In the late 50s and 60s, while heading to Madras Central
station early in the morning in mail, one is greeted by fresh cool breeze
blowing over the serene blue waters of Bay of Bengal that was glistered by the
golden rays of rising Sun in the far east to the left of the chugging train.
What a treat it was to watch fishermen sailing out to east in their tiny boats
through the rising waves with grit and determination in search of sea wealth!
Today, you travel by the same track and
you would be disappointed for, the waters are no longer blue, indeed they are
darkened, air smells acrid, a fine haze of toxic fly-ash hangs in the
atmosphere that neither allows you to breathe fully, nor did it allow you to
see the rising Sun in the far. A nearby coal-fired thermal power station
discharges hot water right into the mouth of estuary destroying the very
ecosystem beyond recognition. Instead of seeing dotting boats in the roaring
waters you would come across beastly cranes digging out earth, fly-ash dykes of
thermal plants or scores of migratory workers shovelling mud in that hellish
atmosphere or rows of shanties—the so called dwelling places of these migratory
labourers.
It is sitting amidst this devastated backdrop of the coast
that the Magsaysay Awardee, TN Krishna, a noted Carnatic classical vocalist,
sang ‘Chennai Poramboke paadal’. Wearing a gas mask, perhaps to
protect himself from the air-pollution, he sings, “Poramboke ennaku illai,
poramboke unnaku illai (Poramboke is not for me, it is not for you) Poramboke
ooruike, Poramboke bhoomikku (Poramboke is for the city, it is for the
Earth) …” with improvizations of his own to the accompaniment of violin,
mridangam and kanjira. The song, lamenting at the inaction of the government
and the apathy of the people at the corporate greed that is encroaching into
even poramboke lands in the guise of “growth, jobs, opportunities… just
flimsy excuses” reminds the public that “Poramboke is in your care… it
is our common responsibility towards nature, towards the earth.” A laudable
effort to draw the attention of the otherwise indifferent government and the
ignorant public towards this unmindful exploitation of nature.
To better appreciate the mocking of Krishna at the
indifferent government we must first understand what ‘poramboke’ stands
for. According to revenue records, poramboke “denotes un-assessed lands reserved
for communal and public use, including commons such as cremation or burial
grounds, roads, lakes, tanks, rivers, forests, grasslands, grazing grounds, and
the margins of roads, water bodies and the sea.”
But with the advent of independence, slowly the ruling class
started encroaching these lands to maximize their economic gain. Over the
years, it became so rampant that if you travel across the country you would
notice occupation of these common lands—margins of roads, waterbeds, banks of
water bodies like tanks, drains, canals and even rivers—for commercial
exploitation by the neo-rich including corporates and for erecting hutments by
the marginalized of the society. Indeed, the occupation of Poramboke lands for erecting hutments by the
marginalised of the society is so rampant that no village is today left with
the once notified as Poramboke lands mostly as grazing lands for cattle.
This kind of encroachment across the country has become such a sensitive issue
that no government agency is in a mood to touch them.
The net result is: one, hindrance to the natural flow of
rain-water into sea through drains, rivers, etc. leading to inundation of
cities and towns and farm lands in every rainy season; two, pollution of water
bodies by the sewage, industrial effluents and garbage discharged by these
establishments. Research studies indicate that concentration of heavy metals in
such sites is resulting in bioaccumulation—toxicants are becoming a part of
human food through plant and animal products. Air-pollution too is assuming
alarming propositions.
Though neo-classical economics textbooks proclaim that
markets endowed with private property rights and contracts are better equipped
to deliver efficiency and equity but in the real world it does not appear to
happen that way, at least always. Even the prophet of market economy, Adam Smith,
is perhaps aware of it when he said: “Creating harmony between the pursuit of
self-interest and the pursuit of social welfare depends on the constraints on
self-interest.” And the scope for the operation of such a ‘constraint’ on man’s
behavior appears slim: for ‘Man’, as enunciated by grandsire Bhishma in The
Mahabharata, is a slave to money—arthasya purusha dasah.
This makes abundantly clear how important it is for the
people and the government to assert and put a stop to this exploitation of
environment beyond repair. And that is what Krishna and his colleagues are
mocking at through their padal song. Incidentally, Elinor Ostrom of Indiana
University, USA, the first woman to win Nobel in Economics, proposed a new
architecture of governance for such common pool resources. Based on her field
research, she proposed ‘polycentric governance’, which involves: one, clearly
defining boundaries of common resources; two, adapting rules regarding the
appropriation and provision of common resources to local conditions; three,
collective-choice arrangements; four, effective monitoring by monitors who are
part of or accountable to the appropriators; five, a scale of graduated
sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules; six, cheap
and easy access mechanisms of conflict resolution; and seven, recognition of
the self-determination of the community by higher-level authorities.
Though
conservatives denounce Krishna’s resorting to such singing, it must be
appreciated that “mocking birds… sing their hearts out for us”, and aroused by
it common folk must muster enough courage to assert themselves as
not-porambokes but worthy and capable of stopping this perilous course of encroaching poramboke lands and ensure that poramboke remains poramboke—for the good of all and earth as a whole.
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