Narmada Valley

Amrutha Manjunath, Class of 2018

As we drove up the winding roads towards the Sardar Sarovar dam, I began to feel excited despite myself. It was the largest dam project in the country, designed and built to irrigate entire regions of Kutch and Saurashtra, generate electricity for three states and provide domestic and industrial water for 30 million people. The project was shrouded in controversy, I knew, but right then I could only think about it as a feat of engineering, and in Nehru’s words, as a temple of modern India. I had heard so much about it, yet nothing could have prepared me for when the trees cleared and I saw the dam with my own eyes.

Narmada Dam (Picture Credits — Down To Earth)

The Sardar Sarovar Dam is massive. It radiates vastness and power. From the side we were on, I could not see anything beyond the enormous wall. Only a trickle of water seeped through one small opening in the dam, flowing onwards as though it was a ghost of the mighty river that had now been forcefully stopped in its course. Later we went to the other side of the dam on boats, and my awe increased as I struggled to register that only on the other side of this ginormous wall there was empty space for about 121 metres below, and the slow, deliberate trickle we had seen earlier.

We sailed forth on the boat and around us the Satpura hills bordered the reservoir in an unnatural, almost utopian beauty. As I watched a flight of cormorants take off from the water in unison, I almost missed the boatman tell the others that we were now rowing over submerged villages. The lands had been inundated due to overflow from the dam, forcing the people to move to higher elevations. Here and there we caught sight of dead branches sticking out from the water, ruins of what once had been land, forest, home.

Our boat dropped us off at a Jeevanshala, one of a set of small schools set up for the children from the submerged villages. There were nearly a hundred children, all wearing identical blue clothes. They jabbered away in rapid Marathi as we made desperate attempts to communicate with them in our fragmented Hindi. While playing with them, and while working around them, it was so easy to forget the circumstances under which they had come to live there. Were they not children like any others? They sang in the morning assembly, they listened to stories, and they went for classes. But one walk down to the river to swim or fill water was enough to remind me of how and why they were there.

Jeevanshala (Picture Credits — Rukmini Vasanth)

The Narmada Bachao Andolan supported these schools so that the children would have a chance to build their lives on their own terms, away from the conflict if necessary. This Jeevanshala, under constant threat of inundation, was an attempt to allow the children of the displaced families to take control of their own lives. One of the teachers there had in fact been schooled at another Jeevanshala, and after going on to study further, he had returned home in the capacity of a teacher. Yes, he said, the children sang songs about the Andolan, and they listened to stories about the struggle of their people, but they learn English and Science in the classroom. For them, these are tools to build a new life.

It was finally this that brought it home to me: the young teacher who calmly told me that this place that they had built, and the work they were doing, would be drowned when the dam is raised a further 17 meters. The construction for this, as we had seen, had already begun. The fact that the place I was in, the ground that I stood on, would not exist a few short years from now was a tragedy that I could finally comprehend. Villagers had been forced to leave behind the livelihood that they had practiced for thousands of years. Farmers had suddenly been expected to live off the infertile land in Baroda, which was the only compensation they received from the government. Adivasis had watched their trees, their homes, submerge.

As we left the Valley and drove back towards the city we passed by the dam once again. There I caught sight of a group of about fifty children who were visiting the dam on a school picnic. On their faces, I saw the same awe that I had felt when I had seen the dam for the first time. They saw what I had seen: the promise of a hope, the dream of power, of water, of development. I wondered how many of them got to see the other side of the story.

The common defense for the dam is that the ratio of beneficiaries to affected persons is sufficiently large, the value of which is up for debate. In fact, I am not even sure if the calculation of such a ratio is a simple task. How does one quantify, for example, the loss of ever seeing a wide, full, flowing river? Or the history, the traditions, and livelihoods, that have been cultivated in the region for thousands of years? A significant proportion of the water that is supposed to irrigate Kutch and Saurashtra will find its way to industries that are now coming up in the Special Economic Zones of western Gujarat. Is this “greater good” worth it?

This article was originally published on edict.in in September 2015.

Slippery Slope: Caution Dry Here

By Manasi Rao, Class of 2018

Over the past year Ashoka has been in a contract with the Sustainable Development Organisation, STENUM Asia. It is an organisation that helps institutions like Ashoka reduce the ecological footprint by using economically wise methods of consumption. STENUM has conducted electricity and water consumption audits and has been carefully observing Ashoka’s segregation practices. Ashoka can be proud of a 5-star energy rating, thanks to the thoughtful energy efficient lighting (LED lights in place of halogen) and other infrastructural installations. However, Ashoka has been doing poorly on both, the water and waste front. Water is a pressing concern for the student body considering that our location falls under an agricultural belt.

