HIMACHAL SHOULD REGULATE TREKKING TO MAKE IT SAFE AND ECO-FRIENDLY [ I ]

           TREKKING IS AN ADVENTURE SPORT AND SHOULD BE REGULATED AS ONE. 

On the night of 17th July  about 120 trekkers were stranded below the 14000 feet high Hampta Pass in Himachal, without adequate shelter, clothing or food, in very adverse weather conditions, torrential rain and almost sub-zero temperatures. They were members of three groups whose trips were "organised" by different trekking agencies. When the weather turned bad, the guides and tour leaders simply abandoned their charges and just disappeared. Had it not been for some other professional trekkers and locals who came to their aid, a tragedy like the Sahastra Tal episode in Uttarakhand earlier this year (in which 9 trekkers died in similar conditions and for the same reasons) would have repeated itself. The Himachal government, especially the Forest and Tourism departments, have followed the usual SOP- keep mum, ignore the matter and it will soon become history and be forgotten. Which is convenient, except that it may repeat itself as a tragedy the next time.

                              

                                    [ Camp site below Hampta Pass. Photo by author.]

The Hampta Pass incident raises some important questions. One, this trek is through the Inderkilla National Park which was so notified in 2010 : it is a protected area where entry is supposed to be regulated: did these trekkers have the permission of the Forest department for the trek? It certainly does not appear likely, in which case the Wildlife wing of the department was not doing its job. What is the point of having a National Park if any Tom, Dick and Harry can walk through it whenever he wishes to? The Print reported that one of the travel agencies involved in this incident organises a trek to Hampta Pass every day, another does it every weekend!

Two, how were 120 people allowed in on a single day? This is a trek on a mountain going up to 14000 feet, for God's sake, not Borivali railway station; such a number on a single trek on a single day is unheard of. I have been on this trek myself and can confirm that there is no place along its entire route which can accommodate the tents needed for so many people without causing immense environmental damage. The rubbish and human waste that these numbers would generate does not bear thinking about.

Three, and perhaps the most important in the long term: what mechanisms has the state government put in place for regulating trekking activities in the mountains, including: fixing carrying capacities of various treks, registering and vetting trekking companies, laying down the minimum criteria for their eligibility and for their field staff, notifying basic SOPs, equipments and safety precautions to be followed by them and their clients, ensuring employment of local people, and developing a mechanism for ensuring compliance? To the best of my knowledge there is no such prescribed regimen.

High altitude trekking is a rapidly growing sector in Himachal; almost 50000 trekkers visit Kullu valley alone every year. It is mostly an unregulated industry, with the government exercising little control over either the trekkers or the organisers. Friends of mine in the trade tell me that most of this activity/business is channelised through online/internet companies located outside the state advertising on Instagram, Facebook and similar platforms. They have no experience,  expertise or knowledge of  trekking in such conditions, they do not employ qualified guides or supervisors, they have no back-ups for medical or rescue contingencies. They simply make the online bookings, pocket 80% of the money and outsource the arrangements to local operators, washing their hands of any subsequent developments. It is this kind of laissez faire attitude and business plan that is responsible of the Saharsta type tragedy and for what happened at Hampta Pass. Trekking has become an irresponsible commercial operation, posing a danger to the environment as also to the trekkers themselves. This outside monopoly is hurting the business and employment opportunities for local people, unlike in the rafting and para-gliding sectors where it is local companies who organise these sports and provide the manpower and equipments. The government should realise that it makes no sense for its natural advantages, features and environment to be exploited by outsiders who have pushed the native operators to the fringes.

This has to change, especially if Himachal has to promote and position itself as an adventure sport destination. Trekking enthusiasts cannot be left to the mercy of these solely-for-profit operators who have no stakes in the state. A similar situation used to prevail a couple of decades ago with the other two popular adventure sports- rafting and para-gliding. It took many accidents, deaths and the intervention of the courts before the state government stepped in to regulate these activities. Now, there are comprehensive rules and SOPs which govern these sports, and the Tourism department exercises strict oversight over them. It is time to do the same for trekking, with the additional involvement (if not primacy) of the Forest department since all the trekking happens in forest areas.

The government should develop a comprehensive trekking policy and rules to address all the issues involved (mentioned in para 4 above). In particular, every company/organiser engaged in this business should be compulsorily registered in the state; only local managers, guides, cooks, porters should be employed; the Forest department should levy a charge/fee for every trekker; prior permission should be obtained for all treks; client to guide ratios should be fixed, the tour companies should be required to carry out proper medical screening of all applicants before accepting them for any arduous trek, organisers should be required to make full back-up arrangements (including rescue insurance) for medical and rescue situations for the more difficult treks. According to a Times Of India report dated !7th December, 2022, as many as 150 trekkers have died between 2017 and 2022 in the Himalayas, and many are still missing; most of these incidents have happened in Himachal and Uttarakhand.

The Forest and Tourism departments also need to do some self regulation; they have to be pro-active in promoting this sport and ensuring its safety rather than merely reacting (most times not even that!) to events. I shall address this aspect in the second part of this blog next week.

