Indian Elections and the Architecture of Hobson’s Choice: Democratic Form, Hollowed Substance

-Ramphal Kataria

Manufacturing Mandates: State Power, Electoral Institutions, and the Crisis of Choice in India

Abstract

Indian elections continue to be celebrated as a global democratic achievement, marked by vast scale, high voter turnout, and procedural regularity. Yet, beneath this surface lies a structural transformation that has steadily narrowed the range of meaningful political choice available to citizens. This paper argues that contemporary Indian elections increasingly resemble a Hobson’s choice—a situation where formal choice exists without substantive alternatives. Tracing the evolution of electoral democracy in independent India, the paper examines the growing asymmetry of political finance, the erosion of institutional autonomy of the Election Commission of India, the selective deployment of investigative agencies, media capture, voter list manipulation, and the systematic displacement of governance issues by identity-based polarisation. The analysis situates these developments within a broader shift from participatory democracy to plebiscitary legitimation, where elections function less as mechanisms of accountability and more as rituals of consent. While Indian democracy is not defunct, the paper contends that its electoral core is being hollowed out, posing urgent questions about democratic agency, institutional integrity, and political imagination.

1. Introduction: Democracy Beyond Procedure

Elections in India are frequently invoked as definitive proof of democratic vitality. The logistical feat of conducting polls for nearly a billion citizens, often in difficult terrain and adverse conditions, is rightly acknowledged as remarkable. The Election Commission of India (ECI) proudly reiterates its constitutional mandate to conduct “free and fair” elections, and international observers routinely commend India’s electoral management.

However, democracy cannot be reduced to procedural success alone. As scholars of democratic theory have long argued, elections are meaningful only insofar as they provide citizens with genuine alternatives, enable informed choice, and allow for the peaceful contestation of power (Dahl 1971; Schumpeter 1942). When electoral competition becomes structurally skewed, institutionally compromised, and ideologically constricted, the act of voting risks degenerating into an exercise of formal consent rather than substantive agency.

This paper argues that contemporary Indian elections increasingly embody what may be described as a Hobson’s choice: voters are offered the right to choose, but from a menu so constrained that refusal becomes impractical and alternatives largely illusory.

2. Hobson’s Choice as a Democratic Metaphor

The term Hobson’s choice originates from 17th-century England, named after Thomas Hobson, a Cambridge stable owner who required customers to take the horse nearest the door or none at all. The phrase denotes not the absence of choice, but the compulsion to accept what is offered.

Applied to electoral democracy, Hobson’s choice captures a condition where formal electoral competition persists, but substantive political alternatives are systematically foreclosed. Unlike authoritarian systems where voting is openly meaningless, Hobson’s choice operates through democratic forms while hollowing out democratic content. This makes it particularly insidious, as it preserves the appearance of legitimacy even as political agency erodes.

3. Electoral Democracy in Early Independent India

In the first decades after Independence, Indian elections were deeply imperfect but substantively competitive. The Congress Party’s dominance coexisted with ideological opposition from socialist, communist, regional, and right-wing formations. Electoral contests were embedded in mass movements—trade unions, peasant struggles, student politics, and social reform campaigns.

Crucially, institutions maintained relative autonomy. The ECI, under figures such as Sukumar Sen and T.N. Seshan, established credibility through enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct. The judiciary retained a measure of independence, and the press functioned as a site of critique rather than amplification of executive power.

Even during the Emergency (1975–77), the eventual restoration of electoral competition reaffirmed the centrality of popular consent. The post-Emergency period strengthened the belief that elections, despite distortions, could correct authoritarian drift.

4. The Escalating Cost of Elections and the Exclusion of the Ordinary Citizen

One of the most profound transformations of Indian elections has been their escalating cost. Campaign expenditures today bear little resemblance to statutory limits prescribed by the ECI. In many parliamentary constituencies, actual spending runs into hundreds of crores, facilitated through unaccounted cash, paid news, digital advertising, and surrogate campaigning.

This financialisation of elections has two major consequences. First, it excludes individuals with integrity, political will, and grassroots credibility who lack access to large financial networks. Second, it transforms political parties into vehicles for capital accumulation, dependent on corporate patronage and rent-seeking arrangements.

As a result, elections are no longer arenas of mass participation but elite competitions conducted over the heads of citizens. The right to vote remains universal, but the right to contest meaningfully is effectively restricted.

