DDF Editorial: Political binaries futile in the age of Climate Change

 

Digital Discourse Foundation 

When Karnataka Chief Minister Mr. Basavaraj Bommai blamed the previous Congress governments of the State for the state of urban floods currently ravaging the new residential suburbs in Bangalore, it betrayed his complete ignorance, to say the least.

The Chief Minister seemed to lack basic comprehension of the issues, to put it mildly.  Urban floods, be it in Mumbai 2005, Jammu in September 2014, Chennai 2015 or Bangalore 2022 they are all because of bad planning and inequitable urban development.

Add Climate Change, El Nino Beziehungsweise La Nina, politically illusory cyclone database, and connivance of the corrupted regime, then the complexity escapes the intellectual horizons of the political green horns completely.

Undoubtedly the urban floods in Bangalore are a cumulative impact of bad urban planning, unplanned vertical growth, and disdain for environmental laws and civic laws. It reflects poorly on the state of administration indeed. No doubt corrupt regimes are the key to such recipes for disaster - anywhere.

But Chief Minister Bommai represents a political party that swears by urbanization and champions vertical economic growth without much success in equitable social welfare; Wither then Smart City Governance Goals? Populist fiscal subsidies are not the only yardstick for inclusive economic growth.  Neither is lowering the standards of poverty definitions.

These pension schemes and digi-fiscal subsidies are not exactly welfare although a thin line divides social welfare from fiscal inclusivity. Thus Mr. Bommai’s blunt blame on the Congress for the current floods in the so called IT Corridor lacks depth of understanding of the complexity of issues at stake.

The instant urban floods in East Bangalore are a net result of encroachment of rainwater drainage basin, scant regard for bye laws, lack of urban civic amenities like well maintained and de-silted Storm Water Drain infrastructure, ineffective rain water harvesting, encroachment of lake shores, deforesting catchment areas without replenishing Green Belts, concentrating economic growth in cities like Bangalore that is bursting at the seams.  If only all districts in the hinterland had good and reliable power supply, water supply, good educational institutions, agricultural markets, planned cities, the livelihood security options in the hinterland, it would have made migration completely unnecessary, logically!

Today it is urban floods tomorrow or in the not too distant future human wildlife conflict is bound to raise its very vulnerable head glaring into the headlights of skewed development quotient.

Niche gated communities with real estate prices breaching 8 digit figures is not exactly development Mr. Chief Minister. Quite on the contrary it reflects black money, hoarding of cash by the corrupted few where digital payments have obviously failed. Some of these gated communities have literally eaten up lake shores. Atleast one gated community in Bangalore’s Kadubeesanahalli (just one of the areas now flooded) has an exclusive swimming pool for pet dogs of the home owners. Talk of misplaced priorities Mr. Chief Minister. Another mad hatter’s paradise in Sarjapur has a walking path for obese pet cats because cats get lost in apartment complexes (so presumably they cannot hunt and burn their calories) where they are artificially made indoor creatures quite against their natural history instincts.

All the roads leading to these exclusive gated villas are devoid of storm water drains. Worse, these roads leading to the gated communities have overflowing open sewage lines criss-crossing the pathetic roads and sewage littered lanes while driving into the gated communities. Woe betide the wretched Mercedes Benz cars of these fake elites… they are most certainly not designed to drive in human waste!

With fresh water drainage weirs all being encroached, Bangalore’s fake elites with villas in gated communities are the root cause for frothing lakes with pollutants not being channeled, collected and treated properly. The credit card dues are guaranteed to land the IT coolies in poverty decades down the line; such is the state of planning. 

The Karnataka State Government is also guilty of ruining lakes. 

Irresponsible drainage of untreated pollutants and sewage into lakes like Bellandur and Agara in Southeast Bangalore leaves the lakes frothing and heaving every autumn. These are all seminary consequences of unplanned growth and connivance of indisciplined, corrupt regimes.

Contrast this year’s flooding with areas in old Bangalore like Malleswaram, Basavanagudi, Jayanagar and even Cantonment areas… after unprecedented heavy overnight rain over the weekend there was not a drop of water stagnating on any road the next morning in these areas.

The reasons were obvious to urban environmental activists and their tribe: Drainage of rainwater ain’t clogged. Storm Water drains are conducive and complementary to gradient and the catchment. Indeed the water drained in the Storm Water Drains is the catchment area for the lakes and tanks in any city especially land locked cities like Bangalore.

The aforementioned older suburbs were designed by Sir M. Visheshwariah and Sir Mirza Ismail - erstwhile Dewans of the Wodeyar kingdom of Mysore when Bangalore was the Resident Seat of the ancien regime of the British Raj. These areas are blessed with unclogged storm water drains, broad roads and broader pavements, tree lined avenues demarcated markets and commercial areas against residential areas and so on.

Much as we love to hate the British Raj, Karnataka owes it to the Wodeyar Kings – albeit allegedly being vassals of the Brits – the Wodeyars made Old Mysore State – the Wodeyar Kingdom - a model state of governance. 

Atleast they imparted tenets of democratic governance (The Wodeyars are credited with the founding of Universities, universal adult suffrage, hydro electric power plants, industrialization in their kingdom, Founding a Legislative Assembly - Origin and Growth of Karnataka Legislature a maternity hospital among other strides of development even before India got Independence in 1947.

Successive governments have ignored the need for horizontal economic growth in the hinterland. If there had been livelihood security first of all in the Hinterland, there would have been no migration to Bangalore and other major cities.

Bangalore’s topography has a natural slope towards the east as does most of the Deccan Plateau.  Bangalore in particular is located in the valley of three rocky hills: Nandidurga in the North, Savandurga in West - Southwest and Bannerghatta in the South – South East. The low lands of East North East of Bangalore are vulnerable to flooding. Bangalore gets copious amounts of rain only in the withdrawal phase of Southwest Monsoons and in the dawn of northeast monsoons. Thus September is usually the wettest month of the year. It follows logically then that the more of unplanned human footprint there is, there will be that much more of waterlogging. That is not rocket science!

Since a fourth hill is not there, the drainage slopes eastward … this area is the drainage area for flowing rainwater which has been encroached by land sharks. That is the ablest description for a near illiterate real estate lobby that caters only to Boomtown rats.  It is this near illiterate real estate lobby that connives with the corrupt sections of bureaucracy and political avatars. They know not the Gandhian virtues of incorruptible abstinence, neither of poverty nor of sustainable development.

When these low lying areas are flooded by blocked rain water there is the additional danger of contamination of sewage and consequent water borne diseases, triggering secondary disasters. (Incidentally one was left wondering what made educated reporters of well established news channels to wade in these waters while reporting piece to camera). Not to mention the cost of reconstruction, compensation, insurance of the gated villas and automobiles, feeding the dispossessed, cost of medical treatment to those afflicted by water contamination etc.

Artificial Intelligence based accoutrements like Alexa or Siri that define the lifestyles of the nouveau riche in Bangalore, cannot compute Climate Change minus El Nino / La Nina, corrupted development paradigms of short sighted political regimes, and interpret cyclone database or monsoon database.

If indeed these contraptions can be data-fed, perhaps it will make a difference to the lives of everyone from the vulnerable fishers to the blighting corrupted and moneyed denizens of these gated communities lost as they are in the delirious hubris of a make believe world of fiscal fantasies.

Smart City Governance, one of the Sustainable Development Goals seeks equitable growth. Karnataka one of the more developed states in India would do well to enforce civic laws more transparently and to defer to FAR, Green Belts and Green Cover, sustainable, equitable and horizontal fiscal growth, welfare measures, environmental economics, and adhere to civic laws. That will be an effective first step. “Post-disaster reconstruction (PDR) is a complex and highly demanding process that involves a number of different and well coordinated courses of action. Therefore, it is vital that these complex activities are well planned” says  Dzulkarnaen Ismail in a study called A Review On Post-Disaster Reconstruction Project: Issues And Challenges Faced By International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs).

Climate Change adaptation underscores the need to factor in development lest the fiscal cost of extreme weather events like the current floods in Bangalore will be recurrent, with no lessons being learnt. In Disaster Risk Reduction parlance, every event or calamity is an opportunity to share lessons learnt.

Climate Change adaptation is also desperately needed lest India goes into self destruct mode. Given the current scenario few millionaires will eat up the resources of the vast majority comprising of the Middle Class. Much as it sounds so clichéd, the Bangalore floods of 2022 are another wake up call to the political class.  

Miles to go before we sleep Mr. Chief Minister! No point hoodwinking the electorate in the era of Climate Change.