IS BENGAL PAYING TOO HIGH A PRICE FOR KEEPING THE BJP OUT ?

 In the reasoning of most right thinking people who are alarmed at the direction in which the BJP is taking the country the primary validity and defendability of the TMC govt. in West Bengal stems from its proven ability to keep the BJP at bay in that state. Mamata Banerjee has done this for the last ten years, with a tenacity and courage no other Chief Minister has demonstrated, with remarkable success, humbling the saffron party (and the Prime Minister personally) time and again. In the process, however, she has been literally playing with fire, inching ever closer to the red lines of  constitutional permissibility , skirting the boundaries of what is, or is not, permissible in a liberal democracy.

Granted that the BJP govt. at the centre has been relentless in its assault on the federal structure of the country, in particular on Bengal. Granted also that it takes an anti-venom to fight the venom, a controlled fire to combat the forest fire. But these counter measures have to be carefully calibrated in order to ensure that the medicine does not become worse than the disease itself. Ms Banerjee, unfortunately, appears to lack this administrative skill and does not know when to stop or to change course. Her failure is gradually erasing the difference between her and the BJP, she is proving true someone's remark that "Mamata is simply Modi in a saree". Her irrepressible confrontationist attitude and recalcitrance, the inability to evolve a working relationship with the central government (which other Opposition Chief Ministers have been able to do, to some extent, at least) is having an adverse effect on the finances and economy of the state, which can only be counter-productive for her development manifesto. Her pugnacious attitude on politicisation of the police is reducing their credibility and effectiveness, the confrontationist posture vis-a-vis the judiciary eroding the rule of law. She is slowly but surely bringing Bengal to its knees, to the point of anarchy.

One dimension of this is the scams that have been regularly surfacing during her tenure- the Saradha and Naradha chit-fund cases, Rose Valley, Ration card scam, teachers' recruitment, land grabbing by the accused robber baron in Sandeshkhali, the film city case in Chandrakona of Midnapore district; in most of these many of her party leaders are in jail and many more are being investigated. This is no different from the cronyism the BJP is known for. Then there are the alleged  TMC controlled "syndicates" that are rumoured to levy fees for various commercial activities including even house construction. There are many more which friends and contacts in Kolkata tell me are running rampant with full govt. blessings. If true, the intention is clearly to provide a regular source of income to the party cadres in order to retain their loyalty. Which raises the question: how are these cadres then any different from the CPI and CPM cadres which she had displaced or the sanghi militias which she (rightly) criticises?

It is no different when it comes to the bureaucracy and the police. Like the BJP at the center and states where it rules, she expects complete loyalty from the state apparatus, over and above their commitment to the Constitution. The West Bengal police function in the same "controlled" mode as do the CBI and ED and the police in BJP states, as numerous instances in the past have shown: she even went on a dharna once to show support for a Commissioner of Police, a first in the history of this country! How then is she different from Modi?

Again, like the Modi-Shah duo, she appears to have no empathy or compassion for the victims of state,  state sponsored or even random violence. Every incident is weighed on the scales of political expediency and advantage- it was so in the Sandeshkhali incidents and it is so again in the latest rape/ murder of a young medical intern at the RG Kar hospital. The public perception in all such cases has been that, for her, the political fall- out is always more important than any attempt to punish the guilty or to reform the system. Once again, the lines between her and the BJP get blurred. 

All these elements and fragments of a dysfunctional state have now come to a head in the RG Kar rape and murder case, as was inevitable sooner or later. Our concern should not be just with the crime itself, horrific as it is, as a Chief Minister certainly cannot be held accountable for such a crime. But she can certainly be asked to account for, and explain, the circumstances leading up to the heinous crime and the government's actions thereafter. Both are profoundly disturbing, because they have a bearing on the conditions which made such a crime possible, the dubious manner in which it was being investigated, and on the efforts to fix accountability for the same.

We have to question the political clout of the Principal/Director of the RG Kar Hospital who reportedly managed to get his transfer cancelled at least twice previously, why he was allowed to run the institution like his personal fiefdom, why no note was taken of the alleged large scale corruption which was rampant in the hospital (cases have been belatedly files against him only now, after a public outcry). The incident has also brought to light one of the most pernicious and illegitimate policies of this TMC govt.- the recruitment of tens of thousands of persons as "civic volunteers", without any rule-based or examination-based process of selection, to "assist" the police on a handsome monthly salary. It is alleged by the opposition parties that this is a device to employ TMC cadres at govt. expense. The primary accused (who has been arrested) was one such volunteer and reportedly ran a flourishing "hafta" and admission racket in the hospital. It is possible that this preferred treatment and quasi-constabulary status is what gave him the feeling of immunity and impunity which could have led to his assault on the lady doctor. How is this force any different from the militias and goons of other parties? No doubt the CBI will be probing these precedent conditions of the rape and murder and to what extent they have contributed to their commission. They do not reflect well on the image of the Chief Minister herself.

The state govt's actions AFTER the discovery of the crime and the body engender further doubts and scepticism about Ms Banerjee's intentions and capability to secure full justice in the matter. It appears that she is more interested in damage control and political opportunism than in trying to honestly implement the law and correct the wrongs that have clearly taken place. Suspicions have also been voiced by a huge cross-section of people that she may even be trying to protect someone. There is no evidence of this yet, but the govt's actions so far certainly do not inspire confidence that the truth will be exhumed. How else can a citizen view the following?:

The repeated flip-flops in terming the death first as suicide, then unnatural death, then admitting to murder; removing the Principal and then reinstating him just hours later in an even more senior position; the inordinate delay in registering the F.I.R; the completely unacceptable and inhumane treatment of the parents of the poor girl; the abject failure of the police in anticipating, preventing and controlling the mob violence on the night of the 14th-15th August which was clearly intended to suppress the protests; the impotence of the police to prevent the vandalisation of the hospital by the same mob?

Even worse, instead of trying to understand the huge public outrage and anger, making allowances for it, and quickly course-correcting, the state government has made a bad situation worse by trying to intimidate and coerce its critics, protesters, doctors, and voices on social media- till last count the police had issued notices to 280 persons and even arrested a few. By all means, discourage dissemination of false news, but accept the criticism. Even the Supreme Court has castigated the government for its attempts at muzzling the protesters. This has all the hallmarks of the Delhi, Uttarakhand and U.P. police. Will they be sending in the bulldozers next?

Incidentally, all these issues and shortcomings have been noted by the Supreme Court too on the 20th of this month.

The RG Kar incident has showcased, in one conflation point, all that is wrong with Mamata Banerjee's government and which has made it indistinguishable from the BJP. This episode can be either her Kalinga  or her Waterloo- she can change course or perish. Come 2026 and the citizens of Bengal may well decide that they have had enough of this smorgasbord of corruption, nepotism, violence, confrontation and near anarchy. They will then have to make a Hobson's choice- vote for continued anarchy, bankruptcy and the growing kakistrocacy in Nabanna, or give a chance to the established kakistrocacy experts in Delhi and reap the benefits of a "double engine" sarkar.  It's all up to the lady in the sari if she can reinvent herself and her politics. She still has time, but it's running out-fast.

ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE.

Emile Borel, a famous French mathematician in the first half of the 20th century, had propounded the Infinite Monkey Theorem which stated that if a monkey is given a typewriter and allowed to pound away on its keys for an indefinite amount of time it would, sooner or later, produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Something similar holds true for the award of medals to policemen in India: if a police official serves long enough and rises high enough in the hierarchy, he would be festooned with more medals than Michael Phelps by the time he retires. Believe me, dear reader, I am not joking: I have yet to meet a retired IPS officer who has not received at least a couple of medals, regardless of the quality of the service rendered by him. As the holy Bible says: Ask and you shall receive. In the police, one doesn't even have to ask, one will get it in the fullness of time just so that the tradition of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" remains embedded in the force's esprit de corps. (We indulge in the same game in the IAS, by the way, but we play for higher stakes, like the Apex scale, Padma Bhushans and reemployment as "Advisors").

For our friendly neighbourhood cops there is a whole buffet of medals to choose from- President's Medal for Gallantry, President's Medal for Distinguished Service, Medal for Meritorious Service, Indian Police Medal, Kendriya Grihmantri Dakshata Padak, Sewa Padak, Parakram Padak, etc. At this year's Republic Day parade 1132 personnel were awarded the Gallantry medal and 102 the medal for Distinguished Service. Given the choice of medals and the numbers selected for the honour, one has to be a real wet sock or Keystone cop not to bag a medal or two before hanging up one's holster.

This is not to say that all the medals awarded are contrived or undeserved; given the genuine challenges of law and order in this chaotic country, the dangers the police face can be real at times. I know of many outstanding police officers who fully deserved their decorations. For instance: a lady ASI in Rampur, Himachal Pradesh, one Ranjana Sharma has been recommended for the Distinguished Service medal for tracing 50 missing children and restoring them to their families. Such incidents and genuine appreciation warm the cockles of one's heart. But unfortunately this is not always the case: given  the way our system works, the puzzling fact that it is usually the senior officers who bag the awards and not the chaps in the bunkers, as it were, and the vague criteria adopted, these awards appear to have become just another perk of service, another suffix to the name and a by-line in one's biodata. They do not inspire any genuine respect or admiration from the general public. And the most recent reported recommendation for the awards only confirms this suspicion.

Earlier this year newspapers reported that the Haryana government had recommended the award of Gallantry Medals for six police officers for exceptional courage and gallantry in handling-hold your breath- the farmers' protests! If you will recollect, these were the farmers marching to Delhi in protest against the four farm bills; they were unarmed, did not damage any public or private property, did not indulge in any violence. The worst they did was to squat on the roads when stopped by the police.  As per press reports at the time, it was even alleged that the Haryana police used unwarranted force on them and had even opened fire, killing at least one person.