5. Electoral Bonds and the Institutionalisation of Financial Asymmetry

The Electoral Bond Scheme (2018–2024) marked a decisive shift in political finance. By enabling anonymous donations through banking channels, the scheme eliminated transparency while disproportionately benefiting the ruling party. Data revealed after judicial intervention showed that over 80 per cent of the total funds raised accrued to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Supreme Court’s decision striking down the scheme as unconstitutional affirmed that political funding secrecy violates the voter’s right to information. However, the material consequences of the scheme persist. The accumulated financial advantage continues to shape electoral outcomes, enabling omnipresent campaigning and organisational dominance.

The abolition of electoral bonds has not dismantled the structural inequality they entrenched. Instead, it has revealed how deeply elections have become dependent on asymmetrical financial power.

6. The Election Commission of India: From Autonomy to Alignment

Perhaps the most troubling development is the perceived erosion of the ECI’s independence. Once regarded as a constitutional sentinel, the Commission increasingly appears reluctant to act against ruling party violations.

Delays in enforcing the Model Code of Conduct, silence on incendiary campaign rhetoric, selective application of rules, and opaque decision-making have raised serious concerns. Submissions by Opposition parties and civil society organisations frequently receive no reasoned response.

The restructuring of the appointment process for Election Commissioners—removing the Chief Justice of India from the selection committee—has further consolidated executive influence. The grant of immunity for acts performed by the Commission has weakened accountability. Together, these changes have transformed the ECI from an autonomous referee into a contested institutional actor.

7. Investigative Agencies and the Politics of Coercion

The selective deployment of investigative agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation, and Income Tax Department has become a defining feature of contemporary electoral politics. Opposition leaders face raids, arrests, and prolonged legal proceedings, often timed around elections.

The pattern suggests not an impartial anti-corruption drive but a strategy of political intimidation. Defections are frequently accompanied by the suspension or dilution of investigations, reinforcing the perception of coercion. Elections under such conditions cease to be contests of ideas and become tests of endurance.

8. Media Capture and the Manufacture of Consent

The mainstream media’s transformation has further narrowed democratic choice. Large sections of television news function as extensions of ruling party messaging, marginalising dissent and amplifying polarising narratives.

Structural issues—unemployment, inflation, agrarian distress, health and education failures—receive limited sustained coverage. Instead, identity-based spectacles dominate airtime. Fake narratives are constructed and disseminated through a synchronised ecosystem involving media houses, social media platforms, and cultural production, including cinema.

This environment deprives voters of the information necessary for informed choice, replacing deliberation with affect and fear.

9. Identity Polarisation and the Displacement of Governance

Elections increasingly revolve around caste arithmetic, religious mobilisation, and pseudo-nationalism rather than policy performance. Muslims, in particular, have been constructed as permanent outsiders, with their places of worship, festivals, and cultural practices routinely politicised.

Incidents targeting churches, mosques, and minority communities—often involving organisations aligned with the ruling ideology—are rarely condemned with institutional seriousness. Parliamentary debates and election campaigns legitimise suspicion and hostility, normalising exclusion.

As a result, governance failures recede from electoral discourse, replaced by symbolic battles that consolidate power without addressing material deprivation.

10. Voter List Manipulation and Administrative Disenfranchisement

Allegations of voter list manipulation—mass deletions, selective additions, and the use of Special Intensive Revision (SIR)—have raised concerns about administrative disenfranchisement. Instances reported from Bihar, Karnataka, Haryana, and other states suggest that errors disproportionately affect migrants, minorities, and the poor.

The replication of these practices in states approaching elections indicates a systematic rather than accidental pattern. When electoral participation itself becomes contingent and precarious, the universality of the franchise is undermined.

11. Elections as Ritual: Democracy Without Choice

None of these developments imply that Indian democracy has ceased to exist. Elections continue to be held, governments change, and opposition voices persist. However, elections increasingly function as rituals that legitimise power without genuinely contesting it.

Citizens participate primarily as voters, not as active agents shaping political agendas. Democratic engagement is compressed into a single act, while institutional channels for accountability weaken.

This transformation aligns with what scholars describe as plebiscitary democracy, where periodic mass endorsement substitutes for sustained participation (Urbinati 2014).

12. Conclusion: Reclaiming Democratic Possibility

Reclaiming democracy requires more than electoral reform, though transparency in political funding, institutional autonomy, and media accountability are essential. It also demands a renewed political imagination—one that rebuilds grassroots leadership, foregrounds material issues, and resists the reduction of politics to identity spectacle.

Democracy thrives on possibility. When elections offer only a Hobson’s choice, democratic legitimacy erodes not through overt repression but through quiet consent. The challenge before India is not merely to preserve elections, but to restore their meaning.

References

1. Dahl, R. (1971): Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, Yale University Press.

2. Schumpeter, J. (1942): Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Harper & Brothers.

3. Supreme Court of India (2024): Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India.

4. Vaishnav, M. (2017): When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics, Yale University Press.

5. Chhibber, P. and Verma, R. (2018): Ideology and Identity, Oxford University Press.

6. Jenkins, R. (2019): “Democratic Backsliding in India,” Journal of Democracy.

7. Urbinati, N. (2014): Democracy Disfigured, Harvard University Press.

8. Election Commission of India: Various reports and notifications.

9. Association for Democratic Reforms: Reports on political finance and electoral transparency.

 

“One Is Not Born, but Still Married”:Simone de Beauvoir and the Pseudo-Liberal Condition of the Indian Middle-Class Woman

-Ramphal Kataria

The Right to Say No: Gender, Class, and the Limits of Liberalism in Urban India

Abstract

This article examines the paradox of women’s emancipation in contemporary urban India through Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Focusing on educated, economically self-supporting women from middle-class and upper-middle-class families—particularly in Haryana and North India—it argues that while education and employment have expanded women’s public autonomy, their freedom remains sharply constrained in matters of marriage, sexuality, and reproduction. Drawing on Beauvoir’s concepts of the “Other,” immanence, transcendence, and bad faith, the article shows how the Indian middle class practices a pseudo-liberalism that celebrates women’s achievements while denying them the right to refuse marriage or define intimate life on their own terms. The persistence of family honour, respectability, and moral anxiety ensures that women’s apparent freedom collapses at the altar, reproducing patriarchal control in modern form.

I. Introduction: Education Without Exit

In the last two decades, North India—particularly Haryana, Delhi NCR, Punjab, and western Uttar Pradesh—has witnessed a visible transformation in women’s education and employment. Young women from middle-class and upper-middle-class families now populate universities, courts, hospitals, corporate offices, media houses, startups, and public administration. Many live independently in cities, earn salaries commensurate with their qualifications, speak confidently in professional spaces, and participate in public life with an assertiveness their mothers could scarcely imagine.

Yet, this apparent emancipation reveals a sharp limit. When it comes to marriage—its timing, its terms, and most crucially, the right to refuse—autonomy collapses. The same families that invest heavily in daughters’ education and celebrate their professional achievements often insist, sometimes gently and sometimes coercively, that marriage remains non-negotiable. Choice is offered conditionally; refusal is treated as deviance.

This contradiction—between modernity in public life and conservatism in intimate life—forms the central dilemma of the contemporary Indian middle-class woman. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949), despite its mid-twentieth-century European origins, offers a remarkably prescient framework to analyze this paradox. Beauvoir’s claim that woman is socially produced as the “Other,” and that liberation requires not merely legal or economic reform but existential freedom, speaks directly to the Indian context today.

This article argues that the Indian middle class practices a pseudo-liberalism that permits women’s education and employment but denies them full subjecthood in matters of sexuality, marriage, and reproduction. Drawing on Beauvoir’s concepts of Otherness, immanence, transcendence, and bad faith, and grounding the analysis in examples from Haryana and North India, the article demonstrates how women’s apparent freedom is systematically withdrawn at the moment it threatens patriarchal control.

II. Simone de Beauvoir: Freedom, the “Other,” and the Limits of Emancipation

Beauvoir’s foundational insight—that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”—rejects biological determinism and exposes femininity as a social and historical construction. Across The Second Sex, she shows how women are positioned as the Other: men occupy the position of the Subject, the default human, while women are defined relationally, as wives, mothers, daughters, and lovers.

Central to this structure is the opposition between transcendence and immanence. Men are encouraged to transcend—to act, create, risk, and project themselves into the future. Women, by contrast, are confined to immanence—repetitive, bodily, domestic tasks that maintain life but do not transform it. Even when women enter paid work, the gravitational pull of immanence remains strong, especially through marriage and motherhood.

Crucially, Beauvoir insists that liberation is not achieved merely through education or employment. Without the right to choose, refuse, and redefine intimate life, women remain existentially subordinate. Economic independence is necessary but insufficient; what is required is recognition of women as autonomous subjects whose choices are not subordinated to family, tradition, or male desire.

This distinction is vital for understanding contemporary India, where women’s public visibility has increased dramatically while private control remains intact.

