Rowing against the tide (Hindu 19 October 2012)

The Hindu Education eludes most young mallahs, who follow the hereditary occupation. Photos: Omar Rashid

The mallahs on Yamuna’s banks in Allahabad passionately clutch on to their profession though the returns are hardly enough to make ends meet

Survival for the mallahs has for ages revolved around boating and fishing. They are mostly found rowing commuters, tourists and merchandise across rivers in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and West Bengal.

The rush of pilgrims to the Sangam in Allahabad ensures regular business. Yet, with growing competition and changing life trends, their flow of income has become as unsteady as the waters they paddle past. Moreover, they must find ways to get behind the boating restrictions on the Ganga, where most pilgrims prefer to go, and interference from unions in determining their wages and number of passengers per ride. “Sometimes it is Rs. 250 per day; on good days, it goes up to Rs. 500. But the union takes away most of it. I get only Rs. 60-70 per trip. They have written on our boats the maximum number of passengers that can ride on it. Earlier we could take as many as we wanted,” says Ram Mallah.

To keep their kitchen fire alight, the mallahs have taken to sand mining, rampant on the banks of the Yamuna. This ensures an improved daily wage of Rs. 300-700. Yet, they seem unaware of or plainly overlook the malicious circle of illegal sand mining, which goes unabated in the region. They simply follow instructions.

“We just do what we are told. We don't ask where the sand is going, what the purpose is. How do we care? All we know is that big thekedaars are involved and we get paid,” explains another mallah.

When the rivers recede during summer, they expose extensive sandbars on their banks. This gives the mallahs a chance to do some farming of their own. They plant some of the finest local watermelons, cantaloupes and cucumbers, but unreliable rain wipes out most of it.

Nonetheless, the mallah culture demands that one stays active all the time. “We are brought up like this, we don't want to stay stagnant, and we always want to move, work. We run after vehicles, just to get hold of customers,” says Vikash Nishad.

The mallahs have been a historically depressed caste and fall under the Scheduled Castes category in Delhi and West Bengal, while in Uttar Pradesh they are under the Most Backward Castes category. These benefits have enabled them to hold a few jobs in government offices, but they are restricted to low rank posts.

They have also had to bear the ignominy of being included in the Criminal Tribes Act 1924, which criminalised entire tribes by birth. Even after Independence, they have been branded as anti-social and ‘criminal minded’, with the dacoits of Chambal valley generating folklore and movie scripts aplenty. Need we mention Bandit Queen Phoolan Devi, another mallah?

Today, too, the mallah existence is rife with poverty, alcoholism and pigeonhole depiction. “Even if we do other work, like open a shop or do service, we are seen as boatmen. That’s how we are known. The other castes do not look beyond that,” Vijay says.

And as a measure to avenge that historical injustice, some mallahs like Vijay do not miss any occasion to remind others whose domain the waters are.

“This is what we do. We can’t do anything else. How can we allow others to do our work? Even if they are capable, we won’t let them enter our waters, when we aren’t allowed to enter their fields.”

Traditionally, the mallah women stay at home, but some can be found selling knick-knacks on the ghats.

Makhan Mallah, now 18, started out at six — not so young by mallah standards. They strictly follow hereditary occupation and begin early to “master the right techniques”. And like most mallahs here, education has eluded Makhan. But he has no regrets.

“I know my name, and that’s enough. What will we do with education? We do what our fathers have always done.”

If you get past the hassles of bargaining and agree to take a ride on their boat, the mallah, be it young or old, is likely to treat you to the story of their ancestor Balram, who ferried Lord Rama and Sita across the Ganga in Banaras. According to the legend, Balram was given a horse as token of gratitude, after which he placed the bridle on the horse’s tail instead of its head. From this arose the custom of having a rudder at the stern and not the bow of a boat.

The mallah keep many other legends, including one version about the origin of the river Saraswati at the Sangam, whom they believe emerged to pacify her warring sisters Ganga and Yamuna.

The mallahs are also proud of their life-saving ability. If anyone is drowning, the mallahs will surely save them, goes the adage here. “Nobody else dares go deep, only the mallahs. The waters are ours,” says 35-year-old Vijay.

However, he has different plans for his four children. He hopes to educate them. But what if they dropout or fail to land jobs? He steals a glance of the Yamuna on his right and smiles.

Ganga is now a deadly source of cancer, study says (Times of India 17 October 2012)

KOLKATA: The holy Ganga is a poison river today. It's so full of killer pollutants that those living along its banks in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal are more prone to cancer than anywhere else in the country, says a recent study.

Conducted by the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP) under the Indian Council of Medical Research, the national study throws up shocking findings. The river is thick with heavy metals and lethal chemicals that cause cancer, it says. "We know that the incidence of cancer was highest in the country in areas drained by the Ganga. We also know why. Now, we are going deeper into the problem. Hopefully, we'll be able to present a report to the Union health ministry in a month or two," NCRP head A Nandkumar said.
The worst-hit stretches are east Uttar Pradesh, the flood plains of Bengal and Bihar. Cancer of the gallbladder, kidneys, food pipe, prostate, liver, kidneys, urinary bladder and skin are common in these parts. These cases are far more common and frequently found here than elsewhere in the country, the study says.
Even more frightening is the finding that gallbladder cancer cases along the river course are the second highest in the world and prostate cancer highest in the country. The survey throws up more scary findings: Of every 10,000 people surveyed, 450 men and 1,000 women were gallbladder cancer patients. Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar's Vaishali and rural Patna and the extensive tract between Murshidabad and South 24-Parganas in West Bengal are the hot zones. In these parts, of every 1 lakh people surveyed, 20-25 were cancer patients. This is a national high. Relentless discharge of pollutants into the riverbed is responsible.
"This is the consequence of years of abuse. Over years, industries along the river have been releasing harmful effluents into the river. The process of disposing of waste has been arbitrary and unscientific. The river and those living along its banks are paying a price for this indiscretion," Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute director Jaideep Biswas said. The Kolkata-based cancer institute is an associate of the National Cancer Registry Programme.
Biswas, a senior oncologist, said Ganga water is now laced with toxic industrial discharge such as arsenic, choride, fluoride and other heavy metals. Dipankar Chakarabarty, director, Jadavpur University School of Environmental Studies, concurs. "We've been extremely careless. Indiscriminate release of industrial effluents is to blame for this."
"The arsenic that's gets into the river doesn't flow down. Iron and oxygen present in the water form ferroso ferric oxide, which in turn bonds with arsenic. This noxious mix settles on the riverbed. Lead and cadmium are equally heavy and naturally sink in the river. This killer then leeches back into the groundwater, making it poisonous," Chakrabarty explains.
Surface water, Chakrabarty explains, is treated before use. But that's clearly not the case with groundwater and it's mostly consumed raw, often straight from source. The impact is devastating. "The consequences of using or drinking this poison can manifest earliest in two years and latest in 20. But by then, it's way too late." Those who've been bathing in this poison river are equally at danger, says Biswas. The need of the hour is to strictly implement laws regulating discharge of industrial waste into the river.

Bridge over the river Cauvery (Hindu 16 October 2012)

Amid the grandstanding by political leaders, it is the Basin farmers who must take the lead in removing misperceptions about the Tribunal’s award

The Cauvery dispute has taken a turn for the worse. Confrontationism prevails, and we seem to be witnessing a return to the spirit of 1992, though not to violence of that order. What has gone wrong? This article is an analysis and an appeal.

Let us go back to 2007 and imagine that on the announcement of the Final Order of the Cauvery Tribunal, the disputant States did not file Special Leave Petitions (SLPs) before the Supreme Court but only submitted clarificatory petitions to the Tribunal. Alternatively, let us imagine that the States did file SLPs before the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court refused to admit the SLPs on the ground that there was a bar on the jurisdiction of the courts. In either case, the Tribunal would have proceeded to deal with the clarificatory petitions and might have given a Further Report in about six to eight months or perhaps a year, i.e., by early 2008. The Final Order and the Further Report would then have been gazetted. The Cauvery Management Board mandated by the Tribunal would have been set up and might have become fully operational by mid-2008. Thus, there would have been a machinery to deal with situations of drought and distress like the present one. Unfortunately, that imaginary scenario did not happen. The Tribunal was (or claimed to be) unable to deal with the clarificatory petitions because the status of the Final Order itself was plunged into uncertainty when the States went to the Supreme Court with SLPs.

The Supreme Court did two inexplicable things. First, it admitted the SLPs forthwith without any explicit consideration of the bar on the jurisdiction of the courts provided for by Article 262 and incorporated in the Inter-State Water Disputes Act 1956; and second, having admitted the SLPs in 2007, it has unaccountably failed to take them up for hearing in five years time.

Shortage sharing

Turning to the Tribunal’s Final Order, it failed to include a method or formula to deal with the crucial problem that lies at the heart of the Cauvery dispute, namely shortage-sharing in distress years. In years of normal rainfall, more water flows from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu than the quantum laid down by the Interim Order or the Final Order. The problem of how much should flow from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu becomes contentious only in years of low flows. This should have been central to the Tribunal’s Final Order, but the Tribunal offered only generalities, and left it to the proposed Cauvery Management Board to deal with the problem. Further, was it really necessary for the Tribunal to take the view that the SLPs to the Supreme Court made it impossible for it to proceed with the clarificatory petitions? Why could it not have heard those petitions and given a Further Report? The view that the pendency of the SLPs prevented it from functioning was a self-limiting one taken by the Tribunal itself.

Legal positions

The State governments and the State politicians have contributed to the impasse by adopting strident, confrontationist postures and rhetoric instead of conciliatory, solution-seeking approaches; and by rousing and not calming popular anger. Both State governments must be blamed for this; neither has made any effort to see the other’s case.

It needs to be added that both governments have taken untenable legal positions. Tamil Nadu started by taking its stand on long-established prior use, which is a relevant but not a clinching argument. However, being a lower riparian it had eventually to accept realistically that it must learn to manage with reduced flows. Karnataka persists in holding fast implicitly to the assumed primacy of upper riparian rights, for which there is no basis in national or international law. There is no meeting point between those two divergent positions.

The institutional arrangements are not working. The Tribunal’s Award has no sanctity. The Cauvery River Authority, presided over by the Prime Minister, is hardly an “Authority.” The only institution with any authority seems to be the Supreme Court. Tamil Nadu keeps knocking at its doors, and now Karnataka is reported to be filing a review petition. One hopes that this process will reach finality soon.

The Central government has proved to be a weak and ineffective force, unable or unwilling to play its constitutional and statutory roles.

What can one say about the propriety of Central Cabinet Ministers becoming partisan advocates and implicitly questioning their Prime Minister’s decision?

In such situations, one would expect intellectuals and persons of goodwill in either State to give wise counsel to the people, remove misperceptions, calm down excitement and anger, and promote goodwill and understanding. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much evidence of any such thing happening.

One does not know what advice the eminent Counsel representing Tamil Nadu and Karnataka give privately to their respective clients; that is confidential and privileged communication. One can only hope that they do advise their clients against holding legally wrong and indefensible positions, against being confrontationist, and against defying judicial and constitutional authorities.

Cauvery family

The one positive element in this entire unedifying spectacle of State against State and people against people has been the Cauvery Family — a loose and informal group of Cauvery basin farmers from both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu — which is now known internationally. Unfortunately, while it has brought about remarkable mutual understanding and goodwill between the farmers of the two States, it has not so far been able — in spite of several meetings — to arrive at an agreed settlement, including a distress-sharing formula, which can be presented to the Tribunal and the Supreme Court. Even the understanding and goodwill achieved by it is under threat in the present situation of conflict and hostility between the two States, at both official and non-official levels.

In the light of that analysis, what needs to be done? I would submit the following set of appeals for consideration:

1. To the Cauvery Family: Please continue and accelerate your work, promote understanding and goodwill and correct misperceptions in either State, and come up quickly with (a) minor adjustments to make the Tribunal’s award acceptable to both States, and (b) a formula or method for shortage-sharing in years of low flows.

2. To the Tribunal: Regardless of the pendency of the SLPs in the Supreme Court, please take up the clarificatory petitions and issue a Further Report as soon as possible.

3. To the Central government: In order to enable the Tribunal to function, please fill the vacancies in it immediately.

4. To the disputant State governments: Please withdraw your SLPs from the Supreme Court and press the Tribunal for a Further Report.

5. To the Hon’ble Supreme Court: Please take up the SLPs for hearing without further loss of time (assuming that the SLPs are not withdrawn).

6. To the eminent Counsel representing the two State governments: Please consider advising your respective clients against adopting legally or constitutionally untenable positions, or going against the spirit of federalism, or taking confrontationist public postures that make the dispute even more intractable than it is already, or persisting in endless litigation. I hope that this appeal will not be considered improper.

7. To the intellectuals and respected public personalities in either State: Please clarify issues, correct misperceptions and errors of understanding, and promote goodwill and friendly relations between the two neighbouring States, both at the governmental and at the people-to-people levels.

8. To the media (print, TV): Please adhere scrupulously to fair and objective reporting norms, and play your part in promoting goodwill and understanding.

It will be noticed that the appeal to the Cauvery Family has been put first in this list of recommendations. That is an indication of the importance that I attach to that impressive initiative. It must not be allowed to fail. It is true that any understanding or formula arrived at by the Cauvery Family will have no legal force; it will have to be placed before the State governments. However, if the farmers of the two States are able to present an agreed formulation, it will surely carry great weight. (Ramaswamy R. Iyer is a former Secretary, Water Resources, Government of India.)

