Saving Guwahati’s Hills

The importance of protecting the hills in and around Guwahati from encroachers is directly related to the future health of the pioneer city of the Northeast. The just-concluded monsoon season has proved beyond doubt that the rapidly increasing intensity of urban floods in Guwahati is largely due to the large-scale encroachment of the hills in and around the city, be it within the geographical boundary of Assam or inside the boundary of neighbouring Meghalaya. While the roots of Guwahati’s woes date back to 1974, when the then Chief Minister Sarat Chandra Sinha suddenly shifted the state capital—temporarily though—from Shillong to Dispur in the wake of the creation of Meghalaya state, the indecision and lack of vision of every successive government have only contributed to pushing the city to the brink. Thousands of families—most of whom are from within Assam and belong to various indigenous communities—have systematically encroached the 18 hills and half-a-dozen wetlands of the city since the mid-1970s, with almost every political party directly or indirectly patronising them at the expense of the several lakh tax-payer citizens. Powerful and influential people and organizations—including educational institutions—too have joined the scramble to grab the hills and wetlands, with the lead news story in the Saturday edition of this newspaper quoting an anonymous forest official as saying that people from all walks of life, like doctors, police officials, bureaucrats, businessmen, lawyers, journalists, and others, constitute the lot who have contributed towards making the city unlivable every passing year. Considering this reality, it now appears that it is only the court of law—in this case, the Gauhati High Court—that can make a very significant, timely, and most-wanted intervention to save Guwahati by saving the hills and wetlands, which can be considered invaluable gifts that Mother Nature had given to this ancient city. Simultaneously, it is also imperative that the law-abiding taxpayer citizens also raise their voice and even knock at the doors of the court of law so that something is done without further delay. This should be considered particularly in the wake of an organisation called Bhumi Adhikar Sangram Samiti pressing the Chief Minister to provide land rights to around 85,000 families living in the 18 hills in and around Guwahati through the next round of Basundhara starting from October 19. This is a direct threat to the safety and security of around 10 lakh tax-paying citizens who have been already suffering because of these encroachers.