III. The Indian Middle Class and the Performance of Liberalism

The Indian middle class, especially in urban North India, prides itself on being modern, rational, and progressive. It distances itself rhetorically from overtly patriarchal practices such as child marriage, purdah, or explicit denial of education. English language, professional degrees, and global exposure are treated as markers of advancement.

Yet, this liberalism is carefully circumscribed. Women’s autonomy is celebrated only insofar as it does not disrupt the marital imperative. The educated daughter is welcome as long as she eventually becomes a wife. Her education is framed as an asset in the marriage market—enhancing family prestige, improving matrimonial alliances, and producing “better” mothers.

In Haryana, this contradiction is particularly stark. The state has made significant investments in girls’ education through schemes like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao. Female literacy and higher education enrolment have improved, especially in urban districts such as Gurugram, Faridabad, Panchkula, and Rohtak. Women from these regions increasingly work in MNCs, IT firms, hospitals, and universities.

Yet Haryana also remains marked by deeply entrenched patriarchal norms: strong kinship controls, anxiety over honour, and intense social scrutiny of women’s sexuality. Marriage is not merely a personal milestone but a collective obligation. An unmarried woman beyond her mid-twenties becomes a site of social discomfort, gossip, and moral speculation—regardless of her achievements.

The result is a double discourse: women are told they are free, but only within boundaries they did not choose.

IV. Education and Work: Necessary but Not Sufficient

Beauvoir argues that economic independence is the first condition of liberation, but she also warns that work alone does not dismantle patriarchy. This caution resonates strongly in India.

Data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) and the Time Use Survey (2019) reveal that women’s labour force participation in urban India remains low and declines sharply after marriage. Even among educated women, employment is often treated as provisional—something to be balanced, adjusted, or abandoned once marital responsibilities intensify.

In Haryana’s urban middle class, this pattern is visible in everyday narratives. A woman working in Gurugram’s corporate sector may enjoy financial independence in her early twenties. But upon marriage, questions arise: Will she manage household duties? What about children? Is her job too demanding? Her income, once celebrated, becomes negotiable.

Beauvoir would describe this as the persistence of immanence beneath the surface of transcendence. Paid work does not automatically grant women an open future if marriage reasserts domestic primacy.

V. Marriage as Institution: The Return to Immanence

In The Married Woman, Beauvoir dismantles the romantic myth of marriage, showing it to be an institution that restores male privilege even after apparent equality. Marriage grants men stability and support while confining women to repetitive, service-oriented roles.

In North India, marriage remains the most powerful mechanism of social control over women. Even when framed as “choice,” the choice is heavily managed. Matrimonial websites, caste endogamy, horoscope matching, and family negotiations ensure that women’s preferences are filtered through collective approval.

The educated woman who hesitates—who says she is “not ready”—encounters subtle coercion: emotional appeals, comparisons with peers, warnings about age, fertility, and reputation. Rarely is her refusal accepted as final.

Beauvoir’s insight is crucial here: freedom without the right to refuse is not freedom. Indian middle-class women are encouraged to choose among options presented to them, but they are denied the right to reject the institution itself or delay it indefinitely.

VI. Haryana and North India: Honour, Anxiety, and Control

The regional specificity of Haryana sharpens Beauvoir’s analysis. The state’s history of skewed sex ratios, khap panchayats, and honour-based violence forms the backdrop against which “liberal” urban practices must be understood.

While educated urban families may distance themselves from khap politics, the underlying logic of honour persists. Women’s bodies continue to be sites of family reputation. An unmarried, independent woman—especially one who expresses sexual autonomy or rejects marriage—invites suspicion.

Cases reported in NCRB data and media accounts show that psychological pressure, emotional coercion, and forced compliance are far more common than overt violence among middle-class families. Control operates not through threat but through moral obligation.

Beauvoir’s concept of bad faith is instructive here. Women often comply not because they believe in the institution but because resistance appears too costly—emotionally, socially, and economically. Compliance becomes a survival strategy.

VII. The Girl Who Cannot Say No: Interior Chaos

Beauvoir’s chapters on The Girl and The Woman in Love capture the interior consequences of denied autonomy. The woman who is confident at work but powerless in intimate decisions experiences a fractured self.

Interviews and anecdotal evidence from urban Haryana reveal recurring themes: anxiety, insomnia, depression, and a sense of betrayal—both by family and by the self. The woman is told she is mature and capable, yet treated as incapable of deciding her own life partner.

