As the climate crisis causes water levels to plummet, river beds dry up, and glaciers melt, artifacts like old warshipone old City and human remains appeared. This story is part of “Climate Artifacts,” a mini-series that tells the stories behind the people, places, and objects that have been discovered as a result of drought and warming temperatures.
Nawada District, Bihar, India – As a child, Muhammad Aftab Hussain used to go to the cream-colored mosque near his home to pray and study. When the mosque was empty, Hussain and other children from his village in Bihar, a state in eastern India, would scream in the dome structure and listen to their voices echo.
“This will bring me joy when the voice will echo back. Every kid repeats that. It was fun,” Hussain, 50, recalls.
But, 34 years ago, during the construction of a dam, the Noori Masjid mosque disappeared underwater along with Hussain’s childhood village of Chiraila.
In early September this year, after high temperatures and lack of rain caused water levels to drop, the entire mosque emerged for the first time since flooding. Curious tourists have been drawn to the site at Phulwaria Dam, about a five-hour drive south of the state capital Patna.
“The mosque is there – we know it. It was completely flooded after the dam was built,” said Hussain in the nearby village of Hardiya, where he moved as a teenager when his village was submerged by water.
According to climate experts, the reappearance of the mosque points to severe drought conditions in one of India’s poorest states. For Hussain, this event opened up memories of displacement. He and other residents of Chiraila and dozens of villages on either side of the stream in the low-lying area were forced to leave their homes in the 1980s.
“The mosque has become an attraction for people, but it also reminds us of village life,” says Hussain.
‘Nobody will go hungry’
Chiraila is a quiet village where Muslims and Hindus live side by side. Hussain recalls, some villagers owned the land while others made a living by farming, mainly growing corn and rice. Chiraila is surrounded by low mountains and at a nearby stream people will take water and perform baptisms before praying.
“It’s like Kashmir,” he says proudly, referring to the picturesque Himalayan region of northern India.
Muhammad Hanief, 65, another former resident of Chiraila, sits outside a partially white built mosque in Hardiya, where he also lives. This structure rises above the village’s two-room cottages.
“People can also earn and eat. It is the specialty of the village. No one will go hungry. People don’t care about your religion,” said Hanief, referring to the interfaith tension that has been seen in parts of India in recent years.
Chiraila consists mostly of earthen huts with thatched roofs but the small mosque in the center of the village stands out with its plastered surfaces, cool in summer, cement courtyards and archways.
Former residents of Chiraila believe the structure is over 100 years old.
“The mosque was there when I was born. It was there even when my father was born,” said Hanief, who has a soft voice and a white beard.
“The builders who designed it know the work of ‘surkhi chuna’ [made from burned ground bricks mixed with lime mortar to use in construction] to make them [structures] elastic, and elongated. It’s hard work and requires special skills,” said Hussain, who works every day even on construction sites.
Although Hussain and others believe the mosque was built after the rule of the Mughals, the Muslim dynasty that ruled from the 16th to the 19th centuries, its three domes, eight minarets, and arches it recalls the buildings built all over India during this dynasty.
‘We were against’
In 1985, the residents of Chiraila and residents of more than two dozen villages were forced to move to Hardiya, seven kilometers (four miles) from their village.
“No one wants to leave. We were against. But we were forced to leave within a month and were threatened by the authorities that we would be flooded if we didn’t move,” Hussain recalls angrily.
Chiraila has been demolished but the mosque is still intact as it is a holy place, former villagers said.
Standing outside his brick and cement house in Hardiya, Hussain said that because all the former residents of the flooded village now live in the same place and are still a close-knit community, they named the area. My new street is Chiraila.
They also named the unfinished mosque they started building after moving to Hardiya as Noori Masjid, in tribute to the original place of worship. Hussain said of the construction: “Because everyone here is poor, we are doing it little by little with small donations.
In Hardiya, where about 7,000 people now live, they have to rebuild their lives from scratch, says Hussain. The land is provided with enough to build new houses, but it is not possible to cultivate crops. Villagers struggled to find new livelihoods and many became laborers.
“The government gave us a piece of land and left us alone,” Hanief said as several neighbors gathered around him.
“Nobody is happy here. People miss the old village,” said Hussain.
