Moment of Reckoning

There are moments when matters come to a pass not to be ignored even by the most insensitive. What happened in Uttarkashi is one such moment. The flash floods wreaking havoc in a matter of seconds is a thunderous reminder on what we have done to our environment. The theoretical details about the climate change or the technical details of how the fragile environment is impacted by building roads in such regions, or undertaking different developmental projects in such environmentally sensitive zones, may be hard to gather for most of the people. But the scenes of devastation that go viral on social media are enough to hammer home the point that we are threatening our lives big way by violating the basic environmental considerations.

This is not the first time, and Uttarkashi is not the first place, where we are witnessing horrific scenes of devastation. Earlier also we have seen it, and we have seen how lives where lost in the most dreadful manner. But unfortunately we never take heed. For some days we talk about the incident and then in the silence of routine things remain unchanged.

This is time that the whole idea of development underwent a seismic shift. Everything cannot be measured in terms of immediate economic benefits. If we keep making deep inroads into environmentally fragile zones, and if our urge to see roads and transport reaching even the highest Himalayan peak is not leashed, the planet earth has her own ways of having vengeance.

In J&K, we have seen how natural scheme of things is getting impacted by a wayward concept of development. From riverbed mining to Kareva excavations, from digging tunnels to building roads in high altitude zones, from building houses in wetlands to encroaching banks of lakes, what has not gone into the making of a huge disaster. The smaller appearances of this disaster we might have watched occasionally, but if all this goes unabated, we may have to face a disaster of unimagined proportions – God forbid.