Before paying tributes to environmentalist Sundarlal Bahuguna, at the very outset of this article I need to explain that the big factories and manufacturing plants are no more the number one job-givers as our political masters would like us to believe. Since they have their own interest, they would champion the cause of indiscriminate industrialisation.
Unlike two or three decades back, today a factory built on say about 1,000 acres of land can be run by just 200 or so employees. In the process, land would be acquired from 400 or 500 farmers/landholders, thus depriving them of their livelihood. And after next 20 or 30 years the same factories may turn sick or become outdated. This phenomenon is not new. There are thousands of closed mills and such factories in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Kolkata, National Capital Region, etc.
Take the latest example of Nano car plant. The Tatas first got about 1000 acres of land at Singur in Hooghly district of West Bengal in 2006-07. As the local farmers strongly resisted the acquisition of lush green fertile land, the Tatas had to give up by October 2008. But since in these few months Tatas had started some construction work, a large portion of land could not yet become cultivable even after being returned to farmers. It had lost its fertility.
The then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi (now PM) then stepped in and offered the Tatas land at concessional rate in his state. Once again it was claimed that the plant would create jobs.
The tragedy is that by May 2018 Nano stopped the production as the small car project failed. This is the story of providing employment. In Gujarat too the factory in a way blocked about a thousand acres of land.
In India and many other countries there is hardly anyone prepared to lend his or her ears to listen to the flip side of the horrific story of industrialisation.
As the movement against land acquisition is becoming strong, the corporate lobby with facilitators in politics and their stooges in media have evolved a new method to befool the common masses. They have started arguing in favour of the industrialisation of states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, etc. This phenomenon acquired quite a momentum during the prime ministership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee between 1998 and 2004. Special concessions and tax-holidays were offered to industrialists to set up big factories, huge dams to generate electricity and other huge structures. So, in no time the highlands of north India started emerging as our Ruhr Valley, the industrial belt in West Germany.
The poor people of the foothills of the Himalayas were convinced that these industries would create jobs. The truth is that these plants were built in these highlands as the region is sparsely populated and there is little scope for any anti-land acquisition struggle.
As to how many new jobs this haphazard industrialisation really created may not be known, what is known is the fact that the rampant and unscientific growth of huge structures have invited the wrath of nature leading to the death of thousands of people in Uttarakhand in 2013 and 2021. Do not forget the recent earthquakes in neighbouring Nepal and Sikkim and the one which struck Uttarkashi on October 20, 1991. All these are happening because we are provoking nature to retaliate. They all took huge loss of lives and properties.
When the cloudburst and flash flood devastated Uttarkashi in 2013, all the rivers and other streams got choked due to mushroom growth of structures.
The fact is that the local people already had enough of job opportunities in pre-industrialisation era in these places as they attract millions of tourists or pilgrims every year. In fact, the development of infrastructure has given a big boom and led to overflow of tourists and pilgrims which too is not very good and should be limited.
So while the British rulers, who were from a cold country, developed hill stations in the 19th century be it in Darjeeling, Nainital, Shimla, Mussoorie, Dehradun, etc., two centuries later we are busy building factories in those very places.
Herein the importance of men like Sundarlal Bahuguna, the founder of the Chipko Movement in 1970s, acquires significance. He resisted the massive de-forestation, felling of trees, construction of Tehri Dam, etc. Whether and how much he himself had succeeded is for the posteriority to judge, the fact is that he gave enough opportunity for others to take up the job left behind by him.
The sad aspect of the whole story is that there are only a few takers of the cause espoused by men and women like Sundarlal Bahuguna.
The nexus of capitalists-politicians-media persons is, in the name of development, wreaking havoc in the society. They are least concerned about the ecological impact of whatever they are doing. Their only objective is minting money.
No one is against development, but one has every right to ask as to why so much electricity is wasted in holding day-night cricket matches and other such events. Can’t such jamborees be held in day-time when the fact is that the production of power leads to displacement of population and destruction of green-land which is so much necessary for the survival of humanity.
As building factories, big dams, roads and bridges, stadiums, commercial complexes and other huge structures are the visible symbols of development and provide commission to politicians, cutting across party lines, they insist on them even if there is no or very less need for them. Actually they provide less employment opportunities than millions of posts which lie vacant in health, education, banking, transport sectors, railways and innumerable other departments. They would not be filled as they require managerial skill and are a bit complicated exercise. By doing so a leader gets less chance of projecting himself as developmental-minded.
Of late, they have devised a new method – that is make a few appointments on the eve of election on contractual basis and that too not without commission.
So they get constructed schools, colleges, hospital buildings but more than half of the posts may be vacant in them. Big equipment may be bought but there may be nobody to run them.
Election-eve direct transfer schemes and freebies are another short-cut route to emerge as the champion of poor.
It is in this background that the contributions of men like Sundarlal Bahuguna should be remembered. The whole approach towards development needs to be overhauled and should be taken out from the grip of capitalists.