Wonder-struck by the beauty and the magnificence of the Himalaya, an ancient Sanskrit poet wrote, “In a thousand ages of the gods, I could not tell you of the glories of the Himalaya.” The snow-covered peaks, though increasingly diminishing, may still awaken the poet in us, but the barrenness of the hills below tell us the real story — that of steady environmental depredation. Today, the repeated tragedies of bridges, roads and buildings being swept by raging rivers in the hill States of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, epitomise a flawed developmental paradigm institutionalised in an eco-fragile region. Blocked roads after a landslide at Chamoli and sinking in Joshimath in Uttarakhand, road caving in Chamba in Himachal, accidents on the Char Dham routes, and deaths on the all-weather road are reports that have become everyday news from “Devbhoomi” (land of the gods).
