This refers to the editorial, “Burning issue” (May 31). It is an irony that once pristine, bountiful and lush green Himalayas that offered all living beings to flourish boundlessly and man to achieve nirvana, is today reduced to the status of ‘burning mountains’. Besides usual annual ferocious fires, large tracts from Kashmir to Sikkim are barren, sparse in vegetation and unable to hold and offer enough water to those living or visiting here. We ought to take the blame for this sordid state. Our greed, our character and our inertia together with utter mismanagement of resources are at the root of this rot. Himalayan States cannot blame the Centre or any other State for coming to this pass. The powers that be simply lack a vision and an enterprise matching the mighty Himalayas.
The invoking of sustainability as the global panacea for balanced development applies more to the sensitive Himalayas than anywhere else. Many, if not most developments here, have been without all-embracing impact studies and certainly without checks and balances. Judicial activism could not help when conditions completely collapsed. Mitigation, conservation and restoration being prohibitively expensive, it is a picture of absolute despondency.
It is time to sit back, pause and then perhaps back to the basics. What was right to the generations bygone is valid today also. listening to sane voices, balanced and pragmatic counsel and relentless effort to reach a goal set by a vision for an all-round well-being may pave the way for dispensations in the Himalayan States.