older writing...

Rediscovering a ‘lost’ river

Ravi Agarwal
IIC Quaterly
2005
Our City Fathers’ planning is polite.
The abattoir is on the edge of town.
Yet out of mind may not be out of sight;
Here on, the river runs a darker brown.
(from River Quatrains by Peter Porter)


Somewhere within the dark, unfathomable, murky depths of the black waters, lies the river. Mingled with the sewage and muck, it flows on as it always did since the beginning of time. Only now, not many people know its whereabouts, or if there is a river in Delhi at all. They do not know that the city’s relationship with the hilly ridge and the river Yamuna. For most the river can only be imagined as a number, which denotes how ‘dirty’ it is, or through the token plastic bags local politicians retrieve from it annually, for a photo-op. The river however, flows on, irrespective of the usurping of its banks, regardless of its faded memory, still inextricably linked to the city and its environs. Nourishing, nurturing and taking care of the ungrateful city, like a mother.

If one has lived in Delhi long enough, inevitably nostalgia is hard to escape. More than two decades ago, as I walked along the banks of the river, a tiny grey and white bird wagged its tail in a characteristic manner. My first bird sighting as a bird watcher! The white wagtail, a winter migrant had flown hundreds of miles to Delhi, to feed on the sandy shores of the ancient Yamuna. It had probably done this for centuries. Today, like the poachards, the vultures, the cranes and the storks, white wagtails are hard to see on the river bank. From a bird's eye view, even two decades ago, Delhi was a big wetland. A river that gently merged with its banks, with weedy marshes where nests abound, and small lakes full of feeding waders, shimmered in the morning sun. A misty boat ride on a winter's morning led one through flocks of poachards and other ducks, startled as one chanced upon them. The Najafgarh Jheel and nallah, the Bhalsawa or horseshoe lake (now a golf course and DDA lake resort!) the river banks near Delhi University and onwards much further down towards the Okhla barrage saw many species and thousands of birds. Today the particular bank where the little white wagtail fed is ash grey, only not as sand but as fly ash! A dumping ground for the adjoining power station. A sign posted on the barbed wire fence cordoning it off threatens that 'trespassers will be prosecuted.’ Maybe the birds understand. For both the winged visitors as well as us, public space on the river Yamuna is now hard to come by. The barbed wire and the fly ash dump literally and metaphorically are barriers that run very deep.

The river in Delhi is very dirty. A twelve hundred kilometer river receives eighty percent of its pollution in the twenty-two kilometers it traverses through the city. Nineteen sewage drains flow into it. No matter that once these drains were rainwater channels. Now they are just smelly drains. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has figures to prove it, and a mission to clean it to at least a lowest ‘irrigation water quality.’ To achieve this the Japanese have given a massive aid package (over 700 crores) as part of the Yamuna Action Plan since 1993, to ensure that toilets are built for the slum dwellers who live on the banks of the river, so that they do not defecate on its banks. How is it that those who do not have water to consume pour it back into the river as sewage? Seventy five thousand families lived on the riverfront, before they began to be systematically uprooted. They contributed less than 0.08% of the 3296 mld of waste flowing daily into the river every day. Several factories, including metal polishing units dump hazardous substances into these drains. No one knows where to start, but everyone hits at the most vulnerable. There is no water in the river, especially in summer. That is diverted two hundred kilometers upstream at Tajewala, in Haryana. It is only the sewage of those who can afford to produce the waste they do.

The river extends beyond its channel into the city. Unseen but connected deeply to its existence and ecological systems. It has flowed through the city regardless and forever much before even the first city here was built. From the time of Tuglaq, through the times of Shajahan, the British and now. It even flowed through the ‘Red Fort’ when it was brought from the nearby city of Karnal by the Emperor Shahjahan through a canal which he called the Nahr – i- Bihishti He had built on earlier canal ventures: Tuglaq’s Rajabwah and Ulughkhani and Akbar’s Shaikhu – ni, to control the river and bring it closer to home. The waters then streamed through the ‘romantic’ Chandani Chowk and the Emperor's royal darbar itself. Delhi was located in a hollow between the fifteen million year Ridge Forest and the river. When the rains came, the rainwater gushed down many rivulets on the ridge into large lakes. It collected in cusps, like the recently leveled Najafgarh Jheel. Canals (now drains) were dug to coax the water back into the ever-flowing river. Along the way the water seeped into the soil and recharged the groundwater. Birds flew in and roosted. Animals drank even while being hunted as royal ‘game.’ Goods were ferried along the river, as were the people and the emperor in his flotilla Today, vegetables grow on its bank. Rag pickers and priests along with fishermen, laborers, sand dredgers and slum folks also live there, servicing the city in one way or another. The river was (and unknown to most of the city, still is) central to the life of the city and to its ecology.

Now, that it represents merely an unmet water standard, every other aspect of it is unimportant or even a hindrance. The river must be cleaned but then it can be dismantled. Like dismembering a body after giving it a transfusion. Everyone’s mission is defined. So, the DDA is to channelise it to a 500 m canal and commercialize the priceless 9700 ha of riverbed real estate land on either bank for parking, transport, golf courses, conventions centers and museums. The CPCB is to clean the river. The Municipality is to make walkways along its sides (like on the Thames!) and cleanse its shores of defecating people. The NGOs are the politically correct partners in this ‘project.’ The Public Works Department is to make roads so that the river does not hinder movement and people drive across it over modern bridges. The Delhi Jal Board is to ensure that drinking water would come from the Tehri Dam and the city not be dependant on the river for it. The river will no longer be needed and can be showcased so long as it is cleaned. The future is fixed. Many school children do not even know that there is a present and a past in the form of a river. Technology and the city have morphed into each other.

The river is hard to see. Several bridges now span the river, more modern and faster then the aging but classic old Yamuna pull. As one drives from the Ring Road to one of the several bridges and across them, the river does not appear to ones view. It is somewhere there, but unseen. Crossed everyday by thousands of commuters, it is not part of ones imagination. The bridges have now tall fences on either side. Very tall, over twenty or thirty feet high wire meshes protect the river from those who wish to throw marigold malas into it. Only people who must throw, do throw, it is a matter of faith and culture for them. But since not everyone has a pitcher’s arm, the mesh is decorated with drying malas, which were not thrown high enough to cross the fence, which has grown higher with people’s determination. It is classic of the way in which the city thinks of the river. Instead of trying to build access to it, it has ensured that there is none.

The riverbed is already being reclaimed for massive temples and for holding the Commonwealth Games (which proposes to use the Okhla Bird Sanctuary for its water sports events!). The riverbank is a site for major activity. It has a new landscape. The Metro Rail cleaning yards, cement casting sites for ‘prefab’ structures for the new flyovers, a new power station to meet Delhi’s insatiable demand, are all located here. Our leaders rest in peace alongside in massive samadhis. However for the everyday citizen, who does not live along it, the river has little or no access. Merely reaching its bank just to be next to it, can be a major endeavor at most places. That is, if one can negotiate the innumerable road barricades which proudly announce “Delhi Police, With You, For You, Always.” Access Denied. Trespassers will be Prosecuted.

Somewhere between the two realities of the river lies a struggle. One, that of the ‘dirty river’ which must be sanitized and controlled and another, of the river that is part of our personal and collective ecologies. One represents technology and a removed ‘mapped’ topography, while the other an everyday interwoven connection. The two seem irreconcilable, both leading to different understandings, relationships and futures, but are not necessarily so.

As the river meanders through the city, for many it is part of the everyday. As the sun sets over the city, three young girls, sisters all, alight from a wooden raft along with their aging parents and a kid brother. Back from a day’s labour on a vegetable farm on the riverbank, they live in Delhi, at Sarai Kale Khan, (which itself is located in the shadow of the famous Humayun’s tomb and adjacent to Delhi’s earliest landfill) but work on the other side, in Noida. The farm is a mere hundred meters or so across the bank, but then a river flows through this. Rather than take a ten-kilometer detour across the Nizamuddin Bridge, it is easier and faster to board a flat wooden raft and heave themselves to the other bank by an overhead rope strung across the watery chasm. The current can be stronger than it seems. As they alight, they shyly pose for a photograph, the youngest one tugging at the skirt of the eldest, their faces glowing in the setting sun. Along with them is cargo. Crates of freshly plucked tomatoes, which will be sold at the nearby Okhla mandi. Almost at the same time a motorcycle pulls up with a young couple, shopping for fresh vegetables. They are regulars. The prices are better than at the mandi, and the choice more fresh. The river feeds them all, as it does the city. With brinjals, ochra, cauliflowers, tomatoes and pumpkins of all sorts. Along with come roses and marigolds, favorites of the hundreds who flocked to temples each morning in all parts of the city. The riverbank is the home garden. It is fertile land enriched by the silt brought down from the mountains during the monsoon rains, when the water rises. Still nourishing the city as it has always done. However through no fault of its own, now also contaminating the produce through all the heavy metals which the water has been impregnated with.

