A Close Encounter with ‘Development’
Sangeetha Sriram
Part-I
When I visited the Adyar creek the other day, I saw that
everthing had disappeared without leaving a trace. I decided to write the story of my
closest encounter with 'development'. A real life story pregnant with passion and built on
clichéd ideas like 'creating a better world to live in'.
1997 April. I was fresh out of college and had joined Exnora as
a project officer. It was my first major project and what came to be called my pet
project. I was part of this small team with my colleagues that organised a 15-day summer
workshop on environment for college and school students. Thirty students signed up seeing
our advertisement in the newspaper.
We chose the Adyar creek - estuary right at the heart of the
city as our study area. We knocked at the doors of taxonomy experts, water and soil
quality experts, social scientists, wildlife experts, who all enthusiastically agreed to
be the resource persons. With their help, we did a fairly thorough study (for our levels
of competence) of the environmental-socio-economic status of the creek. We prepared water
and soil quality reports using portable kits and lab tests. We explored inaccessible parts
of the creek covered with thick vegetation, prepared a herbarium of some 70 species of
plants and learnt all their tongue-twister botanical names. We enumerated the fauna and
grew fond of the really special ‘dhobi’ crabs. One of their two claws is longer,
and when they crawl moving them up and down they really look like dhobis (washermen) in
action! At the end of it all, we produced a decent report, which was the first of its
kind, and made it in all the leading newspapers “Young people set out to restore the
creek”. One of the several points of action suggested was to restore the mangroves
along the banks. We learnt that mangroves played an important role in the estuarine
ecosystem by treating the polluted water, helping in water recharge, acting as a cyclone
barrier preventing erosion, and most importantly lending their complex aerial root
formations for natural nurseries of fish and prawn. It seemed like an irresistible first
project to me, and a few of us decided to take it up seriously. I landed in what I still
consider one of my most intense learning experiences.
We just could not ignore this eyesore of a monstrous apartment
building right on the bank of the creek, which was being built by this industrial baron
violating every Coastal Zone Regulation (CRZ) rule possible. (For those familiar with
Chennai, it is the place where Jayalalitha had held one of the most ostentatious weddings
ever of her foster son several years ago.) When we questioned the supervisors engaged in
the construction work, they threatened to run us over with their trucks. That was enough
to provoke us to take them to court for ‘justice’. We carefully learnt the CRZ
rules and joined hands with the Consumer Action Group (CAG) to file a PIL in the High
Court. “No building may be built within 500 metres from the high-tide line”. And
this building was not even 50 metres away. 50 is 450 away from 500. How could we lose the
case? We dreamt of hitting the headlines “College students teach the construction
baron (CB) a fine lesson.”
When I first heard the name ‘mangroves’, I really
thought it was ‘mango groves’ misspelled. After sufficient clarification, I
spent the next few days learning about these amazing plants that survived in brackish
water, spreading out their roots embracing, protecting and nurturing other forms of life.
We approached some scientists at the M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF)
“Could you help us plant mangroves along the Adyar Creek?” Most were skeptical
and some did not even take us seriously. Persistence paid, when the last person we
approached, Hemal Kavinde was quite sympathetic and agreed to help. It was a feeling of
immense accomplishment!
We organised a workshop on mangroves for the volunteers.
Beginning with ‘what are mangroves?’, the workshop ended in drawing up an
ambitious plan of action to restore the mangroves. Roles and responsibilities were
assigned to everyone. Hemal was excited to see our enthusiasm and decided to work with us.
We maintained a logbook, where we religiously recorded day-to-day developments. We learnt
that the creek and its bank belonged to the Public Works Department (PWD), from whom we
had to obtain permission. After several trips to the PWD with a carefully drafted letter
edited several times over, an officer finally turned up for site-inspection. After several
weeks of waiting and following-up, we were disheartened to receive a letter from the PWD
“We reject your proposal because you will be interfering with the river”. Well,
it made perfect sense in their worldview of “rivers and lakes as cemented channels
and containers of water to be controlled and manipulated by the humans”. We even
tried to pull strings through C.Subramaniam, whose son was our well wisher and used to
call us young people ‘live wires’. We waited for hours at CS’s house
expecting the then PWD minister who was coming there to meet him, with a rapid two-minute
presentation on the need to restore mangroves. This was going to be our last shot at doing
this the legal way. The minister refused and we made a decision to go ahead with our
“illegal” activities.
Then followed a fun-trip to Pichavaram, this vast mangrove swamp
near Chidambaram, where MSSRF had their field station. There is this variety of mangrove
called Rhizophora that isn’t found anywhere in or around Chennai. Its stunning
character has to be seen to be believed! We went by boats, splashed water on one another,
picked and plucked 1000 seeds and propagules (drumstick like seeds of rhizophora),
gathered them in huge gunny bags and returned with excitement and dreams. Like the milk
lady who dreamt about becoming rich, on our way back we imagined the Adyar Creek as this
thick forest that would be noticeable on a remote sensing map in a few years! We brought
family and friends together for an eventful preparation of the mangrove nursery. We then
set out to the fisherfolk village near the creek, Srinivasapuram, to seek their
involvement in our project. “Community participation” was a new jargon, and a
radical idea at that, for all of us then, which we used quite liberally in all our
discussions, talks and reports.
Srinivasapuram is a huge settlement with several hundred
families who have been living there for many generations. We went there with our agenda of
telling them “See, do you understand that your fish catch has gone down from 32
baskets a day to a mere two because the mangroves have been destroyed? Let’s all work
together to bring them back.” They got back to us with their own problem, which was
that their livelihoods and their very homes were at threat by the CB, who was
contemplating filling up a wetland which was a rich source of fish, and removing this
“slum” from the sight of the occupants of the apartment building. “Can you
do something about that?” We thought we had done our best by filing the PIL, writing
about it in the newspapers and organizing signature campaigns. We saw this as a
distraction from our “real work” and decided to “stay focused”.
Meanwhile we mobilised some support to build a fence around the
100 m stretch and involved the fishermen in the work. We organised slide shows in the
settlement and huge crowds would gather. It was a first crack at public speaking for many
of us. We wrote articles in magazines. We were giving speeches in school assemblies and
other gatherings. Chennaionline.com did an online petition for us. Thus was born the
“Save Adyar Creek” campaign. www.chennaionline.com/events/creekcampaign.asp
We had to wait for the monsoons to come and go, so that the
salinity of the estuary water reduced. Young mangroves cannot tolerate too much salt, we
learnt. The day arrived for the Rhizophora propagules (seeds) and young avicennia saplings
to be transplanted. Very carefully, one foot apart in four neat rows. Wearing gumboots and
sinking into the slush, half sewage. Even the stench of the dirty water could not stop us.
We were committed to seeing it through.
Over the next one year, we took turns to show up every morning
at six to see if the plants had survived the night. If the PWD got to know of our
“illegal” plantation, they wouldn’t hesitate to destroy the whole thing
overnight, we were told. Or if the CB got angry, he could effortlessly do it during his
morning walk. But luckily for us, nothing of that sort happened. We watched the baby
plants grow. We watched as the first leaves came out, the first aerial root appeared, the
first spider crawled over the avicennia and built its web, the first snail climbed onto
the leaf, the first sparrow sat on the plant, and the first prawn eggs were laid at the
roots. It gave us the excitement of watching a baby turn over, crawl, teeth, utter its
first word, sit up, stand and walk. I adopted an avicennia plant at the right end in the
second row. We regularly visited the creek to chop off the overgrown, deadly, thorny
prosopis branches from around and remove by hand, used and thrown syringes, broken
medicine bottles, sanitary napkins, plastic bags and other hospital wastes that would get
washed onto the bank by the receding tide, choking the small baby plants. We would return
with bruises all over in spite of the use of gloves and boots. We battled through missing
casuarina poles from the fence stolen by some local people. One day, they were caught
red-handed and beaten up by the fishermen who had worked with us and put them back in
place.
On our way back home after hard physical labour, we would stop
by this fish farm right next to the creek. There was a series of six ponds, where we used
to spend long hours watching this beautiful, blue kingfisher catch fish and relaxing under
the shade of the trees. “A humble beginning, but a great future. Even long journeys
begin with a small first step.” We used to sit and dream about how the place would
turn into a haven for birds, an irresistible mangrove forest. The PWD would come to chop
them down. And the people would protest. May be another ‘chipko movement’. Why
not? Who knows?
Gradually activity stopped, as we thought we had done our best
and just waited for the plants to take care of themselves and grow big.
A year and a half later in May 1999, I was away in the USA for
six months participating in the ‘World Conservation Corps’ in Seattle. Young
people from all over the world worked in crews trying to restore degraded ecosystems in
Washington state. I learnt that the American government was spending millions of dollars
to recreate wetlands and restore the curves of straightened rivers. I was determined to
take these lessons back home.
The very next day on my return to India, I rode to the site to
see our baby plants again. Half of them were gone; dead or eaten by cattle. The fence had
collapsed. Hemal consoled me “This is the normal survival rate. And especially given
a polluted water like this one, you are actually lucky to have so many still pulling
along.” My adopted avicennia was barely surviving! We organised more repair and
care-taking work.
I was invited to share my experiences working on restoring river
systems and lessons learnt from the US on how not
to interfere with natural systems. The occasion was a workshop organized by the TN
Pollution Control Board. The audience was the 21 Chief Engineers of the PWD of Tamil Nadu,
who were in charge of different rivers and river bains in the state. “The Duwammish
river in Washington state had been straightened for city planning and flood prevention
purposes in the early 1900s. After several decades, this straightening has damaged the
ecosystem. The endangered salmon fish and all the local varieties of plants are fast
disappearing. The Government is spending millions of dollars trying to undo what they had
thought would be a harmless manipulation of nature.” Well aware of the PWD’s
similar plans for the Adyar river, I cautioned that it would be a move in the wrong
direction. “Planting mangroves and other native species of plants and trees would
strengthen the banks much better than cementing them.” Just as I mentioned that, the
Engineer in charge of the Adyar river rose and began to scream “I was waiting for
this very moment. Young lady, had you wondered all along who was the man who rejected your
proposal to plant mangroves in Adyar? Now see, it was ME. You have the audacity to do it
illegally, and then come here to teach us lessons? ………. ” The director
of the institute had to come in to end his tirade. The sad part was that we could not have
any discussion after my presentation. The good part was that some of the engineers who
came to me to apologise on behalf of their colleague, thanked me for sharing this
‘new perspective’ with them. They promised to do more reading on river
ecosystems.
About eight months later, I again disappeared from town for a
year and returned in the summer of 2001 and rushed back to the site. Many more plants were
gone. My adopted avicennia was leafless, charred and dead. The CB had started filling up
with construction rubble, a wetland nearby that used to get inundated twice everyday
during high tides leaving behind prawn and fish that the fisherfolk heavily depended on. They couldn’t do this! It had to be reported.
We arranged for reporters to be taken to the site to be shown the rate at which the
leftover extent of water was disappearing at the will of the CB. We took the Hindu
reporter first, who was rather careful and shot some pictures. The security guards had
taken note of them and had immediately alerted the higher-ups. The court case was at its
peak then, and the CB very watchful. When we took the Indian Express reporter, we were
questioned “Why are you here? What do you want?”, and we barely escaped the
scene with some excuses. That night, we were getting calls from the Hindu office saying
that the CB was putting pressure, even threatening them to stop them from publishing any
article. The Indian Express published it anyways.
But what happened of all that reporting and writing? The CB had
gotten real smart with the CRZ loophole. “No building may be built within 500 metres
from the high-tide line. BUT, if a road exists, then construction may be allowed on the
landward side of the road.” We had taken several pictures to prove that no road
existed at all. According to the Revenue department, there was a 'cart track' that the CB
claimed to mean a proper road. And while the case was going on, a pucca road was being
laid, which no one took credit or discredit for. That was not all. They even managed to
produce a written report from some scientists (from an acclaimed Technology Institute
located in Adyar) that the building was "indeed" over 500 m from the high-tide
line. The court had to believe reports of “reputed” institutions, and we lost
the case after a long, hard fight.
I disappeared again for a year and returned in April 2003. I did
not rush there this time. I just stopped by when I was riding my bike by that way several
weeks after my return.
The fish farms were gone. With them was gone the beautiful blue
kingfisher. In their place was a huge building and a metro water station. All the wetlands
on the way were built up. With a deep sigh, I proceeded to check out the progress of the
apartment complex. "Whew! Imagine waking up to this view every morning!" greeted
a hoarding the size of a one-storeyed building.
I read it out aloud to see how it felt, and continued in the same breath "and
if you think those settlements of the poor
are unsightly, come back in just a few more days and we would have taken care of them for
you!" I proceeded to the mangrove site
to see these two trees of Rhizophora grown real tall, looking healthy, flowering and
fruiting, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the next season. The only Rhizophora in Adyar.
Just the two of them standing side by side, being there for each other. Because the dhobi
crabs were gone; the birds were gone. Even the snails and spiders were gone. Just the two
trees half covered by the rubble from the construction that we had once dreamt of
stopping. The rubble that the CB had been heartlessly pushing into the waters so he could
acquire (or create) more land, grow bigger, increase his profits. The roots of the
leftover two trees were covered under the rubble, and the moment I saw them, I knew
they’d be dead and gone in a matter of days.
I did my customary taking the Indian Express reporter there. She
listened intently to my story and said “Mm. This time, we will do a positive story
about how the plants have survived all these years, defeating the prediction of some of
the experts that they wouldn’t. Let me know when they are gone and we will do a
negative story.” And so she did a ‘positive story’ for the newspaper.
When I visited the creek a month ago, I saw that every inch of
the creek near the building has been filled up and 'made into land' and fenced by the CB,
but there was still this route to the mangrove site left open. The security guard did not
even allow to go so what had happened. I tried my tricks and somehow got in preparing
myself for the worst, and possibly my last visit to that place. Everthing had disappeared
without leaving a trace
I was not so emotional when I began writing this story; not even
during my last visit to the creek. But now as I am nearing the end of my narration,
reliving every moment of joy, pain, accomplishment and passionate work, somehow my heart
has become heavy.
There are many projects around the world aiming to protect and restore
mangrove forests. When thousands of hectares of pristine forests, water bodies and tribal
lands are disappearing, why am I making a fuss over this seemingly insignificant story
that happened right in the heart of Chennai? What else can one expect in a growing
metropolis? Why was
this story important? There are many reasons I decided to write this story. This is the
only one I have encountered closely enough to write about. Other than the remnants of the
project – photo albums, reports, communication files, posters and our own distant
memories – the story has left no trace. Some of my friends who were part of this
effort call it a miserable failure. If the story could be recorded and shared widely,
offer new insights and lessons to its readers, and contribute to the collective learning
of the human kind, I would consider it a success.
The Adyar Creek campaign was my introductory course in applied
science, management, advocacy, public speaking, and most importantly, what raked up tons
of questions about the processes of ‘development’, urbanization and the working
of the world. When I once took a long-lost friend to the creek, she did not understand my
point about the plants and crabs. She looked at the soaring construction and said
“Not bad! Chennai is developing so fast!!” I saw myself asking her “So
what?” The Adyar Creek experience made me ask “Do I really know what
‘development’ is about, a term that I so liberally use and hear? Do I know what
is involved in laying new roads, constructing new buildings, building new power
plants?” The Adyar Creek campaign was the first step in my long journey to understand
the nature of 'development'.
Looking back, if there is one thing that I think contributed the
most to my learning through the Adyar Creek experience, it was my naïvete (actually, for
many of us). I owe a lot to it because it helped me dream, churn out new ideas by the hour
and try them out without thinking twice. I have shed my naivete for the most part. But
even as I dig deeper into uncovering the idea of ‘development’, I still dream
about taking part in “creating a better world to live in”.
