Muharram of my childhood

As one grows old one tends to look back into the past. Any event or festival or ceremony takes the mind years back and associated memories come flooding back before the mind’s eyes in the shape of lifelike moving images, almost like the present-day videos. As one views them one gets enthralled, losing all sense of time in watching something that actually takes place only in the cerebrum.

Something like that happened to me the other day. It was Muharram, the day of mourning for Muslims for the martyrdom of Husain ibn Ali, who is revered by all Shia for fighting tyranny. My mind effortlessly travelled back in time and started retrieving images from early 1940s of Muharram of my childhood in Gwalior, a princely Indian State in Central India, ruled by the then young, barely-in-his-twenties, Jiwajirao Scindia, grandfather of Jyotiraditya Scindia, currently a Minister in the Government of India.

Truly secular, Gwalior State, now at this distance of time, seems to have been the epitome of the famed Indian “composite culture”. Life mostly revolved around the Maharaja, a benign feudal, who used to actively participate in most of the religious festivals. A major festival, whether of Hindus, Muslims or any other community, was nothing unless he was a part of it. Every year on the occasion of Muharram he would come out in procession to the local Karbala. Perched on a black and white horse dressed in his ceremonial richly worked-on angarkha, laden with assorted jewels and with his trademark Maratha pagri placed on his head with just a hint of a tilt to its left he would ride down the city roads. His numerous ministers (locally known as sardars) and important officials dressed likewise would be in tow on horses more or less of similar kind.

Like on Dussehra, it was carnival time of sorts – of those innocent days. Roads would be blocked for hours – more for ensuring a clear passage than for security – as the Maharaja would come out among his people. None would mind the inconvenience. Those were unhurried times. People would go about their businesses through the mass of humanity consisting of rural folk assembled on the pavements. Villagers in large numbers from the hinterland visiting for the occasion would camp overnight on the footpaths. For them witnessing the procession was incidental; they would mostly come to see their loved and revered Maharaja during one of his rare public appearances. Gwalior, seemingly, bursting at its seams, would see frenetic activity. I remember my siblings and I would thread our way with my parents through the milling crowds to reach the house an acquaintance of my father that had a veranda that offered a ringside view of the proceedings.

As the hour of the procession approached the villagers would change into their best in honour of the Maharaja. Generally, the fresh whites of their dresses would be topped by huge colourful turbans with flowing tails. Their women, veiling their faces with their flamboyant saris, would remain in their men’s shadows. As soon as the Maharaja came into view the crowd would burst into a huge roar and the people on the pavements would jostle to get a better view of him. Some would be up on their legs, others would crane their necks from behind, holding their children high above them on their shoulders or climb on trees or any vantage point just to see the Maharaja. As their revered one passed by, they would shout in unison “Maharaja Jiwajirao Scindia ki jai ” .

The crowds used to be thickest near Kampoo, which once used to be the camp of the Scindias and where the Imambara was located. It was also the point of origin of the procession. The Imambara, now much more than a century old, was truly impressive. Of Islamic architectural design, its what seemed to be frightfully high ceiling and mammoth dimensions accommodated the several-storied tazia of the Scindias as it was assembled bit by bit. A decade or so later, I recall, the Imambara became the venue of the national badminton championships in 1952. It had enough space for stands on all sides of the courts for spectators. It was in this Imambara that Nandu Natekar dethroned TN Seth, the then reigning national badminton champion.

I still remember the huge shiny golden multi-storied tazia made on behalf of the Maharaja (the like of which I am yet to see again) leading numerous other smaller shiny and richly-coloured ones of lesser dignitaries, Muslim organisations and individuals along with several tall bright and colourful alams in a seemingly unending stream. They would slowly wend their way down the streets followed by hundreds of mourners, a few with blood on their backs from the iron chains that they lashed themselves with uttering the anguished “ya Husain, hum na hue”.

In Bhopal, too, Muharram is observed with ritualised fervour. It is, however, gradually acquiring a celebratory character. Living as I do, close to Bhopal’s Karbala, I find the place lit up and illuminated with myriad lamps. A Ferris wheel is installed near it and numerous temporary food stalls are erected selling mouth-watering meat preparations and sweets, including the inevitable jalebies. Though loud-speakers broadcast wailing music there is, generally, an air of festivity around the place, giving it the ambience of an amusement park. Processions with numerous tazias and alams come from various parts of the city and converge around Karbala in a huge mass blocking all traffic. One cannot negotiate even the recently constructed VIP Road, the main artery between the north and the south of the town.

