The Wrath of Gods

              The Himalayas have this unique ability to force even an atheist to wonder about the possibility of the existence of a superhuman power, although ephemerally. These were my thoughts when I came out of the Gadhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN) hotel at Ghangariya in Chamoli district of Uttaranchal one August morning in 2001 and looked around. The weather was cold, crisp and enchanting. Towering mountains stared down majestically at the tiny hamlet. Lakshman Ganga river gurgled through the small town before it merged with Alakananada at Govindghat further down. On that day, we enjoyed a short trek of six kilometres up to the famous Sikh pilgrimage centre Hemkund Sahib. After a tiring walk, we had delicious khichdi at the langar, gazed at the amazingly blue lake near the shrine and on a nearby hillock, touched the Brahma Kamal (Saussaria lappa) flowers. The experience was pleasant and unforgettable.

Govindghat is a ghost town now. The villagers have locked their houses (or whatever remained of them) and disappeared into the safer plains below. On the day when the disaster struck in the form of foaming, muddy and ravaging waters cascading from the hills in a flurry of fury, everything on its path was destroyed. Houses, hotels, dams, road, vehicles and people. Multi-storied lodges crumbled like castles of sand kissed by the lapping sea waves. This tale of disaster was repeated in other hill towns of Uttarakhand and in some parts of Himachal. The wrath of nature and the mayhem it brought on its wake is perhaps unprecedented.

On the expected lines, we see Barkha Dutt, Arnab Goswamy and Rajdeep Sardesai on prime time television crying hoarse over the environmental degradation in the Himalayas over the years which has pushed us to the edge of the precipice. The sad fact is that this calamity will soon be forgotten like all other breaking news before this. Do we see or hear anything about Commonwealth Games, 2G, Ponzi schemes of West Bengal these days? People move on and life goes on. But mercifully, this tragedy in the hills is different and it has given a rude wake up call which should be reverberating through the lengths and breadths of the country. We can forget this at our own peril.

As on today, around 600 small and large-sized dams are either operational, under construction or being planned on the river Ganga and its various tributaries like Alaknanda and Bhagirathi. If all the projects go through, 60 percent of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi would permanently dry up. About 130 kilo metres of the rivers would continuously remain tunneled. These ‘developmental activities’ would drown thousands of hectares of forests, twist and turn the course of rivers, dig burrows and stuff concrete, bring in heavy machinery to the tranquil lands, and finally kill the soul of the place. But even after all these, the stated lofty objectives are almost never achieved. Here is one small example.

 On 15^th May, a Member of Parliament, Rewati Raman Singh made the following statement in the Parliament. “Having commissioned the Tehri dam on river Ganga as the irrigation and environment minister of Uttar Pradesh, I have no qualms in saying that it was the biggest mistake of my life. The then Union Minister for Environment Ms Maneka Gandhi was opposed to the project. But we were somehow led to believe that the Tehri dam would generate 2400 MW of electricity and irrigate 1.67 lakh hectares of land. Nothing of this sort happened. Not even 400 MW of electricity is being generated. I am reminded of the words of social reformer Madan Mohan Malviya, who had said that if we construct dams like this in the Himalayas, then the whole of north India will be destroyed” (Source-Tehelka Magazien, Issue 22, Vol 9)

According to several independent observers, the major purpose of all these projects (does this not apply to most of the civil works executed by various departments in our country?) is only one-contracts and commissions.

On an average, nine to ten lakh pilgrims visit Badrinath and Kedarnath annually. If you take a conservative estimate of half a kilo gram of non-biodegradable waste generated by one pilgrim, it amounts to a staggering 450 tons of junk every year. How this is being segregated/managed and disposed-off is anybody’s guess. The stench of our footprints on rivers, mountains, streams, air and the soil - all divine blessings of nature - is nauseating, all-pervading and impossible any more to ignore.

In these times of rapacious greed, where it is difficult to tell the wrong from the right, where the suave and genteel are taken to be sincere and honest, where the rulers and the ruled do not think twice before poisoning the fountains of our very sustenance, it is indeed pertinent to take a peek into the pages of history. During the treaty negotiations with the colonial whites in 1852, the native Indian-American chief of Seattle gave a now famous speech in response to an offer by the US government to buy two million acres of Land that belonged to the Indians. He said;

“How can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. What will happen when the buffaloes are all slaughtered, the wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forests are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe mountains is blotted by talking wires? Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. End of living and beginning of survival”.

It is time to pay heed.