Can Saraswati river be revived?

If there ever was a single entity that could be called as an epitome or paradigm of the ancient Vedic culture civilization of pre-historic India, it was surely the mythical river Saraswati. It is now believed that the entire Vedic culture did blossom and bloom along the banks of this mythical and grandest of all rivers in India. Since the river was never seen in the known historical period of India, a legend grew which said that the river was invisible. Lay people did believe in this legend but for more scientifically minded souls, some kind of proof was necessary to accept it's existence.

The story of the discovery of this once mighty but later thought to be invisible river is quite fascinating. To begin, let us first move to the vast marshy land known as Rann, sandwiched between India's Kutch region and Pakistan's Sind province. Up to 1918, a river known as Kori river flowed from Sind into the Rann, eventually emptying itself in Arabian sea through what is known as Kori creek. From the times of Alexander the great (325 BC) and Ptolemy (150 AD) this Kori river was always thought to be a subsidiary of the mighty Indus and Kori creek was called as eastern mouth of the Indus. In 1819, a major earth quake struck the region. As a result of earthquake, entire Sindh shoreline north of Rann rose up like a bund known as “Allah's Bund” or God's Bund. This God's bund effectively closed the eastern mouth of the Indus or Kori river forever. The lost Kori river is of special relevance to our story as would be clear later. In 1870, a geologist Alex Rogers discovered Alluvium or sand, mud, deposits formed by flowing water in Gulf of Khambat, suggesting a past presence of a major river system in the area. In 1886, a British officer, Oldham, reported finding a vast dry bed of a river, through which a much smaller seasonal monsoon fed river, known as Ghaggar now flowed. Ghaggar river, originates near Ropar in Punjab and dissipates itself in the sands of Rajasthan deserts.

In 1921, finding of Mohenjodaro city, on the bank of Indus river, led to the discovery of the most ancient civilization of Indian sub continent, known as the Indus civilization, that existed during 5000 to 2500 BCE. European historians came up with many fancy theories after this discovery, about Aryan invasion of India that was supposed to have destroyed the newly found Indus civilization and that is what was generally believed till even three or four decades ago.

Extensive excavations carried out by the Archaeological survey of India along the banks of the dry bed of Ghaggar river, has brought to light, hundreds of places, like Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi and Ganweriwala, where chalcolithic civilizations thrived once, during 3500 to 2500 BCE. Discovery of the port city of Dholavira further supported the historical fact that the now marshland of Rann, was once a navigable channel of water, mainly fed by Sarswati waters.

Mr. R.N. Athavale, is a former Scientist with National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad, and Emeritus Scientist, CSIR, India. He was involved in the research work concerning Saraswati basin. He says that by 2008, most of the scientists believed that the ancient Saraswati river was not mythical but originated in Himachal Pradesh, entered Haryana near Kalka, moved through Punjab and Haryana into Rajasthan, meandered and wound further downstream, till it debouched in the Gulf of Katch. The river is currently known as Ghaggar River in its upper reaches and Hakra and Nara in the lower reaches. The Ghaggar today is an ephemeral stream fed only by monsoon waters. In the past, several major and minor tributaries joined the Sarasvati over its course. The relevance of Kori river would now be clear. Kori probably was not the mouth of Indus but Saraswati. (Sankaran, A.V., 1999; Roy and Jakhar, 2001)

Another report on a study, was published on 28th May 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and lead authored by Liviu Giosan, a geologist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), that claimed to have found the answer to the Saraswati riddle. The study was done from 2003 to 2008 from the Arabian Sea coast to the fertile valleys of Punjab and the northern Thar Desert in Pakistan. Over this period, Liviu Giosan's team of 15 international experts, which Included Prof Ronojoy Adhikari of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, studied satellite photos and topographic data collected by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. From this data the team created digital maps of landforms in the basins of Indus and other rivers. This analytical work was then confirmed with help of field work in the area, consisting of drilling, taking core samples and digging deep trenches to study cross-sectional views. The report says that archeological evidence suggests very intensive human settlements during Harappan times in the basin of Ghaggar-Hakra river, which is believed to be the long lost Sarswati of the Vedas. The geological evidence like presence of sediments, topography discovered in this study shows that these rivers (Ghaggar-Hakra)were indeed sizable and highly active in this region, most likely due to strong monsoons, during Harappan period.

