10

ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE

Mahesh N. Buch

When Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister, a cholera epidemic swept through some of the jhuggi-jhonpdi (slum settlement) rehabilitation project areas, especially in East Delhi. The epidemic was traced to contaminated water from shallow tube wells through which water was supplied to these colonies. The cause of contamination was sewage generated by these colonies, where there was no arrangement for its disposal resulting in the pollution of groundwater. Obviously, people living in the area had no concept of what happens to water supply if the source is exposed to sewage, which means that they have forgotten whatever knowledge they have of the cause and effect relationship of pollution and purity of water.

However, a villager in India knows that it is wrong to defecate near a well from which the village draws its drinking water. In the hills, every villager knows that the spring which supplies him water to drink must be protected and kept clean, which is why very often such springs are given some holy sanctity and have a shrine built next to them. The only time villagers will drink dirty water, is when every other source has dried up and they have no option but to drink from where their animals drink. Even here, as far as possible, the villagers try and filter the water through layers of thick cloth or by the two-pot method, whereby water is stored in an upper receptacle and trickles into the lower receptacle through a process of filtration. But first and foremost, the villager tries to protect his drinking water source.

One major difference between an urban and rural landscape in India is garbage and drainage. In a rural environment, sullage water from the house is generally used for irrigating the house-site kitchen garden, and one rarely finds dirty water flowing through drains and collecting in puddles as one finds in an urban slum. Because there is very little asphalt and concrete in a village, the surplus waste water is absorbed by the ground. In an urban area, however, unless there is a proper drainage system, sullage and other waste water accumulates and pollutes the entire environment. The hallmark of every slum in India is an improperly channeled drain with stagnant pools of water covered with scum, which provides a fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes, flies and other insect pests that spread disease. In a village, on the other hand, solid waste tends to be largely organic and immediately goes into a manure pit or on a garbage heap, in which it biologically degrades through aerobic and anaerobic bacterial action into sterile, nutritious manure used in the fields. Even cattle dung is collected as fuel and as manure. However, in the best of urban areas one now finds not only garbage strewn all over the street, putrefying and stinking slowly, but also a blight of plastic bags, etc. There is no culture of separating biodegradable organic material from non-degradable material such as glass, metal and plastic, or of disposing of garbage in designated places from where the municipality can lift it. Such collection points which exist are very insanitary because the garbage is exposed and scattered. Stray dogs seeking food, rag-pickers collecting usable material, people dumping garbage around the containers rather than inside them, and the conservancy staff never fully cleaning up the collection areas, but leaving the detritus after they have collected the major part of the garbage are common sights in India. No city in India now presents a look of cleanliness because in no city is there really an efficient system of garbage disposal.

I began this essay by referring to the two simplest forms of environmental degradation—lack of pure drinking water and the unsatisfactory disposal of liquid and solid waste of an organic nature. These are the two issues which affect the lives of every single citizen—young and old—and even in the most primitive society, which had no industrial pollution, they posed a major health hazard. Perhaps the most common of all diseases in India are gastrointestinal in nature, which can be directly traced to polluted water supply. The sum total of human activity, however, is much larger and wider than just water supply and waste disposal. Let us begin from the relatively simple function of agricultural production. In terms of crops, this can be divided into cereals, which are eaten for sustenance, pulses and oil-seeds, which provide a major part of nutrition and horticultural plants, which are eaten and provide vitamins, minerals and proteins. Agricultural produce forms the base for agro-industry providing the raw material for manufacture by being processed into something entirely different, such as cotton into cloth. Agricultural produce is used as animal feed and crops, which together with forest produce, protect and enhance the quality of the soil, water, etc. Taken as a whole, agriculture and allied activities together constitute a very complex system of human activity which, because it deals with land and has to follow the cycles of nature, has the constant capacity to rejuvenate itself and to give back to the soil all that it has taken from it.

The traditional system of crop rotation between cereals, pulses and letting the land lie fallow for a period ensured that crops which exhaust the land are followed by crops which fix nitrogen and restore soil fertility. Fallow land grows grass which domestic animals eat and in turn give to society milk, meat and hides. Their dung fertilises the land so that when, after a cycle the fallow land is brought under the plough, it has high productivity. When such agriculture is matched by proper management of the village commons, including the village forest, both soil and water are protected and there is no shortage of water in that particular micro watershed. If the village follows a sensible policy of recycling waste by conversion to manure in compost pits and vermiculture pits, the village would have sufficient organic fertilisers available to enrich the fields of the entire village. So long as this rational and environment-friendly approach to agriculture is adopted the quality of rural life remains of a high order. There is enough water to drink and to irrigate the fields, enough food to eat, a sufficiency of cash crops to sell in order to raise money and enhance incomes, animal husbandry is practised scientifically, and the natural resources of the village are not depleted. To maintain this quality of life, there has to be environmental consciousness in the village and an understanding of the interaction of different elements which together constitute the environment so that the balance of nature is not disturbed.

