Pankaj Sekhsaria does not need any introduction after so many years of activism against environmental degradation in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a relatively lesser known part of the country, and research on the indigenous groups dwelling in the archipelago for centuries. He is a member of the environmental action group, Kalpavriksh, and edits the Protected Area Update, a bi-monthly newsletter. The freelance journalist and photographer has authored four books on the A&N islands, the latest being ‘Islands in Flux – the Andaman and Nicobar story’, which is a collection of his essays and newspaper articles. In an email interview to The Shillong Times, Sekhsaria talks about the successive government’s lack of commitment to green issues, the current scenario in the Bay of Bengal islands and explains the complexities in environment preservation and development.
In the last decades, how serious has the Centre been about environment issues? What is the attitude of the current government?
One would say that the record has been disappointing, both with the former governments and also with the current one. Policy seems to be driven completely by economic considerations and vitals of a country and its ecology are being grossly neglected and undermined be they forests, wetlands, grasslands or the coastal and marine systems. This is the natural infrastructure which is fundamental to life – basic things like clean air and water – and destroying natures systems is undercutting this infrastructure and the security it provides
We are so caught up in pursuing projects such as dam construction, infrastructure projects like roads and railways, mining and things like ports etc that we forget that nothing of this will survive if natural systems and this natural infrastructure is not cared for.
Have you worked on environmental issues in the North East? Can you please give details of your findings? If not, do you intend to take up the various environmental issues plaguing the region?
I had an opportunity many years ago of working on a film project in the Kaziranga National Park. But that was more focused on the wildlife there. I’ve not really worked on environmental issues in the NE and it seems unlikely that I will be in the near future in any substantial way. I do follow developments quite carefully and the same applies here as it does in the rest of the country — the points that I have made earlier about the lack of care and concern where natural resources and nature’s infrastructure is concerned!
Is it a dichotomy to say that development and environment conservation can go hand in hand? How can technology be used to make development inclusive?
This is complex, and the technology question is one at the heart of a lot of research and thinking and also in some ways very ideological. There is the idea that technology is the devil where environment is concerned but I think it is much more complex that this straightforward relationship. My recent research work has been in academic field of what might be considered the Sociology of Science and Technology and the one big lesson there is that the technology we have is a result of choices made by society and by us. I am not denying that technology has had a hugely negative impact on the environment but we have to figure out different ways to understand this and also respond to the challenge.
You have been part of the Narmada movement too. Do you think years of protests went futile?
I’ve not really been part in any direct kind of way, except for being part of some small support activities when I was a student in Pune. But the influence of the Narmada movement was huge for many of us who were growing up in the 1980s and 90s. And no, I don’t think that the movement was futile because the impact it has had on a whole generation of this country is not easy to fathom. It was able to challenge an idea of development that is indeed development only for a few and one that comes at a huge cost for the already marginalized. IT made foundamental questions such as ‘What is development?’, ‘Whose development at whose cost?’ central to the discourse in the country and that is no mean feat at all.
If you have to sum up the problems of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, what are the issues that you will list? Tourism growth in the islands has spoiled the natural habitat of indigenous people. Do you think there should be a check on tourist movement in the islands? Where does the Jarawa problem stand now? What is their future? What are the vital socio-politico-economic changes in the islands post tsunami?
Where the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are concerned, my key concern and contention is that government policy and planning on the one hand and bureaucracy and political establishment has not understood the key challenges faced by the islands. This is the main thrust of my new book ‘Islands in Flux – the Andaman and Nicobar Story’, which is a collection of 20 years of my journalism and academic writing about the islands. Central to thesis is the idea of ‘flux’, on constant change. There are three levels of flux that the islands are facing — socio-cultural, ecological and most important, perhaps, geological. Each is dependent on the other and at the same time intricately linked. The geological is critical in the islands like it is in the case of the NE. The islands, for instance, are located in one of the most seismically active zones in the world and the gigantic tsunami of 2004 was caused by an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, just a couple of hundred nautical miles from Nicobar.
For the last 50 years, we have not acknowledged these independent, but connected realities. A recent NITI Aayog report does not take any of this into account while planning large infrastructure projects. In 2009, at a defense-related seminar, President Kalam talked about building a nuclear power station in the islands, in a landscape where you’ve had earthquakes which have been 9.3 on the Richter scale. Imagine the vulnerability we’re setting ourselves up for. What happens to the nuclear power plant if another earthquake or tsunami happens? Similar plans were made long ago in a 1965 report. The same ignorance is still prevalent in 2017, despite so much more information being available, despite a deeper understanding, despite technological advances.
What project(s) are you working on currently?
I continue to work on the A&N islands as a researcher and in trying to create a network of people interested in the place and the issues there. The other thing I have been doing as a member of the environmental action group, Kalpavriksh, is to edit a newsletter on wildlife called the Protected Area Update. It is published every two months and carries information and news on wildlife and conservation related developments from the country. The newsletter is now in its 23rd year of publication and has become and important resource for all those interested in wildlife related issues. And in addition to this there are a couple of other projects I am involved in that are based broadly in the field of the Sociology of Science and Technology – one which looks at processes of technology visioning, another on Citizen Science initiatives in ecology in the country and a third that is looking at issues of air pollution in the city of Hyderabad where I am currently based.
In one of your interviews, you mentioned about “cognitive justice”. How feasible do you think the approach is? Is this implementable in all parts of the country where there is a conflict with indigenous people?
The idea of cognitive justice is not mine, but I think it is a very powerful, even beautiful formulation. What it is saying, in my understanding, is that there are different ways of life and there is huge diversity of cultures, particularly in the country like India. Each has a right to be and to exist and each has something to offer to the other. And there is nothing in this for anyone to disagree with, particularly because it then means we have to give equal space and respect to those ways of living and those cultures that have become or have been made marginal. And many of these have been marginalized by the large scale development I have mentioned below and which movements like the Narmada movement question and challenge.
How serious is India about environmental issues when compared to other countries in the world?
I don’t think a comparison amounts to much. There are one set of environmental problems like global warming and depleting natural resources that affect all of us. There are others that are specific to particular countries, regions and systems. The challenge is to be constantly aware of each of these as in many cases they are linked. It shouldn’t matter what another country is doing or not doing. We have to, all countries have to make the environment and environmental issues top priority in their policies, economics and politics.
(Photo courtesy: Pankaj Sekhsaria)