So, what was the gallantry displayed by these four officers? Against innocent farmers who were neither criminals, naxalites, terrorists, insurgents, revolutionaries or any other species that threaten violence against the state? Gallantry means either bravery on a battlefield or courtesy/ chivalry towards women. Since it is the Haryana police we are talking about here, we can dismiss that second definition out of hand and concern ourselves only with the first. So, where is the bravery in using water canons, lathis, tear gas and even a live bullet or two on your own citizens, unarmed protestors (which included women, by the way)? And when was the Delhi- Chandigarh National Highway or the Shambhu border declared a battlefield? Did it ever occur to the dinosaurs in the Haryana secretariat that the recommendations only further stigmatise the farmers and add even more insult to the injuries inflicted on them, by equating them with enemies of the state ? Is this a serious proposal or a caricature of the whole system of medals and awards? Fortunately, the Home Ministry has not yet approved the recommendations and has raised some queries. A PIL has also been filed against these recommendations. One can only wish, and hope, that the proposal is incinerated at the earliest.

As I said before, police medals (unlike the Defence forces awards) don't inspire much respect among the general public. Atrocious and ill conceived proposals like the instant one can only make a further mockery of the entire system and devalue the awards given to the few officers who actually deserve them.

THE MORTICIAN MODEL OF GOVERNANCE

 A mortician's job is to carry out cosmetic enhancements to a deceased's body and to make it presentable before burial. It is different from that of a coroner whose responsibility is to find out the cause of death. In India, all governments- state or central, past or present, majority or coalition- have always modelled themselves on the mortician whenever something goes wrong or an accident takes place. The whole effort is to cover up, dress up the incident, conceal the fault lines so that no one ever finds out the truth of why it happened and who was at fault. The coroner is persona non grata. As I said, all governments have been doing this but BJP I and II and Khichdi III have mastered this, and have converted what was once a science into a macabre art.

The Pegasus revelations were painted in the colours of national security and quickly buried. The extortion of the Electoral Bonds was justified on the grounds of transparency. Demonetisation was a strike against black money, abrogation of Article 370 one against terrorism. (None of these stated outcomes was ever achieved, of course).  The grotesque illegality of the Ramjanam bhoomi verdict was hidden under the pious plea of faith and belief. The Hindenberg report was transmuted into a crime of short selling by the author of the report itself, and the company in the dock was glorified instead as a "national champion!" All this under the gaze of a benevolent judiciary.

The shamelessness and affrontery involved in these exercises is stunning. There have been seven major accidents, numerous derailments and hundreds of deaths in rail mishaps in the last couple of years. Mainly because of lack of funds to roll out KAVACH on a large scale, staff shortages and inadequate funding of basic safety mechanisms (though tens of thousands of crores are readily available for trains for the elite). But any responsibility is interred under statistics of the last 50 years and the triumphalism of Bullet trains and Vande Bharats, never mind that these cater to just about 1% of the country's population and have not delivered on their promises. The rest of the country still travels cattle class, and occasionally pays for the privilege with more than just cash.

The cascading disasters that are engulfing Delhi are ascribed to a Chief Minister who has been put in jail without any evidence or trial, and who was in any case emasculated and castrated long before his incarceration. As all the pillars of administration and governance in the capital collapse one by one the central government is busy camouflaging the emerging ugliness with embellishments like the Central Vista, new Parliament building, Bharat Mandappam and badly designed tunnels- all of which, incidentally, have sprung leaks, giving the words "bucket list" an entirely new and unintended meaning! Like the mortician masking a brutal scar with mascara.

The flooding of coaching centers in Delhi is morphed into a misuse and violation of building plan rules (which they are undoubtedly are). But the larger issue- why were the drains not desilted and why did the roads and basements get flooded at all?- is skillfully papered over by, among other absurdities, arresting the driver of a car for causing a wave that entered the coaching centre! Examination papers leak with uncanny regularity and frequency and UPSC candidates forge certificates and disabilities with gay abandon, the heads of the institutions are allowed to "resign" to avoid the flak, and the whole sorry episode is dressed up as the fault of individuals and not the system. And, as is the fashion these days, this exoneration receives the supreme imprimatur of the judiciary.

Hundreds have died in floods, landslides and building collapses in Kerala, Uttarakhand, Himachal, (each ruled by a different political party) and thousands of crores of public and private properties have been destroyed. This happens every year, under the onslaught of unrestricted and unplanned construction, senseless highway building, ramming tunnels through fragile geological terrain, deforestation for mining and quarrying, environmentally disastrous hydel projects, refusal to notify eco-sensitive zones, green belts and no-go areas as recommended by various experts and committees. But wait!- the mortician can revamp and polish up this ugly truth too: blame it all on climate change and continue with business as usual. Climate change is the best thing that has happened to visionless policy makers- it is like a broad spectrum antibiotic that can be prescribed for any problem. Except that it doesn't work for most of the time.

