Religion is not
only a pious word, it is also about a science that improves our health and we
excel in our job .it is a scientific procedure for successful living. Unfortunately
religious tourism and adventure tourism due to system failure has resulted in
to repeated unbelievable natural disasters across Uttarakhand state. Environmentalists
and nature lovers who had been keenly watching activities in the high range
area, predicted and warned repeatedly on possible occurrence of natural hazards
due to human being’s unscientific
behavior towards nature. Scientists suggested government to take prompt
corrective measures so as to avoid apprehension thought of inevitable devastation
or can be reduced to minimum level. Instead of initiating steps to prevent
natural calamities, activities were increased in the name of development in
terms of adventure sports, glacier trekking, and mountaineering and religious tourism;
there were no check points to deal with crowd movements which damaged the
virginity of high Himalayan bugyals (grass lands) and glaciers. They lacked knowledge
of sustainable activities that reflected in terms of environmental misbalances.
I am neither an expert on Himalayan structure
nor environmentalist monitoring nature’s behavior on high Himalayan ranges, but,
as a common person who was born and brought up in high Himalayan region. This
is why I dare to write or predict my assessment, on the basis of my experience
over the years, understanding and observing the changes. Moreover, being an
inhabitant of high Himalayan range village of Johar valley (Munsiari), district
Pithoragarh of Uttarakhand where I have spent major time of my life since birth.
I witnessed and experienced outside groups’ behavior in this area endangering god
gifted beautiful earth. It was sensible to give nomenclature Himalayan tsunami
to natural calamity due to human committed blunder which occurred about a month
ago in Kedarnath and across Uttarakhand state mostly river belt side, bringing colossal
loss to human lives. Simultaneously huge losses to properties, houses,
agricultural lands, collapse of entire villages, roads and bridges.
Uttarakhand needs sustainable
development—in my opinion human greed is one of the main reasons
responsible that destroyed beautiful green grass lands. Glaciers started
melting on account of climate change. This erosion created confidence deficit
and to overcome this, we need to harness creative attitude. I do not say there
should be no development activities, but it has to be sustainable as well.
People in charge of temples in char Dham should have knowledge of excessive
crowd movements’ repercussions and consequences. This creates hygienic problems
as well? If frequency and numbers of visitors is brought to the level of sustainable
biodiversity, we may prevent natural disasters to a great extent. There should
be no competition on numbers of pilgrims in Char Dhams year wise, it is not a
corporate house business, rather, government should have regulated religious
tourism, and adventure tourism related activities to the level of
sustainability. Government should not yield to pressure tact of greedy,
notorious elements, making holes in the system through illegal means. They are
poised to spoil our peaceful and pollution free environment. We need to prevent
them strictly in order to save valuable treasures of area and border with china
(extremely sensitive area) from security point of view not to become
vulnerable.
Government development model-
in the name of providing employment to local youth government encouraged
adventure sports, glacier trekking and mountaineering in high range region of
Himalaya and to the convenience of these teams loans were sanctioned to local
businessmen and allowed outsiders without proper analysis, assessment from the
scientists and geologists about risk involved in the constructions in hotels
and guest houses in huge numbers. Obviously reason was given promoting tourism.
Government departments totally ignored the norms and illegal constructions
continued to rise over the years. Big
hydroelectric projects were started without considering after effect. Recent
devastation in huge magnitude is unbelievable. It is believed, selfish elements
that existed in every segment of the society prevented expert’s warnings and
public genuine resentment. System failure due to lure by such undesirable
elements showed helplessness in dealing with sincere will and conviction. It is
regretted public outcry against big dams gets momentum when maximum work is
complete and agitation becomes worthless. The fact, human greed invited
inevitable disastrous situation in such a dangerous level. We have suffered
unbelievable losses and realized the outcome for challenging nature and
outburst of anger of Lord Shiva.