People in this village pray for drought (Hindu 15 October 2012)

THE HINDU PROBLEM OF PLENTY: Krishen Kumar showing his ruined crops in Mundahera village in Jhajjar district of Haryana. Photo: Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

Crops destroyed due to waterlogging; khap panchayat bans paddy cultivation

“Our village is unique: here people do not pray for rains but for a drought,” quipped Krishen Kumar, a farmer of Mundahera village of Jhajjar, as he showed how a rise in the water level in his village and adjoining areas has led to waterlogging and destruction of standing crops in his village.

While after the construction of the Jawaharlal Nehru Canal in the late 70s, the water table in the area had started rising, the problem began when some farmers began sowing paddy to make use of the standing waters.

“That was okay for only about 20 per cent farmers, whose land was on higher ground, but for others it meant submerged fields. The higher fields began experiencing more nooni (higher salt levels) which even harmed arhar, jowar and cotton crops that require less water,” said Krishen. Around 10 villages in the region, just about 70 km from Delhi, have badly suffered due to this problem.

Villagers protest

As clamour for corrective action grew, the Jakhar khap panchayat in neighbouring Salhavaas village in May 2011 banned paddy cultivation in 36 villages in the region. “This year no one, barring a few families in the Akeri village close to the canal, has sown paddy. People have protested about it to the Deputy Commissioner and a social boycott of those who did not adhere to the directive is on the cards,” said Krishen.

The villagers see in the khap decision a glimmer of hope. Krishen, who lost his right hand in a thresher accident about five years ago, said the selfish approach of some had led to stagnation of water in his fields and destruction of the standing jowar (sorghum) crop.

Krishen hailed the khap decision to impose a fine of Rs. 5,100 on those growing paddy. In fact, he wanted more stringent action. “Follow-up action in the form of social boycott and expulsion from the caste will have greater impact.”

The former CRPF Inspector, Tek Chand, insisted the Jakhar khap decision was for the larger good. If people actually abide by it, it would help lower the salt content in the soil within the next three to four years. “Right now, about 20 per cent fields in the region remain submerged all through the year. In about 60 per cent, there is deficient production as nothing can be grown till mid-October when they start drying up and crops like mustard are sown.’’

While most farmers are able to grow wheat which is sown by mid-November, as by then the fields would have considerably dried up, Tek Chand said the output was normally low due to the degradation of the soil quality.

In Salhavaas village, Rajinder Kumar along with about a dozen other farmers has filed cases against the Irrigation Department to protest the siphoning off of water from the canal by some farmers who have land near it. “This excess water is destroying the livelihood of nearly two lakh people in the region. The government should also act tough in the matter.”

A way out?

Mool Chand, who retired from the Agriculture Department, said there was hope as deep borewells were being sunk at Beri to make the excess water flow to the deeper water tables. “On the other side of the Nehru canal in Dhaniya, Bhakli and Kosli villages, the water table is about 30 to 35 feet below the surface. So, such a move to drain out excess water from here would benefit people in the entire area.”

A loo of one’s own (Hindu 12 October 2012)

The Hindu BIJLI, SADAK, PAANI ... SHAUCHALYA: The need for toilets is not a trivial issue. A file picture of an awareness campaign against open defecation in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu.

For much of India, toilets are all about an issue of sanitation, health, privacy and dignity, and gender rights

Let’s forget about what Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh said and focus on what he is trying to do. It is not an easy campaign to launch and run. Imagine someone asking what do you do? And having to answer, I promote toilets — toilet construction and toilet use. Most activists would happily say — I work on land rights, or housing rights, or equal wages, or the right to education. How many of us would stand up, proud, without batting an eyelid and say, I work on toilet rights? Saddled by both a yuck factor and funny factor, it’s a tough sell. Dealing with defecation, and its stench is yes, yucky. And scatological jokes, a dime a dozen.

Also, toilets appear trivial, fairly low down on our list of stated development priorities. Right to food is up there on top. Then the “bijli, sadak, paani” slogan takes over. Adding “house w/toilet” seems a stretch. Almost a luxury that poor people somehow do not deserve. At best, middle-class India will accept a toilet rights movement only so it cleans up ‘our’ streets and roadsides, and we do not have to gingerly step over mounds of fly covered excrement when we take our morning walk. It’s the same sentiment that makes us want to remove or cover up slum dwellings and shanties. Remove the eyesore, so we can go about our pleasant lives without having to look at the unpleasant lives of our fellow citizens. And we can defecate every morning in the privacy of our tiled toilet, fitted with a flush, wondering why on earth “those people” think open defecation is their birthright.

