A Walk up the Hill

Title: A Walk up the Hill – Living with People and Nature
Author: Madhav Gadgil
Publisher: Allen Lane, 2023 (First)
ISBN: 9780670097043
Pages: 424

In Kerala, Madhav Gadgil’s fame is similar to the character of Mr. Frankland in ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ – he is ‘either carried in triumph down the village street or burnt in effigy’. The report of the Western Ghats expert panel which he chaired recommended stringent rules on human habitation in the ecologically sensitive spots and as a consequence became a harbinger of bad times for the settler community in these zones who have been carrying on agriculture for a living for decades. Meanwhile, he is a hero of the environmental activists and the Left-leaning science awareness body called Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP). Madhav Gadgil is a scientist well-versed in theory and quantitative methods and is an excellent field ecologist-cum-field anthropologist fascinated by the natural world and people and culture. I had initially thought that this book was an autobiography but this is only a memoir and that too, practically devoid of any kind of personal facts. In fact, this is a summary of the projects undertaken by the author – effectually a curriculum vitae. The book is graced with a foreword by M S Swaminathan.

The first few chapters of the book are biographical and tells about the author’s education in India and the US. On return, he joined the prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, as a faculty along with his wife. This association (with IISc, of course!) lasted for 33 years till his retirement. Gadgil was very keen in field work unlike most of our established scientists. He initiated his career as a field anthropologist-cum-ecologist working on the sacred groves of Ambi Valley in Pune district, his home town. His greatest contributions came while working as a faculty at IISc, which the author says remains to this day the only place conducive to the serious pursuit of science in a free atmosphere and in the company of many bright and committed scientists. Gadgil developed contacts with the tallest political leaders soon after. He was a member of the small group of people invited by Indira Gandhi to discuss the modalities in setting up a new department of environment in her cabinet. What made the author controversial was his association with conservation of ecology in the Western Ghats. He chaired an expert panel to examine the status of the Western Ghats and recommend appropriate conservation and governance mechanisms in 2010. Unlike the other projects of the author, this book is silent on the recommendations of this committee. But we know that the panel submitted its report containing severe restrictions on economic life in the sensitive areas. Jairam Ramesh, who was more militant than a street activist as far as environment was concerned, was the minister who constituted the panel. But he found himself too big for his boots and was shunted out of the ministry. When the final report was submitted, the climate ‘changed’ and the government refused to accept its findings. Then it constituted another high-level committee headed by Kasturirangan to re-examine its findings. The new committee watered down the recommendations and the author alleges methodological faults in its working.

The author is wary of forest departments of all states in India. He is pessimistic about the officials, their policies and functioning. The book claims that village communities in the pre-British times maintained village woodlots and grazing lands in good condition. Britain had the distinction of wiping out its own forests and wildlife and abolishing community-based management well before any other country in the world. After 1857, the need of forest management was felt and the British half-heartedly copied some European methods. The powers of the forest department to subjugate the common people of India were enhanced by the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. This act criminalized hunting, which surprisingly Gadgil opposes, claiming that hunting for meat was very much a part of human evolution. However, this act criminalized the livelihood of many hunter-gatherer tribes. The human-wildlife conflict in the form of wild animals raiding human habitats is precipitated by this act. At this point, the author notes with relish that Kerala’s forest officials are much more upright and spoke to their superiors somewhat as equals. This was recorded in 1975 and says that he instantly fell in love with God’s own country (p.82)!

This book consistently argues that we have been implementing a system of passing on the benefits of development to those already well off and costs of development to the weak and the poor. This forms the basis of the author’s quite openly visible tendency to oppose and create obstacles to every developmental project on environmental lines. He even objected to the EIA study of the Konkan Railway alignment in Goa. The reason cited for this resistance was that the project would ‘merely protect vested interests, damage the environment, hurt the poor and divide the society’ (p.172). Did it? After several decades of the Railway’s successful operations and the revolution in transportation it had brought to India’s western coast, we can conclude with certainty that the author’s observations were wide off the mark. For some other projects, the role of Gadgil was to act as part of an arbitration on the desirability of a project which he usually used to scuttle. He served in the advisory committee set up by Indira Gandhi to scrutinize the Silent Valley hydel project in Kerala. The committee promptly decided to shelve it. The book includes a chapter on the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad and its early leader M K Prasad, who were dead against the Silent Valley project. The author had a long and fruitful association with both. The author’s staunch objection is most vociferously directed against mining projects in the Deccan. However, his reasons for opposition to mining is laughable. He claims that mineral resources are non-renewable and cannot be replenished once they are exhausted. The value of these ores will only increase in future with mounting worldwide shortages of mineral resources and we lose nothing by not exploiting them in a great hurry (p.177).