This contradiction produces what Beauvoir calls existential nausea—a sense that one’s life is being lived for others. Consent becomes performative; resistance turns inward.

VIII. Class Paradox: Why the Middle Class Is More Restrictive

One of the most striking paradoxes in India is that the upper elite often permits greater flexibility in women’s choices—late marriage, divorce, cohabitation—while the middle class enforces stricter norms.

Beauvoir helps explain this: the middle class relies heavily on respectability for social mobility. Women become its moral anchors. Any deviation threatens the family’s fragile status.

Thus, the class that speaks most fluently of values practices the most stringent control over daughters.

IX. Sex, Consent, and Reproductive Time

Beauvoir insists that women’s liberation requires control over sexuality and reproduction. In India, even educated women often lack this autonomy within marriage. Sex is assumed, childbirth expected, refusal pathologized.

NFHS-5 data shows that a significant proportion of married women report lack of agency in reproductive decisions, even in urban areas. The right to decide when and whether to have children remains constrained.

Without sexual autonomy, Beauvoir argues, women remain immanent beings—defined by biological function rather than chosen projects.

X. Conclusion: Freedom Must Include the Right to Disappoint

The contemporary Indian middle-class woman stands at a cruel threshold: educated enough to recognize her subordination, constrained enough to be unable to escape it.

Simone de Beauvoir teaches us that liberation is not measured by degrees, salaries, or surface freedoms, but by existential sovereignty—the right to choose, refuse, and redefine one’s life.

Until Indian society accepts that a woman may remain unmarried, marry late, reject imposed partners, control reproduction, and say no without moral trial, she remains—despite all progress—the Second Sex.

True liberalism begins where permission ends.

References

1. Agarwal, Bina (1994): A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

2. Basu, Srimati (2015): “The Trouble with Marriage Reform in India,” Feminist Studies, Vol 41, No 3, pp 582–607.

3. Beauvoir, Simone de (1949): The Second Sex, translated by H M Parshley, Vintage Books, New York (1989 edition).

4. Butler, Judith (1990): Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge, New York.

5. Butler, Judith (2004): Undoing Gender, Routledge, New York.

6. Chakravarti, Uma (2003): Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens, Stree, Kolkata.

7. Chatterjee, Partha (1993): “The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question,” in The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

8. Dasgupta, Sanjukta (2017): “Middle-Class Women and the Politics of Marriage in Urban India,” Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 52, No 21, pp 45–52.

9. Desai, Sonalde and Lester Andrist (2010): “Gender Scripts and Age at Marriage in India,” Demography, Vol 47, No 3, pp 667–687.

10. Firestone, Shulamith (1970): The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, William Morrow, New York.

11. Fraisse, Geneviève (1994): Reason’s Muse: Sexual Difference and the Birth of Democracy, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

12. Ghosh, Shohini (2015): Fire in the Belly: The Politics of Sexuality in Contemporary India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

13. Government of Haryana (various years): Statistical Abstract of Haryana, Department of Economic and Statistical Analysis, Chandigarh.

14. Government of India (2019): Time Use Survey, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI), New Delhi.

15. Government of India (2021): National Family Health Survey–5 (NFHS-5), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, New Delhi.

16. Government of India (2022): Crime in India, National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), New Delhi.

17. Gupta, Charu (2014): Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and the Hindu Public in Colonial India, Permanent Black, Ranikhet.

18. John, Mary E (2008): Women’s Studies in India: A Reader, Penguin, New Delhi.

19. John, Mary E and Janaki Nair (1998): A Question of Silence? The Sexual Economies of Modern India, Zed Books, London.

20. Kabeer, Naila (1999): “Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women’s Empowerment,” Development and Change, Vol 30, No 3, pp 435–464.

21. Kaur, Ravinder (2008): “Khap Panchayats, Sex Ratio and Female Agency in Haryana,” Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol 42, No 2, pp 235–260.

22. Menon, Nivedita (2012): Seeing Like a Feminist, Zubaan, New Delhi.

23. Moi, Toril (1999): What Is a Woman? And Other Essays, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

24. Narayan, Badri (2011): Gender, Caste and Politics in North India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

25. Neetha, N (2010): “Flexibility and Female Labour Force Participation in India,” Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 45, No 52, pp 49–57.

26. Raman, Anuradha (2020): “Why Educated Women Are Opting Out of Marriage,” The Wire, 14 February.

27. Rangarajan, C, Ishwar Kaul and Seema (2011): “Where Is the Missing Labour Force?” Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 46, No 39, pp 68–72.