We now come to the next question. How did the Saraswati river disappear. Everyone agrees that it disappeared sometime between 5000 and 3000 BCE. However there are tow schools of thought for the reasons behind this disappearance. Liviu Giosan report assigns gradually weakening monsoon rains as the main reason for drying up of Sarswati, whereas CSIR scientists believe that The Sarasvati river system was always a separate entity and was never part of the Indus basin. It dried up a few thousand years back, due to tectonic movements, tributary diversions and climate changes, when it was no longer fed by the Himalayan snow.

Whatever may be the reasons, the fact remains that the dry courses of the main river and its tributaries are at present covered with sand, loam and silt, deposited by wind over last few thousand years and they could be discerned only after the advent of satellite remote sensing techniques.

Readers might have felt puzzled for my bringing up this subject now, but there is reason for that. India's federal minister for water resources and river development minister has just announced that Government plans to take up the issue very seriously to trace the route of the river.

I do not know, what purpose would be served by taking up this study as everyone in the scientific community knows that the Saraswati river is not a myth. Satellite images of northwestern India shows presence of underground channels of water below the river bed and the water has been found to be at least 3500 years old by scientists. It is also known that the river passed through plains of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and finally emptied in the Arabian sea through the great Rann.

Some people want the river to be revived. It could be a game changer as river once flowed through zones that are arid and desert like today. It can certainly bring riches and wealth to the arid region no doubt. To do this, we may have to divert the waters of Satlaj and Yamuna rivers in the bed of Ghaggar. Though technically it is feasible, there are other difficulties that are of political nature. Satlaj ultimately meets Indus river, which now is in Pakistan. Satlaj water is shared by the two countries as per an international agreement. Pakistan is unlikely to allow diversion of Satlaj water to India. This means that we can only divert some of the Yamuna water to Ghaggar, which in any case may not bring back the former glory to Sarswati.

Another major difficulty is that the dry bed of Saraswati in the lower reaches almost entirely falls within political boundaries of Pakistan. A question naturally arises as to why should we divert eastwards flowing Yamuna waters to Sarswati bed, if ultimately it will go to Pakistan. The idea of revival therefore is a non starter and would work to some extent if Pakistan agrees to diversion of Satlaj waters because finally it would be going back to that country only. Without Pakistan's cooperation, any talk of revival of Saraswati has no meaning at all.

There is another possibility though, as suggested by Mr. R.N. Athavale. The states of Punjab and Haryana and to some extent similarly affected irrigated parts of Rajasthan, are today facing the problem of disposal of the water drained out from the thousands of hectares of waterlogged, salinized and erstwhile fertile areas. The problem is considered as the most difficult aspect of reclamation through man made sub surface drainage. It is suggested that the presently dry and pristine sub surface beds of the Sarasvati and its tributaries in the desert area, can be used to dispose off the water collected through a network of sub surface drains. This appears to me as the most practical solution as excess waters would be carried to the arid region because of the natural slope of the river course. Since this water flow is not likely to be very large, it need not flow to Pakistan at all and could be used for agriculture in Rajasthan alone.

I feel that any other plan for revival of Sarswati would prove to be a non starter.

14th August 2014

The Surkotada horse, Part III

(continued from )

With the theory of Aryan invasion to the Indian sub continent in the pre-historic times no longer being acceptable, the reasons for demise of the Indus-Ghaggar civilizations after flourishing over several millennia remained a great puzzle for the historians and the archaeologists till now. A report of a study, published on 28^th May 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and lead authored by Liviu Giosan, a geologist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) claims that they have found the answer to this riddle. I have described in details, the findings of this research team in an earlier article, which anyone interested can go through. However, for sense of continuity, I am repeating here, some of the main observations from this report.