In another part near Nigambodh Ghat, along the riverbank are several temples. They have their own little ghats with stepped boundary walls, complete with priests and tenants. Daily, at one of them, a temple pujari does what he has done ever since he has been here. For more than forty years. At four –o – clock, he unties his dhoti, and takes off his banyan. Clad in a loincloth he dips both pieces of clothing into the black waters, beating them, as if to remove the daily dirt and grime and then wrings them dry. He then spreads them on the steps to catch the sun. Next, without hesitation he steps into the water, half his body disappearing from view, swallowed by the opaque waters. Not even the strong evening summer sun can penetrate the blackness. His arms stretched overhead, palms folded in prayer, he dips and disappears into the dark void. Quickly he re-emerges, rotating and washing the holy janau around his chest. Mumbling a prayer, facing the sun, he then proceeds to take several dips, rubbing his body before finally stepping out and sitting on the bank, in a lotus posture still mouthing a prayer. The black jal is then cupped and splashed in front of him, to wipe the temporary alter ‘clean.’ He then takes some of it in his palm and sips it gingerly, whilst splaying the rest around his head and tugging his ears, as if asking forgiveness for his sins. His eyes are shut in silence and meditation. He has connected to the river, oblivious of its current material condition. When asked, he dismisses “all this thing” about how dirty ‘Ma Yamuna’ is. Nothing has ever happened to him, he says. The river for him absorbs and cleanses. He is ‘pure’ once more.

The morning is different for some who live near the Pontoon Bridge along the old Yamuna bridge. Astride a gunnysack filled with thermocoal which serves as a precarious raft, the little boy paddles furiously, using a wooden oar made of nailed crate planks and a handle carved at one end. His target: a cluster of plastic bags floating midstream with the current. As he reaches it, he stooped to pick it up and loads it on his dangerous looking floater. Several of his friends are doing the same thing alongside. Yesterday evening had been a festival day, and the devotees had offered their homage to the river, only these were packed in plastic bags! On the shore, men, ragpickers, sit on a heap of retrieved bags. It is evident that many people had much homage to pay the evening earlier, for the heap is huge. Tearing open each bag they empty them of their contents, piling the empty bags in another heap. These would then be washed, dried and sold for 1.5 rupees a kilo. Today is a good day. The river is their livelihood.

Earlier in the day, in fact very early every morning at three, especially in the summer months, a caravan of bullock carts line up on the river’s bank, which overlooks the massive Inderprastha Power station. One by one, each one rides into the river’s shallow waters. There, the rider dives in with a tasla, filling it with sand from the riverbed. This is dumped into the cart, till it starts to sink from the growing weight. Each cartload of sand is brought back to the shore, tugged by a panting, heaving bull and egged on by a whipping driver. There it is transferred to another cart to be carried out. The sand dredger keeps returning to the river for more sand, until sunrise announces the end of the work ‘day.’ Yamuna sand is critical for the hectic construction activity on in the city. In fact, all the pollutants that have deposited into it are probably transferred back into people’s homes. Everything, which is pushed out, comes back, they say of the cycle of nature and of life.

At another place, an old lathe lies alongside the river’s bank. So does a broken fridge, a leaky bathtub, cycle tyres and lots of copper wires. The junkshop across the road at Okhla uses the bank as a warehouse. Two men, with large long hammers prise the aluminum spokes from old rickshaw tires, while another burns the copper wires of its plastic covering. The bank bustles with activity. A tailor sits on the stone wall, his space cordoned off by a bed sheet strung on a rope across a tree and an electric pole. Another two men have dipped their make shift fishing poles into the shallow waters in the hope of catching some small fish. Even they know that not much will be caught, but it is fun anyway! Many very young cricket teams seem merged into one mass on the dry bank, all evidently playing separate games. Telling one game from the other is impossible for the outsider but seems quite easy for those on the ‘grounds.’ Further down, a cremation shed has cropped up, probably illegal as per municipal laws. But has death been ever bound by legalities?

At one end near a yachting club, is a mammoth sand hillock, overgrown with weeds and grass in patches. Young boys patrol its periphery, preventing any stranger from going onto it since it has been earmarked as private defecating grounds for the women from the nearby colony

On the other side of the bridge at Kalindi Kunj, where the river begins to leave the city, are private farms. Some are larger and grow maize and grain. The land is evidently leased out to the farmers. Other farms are now farmhouses, owned by city folks. One owned by a well-known Delhi restaurant chain owner, is a model one, with organically grown fruits, and aromatic herbs, fertilized by locally produced vermiculture from the kitchen waste. No pesticides are allowed, and what the parrots eat is their share! Everywhere, boats act as freight carriers. Each morning and evening vegetables are ferried from the bank as well as from the small river islands, both downstream and upstream to reach points close to markets. The same boats carry the workers to and fro from work sites. The boatmen, tanned and sinuous, live on the banks and some even build their own boats. Not many in the city would believe that along with the metro rail, cars and bicycles, boats too are transport in Delhi. In fact that they have been so for centuries.

There are several small shrines, little temples and large goashallas where milk is produced and hay is stored. Abandoned dhobi ghats, their tubs and kilns clustered on the edge of the waters, lie scattered. Probably they may be used sometime but their hearths seem cold now. Kabaris store their daily waste pickings, sorted, weighed and baled for sale. They serve the city well as they have always done. At other sites there are large bulldozers, precisely and purposefully leveling the land for a new power station, even as a cluster of boys fish in a little pond while they still can. A menacing but colorful scarecrow stands in warning in a field surrounded by a watchful dog amongst the maize. 'Elephants live here' says a sign on ITO bridge, a small staircase leading down from it onto the river into a small colony There is immense activity everywhere and change is the common denominator. Except it seems that everything is now to be flattened out.

The new flyovers provide a new vantage view of the majestic landscape of the waters, as they leave the city. These are fresh imaginations, made possible ironically by the new development. The new DND flyover overlooks the river joining the horizon on either side. At another point on it, the river looks magnificent, set against the backdrop of the affluent Maharini Bagh and New Friends Colony. On its banks, bulldozers are busy flattening the land for another new bridge. The city is growing, the river must be crossed. Only the river does not seem to be bothered as it turns its back on the city and disappears into the heavens.

The city is like a technological venture. Water comes from a municipal tap and food from the supermarket or the nearby retailer. Clean air is a matter of implementing the proper environmental standards. The ecological connection is forgotten. The river is needed so long as it serves a purpose. That the river is part of a complex web of life is not recognized. Humans are placed outside ‘nature.’ Nature needs to be preserved, conserved, controlled and used, not necessarily in that order, but outside the ‘human,’ and not as part of it. There is an unstated but clear separation between the two. Is the river dirty because we have stopped connecting to it or because we have not installed the proper sewage treatment plants? We seem to be caught in these times. Escape seems impossible. There is no exit. Except maybe by re- unearthing our ecological connections. By uncovering another way of being, of reconnecting to ecology of the self and to the outside. Maybe Krishna needs to reappear to rid the Yamuna of Kaliyan the serpent once more. Maybe in this age of modernity and technology, we the people of the city are Krishna, and the cleansing our battle. Both inside and outside our-selves.

Back again, with more news!

Dear Friends,

The information as cited below has been confirmed from two other
sources. While other details are still awaited as regards the name of
the foreign firm and the purpose, clearly there is lot sinister going
on than meets the eye.

This is also a classic example of vultures pouring in once the state
itself becomes or even appears to act predatory in intent and in
action.

Would some journalist friend on this list get to the bottom of it and
help us nip this move in the bud. It was also learmt that something on
similar lines was attempted by an influential politician few years
back in the river bed immediately south of Wazirabad barrage but media
glare ensured that that was stopped.

If any one on this list has better or updated information on this
please share it with us.

Looking forward to your reactions and more importantly suggestions on
how best to tackle these nefarious designs on the river bed at a
stretch which till now appeared to be safe !!!

manoj

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ravi Agarwal
Date: Nov 10, 2007 6:55 PM
Subject: land before wazirabad barrage.
To: Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan
Cc: Ravi Agarwal

Dear Manoj ji

I have learnt from a farmer who I know for some time, that 4000 bigas
of land has been sold to a 'foreign' company for Rs 25 lakhs a nali,
before the wazirabad barrage. Why this is credible information is
since he is one of the people who have sold it, along with the whole
village. I know them for long, and met him on a visit to the river
today.

he said that 3 km down the govt has acquired land for Rs 5lakh a
nali, and there are DDA boards everywhere, and the villagers decided
that rather than get the low rate of the govt they sell it to the
company who approached them. He told me that this winter was the last
crop they will grow here. the 4000 bigas is the whole land owned by
the village.

This is also following the plan which Mr Sanat kaul presented to our
meeting at wwf. As I have been saying the new big land change is on
the 20 km before the barrage.

this is scary...

ravi

Notes on work: Khoj Open Day

A series of new works have emerged. They have been presented at the Khoj Open Day, which was today! Now that they are 'done' I will share them on the blog soon. It was three small video pieces, three large prints, one of which was of a site specific installation also recreated at Khoj, and a series of photogrpahs on the economy of flowers and sinks. Meanwhile here is the note I shared today:-
----------------------------------->
The current work in the month long residency, follows my engagement with the river Yamuna in New Delhi, from 2004 to 2006, which led to photo and text based work, Alien Waters, and the book Immersion. Emergence, in October last year.

