Boats on Peddar Road
Boats on Peddar road! For those living in cities other than Bombay, substitute Peddar Road with the name of a very important road in your own city or town. But let us go back to the first statement. Boats on Peddar Road! Does it sound very improbable? And what does it mean? Has there been a tidal wave in Bombay that Peddar Road now requires boats to travel on ? Well... it doesn't seem to be anything as drastic as that if you go by the excited faces in a lot of these boats. But wait a minute... what about those faces in the buildings on Peddar Road? They sure don't look too happy with what is going on. In fact, they look rather upset. And why wouldn't they be? After all, their houses are now submerged under water... at least the houses on the ground floor are. And just imagine this... they paid a small fortune to obtain these beautiful houses in a nice location like Peddar Road.
STOP! Can someone please tell me what is going on? In the first place, why does Peddar Road now resemble a river? When and how did this happen?
Did you just say that the idea of sending a river through Bombay city was actually conceived by the Government? A RIVER! Are they nuts? What on earth could have prompted them to do something like this anyway? Okay... I understand that the city has been facing a water shortage for some years now. But surely, this cannot be the solution. It's not like there is a shortage of open land near Bombay. Why couldn't they simply create a canal outside Bombay and just pipe the water to us? That is what most governments do. Yes... I agree that open land is a bit difficult to find in India because of our large population. But, if you think about it seriously, the number of people on that open land who will be affected is miniscule compared to the city of Bombay. Come on, we have a population of close to 16 million people. You surely do not expect 16 million people to suffer for this when just a few hundreds or thousands may have to relocate. That is exactly why it is called 'The Greater Common Good'. And what is their problem anyway... they are getting land as compensation in other areas or the government is paying them.
By itself, that logic sounds fine. After all, the Government is taking care of those who are going to be affected. But when you stop to consider that the Government does not actually pay the existing market rate for those same lands, then you have something to think about. It's not like the affected people have plenty of resources with which they can argue with the Government saying that they should be paid the market rate for their lands. The Government, under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 is entitled to decide how much to pay based on the local Collector's research into the matter, and they do not have to pay a rupee more than that. It is another matter that when the affected people try and use that money to buy some other land, they do not get it for anything lower than the market rate. Or if they are being given land elsewhere as compensation, the land is mostly unfit for living in or completely alien to the lifestyle that the affected people are used to living. Let us compare this situation to our own lives. Say, for example, that you are an engineer. You have spent years of your life dreaming of being one and studying hard to become one. And you have finally achieved your dream. You have just passed out of one of the premier institutes and are among the crème` de la crème`. But just as you get yourself a fantastic job paying Rs. 30,000/- a month, the Government for reasons of its own, passes a law that engineers from top institutions are not going to be entertained anymore... even in private corporations. The maximum anybody can pay an engineer is Rs. 7500/- per month whether they are from the top institutes or not. And the government also passes a law saying that henceforth only doctors are required for the national economy to grow and that they will be paid a lot. You are caught in a bind. Rs. 7500/- per month is obviously not enough to make a decent living and you cannot look out for a doctor's job because you aren't one. You don't even remotely know what it feels like to be a doctor.
The affected person in the earlier example goes through a very similar predicament. The money given to him as payment for his land is not enough to buy good land elsewhere and neither does he or she have the option of refusing the offer. The government is entitled to take the land anyway. Even the process of holding on to the land isn't all that easy. It's mostly beyond the means of those who are affected by this issue. Or the land given as compensation is something quite alien to the displaced person. He has spent a lifetime working on his ancestral land, studying it, understanding it and learning how to cultivate it so that he and his family are assured of a regular source of food. Now he is suddenly being asked to leave and to start from scratch on land that he may not understand at all. Even if he attempts to learn, it is likely to take him several years before he can understand it well enough to start getting a good enough produce from it. Just like an engineer would require years of study, hard work and training to convert himself into a doctor. But nobody seems to think that there is a problem with this situation. In fact, any attempt to question policies like this are seen almost as acts of treason... as if by asking these questions, you are questioning the very concept of development and progress. Such a debate might look very unreasonable just when India has begun to take a lead globally in the race towards development. We are surely among the top contenders for first place along with countries like China. But our current position as one of the world's fastest growing economies still does not justify treating large numbers of our own citizens in such a callous manner.
The Centre's latest plan has been unveiled recently. The river garlanding scheme, which was first proposed some decades ago, has now been dusted off and revamped and brought out again. This plan proposes to link rivers in the country in such a manner that water from the flooded rivers in the east of India are transferred to the not so generous rivers in the western regions. Other than the fact that it will cost the nation over Rs. 5,00,000 crores at current estimates and around 15 years for the project to be fully functional, it will also displace about 4 lakh people who happen to live in the path of the proposed canals. This figure comes straight from Suresh Prabhu, the minister responsible for the implementation of this project at the current time. This number is no small number and it seems highly debatable that only four lakh people will be displaced considering that the canals which will do the job of transferring water from the east to the west will have to be built right across the country… the central part of which happens to be hugely populous. So, if only 4 lakh people are going to be displaced, it seems that these canals will be made in places which are rather less populated. These places, as we know from past experiences like the Narmada fiasco, unfortunately happen to be lands largely populated by indigenous tribal people or indispensable forested areas. The question begs to be asked. If cities are facing huge water shortages because of indiscriminate usage and bad practices, why are non-city dwellers being made to pay the penalty? Why are they the ones who have to change their lifestyle, their culture and their land for others who anyway don't care two hoots to conserve what is available in nature?
My suggestion to the Centre is that if city dwellers are to get the benefit of this project then let them also face the trouble of being displaced or any other inconveniences that may pop up due to this project. It is not okay anymore to use the tired, old cliché of ‘The Greater Common Good'. It is very late but not too late yet for us. We can no longer accept these statements in a casual manner because if we do, we are the ones who will suffer. At present, we may simply be lucky enough to belong to a group that does not have to sacrifice its own lifestyle for bringing about change. But this state of affairs may not continue for too long. Soon, if we are not vigilant, we may also find ourselves among that great mass of people who are legitimate citizens of this country but are certainly not treated as such by the powers that be. What is happening is inhuman and yet we choose consistently to look the other way. So, if we choose to live our lives without a care about using natural resources sustainably, then let us also have the courage to face the troubles that come along with this lifestyle. Let us not be cowardly and make other people… innocent people who are not to blame… pay for the mistakes that we have made and continue to make in our quest for a lifestyle that promotes an unbridled kind of consumption. Let us have the Brahmaputra submerge our cities with its swollen waters if we want more water to waste.
- Vinod Sreedhar