Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Aug 3, 2024

A massive landslide disaster took place in the week gone past in hilly Wayanad in Kerala, taking over 300 lives and causing large-scale damage in an area that has seen a tourist boom. Wayanad also happens to be the parliamentary constituency from where the Congress Party leader Rahul Gandhi served a term as MP and won again recently. He and other Congress leaders have been there to offer solace and relief. Kerala’s Left government has left no stone unturned in rescue and relief efforts, but the calamity may have been prevented had all politicians across the political spectrum seen the writing on the wall and halted construction activity going on for years in an ecologically fragile zone. The Gadgill Commission or The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel [1] report of 2011 that looked at the Western Ghats ecologically vulnerable zone spread over Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Kerala and Tamil Nadu had recommended 64% of Western Ghats must have restrictions on all projects in this area that are likely to have damaging impact on the environment. But the Gadgill commission came in for criticism so that business as usual could go on [2]. Soon after, the UPA government had appointed Kasturirangan Commission (led by a pro-establishment scientist) to water-down the Gadgill commissions suggestions so that builders lobby, and the well connected can carry on unhindered. Since 2014 the Modi Government has taken us further on that road to screw the environment, roll back most environmental guidelines and override sixth schedule restrictions in the name of ease of doing business. So the highway building will go on in Uttrakhand despite the 2013 Kedarnath floods, repeated landslides, and flooding in Himachal Pradesh. The Yamuna river that runs through the national capital of Delhi says it all with its froth and foam; water drainage of all our cities is badly managed flooding public spaces every year but corrupt officials are never booked; Bombay’s forest zone was all nearly chopped up despite public protests; sensitive forests in tribal areas of Chhattisgarh have been opened for mining and so on. Men with big bucks call the shots who can buy anything and public safety health and environmental concerns are simply not on the agenda of political leaders whether from the Left or the Right. They make public noise at international conferences and blame colonialism & imperialism but are unprepared to take the blame for the mass social and ecological damage that they have helped inflict on us.

August 3, 2024 —HK