The Ruin of Uttarakhand

THE HEDGE THAT EATS ITS OWN LAWN – THE UTTARAKHAND GOVERNMENT

We, Dangwals, who hail from the village of Khasetti in the Bhilangana valley, in Ghansalli tehsil of Tehri Garhwal are like many others from Uttarakhand, who have migrated from the hills to the plains, many years back. Albeit, the migration still continues, only because the reason for doing so continues to remain and torment the young and the old, alike. Development, as one understands its apparent and implied meaning has not touched the heartland of Uttarakhand, in the manner and content it should have, since the inception of the State. The empty and hollow promises that were made and given to the credulous people of the hills for carving out Uttarakhand from Uttar Pradesh, were just but slogans, motivated by  political expediency, than genuine concerns which impacted life and living in the mountains.

 A commission into the Army and the Garhwal Rifles in 1971, just prior to the momentous war fought in erstwhile East Pakistan and the Western Front, gave me an opportunity to understand and serve with the ‘Bhullas’, who hail from the interiors and hill regions of the State. These boys and men are tough, simple, docile, God fearing, intelligent and morally righteous people, who pride their integrity and honesty with an exceptional sense of propriety. My own roots and the penchant to discover my background, enthused me to take as many opportunities as I could to travel and live with the villagers in Garhwal. Moreover, my father’s occupation as a forester in the Indian Forest Service and his many postings in Pauri, Chakrata, Haldwani, Nainital, Utarkashi and Mussoorie had already given me an exposure to living here, though in the comforts of bungalows and rest houses and with the perks which attend upon a Forest officer. Thus, I am privy to life and living in the higher reaches of Garhwal and understand the trials and tribulations of its people.

It was while I was attending a mountaineering course in the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi, that I got a firsthand look into the construction of the controversial Tehri Dam, which was conceived as early as 1950 and was one in the series of Nehru’s ‘Temples of Modern India’. Tehri township was to be submerged and obliterated from the landscape, in a watery burial. The road from Rishikesh, Narendra Nagar, Agrakhal and Chamba was a continuous flow of heavy trucks and material, descending upon the Dam site. Excavation, blasting, digging, transportation  and construction activity was happening on a 24 x 7 mode, to the extreme discomfiture of all those, who knew what a blunder it was in the making and at the cost of the people, life and its habitat. The run of the water dams which had been built and were operational upstream on the Bhagirathi near Uttarkashi, had already disrupted the ecology of the region. But, the government and its administration was too hardnosed about yielding to any pressure from the environmentalists and giving a rethink to its flawed understanding of making rock filled dams of such size and proportions as the Tehri Dam, in a fragile eco system, such as obtains here. Notwithstanding the makings of a future disaster in this region, what sunk into my psyche and understanding was the manner in which the people of this region had been sucked into the quagmire of insidious corruption, which was flourishing and prospering under the guise of development. The local people, who were till now not involved in the shenanigans of the woolly practice of the contractor – engineer nexus, that prevailed and proliferated exponentially, were diabolically seduced into the money game of ill gotten wealth. The local farmer, wet behind the ears entrepreneur and small time shopkeeper gravitated into the whirlpool of easy money, which was available for plunder and loot from the government’s kitty. Most had been rubbed off by the unethical practices of cheating, corruption, venality, lack of rectitude and probity in business dealings. The change was happening and it was for the worse. The people of this region were reprehensibly impaled by deviousness and their character took a beating from the happenings which had engulfed the hills in the wake of the Hydro Electric Projects, that were mushrooming all over the valleys of Bhagirathi, Bhilangana and the Alaknanda . What took centuries to make and carve was now being destroyed by the lure for lucre, irrespective of the means to it. Not only was the topography of the region changing, but the character and moral uprightness of its people, which stood out as its distinguished feature had been scarred and dented in every which way. The generation which was witness to this rampant change in the mind set of the hill people, became the custodians of the government’s writ, which ran through its bureaucracy and officialdom in most aspects of public institutions. This has made Uttarakhand a haven for corruption, which works from the panchayat, tehsil, block and district level upwards to subsume the pathetic vision and functioning of the State government. Today, Uttarakhand has the disgusting and ignoble honour of being the second most corrupt State, after Uttar Pradesh in the country.

The stink and nausea of brazen corruption in almost all functions of the revenue, law enforcing and justice dispensing authorities in the lower level bureaucracy, who provide interface to the people with the government , is beyond cleansing. The situation has become quite hopeless and there is despair in the people. Not only has the ecology of the Himalayas been incontrovertibly fiddled with and destroyed, but the character of its people been permanently assailed and manipulated to horrendous and pathetic levels of acceptance. Greed when practiced as a State policy at the cost of symbiotic and sustainable development, not only kills but it destroys the culture and character of its people. What Uttar Pradesh could not do to the integrity of the Garhwalis and the Kumaonis, the government of Uttarakhand has managed to do in little less than 14 years of its existence. Like the ecology of Uttarakhand, the character of its people has taken a severe beating at the hands of the Neta – Babu – Contractor nexus, never to pride itself on its sterling quality of strength of Character, its once embellishing trait. The manner in which the huge aid and finances will get utilized in the rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes, in the aftermath of the situation which prevails in Uttarakhand, will be a telling testimony to my analysis. Utarakhand today requires President’s Rule under an able administrator, who can reconstruct and resurrect it to its glory.

Brigadier S D Dangwal

5339, W 64 Street

Ridgeway Drive

Edina

Minneapolis

Minnesota, 55439

U S A

Tele 612 -747 -5738