This panoramic photograph (looking westward) was shot from
Srinivasapuram in April 1997. Behind the photographer is the Bay of Bengal. The Adyar
river flowing East to join the Bay of Bengal is on the left most corner of the picture. On
the other side of the river is the Theosophical Society, which has preserved its mangroves
intact. What you see here is the creek which once encircled the Quibble island to join
back the river upstream. The western part of the Quibble island has been
‘developed’, and this is what was left of the eastern part. The area circled in
pink used to be the wetland. This along with the rest of the area, including the small
finger of water in the middle have all been filled up and fenced for further development.
You can see more pictures at
Part-II
I started my
exploration with the definition of ‘development’. In simple terms, it means
“a higher standard of living” for the people. Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the
measure of a country’s ‘development’ is the total market value of all final
goods and services produced in a given year. In the Adyar Creek story, some people moved
into a bigger apartment complex. All the construction material (goods) and construction
labour (services) would have contributed to a higher GDP of India, however minutely. So,
in both ways I made sure that Adyar Creek was a definite case of ‘development’.
I wondered
what ‘development’ would mean, look and feel like to the different role players
in the story. To the fish, crabs, mangroves, ‘development’ probably means
something that they’d pray to God everyday to keep away from them; for if it appears
anywhere in the vicinity, they will have to give up their homes and lives. To the water
birds, ‘development’ probably means big and small square boxes in 'bird’s
eye view' that would make them wonder “But, just last year around, didn’t I see
a patch of fresh water right here? These humans!” To the fishermen,
‘development’ means giving up their lands, livelihoods and lives for something
larger for the cause of the nation (that they would neither understand nor be part of)
they would be told. To the local middle-class dwellers, ‘development’
probably means huge architectural marvels in their neighbourhood; a promise to them of a
new supermarket in the locality. To the residents of Chennai who drive by the Adyar
bridge everyday, ‘development’ probably means this ‘cool’ building
that has changed the skyline of Adyar forever, adding pride to the city. To the
revenue department officials, it probably means an opportunity to earn some extra money.
To the building barons, ‘development’ probably means higher profits, some
impressive numbers in their glossy brochure of the new building complex, a rising slope on
their revenue graph, a promising future, a few more cars, a new bank account; service to
the upper-middle class who would move in to the apartment building.
A lesson I came away with was that
whether ‘development’ was good or bad, it had certain consequences. ‘When
‘development’ happens, plants and animals must relocate or die; the poor must
relocate or perish. When there is resistance to ‘development’, money power can
be used to buy knowledge institutions and government records, threats may be used and
violence inflicted as and when necessary.’ Some of my friends whom I shared my
findings with, argued that ‘development’ was possible without any of these. I
thought hard but failed to understand how the crabs could have co-existed with the
construction rubble, the wetlands with the building to come up on top of it; how migratory
birds could have continued to visit if the vegetation was gone. If the CB had sat down
with the fisherfolk for negotiation, I didn’t see how they could have allowed their
very livelihoods to be taken away from them. Even if the CB had indeed adequately
compensated the entire settlement, I wondered if he would have found his construction
viable in the first place!
Just as I was pondering over these questions and possibilities, I came across two independent pieces of information. The stock price of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest company owning and operating prisons in the USA, increased eleven fold from January 1995 to August 1997 from $ 4.12 a share to $ 45 a share.1 Due to loss of livelihoods, the crime rate was increasing in Srinivasapuram. When I placed the two pieces together, I arrived at a terrifying picture. The fishermen were not only losers in the game of ‘development’, but also potential contributors to the country’s GDP by ending up in prisons (which could be privatised following the American model) for their crimes! In place of the mangroves, which helped treat polluted water and control floods, there could now be companies installing sewage treatment plants and building flood retention walls, further increasing our GDP. If we continued at this rate, in 2020, I wondered if our nation would be flooded with reports on ‘successful growth rates’, gazillion products and services, and a few life forms here and there, because most of it would have been either sacrificed in the process of ‘development’ or locked up in private prisons. I wondered if it would matter at all if we were to become a ‘developed’ nation fulfilling Abdul Kalam’s Vision 2020!
