UTTARAKHANDS AWAKENING: COLLECTED ARTICLES 1997-2002

Rajiv Rawat Uttarakhand Support Committee

TABLE OF CONTENTS

UTTARAKHAND REMAINS IN THE HEART .............................................................................4 UTTARAKHAND, OUR DREAM MUST SURPASS UTTARANCHAL, THE REALITY ................................6 UTTARAKHAND'S BANE ................................................................................................ 11 HISTORICAL & CONTEMPORARY GLOBALIZATION IN UTTARAKHAND: SOME ISSUES ...................... 13 STATE OF THE STATE: GETTING OVER A SHAKY START ........................................................ 17 UTTARAKHAND SUPPORT COMMITTEE CONDEMNS PERSECUTION OF NGO................................. 20 THE TEHRI DAM: DEVELOPMENT OR MALDEVELOPMENT?...................................................... 21 1999: THE YEAR IN REVIEW .......................................................................................... 23 THE STRUGGLE FOR CULTURAL SURVIVAL ........................................................................ 26 HEROES AND HEROINES OF UTTARAKHAND ....................................................................... 29 OUR CHIPKO HERITAGE: OUR TRADITIONS AND HISTORY REMEMBERED .................................... 33 SOME THOUGHTS ON KARGIL......................................................................................... 35 THE TRUCE ............................................................................................................... 37 A ROAD TO NOWHERE ................................................................................................. 40 APOCALYPSE IN UTTARAKHAND I: THE FIRE THIS TIME ........................................................ 42 APOCALYPSE IN UTTARAKHAND II: THE EARTHQUAKE AFTERMATH......................................... 43

FIGHTING THE LIQUOR HYDRA ....................................................................................... 45 BOGGED DOWN AGAIN ................................................................................................. 46 A TIME FOR CHOICES ................................................................................................... 48 TOWARDS A NEW UTTARAKHAND: THE PROMISE AND PERIL NOTES FROM NORTH AMERICA .......... 50 THE TRUE MEANING OF UTTARANCHAL............................................................................ 59 REMEMBRANCE .......................................................................................................... 61 LANDSLIDES: AN ENVIRONMENTAL TRAGEDY ..................................................................... 62 INDIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY: A NEW BEGINNING ................................................................. 64 UTTARANCHAL PLANS HELD UP ..................................................................................... 66 UTTARAKHAND SUPPORT COMMITTEE ISSUES CHALLENGE TO POLITICIANS............................... 67 THE GUNS OF AUTUMN ................................................................................................ 71

UTTARAKHAND REMAINS IN THE HEART

August 28, 2002 Uttarakhand vs. Uttaranchal the controversy is more than a debate over semantics. It strikes at the core of our identity as a people, and what our people struggled for in the Uttarakhand Andolan. The fact that a state was formed in November 2000 bearing the name "Uttaranchal" is only a historical footnote in the long history and heritage of "Uttarakhand" the Northern Reaches, abode of Shiva, source of the Ganga, and wellspring of our culture and identity. This we cannot forget in the coming years of hard struggle, not just for progress and uplift, but the survival of the land itself. In the first ever Uttaranchal state election of February 2002, the Congress party, on the brink of a major comeback in the hills after more than a decade in the political wilderness, promised the citizens of the new state that once coming to power, they would change its name to the ancient and true name, Uttarakhand. As the election results rolled in, it became clear that this promise had helped Congress edge out the BJP to claim a simple majority in the state assembly. Two years earlier, the BJP moved the UP assembly and Lok Sabha to approve statehood for Uttarakhand, yet, in keeping with their long running practice of appropriating movements, chose to name the new state "Uttaranchal", ostensibly for its less separatist connotations. However, what the BJP did not understand was that the name Uttaranchal was a slap in the face of those who truly struggled selflessly for Uttarakhand. Many saw it as a crude attempt by the politicians to steal the movement from the people, as well as suppress the identity of a region that figured prominently as Uttarakhand in Hindu legends and scriptures for thousands of years. Indeed, the BJP was once strongly opposed to statehood, and had a change of heart only in the late 1980s when the rich electoral dividends of shifting policy became clear. However, instead of taking up the indigenous cry for Uttarakhand, upholding "Uttaranchal" seemed more palatable and amenable to their brand of politics. Rather than an autonomous state, democratically governed, with a distinct identity, and its policies answerable to the people, the BJP wanted just another administrative unit of a centralized state, where national integration meant assimilation into the amorphous Hindi-Hindu-Hindustani culture. Sadly, the BJP was able to get away with this sleight of hand as many Uttarakhandis lacked the selfconfidence to claim autonomy as Uttarakhand. Settling for Uttaranchal seemed politically wise, lest the rest of India forget the many sacrifices the region had made for the life of the country and mistake the Uttarakhand Andolan for a separatist movement. In a society where assimilation into plains culture meant upward mobility and "paharis" were looked down upon, the BJP leaders also figured that anchal would be more acceptable than what they saw as a strident call for khand. Even still, the irony of the BJP choosing Uttaranchal was not lost on its own ardent grassroots supporters, some of whom felt ultimately betrayed by the party leadership. For years, the BJP had positioned itself as the guarantor of Indian culture, but in changing the name, and

almost doing so for Jharkhand, they misjudged the passions and pride of the people and revealed themselves to be only the latest in a series of political exploiters of people's sentiment. This feeling was so strong, that the electorate of the new state ousted them from office in their first chance at the polls, not because the people had a great love of Congress, but because in the moment of truth, the BJP put politics over the people's aspirations. Uttaranchal, our current reality, remains a pale shadow of what could be. In the two years following statehood, it has become painfully obvious that the new Uttaranchal does not belong to the people, but to the large landowners of the terai, petty babus in the bureaucracy, land speculators across the hills, and the big mafia-controlled contractors that continue to exploit the natural resources of the Himalaya beyond the breaking point. While the rich prosper, the hardships of the common man multiplies and their lot grows ever more precarious. The backbreaking work of women continues unabated and they remain deprived of their political voice, despite all their sacrifices for Uttarakhand. Moreover, a new class of colonizers has arrived from the plains and cities of Northern India where life is rapidly becoming unbearable. Land prices have skyrocketed as the wealthy from urban centers, dreaming about summer homes to escape from the wretched heat and pollution of the plains, have bought up prime land all over Uttaranchal. Overdevelopment by absentee landowners now represents a real threat, not just to the hill stations as in the past, but to the entire hills. Most grievously, the ugly concrete sprawl, land colonization, pollution, and vehicular congestion, are doing what two centuries of domination by the Gurkha and the British, coupled with the money order economy could not uproot the patrimony of the hill people, devastate the natural beauty of the Devbhumi, and corrupt its spirit. Despite the ravaging of the natural and cultural splendor of Uttarakhand, hope remains as the people's struggles continue on all fronts. The confusion wrought by the formation of the state marking in the politician's mind an end to the struggle, will take years to overcome, but the cry for Uttarakhand will only grow until justice is done and our land regained. Until then, Uttarakhand, our Uttarakhand, will remain our dream, our inspiration, and our struggle. Jai Uttarakhand!

UTTARAKHAND, OUR DREAM, MUST SURPASS UTTARANCHAL, THE REALITY

Expanded Draft: January 17, 2002 The Uttarakhand Andolan, as an expression of our peoples dearest hopes and aspirations, did not end with the granting of statehood to Uttaranchal, but rather entered a far more dangerous and uncertain stage. Now we have our own masters, kith and kin, and no one else to blame for the ills and afflictions of Uttarakhand the social backwardness and plunder of our natural heritage. As such, the struggle must continue until a just, prosperous, and equitable future a lasting testament to our martyrs dawns over our hills and for all her peoples. The key needs remain: o o o o o Democratic Renewal & Accountable Governance Women's Emancipation & Empowerment Ecological Rejuvenation & Sustainable Development Social Justice & Economic Equity Cultural Diversity & Communal Harmony

Until we accomplish these, all of us together united across region, caste, creed, age, and gender cannot rest for Uttarakhands future hangs in the balance. Our beloved Devbhumi calls us to wake from our slumber. We, her children, near and far, must answer this call and demonstrate the courage of our convictions, selfless service, and devotion to save our dear land from potential environmental ruin and social disintegration. The following are a series of recommendations and agenda items that we, as supporters of various Uttarakhand struggles overseas, hope political candidates of all parties will consider as they embark upon their election campaigns for the first ever state assembly polls on February 14, 2002. Although far from complete, this body of suggestions illustrates the considerable work ahead for the nascent state and the high expectation of a people whose hopes cannot afford to be dashed again. We humbly offer them in good faith to those politicians of good will who can put away partisan differences to work towards a better Uttarakhand and a better India. DEMOCRACY & PEOPLES EMPOWERMENT Of all the goals of the Uttarakhand Andolan, the most significant, but most neglected, required the reinvigoration of the instruments of peoples governance and the vesting of ultimate sovereignty in the people themselves. The movement made history by representing a genuine peoples movement, where politicians had no place but to listen to the people. Transcending electoral politics that had ripped the social fabric and traditional harmony of the hills, Uttarakhandis strove for unity between Garhwal and Kumaon, between the different castes and tribes, between Paharis and recent migrants, and between the different religious communities. This difficult but noble endeavour now stands on a knifes edge, as politics as usual rears its ugly head once more in the void and confusion left by a fragmented and disoriented movement. Uttarakhand cannot afford to go down that path again, and any

new government must govern for all Uttarakhandis, and especially for those it barely represents through its representatives. Democratic governance can also be bolstered significantly by centering administrative and cultural activities in the hills, at Gairsain, equidistant from Garhwal and Kumaon. This may not necessarily entail relocating the entire bureaucracy to Gairsain, but at least holding a yearly open-air assembly (maha sabha) of an empowered panchayat assembly. This would help maintain a proper perspective on the needs and hardships of hill life, while ensuring a greater measure of accountability from government officials. Within the confines of politics as usual however, politicians can still make a clear break from past practices by holding periodic "town hall" meetings as in other democracies. Politicians should as a rule answer to their constituency and meet with them regularly for representative democracy to function properly. However, direct participatory democracy and involvement of the public in economic planning and decision-making should be encouraged either through the panchayat system, or by convening constituent assemblies in every district. WOMENS EMANCIPATION Women-friendly policies must be instituted including leadership development to prepare women to hold at least 50% of all assembly and panchayat leadership positions as well as enacting liquor prohibition, regulation, and rehabilitation for men. The shackles of household duties, illiteracy, and conservative family relations must be broken for the harder working half of Uttarakhands population to enjoy the liberty they have earned through their blood, sweat, and tears. Meanwhile, health awareness programmes for women living in the hills may be pursued. These policies cannot wait they ought to be enacted immediately so that women take their rightful place as leaders in the new Uttarakhand. PRESERVATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS The Uttarakhand Andolan suffered grievously from state repression, and cannot allow any new administrative structure to practice the same suppression of civil liberties and disrespect of human rights. All residents of Uttarakhand must enjoy the full spectrum of civil rights without fear of discrimination, police brutality, or harrassment by the authorities. The rights of women, minorities, dalits, and the poor are especially vulnerable, and the law must be fashioned to protect and serve them. CULTURAL AWARENESS & RENEWAL Cultural awareness in Uttarakhand will necessitate fostering the Garhwali and Kumaoni languages, and local dialects reflecting the diversity of the people of Uttarakhand. In school curricula, folk heroes including Rajmata Karnavati, Sridev Suman, Chander Singh Garhwali, and Gaura Devi can be upheld as models of a great tradition of patriotism and activism. Both the cultural and agricultural heritage of the region can be promoted in the form of dance, song, cuisine, and preservation of Uttarakhands significant biodiversity. EDUCATION However, cultural renewal may only take place in a functioning school system that teaches children the basics on how to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing society. Colleges need

serious restructuring, as they barely function with the private tuitions increasingly filling the void of actual instruction. More specialized educational institutions such as technical or vocational schools suited to the regions unique nature can be chartered, beyond the mad rush for the IT panacea that can only provide so much employment for so many people. High school curricula could also be adapted for practical learning and less rote memorization, while providing students internship opportunities with various NGOs, government agencies, companies, and service organizations. This endeavour would additionally help meet the needs of pupils in the hills where hands-on knowledge and skills are in high demand. HEALTH Similarly, establishing or sanctioning existing medical colleges to train health care workers is one initiative that can bring about large scale change combining both the education and health care sectors in a far reaching partnership. Doctors, nurses, and even specialists can be trained in large numbers in return for service in remote areas over a specified period of 3 to 5 years. Not only would this generate employment opportunities for Uttarakhandi youth and instill in them a sense of service, but it would also provide advanced educational opportunities to students who could not afford high tuition fees otherwise. For their term of service, arrangements could be made to either buy or rent pre-existing households in selected villages for conversion to clinics, dispensaries, and emergency care centres. This would nest these facilities in communities themselves at low cost to the state government. The health ministry need only facilitate the purchase or lease of abandoned property, and provide supplies and stipends to the medical staff. JAL, JUNGLE, JAMEEN Water and forest rights remain at the core of daily needs in villages across Uttarakhand, reflected in the struggle for Uttarakhand representing also a struggle for local control over local natural resources. As such, a single simple panchayat system with guaranteed fair and equal representation from all segments of society, and informed by local NGOs and womens organizations, could look after the water, forest, and land resources of Uttarakhand. At the same time, household dependency on fuel and fodder needs to be alleviated by innovative technologies to lessen pressures on forests and cut down on foraging activities that consume most of womens workdays in many areas. Various NGOs have been experimenting with heating and small power generation devices, and these small-scale efforts ought to be seriously mooted and applied statewide. The traditional water mills of the region, currently in a state of disrepair, can also be revived to generate electricity for household needs. Land rights, one of the most highly contested issues in India since time immemorial, has taken on renewed urgency in face of rapid urbanization of Uttarakhand's hills and valleys. Article 371 or a variant thereof must be imposed throughout the state to preserve landholdings for resident and non-resident Uttarakhandis with patrimony in the hills. The land mafia moved quickly in the months preceding and following official declaration of statehood, and their speculation has driven prices beyond the reach of common people. The rapid development has also gobbled up enormous tracts of good agricultural and forested lands in the Doon Valley, and the state government will need to intervene to arrest this sprawl before the concrete jungle entangles all the terai and hills.

ENVIRONMENT Many policies regarding the environment have been enacted through popular pressure and public interest litigation, but enforcement has been feeble. As most vividly demonstrated by the poaching incidents in Rajaji and Corbett National Parks, the government, judiciary, and police approach to environmental protection needs to be bolstered to ensure the rule of law and safety of protected animals and parks. Moreover, the administration ought to periodically review the usefulness and impact of measures designed to combat environmental degradation and ascertain their effectiveness. Indeed, throughout Uttarakhand, large-scale tree felling, over harvesting of medicinal plants, construction of multistoried buildings in sensitive areas, encroachment on reserved forests, limestone quarrying, and other illegal activities continue to challenge the very legitimacy of government agencies who appear unable to enforce bans or limits on these unsustainable practices. Even government-sanctioned projects have neglected basic environmental standards as witnessed by the poor record of rehabilitating surrounding hillsides after road excavation and construction. All this points to the need for the government to support local efforts to preserve the environment as well as to reduce corruption and the power of contractors and mafia that have the most to gain from a lax enforcement policy. The nexus between the administration and the criminal underworld has been rumoured for so many years that any new government will have to take a resolute stand against these relations and enact stringent conflict-ofinterest laws for politicians and bureaucrats alike. POLLUTION Plastic bags that are fast becoming the major menace to the environment in urban areas, must be heavily regulated or banned outright. Incineration as a means of disposal must also be reined in due to the severe health hazards posed by carcinogenic and deformity-inducing dioxins that burning plastics release. Moreover, vehicular emissions and traffic congestion in the urban centres of Uttarakhand needs to be eased. Air pollution has reached the point of causing respiratory ailments in a substantial portion of the population, and must be reduced in keeping with constitutional guarantees of the right to a clean environment. DEVELOPMENT Development, the battle cry of the Uttarakhand Andolan, cannot mean the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, the abrogation of peoples rights, or following the tired-old model of development that has plundered the hills for 150 years. In the case of dams, future projects should be cleared by a panel constituted along the lines of the World Commission on Dams. This landmark body has succeeded in bringing governments, lenders, utility companies, environmentalists, and displaced people together to ensure responsible development that respects peoples rights, ensures proper rehabilitation, and honestly appraises the economic worth and social and environmental impact of big dams. This will be needed to prevent future costly and unnecessary controversies such as the one that plagued Tehri whose residents are still waiting for adequate compensation. The experience of the Tehri dam itself cannot be repeated, as governments throughout the years acted in bad faith and with forceful duplicity during various negotiations, paying scant attention to the human suffering and destruction wrought by dam construction on the surrounding mountainsides. Meanwhile, contractors reaped enormous profits from both

construction and delays in the project, while lingering uncertainty reigned over the fate of Tehris residents. This disregard for even the findings of their own commissions and agreements with oustees, has left a bitter legacy that can only be remedied by committing the administration to abide by the findings of democratically-organised review and evaluation processes in future projects. Besides hydroelectric power generation, the most often touted engine of economic growth for Uttarakhand, tourism, threatens to undermine and degrade the very basis of this sector the natural and pristine beauty of the hills unless clear and enforceable guidelines are established to accommodate the fragility of the Himalayan ecosystem. Indeed, tourism can have a reduced footprint, if adequate care is taken along pilgrimage and trekking routes to reduce and properly dispose of garbage, while encouraging conservation and frugality in the "abode of gods". Truly, Uttarakhand must evolve a new model of development that empowers local communities economically while respecting their natural environment. The government must reverse the quickening drift of most Uttarakhands towns towards becoming virtual replicas of their counterparts in the plains. Not only does this contribute to a commercial monoculture where towns lose their distinct charm, but is rapidly eroding the surrounding countrysides life-sustaining capacity and polluting it beyond recovery. Just as Indians cannot afford to imitate the American lifestyle with its over-consumption, wastefulness, and social fragmentation Uttarakhand likewise must make a social, cultural, and economic break from the hegemonic consumer ethos engulfing it and all parts of this globalising world. As the Devbhumi, it must preserve its traditions that are not only found in the temples and shrines, but in every forest grove, stream, meadow, field, and mountaintop. Most importantly, these traditions must be fostered in the hearts of all Uttarakhandis, so that civic values, good neighbourliness, modesty, and hospitality again become the models by which to live and progress. The Uttarakhand Support Committee is a non-partisan network of concerned people in North America who support the progressive and democratic forces in Uttarakhand, as they continue their struggle for a just and dignified future for the Himalayas and her peoples.