Before massive human habitation of Indus-Ghaggar civilizations had settled in, for previous ten thousand years, wildly flowing river Indus and its tributaries had deposited rich soil sediments on stretches between them. The research team led by Giosan has been able to discover a massive mega-ridge 10 to 20 meters high, over 100 kilometers wide, and running almost 1000 kilometers along the Indus, in this mounded plains. It has been named as "Indus mega-ridge," as it was constructed by the river itself with sediments deposited along it's entire lower course. Remains of Harappan settlements, which are found today are not buried underground in this ridge but rather lie at the surface of the ridge.

The monsoon rains that brought floods to the rivers, actually started declining with time. Weakened monsoon rains and reduced run-off from the mountains, helped in taming the wild Indus and its Himalayan tributaries, so that agriculture along their banks became possible. As a result, human settlements bloomed along the Indus and its tributaries from the coast to the foothills of the Himalayas. The weakened monsoon rains created a window of about 2000 years in which Harappans took advantage of the opportunity and a great civilization arose on the banks of Indus and tributaries. Indus civilization, was built on bumper crop surpluses along the Indus and the Ghaggar-Hakra rivers from this earlier wetter era and required a huge concentration of workforce. This workforce requirement developed into great urban centers like Mohenjodaro and Harrapa.

As monsoon weakened progressively, this window of prosperity began closing and widespread aridification of the lands, where plenty of water was available earlier, drove the Harappans eastwards east or towards Ganga river by 1500 BCE, where monsoon rains remained reliable. The economic structure in the east with local rain-fed farming and dwindling streams could only support smaller agricultural surpluses and could not support large cities of Indus civilization. The cities collapsed and with them the urban arts such as writing. The population in Ganga basin now dispersed in small agricultural communities, survived and even diversified.

The study also reports another major finding, which solves the riddle of Sarswati river. Archeological evidence suggests very intensive human settlements during Harappan times in the basin of Ghaggar-Hakra river, which is believed to be the long lost Sarswati of the Vedas. The geological evidence like presence of sediments, topography discovered in this study shows that these rivers were indeed sizable and highly active in this region, most likely due to strong monsoons, during Harappan period. However these rivers were not Himalaya fed rivers. There is no evidence of waters of nearby Himalayn rivers like Satlaj or Yamuna flowing in this river. The study therefore suggests that Sarswati or Ghaggar-Hakra river was a monsoon fed perennial watercourse and the aridification reduced it to short seasonal flows like at present. but most likely due to strong monsoons. 

However some Indian scientists do not agree with this analysis. They feel that the Sarasvati river system can be considered as a separate entity and not as a part of the Indus basin. It dried up a few thousand years back, due to tectonic movements, tributary diversions and climate changes. This thesis is now well documented and accepted by almost all, barring a few skeptics. The dry courses of the main river and its tributaries are at present covered with sand, loam and silt, deposited by wind over last few thousand years. They could be discerned only after the advent of remote sensing techniques. (Sankaran, A.V., 1999; Roy and Jakhar, 2001).

I would only like to add that whatever may be the actual reason, end result happens to be the same.   

In addition to shifting of monsoons, Harappan cities in the south like Dholavira faced another natural calamity. The archaeologists excavating Dholavira have already found out the damages caused by a massive earth quake. Similar earthquakes must have changed the entire geographical structure here and a region once extremely fertile became an arid and marshy zone. As Giosan suggests, the populations of the Indus civilizations of the south must have simply dispersed to further south (Gujarat) and the east (Rajasthan), where better weather conditions must have prevailed.

Some of the archaeologists suggest that the Saraswati or Ghaggar river, once emptied itself into Arabian sea just, north of Rann of Kutch, what is called as Kori creek today. If this was the case indeed, one can imagine, how fertile and prosperous the region around Dholavira and Surkotada must have been.

Two years before, I paid a visit to the National Museum in New Delhi. This museum has a great collection of many items and artifacts from Indus civilizations. I found that a number of things like bullock cart designs, kitchen utensils, toys were very similar to what was in use even about 50 years before, in India. To me, Indus civilization legacy to Indians is not lost but continues even today.

