Damn the Large Dams

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/a-hunting-community-in-nagaland-takes-steps-toward-conservation/

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.

 

Citizen Activism

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?

So I just live demanding further from government. Government furnishes the urban citizen demands. The government is made up of learned executive officers and people’s leaders (who are learned or unlearned). Learned officers, identify the further demand can be met by further exploiting earthly resources. The leader of the region identified for exploitation, asks the people. People ask what they get? Land owners get lot of money. Landless get to work at dam, a false promise to which they fall prey to. Everybody happy.  Money is anyway funny. Leader, land owner, contractors, officers, and all the learned people get lot of money. All good land, water, air will be messed up permanently. But they got money which can buy all of it back by exploiting the next river!

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.