Dilemmas of Development

"This morning I came, I
saw, and
I was conquered”
- FD Roosvelt, While inaugurating the Hoover Dam

Tehri Dam dint really conquer the prejudiced 'me', when I went to visit it in 2007. We reached Tehri via Haridwar, Rishikesh and Dev Prayag. 

 Tehri Dam

 Tehri dam is the fourth tallest earth and rock filled dam in the world and the tallest in Asia at around 840m. It is situated at around 650m above mean sea level at the confluence of Bhilangna and Bhagirathi  river in beautiful tehri garhwal.

 Tehri Garhwal 

 Tehri Garhwal Landscape

The word 'Tehri' comes from the sanskrit word trihari, which means place which can cure three kinds of sins; sins of the mind, of words and of actions. There is a recorded history of habitation in Tehri Garhwal for over two thousand years. Tehri was the capital city of the princly state of Tehri Garhwal . According to 1991 census, it had a population of 268,885 people. A dam was concieved across Bhagirathi in the early seventies. In 1986 an Indo-Soviet agreement brought Soviet expertise and aid of approximately $416 million to the project. In 2001 the German export credit agency Hermes guaranteed loans to Voith Siemens Hydro to provide generating equipment for Tehri.Construction began in 1978, cofferdam was complete by 1996. The project was complete in 2003.

 All is not well in the waterfront. The reservoir has completely submerged the town of Tehri adding the prefix 'old' to it. 40 villages have also been submerged completely and 72 partially, 5200ha of agricultural land has been lost and over a million people have been displaced. The only reminder of the past, towers of Kings palace can be seen peeping from the water.  The number of people displaced by dams is estimated at between 40m and 80m, most of them in China and India.

 

Tehri Dam is situated in the highly active Central Himalayan Seismic Zone. It is designed to withstand earthquakes of up to 7.2 on the Richter scale although experts predict that earthquakes of magnitude 8.5 or more could strike this region. This is the only major hydro project across Bhagirathi, If the dam were to burst, several major towns downstream of the dam with a total population of over half a million people could be wiped out. The chief engineer of the project whom we interviewed said that Rishikesh could be under water in ten minutes after the event. The dam has been carefully designed keeping all these risks in mind. Tehri dam is an earth fill dam shaped like a hill. The river is S-shaped near the dam and a substantial portion of the water pressure will be borne not by the dam structure itself but by the hillsides.

Benefits of the project:

• The dam is expected to generate 2400MW of power and light Delhi, UP, Haryana.
• Provide 270 million gallons drinking water per day  to the metropolis of Delhi, Uttarakhand and UP states.
• Provide irrigatation to over 900000 ha land in Haryana and UP. 

Delhi is the capital city of India, UP and Haryana are densly populated agricultural states. All three are critical for India's growth. This summer Delhi reeled under severe heat which was made worse by power crunch. There were frequent power cuts. Power cuts at over 40 degree heat would make, even the most mildest of persons go violent. It was extremely frustating, I could not sleep the nights whenever there was power cuts. I spent the whole night cursing everyone right from the dog barking outside my house, my landlord to the chief minister. There were protests as well. All my activist tendencies melted in the heat. On the other the above mentioned states of North India suffered heavily because of failed monsoons. The government declared the event as decade's worst drought.



There was a popular anti dam struggle led by none other than Sundarlal Bahuguna.    In 1978 a Committee to Oppose the Tehri Dam or the Tehri Bandh Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti (TBVSS) was formed under Chandi Prasad Bhatt. TVBSS succeeded in pressuring authorities to review the project on several occasions. 

The project was abandoned in the mid 1980s after being sharply criticized on environmental grounds by a government appointed review committee.  In 1987 the project was again referred to a committee of the Ministry of Environment to assess its safety and environmental and social impacts. This committee unanimously ruled against the project but the Indian government overruled its findings and restarted the project. After a 74-day hunger strike in 1996, Sunderlal Bahuguna  forced the government to set up a review of the seismic, environmental and rehabilitation aspects of the project. The Hanumantha Rao Committee submitted its report and recommendations in 1997. The government has failed to implement most of the committee’s recommendations, especially those concerning rehabilitation. In 1992 environmentalists filed a case in the Supreme Court alleging that project authorities had not acquired the mandatory environmental clearance for the dam. The petition addresses environment, seismicity and rehabilitation issues. The court cited scientific uncertainity and permitted the completion of the dam. There is a dailogue in this Kannada film called Dweepa  which dealt with similar issues of dams and displacement; The protogonist asks a government officer ''Sir, Is it fair to drown some people to help many ?"  I don't really have the answer, Even I am benefitting from the Dam in countless direct and indirect ways. I think there is no clear demarcation of what is right and what is wrong here? It’s a very thin, blurred line which keeps shifting with time 

