After the last of the dead are counted and life begins afresh, we must not forget the lessons of the catastrophe that destroyed vast stretches of Uttarakhand
Growing up in Singhbhum in the 1970s was vastly different from what it would be now —there or what passes for a city in this wondrous land of ours. As a child I learned from the Santhals, Oraon and Mundas, who came looking for jobs as maids and gardeners in the colony where we lived, that every pebble, stone, rock, hill, plant, shrub, tree, rivulet and river (near our home Subarnarekha snaked its way to its rendezvous with Kharkai) was to be revered, that what we thought was inanimate was actually a living being, with a life force of its own. They would never treat nature with contempt or natural phenomenon with disdain. The soil, red and rich with iron deposit, was worshipped as the giver of all life and provider of all that life needed to sustain itself.
That was before the dikus irrevocably changed the lives, and the lifeview of the Santhals, Oraons and Mundas, deracinating them from their age-old culture and beliefs. There was nothing benign about this; it was the necessary prelude to exploiting nature and plundering its wealth to fulfil the dikus’ insatiable avarice and greed. Nothing was sacred anymore: Ancient saal trees were felled and dense, lush forests rendered barren by the timber mafia; when there were no more forests, the hills were denuded of their foliage; the soil, which sustained lives with its bountiful crop of cereals and vegetables, was now the source of illicit wealth with machines digging up iron ore from fields converted into illegal mines; the rivulets disappeared and the rivers turned into a trickle of water flowing through parched banks.
The destruction of Singhbhum’s environment coincided with the advent of ‘development’. Picture postcard towns have transmogrified into hideous cities whose boundaries continue to be pushed beyond permissible limits as land is grabbed by venal builders in cahoots with venal babus and dishonest politicians. True, there’s more money going around and the dikus have grown richer. Simultaneously, the Santhals, Oraons and Mundas have been impoverished. Those who have elected to collaborate with the unprincipled exploiters (Madhu Koda and his ilk) have prospered, some have abandoned the land of their forefathers and migrated to distant places, others live in gruelling poverty. Christ the Redeemer has come to their rescue using the route of rice bowl conversions. At Yojana Bhavan, babus while away their taxpayer-funded time toting up numbers to determine Singhbhum’s — now split into East and West Singhbhum districts —development index.
These and other thoughts came to mind this past week as nature’s fury ripped through Uttarakhand, destroying vast stretches of Dev Bhoomi. The famous Shiv temple at Kedarnath built hundreds of years ago and the stone Nandi in its front yard have survived the terrible disaster. But everything else lies in ruins. The devastation has been no less all along the mountains upwards of Rudraprayag, especially up to
Kedarnath. Roads and bridges have been washed away, entire human settlements have fallen off — those that remain are precariously perched. Huge boulders propelled by flash floods have destroyed all that stood in their path. It will be days before the last of the thousands of people stranded in remote areas are rescued and brought to safety; it will take months to count the dead and assess the damage. Reconstruction, when it begins, will take years. Uttarakhand’s nightmare has just begun.
There is no percentage in apportioning blame or indulging in political point-scoring. It is immaterial what Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde thinks, the destruction of Dev Bhoomi is a national calamity, it is a tragedy that should touch every Indian to the core. This is not just Uttarakhand’s problem, it is India’s too. Sadly, that’s not how events have unfolded over the past week. Apart from lip sympathy, there has been little genuine concern. Gujarat has shown the way by despatching doctors and officials to help the struggling, clueless administration of Uttarakhand, others have done precious little. But like all tragedies, this too shall pass. The timeless hills and mountains and lakes and rivers will survive, as will the people for whom this is the only home they know and have.
There is, however, no reason to believe that any lesson will be learned — either by the Government or by the people — from the horrific catastrophe that has visited Uttarakhand. We could debate till the cows come home whether this is a natural disaster or a man-made disaster and yet reach no conclusion. Treading that path would be nothing more than wasting time. Instead, it would be fruitful to look at what is likely to have gone wrong and contributed to the savage assault by nature with such terrible consequences. To my mind attention should focus on three aspects.
First, overselling a State as a tourist destination is counter-productive, more so when the infrastructure is inadequate and there are no regulatory mechanisms in place. In Uttarakhand, successive State
Governments have promoted unrestricted tourism because it offers a lazy way out of undertaking the onerous task of building an economy that is not dependent on seasonal
holiday-makers and hordes of faithful looking for instant salvation and expiation of their many sins. In the process, two blind eyes were turned to the mushrooming of illegal hotels, dharamshalas and assorted buildings that have now been reduced to piles of debris. This would be equally true for much of the construction across Uttarakhand which has become a happy hunting ground for land sharks and carpetbagger builders. We saw many of these buildings tumbling into rivers in spate as the floodwater washed away the infirm foundations of multi-storeyed structures built on fragile land.
Second, allowing tens of thousands of pilgrims to embark on the Char Dham Yatra at the same time is stunningly stupid. No civil administration worth its salt would allow such large numbers of pilgrims to gather at remote areas with poor communications in the best of times — for instance, there were more than 5,000 people stranded at Gangotri alone. Apart from posing an impossible challenge to the administration in the event of a disaster, as it happened this week, such large numbers also pose a threat to the fragile ecology of the area. Dev Bhoomi was meant to be the abode of gods and goddesses, not shanty towns the like of which had crept up in Kedarnath. Nor were the mountains protecting Dev
Bhoomi meant to suffer the reverberations of helicopters constantly ferrying well-heeled pilgrims seeking instant moksha. It’s time we asked, did the mountains revoltIJ Did Dev Bhoomi rise in protestIJ Did Mandakini and Alaknanda wreak vengeance for the crude commodification of faithIJ
Third, it’s frightfully wrong to loot that which belongs to nature. The illegal quarrying along riverbeds by the mining mafia despite the Supreme Court’s order prohibiting it, the felling of trees by the timber mafia and the blasting of mountains by the building mafia have all contributed to the amazing plunder that has been witnessed in Uttarakhand for decades. Politicians have collaborated in this evil enterprise; the one who stood up, General BC Khanduri, was made to pay a huge political price. Those who indulge in this smash-and-grab brigandage use ‘development’ as a veil to hide their criminal misdeeds. Development, this tragedy should convince us, is not about subtraction but addition.
Hopefully, wisdom shall prevail on the political class of Uttarakhand. If not, the Uttarakhandis should rise in protest and demand that their lives and livelihood be secured before pandering to those who are driven by greed. Or else the gods and goddesses shall extract an even more terrifying price for the follies of those who have little or no stake in the long-term welfare of Uttarakhand.
(The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi)