Round One to the Lobbyists, Politicians and BureaucratsBy Biju Negi - Indian Express - Dehra Dun, January 2, 2001
http://www.indian-express.com/ie/daily/20010102/ian02023.htmlAT MIDNIGHT, 8-9 November 2000, the twenty-seventh state of the country, Uttaranchal (née Uttarakhand) came into being. It was the fruition of a long-held demand, and a consequence of an unprecedented people’s movement over the last six years. The Uttarakhand movement was historic in which, at one time, virtually the entire populace was physically or emotionally agitating, and in an entirely peaceful manner. It was a movement of the people and by the people, with no role for the then politicians, who stood conspicuously rejected and isolated. In fact, it was a movement in which it was the leaders who followed the masses rather than the other way around.
And yet, the creation of the new state has not caused obvious elation among the people. By and large, no joy, no sense of achievement or fulfillment, and at best only a sense of relief. If one surveys the events leading up to the creation of this new state and the swearing in of its first Governor and Chief Minister, the entire exercise seems a great let down. The happenings of the last two months, since the formation of the state was announced, would suggest as if there was no such thing as the Uttarakhand movement. With a callous disregard for the sentiments of the people and of the emotional, physical and material sacrifices made by them, the BJP has pushed the movement to the sidelines, and in fact negated it. A party that hardly participated in the movement (and a governor who had earlier actually protested the creation of this new state) has behaved in a manner that suggested everyone else to 'keeps their hands off'. The party in power has not deemed it fit to share with the people the credit for the creation of the new state, lest it might have to share power with them. Given the political character and atmosphere in the country, one need not be surprised. But to make absolutely no mention of the many social and political groups that created and nurtured the movement, no reference to the youth, women – the matri shakti – or the ex-servicemen who kept the pressure on, and who through their sacrifices kept the flames of the movement from petering out, is a little bit thankless.
That the people do not matter, and only the party does is evident from the two acts by the BJP – one, the name given to the new state and two, Dehra Dun being made its capital, even if a temporary one.
The entire movement for this separate hill state, even when it was first seriously mooted in the early fifties, had always spoken about it as Uttarakhand, a name that had its genesis in the ancient lore and scriptures. It was indeed surprising that the BJP coined a new name Uttaranchal for this proposed state – a name it stuck to despite no popular support for it. This also gave rise to an often comical see-saw situation in Uttar Pradesh in the last decade or so. Every time BJP came to power in UP, the hill development department would be named Uttaranchal, but which would get immediately reverted to Uttarakhand when another party came to power in the state.
It is rather odd that for a party which considers itself the sole guardian of the country's heritage and culture, to have discarded the traditional in opting for the name Uttaranchal. BJP’s argument was that it did not believe in or support the idea of khand (piece or part of division), the concept of the country getting divided up. For the same reason, it had given the name Vananchal to Jharkhand, the last of the three new states created recently. Okay, if that was BJP’s point of view then fine. But the fact now that the name Jharkhand and not Vananchal has remained for that new state, weakens the BJP’s argument against the name Uttarakhand. From the response of the people, who largely continue to call the new state Uttarakhand, it is obvious that the moment another party comes to power in this new state, it is quite likely to consider the change in the state’s name to Uttarakhand.
Name apart, more worrying is the fact of having made Dehra Dun the capital of this new state, which only suggests that it is the writ of the politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists and the mafia which has prevailed – and not the interests of the people nor the development of the hill region.
In the entire Uttarakhand movement, among the issues on which there was total consent - among the people and between the participating groups – was the location of the capital of the proposed new state at Gairsain. If at all one occasionally heard of Dehra Dun and Nainital being offered as choices (Kalagarh, Hardwar and others were never talked about then and have only now come into the picture), it was only by sections of the respective local residents with narrow vision or interests.
One of the major gains of the Uttarakhand movement was the break-up of a part fact, part fiction psychological barrier, which existed between the people of Garhwal and Kumaon. And Gairsain was symbolic of the coming together of the two communities, which had hitherto been assumed to nurse a bias against each other and engage in sometimes petty rivalry. By now making Dehra Dun the capital and not announcing the location for the permanent capital of new state, the government has undone this gain of the Uttarakhand movement, and has actively sought to drive a fissure between the two communities.
