THE HILLS ARE BURNING
In the first week of April, India hosted US special presidential envoy for climate, John Kerry, in New Delhi as a precursor to the Leaders’ Summit with President Joe Biden later this month and COP-26 (the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference) in November. Around the same time, barely 300 km away in hill state Uttarakhand’s capital Dehradun, chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat was huddled in an emergency meeting to deal with the spreading forest fire in the state. His state, along with neighbouring hill state Himachal Pradesh, is witnessing unprecedented wildfires. The situation is getting worse by the day as the region has had a prolonged dry spell, leaving the forest floor “tinder dry”.
Uttarakhand and Himachal see the most forest fires in India every year. The Forest Survey of India (FSI) has identified the woodlands along the south, west and southwest regions of Uttarakhand— including Dehradun, Hardwar, Garhwal, Almora, Nainital, Udham Singh Nagar and Champawat districts— as the most vulnerable in terms of the frequency and intensity of wildfires. This year, Nainital, Almora, Tehri and Pauri districts have been the worst hit.
Locals say the standing oak trees are also burning this time, besides the pines, which catch fire more easily. They say this means the earth is completely dry. The lack of soil moisture is a key factor—the last two monsoons in 2019 and 2020 were rain deficient by 18-20 per cent of the seasonal average. Generally, forest fires happen when the ground has large quantities of dry wood, leaves, stumps, dry grass, all of which can easily go up in flames if there is a trigger. Last year, human movement was also restricted because of the lockdown and Covid restrictions, so the forests were in better shape. Increased access to LPG cylinders as cooking fuel has also led to drastic reduction in use of forest waste in the hill states. Even so, the trigger for the fires could be natural or man-made. A bigger problem is that Indian environment and climate change policymakers do not factor in forest fires as carbon emitters, nor does the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) consider it a natural disaster. Based on analysis of satellite images, the European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) says the Uttarakhand fires have already emitted 0.2 mega tonnes of carbon in the past month—the highest since 2003. On paper, two-thirds of the state is under forest cover, but its own data shows that in the past two decades, roughly 48,000 ha. has been lost to development activities as well as fires. The locals are used to wildfires in the spring, but it usually peaks in May, and they fear the worst is yet to come. Meanwhile, Rawat has roped in two MI-17 helicopters from the Centre to fight the fire. Deployed in Kumaon and Garhwal regions, they are using 5,000 litre buckets filled with lake water to douse the flames. Some 12,000 state and central forest personnel are also deployed in the fire-fighting operations but with little success so far. The fire has already destroyed 700 ha. of forest land. In January 2019, the FSI upgraded their monitoring system by sourcing satellite images from NASA and ISRO for real-time data on fires in the Himalayan states. A long-standing complaint in the region has been that the Forest Act, 1988, dissociates the local community from the forests. Environmentalist and author Shekhar Pathak has been arguing for long that the “van panchayats must be given rights and incentives to protect the jungles”. “We must go back to conventional methods, such as creating waterholes in the hills to recharge groundwater and increase moisture levels and rebuilding ‘fire-lines’ (30-35 feet buffer trenches) in the forests,” he says. Kerry and the Indian government can continue the preparations for the global climate meet, but policymakers must also find the bandwidth to discern lasting solutions to the perennial problem of wildfires.
Conventional solutions such as waterholes in the hills and buffertrench ‘fire-lines’ could help contain wildfires
For Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, the three bypolls on April 17—in Rajsamand, Sahara and Sujangarh—may be a challenge comparable in scale and complexity to the BJP-backed rebellion in July 2020 by party counterweight Sachin Pilot. The state assembly has 200 seats, of which the Congress currently holds 104 and the BJP, 71. However, six of the Congress MLAs are defectors from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The validity of their entry into the Congress is currently sub-judice, giving the party a clear strength of 98, two short of the halfway mark.
Gehlot is taking no chances. He has been campaigning since February, launching projects worth Rs 158 crore in the three constituencies. On April 7, he also relaxed the maximum age limit for EWS (economically weaker section) candidates in appointments to state services, by five years for men and by 10 years for women, bringing them on par with other reserved categories. To limit the perception damage caused by Pilot’s rebellion last year, and the BJP’s unceasing barbs about Gehlot’s precarious hold on government, the state
Congress has also been attempting to present a united face, ensuring that Gehlot and Pilot campaign together. Pilot is of the Gurjar community, and in a close election, caste-based voting could prove decisive.
However, the divisions in the Congress remain visible. Pilot’s loyalists are reportedly displeased that they were not rewarded for calling off their rebellion—Ramesh Meena, for instance, who was sacked from his position as minister for food and civil supplies, has threatened to quit the party if he is not given an audience with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. For his part, Gandhi has made his displeasure with the almost-rebellion clear, refusing to meet with Pilot or any of his loyalists. He has also expressed annoyance over Pilot’s followers raising slogans for their leader at farmers’ rallies that he had visited in Rajasthan in February. However, this has not stopped Pilot’s supporters from being increasingly vocal at rallies and on social media, with some even questioning the chief minister’s popularity by saying that voters are only attending rallies to hear Pilot speak, not Gehlot.
To make the most of the sympathy vote—these bypolls were triggered by the deaths of sitting MLAs—both the Congress and the BJP have fielded family members of the departed MLAs. In Rajsamand, which was held by the BJP’s Kiran Maheshwari, the saffron party has nominated her daughter, Deepti. She faces the Congress’s Tansukh Bohra, an affluent marble business owner. In Sujangarh, the Congress has fielded Manoj Meghwal, the son of Bhanwar Lal Meghwal, who formerly held this seat. He faces the BJP’s former minister, Khema Ram Meghwal. In Sahara, the Congress has fielded Gayatri Devi, the wife of former MLA Kailash Trivedi— she faces the BJP’s Ratan Lal Jat, also a former minister.
The BJP has largely left its campaign strategy to state chief Satish Poonia. Former chief minister Vasundhara Raje is conspicuously absent though she cited a medical emergency in the family to account for this. The Congress says it’s a clear sign she wants to stay away from the polls. To make up for Raje’s absence, the BJP has brought in Jyotiraditya Scindia, her nephew, whose defection to the BJP brought down the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh last year. A good result for the BJP will strengthen Poonia’s position and the anti-Raje faction in the state unit. A bad showing will likely lead to his replacement with someone who is able to win the trust of the Raje camp.
In the final reckoning, while these elections will likely have no impact on the state government, they may prove decisive for many leaders in both the Congress and the BJP.
Not counting the six who defected from the BSP, the Congress, with 98 MLAs, is two short of the halfway mark in the state assembly