Of paradox and possibility

While the collective power of many small (apolitical) efforts to bring about change is acknowledged, what gets missed out is the fact that development is inherently a political process.

India is a land of paradox: if there is poverty amidst prosperity then hope can be traced amidst despair too. Despite being an increasingly unequal society that produces real victims and genuine tragedies on a daily basis, it inadvertently leaves people to create possibilities for their own emancipation as well. With humane development far distanced from a sizable population, individual creativity is innovating new pathways for leftovers of the society to tread on. For millions trapped in the downstream economy of deprivation, ordinary folks are scripting extraordinary tales of bringing basic elements - potable water, safe food, and fresh air - within peoples’ reach.

Elemental India is an inspiring journey through this landscape of paradox and possibilities, a compendium of stories weaved together to reflect the essence of pancha mahabhuta – five elements that constitute nature. Within the geographical bounties of the sub-continent, a wide array of fascinating survival options are being created by enterprising individuals and institutions to keep the ‘five elements’ in harmony. Embedded in this quest for alternatives are personal journeys of some of these individuals in search of a meaning of life.   

Umendra’s crusade for organic agriculture in Punjab; Kanhaiya’s relentless pursuit for water in Rajasthan; and Pinki’s tirade for women liberation in Bihar are few of those stories, offering counter narrative to the dominant discourse on development that hinges on industrialization. That there is an alternate way of life and an alternate approach to human development that doesn’t compromise on any of the five elements is the leitmotif of these stories. Meera Subramanian does not miss out on details while capturing the vignettes of change sweeping the country.

Inspiring as the stories may be, these remain on the margins of mainstream growth agenda of the state. One reason for this being so has to do with the very nature of these initiatives, as these occur outside the purview of the state by non-state actors.  Consequently, the state is under no obligation to integrate such products or processes in its institutional architecture. Need it be said that successive governments have often been hostile to the environmentalism of its times. 

Another reason for non-acknowledging such transformative stories has to do with the state’s obsession with double-digit economic growth, wherein ecological concerns are viewed as middle-class ‘lifestyle environmentalism’ aimed at stalling progress. With ‘Make in India’ being the current dictum of growth, it is quite unlikely if equity and ecological concerns will merit any serious consideration in the prevailing political-economy of development.    

Unlike most first generation non-resident Indians, the author carries compassion for country’s rich culture and its intrinsic value system. With a stint at one of the environmental non-profits in the US, she has developed empathy for deprived people and appreciation for bottom-up change. Building on her investigative analysis, she argues in favor of a new economy that neither loses sight of the last man nor country’s irreplaceable natural resources. 

Having been privy to most stories and people featured in the book, I am both at an advantage and a disadvantage as a reviewer. The advantage is that one can quickly relate to the stories, and the disadvantage being that one closely understands their unresolved complexities. While the collective power of many small efforts (largely apolitical) to bring about change is acknowledged, what gets missed out is the fact that development is inherently a political process. How two divergent forces can be made to enter into a dialogue has remained a vexed question?   

No surprise, therefore, that the author toes the predictable line of argument in renewing her hopes that small stories have the potential to trigger big change, towards a secure, sustainable, and prosperous future. The issue of scale has remained unaddressed, though.

In addition to making an interesting reading, Elemental India is a grim reminder on the challenges confronting the country, and gives a timely call to the policy planners to evolve an intrinsic Indian model of development which is more proactive and permanent. Neither Nehru’s monolithic top-down industrialization nor Gandhi’s austere agrarian model can suit the changing India, which is young and aspiring. It needs a new script for change that draws the best from both, capitalizing on its human and natural resources. 

Elemental India
by Meera Subramanian
Harper Litmus, New Delhi
Extent: 340, Price: Rs 599

This review was first published in The Hindustan Times dated July 23, 2016.

A bone-dry dystopia

To keep some fountains running while million others survive on ‘hydration packs’ is the worst form of inequality that human civilization could usher in the name of progress. 

With searing discontent among citizens and conflicts brewing among states, the world is fast heading towards a water-less future. As huge areas across the globe dry up and with a billion people without access to safe water, the world might indeed be standing on a precipice. In his fictional world, which may not be far from the emerging reality, Paolo Bacigalupi imagines a bone-dry dystopia where water is the most prized possession. Private armies are deployed to lay control over water of the Colorado River, as lawyers engage in court-room battles to win shady deals. It is an electrifying vision of the future where lawlessness and violence is the order of the day, with the states fighting over shared waters of the river as enshrined in a treaty drawn nearly a century ago. ‘I say we send our troops up to Colorado, that’s our water they are holding’. It is people seeking to take advantage of people. 

The Water Knife is a novel of discomforting possibilities of a piped resource and a packaged product, as water has come to mean for a vast majority of the population. Today, a sizeable chunk of population thrives on borrowed water. Else, how Las Vegas – a city that should have dried up and blown away – would have survived?  There could be nothing more shocking for those who are robbed of their water to serve the interests of lush mini-worlds hundreds of miles away. To keep some fountains running while million others survive on ‘hydration packs’ is the worst form of inequality that human civilization could usher in the name of progress. 

Bacigalupi has come a long way from his multi award-winning debut The Windup Girl. Regarded as deftly plotted and evocative, it was set in a future Thailand wherein its cast of characters scours the region in search of new food resources to tackle the impact of climate change. Having tackled a futuristic subject yet again, some critics consider him a climate-fiction or cli-fi writer. That indeed he is, as he excavates the shape of human future based on research and trends that are rapidly defining our world in The Water Knife. Each of the three leading characters in the novel: Angel, the cunning fixer; Lucy, the tireless journalist; and Maria, protecting native rights are caught up in their own world of alterations and confabulations. 

Midway through the engaging narrative, one gets a sense that the future battles over water may indeed be between over-populated cities, tossing up refugees who may have to bribe border police to cross over as illegal immigrants. Some people have to bleed so other people could drink. As one character puts it without any remorse: ‘Live by gun and die by the gun. You make a living cutting people’s water, at some point, the scales got to balance you out.’ Is it the price unsuspecting masses will end up paying for being part of the original sin of robbing others of their legitimate water rights? Or, will such a scenario force people to become water-wise?

It is a book of a grim future where accusations fly like free-floating dust particles in the desert. “If we weren’t wasting so much water on farming, we’d be fine’, goes one argument. But if you cut off farms, you get dust storms,’ counters the other. While fingers are pointed at one another, none of them points back at themselves.  It is the river like Colorado, more than a thousand mile of free flow from the canyons of Utah to the blue Pacific, which is at the receiving end of such follies – obstructed and diverted to make deserts bloom without a drop of water hitting its delta. Even reservoirs dry up, forcing Texan refugees into water-pampered Phoenix.

Bacigalupi lives in Colorado, close to the plot of his novel, lending credence and seriousness to the emerging issues of a water-stressed world. ‘What people will call us when archaeologists dig us up in another couple of thousand years?’ May be there is no one left to dig us up or maybe they’ll just say this was the ‘Dry Age’ in history. The Water Knife is a serious book about a twisted fictional landscape, hinting at the price we may end-up paying for our collective stupidity. 

The Water Knife
by Paolo Bacigalupi
Orbit Books, USA
Extent: 386, Price: £20

This review was first published in Deccan Herald on July 17, 2016.