The then director general of the Archarological survey of India, Mr. Braj Basi Lal had addressed a gathering in the Indian city of Bhopal, arranged by National Council for Education, Research and Training (NCERT) in November 2002. In his speech, Mr.Lal had highlighted the similarities between Harappa culture and The present Indian culture. I quote: 

" whichever walk of life you talk about, you will find in it the reflection of the Harappa Culture: be it agriculture, cooking habits, personal make-up, ornaments, objects of toiletry, games played by children or adults, transport by road or river, folk tales, religious practices and so on. Here we give just a few examples. The excavation at Kalibangan has brought to light an agricultural field dating back to circa 2800 BC. It is characterised by a criss-cross pattern of the furrows. Exactly the same pattern of ploughing the fields is followed even today in northern Rajasthan, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Today mustard is grown in the widely-distanced furrows and chickpea in the narrower ones and it is most likely that these very crops were grown in a similar manner during the Harappan times; we do have evidence of both these items from the Harappan levels. Kalibangan has also yielded a linga-cum-yoni of the same type as is worshipped now. This very site, along with Banawali, Rakhigarhi and Lothal, has brought to light 'fire-altars', indicating rituals associated with fire. ”
Some other parts of Mr. Lal predicts a totally different course of history, but is is better to leave it to the experts. What I find important here is the thought that Indus-Sarswati civilizations never really were wiped out but rather continued in other parts of India with blooming of the Vedic culture.

I have mentioned above that the inhabitants of the southern habitats of Indus civilization migrated towards Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. It is natural to question existence of any evidence to support this claim. Luckily extensive excavations carried out by archaeologists from Deccan College, Pune in the basin of Pravara river (a tributary of the giant Godavari river) have brought up such conclusive evidence. The Archaeologists call the Chalcolithic culture of the people of peninsular India in the time period between 1700 to 1400 BCE as 'Malwa Culture.' Great similarities are observed between this culture and Mature Harappan culture from places like Dholavira and Surkotada. In a place called as Daimabad a local farmer, Chhabu Laxman Bhil , found a hoard of four bronze objects  in 1974. One of the objects is a sculpture of a chariot, 45 cm long and 16 cm wide, yoked to two oxen, driven by a man 16 cm high standing in it. This chariot along with other sculptures of animals are so exquisite that they have completely baffled the Archaeologists.

 Oxen pulled  Bronze chariot found at Daimabad in Maharshtra

Figurines of mother Goddess with a bull, found at Inamgaon

 

Inamgaon is a small village south of the Pravara basin, on the banks of River 'Ghod.' The excavations carried out here have revealed human settlements here that lasted for an extended period starting from 1700 BCE to 800 BCE. In this period, three independent cultures with their own differentiable and exquisite features were found to exist here. These are known to Archaeologists as Malwa, early Jorwe and late Jorwe cultures. Inamgaon habitat more or less proves the spread of Sindhu civilzation to east and south, where it got mixed and assimilated with other Indian neolithic cultures from India. Another important finding of Inamgaon excavation is continuing worship of mother goddess or Goddess of fertility from the Indus civilization. 

 

Now we come to the last point regarding adoption of Vedic religion by India somewhere in second millennium BC. There are serious differences of opinion between historians about exact plave of origin of the Vedic culture. Historian Romila Thapar along with others believe that Vedic religion originated in Marginia/Bactria region of northern Afghanistan, whereas Mr. B.B. Lal, whom I have mentioned above believes that Vedic culture originated on the banks of Sarswati river. Whatever may be the place of origin, the real point of interest is how this new religion managed to uproot the Lingam and fertility idol worship of the Harrapans with a vedic religion, which had no idols. I want to compare this to more modern adoption of Buddhism by many countries in Asia such as China, Japan, Korea and Thailand. Around 300 BCE, Indian emperor Ashoka sent Buddhist monks all over Asia to spread this new religion. There was no question of forcing anyone or no coercion. Yet we find that these countries adopted Buddhism. I feel that Indians must have adopted Vedic culture in this fashion, still keeping some elements of Indus religions and cultures in the new religion. The best examples of this could be the retaining of Durga or the mother goddess and Lingam, now associated with Rudra (an original Vedic God) in the new culture.

