The Dark Ecology of Flash Floods and Hydropower Dams in Sikkim

This article proposes a dark ecology approach to address the ecological crisis compounded by hydropower dams in Sikkim. It argues that the Teesta flash floods magnified the visibility of the ecological mesh, i.e. a network of ecological beings or ‘strange strangers’ composed of human and non-human forms. The flash floods appeared like a strange stranger and problematised riverine communities, state and non-state agencies on multiple scales. The proliferation of hydropower dams and the 2023 flash floods have resulted in an ecological rupture that corresponds to ecognosis, a riddle to the local community, experienced through the changing climate, thereby resulting in changing traditional agrarian patterns. I conclude with the forgotten narrative of the 1968 flash floods and landslide in the region and ruminate whether the end of nature might be closer than expected, unless alternative plural indigenous ecological knowledge systems are acknowledged and practised on a planetary scale.