Moving beyond the ritual of observing World Environment Day

It is that time of the year, again, when we remind ourselves that we are an intricate part of our living planet.  It is indeed a tragedy of our times that it has come to this: a ritual celebration of being earthlings.  The question we need to ask ourselves is why we need to celebrate our Environment only on a particular day.  What happens on the rest of the days?

If we look around us, and inside our homes and offices, we are constantly reminded of the gross un-sustainability of our current form of existence.  So demanding and extractive of the Earth's natural resources are our ways of living, individually and collectively, that it has now become a serious demand on our formal and informal systems of governance to address how we will shift away from all this; and if at all we can, without seriously compromising our common desire for an consistently improving quality of living (measured largely in possession of material comforts).

The competing demands of providing such a quality of life for all, which governments promise endlessly and fail to deliver, is creating a variety of schisms and conflicts.  This is playing out all around us.

In Bangalore this assumes an immediate cause of concern with the way we throw our "waste" around, especially onto neighbouring villages and in the process creating a variety of public health and environmental nightmares.  It is no different in the way we use and dispose water in highly polluted forms and thoughtlessly even.  As a result, every well, lake, stream and river is comprehensively polluted.  The air we breath is turning increasingly toxic, even allergic, and less said the better about how we treat landscapes and their ecological features (not just trees).

Beyond the urb, our desire to maintain our urbanised way of living is costing million of rural and forest dwelling families their lives and livelihoods.  There is great disturbance in the way we grow food, extract minerals and consume forest resources.  What will all this add up to?

In some ways the answer is already evident in the warming of the globe's atmospheric systems resulting in the rapid melting of polar ice caps and the mountain glaciers:  the short term consequences we are experiencing regularly seem as frightening as the long term impacts predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about a decade ago.

In the midst of all these global changes, governments everywhere seem incapable of comprehending the colossal nature of the impact of our human activity on our living planet, and in helping determine the outcomes for present and future generations.  While we will continue to struggle with such imperfections in our governance mechanisms, it is everyone's innate objective to be alive and not give up.  Therein lies the possibility for hope.

Action must and should be individual and local, but it would be senseless to assume that this is sufficient to cause positive change.  There has to be collective action at different levels.  We need to do more and it is the duty of this generation to begin this process without blaming past generations.  Only such an attitude will ensure future generations will have at least as good a chance to live a reasonably good quality of life, as we now do.

Again, this is assuming too much, considering the disparities that prevail amidst us in this generation.  War, strife and struggle over resources are so deeply divisive, that the lack of a method to address these conflicts in a humane manner is afflicting not just our administrative and governance mechanisms, but our very lives.

There are no easy solutions, only the possibility of taking important steps forward.  I risk suggesting them despite the possibility of sounding naive.  Conserve water that falls free with rain in every manner possible.  Conserve energy derived from fossil fuel and consume as little as one can intelligently manage. Consume only what is essential and give up a consumerist way of living.  Consume food that is grown locally.  Disregard calls for consumption claimed as the basis for economic growth; such arguments cost us the Earth!  Get involved in all decisions that matter to land, water, air, biodiversity and Fundamental Freedoms, not only locally, but regionally, nationally and globally.  Questioning the impact of one's education and work on our living planet is also not a bad idea.

In addition, it is critical that we politically engage with the idea of "progress" that is so aggressively promoted by governments, corporates and their advertisers, all of which results in the accumulation of monetary wealth in the hands of a few.  Deeply introspect on the consequences of such "progress" on the web of life and future generations and the right steps each one must take will become evident.

For whatever be the amount of money one has, there is still great difficulty to find water for drinking, say in Bangalore for instance.

(An edited version of this article appears in the Deccan Chronicle, issue dated 5th June 2013, accessible here.)

Maverick's Project in Bangalore: Il-legalising the poor

In an article entitled “For 11 days of Glory” I wrote about 20 years ago, I argued that the Karnataka Government's plan to construct about 1000 flats in the wetlands between Koramangala and Ejipura was fraught with various illegalities: the decision was blatantly violative of land-use norms, would result in destroying forever a critically needed open space in a thickly developing area, amounted to a corrupt practice, and so on. The title of the article was drawn from the State's justification for building these flats: provide housing for athletes who would turn up to participate in the National Games held over 11 days!