Even though informative and providing guidance, it is to be suspected that the book might serve to radicalise young, impressionable minds on hard-line environmental activism. It addresses pollution in a big way and demands stringent rules. The logic is that if pollution is allowed to go unabated, the industry would make undue profits but remain inefficient in the global market. However, this legitimate concern turns very sensitive and intolerant even to minor offenses. Sound pollution from running trucks when they carry mined produce on the road and formation of waves in water bodies due to barge movements (p.309) are raised as big concerns the administration should address immediately. As an alternative, he suggests mining rights to be given to the local community with government’s financial support that should also be labour intensive. Can such ventures compete effectively in the market? As usual, economic viability is not a concern for the author. In the 1970s, the author and his wife Sulochana Phatak were among the very few Indian students at Harvard and MIT choosing to return to India. The reason he gives is a bit funny though: they did not want to further strengthen the white-supremacist American government by helping enhance its scientific abilities! There are some peculiar aspects of the author’s food habits which would surely amuse the readers. He was always willing to consume whatever his hosts ate. This was sometimes extended to strange preferences. Gadgil’s mother was raised on donkey’s milk as an infant because her six elder siblings had died within a week of birth. The author took inspiration from this and went to a donkey bazar near Pune and tasted fresh donkey’s milk. He claims that it was pretty good (p.344). On some other subjects, the book demands unnecessary secrecy in what should have been open knowledge. Government rules on People’s Biodiversity Register stipulate that the knowledge be made public. This is opposed on the flimsy pretence that ‘the communities may not wish to make public the knowledge of the medicinal use and properties of biological resources’ (p.230). His real concern is that pharma companies may utilize them.

The harsh wildlife protection act is causing animal numbers to go up considerably, leading to attacks on human habitats on the fringes of forests. The stringency of the act was conceptualized by urban nature conservationists who are alienated from the common villager and having an elite mindset. The author notes that even Salim Ali shared this prejudice. The system criminalizing activities in wildlife parks was set in place by Ali and some maharajas of erstwhile native states who were entrusted by Nehru to formulate rules on wildlife in the 1950s. Mainly because hunting is banned for almost half a century and animal numbers have greatly increased which lead to raids on farmland and conflict with people, Gadgil boldly suggests legalization of hunting on a limited scale as in Sweden where wildlife is deemed a renewable resource that should be managed through regulated systematic hunting while consuming the meat and utilizing other products of economic value such as hides or antlers. No country other than India bans hunting outside national parks or wildlife sanctuaries except for endangered species. Since the author is much interested in anthropology, we get to know some interesting facts as well. A study under the well-known Harvard leader of human population genetics Cavalli-Sforza found that there was a large overlap of genetic makeup of two groups from Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka, namely the Brahmin Haviks and Dalit Mukris (p.47). The study found that it is impossible to assign any particular individual with certainty to one or the other group. All talk of any one caste group in India being genetically different or superior to others is just nonsense.

Each chapter in the book begins with a short poem of four or five rhyming lines, related to the topic which is discussed in that chapter. Nothing is mentioned about their authorship, but it’s possible that Gadgil himself has penned these lines. The book is somewhat large with around 400 pages that focuses on technical aspects on ecological conservation that demands readers’ unwavering attention. It includes long explanations involving technical terms about the projects coordinated or assisted by the author while at IISc. This becomes a trying experience for ordinary readers after some time. In one such instance, the book lists out 21 problems specific to the Chilika lake in Odisha along with solutions proposed by the local people. Such elaborations are frequent and tiresome for the readers.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star