Reimagining the Koshi's flood management from a river rights perspective

Multiple forces are at play, compelling us to think about non-human components of nature in a radically different way. The role of people&s;s movements of the indigenous communities and the judicial orders in different parts of the world has been at the forefront of advocating for and granting rights to nature. The promise is to establish a sustainable relationship between humans and the non-human components of nature. It is well established that the structural manipulations of the river driven by an anthropocentric outlook have led to disastrous consequences, reflected in the drastic transformation of the ecology and the displacement and impoverishment of the community. This chapter engages with the above debate through the case study of a transboundary, sediment-laden, migrating river, Koshi, subject to numerous structural interventions since the 1950s. These interventions are critiqued in people&s;s lives, academic literature and the discourse of the people&s;s movements. This chapter, however, attempts to imagine the management of Koshi floods from the perspective of river rights. The idea is to see how the treatment of the river could have been different had the river been granted rights. Moreover, the challenges of the same have also been discussed. The chapter engages with the river rights framework through the River Koshi which has biophysical propensity to flood and hence cause damage. It further complicates the debate by questioning the state-community dichotomy in dealing with the river and situates the operational challenges associated with granting rights to the river in a context where decades of structural interventions on the river have reshaped the community&s;s outlook towards the river and its material interests.