Heed the murderous mountain messages

THE sight of one’s home getting crushed and its remains swept down a gorge like dirt is obviously worse than the worst nightmare. And such nightmares have become an everyday reality in Himachal Pradesh. All dreams of quick prosperity atop a beautiful hill are turning into terrible spectacles of misery. And the primary villain in this sordid drama of devastation is unabated greed, which gets renamed as development. Sure, people of every part of the country should prosper at a more or less equal pace, not leaving any state or region lagging. That does not mean every part of the country is the same and what applies to the Delhi-Jaipur highway or the Mumbai-Ahmedabad road-widening process must apply to the Chandigarh-Shimla stretch as well. And therein lies the rub.

While catering to the tourism industry, which has the paying capacity, local authorities fail to notice that their urban drainage system is nonexistent.

It is too early to point fingers at an administration that is grappling with destruction of an unprecedented magnitude. But if it is not said now, it will soon be forgotten; and then again, it will be construction and more construction as usual — vertical cutting of slopes for highways, blasting of hillocks for hotels, rapacious mining of sand and gravel, dumping of debris in the rivers, and building of structures wherever possible. The Himalayas are telling the non-stop builders to pause and if these murderous mountain messages are not heeded even now, the consequences will be worse than what they already are: at least 330 dead this monsoon season, more than 110 landslides, arterial roads swept away, villages cut off, power outages, shortage of drinking water and cooking gas.

When it comes to border states, military requirements should undoubtedly take precedence. Roads and bridges have to be built if tanks and other heavy equipment are to be transported. But the standoff with China in eastern Ladakh has proven that the Indian Air Force is capable of transporting men and equipment far more efficiently than road networks could have facilitated. Since 2020, 68,000 troops and 9,000 tonnes of heavy equipment, including around 100 tanks, over 300 BMPs or infantry fighting vehicles, artillery guns, radars and surface-to-air guided systems, have been strategically placed on the roof of the world. The IAF’s C-17 Globemaster III and C-130 J Super Hercules continue to do the heavy lifting.

Yet, the need for road building for the sake of national security cannot be overstated and need not be faulted even on ecological grounds. But faster travel for the tourists cannot be reason enough to widen roads where it simply cannot be done. For instance, the Parwanoo-Solan section of the national highway has been regularly witnessing landslides because the mountain is being vertically cut. Any lay person can see that the mountain is trying to stabilise itself by creating a slope, where one is absolutely necessary. However, the highway engineers and contractors would remove the sand and rocks and build a stay-wall, which will only prompt another slide in the next monsoon season. This exercise has been going on like an expensive ritual for the past five years.

Even ordinary citizens of Himachal Pradesh definitely need quick modes of travel for certain situations, such as a health emergency. But the answer for that is not to build roads to accommodate unwieldy tourist buses from Delhi. The answer lies in building more heliports, ensuring better air connectivity and to plan for maybe two or more airports and airstrips. Tourists can wait and tourists should wait. There is no need for tourists to reach Kullu in four to five hours from Chandigarh. In fact, it makes better business sense to get them to halt at Mandi and spend a night there before reaching Kullu.

The local populace’s biggest grouse is that Himachal’s development is determined by the demands of the tourism industry. And there is truth in this complaint. It was just five years ago when Assistant Town Planner Shail Bala Sharma was chased and shot by hotelier Vijay Thakur, who was agitated by the drive against illegal constructions in Kasauli. Since then, illegal constructions have only flourished, making it difficult for local residents to drive freely during the peak hours. And, of course, this monsoon season has proven that construction gets translated into distress and not development. Rules, again residents complain, are only for them and not for the hoteliers — some influential investors are often accused of ploughing in others’ ill-gotten wealth. Buildings have even come up atop the British-era Sanjauli-Dhalli tunnel and the seepage inside the tunnel is a cause for grave concern.

Now, ‘migrant architects’ are being blamed for the woes of the state. What can an architect do other than what his client wants and what the government prescribes? In a state where an assistant town planner can be shot in broad daylight, how can indiscriminate, illegal constructions be blamed on some architect, migrant or local?

The answer to Himachal’s developmental requirements are not more constructions, more busloads of tourists, spending less and less. With every new hotel or newer restaurant, competition increases, forcing the existing ones to offer more at lesser rates. Why can’t this be reversed? Let Himachal be a high-end tourist destination for well-heeled travellers. Let them fly down or break their journeys as often as required and spend more and not lesser and lesser. There is no point in widening the roads to beckon people to play music on cheap boom-boxes at the Rohtang Pass while eating Maggi noodles and littering the mountains.

Then, while catering to the tourism industry, which has the paying capacity, local authorities fail to notice that their urban drainage system is nonexistent. At many places, there is no way water can flow downhill. No wonder Shimla’s old Viceregal Lodge is becoming wobbly, with a portion of its backyard sliding down into a temple, killing devotees. Suddenly, middle-class residents have become homeless in this beautiful city, reminding everyone of nature’s unheeded lessons turning into its fury. Let this monsoon stay alive in the state’s collective consciousness, making it redraw the Shimla development plan while keeping the 17 green belts and their core areas untouched.