Anyone who has spent time working with India’s have-nots (in this case — “those without toilets”) whether in rural or in urban areas, will know that “open defecation” is a bit of a euphemism. For women generally, there is nothing “open” about it, save for the sky above their heads.

In large parts of rural India, women wake up pre-dawn, and carry a vessel of water to a quiet spot, doing their business under the cover of darkness, managing to retain a bit of privacy and dignity. God forbid nature calls in the middle of the day, just hold it in. Never mind the cramps, chronic constipation, piles and poor digestion that will plague them for life. I recall a stroll at dawn many decades ago, along a small river in a backward peri-urban part of Uttar Pradesh. The sloping bank was dotted with squatting women, rows of exposed skin, but every face fully covered with a ghunghat. I understood something about the many ways women held on to their dignity — since they had no choice but to expose their bare bottoms for the world to see, they made sure no one could identify their faces. They were, quite literally, “saving face.”

Assam visit

On a recent visit to Assam with Oxfam India, among the few humanitarian aid agencies working there in both flood and conflict districts, I developed new appreciation for the toilet. When asked just what Oxfam was doing in the relief camps, I learnt it was distributing buckets, mugs, hygiene kits and constructing toilets. Toilets are their big thing (they have a target of 200 latrines) — quick semi-permanent constructions taking no more than two days to build, with a deep disposal pit, concrete slabs for squatting, in a plastic-sheeted cubicle. Visiting camp after camp I understood the priority. Imagine a camp with 12,000 displaced people, crowded into scores of tiny tents, in an open field that the incessant rains have turned into a swamp, with everyone defecating where they can. It is a health nightmare. Or, imagine another camp, where people walk to the nearest water body — a pond, a lake — and defecate in the same place from where they will later draw water for cooking. Sickness in these camps will spread like wildfire.

Women in the camps were the most appreciative of the toilets, for they clearly needed them most desperately. A half-hour boat ride away, in a flood stricken village partially swallowed up by the Brahmaputra, a woman came up to us. Oxfam had constructed a toilet about 20 feet outside her hut. She meekly asked if they could extend the tarpaulin screen from the side of her hut to the toilet, so that people in the village did not have to know every time she used it. Even in a time of such crisis, having lost everything else, she was trying to hold on to a bit of her dignity.

The fact is that toilets are not a trivial matter. Toilets are a sanitation issue, a health issue, a privacy and dignity issue, and yes, a gender rights issue. It’s time we took them seriously.

(Farah Naqvi, a writer and activist, is a member of the National Advisory Council. The views expressed are personal. Email: farah.naqvi64@yahoo.com)

‘Close drain flowing into forest’ Hindustan Times 22 October 2012

Acting tough following yet another Public Interest Litigation (PIL), the Allahabad High Court, in an interim order, has directed the civic agencies to cement the drain which allegedly overflows into the green area of Sai Upvan city forest in Ghaziabad. The court has also directed that there should be sewage treatment plant (STP) to protect the water of river Hindon from pollution. The interim order came from Acting Chief Justice Amitava Lala and Justice Ashok Srivastava on a PIL filed by Ghaziabad councillor Rajendra Tyagi. He had filed the PIL against the proposed golf course by the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) over 81 acres of the Sai Upvan city forest.
Tyagi had also alleged that a drain was flowing into the forest area and the sewage was destroying the trees.
In his PIL, Tyagi had also requested that the court stop any non-forest activity in the area and direct the agencies to initiate a reforestation drive. He also wanted the court to ensure that no untreated sewage is dumped into River Hindon and that the drain was cemented.
Also stating that there should be substantial development in this regard — which should also be reported to the court — the court order also stated: “In case of failure, the Municipal Commissioner of Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam will be directed to be personally present before this court.”
The court also connected Tyagi’s PIL to another PIL filed by Alok Kumar, vice-president of Ghaziabad RWA Federation (Indirapuram zone). Kumar had also moved court against the proposed golf course project and had filed a supplementary affidavit along with his main petition which called for better implementation of the UP Apartment Act 2010.
Earlier, in an interim order on October 4 over Kumar’s PIL, the court had ordered that status quo be maintained for Sai Upvan and Kanha Upvan green areas. In its counter affidavit, the GDA had stated that no project had be en finalised as yet and requested that the interim order be vacated.