Feel
proud of belonging to Uttarakhand- Irony
is, experts who have spent many years in their specialized fields, earned name
and fame who belonged to hills, institutions engaged in monitoring crowd effect
in Uttrakhand, people who wish pollution( air, sound and water) free Uttarakhand
,who have settled elsewhere could contribute in making this state
(strategically very important), a pollution free green state, suggest
government about possible threats and advise government to initiate steps in
order to avoid devastations. During ninety’s when I was posted in Agra, I
happened to meet one of the top level executives of LICI, I was told he
belonged to Bageshwar district. Humbly I asked sir, do you belong to
hills? This arrogant person’s response
was, he is a born deshi. It was very disappointing and shocking utterance. My
opinion is it is good to be visible and spread across the world but we must
connect to our native place and encourage future generations to know about
ancestors. In the era of global village concept we can not remain isolated. I realized
many high ranking retired officials have disconnected themselves from their
native place. Hence their children too do behave in the same manner; they exhibit
no affection for Uttrakhand except a few who love their native place. No doubt,
there are a few high level top officers who opted to settle after retirement
and made their Karmabhumi(work place) so that they can contribute in hill state
development, local product promotion and employment generation. However, local
support was necessary. I met to late B.D.Pandey ICS as a courteous call as being
LIC ex. Chairman who desired to settle in Almora after retirement. I admired
his move. His son was running an N.G.O. promoting plantations and marketing of
local items manufactured by village women. I got opportunity to visit maximum
area of Uttarakhand during my posting in various places and could observe socio
economic conditions of people.
I prefer to illustrate examples of our border
area people like Dr. R.S. Tolia IAS, ex. Uttrakhand chief secretary and RTI commissioner
preferred Munsiari (a remote and border tehsil deprived
of basic amenities) his karmabhumi to work amongst the community and area people
(who are inwardly afraid, suffer from deep sense of inadequacy and insecurity,
doubt about their own power and mistrust their ability to meet responsibilities
and grab opportunities) share his experiences and guide them availing
opportunities provided under the constitution. He has creative attitude,
passion, self confidence and determination. He has tremendously contributed in
successfully conducting Sri Hari Samaroh in Malla Dummar village being
organized in the memory of Hari Singhji and other freedom fighters. We admire and wish almighty god bless him in
his endeavor to educate people about their rights and enhance professional
knowledge of local people especially illiterate women so that they improve
quality of home made products and get reasonable price of products. It will
help in expanding market as well. We have another asset to our valley Sri
S.S.Pangti I.A.S. retired, who is very much concerned about the area and
people. He has contributed remarkably in promoting games and adventure sports
in Munsiari. Now settled in Dehradun, engaged in the area of his interest.
However he used to visit his native place. The people of Munsiari regard him a
down to earth person. My respected friend late Durga Singh Martolia(nick name
Pighalata Himalaya) contemporary businessman and social activist contributed immensely in mobilizing people for
their rights in a democratic way. He possessed tremendous leadership quality. It
was four decades ego, organizing Johar Club Tournament had become a difficult
task due to lack of fund and indifferent attitude of many, we together along
with some spirited and dedicated members decided to organize effectively and successfully.
Hence our determination and zeal worked and amazingly it was a tremendous success
with the cooperation of all. We pledged to continue the tournament so as to see
successive generations to carry on with greater zeal, determination, conviction
and adopt significant growth in the games.
Population
growth- in the world over every country has formulated
mechanism according to need and convenience controlling population growth. Here
in India middle class has understood the need of well parenthood and they are
adopting voluntarily without external pressure. Although Uttarakhand is
exception, where population is reducing year by year because of mass exodus young
people are serving in the army their children also follow them and others who
do not join army, they move to cities for petty jobs. When Uttarakhand was created the basic concept
was it will able to generate employment for the locals and arrest mass
migration from hills to plan areas. Road connectivity will be provided across
hill villages to facilitate convenient approach, opening of schools and medical
care and at the most providing basic amenities. But it could not happen to that
extend. Government should encourage hill people for agriculture growth, emphasis
on horticulture produce, cash crop production, growing vegetables and
agriculture related dairy production by way of giving incentives to growers and
milk producers so that migration of hill people may be reduced to minimum
level. Even border area villages are suffering from migration menace,
simultaneously outside elements taking advantage through their soft targets,
have started entering to strategically sensitive areas to exploit precious
natural resources, penetrate in to our security preparedness and destroy god
gifted beautiful high Himalayan virgin areas.
