By: Ganesh Saili
‘Stirring the pot!’ That you could say is Mussoorie’s creed. It bubbles under the surface to manifest itself as the people’s voice – always loud and clear.
Rewind to 1974, as the shifty-eyed quarry owner, picking his teeth, said: ‘Take your town somewhere else!’ and added: ‘Tough luck that you are sitting on the richest limestone deposit in the country!’
Around this time, in a quiet corner of the hill station, at St. Helen’s Cottage, three elderly ladies, two hoteliers, and a school principal were meeting for high tea. None of them needed an introduction: the legendary Princess Sita of Kapurthala; May Badhwar, daughter of an ICS officer; and Maisie Gantzer, the relict of an ex-Chairman of the Municipal Board; Prem Thadani and Pramode Sawhney (both hoteliers); and the popular Principal of Modern School, Douglas Vegais. They were friends of old.
Miscellany (1936). Pic courtesy: Rahul Kohli
That evening, they had had a rough time reaching St. Helen’s with the road reduced to wheel ruts of the trucks – Harley Davidsons or snub-nosed ‘gattus’ – bulging with limestone quarried from the mines of Hathipaon, Lambidhar, and Chuna Khala.
‘Enough is enough. This must stop!’ Who said that? No one is sure, but what began that Sunday afternoon led to the birth of the Save Mussoorie Society. It started a movement not seen anywhere in the country.
When they arrived at the library barrier in June 1974, the truckers were greeted by three silver-haired ladies with a group of determined townspeople blocking the road.
‘Is this some kind of gag?’ scoffed the driver.
‘Money can fix anything,’ they were heard to murmur, as they retreated to Dehradun.
On hearing that Mrs Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister, might be coming by helicopter to the National Academy of Administration, the mining mafia tried to hide the exposed limestone at the quarry at Chuna Khala by painting the entire hillside dark green. However, a people’s tsunami was on its way. Without political or financial clout, the hill station took on the moneybags.
Avadesh Kaushal, Chairman of RLEK, filed one of the earliest public interest litigations in the Supreme Court. It was the last nail to be hammered into the coffin of quarrying.
Twenty years later, the same spirit returned on Independence Day 1994 when a handful of boys, stung by the Mandal Commission Report, marched to protest the announcement of a 27% reservation for other backward castes. They feared that with our OBCs at just 2%, the quota would be swamped with outsiders
Inept handling created a maelstrom that led to the birth of Uttarakhand. Disastrously, on the 2nd of September, the police opened fire. Rising to the occasion, sleepy Mussoorie turned into the fountainhead of the Uttarakhand movement. The ‘Down but not out’ spirit had worked.
How one wishes this spirit would return! Around me is an explosion of unplanned excessive tourism.
My Italian friend Silvano tells me of an island in Sicily where hotels and inns turn away tourists because they have no water.
Out here, though, all we need is one inch of excess rain, and our system collapses. Our culverts have been heedlessly blocked with illegally dumped construction debris. With nowhere to go, the water flows on the roads, destroying them. Whilst further afield, on the Mall – our last quiet walk – an invasion of squatters is underway.
‘Get them off the roads. Create a special zone for them!’ suggest well-meaning folk.
Our ‘do-gooders’ society settled our horse owners on Camel’s Back Road; of course, they sold the shops, laughing all the way to the bank, and moved right back. As I write, a rash of construction is ongoing, using gravel illegally quarried in the dark of the night from the Hathipaon area despite a Supreme Court ban.
How long can we tolerate thousands of illegally rented scooters driven by louts? Or massive XUVs hurtling down narrow lanes? Or dingy Maggi Points that line the road from Dehradun? Excessive tourism is killing our town.
‘All our birds have fled,’ mourns actor Victor Banerjee.
Isn’t it time we woke up and stirred the pot again in a last-ditch effort to save our home?
Ganesh Saili, born and home-grown in the hills, belongs to those select few whose words are illustrated by their pictures. As the author of two dozen books, some translated into twenty languages, his work has found recognition worldwide.