But for me, somehow, it is not the same thing. There is a general air of disorder and boisterousness with ear-splitting noise; the tazias are far smaller and the alams pale and pedestrian. Besides, the gilt, the pomp and pageantry seem to be missing.

Or is it that I am deluded by my nostalgia for those good old bygone days?

Copenhagen quibbles as Planet Earth sizzles

The Environmental News Network of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in one of its recent newsletters cited a report of the Telegraph of UK that polar bears of the Arctic have turned cannibals. According to the report, new photographs show that polar bears are beginning to cannibalise each other as global warming destroys their hunting grounds. The images taken in Hudson Bay, Canada, show a male polar bear carrying the head of a cub that it had killed for food.

Living in the frozen Arctic, polar bears, a beautiful but highly endangered species, mostly subsist on seals, hunting them from platforms of sea ice. The melting of sea ice, warmed by rising global temperature, has deprived them of the platforms, particularly in their southern range, the Hudson Bay being a part of it. Now, mostly land-bound, hunting seals have become difficult for them leading to malnourishment and starvation. Cases of drowning are also being frequently reported as the bears, though excellent swimmers, have to swim far out into the sea in search of food. If this is what is happening in December, which is well into the Arctic winter, one can imagine what's going to happen during the summer. Already the sea ice in the southern range of the Arctic is melting earlier in the spring and forming later in the autumn reducing the time available for the bears on the ice, adversely impacting their energy stock to survive through the summer.

The entire Arctic region, which is the habitat of polar bear, is increasingly showing signs of the effects of global warming. As recently as on 14th December 2009 Al Gore, Nobel Laureate and former Vice President of United States, told the UN Climate Conference being held in Copenhagen that new data suggests that the Arctic polar ice cap may disappear in the summers as early as five to seven years from now. Polar scientist had told him only on the previous day that the latest data suggest a 75% chance of the entire polar ice cap melting in summer within the next five to seven years. Arctic Ocean sea ice has shrunk to record low levels during the past several summers. Global warming has raised temperatures twice as fast in the north as elsewhere, say the scientists.

While the Hudson Bay habitat of the polar bear is in the process of disappearing, their habitat elsewhere in the Arctic is also under threat. Melting ice is making the Arctic more and more accessible for exploitation of its vast natural resources, threatening and degrading their habitat. Global warming seems to have got its first major victim. Large carnivores being sensitive indicators of the health of their ecosystems, cannibalism setting in among the polar bears is a matter of great concern. Soon it may lead to disaster for the species, even to its extinction.
With the unmistakable signs of habitat loss for other species gradually a similar fate is likely to overtake them all ...yes, even us, humans!

One wonders whether this is really it – the shape of things to come!

Whether bells are, after all, tolling for life on earth!

Are we slowly but surely approaching apocalypse?

And, what are we, humans, doing about it? Only quibbling – over steps for mitigating carbon concentration from the atmosphere! Sitting at Copenhagen, pretty close to the melting Arctic, leaders of humanity do not seem to see eye to eye even now for taking effective measures to save the earth! When life on the planet is in peril, we, the humans, having divided ourselves among several nation-states – few rich, many poor and some surviving on the very edge and highly vulnerable – are bickering over who will do what and how much to cool the planet to make it hospitable for life.

Time seems to be running out fast. Global warming, which only a few years back was like a distant clap of thunder, suddenly looks very real and far too ominous. It is time each one of us gets our act together to fight it and do our utmost to prevent it from engulfing the entire humanity. The signals are loud and clear and there is hardly any time to be lost. No longer can it be "business as usual". Copenhagen or no Copenhagen, all of us – governments, organisations and individuals – have to chip in. Everyone has to take well-measured determined steps, whatever the costs, for mitigating carbon from the atmosphere – the root cause of global warming.

It is a long and hard battle that we have to fight – the battle that will eventually decide whether we survive or perish!