According to the person in-charge of the campus’ water treatment plant, the Ashoka campus consumes 4 lakh litres of water per day. This is an absurdly high quantity and a large part of this is the water consumed by those who live and work on campus. STENUM noted that from February 2015 to August 2015, the water consumption at Ashoka University was in continuous upward trend. With the onset of summer this is likely to continue.

Water Recycling Unit at Ashoka University

Unfortunately, the sewage treatment plant began functioning only later this term. Ideally, the water required for domestic purposes is approximately 135 litres per capita per day. The ideal flow through the taps should be 6–7 litres/min. However, it was found to be as high as 15–18 litres/min in most of the taps at Ashoka University which is results in the wastage of approx 1600 kL/year. STENUM observed leakages at several places at Ashoka University resulting in water wastage of approx 1900 kL/year. The rainwater harvesting system is not being used to its potential. One can hope that it would be fully functional by the time the monsoons hit. Shorter showers, switching the tap off while brushing/washing, and not watering lawns and plants in the in the mornings or afternoons can be a few steps to ensure better utilisation of this resource. We can aim to achieve this by perhaps lowering the flow rate of the taps, fixing leakages, and changing our water consumption habits.

India’s growing population has been pressurizing the country’s natural resources, depleting the buffer considerably. Most water sources are contaminated by sewage and agricultural runoff. India has made progress in the supply of safe water to its people, but gross disparity in coverage exists across the country. Ashoka gets its water from Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) for a very low price, however, those who do not have access to the the government supply are left to rely on bore-wells. Neighbouring villages including Asawarpur have had to dig up an 80 feet well to reach to water. Greater water consciousness is the need of the hour. Failing to act more responsibly with the water available to us will have dire consequences not only on us, but also those whose livelihoods depend upon it.

Photography by Manasi Rao

Where Is Your Food?

By Manasi Rao, Class of 2018

Ashoka University has been in contract with Caterman services for almost a year now. Caterman’s decision to put up a board displaying number of kilograms of food wasted every day seems like a considerate idea. Because of the awareness generated by the board and steps taken to ensure minimal waste, the amount of food waste fell from the thirty kilograms to just a few ten kilograms within a few weeks.

However, not everything might actually be going right. The board says — ‘____ number of children could have been fed with the food wasted’. This statement would have been apt if the food that is being wasted went to hungry children; instead it follows a very different route.

Here is the trajectory that it follows. The waste generated on campus can be classified into three very broad categories — organic, recyclable and hazardous. Organic comprises of mainly the food waste and garden waste. Hazardous waste includes toilet papers, condoms, bio-medical waste, and used razors. Even though sanitary napkins have their own sanitary waste bin, many students discard them with the toilet waste. Recyclable waste is whatever does not go into one of the other bins.

Despite having a compost machine on campus, not all the organic waste is composted. There is more production of food waste than the composting needs; therefore the excess food waste is taken to a place, a few kilometres south of Rajiv Gandhi Education City. The excess food waste is given, not sold, to man who owns a sounder of pigs. The pigs spend their time near a garbage dump near their shed, and eat the Ashoka’s excess food waste with gusto. They are kept and fed to be slaughtered and sold as pork. The conditions are filthy and extremely foul smelling.

Pigs breeding near the garbage piles strewn in the lanes of Sonepat

The process of disposal of recyclable and hazardous waste isn’t any better. A segregation station near the Singhu Border (border of Haryana and Delhi) handles the rest of Ashoka’s waste. As sophisticated as it sounds, the segregation station is anything but that. It is large garage with tall piles of plastic, paper, cardboard and glass waste. The garbage is brought in bins that are emptied by team of four women who then segregate it without any protective gear. The women were paid around 6,000 rupees a month and work an 8 hour shift, 6 days a week. The air around the station swarms with flies that are enough to be easily inhaled.

As investigated, there is no payment made to the people who do this work. The income that they earn comes from the revenue earned by selling this garbage. The garbage is sold to other middlemen who handle the cleaning of the waste. After being cleaned the waste is sent to the recycling units. Shockingly, it is down-cycling, rather than recycling that happens. The product made after this process is always of lower quality than the original product. The hazardous waste is then sent to another location where it is incarcerated. However, nothing can be classified at the segregation station until it is sent to a landfill.

Hazardous waste left open near houses

Looking at the number of people involved in this invisible process of collection, segregation should make one realise the complexity and details involved in this system that the Ashoka community is a part of. There are enterprising men and women who earn their money from handling what often goes unnoticed. Therefore, even though the board in the mess says otherwise, the wasted food is only consumed by pigs, ready to be slaughtered. There is a clear lack of awareness and adequate measures that are being taken to look into this matter. The wastage of food is becoming an increasing concern and the numbers of wasted materials are not dropping. In this situation the question falls on the entire community. Don’t just savour, Save More.

(Photography by Manasi Rao)