Astyuttarasyāṁ diśi devatātmā himālayo nāma nagādhirājaḥ/pūrvāparau toyanidhī vigāhya sthitaḥ pṛthivyā iva mānadaṇḍaḥ
(On the northern frontier of this country that forms the heartland of gods, intercalating himself into eastern and western oceans like a measuring stick of earth, there stands the sovereign of snowy mountains renowned as Mt Himalaya)
— Kumarasambhava, Kalidasa
Dear Reader,
Listen carefully, and you can hear the rumble in the northern frontier. The land of the gods, himself deemed a god, the maha meru Himavan, is angry, it seems. Mountain folklore as well as Puranas and kavyas perceive the Himalaya as a deity, not a mere physical landform. In Hindu mythology, he is the father of Goddess Parvati. The tall peaks and the deep valleys are imagined to be the playground of the gods. Pilgrimages undertaken to the mountains reinforce the divine persona of the peaks — the Nanda Devi jat, for instance. This landscape is dotted with shrines; its sacred geography imagined and described in puranic lore and language. Char Dham yatra — visiting Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri — was considered a sacred journey that tested the physical and spiritual resolve of the yatri. The dhams were not meant to be leisure destinations, or selfie points. Any violation of the spiritual code, it was believed, would be punished by the divine elements. There are so many stories that speak about disrespectful intruders facing the wrath of the mountains. These were tales of caution, lessons in ecological wisdom, conveyed in a vocabulary of myths and legends. In our urge for speed, for leisure, for spectacle, we have started to see the mountain too as real estate, a playground for leisure seekers from the plains. The mountain today is a bruised body, wrecked by unscientific constructions — from dams and highways to thoughtlessly built concrete buildings that seek to cater to tourists. The impact has been devastating. Landslips, landslides, land subsidence, flash floods have been wreaking havoc in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. In Himachal Pradesh, landslides and massive floods have killed a large number of people since June. There have been over a 100 landslides this monsoon season and the destruction has been estimated at Rs 10,000 crore. State Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has said it will take a year to rebuild. The situation in Himachal is comparable to the devastation that Uttarakhand saw during the monsoon season in 2013, or the Kerala floods in 2018. Ironically, as rainfall pounds Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, southern India is reeling under very poor rains. Rivers are running shallow in August, usually the month of flood in Kerala.
Educationist Krishna Kumar (Turning a deaf ear to the Himalayas, August 19) says “all major tourist destinations in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are facing intermittent distress and closure”. The article is a scathing indictment of our tourism policy, how they care little about the ecology of the region, the callous attitude towards the destruction of forests, the treatment of rivers — lifelines of the northern Indian plains — into drains. The recurring disasters do not seem to force a course correction. Krishna Kumar writes: “If nature is determined to send a message, policymakers lack the literacy to read that message. Policy is governed by the perception that the tourism industry is the key to prosperity. An important element of this perception is the underestimation of the cost of unbridled tourism for the fragile Himalayan ecology.” Tourism industry, leisure or spiritual, has to learn to respect the environment. Or it will die, perhaps, after taking many lives and destroying habitats. Governments need to be humble when they approach the Himalayas, when they plan to “exploit” the hydropower potential of the mountain streams or seek to upgrade hill roads into expressways.
This was also the message of the Indian Express editorial (A Slippery Slope, August 16). The editorial said: “Ecologically-insensitive development has compromised Himachal’s capacity to withstand inclement weather. In the past 10 years, the state has gone on a road-widening spree. Sixty-nine national highway projects have been approved, of which five are four-lane highways. Roads and highways are important to the region’s economic development. But such projects must be mindful of the area’s ecological vulnerabilities. For instance, road expansion drives rarely factor in slope stability. There is very little planning on what to do with construction debris. Last year, the Himachal Pradesh High Court expressed serious concerns on the ‘unplanned excavation’ of the hills and ‘poorly executed construction’ of roads in the state.” The Supreme Court had advised caution in infrastructure building in Uttarakhand. Is anyone listening?
Meanwhile, the nation celebrated the 77th Independence Day. In his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, the Prime Minister claimed that the nation was passing through Amrit Kaal, which was also “Kartavya Kaal”, a time to lay the foundations for the next 1000 years as a national duty. The Express editorial (The long view-finder, August 16) said: “The PM also missed a valuable opportunity on the ground. To use the I-Day occasion to look the nation in the eye, with greater compassion, and more fully. Or to use his podium to send out the much needed acknowledgement and message, from Manipur to Nuh, that the “rashtriya charitra (national character)” is not something perfectly formed. It is, still, a work in progress, a challenge for the nation as it marks 77 years of Independence.” Hilal Ahmed’s essay (Political Time Called Future, August 17) argued that the prime minister in his I-Day speech was offering a new imagination of the future to citizens.
On Independence Day, the Express Opinion invited five women to tell stories tied to the idea of freedom. Politicians Nayana Motamma and Shazia Ilmi, academic Preeti Aghalayam, sportsperson Bhavina Patel and bureaucrat Smriti Mishra graced our pages on August 15.
Jurist Fali Nariman, Justice Madan Lokur and Advocate Sriram Panchu asked sharp questions to the collegium on its decision against elevating Justice Muralidhar to the apex court (A Question for Supreme Court, August 19). The Indian Express editorial (Thank you, Mr Pathak, August 17) marked the passing of a pioneer, the patron of the Sulabh Movement, which built public toilets in many states. Meeran Chadha Borwankar (Investigating Manipur, August 16) warned us about the tough task that awaits the police and the CBI as they begin to investigate the hundreds of FIRs registered in strife-torn Manipur.
That’s all for this week.
Thank you. Bye.
Amrith
Amrith Lal is Deputy Editor with the Opinion team