Unfortunately, however, in the name of technological improvement we have developed an almost unerring instinct to interfere with nature. Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh that lie in the Indo-Gangetic plains have rivers, which are snow-fed and, therefore, contain water in the summer, and have regular aquifers which are naturally recharged and contain plenty of groundwater. These areas witnessed the Green Revolution based on a two-crop system of irrigated agriculture. Other states tried to emulate what went on in the northern Indo-Gangetic plains, and tube wells were sunk everywhere. Now it is a well-known fact that in much of peninsular India, we do not have large aquifers and tube wells tap only the stored fossil water. Since such pockets are difficult to recharge, overdrawing soon causes immense draw-down of the water table and the tube wells soon run dry. In Saurashtra region of Gujarat, which has very little rainfall and no aquifers worth the name, the government encouraged farmers to dig tube wells. Unlike the shallow tube wells of the northern plains, many of the tube wells of peninsular India tend to be deep wells. The net result has been that as the water table fell and farmers tried to pump water from even greater depths, especially in the coastal areas, sea water inundated the tube wells, and they now contain brackish water. For example, in the entire belt from Veraval to Porbandar the tube wells contain brackish water. The entire coastal belt has been rendered infertile because of water and soil salinity.

Nature had created a system of agriculture in Saurashtra which was largely kharif, or monsoon-based. Irrigation was from open wells with animal power, which meant that only that much of water was lifted as was within the recharge capability of the well. These patches of irrigated land, called wadis, grew rabi crops such as wheat and gram, some sugarcane and vegetables throughout the year. They did not represent continuous stretches of irrigated plains, but they did provide farmers with additional crops on one to five acres of land, ensured that the water table did not decline because there was no overdrawing and created patches of green in an otherwise drab landscape. The attempt to emulate the Green Revolution of the northern plains had brought some immediate prosperity, but as the tube wells dried up, it brought great hardship to the people whose quality of life declined as the water receded and drought overtook the land. This is a glaring example of how interference with nature without understanding all the consequences of trying to change an age-old system of agriculture and irrigation has created a man-made disaster.

Three things that nurture life are water, air and food. There can be no quality of life if life itself ceases. Air can be polluted but unless one is trapped in a vacuum chamber, it is very rare indeed that no air is available to breathe. Food substitutes can be found. Water, however, is the only element which can disappear totally through drought, and if there is no water, there is only death. Even in a desert, it is water that gives life as so aptly described by Sir Winston Churchill in his book, The River War, when talking of the Nile as the lifeline of both Sudan and Egypt:

Through the desert flows the river—a thread of blue silk drawn across an enormous brown drugget; and even this thread is brown for half the year. Where the water laps the sand and soaks into the banks there occurs an avenue of vegetation which seems very beautiful and luxuriant by contrast with what lies beyond. The Nile, through all the 3,000 miles of its course vital to everything that lives besides it, is never so precious as here. The traveller clings to the strong river as to an old friend, staunch in the hour of need … All who journey on the Nile, whether in commerce or war, will pay their tribute of respect and gratitude; for the great river has befriended all races and every age. Through all the centuries it has performed the annual miracle of its flood but all who have drunk deeply of its soft yet fateful waters—fateful since they gave both life and death—will understand why the old Egyptians worshipped the river, nor will they even in modem days easily dissociate from their minds a feeling of mystic reverence.

As is with the Nile, so is with the Ganga, Godavari and the Narmada. All are products of watersheds forming a part of the human psyche of India in which the life-giving qualities of rivers are part of both our scriptures and of our more mundane everyday living. Water, then, is a function of both precipitation and a state of watersheds. In India, we have long recognised the value of the Himalayan watersheds, from which flow the Bhagirathi, the Yamuna, the Brahmaputra and the other Himalayan rivers which form part of the Indo-Gangetic system. These are snow-fed rivers which will have water as the snow melts in the summer. Forests here are important because they moderate the floods. Nevertheless, the snow-fed rivers will survive even in the absence of forests. What we forgot is that there is another part of India which also has great watersheds, from which emanate rivers which are no less sacred or important than the Ganga. Plateau India gives rise to rivers such as the Narmada, Tapti, Godavari, Mahanadi and Cauvery. The mountain ranges from which these rivers emerge—the Western and Eastern Ghats, the Aravallis, the Vindhyas, Satpura and Nilgiris—have no snow. These rivers are entirely rain-fed and their post-monsoon flow is dependent on whatever subsoil moisture has accumulated during the rains, which subsequently flows into the river through springs and natural seepage. The survival of these rivers is almost entirely dependent on the capacity of the soil to absorb a substantial proportion of the monsoon runoff because it is only percolated water which keeps the peninsular rivers in flow. The health of the peninsular watersheds determines whether these rivers will survive or not.