It was quite obvious that the welfare of the athletes was not of concern to the State here; instead, it was the contracts that flowed out from the mega civil construction of those times - mega malls, and mega-flyovers, and mega-IT corridors were all yet to come. The place where the massive National Games Township rises tall was an open expanse then – a lake with massive potential of being turned into a critically needed ecological and social space for all. From across the road, people living in the Ejipura slum used this space in many ways. Kids ran around the expanse playing cricket or football, washer-people dried linen, shepherds grazed cows and sheep, and a fairly substantive area was also mucked up with Bangalore's sewage flowing through en route to Byramangala lake.

Several of us were deeply concerned over this unconscionable decision of the Government and organised protests. When we rallied for support there were distinctive responses. Communities living in the slum came in large numbers, really large numbers. But those who lived in upper class Koramangala, a stone's throw away, refused to turn up. It appeared as though the cause of protecting this wetland, a public open space, was merely that of the poor and that only they cared to protest against illegal developments in the city.

As the protests built themselves into massive action, the media gathered and there was plenty of reportage. Since the project was being implemented by the Karnataka Housing Board, there were questions raised why its meagre resources were being invested in promoting housing for the middle class and the rich, for the flats were designed to be sold at high value after athletes used them for 11 days. Why was the agency's scarce resource not being invested instead in re-building poor people's flats at Ejipura, which the same agency had built a decade before, and were on the verge of collapse? And why were these new flats being outsourced to Nagarjuna constructions, a contractor who then was cornering all government contracts?

There wasn't anyone in the Government willing to respond to these legitimate questions. So the protests continued to grow until, one night, there was a fire. It raced through the Lakhsman Rao Nagar slum in Ejipura. Hutments disappeared: thatched, tin, tarpauline clad structures which to thousands was home, were a smouldering mess the next morning.  Kids and women waded through the rubble attempting to recover anything recoverable, crying. Men stood there and watched with dead-pan expressions.

People who lived inside these structures which to them was home, were the ones who had turned up in the protests. Such exercise of their democratic Right had cost many of them their daily wages for several days, which they did not mind at all. But now, their homes had disappeared.

Then Chief Minister Devegowda turned up to offer his condolences to those who were burnt alive, and had not died. It was a gruesome sight to see a woman narrating to him how she was sleeping, and woke up to find her arm aflame. Ritual compensation was offered, promises were made, including that the poor-peoples housing project, those flats teetering on the edge of collapse, would be rebuilt, renovated, made livable again. And that the entire area would be dedicated to housing the poor.

National Games was held but the flats were not ready for the athletes. The apartments were eventually built and sold off, or allocated as residences for Judges and various high officials, and even gifted, to then Indian cricket captain Azharuddin and others such deserving housing.

Two decades later, Maverick Developers swings a deal in the last remaining open space in Ejipura, where poor people live. The space does still beholds those teetering flats, some of which have collapsed killing residents. Maverick claims that they will transform the lot of the poor into something more respectable. They will build them flats, yes, new ones that will be sturdy and nice, and livable. No Lakeview apartments these would be, but still, a flat owned by a poor person in the middle of Bangalore is something! Especially when it is in hep and happening Koramangala! The deal is sweet and too difficult to reject for those now in Government; part two-thirds of the landto Maverick to build a Mall, and in exchange receive flats for the poor in a third of the area! The deal is sold as a win-win deal for a funds starved Government working with rich Corporates willing to do some public good, a grand example of Public-Private Partnership! 

Yes this is the very same Maverick who when Mr. Jairaj was Commissioner of Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (it was not yet Bruhat then) in 2006, had assured that the building that was coming up on public lands at Magrath road, off prime Brigade Road, a place which then was used to park garbage trucks of BMP, was going to be a public utility multi-storey parking lot. But quite magically it had turned into a mall – Garuda Mall. This caused ruckus in the Council forcing the then Mayor Mumtaz Begum to write to Jairaj the following: “Earlier, you had ordered a detailed inquiry into the case and also assured that the portion of the building with deviation would be demolished and strict action would be initiated against the erring officials. However, you have not come out with the action-taken report.” 