The devastated Afghani

I came across an article recently on Afghanistan by Hugh Sykes who works for the BBC News. While describing the politics relating to the country “stranger than fiction”, he narrated the miserable conditions that prevail in it today. According to him, even after a lapse of more than 8 years of the launch of “War on terror” and billions of dollars poured into the country to prop up Hamid Karzai, life in Afghanistan has not improved. He quoted a passage from a novel Blood Meridian, a one-time best-seller, (by Cormac McCarthy the famous American novelist and playwright) which was about Mexico around 150 years ago but, he said, fits the present-day Kabul so snugly. The passage was: “Old alms seekers, with their seamy palms out-held and maimed beggars, sad-eyed in rags and children asleep in the shadows with flies walking their dreamless eyes... Naked dogs that seem composed of bone entirely and small orphans abroad like irate dwarfs”. To complete the Kabul picture, Sykes said, one had only to add, “children in rags tug at your coat and you fish out a battered Afghan note...Then there are 10 small children grabbing at your hand and you cannot get away as the children are blocking the pavement...A woman with a baby under her burka sees you giving money to the children and begs for some herself... The daylight thickens into night and there are no street lights. A young man, desperate for work, weeps...and through his accusing tears says: you have been here eight years now, and what have you done?” (Lyrical but very distressing!)

That is precisely what I ask too. For eight long years Afghanistan has been kind of “killing fields”. Before that the murderous Taliban who did the Soviets in but, later, did likewise with the Afghanis – their own kind. It wasn’t like that when I spent two summer months in 1983 in Kabul (doing a consultancy on behalf of the Universal Postal Union). Back then, under the occupation of the now-defunct Soviet Union, Kalashnikov-toting Red Army men used to be ubiquitous. They had pickets around every hundred metres on the arterial roads (perhaps, now substituted by the men of the “Coalition of the willing”). One could feel the Mujahideen activity up and beyond the surrounding hills. Blasts and rat-tat-tat of gunfire could be heard almost every night. During the day, however, life was normal – yes, far too normal for the prevailing conditions. Importantly, no child would ever tug at your jacket for the stapled-together Afghani currency notes. Nor would a burqua-clad woman – generally seen in the Old Town across the Kabul River – would ever think of asking you for alms. (The newer areas had signs of once-having-been plush where women were mostly westernised) Most of them were in dire straits, but, clearly, their pride would not permit them to beg. A dangerous place then, with death lurking at every corner, many must have been shot out resisting the Red Army, yet in the midst of the ongoing fireworks all around, Kabul was hospitable and apparently well-fed.

That was then! It is so sad now – more so when one sees what man can do to man and ruin a people in a matter of few years – the saga of post Zaheer Shah Afghanistan. Currently, a lethal mix of bigoted murderers and western forces is ravishing the country and devastating its beautiful people. So down and out now that it will be a miracle if Afghanis are ever able to pull themselves out of the depths they have been dragged down to. Obama’s proposed pull-out by 2011 will leave behind ghosts or, at best, zombies.

India's food safety conundrum

For the millions of those who get hyped on Diwali, it was a nasty shock. Diwali is for many the festival of lights, eats and commencement of a new year. Gifts, mostly sweets, are exchanged with friends and family. This year, however, on Diwali the sweet shops had no sweets of the most popular variety, the ones made of mawa, also called khoya. Made of thickened milk, mawa is extensively used for making various kinds of Upper Indian sweets. The stuff had just disappeared from the markets. The reason was confiscations that followed detection of quintals of spurious mawa in transit by rail and road and in various storages. Made in several up-country towns, the spurious stuff was meant for various parts of the country.

Massive raids followed by arrests in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and even in Mumbai yielded thousands of quintals of adulterated mawa and other milk products. Sting operations conducted by an English language national news channel prompted the authorities to scramble for action. From what one saw on the small-screen, adulteration appeared to be widespread, more or less, regular practice. Very candid on camera, adulterators said genuine khoya is seldom available in the market. Whatever was on offer was adulterated with harmful chemicals like caustic soda, detergents, etc. The cameras picked out various nooks and corners of the so-called kitchens showing nauseating details of the entire process of adulteration in filthy surroundings devoid of any semblance of hygiene.

In the absence of any let or hindrance, the unscrupulous are free to carry on their business unmindful of the consequences of their dreadfully unethical acts on the unwary consumer. On several occasions during the recent past TV news channels had conducted sting operations and unearthed the business of adulteration of milk products. Not too long ago, some of them had uncovered manufacture of synthetic milk, mostly, in the nation’s Capital, Delhi, and its surroundings. The business had so proliferated in and around the Capital that even the most reputed and dependable dairies could not avoid purveying what was basically a harmful synthetic product. Likewise, a few months ago, thanks again to TV channels, manufacture at Jaipur of spurious ghee of a popular brand, meticulously canned with fake labels, for supply all over the state and its surroundings was caught on camera. Like on this occasion, a few arrests were made. However, most of the culprits are, probably, out on bail and have resumed their nefarious business.

