Fire in the hills
Turn in any direction and one will see smoke, if not the fire itself. All across the lower and mid-hills of the western Himalayas, forest fires are raging. Fires in the hills, and elsewhere, are not new. When the Kalka-Shimla railway line started functioning in the early 20th century, sparks would fly out of the coal-burning locomotives. These were held responsible for flames along the slopes. Villagers who lived along the track complained that their crops were affected and grasslands, on which their cattle depended, were destroyed. A system of compensation was worked out and, suddenly, there was a spurt in the number of fires. Spark arrestor chimneys, like those used on locomotives that steamed across the American prairies, were installed and other innovations added. The fires caused by the locomotives stopped but the claims for compensation did not.
In 2003, I joined a group of friends that was walking down the Kalka-Shimla railway track to commemorate a centenary of its construction. Along a short stretch, I was going to walk with them for a day. They would take four days and cover the entire length. My reason for choosing a single day was quite simple. I wanted to walk along, arguably, the prettiest stretch which lies between the stations of Kaithlighat and Kandaghat. This is the section where the permanent way does not run close to the highway, but veers away to the opposite side of the hill. Open grasslands, patches of woodland and a few small villages mark this stretch. On the walk, marring this image of ‘chocolate-box’ beauty, there were swathes of charred trees and blackened ground. These were remnants of previous fires. At the same time, I was not prepared for the rubbish which debased this beauty and lay parked in every possible nook and cranny. Fifteen years later, in May 2018, I became a part of a massive clean-up along the Kalka-Shimla railway track. An initiative had been taken by Himachal’s Legal Services Authority and hundreds of volunteers removed a significant amount of the rubbish that had accumulated along the line.
A few months later, I was travelling on the train where the area had been cleaned. A father passed an empty bottle to the mother, who passed it to their young child and out of the window it went. One of the passengers, very politely, remarked on this. The gentleman, with whom the empty bottle originated, was ready for a fight; the lady cried, “What else is one supposed to do?” In all likelihood, the child would have learnt that it was acceptable to toss one’s rubbish anywhere. In conversation, there are very few things that will put me on the back foot regarding my country. One of these is litter, and our seeming indifference to where we throw our rubbish. That day, everyone in the compartment fell silent. Today, places that once held pristine beauty seem to have embraced filth with open arms. All across the hills, there was a time we would rejoice when we saw a bit of colour emerge with the spring thaw. ‘The first flowers are coming up,’ we would tell ourselves. Now, that bit of colour, often enough, is a piece of plastic or an empty sachet that had been covered by the snow and has decided to reveal itself.
In the hills, an older generation will tell you that if you can avoid doing so, do not buy land in a chir pine (pinus roxburghii) forest. While the tree has certain medicinal qualities, the cover of pine needles and their chemical content does not allow any substantive undergrowth. The springs can run dry. These are also the woods that are most prone to fires — some of which are accidental and some seem to have been deliberately lit. There is a premise that land cleared with fire will yield a better crop of grass in the monsoon.
Tenuous as it may seem, there is a connection between fallen pine needles, litter and fire. Some of the rubbish is flammable and what is not, works its way into channels and adversely affects the springs and streams. Bottles, like the one thrown from the train, can be the biggest culprits of them all. They act as magnifying glasses and can set the woods alight.
Christ Church in Kasauli has a plaque marking the death of two British soldiers, Selby Lane and Richard Reed, who died fighting a forest fire in 1935 which, ‘…threatened to destroy Kasauli’. Like them, there must be numerous others who have had no plaques to mark their passing. Humans apart, thousands of birds, insects and animals also lose their lives. Those who survive have lost their habitats and their chances of possible recovery. The odds are stacked against them as they are the lowest rung on nature’s food chain, which has been broken.
There is another blaze raging across the hills. Fire and fury marked the speeches of electoral hopefuls. What is of note is that no one mentioned the environment and its protection. This, after the last devastating monsoon, which is not even a year old. In 2020, there were 16 landslides; in 2023, there were 165. As many as 2,500 homes were destroyed and around 400 persons died.
