Santosh Naudiyal stood on the verandah of a building in Rudraprayag last December while he narrated his story. On October 1, 1994, the night of the Rampur Tiraha massacre, Santosh and his friends boarded a bus to New Delhi to participate in a dharna to demand for a separate State of Uttarakhand.
"We fought for it and today we have it,' he told me, pointing towards the Rudraprayag collectorate that stood shakily on sinking ground. The June 16-17 deluge last year -- one of the worst calamities the State has witnessed '" resulted in flash floods and landslides.
The situation was exacerbated by a defunct disaster management system, the result of the apathy of consecutive governments that have ruled the State. This was not the Uttarakhand that Santosh and his friends had desired.
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