Will Palampur lose its tea gardens?...Hope not

What sets apart Palampur and its neighbouring areas from rest of HP in terms of aesthetics and natural beauty? The tea gardens, no doubt. It is these charming ‘ever-green’ bush-spreads over swathes of undulating landscape - that greet and soothe a sore eye as you wander around - which make Palampur so special, so inviting. Enchanted by the mesmerising view of the tea gardens with the snow-capped Dhauladhar in the backdrop imparting it a divine touch, no tourist ever fails to stop by for a photo shoot. For, the view is surreal, picture postcard perfect.

Therefore the news items ‘Govt mulls policy to allow sale of land under tea’ and 'Changes in policy for sale of tea gardens...' in The Tribune dated 13 May and 19 May 2017 respectively (see photos), left me shocked and shaken. Will the tea gardens then go extinct, like Dodo? Will this fabulous valley become a wasteland, an ugly sprawl of concrete? A listless, grey, barren, noisy, traffic-choked, dirty, polluted township? Like, say, Shimla? An overpopulated, congested city bereft of the green of tea gardens replaced by houses, shops, mansions, malls, multiplexes and what not, with the essential civic amenities like water and power severely diminished, causing power outages and water shortages for days on end…as in Shimla?

It is a frightening, scary prospect, dear friends. Tea gardens have already been receding by and by, inch by inch, meter by meter, acre by acre. Most of you must have been witness to vast tracts of land in and around Palampur that were once a soothing carpet of verdant green of tea gardens now having become a crowded conglomerate of houses and  buldings rearing their ugly heads everywhere. Worse, with the enforcement agencies looking the other way, encroachments by the new home-wallas along the link roads have turned them into a traffic hazard. Much worse is yet to come.

I personally maintain that the tea gardens are a precious, inviolable ‘heritage feature’ of Palampur and of Kangra valley. Agreed, the tea-planters have custodial rights over them. But then haven’t they gotten away with not coming under the land ceiling act, 1972, unlike the other, general kind of landowners who had to part away with sizeable chunks of their lands that went to the tillers? No such axe fell on the tea-planters.  But this huge concession had a specific rider: the tea-planters would be the ‘custodians’ and not the ‘owners’ of tea gardens. They will neither sell, nor change the character of the land under these gardens for any reason whatsoever. However, gradually, slowly, on one pretext or the other, the tea gardens kept on being sold/used. 

And now to make matters terribly worse, the present HP government near the end of its current term, as the news goes, is mulling an amendment to facilitate sale of tea gardens and thus wipe them out once for all. This implies that they would in due course become a thing of the past. I think it would be the most brazen assault on the valley's ecology by the present government: to deprive the residents of this beautiful, priceless asset of Palampur and divesting it of its unique green cover in one fell sweep. With the tea gardens, the trees that are a part of a ‘teagarden ecosystem’ will go too. We built our homes keeping in mind the natural endowments, ecology and environs as an inseparable, integral part of Palampur. Therefore to deprive us of these natural features wholesale is just not right: morally and ethically at least. Even otherwise it is stab in the back of those who came under the Land ceiling act and the tea planters were not. One can't have the cake and eat it too, after all. Let the governmentt look at it in the right perspective and not succumb to the pressure/lobby. Let the tea-planters’ issues and problems be addressed, and let there be a robust policy by the government to save the tea gardens from the impending doom. Let Palampur stay beautiful and green.

Will posterity see the tea gardens only in pictures and albums?

Will tea gardens become a thing of the past? (This photo is courtesy, Dr RG Sud)

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When Jagrata went underway at Sughar

On Saturday (13 May) last, as Sughar prepared to retire for the night’s sleep, a Jagrata got underway. The loudspeakers came live and high-pitched cacophony of the event began hitting us with all the thunder and fury. The venue being barely about 500 meters away from our house, we found the ‘bhaints’ and ‘bhajans’ (mostly cheap adaptations of romantic filmi tunes!), the chants and the slogans, the harmonium and the dholak beats, too ear-splitting to bear.  We tried to brazen it out anyway hoping that it wouldn’t go beyond 10 or at the most 10.30 PM. But there was no let up. Then we shifted our bed and migrated to one of the rooms at the back, the doors and windows tightly shut. But still being at full blast, there was no respite from the noise and we ended up tossing, turning and shuffling in the beds waiting for the loudspeakers to stop. Now it was past 12 AM and no relief seemed in sight. Exasperated, I picked up my phone and dialled 100, not expecting any responsethough. However, happily, a half-sleepy but polite and helpful voice said: “Ji, namaskar. Police control room.” The policewalla took note of the problem and the location and assured help. Relieved, I went into a ‘waiting mode’ hoping for the end to the unrelenting noise-assault. An hour went by. I had to call 100 again. “Nothing has happened?” the same voice asked. “Ok, hold on.” Then I could hear the fellow talk to his colleague discussing the matter. A minute later, he told me that a police party has already left and would be there any time. He also gave me the name and number of the Head constable, one Mr Satish. I rang up Satish. He said that they have located the venue and are almost there. When I went out to our upper veranda, I could see the police vehicle with flashing blue and red lights. In a few minutes the loudspeakers had fallen silent.

The Jagrata then went on its course but at a low pitch and so we finally were able to have our quota of sleep, not without feeling very thankful to our police for being friendly, responsive and helpful.

In passing may I ask: Is organising night-long Jagratas the right way to propitiate our gods and goddesses? That too with jarring tunes based on cheap filmi songs? And at roof-shattering sound levels? Have the sweet soulful melodies of Meera, Tulsi, Sur Das, Rahim vanished from our consciousness? Lastly, isn’t, shouldn’t, religion be a personal and private affair rather than a noisy extravaganza to disturb the entire neighbourhood? For me it is nothing but trivialization of our grand and glorious religion.

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Quotes of the week

Would have dealt with pain of her death had she been shot. I would have taken her body in embrace one last time

           - Mother of the 23-year-old who was subjected to savage gangrape         and murdered near Rohtak (The Tribune)

Social media (is) helpig Indian classical music

            - Ustad Amjad Ali Khan (DH)

Nudity is beautiful, don't make it sexual

             - Paris Jackson (DH)

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Random headlines

12-year-old girl dies as father denies money for her treatment (DH)

India ageing gradually; every 5th person to be 60+ by 2050 (DH)

About 40 per cent of food in US gets wasted: study (DH)

Human ancestors stayed in trees longer than thought (DH)

New "winged" snake species discovered in US (DH)

    

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