Green Wars
Author: Bahar Dutt
Publisher: HarperCollins, Rs250
Green Wars shines a red light to ecocidal and genocidal path of “maldevelopment” on which we are rushing headlong, crushing the very foundations of our sustenance, says Dr Vandana Shiva
Bahar Dutt in her book Green Wars does not just tell the story of her engagement as an environment journalist. Green Wars is about real wars — against the earth, our rivers, forests, tigers, the Sarus Crane, Ganges Gharial, and the people of India. It is the real “India story” — the story of ecological destruction and social uprooting, the story of growth based on resource plunder, and the criminalisation of the guardians of the earth and defenders of the land. It is a saga about how a civilisation based on the concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (earth is family) has been replaced by a family of powerful oligarchs.
Rabindranath Tagore in his famous lecture ‘Tapovan’ had said that India is different from the industrial, colonising West because we are an Aranya Sanskriti, and from the forest we have learnt our lessons of diversity and democracy, while the mind of the West was shaped by brick and mortar.
We seem to be desperate to shape a civilisation of concrete, both in terms of infrastructure based on concrete, and in terms of replacing the philosophies of compassion from the teachings of Buddha and Gandhi — with hearts of concrete that feel no pain for the earth, her diverse species, and the millions of our fellow citizens who are being treated as “disposable” as the juggernaut of non-sustainable and unjust development rolls on blindly.
Green Wars includes the recent IB report leak targetting those of us who work to defend the earth and the rights of our people as enshrined in our Constitution. While we work for sustainable and inclusive development for 125 crore people of India, we are labeled anti-development. The chapter on The Real ‘Avatar’ Story is about the struggle of the Dongria Kondhs to protect Niyamgiri, the mountain that upholds the sacred law. I too had the privilege to go to Niyamgiri to support the tribals. We also organised a tribunal in Delhi to highlight their movement based on their culture, life and the laws of the land. As Bahar reports: “In 2013, the Supreme Court recognised the fight of the Dongria Kondhs, and declared that Vedanta could mine bauxite only if they got consent of all gram sabhas who lived around Niyamgiri.” The sovereign rights of the tribals are recognised both in PESA (Panchayati Raj Extension to Scheduled Areas Act) as well the Forest Rights Recognition law, for which I served as a member of the expert group for drafting. Interestingly, the IB report makes the Dongria Kondh and Niyamgiri disappear. It replaces them with “Vedanta in Orissa”. A global corporation recognised for violation of human rights and laws is made the defining feature of the issue. Those that support the tribals to stop Vedanta’s crimes against nature and the tribal communities are defined as anti-development. This is Green Wars.
Green Wars also has a chapter on saving the Ganga. The 2013 Uttarakhand disaster which killed 20,000 people is a wake-up call to redefine development in fragile ecosystems like the Himalaya. The disaster was a combination of climate change and maldevelopment. June 16 and 17, 2013, received 350 per cent more rain than normal. The Chorabari lake above Kedarnath burst. Kedarnath, which just had the temple when I was a child, had been transformed into a town to serve consumer tourism. It was washed away. The hydel projects, which are blasting the fragile mountains with dynamite, had created cracks. When the heavy rain fell, landslides brought the slope down. The debris from excavating tunnels of 10 to 15 km was dumped on the river bed. The flood carried the debris, raising the river bed by 40 ft in places, washing away roads, villages and towns. The Supreme Court has recognised the role of dams and hydel projects in the disaster and set up a committee to examine their role .
Green Wars shines a red light to this ecocidal and genocidal path of “maldevelopment” on which we are rushing headlong, crushing the foundations of our sustenance, and criminalising those who stand in defence of their land, livelihood and rights.
Reading Green Wars took me back to my days of volunteering for the Chipko movement in the 1970s. Commercial forestry, which valued forests only as timber mines was leading to ecological disasters — landslides, floods and droughts. Women were walking further for water, fuel and fodder. When the women of my beloved Garhwal Himalaya started the Chipko movement saying they would hug the trees to protect them to stop the logging, they too were called anti-development. But the 1978 floods made the Government wake up to the truth of the Chipko slogan:
“What do the forests bear
soil, water and pure air
soil, water and pure air
Are the basis of sustenance.”
The Government realised that standing trees and living forests contribute much more to the economy by protecting the mountains, conserving water, and absorbing carbon dioxide to give us oxygen. As a result of the Chipko movement ,which was originally criminalised, forest management in Uttarakhand today is based on conservation forestry. The forests of the Himalaya are being viewed as mitigating climate change. The ecological services of the forests are being recognised as a contribution to the economy.
Across the world there is a realisation that there are ecological limits and boundaries that must be respected. Across the world there is a reassessment of “growth” as development. There is a new focus on the rights of mother earth and on well-being.
How big a disaster will it take to recognise that the large scale destruction of the earth and people’s lives is not developmentIJ That the guardians of the earth are not criminalsIJ That there are other paths that protect the earth and improve human well-beingIJ
How long will it take to stop the wars against the earth and make peace with itIJ How long will it take to be true to Vasudhaiva KutumbakamIJ
The reviewer is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist