| Your father is one of India's most
famous political analysts. What's so special about nature
and biodiversity that it has taken you so far from his field
of interest?
Biodiversity. I don't think I had even heard the word till
I was in my late twenties. Today, a decade later, I'm sprouting
it from so many pores that even my family and friends groan
when they hear the word. What makes you feel I have drifted
far from politics? Biodiversity is a very political issue.
It has come to occupy a central place not just in my life,
but in national and international politics. And why not? After
all, the control of natural resources determines the very
survival of millions.
But you started out as an animal rights activist, right?
And I still am! In the late 1970s I saw pictures of rhesus
monkeys being experimented upon in the USA. India had just
banned the export of these intelligent, sensitive creatures,
but there was considerable pressure on the then Prime Minister
Morarji Desai's government to restart it. Some of us, then
still school students, took a memorandum to him asking him
not to give in to this pressure. His response was characteristic:
"What," he asked, "makes you think I will give
in to the U.S.?" Encouraged by this support, we also
protested against the permission granted to Saudi Arabian
princes to hunt bustards in Rajasthan. The government withdrew
its permission.
And this is what drew you towards the defence of wildlife?
I had by then also been initiated into nature treks and birding
trips (that initially confused and amused me no end, what
with names like Booted eagle and Short-toed lark!). One of
our favourite spots was the Delhi Ridge, a forested sliver
of 7,700 hectares that was a vital lung. Delhi's planners
were eyeing it for its real estate value. Alarmed, we mobilised
students and local residents, and held demonstrations two
decades ago in September 1979. After sustained pressure, the
Ridge forests were declared "protected". That was
a vital milestone for me and even more so because a side effect
was the formation of Kalpavriksh, an environmental action
group that has helped shape my life.
And where is the politics in all of this?
Everywhere. Over the next few years, I was catapulted into
a whole gamut of issues related to the environment, development
and equity. Two treks through Tehri Garhwal in 1980-81, in
association with activists of the legendary Chipko movement,
opened my eyes to the connections between forest policy, deforestation
and the resultant hardships of villagers, especially women.
And then came a journey I undertook with Kalpavriksh and the
Hindu College Nature Club, in 1983, along the Narmada river.
We walked, bussed and sailed several hundred kilometres along
the Narmada River Valley… through villages, forests and
major towns. We spoke to officials and activists and came
up with the first detailed critique of the Narmada Valley
Development Project. If politics is about the power to control
resources like forests and rivers, then environmental issues
are as political as they are ecological and cultural.
The Narmada Valley. Animal Rights. Wildlife. Environment
and Development. Isn't that a very mixed bag?
It may seem so, but everything is, in fact, connected.
The single most important thing that the Narmada Valley revealed
to me was that the model of development that India had adopted
was incompatible with the values of biodiversity conservation,
environmental sustainability and social equity. I remain involved
with the Narmada Bachao Andolan and see my involvement as
part of my battle to save wildlife.
So are you a wildlifer or a human rights activist?
Both. I see these as two sides of one coin. A decade ago,
when I was invited to attend a workshop in Nagaland where
Sunita, later to become my wife, accompanied me, we visited
the Puliebadze Sanctuary near Kohima and were captivated by
the incredibly beautiful forest. One particular tree is forever
etched in my memory, a magnificent Dipterocarp. Massively
buttressed, it harboured dozens of other species of plants:
lichens, mosses, ferns, orchids… It was an ecosystem
in itself, that tree. I would hate for anyone to cut it down
for timber… but would argue against an urban conservationist
who tried to stop local adivasis from sustainably using that
forest.
You can't really believe that all adivasis live sustainable
lives that are respectful of wildlife?
No. Certainly not. But in my travels to several dozen
wildlife habitats in India and abroad, I have seldom seen
local forest-dwellers make a business out of cutting trees.
Where this is happening it is largely because traders and
contractors have managed to exploit their poverty and circumstances.
Speaking for the tree I can only say that my sense of astonishment
at the sheer productivity of nature grows by the minute. I
am acutely aware of the fact that the earth supports 50 million
species of which humans are only one! When I think that humans
are reducing this diversity at the rate of several hundred
a year I am angered at our incredible stupidity. How can anyone
be allowed to destroy the very evolutionary fabric that produced
us?
Now you are talking like an Earth-Firster!
An Earth-Firster is not a human-hater. Bittu, you have to
believe that not all of us destroy biodiversity. Many communities
protect it and some actually help create it. Yet another of
my lasting memories is the first time that Vijay Jardhari,
a Garhwali farmer of the Beej Bachao Andolan, showed me his
collection of rajma beans. Some 60 varieties in such colours
and hues that they looked like hand-painted beads. This was
only a microcosm. India's so-called 'illiterate' farmers have
evolved over 50,000 varieties of rice, 1,000 varieties of
mangos, 40 breeds of sheep, and much, much more. This diversity
stood by them in times of drought, flood, famine. It catered
to a myriad food, medicinal, cultural needs… and this
is being destroyed by the transformation of agri-culture into
agro-nomy, a pursuit for profits. I wonder how many wildlifers
have considered defending this biodiversity, which is being
stolen from adivasis and small farmers. Wildlifers and community
rights groups must find ways to work together to protect the
earth.
As of now, however, a major conflict exists between people
and parks. What by your reckoning is the genesis of this distancing?
In 1982, an incident in the fabulous Keoladeo National
Park in Rajasthan forever altered my dreamy-eyed vision of
wildlife protection. Six villagers were killed in police firing
when they tried to forcibly enter the park with their cattle.
They were protesting against the sudden decision of the Forest
Department to stop grazing. A Kalpavriksh investigation team
found the firing completely unjustified, and brought up crucial
questions regarding the relationship between people and Protected
Areas. By the mid-1980s, after joining the Indian Institute
of Public Administration to work on a series of management
profiles of PAs in India, many seeds of injustice and conflict
became obvious. The dominant model of development seemed to
treat adivasis as dispensable. I was uncomfortable with the
fact that while environmentalists opposed the displacement
of communities by dams they condoned displacement and dispossession
at the hands of Protected Area managers.
Some people might point to places like Kanha and Ranthambhore,
where when people and wildlife were separated, endangered
wildlife recovered. Would you rather such wildlife recoveries
had not taken place?
I am as smitten by Kanha, Ranthambhore and Bharatpur as
the next wildlifer. And if communities voluntarily vacate
remote dwellings in favour of locations closer to markets
I have no doubt that nature will effectively colonise their
turf. My point is, is it fair to single out poor villagers
for forced displacement as a strike strategy to save our wildlife?
Particularly when, with a few very notable exceptions, the
government has itself failed so miserably to stem the rest
of the rot that is eating away at our wildlife habitats.
What is it about people and park policies that makes you
most uncomfortable?
I wish wildlife managers and policy makers would accept that
the survival needs of communities has a lesser impact on forests
than industrialisation and the conspicuous consumption and
lifestyles of urban people. We live far from forests but destroy
forests more effectively than villagers with our dams, mines,
power plants and our insatiable demand for almost everything
that nature produces. Not only do we perpetuate a false division
between nature and people, but are hypocritical about the
speeding cars and plush tourist facilities we set up in places
like Corbett, Kanha and Ranthambhore from where villagers
have been forcefully displaced.
Are villagers not also subject to consumerism and ambition?
Are human rights activists not playing into the hands of developers
by attacking wildlife laws?
Yes. I have witnessed how local community traditions of conservation
have broken down and how they are embarking along our own
road to destruction. I also know that local power politics
can undermine community initiatives for conservation and justice.
But, as I mentioned earlier, this was largely at the behest
of commercial and political interests.
I have indeed seen many social activists being either ignorant
of, or indifferent to the phenomenon of rapidly declining
wildlife and biodiversity. This is why I believe that bridges
must be built between wildlife and human rights groups. Wildlife
conservation cannot be achieved using guns and guards alone.
And the protective umbrella offered by wildlife laws will
be strengthened by the involvement of local communities. In
fact, if we can guarantee their rights to survival resources,
justified even if there were no strategic advantage to be
gained for wildlife protection, they would probably help us
expand the Conservation Area Network to over 10 per cent of
India's land mass.
And how would this be achieved?