A recent genetic study by India's Council of Scientific research suggests that modern humans have migrated to India from three origins: the central Asia, Malaysia and Andaman islands. It is quite likely that the Indus civilization people came there from central Asia, settled down there for 2 or 3 millenniums and later, when things became tough, again moved eastwards and southwards. Indus civilization never really saw it's demise. It just moved eastwards and southwards.

(Concluded)

15 January 2013

Flooding Pakistan

The Monsoon winds arrived late in the Indian peninsula last year. This was in no way something very unusual. Even last year, the Monsoon rains had arrived late in the month of July. But, what turned out to be very unusual this year, were the areas where rains hit hardest. Usually the rains crash on the west coast and north east regions of India. This year however, these regions received only moderate rains. The areas or regions, which get scanty rainfall normally, got the heaviest rainfall. By third week of July, monsoon winds had covered, most of the subcontinent, right up to Hindu Kush mountains in the North West Pakistan. In next few days, North-west and central Pakistan was hit like a blitzkrieg with such a fury that the rainfall recorded in these areas was highest in last 80 years.

With this kind of onslaught, it was no wonder that the water levels in the rivers soon escaped the embankments and started flooding the adjoining areas. What followed was just unbelievable. A natural phenomenon soon became a disaster and later a calamity.

In next couple of weeks, almost 20% of the land area of Pakistan was flooded. 4.5 Million people have become homeless and about 1600 persons have died. It is simply impossible to imagine the after effects that the people of this region may have to suffer in next few months or even years. Why did this happen? How can heavy rains for a couple of weeks, turn into a national calamity?

To search for the answers, let us first try to understand some geographical facts about Pakistan. Pakistan happens to be one of the luckiest countries in the world to have an elaborate natural river system in the world. There are 5 major rivers in Pakistan’s landmass. The backbone of the river system is the Sindhu (Pakistan’s region of Sindh, gets it’s name from the name of the river) or the Indus river. This river rises from a glacier near Kailash mountain in Tibet. Tibetan’s however believe that the real Indus rises as ‘Senge Khabab’ north of Kailash mountain and is joined by a subsidiary flowing from Kailash glacier from the east. Indus enters India, near village of ‘Demchok’ and flows in northerly direction. It soon turns westwards and passes near Leh city. Indus is joined by Shyok and Gilgit rivers in Kashmir and later enters Pakistan. In Pakistan, the river finally changes it’s course to southerly direction, where It is joined by Kabul river. In Punjab, water of 4 major rivers, namely, Jhelum, Chinab, Ravi and Sutluj again joins the Indus. There are still few more smaller rivers like Bolan, that join the Indus. Finally near the Pakistani city of Karachi, Indus joins Arabian Sea. This is the reason why Indus is called one of the mightiest rivers of the world. I always feel amazed, when I think about the landmass covered by Indus. This was the reason for Vedic texts to consider Indus like a deity. The ancient civilizations of Mohonjo-daro and Harappa came up in the basin of Indus and had perished later.

Even by third week of August, the floods have not receded. So far, 263,000 houses have been fully or partially damaged in the two worst affected provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. According to the Federal Flood Commission, 1.4m acres (557,000 hectares) of crop land has been flooded across the country and more than 10,000 cows have perished. Pakistani authorities have evacuated 500,000 people in 11 districts of Sindh and issued warnings to people in low-lying areas of the Indus river. Flooding has submerged whole villages in the past week, killing about 1,600 people and affecting another 4.5m. From these facts the extent of the damage and devastation can be well imagined. When details of the extent of damage became known, many people started asking the question as to how can such widespread damage be caused over such a huge area by flooding of few rivers? It is apparent that this is not the case of a few rivers flooding because of heavy rains. There is obviously some other reason for the wide spread damage and devastation caused by the floods. It is now believed that the real cause for this calamity is the wrong and unscientific way in which river waters have been managed in Pakistan over last few decades.

