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If we restore balance—between people, water, land, and sky—we can once again welcome the rains not with dread, but with open arms and open hearts
Riaz Missen
June 26, 2025
For centuries, the monsoon was the heartbeat of the Indian subcontinent—a season of joy, fertility, and regeneration. Its arrival transformed parched lands into lush fields, rivers into life-giving veins, and skies into theatres of thunder and abundance. The rains dictated not just the agricultural calendar but also the cultural imagination. The subcontinent’s poetry, music, architecture, and festivals overflowed with reverence for the rains.
But today, the monsoon no longer inspires celebration. It evokes anxiety, disruption, and devastation. As the India Meteorological Department (IMD) reports an early arrival of the monsoon this year, the region is bracing for floods. In Pakistan, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has issued alerts for flash floods, landslides, and glacial lake outburst events, especially across the already fragile mountainous and low-lying regions. A force once synonymous with rebirth is now a harbinger of loss.
This dramatic shift is not a mere consequence of natural variability or a passing aberration. It is the result of a long and deep rupture—a combination of climate change, colonial legacies, and modern mismanagement that has profoundly altered how the region experiences and responds to the monsoon.
The Celebrated Monsoon of the Past
Traditionally, the monsoon was a time when nature and culture came into perfect alignment. Farmers prepared their fields and waited in anticipation. Women sang folk songs heralding the rains, celebrated in festivals like Teej and Raksha Bandhan. Lovers were reunited as rivers flowed again and the air turned cool and fragrant. In Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, and Sindhi poetry, the monsoon became a metaphor for longing, union, and divine grace.
Water was held sacred and managed collectively. Ancient water-harvesting systems like stepwells (baolis), tanks, johads, ahars, and pynes helped communities capture and store rainwater efficiently. These decentralized systems were resilient and responsive, adapting to variable rain cycles and helping recharge groundwater, regulate floods, and sustain agriculture even through lean months.
Architectural and urban planning too was in tune with nature. Settlements were built on higher ground, homes had sloped roofs and raised plinths, and rivers were allowed to overflow gently into surrounding floodplains and wetlands. Ecological intelligence was embedded into daily life.
Colonial Hydrology: Disrupting the Natural Balance
The shift began with colonial hydrology, which introduced a top-down, command-and-control approach to water. British engineers designed massive canal colonies in Punjab and Sindh, transforming drylands into grain-producing zones for imperial revenue. Natural floodplains, wetlands, and seasonal water cycles were ignored or overridden. Water was now a resource to be extracted—not respected.
Traditional systems, being decentralized and non-revenue-generating, were dismissed or dismantled. The British built barrages, headworks, and irrigation departments, centralizing control over water and disconnecting people from local water governance. These systems, rigid and designed for stability, could not accommodate the erratic rhythms of the monsoon, and they persist largely unchanged today.
Climate Change: Intensifying the Crisis
Today, climate change has intensified monsoon unpredictability, making extreme rainfall events more frequent and more destructive. Instead of steady rains spread over months, regions are now hit by short, intense cloudbursts that cause flash floods and landslides.
The warming of the Indian Ocean has disturbed the monsoon’s dynamics, causing early arrivals, abrupt withdrawals, and uneven distribution. The 2022 floods in Pakistan and 2015 floods in Chennai were stark reminders of the havoc this volatility can wreak—submerging cities, displacing millions, and devastating infrastructure.
This year, early monsoon activity has already resulted in urban flooding in Mumbai, glacial lake threats in Gilgit-Baltistan, and dam spillovers in northern India, suggesting the pattern is deepening.
Encroachments and Dam Discharges: Man-Made Disasters
What makes the damage worse is modern encroachment—both rural and urban. Agriculturalists have encroached into riverbeds, dry nullahs, and natural drainage systems, planting crops and building embankments in spaces historically meant to absorb floodwaters. When the monsoon arrives, these areas become death traps.
In cities, unchecked construction over wetlands, lakes, and stormwater drains has blocked the natural flow of rainwater. Concrete surfaces prevent percolation, leading to rapid runoff, waterlogging, and urban flash floods. Cities like Karachi, Lahore, Bengaluru, and Delhi routinely find their roads submerged and neighbourhoods cut off after even moderate rain.
Another major aggravator is uncoordinated dam management. Water is often held back in reservoirs for irrigation or power needs. When inflows rise, authorities are forced to release large volumes of water suddenly, turning manageable rains into floods. These instant dam discharges catch downstream communities off guard, worsening the humanitarian toll.
A Manufactured Disaster, Not a Natural One
What we face today is not simply a natural disaster—it is a manufactured crisis, rooted in poor planning, lost traditions, and misplaced priorities. The same water that once sustained life now drowns homes and kills crops, not because the rain has changed, but because our systems no longer know how to receive it.
Post-independence water policies in both India and Pakistan have largely continued the colonial approach, favouring large-scale infrastructure over ecological restoration, and centralized control over community participation.
Reclaiming the Monsoon’s Grace
The monsoon is not the enemy—it is the same life-giving force it has always been. What has changed is our relationship with nature. If we restore balance—between people, water, land, and sky—we can once again welcome the rains not with dread, but with open arms and open hearts. The monsoon has arrived early this year. Let it be a wake-up call, not a death knell.
To turn the monsoon back into a season of hope, South Asia must decolonize its hydrology and embrace climate-resilient water governance. This involves restoring wetlands and floodplains instead of building over them, and strictly regulating encroachments in riverine and low-lying zones that exacerbate flood risks. Dam operations must be modernized with climate-informed discharge protocols to prevent sudden inundations. Equally critical is investment in early warning systems, urban stormwater infrastructure, and climate-resilient agriculture, including the development and distribution of water-efficient seeds. Most importantly, traditional water wisdom—rooted in centuries of ecological adaptation—must be revived and integrated with modern science to build systems that are capable of adapting to variability, absorbing shocks, and regenerating the natural balance that once sustained life during the monsoon.
