Why is nobody weeping for 24,000 dead trees and bulldozing of a historical site in Karwar in the name of ‘development’?
Before and after of a hill that is part of many photo-shoots and regional movies. There are many such… |
Nobel
laureate Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore when visited Karwar, a coastal
town in south Indian state of Karnataka in 1882, dedicated a chapter
in his memoirs to this town. But that was in the past. The town
known mostly for its long stretched sun kissed beaches, old
Portuguese remnants, Maratha past, sea food, mangrove islands and lot
more has gone under the hammer of ‘development’ for some time now
and remains very less about anything that would inspire another
Tagore. We all are very much aware how development of any city has
its own drawbacks – people get displaced, vegetation gets destroyed
and lot more happens that we all have got used to for now. And most
of us agree it’s fine when pros weigh down the cons of any such
development plan. But consider this now. There is a plan (as you read
this the work is already under progress on ground) for widening of
National Highway 66 from Kundapur to Karwar to make 4 lane roads into
6 and from 2 to 4. In a RTI application filed by this writer it says,
as per the joint assessment of the highway side trees by DPR
consultants and the Forest Department, the total number of trees to
be cut is 23491 numbers of which 18600 are already uprooted as on
16th April, 2016. Now you may be wondering that like big
cities we may be facing traffic woes or other issues that demand for
such a dramatic step but let me tell you, we face none such. Except
when a celebrity arrives, I have heard never that we have faced any
traffic snarl. Over 40% of the trees on this stretch are more than
100 years old. Even today if you walk inside the market perimeter of
Karwar, even during mid-afternoon, you will least face the sun,
thanks to the huge trees spanning their branches all along. Similar
was the tale of driving by the sea on Natioanl Highway few months ago
before all these trees were felled to give way for this project. The
proposed six lane highway passes less than 500 meters from the high
tide level, which will destroy many eco-sensitive mangrove forests,
in turn affecting marine life.
When
should the environment give way for such a development is a question
environmentalists ask every time they hear about any such
developmental project. There are always ways in which loss can be
minimized or averted but most of the time authorities and contractors
in wish of saving some extra money ignore them all. “Climate Change
is real,” said Leonardo Caprio while receiving his Academy award.
Most of us shared that video on social network and elsewhere but did
we really thought about it? Did we ask ourselves what we can do and
what we can avoid to help save this planet of ours? I fear not.
Recently NDTV anchor Ravish Kumar while doing his daily prime time
show
on Chennai floods talked about the rampant
‘development’ ignoring the environment as one important reason
for such large scale devastation due to nature’s fury. There is
case of Marathwada suffering from consecutive drought; Latur which
has gone under the severe hammer of development leaving it void of
any trees! There are numerous such cases but it looks like we learn
nothing out of them. 23491 is a figure arrived at after some survey
but the real figure would be quite more. And this figure would have
effect on environment. People living around the stretch are bound to
suffer in near or far future, and then we will run to call it
‘nature’s fury’ on newspapers and television channels, realizing
scarce how we all contributed to it.
There
is also the case of people being displaced. What is surprising is how
some people who gave land to Naval Base Seabird in Karwar will be
required to give away their land for second time. Many people who
gave their land for the Seabird project 20 years ago are yet to
receive the promised compensation. Most of the land acquisition that
happens for big ticket development ends on similar note in India.
People are promised big; their lands are taken and then begin the
long saga of people left begging for the price of their own land.
On
other hand, no construction is allowed near historical monuments and
sites but in Karwar, before its people could know any of such things,
a whole site is being bulldozed which could have been saved
otherwise. But saving would have came at a cost. And cost here was a
newly constructed hotel which belongs to local politician. So to save
his hotel a historical site was made to pave way for the former
minister’s business interests. The historical site belongs to the
times of Shivaji Maharaj who otherwise commands huge respect in
popular parlance. It was situated on the half of the hill(in picture
above) which is being destroyed to save the hotel.
Between
all this, the reactions from local people are all mixed and protests
from minimal to none. There were some protests earlier but they
somehow fizzled down quite at early stages. A friend of mine was
happy to see the road getting wide but when asked what difference
will it make, he had no plausible answer. Most have the opinion that
this was misplaced priority when there are other issues where the
same resources could have been channeled. Karwar receives humongous
amounts of rain yet during summer few regions go dry and people
therein are made to travel long distances to fetch water or rely on
water tankers. Despite all the signs, the authorities are yet to wake
up to the task of water conservation, rain water harvesting or
improving the levels of ground water. Just to make the reader
understand the importance of rain water harvesting, consider the case
of Marathwada which is reeling under drought for the second
consecutive year. If you are not living under the rocks you will be
aware of record number of farmer suicides (9 farmers daily)
due to crop failure and debts, and also the deaths related to water
shortage and unbearable heat in the region. There was also that story
of 12 year old girl walking miles for fetching water and falling to
death because of heat stroke on her journey. There are many such
stories and one simply can’t blame rain gods and pass the buck to
skies. We have collectively created the drought and if we are not
serious and fail to revive the groundwater then perhaps Maharashtra
will have its first
desert in the name of Marathwada. Bottom-line – We
have created the drought! I’m not suggesting Karwar is anywhere
closer to grim picture of Marathwada but a decade ago nobody had the
clue Marathwada would be where it is today. So if not anything we
need to prepare ourselves for the worst. Rajasthan last year received
half the amount of rain Marathwada received but they aren’t facing
the problems which drought hit Marathwada is facing. And no, they
don’t have some magical perennial river to quench their thirst but
they had prepared for summer in advance; they had not let rain drops
go waste but had caught them, saved them for future. They had done
rain water harvesting! Ground-water is precious. But somehow those in
Karwar and elsewhere are using that precious water for construction
of buildings and everything where any other water can be put to use.
Development
is necessary but what sort of development and who will decide that
and for whose sake. Big contractors, builders and politicians all
fill their pockets and snore in their air-conditioned offices while
the poor face the brunt of their actions on ground in the way of
rising heat and ground water shortage. The place where I live –
those who live on ground, who are local farmers and indulge in small
jobs get water for once a week but at same place, those who live in
multi-storied buildings get water daily. Why? Simple, because they
can afford it!
I’m nowhere suggesting roads shouldn’t be built or they not be
widened, we had ambitious Konkan Railway project where huge number of
trees were cut but that route was absolutely necessary considering
the joining of southern states with financial capital of Mumbai but
how necessary is present one? And this is not building new ones but
widening it. I will leave it to my wise reader to decide what is
right and what is wrong. Just remember one thing though, your
decision and opinion has widespread ramifications, not just to the
present generation but it holds its effects to future generation as
well. We are increasingly harming mother earth, damaging her ways and
when it hits back, call it ‘nature’s fury’ when it is but
fruits of our own deeds!
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