Although elaborate laws have been enacted for prevention of food adulteration, there is hardly any enforcement – the enforcement staff being not only thoroughly inadequate, it is also mostly corrupt. On top of that, political connections of many of the dealers and retailers neutralise the efforts of conscientious law-enforcers. The case of summary transfer of Sanjana Jain, a junior district officer of Dewas, last summer when cholera was raging in the town readily comes to mind. She fell afoul of a minister for catching red-handed his crony, a reputed retailer of sweets, carrying on his shady business. Besides, the legal procedures are so convoluted that cases take a long time to process and, in the unlikely event of a conviction, the light penalties (two to three years of imprisonment with fines of two to three thousand rupees) hardly act as deterrents.

The field is therefore wide open for the dishonest, unscrupulous, and miscreants to play with the lives of people for their personal gains. Leave alone milk products and sweets, they have not left the spices and seasonings. Deadly dyes and chemicals are freely used as adulterants that can cause several kinds of bodily disorders, including cancer. Even vegetables and fruits, consumption of which is recommended by medicine-men for leading healthy life, have not been spared. Videos of farmers injecting chemicals into vegetables for quick and early ripening of gourds, brinjals, etc., were shown last year by a Hindi news channel. Chemically treating green vegetables and fruits to impart to the farm-fresh appearance and injecting toxic sweeteners and red dyes into papayas, pomegranates and such others are practices that are now common. Using dangerous chemicals for ripening of bananas, plums, etc. is now old hat. With traders out to injure and kill all and sundry one wonders how we manage to add millions every year!

While the demands of an exploding market and the get-rich-quick syndrome among all those involved in the business of raw food is playing havoc with the health of the people, purveyors of cooked stuff are doing no better. Consuming any cooked item away from home is generally considered risky, unless one happens to visit a starred establishment. One is neither sure of the ingredients nor of the environment in which it is cooked. The lacks of sanitation and hygiene as also use of contaminated stuff have made street-food taboo. What the myriad kiosks, push-carts, dark and ill-kept petty establishments and such offer is virtually poison. This is a depressing fact when one considers the freedom with which even the weak-stomached Westerners partake with great relish the native cuisine dished out on the streets in countries of the Middle East and South-East Asia. The reason is strict State control and supervision. In our case, for want of strict monitoring, street-food is largely patronised by the deprived and the undiscriminating.

This unhappy state of affairs is the result of almost total withdrawal of the State from this area of administration. As is evident, the vigilant TV channels have done more to expose adulteration and contamination of all that is ingested as food than any of the governments in several states. The State seems to have let go of its controls and is not even trying to re-establish its authority to ensure some semblance of governance in this area. Its manpower and other technical resources are not equal to the massive job that stares it in its face. While secretariats are overstaffed with chief and other secretaries, there are not enough food inspectors and lab-technicians to keep tabs on contaminated raw and/or cooked food put up for sale. With no attention being paid to the public health and nutritional aspects of the matter public healthcare facilities get swamped by patients.

For retrieving the situation from what looks like virtual state of anarchy at least two measures are necessary. Firstly, devising a multi-disciplinary approach, it is necessary organise a food safety and surveillance and monitoring system for the entire country with adequate qualified staff and modern laboratory equipment for regular testing of food/commodities and contaminants. Secondly, the need is to make the Food Safety Act 2005 more stringent to infuse into it adequate degree of deterrence. After all, the culprits in this villainous business are culpable of wilfully causing injury, why even of homicide.

The current situation brooks no delay. The Centre needs to immediately swing into action.

(Published by Indian News Features Alliance, New Delhi, on 22nd November 2009)

Rising religiosity hurting Indian environment

The news that came out of Delhi recently was depressing. The water supply in the metropolis was disrupted as the supply lines were clogged. North, West, North-West and parts of South Delhi suffered severe shortages because of the pollution in the Hyderpur Canal which supplies water to the eponymous treatment plant. “The presence of paints, particulate matter, chunks of plastic and flowers from the idol immersions that were carried out have left our pumps choked”, said the Delhi Jal Board (Water Board). Despite there being eight water pumps water needed for treatment could not be lifted. The inevitable shortages occurred as the required amount could not be given the necessary treatment.

And, the pumps got clogged because of the thousands of idols that were immersed in River Jamuna after the recent festivities. This is a new sociological phenomenon which is becoming increasingly evident every year in the upcountry after Ganesh Chaturthi and Navaratri festivals. During the festivals Ganesh, the Elephant God, and Goddess Durga with her progeny are worshipped, respectively. Their clay idols lovingly made with piety and passion, finished with plaster of Paris, coated with toxic enamel paints, embellished by faux ornaments and decked up in colourful synthetic clothes are installed for worship in regular or temporary temples. At the end of the ten days’ festivities these are subjected to ritualised ceremonial immersions in the nearest water bodies.

Every year the numbers of idols installed in the urban and rural areas, particularly in the upcountry, have been on the rise. The ardour and devotion of the people disrupt normal life, upset the working schedule, cause traffic bottle-necks and (later) also pollute the very water that sustains the community. A couple of decades back the festivities used to be on a much lower scale and were not so disruptive or polluting. Lately, however, with a strong revival of religious traditions and an unprecedented surge in religious fervour, things are increasingly getting out of hand.

The way we have been going for some years now, the kind of mishap that happened in Delhi had to happen sooner or later. Clearly, the festivals have now started hurting the community. Whether it is the Hoogly River in West Bengal, the Arabian Sea near Mumbai or other inland rivers or water bodies, all have had the privilege of experiencing the unkindly, even malign after-effects of these festivities. Although, post-immersions, the idols are unceremoniously stripped of all valuables, yet what remains of them adds to the pollution of the waters that are already polluted with urban and industrial effluents. The Delhi Jal Board has only complained about the disruption of the supplies that it is supposed to make. That the River flowing through the Capital was being polluted is, seemingly, not any of its concerns.

This has been happening in all parts of the country where these festivals are observed with such vigour. And, the fate virtually of all the rivers and other water bodies in such parts is almost the same as that of the Jamuna. The Hindu community is, strangely, unable to appreciate the threats that it is posing to the country at large with its progressively magnifying religiosity. It seems to be killing the very environment that sustains the larger community. Whether it is land, water or air, the piety that is flaunted all over the country is polluting them all, though the Hindu religious tradition has always been worshipful of nature.

Take the periodical Kumbha Melas, for instance, when pilgrims in millions take bath every day either in the Ganga at Haridwar or in Kshipra (now on the brink of extinction) at Ujjain or near the source of Godavari at Nashik or at Allahabad where the Ganga, Jamuna and the mythical Saraswati meet. Extended pilgrimages of massive proportions which demand detailed planning and comprehensive logistics, they force the governments of respective states to step into the operations that essentially are religious. What happens to the rivers, howsoever holy they are considered to be, and their ecosystems have not so far been matters of concern for those who are behind the pilgrimages and the ritualised holy baths as also those who facilitate them.

Likewise, the annual pilgrimage to the Amarnath cave in the Himalayas has been the cause of damage to the delicate Himalayan ecology. Earlier, a pilgrimage of roughly a week with participation of a few thousands, it has now assumed enormous proportions. It now runs for around two month and is joined, by the last count, by around 500,000 pilgrims. While the affluent few take a helicopter ride to the mouth of the 14000 ft. high Holy Cave for a quickie darshan (obeisance), most are ferried by countless diesel-run buses to Srinagar/Pahalgam to eventually trek to the cave. Things are not much different with the annual trudge of millions to the Sabarimala temple situated in the midst of densely forested hills in Kerala. The pilgrimage, for that matter any pilgrimage, has become an industry with hoteliers and tour operators feeding them with their inviting offers. The hyped-up religious festivals, on the other hand, have become occasions for marketing of all kinds of merchandise – from cars, diamond jewellery to garments – and even holidays. The environment, however, is always a casualty.

There could be any number of reasons for this gush of religiosity. It could be because of a more pro-active role played by organisations connected with the Hindu religion; it could also be because of a reaction against frequent Islamic terrorist attacks in the heartland of the country. Even the political power captured by Bharatiya Janata Party, branded by the West as the “Hindu Nationalist Party”, in several states, coupled with the post-liberalisation rise in the levels of disposable incomes among the Hindu middle classes may have been factors in fuelling the heightened religious zeal. The electronic media, particularly, the TV with its outreach deep into the urban slums and rural homes telecasting gold foil-wrapped Hindu traditions, too, may have given a fillip to the rising tempo.