‘Not a miracle’
When the mosque first appeared, residents said hundreds of tourists came to admire the unusual sight. Tourists wade through the mud to enter the building and examine the architecture. Some visitors tried to clean it up. At least one person has called for prayer outside of it. Although the initial numbers have dwindled, visitors still come.
Since it fully emerged in September, rain has caused the water level to rise by at least two meters (seven feet), partially covering the structure once again.
After being in the water for so long, the plaster surface of the mosque had peeled off in places and was covered with algae. The towers in the corners and the roof have cracks. As one got closer, a musty smell wafted from the building.
On a sunny afternoon in early October, 12 wooden boats tied to the shore undulating in the middle of the water. Fishermen who live nearby wait for tourists to sail to the mosque, about a kilometer away by boat.
“We came to see it because it is a historic feat. We saw a video on YouTube and we were amazed and wanted to see if it really exists,” said Nitesh Kumar, 42, a software engineer who was visiting with four friends from a district 70km (43 miles) away.
Hussain has not visited the mosque since it reappeared. But he’s been watching YouTube videos of what tourists consider novelty. “This mosque is not a miracle for us,” he said.
“I have worked around the dam as a fisherman for decades. This is the first time in 30 years that I have witnessed this scene fully visible,” said Goraylal Singh, 51, who also farmed and lived on the coast of Phulwaria.
“The mosque has brought me extra income. In addition to fishing, I take tourists by boat to this site,” he said.
Signs of lack of water
In the past, the dome of the mosque would rise when the water level dropped. For farmers in the region, whose agriculture depends on rainfall, the re-emergence of the mosque is a sign of the difficulty one of India’s largest rice-producing states is facing. faced due to erratic and meager rainfall.
“That shows there is not enough water. So it’s not a good thing for the farmers whose lives depend on it,” explains Sahdev Yadav, a 45-year-old rice farmer.
For climate experts, the reappearance of Noori Masjid has to do with drought caused by climate change. Typically, 84 percent of the state’s rainfall occurs in four months, from June to September, during the monsoon season.
“July, the extremely dry weather is the time for sowing. This is unprecedented,” Abdus Sattar, a scientist at the Center for Advanced Study on Climate Change at Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University in Bihar, told Al Jazeera.
Nawada is one of 11 of Bihar’s 38 districts considered “drought,” while official figures show the state has received 39 percent less rain than usual this year. This is a major obstacle for people in the state, where half of the population lives under poverty line.
Sattar said the low water levels in the dam, which is mainly built for irrigation and aquaculture, shows how badly water resources are being affected.
“Dry events are increasing and water levels in dams, ponds and other water sources are being affected,” said Sattar.
Anand Shankar, a climate scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology of India in Bihar, explains: “July was the driest month in 120 years in Bihar. He said climate change is causing extreme changes and decreasing rainfall, affecting other eastern Indian states this year such as Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.
The state government in mid-October announced compensation of 3,500 rupees ($42) per family in nearly 8,000 villages affected by the drought. When the inhabitants of Chiraila were forced to relocate, they were given land to build houses and some money to build them.
Bring back the past
In Hardiya, a group of women stood outside the house chatting in the afternoon sunlight. Children, some wearing school uniforms, play on the dusty streets.
Hanief, 29 years old when his family moved to Hardiya, said that since they moved in, they have always struggled to get food on the table.
But after the scorching heat and drought of the summer, many villagers in Nawada district fear that life will only get harder with the water crisis worsening as weather patterns change.
“In 2018, severe flooding happened here and the mosque was completely invisible. And today, water levels are at their lowest levels in decades. The weather is seeing drastic changes,” Singh said. “All of these conditions directly impact us.”
Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published earlier five said that due to climate change and increased demand, at least 40% of India’s population will face water scarcity by 2050.
Shakeela Fatima, 55, wearing a green sari and blue bracelet, also left Chiraila with her family.
“When we lived in the old village, we didn’t have to worry about drinking water. But in this village [Hardiya]there’s a water crisis,” she said.
Bilal Ahmad, 45, another former resident of Chiraila, who sits in the shade of a tree outside the new Noori Masjid, says he returns to the old village site to catch fish from the reservoir.
He believes the re-emergence of the old mosque has reminded former Chiraila villagers of a way of life – and times – that have disappeared.
“All the villagers have a memory of their roots tied to the mosque,” said Ahmad. “We wanted to build that kind of mosque in this village but couldn’t recreate this miracle.”