My practice as an environmentalist and a photographer, has increasingly been rooted in my understanding of the self as part of a network of inter-related ecologies, or as a ‘personal ecology.’ Ecology is not an isolated term for me, but one which shows inter–relationships. The river to me is not a mere water body flowing through the city , but as part of a network of myriad types of relationships each based on an exchange of various sorts, including with myself. However it seems that the city is not only unaware of the river itself, it is now quite oblivious of the deep relationship that exist. It is also startling how this changes as the river passes through first rural than a highly urbanized Delhi. Vegetables, flowers, water, sand, sewage, junk, as well as a place for livelihoods, and of peace, quietude and tranquility, are all part of that exchange

Sites of Exchange: Flower fields and Sinks
On the river itself, the flower fields of the river are where people grow marigolds to make a livelihood. The beauty of the flower is its exchange value, which in turn supports a sustainable local economy. The river provides the natural soil fertility and the easily available ground water, along with its own land, the sandy riverbed, as a site for cultivation. One acre of land can yield over 15 tonnes of flowers, zafris, basanti and gaindas, in one 7 to 9 month long season of flowers. The flowers are grown and plucked by family and relatives and sold mostly in the Fatehpuri mandi in Old Delhi. Here, one of the largest retail flower markets in North India, tonnes of flowers are sold each morning in a matter of a few hours. From here they travel to temples, homes, onto truck bonnets as garlands, or as adornments in weddings and religious rituals. Often they land up back in the river as decaying garbage and debry.

Simultaneously the city uses water from the river and throws it back as sewage. Each tap and water basin is almost literally connected to the river waters. While the river bemoans a ‘dirty and polluted’ river, it is unconscious of its own role in making it so. Over 3000 million liters of sewage finds its way into the river from sinks, bathtubs, sewerage pipes etc.. each day.

The local economy of the land is based on the fertility of land. However the price of land in the city is changing the economy around that sustenance. Land near Wazirabad, (near the flower fields) even though being part of the sandy ‘river bed,’ is now priced at over 3 lakh rupees an acre as demand for ‘new’ land sours in the dense city. Selling it could make more money than growing flowers or vegetables might. The ‘fertility of capital’ overtakes the ‘fertility of land.’ The riverbed is increasingly being acquired for building stadiums, large temples and now the Commonwealth Games village. Land and ecology are inseparable, as is the relationship between the ecology of nature and of the ‘self.’ The changing ecology of the flower fields is the crumbling ecology of the ‘self’ in these times. The script seems to be prewritten. The river is timeless. The river is dead.

DDA takes over

The Sustainable Flower Economy - how long?

Each acre of land is fertile for flowers for 7 months of the year, from October to April. During that time it yields a growing amount of flowers as the year progresses, starting from 10 sackfulls per week to over 20 sack fulls each week. Each sackful has about 20 kgs of flowers, and each sells for 100 to 150 rupees, in a good year. So in a good season one could expect from 500 to 700 sackfulls of zafri, basanti and gainda flowers, approximating 10 to 15 tonnes. A revenue which amounts to about 8 to 9,000 rupees per month per acre, probably half of which would count for expenses. A sustainable use of land, and a sustainable livelihood alongisde a clean and healthy environment.

Also in the remaining five months are grown vegetables like cauliflowers, tomatoes, spinach, radish as also melons, 'kakri.' Some farmers also grow wheat and sugarcane.

Its mostly family labour, women who pluck the flowers. Relatives, or neighbors working from 4 to 6 hours per day, besides doing their housework and looking after the children. There would be a man on the field alongside, for often the flowers are sold as they are plucked as buyers line up for the fresh stocks. The flower pluckers seem like a well-knit group on any particular field, who chatter away tales of their day and the chores within. It sounds like a social time. Each field is plucked once a week, the time taken for the plants to bloom again, and 4 to 5 women do the task.

Not everyone who is seen plucking the flowers owns the land. Many also lease it for an annual rate of 10 to 15 thousand rupees each year. It is like a rent, and all inputs, raw materials and profit are of the farmer. Yet land is divided along the river stretch depending on the community living close by. So near the village of Hiranki, about 7 kms from Jagatpur, the farmers are from Haryana and speak Haraynvi. Further down, nearer to Palla village is the village of Jagrolla. This is inhabited mostly by Sikh families and the women on the field speak hard to understand Punjabi. Some farms also seem very affluent since there is always a luxury car like an Optra or a Honda, which is parked there.

The buyers who procure the flowers from the fields often in small lots of 20 to 30 kilos are garland makers, flower sellers, or home flower suppliers. The garland makers seem the most interesting. They would thread marigold garlands and sell them to truckers and tempo drivers to adorn their vehicle bonnets. Each morning, very early, say at 3 am, the farmers take the unsold produce to the Fatehpuri mandi. Here buyers converge from all parts of the city and also outside it. It is the biggest flower mandi around, and all flowers are sold off between 7 am and 10 am. A retail kilo sells at 20 rupees a kilo though, and that is the cost of transportation and the trader margin I suppose.

However the threat of change hangs heavy on the fields now. The Delhi Assembly is debating that all 'rural' land be now urbanized. Changed into concrete and mortar. The Delhi Development Authority is proposing channelising the river into a concrete drain and build on the land on either side of it. Land is priceless in Delhi and flowers redundant it seems. Already it is said that the Government has acquired several thousand acres of land from farmers near Jagatpur village. There are big plans afoot. The Flower Economy may soon be of the past!

The Flower Exchange

I have invited my friends to be part of the residency. If they let me shoot their sink that is. In exchange they receive a poster with this blogsite on it, so that they can visit the river with me. Many of them have never been on the river, infact would not even know how to get there! While flowers flow from the river to the city, wastewater flows from the city to the river.

Ebb and Flow

The place where we had the picnic earlier last week is now under water. There is no land visible, only water. Along with the ploughed furrows. Now rippling waters. What value is the 3 laks per acre land when it is underwater. Land has value only so long it it visible. Such is the nautre of the ebb and flow. Transience. "Its a gamble" says Pratap, who owns this fleeting land, with a smile. he has seen this too long and too often. Maybe that is why there is the basic life he leads along with his family in Jagatpur. Buffoloes for milk, land for fodder, and his own field's grain for food. Complete and independant, almost. Some would say nostalgic and anti-technology. However, this is where the debate starts. What is needed for human life, what we desire and finally what we live off. And then there is that strange phenomenon called 'death!' The beginning of all mystery, of religion, of the search for the elixir of life. Man, nature, live, death, the presence and absence of expereince.

Ofcourse it gets complicated. There should be no doubt. Jagatpur itself is divided into communities of Muslims, Valmiks, Gujjars, all even in this small space have neatly divided boundaries, probably with differing land holdings and number of buffaloes they own. The local economy is propably deeply divided along community lines and power structures. Any afternoon the women can be seen fetching and cutting fodder, cooking, transporting grain on their heads, while men play cards. They have already had a long day in the fields they would argue. Difficult to say wherein lies the truth. How does one then value the Rs 3 lakhs per acre value for land?

Look at the labour in the flower instead. Maybe see their sustainablity of the economy of flowers at 10 rupees a kilo. Scale seems to change many things.

Prewritten script?

Let us not, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expect, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people, who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroys the forest to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that by removing along with the forests the collecting centre and reservoirs of moisture they were laying the basis for the present forlorn state of those countries. When the Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests on the southern slopes, so carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so that were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry of their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of more furious torrents on the plains during the rainy season….Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature – but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage of all other creatures on being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.

Nikolai Bukharin

News now!

Politicians have already expressed alarm over the snail-paced preparations for the 1.15-billion-dollar showcase which features former British colonies.

The government plans to build new flyovers to relieve crowded roads, renovate the airport, construct new stadia as well as the Games village that will be converted into a residential complex after the event.

The Urban Development Ministry has said that it has got an environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for building a Commonwealth Games Village near the Yamuna.The Games village, off NH-24, near Akshardham flyover, will be developed on 63.5 hectares and will house about 7,500 sportspersons and officials. UD ministry officials said they would consider making parking lots, media lounges etc temporary structures.

Environmentalists explain that construction on the river bed is inadvisable as the soil is sandy and has low carrying-capacity, a fault line runs through the area on a north-south axis and the area is prone to periodic floods. Further, covering the banks with impermeable concrete would threaten Delhi's largest groundwater recharge zone, they say. Construction would also lead to the channelling of the river, whereby its meandering course will be restricted by steep embankments. While channelling will make more space available for development and construction of the river banks, it will not do much for the river. "Channelling ensures that the amount of water allowed into the river shall never be increased. Any increase will result in the river flooding its embankments." A major reason why the Yamuna is so polluted is that there is not enough water flowing in the river through the Delhi stretch. Construction on the banks would make the river's rejuvenation close to impossible.

At Okhla, Jan 15th

The river has been fenced! All along the bank at Okhla, the site for two years of taking pictures of junk and junkmen, or cobblers and tailors, of fish and fishermen. Now fenced, while on the other side is 'project tiling' happening. In a few months, this has changed. In another few more will change, and then the pictures will have been of 'another time' though they are only months old. Land and its relationship with people on it is changing. Commercial values rule the roost. Where will all the flowers go?

Change is imminent. Of course. But on what terms? And at this pace? Unanchored self. Floating landscape.

The Flower Mandi at Fatehpuri, Jan 15th

Fathepuri even at 8 am is a flurry of activity. The day is already two hours old for the flower sellers, as they lay out their perishable wares in bundles of 10 kg each. 'From the river bank' they say of the Zafris I saw growing yesterday on the waters. The 'Gaindas' come later in April they confirm. "What you see here are not from Delhi but from UP." By 10 am they will be all gone, several tonnes of glorious sunlight yellow flowers, all without stalks and all used for making garlands, for decoration and for some type of auspicious festivity. I wonder how long back is that association, and how flowers came to be part of such events, especially these flowers. I promised myself that I would delve deeper into that question!

