WE need to review our policy if current development models are aggravating these issues. The Himalayas’ situation is a warning bell.” Concerned about environmental degradation, the speaker linked this to “faulty global development models and materialist and consumerist approaches”. These strong words, opposing government policies like broadening roads in the Himalayas to promote development, are not those of a leftist, “urban Naxal”, or an NGO-affiliated environmental activist. Instead, they come from the very powerful head of the RSS!
Meanwhile, a group of respected people, including ecological experts (and a very senior member of the ruling party) have requested the Supreme Court to review its decision permitting broadening of key highways in the Himalayas. This decision had come despite many top experts pointing to the dangers of such broadening (by mountain/rock cutting and deforestation) in the context of the well-established fragility of the Himalayan ecosystem. They had cautioned about this causing landslides and floods, especially with the increasing intensity of extreme weather events, like exceptionally heavy rainfall. All this was overruled on grounds of “security needs”, though the main driver may well have been the promotion of pilgrimages through a vanity project (the Char Dham highway). Now, with roads blocked (or washed away), neither military equipment nor pilgrims are going anywhere.
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WE need to review our policy if current development models are aggravating these issues. The Himalayas’ situation is a warning bell.” Concerned about environmental degradation, the speaker linked this to “faulty global development models and materialist and consumerist approaches”. These strong words, opposing government policies like broadening roads in the Himalayas to promote development, are not those of a leftist, “urban Naxal”, or an NGO-affiliated environmental activist. Instead, they come from the very powerful head of the RSS!