28
November 2012
Smt.
Jayanthi Natarajan
Minister,
Environment & Forests
Paryavaran
Bhawan
Lodi
Road
New
Delhi 110003
Dear
Smt. Natarajan,
Sub: Flamingo city
I write to you once more to strengthen your hand
in your laudable efforts to protect our country’s unmatched wilderness areas.
This time it is in support of your battle in Gujarat, where that fantastic
oddity of the natural world, the flamingo, is threatened by a proposed road
whose purpose is dubious, and for which, if it must be constructed, there is an
alternate that will fit the original intent—and, vitally, by-pass Flamingo
city, sparing this natural pink-city of India, which is also the expressed
intention of your ministry.
There
are Indians who question your stand, bringing up an overused, but generally
effective bugbear—is the safety of flamingos above the defense imperatives of
our country?
The
vehement answer, Smt. Natarajan, is a resounding YES. The perpetrators of the
query are myopic. Their concern for our country’s safety is single-minded, not
multi-pronged. They assume external aggression as the only threat we face.
It is an universal truth often forgotten amidst
the intoxication of our hubris, that the boundaries of all political entities
are protected not only by forces raised from within human society, but that the
land itself defends us from within by the mesh of its physical features, its
rivers, forests, grasslands, estuaries, lakes, hills and mountains, deserts,
etc. These may seem barriers to our lebensraum, but they most definitely are
part of the natural defense systems of our land, mantling us protectively
within their ecological clockwork. No such natural area is ever sanitized of
its inhabitants to be replaced permanently by an unnatural one, without the
rending of the fabric of our country’s ecology, and hence safety. It cannot be.
That is a simple rule of the cosmos. To try and sanitize a habitat, by
superseding its incomprehensibly intricate vitality by a shortsighted,
short-termed goal, be it a road that will enhance our country’s security, is a
folly with insidious ramifications. One whose domino effect, the successful
foisting of a single agenda, external threat, as a panacea for bulldozing
projects through ecologically sensitive areas, will lay bare, one by one, each and
every vital physical organ of our country, as though she were inflicted with an
auto-immune disease, and destroy her from within.
Flamingo
city is one such natural phenomenon. It cannot be conceived as a simple tree in
a forest; one among many. It is a standalone wonder, unrivalled on Earth, like
the Gir forest, pride of Gujarat, is. A duplicate does not exist. Gujarat
guards the Asiatic lion with all her teeth. She should also be made to
understand the irreplaceable worth, the intrinsic value, the immense cultural
connotations, and the responsibility that comes with authority, of safeguarding
of Flamingo city and its denizens.
In a much-loved literary classic, wherein
flamingos too figure, an adventurous young girl arrives at a crossroads, and
asks of a rabbit, which path she should take. That depends, he replies, on
where you want to be.
Gujarat, and indeed, every corner of our glorious
land stand at just such crossroads. Every decision will hinge on the rabbit’s
pitch. Where do we want to be?
We cannot sacrifice the remnants of our natural
defenses, the internal bastion of stability vital to our survival, for the
demigod of external threat. We must take a stand upon the grounds of reason and
convince our fellow citizens that a façade of safe political boundaries,
protected by interventional infrastructural solutions, is not prudence but a
charade of public-deception unless the natural resources of our country are
also safeguarded.
I support you wholeheartedly in your defense of
Flamingo city.
Thanking
you,
Yours
truly,
Aasheesh Pittie