As is to be expected, the ruckus was momentary, almost ritualistic. No action was ever taken thereafter, it appears, for Garuda Mall continues with business as usual.

Which brings us now to the decision of the Shettar Government in which the incorruptible Mr. Suresh Kumar is the Urban Minister, and Mr. Ashooka, Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister, and also Minister in-charge of Bangalore, have collectively awarded the very same Maverick this killer deal (borrowing some corporate jargon). Prime land is parted away for a song without any due diligence or business valuation. For Maverick its too sweet a deal as its projected commercial benefits accrued over decades from the Mall are worth every paisa of the marginal capital investment in poor people's flats!

How such deals are struck is very simple to understand. It is first concluded in an office where there are no 'people', except those who matter. A convenient policy is invoked. What else, Public-Private Partnership - an ubiquitous tool which corporations across India are generously employing to ruthlessly steal from the poor and gratify the rich and powerful. A policy to which a Government surrenders meekly its very raison d'être, enunciated quite lucidly in Chapter IV of the Constitution of India detailed as Directive Principles of State Policy; in simple terms what the State has to do to justify its existence. But then, deals struck with Maverick are far more sacrosanct than anything etched in the Constitutional conscience of the country. Such promises have to be delivered, and delivered they are, with death-blow force.

In the way of this sordid sell out stand, like two decades ago, poor people of Ejipura, again. They have been protesting this deal for months now and even unsuccessfully tried to secure justice legally.  The response of the State backing Maverick is ruthless.  Bulldozers raze through the apartments and other living quarters through a cold mid-January night. The teetering flats collapse with feeble resistance, leaving the rudely awakened poor residents with no plan B, not even the option of using the pavement as temporary 'home'.  They are beaten, arrested, scattered. Most are poor, working class tenants, informally employed, and have nowhere to go. Overnight, they are all illegal encroachers of public lands, now in the custody of Maverick! Their reason to exist is insignificant before a grand public project: the Maverick Mall! 

This new dawn of 2013 meant at least 5000 people went homeless overnight. An old woman died in the cold, of the cold. Hundreds of little children, tens of pregnant women, youngsters, old people, and men and women alike, found themselves homeless. HOME-LESS.

For Mr. Haris, the sms-happy MLA of the region, even extending water and food to these folks constituted a gross illegality. Papers have reported how he came to the place and threatened dire action against several volunteers who gathered to organise relief, or also protest this dastardly act. A threat he probably executed as many were brutally arrested with demonic vengeance by the police soon after. The same Mr. Haris who feeds the poor in thousands to celebrate his parents' wedding anniversary. The same Mr. Haris who will sell the poor dreams of a better life to come if they would vote for him, once more, in the coming elections.

As this tragedy unfolds before our very eyes, we may choose to look away if it troubles us, or because we don't care. Perhaps even invent a justification for this collective behaviour, like say “They were illegal residents no?” No textbook will capture this travesty of social purpose, for Governments want students to read only about how Bhagat Singh sacrificed his life so we could all live happily ever after.

This episode will be forgotten, at least in the same way that we do about slums that were burnt down to make way for Shoppers Stop two decades ago, killing a pregnant woman and an old woman in the fire.

In the meantime, corporates are falling head over heels to “Wake Up Bangalore, Clean Up Bangalore” in Freedom Park! The project here: segregate waste at source and ensure Bangalore becomes a clean, world-class city. But these corporations that endorse such projects as a part of their 'corporate social responsibility' ventures are nowhere to be found in Ejipura. But you will find them once the Mall comes up. Waking up Who Exactly?

Land designated for housing the poor will soon house a grand temple of consumerist indulgence of the middle classes and the rich – the Maverick Mall! The poor, meanwhile, will be segregated out of the city, where we are told they belong, according to advocates of Public-Private Partnerships in Government and beneficiary Private Corporations.