And finally, there is the ultimate gambit of the mortician, the corpus delicti- just make the corpse disappear, and all the evidence with it! It is a strategem being increasingly employed these days to conceal all wrong doings, incompetence and failures. No census has been conducted after 2011, household consumption surveys have been brushed under the carpet, credible employment figures are not available- we have only the government's dodgy figures to believe that the patient is still alive. The Election Commission will not reply to representations by civil society; in fact it has not even replied to RTI queries on a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms and has been pulled up by the Information Commission; the Defence Ministry has refused to furnish information in Parliament on the number of vacancies in the armed forces on grounds of national security. The Madhya Pradesh govt. has gone a step further: an RTI query on the status of Project Cheetah in Kuno National Park has been trashed on grounds of national security! One could have understood, perhaps, if the question had been about another animal- the crouching dragon on our northern borders- but cheetahs? Really?

It ill suits democratic governments to play the role of an undertaker with facts. Truth has an annoying way of coming out, whether you embalm it, cremate it, or bury it. 

 

BOOK REVIEW-- THE SHERPA TRAIL

                              BOOK REVIEW—THE  SHERPA  TRAIL

                                   A HIMALAYAN CALLING

[ This review was published in THE TRIBUNE on 7th July 2024 ]

Authors: Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balsavar

Published by: Roli Books

Price: Rs. 695.00

 

This book is a well deserved and long overdue tribute to perhaps the most recognizable group in the community of mountain climbers, but about whom next to nothing is known apart from their climbing exploits. The Sherpas are almost synonymous with the Himalaya and the 8000ers and their histories cannot be separated. This wonderful book, many years in the researching and writing, based on visits, interviews and documented records, finally does justice to this most intrepid, strong, courageous and loyal of our species.

The Sherpas (like the Bhutias) were originally residents of eastern Tibet and migrated to Nepal many hundreds of years ago. Subsequently, in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, there was a second migration to Darjeeling in India, once a part of Sikkim but annexed by the British in 1850. For Darjeeling was a two-way gateway: north to Nepal and Tibet for expeditions to the Himalaya and south for trade and other employment.

The age of climbing in the Himalaya began in the last two decades of the 19^th century, as an extension of European and British imperialism, and that is when the Sherpa came into his own. Nepal was closed to foreigners till 1949 and so initially all attempts on the Himalayan peaks were through Darjeeling and Tibet. It soon became clear that the Alpine style of climbing and European supporting staff were unsuited for these altitudes and conditions, and so hundreds of native Lepchas, Bhutias and Sherpas were hired as porters and guides for these expeditions. A new profession was born and the Sherpas dominated it.

The book is a fascinating account of the history of mountaineering in the Himalaya, the various expeditions to different peaks like Everest, K2, Kanchenjunga, Nanda Devi, Dhaulagiri, Nanga Parbat; the conquests, failures and tragedies that resulted; the famous climbers associated with them and the roles played by the Sherpas in these attempts. It traces the evolution of the Sherpas from unnamed individual porters to their recognition as mountaineers par excellence, sealed by the achievement of Tenzing Norgay on Everest on 29^th May 1953. The Sherpas now acquired names, faces, respect-and fame.

The book traces the establishment of THC (The Himalayan Club) in 1929 (out of its 250 members only one Indian, the Raja of Jubbal in HP, found a place in it!) to coordinate all climbing expeditions in the Himalaya and to extend the knowledge of the Himalayan ranges for the benefit of science, literature, art and sport; it also acted as a bridge between the Sherpas and the expeditions. We learn of two British ladies- Joan Townend and Jill Henderson- who as honorary secretaries of the THC contributed a lot to the recognition of the Sherpas as more than mere porters and did much for their welfare. Sadly, as much of the mountaineering (and Sherpas) shifted to Nepal after 1949 the THC’s role began to diminish. The process was speeded up by the setting up of the HMI (Himalayan Mountaineering Institute) in Darjeeling by Nehru in 1954, the Sherpa Climber’s Association by Tenzing in 1955 and the Indian Mountaineering Federation in 1961. But it had done its job well by then.

There are chapters on some of the legendary Sherpas such as Pasang Dawa, Ang Tharkay (probably the greatest of them all), Khamsang Wangdi, Nawang Gombu (the first person to have climbed Everest twice, Dorjee Lhatoo (the Clint Eastwood of Darjeeling!), Pemba Chorty (he has summitted Everest an incredible seven times), and Ang Tsering (who is reported to have discovered the footprint of a Yeti and received a hundred rupee bonus for it!), whose achievements matched that of Tenzing Norgay even as all the glory went to the latter.                                                There is a full chapter on the Sherpanis, Ani Lhakpa Diki (“the most gorgeous woman in all of Darjeeling”) and Ani Daku Sherpa, to remind the reader that the women of the tribe matched their male counterparts step for step, load for load, at least till base camp. These thumb-nail vignettes bring the reader into the homes of these doughty heroes, to give us a glimpse of their past, present and future. Their’s was a hard life: almost all of them were migrants from Tibet or Nepal, childhoods spent in poverty; they raised themselves to unprecedented heights, literally, by dint of sheer hard labour and commitment, and then reverted to humble retirement. Most did well by their families. They were legends in the climbing world, but are almost unknown outside of it. One  achievement of this book is to have made them known to the larger  wo rld.                                                                                                                                                           The authors also do their best to profile Tenzing himself, to contrast the pre-Everest and post-Everest hero. Where the former was an amiable, fun-loving, helpful individual the later Tenzing comes across as one full of grievances, petty jealousies and even vindictive.  There is a strange bitterness that imbues his post-Everest innings: his autobiography, Tenzing After Everest, is a “litany of the injustices he faced”. All the adulation, success and riches appear to have gone to his head; he even turned against his former friend Ang Tharkay and had him evicted from HMI. In fact Captain Kohli, a member of the Indian Everest Expedition in 1962, went so far as to tell the authors in 2014: “ as a human being Ang Tharkay was a step further than Tenzing.” Some feel that he became “a slave to his greatness” but in extenuation it must be said that it could not have been easy for him , an uneducated man from a humble background, to have faced his global celebrity status and the pressures, demands and expectations that came with it. Though not a Sherpa himself, he made the Sherpa a household name. That, along with Everest, will remain his lasting legacy.

The book ends on a somewhat sombre and despondent note: that the golden age of the Darjeeling climbing Sherpa is now almost over, in fact , it quotes one great mountaineer as saying that in a decade from now there will be no Sherpas on the mountains. There are reasons for this: major expeditions to Everest (still the fulcrum of most climbing activity in the Himalaya) have shifted to Nepal and the younger Darjeeling Sherpas have followed suit, the present generation of younger Sherpas are not interested in doing what their fathers did- they are educated, ambitious and do not see either climbing or high altitude portering as a viable future, the HMI in Darjeeling has lost much of its lustre to the IMF (Indian Mountaineering Federation), its original Sherpas elbowed out by bureaucrats and army personnel,  both as administrators and instructors. The elegy for this unique breed of mountaineers is perhaps best provided by Nima Norbu, an Everester himself and the brother of Tenzing Norgay’s third wife; this is what he told the authors of this book:

“Ninety nine percent of the educated Darjeeling Sherpas are not going into mountaineering…There is no future for the climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling. When HMI opened-that was a different time. The whole system has changed. There are very few Sherpa instructors in HMI, and none in other institutes like Uttarkashi and Manali.”

This book ensures that when the Sherpa goes, he will not go unsung- or be forgotten.

 

THE KANT-ERBURY TALES : THE DEBATE OVER DISABILITIES QUOTAS

 A wise man once had this piece of advice for people who talk too much and out of turn: it's better to keep your mouth shut and let people suspect that you are an ignoramus, rather than open it and confirm their suspicions. It appears that this gem of wisdom applies very well to the likes of Mr. Amitabh Kant, the over-burdened sherpa, and Ms Smitha Sabharwal, considered by some Youtube channels to be the "most beautiful IAS officer" in India. Both belong to my erstwhile service, sadly.

Mr. Kant has been in the Hall of Fame for some time now, with comments like "India has too much democracy" and  that the G-20 conference stewarded by India last year had issued "the strongest statement ever issued by the G-20", never mind that democracy is in the ICU here and no one remembers what that G-20 was all about, except perhaps a stepping stone for our 2024 elections. Ms Sabharwal, on the other hand, had not yet uttered anything of equal import so far, but has now decided to let the people know that she has brains as well as beauty, and should therefore be placed a notch above Mr. Kant (on the brains scale, of course, not the beauty one).

My reference is to the recent public statements made by the two, post the shocking revelations about the misuse of the reserved quotas in the IAS by one Puja Khedkar under the aegis of a somnolent UPSC and the Department of Personnel and Training. Mr. Kant has let it be known to the hoi polloi that he supports the SC/ST and OBC quotas but not the one for the physically handicapped which should be "reviewed": he has not bothered to explain what he means by that laconic word, but presumably he wants it discontinued. For good measure he has also voiced his opposition to the transgender quota. Ms Sabharwal is more explicit: she wants the handicapped quota abolished as disabled persons cannot do the rigorous field work and put in the long hours required in the civil services. (She is of course, wrong on both counts: the average IAS officer, after the first 4-5 years of field postings spends the rest of his life in office jobs, as Ms Sabharwal herself is doing currently. As for long hours, my son, who is a paraplegic, puts in longer hours at his office table six days a week than I ever did.) The lady then delivers the coup-de-grace to the disabled by pointing out that there are no disabled pilots flying planes or surgeons performing operations for a very good reason! (She is wrong again, and would be well advised to read an article by Satendra Singh of the University College of Medical Sciences, listing the contributions of some eminent disabled professionals, administrators and academics. It demonstrates convincingly that disabled persons, if given a fair and equal opportunity, can do as well, if not better, than the able-bodied in most fields. This piece, titled People with Disabilities need Bureaucrats who are Allies, and not Adversaries, has been published in The Long Cable on 26th July 2014)).

The short point is that, with their crass comments, both these officers have exposed not only their insensitive and callous nature but also their ignorance and regressive tendencies. For equality and equal opportunities for the disabled are now enshrined in the social and legal framework of all countries today, as is the goal of an inclusive society. India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2006; Part III of our Constitution provides for equality and dignity for the disabled; the Directive Principles of State Policy and Article 41 enjoin the state to make effective provisions for securing the right to work for the disabled, among among other vulnerable sections of society. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, makes specific the obligations of the government, society, employers etc. The world is moving/ has moved towards integrating the disabled in the mainstream of society but these two bureaucrat-dinosaurs have not progressed beyond their heartless, able-bodied  arrogance and anesthetised conscience. 

One would have understood, indeed applauded, if they had come out strongly against the misuse of all these quotas. as irrefutably demonstrated by the Puja Khedkar case, instead of attacking the disabled quota. One would have been delighted if they had raised the following questions and demands:

[1] How and why did DOPT issue Ms. Khedkar appointment letter when it had been opposed by the UPSC and her case had been dismissed even by CAT?

[2] How was she allowed to do forum shopping for four different disabilities (locomotor, visual, hearing, mental) from three different hospitals, at different times, in order to aggregate her disability to meet the 40% requirement of the UPSC?

[3] How did the UPSC/ DOPT fail to notice that with each attempt at certification she kept adding additional disabilities in order to reach the 40% threshold ? This itself should have raised red flags.

[4] Why was she even considered for appointment when she had refused to appear before the AIIMS, Delhi board six times?

[5] Why has the Chairman of UPSC been allowed to resign precisely at a time when he is required to answer questions about his organisation's dubious role in this scandal?

[6] Why are the DOPT and UPSC not taking any action to shut the many loopholes in the OBC and Disability quota system, even though it is common knowledge that people with connections have been gaming the system all these years? Why are they not tightening the rules/ processes to prevent the adoption of strategies to get around the "creamy layer" provisions- such as paper adoptions, gifting of assets, taking premature retirement etc.? 

[7] What is the rationale behind not counting the candidates' own income (but only that of the parents') for determining economic status vis-a-vis the creamy layer requirements? Surely it is obvious that the loophole here is as wide as one of Mr. Gadkari's expressways?

[8] Demand that ALL OBC/ Disability quota certificates submitted by the successful candidates since 2010 be put through a rigorous scrutiny so as to determine how far the rot has spread. Enough anecdotal evidence is available on social media to convince one that the Khedkar case is only the tip of the ice-berg.

This gaming of the system adversely effects the caliber of the civil services in two ways- it allows induction of sub-standard people into the services, and it does great harm to the genuinely disabled/ economically disadvantaged sections by depriving them of their rights to these jobs. This, and what Ms Khedkar has done, could not be possible without collusion at various levels and friends in high places. It is quite clear now that some kind of a cover-up has been set in motion. Ms Khedkar services shall be terminated but the various cases filed against her shall be allowed to peter out into the arid sands of time and be forgotten. The UPSC Chairman has already been allowed to don monkhood and will no doubt take a vow of silence, a few minor bureaucrats and doctors shall be shuffled around and normal business shall (literally) resume.

I wish the Kant-Sabharwal duo, who appear to be so worked up about reservations and quotas, had applied their immense acumen to these issues instead of favouring us with their biases and lack of emotional and empathetic intelligence. They should be questioning why the bathwater is so dirty instead of wanting to throw out the baby in it. The laziest option is not usually the best.

THE WEDDING AND THE FINE PRINT

 In my 74 years I have not seen, or even heard of, a more tasteless, egotistical or pretentious wedding than the recent, 24X7 televised extravaganza of the Ambanis. It is not just about its cost, which is estimated to be anything between Rupees 1500 crores to 5000 crores, not including the cost to the government in facilitating a private function as if it was a state event. The ugliness, the perversity and its real portent lie elsewhere.

It lies in the in-your-face manner in which this money was expended, at a time when the average Indian has never been worse off economically, when inequality and unemployment have reached record heights, when 67% of the GST is paid by 50% of its poorest citizens, when the top 1% control 40% of the country's wealth, when 800 million people have to be provided free/subsidized foodgrains to survive. At a time like this it needs a specially insensitive and supremely contemptuous mindset to distribute invitation cards which cost lakhs of rupees each, to charter 100 private jets to bring in  guests from all over the globe, to take 500 guests on a pre-wedding cruise, to flaunt clothes and necklaces that are worth more than the GDP of many countries, to pay Rs. 80 crores (reportedly) to someone who is practically unknown in India, to dish out gifts that reportedly cost more than rupees one crore each. Marie Antoinette at least offered cake to the citizens when there was no bread, her Indian avatars offer only a soap-box serial (spread over eight months), every event of what should be a private affair playing out in full public glare. It is this which offends the sensibilities, not just the scale of expenditure. (Incidentally, I find something sick and diseased with this obsession for things foreign in our super rich, this compulsion to flaunt white skinned invitees, whether they be pop-stars, ex-Prime Ministers or corporate honchos. It's as if our billionaires have not fully "arrived" until they can rub shoulders with these imported types, even if the latter have to be paid for condescending to come. Why, for example, a Rihanna or a Justin Beiber when our country has such a rich galaxy of artistes and unparalleled cultural variety  of our own? )