We are acutely aware of the need to keep the peninsular rivers in good health. The answer, which we are seeking to ensure that there is water in these rivers, is entirely engineering-based and predicates a transfer of water from the Ganga basin into the rivers of peninsular India. The environmental and ecological havoc that this will play in the deltas and estuaries of the north Indian rivers has never been considered. As flow is diverted from the Ganga and its tributaries into the peninsular rivers the entire mouth of the Ganga will silt up and the ecology of the region would alter. In any case, the engineering solution is extremely expensive. A far more environment-friendly and much more economical method of reviving the rivers of the peninsula is the revival, improvement and enhancement of the watersheds from which these rivers flow. One of the main reasons why these rivers contain less water than they did is that massive deforestation has caused the watersheds to be so denuded that percolation is severely reduced and much of the precipitation just flows over the surface and is lost. If we want the quality of life to improve in India, south of the Yamuna, we have to restore the watershed forests so that (i) the rivers run full of water throughout the year (ii) groundwater levels rise because of recharge through percolation (iii) soil erosion is drastically reduced so that the plains retain their fertility (iv) the resurgent forests provide a habitat for wildlife, nutritious fodder for cattle, fuel and timber for villagers, and employment for the forest dwellers through silviculture operations. Mere revival of the forests will dramatically ensure the quality of life of much of rural India and eliminate the spectre of drought.

Another issue which should cause us great concern is the manner in which we pollute our waterways and water bodies. There is not a single lake, rivulet or river in the whole of India—except the very remote ones in distant hills—which has remained unpolluted through human activity. The main pollutant is sewage and garbage, but there is substantial pollution now, especially in rural areas, caused by pesticides and chemical fertilisers. This is where two arms of the government often work at cross purpose. The Department of Environment and the Public Health Engineering Department on the one hand try to keep the waterways pollution free. The Agriculture Department, on the other hand, encourages villagers to maximise the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers in order to increase crop production. The department also encourages irrigation, which means that chemical pollutants leach into the soil and through subsoil sources reach the water bodies. An attempt to coordinate the activities of those that encourage the use of chemicals in agriculture and those entrusted with the task of keeping the water bodies clean has never been made.

There is a geometrical progression in the contamination of water bodies and subsoil water as the industry grows. Liberalisation has encouraged the growth of industry, but even in the pre-liberalisation days it was the policy of government to give incentives to industry as was so tragically proved in 1984 in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy case. Industrialisation without environmental safeguards can be even more dangerous than war. Our environment protection laws are weak, and there is virtually no enforcement. Even strong laws fail in the absence of strict enforcement, and weak laws collapse. We talk of the social conscience of industry, but we have never seriously attempted to enforce social accountability with severe penalties for failure of accountability. If man is to survive, if there is to be a healthy environment in India, if we have respect for the quality of life, then environment protection and the enforcement of environmental laws with strictness have to receive the highest priority.

A major environmental hazard which pollutes soil, water and air equally is garbage and the detritus of human activity. In rural areas, organic matter, which constitutes almost the entire sum total of waste in a village, is of value to the cultivator as manure. Garbage is accumulated in heaps, buried in garbage pits or, as should be happening increasingly, treated through vermiculture. One way or the other, garbage and dung are returned to the soil as a nutrient. In urban areas, however, garbage is now a major problem. In residential and commercial areas, because of the inefficiency of municipal conservancy services, garbage has a tendency to accumulate, putrefy, attract flies and other insects, and act as a source of disease. Many of the gastrointestinal diseases in urban areas can be traced directly to rotting garbage. Where garbage is used by the municipality as landfill, it causes soil sickness because if the landfill is not done scientifically, or where garbage contains inorganic matter which is not biodegradable, the landfill area acts as a source of polluting groundwater and spreading disease.

It is not as if India does not have a culture of recycling of waste. Wastepaper sells in the market and is picked up by raddiwallahs. In every country which has any concern for the environment, householders are required to segragate organic from inorganic waste, and items which are non-biodegradable have to be kept separate. Our municipalities must also enforce this in India so that the biodegradable waste goes straight to the municipal trenching ground for conversion to manure and the non- degradable items are recycled to the maximum possible extent. That still leaves the problem of certain plastics which neither degrade nor can be recycled. These should be phased out by law, and till that time we should consider whether they should be transformed into compact pellets and used as landfill in areas where they will not contaminate the soil.