Satellite Image of Indus River in Pakistan on 1 August 2009

Satellite Image of Indus River in Pakistan on 1 August 2010

The landmass in Pakistan, where these rivers flow is essentially a flat country without any major hills in the region. An elaborate system of Dams, Barrages and canals has been created in this region to support the agriculture. It is true that before independence, i.e. Before 1947, British had already built few of these levees, barrages and canals. However after independence, there has been a phenomenal growth in the construction of these. Over the years, river managers in Pakistan have expanded the canal system. The overall effect now is that instead of the natural flow from the Himalaya in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south, the Indus is diverted, piecemeal, east or west, wherever it is needed to support farming. Obviously this kind of diversion is not restricted to Pakistan alone. Such river diversion is a common sight in India and also around the world as populations and food production boom. The expansion of river canal system is one of the principal reasons of boom in world food production. The flip side of this unnatural diversion of river waters can be felt and seen when a calamity like the present one in Pakistan occurs.

Mr. Tahir Qureshi, a former government forest officer and game warden and now a forestry expert with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says that “ The Indus and its canals are the largest irrigation systems in the world. Pakistan’s irrigation system has turned this arid country into an agricultural powerhouse, but it has had its downside as well.” He adds that “In the past couple of decades, many of the embankment forests and trees have died or been chopped down. This also is one of the reasons for the catastrophe.”
Mr. Daanish Mustafa of King’s College London, recalls the fable in which a man sells his soul to the devil in exchange for a life of luxury. He is a geographer who has studied the history of Pakistan’s river management. He says that “The major river engineering is basically a Faustian bargain. Until a few decades ago, there were typically mild floods each summer—the time when the monsoon rainfall hits, and the melt from the snow pack in the Himalaya and Karakoram Mountains is at its peak. But now, because humans have sculpted the river and the surrounding natural floodplain and wetlands for farming and other needs, there are fewer floods, but when they hit, they are far worse. Over the years, there has been an absolutely mad rush to settle in these floodplains.”
Mr. Asad Sarwar Qureshi, a water resources expert at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) branch in Lahore, Pakistan says that ” There is not very much space [in the river channel] to absorb all the rainfall. We need to get it back into shape, so that it can carry its original capacity. Wetlands along the river’s course, used to take up some floodwaters, and the government also used to divert excess water into “no man’s land” during the monsoon season. But those areas have been converted to farmland”. He also points out that “Another part of the problem is that the Indus River and its tributaries carry some of the highest levels of silt of any river system. More silt equals less room for water as monsoons and snow melt inundate the now-confined riverbed and canals. Most of our rivers and canals are already silted up.”
From the explanations given by these three experts, it becomes quite clear that the main reasons for this catastrophe are not natural causes but creations and actions of humans. If that is the case, there must be solutions, which would avoid the recurrence of the disaster at least in future. These experts talk of following steps.

• Allow the river to flood more regularly, and naturally. This would help temper the floods and make them more tolerable.
• Give the rivers room to expand. If not along the whole way, at least some of the wetlands along the way should be restored.
• Majority of levees may be kept in place, but maintained better.
• Plant trees along the riverbanks. Earlier practice of promotion of seed planting of Acacia Nilotica tree along river banks should be restarted. These trees are soil binders, and a physical barrier to the flood flow. They are the flood guards, a biological means of protection.

According to these experts,Managing Pakistan’s floods is a delicate balance between giving the river more room, and building barriers to protect people and their land. They have however expressed that the chances of the situation turning around are rather dismal as it involves major landscape changes and are afraid that government may not be in a position to affect required changes considering the pressures and power plays of the government.
With real reasons behind Indus flood catastrophe becoming clear as man made and not natural, I feel that it’s kind of warning bell for India. India has been building similar canal systems in states of Punjab and Rajsthan. The threat for similar kinds of disaster striking there, appears to be quite real. While we create better irrigation facilities to feed the human hunger, we should not neglect the river basins and wetlands. If we do not do that we are likely to invite peril with our own hands. This is the lesson for India from this Pakistan catastrophe.
21 August 2010