After Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli observed the drought-stricken areas of Madhesh from a helicopter, some prominent journalists of Kathmandu had already asked their local helpers to organize disaster tourism programs. Tourism reporting also brings the immediate effects of disasters to public knowledge.

If interest or insensitivity prevails over empathy in reporting, the risk of harming the respect and dignity of the affected population increases. In addition, disaster tourism often overshadows the problem, with visitors visiting affected communities as spectators and returning with promises of at most symbolic aid.

Prime Minister Sharma Oli also returned to the capital after promising to do 'deep boring' in Madhesh. His speech does not have much meaning. However, when there is piped gas in every kitchen, the Lhasa-Kathmandu train or the Bay of Bengal by boat from Koshi and Narayani, it is not a 'deep boring' airy promise like the flying gossip of nature around the world. But it is not appropriate to get caught up in the lure of short-term solutions and ignore the long-term impact of such activities.

In Madhesh, without updating the underground water mapping and location assessment, two to four deep borings have been achieved, but there is no sustainable solution to the water crisis. People associated with Madhesh Agriculture-Jal Andolan Sangharsh Samiti have demonstrated demanding immediate relief to the farmers and compensation in terms of cost as the paddy planting could not be done in Maitighar mandal due to drought.

Activists of the Chure Forest Protection Campaign also gathered at the funeral home with empty plastic buckets. No matter how much the federalism is talked about, the reality on the ground is that even for the hearing of general demands like relief, compensation and protection, there is still the compulsion to raise voice in Kathmandu. As the rulers and their supporters are attracted to disaster tourism, it is natural that some members of the subordinate community are tempted to use the disaster-oriented protests as an opportunity. Social actors should also be involved in

immediate attention, operational readiness and appropriateness and continuous monitoring of implementation. Due to the increasing importance of social activists to raise social awareness and pressure for systemic reforms against the weakness of administration in disaster management, slowness in relief distribution or corruption and insensitivity of government officials, most of the workers of all political parties have been transformed into middlemen working for vested interest groups.

There is no deep study and research on disaster tourism, disaster-oriented protests and apathy of government mechanisms in Nepal, nor is there much detailed reporting.  Melting snow in the mountains, wet and dry landslides in the Mahabharata mountain range, landslides in the broken mountains and drought and floods in the Terai-Madhesh should be accustomed to regular contingencies, natural or man-made disasters should excite the common people. It has stopped being done.

The account of the rescue, relief, restoration and reconstruction works related to the Gorkha earthquake of 2015 and the synthetic study of its lessons must be taking place in some foreign university. Someone must be compiling the lessons learned from the havoc of the covid-19 pandemic. How the crisis of natural disaster becomes an opportunity for some people is a subject of economic and political as well as social research.

Be it drought or flood, the most affected are landless laborers and small farmers. As it becomes difficult to take care of children and take care of children, there is no option to accept any condition and take a loan. Not only the moneylenders, but also the grocers and moneylenders in the neighborhood start talking about interest rates.

The face of the government employees connected with the relief work shines. Contractors rejoice. Politicians who use disasters as opportunities are also popular. The common people caught in the trap of such an unethical triangle are lost without even a cursory recording.

In India, Palgummi Sainath's collection of English articles on the multifaceted effects of drought, 'Everybody Loves a Good Drought', has become a reference book for people's journalism. Perhaps because he was the grandson of politicians associated with the trade union movement like Varahgiri Venkat Giri (1894–1980), India's fourth president, Sainath's outlook on life can be described as 'non-communist leftist'.

He reached the remote villages of the poorest districts of India and exposed the suffering of the landless, Dalits and tribals, the failure of plan implementation and the exploitation being done in the name of development. His work has been translated by Indian journalist Anand Swaroop Verma, who is considered to be close to the Maoists of Nepal, under the title 'Tisari Fasal'. Even though Verma is a leftist who prefers communists, he does not let anyone else, including communist 'comrades' and socialist 'brothers', escape from his critical vision.

Paddy is the main 'kharif crop' grown in the rainy season in the Ganga plains. Winter crops like wheat, pulses and oilseeds, which are sown in winter and brought in at the end of spring, are also called 'Rabi' in Maithili. Journalist Verma called it the 'third crop' and it can grow in any season. Since disaster management is considered more profitable for vested interest groups than adopting disaster mitigation measures, there is no general discussion about the causes of regular disasters and possible solutions. 

Incidentally, a free recombination of some Hindi lines uttered by Verma for his speedy recovery - 'Kal tujse hod hai meri / Koi damb nahi, koi jid nahi / Impossible aspiration to become a winner / Yeh hai ek sublime hod / Ek jijivisha, jo zaari hai / Kuch kam ab bhi adhure hain / Aur man again and again Kehta hai ki – / आश्म पूरा करेन की सर्षाना मेरी है.''Though not agreeing with his political line, his people's activities have many admirers in Nepal as well.

specific ecology

Since the story is almost two decades old, some details may have been mixed up or omitted. But the essence of the story remains the same. The lack of foreign aid in the gas business related to environmental protection had not yet begun. Gas companies used to print colorful posters encouraging them to save trees. Pamphlets were distributed. He used to show a video in the school square and give a speech about the method of preventing landslides.

A student of a school in Chure-Bhavar, affected by such activities, said to his parents - 'Don't pick apples from tender trees, if photosynthesis is not done properly, the plant may die. If the remaining trees are cut down, the forest will be destroyed. If the stone is removed from the steep land, the soil will be washed away.'' After a few days, when they went to understand why the students did not come to school, the parents revealed the truth to the teacher - 'Chure-Bhavar fell from the mountain because life would be easier.

