Mountain Environment and Human Security Concerns

Mountain Environment and Human Security Concerns

Gorkhaland Territorial Administration: Few observations

http://www.darjeelingtimes.com/opinions/political/3303-gorkhaland-territorial-administration-few-observations.html

Dilemma of Urbanisation in the Himalayas

http://www.darjeelingtimes.com/news/Ecological-issue/Dilemma-of-Urbanisation-in-the-Himalayas.html

Changing niche: climatic changes recorded in Sikkim Himalaya

Changing niche: climatic changes recorded in Sikkim Himalaya

Human and Nature: Experiences from the Sikkim Himalayan Earthquake

It was a weekend on the 18th of September 2011. Majority of us were enjoying the Sunday evening either lazily at our own home or in the town at Gangtok with friends and family members. After thoroughly cleaning my house whole of the first half of the day, I decided not to venture out in the evening to further stress myself but to enjoy the evening watching television and having dinner little early than the usual weekdays schedule.

Not in the slightest imagination of our thought did we have an idea that Sikkim and its surrounding geographical milieu shall soon tremble so horrendously for almost 40 seconds.

I entered my kitchen exactly at 6.00 pm and started my evening responsibility. Suddenly at around 6.10 pm our building started shaking. I immediately deciphered it was an earthquake. Initially I thought it was a minor regular tremor that we usually experience in the region and therefore did not take it seriously.

However, as the vibration became stronger and longer, women in and around started shouting, buildings started making noise and the furniture and utensils felled from their place. It was clear that this was a big one with its epicenter not very far from Gangtok. It was at this point, I felt that this earthquake would probably kill many of us. It was a lifetime experience.

Fortunately, before our building collapsed, the earthquake gradually became feeble and left us. Few aftershocks were also witnessed after the big one.

The enormity of Mother Nature over the so called 21st century development paradigm was clearly evident. It was also clear how feeble we and our development are before the gigantism of nature.

Earthquake in the Himalayas

The Himalaya is formed by the collision of Indian Plate with the Eurasian Plate. The mountain building process is still going on because the Indian Plate is still moving towards the Eurasian Plate. The Indian Plate is pushing the Eurasian Plate northward. The colliding force builds up pressure continually for several years and this pressure is released in the form of earthquakes from time to time.

The Indian Himalayas have experienced some significantly strong earthquakes in the past few decades. USGS has ranked the Indian earthquakes to be the 8th strongest ones in the world

It is important to understand that the Himalaya is not as strong as it appears to be. Dynamics of change in the entire Himalayan ranges are inextricably intertwined with factors such as climate, geology, fauna, flora, water resources etc. The region experiences various types of geo-environmental/geomorphic processes and thereby is prone to a number of natural hazards. Often these hazards assume the form of disaster due to the region’s inherent nature, climatic conditions and lack of adequate disaster preparedness mechanisms, consequently inflicting widespread catastrophe and human insecurities in the region. Further, many of the natural processes have been accelerated by unscientific and unsustainable human activities.

Man V/s Nature

Environmental insecurities across the Himalaya have been responsible in guiding and directing civilizations in the area over the millennia. The relationship between human and environment in the Himalaya had/has been very close since antiquity. There had been a symbiotic and intimate relationship between humans and environment over the ages. However, more recently, things are changing for bad in this fragile resource zone. Originally, humans adjusted themselves with the complex geo-environmental set up of the region and hence environmental determinism was very strong. In recent times, however, we have been seeking to adjust the Himalayan environment according to our needs thereby making way for environmental possibilism. It has resulted in the imbalances in the environment and aggravated the natural processes. This is a very serious issue having far reaching implications on the security of the Himalayan environment and human beings living therein in the days to come.

Sikkim Himalayan Earthquake

Sikkim Earthquake was a magnitude 6.9 Mw [elsewhere it is mentioned 6.8] earthquake centered within the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, near the border of Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim. It occurred at 18:10 Indian Standard Time on Sunday, 18 September 2011. The earthquake was felt across northeastern India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and southern Tibet.

So far around 116 people have been reported killed in the earthquake and several hundred injured. Most of the deaths occurred in Sikkim. Several buildings also collapsed in the state, roads damaged. There are evidences of several minor and major landslides and landslips in the region. The state was physically and virtually disconnected from the rest of the world for almost 24 hours after the earthquake occurred. It has been estimated that the quake has rendered a loss and damage of over Rs one lakh crore in Sikkim alone.

Preliminary Casualties

Country -- No of Death
India -- 97
Nepal -- 11
China -- 07
Bhutan -- 01

Some suggestions

· The Himalaya should not only be looked at as a military frontier. It should not be treated merely as a physical entity because it also has vibrant living aspects. The Himalaya cannot be independent of people living therein nor the inhabitants without their habitats. Often, the Himalaya has been kept at mercy of the mainstream development policies that have little or no relevance in the region given its geo-environmental and socio-cultural dynamics.

· There are areas that are quite rich in natural resources but are inhabited by poor people. The inhabitants have been suffering under harsh environmental conditions, carrying out subsistence economic activities, based primarily on animal rearing and rudimentary farming. Such situation needs up-gradation. Promotion of adequate education, health and food security of the mountain people include important human security challenges in this respect.

· Policy makers, development planners and project implementers should not regard Himalaya as an appendage to economic and political interest of indo-Gangetic plains. It is high time they recognised the geo-political and geo-environmental significance of the region.

· Development planning across the Himalaya should not only aim at improving quality of life but also should have a target of ‘Zero Disaster Impact’. Disasters erode away not only the resource base but also cause loss of human life and bring about unprecedented human insecurities. It further requires extraordinary post disaster non-productive expenses. Efforts need to be focused to use efficient flow sheets absorbing newer technologies and ideas and incorporate Disaster Management Plan for terrain induced as well as human induced disasters in the development planning process of the Himalaya.

· Terrain [like earthquake] induced natural disasters cannot be stopped or diverted away but damages can be prevented and minimised with proper appreciation of geology and other geo-environmental parameters. On the other hand, human induced disasters are the result of in-efficient flow sheets and/or absence of a Disaster Management Plan. All development projects irrespective of financial or physical outlays need to have inherent nucleus of disasters, in general bigger the project larger the nucleus.

· Although India does have its National Disaster Management Policy, the States are primarily responsible for evolving their own State Disaster Management Plan and relief activities. Therefore, it is high time for us to wake up and internalise the geo-environmental realities of the region and work towards that end.

American Chronicle | Climate Change and the Himalayan Environmental Politics

American Chronicle | Climate Change and the Himalayan Environmental Politics

Pertinent Factors of Gorkhaland Movement

Often, critics attempt to link the ongoing Gorkhaland Movement with imaginative theory of the Greater Nepal. The present movement for separate state of Gorkhaland in the Darjeeling hills and its adjacent terai area has to be seen and discussed in the framework of national and regional paradigm.

At the national level Indian Nepali speakers/Gorkhas have always felt that they are treated as foreigners by the mainstream Indians. To a large extent their feeling is correct. Mainstream India repeatedly confuses with the Nepali of Nepal and Indian Nepali. As a consequence, bonafide Indian Nepali speakers suffer psychological as well as physical insecurity.

The culprit here, as often highlighted, is the Treaty of Peace and Friendship (1950) between India and Nepal. In the present context, not less than 50 per cent of the total Nepali population in India is composed of Nepalis who have crossed over from Nepal on the strength of this treaty- in search of greener pasture.

It is also that the history of Indian Gorkhas/Nepalis has been very poorly written by mainstream Indian historians. They did this possibly due to the lack of historical material available with them. As a result mainstream Indians even today believe that all the Nepali speakers on the Indian soil are Nepalese citizens and thus are foreigners. They are unaware of the fact that there are over a crore of bonafide Indian Nepalis/Gorkhas residing in India.

Moreover, as rightly highlighted by many Indian Nepali/Gorkha academicians, Indian Gorkha leaders like Dambar Singh Gurung and Ratanlal Brahmin negatively impacted the lives of Indian Nepalis in the post-independent India. There were several instances when they openly articulated their loyalty towards Nepal instead of their motherland. The speech by Dambar Singh Gurung in the Constituent Assembly (1948) immediately after the independence of India provides a prominent example in this regard.

At a regional level several factors have compelled the Gorkhas and other hill groups to aspire for a separate state outside the purview of West Bengal.

First and the most important factor has been the discrimination and step motherly treatment meted out towards the hill populace by West Bengal Government for many years. Such act of West Bengal can be witnessed in every sector of development.

Protracted failure of the West Bengal government to provide basic infrastructure facilities like adequate educational institutions, health centres, communication, roads, drinking water facilities etc can be taken as important indicators in this respect.

It is surprising that over 45 per cent of the villages in the region still do not have electricity facility while over 40 per cent of the villagers still have to walk to their nearest town.

The spatial distribution of health centres and primary schools is extremely poor. With regard to the institutions of higher and technical learning, Darjeeling occupies the last position among the districts of West Bengal. The only University of Darjeeling district, University of North Bengal, is always flooded by the Bengalis.

Rampant unemployment of Gorkha youths is another critical phenomenon that has contributed to the movement. Government offices in Darjeeling are swamped by Bengalis not to talk in other parts of Bengal.

Further, the superiority complex on the part of mainstream Bengalis and vice-versa in case of the Gorkhas has been an outstanding factor contributing to Gorkhaland movement. T. B. Subba (1992), a noted anthropologist remarks in this connection:

“Long years of interaction between the hill communities and the plainsmen (mainly the Bengalis) had more to do with Gorkhaland demand than anything else. On the one hand these communities had already developed various sorts of interdependence, agrarian and trade being two most important in this regard. Then there was the Nepali language to express themselves with each other and lay the foundation of hill ethnicity. On the other hand, they suffered from certain politico-economic disadvantages vis-a vis the plainsmen. Besides whatever little communication that took place between the hill men and the plainsmen being through the English or Hindi language such an interaction was limited to the educated class and businessmen”.

Subba further asserts

“ the argument that the Bengalis in particular often behaved as masters in Darjeeling hills cannot be easily brushed aside…Had their attitude towards the hill people been healthy the latter would probably have no strong reason to seek a separation from the former”

Mainstream Bengalis customarily consider themselves as superior to the Gorkhas intellectually. They have systematically discriminated and controlled the Gorkhas of Darjeeling academically over the years.

To cite an example, a dedicated Bengali teacher of Darjeeling Government College was shocked to witness discrimination of hill colleges of Darjeeling and Sikkim in the late 1990s by Bengali teachers of North Bengal University. As a part of the external examiners at NBU he observed that no students of the hill colleges would score first division marks if students of the plain colleges, particularly Siliguri College, did not score first division marks. His only advice to his honours students of which this writer was also a part was –‘You guys have no options other than studying with sincerity and dedication. You have to win your battle through sincerity. The people down below do not want you guys to come up. They want to keep you at the bottom.’

The movement for separate state of Gorkhaland is the product of these factors. It has to do with identity of Indian Nepalis/Gorkhas at national level and development of Darjeeling and its surrounding milieu, both physically and psychologically, at regional level.