My next step was to investigate if
India was indeed poor and underdeveloped before colonisation. Here are my findings. India
was more literate than it is now. Between 1812-13, Madras Presidency had one school for
every 1,000 of its population and a total of 1,094 colleges.2
Many British
experts, who were sent to India in the early 1800s on a mission to study Indian farming
and irrigation methods and suggest improvements, resoundingly praised Indian practices as
being highly developed and most appropriate for Indian conditions. Many suggested that
they’d better bring British farmers to learn from their Indian counterparts.3 Indian agricultural productivity was as high as 10 tons
per hectare in some villages in Tamil Nadu. The annual availability of food in
Chengalpattu in 1760s averaged 5 tons per household4
(while the national average in India today is 0.75 tons) Of course our society was far
from being perfect and had its share of problems. But if good health, education levels and
general prosperity are any indication of development, India was far more developed than
she is today.
But even this prosperous society,
where people lived in abundance, were educated and were much healthier than today, did not
pass my modern ‘development’ test. Vaidyas
(doctors) were paid based on how healthy the people were, and not on how many
varieties of diseases and patients they treated spending money and resources. Many
products and services were exchanged based on their inherent values and were not given
currency values dictated by a laissez-faire market
economy. Communities and families were close-knit offering services like child care,
old-age care and cooking, and did not have child care centers, old-age homes and fast-food
restaurants. So, in so many ways our healthy, traditional society would not have
contributed to the country’s GDP, whereas the modern society, which is unhealthy,
disintegrating and violent generously contributes to the nations’s GDP.
I then heard Narmada Bachao
Andolan’s slogan “Vikas chahiye! Vinash Nahin!!”5 (We want ‘development’, not destruction!) My
shock combined with curiosity to understand how an entire civilization had been led to
believe ‘development’ to mean destruction, got me digging deeper. Harry Truman,
the American president, had stated in his speech on January 20, 1949, "We must embark
on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial
progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas." He
declared that the post-colonial and impoverished nations with large rural populations and
subsistence cultures were “underdeveloped” and that achieving American style
industrial society was the goal of the ‘development’ path. Truman’s speech
had placed ‘development’ on the international agenda for the first time.6 Could it be that we were blindly fulfilling
Truman’s dream?
I was somehow sure that there must
be someone somewhere who had cracked this question and was leading the society out of its
amnesia, redefining development to mean betterment. My search took me to Rajendra Singh,
Anna Hazare7 and many others, who are doing
exactly this. Prosperous villages, plenty of water and food, better lives, sound conflict
resolution mechanisms. They say “How does it matter to us if we do not contribute to
the country’s GDP in a big way? We are happy.” Could this be real development?
A full-page advertisement appears in
the newspapers every Independence Day flanked by gleaming faces of Vajpayee and Abdul
Kalam proudly announcing “Marching towards a developed India by 2020”. When I
saw it just a year before I had set out on my journey, I had all my hairs standing up in a
patriotic sensation. Just a year after, I felt a stir in my stomach. Last year I felt a
chill through my spine.
At the end of it all, I may have
only more questions than answers. But I know one thing for sure. If I were to go back to Srinivasapuram
with a proposal to restore the mangroves, I would not see their request for help to save
their livelihoods as a distraction from my real work. That has now become the core of my
real work.
References
1. www.followthemoney.org/press/ZZ/20020430.pdf
2. The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian education in the eighteenth
century; Dharampal; 1983
3. Decolonizing History: Technology
and Culture in India, China and the West 1492 to the Present Day; Claude Alvares; 1991
4. Thirupporur and Vadakkuppattu:
Eighteenth Century Locality Accounts; M.D. Srinivas, T.G.Parasuram, T.Pushkala; Centre for
Policy Studies; 2001
5. Narmada Bachao Andolan is a
people’s movement fighting for the rights of citizens of Narmada Valley, challenging
the Government’s idea of “development” by building large dams. www.narmada.org
6. The Development Dictionary: A Guide
to Knowledge as power; edited by Wolfgang Sachs; 1992
7. Anna Hazare revived the economy of
a village in Maharashtra, and Rajendra Singh of an entire district in Rajasthan through
rain water harvesting. www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/inspirational/tbs.html;
www.rainwaterharvesting.org/Rural/Ralegan.htm