In the name of
religious tourism and adventure tourism, hill people can not tolerate shrinking
of glaciers, extinction of rare species of herbs, plants and merciless killings
of snow line animals. Screening of entering antisocial elements in the border
area is to be done by government agencies, local people can help in identifying
and nabbing them. Since outside elements make soft targets through which they
can make easy entry in very sensitive areas, endangering national security.
Enemy is ready to take benefit of our negligence and can start new moves to
cross over to our side. We, border
people do not trust china; government needs to take hill development on the
security perspective as well. In this
context I give example of Himanchal state and request our state government
should learn from neighbor state. There should be control on such movements
otherwise we shall invite disasters again and again.
Among
the poor and ethnic groups still message of balanced family has not reached
properly that is why still it is not so effective in these segments of the
society. I am confident, if explained logically they shall come forward voluntarily
for balanced parenthood, it is obvious no class of the society want to lead
miserable life. Vigorous campaign of family planning must be
carried out. Further, we must not boast that, we are the nation of one billion
and more population and justify huge percentage of young people without
analyzing the consequences. If we are proud of new hands, it will be wise to
comment on countless open mouths to feed, clothes to wear and dwellings for shelter
(roti, kapda aur makan) which ultimately put unbearable pressure on our natural
resources. Population explosion consequence? As a result we are witnessing rush towards
Uttrakhand from outside and they are occupying illegally, forest land and
catchment areas of rivers which is direct attack on natural resources
illegally. Hill people have also started following them, forest area is shrinking very rapidly, rivers are
polluted, thus amazing green forest of beautiful Uttrakhand has been turned in
to disaster prone concrete jungles, particularly, Mussoorie, Nainital, Almora, Pithoragarh,
Gopeshwar, Srinagar Garhwal, pauri garhwal, chamoli, Uttarkashashi and plenty
of cities, towns and agriculture lands
in plain areas of Uttrakhand. Surprisingly, instead of being environment
friendly, powerful people have encouraged illegal constructions irrespective of
political affiliations. As a result, nature is being butchered brutally.
Agricultural land is shrinking, forest area reducing, and water level going
down rapidly. Hence we are again inviting natural calamities without
considering inevitable dangers. Our state needs sustainable development plan so
as to visualize sustainable biodiversity. Reason is obvious there is a flood of
human rush towards Uttrakhand from outside and among them anti social elements
have also mingled. There is no proper mechanism to filter these elements. We
have already witnessed the horrible Kedarnath calamity. I salute some of the
individuals those have developed forests on account of self motivation without
any kind of help and publicity. Their attitude and self confidence resulted
amazing successful accomplishment in conserving and expanding forest.
There are
numerous N.G.Os working across the state working on various projects, consuming
huge government fund and even aid from foreign agencies. Some of them may be working genuinely, but
there seems to be no proper mechanism to review proper utilization of funds and
to identify fake agencies. Social workers have been consequently alarming about
such agencies; even some of them have been successful in purchasing properties
in the border areas where no outsiders are allowed to own properties. Who will
look in to the matter? Authorities must analyze the situation and draft action
plan and execute with transparency and regular review of work progress. We wish
state government will ensure, to erase wrong doings of some individuals or
groups after carefully identifying and save Uttrakhand natural resources and
it’s greenery to avoid repeated disasters. Our successive generations shall
appreciate confidence attitude of present generation if government with the
consultation of experts invariably demonstrate a triumphant thought pattern
through action plan and implementation. Kedarnath tragedy has created fear
threat among the people; however, we need to develop confidence and positive
attitude. We must live with the thought that bury the past, future will be
bright. Without deviating from system, we wish government to act promptly to
give smile and happiness down to generations. We feel there should be
transparency invariably while addressing public grievances, so that, such
disasters do not occur in future. Time has come people to organize movements to
eliminate illegal activities from green Uttrakhand. I have a reason to believe,
that, hill people particularly high Himalayan range border people’s inherent
quality of creative attitude and strong will power to stand firmly against odds
will yield amazing results in dealing with present hazards. We love nature, we
love our nation. Let us harmonize relationship with the nature to ensure
sustainable development and sustainable biodiversity for green and beautiful planet
earth and pledge pollution free environment down the generations.
D.S.Jangpangi,
Dated---27-08-2013