Whatever may be the reason(s), the whole thing, viewed objectively, appears to be sheer madness. Self-regulation and self-restraint being conspicuous by their absence, every passing year a new vigour, seemingly, is injected into the festivities. Religion and its practices being matters of very sensitive nature, no government would come out and cry a halt. Besides, there is that ‘small’ matter of votes. No political party would ever dream of alienating such a large community and losing such a sizable chunk of votes. Hindu religiosity, thus, would seem to be spiralling out of control with consequences that may, sooner than later, prove to be catastrophic for its pious and the devout.

Nonetheless, one can see a ray of hope. For the first time ever, Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Environment and Forests, has put a cap on the number of tourists travelling to Himachal Pradesh. Though inordinately late, it is a very wise step and needs replication elsewhere. World over natural assets are subjected to sensitive treatment, limiting the intrusions by humans in order to ensure their sustainability. The cap that the minister has imposed is surely based on a well-researched carrying capacity of the region. Similar caps need to be imposed for other natural assets, too, which happen to be tourism hotspots, as also those which, post-festivities, get the brunt of the idols. Such measures will be unexceptionable as they would be aimed at protecting the natural riches of the country and their vital ecosystems. If, in the process, the minister has to interfere with the peoples’ religious practices, so be it. After all, that will be for the larger good. What, however, would be needed are courage and the conviction to do the right by the country!

Nature Reserves and Tourism

All over the world, countries are creating nature reserves as more and more land, with all that nature has to offer, is harnessed for industry, agriculture or plain urban expansion. The intention is to conserve a slice of nature with its native biodiversity and other special features so that these are not lost to humanity forever. While study and research are generally permitted, efforts are made, by and large, to keep them insulated from human impact. Tourism, therefore, in such reserves is mostly “no no”. Yet, authorities permit treks on trails, either natural or specially created, imposing, generally, a cap on the number of trekkers consistent with the reserve’s carrying capacity. The idea, as is obvious, is to allow nature to thrive in all its magnificence undisturbed by the destructive and deleterious influences of humans.

India, too, has reserves of various kinds – from biosphere reserves, wild life reserves, dedicated tiger reserves, protected areas to nature reserves – where nature was supposed to play out its, shall we say, symphony to the script. That did not quite happen mostly because of human interference. Not only human settlements happened to be located within the reserves, tourism, especially eco-tourism of our malefic kind, did not allow nature full and unrestricted play. Pressures of rising population within the reserves and without, as also rising incomes fostering inordinate increase in footfalls of the well-heeled and insensitive coupled with lax and ineffective enforcement mechanisms, prevented the state from acting up to the objectives of conservation. Abandoning its earlier policy of conservation, the Government of India fell for the temptation of easy lucre that rising numbers of visitors bring. The consequences that followed were inevitable. Natural ecosystems were ravaged. The tourism industry in India has seldom exhibited restraint or the gracious traits of “responsible tourism”. Thriving on numbers, it is constantly in pursuit of “mass tourism” unmindful of the threat it might pose to the very goose that lays the golden egg.

The state’s inability to care for nature reserves has so tightened the stranglehold of tourism that without spin-offs from it such reserves, seemingly, cannot be sustained. A ready example is the new Dumna nature reserve which is, reportedly, being developed near the central Indian town of Jabalpore primarily as a tourist spot. Spread over about 900-odd acres of forested land with a healthy population of wildlife the Dumna reserve constitutes the catchment for a lake by the name Khandari. The Jabalpore Municipal Corporation, the owners of the land, had wisely handed over the work of developing the reserve to the state Forest Department who have made provisions of fishing and have developed nature trails. What, however, seems to be highly disconcerting is that the state Tourism Development Corporation has been asked to construct an eatery, a children’s park and other facilities including parking on a two-acre plot right inside the reserve. The Tourism Corporation is surely happy to spread its tentacles at Jabalpore which is the staging post for the world famous Kanha Tiger Reserve. Keen on numbers and, necessarily of an invasive kind, one never knows how far into the forest the tourism development outfit insinuates itself.