The choice of Gairsain, located in a valley close to the border between Garhwal and Kumaon, would be true to the character of a hill state, and would have been only appropriate – the capital of a hill state being in the hills. And since development was the raison d'être of the basic demand for a separate hill state, the selection of Gairsain as the capital would have meant that the common hill folk would likely be placed at the centre of planning and development. But now, by opting for Dehra Dun, the government has sent all the wrong signals.
Dehra Dun, adjoining the plains, is easily already the most developed area in the new state. In fact, short of industrialization, Dehra Dun counted among the most advanced places in even the erstwhile Uttar Pradesh. The new state starts with a financial disadvantage, and there is every chance that the lion’s share of whatever economic assistance comes its way will get concentrated in or cornered by Dehra Dun. It is quite like helping the rich get richer, while the poor remain poor, if not actually get poorer.
The people are already beginning to ask – so what is the difference from what we were earlier? That, if Dehra Dun had to be the capital then what was wrong with Lucknow in the first place? Dehra Dun, with its plains bias, would be just as ignorant or unconcerned of the problems of the hills. The migrant Uttarakhandi in Delhi and other places, particularly its youth, who continue to leave their villages in large number and who could have entertained the thought of returning home with hopes of development, are now more likely to have second thoughts.
At the same time, Dehra Dun, which once boasted a year-round equitable climate, had a thick green cover and ample water resources, is already bursting at its small, sensitive seams. The orchards of delicious, juicy litchi have all but vanished from the town area. And the outskirts of the town, where the air used to be laden with the fragrance of the basmati, are being gobbled up by residential construction activities at a fast pace. The locals know that the basmati now selling in the town actually originates in Saharanpur and even Punjab, and is a far cry from the original that used to grow in the town.
The aroma has now largely been replaced by the fumes of vehicular traffic, which the town’s narrow congesting roads, make the Dehra Dun town among the worst polluted in the country. That it has now become the capital of the new state is only going to worsen the situation.
However, the most worrying factor is that Dehra Dun and its adjoining areas have in the last decade seen strong infiltration from adjoining regions now outside the state. And this infiltration is not the kind that might be welcomed. The town has become a stronghold of an established mafia – particularly dealing in land and liquor, and spreading its wings in other areas as well. It would be in the interest of such people – and of the bureaucrats and the politicians, who would rather not go uphill to a place yet to be developed - that Dehra Dun be the capital, for they could then call all the shots and also spread their influence in other parts of Uttarakhand.
The government might defend itself by saying that Dehra Dun is only the interim capital, but the common man feels short-changed and fears (in fact, knows) that the capitals do not change easily. It didn't change in the case of Shimla in Himachal Pradesh. It hasn’t happened as yet in the case of Chandigarh. In fact, the Uttarakhand government has already stopped stressing that Dehra Dun is only the temporary capital. Nityanand Swamy, the state’s first Chief Minister, now says that a Commission will be set up to look into the question of the permanent capital, which cements the doubts of the people. Cleverly, he avoids using the name of Gairsain and has only sought to confuse the issue and compound the problem by naming several more locations as options.
Already close to Rs 50 crores have been spent or are proposed to be spent on Dehra Dun, much of it on unnecessary sprucing up. With this amount, a worthwhile beginning could have been made in Gairsain itself. But it is an old ploy. The government does it always. In the region itself, it has employed this ploy in the case of the Tehri dam. Despite protests and the matter then pending in the courts, the authorities continued to spend so much on the dam that after a while that expenditure itself became the reason for the dam to continue. And the authorities then began arguing that the dam couldn't possibly be stopped now when so much had already been spent on it! The lobbies – bureaucrats, politicians and the mafia - with their interests vested in Dehra Dun will do the same to retain it as Uttarakhand’s capital.
It is obvious, the birth of the new state means that people’s struggle has not ended but must continue. In fact, now more than ever, the people need to be more aware, more concerned. For, until now, one was supposedly battling an alien plain’s prejudice and a Lucknow rule. Now the fight would be located in the home itself, and the adversaries would be one’s own people. This would be an infinitely bigger challenge and a more difficult task – creating a dilemma similar to what troubled Arjun. To resolve this dilemma, the people would need to fall back on the words of Lord Krishna in the Gita. If the new state has to have any meaning for the common hill folk, if it has to be the hill state that it was envisioned to be rather than a beleaguered version of the erstwhile Uttar Pradesh then the people will have to remain vigilant, move centre stage and battle on.
As the cliché would go, the battle for Uttarakhand may have been won, but certainly not the war.
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