28. Sangari, Kumkum and Sudesh Vaid (1990): Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History, Kali for Women, New Delhi.

29. Sangwan, S and R Punia (2020): “Marriage, Honour and Women’s Autonomy in Haryana,” Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Vol 27, No 3, pp 389–411.

30. Young, Iris Marion (2005): “Gender as Seriality: Thinking about Women as a Social Collective,” Signs, Vol 19, No 3, pp 713–738.

 

 

From Natural Floods to Engineered Inundation:A Policy Analysis of Flooding, Infrastructure Failure, and Agrarian Distress in Haryana

 

-Ramphal Kataria

When Roads Become Dams: Flood Governance, Infrastructure Planning, and Compensation Failure in Haryana

Abstract

` This paper analyses the shifting paradigm of flood disasters in Northern India, with particular reference to Haryana’s transition from episodic riverine flooding to chronic, systemic, and largely manmade inundation. Using the 1995 floods as a historical benchmark, the study examines how Haryana’s bowlshaped topography—especially in Central Haryana—has interacted disastrously with unplanned linear infrastructure such as National Highways, State Highways, and railway embankments, constructed without rigorous hydrological appraisal. The paper critically evaluates the prevailing reliefcentric compensation framework under the Haryana Revenue and Disaster Management Department, highlighting its inadequacy, exclusion of agricultural labourers, and procedural bottlenecks under the Kshatipurti portal. It argues for a paradigm shift towards costofproductionbased compensation, mandatory hydrological audits for all infrastructure projects, integrated drainage planning, and a fundamental reorientation of crop husbandry practices. The paper is intended as a policy submission to statelevel departments and commissions concerned with disaster management, agriculture, planning, and finance.

1. Historical Genesis: From Natural Cycle to Developmental Crisis

Historically, floods in Northern India were seasonal hydrological events governed by Himalayan snowmelt and the SouthWest Monsoon. These floods were integral to agrarian sustainability, recharging aquifers, flushing salts, and depositing fertile alluvium across the IndoGangetic plains. Traditional settlement patterns and agrarian systems evolved in harmony with this natural cycle.

This equilibrium began to erode with largescale canalisation, embankments, railways, and post1990s infrastructure expansion. Floods gradually transformed from regenerative phenomena into destructive disasters due to the constriction of floodplains, obstruction of drainage paths, and intensification of land use.

1.1 The 1995 Floods: A Defining Benchmark

The floods of 1995 constitute the most significant hydrological event in Haryana’s recorded history, affecting almost the entire state. The event exposed two structural vulnerabilities:

External Sourcing: High inflows from the Yamuna, Ghaggar, and Markanda systems.

Internal Drainage Failure: Inability of the Najafgarh Drain system and Drain No. 8 network to evacuate local precipitation and canal spillover.

Subsequent flood events over the last decade are not primarily the result of higher aggregate rainfall but of High Precipitation Events (HPEs) in the Himalayas and Shivaliks, generating sudden runoff surges that Haryana’s obstructed plains are structurally incapable of dispersing.

1.2 Recurring Flood Zones

Recent monsoon events have seen flooding in low-lying districts (Hisar, Sirsa, Fatehabad) along the Ghaggar, and chronic urban flooding in Gurugram and Rohtak. In Hisar, over 180 villages reported waterlogging due to river breaches and deficient drainage, damaging crops and infrastructure. The Times of India

2. Causative Analysis: Natural and Anthropogenic Drivers

2.1 Natural Hazard Components

Himalayan Instability: Increased frequency of landslides in upper catchments temporarily dams rivers, producing flash floods upon breach.

Minimal Topographical Gradient: Large parts of Haryana exhibit slopes as low as 0.2 metres per kilometre, severely restricting gravitybased drainage.

2.2 Anthropogenic Drivers: The Infrastructure Paradox

The dominant drivers of contemporary flooding in Haryana are anthropogenic.

(a) Highways as Hydraulic Barriers

Major corridors developed in recent decades—including the TransHaryana Expressway (Ambala–Narnaul), KundliManesarPalwal (KMP) Expressway, Panipat–Dabwali Expressway, and multiple elevated National Highway stretches—have been constructed on raised embankments. In many cases, the number, size, and placement of culverts and syphons are grossly inadequate, effectively converting highways into linear dams that arrest lateral water movement.

(b) Railway Embankments

Both legacy and newly upgraded railway lines frequently lack adequate crossdrainage works. Water stagnates on the upstream side for prolonged periods, submerging agricultural fields and accelerating soil salinisation.

