Respected Chair, Esteemed Panelists, Dignitaries, and Representatives of World Religions,
It is indeed an honour to be here once again and speak to you all as a representative of Zoroastrianism at the Community of San't Egidio.
Mahatma Gandhi once said about the Parsis - as Zoroastrians are known in India - that, “the Parsis are in numbers beneath contempt, but in contribution, beyond compare”.
The late Professor John Hinnells, Professor of Comparative Religion at the University of London, asserted that Zoroastrianism is the world's first ecologically conscious religion". It is only humbling that though today there are less than a hundred thousand Zoroastrians left, not only they strive to respect different aspects of the nature in their everyday lives but their philosophy has also trickled down and influenced how the major religions of our time approach the issue of ecological consciousness.
One of the Zoroastrian texts, the Vendidad has a passage which is a conversation between Prophet Zarathustra and the Creator Ahura Mazda, where Zarathustra asks Ahura Mazda,
‘O Maker of the material world, the Holy one! Which is the third place where the Earth feels most happy? Ahura Mazda replies, “It is the place where one of the faithful sows most corn, grass, and fruit, O Spitama Zarathushtra! (It is) where he waters ground that is dry, or drains ground that is too wet”.
The passage has an injunction to sow the seeds of edible plants, to irrigate dry land and to drain marshy land. In other words, to make unproductive land fertile or afforestation as we call today.
Since we have gathered here in the Spirit of Assisi and this panel is convened on the theme ‘Facing the Reality of Climate Change’, it would only be appropriate to read a passage from Pope John Paul II’s General audience of January 2001 where he said:
“Unfortunately, if we scan the regions of our planet, we immediately see that humanity has disappointed God's expectations. Man, especially in our time, has without hesitation devastated wooded plains and valleys, polluted waters, disfigured the earth's habitat, made the air unbreathable, disturbed the hydrogeological and atmospheric systems, turned luxuriant areas into deserts and undertaken forms of unrestrained industrialization, degrading that "flowerbed" - which is the earth, our dwelling-place.
On this note, I will be presenting a brief paper on behalf of Dr Homi Dhalla who is not here today due to unforeseen circumstances. Homi, who has been a part of the Community’s legacy since the Assisi meeting of 1986, has taken this opportunity to highlight how two ecological disasters occurred in India in the year 2023 as a result of poor planning and haphazard development, resulting in the loss of lives and property.
TWO ECOLOGICAL DISASTERS OCCURRED IN INDIA THIS YEAR DUE TO POOR PLANNING
Man has ruthlessly exploited nature for so long, that we are now facing the serious consequences . This has resulted in floods, wild fires, global warming, pollution , melting glaciers etc.
In India , 40% of wetlands have been lost in the last 30 years. A report from the city of Jaipur states that in the last two decades, 31 hills in the upper Aravalis have disappeared. The past century has seen the destruction of almost a third of the country’s forest cover. Many tree, plant and insect species are extinct or headed in that direction. Forests are cleared regularly for industrial parks, mining, commercial plantations and grazing.
In this brief paper, I wish to discuss how due to poor planning and haphazard development, two ecological disasters have taken place in India in 2023 leading to loss of lives and property.
In January, Joshimath, a small town in Uttarakhand state was “sinking” and thousands had to be evacuated. Since January 2, within six weeks 868 houses had developed large cracks in and around Joshimath. Huge cracks were also visible on the roads. In spite of this very serious development , when the portals of the sacred Badrinath shrine which opened in the last week of April for pilgrims, 1500 vehicles carrying pilgrims crossed the “sinking” town of Joshimath within 24 hours. This was such a dangerous blunder to have been permitted by the authorities. The Badrinath national highway had also developed cracks. Meanwhile , the Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami exuded confidence by saying “We had 45 lakh pilgrims last year and we expect a bigger turnout this year” .Last year the pilgrims and tourists had left behind mountains of garbage, some of which ended up being dumped into the Ganga river.
The issue of crumbling buildings has occurred in several other places like Uttarkashi, Dehradun, Rishikesh, Nainital and Mussoorie. In Rishikesh cracks have developed in about 110 houses. On August 24, 2023, Anni in Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu district had heavy rains. The land beneath the Anni market had begun to sink in the morning. Later, eight rain-hit multi-storeyed concrete buildings on a hillside (constructed on a slope of over 60 degrees) collapsed like a pack of cards.
Simla, known as the ‘Queen of the Hills’ was once a quaint and pretty hill station which I had visited years back. It was built for 25,000 people-- it now houses over 2,50,000 in brazen defiance of geology. The Geological Survey of India states that in hilly areas, construction should only be done on slopes of 30 degrees or less. More than 90% of Simla’s buildings have been built on slopes of 45- 60 degrees. And in some places, buildings stand on steep slopes of 70-75 degrees. This is a disaster in the making with landslides and heavy rains.
Data from the Himachal’s Directorate of Energy (DoE) shows the state had 164 large and small hydro projects in July 2021, S.P.Sati, a geologist from Uttarakhand states “ that ‘unscientific’ construction of roads and hydro projects in the Himalayas is playing havoc with the environment . There is a definite correlation between hydro projects and natural disasters.”
Large scale movement of population from villages into towns for employment has led to reckless building activity. Moreover, the continuous flow of millions of pilgrims and tourists has led to construction of small and large hotels as well as tourist resorts. Poor planning with no respect for mountain ecology has also led to this disaster. As per Niti Aayog Agency, 75% of urban centres or census towns in India lack any strategy.
Soon after the land subsidence in Joshimath , the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority (NSDMA) decided to appoint an expert committee to carry out a technical and scientific study of towns in the state. If timely action is not taken, there are many Joshimaths waiting to happen.
One of the important solutions is to introduce strict limits on pilgrim and tourist numbers. There are examples globally which should be examined. Bhutan has long charted a path of ecotourism by charging foreign tourists a sustainable development fee of around $ 200 per person per night, As part of its ‘high value, low volume’ tourism strategy. This policy has worked well for Bhutan’s ecology and tourism industry.
There are similar polices in Central and South America. Costa Rica accounts for 4% of the world’s biodiversity and relies on tourism for 10% of its GDP. Yet it has been an ecotourism icon with initiatives like the Blue Flag Ecology programme under which a strict set of environmental criteria is laid down. In Chile, the tourism industry is allowed to operate only in sustainable ways within protected areas.
The other ecological disaster took place in the state of Himachal Pradesh on July 9 -10, 2023 . The river Beas rampaged through Kullu and Mandi districts claiming dozens of lives and destroying property worth millions. It was the river’s fiercest form of destruction in living memory. The national highway disappeared at Bahang, Kalath and Raison near Manali. Cars and trucks were tossed around like toys. In Bhuntar town 35 houses were swept away. The ancient Panchvaktra temple at Mandi was submerged. The Himachal state disaster management authority has estimated that around 2200 houses and 428 shops were lost in the entire Kulu district.
Climate activists and experts say that this was a man-made catastrophe. Dams , mining, deforestation and encroachments have all contributed to the severity of floods. But the dumping of road construction waste directly into the river is the main reason. Silt and gravel thrown into a river obstructs the natural flow and raises the water level. The river is again trying to tell us something –- you cannot obstruct and then control it.
India has to learn a lesson from the models being followed successfully in Bhutan ,Costa Rica and Chile as mentioned above. These countries have shown the path, but will we walk it?