Ecology Is Permanent Economy: The Activism and Environmental Philosophy of Sunderlal Bahuguna

Chapter 13 Social Ecology, Religion, and the Tehri Protest

Chapter 13 Social Ecology, Religion, and the Tehri Protest The news of the end of Sunderlal’s fast and the government’s agreement was hailed as a victory for satyagraha and the cause of justice for the people of the hills. Bahuguna’s many fasts were now national news. Ironically , for this most selfless service, he was accorded almost celebrity status . The publicity meant little to Sunderlal except to the extent that it brought public attention to the issues behind the dam: the displacement of thousands of people from their homes, loss of the way of life they had lived for generations, the danger of destruction to the life and property downstream from the dam, and the destruction of the Himalayan environment whose wealth for centuries had sustained the communities of the hills. Sunderlal also acknowledged that this victory had been won at a great cost to others, in particular the lives of sixteen protesters who had died in the bus incident four years before. In another interview in 2000 he stated that after 1995 he and his supporters no longer organized major demonstrations because he didn’t want any more sacrifices of innocent lives.1 It is perhaps for that reason that in the later days of the movement, he resorted to the fast rather than the action of mass protests. From before Sunderlal’s monumental fast, many groups and individuals were drawing attention to the safety issue of the dam and to the record of the government in providing for resettlement and compensation for those evicted from their homes. The dam was a public issue. Nevertheless, while it appointed a new committee under the direction of Hanumantha Rao to investigate all aspects of the project, the government again made no explicit provision that work on the dam should be suspended while the committee was undertaking its work. Thus while voices even in international journals and other publications were drawing 187 188 Ecology is Permanent Economy­ attention to its hazards, work on the dam continued. In 1991 Fred Pearce, an internationally recognized environmental journalist based in the U.K., had published an article in The Ecologist raising serious questions about viability of the dam from the standpoint of the seismic activity of the region and the threat to populations downstream of the dam site. He described the project as monumental folly.2 Over time, the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi had published articles in several issues concerning the proposed dam, and about Bahuguna’s activities, in its fortnightly publication Down to Earth.3 In addition to the committee under the direction of Hanumantha Rao, the government also appointed a group of experts specifically to study the safely of the dam in light of the seismic activity in the area. When the group of experts finally submitted its report in February 1999, it concluded that, with changes that had been implemented in the plans for the project, “the present design of the dam is expected to be structurally safe to withstand the maximum credible earthquake (MCE) during the economic performance life of the damreservoir system.”4 But with another earthquake of 6.8 on the Richter scale in the area of Chamoli on March 29, 1999, and another in Bhuj in Gujarat with a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale on January 26, 2001, this claim by the group of experts did little to alleviate public apprehension . The Chamoli earthquake was slightly higher in magnitude than the one felt in Uttarkashi in 1991. It was felt in the hill districts of Chamoli, Rudraprayag, and Tehri, where it claimed about 100 lives, left hundreds injured, and caused damage to about 6,000 houses. It also brought about landslides that isolated portions of the Mandakini and Mandal valleys and cut several major roads.5 The earthquake centering in Bhuj was the second most deadly to strike India, on record. A month after the earthquake , figures from India’s government place the death toll at 19,727 and the number of injured at 166,000. More than 600,000 were left homeless, with 348,000 houses destroyed and an additional 844,000 damaged. Government estimates placed economic losses at $1.3 billion.6 The Dam and the Hindu Right An earthquake in the region of the dam, however, was not the only security threat that could be envisioned. After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. of September...