Once again, as it would seem, tourism has jumped ahead of conservation in priority. Soon the nature’s tranquillity and quietude at Dumna will be traumatised and shaken up. The mellow music of nature will be drowned by the harsh noise of vehicles of the picnickers (with scant respect or curiosity about nature’s offerings) and the shrieks and screams of their children at play. The intrusive humans will smother the freedom of nature to be by itself and thrive.
This is not why nature reserves are created and this is not how they are maintained. Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, defines nature reserves as a protected area of “importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research”. Nowhere tourism is given the pride of place in such ecologically important sites.

Even China, where mass tourism was virtually the rule in its extensive nature reserves, has now realised the benefits of proper upkeep of natural sites and sustainable tourism therein. As tourism in Sichuan, a province of diverse ecosystems and historical interests, grows, Chinese are restricting the numbers of tourists in accordance with its carrying capacity. “We want to put conservation first” seems to be the new watchword. The province’s Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve is a tourism hotspot which apart from being a World Heritage Site is also a World Biosphere Reserve. In 2006 two million people visited it and yet the number of visitors daily was not allowed to cross the imposed cap of 18000 and every effort is made to mitigate the impact of this sizable horde. A fleet of hop-on, hop-off bio-diesel buses shuttle the people around allowing them the freedom of walks on nature trails. Wardens and CCTVs infest the place. Tourist accommodations are kept away from the reserve and local people are encouraged to build guesthouses of traditional style to offer the visitor an exotic experience. Eco-tourism is nothing if it does not benefit the local community!
Chinese have learnt to conserve the environment the hard way. Over exploitation of their natural resources and break-neck pace of industrialisation wrought havoc with their air, water and the forests and resulted in increasing desertification. There were popular protests against the general environmental devastation. Frightened by the peoples’ fury and nature’s violence they had to pull back and they did do so from the very edge. Having done so, they are going the whole hog to preserve their environment. And, as in all other spheres, they will do all that is necessary whatever that takes.

No such fear, however, is in evidence in India. Here it is “business as usual”. Climate change may already be upon us, our air may be foul, water contaminated and our forests may be shrinking but environmental conservation is yet to register on us as a necessity. As in everything else, things will happen if only there is that ever-elusive political will. The new Central Minister for Environment, Jairam Ramesh is the only semblance of hope. Labouring to crank up the rusty machinery, he is like the distant light at the end of the tunnel. One hopes the best for him. If he, for any reason, happens to fail, redemption will be unlikely.

Kargil - as I remember it

The Tenth Anniversary of the victory in “Kargil War” somehow got soggy in controversy. Instead of commemorating a crisp, well-fought and spectacular victory achieved at great human costs against the Pakistani intruders on the snowy heights of Ladakh, India’s northern-most territory, the ruling coalition in India headed by the Indian National Congress quite unwisely happened to politicise it. Reckoning it as a war that was fought and won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), now occupying the Opposition benches in the Parliament, it attempted to downplay the Anniversary. That the (surreptitious) diabolical Pakistani incursions through the icecaps of the Himalayan heights posed a great threat to the nation and its integrity happened to be coolly overlooked. But for the hype created by the Defence Forces, the media and sundry patriotic pockets in the country the ruling party at the Centre, in a display of uncamouflaged ingratitude to the guardians of our frontiers, had almost succeeded in giving the Anniversary a miss. It was virtually at the last moment that the Prime Minister seems to have decided to go and lay a wreath at the Martyr’s Memorial at the India Gate on 26th July, the date on which ten years ago Indian defence forces wrested back the last of the territories occupied by the Pakistani invaders.

Those who have not been to Ladakh may not be able to fully appreciate the significance of the Indian victory. A plateau with an average elevation of around 10,000 ft (about 3000 mts.) with most of the surrounding mountains above the snowline, Ladakh is an arid mountainous region of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) spanning the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges and the Upper Indus valley. In those rarefied heights where normal activities for a plainsman are a torture, waging a war would seem to be an impossible proposition. Known for its rugged beauty and quaint culture, it has now become a tourism hotspot.