The Flower Fields, Jan 14th

Driving from Jagatpur to Palla, enroute are fields and fields of flowers. Looking like marigolds, and called 'Zafri' locally, they are not 'Gaindas' I was told. Gaindas only grow after April. But the flower fields mat the ground with vivid mustard and yellow. Each plant gives a new crop of flowers every ten days, when they are plucked and sold at ten rupees a kilo. Many people had queued up to buy sack fulls of flowers even as the women plucked them off the filed. I talked to them. Some would make garlands and sell them on roadside crossings. A common sight in Delhi. Bus and truck drivers buy them to adorn the bonnets and dashboards of their beasts of livelihood. Others sell them to temple go-wers, the garland with the largest flowers fetching upto five rupees each. Many came here each day to buy fresh flowers. What did not sell at the spot was sold at the Delhi 'mandi' at Fatehpuri.

However the women workers were worried. There was word going arond that the land would soon the aquired by the Govt. For what they asked? This is so beautiful and in any case it floods in the monsoon. Little did they guess that there was this land craze everywhere. Maybe the commonwealth games? I told them to enjoy and live off the land while they can, who knew about tomorrow these days? They were silent. I brought a couple of kilos of these glorious gifts of the river, and returned home, wondering about the future and the changing landscape. Sadly.

River Picnic, Jagatpur, January 9th, 2006

Pic Credits: Khoj/Uma Ray

After days of preparation, the picnic took place on the banks of the river near Jagatpur village. Atul and I had spent many days and evening setting it up, talking to the village elders, organising the food, talking to the boatmen etc. We did not want 50 'sheris' and many westerners to suddenly appear on the river, without warning. The village is a small place, and people misconstrue if not informed properly.

Khoj did the needful inviting and arranging of the transport. While I reached the spot earlier, with a car full of durries, sheets to sit on, packets of food etc. Atul accompanied the bus load of press people and artists who wanted to see a 'clean' part of the river. It was worth it. The river here is quite clean, since it is before it really enters the dense parts of the city and before the first of the 17 drains hit it. Also here the river is very broad, and curves in, giving the impression of almost a sea front. Today the day was cold, and foggy, but there were many birds - waders, ducks, and even some turns.

We had playfully labelled the water bottles with markings of the water pumps on the river and the paper tumblers with a 'warning message!'

A few hours, where the only dissapointment was the non-appearance of the fishermen with their boats (evidently they had gone fishing!), and much conversation and food later, the party slowly packed off and returned in batches. I too, finally loaded my car, and drove back home, releived that the event had gone off without mishap!

Locate the River

Can you locate the river on Google Maps? Try, it is great fun!

The Yamuna in Delhi

The Yamuna River, in northern India, forms one of the most important branches of the Ganges River. Yamuna is also one of the most polluted rivers in the world. Especially in New Delhi,the capital of India and the areas near it.

The Yamuna, which is sometimes called the Jumna River , rises in the Himalaya and flows southeastward for almost 900 miles (1,400 kilometers). It empties into the Ganges at the city of Allahabad. Two canals, one leading west and one leading east, irrigate about 12,000 square miles (31,100 square kilometers) of farmland in the river valley.

Though numerous attempts have been made to clean it, the efforts have proven to be futile. The main reasons for this is due to high density of population living in Delhi, the dumping of untreated water and solid waste into it (mostly illegally), the lax attitude of the government and mismanagement of projects focused at cleaning it. Also the water in this river remains stagnant for almost 9 months in a year aggravating the situation.

Water Quality
Water of the Yamuna river in the Capital is not fit for drinking even after treatment and disinfection, a classification report of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) said.
As per the CPCB’s best use classification, the quality of water in the river in the stretch between Wazirabad and Okhla was class E, which meant the water was only suitable for irrigation, industrial cooling and controlled waste disposal, the report said.
However, the quality of water as it entered the city at Palla till Wazirabad, from where industrial activity and dense settlements began, was classified C, indicating it was suitable for drinking after conventional treatment and disinfection.

Cleaning Efforts:
Delhi alone contributes around 3,296 MLD (million litres per day) of sewage in the river. The Govt. of India over the next five years has prepared plans to rebuild and repair the sewerage system and the drains that empty into the river. To arrest the river pollution, The Supreme Court of India has been forcing the cleaning of the river and consequently some measures have been taken by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) of the Government of India (GOI) in 12 towns of Haryana, 8 towns of Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi under an action plan (Yamuna Action Plan-YAP I and II) which is being implemented since 1993 by the National River Conservation Directorate (NRCD) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) participated in the Yamuna Action Plan Phase I in 15 of the above 21 towns (excluding 6 towns of Haryana included later on the direction of the honorable Supreme Court of India) with soft loan assistance of 17.773 billion Japanese Yen (equivalent to about Rs. 700 crore INR) while GOI provided the funds for the remaining 6 towns added later. The second phase of this program YAP II is now in progress from December 1, 2004 at a cost of Rs 624 crore, to augment sewage treatment capacity. However there is great skeptisicm about the utilsiation of the funds and the effectiveness of these measures.