If you want to protect trees, stones and soil, how can you bring food? From where to pay the service fee of the school? Then the doors of the Chure-Bhavar school were closed for the businessmen of environmental gases. As taught in ethics, it is not only because of work, anger, passion and greed that people forget the difference between duty and non-duty, but sometimes even knowing the difference, the boundaries of morality are violated in order to survive. It is not easy to objectively analyze what kind of policies and under the influence of what kind of people that poor parent has burdened the very delicate ecological system of Chure-Bhavar.

Experts call ecosystem the state of interaction between living communities and the physical environment. A balanced interrelationship between water, forest and land is equally important everywhere for a safe and peaceful human life. Along with water comes aquatic life, climate, water circulation and water storage. Although the dictionary defines it as a synonym, forest is not only herbaceous, woody, firewood and predatory forest, but it should be understood from grasshoppers to grazing herbivores, predatory carnivores, tree-climbing bipeds and crawling reptiles. One is that the Himalayan mountain range itself is a young mountain range that is still growing geologically.

Mahabharata Parvat-Mala's efforts to stabilize the mountain cause large amounts of soft rocks, stones and soil to flow down every rain. Shivalik or Chure Danda has not yet become a stable mountain. Chure-Bhavar, Charkose bush and the plains called terai connected with it can be called a distinctive ecosystem. Chure absorbs rainwater, but cannot stop it.

Bhavar reduces the load of stones and sand carried by the river by spreading the flowing water. After the dry flood gets stuck in the charkose bush, only muddy soil remains in the water. Until half a century ago, drought was a curse in Madhesh, but no matter how much the flood caused, heavy rainfall was called a life-giving blessing, because even if the kharif crops were washed away, the farmers did not have to live with hunger like in the famine due to the destruction of rabi crops due to the flow of water. Farmers' faith in God's decree was deepened by the hope that the paddy crop would increase next year by adding clay soil to the fields. This unique ecosystem is now completely disrupted.

The ancient 'Pragjyotish Marg' of the Mahabharata mountain range used by Tantrics, Sadhusants, Jogis and Sannyasis who regularly traveled from the Shaivapeeths of Kashmir to the Shakta Upasana Center of Kamrup was developed as a pedestrian backbone for exchanging information and communication during the expansion of the Gorkhali kingdom. Although not exactly the same, the Madhyapahari folk route has followed the same alignment as the Kamwesh Pragjyotish route.

The border line that paralleled the important commercial and cultural northward route of the Mahajanapada period (ca. 600 BCE–300 BCE) connecting Taxila in Gandhara with Champa in Anga is also a parallel to today's postal road. The Chure-Bhavar ecology was badly disrupted because the planners of the East-West highway saw nothing beyond the tip of their noses. The Madan Bhandari highway, which is being constructed by breaking the chest of the inner Madhesh, is being completed.

Legacy of history

Geography and history are inextricably linked. Prithvi Narayan Shah, the brave and ambitious Rajauta of Tannam Gorkha, did not have sufficient resources to conduct a unified military campaign. It is said that he used to collect loans from wherever he could to buy weapons and war supplies. His lenders ranged from moneylenders in Banaras to suppliers in Patna.

Wherever his warriors went, they would take refuge with the mahant or independent zamindars of the monastery there. No one dared to call himself a barber for fear of being robbed. The way to pay was nothing but the distribution of lands in the conquered territories. Even up to the time of Jung Bahadur, there is no investment in Madhesh to increase the productivity of the land distributed to Bhai-Bhaiyad, Darbaria Bhardar and Fauj. Despite the income from wildlife extraction, the forest does not appear to be undergoing extensive deforestation.

Chandrashamsher started the task of clearing the Charkose bush by cutting snakes by laying a train towards Banke-Bardia to serve the British without reaching the hunting diplomacy. Lucknow loot made Jung rich. Chandra became rich from the First World War. Before World War II, Juddhashamsher also laid a railway line from Jayanagar to Bijalpura to transport timber to North India. By the time the monarchy ended in 1951, the Chadkose bush had thinned out. 

When King Mahendra's royal-soldier reached 'Ku', he didn't have much Sakhuwa forest left to cut. Due to the geopolitics of the Cold War, he probably did not even have time to worry about the long-term interests of the country due to the haste to 'do the development in 100 years that others have done in 100 years'. Along with Timber Corporation of Nepal Limited, Indhan Sansthan and Forest Production Development Committee, which were set up for the maximum use of the Terai's resources, the Nepal Resettlement Company has not only changed the demographics of Madhesh, but also destroyed the environmental ecology in such a way that it cannot be restored.

In the referendum of 1980, if there was no compulsion to win the panchayat system 'no matter what', perhaps Raja Birendra could have been considered less environmentally destructive than his father. In the 1980s, the uncontrolled expansion of Bhawar settlements towards Chure after the serpentine cutting of not only Khair and Sal, but also Saloka Butyan.

During the Rana and Shah regimes, there used to be a limited number of 'squatters' who received land boxes from the government with 'infinite care', but after the restoration of the multi-party system in 1990, about 15 squatter problem solving commissions have destroyed the demographics of Terai-Madhesh as well as the ecological system. The politics of the so-called pro-poor parties like the UML and the Maoists is based on distributing the public lands of Inner Madhesh, Chure-Bhavar and Terai-Madhesh to their patrons and supporters.