Turn on any television channel and you
will think that India is going through bipolar national elections. It is like a
boxing match, being fought in proxy. In one corner is one man, Narendra
Modi, ably represented by whoever his spokesperson is in the studio that
evening. In the other corner is the Gandhi family, again represented by an
articulate spokesperson.
Somewhere the richness and colour of the
regional parties that became the integral part of Indian polity since 1996
seems to be missing in the predominant media representation of these elections.
Conspicuous by their near-absence in the media coverage in this year’s
elections are dramatis personae such
as Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mayawati, Nitish Kumar, Navin Patnaik, M. Karunanidhi,
etc. Mamata Banerjee, Chandrababu Naidu and Omar Abdullah make occasional
appearance.
Cut back to the period between 1995 and 1998, when the country was preparing for the 1996 general elections and also when the United Front Government faced many trust motions in Parliament. The television screens were full of leaders from regional political parties.
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Plantations such as this cardamom estate in Idukki district have been in the eye of a political storm in the recent months [Pic: Varun Warrier] |
A trend towards bipolarity has its
implications for environmental decisions in an ecosystem-diverse country like
India. Take for instance the case of the mid-altitude plateaus of Kerala,
represented by Idukki and Wayanad districts, which have been in the news during
the run-up to these elections. At an average altitude between 800 and 1000
metres, these plateaus were malaria-prone regions. As with the Gudalur plateau in
Tamil Nadu contiguous to Wayanad, these plateaus were only sparsely populated
till the 1940s. The influx of settlers came when there was effective medical
cure for malaria (1).
Those who initially went to settle in
these plateaus were from communities that were landless and had the daring to
go to dangerous terrains. While the landed gentry stayed back in the plains,
and boasted about temple festivals and caparisoned elephants, the landless
settlers braved the wild elephant herds and cultivated every inch of land they
could lay their hands on. The women tended the farms, protected the children
from wild animals while the men trekked for days to the nearest market town to
sell what the family produced.
When this settler community gets slapped
with orders emerging from the Kasturirangan Committee limiting their
activities, it protests (2). While one can argue on the conservation versus livelihoods debate,
the fact remains that if a representative has to take these issues effectively
to the Parliament it has to be someone who is from the region and knows its
history and ecology. He or she needs a political agenda that is tailor-made to
represent the interests of the region, and not one that has been averaged out
for the entire country. And this is where regional parties score over omnibus
national parties.
The 1996 general elections and the years
of the United Front Government was the period when regionalism and federalism
bloomed in the country. By this time the results from two socio-economic processes
initiated between 1989 and 1991 were maturing. As part of the economic
liberalisation there was a focus on the middle class as a consumer base for the
goods and services. This created a new kind of economic aspiration for a wider
group of people. This bolstered the aspirations for development and growth from
caste and region-based consolidations that were born after the implementation
of the Mandal Committee report in 1989 (3).
Happening in parallel with this was a
coming together of local environmental movements to demand greater
accountability from the electoral candidates in select constituencies. A group
of organisations, led by Narmada Bachao Andolan, established the National Alliance
of People’s Movement (NAPM), with an aim of bringing people’s issues into the
agenda of the 1996 elections (4). Similarly, another group of environmental organisations formed a
network called the Jan Vikas Andolan to publicly question candidates on their
environmental concerns (5).
However, it is not the case that regional
parties are more environment friendly than the national ones. In fact, the
trend in the mid 1990s was that each of the regional parties was pushing for
development projects in their regions, oftentimes unmindful of incorporating
environmental safeguards.
The difference is that the feedback loops
between the people and the policymakers are shorter with regional parties. So
when people ask for development or conservation that is location or
ecosystem-specific they can communicate and get action for their needs quickly
and effectively. The accountability for the policy maker becomes that much
sharper. For instance, Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam party, who
focussed on the urban areas at the cost of the larger rural population, has had
to sit out for a decade.
At a local level, the perceived dichotomy
between development and conservation also disappears. For the
demarcation of the ecologically sensitive area (ESA) the Western Ghats Ecology
Expert Panel (Madhav Gadgil Committee) had recommended consultations through
the local bodies under the Panchayats and Biodiversity Acts (6). The High Level Working Group on Western Ghats (Kasturirangan
Committee), which was tasked to work out the modalities for implementing the
earlier committee’s recommendations, overlooked this and went through marking
the ESAs using satellite imagery (7). And this is causing the controversy in the hill districts.
So much so that the Ministry of
Environment and Forests (MoEF) had to make amendments to its 13 October 2013
notification, accepting the recommendations of the Kasturirangan Committee that
declared 37% area of the Western Ghats as an ESA where development activities
are restricted.
Through an office memorandum dated 20
December 2013, MoEF stated that the boundary of the ESA and the regulatory
regime would be finalised after obtaining the views of the stakeholders and
state governments. MoEF assured that the recommendations will not cause
restrictions to any normal activities related to plantations and agriculture; and
that the restrictions listed in the notification will apply only to new and
expansion projects, and not to the existing ones.
The Kasturirangan Committee reportedly used
higher resolution satellite imagery than the Gadgil Committee while demarcating
the ESA. However, technical minutiae cannot replace a broad-based democratic
process that would have been more acceptable to the people on the ground.
So when the media represents these
elections as bipolar, what is being lost is the space that accommodates the
various nuances of development and environment discussions in the country.
It could be possible that the media is
reading the situation wrong or over-presenting bipolarity. In the theatre of
talk shows and televised shouting matches, bipolarity adds drama.
There is reality and there is the media’s
perception of the reality. The country today has access only to the media’s
perception of reality. Will the real picture be as bipolar as what is being
made out will be clear on May 16.
_______________________
1. Adams
T. Gudalur: A community at the crossroads. In: Hockings P, editor. Blue
Mountains: The ethnography and biogeography of a South Indian region: Oxford
University Press; 1989.
2. Rajagopal
K. Ghats row and its aftermath. The Hindu. 20 March 2014.
3. Ramakrishnan
V, Singh SR. Vital pieces of a jigsaw. Frontline. 16 April 2014.
4. Warrier
SG. The centre will hold. The Hindu Business Line. 26 February 1996.
5. Warrier
SG. Eco issues may feature in select LS campaigns. The Hindu Business
Line. 27 March 1996.
6. Report
of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel. Ministry of Environment and Forests,
Government of India; 2011.
7. Report
of the High Level Working Group on Western Ghats. Ministry of Environment and
Forests, Government of India; 2013.
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