Land use threats
Recently, owing to the Commonwealth games slated in 2010, there are new moves to ‘build’ on the river bed. These constructions include housing, stadiums, sports complexs, roads etc. Large scale demolitions have also taken place of people living on the river banks, and several thousand people have been dislocated. However the river bed is also the groundwater recharge zone of the city, and this activity of converting river bed land into commercial or institutional land is being opposed.

Economy:
The River bank is also a site for several types of livelihoods. Farmers cultivate vegetables, water melons, flowers, sugar cane and wheat here. Also sand from the bed is used for construction in the city, besides boatmen, fisherfolk, pujaris, water carriers also using the river for their livelihoods.

Topography:
Keeping in view the topography, Yamuna catchments upto Delhi is divided in two parts - (1) The upper catchment from source in Himalayas to Kalanaur in Haryana - which com[rises parts of Himachal Pradesh and hills of West Uttar Pradesh and (2) the lower catchment from Kalanaur to odl Delhi rail bridge which consists of West Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

River Yamuna enters Delhi from the northeast near Palla at an altitude of 210.3 meters and after traverse of about 40km. it leaves Delhi at an altitude of 198.12 m near Jaitpur in the Souht. The width of the riverbed varied from 1.5 to 2.0km. in its flow from Wazirabad barrage, a network of seventeen drains joins the river on the West bank during its traverse in the northern parts of the city. Najafgarh and Alipur drains, due to heavy discharge from Sahibi river, inundate a number of villages in Nazafargarh block causing heavy damage to life and property. There was, however, little effect of it in Yamuna river flow. Only one drain joins on the East bank near the old rail bridge.

The flow of Yamuna within Delhi is by and large influenced by discharge from Tajewala Headwork 240 kms upstream. In the event of heavy rain in the catchment area excess water is released from Tajewala. Depending upon the river flow level down stream, it takes about 48 hours for Yamuna level in Delhi to rise. The rise in water level also causes backflow effect on the city's drains. The city also experiences floods due to its network of 18 major drains having catchment areas extending beyond the city's limits.

Flood vulnerability
The city has been experiencing floods of various magnitudes in the past due to floods in the Yamuna and the Najafgarh Drain system. The Yamuna crossed its danger level (fixed at 204.83m) twenty five times during the last 33 years (table 3.1). Since 1900, Delhi has experienced six major floods in the years 1924, 1947, 1976, 1978, 1988 and 1995 when peak level of Yamuna river was one meter or more above danger level of 204.49m at old rail bridge (2.66m above the danger level) occurred on sixth September 1978. The second record peak of 206.92m was on twenty seventh September 1988.

In the recent part, the city experienced high magnitude floods in 1977, 1978, 1988 and 1995, causing misery and loss of life and property to the residents of the city. In Delhi Environment Status Report: WWF for Nature-India (1995), it has been pointed out that since 1978, the flood threat to Delhi has increased. In 1980, a discharge of 2.75 lakh causes at Tajewala resulted in flood level of 212.15 meters at the bund near Palla village in Delhi.

(references: Toxics Link information, New Delhi, , paper by Taranjot Kaur Gadhok, HSMI (HUSDCO), New Delhi, YAP webiste, Tribune news reports, TERI reports, CSE reports)

Alien Waters

The river.
The river is in the city’s margins. It is very dirty, filthy. The city does not need it any more. Its future is pre-configured, the river is ‘dead.’ It will now be cleaned but not like a life giving artery, but a sparkling necklace, adorning a new globality of the city. There was a time when the river was its ecology as the city and the river shaped each other. Now the relationship is only with land, which the river holds in its belly. Violent. Thousands of poor are thrown out, for the new stadiums, temples, bridges and pathways their futures uncertain. Death, the predominant Hindu relationship to life in the cycle of rebirth has a timeless resonance as ashes are immersed in the waters. But what will the rebirth be?

The self.
The self, seeking to recover a relationship in the new alienation as the river becomes a muse and metaphor for a search, within and without. The first bird I saw on the riverbank thirty years ago came back and changed my life as I attempted to regain a personal ecology as a photographer/activist. My organic body now extended by the inorganic body of the city. The river is alive, throbbing in my veins resonating unresolved questions of spirit and sense. The engagement with the triad of the self, the city and the river, becomes a reclamation of the self. I photograph even as I experience other human abandonment. I go back, again and again, endlessly, searching.