Ends does not really justify the means.I think nobody would oppose the power or water but people would oppose the mode in which they are produced.We really have quite a few practical alternatives. Instead of going to one large multi purpose centralized hydro project, it would have been better to go for many mini hydro projects. Decentralized solutions with respect to use of renewable energy and watershed planning and management are never paid attention to. Measures should be taken to reduce transmission losses in power. Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) the 36th President of the United States once said A nation that fails to plan intelligently for the development and protection of its precious waters will be condemned to wither because of its shortsightedness. The hard lessons of history are clear, written on the deserted sands and ruins of once proud civilizations. 

"If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water" - LORAN EISELY

Only 2.5% of the world's water is not salty, and two-thirds of that is trapped in the icecaps and glaciers. Of what is left, about 20% is in remote areas and most of the rest comes at the wrong time and in the wrong place, as with monsoons and floods. The amount of fresh water available for human use is less than 0.08% of all the water on the planet. About 70% of the fresh water is already used for agriculture, and a report says the demands of industry and energy will grow rapidly. The World Water Council report estimates that in the next two decades the use of water by humans will increase by about 40%, and that 17% more water than is available will be needed to grow the world's food. I can not help but invoke Samuel Taylor Coleridge's  poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Alone, alone, all, all alone
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

S T Coleridge

 

Through the pages of history, A visit to Jewish Museum, Berlin

Some technical issues with formatting. sorry 
Jacob Bronowski, the British mathematician, biologist, writer, presenter and great humanist is believed to have pleaded to the UN general assembly to keep the ruins of Hiroshima undisturbed. He felt that such a memorial would remind future generations about the horrors of nuclear warfare. Unfortunately his cry went unheard. Large investments very pumped in and Hiroshima was reconstructed.

I visited Jewish Museum, Berlin, last October. It is one such attempt to keep the tragedies of past alive. I got an opportunity to look closely into things which I had read in history books, things which had moved me when I had watched Schindlers list or read Anne Frank’s diary.

Jewish Museum, Berlin

It is a recent structure inaugurated in 2001. It was designed by Polish born American Architect Daniel Lebiskind., the architect who is designed the 9/11 memorial. It is a very thoughtfully designed structure and as architect himself puts it “its open for different interpretations”.

The museum has three axes, the axis of continuity, the axis of emigration and the axis of holocaust.the pic below is the junction for the axis of emigration and the axis of the holocaust.

Junction -- Axis of holocaust and Axis of Exile

The axis of the holocaust slopes gently upward to an empty, 24 meter high space called holocaust tower, it is unheated and lit only by natural light falling through a diagonal opening in the wall. It is interpreted as a space for holocaust victims.

Holocaust Tower

The axis of emigration opens to the garden of exile. Garden of exile is the only rectangular structure in the building, 49 columns filled with earth arranged in a square, standing vertically on a slanting floor. It is like a maze of sorts. Olive willows grow out of the columns (Olive being the symbol of peace?). The stones on the ground are angular. Here we are expected to walk alone.It is supposed to contain the uncertainties of going into an exile. The apprehensions of going into an alien land not knowing what is in store. The maze confused and left me with an odd dizzy feeling. I think thats what it feels when you go into an exile..

Garden of Exile

All along the axises there are photographs, personal documents and keepsakes that have been donated to the museum. If we were left with only 10 minutes to wind up everything we have and run for our lives, I think photographs would be one of the few things that we would take.

Gallery

Its rightly said that a photograph conveys what thousand words cant convey. Every photograph had an amazing story to tell. Stories of tragedy and hope. I have shared some such stories below.

THE SMUGGLED LETTER
At the age of 25, Hans – Peter Messerschmidt was deported from Berlin to Auschwitz. Shortly after his arrival, he managed to smuggle out a letter to a friend, in which he writes about the conditions of Auschwitz. Hans Peter Messerschmidt survived.

Smuggled letter

"The daily routine goes like this: 4 a.m. wake, Make beds( Straw mattress with 2 blankets) Get dressed(1 shirt, 1 shorts, 1 striped trousers, 1 striped jacket, 2 threadbare socks, 2 wooden clogs), enough to freeze in. Then breakfast, standing in open air: 1/2 loaf = 350 gm, 1 small piece sausage or margarine or cheese. 2 * a week 1/2 loaf long work time additional ration ( meat 200 gm per week). 6am roll call for about 4,00 prisioners. then march out to the different working places on the building site of the Buna wall belonging to I. G. Farbe"

IN MEMORY OF A FRIEND
These are the last photos of Alfred Tworoger. They are from an album his girlfriend, Marga Gussinoff, carried when she was deported. Marga, a Berliner, survived the Bergan- Belsen concentration camp and managed to save the album. The photo was taken in 1941.

Alfred Tworoger

Marga remembers “…. it was the only day we went out ‘wityhout wearing our star’…. very risky. We were yound, and dint know what the next day would bring …. We were lucky that nobody recognized us.” Alfred Tworoger took his own life in prison in 1942.

MY DEAR BOY !

In 1939, fifteen – year – old Gert Berliner went to Sweden on a children’s transport. In his luggage was his stuffed toy monkey. Gert’s parents, Paul and Sophie Berliner, remained in Berlin, and in 1943 they were deported to Aushwitz and murdered there.

Gert Berliner

In Novemeber 1941, Paul and Sophie wrote a letter to their son. Parts of it were censored – probably because they alluded to the deportations that had just begun. “I cannot write much [censored] terrible conditions I am. Daddy told you about the details. As long as we’re here, we’ll continue to write [censored] chin up. With God’s help, we’ll be reunited.”

In 1947, Gert Berliner emigrated from Sweden to the USA, where he became a painter, filmmaker and photographer.

JEAN HEINEMANNS’ NOTEBOOK
Jean Heinemann fled from Berlin to Paris in April 1933. In 1943 he was arrensted in Marseille and deported to Auschwitz. In the Jewarzno satellite camp he performed hard labor in brickworks until the camp was evacuated in January 1945. He survived the war and wrote his memoirs during a stay in a sanatorium in 1946. Jean Heinemann wrote down poems in this small notebook during his imprisonment in Jewarzono camp.

The Notebook

If we don’t use our physical and mental capabilities, we lose them. I notice in conversations that I have to look for words that i often used in the past but can’t remember now because I no longer use them ….. Life in the camp shrunk us physically and mentally.”

Axis of Continuity

The third and the longest axis is called the axis of continuity which is a long, confusing, and a never ending corridor. It takes us to various floors of the museum, showing various facets of Jewish life and society and gets you back to the exit. It is meant to represent the vitality of the Jewish society to withstand all onslaughts.

Voids
There are empty spaces in the museum which extend vertically through the entire museum called ‘voids’ which represent the absence of Jews from the German society. One of these voids contains over 10,000 faces made of Iron covering the floor, which is a dedication to all the innocent victims of war and violence by Isreli artist Meneshe Kadishman, who calls his installation “Shalekhet” in Hebrew, which means Fallen Leaves.Hope we don’t have such fallen leaves in future.

I visited The Pergamon museum a couple of days after I visited the Jewish museum. The Pergamon has the reputation of being one of the best museums in the world. It has artifacts from Greek and Roman era. I wasn’t that impressed by it. Everything seemed so artificial and fake; I couldn’t somehow identify myself with it. Although I am not a Jew, although I am not an European I could identify with the Jewish Museum. I feel, the trauma and struggles the Jews underwent are universal and not rooted in any particular geography.

The museum was inaugurated on September 11 2001, the day when the twin towers were blown up.Ironical isn’t it? History repeats it self if we don’t pay enough attention to it and we need more things like Jewish museum to remind us of the depths of human shallows and its possibilities.

Cricket, India and I

Click on the pic to see an enlarged image.

This is a 1898 photograph from Udupi where some high school boys are playing cricket.

58 years after the formation of the first county cricket club Sussex. 54 years after the first ever international cricket game between the USA and Canada.34 years after the great W G Grace made his first class debut.  31 years after a team of Australian Aborigines toured England in what was the first Australian cricket team to travel overseas. 21 years after an England touring team in Australia played two matches against full Australian XIs that are now regarded as the inaugural Test matches.8 years after the constitution of official County Championship in England, in what is now known as the Golden Age of cricket, these boys, oblivious of all these things are playing cricket in kacche panche and topies just like Swami and his Friends

Lord Harris in his A Few Short Runs (1921) said,  That cricket is going to stay in India there cannot be a shadow of a doubt; it has taken hold all over the country, and chokras can be seen playing in every village with any sort of old bat and ball that they can lay hands on.  Lord Harris, as Siddhu would have said hits the nail on its head and cricket has not only stayed in India but has grown from strength to strength. Like countless Indians growing up in 90's, cricket had a very significant impact on my growing up.

My earliest memories of cricket is the 1987 world cup finals. I have vague memories of Australians going around the stadium and David Boon’s mush. Then I remember Austrailasia cup and Atul Bedade [ of all the people, I donno why]

I studied in a school called Holy Saint English School in Jayanagar, Bangalore. When I was in first standard we had an alumni of the school as our guest. He was a thin tall ‘uncle’ with large spectacles. I remember my grandmother telling me he is a cricketer called Anil Kumble. He had given us chocolates. After that it was a matter of pride for sometime to boast that I belong to his school or rather he studied in my school, whenever he came on TV.

Then there was Hero cup, Sachin Tendulkar’s magic over had snatched the victory from Kepler Wessels et al. The finals was on a Ganesh Chaturti day and India had batted first and had scored a mediocre total. We left for the puja place after some time there were fireworks around. I rushed back home to find that India had beaten the West Indies. Anil Kumble’s success in a way became my sucess. I boasted around saying “he is from my school.”

I really started following the game in Azaruddin’s era. Hero cup gave me an hero in Anil Kumble. Then came Rahul Dravid, whose batting style I desparately tried to imitate [partially successful].and was nicknamed Dravid in school.

 I have done crazier things for cricket than any other things, will mentiona few here....

• Stood in the rain watching match in a TV showroom
• Prayed for people to get back to form
• Running to the shop near school during breaks to ask for scores
• Remembering people like Nolan Clark who debuted at the age of 47 for Holland in 1996
• Making a FM radio from an electronic model set inside a soap box to listen to the commentry[while i was in boarding school where cricket was a taboo]
• Smuggling sport star to the hostel 
• Doing extra things and homework early so as to get myself an extra serving of cricket during matches
• Carefully scheduling a stomach ache or a head ache during key matches
• Sssociating events with matches – I would remember things by associating it with cricket matches– like 2 days before the titan cup finals…. the day when Kambli scored a double hundred etc etc. ..

With all the fancy hype about T20, I wonder if this was the game that made me go crazy. I dont know, if I can identify with the game like the way I did after Kumble, Rahul and Sachin. I donno if cricket will be cricket or rather I donno if I am the same ‘I'
photo from Bassel Mission Archives video from Youtube 

Mysore (1944) by R K Narayan

This travelogue was commissioned by the then Maharaja of Mysore Jayachamaraja Wodeyar. It is dedicated to Sir Mirza_Ismail.  Narayan travels all around Mysore state, the present day South Karnataka districts of Chickmagalur(Note: Kadur used to be the district headquarter when this book was written), Kolar, Banglaore, Shimoga, Chitradurga, Tumkur and Mysore. The book is filled with interesting snippets of the region, for example the present day Ramanagara was then known as Closepet after a British geologist Sir Barry Close (1756- 1813). Narayan's observations carry his trademark humour which makes it a very nice read. The book also contains an appendix which basically serves a travel planner.


 This is not a book of facts about Mysore state. It is just a collection of impressions, descriptions, legends and historical tit-bits. Legends, atmosphere and historical anecdotes, are, really, as rich a source of information about a country as statistics of trade and agriculture.

 R. K Narayan in the preface

Read it, for a guided tour of Mysore state; guided by none other than R. K. Narayan.  


Complete book(146 pages)

 
 download PDF(4.9Mb) from  Archive.org