When 'development' is a zero-sum game

A combination of political ambition and religious nationalism is destroying Uttarakhand's potential, not least for the state's inhabitants

Significantly improved road and air connectivity and an increasingly prosperous middle class have transformed domestic tourism in India over the past two decades. At many monuments and places of tourist interest, domestic visitors outnumber foreign visitors, a trend visible well before Covid-19. It is a pity, then, to witness the stark deterioration of popular tourist destinations as a result of unresolved tensions between conservation and development. This is the equivalent of damaging an industry’s most irreplaceable capital assets.

The irony of this dichotomy is that there are mostly losers. Recently, for instance, Uttarakhand brought its capital city Dehradun to a standstill to host a two-day Global Investors’ Summit, the latest fashion in competitive federalism. Afterwards, the state proudly announced that it had attracted proposals worth Rs 3.5 trillion, way over its modest target of Rs 2 trillion. This is standard hyperbole after any global investor summit by a state; businesspeople (few of them “global” in any sense of the term) are pressed into making commitments they mostly have little intention of keeping. But the summit was especially worrying because on the closing day Home Minister Amit Shah spoke of Uttarakhand as a showcase of “being connected with industry in an eco-friendly manner”. 

How the state proposes to achieve this will be worth watching. Eco-friendliness is not an attribute that readily comes to mind for a visitor to the state. Some 86 per cent of the area of Uttarakhand is located in one of the world’s most fragile and seismologically vulnerable mountainous environments. Sixty-five per cent is covered by forests. Added to this spectacular bounty that the state inherited when it was formed almost 24 years ago are some of Hinduism’s holiest and most ancient temples in stunning natural settings. The principal industrial investment lies in dams — 14 of them — to generate hydroelectric power that increasingly pose a threat to human life. More recently, the state has been the location of burgeoning construction play that has seen unsightly Dubai-style residences, malls and hotels rapidly obscure the environment.

But it is the combination of political ambition and religious nationalism that is playing a leading role in destroying Uttarakhand’s potential, not least for the state’s inhabitants. Improved road, rail and air networks have encouraged growing numbers of Hindus on pilgrimages, now completed with relative ease, to the Char Dham, or four holy sites, causing levels of crowding and garbage with which inadequately staffed local bodies cannot cope. No less damaging are the jerry-built hotels and lodges that have sprung up to service these tourists, few of them following building or environmental codes. Neither the rapid sinking of Joshimath, a key temple town, the imminent danger of others such as Nainital and Uttarkashi going that way, nor the collapse of the Silkyara tunnel have deterred the Centre from its ambitious Char Dham rail and road connectivity project.  

Cutting vast swathes of reserve forest and blasting into unstable hill terrain for roads and tunnels, combined with melting glaciers from accelerated climate change, are a lethal combination. These activities have already taken a toll on thousands of lives of workers and tourists in the upper reaches of the Himalayas.

Indiscriminate development cannot be said to serve the people sustainably or responsibly. Yet thousands of kilometres away in the deserts of Rajasthan, a unique monument, the golden sandstone fort of Jaisalmer is being destroyed — amazingly, by its own inhabitants. This 12th century fort — the Sonar Kella of Satyajit Ray fame — is the state’s second oldest and one of the few remaining living forts. But those 3,000-odd people who are fortunate enough to live cheek by jowl with history have sought to maximise the chief business opportunity in this border city — tourism — by turning their homes into hotels, restaurants and shops employing the most rudimentary of construction methods and drainage systems.

The result is that faulty drainage is eroding the clayey sandstone — a clearly visible watermark is now well up to the half-way mark of the fort’s outer wall. A collapse is imminent, but neither the Centre nor local or state authorities have explored a solution to what will soon become a livelihood and development crisis. The answer lies in banning hotels and other establishments inside the fort but no government is willing to risk the ire of the politically well-connected inhabitants to impose such rules. An appeal by enlightened tourist guides has yielded only threats. Down south in Madhya Pradesh, pollution from Bhopal’s sprawling urbanisation is eroding the unique painted rock shelters of Bhimbetka. Despite appeals from responsible citizens, the authorities appear unwilling to ring-fence this rare archaeological resource from the ravages of development.

Uttarakhand, Jaisalmer or Bhimbetka demonstrate how India’s unique embarrassment of tourist riches is being devalued and destroyed by thoughtless development. The irony is that it’s the local people who stand to lose the most when the country chooses to wilfully sacrifice a natural competitive advantage.