(c) Choking of Natural Channels

Statutory drains and traditional watercourses are routinely encroached upon or clogged with silt, plastic waste, and construction debris. The failure to ensure drain clearance before the onset of monsoon—ideally by 30 June each year—precludes gravitybased evacuation of rainfall.

(d) Urban sprawl replacing agricultural/green land, blocking natural watercourses

(e) Agricultural tilth and water-intensive cropping

3. The “Bowl of Haryana”: A Regional Hydrological Crisis

The most critical floodprone region is the Central Haryana Depression, a natural bowl where drainage outlets are limited and groundwater levels are already high.

3.1 Spatial Extent

Core Depression: Safidon (Jind) to Narnaund (Hisar), encompassing Baas tehsil, Julana, Meham, Kalanaur, Beri, and Jhajjar.

Eastern Sink: Mudhal to Charkhi Dadri belt in Bhiwani district.

3.2 Consequences

In these areas, chronic waterlogging has sharply reduced the soil’s effective waterholding and drainage capacity. Continuous saturation has triggered a waterlogging–flood–salinity spiral, rendering thousands of hectares either marginal or completely unproductive.

4. Infrastructure Development Without Scientific Appraisal

4.1 Highways and Expressways

Major road projects such as the Trans-Haryana Expressway (Ambala–Narnaul), Dwarka Expressway (NH-248BB), Sohna Elevated Corridor, and Panipat–Dabwali Expressway have been constructed to improve connectivity and economic activity across the state. Wikipedia+2Wikipedia+2

However, these developments often proceeded without thorough hydrological impact studies. Roads and embankments raised above natural ground interrupt pathways of stormwater runoff. Link roads and highway embankments on Yamunanagar–Panchkula highway, for example, were cited by local farmers as blocking rainwater outflow, exacerbating flooding and inundation in agricultural blocks. The Tribune

4.2 Urban Highway-related Waterlogging

Urban highways like NH-8 in Gurugram regularly flood during moderate monsoon events due to blocked drains and absence of adequate stormwater capacity, turning major roads into temporary lakes and paralysing traffic — a sign that road-first planning has neglected drainage design. The Economic Times

5. Unplanned Urban Development: Gurugram and Rohtak

5.1 Gurugram’s Waterlogging Crisis

Rapid expansion of Gurugram’s real estate has led to massive infill of natural canals and putting up of construction in low-lying catchment areas and former wetlands. Once numerous natural drainage channels were reduced to a handful, dramatically decreasing the city’s absorptive and conveyance capacity, with heavy rain swiftly leading to street floods. India TV News

Encroachments along stormwater drains, such as around the Bajghera underpass on the Dwarka Expressway, exacerbate water stagnation by blocking stormwater inlets, leading to chronic flooding during rains. The Times of India

5.2 Rohtak Urban System Failure

Rohtak suffers similar issues of clogged drains and dysfunctional stormwater networks, with chronic waterlogging reported annually in Meham and other low-lying areas due to inadequate drainage maintenance and planning failures. The Times of India

These urban examples highlight systemic neglect of hydrological integration in urban planning, where residential and commercial development took precedence over natural drainage preservation.

6. Urban Flood Mechanisms: Scientific Insights

Urban floods operate differently from rural, riverine floods. Surface impermeability, obstruction of natural channels, and insufficient drainage capacity convert even moderate rainfall into urban inundation. Scientific research shows that urban flood impacts extend beyond water height to transport network disruption, long travel times, and economic losses, especially in cities with uncoordinated infrastructure planning. arXiv

7. Current Management and Compensation Frameworks in Haryana

7.1 Disaster Response vs. Preventive Planning

Haryana’s flood mitigation remains reactive, emphasizing embankments, ad hoc drain cleaning, and emergency relief without comprehensive basin analysis or predictive modelling.

7.2 Compensation Under Revenue + Disaster Management Rules

The existing compensation regime provides nominal relief based on fixed category norms, unrelated to actual cost of production and investment. Agricultural labourers are systematically excluded despite livelihood losses. Mechanisms like Kshatipurti portal allow self-assessment but are procedural burdens with multiple administrative inspections often reducing assessed scales.

8. Critique of Compensation Policy and the Kshatipurti Portal

8.1 Revenue Department Norms

Compensation under Haryana Revenue and Disaster Management Department instructions is categorised as exgratia relief, not as restitution.

Inadequacy: Current caps (often around ₹15,000 per acre) fail to cover even basic input costs.