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UTTARAKHAND'S BANE
March 2, 2002 The Congress high command's choice of ND Tiwari as Uttarakhand's Chief Minister seems like another decision based on political expedience that belies the serious problems afflicting the political class in Uttarakhand. Beyond the ridiculous fact that for both the BJP and Congress, the centre ultimately decides the CM post, the choice of ND Tiwari, veteran Congress leader, came as a shock to party workers and voters alike who expected Harish Rawat for the top post. Rawat is credited for saving Congress from extinction and reviving it to fight and win the first state assembly elections. Although Rawat is not personally popular throughout the state, he has been a loyal and dedicated Congress party worker for many years. ND Tiwari on the other hand has been four times CM of Uttar Pradesh, yet like other "great" leaders from the hills who entered national politics (GB Pant, HN Bahuguna, MM Joshi, KC Pant), largely abandoned his native hills for more fertile political pastures in the plains. Moreover, Tiwari never participated in the movement for a separate state and actually opposed its creation while in office. In the next few months, h will have to work doubly hard to regain the trust of the people, especially beyond his traditional Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar constituencies. Furthermore, Tiwari's comments at the press conference announcing his nomination were less than encouraging. Rather, he talked about the Tenth Planning Commission and shaping the economy of the state, as if there was no larger consideration, no passion or elation over the historic verdict against the status quo. Even some populist rhetorical flourishes would have done, such as a loud and resounding "Jai Uttarakhand" or other such inspiring messages instead of quibbling over economic policies. Indeed, from first impressions, the senior politician reflected the same bureaucratic mentality and lack of attachment to Uttarakhand that frustrated Uttarakhandis in Nityanand Swami. Other recent comments have buttressed this feeling that he will approach the CM position as more of a challenging assignment than a vehicle to rousing the state and its identity. Unfortunately, because of the deep division in Congress between Rawat and Satpal Maharaj, the godman from Pauri Garhwal, ND Tiwari has been called to step once more unto the breech. Indeed, history is not without a dark sense of humour as Rawat and Maharaj's jousting paralleled that of the various CM aspirants in the BJP that eventually toppled Nityanand Swami. Therefore, for the sake of the next five crucial years, Rawat and other party leaders will need to adjust their ambitions to share the burden of governance and fulfil popular demands. It might be a bitter pill to swallow, but the longsuffering people of the hills cannot brook any more political infighting. Without a resounding mandate from his own party, Tiwari will have to hammer out a consensus among elected officials and apply his much-vaunted administrative experience to steer the state out of a deep economic crisis and haggle with UP for a better deal from the division of assets. He will also need to institute a real panchayati raj with teeth, enforce environmental laws while respecting the rights of local communities, review current controversial development projects and liquor regulations, and try to carry through with the most salient points of the Congress Party platform. (i.e., empowering women, changing the name of the state, considering a new capital, and stimulating economic development) Moreover, he cannot dither, but move quickly or suffer the same fate of the BJP who wasted a whole year with little to show from their 'Uttaranchal'. Tiwari though can still engender enormous goodwill by simply remaining an accountable, hands-on leader who governs democratically and with creativity.

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Unfortunately, Uttarakhand's bane, as demonstrated by these repeated crises, goes deep -the entire political class in the region is held in very low esteem by the people and for good reason. They have consistently put their own careers ahead of serving the greater good of Uttarakhand as witnessed by the intense factionalism that had gripped the BJP, Congress, and even the smaller regional parties during the run up to elections. Distribution of tickets should have been the least of their problems. The most important issue, building a new state with vision, imagination, and dedication, seems to have escaped them all, and no one projected any passion and love for the people and their mountains in any discernable way. In fact, it was this dearth of compassion and creativity and excess of venality and callowness that prompted Uttarakhand activists to keep traditional politicians out of their Sangarsh Samitis. Tellingly, all the major parties ignored women in the selection of their candidates resulting in a tiny handful representing the backbone of Uttarakhand society and fire of the Uttarakhand Andolan in the state assembly. Yet considering that 43% of electorate voted for small and independent parties, there is room to grow for a third force in the region beyond the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal that suffers a huge credibility problem after having sabotaged moves to form such a grand alliance this election. In the next five years, the foundation of such a regional party, bringing together women's groups, UKD, Janwadi Party, Jan Vikas Party, BSP, remnants of the SP, CPI, CPM, and other popular organisations can be established to challenge both the BJP and Congress. A bold move would be for this third force to project mostly women candidates and break the political monopoly that men enjoy in the state. Moreover, it should open up the political discourse to challenge the very structure of politics that marginalises people while purporting to represent them. Sadly, all this has taken a great toll on the people of Uttarakhand and all but destroyed their trust and faith in the bankrupt political process. Tragically the toll has also been personal, with the suicide of the UKD president's wife, Indu Bhatt, and the bitter disappointment of the Congress president, Harish Rawat. As such, Uttarakhand's problems will never be solved by politics as usual, but will need a patriotic revolution, just like the rest of the country, to break the divide-and-rule tactics and iron triangle of corruption, nepotism, and egoism by our political class. The fact that the vote for the Congress was more a vote against the status quo should put the politicians on notice -- the hill people's patience is wearing thin. In fact, the struggle for a new Uttarakhand must take centre stage again, this time above and beyond simple statehood, to real people's democracy and real people's rule.

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HISTORICAL & CONTEMPORARY GLOBALIZATION IN UTTARAKHAND: SOME ISSUES

June 12, 2001 For: Process of Rapid Globalisation: Repercussions for Fragile Mountain Areas and Mountain Communities [Electronic Conference, Kathmandu, Nepal: ICIMOD, May 4-May 28, 2001] While linking the trends in contemporary globalisation to some historical developments, Mr. Rajiv Rawat comments on some important concerns and facts about potential impacts of globalisation with special reference to Uttarakhand, India. - N.S. Jodha Moderator, ICIMOD It has taken a long time for me to collect some thoughts on this topic, on how to relate two areas of interest that I have not considered together until now. Although broad concepts and ideas about the impact of globalization on mountain communities can be ascertained through a common sense corollary understandings of its preceding paradigms (i.e., mercantilism, colonialism), the topic itself embraces such an enormously complex set of interactions of social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental trends, it is quite difficult to study, without devoting a whole research career to it. As an activist in the nascent "anti-globalization" movement in North America (WTO, IMF, World Bank, and FTAA campaigns) and a supporter of Uttarakhand affirmation and autonomy, I have mostly studied and witnessed the darker side of historical globalization. However, there are many potential bright spots and opportunities during this time of rapid change and I will mention those alongside critiques of each for a more balanced view. Although woefully incomplete, I hope these sketch notes can be of some use in framing the discussion both in the abstract and concrete sense. Historical globalization For us in Uttarakhand, globalization is not a new process, but perhaps can be said to have begun in earnest during the time of the 'Gorkhayani', when the kingdoms of Garhwal and Kumaon fell to Gurkha expansionism at the end of the 18th century. Though Gurkha rule proved mercifully shortlived (yet brutal in the extreme), the collapse of the independent kingdoms of Uttarakhand paved the way for the entry of the British by 1815, when lands to the west of the Kali river were ceded to the East India Company under the treaty of Sagauli. However, within a generation, the British "liberators" would come to see Uttarakhand as a vital source of raw materials, particularly, forest products such as timber and resin to feed the industrial revolution and extensive railway projects of British India. The same pillaging occurred under the auspices of the restored kingdom of Tehri Garhwal and was managed by "scientific forestry". The economic and ecological balance of the region was further upset by the establishment of reserve forests through various Forest Acts of the late 1800s, thus further depriving the native hill villages of their commons. With these echoes of the

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enclosure movement that drove peasants from their lands in Europe, village life in Uttarakhand was disrupted, thus setting the stage for another hallmark of 20th century Uttarakhand society -- the money order economy. Thus, Uttarakhand has lived with globalization for some time. The outmigration of men folk has only accelerated this past century, while local subsistence agriculture has been undermined by dumping of items like mill-polished rice from the plains. The forestry practices of the colonial era forest department continued through independence, and actually intensified post 1962 (India-China conflict that closed the border, forcing particularly the border communities to integrate into the rest of the Indian economy as opposed to the more global trade they carried on over centuries). Contemporary era of globalization The current trends in globalization present some particular problems to mountain communities. I would like to point to the excellent write up introducing mountains on the People and the Planet home page at <http://www.peopleandplanet.net>. Apart from the markedly negative socio-economic repercussions, several benefits are often cited for the most recent phase of globalization, encompassed primarily by rapid market integration during the information age. I've outlined three below with discussion points for each: 1. Mega project dams Mega Project Dams, being the most symbolic of the mega infrastructure projects, are often cited as the physical representations of the developmentalist era of massive stateled industrialization, now being eclipsed by private market incentives for economic investment and growth. However, many of these hydroelectric complexes, such as Tehri and Arun III, have a firm footing in the new economy as they support the burgeoning needs of the rapidly expanding urban consumer culture. In Uttarakhand, major development projects conceived on a grand scale for largely outside interests, have a particularly harmful effect on the environment. Like marginal/peripheral regions in other nations, few economic benefits accrue to hill residents who carry the full ecological burden and are also displaced by hydro development. Reasons for this can be traced to those communities that rarely are in control or receive a fair share of the generated income, as national priorities precede regional or local. In the case of India, the marginal state of the hills can also be attributed to the presence of powerful, heavily populated neighbouring states. This demographic and political challenge further marginalizes smaller powers with less representation in the Indian polity, and even with statehood as Uttarakhand recently achieved, the exigencies of power politics still prevail. How globalization will affect these dynamics is hard to see, although marginal peoples without political empowerment seem likely to be marginalized further, as has been the case of indigenous peoples elsewhere residing in areas of substantial natural and energy resources. 2. Increased market access of cultural and fair trade products

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Can cultural exports to niche consumer markets replace the trade of real commodities? This is a controversial premise, but sometimes the only alternative offered for the survival of traditional agriculture, artisanship, and handicrafts. Fair trade certified products too, while a promising prospect for the sustainable and ecologically sensitive harvesting of crops with livable returns for growers, have yet to escape their specialty status and significantly affect consumer's choices, without which they cannot have much impact. Despite best efforts, I believe that the market will still prevail until a different economic incentive regime comes into place that is global in scope. However, contemporary globalization is a race to the bottom for wages and lowered production costs. Since mountain commodities have higher costs in terms of transportation, soil productivity, and other fixed geographic-related factors, current trends will replace self-reliance and entrench a crippling dependency on outside imports, while cultural homogenization will continue to marginalize potential mountain exports. However, building an external market for cultural commodities, if done in the right way, and if appreciated by a fairly large internal market, can possibly overcome the risks of living traditions of the hills becoming museum pieces. However, it might prove difficult to maintain the integrity of folk traditions while catering to a larger market that could dilute or warp them. Although there is nothing new in this debate, it is still highly contested. Yet when the very survival of cultural heritage is at stake, protecting and promoting it by all means necessary often becomes the rule of the day. 3. IT-led economic development Can information technology, and software engineering in particular, bypass heavy industrialization as a means to provide jobs and income to impoverished regions? If this is proved to be possible, any region well placed to integrate itself into the new economy could substantially benefit, without having to further stress its natural resource base. Some parts of the Himalayas are well placed for this kind of economic development that largely depends on a highly educated labour force, steady supply of electricity, and good telecommunications infrastructure. Many of the urban centers of the new state of Uttaranchal are former hill stations with more than above average exposure to English language educational institutions. Although local children have been largely excluded from the elitist schools of the region, the new state government can build upon the expertise, infrastructure, and fame of these schools, and extend their mission to educating pupils from remote villages of the hills. At the very least, they can serve as educational nodal points for local inhabitants. Hydroelectricity production potential is also substantial if managed with local needs in mind. Mini-hydel mills and alternative energies like wind and solar can sustain both villages and computer centers. However, substantial investment would have to be made in building up this infrastructure if there is to be a chance to transform the economic potential of the region. Most importantly, local democracy will be the key in ensuring that the benefits of such development return to the hill communities, as opposed to another plundering opportunity for powerful politicians of neighbouring states working on behalf of their numerically vast constituencies. However, the recent downturn in the information economy and uncertain growth prospects, coupled with the late start of such initiatives and competition from other states, present important caveats if not obstacles to the full realization of these kinds of

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hyped development thrusts. Whether the information technology boom turns out to be more illusion than reality remains to be seen.

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STATE OF THE STATE: GETTING OVER A SHAKY START

Uttaranchal Patrika Vol. 3, No. 1 (January 2001) Although getting off the ground was difficult enough, the new state of Uttaranchal faces significant hurdles that will require all the ingenuity, dedication, and good will Uttarakhandis can muster. We in North America can help too. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN The November inauguration of the new state of Uttaranchal came as somewhat of an anticlimax for the people of the hills. The demand had been raised over and over again over the last six years, supported by four different state legislatures, and three separate central administrations. The struggle was carried to every nook and cranny of the Uttarakhand Himalayas, and opposed bitterly in the plains districts of Hardwar and Udham Singh Nagar. Eventually, the decision for statehood came swiftly, leaving little time for the administration to prepare. The central government in its haste chose November 9 as the official inception date, an inauspicious day according to local astrologists. Ominously reminiscent of India's original starcrossed tryst with destiny on August 15, the government likewise moved the ceremony up to midnight of the preceding day. Unfortunately, the astrologers' warnings would prove fateful, as the appointed governor S.S. Barnala (of Punjab), swore in Nityanand Swami (of Haryana) as Chief Minister to little fanfare and much discord and dissension. The new state plunged almost immediately into political strife, as partisan sniping and dissension within the BJP's own ranks came to the fore. The original decision to make Dehra Dun the provisional capital and to locate the high court in Nainital, did little to placate the vociferous protests of popular organizations in the hills. Both the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal and Uttarakhand Mahila Manch staged large-scale warning rallies ahead of the ceremonies, demanding that the hamlet of Gairsain, nestled between Garhwal and Kumaon, be declared the official capital. Meanwhile, egos clashed within the new cabinet, with three leading contenders for chief ministership boycotting the inauguration, only to be brought to heel by the party for the time being. TRANSFORMING MODES OF GOVERNANCE In retrospect, the fierce tensions displayed during the launch of statehood, though distressing, came as no great surprise to those who have witnessed the ups and downs of the Uttarakhand Andolan. Moreover, the movement itself has come to reflect the deep divisions and complete breakdown of harmonious relations of recent times. What started with the British divide-and-rule politics that took the shape of heightened caste competition within regimental ranks, found its way into Uttarakhand's post-independence electoral politics, culminating today in the morass of clashing egos and power games. In this way, each batch of "netas" has failed to live up to the people's expectations. Even the few able and honest leaders have had a difficult time maintaining power, without having to participate in the degrading horsetrading process.

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However, the Uttarakhand Andolan and social movements of the hills have also proposed -and put into practice -- myriad innovative solutions, most small and localized to the problems of good governance and accountability. Their efforts, some celebrated and some unheralded despite their good work, should be relied upon to guide any developmental endeavours and structural reforms that the government is considering to achieve its short and long term goals. As such, the government should limit its intrusion into the affairs of local communities by devolving power to the panchayats. This is in accord with the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Indian Constitution, and necessary to meet the requirements for home rule and fulfill the central demand of the separate-state autonomy movement. Meanwhile, although the Indian parliament has failed to pass the Women's Reservation Bill, the Uttaranchal assembly should go one step farther, and allocate 50% of all seats to women. From the historical experience of the last 40 years of social movements, this would have a remarkably positive impact on governance, as women have been at the forefront of every movement for the defense of Himalayan culture, society, and the environment. It would also restore Uttarakhandi women to their rightful place as guardians and stewards of their locality and give them the power to enact change effectively. JAL, JUNGLE, JAMEEN Recently, the new government has made encouraging comments about fighting the local mafia. However, it must go further and combat their collusion with the plains-based liquor and natural resource mafias that are plundering the hills of jal, jungle, and jameen. Alarm bells were sounded recently with the skyrocketing land prices in and around Dehra Dun. Other scenic regions are also being bought up by wealthy city people from Delhi and surrounding states. The new government will have to decide whether to enact alien land laws like those of Himachal that bar outsiders from owning land in absentia. Furthermore, the state government will need to reevaluate all the major development projects currently underway. It makes little sense for the new state to fund these projects without in the end receiving an equitable and sustainable benefit in return. Furthermore, it is unacceptable that hill residents should bare the ecological costs, while electricity generation and water resources accrue to Delhi and other states. The Tehri Dam is one such disastrous mega project that is only proceeding due to the momentum garnered by massive financial outlays. The dam at Vishnuprayag is also environmentally unsound. Hundreds of planned dams in the region must likewise undergo thorough review, and if found destructive to the environment and life-sustaining capacity of the hills, should be scrapped or shut down. Most importantly, the new administration must make supplying drinking water to every village a top priority, even as it proceeds to stabilize the ecological balance of the region. In addition, the state administration should take the long view of combatting water scarcity with rejuvenating Uttarakhand's once lush deciduous forests. By encouraging successful local reforestation initiatives and scaling them up to state-wide application, the government can make a huge contribution by siding with the people as opposed to the contractors and forest mafias as the erstwhile UP government was wont to do. The state officials can further demonstrate their good faith by empowering and extending full cooperation to NGO leaders who have achieved demonstrably good results.

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NEW ECONOMIC HOPES As in other places in India, information technology is being sought as a potential answer to economic underdevelopment in Uttaranchal. Proclaimed by both the chief minister and governor, and supported by expatriate community initiatives throughout India, developing the IT sector will require careful and steady investment alongside training programs that draw upon the considerable educational facilities in the Garhwal and Kumaon regions. Additionally, proximity to Delhi, presence of numerous English language institutions, a clean and relatively cool environment, and high intellectual capacity represent key advantages for investors and entrepreneurs looking to establish new businesses in a hospitable climate. Meanwhile, government-industry partnerships could focus on revamping the communication infrastructure and ensuring that local students gain employment from such ventures. WHAT WE CAN DO While the onus for Uttaranchal's progress will rest primarily on the elected officials of the new state, those living in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and other parts of the developed world can contribute substantially to the economic development, political reform, social uplift, and environmental revitalization of Uttaranchal. The formation of the Uttaranchal Association of North America represented a key first step to affirming the Uttarakhandi national identity abroad and can play a vital role in various initiatives of the government, private sector, and civil society. In many ways, the overseas community can do even more, as it will be unhindered by the political paralysis and corruption that has so discouraged and disillusioned such endeavours in India. Working together, Uttarakhandis living abroad, in India, and in Uttaranchal proper can lift the new state out of its initial doldrums, and achieve more than each alone, working in their individual capacity. The challenge ahead is to forge mutually supportive relationships and solidarity to escape the pessimistic politics of the past and establish together, an optimistic vision for the future.

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UTTARAKHAND SUPPORT COMMITTEE CONDEMNS PERSECUTION OF NGO: CALLS FOR RELEASE OF ALL EMPLOYEES
For Immediate Release April 26, 2000 B O S T O N - The Uttarakhand Support Committee (USC) calls on the government of Uttar Pradesh, including the state officials operating in Almora district to cease in their crackdown of the NGO Sahayog, to free all its employees from jail, to recompense the organization for losses incurred by the actions of mobs, and to offer continued protection to all public health workers in the Kumaon Himalayas. Recent news reports recounting the woes of Sahayog, a voluntary organization operating in Almora have come as a shock. For publishing educational public health materials that may or may not have carried vulgarities, the organization has been targeted unfairly and with an animosity far beyond impact of a 35 page public health booklet. Although it is possible that the pamphlet may have given offense to some, the violent reaction is reprehensible. As such, the USC, an organization that has promoted pride in Uttarakhandi identity throughout the world with its Internet presence (http://www.uttarakhand.org), sees the current uproar over Sahayog's alleged insult of Uttarakhand's sexual mores as a terrible misunderstanding and the violence and jailing as beyond the bounds of legitimate reaction. Those agitators that purport to be defending Uttarakhandi pride, are only tarnishing it with overwrought indignation and embarrassing all Uttarakhandis with their narrow outlook. Furthermore, they may very well endanger other projects seeking to ameliorate the dismal state of health in the region, especially regarding the reproductive health of women. The attack on Sahayog also raises concerns over the safety of other volunteers working the hills and should be opposed strenuously. The USC therefore calls on anti-Sahayog agitators to desist from further attacks, and to discuss calmly their concerns with the NGO staff. Sahayog has been working in Kumaon since 1992. The pamphlet in question has been in circulation for several months. It only stands to measure that anti-social elements are seeking to capitalize on the controversy by politicizing the issue. As such, the Support Committee also expresses its concern over the involvement of political outfits in the current controversy. Though the reaction of the mainstream parties are predictable, most disappointing is the position and actions of the UKD. It seems rather ironic that the Kranti in the UKD's name has come to mean reactionary as opposed to revolutionary under the current circumstances. If the leaders of the party continue this opportunistic course, they may very well reveal themselves to be unfit to govern a future state. In addition, by calling for restrictions on the rights of their citizens, the agitators are preventing important information from being disseminated to the public and may very well exacerbate the looming public health crisis in the hills. AIDS education is controversial but necessary in a country that has the largest number of HIVinfected individuals in the world and faces a health care catastrophe in the coming decade. Despite reservations about the contents of pamphlet, the USC applauds Sahayog's courage in facing the difficult issue.

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THE TEHRI DAM: DEVELOPMENT OR MALDEVELOPMENT?

April 7, 2000 At 260 meters height, the Tehri Dam will be one of the highest in the world, and will displace over 100,000 people and flood 27,000 hectares of land. Its peak capacity will be 2400 MW. Most of the generated electricity will supply the central grid. Despite all the propaganda about "progress" and "development", much skepticism has remained over the benefits of the Tehri Dam. It is important to ask, benefits for whom? Who should control and benefit from the resources of a region? Opposition to the dam over its severe environmental impact, economic merit, and adequate compensation, have largely been glossed over in the national press, although in groundbreaking studies in scientific and environmental journals, the Tehri Dam has not fared as well. However, when the bureaucratic gears are set in motion, the machine is hard to stop, although political parties have exploited the issue on both sides! (Both the United Front and BJP originally came out against the dam right before elections, only to reverse their policies once in office. Same as in the Narmada situation). Opposition was once fierce, but the full weight of the bureaucracy and its propaganda arm have all but crushed the movement. Time will tell whether the Himalayas and Ganges survive this sledgehammer. Here are some significant reasons why the Tehri Dam is not all that it's cracked up to be: ! The dam is being build over the confluence of the Bhilangana and Bhagirathi in a serious earthquake prone seismic zone that looks to become more active in the near future (Two major earthquakes in the 1990s -- 1991 Uttar Kashi, 1999 Chamoli). Any earthquake of over 8.0 in magnitude, incidently predicted in the next century by seismologists, could collapse the dam, or at least cause reservoir levels over the height, leading to a flooding disaster. ! Constructed on a feeder river to the Ganges, the project has elicited opposition from Hindu leaders including the VHP and Rishikesh-based Sants who see the dam as a sacrilegious violation of the river's right to flow unimpeded. ! Enormous water resources will be devoted to filling the hydro-electric reservoir, thus depriving the parched Tehri and Dehra Dun districts of more drinking water that has become critically scarce in recent years. ! Deforestation, leading to soil erosion in surrounding slopes, is predicted to cause heavy siltation, clogging the turbines and reducing the expected power generation significantly. The desilting process is also expected to be very expensive and would gobble up much of the generated electricity. ! The development has opened up a huge scar in the landscape, as the roads needed to supply the project have brought both pollution and geological disturbances.

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! Cracks have already developed, much to the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation's embarrassment, in two sections near the control shaft gate (May 1998), portending further problems with the enormous edifice. ! Electricity generated by the plant will almost exclusively be supplied to Delhi and the plains, thus deriving little benefit for local communities. ! The U.P. Electricity Board workers' strike in early 2000 focused attention on the colossal amount of electricity theft from the power grid that continues unchallenged. What guarantees are there that the electricity generated at Tehri won't be similarly dissipated? ! Once an argument for the Dam, the amount of money and effort expended on the megaproject has proved to be a never ending boondoggle (although a bonanza for contractors mostly drawn from outside the region). Recent independent studies have claimed that the Dam will only operate for 40 years as opposed to the 100 promised by planners. And after more than 30 years of blundering progress, the dam is still under construction.

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1999: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

January 14, 2000 The last year of the 20th century proved to be devastating for the Uttarakhand Himalayas. Forest fires, the Chamoli earthquake, the Kargil Conflict, leopard attacks, political disillusionment and instability, complications in the formation of a separate state, and the tragic death of the leader of the Uttarakhand movement all cast their long shadow over the Himalayas that had just witnessed catastrophic landslides the previous year. Looking Back Indeed, the close of the 20th century parallels that of the 18th century, when perhaps even worse disasters befell Garhwal and Kumaon. Two hundred years ago, Kumaon was occupied by the Gurkhas and the Garhwal court was embroiled in intrigue that would so weaken the raja, that three years later in 1803 after a devastating earthquake, Garhwal would fall to the forces of Amar Singh Thapa. In 1791, Garhwal barely escaped conquest by the Nepali Empire, only to face famine throughout the 1790s. The Gurkhas continued to harry the Garhwalis on the frontiers, even while their military administered Kumaon with severity and brutality. Legends tell of a third of the population being carried off into slavery, although true numbers will never be known. The Fire this Time Two hundred years later, an all too familiar apocalypse again visited the hills of Uttarakhand. At half past midnight on March 29th, 1999, the strongest tremors since the 1991 Uttar Kashi earthquake rocked the hills. This time, it was Chamoli districts turn and thousands of houses collapsed in the pre-dawn hours, trapping sleeping villagers in the debris. The death toll eventually surpassed 100, and the reconstruction effort started slowly. Eventually, charges of bureaucratic neglect and disorganization began to stick, and the issue of disaster preparedness would come back to haunt the central government during the Orissa Cyclone. Earlier in 1999, life came to a standstill in villages throughout upper Garhwal, as leopards claimed the lives of a dozen women and children. By April, forest fires had ignited, eventually claiming over 40,000 hectares in forest cover. Although part of a 4 to 5 year cycle, the especially dry winter this past year, coming after devastating monsoon-related landslides in Upper Kumaon and Garhwal and floods in the plains in 1998, helped make a tinderbox of the highly flammable pine needles littering the forest grounds. Several forest workers and villagers died battling the blaze that choked the air with soot particles and smoke for two months. The forest fires also contributed to the wild predator menace, as starvation and habitat destruction pushed leopards to seek food in human areas. The Wages of War Eventually, these events came to be overshadowed by the war in Kargil that gripped the Indian publics attention. Over 75 men from Uttarakhand perished in the hostilities and funeral processions were held throughout the hills. Half of these men were lost from the Garhwal Rifles alone, and a battalion of the regiment was awarded a unit citation. Their sacrifice led to a surge of patriotic pride, as the nation pulled together to counter the invasion in the extreme north of the country. Questions that arose early in the undeclared

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war quickly dissipated, as the nation faced the grim news with renewed dedication to throw out the invaders. A Heros Fall As the Kargil conflict wound down, Uttarakhand was shocked to lose one of its brightest lights and most respected political figures. Indermani Badoni, a stalwart in the cause of Uttarakhand statehood, passed away in August after a long battle with kidney disease. Five years previously, Badoni fasted onto death while all hell broke loose in the hills during the anti-reservation stir that led directly to the statehood movement. For his efforts, the police attacked the non-violent fasters, beat their supporters, and hauled them to the hospital on the orders of the DM. Since those fateful days, Badoni worked tireless, despite failing health, for the cause of Uttarakhand, and retained his stature as the Gandhi of the movement, despite disillusionment with the proclaimed saviours of the Himalayas. Reportedly, Badoni breathed his last by uttering the word "Uttarakhand". Politics as Usual? With his death, the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal, the local party that initiated the movement but lost control and popular support, went through a power struggle. An effort was made to revitalize the moribund condition of the party that had its vision and slogans hijacked by the national political parties for their own partisan ends. Yet the need for a genuine progressive force, representative of local interests alone, and able to unite the entire spectrum of Pahari society, remained. Whether the UKD could claim this mantle was felt will determine its future as a viable political entity. Meanwhile, as the UKD reorganized itself, political intrigue flared as the BJP struggled to retain its seats in Uttarakhand. In the October 1999 elections, Congress mounted an unexpectedly strong challenge even while its Uttar Pradesh party organization lay in shambles. The BJP still managed to retain 3 of its 4 seats, helped in no small measure by the victory in Kargil, Vajpayees personal popularity, and lingering divisions and disorganization in Congress. The margins of victory for the three seats were however extremely reduced, and Congress still managed to win the largest overall percentage of votes in the region and wrest back the Nainital seat for veteran party man N.D. Tiwari. To shore up their falling fortunes, the BJP managed to induct a minister from the region, Bacchi Singh Rawat, into the outer cabinet of the new NDA government. As the first minister from the region since Satpal Maharajs stint in the United Front government, the Almora MP was given the minor portfolio of minister of state for defence. The Movement Refocuses By December, continued wrangling over the BJP-sponsored Uttaranchal statehood bill had led to the reconstitution of the Uttarakhand Sanyukta Sangarsh Samiti to renew the struggle for statehood. Although the original USSS fragmented in the post-1994 agitation period, the new formation drew in political heavyweights from the region as well as new blood. Despite these developments, the end of the year saw the sentiments of many Uttarakhandis in the hills and cities swing away from immediate statehood to Union Territory status. This option gained support at the expense of the professional leadership and politicians of the hills

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who had lost all credibility in the eyes of the people. The apprehension of handing power to the politician-bureaucrat combine led many of the genuine social activists in the region to prefer central administration for the fledgling autonomous entity. Looking Forward In this manner, the seeds of renewal and growth were planted in little turning points and realizations in a year so marked with death and despair. The scorched earth left by the forest fires may blossom again in the coming years. The earthquake again pointed to the need for preserving traditional building practices, which time and time again have withstood Himalayan tremors. Indermani Badonis passing jolted the slumbering movement back to life and reminded politicians of what it meant to work in the service of the people. Likewise, the sacrifices of soldiers in Kargil were finally given their due by a nation that had all too often forgotten its obligations to the fallen. Even in the shift away from the statehood demand, people demonstrated newfound understanding of the political process. Two centuries ago, British intervention followed Gurkha conquest, bringing the hills into an Indian empire of sorts for the first time and a new social, political, and economic age. In such ways has change always followed sorrow like a shadow in Uttarakhand. However, hope for a better tomorrow will depend on the strength and character of the people to endure both adversity and build anew. In the coming years of the 21st century, it remains to be seen whether that hope becomes reality and sorrow turns to joy, or retreats further in the noonday sun of despair and forgetfulness.

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THE STRUGGLE FOR CULTURAL SURVIVAL: REVIVING AND RENEWING OUR UTTARAKHANDI IDENTITY
January 14, 2000 We are the people of the Uttar Pradesh hills -- Paharis, Uttarakhandis, Garhwalis, Kumaonis, Bhotiyas, Jaunsaris. Some of our ancestors have lived in the hills since time immemorial. Others came in the great flights from Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra, yet through all these centuries, we have not faced a crisis as far reaching as the one in these modern times. How do we as a people face extinction? Our land, unlike Kashmir, Punjab, or Assam, has not been wracked with violence. We have not suffered terrible cyclones like Orissa, nor bloody riots like the rest of Uttar Pradesh. Bombs have not exploded in crowded marketplaces as in Delhi or Mumbai, Indeed, Uttarakhand has always been one of the most peaceful places in India. However, the cultural extirpation of our people has continued as inexorably as the encroachment of the desert into the hills. The language, agricultural heritage, and social traditions have been steadily eroded, just as the life-sustaining capacities of the land have been degraded. The money order economy that has accelerated throughout the century has contributed to this decay, but so have the effects of modern development, ostensibly welcomed by the people, but now wreaking havoc on the social mores of village life. Education For Joblessness For younger generations, the Indian education system has also been central to the unfolding catastrophe. Indeed, the system has changed little since the British left, and has continued to operate under the same compulsions. Even today, English has remained enshrined as the language of the elite, followed by Hindi as the vernacular and, in some cases, followed by a powerful regional language that thrust its way into the curriculum. However, very few schools, if any, teach the Pahari languages of Garhwali and Kumaoni, as they have traditionally been devalued as mere rustic dialects and excluded from a childs education. Intense competition has further eroded the desire to retain such "luxuries", as local self-awareness has usually been the first to lose out. Language, culture, and traditions of workmanship are being replaced with an education that throws youth into direct competition with hundreds of thousands of other students. Furthermore, no longer can the recent generations live off the land. They cannot return to the village nor can they find a job. As such, the alienated urban youth that is often talked about in lurid news stories, did not appear out of thin air. They are the sad products of this uprooting and confusion, caught between cultures and demands on them they cannot even comprehend, let alone fulfill. Desperate and jobless, the lucky can enlist in the military, the best ironically work at any job no matter how degrading to preserve their dignity, while the worst turn to alcoholism and even crime, filling the ranks of the mafia, spreading their tentacles over the hills. It is a sad

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story repeated in every urban center in Uttarakhand, from Dehra Dun, to Kotdwar, to Nainital. Planned Termination? As either a by-product of negative social change or part of a planned effort to eradicate cultural distinctions for the sake of national integration, the heritage of Uttarakhand and local cultures throughout India have been quietly undermined in this fashion, and completely purged from the spirit of city migrants and expatriates. It is only with great difficulty that any cultural vestige has been retained, and often in only the superficial sense, as in tape recordings of Garhwali Gheet or jewelry that once adorned all women of the hills. For others, shame has prevented even this minimal identification, and anything to do with the hills has been forsaken as rustic and backwards. For all though, the sense of loss has remained palpable. Indeed, rulers long ago realized that the easiest way to control and subjugate a people is by forcing them on their knees. To do this, they first have to knock their victims legs out from underneath them, a feat accomplished by tearing out their roots, crushing their identity, and corrupting their value system. Once done, the conquered individual is rendered a saleable commodity in the political marketplace, mentally and financially enslaved to the system. The experience of Native Americans has been the most tragic example of this murderous strategy. Long after disease and warfare had ravaged the peoples of the Americas, the final masterstroke of their conquest was the liquidation of their cultural identity. This final solution to the Indian problem was carried forward forcefully, by uprooting tribes from their ancestral lands, by destroying their way of life, by rendering them dependent and subject to the federal government, and by packing off their children to far away religious residential schools for final assimilation. Speaking their language and practicing their religion became both crimes and sins, and a whole generation, if not more, were ethnically cleansed in this way. For Native Americans, the loss was traumatizing and lethal. Countless languages and traditions were simply annihilated, leaving the survivors with only fragmentary images of their own culture. In many cases, these images were ironically derived from stereotypes of them held by European Americans. Tribes in India and marginal peoples like Uttarakhandis have likewise resorted to romantic visions of hill life to buttress their fragile identity. Furthermore, for many of those having found prosperity elsewhere in Dehra Dun or Delhi, the forces of false pride and vanity have rushed into the vacuum, a development as dangerous as the emptiness of rootlessness. In the special case of upper caste Garhwalis and Kumaonis, an overwhelming majority of the hill population, their caste status, a known quantity in general Indian society, has gained them added currency, and in the place of nothing else, has propped up a tottering self-image (ironically, higher caste status has become more of a liability in the post-Mandal period). Eventually though, such artificial and reactive attempts to reconstitute shattered self-esteem have ultimately floundered when passed down from one generation to the next, as young people have seen no reason to retain the prejudices, conservative outlook, and muddled identity of their elders. In this manner, the inferiority complex has persisted, and countless youth cut off from their last remaining ties to the hills. Moreover, the urban culture, with all

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its venality, duplicity, and inhumanity, has had its impact, subverting the spirit in more alarming ways than even loss of culture has rendered. In the village, excessive drinking has taken an even heavier toll, further sapping the energy, draining the potential, and wasting the precious monetary resources of the hills. In the case of Native Americans, the story of alcohol abuse has been tragic and largely fueled by those wishing their destruction as a people. It is thus no coincidence that home breweries are few in the Uttarakhand Himalayas, and villagers depend on outsiders such as mafia from Ghaziabad, Etah, or Moradabad for a steady supply of "daru". Furthermore, the liquor plague has led to resignation in face of hardship and the destruction of family life. Women, who have always borne the lion share of work in Uttarakhand, have suffered even more sorrows from husbands who have wasted their hard earned wages on alcohol either in the village, or away, lost in the cities of the plains. A Wake-Up Call What can we do then? How can we fight these seemingly invincible tides of urbanization, cultural disintegration, and assimilation? How can we reestablish a cultural identity that is no longer defensive and conservative, but progressive and thriving, and that has resonance with todays youth? In the experiences of other peoples, we can find ways out of the current predicament. Just as Martin Luther King, as a follower of Gandhiji, led the civil rights movement in this country with all the methods of a true satyagrahi, so can we learn from another great black leader, Malcolm X, who awakened the black consciousness and fired the imagination of revolutionaries worldwide. Through his own experience as a small time hustler, drug user, and prison inmate to his remarkable rise in the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X made the most personal journey from self-hatred to self-love, from utter humiliation to racial pride. He overcame the worst form of degradation to inspire others with his intense and unrelenting intellect and moral uprightness. He came to embody the "shining black prince", a legendary figure who opened the door to the rising of the entire race. His doctrine of dignity and selfworth was to prove central to the struggles of other minorities in the United States, including Native Americans whose resurrection as a people was helped in no small measure by the rising of black America. In this way, we do not have to wait for saviours to come and rescue our race. We cannot depend on politicians or bureaucrats to show us the way -- indeed, we need to get rid of them for our people to progress! We each can contribute to the reawakening of our people, individually and together, by preserving the best of our traditions -- social, agricultural, environmental, and cultural -- and learning about our homeland -- its language, history, geography, and economy. Succeeding generations need us desperately to articulate an inspiring vision for our people, one that brings us forward into the next century with raised heads, renewed hope, and a revived sense of who we are and what we stand for. Most of all, this revolution of values and spirit will need us to remain large hearted as only then can our pride in ourselves grow as a healthy pride, one born of the holy Himalayas and steeped in the patriotism of a gentle and courageous, honest and loving race.

