The Himalayas are a territory disputed by three nuclear powers: India, China and Pakistan. The first serious conflict between India and China was an all-out war in 1962, before either nation had nuclear weapons, over territorial claims in the border region. Over the years, China has chiseled away at the border, skirmishes rising and falling over time, most recently in Chinese aggression resulting in a military exchange which purportedly left 20 Indian soldiers dead and 76 injured (18 seriously) in June of last year. A ceasefire was ultimately implemented.
The tension between mostly Hindu India and mostly Islamic Pakistan has been over a primarily Indian Muslim border state, Kashmir. When India was granted independence from Great Britain in 1947, sectarian violence literally forced a partition of the subcontinent into and new Islamic state in the north, Pakistan (east and west), versus Hindu India. People fled for their lives in a massive migration to escape violence. In 1971, a full-on war erupted between these now separate nations, as East Pakistan (also Islamic) declared itself separate (now as Bangladesh) from West Pakistan (which simply became “Pakistan” thereafter). But the Indo-Pakistani conflicts over Kashmir never stopped, usually exchanges of police action, insurrection and terrorism.
The most famous terrorist attack in support of Kashmiri separatists took place in 2008 in Mumbai, “a series of terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic extremist organisation, carried out 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. The attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on Wednesday 26 November and lasted until Saturday 29 November 2008. At least 174 people died, including 9 attackers, and more than 300 were wounded.” Wikipedia. Of late, India’s Hindu Nationalist Party (Bharatiya Janata Party – BJP) has been in power since 2014 and is showing increasing hostility to a sizeable Muslim population still living in India.
The Himalayan region was further impacted in 1961 when China occupied and annexed the independent state of Tibet. Also a Himalayan nation, Nepal walks a perilous line having made treaties with both China and India to maintain its independence. It transitioned from being a Hindu Kingdom in 2008 into a secular democratic republic, adopting a modern constitution in 2015. And we cannot forget about the landlocked monarchy of Bhutan in the eastern Himalayas.
In addition to the obvious regional political volatility, this region has suffered from profoundly disastrous environmental issues. The Brahmaputra River (known in China as the Yarlung Tsangpo) flows from the mountainous region in northeastern India, “from Assam to Bengal where it meets the Ganges River to form the world's largest delta and finally flows into the Bay of Bengal in the south.” Wikipedia. Because of deforestation along its banks, seasonal flood waters can be catastrophic, putting most of Bangladesh underwater. “Each year in Bangladesh about 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 sq mi) (around 18% of the country) is flooded, killing over 5,000 people and destroying more than seven million homes. During severe floods the affected area may exceed 75% of the country, as was seen in 1998. The floods have caused devastation in Bangladesh throughout history, especially in 1951, 1987, 1988 and 1998.” Wikipedia. Pretty nasty. But let’s add under-planned infrastructure development (particularly hydroelectric dams) plus the massive environmental damage from the most recent ravages of climate change to this mountainous region. If things were bad without the latest damage, they just got a whole lot worse.
As snow melts prematurely and in sheer unprecedented volume, normal rivers and streams become landlocked tsunamis, pressing unparalleled death and destruction across farms and villages. Writing for the March 27th Financial Times, Benjamin Park, explains the new regional environmental horrors. Take for example the small Himalayan Indian village of Reni: “A rockslide in the nearby mountains triggered a tsunami of water, stones and mud that hurtled through the steep river valley dividing the village, consuming those unable to escape.
“The torrent traveled downriver, picking up pace as it tore through a bridge and two hydropower plants, nine and 15 miles away from the rockslide. More than 200 people are believed to have been consumed by the lethal sludge. Most of the bodies are missing somewhere in the gray crater it left behind…
“They say an explosive cocktail of climate change and aggressive road and dam building in the geologically unstable range threatens not just villages like Reni but also the people, economies and security of the eight countries in the greater Hindu Kush Himalayan region.
“The mountains run from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east, forming the backbones of countries including India, China and Pakistan. Rivers like the Ganges, Indus and the… Brahmaputra… sustain more than 1.5 billion people and industries powering some of the world’s fastest economic growth. They also traverse the world’s most volatile geopolitical fault lines.
“Climate change is amplifying the dangers. Temperatures in the Himalayas have risen faster than in other mountain ranges, according to Maharaj Pandit, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Delhi. The International Center for Integrated Mountain Development, a regional intergovernmental body, says the region will warm above the global average.
“India’s recent deadly flash flood was a combination of ‘geological activities … the effects of climate change, as well as the unsustainable infrastructure development that has accelerated the process,’ said Pema Gyamtsho, ICIMOD’s director-general and a Bhutanese politician. ‘We know the Himalayan region is very vulnerable, but we’re not taking that into consideration.’… Ecosystem peril.” The pandemic has taken its toll, mostly in the larger and heavily populated cities in the region, but this environmental damage, which seems to escalate over time, threatens the very habitability of much of the region. Farmers and villagers may be forced from their home, creating politically and economic strains from that possible migration. Watch this area carefully!
I’m Peter Dekom, and given the interconnectivity that already links the world and its environmental problems together, what happens on the other side of the world will, sooner rather than later, impact all of us here in the United States.
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