It will be a cardinal mistake if we again dismiss the heavy rains, floods and massive landslides in several states, particularly Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Deaths of a few hundred people have ceased to be sufficiently disturbing news for us as our threshold of shock and agony has been shifted by repeated calamities. One who has applied an anaesthetic lotion on the palms runs the danger of clutching a red hot iron without feeling the pain for a while but nevertheless gets the burns. Modern civilisation is something like the guy with a numbing balm on his palms.
Oblivious to the unending international conferences, academic seminars and discussions to appreciate the phenomenon of climate change, climate has been changing. Several possible and impossible remedial measures have been doing their rounds only to be treated as fashionable fads. Governments, political parties and people at large are still unmindful of the impending doom. They address the occasional calamities, fine-tune warning systems and at best financially compensate the victims. Much of the public discourse and political rhetoric are centered on how well or how badly governments handled a situation. These media-sponsored battles induce a kind of amnesia. The public at large gets trapped in this offence and defence along political lines, without realising the cost of not asking the right questions.
Last year, Kerala witnessed unprecedented floods resulting in huge casualties and incalculable damage to people’s lives. Even as this article is being written nearly 2 lakh people are living in relief camps in Kerala. The situation in Karnataka and Maharashtra is equally grim. Interim measures are important in the short-term but are not the ultimate answers.
Why have our rivers which were traditionally benevolent and life-giving suddenly become threatening and ominous? Why is it that droughts follow the floods? In Kerala, this year’s rains have scripted calamity in the form of massive landslides, trapping several families under the layers of soil that slipped down from the entrails of the hills. Our ancestors lived happily in the company of these hills and rivers, enjoying their comfort and abundance. Who made hills, rivers and rains hostile?
Western civilisation through its politics of colonisation and later its technological and economic hegemony has created a globalised world and a model of development. This paradigm of consumption-led capitalism that make people aspire towards luxury has legitimised reckless exploitation of nature and its resources. It is our desires that legitimise environmental degradation.
Schopenhauer says proverbially: “Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.” It seems to be an apt description of our civilisational mistake. The present model of development has been sanctified by the western developed countries as the paradise to which all others may aspire, regardless of the consequences.
Those who talk about the consequences are often ‘notified’ by the development-obsessed state as anti-development mafia or as impractical, vexatious fringe players. The juggernaut of development (or is it better to use the modern metaphor of the earth mover?) has no value for words like sustainability, eco-friendliness, alternative technologies and low energy consumption. With this deeply etched disdain for such voices, elected governments are in such a hurry to launch development projects that no questions are ever asked. Half-hearted and token green ideas like ban of plastic carry bags (while such industries continue to get licenses), making water harvesting for large building complexes compulsory (with no lasting impact so far) encouraging solar power (do our electricity boards really believe in it?) can only lead to self-delusion.
Political parties cannot afford to be at variance with the popular thinking. Let us admit that we as a people are insensitive to the dangers of development. For bureaucracy and politicians who are the midwives of development, it assures them power and money, both legitimate and illegitimate. Thus state power begins to facilitate exploitation of natural resources. Concerns of social equity make it politically expedient to assign lands on hill sides and in forest areas. Denudation and unscientific location of house-sites coupled with myopic tinkering with natural drainage systems and water bodies and distortion of natural contours of land can make any settlement a pack of cards even in moderate rains. That is what has caused the landslides in Kerala this week. Madhav Gadgil who warned about these consequences in his seminal Report on the Western Ghats has been persona non grata for these socially-sensitive (bad) Samaritans!
Sun will shine again in a few days. And the losers and suffers will naturally be forgotten. And we will be pursuing the very same model of development that has indeed been the real culprit behind recurring human tragedies and natural aberrations. It is time that the civil society, media and political class wake up from this accursed sleep of complacency and join hands to firmly question the wisdom of this accepted life style. It is time that at a personal level, we change the habits and needs that legitimize this development paradigm. A shift towards simplicity is not impossible. Let us revise our vision and definition of development. If we don’t, the alternative will be catastrophic. ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish’ (Proverbs: 29:18)
K Jayakumar is former Chief Secretary, Government of Kerala and former Vice-Chancellor, Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University
Email: k.jayakumar123@gmail.com