Structural Exclusion: Agricultural labourers receive no compensation for loss of employment or mandays, despite complete dependence on farm activity.

8.2 Kshatipurti Portal: Procedural Bottlenecks

While the portal introduces transparency in principle, in practice it is:

Sluggish, due to multilayered verification (Patwari → Kanungo → Tehsildar → SDM → DC).

Subjective, with systematic downward revision of loss percentages, pushing affected farmers outside eligibility thresholds.

9. Proposed Scientific Framework for Reform

9.1 CostofProductionBased Compensation

Compensation should be indexed to the Actual Cost of Production (Cₚ):

Cₚ = S + T + I + L + Int

Where:

S = Seed / nursery cost

T = Tillage and field preparation

I = Inputs (fertiliser, insecticides, micronutrients)

L = Labour costs

Int = Interest on working capital and crop loans

9.2 Integrated Water and Infrastructure Management

Mandatory Hydrological Audits for all highways, railways, and urban expansion projects.

Retrofitting of Existing Infrastructure (e.g., NH9, NH44) with additional culverts designed for 100year flood return periods.

Subsurface Drainage (SSD) and vertical recharge wells in bowlshaped regions to lower water tables.

9.3 Crop Husbandry Transformation

Gradual exit from paddywheat monoculture in waterlogged zones.

Promotion of floodtolerant rice varieties, fodder crops, aquaculture, and alternative livelihoods through a Diversification Subsidy Regime.

9.4 Institutional & Planning Reform

Hydrological Impact Assessment for all major infrastructure (highways, expressways, urban projects) before approval.

Drainage Master Plans integrated with GIS and flood modelling.

9.5 Engineering and Drainage Redesign

Redesign of stormwater systems based on climate projections and topography.

Convert disrupted old water channels into stormwater corridors.

9.6 Urban Planning Reform

Preservation and restoration of natural water bodies and historic drainage features.

Mandatory surface runoff plans and retention basins for all new residential and commercial projects.

9.7 Agricultural Policy Integration

Crop zoning based on flood and waterlogging risk.

Incentivisation for flood-tolerant and less water-intensive cropping.

9.8 Compensation Overhaul

Move to production-cost based compensation, including seeds, inputs, labour, interest on capital.

Include agricultural labourers in compensation structures.

Use remote sensing and GIS data for damage assessment to reduce subjectivity.

10. Conclusions and Actionable Recommendations

1. Compensation Reform: Link Kshatipurti selfassessment directly with satellite and GIS validation, reducing discretionary field verification.

2. Infrastructure Accountability: Make hydrological clearance legally binding for all linear infrastructure.

3. Labour Protection: Establish a State Disaster Labour Fund for direct income support to landless labourers during flood periods.

4. Drainage Governance: Constitute a statutory State Drainage Board with enforcement powers and penal provisions for nonclearance.

Without these structural reforms, floods in Haryana will continue to reproduce agrarian distress, fiscal stress, and social instability year after year. Without integrating hydrology, urban planning, infrastructure and agriculture into a unified climate-resilient policy, floods will remain a recurring burden—disproportionately impacting farmers, labourers, and urban populations. This submission advocates a preventive, science-grounded, and human-centric policy package to transform flood governance in Haryana.

References

1. Central Water Commission (2022). Northern India Flood Hydrology Report.

2. Haryana State Gazetteer. Topographical and Drainage Profile of Haryana.

3. Journal of Hydrology (2023). Impact of Linear Infrastructure on Surface Runoff in SemiArid Plains.

4. ICAR–CSSRI. Waterlogging and Salinity Studies in Central Haryana.

5. Haryana Revenue and Disaster Management Department (2021). Notification No. 12/2021RDM on SDRF Norms.

6. Official gazette instructions on compensation (Haryana Revenue & Disaster Management Department) (subject to specific citation if available)

7. Times of India; flooding in Hisar, Sirsa, Fatehabad (2025) news report. The Times of India

8. Times of India; Bajghera underpass waterlogging on Dwarka Expressway. The Times of India

9. Economic Times; Gurugram flood urban failures. The Economic Times

10. India TV/other reports on Gurugram drainage failures. India TV News

11. Wiki on Trans-Haryana Expressway, Dhaka Panipat, Dwarka Expressway, Sohna Elevated Corridor (infrastructure references). Wikipedia+3Wikipedia+3Wikipedia+3

12. Academic research on urban flood dynamics and flood severity modelling. arXiv+1