A Hunting Community in Nagaland Takes Steps Toward
Conservation. The above link is an article in NYTimes on this subject. It is actually about the conservation of the migratory
birds from the hands of the Naga tribes. But the underlying problem is the way
we are civilized and getting the tribes civilized.
Dam construction in India has done much irreplaceable damage than it
has brought in corresponding gains. In the above article, one of the recent big
dam constructions in Nagaland shows the vicious circle just beginning. Till
date, lots of dams were constructed across main land India. And most of north
east was not touched. Now in the NE states suddenly there is a sprout of lot of
projects bringing much money to the states. But nothing to the people, because
what is money to the people? All the pristine terrains, air, the rivers,
forests, mountain ranges, are going to be permanently damaged. Hectares &
hectares of the flora and fauna loss will never again be recovered. The lives
of the indigenous people are going to be thrown out of gear. Their culture,
language, ingenuity will be gone. They will be called the clue less poor people
by the civilized world, which will put them in museums and wonder how they ever
lived once without piped gas, water and electricity. Those folks will be forced
to migrate to nearest city and live in ghettos.
Most of India has citizen awareness groups, activists, who strengthen
and fight against resource exploitation. Many projects are stalled, but not
cancelled. For example, Gundiya project in western ghats has so much
opposition, but it will never get cancelled. And when someday, somehow it
starts off with lots of restrictions, those restrictions will be on paper. By
mistake the earth movers will move more woods, hillocks. Opposition starts by
activists, and by the time, it goes up various courts up to Supreme Court for
stalling, few more hillocks are gone. The culprit proven in court will be a
driver who would be dead by then. The case will be closed with irreparable
damage done to the environment and very little benefit to the fast paced world
which is chasing enigma. Environment clearance procedure is there albeit insufficient;
there is currently no monitoring mechanism. Only citizen activism by the
affected people in those areas can save anything. And in most cases, citizens
loose life, loose hope and migrate to work in inhuman conditions in cities.
In Kudremukh mountain range after a sustained fight in Supreme Court
for almost a decade, the green brigade finally got the company to stop mining
further. But by then a few mountains are gone. Kudre Mukha in kannada means
Horse face. And it is not there now.
For the protection of the western ghats, there is a lot of fight going
on now. There was Gadgil report earlier mandating to protect 70% of current green.
Then government itself felt too much. Kasturirangan report revised it further
and said 40% of current green should be kept up. There is uproar in all
‘affected’ states by coffee growers, industrialists, contractors, miners,
timber merchants, and tourism industry and even the church & Kannada
sahithya parishath!
What happens to the affected
people?
Along this exploitation, we generate some learned beings and a lot of
unlearned labors. The learned beings either go for secure jobs in city living
to increase the demand, OR join further exploitation brigade. That means they
become contractors, officers, politicians, migrant labor contractors. The last
one of the kind is the worst one. These guys ensure, the unlearned labors get
transported to bordering states. And the labors remain forever indebted to them
for simple living needs.
So what happens to these unlearned beings? Why are they not learning
and fighting?
The landless are generally unlearned and unorganized and unassertive. They
hardly get absorbed in the same area where they are from. The labor contractors
ensure they get transported elsewhere. And to this area someone else from other
areas comes and works. This way the resistance, rising voice, rights claims are
silently suppressed. When they are migrating from one place to the other,
whither education? Children will get deprived of their pristine environs and
get adjusted to dreaded conditions, deprived of education. The unlearned labors get indebted to the
contractors due to their alien conditions and culture in a neighboring state or
district. And the promise of the government to provide employment to the
affected people will be successfully defeated by the labor contractors
transporting people across regions. Government will not intervene. And even if
it does it can hardly provide jobs for about 10% of the affected locals. Why do
contractors bring in outside labors? Because the affected people in another
region are desperate to work for living and hence available cheap. So that’s how
this locality people will be made desperate to work for living and will be transported
to another state.
Rising Middle class demand
Demand is very high, so we are going far and wide even if there are transmission and transportation losses. We are tapping the available resources unhindered and not caring from the earlier learnings. Besides who has to learn? The learned will learn to only exploit further. The unlearned will never get to learn. If I consider myself as one of the learned one, I don’t exploit, but I simply live and demand further. Where I grew up in my village, 1 chocolate as a gift by a visiting uncle or aunt once a year or twice at most was a luxury. Now 1 chocolate per day is essential for kids! And this is just an example which can be extended to dresses, shoes, toothpastes, brushes, running water, burning lights, number of cars, motorbikes, joy rides, roller coaster rides, joy trips, pilgrimage trips J, treks, wilderness trips, foreign trips. We are just living like no one ever lived before!! Our demands are very high today. Our simple lives before was close to nature, close to people & hence beautiful. Today’s life is boxed, physically secure, mentally insecure, always talking or communicating yet not connecting to people, demanding everything from the world to make life easy. Or is it easy?
In one of the Purana’s
Hiranyaksha the brother of Hiranyakashipu loves gold and likes to amass it.
Gold is a representation of earthly wealth. He went on exploiting the mother
earth so much that earth lost density and lost its course!! Then Narayana came
in Varaha avathara (incarnation) cleaned up the mess, killed the demon and his
subject’s insatiable desire, and restored mother earth back on the orbit. So
what do we learn? We have hope in Narayana! And we continue exploiting the
earth!!
Primary Education
In the above article of hunters of Nagaland taking up conservation of
migrating birds, school going children play a role. They get educated about the
conservation necessity and benefits in schools. And they discuss it in home and
ask their parents to not do what is wrong. Parents definitely listen to kids in
most cases and feel ashamed to oppose their wise words.
The primary education is very powerful. It molds the young minds. It
shapes their growth and makes responsible youth. We have underestimated its
strengths. If we pay attention and strengthen their sense of responsibility
towards environment, and importance of its conservation, it can turn
miraculous. The locals can become active and claim their rights over their
regions and prevent outsiders exploiting their beautiful locales.
More questions to answer
All this poses a lot more questions. Dams are symbols of development.
How will development happen if we oppose it? What will happen to Electricity,
irrigation, poverty elevation? Is it wrong to expect continuous electricity,
running water, highways, buildings, signal free roads, flyovers, bridges,
cities? GDP, country’s current account deficit, imports, exports?
On the other hand, how will you give strength to the exploited? Or should
we leave it as survival of the fittest? Are we animals? Or humans are different?
Can the society ever be able to balance the development and
sustainability? Should our demands come down? What education to be included? Will
religious education help? Should we inculcate Renunciation and Service as part
of education?
There is a need for the urban middle-class & upper-class to live
lite and not become burden on earth. How lite is lite etc., is next step. But
first every family has to realize the necessity. And then start taking baby
steps towards lite living. We must support the green and oppose its
exploitation at all costs. It might sound anti-development, but certainly it is
not. It is the only true development. Our lives will change. It will change the lives of our kids. But it will be towards better and not worse.
We need to debate, discuss. Only by giving voice to the voiceless,
strength to the weak, education to uneducated, awareness to the unaware, we can
answer to the questions. Someone who gives voice to the voiceless has to brave
a lot of odds. One has to stand almost against the entire state itself. Not
easy, it needs courage. But state must give voice, strength and a chance to the
people of the region affected. The state must have leaders who are
compassionate and who truly represent the masses for the locale. The locale and
community has to elect leader from their own group and community. That will be
a successful democracy.
It is a subject of grave concern. It has many angles. I intend to
continue writing. Hope it brings some awareness and personal impact to the
reader to take up some personal steps. If our slowly increasing simple demands
have created havoc on environment the same can be reversed also by individual
awareness & restraints too.