11 February 2013 

Road widening is an unintelligent and unjust project to address traffic congestion

(A slightly revised version of  article has also been published by Deccan Herald in its Sunday edition of 24 June 2012 and is accessible here)

Recently the High Court of Karnataka held that the widening of the road from Sadashivanagar to Yeshwantpur did not violate the principle of prior and informed public consent as contained in the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act.  It accepted the Bangalore Development Authority's contention that since the proposal to widen the road to 30 metres was part of the Comprehensive Development Plan of Bangalore in 1984, it was unnecessary to inform the public every decade when this plan was revised. The High Court then claimed that “widening roads is the only means to over come traffic congestion”, even as it acknowledged that the Karnataka Directorate of Urban Land Transport's “cutting edge scientific analysis” advocated several progressive measures could be adopted to relieve traffic congestion and widening was not a solution for this road. While the import of this judgment is limited to Sadashivnagar Road, it is indicative of the thinking amongst key decision makers who believe that we can build wide roads to relieve traffic congestion in Bangalore and other urban areas.

Quite in contrast, major cities world over are working to constrict spaces for private automobile movement, especially in core city areas.  Providing safe pathways to encourage people to cycle, walk and use public transport (mainly bus based), are the new age technologies of mobility.  Seoul the capital of South Korea recently tore down a massive expressway running through its city and turned it into a pedestrian's and cyclist's delight. Curitiba in Brazil and Bogota in Colombia are South American examples of how city governments invested in low carbon intensive public transport projects, supported by walking and cycling; not car friendly (and pedestrian unfriendly) wide roads that waste millions of dollars, dismember old neighbourhoods and only aggravate the congestion problem.

Many metropolitan areas of North America are regretting having widened roads in the past to accommodate cars.  They are now energetically rebuilding cycling and pedestrian paths, and bus systems. In Boston, a network of railroads and expressways cuting through the core city was pushed underground, and the reclaimed surface turned into an 8 mile long Braddock Park Corridor filled with children's parks, cycling paths, community gardens, and what not. The result is that local economies have been energised and crime rates have dropped.  Many European cities are using innovative land use policies to protect charming old inner city neighbourhoods, rejecting car based transport, and encouraging cycling, walking and street vending.  Think Amsterdam, Dresden, Paris (yes, you can rent public cycles here).  In Africa, Durban leads.  Last year the city hosted UN Climate Change talks and its municipality acted by promoting cycling and walking, backed by a generous grant of 1,000 cycles from UNIDO to adopt the Paris rent-a-cycle initiative.

As I grew up in Bangalore, I cycled everywhere.  While it was relatively safe to cycle then, it is certainly not the case now.  The lack of foresight of our so-called urban planners has reduced cycling and walking into a death wish today.  A tragedy indeed as nowhere else in the world can we get a city like Bangalore with a climate so conducive for such health securing, money saving and carbon neutral activities. The greater tragedy is that promoting road widening, signal free corridors, elevated expressways and such other mega projects have become a mantra for ensuring political legacy.  Skewed urban imaginations promoted widening of 90 roads during S. M. Krishna's regime, which list has now grown to 216. 

All this when the National Urban Transport Policy, 2007 argues that cities must be so developed as to provide “...equitable allocation of road space with people, rather than vehicles, as its main focus”.  Were Bangalore to actually implement such policy prescriptives, the city would then intelligently re-design streets so that everyone (rich, middle class, poor and differently abled) would have an equal opportunity (physically and economically) to move within the city and with low, or no, risk to life and livelihoods.  Our City and State Governments are instead pursuing mega road widening projects that gobble thousands of crores of rupees of our money  (which we can safely assume have mega cuts for the corrupt as well), even as they admit that technical and financial viability is yet to be assessed. 

It is high time key decision makers abandon this myopic approach, step back a bit and think conscientiously with the people the wastefulness and wretchedness such projects result in.  Felling hundreds of gloriously grown avenue trees (the true heritage of Bangalore), the gross injustice of breaking down hundreds of homes and centuries old businesses (without compensation, for TDR is not), and the inhumane displacement of thousands of poor street vendors whose livelihoods are tied to the idea that streets are our multi-purpose commons, are all indicative of our disregard for democratic, inclusive and progressive urban life that the Constitution guarantees.  This is also illustrative of the rhetorical abuse of the concept of “sustainable development” to justify carbon intensive, socially unjust, unintelligent and economically unviable mega road widening projects which are bandied about as solutions, when such ideas have long been trashed elsewhere.

Leo F. Saldanha

Coordinator 

Environment Support Group

leo@esgindia.org

www.esgindia.org