Speaking for the Sahyadris
By: Alvares, Claude
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Material type: 
BookPublisher: Seminar: Cradle of Diversity Description: 735, Nov, 2020: p.32-37.Subject(s): Rivers- India, Western Ghats, Disaster management, Himalaya
In:
Seminar: Cradle of DiversitySummary: SIMPLY because we worry about a mountain range, is it going to die? Can the Alps or the Andes perish through excessive human tampering? Can human footprints destroy the Himalaya? At first glance, such scenarios appear impossible, even inconceivable. But don’t we destroy rivers? Have we not already destroyed some? Developed India through its dams has destroyed the Narmada river along with all its cultural artefacts and symbols. It erased the Narmada parikrama from India’s spiritual traditions. Its reservoirs now hold lifeless water.
The removal of mountains, however, is simply not in our capacity, though we have accumulated an impressive record of blasting and flattening several smaller hills into non-existence in our anthropocentric endeavour to make the world comfortable solely for human beings and for activities ‘profitable’ to them which governments senselessly promote.
Mountains, like the Western Ghats – or the Sahyadris as they are known in Maharashtra and Karnataka – are not simply masses of rock, stone, soil, vegetation and water storages. They are living ecosystems: they sport a thick skin of green that protects them from sun, wind and rain (more serious threats than biotic activity), and under that green mantle, they harbour life of immeasurably diverse species. Human beings have always been a part of the package. The symbiotic existence between these living edifices and human beings is seen most vividly in the sustainable lifestyles of tribal communities, like the Todas and the Soligas.
Those, however, who are part of the communities living within the Western Ghats – either in the lap of these mountains or in their immediate shadow – are profoundly disturbed about what has been going on within this region during recent decades. The Western Ghats ecosystem stretches across six coastal states. The authorities, both at centre and all six states, do not appear to have even an inkling of the scale of the ‘development siege’ of these mountains which is making life increasingly difficult for both people who live there and the wildlife. - Reproduced
SIMPLY because we worry about a mountain range, is it going to die? Can the Alps or the Andes perish through excessive human tampering? Can human footprints destroy the Himalaya? At first glance, such scenarios appear impossible, even inconceivable. But don’t we destroy rivers? Have we not already destroyed some? Developed India through its dams has destroyed the Narmada river along with all its cultural artefacts and symbols. It erased the Narmada parikrama from India’s spiritual traditions. Its reservoirs now hold lifeless water.
The removal of mountains, however, is simply not in our capacity, though we have accumulated an impressive record of blasting and flattening several smaller hills into non-existence in our anthropocentric endeavour to make the world comfortable solely for human beings and for activities ‘profitable’ to them which governments senselessly promote.
Mountains, like the Western Ghats – or the Sahyadris as they are known in Maharashtra and Karnataka – are not simply masses of rock, stone, soil, vegetation and water storages. They are living ecosystems: they sport a thick skin of green that protects them from sun, wind and rain (more serious threats than biotic activity), and under that green mantle, they harbour life of immeasurably diverse species. Human beings have always been a part of the package. The symbiotic existence between these living edifices and human beings is seen most vividly in the sustainable lifestyles of tribal communities, like the Todas and the Soligas.
Those, however, who are part of the communities living within the Western Ghats – either in the lap of these mountains or in their immediate shadow – are profoundly disturbed about what has been going on within this region during recent decades. The Western Ghats ecosystem stretches across six coastal states. The authorities, both at centre and all six states, do not appear to have even an inkling of the scale of the ‘development siege’ of these mountains which is making life increasingly difficult for both people who live there and the wildlife. - Reproduced
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