whatever they do, be it literature, fashion, agriculture, banking, romance etc, and I feel it is mainly because of their two independence wars, one the freedom movement against the British rule and the other to be the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

The first one we all are quite aware of, as this was a freedom movement for the whole of the Indian subcontinent and we know how the barefoot freedom leaders from the different areas of present Bangladesh fought against the well armed British establishment. When we visit the Andaman Islands, our memories get refreshed with a visit to the Cellular Jail.

The second war of Independence for Bangladesh is still fresh in the minds of people and you can meet many of the freedom fighters, still fighting strongly through their own medium. One such person you can meet now in Kolkata. Sahabuddin, renowned painter, often referred to as one of the 50 contemporary artists of the world, now settled in Paris and now in Kolkata, India to do an exhibition ‘Liberation’.  He is now engrossed in his own world of painting, who is a very simple man, most happy if you gift him a ‘gamcha’ (a typical hand woven cotton towel used all over the villages of Bangladesh, Assam, Manipur, West Bengal and Orissa after bath to wipe the body), who was one of the biggest student leaders of the Bangladesh War and has wonderful stories.

I had several opportunities of meeting him and one such occasion was at his house in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Azad, his childhood friend, partner during the freedom movement and a great singer in Bangladesh was suddenly there with one of the old photographs of the freedom movement time and both of them became busy identifying the others in the photo, the wall in the background and the stories of the time.

Then the next three hours was a complete ‘lost in the past’ time for us. Azad started on how he did the first bomb blast in the bank area and escaped in the car of a then Pakistani officer as an innocent student. I had just interrupted inbetween asking Sahabuddin and Azad, that was the freedom movement all about violence or was there any love then. It was now stories which will probably never be heard again.

Both Sahabuddin and Azad looked and each other and agreed that like any other youth, they also had their dream girls, both of them their neighbours and they had all the romantic relations which was then prevalent within the society. Brave freedom fighters, creative intellectual youths and romantic relations were all that they lived on in those days. The Pakistani army started following and visiting their houses which made them flee to India. First to Agartala, where Anjan Chowdhury took good care of them and then four days through Assam, New Jalpaiguri Railway Station and then to Sealdah finally. In Kolkata, the then intellectual community (Buddhijibi Samaj) with the active participation of Nripen Banerjee took care of the run aways from Bangladesh. As one was a painter and the other a singer, they were put up at a decent place at Azad Hind Bagh Kolkata Hostel which was looked after by an elderly lady. They were given Rs.7 then in 1971 as pocket money. After some days, they then went to the Camp near the border and saw the regular training, but they wanted to return to their houses as they had not informed their girl friends and was dying to meet them. The border here was not easy to cross.

They came to Halisahar Rail Station, while passing through the standing railway rack, Sahabuddin managed to reach his train, but the standing rack moved on and Azad reached Kanchrapara. After asking some people he managed to return to Halisahar, but his friend was not there. He came back to Kolkata, only to find his friend Sahabuddin sleeping comfortably. Both of them made the long return journey the same way to Agartala. They returned to Dhaka with lot of trouble only to find that Sahabuddin’s girl friend’s house under lock and key.

Azad had a more tragic end to his romance. The girl’s father who was an influential officer in the Pakistani Government had sent her daughter somewhere to get her married. Many years after, once a cultural delegation from Bangladesh visited the US, here Azad met his once girl friend. She was then married with children, she apologized to Azad for not being able to wait for him, as they all thought that Sahabuddin and Azad would never be able to return home. They did as great freedom fighters, but shattered lovers. 

Every house in Bangladesh has such stories, starting for the Freedom movement against the British in the 1940s and the Bangladesh war of the 1970s. We salute the people of this country on this International Mother Language Day.