Samhita Barooah
North East India thrives through its new found cities of ecological disasters. Growth has surpassed sustainability and ecosystem cultures. Any act of destruction in the name of development is valid if it fulfills election gimmicks. In this context let us understand how cities like Guwahati is growing rapidly. Growth is reflected in its flyovers, malls, polished roads, flashy cars and rapid urbanization. Doorstep deliveries of essentials, healthcare, bank loans, insurance deals, clothes, furniture, garbage collection points. Guwahati is booming with huge transitions. Very recently Guwahati was washed away by the onset of heavy monsoons. It was literally cut off from the world where people could not move even an inch in the public transport or through the flooded streets. Guwahati couldn't be saved by SUVs, electric cars, high rise buildings or the colourful flyovers. It's really unfortunate that midnight cutting or rather trimming of trees in and around the heritage sites of Guwahati are rampant. Ecology of commons are getting grossly destroyed in order to fulfill the economy of corporate syndicates.
A few years back some senior citizens in the Dispur area cleaned a garbage dumping ground and created a beautiful herbal, floral and vegetable garden along with aromatic trees inside the state secretariat parking lot. But the efforts of the senior citizens were dampened by overnight uprooting of the trees and clearing of the natural space for bigger parking lot.
Today in every locality people are creating home gardens, rooftop vegetable gardens, flower and aromatic plant spaces within the crammed residential areas and gated complexes. But there is not a single tree to lean on or shade to get respite from the sun and the rains in public spaces. Trees are not just for humans, trees are for millions of other species. Trees are homes of ants, birds, bees, monkeys, worms, snakes, creepers, herbs, symbiotic plants and so many micro-organisms. Trimming, trans planting, uprooting or cutting of trees which grew more than 100 years ago cannot be replenished by newer versions. I remember in 2004 when Sundarlal Bahuguna came to Cotton College he focused on saving trees. Today Jadav Payeng is a forest icon of the world for saving Assam's Majuli river island by planting trees. Wangari Mathai the Kenyan Nobel laureate must be tossing and turning in her grave seeing the tree loss of North East India due to human development agendas.
In urban locations, trees by the roadside are naturally absorbing the carbon emissions of vehicles and human activities. How can trees be removed to fulfill engineering passion, corporate ambitions and vote bank politics in the name of haphazard urbanisation. Problems are rising because we are envisioning a crammed Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad or Chennai in an ecologically fragile Guwahati. Every ecosystem is different and diverse which unfortunately cannot be clonned through AI or any such technology of the current age.
We have to breathe, we have to survive through nature, we have to co-exist with multiple ecological species. Flyovers cannot replace trees and natural spaces and ropeways cannot replace the wetlands which are shrinking in Guwahati. We get experts from all over the world to restore the drainage, barrage, ecosystem functions to keep the city alive but we do not value the indigenous communities and people who have survived hundreds of years in and around Guwahati making ends meet by restoring the ecosystem. Powerful people, stable political leaders, public intellectuals and state authorities are averse to people struggles, movement for environmental regeneration and gender equity but when will these issues be resolved without harming the existing ecosystems. When urban planners and landscape consultants reimagine an existing space, they forget the cost of relocation of multiple ecological species apart from humans. Today we have many human and nature conflicts due to this mismatch. Human beings have isolated themselves from nature and nature has always shared its wrath when it gets over exploited. Eco feminist discourse has always cautioned human world to be conscious of the oppression of nature and women since the early 70s but somehow our crave for urban amenities have led to this disastrous fallouts.
Trees in Guwahati seems to be under trial where the state machinery is following orders to eliminate every possible tree coming in the way of ultra modern urban infrastructure and massive construction projects. This trend will leave the city bereft of all species. We cannot be thriving only by creating exclusive wildlife parks and corridors and destroying all existing urban ecosystems. The urban commons need to be nature driven not just naturally manufactured. Urbanisation in today's world is a reality which is more of an addiction rather than a need to survive. Every commons are getting commodified and packaged into homes where individual human safety, growth, happiness and prosperity matters the most but not that of the others. In this way trees in urban and peri urban locations are gradually getting eliminated. We talk about sustainable development goals but are we really upholding the spirit of the sustainable development goals when it comes to urbanisation, tree restoration, drain clearance and reducing inequalities? This June 5, world environment day really needs this soul searching. Let us join the dots of nature rather than the blueprint dots of ecosystem destruction.
