Only a Barrage Can Save! - The Ganga: Water Use in the Indian Subcontinent - page 76

Chapter 7
Only a Barrage Can Save!
Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in his 'Discovery of India':
The Ganga is above all the River of India which had held India's heart captive and drawn
unaccounted millions to her banks since the dawn of history. The story of the Ganga from
her source to sea, from old times to new, is the story of India's civilization and culture, of
the rise and fall of empires, of great and proud cities, of the adventure of man and the quest
of the mind which has so occupied India's thinkers, of the richness and fulfillment of life
as well as its denial and reunification of the ups and downs, of growth and decay of life
and death.
The original river used to flow across the entire north and east India from
Uttarakhand (a new province carved out of Uttar Pradesh on 9th November 2000)
to West Bengal (then only Bengal) before the 16th century. Geologists say, before it
diverted to the Padma eastward, there might have been two major channels, flowing
more or less independently and building the deltaic tract in this part of Bengal, west
of Madhupur jungle, viz., the Ganga flowed through central Bengal and the Teesta
through south Bengal. Earlier, the Teesta was reinforced by the Mahananda and the
Kosi and still earlier, perhaps also by the Brahmaputra before it coursed eastward
to the Meghna, i.e., before it merged with the Tsan Po of Tibet as a much smaller
stream than now. These north Bengal rivers flowed and fell together into the sea,
probably through the Meghna estuary. This hypothesis fits in with the historical and
mythological evidences, supporting the contention that the Bhagirathi was the main
flow of the Ganga in olden days.
Captain Sherwill's View
This was also the contention of Captain Sherwill and others (see Chapter 2). Much
later, first the Kosi and then the Mahananda, separated from north Bengal rivers and
flowed directly into the Ganga higher up. Major Hirst says, this ultimately reinforced
the Ganga's flow toward the Padma and shifted its course toward southeast, near the
ancient town of Gour, now in Malda. The Padma flow became stronger and swelled
rapidly, drawing from, and emaciating, the Bhagirathi and other western branches
of the Ganga.