By adding Community Conserved Areas and wetlands to all Reserved
and Protected Forests and orienting locals towards the twin
goals of conservation and livelihood security. I believe local
communities would, for instance, support a ban on commercial
logging in natural forests, if their livelihoods, through
the careful use of non-timber forest produce, can be secured.
I also believe that perhaps around two per cent could be protected
as inviolate core zones, in consultation with communities
and incorporating sacred groves, tanks and grasslands.
Who shares this view with you?
Along with others, I am attempting to bring social activists,
wildlife and government officials, conservation organisations,
and villagers around to this view. We must understand each
others' positions and jointly fight the juggernaut of commercialisation
and destructive development. By opening lines of communication,
common objectives such as the protection of our forests will
forge partnerships that can make the dream come true.
Interesting, but some might say you are actually running
with the hare and hunting with the hounds!
Hounds and hares incidentally have no intrinsic 'enmity'.
Humans have created such conflicts as blood-sports. Similarly,
local people set upon each other thanks to faulty government
policies. We intend to quietly continue working on the strength
of our convictions. In 1994, we organised the Jungle Jeevan
Bachao Yatra. We have participated in a number of national
consultations involving social activists, wildlifers and park
managers. Treading this middle path does entail receiving
flak from extremists on both sides - wildlifers who think
I have become too populist, and social activists who suspect
that I would still sacrifice human interests for tigers. But
I see no alternative to cooperation.
Let's shift to another arena. With the biodiversity anthem
now being sung even by the trans-national corporations (TNCs),
who really controls our natural wealth?
It should be the Indian people. But few wildlifers are aware
of the need to protect indigenous knowledge. Adivasis know
how to use thousands of wild plants, over which TNCs are now
claiming patent rights. In the early 1990s, I was among the
few NGO observers at the negotiations of the United Nations
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and have since participated
in most of its sessions. I am enraged by the biopiracy I see
around us…. neem, turmeric, basmati, two dozen micro-organisms.
If wildlifers and communities work together, we can insist
on an alternative intellectual rights system. Otherwise, we
could lose our biodiversity.
Do you still go bird watching? Do you visit tiger reserves…the
kind of thing that drew you into the subject in the first
place?
I do, but not as often as I would like. But I have always
been fascinated by the little things in life, particularly
by the staggering diversity of invertebrates around us. The
sight of dragonflies mating, or a congregation of butterflies
easily matches the thrill of encountering a tiger in the wild.
Most of my wildlife photography is devoted to such micro-elements
of nature. In fact, it is unfortunate that India's conservation
lobby does not pay enough attention to these creatures, considering
that they make up nearly 80 per cent of the country's faunal
diversity. I'd love to see a Project Butterfly or Dragonfly
on the lines of Project Tiger that citizens could be involved
with, without travelling to distant destinations.
Why, incidentally, is Kalpavriksh so invisible on the
conservation scene?
Kalpavriksh has preferred staying small as a matter of strategy.
Over much of its existence, it has had no office, no hierarchical
structure, no presidents and secretaries. Salaries, whenever
paid, have been fractions of what could have been obtained
in the 'open' market. This has had its costs: a rapid erosion
of members as people drift off to make a living and perhaps
a somewhat less obvious 'output' than most institutionalised
NGOs. But avoiding the stifling bureaucracy that such NGOs
are increasingly prone to has been worth the price of remaining
small. Though we now have a tiny office and some paid full-timers,
we hope to stay small and informal.
What introspection have you done on the eve of the year
2000? What are your plans?
I am acutely aware of the limitations of my work… as
is Kalpavriksh of its unfulfilled potential. We have failed
in many things; for instance, in reaching out to urban poor
in our education programmes, or in changing our own wasteful
consumption patterns and those of the classes we belong to.
My wife Sunita has gently guided me to the possibility…
as yet a dream… of living what we preach, perhaps on
a small piece of land in the midst of a biodiversity-rich
part of Karnataka. Increasingly too, I have felt the need
to document, support and get involved in the quiet, positive
initiatives of individuals and groups across the country.
Like the millions of tiny creatures around me, I would be
happy to fill some small niches, and thereby play a little
part in the struggle to conserve biodiversity and achieve
social equity. You could say this is my year 2000 dream. |
