What happened to Assam’s lone hill station Dima Hasao?

Have you seen the pictures of the New Halflong railway station? The mud and slush coming from the hills have dilapidated everything. The trains standing at the station were also half-buried in muddy waters. The rains have washed away the railroad in 53 places. We don’t know the exact number of dead so far. The loss of lives and property are yet to be estimated. It has been said that the dead bodies of a few people have been dug out from under the debris.

Was it a natural disaster or a man-made fury? Has it something to do with our model of development? Now, what is this thing called ‘development’? Has it something to do with our history, geography, climate and culture? What is the objective of development? Its objective is to improve the quality of life of the majority of people. Now, what do we mean by quality of life? Is it the ability to afford unlimited consumption or is it the ability to lead a healthy and peaceful life with dignity, freedom and identity?

Does the notion of unbridled consumption augur well with the notion of sustainable development? Are consumption and happiness two sides of the same coin? It is true that modern technology and production process have made goods and services available as never before. But are these goods and services equally available for everyone? No. Never.

How could it be when one percent of people owns the 69% wealth of the world and 99% of people own merely 31% of the total wealth? It is not possible in the circumstances of such perverse inequality. How do we see one percent of people owning nearly 70% of the wealth? Is it a normal thing? Do they really need so much wealth? Not really. It is nothing but profiteering. It is all about controlling wealth and controlling power and politics and economics. And what about the notion of unbridled consumption? Is it a necessary thing? Absolutely not.

As has been stated above what we need is only a healthy and peaceful life with dignity, freedom and identity. Then this model of development promoted by the one percent must not be applied everywhere. How can there be the same model of development for Gurgaon and Dima Hasao? Way back in 2005 this was discussed in detail by Prof. Sanjib Baruah, who teaches politics at Bard College in New York in the chapter “Nationalising Space: Cosmetic Federalism and the Politics of Development” in his book “Durable Disorder”.

In the name of development, hills have been destroyed, for building mega roads and bridges trees have been uprooted and for producing electricity mega dams have been built in our rivers. Our forests have been exploited in a manner that they can no longer hold the monsoon waters. Actually, the forest has just disappeared. If this continues what has happened to Dima Hasao today the same will happen to the entire northeast tomorrow.

It takes thousands of years to form the geography of a place. Then depending on its climatic conditions, human culture is formed. By forgetting all this if we impose a model of development not suitable for the local conditions will it not jeopardise everything? What has happened to Dima Hasao today? It was such a lovely and beautiful place! But this place has been defiled by a cohort of business people and politicians, assisted by the local touts.

They have destroyed the country and the forest there. Didn’t we hear a thousand core scams of Dima Hasao only a few years ago? How sad! They have dug up the river beds with tractors. If they cut the forest, erode the hills and dig up the river beds what will remain of Dima Hasao?

The way this juggernaut of development is running amok in the northeast it will crush everything under its wheels sooner or later. We must ponder over this seriously. However, at the moment our hearts and souls should be with the people of Dima Hasao. They need all the help from the government and also from us. They are in deep trouble.