How to kill a River
By Phrangsngi Pyrtuh
We all know that the Wah Umkhrah river (and many other rivers in the state) is living its last days-no pun intended. Explanation of why this is so is best left for our myopic government/authority and flash in the pan civil society and of course the people of Shillong. The Wah Umkhrah river has become a mascot for a cause – a social cause (if you may) reverberating for some time now. Personally I have not known this river to be clean and for this reason I cannot begin to think of identifying myself with such a filthy flowing stream ( to call it a river anymore is a sacrilege). It will be extremely difficult to bridge the gap with my generation and this river which we have never known to be clean. However, we are told (like fairy tales) stories about this most holy of rivers of the state encapsulated with the legacy that is Shillong and its adjoining areas, of bygone days, now understood to be the old days or the more eloquent Khasi phrase barim bajah. This river is so deeply attached to the innocent days of our grandfathers provides bountiful opportunity catering to both economic and social demand.
We don’t have to be experts in the history of the river to know that its utility was everything a small society or village around the river needs. It provides for food (fishing), drinking, cleaning etc apart from recreational activity like swimming. It was a blessing and a gift which we failed to honour and cherish. Like everything else nature has been kind to us but we are unkind. No wonder our great far-sighted poets like V.G Bareh etc should pen emotional poems on the river- perceiving of situations where the river is dying away while we simply refuse to acknowledge its existence (anymore). An earnest effort to clean and restore it to the glorious past is now in the pipeline- a last ditch effort. This campaign principally calls all of us to open our eyes and see what we should have actually seen a very long time ago. Its better late than never for this clarion call has beckoned everyone in the society and naturally all of us are excited on the prospect of a clean river. Schools, college and what have you, have been roped in. Suddenly everyone wants to engage themselves with the river. The KHADC -the prime institution which was supposed to look after our land, water etc is suddenly going ballistic and setting plans into action after decades of inaction. The Clean River mania is suddenly the toast of the state.
But why do we sense that something else is missing in this unfolding melodrama? Lopsided urbanization and farcical development unsuitable to a expanding population is repeatedly blamed and rightly so. The malady of urbanization (on water bodies) brings forth pollution of various kinds. They have rendered aquatic life inhabitable with increasing sewage and human debris choking nooks and corners of the river. To tackle and address urbanization/pollution issues is best left to higher authorities because it is not within the reach of civil society to do all the logistic, technical and financial exercises. However, with urbanization outpacing all projections, institutions that manage them are either missing or completely incapable of coping with the demands arising from such. What is relevant therefore is a cooperative and collaborative effort- a synergistic approach to the problem at hand. But we remain hesitant to concur the reasons why these do not exist. Other pressing problems that are far more relevant to the river are the questions relating to accountability and transparency for which nothing had been done so far. Who is responsible for allowing encroachment and unregulated settlements around the river bed? And why has no action been initiated from/to all concerned? Why has no mechanism been evolved to check the quality of the river and the extinct aquatic life? Why do floods reoccur with no policy to avert such calamity? These are unsettling question which civil society alone cannot address more so when we have a multi-layered agency of administration with each trying to upstage the other for political and egotistical gain.
Moreover, destruction of rivers are a daily occurrence in different regions of the state. Water passing through important towns no longer exist or are too dirty to be of any use at all. Cases of such are heard from villages in Jaintia Hills- where rampant mining and unregulated industrialization occurs. A clean Wah Umkhrah amidst all this destruction is surely a sore eye.
While many actors have pooled in a conglomerate of resources others decided to remain completely unaffected. The assembly has not taken cognizance of such an innovative step and no legislator has ever voiced the need to bring in laws which address serious environmental issues affecting our rivers and land. There exists no Detailed Project Report (DPR) on how the river is to be rejuvenated. None of the legislators representing the constituencies through which the river winds its way have tabled a motion to discuss this problem at the highest level. The local durbars/council has not collectively decided on what to do with the river apart from asking its residents to keep it clean. No one is bothered about roping in foreign expertise. No committee or enquiry had been set up to go into the minute details of the problem. Can the civil society do all this and more? In fact civil society has little to fall back on with the Government showing little concern on the need to address the real problems afflicting the life of the River. We can clean it through and through but if no regulation exists to supervise and monitor the river’s health and longevity – it is bound to be a zero sum game.
Rivers induce civilizations to grow and mature as history tells us of the Sumerian, Egyptian or the Indus Valley. Fast forward to modern times, industrialization and urbanization of most cities and towns occur near the vicinity of major rivers. London which felt the pressure of urbanization due to Industrial Revolution grew along the river Thames. During the course of industrialization and urbanization the river suffered while the country prospered, so much so that the river was derided as the most polluted river in the world a century ago and declared dead biologically in 1957. Fifty years later it is teeming with life and globally hailed as a successful environment campaign. Collective action and government intervention has restored the river which is now pristine and clean with tremendous improvement in the water quality. The two agencies responsible for this clean up- The Thames Rivers Restoration Trust and the Environment Agency has even volunteered to assist in the cleaning of the Ganga and the Yamuna- a contrast to the otherwise success story of many other river cleaning campaigns around the world.
Unlike most other cities and towns located near rivers, the vibrancy of a growing Shillong is not seen to be tied up with the River (for drinking and sustaining livelihood) even though it flows through many important localities in the city. As Shillong became more urbanized the utility of the river has in fact dwindled whereas in a rural setting river rural settlements are deeply intertwined to the river and natural resource. Since the city cannot be categorized as a proto-urban settlement anymore we need to find a link to connect the utility that once defined the landscape of the city with nature. The river can be said to have been responsible for enabling Shillong to be what it is today.
Unfortunately the only importance assigned to this river is related to the Umiam Hydel Power. No one sees the river as a source of (potential) livelihood until now. Unless we can establish an institutionalized link between the river and those populating its catchment areas during the cleaning process and after, the river shall see its last days sooner than expected.
Long term plan is more urgent and such a plan is efficacious if synergy between different authorities and local bodies exist which is absent at the moment. This was made apparent when both announced/declared their plan to clean the river at two different occasions. Collective action which is so important to any collaborative effort is missing and this will surely render the plan to clean the river a defective one. A defective plan is as good as a dead plan.
Concomitant with the growth of Shillong the river should be seen as supplying a lifeline in the future especially drinking water and other uses. The Union Government recently drafted a policy on privatization of drinking water- consultations have proceeded earnestly on a New National Water Policy on water-delivery services suggesting market based pricing mechanism. While boldly declaring its withdrawal from the water sector it wants the private sector to mediate as a provider of this merit good. It also calls for the abolition of all forms of water subsidies to the agricultural and domestic sectors and blatantly proposed subsidies to the private sector for treating and cycling of effluents. This draft could spell doom to water delivery service as we know it. Imagine a situation where we buy water for everyday use. The water-lords will have a field day but what of the 70-80 % of the people whose existence is from hand to mouth. In this context, the plans for cleaning our rivers and streams devastated by mining and industrialization seems more urgent and definitely more broad based than just the Wah Umkhrah. The essence of the matter for future course of action is however to provide clean free water and not just clean rivers per se.
The state of course desperately need a strong environment based organization which could dedicate itself to environmental conservation issues and leave no stone unturned to ensure all options such as legal redress, administrative pressure, community mobilization etc are exhausted. Such a group will go a long way to ensure that a government water policy whenever it is framed is based on equitable distribution and alternate water management policies as well. This is most urgent as Meghalaya is witnessing dwindling water sources impacting the entire society.
This is a Herculean task to save a river and more so to trigger such need in districts around the state. The momentum should not stop here. Nature will not accede so readily to the destruction we caused. It will of course be a while before we actually see the river clean- pun intended.
(The writer is a research Scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University)