It
is good to hear that the demand for a separate time zone for the North Eastern
states of India has been revived. The proposal, it seems, is with the
government and is in active consideration.
It had to be so, as no less a person than Tarun Gogoi, chief minister of
the state of Assam, the biggest north-eastern state, has taken up the matter.
In any case, regardless of what happens to the proposal, the Chief Minister is
reportedly set on introducing the “Garden Time” in Assam soon. Introduced by
the British tea planters over a century and a half ago for the tea garden
workers it would be an hour ahead of the Indian Standard Time (IST).
One wonders as to why the Centre has been wary
of creating another time zone for the north-easterners. It seems, those who
have never lived and worked in the region can hardly ever comprehend the
difficulties of the people at large and of others, like administrators or heads
of offices and organizations, who have to ensure completion of assignments
within the given time frame. The short duration of the “working day” in the
North East imposes sometimes insurmountable constraints on those who have to
oversee completion of the jobs that they happen to have at hand.
Setting
up a separate time zone for the north-eastern states is an old issue. I recall
while working at Shillong in the state of Meghalaya a
quarter century ago the
matter was raised in the North-Eastern Council (NEC) meeting held in late
1980s. The NEC, created decades ago, had been instrumental in pushing the
developmental initiatives emanating from the seven states of the region known
as the “Seven sisters”. Most of the officials attending the meeting felt that
the role of the NEC would become more effective if the most productive hours
during the day were not allowed to be lost because of the straitjacket of the
IST. The then Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Saeed happened to be present to whom
a memorandum was presented. Since his government soon met its end, apparently
that saw the end of the memorandum, too.
 |
| Rsing sun in Meghalaya |
It
is indeed a peculiar situation out there. Bangladesh, which is just south of
Meghalaya, is half an hour ahead of it and the same is strangely true of
Manipur and Tripura that are located east of it. The sun rises earlier in
eastern-most parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura than in Bangladesh and yet they,
curiously, are all behind it by half an
hour. Consequently, when the official day, based on IST determined by time around
a thousand kilomteres away in the West somewhere near Allahabad in UP,
commences the sun is way up in the sky and workers have already spent four to five waking hours waiting for the
regular working hours to commence. They thus lose those crucial morning hours
when the mind and the body are fresh to contend with the day’s physical or
mental challenges.
Currently,
there is a kind of a double whammy. While the daily routine starts close to
midday, workers generally make efforts to wind up early as darkness falls
early. None in the North-East would like to stay out when it is dark, more so
the women who work in large numbers in offices. Not only they may be living
far, they may also have to wrestle to get a public transport (if available) to
get back home. After all, it is not the safest place after dark. I had had
occasion to notice that in winters women start making preparations for leaving
office by 3.30 in the afternoon as, if it is cloudy, it could be pretty dark by
4.30 or 4.45 PM. On many an occasion I came back in gathering darkness from my
Shillong office after 5.00 PM and watched live telecast of the dying moments of
a cricket test match being played in Bombay.
The
unease of north-easterners on this score seems to have been simmering all these
years and off and on concerted demands for a separate time zone have been raised.
They have the feeling that in such a vast country a single time zone cannot
work. The country sprawls for around 3000 kilometres from west to east
embracing 28 longitudes with at least a difference of almost two hours between
east and west. People from many walks of life — academics,
intellectuals, lawyers, teachers, youth, student and women organisations — in
the northeast have been demanding creation of a separate time zone for the
seven northeast States as, they feel, it was necessary to correct the anomalies
forced on the people and economy of the region.
Jahnu
Barua, an eminent Assamese film maker, has been very vocal in this regard and
spearheaded the demand for a separate time zone. According to him, suffering
enormous losses during the last six decades, the north-east is up against “unproductive
tendencies, more alienation, imbalance in biological clock, degeneration of
society, wastage of electricity, loss in productivity and so on…Having to
follow the IST, the people of northeast are subjected to do all their day to
day activities at wrong time. Waking up minimum two hours after sunrise,
breakfast after minimum four hours of daylight, start of office hours only at
middle of the day, lunch at three to four hours after midday, dinner after five
to six hours of darkness and finally going to bed much after midnight.” He
further showed that total wastage of electricity at homes and offices of the
region since independence due to following of single time zone was to the tune
of Rs.94,900 crore.
Earlier
this month the members of Parliament from the North-Eastern states sunk their
political difference over this issue. The MPs from across various shades of
political opinion in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have joined together to demand a
separate time zone for the region.
There
are, however, detractors who think a separate time zone would spell disaster
for the country. It would promote fissiparous tendencies among the regions.
Given the Assam example, every state would indulge in one-upmanship and demand
separate time zone. Besides, it has also been contended that it would promote
incompetence and delays in decision making. The arguments seem to be fallacious,
even specious. Two researchers in the National Institute of Advanced Studies,
Bangalore, are also against a separate time
zone for North-East but have failed
to give any convincing grounds. They surprisingly feel that a separate time
zone may alienate the easterners from the rest of the country. Besides, they
think that it would be difficult to implement and create complications in
railways and air time tables and a slip in setting a watch on the borders could
lead to catastrophic accidents. Above all, they think it would not lead to
significant saving of electricity and, hence, they propose advancement of IST
by half an hour which would meet many of the problems in the North-East –
forgetting that even then most of the
North-East would continue to lose an hour or so of daylight. The fears
seem to be all imaginary and at the same time the gains in savings and
productivity have been overlooked.
 |
| Kohima War Cemetery, Nagaland |
The
US and Russia have multiple time zones – US has five if not more and Russia as
many as nine – and so did China have five before the Revolution. It was the
communist government which brought the entire country within one time
zone. And yet, against the contention of
supporters in India of one time zone, China, effectively, has two time zones –
Beijing Time and two hours behind it is Urumqui time used locally in Sinkiang
Province
A
separate time zone for the North-East has been necessary for years. Hopefully,
as the fresh proposal has had a powerful push from Assam before the general
elections it would now be accepted.
Photos: taken by self in the late 1980s
No comments:
Post a Comment