Need to learn lessons from Summer Hill tragedy

A hairline fracture, according to the Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary, is a fracture that appears as a narrow crack along the surface of a bone. And one cannot but help see the ‘hairline fracture’ effect in the unprecedented tragedy witnessed by the residents of Summer Hill, Shimla. I reflect via three entry points, and all of these may seem an eerie coincidence, but at a deeper level, have led me to connect singular, disjointed events in the context of such calamities (many of these being given the generic term of ‘cloudburst’ without contextual variation) impacting Himachal Pradesh in general and Shimla in particular.

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My first point of entry begins from having been a former fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla, between 2014 and 2016, since that was my introduction to the region between Summer Hill (starting at Bilaspur Cottage) and Boileauganj (ending with Courteen Hall), followed by being an everydayer at Hiwan village (3 km from Summer Hill Chowk), and now, after some more years, returning full circle to Summer Hill, living five minutes’ walking distance from Shiv Baodi where tragedy struck on August 14.

My second entry point is the event itself, and its bizarre, yet significant, connection with the IIAS; the final one is the search for missing family members of my immediate neighbours in the debris, opening my eyes to all the khads — Shiv Baodi, Andri, Gadaug, Chaili, Bheont-Kyar, etc. — which signify the greater ecological connections between the assumed and administratively disparate grameen (rural) and ‘MC’ configurations of Shimla. I reflect upon these entry points in the context of the immediate losses: human, non-human, as well as the Shimla-Kalka heritage train line, which has seen its worst disaster.

And here are some of my concerns. We seem rather unaware of, or oblivious to, the subtle warning signals around us regarding weather patterns (not merely the simplistic meteorological data) in the biodiversity in our neighbourhoods. For instance, the unusually early (or unseasonal) calls of the insects (including cicadas); the strange disappearance (a few days before and on the fateful day) of the langurs from the tall cedars and silver oaks; the unusual volume of water (even during the monsoon) gushing out from rockfaces and crevices closer to the train line (where many people take their morning and evening walks); and the more obvious cracks in house walls and signs of instability and seepage in living spaces, long ignored.

I also reflect on the larger inter-connectedness of the circulatory space of the entire Summer Hill (not merely urban) zone and Boileauganj, which should now include the subtle and obvious changes in dwelling patterns within the municipal limits and the resultant change in the surrounding panchayats. To cite one instance, for long, the people of Hiwan had an issue concerning the impact of the haphazard urban clusters in Upper and Middle Sangti (municipal) and its sewerage systems on their khads. Summer Hill also includes the IIAS, which can no longer be seen as a separate entity unto itself, notwithstanding who governs it or what research happens therein. This space is equally a geophysical space (apart from economic and social) and any crack within this larger region must be closely observed and addressed.

Coming to the IIAS premises, one closely observed the caving in of one stretch of the pathway behind the garden area (behind the library building of the IIAS), which was the starting point of the massive fall of trees and earth all the way down in a straight line on the train line and further towards the Shiva temple. The two spaces, though far apart (administratively), are dangerously linked (ecologically). Any disturbance to the structure on the hilltop (be it an undesirable construction or even a long-ignored crack or rupture) is bound to affect the space below. A cloudburst is not the sole and only lens through which to perceive the disaster. The longer duration of slow deterioration of physical structures, if ignored, leads to major disasters. Even the forest path — a tar road — parallel to the Summer Hill road (within the institute) has developed huge fissures. Did it occur due to the cloudburst or was it happening over a period of time?

Moving on to the premises of Himachal Pradesh University (HPU), a road caved in right in front of the State Bank of India branch next to the physics block and the employees were shifted temporarily to Boileauganj. The women’s hostel, too, has been impacted. But these are also not recent events. Just a day or two ago, residents in a locality called MI Room nearby were asked to vacate their houses as they are apparently becoming unsafe. Over the last few days, we had other incidents of building collapse (elsewhere), which go on to show that a cloudburst in, and by itself, or torrential rain is not the root cause of massive (‘freak’) tragedies, but the outcomes of fault-lines at an axis point, a ‘central bone’, which need to be fixed.

The central point could be anywhere within this circulatory space. The undue stress on the bone (the earth-space itself underneath all of these) came from an increase in constructions, too. HPU, incidentally, does not have adequate hostels for all its students and they depend on PG accommodation in Summer Hill. Profit economics has put ecology under stress. Buildings lead to roads and parking lots where none existed earlier, including one which was under construction right next to the collapsed Shiva temple. It is debatable if the new construction next to the temple may have also caused undue stress to the rockface behind the structure and exacerbated the loosening of the soil.

Tenants in my neighbourhood are contemplating shifting to safer spaces. However, which locality within Shimla (urban or rural) is disaster-proof? Is the present government following in the footsteps of the previous one, or is willing to carve out a greener ecological footprint of its own, to decide whether its focus will be on ecological deficit (bound to impact us irreversibly) or simply, its economic deficit? Else, the hairline will soon metamorphose into multiple fractures and total rupture, hard to fix when more lives, landscapes and cultural-historical heritage are lost.