The devastating landslides in Wayanad, occurring in the early hours on July 30, may have come as a shock but it cannot be said that they came as a surprise. There have been warnings from all sides for long, but most importantly from India’s pre-eminent ecologist Madhav Gadgil who chaired a central government committee (henceforth, the Committee) set up in 2011 to study the ecological condition of the Western Ghats.
The report of this Committee had clearly highlighted the threat to human security of unchecked economic activity in the section of the ghats that fall within Kerala. It is a commentary on the state of democracy in what is supposedly India’s most educated state that it had no effect whatsoever.
Neither of the state’s main political coalitions, the United Democratic Front and the Left Democratic Front, which have both ruled the state since the report was submitted, have implemented the recommendations of the Committee. Now, the leader of the Congress-led opposition has spoken in its favour but given the party’s past record we cannot be certain as to how the party will act when they come to power.
Before coming to why Kerala’s political parties have been so cagey about its proposals, it would be useful to recount what Madhav Gadgil has said about the Wayanad incident. He identified man-made factors as exacerbating, marking out mining, quarrying and building infrastructure for tourism, including “artificial lakes”.
Note that he has not left it all to climate change, even though he could not have been unaware of the extreme rainfall event. In fact, in an article in the print media he has called out “the bane of crony capitalism” as a factor underlying the destruction of natural capital of Wayanad.
How could a human tragedy of such magnitude have occurred in a state held out as a developmental model, one in which many socio-economic indicators are superior to the rest of the country? Surprising as it may seem, the reason for this is that democracy does not have deep enough roots in Kerala.
For close to half a century now, Kerala has been in the grip of a form of globalisation. The boom in the Arabian Gulf, led to a mass migration of manual labour to the region now referred to as ‘the Gulf Cooperation Council countries’. As Kerala had very little peasant agriculture, with most of the land being cultivated by owners using hired labour, the out-migration led to severe labour shortage.
Wages rose so much that agricultural activity became unprofitable. Initially land was left fallow but soon remittances bid up the price of land now demanded for housing so much that it made economic sense for erstwhile landholders to sell out to property developers. Once-agricultural land became real estate.
The alienation of agricultural land led to a decline in agricultural activity. This ended a the dependence on the powers of the earth that had nourished a reverence for nature, ensuring its inviolability. Kerala was now cut off from its moorings. As agricultural activity declined so did the web of dependence that had marked country life.
There no longer was the checks and balances that had shielded nature from abuse of the kind we now witness in the form of pasting the earth with concrete and the dumping of non bio-degradable waste in a pristine environment. Predatory capital, unaccountable to local needs, moved into the countryside with impunity. This took the forms of tourism, infrastructure mining and quarrying. There was only one force that had the authority to stop this invasion, the state.
Instead of transitioning to the role of a regulator of economic activity in the highlands of Kerala, where much of the new activity got located, the state ended-up being captured by private interests. It is inconceivable that that so much economic activity that is a threat to the environment of the state could have emerged without the tacit agreement of the state.
The granting of permits for buildings and licences for quarrying are the sole prerogative of the state, and such activity could have been nipped in the bud, or at least regulated had the state wished it. Far from this having happened, though, there are allegations that the licences and permits have gone to those with access to political power. Further, there have been public claims made that governments of both the political formations of Kerala have attempted to exempt favoured private entities from the provisions of the state’s land reforms act with implications for size of holding and type of activity.
While these instances are not related to Wayanad as much as to elsewhere in Kerala, it does point to the weakness of the state vis-a-vis private activity impinging upon natural resource use. Apart from predatory capital that flows into non-agricultural activity, the state has also come into pressure from groups who, lured by the availability of cheap land, had migrated to the upper reaches of the western ghats in Wayanad from elsewhere in the state, settling down to farm.
Unlike the capitalists in mining and quarrying, who have remained invisible, this group have responded with a public opposition to even the suggestion of regulating economic activity. Supported by local politicians and religious leaders they too have a hold on the state. Wedged in between these two interest groups, the adivasis of Wayanad lead a precarious existence. Their condition has not improved with the economic boom and the demographic dynamics have left them politically disenfranchised. The land lost its age-old guardians.
After the recent landslides in Mundakkai and Chooralmala, Kerala has the opportunity to end the damage in the future. It only has to accept in toto the Committee’s Report. It is a road map incorporating a scientific approach to regulating the Nilgiris biosphere within which Wayanad is located. The report demarcates the terrain according to ecological vulnerability in the face of economic activity and indicates the activities that may be permitted by the state.
In an interview to the media Gadgil was at pains to clarify that it does not recommend the ending of all economic activity in the ghats, just hazardous ones. Thus, agricultural activity is permitted in all zones, only mining and quarrying is to be banned in the most eco-sensitive one. The report also recommends social audit, a powerful independent check if it is given a chance. All these recommendations are eminently sensible in their intent and entirely practical to implement.
Recently, the two political coalitions of Kerala, the UDF and the LDF, came together in the legislative assembly and expressed determination to end the problem of accumulating waste in the state. They now have the opportunity to re-enact this rare unity. A blueprint exists. They only have to accept the Gadgil Committee Report. But whether they will do so is the question.
Power and pelf are the lifeblood of politics, and political parties must have good reason to pursue the public good. That reason can only be pressure from the people. If things are to change in Kerala there would have to be recognition that the present assault on nature is based on greed and heightens ecological insecurity.
The public must recognise the nexus between capital, the bureaucracy and the political class that maintains the current equilibrium. Finally, they must see that the adoption of the recommendations of the Gadgil report would be the main ingredients of a shift to a meaningful co-existence with nature. Only the Kerala public can ensure that science will trump the politics of private interest so that Wayanad can flourish.
Pulapre Balakrishnan is Honorary Visiting Professor, Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram
