Flood and fury, deluges, landslides, death and destruction have become annual rituals in Kerala, once known as God’s Own Country. Events of the last two years have proved that the State is anything but the sobriquet.

B Viju, a Kochi based journalist who had reported extensively about the devastating floods of 2018 in the State thought of leaving a trace of the history to the future generation by bringing out a comprehensive copy of his experiences covering the massive destruction of the 2018  deluge which resulted in the book “Flood and Fury”.

It may be a strange coincidence that when the first bunch of copies hit bookshelves across the State last week, Kerala faced yet another deluge, landslide and cloudburst resulting in more than hundred persons disappearing from the  face of this earth. “This is unprecedented and unheard of  in Kerala,” said John Peruvanathanam , one of the pioneer environmental  activists in the State told The Pioneer.    

P K Ramachandran, former deputy director of the Rubber Board , who has played a significant role in popularising rubber cultivation  across the county but by strictly enforcing a standard operation  protocol in converting fertile forest land said that the present day destruction  was beyond human imagination. “My mission was to eradicate poverty and malnutrition but by preserving the  delicate and exotic balance between man and nature,” said Ramachandran who works as  a bio diversity evangelist across the State.

There is no need to waste time by searching for the present state of affairs in Kerala. “This was a disaster which Kerala had asked for. The  poor  are paying for the sins committed by the political class and some religious leaders who portrayed the  Report as anti-people and anti-farmer,” said Prof Madhav Gadgil, chairman, Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, the scientific team that studied the ramifications of the unprecedented environmental degradation and prepared the Gadgil Report .

Dr V S Vijayan, member WG EEP, said the entire report was prepared with a focus in restoring the ecology of areas with anthropogenic activities . “No where we had mentioned that farming or agricultural operations should be stopped or people be displaced. When we mean ecologically sensitive areas, we mean only areas where there are human habitation and activities. We had clearly mentioned in the report about ecologically sensitive areas in the Western Ghats ,” said Dr Vijayan, a research scientist groomed by the legendary Dr Salim Ali.

What prompted the Kerala Government to reject the Gadgill Committee Report could be understood by reading the pastoral letters issued by the leaders of the Church which were a must read in all Sunday congregations.

“The Madhav Gadgil Report has been prepared with ulterior motives and targeting members of a particular community.

The report also would put a ban on issue of pattayam by the State Government,” said the lengthy statement issued by Bishop Mar Mathew Aanikuzhikattil, Idukki Diocese .

The Bishop also exhorted the faithful to stage agitation against the Report which they obliged even as the truth was covered from the

people.

The Congress and the CPI-M, concerned more about vote bank politics diluted the Gadgil Report and rewrote the recommendations by  committees led by Kasturi Rangan and Oommen C Oommen.

 The Gadgil Report is a treatise on how not to divert forest land for non-forest use while agricultural land should not be misused for non-agricultural purposes.

The report was highly critical of the unprecedented quarrying, sand mining and pollution caused by unrestricted use of insecticides that have irreversibly damaged the ecology of the Western Ghats.

According to data released by the Kerala Forest Research Institute, though the Mining and Geology Department of the State has given license to only 750 granite quarries,  there are 5924 quarries operating in the State.

 What the Gadgil Report has asked for was to bring down the unauthorised and illegal quarries functioning across the State  in phases! It seems Biju may have to undertake another journey across the devastated Kerala as the State has become a ticking time bomb.