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Malala Yousafzai, thechild advocate fromacross the border
who gained respect world-wide for her activism in thefield of girls’ education, wasrecently conferred withPakistan’s Civil Awards. This16-year-old human rightscrusader, who now lives inBritain, was shot by a Talibangunman in 2012 for her out-spoken views on children’seducation in her home regionin north-west Pakistan. Yetthis near-fatal attack did notdeter her from speakingabout the importance of edu-cation especially for girls —she is a firm believer that ittakes merely one child, oneteacher, one book and onepen to change the world.
Malala’s belief is shared byher peer, Shazia Kouser, a res-ident of this side of the Indian
border. Hailing from the bor-der village Banloi, 15km fromMendhar tehsil of Poonchdistrict in Jammu & Kashmir,Shazia has grown up withconflict. Coupled with isola-tion from rest of the country,this hostile environment haskept the inhabitants of thisborder village away fromdevelopment. Struggling withbasic facilities in addition tothe fallouts of conflict hasbecome a part of life forthem. Worst affected is edu-cation — more specifically,the education of girls.
There were days whenwomen were simply notallowed to pursue education.Militancy is considered to bethe main reason for thistrend. According to the 1981Census Report, the female lit-eracy rate for Poonch districtwas only 11.24 per cent as
compared to the male litera-cy rate of 34.20 per cent. Thecomparison is worse in ruralPoonch with a mere 8.47 percent women being literateagainst 32.19 per cent of men.
Dogged efforts of theState made education thefocus of development in spiteof militancy being a constantfear in the backdrop, hinder-ing progress at every step. Itwas then, in 1980, that thefirst school was established inBanloi. Today, over threedecades later, there are onlythree primary and one mid-dle school in this villagecatering to the needs of apopulation of approximately3,500 people. Both boys andgirls are encouraged to go to school.
Still, the absence of ahigher secondary school inthe village has resulted in a
high drop-out rate after classeight, especially among girls.
The nearest higher sec-ondary school is in villageMankote, eight to nine kilo-metres from Banloi, makingit difficult for girls to traveland attend school. “Girlsoften drop out from schoolafter completing class eight asthere is no higher secondaryschool in our village. Boys areallowed to travel long dis-tances to other villages andcontinue their studies butgirls do not have permissionfrom their parents”, rues 23-year-old Shazia.
Another factor that playsan important role in the highdrop-out rate is the closeproximity of the village to theborder. Villagers have beenissued identity cards by thesecurity forces and areallowed only restricted move-
ment during the day — that,after strict security checkseach time they cross the gate.Parents do not like their girlssubjected to such securitychecks — thereby denyingthem the right to continuetheir studies. The only thingleft in a girl’s life, despite anavid interest in education, isto take care of the householdand rear the livestock.
Poverty also plays a rolein hindering the education ofa girl child. According toAbdul Rehman, naibsarpanch, Banloi, in addi-tion to fencing and road con-nectivity, poverty is also to beblamed. In the absence of anyregular source of income,most parents cannot affordthe transport fare.
“I wish to continue mystudies even after class eightas my dream is to become a
doctor and help the poorand disabled people living amiserable life in our village.I wish to provide them treat-ment free of cost but mydream looks like it will alwaysremain a dream”, says a sad-dened Saima, currently study-ing in class eight.
There are many moreSaimas in Banloi village whohave compromised with theirdreams and accepted the cur-rent situation as their fate.The Government has helpedthem till class eight; they canonly hope that the Staterealises the fact that theyaspire to a good educationand need a higher secondaryschool to satiate their thirstfor knowledge. These girlswish to change the worldaround them, just like Malala.Whether their dreams cometrue remains to be seen.
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When the UnionMinistry ofEnvironment andForests issued a notifi-cation in February
2014 for an eco-sensitive zone forSikkim’s Khangchendzonga NationalPark — considered one of the mostimportant protected areas in theHimalayas — it defied its own guide-lines which call for ESZs to be ashock-absorber for national parks andsanctuaries. Khangchendzonga’s ESZspanned a mere 25 to 200 metres fromthe park boundary, and like other parksin Sikkim with equally miniscule ‘pro-tective’ zones, it aimed to accommodatethe State’s ambitious hydel dream,rather than safeguard the ecology of the‘protected areas’.
While one understands that asmall State like Sikkim cannot affordthe 10km ESZ that is advised, it is unac-ceptable that ESZs are deliberatelymanipulated to circumvent wildlifeclearances for hydel projects.Particularly so, in the light of a recentNational Board for Wildlife reportwhich points out that at least five damswere being constructed in close prox-imity to national parks and sanctuar-ies in the State between 2006 and 2011without mandatory NBWL permission-and asks for a probe into the same.
Unfortunately, the Khangchendzongafiasco is being replicated across many ofIndia’s 600 odd protected areas, thoughthere are a few noteworthy exceptions.
According to a Supreme Courtorder in 2006, no major industry orinfrastructure project can be allowedwithin 10km boundary of nationalparks and sanctuaries unless approvedby the Standing Committee of theNBWL — unless and until a site spe-cific ESZ has been notified by the State.In an ESZ, mining, hydel projects andheavily polluting industries are banned,while tourism, cutting of trees, electricpower lines, etc are regulated. FewStates enacted the apex court order,delayed demarcating these safety zonestill a deadline was issued on December31, 2012, by the Environment andForests Ministry.