Let us be clear about one thing: this wasn't just a wedding- it was a powerful political statement. It appears to me that Mr. Ambani was making two statements here through the glitz, the hype and the greenbacks. One, that no one should be in any doubt about his political clout and preeminence. (Incidentally, this vindicates what Rahul Gandhi has been saying all along about who the real powers behind the throne are). And Mr. Ambani's confidence is certainly justified- barring the South and the Left, every politician of any note- including those from the India Alliance and even the Congress itself - were in obsequious attendance, as were the Shankarcharyas who had boycotted the Ram Mandir inauguration, an indication that the Ambani empire holds sway over both the temporal and the spiritual! And the Prime Minister was there too, making contrite amends for accusing his host of sending tempo loads of black money to the Congress during the elections.                                                                                                                                                The second statement by Asia's richest man is that he doesn't give a tinker's curse for public opinion or his fellow Indians, that other 99% who have funded his riches, consumed his products and have made him what he is. He had demonstrated as much earlier when he built his 27 storey, Rs. 3000 crore mansion overlooking the slums of these Indians: the mansion is the symbolic finger he is showing them. And why should he bother, anyway?- he controls most of the media, the many anchors and editors had their snouts firmly in the multi-cuisine troughs he had prepared for them, and their studios obligingly read from the script prepared by them.                                                                                                                                                              But beneath this sickening display of naked power and wealth one can detect the parvenu type aspiration of the nouveau riche,  the real colonial mindset of the Indian uber rich: a desperate, almost paranoiac desire to be "accepted" by the glitterati and power brokers of the West, to be one of them, to rub shoulders with them. This is a trait Mr. Ambani shares with his political mentor: the  mentor does it by bear hugs and dropping of first names, our aspiring Midases do it by basking in the company of these invitees (what P. Sainath calls "Nero's guests"), even if it means your star performer performing with his jockeys showing and a Kim Kardashian doing a "gajni" walk next to Mamata Bannerjee plodding along in hawai chappals! It is THIS colonial mindset which is the bane of a progressing India,  which Mr. Modi should be working to eradicate, rather than on renaming Rajpath or revising the IPC and CrPC or redesigning the army's uniforms. But a doctor can hardly be expected to cure a patient if he has the same disease himself, can he? 

For me, the only ones who come out of this tamasha smelling good are the Gandhis, not one of whom attended the wedding functions, in spite of being invited personally. The absence of Rahul Gandhi particularly is not a sulking refusal or  arrogant behaviour; as Valsan Thampu has explained in a video, it is an affirmative action which demonstrates moral uprightness and political consistency. For this was not just a wedding, it was a political statement, a reiteration of the power and wealth of someone who controls the levers of government, and wanted it to be known not just in India but globally. It had to be answered in kind, which is what Rahul Gandhi has done. He has shown that, notwithstanding the capitulation by his peers in the Opposition camp, he at least has the courage and commitment to practise what he preaches- that this country is being handed over to the oligarchs, that the national wealth being cornered by the rich 10% needs to be equitably shared with the other 90% of the citizens of the country, that the nexus between politics and Big Capital has to be broken for the country to progress and to remain a true democracy. To that extent he has been true to his new persona and has done us proud.

Sadly, no other leader of the opposition alliance has shown a similar fortitude or moral integrity: they have all succumbed to the lure of power and wealth and performed the role of "baratis" (if not "labhartis") in full public glare. They could have wished Mr. Ambani personally and in private in the best Indian traditions, without associating themselves publicly with this circus. Instead, their cringing behaviour has exposed the fragility and lack of any genuine, value based adhesive to the India Alliance. It further shows the difficulty of formulating any Common Minimum Programme for the Alliance. This is a warning flag for Rahul Gandhi and one hopes he has taken note of this. For all their talk of socialist principles, concern for the common man, tears for the vulnerable sections- all this is just a facade, they are perfectly comfortable with the purveyors of vulgar affluence and riches; they are self serving opportunists whose only goal is to attain power. They will sup with the devil, if necessary, to attain this object. If they are opposing Mr. Modi it is not because they do not approve of his values and principles (or the lack of them), it is because they would rather be sitting on his throne. They cannot be trusted to stay the race and the Congress will, sooner or later, have to find a way reduce its dependence on them.

Many years ago, when I was a probationer on district training in Mandi (unfortunately, Kangana Ranaut was not around then), I used to go to the district Club almost every evening for a drink or a game of bridge. My Deputy Commissioner, the late CD Parsheera, was the President of the club but NEVER visited it. One day I asked him the reason for his staying away. I still remember his words, which have guided me throughout my career: " Avay, our job demands that we say NO more often than we say YES. And remember this- it's very difficult to say "no" to a person with whom you have had a drink the previous evening."

Do you now see the fine print in this wedding?