I happened to visit Ladakh more than 40 years ago when it was still a restricted area. Outsiders were not allowed to enter without a permit. I, too, had to obtain one even though I was in the service of the Government of India. So, one beautiful September morning I left Srinagar, the capital of J&K, wangling a ride with an Army Signals major in his jeep proceeding to Leh as a part of an Army convoy, the then district headquarters of Ladakh. With a brief halt in the green and captivating Baltal valley, which now seems has been sacrificed at the altar of religious tourism, we laboured up the highway to the famed Zoji- la, the Pass on to which Gen Thimayya of the Indian Army, in a brilliant tactical move, had hauled Light Stuart Tanks to surprise the Pakistani intruders in 1948.

Once we crossed the 11575 ft high Zoji-la, the landscape underwent a dramatic change. Gone were the green Kashmir conifers covering the sides of the mountains and green grass over the meadows. It was now a series of rugged, bare seemingly inhospitable mountains with an occasional trickle of a stream in the plunging depths of the valleys, and the highway, arcing along the contours of the rocky mountainside, climbed up or went down in loops to cross over to interminable series of naked mountains. We travelled sometimes metres away from the Cease Fire Line, which post-1971 became the Line of Control (LOC),that was violated through 1998-99 precipitating the Kargil War. Stopping for coffee at Drass, reputed to be the second coldest inhabited place in the world and overlooked by Pakistanis occupying the heights on its north, we headed down the same highway that Pakistan attempted to cut off in 1998 to disrupt the logistics of Ladakh.

On our way up we stayed only for a while in Kargil. The local Brigadier was hosting a delegation of members of parliament to a lunch on the banks of the Suru River that flows through the town. We, too, were made to join in. It was a lovely setting by the side of the narrow stream in the generous shade of low hanging trees, a rare luxury in the midst of the surrounding dryness, coupled with the lavish Indian Army fare laid out.

However, the severity of the conditions in which the Army had to function became apparent a few miles away as we came upon a bridge guarded by three soldiers, two on one side and one on the other. With no habitation for miles around, they were by themselves for weeks without a change of scene. With several such crucial points to guard lonesomeness of the soldiers could only be imagined.

On our way back from Leh, as we rolled down from the heights of Fatu-la, at around 13700 the highest pass on this highway, we skirted what looked like a tallish hillock only to discern in the half light a huge a settlement down below. It was the Indian Army brigade at Kargil sprawled a few hundred feet below on a huge flat ground so unlikely in the hilly surroundings. Looking at it from that elevation one could imagine what medieval army encampments would have seemed like at dusk. Several thin wisps of smoke rising up in the air, scattered blinking lights and stray men moving around, almost ant-like, consummated the scene.

Back then Kargil was a small village, dusty, dirty and so dry that the cracked lips made smiling a painful exercise. With around a dozen shops, it was mostly dependent on the Army for supplies and provisions. It has now grown out of all proportions, more so because of the “War-tourism”. The “Kargil War”, somewhat like the Kuwaiti War, was a highly televised war bringing it to the bedrooms across India, raising among the people a curiosity about those rugged heights where the soldiers bravely fought, gave their lives and yet won the “War” for them. No wonder, the benefits of tourism, now a thriving industry, have trickled down giving the place, I am told, a prosperous appearance. One improbable blessing of the “War”!

It was during the day that I happened to realise that what had looked like a tallish hillock the previous evening was a tall, well-shaped mountain dominating the town. Known by its elevation as “13620” it had a forbidding presence and, worse, its heights were occupied by the Pakistanis who could watch every move of the supremely vulnerable brigade down below. Dislodged from it during the 1965 War, it was handed back to them as a sequel to the Tashkent Agreement. The Major, who had won it for the country, it seems, wept like a child when he heard of the hand-over. He had lost many of his brave men who, fearlessly facing enemy bullets, struggled up the feature and clawing their way up inch by inch. A strategic gain, achieved with super-human effort and endurance and at the cost of fresh young blood, was given up on the negotiating table! That dark sinister-looking mountain, as I saw it sitting out on the grounds in front of the Signals Mess, has remained so deeply imprinted on my psyche that the intervening forty-odd years have not been able to wash it away.

The 1999 “War” along the heights from Drass to Kargil would have been, if anything, fiercer. Having seen Kargil with the malefic “13620” towering over it, I wonder how a government can play politics with the sacrifices of the cream of the country’s youth. Surely, people wouldn’t allow it, as the courage, fortitude and the spirit of sacrifice displayed at Drass or Tiger Hill or Tololing are now the very stuff of the nation’s military folklore. Deeply embedded in the nation’s consciousness, efforts to dislodge them would be a futile exercise.