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HEROES AND HEROINES OF UTTARAKHAND

January 12, 2000 As the 21st century dawns, Uttarakhand, like so many other parts of the Himalayas, faces ecological catastrophe and cultural extinction. However, there is another story to Uttarakhand that parallels her sorrows. A region that has disproportionally given its sons in large numbers to the defense of the country, has for over a century been noted for its active social movements. The Chipko movement was spearheaded by Himalayan women, as were the prohibition and reforestation causes. The hill people have consistent proven their dedication to non-violent activism and courage under fire. The adversity faced by Uttarakhandis every day has perhaps contributed to this willingness to struggle and the people continue to stand and fight for their rights. There are the stories of just a few. There are so many more. More heroes' tales can be found in The Emancipated Women-Folk of Uttarakhand, a joint presentation of the Himalayan Action Research Centre and Society for Participatory Research in Asia, edited by Chhaya Kunwar. To obtain a copy, please write to: Himalayan Action Research Centre (HARC) 744 Indira Nagar, Phase II, P.O. New Forest Dehra Dun 248 006 INDERMANI BADONI Indermani Badoni, the grand old man of the Uttarakhand movement, passed away in 1999, almost exactly five years after his fast unto death in 1994 catapulted the Uttarakhand agitation to a new phase. Fifteen years earlier, Badoni, along with several other activists with long careers in government service, established the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal, then the principal political vehicle for statehood. He campaigned tireless during the ups and downs of the movement, seeing some of his colleagues elected to the state assembly. Eventually, the fateful events of 1994 would see the kettle of Uttarakhand politics boil over. Badoni played an instrumental part and paid the price by being brutalized by the police who attacked the peaceful fasters and dragged them to the hospital. In the following years, as the Uttarakhand movement lost steam and many activists lost their way, Badoni's reputation remained intact. Venerated as the Gandhi of the movement, his long running battle with kidney disease would however severely limit his activities and eventually claim his life. On his death bed, he uttered one last word, "Uttarakhand". Time will tell whether his dying wish comes true. BACHNI DEVI In 1977, Bachni Devi, ironically herself the wife of a contractor, led village women to save Adwani forest. By directly disobeying her husband's wishes, Bachni Devi struck a blow for the liberation of hill women through active participation in matters affecting their own lives. The hardship endured by Uttarakhandi women, made worse by social disintegration and ecological

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degradation in the hills, galvanized women like Bachni Devi to organize and fight the system that was ravaging their land and their families. In her own words as recorded by the PANOS Institute Oral Testimony Programme: "My husband was a forest contractor. He cut a huge amount of timber... forest after forest. .... He was the major contractor and I was his enemy in this struggle.... The whole village backed me.... He never said anything to the [other] agitators. But he was very angry with me.... We even stopped speaking to each other.... It was a matter of sadness." Now a widow of 72, Bachni Devi's struggle continues: "Now that the road has come.... the availability of grass and firewood has dwindled. Now people come from far distant places. They cut grass and firewood and put in on the buses and take it away.... there is a crisis for us." TINCHARI MAI Tinchari Mai started her life as Deepa Nautiyal in the village of Majyur in Thailsain. Her early years were marked by greater sorrow than even most hill women. Orphaned at an early age by both parents, an uncle raised her until she was married off at the age of 7 to an army man. Although a child bride, her married years were happy ones, as she grew up in the home of her new family. However, at 19, her husband fell in battle. Widowed at such a young age, she was ill-treated as widows often are in backward and superstitious villages. She eventually left to become a sannyasin, travelling to Lahore and then Haridwar, where she began speaking out against the corruption of monks and ascetics. Icchagiri Mai as she came to be known, returned to the hills to work for their social and economic uplift. She even sat in dharna outside the Prime Minister's house, and succeeded in getting Nehru's ear and having water supplied to her adopted village near Kotdwar. She would also champion education and fight the evils of alcoholism, earning her the title Tinchari Mai in the process. Until she passed away in 1992, she campaigned tirelessly for the welfare of Uttarakhandis. GAURA DEVI In 1974, during the activist phase of the Chipko movement, the courage and vigilance of Uttarakhandi women saved many forests. As the state government and contractors distracted the menfolk, the women perceived the danger. Under the leadership of Gaura Devi, an illiterate, spirited fifty-year old woman, the women and children embraced the trees of Reni forest just as the axemen disembarked from their trucks. By warding off the hatchets with their own bodies, Gaura Devi led the village women to effect non-violent grassroots resistance to the unbridled exploitation of Uttarakhand's natural resources. A four-day standoff eventually ended in victory for the women villagers and the movement spread like wildfire across the Himalayas. Sadly, Gaura Devi faded into obscurity, forgotten by the media more interested in following the personalities of the movement. She died in 1991 after long years spent in service to her

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community. In recent years however, her legacy has been recognized and celebrated widely, leading to renewed interest in this leader of the Chipko movement. JASWANT SINGH RAWAT In 1962, when the Chinese Army invaded India from N.E.F.A., a company of Garhwal Rifles was posted somewhere on the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border. They were ordered to vacate their post as soon as possible, but Jaswant Singh Rawat decided to stay back and for THREE DAYS, he kept the rampaging Chinese at bay almost single-handedly. He was helped by two local girls, Nuang and Sella. When the situation became hopeless and to avoid the humiliation at the hands of the enemy, he shot himself. When the Chinese came to know that the post was defended by a lone soldier, they were so enraged that they cut-off his head and took it away with them. Later, after the war subsided, a Chinese officer heard his story and impressed by his valour, returned his head to the Indian Government and also gave a brass bust in his honor. The brass bust is placed on the spot where he fought so valiantly and the place has been named JaswantGarh. The two girls who helped him were also given due credit and the pass was named after Sella and the highway named after Nuang. (courtesy Anurag Bist) SRIDEV SUMAN Sridev Suman was the best known of a group of freedom fighters to operate in Tehri State. Born in 1916, Suman was largely self-taught. He became a key organizer and agitator for civil rights in Tehri while serving as an editor and writer for several underground presses. He was instrumental in the formation of several organizations, from the Himalaya Seva Sangh, to the Himalayan States People's Federation and Garhdesh Seva Sangh. In 1942 at the height of tax protests, Suman and many other activists were jailed. Late in 1943, he was tried for treason and jailed again. The ghastly conditions of Tehri's infamous prisons led him to lead a fast unto death in protest. After 84 days, he died a martyr's death, inspiring a generation of activists to take up the banner of liberation that eventually toppled the princely state. CHANDER SINGH "GARHWALI" BHANDARI As a non-commissioned officer of the Garhwal Rifles, Havildar (sergeant) Chander Singh refused to fire on unarmed pro-independence demonstrators at Peshawar on April 23, 1930. He succeeded in persuading much of the rest of his battalion to stand down. As such, the Havildar and his fellow soldiers were exiled, disgraced, and Chander Singh himself interned for life by the military authorities. His noble and thoughtful stance, rather than the predictable excuse of "just following orders", proved to be a major psychological blow to the British Raj whose imperial power rested on the absolute obedience of its armed forces. When Chander Singh returned to Garhwal, he immediately joined the movement for independence and continued his service to her people. GOBBAR SINGH NEGI

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As part of the Allied Spring Offensive of 1915, the Garhwal Rifles sacrificed their utmost to advance the front against the Germans. Rifleman Negi of the 2nd battalion answered the call at Neuve Chapelle. With no concern for his own safety, the short Himalayan warrior had the better of the tall and hefty Germans, leading his fellow hill men when their officer fell, and showing no regard for his own personal safety. He was later killed in the field of battle, but not before earning the highest honor of the British Empire, the Indian Army's third Victoria Cross. DARWAN SINGH NEGI As the second Indian soldier to receive the Victoria Cross, Naik (corporal) Negi distinguished himself in the blood and horror of Flanders during the Great War. In the wet autumn months of 1914, the British lines were crumbling. The desperate situation called for the mobilization of the Indian brigades from India. The Garhwal Rifles were hastily rushed to the front. Near the town of Festubert, the regiment was ordered to recover a part of the line. In this battle, Naik Negi was the first to proceed around each traverse, discharging the enemy with dash and daring. With blood streaming from his head and arms, he carried on the fight, despite fierce machine gun resistance that strafed the attacking Allied troops. King-Emperor George V himself honored Negi's heroism on the field of battle. "PANDIT" NAIN SINGH RAWAT Nain Singh was one the greatest explorers of the 19th century, travelling over 21,000 miles in his lifetime, across the inhospitable and often hostile terrain of Tibet and Central Asia. Hailing from Milam, present day Pithoragarh district, Nain Singh left home at a young age in 1851, venturing throughout Uttarakhand and Himachal, before accompanying Western explorers to Ladakh and Turkestan as a porter. He eventually returned home for a brief sojourn as a teacher before heading to Dehra Dun to learn surveying skills. In 1864 he was ordered to make maps of Tibet. His adventures took him to Kashmir and Nepal and his knowledge of Tibetan allowed him to pass as one. His accomplishments were extraordinary, and the scale of his discoveries were never truly repeated by his admiring successors. RAJ MATA KARNAVATI In 1640, the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan invaded Garhwal. Led by the courageous Queen Mother, Karnavati, the Garhwali defenders crushed the numerically superior forces from the plains. Rather than executing prisoners, she cut off the noses of all captured troops as a symbol of defiance. This act earned the Queen Mother the title "Nak-katti-Rani", the queen who cuts off noses. She later successfully saw her son, the much-loved King Prithvi Pat Shah, ascend to the throne.

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OUR CHIPKO HERITAGE: OUR TRADITIONS AND HISTORY REMEMBERED

August 2, 1999 The Uttarakhand Himalayas are well known for the active social and environment movements that had their genesis in the forests. Chipko originated and endures there -- the movement where village women, Gandhian activists, and local cooperatives came together to challenge the usurpation of indigenous forest rights by successive state and central governments. Although a recent (1970s) phenomenon, the historical antecedents to the ongoing struggle go back two centuries. When the British pushed into this area in 1814, Garhwal and Kumaon, the two principalities comprising Uttarakhand, had just been conquered by the Gurkha (Nepal) Empire. According to British reports, the short Anglo-Gurkha war "liberated" the region from a tyranny that had carried a third of the population into bondage and brought ruin to the terraced fields. Most of the land was ceded to the Britain, with the remainder left to the surviving heir of the Garhwali throne. However, the British would soon recognize the great natural wealth of the Himalayas and begin timber extraction to feed both the Empire's industrial needs and the building of the Indian railroad system. The felling of trees was undertaken in both the British part and Tehri state, as the principality came to be known. Tree replanting also altered the the ecological balance of the hills -- replacing slow growing oaks and deodar (himalayan cedar) with chir pine, both for timber and resin use -- and the forest department became the main enforcer of both appropriated "reserve" forest boundaries and the new plantations. The exploitation further marginalized the subsistence agriculture of the region, which was the backbone of the economy. The forest policy, along with the colonial and feudal administrations, came to represent the main oppressive force in the lives of villagers, whose leaders began challenging authority by reasserting traditional forest rights, staging protest fires as sabotage, and other demonstrations of discontent. Combined with the nationalist upsurge in the 20s and 40s, the area was eventually merged into Uttar Pradesh shortly after formal Indian independence. The Indian state however continued in the footsteps of its British patron, although now, with industrialization turned inward, demands on resources grew fast. Coupled with the 1962 border war with China that saw the frontier closed to ancient trade routes with Tibet, the economic conditions in the hills declined precipitously. New scourges emerged such as liquor to deteriorate the livelihood of the inhabitants. Women were particularly impacted, as the mass migration of men to the plains for work picked up steam, leaving them to tend to the ever more onerous task of working the family farm. Heavy deforestation came to be seen as the source of many of these problems, as landslips and floods became more devastating, springs dried up, and foraging for fuel wood consumed more and more of a villager's working day. By 1973, the stage was set for an uprising against the regional forest policy that had changed little since the British left. Led by Gandhian activists in concert with village women, the Chipko movement achieved a remarkable mobilization of the peasantry. With this awakening, the hills burst into activity,

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as contractors were shut down or chased away by the strength of Garhwali women who dared the axes to fall on their backs. By 1980, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi finally accepted a 10year ban on tree felling above 1000 metres. Since then, much has changed in the hills, yet conditions have been exacerbated by illegal felling that continues unabated. Furthermore, many of the activists of the movement have since become bogged down in the bureaucracy of administering NGOs. Others still have been criticized for standing aloof from the main political, cultural, and economic events of the day, including the movement for statehood that arose in the mid 1990s. Indeed, their leadership was sorely needed during the time of the disillusionment and dissolution of the autonomy movement. The future ecological and social well being of Uttarakhand lies with a new generation of activists that spring afresh from the Himalayas decade after decade. Many hard lessons were learned from Chipko and the more recent social movements, and the task for activists perhaps now lies with marrying these social and environmental concerns and bringing them finally into the political arena, where hitherto only vested interests have exercised power.

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SOME THOUGHTS ON KARGIL

August 2, 1999 With so many families in the hills of Garhwal and Kumaon who have sons (and daughters) in the military, the conflict in Kashmir has taken a terrible toll. The Garhwal Rifles, as well as other Himalayan regiments (the Gurkha Rifles, Ladakh Scouts, Naga Regiments, and Jammu and Kashmir Infantry) were all entrusted with operations in Kargil. Over 35 men alone from the Rifles were lost, while the total for Uttarakhand has already surpassed 60. They joined their Sikh, Rajasthani, Mahar, and Bihari brothers as a multicultural and multifaith force on the frontlines, suffering the brunt of casualities in defense of the state. Although honoured by a nation in patriotic ferment, the sacrifice of these young men and their families weighs heavily in grieving villages throughout India. When all is said and done, we must also know why they fought and why they died. Not to know, or to choose to ignore reality does a great disservice to the memories of our youth, sacrificed in the name of defending the country. Our Kashmiri brothers and sisters have an understandably different view, born of years of mismanaged state affairs, police heavyhandedness, and human rights atrocities that have been acute in their state and that has driven some into the arms of the mujahideen militants and others, like the Kashmiri Pandits, out of the state altogether. With the war being fought on their partitioned soil, it is they who have emerged as the true victims of over 50 years of hostilities. Although this time around in Kargil, the situation was clearly a matter of Pakistani-backed infiltration, Kashmir has been burning for the last decade, with no end in sight under the current stalemate over the line-ofcontrol, with the forces of fear and hatred spiraling out of control. Furthermore, the deadly dance of the Indian and Pakistani governments, a bitter legacy of partition, seems set to continue, sapping the energy and resources of the subcontinent while holding hostage the people of the entire region to a neverending and ruinous war of attrition. As such, the only real solution to Kashmir's problems is not more repression that continues in the name of national unity, but demilitarization of the Himalayan highlands and justice for her people. Rapes, disappearances, and torture should never be excused by the need to maintain "law and order". What the Kashmiris have suffered and what they continue to suffer is little different from atrocities carried out elsewhere, whether in Punjab, Assam, Nagaland, or even our dear Uttarakhand -- ironically lands from where the bravest and most dutiful Jawans of India have come. Militancy arises under such conditions, a simple lesson that goes unheeded in state capitals year after year until bombs explode. As such, the callousness of governments throughout South Asia must end if we are to have a common future. We must stand with all our brothers and sisters who suffer. We cannot wait until "it" happens to one of us. Therefore, we salute our fallen soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in the performance of their duty. In death, they join the long and distinguished line of brave warriors from the Himalayas. Yet we must continue their work by building a new India for which we can all be proud, free of human rights violations and the arrogance of power that sadly blackens her name in the world. Let us renew our dedication to uplifting our motherland and lead by example, so that the shortcomings of politics never again tarnishes the supreme sacrifice of our boys with more of the same. This is the task of the true patriot, to rejoice in the good, to honour the brave, and to fight evil wherever it may be, especially when done in our country's name, however hard the truth might be.

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THE TRUCE
May 28, 1999
O my brave brown companions, when your souls Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge, Death will stand grieving in that field of war Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent. And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell; The unreturning army that was youth; The legions who have suffered and are dust. - Siegfried Sassoon, Prelude: The Troops It is very hard to endure the bombs, father. It will be difficult for anyone to survive and come back safe and sound from the war. The son who is very lucky will see his father and mother, otherwise who can do this? There is no confidence of survival. The bullets and cannon balls come down like snow. The mud is up to a man's middle... The numbers that have fallen cannot be counted. A Garhwali soldier to his father, - 14th January, 1915

For as long as I can remember growing up as a child in Canada, remembrance of the Great War, 1914-1918, was marked with poppies on November 11th and a moment of silence for our fallen fathers. Every memorial was draped with flowers and wreaths commemorating the "war to end all wars". The marching bands of the Canadian regiments would come out with their pipes, drums, bugles, and fifes, just as old Royal Canadian Legionnaires would parade through the streets, reliving past glory, their ranks shrinking every year in the final battle against old age or disease. However, we also read in school mournful ballads like No Man's Land and bitter poems of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, bringing home the terror, wretchedness, and utter futility for which so many had been sacrificed. Indeed, the colonial troops of Great Britain bore the brunt of the casualties for the cause of God, King, and Country. The bittersweet sentiments of "Lest We Forget" and "Never Again", although violated time and time again since Armistice, has lingered to this day in the minds of even those too young to remember the fire of war. For Indian soldiers mobilized for the front, this was even more true. As part of the global army of the British Empire, Indian regiments had fought in almost every colonial war of the Victorian age, and its veterans came to constitute the first wave of South Asian immigrants to Canada and the United States. Although colonial troops were barred from the European theatre due to the tacit understanding that the use of coloured troops would prove "demoralizing" for all sides, the Indians nevertheless sailed for Europe in October of 1914, reaching France and Flanders in time to bolster the crumbling British lines.

