The civilization which was capable of building the huge and lasting shrine of Kedarnath in the Himalayan heights, I think at times, could have easily made there, or at least on the way that leads to it, some permanent structures to facilitate the pilgrimage. But nothing of that sort was ever done. A few temporary structures, vulnerable enough to disappear in rains and winter snow would be erected along the way to cater to the limited needs of the pilgrims. Over a thousand years down the line, what remains today on the rugged terrain is the temple and the temple alone. Highlighting its limitations with regard to the biotic interference, the nature of course has been articulate enough for all of us to understand that what it does want.

Of course, our ancestors had insight. Coexisting with the nature over the generations they had developed a rapport, a sense of respect for all that surrounded them. An arrogant approach towards nature that we did borrow from the west following the surge of technology – and which is accustomed to see the magnificence of the nature in the form of a challenge; a challenge massive enough to put words like “We have knocked off that bastard” in the mouth of Hillary for expressing the spontaneous outburst of exultation following the maiden ‘conquest’ of Mt Everest – must have been alien to our ancestors. Cloud bursts, erosions, flash floods and earthquakes must not have been unheard of even then, yet the massive tolls of human life were not there and there had been no need either to coin phrases like ‘god sent curse’, ‘the ire of Shiva’, ‘deadly design by planets’ and so on. The ethics of settling down in hazardous hills was then conditioned by certain traditions and wisdom perfected over the centuries of observation and experience. With these values getting knocked off by unbridled consumerism in recent years we failed to develop a set of rules that could have contained our wayward priorities and inflated greed consequent upon an essentially wrong model of development and growth.

The total volume of tourist inflow in the hills in the past decade has been well over the population of this region. As per the data available with the state transport department, the total number of tourist vehicles in the state has gone up from 83,000 in 2005-6 to 1,80,000 in 2012-13. Of this the number of jeeps and taxies, most preferred means of conveyance, alone has swollen from 4,000 to 40,000. Add to it the number of private cars entering the hills every day with an average of three to four tourists in each and then try to visualize the massive human tsunami under which the most fragile geophysical structure of our planet, the Himalayas, is being crushed as a routine.

In the Badrinath and Kedarnath shrines alone the number of pilgrims (some of whom might actually be revellers) has shot up by four times in ten years. Preceding the tragedy of Kedarnath 17 choppers of 10 private companies were taking an average of 170 flights per day to the shrine. It is interesting to note here that still among the anwals (herders guarding their stock during the seasonal grazing in alpine heights) even shouting, sneezing or coughing loudly in the region is considered to be sacrilegious: lest the himal (glaciers) should crack, they would say.

The absence of rules and regulation to check and control the burgeoning construction binge to accommodate this floating population has for quite some time been instrumental in the speedy transformation of this ‘land of gods’ to the ‘arena of  demons’. It is not only the question of excavating, tunnelling or quarrying the hills; of encroaching the flood plains; of mining sand, stone, clay and all that is there and can be sold; of felling the trees and so on – in fact, it is the very mentality of being blasé and having no moral scruples in stripping the Himalayas off whatever they have for the public and private gains that is more disturbing and needs to be scrutinized.

The economic growth rate of Uttarakhand at 8.6% competes with that of its parent state (Uttar Pradesh) and the growth in the personal assets of our elected representatives and government officials in the same duration understandably must have gone up several folds. Gopal Krishna of Toxic Watch Alliance sounds quite reasonable when he says that with the GDP becoming the sole yardstick of growth caution and restraint are bound to take a backseat. His organisation recently filed a PIL in the court seeking an inclusion of ecological growth measure too to rate development.

Keeping an eye on the geography of the Himalayas a national mission was proposed of late by the planning commission with a view to contain the ecological damage in the region. All vital issues, including sustainable urbanisation, were part of it. This important document must have been hibernating somewhere. A report of the year 2001 of Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmadabad and Space Application Centre speaks of Rudraprayag, Chamoli, Nandprayag, Karnprayag and Srinagar districts in terms of being extremely sensitive. It further underlines the possibility of the recurrence of the floods in the Alaknanda akin to those of the year 1970. God alone knows whether someone ever bothered to turn the pages of this report. Besides being portentous, a CAG report raps the state for being a failure in rehabilitating over 80 calamity-affected villages earlier despite receiving Rs 44 crore from the calamity relief fund.

Akin to the chardham yatra that adds on substantially to the coffers of the state, the Amarnath yatra is equally important for the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The destinations for both the pilgrimages are located almost at the same altitude and the approach routes are also stretched across identical terrains. However, there is hardly any possibility of any of our politicians or bureaucrats ever going through the Nitish Sengupta report of 1996 released after 243 lives were lost in the flash floods and slides in Amarnath yatra route. This report speaks of an age cap for the visitors, curbing their number and cutting short the yatra season to one month. Today, officially, just 8,000 pilgrims may visit the shrine per day and a blanket ban is there on raising any permanent structure on the yatra route. Ironically, for the policymakers and administrative machinery in Uttarakhand remaining unperturbed over the presence of 30,000 souls in Kedar region that has an optimum carrying capacity of 2-3,000 was just normal; and that too when there were repeated warnings of a heavy downpour, when the region was completely devoid of any dependable communication system during an emergency and the locals had no exposure of disaster management. It is least surprising and quite understandable that for almost 48 hours following the catastrophe the officials had no precise line of action, the CM remained absent not only from the scene of the tragedy but from the state itself and initially even the numbers of the helpline being flashed on TV screen were wrong. And now the reality of the so-called relief work exposed by the media at times forces one to think whether the flag bearers of the ‘land of gods’ are left even with the rudimentary humane sentiments.    

More important than restoring the ritual worship in Kedarnath; restarting the chardham yatra; discussing the shape and size of the forthcoming pilgrimage of Rajjat and releasing the pictures of the high-ups holding a spade in hand in a bid to clean the temple – was the construction of those schools, roads, bridges, houses which have been swept away in floods. It would have been worthwhile at the given juncture to lay the foundation of a tourist policy that could go beyond the professed motive of ‘come one, come all, we are a merry-making hall’. The state tourism board speaks of exploiting the total tourist potential of the state soliciting the expertise from the overseas while the truth is that even a proper trekking policy hasn’t yet been developed. Around 150 adventure tourist companies, managed mostly by fly-by-night kind of ‘experts’ have been given licences and an equal number is there in the pipeline. As per reports, in water sports alone the toll has gone over 15 in the past three-four months.

We need to start from a scratch in terms of policies and priorities in the state that since its birth had been caught in the double whammy of uncontrolled tourism and mega power generation. A rather saner and more rational explanation needs be thought of for the utterly misleading monikers like urja or paryatan pradesh. An impending need is there to separate the pilgrims from the revellers; to make private tour operators more responsible; to train the local inhabitants in disaster management, better at preventive level; to compensate, of course quite liberally, those living in eco-sensitive zones and bearing the brunt of saving the eco-balance for the rest of the world at the cost of the quality of their own lives and finally to understand and realize it that our ancestors while seeing a connect between the divinity and the Himalayas were not talking nonsense.

But… but, whether that rapidly inflating segment in society – which, following the formation of Uttarakhand, has been a success in asserting itself quite noticeably; for which hills have been just hideouts where anything and everything can be done in a hush-hush manner and which has no compunctions in seeing an opportunity of self-aggrandizement in sagging or eroding mountains, in collapsing bridges or roads, in flash-floods or earthquakes, in drying water bodies and so on –will ever be ready to alter its priorities.
The prognosis is not much heartening.

(This article was written under the CSE Media Fellowship.)