Abstract
In September 2000 at the end of a good monsoon and during a tropical cyclonic storm, Bengal suffered a particularly severe flood in which more than 1,500 people died. In West Bengal more than 20 million people and in Bangladesh more than 3 million lost their homes and virtually all of their possessions. This paper explores different experiences of the disaster, and many differing explanations of its causes, both physical and social. It proposes the idea that the specific form of development that has taken place in Bengal since the mid nineteenth century, the ‘standard’ road–rail and urban–industrial model, has been transplanted into an inappropriate geographical setting. The result is that the urban sector has externalised its costs onto the rural poor. In this context it is suggested that the new ‘open policy’ on floods, also advocated elsewhere in the world, be seriously considered as more appropriate and sustainable for Bengal.
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