It is in the matter of air pollution, especially in urban areas and in large and industrialised cities, that we face the maximum problem. In India, vehicle emissions are the single-largest source of air pollution in large cities. Thanks to the Supreme Court, Delhi (at least in the matter of commercial vehicles) has been able to enforce the law by which diesel and petrol are substituted by compressed natural gas (CNG) in commercial transport. There had been many problems in enforcement, largely because neither were conversion kits available in sufficient numbers, nor were CNG outlets. These problems have been largely overcome. The time has now come for us to look at solutions other than just CNG. Throughout the West, fuel-efficient engines using lead-free petrol and low-sulphur-content diesel have so reduced the vehicle emissions that even diesel- and petrol-powered vehicles do not pollute. We have to ruthlessly weed out old-technology vehicles and replace them with those that conform to acceptable emission norms. We need to completely remove from the Indian scene those grades of petroleum products that cause pollution, and substitute them by fuels which are more efficient and cleaner.

On the domestic front, we need to bring about a fuel revolution because even now large sections of the poor cook on open fires fuelled by wood or some form of coal fuels that emit a great deal of smoke. Replacement by solar energy, cleaner fuels such as biogas, liquified petroleum gas (LPG) and fossil fuels, rendered efficient by low temperature carbonisation and pelletisation on the pattern of the rural smokeless choolah, are all methods by which we can substantially reduce pollution by the kitchen fire. In the case of industry, there has to be drastic enforcement of law. As things stand today, electricity boards can pollute the atmosphere with carbon monoxide, sulphur and particulate matter from their chimneys, chemical industries can discharge noxious fumes, the aluminium industry can discharge flourine, a highly corrosive gas, and cement plants can cover whole regions with their dust without inviting action. The right to breathe clean air is fundamental and would certainly be covered by Article 21 of the Constitution. It is the duty of the citizens to demand that laws in this regard be enforced vigorously, even ruthlessly.

What does the citizen face? The first thing he faces is his own callousness as manifest in the manner in which almost every single householder throws garbage on the streets. We have to educate people to keep the immediate vicinity of their houses clean, but we also need to severely punish those who will not do their duty. If need be, the municipal laws must be so amended that every householder be made personally responsible for the cleanliness of a designated portion of public area around his house, and in the case of group housing, people should be made collectively responsible for cleanliness of public areas around the group of houses. Any failure would invite penalties which can be imposed summarily. Then we need to educate the municipalities about their duty to maintain cleanliness and ensure efficiency of conservancy services. There is a very famous case of Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh where the Sub-Divisional Magistrate hauled up the municipality under Section 133 Cr.PC. for failure to construct drains to take care of waste water. The case ultimately reached the Supreme Court because the Sessions Court and the High Court ruled in favour of the municipality. In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court directed that constructing drains and keeping an area clean are part of the mandatory duties of a municipality. In Madhya Pradesh under Section 66 (1) (b) and (c) of the M.P Municipal Corporations Act, 1956, it is obligatory for the municipality to ensure cleanliness, remove night-soil and rubbish, maintain sewage lines and drains, and adequately keep public places clean. The Supreme Court held that no excuse, including lack of funds, could be pleaded by a municipality to justify the non-performance of its obligatory functions. There must be a provision under law to punish a municipality which does not ensure cleanliness.

Our environment protection laws must be urgently reviewed, and any shortcomings in the laws or the rules must be removed. Enforcement must become a part of our administrative culture. I would also like to suggest a radical departure from the present system of environmental appraisal and subsequent enforcement of environmental laws. In the matter of accounts we have the Institute of Chartered Accountants incorporated by law. It is mandatory for every company, society, trust, etc., to have its accounts duly audited annually by a Chartered Accountant and to have the balance sheet duly certified. We need to create a new discipline of environmental audit, and set up an incorporated institute of environment auditors. Every company, municipality or person desirous of taking up a project that can have environmental implications, should be required by law to have the project appraised by a Chartered Environmental Auditor. Only if he certifies the environmental viability of a project, should its implementation be permitted. Thereafter, each one of these bodies must have an environmental audit conducted by an environmental auditor who will draw up an environmental balance sheet. A company, society, municipality, or any other body which fails to maintain its environmental balance sheet should be liable to penalty.

One last point. Our education system teaches many subjects to students, including science, mathematics, language, literature, history, economics, etc. Environmental studies, which should aim to inculcate in every student a healthy respect for the environment, must also form a part of the curriculum which should be compulsory for every discipline of study. Regardless of the main subject selected by a student, it should be compulsory for him or her to seriously attend to environmental studies also, and his graduation at school and college level should be dependent upon his obtaining the requisite number of marks in environmental studies. Through education, we must awaken environmental consciousness, and through this awakening ensure a clean environment.