Lessons of Uttarakhand tragedy
By Upendra Prasad
The tragedy of Uttarakhand is attracting the attention of environmentalists, who are blaming the government for this natural calamity which resulted into the death of thousands of people and destruction of property worth of thousands of crores. This natural disaster may be the making of men, but the response of the government after the calamity was far less than adequate. The whole administration of Uttarakhand government seemed to be paralyzed. When Chief Minister was needed in Uttarakhand to oversee the rescue relief and rehabilitation works, he was seen running towards Delhi to get central help. One District Magistrate suffered heart attack. The administration even could not coordinate properly the rescue operations being carried out by pare military forces and army. The rescued persons could not be provided even food and shelter and in most cases even medical facilities. The whole administration seemed to have collapsed.
The utter failure of the state government of Uttarakhand has once again proved that the division of Uttar Pradesh was not a wise decision. NDA government divided three Hindi speaking states 12 years ago. Jharkhand was carved out from Bihar, Chhattisgarh from Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand from Uttar Pradesh. It was interesting to see that movement for separate states was going on in non Hindi states, too, but the government divided only Hindi speaking states. These divisions were made in the name of promoting development. What kind of development is taking place there can be seen by the figures of their development. Before division, it was argued that Jharkhand would develop in fast pace, because it was endowed with rich minerals and the looser would be Bihar. But we can see that Bihar is developing fast, when we compare it with Jharkhand. Similarly Madhya Pradesh is developing fast, when we compare it with Chhattisgarh. It is absurd to talk of the development of Uttarakhand after division of Uttar Pradesh, because this development is being cursed for the natural calamity we are witnessing there.
One basic fault of our development model is that we attach this development with the development of the region. In this development model, we leave the local people residing in the region out. Not only local people, we ignore the ecology and environment of the region as well. Developments can be made and are being made at huge social cost. We just ignore it. No cost- benefit analysis based on social cost is made. People of a region want separate state to develop them, but new states were made to develop the region at the cost of the people. If some studies are made to see the response of local people of Uttarakhand to the so called development projects, it may open up our eyes to see how people were resisting them their resistance went unheeded, if not unnoticed. There was a Chipko movement launched by the local population of Uttarakhand. People were resisting the cutting of trees for development purposes. Their Chipko movement went unheeded and trees continued to be cut for their use in development and for clearing the areas where trees were standing for some development projects. There was a stiff resistance against the building of Tehri dam. The works on the dam went on for decades. The resistance of the people was ignored and what they could get by their movement was only compensation. Thousands of tones of explosives were used to complete the dam injuring the Himalayas. So far dam has not caused any damage, but what would happen, if an earthquake damages it and water stored in it comes down abruptly? According to an environmentalist, the whole low lying areas would get destroyed; the destruction would not be limited only to the hills, but even to the plain of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The water of Tehri dam can even reach Delhi and cause devastation there by washing out the national capital.
In fact what we needed in Uttarakhand is not the exploitation of its waters for electricity and development of religious place for tourism, but to preserve it in its natural form. Himalayas cannot withstand the population pressure witnessed in the Gangetic plain. They cannot withstand a consumerist society, which has come into existence lately, where the destruction of ecology has become a rule to own more consumer goods and go for more consumption. Himalayas save us, when they are in natural form, if we play with them, they will finish us. Development of India is not sustainable, if we give injuries to the Himalayas.
The government of newly formed Uttarakhand only suppressed the voice of resisting masses, which were agitating against the ill conceived development and when the disaster arrived, the State administration found itself paralyzed. A small state like Uttarakhand had not sufficient administrative capability to tackle the consequences of such disasters. It could not have even sufficient resources to rescue the people and do other needful activities. Had Uttarakhand been a part of Uttar Pradesh, such kind of helplessness on the part of the state administration could not have been seen.
We can see how things are moving on in Uttarakhand. Its separation from Uttar Pradesh has hardly served any purpose, for which people were dreaming of. Scenes in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are not different. Both these two states are suffering from naxal problems. These problems existed even before, but after the creation of these two states, these problems have further aggravated. Creation of these two states by bifurcation of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh has only alienated the weaker sections of these states and they are raising their heads against the State. Here again the small size of the state and state government result into the smallness of their administrative manpower rendering them more dependent upon the Central Para military force to tackle the extremist activities.
Case of Jharkhand is even more tragic. After its formation, it is witnessing political uncertainty and it is forced to have President Rule frequently. The state was demanded so that people can decide their own way of development. Pathetically, they did not have their own government at the moment and Delhi is ruling them. The examples of these small states only suggest that small is not necessarily beautiful. (IPA Service)