Currently, about 400 such ESZs arebeing reviewed by the Centre, but theexercise, aimed to protect the ecology,environment and local livelihoods,appears to have been reduced to asham. Worried about how the processwould hit ‘development’ and reported-ly under pressure from mining andindustry lobbies, most States haveexcluded several ecologically importantareas around the protected areas,thereby defeating the very purpose ofthe ESZ. Worse, the Centre seems tobe colluding with the States in thisprocess, so that development projectscan bypass the mandatory wildlife clearance.
Taking note of this, members of theNBWL’s Standing Committee, pointedout in a meeting that “the methodolo-gy of selection of many ESZs appearsto be arbitrary, and at times, influencedby factors other than ecological” andpressed for “a careful oversight mech-anism”. Yet, the process has beenopaque, with negligible involvement of
ecologists, conservationists or scientistsoutside of the Government either at theState or at the Centre.
A case in point is the two kilome-tre-wide ESZ of Andhra Pradesh’sPulicat Bird Sanctuary, which wassteered through in a hurry to accom-modate the upcoming Dugarajapatnamport, and thereby circumvent thewildlife ‘hurdle’. This, despite the factthat in 2007, the State’s chief wildlifewarden had, in 2007, recommended a10km ESZ for Pulicat, the secondlargest brackish water ecosystem inIndia and also a proposed Ramsar site.Lakhs of migratory waterfowl throngthe lake in winter. The port and shipbuilding centre will lead to massivedredging and development of ancillaryindustries will gravely damage thefragile ecosystem of the lake.
According to the reports, a portionof the land from the 5,300 acres pro-posed for acquisition for the port isactually located within the northernboundary of the Pulicat lake and in itsvicinity. Being a thriving wetlandecosystem, Pulicat also sustains thelivelihood of thousands of fisherfolkwith 46 villages depending on the lakedirectly or indirectly for their liveli-hood. Representatives of the HumanRights Forum, who visited the site,allege that “the ESZ has been made withthe intention of facilitating statutoryclearances for the proposed port”.
Another such ill-conceived ESZ isof Gujarat’s Velavadar National Park (inthe Bhal region), home to the critical-ly-endangered and endemic lesser flor-ican, Indian wolf and blackbucks,among other rare grassland fauna. It isalso the world’s largest roosting groundfor Montagu’s harriers. The park itselfis small, just about 35 sq km, and much
of its wildlife — cranes, blackbucks,wolves, foxes etc — use the adjoininggrasslands and fields for denning andfeeding. Velvadar and the larger Bhallandscape are threatened by the pro-posed Dholera Special InvestmentRegion, reportedly a flagship project ofthe Chief Minister.
The DSIR is being touted as a ‘glob-al manufacturing and trading hub’, andis envisaged to set up various industriesincluding heavily polluting chemicalfactories, power project, highways, air-port, business hubs, etc. Such mega-scale activity will not just destroy thepark, but also stands to obliteratenearly 1,000 sq km of fertile farmlandwith no less than 15,000 familiesdependent on it. Predictably, the pro-posed ESZ carefully circumvents theDSIR while leaving out many ecolog-ically-fragile areas which are the feed-ing grounds of the harriers and lesserfloricans. The Environment ImpactAssessment report of the DSIR statesthat “the park is situated just to thesouth of DSIR boundary almost about600 metres away…” and goes on to notethe presence of wolf and fox dens in thearea. It concludes that blackbucks aredistributed in half of the villages com-ing under the DSIR.
Scant regard has been paid tolocal sentiments as well. For instance,there has been strong public sentimentagainst hydel projects in Sikkim, as thedams are expected to drown sacredlandscapes in West Sikkim, which isbelieved to be the cradle of the erstwhileBuddhist Kingdom. Nor do conse-quences matter — as witnessed in thetragedy of Uttarakhand floods or the2011 Sikkim earthquake, which accord-ing to some studies, could have beeninduced or triggered by the presence of
multiple dams on the river Teesta andits tributaries.
What has dictated ESZs instead, areinterests other than ecological. Forinstance, the ESZ proposal for KarlapatWildlife Sanctuary in Kalahandi,Odisha, was limited to just one kilome-tre on one side due to bauxite depositshere, which mining giant Vedanta issaid to be eyeing after it was deniedNiyamgiri. Kuldiha’s (Odisha) safetyzone was reduced, reportedly at theintervention of the Chief Minister andat the behest of the mining, industriesand revenue departments, in consider-ation of the stone quarries in the area.This, even when wildlife officials point-ed out that by prioritising the quarriesand crushers frequently used migrato-ry paths of elephants (and tigers)between Kuldiha and Similipal TigerReserve were being sacrificed. Thisentire area, including the quarries, liewithin the Similipal Biosphere Reserveand Mayurbhanj Elephant Reserve.
In Jharkhand, too, it was largely thewrit of the mining industry that dictat-ed the ESZs. The Telegraph reports thatin 2011, steel major Tata wrote to theCentre, asking for the ESZ of DalmaWildlife Sanctuary to be halved fromthe 10km proposed by the state, citing“fears of adverse effects on its industri-al activities”. Two years later in January2013, a senior official of Tata Steel againappealed to the Centre to reduce thesafety zone to a mere 500 metres, amove resisted by the concerned forestofficers who called this demand “unrea-sonable, and not in the interest of pro-tecting the park’s biodiversity”.
(The writer is trustee, ‘Bagh’, mem-ber, State Board for Wildlife,Uttarakhand, and a former member ofthe National Board for Wildlife)
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