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From the beginning, these soldiers had to withstand the constant drizzle and heavy shelling that had transformed the rich Belgian farmland into a wretched, blasted moonscape. However, the bitter cold of winter, incessant rains, and the new brutal style of fighting in the trenches did not deter the men in the performance of their duty. Thousands perished before being withdrawn the following year, but not before further honoring themselves for their extraordinary fighting abilities and discipline, and earning the kindness of English widows who knit sweaters for their poorly equipped ranks. The 39th Garhwal Rifles, my grandfather's regiment, especially distinguished itself, taking two Victoria Crosses, the highest honors for enlisted men in the British Empire. Yet their triumph over adversity was marked by huge sacrifices, as the young regiment lost more than half its numbers and an entire battalion before it was transferred to Mesopotamia to participate in the conquest of Iraq, returning home long years after the conclusion of the First World War. When I visited my native village in the Garhwal Himalayas three years ago, I found that those experiences lingered in the memories of aging elders, only infrequently conjured back to life by epic storytelling of feats of desperate heroism, the horror of the trenches, and beauty of the French countryside. They also remembered the shattering of families and lives, of fathers, sons, and husbands lost, and the lonely struggle of widows and orphans for survival. Surprisingly, only with much reluctance would the keepers of village history bring out the old medals, their solemn hesitation distinguishing them as markers of tragedy as opposed to a source of pride for the community. One tale stood out as most memorable and astonishing. Garhwalis had participated in a far less recognized event of their proud regimental history -- the Christmas Day truce of 1914. I had heard rumours about this incident and took much solace from it when I was young, that despite the brutalizing effect of war, men themselves could hang on to their humanity. Tales of the fateful day have figured prominently in all legends of the Great War, as it was the one day that the fog of war lifted and British and German soldiers crossed over from their trenches to greet each other as brothers. To realize that some of them were in fact ancestors and kinsmen from surrounding villages, hilltops, and valleys, gave profound meaning to my earlier observance of Remembrance Day and the words, Lest We Forget. For on that cold Christmas morning early in the 20th century, the Garhwali enlisted men, along with their British officers, ventured out of their dismal water-logged trenches to meet their German counterparts. The two sides exchanged gifts of chocolate, tobacco, and brandy, shaking hands and passing ironic Christmas greetings in a season of mayhem and murder. In another other part of the line that separated the sides, Scots and Germans played football, while elsewhere, young English and German lads sang Christmas carols. Moreover, on Christmas eve, the Germans put candles up in their trees in keeping with their yuletide traditions. This sight astonished the Garhwalis as they so resembled Diwali lights, and invoked desperate memories of home. The next morning, the Germans "went over the top", as did the British and Indians, and both set about the grim task of collecting their dead that had been piling up and decomposing in the field between the opposing sides. Such fraternizing with the enemy was subject to severe punishment, although the officers of both battalions of the Garhwal Rifles participated wholeheartedly. Indeed, the high commands of each side were greatly angered by the shocking display of humanity and camaraderie that would soon, through the next three years of the most ghastly bloodshed, become the rarest of scenes. Yet that Christmas day, men from nearby forests and distant mountains disobeyed orders and shook hands, meeting not as enemies nor soldiers -- but just

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men -- in no man's land. As such, they achieved something no medal could honor -- perhaps a lesson we have not yet learned.

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A ROAD TO NOWHERE: A NEW CONSTRUCTION PROJECT IN THE HIMALAYAS THREATENS A NATURAL WONDER
May 28, 1999 The Valley of Flowers is a high altitude oasis of flora, about 10 km by 2 km in size and resting at a height of 12,000 to 13,000 feet. As one of India's greatest natural wonders, the valley has retained within its lap an immense diversity of plants and animals. Although already under pressure by tourists and pilgrims who wander off the trekkable route about 5 km away, a new road that is under construction in the area threatens its very existence. The new 15 km stretch of road between Gobind Ghat and Ganghria, which are on the way to the holiest Sikh shrine in the Himalayas, Hemkund Sahib, is being supported by the Punjab state government. Presently a trek route that branches to the Valley of Flowers, the construction project along the same route was cleared by the Environment ministry very quickly, raising suspicions that the decision was politically motivated. Also in the works are parking facilities and 500-room accommodations at Ganghria, as backers hope to capitalize on the brisk pilgrim trade. Roads in the Himalayas are notorious for the geological destabilization that follow in their wake. The use of dynamite for such infrastructure, although ill advised in an environmentally sensitive region, has continued unabated, while quarrying of mountainsides has highly disfigured the landscape. The recent earthquake should have driven home this message, as many roads were buried by the fall of rubble, loosened when the roads were originally blasted out of the hills. Furthermore, the vehicular pollution and congestion promised by the new road, will severely affect the surrounding wildlife, and in all likelihood, lead to the region loosing its charm. Local groups and a regional political party (UKD) have already began protesting the construction project, opposing both its harmful environmental effect and the probable disturbance to the surrounding ecosystem. However, what has probably motivated the staunchest opposition is the dawning realization that such roads are destructive and have accrued little economic benefit for locals in exchange for a heavy ecological price. This new one promises more of the same in terms of sheer traffic, resource consumption, and litter, while being run by non-hill inhabitants. Probable also, is that labour for the project will be drawn from outside the area like Bihar, Nepal, or Uttar Pradesh, a common practice on all Himalayan construction projects to get around local organized labour. The state government is also involved in setting up a helipad at Badrinath, Hinduism's holiest shrine in the hills. All this infrastructure devoted to the tourist trade comes as schools and hospitals in the area remain few and far between, and that revenue generated still never reaches people in the region. Moreover, it seems odd that those who believe that the Himalayas are the abode of the gods, do not deign to treat them or their inhabitants as such. Although commodification of pilgrimages has been a feature of holy journeys since time immemorial, devoting more time to the modern luxuries and comfort of pilgrims as opposed to the well being of mountain ecosystems and societies, seems short-sighted if not sacrilegious. Such crass exploitation of religious sentiments, mixed with a disregard for the

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environment and people's rights seems destined to guarantee no blessing but only the wrath of the gods.

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APOCALYPSE IN UTTARAKHAND I: THE FIRE THIS TIME

May 28, 1999 Forest fires and record-breaking temperatures are roasting the mountains and their forests, destroying wildlife and watersheds in their wake. Hard on the heels of the March 29 earthquake, the fires have met with little concern in Delhi and Lucknow, even though the ecological catastrophe has been reported extensively and alarmingly in the press. Indeed, while forest officials and villagers have died heroically battling the blaze, no emergency has been declared, nor equipment supplied to help them beyond the stone-age means by which they are fighting the conflagration. The negligence and silence on the part of the central government has been glaring. It can be said that Delhi fiddled while the Himalayas burned. Press reports in the leading English-language dailies have pummeled this lack of disaster management planning, even in the aftermath of other disasters that should have put the government on notice. Along with the millions of rupees embezzled along the way, very little assistance has reached departments and agencies that would help prepare these regions for such catastrophes. In one particular brazen case, two firefighting aircraft were donated to the Uttar Pradesh government by the FAO some five years ago. Although originally based in the hills, both were taken to Delhi, where one crashed and the other employed by the then Environment and Forest Minister for his personal use. Since then, little has been done for the firefighting in the hills, who witness serious periodic forest fires every four years. Some NGOs in the area are joining hands to create a Disaster Intervention Secretariat for future calamities. The resources are scarce, although a few philanthropists have stepped forward with financial support for such endeavours. Without greater government accountability however, these efforts will remain minor and it is up to us to pressure elected officials to take natural disasters seriously. This year, the fires look set to administer an apocalyptic blow to the mountain source of the holy Ganges, a fact that should give the rest of India pause. Along with recent reports on the rapidly retreating glaciers that feed the entire Gangetic plain, the biological death of the Himalayas is fast becoming a horrifying possibility.

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APOCALYPSE IN UTTARAKHAND II: THE EARTHQUAKE AFTERMATH

May 28, 1999 Earthquakes, landslides, forest fires, man-eating predators, the liquor plague -- all these have conspired to bring about an apocalyptic situation in the hills over the past decade. In this age of ever darkening Kaliyuga, the Uttarakhand Himalayas are shuddering under great calamities, man-made and natural. Even the climactic changes noticed throughout the world are having their impact, pounding the area with incessant rains in the monsoon season, and bringing about drought conditions in the spring, making the forests ripe for fires. The toll on the Himalayan inhabitants has been catastrophic and heart rending. Already ground down by their punishing poverty, the latest Earthquake in Chamoli district has destroyed almost everything left of value to the people, including loved ones -- mothers, fathers, children. It is no stretch of the imagination that in their minds, the end of world surely must be at hand. At least this central part of the Himalayas will become barren if seismic activity resumes, life remains unbearable, and deforestation proceeds at the current pace. Adding to the pathos of the situation is the failure of the administration to elaborate any sort of action plan to save the Himalayas and her peoples. Satish Sati of the Bhartiya Gram Uthan Sanasthan remarked accurately, that "It can be an earthquake, a landslide or a forest fire but still no one has come up with a disaster management plan for the hills." (TOI) For the people, the parade of VIPs to the region has only been greeted with disdain. A 60-year-old farmer named Sartulal complained that politicians "come to ask for votes when there is an election, but when the earthquake took place no one cared if we were dead or alive." (TOI) Furthermore, while relief workers and army personnel struggled valiantly to effect repairs and distribute basic necessities, the effort came too little and too late for most of the traumatized victims. Adding to their torment was the absence of a strong response from officialdom, who have been too ill-equipped and undermanned to go to distant villages to distribute aid or to give succor to the grief-stricken. While village elders and desperate people walked dozens of kilometers across mountains to reach relief sites, "the officials asked [them] to go back and wait for the help to arrive," as claimed by one impoverished 63-yearold stone cutter, Ranvir Lal (AP). Even five days after the earthquake, villages as close as 5 km to Chamoli had not yet received aid, prompting a deep rage among the people who had already begun protesting the bureaucracy of relief. Moreover, BJP and Congress party workers have traded accusations, further incensing villagers with their callous adherence to party politics even during this terrible calamity. The fortunate among the new homeless, over 250,000 in all, have been lodged in tent cities, prompting 30-year-old Bimla Devi to cry, "This is our exile. We will live here till we die." The Indian press has also shown its conflicted nature in covering the disaster. The BBC correspondent for South Asia, Daniel Lak, mentioned in his report that it took the major papers one day to reach the scene, although less than 250 kilometers from Delhi. When there however, the correspondents native to the region did an excellent job in covering the aftermath of the catastrophe, drawing out wretched tales of loss, grief, and terror, while not disguising their compassion in the bland objectivity of news reporting. However, the editorial board of the papers, reflecting largely the prejudices and (in)sensibilities of the urban elite,

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told a different story. The press gleefully dubbed the Jayalalitha-Sonia Gandhi tea party that same week a political earthquake for the administration, never mind that a great tragedy had occurred in a real earthquake. One column used the occasion to score points against antiTehri dam activists, when no cracks reportedly appeared in the Dam structure. Interviews with some experts also proved unhelpful, as when it was recommended that building codes be enforced and further investments made in the structural integrity of homes by homeowners. With the high level of destitution prevalent in Chamoli even before the earthquake, such advice seemed appallingly far outside people's means. With womenfolk in the region working 18 hours a day and most dwellings consisting of loose rock hovels, Uttarakhandis of the High Himalayas cannot even feed themselves, let alone procure steel girders or cement mix for their homes. For those that lost everything in the quake, their tragedy has been compounded once again by a system that cannot cope with protecting and serving its most impoverished citizens. As long as things remain the same, many more will have to go into exile like Bimla Devi, or die in helpless penury. In the end, their betrayal is our failure.

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FIGHTING THE LIQUOR HYDRA

March 29, 1999 The women of Uttarakhand have once again raised their voices against the liquor menace in the hills. Students of Garhwal University in Srinagar, supported by the Uttarakhand Mahila Manch, have taken out processions protesting the granting of liquor vends by the UP government. As noted by the leader of the Manch, the current government has proven no better than its predecessor in granting these licenses and ignoring the pleas of the women who have been adversely affected by the liquor scourge. Furthermore, most of these vends have come to be owned by outside businessmen from cities like Moradabad, Etah, and Ghaziabad, a trend also apparent in the lottery and limestone quarrying interests. Alcoholism has become an epidemic problem in the hills, and some of the earliest postindependence movements in Uttarakhand were taken up for the cause of prohibition. Until 1995, several districts were "dry" as women's organizations lobbied successfully for a total ban on liquor. Unfortunately, the cash starved state government repealed prohibition in order to profit on the lucrative sale of alcohol, by then, carried on illegally by various mafia groups. In this vein, the state government moved to regulate the market, taking responsibility for licensing liquor sales, yet doing little in dealing with the adverse consequences of this policy. As demonstrated by its history, prohibition cannot work in the absence of social change that both betters the economic conditions of the people affected and empowers women. In a sense, alcoholism and other drug problems are symptoms of a far greater malady that afflicts impoverished communities worldwide. In Uttarakhand, the outmigration of men, large-scale unemployment, ecological collapse, and their traditional backbreaking life, have all conspired to worsen the lot of women to degrees unimaginable. In addition to all this, Alcoholism among the few men left and among those returning to their villages from the plains have been a major source of hardship, destroying families and consuming scarce wealth. Despite the hardships of daily life and the ominous threat of the mafia, anti-liquor activists have struggled valiantly against the scourge. Their efforts on behalf of the well being of Uttarakhand deserve our highest praise.

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BOGGED DOWN AGAIN

March 29, 1999 Politicization of a non-controversial issue has endangered the chances that Uttarakhand will ever receive statehood and may have damaged irrevocably the movement that gave so much hope. Since the early days of the movement, various parties and interests have vied literally for center stage in the unfolding drama of the Uttarakhand movement. The most disillusioning of these came on October 2, 1994. Even as Uttarakhandi women were being raped by police and crowds fired on in Muzzafarnagar, activists from the Congress and BJP struggled for the microphone at the podium in Delhi. To the horror of the 10,000 strong crowd, the agitators eventually broke the microphone altogether, leaving the people without a voice on a confusing and dangerous day in the capital. Eventually, different sections called for a march on Parliament, while others began brickbatting with police. The events were so marred by this factional squabbling and opportunism, that many in the movement were disgusted. That day, the USSS (Uttarakhand Joint-Action Committee) organizers lost control as political parties moved to implement their own dark motives and cynical designs. Today, as the struggle for statehood drags into its sixth year, the BJP-led government's bill for an "Uttaranchal" is dead in the water, much like the plans postponed indefinitely by their United Front predecessors. Indeed, the BJP has only itself to blame for the quagmire. By renaming the state, it sought to put its own stamp on the movement, ostensibly as a prerogative of the government to do the ''Nam Karan''. However, this trick has only burned bridges, not built them, and with a minority government at center, they must have known full well that any controversy would have stalled the state reorganization bill indefinitely in the deeply divided parliament. Worse still, elements of communalism have crept into the region to further erode the morale of the people, as seen by the Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar controversy. Furthermore, shady elements have infiltrated the movement, claiming its mantle, yet behaving deplorably. In this regard, the BJP followed in the footsteps of Congress, as both parties have sought to maintain their power in Uttar Pradesh by fanning the flames of caste conflict. Indeed the BJP has sought to rebuild the old Congress coalition of Brahmins, Landowners, and Dalits in the Hindi heartland, and along with the SP and BSP, are deeply engaged in a dangerous game that can only enhance the centrifugal forces tearing apart the country. Moreover, the mostly BJP MLAs of Uttarakhand have had to take a backseat to the ongoing power struggles in Lucknow and, ironically, stand as victims of their very membership in a ruling party beholden to smaller factions in the state assembly. Their loyalty taken for granted, these hapless MLAs have little leverage power in a political system based on self-serving interests and squeaky wheels getting the grease. In this situation, it is difficult to blame all the politicians for all these ills, with the political system stacked so strongly against anyone attempting to serve honorably or to break out of divide-and-rule tactics. Indian politics are said to require a particular kind of cunning to navigate the vagaries of electoral democracy, especially in this era of constantly shifting alliances and coalitions. With so many interests and factions at play, governments are often paralyzed when it comes to implementing tough solutions to the nation's problems. Forming new states as such is perhaps the most difficult of all goals, requiring the marshalling of

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enough support from all sections of society. Taking such steps require sincere efforts without any hidden agendas. However, as each party seeks a stick to beat their opponents with, the people emerge as the real losers without any real solution in sight. Indeed, emotional issues like Uttarakhand statehood are often purposely kept at a low boil -- long enough to ensure electoral gains, but nowhere near to delivering on promises or ameliorating the conditions of the average person. This has led many of long-term activists of the region to shun the movement for statehood, as they perhaps justifiably fear that the same group of politicians and interests that have raided the hills for the last fifty years will return to finish the job. As such, Uttarakhand cannot wait quietly by the throne, pinning one's aspirations on one party or another, hoping for some dispensation of mercy from the political elite. Governments cannot grant autonomy as a privilege extended -- the people must demand it as a right of their existence. Unless the Uttarakhand movement comes from the people themselves, it cannot be rightfully called a movement, and Uttarakhand or Uttaranchal will emerge still born from an ever more weary Mother India. Some things we can do to save the movement: ! Call for the depoliticization of the Uttarakhand movement. Engender unity across party, class, and caste lines, and combat the forces that seek to divide us. ! Work for the true welfare of the Uttarakhand region, whether or not a separate state emerges. The politicians can go on playing their games, but there is a lot of work to be done -- from ecological rehabilitation and fighting social ills, to building Uttarakhand's educational and medical infrastructure. ! Learn from the experience of the movement -- work for communal harmony, positive awareness of the Pahari identity, and solidarity with other movements. Recognize the political system for what it is, and immunize oneself against the propaganda of politicians. Build an alternative democracy where the people have a real voice. ! The hills of Uttarakhand live on in the hearts of her sons and daughters, yet the real Himalayas are dying the death of a thousand clear cuts. Saving them goes beyond any political compulsion.

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A TIME FOR CHOICES

December 23, 1998

As 1998 draws to a close, and our Christian, Muslim, and Jewish brothers and sisters celebrate their respective holidays, the need for reflection and generosity of spirit seems ever more pressing. The events of the past few weeks should give us pause, so that we can consider what kind of Uttarakhand we would like to see. The Uttarakhand struggle had brought together disparate forces, all with different, and sometimes contradictory visions of the future. From the Jan Sanghis to old CPI-ML members, the various groups have placed their hopes in an autonomous state, preferring to bury their hatchets for this cause of national affirmation.! As the actualization of this hope draws tangibly close, these contradictions threaten to reemerge and ignite the tinderbox of political intrigue and infighting. This was even the case at the earliest stages of the movement, although many had the good sense of giving up party politics for the sake of the struggle for peoples rights. Indeed, a vast spectrum of popular opinion was brought together, an astonishing development for an India that had long grown accustom to the divide-and-rule games of politicians. With parties such as the BJP and Congress struggling for the hearts and minds of Uttarakhandis, but doing precious little for the Hills themselves, our only hope lies in this alternative to politics-as-usual - where Uttarakhandis themselves take their destiny in their own hands. If we lose this, we also lose the one chance that Uttarakhand has of escaping the spiral of violence that is engulfing much of the rest of the country. Furthermore, the complexities of nationhood are always difficult to resolve, and never come easy nor without heartache and anguish. Since such issues confront our most profound sense of identity, calling into question our various loyalties and allegiances, they can be both liberating and destructive. Assertion of identity seems necessarily to require the defining of oneself against the other, and as such, these movements are pilloried by both the Right for threatening to divide the nation, and by the Left, as some sort of narrow xenophobic expression of mass neurosis. These views resonate whenever there is an example of this that explodes onto the national media. However, either way, the entire political class demonstrates a fundamental contempt for the people, by advocating that the masses themselves cannot be entrusted to actualize their own sentiments and most basic of human needs. As such, it is the responsibility of true leaders to summon the lighter angels of our nature, while keeping their darker brethren in check. Often enough, opportunists, carpetbaggers, and so-called anti-social elements follow closely in the footsteps of movements. This has been true since the beginning of time, as politicians have always been quick to capitalize on the success of others. The damage comes when their antics and crude expropriations of the noble slogans of popular struggles lead to the real victimization of innocent bystanders, and how this plays out in the press. Complicating matters further, the State and other opposing forces to social change, often employ agents to derail movements by stirring-up strife, provoking rash actions, or other such events to give the State cause to repress the people. Human and especially Indian history is replete with examples of this, where communal tensions were manufactured where none or little existed before, and a mobs ire was diverted to neighbours rather than the truly guilty parties.

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Therefore in this holiday season, it behooves us all to be wary of these pulls and not be fooled by those demagogues and political agents who would only bring despair, harm, and disrepute to people. On the other hand, it is also time to show brotherly love to all and to assemble together in solidarity. If Uttarakhand is to be distinct and to retain its Pahari culture, it must become a place of peace for all her people, no matter their politics, religion, caste, or race. Indeed, this is the only dream worth fighting for.

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TOWARDS A NEW UTTARAKHAND: THE PROMISE AND PERIL NOTES FROM NORTH AMERICA
October 27-28, 1998 For the Workshop on the Governance and Economic Transformation of Uttaranchal/Uttarakhand INTRODUCTION Uttarakhand appears verged on a new era of her often sad and troubled history. Although promised an "Uttaranchal" state by the current government, little else has been elucidated about the new creation, other than many of its resources will remain under the control of Uttar Pradesh, its parent state. Other than that, the current Indian political system has fashioned "Uttaranchal" in the mold of other states, with a sitting assembly, converted from current MLAs and tehsildars, and other such characteristics of representative democracies. All this comes will little fanfare among many Uttarakhandis in North America, who have little faith in the politicians back home, and remain rather pessimistic about prospects for a brighter future under the present setup for the hills. As the logical extension of a money order economy that began at the turn of the century and accelerated in the postindependence era, Uttarakhandis finally reached the shores of North America by the 1960s. In recent years, with the resurgence of Uttarakhandi identity in the post-1994 period, the community has also coalesced, forming associations in Canada and the US. These Uttarakhandis living abroad have so far felt powerless to help raise Uttarakhand from her terrible poverty and reverse the disquieting trends that threaten the Himalayas' life-sustaining capacities. The recent landslides and 1991 Uttarkashi earthquake only served to remind them of the serious erosion of the ecological and geologic integrity of the Uttarakhand Himalayas, and how time might be running out for the motherland. Despite their apparent helplessness, the North American Uttarakhandis yearn to do their part to save the Himalayas of their youth. However, having lived under the governing structures of other lands, these expatriates have not seen much promise in adapting the forms of democracy practiced elsewhere to Uttarakhand's myriad problems. Advanced societies, while offering material comforts, have not themselves solved the problems of political disenfranchisement and economic marginalization. What follows are some discussion points and suggestions put forward by the Uttarakhand Support Committee hoping to contribute to the democratic process in Uttarakhand and India through insights gained from living abroad and from participating in global movements for social change. THE PROBLEM WITH "DEVELOPMENT" The experience of the development process in Uttarakhand holds many lessons, most of which unfortunately remain unheeded today. Indeed, the separate state movement had its genesis in the very failure of the process to bring any substantive improvement in the lives of the

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Uttarakhand rural poor. In truth, development has only impoverished the hills and visited ever more onerous ecological burdens on the people. For Uttarakhand, forest policy has always been a key issue and indicative of how various administrations have approached development in the hills. From time immemorial, the people lived relatively harmoniously with the environment, cutting terraces into the hills and modifying nature without supplanting it. Uttarakhandis, much like their Andean, Swiss, and Nepali mountain brethren, "humanized" nature in a careful and sophisticated manner, deriving a level of material comfort from the Khals, Dhars, and Ghatis. With the coming of the British, the forests were made to serve rapacious masters, whose own needs far outstripped the forests of their country (Guha, 1990). For years, "scientific forestry" stood for the maximum extraction of timber and forest products from the Himalayas. The "modern" management, under the guise of progress, led to the merciless plunder of the once green hills, while depriving Uttarakhandis of their forest rights. What little land left to the people was stressed to the breaking point, both grazed by herds and depended upon for fuel wood and fodder. By the turn of the century, the ancient ties of the people with the forest were severed, hastening the exhaustion of the land and heralding the coming of dependency and the money order economy. Formal independence from Britain did little to change the situation. Indeed state planners inherited wholesale the colonial institutions and mindset of the British, treating the Uttarakhand Himalayas as an internal colony of an industrializing India. In a very real sense, Uttarakhand, like the Amazonian hinterland of Brazil and the tropical rainforests of Sarawak, Malaysia, has served as a source of raw materials for the rest of India (Karan, 1994). As such, the Uttarakhandi people and Himalayas endured the detrimental effects of industrialization with few, if any, of the benefits. It was only with the awakening of the people through the Chipko Andolan did perceptions change. By the 1980s, the central government began incorporating the rhetoric, if not the goals, of the Chipko activists in their five-year plans (Bhatt, 1997). The new found ecological principles brought full circle the vision of the forests, recognizing the inherently exploitative and flawed theoretical grounding of scientific forestry, and the validity of the ancient, indigenous relationship with the trees. The experience of the Chipko movement has also served to illustrate the possibilities and limits of NGO-led movements for social uplift and ecological remediation. As long as Chipko was involved in inspiring a grassroots-based, mobilization of the people towards an uprising against the prevailing economic order, the movement succeeded beyond all expectations as an expression of the people's struggle. However, as soon as the movement fell prey to personality politics and academic deconstruction, with important activists bogged down in the bureaucratic maze of administering government-sponsored projects, Chipko lost much of its momentum (Aryal, 1994a). As such, the Chipko movement has itself demonstrated the need for maintaining the activist spirit in the people, so that the people remain ever vigilant of their rights. This holds many lessons for scientists and administrators of a new Uttarakhand, whose advice will never be complete without the expertise and active participation of the rural folk. Despite Chipko, the magnitude of the damage done to the hills by years of commercial extraction, misguided forest policies, and lax enforcement of well-intentioned laws has far

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surpassed any one movement's ability to deal with the coming catastrophe. According to estimates by S.L. Shah, the forests' natural regenerative capacity may be exhausted by 2031, if current trends continue. Moreover, overgrazing of the grasslands will deplete them by 2041 (Shah, 1986). Recent geologic studies have also reported the rapid retreat of the Himalayan glaciers, leading possibly to the Ganga drying up in the next century. These alarming predictions should imbue anyone with renewed urgency in solving the ecological crisis and putting Uttarakhand's and India's pressing environmental problems at the top of the national agenda. REVERSING "DEVELOPMENT" As a significant demand of the Uttarakhand movement has been for the material well-being of hill residents, any discussion on the economic revitalisation of Uttarakhand has to address fundamental issues. Future administrative arrangements must recognize that the forests and natural resources of the land belong to the people. Moreover, the welfare of the people cannot be left to chance or to trickle down as a side-effect of some proposed development project. As seen by the Chipko experience, the people must have a full say in determining the direction of the economy. Rather than leaving these matters to experts, special interest groups, NGOs, governmental agencies, or international lenders, Uttarakhandis must themselves be empowered and responsible for planning and executing programmes to improve their living standards. Institutions that are accountable to the people alone must be established to carry out this mandate at the local, block, district, and state levels. Furthermore, it behooves future planners to study the tremendous shifts in policy and philosophy that have marked world economies over the last few decades. In fact, the whole academic field of development, in response to the emergence of social movements, the onset of structural adjustment programs, and the process of globalization, has changed greatly from the early days of heavy industrialization through monumental infrastructure projects (McMichael, 1996). The development era was itself declared dead almost two decades ago, as globalized capital became the choice engine of economic growth. More recently, the collapse of the Asian economies has in turn dealt a damaging blow to the globalization paradigm, and time may soon tell whether its era has too passed. With the turmoil and fluctuations in the world economic order, a new paradigm of indigenous solutions to indigenous problems has arisen, reinforced by the growth of social movements in the vacuum left by retreating governmental commitments to fulfilling people's basic rights. With a sustainable, steady-state, and comfortable standard of living for the Himalayas, Uttarakhand can meet her peoples' needs in harmony with nature. The unfortunate experiences of other Himalayan lands illustrate well this need for a radical departure from conventional developmental modes followed in the rest of India. Ladakh, once a peaceful and culturally rich region, has seen the replacement of its subsistence economy with dependency, accompanied with the degradation of indigenous culture and erosion of self-esteem (Norberg-Hodge, 1991). The market pressures of subsidized food from outside the region have had a debilitating effect on the traditional agricultural systems, pushing subsistence farmers into insolvency. Communal conflict, never before an issue in a land where Muslims and Buddhists lived peacefully side by side, has emerged to further aggravate a tense situation. The forces of assimilation and Westernization at work in India and throughout the globalized world, have demoralized the Ladakhi people. The youth have been hardest hit, who, like their Uttarakhandi brothers and sisters, have found it difficult to find work in the new economy at home and elsewhere.

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A new state will need to preserve and apply Uttarakhand's traditions to solving her problems, which are being aggravated by the very same modernization processes afflicting Ladakh. The teaching of Uttarakhandi culture and language in schools, funding for the arts, and traditional ecological principles should be promoted. Another important thrust would include the broadening of the save the seeds (Beej Bachao Andolan) movement for self-reliance through native seeds (Jardhari & Kothari, 1997). Fortunately, Uttarakhand has no dearth of activists, scientists, and radical thinkers, to help in these endeavours, although most have been rendered powerless to affect real change in their localities and on their particular issues. As such, an important goal of the new state would include empowering these people and translating their admirable efforts into mass actions. All this calls into question the modernization impulse found throughout India, as aping the West has only benefited a distinct few, while subjecting many others to dislocation and pauperization. The West itself has turned this corner, and many have begun to challenge the constructed edifices of their own prosperity. For instance, the new trend towards smaller rather than large projects is one borne of the negative experience in the West with the displacing and anti-democratic effects of mega-projects. Although favoured by state planners and international funders, many of these plans have turned into so-called "White Elephants" bottomless money pits, with no accountability to the public over their economic and environmental repercussions (Swami, 1995). In the case of Uttarakhand, the mountain ecosystem and geology further has complicated large-scale development efforts as witnessed by the controversy surrounding the Dams at Tehri and Vishnuprayag. The following table illustrates this "small is beautiful" principle. Mini-hydro plants as alternatives to large dams in the Himalayas have been promoted for two decades now, and the time has come for their implementation. EXAMPLE OF CHANGING DEVELOPMENTAL PARADIGMS Big Projects
Centralizes power in hands of outsiders Loss of local control/access Employment limited by singular nature of project Potential for large scale corruption Intensive inputs, heavy use of machinery Large-scale displacement w/o adequate rehabilitation Potential problems are magnified by size of project Fixed, rigid, once built, incapable of being adapted Need loans, large capital to build

Small Projects
- Decentralized power, greater democracy - Local control/access - Creates more long-term jobs across broader geographic locale - Corruption checked by local accountability - Lighter impact on environment - Less chance of displacing activity - Greater possibility of harmonization w/ environment - Step-wise development - adaptable, problems can be addressed as they occur - Faster implementation, less dependency on loans

With the energy generated by these mini-hydro plants, other, less damaging forms of economic growth could be promoted in lieu of sole dependence on natural resources. Schools

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could be established throughout the hills to train Garhwali and Kumaoni boys and girls in intellectual growth industries such as information technologies and telecommunications. The relatively clean air, cooler clime, and proximity to Delhi are factors that could favour jobs for a region that has been hemorrhaging the flower of its youth to the plains for decades (Bhatt, 1997). In addition, establishing more scientific and technical research institutions would assist people in solving their problems in agriculture and promoting indigenous innovations to aid in ameliorating the people's well-being. Such opportunities would change the face of the hills and should be seriously considered by the future state. Other types of revenue-generating projects could include concluding new arrangements that better utilize the natural bounty of the Himalayas. Uttarakhand has a lot of water that goes to the plains. The new state should charge a royality for the water that goes to other states, or enter into agreements with these states to supply them with necessities in exchange. Uttarakhand should also ask for payment for the water, which the other states have used free of charge for the last fifty years, while Uttarakhandis have had to endure ever more severe shortages. The same would apply to hydroelectricity, another possible staple export of a new Uttarakhand state. Subsequently, this money could be used as seed capital for other projects. Exploration and development of mineral wealth is another potential avenue of income. The mountains of Uttarakhand are rich in many minerals and metals, but lamentably, the means by which excavation has been carried out so far has been disruptive of the geology and has benefited very few people. Limestone quarries have scarred the lesser Himalayas, and attention should be paid to rehabilitating the ecosystem of surrounding areas. Likewise, resources have to be extracted in harmony with environment, so that they do not endanger the habitat and ecological balance, which has been the tradition of the people. These resources should not be exploited in a mindless manner, leading to short-term benefits for a few and long-term problems for many. Correspondingly, the people most affected by the disruptions should be compensated with a substantial share of the earnings. Furthermore, tourism as a traditional wealth generator has not fulfilled the people's needs as it could have over the past few years. Derivative economic benefits have bypassed locals as well, since many, if not most of the tourist agencies, hotels, buses, and shops have been run by non-Uttarakhandis. A policy of hiring indigenous labour should be promoted to better serve the native hill residents. In addition, the trend towards tourism that is hostile to the people and the natural environment must be halted, and ecological and cultural sensitivity inculcated in all pilgrims and travelers. Plastic products should be banned and limits placed on resource consumption. PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST Much of the rest of the Himalayas are in desperate need of the solutions being sought in Uttarakhand. Even a casual observer will note that ecological degradation, poverty, and violent conflict afflict many highlands of Asia, from the Hindu Kush to the hills of Laos. The battered land of Kashmir stands at the flashpoint of conflict between India and Pakistan, and is suffering greatly from the military's presence and raging proxy war. The Tibetan nation is at risk of disappearing entirely and although her cause has been taken up by activists around the world, no government has yet recognized her right to self-determination. The Nepalese democratic revolution of 1990 has been squandered by political parties patterned after their Indian counterparts. Unable to provide stable government to alleviate desperate poverty in 8 years of multiparty politics, the mountain kingdom has, in response, witnessed the onset of a

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violent Maoist uprising and state repression that has brought the Nepal Himalayas a level of violence unheard of in two centuries. In India's northeast, simmering guerilla conflicts, some into their fourth decade, continue to rage, with rebel groups splintering into warring ethnic factions, further adding to the woes of the people. In Burma, the military junta continues its repressive policy towards ethnic minorities, even as it mops up the guerilla movement it recently crushed. Even Bhutan, long lauded for its dedication to environmental and cultural protection, faces a refugee crisis and calls for democracy. In the case of Uttarakhand, the failure of the old economic and political system has had much to do with the marginalizing of the people's struggles and the most vulnerable sections of society - women, lower castes, and tribals. Consequently, it has been women who have formed the backbone of the modern movements, while the lower castes, the Kols and Doms, have become the last strongholds of Uttarakhandi traditions. Hill women work an average of 16 hours a day, making them some of the hardest working individuals in the world (Pande, 1996). The scarcity of water, fuel wood, and fodder that results from deforestation have all exacted a heavy toll on women and have made their already difficult daily lives increasingly intolerable. Moreover, the introduction of all kinds of odious customs like dowry marriages from the plains, has further eroded the status of women. With only about a 40% literacy rate, hill women need political and social empowerment. Likewise, lower caste groups have been severely impacted by declining living standards in hills. The same market forces that have rendered subsistence agriculture futile, have displaced native workmanship with finished products from the plains. Furthermore, cosmopolitan music and brass bands are threatening to supplant Garhwali and Kumaoni folk drumming, long a passion and source of income for low caste musicians (Chandola, 1996). The traditional caste hierarchy has also become more rigid with the sanskritization of Uttarakhandi culture, with dire implications for communal harmony. Years of domination by the upper castes have also, for good reason, made the lower castes apprehensive about the future (Aryal, 1994b). As such, the new state will need to commit itself to guaranteeing the human and civil rights of all its peoples. Any solutions sought in the hills will necessarily involve the uplift of all segments of society, as equality is the most important prerequisite to true liberty. Without such efforts, any new Uttarakhand will prove meaningless, and the problems of castism and communalism, leading to social discord, will inevitably arise. Just as ominous will be the ongoing threat posed by the powerful criminal underground. Many social movements have arisen to combat the influence of the four L- mafias - land, liquor, lumber, and leesa - yet each has been undermined by the penetration of state agencies by these criminal elements (Husain, 1995). The new state, if controlled by such people, will only hasten the social and environmental disintegration of the Himalayas. As an indigenous class of contractors emerges to replace or collaborate with the plains-based exploiters of the hills, the protection of rights, empowerment of people, and rule of law will be fundamental to keeping such forces at bay. THE NEW SOCIETY: A DEPARTURE FROM BUSINESS AS USUAL Consequently, to avoid the pitfalls that have befallen much of the rest of India in the long quest for social development and political liberation, new modes of governing will need to be implemented. The problems are indeed daunting and will need radical conceptions of society that break from past ideologies, yet draws from their real life experiences. What is probably

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most needed throughout all of India and most pressingly in Uttarakhand, is a renewal of democracy and the reinvigoration of the institutions of people's self-governance. Although strengthening the democratic foundations will contribute to this, the experience of the last half-century calls for more fundamental departures from obsolete models. The experience of the Uttarakhand movement of 1994 illustrates many of the shortcomings of the current version of representative democracy. One of the hallmarks of the movement was the attempt to exclude party politics from the fold, as politicians could not be counted on to objectively work for the good of Uttarakhand without renouncing their party affiliations and links to vested interests. Much of the movement had already been marred by interparty rivalry and conflict, as each sought to gain advantage by exploiting the real concerns and sentiments of the people (Aryal, 1994b). This behavior proved abhorrent to many Uttarakhandis, who rejected it by expressing hostility to the whole political establishment. Furthermore, the Uttarakhand people have learned over the last fifty years to expect little from elected officials, from the local sarpanch and block pramukh, all the way to the district magistrate, MLA, and MP. The physical and emotional distance of villagers from their representatives has negatively impacted officialdom's responsiveness to the electorate (Chandola, 1996). A closer capital in a smaller state will solve part of this problem, but the gulf between the people and the politicians is also a distinctive feature of representative democracy and can only be solved by finding new ways to govern. Therefore, the first government of a new Uttarakhand state should convene a Constitutional Convention, where the people can meet and decide for themselves what form their government should take. This is the basis of most constitutional democracies, and it is clear that the Indian constitution, one of the most amended and lengthy in the world, needs serious revision. A new state can start the process by empowering its people to choose their own governance structures. By putting in place a consensus-based system, with representation from all sections, a new constitution could be drafted that would adequately reflect the people's wishes. Women, who hold Uttarakhand's fate in their hands, should constitute a majority position at such a convention, lest their presence be further marginalized, and their views, which have tremendous bearing on the hills, be discounted. Moreover, this exercise in crafting the constitution would lay the groundwork for mass participatory democracy, an essential element in the rebirth of the hills. Another measure that could help ensure more accountability of officials to their constituents is the institutionalisation of the Ascot to Arakot yatra that visits every corner of Garhwal and Kumaon. The journey, now conducted every ten years to survey the social, ecological, cultural and economic fabric of the Uttarakhand Himalayas (Ramakrishnan, 1994), could be planned every year and undertaken by members of the legislative assembly. This would serve to better link the central administration with remote localities, and provide villagers access to their state government and a chance to air grievances. Politicians unwilling to face the electorate and travel the length and breadth of Uttarakhand would be embarrassed by public reproach as in the old days of dandak. In the mean time, saving the Himalayan environment should be given top priority. The following suggestions warrant the new state's primary focus, as without attending to them, the Himalayas themselves might become uninhabitable:

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rejuvenation of the oak, deodar, and rhododendron forests, the backbone of the Himalayan woodlands and soil, and habitat to countless species of animals and plants introduction of renewable energy sources to every village to reduce dependency on depleted forests pollution reduction in Dehra Dun and Nainital - tough fuel emission standards, reduction of motor vehicle presence halt to illegal and substandard building in the hills - renewal of traditional earthquake and avalanche-proof construction methods halt to blasting for mining and road construction - exploration of other means to develop infrastructure complete ban on disposable plastic products - hazardous and unnecessary symbols of perverse status-conscious consumerism, should be part of India-wide drive to return to jute, hemp, and other natural fabrics possibly declaring entire Uttarakhand state a biopreserve to ward of further degradation and begin the arduous process of salvaging the mountains stringent requirements on pilgrims - those that consider the Himalayas the abode of gods should treat them as such

TOWARDS A NEW UTTARAKHAND Finally, what has been proposed here represents only one more contribution to the growing body of literature pointing to the same pressing needs, and proposing some of the same solutions. Uttarakhand must not shy away from what skeptics and experts would consider "impossible", "impractical", or "politically unfeasible". India has endured 50 years of the "possible", with only a ravaged environment, violent polity, and disintegrating society to show for it. We must not be afraid to rethink old ideas and ideologies, discard those that have met with abject failure, and pursue those that hold the most promise. By learning from the experience of various social movements, of which Uttarakhand is especially famous for, we will not need to seek far for our answers. Furthermore, people-centered development should not remain mere rhetoric, propounded upon, but rarely enacted by state agencies. It has to lead to the very real empowerment of the people to determine their own future. The role of any new governing structure would be to serve the people in this endeavor, not to rule them or keep them in line, but to marshal the resources of the state, as no single individual can, towards the betterment of society as a whole, and as the people see fit. Only then, can we truly see a "government of the people, for the people, and by the people". Uttarakhand must chart a new course, drawing upon her best traditions and the love of her sons and daughters, near and far. With a new state as a first step towards realizing the long cherished goals of self-governance and self-determination, a new Uttarakhand may hold the fate of India in her hands. If Uttarakhand fails, and becomes just another impoverished, corrupted, strife-torn state like Uttar Pradesh, the prospects for India's future could be irreparably diminished. If Uttarakhand emerges as an activist state, where the people are united and empowered, then the Himalayas will awaken to a new hope, showing the way for the rest of the country. LITERATURE CITED
Aryal, M. 1994a. "Axing Chipko" Himal January/February, pp. 8-23. Aryal, M. 1994b. "Angry Hills: An Uttarakhand State of Mind" Himal November/December, pp. 10-21.

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Bhatt, K.N. 1997. Uttarakhand : Ecology, Economy, and Society. Allahabad: Horizon Publishers. Chandola, H. 1996. "What kind of Uttarakhand?" In: Uttarakhand in Turmoil (Nautiyal, R.R., Nautiyal, A., eds.) New Delhi: MD Publications, 1996. Guha, R. 1990. The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya. Berkeley: University of California Press. Husain, Z. 1995. Uttarakhand movement : the politics of identity and frustration, a psycho-analytical study of the separate state movement, 1815-1995. Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1995. Jardhari, V., Kothari, A. 1997. Conserving Agricultural Biodiversity: The Case of Tehri Garhwal and Implications for National Policy. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre (http://www.idrc.ca/books/focus/833/jardhari.html). Karan, P.P. 1994. "Environmental Movements in India" Geological Review 84(1), pp. 32-41. McMichael, P. 1996. Development and Social Change: a global perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Norberg-Hodge, H. 1991. Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh. Washington D.C.: Sierra Books. Pande, P.N. 1996. Drudgery of the Hill Women. New Delhi: Indus Publishers. Ramakrishnan, V. 1994. "For a brave new world: Why the people want Uttarakhand" Frontline October 7, pp. 13-15. Shah, S.L. 1986. Planning and Management of Natural and Human Resources in the Mountains: A Micro Level Approach with Special Reference to the Central Himalaya. New Delhi: Yatan Publishing. Swami, P. 1995. "Blundering Progress: The Tehri project and growing fears" Frontline June 30, pp. 6064. About the Author... The author was born in Dehra Dun, but immigrated with his family to Canada in 1975. As a social justice and environmental activist at Cornell University, the author worked on several student causes. Since graduating, he has endeavoured on issues particular to India and Uttarakhand, as well as the global AIDS epidemic at his present workplace, the Harvard AIDS Institute. The author currently works and lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and manages an Uttarakhand website at: http://www.uttarakhand.org/.

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THE TRUE MEANING OF UTTARANCHAL

October 23, 1998

The politics of the Udham Singh Nagar issue have dismayed many hill people, who see it as a harbinger of things to come. Already, the State Reorganization Bill has met with deep disappointment and disillusionment, as the 26 ammendments proposed by the UP state government have been seen to effectively guarantee Uttar Pradesh's continued stranglehold on the resources, judiciary, and administration of the new state. Even the rechristening of the name - from "Uttarakhand", which has historical, cultural, and even religious significance, to "Uttaranchal", which belongs to a single particular party's electoral platform alone and has only recently been artificially contrived, has revealed to Uttarakhandis the ominous processes presently at work. Indeed, it is this renaming that is most telling of the present government's designs on Uttarakhand's future. Just as Jharkhand was renamed "Vananchal" by the Agenda for National Governance, so was Uttarakhand designated as Uttaranchal. Ostensibly, this was to signify the particular ideological bent of the BJP that came around to upholding in the late 1980s the creation of new states as a quick fix to administrative problems and ethnic grievances. Before then, the BJP was quite hostile to the idea of loosening the stifling bonds of Indian union, although the BJP was not alone in this. For years Congress had followed the same policy, alienating region after region, until guerrilla or separatist struggles erupted. Major left parties like CPM clung to this view as well, as seen by their hostility to any kind of separate state movement. The suffix "-anchal", it was argued, meant "integral part" while "-khand" meant separate region, and separatism could not be tolerated at all costs. As such, states, new and old, were to be considered integrated parts of the Indian union. However, this also meant that states were not distinct entities on their own, but only administrative units. In a sense, this usurped the national aspirations of people who wanted to affirm and develop their ancient identities. Everyone was to be homogenized and assimilated into the "Indian" continuum, no matter what their language, religion, or ethnicity. Everyone would wear Salwar Kameezes or Western Business attire and watch Bollywood films. Ironically, this bid to replace regional cultures with a national one, follows closely on the heals of the blind impulse to Westernize and globalize, both of which threaten to displace all the world's cultures with nihilistic materialism and frantic consumerism. As can be seen in the various national movements still fighting for their rights throughout India, this ideology has had few takers. The particular problem of this grand plan for national unification is that various peoples will always draw different ends of the stick -- those that are already dispossessed and impoverished are forced hardest to assimilate, to forget their culture, language, and place of birth, and to head out into the vast desperate masses of Indians looking for work or other such hustles to get by in the urban shanties. The Paharis who work as menials and domestics in the upper-middle class homes of Delhi's urban elite are a clear example of this. Ethnic minorities, already at a linguistic disadvantage, are the most readily taken advantage of by other Indians who think little of exploiting their simple and gullible countrymates. Therefore, the powers that be should take a hard look at their attempts at cultural engineering, and give the diverse people of India their proper due. The Indian union cannot be held together by force, or by trampling on her various ancient cultures. It can only exist as

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a free association of peoples, who feel safe and secure in their various identities and have an equal say in the affairs of their nation. Uttarakhand is part of this fabric, but is also distinct; Uttarakhand represents the people, and will always be UTTARAKHAND.

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REMEMBRANCE
October 2, 1998 "..the pre-dawn hours of 2 October were a nightmare for the Garhwali activists, most of them still asleep in their seats. 'Hell broke lose at 5:30 am,' wrote one reporter who was present. The police, members of the infamous Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), chased the Garhwalis towards the sugarcane fields, using tear gas and batons, shooting randomly and molesting women. A kilometre stretch of the road was said to be splattered with blood and broken glass..." - Himal Magazine, Nov/Dec 1994, p. 14 Four years ago today, on Gandhi Jayanti, the Uttarakhand movement reached its most bloody and desperate phase. As thousands of Garhwali and Kumaoni activists converged on Delhi for a rally, the state government sent the police to block their way. "As our buses reached the area, we found the road blocked by trucks loaded with coal," said women activists of the incident, "there was no space for us to squeeze past. The PAC broke the headlights of our buses so we could not see... by 5 a.m., water tankers had reached the spot to clean the road of the blood stains." The police not only fired on unarmed travelers, but pulled women out of buses and raped them. As news of this reached the hills, Uttarakhand exploded, for this, coming on the 125th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi was the most tragic of ironies, as the Indian state showed its brutal face to the most peaceful and loyal of its people. "As the news of the massacre spread into the hills, angry groups stormed Police Stations and came out onto the streets," wrote a Hindustan Times journalist, "with reports of missing women and girls streaming in, even the old and the infirm wanted to know: Why?"! To this day, we still wonder why, and tears and anguished feelings well up inside our hearts when we remember that terrible day. Even before that, the movement had lost dozens of martyrs, as the brutal insensitivity of the state swung into action, killing even children who raised their voices for a better tomorrow.! Even as the full details of the horrid atrocity emerged, the state continued to deny and coverup its actions. "For those who went through the Muzaffarnagar ordeal, the story is one of trauma," wrote a journalist of India Today. "The state government claims that statements made by the alleged rape victims did not prove that rapes had taken place. This has flared up tempers. One of the rape victims, Sneha Kumari, 39, told India Today: 'It takes a lot for a woman to admit that she has been beaten in her private parts with a rifle butt, abused in the worst way and then gangraped by three PAC constables. But I did. I told them the truth.'"! Today, as we stand verged upon fullfilling, if in part, the dreams of these activists, we must pause to remember our martyrs who died so that the Himalayas could live again. We owe them a better future for Uttarakhand, that it prove different than business as usual, that it express the people's will, and that for all who now suffer, and all her sons and daughters lost in the plains, it provide the hope of a new dawn and a new beginning, and maybe then, we can all go back home again.!

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LANDSLIDES: AN ENVIRONMENTAL TRAGEDY

August 25, 1998 In the latter half of August, 1998, severe rains lashed the Himalayas, causing devastating in their wake. On August 14, 69 people died in a landslide in Okhimath block (near Gutpkashi). A week later, the entire village of Malpa, lying along the Kali river on the way from Dharchula to Lipu Lekh, was swept away. The death toll, 205, included road workers, porters, members of the border police, and five dozen pilgrims returning from a yatra (pilgrimage) to Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar in Tibet (August 18). Two dozen more people died when Mansuna village in Rudraprayag district also disappeared (August 19). In addition, hundreds of homes and infrastructure were demolished by the torrential rains and intense winds, that had also hampered rescue efforts. By August 20, the authorities began evacuating 50,000 residents of the Okhimath block, as rubble, debris, and boulders had fallen into the Madmaheshwar river, a tributary of the Mandakini, plugging it and causing the formation of an artificial lake. As the lake swelled, so did the danger, as a flash flood would submerge two dozen villages. The army cautioned against blasting the artificial dam with dynamite, as the sudden discharge would overwhelm the villages below. Instead, the lake was left to erode naturally. Also, local villagers and social activists went on search and rescue expeditions, while various NGOs scrambled to attend to the needy. In Dehra Dun and other large cities, generous people rallied to send aid to the victims of the landslides and flooding that had afflicted the plains. The death toll due to landslides had surpassed the past record and followed a very intense winter and hot summer in the hills. The extreme weather fluctuations, probably due to El Nino-related disturbances, combined with possible global warming-induced climate extremes to aggravate the situation. These recent landslides served to remind us that ecologically, the Himalayas are dying the death of a thousand clearcuts. Recurring landslides have afflicted the Uttarakhand Himalayas for decades now, engraved in the memories of the survivors who lost loved ones, homes, and livelihoods. Apart from whole villages like Malpa and Mansuna swept away by the flood waters and cloud bursts, life for the rest of the people have become more and more tenuous with the environmental deterioration of the Himalayas. Large-scale deforestation, largely attributable to outside commercial contractors, have ravaged the hills. The people's forest rights, increasingly curtailed since British times, have diminished as the forests have declined. For locals, the forests had not only borne a steady supply of fuel wood, but also retained moisture in the soil, without which, precious fresh water springs would dry up (as they are throughout the hills). What little forest left to the local people, has been stressed beyond the breaking point. Furthermore, the deforestation has led to soil erosion and lowered water retention. The effect of this proved catastrophic as so dramatically demonstrated this August. Indeed, the Chipko movement was motivated in large part by the tragedies of landslides that had by the 70s become an ominous threat to the difficult hill life of Uttarakhandis. In its most philosophical phase, the movement linked all these issues together, bringing village common

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sense and ecological awareness in conflict with the supposedly "scientific" and "forwardlooking" plans of the government and big business. Unfortunately, the struggle to change the outlook of the leaders of the nation continues. Today, by almost anyone's estimate, the development paradigm followed by governments in India have worsened the situation, being the chief consumer of the forests and despoiler of the hillsides. A recent editorial in the Times of India (August 20) lambasted successive state and central government policies that have undermined the fragile Himalayan ecosystem and geology. The pillage of the forest, coupled with neglect for the Himalayas, have done their part to intensify the destructive forces of nature. Incidently, the editorial also remarked cynically that the government only responded to this August's landslides with a flurry of activity because prominent VIPs were among the pilgrims that were lost near Malpa. India Today has already published a list of pilgrims feared dead. It goes without saying that a similar list of Uttarakhandi villagers or workers that died will probably not appear in the press. The heavy rains this year have caused havoc throughout Asia, as seen in China, where the Yangtze floods have been the worst in over 30 years. There too, heavy deforestation all along the river banks has allowed water to flow unhindered, sweeping all before it. Three thousand people have died there, and millions have been left homeless. The national emergency in China has been so severe that hundreds of thousands of troops have been mobilized to hold back the raging rivers. The Chinese government has also proclaimed a change in policy, as the previous habits of corruption and reckless ecological destruction had proved a catastrophic failure. Furthermore, the crisis in Bangladesh is at its most severe in living memory, with over 60% of the country under water. Much of the flooding has been caused by the overcharged rivers flowing from the denuded Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. The floods have swamped 30 million people, destroyed millions of dollars in crop land, carried off livestock, and caused enormous damage to the country's infrastructure. The staggering tragedy is matched only by the human folly, that could not, despite all the warnings, avoid this catastrophe. It is possibly only a matter of time before the Ganga similarly rages through the plains of India. Indeed, a thousand people have already lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands made homeless by floods in UP and West Bengal. The same corruption that afflicted the dykes and dams of China, the cheap material and shoddy workmanship that allowed them crumble against the weight of flood waters, afflicts most of the development projects in India. Indeed, the Tehri Dam, under construction for at least 30 years, has been a bonanza for contractors, while ruinous to the immediate area. As such, the country is possibly verged on a Himalayan disaster, one that will need Himalayan solutions to prevent.

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INDIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY: A NEW BEGINNING

August 15, 1998 "Let us establish that now, Uttarakhandis will not be known merely for their honesty, loyalty and servitude, but they will also be remembered in the struggle for a better India, and a better Uttarakhand." - P.C. Tiwari Uttarakhand Sangarsh Vahini, 1987 "The eight hill districts of Uttar Pradesh state that make up Kumaon and Garhwal have always made news quite disproportionate to their size and population. More than elsewhere in South Asian hill or plain, Garhwalis and Kumaonis have been fighters for social justice - whether combatting turnof-century feudals to emancipate forced labour, daring the British in pre-Independence times, or fighting government and big business through the Chipko Movement." - Manisha Aryal Himal Magazine, 1994 Indian Independence Day is being celebrated by ex-patriate Indian communities throughout the world including Canada and the US, where sizeable Indian populations now reside. Back in 1947, the small and scattered Indian communities in North America celebrated what they saw as the culmination of their homeland's struggle for freedom. Indeed it was only in 1946 in the US, and later still in Canada, when Indians were reallowed to immigrate to the US, having been barred racially in 1917. In 1965, at the height of the Civil Rights movement, the first non-racist immigration act was passed, followed two years later by Canada's famous (or infamous) immigration point system.! Ironically, among the first Uttarakhandis to travel across the Kalapani to the Western World were the soldiers of the Garhwal Rifles, reaching France in 1914 just in time to prop up the faltering British lines. With one of the highest casualty rates of any regiment in the war, the soldiers sacrificed valiantly for a conflict not of their making, nor one that they could easily understand.! Later, the same regiment would demonstrate high honor by refusing to fire upon civilian demonstrators in Peshawar, 1930. For this, they may have been overlooked for military honors accorded other regiments in World War II, but in disobeying orders, they demonstrated a greater patriotism to the land and people of India. Indeed, Since British times, when the peoples' forest rights were denied, to today, where the liquor menace threatens every village, the people of Uttarakhand have stood up for their rights. In 1906, at Chandrabadni (near Pauri), the people gheraoed the state forestry official. Later as forced labour became more onerous, activists succeeded in getting the policies changed in 1921. In 1930, the Dewan (chief minister) marched on villagers who were peacefully protesting the forest policies of the government, killing dozens of people at a place on the Yamuna called Tilari. Sridev Suman, one of the most respected of Uttarakhand's independence activists of the 1930s and early 40s, fasted unto death against state repression.

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His martyrdom inspired a whole generation of activists that eventually led the independence and peasant movements that toppled the princely state in 1948.! Today, the Uttarakhandi people continue their struggle for justice and survival, their spirit reverberating throughout the Himalayas in the many movements for social change. The Chipko Andolan of the 1970s drew worldwide attention to the plight of the Himalayan forests and her peoples. In the 1990s came the movement for autonomy and statehood, long a dream of the people, but perhaps soon - despite all the hard work, pressures, strains, and frustration - a reality.! Along with these recent developments, the Uttarakhandi people scattered across North America are beginning the long, hard work of forging a new organization to better bring all Uttarakhandis together. As many of us look out from abroad to an India bruised and battered, and an Uttarakhand, impoverished and disintegrating, we must draw on the best traditions of our land and people to renew India and save the Himalayas. On this 51st Independence Day, we can do no less. For a New Uttarakhand, and a New India!

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UTTARANCHAL PLANS HELD UP

August 15, 1998 The BJP-led central government has run into serious problems in attempts to implement their state reorganization plans. The Akali Dal government of Punjab has raised the stakes by threatening to pull out of the coalition government over inclusion of Udham Singh Nagar district. US Nagar is dominated by big, mostly Punjabi, landowners who settled the area after Independence. Once part of the erstwhile Kumaon Commissionery and long held by Kumaoni or Garhwali kings, the land was encroached upon and grabbed wholesale in the last 30 years under various UP governments. The landholdings in this region are also among the largest in UP state, as the newcomers have found various means to circumvent land ceiling laws passed to ensure equitable land distribution.! As UP officialdom has since independence been under the influence of the big landowners, it is these land laws that many of the settlers fear will come into force in a new Uttarakhand state. As such, they are offering stiff resistance to inclusion into Uttaranchal, even at this late stage, after three years of preparation and planning by three central governments and three state administrations. Linguistic and cultural arguments that have been advanced by Akali Dal, Samajwadi Party, and even some segments of the BJP and Congress, are not without merit. However, the desire to stay in UP as opposed to a new hill state, appears contrived for ulterior motives. Although the farmers of the area are largely Sikh, they have even less in common culturally with the adjoining plains than they do with Uttarakhand. Hemkund Sahib, one of the holiest places in Sikhism is near Badrinath. Guru Gobind Singh paid homage to the region in his travels, as did Guru Nanak. Sikhism has always found a safe haven in the hills. Indeed the issues are rather more starkly economic. Apart from the land ceiling laws, and the illegal occupation of land under various fake names by some of the same politicians' friends and family, the landowners who are resisting inclusion of the Terai in Uttaranchal fear that their interests, long the dominant interest in dirty UP politics, will be subject to taxes that they have so far evaded paying. The also possibly fear the coming to power of people they dispossessed, decades ago.! The issues have become confused enough for other parties, keen on capitalizing on the tensions, to jump into the fray, as the momentum for creation of Uttaranchal has evaporated. Parties that had once supported Uttarakhand, including Akali Dal, have now raised the spectre of "Pahari Chauvinism" to a fever pitch. Hopefully calmer heads will prevail, and an amicable agreement reached, otherwise the parties will have inadvertently created another communal division among the people for years to come.!

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UTTARAKHAND SUPPORT COMMITTEE ISSUES CHALLENGE TO POLITICIANS

August 11, 1998

BOSTON: The Uttarakhand Support Committee strongly deplores the recent steps taken by various Indian political parties to derail the process of creating Uttaranchal. The whole controversy surrounding the inclusion of Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar in Uttaranchal has come at such a late stage in the state reorganization process, that the political machinations of various vested interests are self-evident. More distressing, but predictable in politics, is the policy reversals of many of the major parties, as each has attempted to exacerbate communal tensions, baseless allegations, and artificial fears for their own political gain, without regard to the long-term consequences on communal harmony. As such, the Committee calls on all parties to come clean and work for the uplift of all segments of society, without regard to ethnicity, caste, creed, or gender. The Committee also calls on the various interests that are interfering with the work of building Uttarakhand, to stop playing games with people's lives and to unite in common purpose for the welfare of the people and health of the land. The Committee also wishes to express its despair over the lack of understanding of many of the politicians involved in this sordid drama. The true historical context to the battle over the Terai has been relegated to the rear, as issues such as culture and linguistic rights have been deceptively and cynically projected on the current impasse. By creating divisions, where none existed before, the process of carving up vote banks is destroying the fabric of the Indian nation and must stop. Justice can only come by uniting the people, with fairness and honesty as the guiding principles. Indeed, the real issue of the Terai is the issue of land. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, at the invitation of various state governments, migrants from other parts of India settled the region of Nainital district now included in the purview of Udham Singh Nagar. The land rush was accompanied by mass expropriations and the wholesale clearing of lush forest. Huge productive farms came into being, incidentally illegal in nature, as land ceiling laws in place to ensure a modicum of social justice in landownership were circumvented. The original inhabitants, the impoverished Buksha and Tharu peoples were pushed off the land, and in the end, have ended up landless or indentured to the new inhabitants. This state of affairs is known to the big landowners of the Terai, as they realize that once Uttarakhand comes into being, the long suppressed aspirations of the people for social justice will finally be heard. As such, they fear profit losses, although no change in landownership has even been proposed at the current juncture. Indeed, recent proposals by the central government have introduced Article 84 into the Uttaranchal creation bill, effectively freezing land holdings and ensuring the continuance of the landed elite's dominance of Udham Singh Nagar. This is a huge concession, one granted by the central government and not the people. Being essentially an honest and forgiving people, Uttarakhandis will abide this injustice, so long as they are allowed to determine their own future in peace and harmony. However, if their dreams are frustrated by opportunistic elements fighting for short-term political gains and in support of wealthy interests, the Indian political system will stand exposed for what it is for so many: a tool of powerful interests to corrupt, co-opt, or crush the aspirations of marginal people, be they dalits, women, landless peasants, indigenous peoples, or ethnic minorities. As heirs to the British legacy of divide and conquer governance, Indian politicians

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can break from this historical precedence and affirm the rights of India's peoples, in this case, by creating Uttarakhand quickly, otherwise they will have affirmed the worst of what many have suspected all along.

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THE FAILURE OF THE OLD, THE PROMISE OF THE NEW

November 15, 1997 The people of Uttarakhand are known rather patronizingly to many upper class Indians as their loyal Pahari servants, who's honesty, gentleness, and hard work are renowned. Indeed many of the thousands of hill men who have migrated to the plains over the last few decades have ended up as menial servants in wealthy households. Luckier ones have enlisted with the military, the most ready escape from poverty for male youths of the Himalayas. Meanwhile, hill women have had to survive on remittance from their husbands or sons in the plains, while their own backbreaking work has grown heavier with each passing year. Very few have successfully climbed out of poverty without also assimilating into middle class Indian culture. This mass exodus from the Himalayas, where even basic necessities like water and electricity are not met, has taken a heavy toll on Uttarakhandi culture, social structures, and family life. Uttarakhand includes nearly 17.3% of Uttar Pradesh's total land area, but only 4.3% of its population. However, much of Uttarakhand's area is uninhabitable, and most of the residents live in the river valleys, at population densities more intense than that of the plains. As such, it is not hard to imagine that in a political system based on proportional representation, tyranny of the majority would arise. In the case of Uttarakhand, as in Tibet and for American Indians, the struggle over land and resources is a lopsided one, with the native minority community loosing out. The best agricultural land, the Terai tracts of the foothills had been seized by corrupt state officials and migrants from elsewhere. The people and the land, rent by devastating environmental exploitation and economic marginalization, have suffered greatly. Social problems such as alcoholism and suicide have become widespread just as the retreat of the glaciers and forests threaten the Himalayan ecosystem. As the 20th century draws to a close, Uttarakhand, like so many other parts of the Himalayas, faces ecological catastrophe and cultural extinction. However, there is another story to Uttarakhand that parallels her sorrows. A region that has disproportionally given its sons in large numbers to the defense of the country, has for over a century been noted for its active social movements. The Chipko movement was spearheaded by Himalayan women, as were the prohibition and reforestation causes. The hill people have consistent proven their dedication to non-violent activism and courage under fire. The adversity faced by Uttarakhandis every day has perhaps contributed to this willingness to struggle. Having so little to lose, the people continue to stand and fight for their rights. In the last decade, the Pahari people have increasingly agitated for autonomy and selfgovernment. Long disenchanted with the centralization of state power in Delhi and Lucknow, the cry for statehood has echoed through the Himalayas, and the voices have grown louder every year. In 1994, the movement peaked and prompted a violent reaction from the Uttar Pradesh government. Repeated police firings, human rights violations, and state repression as well as internal divisions, politicking, and severe economic repercussions deflected and deflated the movement for a short while, but activists persevered in the hills and cities. Two years later in 1996, then Prime Minister Deve Gowda announced the formation of the 26th state in his Red Fort address. With the BJP-led coalition coming to power in March 1998, the plans for the future state that had stalled under the United Front-led government, have regained momentum, although yet again the effort stalled. The long wait continues.

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Today, even as the state of India's politics have degenerated, the proponents of Uttarakhandi statehood have striven to build an alternative model. In the joint councils and action committees, Pahari activists have drawn from the best traditions of Uttarakhand's numerous social movements. Their desire for full participatory democracy, in contrast to the violent and divisive party politics of the Indian plains, may represent a clear break from business as usual. If successful, the hill state could very well lead India and her disparate peoples out of its current predicament of a fractured and corrupted polity. At the very least, Uttarakhand's political, environmental, and social awareness has resonated throughout the beleaguered Himalayas since Chipko activists went on their Kashmir to Kohima walks in the early 80s. The foes of the Himalayas are however formidable. Not only are the parties from the plains whipping up communalist tensions and jockeying for support in Uttarakhand, but so are the timber, resin, and liquor mafias whose ominous presence continues to plague the hill people. Contractors are already lining up to carve out their share of the future Uttarakhand economy. Fortunately, many activists have foreseen these threats. The convenors of the Uttarakhand Joint Action Committee (Uttarakhand Sanyukta Sangarsh Samiti - USSS) have sought to counteract the influence of national and regional parties by obliging all members to leave their party affiliations behind. For the sake of the Himalayas, many have done so, uniting under one banner that is reflective of the region's traditions of political action. However, endemic political corruption and opportunism, the worsening law and order situation in UP, and the heavy lobbying by the big landowners of the Terai will be daunting obstacles to overcome for architects of any new state. Moreover, Uttarakhand's future direction will very much depend on the hill people building their own alternative models, drawing on her best traditions, and discarding those that have been foist upon the Himalayas from the outside. Most importantly, the construction of a viable alternative to the communalized and corrupted state of affairs prevailing elsewhere in the subcontinent demands that women lead the struggle. Just as women formed the backbone of Chipko, so must they remain at the forefront of the final push for Uttarakhand statehood. The status of women would improve dramatically if women held the balance of power in the new state. Environmental issues would also be brought to the fore, as the hill women have suffered the most over the past four decades from deforestation, soil erosion, and water depletion. If women were relegated to the rear, chances for revolutionary change would also fade, as a new patriarchy, closer to home, would continue the exploitation of the land and forests of Uttarakhand. Since the massacres of 1994, the movement has moved from anger to determined opposition to exploitation. It has put down deep roots that have nurtured the activist spirit in the Himalayan youth. Women have remained at the front, leading commemorative strikes and demonstrations. The disruptive, spontaneous bandhs of the past have given way to planned events that attempt to minimize the impact on the students' studies and the farmers' harvests. The games of the politicians have not fooled the hill people, but only further convinced them to seek a new model. Even now, four years later, the struggle continues. As such, the dream of Uttarakhand, the abode of gods, endures in all the work of countless activists that strive for justice and peace in the Himalayas. From schoolteachers to trade unionists, students to ex-servicemen, village women to university professors, the call is headed in every valley, mountain top, and village. No one person has the same solution to the problems besetting the hills, yet people are working together, disagreeing if need be, but getting the job done. It has often been noted that the hills nurtures in its people a deep spirituality and sense of pride. The Himalayas have also nurtured a stubborn resolve that may one day lead her children to a new promised land.

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THE GUNS OF AUTUMN

October 2, 1997 October 2, 1994, near a town called Muzaffarnagar, in the dry and dusty plains of northern India, Mahatma Gandhi's dream of a free and just nation turned into a terrible nightmare. On the exact day of the 125th anniversary of his birth, the non-violent freedom fighter's country fired on demonstrators, killing an unknown number of unarmed civilians. The police went on a rampage, molesting and raping women activists as they fled the scene of the atrocities. Yet the heirs to independence struggle, wily politicians who had ruled the nation since Gandhi's days, washed their hands clean of the massacre and gave little succor to their fellow Indians. In a cruel irony, a government of free and independent India, supposedly responsive to the people, repeated some of the worst excesses of British imperialism. The victims of this tragedy were a simple folk who lived in the vicinity of Hinduism's holiest peaks and shrines. Uttarakhand, the Himalayan region of India's most populous state, had long been neglected by central and state governments. Indeed, the hills had been severely exploited for its wealth of timber, limestone, and other natural resources, without much regard for the rights of local residents. Just as Gandhi and the founders of modern India had done before, the hill people had come together to demonstrate their right to exist as a people, to breathe the air of freedom, to lift themselves from poverty and desperation, to stop economic and environmental degradation, and to demand self-government. They wanted an end to the region's neo-colonial arrangement with the rest of India, a form of exploitation that has devastated the lives and land of the Indian Himalayas, akin to the colonialism of old. They did not ask for much. They had so little, not even a state to call their own. Despite living in one of the most beautiful and sanctified parts of the country, at the very source of the holy river Ganges, Uttarakhandis remained among the poorest people in the country. As such, both women and men, young and old, converged on the capital, to give voice to their grievances and to plead their case at the feet of Mother India. That so many were stopped so brutally, and women dishonored so violently, speaks to how something had gone terribly wrong with Gandhi's India. It was during the height of the liberation movement that an Uttarakhandi battalion shook the very foundations of the British Raj by refusing to fire on unarmed demonstrators. That a state government of modern India could not spare their descendants from the bloodshed of state repression, stands out as an appalling affront to the memory of such a patriotic people. Uttarakhand's sons and daughters have consistently proven themselves to be among the most loyal and selfless citizens of their nation. Contributing perhaps the most men of any region to India's armed forces, Uttarakhand's sons have shared in many of modern India's greatest victories and suffered through her most ignominious defeats. Just as they had sacrificed their lives for the British in the terrible years of the Great War, Uttarakhandis fought bravely in all of India's wars subsequent to independence. Garhwali and Kumaoni troops have held onto their reputations as gentle soldiers aroused steadfastly to acts of extraordinary heroism. The women of Uttarakhand have through the decades suffered even more, but in their sorrow, had found new means to fight the system. It is they who fought the battles in behalf of the Himalayas' fragile ecosystem. By risking their lives for the trees, they bolstered a worldwide environmental movement, still in its infancy, by the example of their sheer determination and fearlessness. The wretched of the earth had proven themselves equal to the masters and their machines.

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The betrayal of these loyal hill people runs as deep as the giant clear-cuts and strip mines that have rent the Himalayas. Left to die by the thousands in the India-China war, ordered to clear militants from the Golden Temple in an inglorious operation, discriminated against by plains people, their forests pillaged by commercial contractors, and plight ignored by venal and corrupt politicians has worn the legendary patience of these highlanders. Year after year, they have pressed their case for economic and social justice through non-violent means. Year after year, they have been ignored and defrauded of their birthright. While conditions worsened, thousands more have migrated to the plains in search of menial jobs as servants. The hardship and tears of mothers, sisters and daughters, left behind in the villages by their dispirited husbands, brothers, and sons, have grown heavier with every passing monsoon. Just as gentle Parvati's despair climaxed in the birth of the fierce warrior goddess Durga, so may the suffering of Uttarakhand burst like a torrent across the plains of India. The Tehri Dam, now being built over the protest of Uttarakhandis, would unleash a tidal wave that would flood the plains, if ever shaken to its foundations by an earthquake. The politicians have made their decision to side with political expedience and power. It is up to us to side with the Himalayas and their people. And the struggle continues as it always has...

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