Development & Environmental Responsibility
The Subcontinentals have been indeed blessed with fertile lands, water and a conducive climate. It is no wonder that one finds the Subcontinent teeming with people.
But the population pressure on the land and resources is immense. In 1947, the population of the Subcontinent was around 473 million. In 2010, the population is already around 1645 million. In 2050, the population would be over 2405 million.
How do we propose to provide housing, transportation, food, water, clean air, schools, recreational facilities and ensure an ecological balance on the Subcontinent? That is the main challenge for us! On the other hand we hear of global warming, the melting of Himalayan glaciers and the rising sea water levels.
Global warming could have serious repurcussions on the monsoon season on the subcontinent, putting at risk something on which we have depended all these years and taken for granted. If the glaciers melt away, our storage of fresh water would be gone, fresh water that has flown through our rivers through the millenia. As the sea water levels increase, low lying areas in Maldives and Bangladesh would be inundated by the sea water, and there would be even less land available to the people.
So what can be done? On the subject of environment, there is a passionate difference of opinions on the issues of dam construction, but at a more general level the difference is between those who want to solve problems for millions and those who want to contain the damage done to the environment and existing habitats while doing so. All approaches have their upsides and their downsides. One can only point out that the solutions we propose have to deal with the needs of a population of around 2.5 billion people, has to preserve the wild life, forests and ecological systems in the region and has to cope with the changing climate and depletion of our resources.
Whichever water management solution one decides on, it has to fulfill certain requirements. It should put a stop to floods in one part of the Subcontinent and drought in the other. Floods and drought should become a phenomenon of the past. One should be able to move water from one end of the country to the other, should need be acute in one end or the amount too much to handle. This means one needs to support a Subcontinental River Linking Project (SRLP), linking all rivers for water transfer as well as for navigation. It is however important to hear the message of the critics as well, and to build the SRLP accordingly, so that a minimum of damage is done to the environment and human habitats, and also does not increase seismic activity due to dam building. We need to utilize our fresh water resources optimally. Nothing that the rivers bring down need to be allowed into the seas, neither fresh water nor silt. The salinity of the seas would stay in balance as the polar ice caps continue melting.
The second project that we should start in the Subcontinent is to increase the Water Catchment Area, which includes both water reservoirs for collecting rain water, but also increase in forest and vegetation cover, so that rain water does not simply cause flooding but rather replenishes our ground water levels. The ground water levels need to be replenished across the Subcontinent, so that the land can sustain agriculture and human habitation.
The third project that needs our attention is that of water cleansing, of sewage water processing and recycling. For a population of around 2.5 billion people one would have to create a very resilient water management system.
Another water management project that deserves our attention is land reclamation from sea. As the sea water levels increase, much of Bangladesh would be under water. The Subcontinent cannot allow this to happen. We should look into solutions which have already been successfully tried in countries like Netherlands and UAE.
One has to face the biggest challenge head on and that is the human itself and his needs. 2.5 billion people cannot live the way people lived earlier – in villages, in single story buildings living off the land, each family with its own farm. Village life in individual houses is a luxury only a few can really afford. The Subcontinent would have to become urbanizied to accommodate so many people. One should consider compact metropoles, each with sometimes around 35-40 million inhabitants. If one has to ensure that the cities are living organisms with business areas, industrial areas, shopping streets, recreational facilities, schools, sports facilities, etc. catering to such a big population, one would have to make everything much more compact taking up less land area. This means the cities have to grow vertically, rather than horizontally. These cities need to be energy efficient, clean, green and well-planned. We need to learn our lessons from the various advanced countries with high population densities and learn from their experiences with mega-cities, countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Netherlands, etc.
All in all, we are talking about a massive transformation of the Subcontinent, and it is to be feared that there will be much uprooting of people. We need to have a system in place, which compensates displaced people systemetically and always fairly providing for them alternate residential opportunities, while providing them comprehensive support throughout the process.
Perhaps the biggest facility that caters to the people and takes the biggest amount of space is agriculture. Even though biodiversity is good, to support such a big population, we would be forced to move to crops which require less water resources and less fertilizers, etc. which increase the toxicity of the soil. One should also consider trapping all the silt that comes down the rivers, and using it for soil and land reclamation.
We should also start exploring the possibility of managing farming as huge cooperatives and more business-like. Small farms and agricultural plots may not provide the efficiency the Subcontinent needs to feed everybody. One way would be for many farmers to put their lands together and create a cooperative, each farmer having shares in the cooperative commensurate with the land he brings into the cooperative with factors such as quality of soil, connection to irrigation, etc. weighed in. The cooperative can then hire farm labor to work on the land, labor which can of course be sourced from the farmers or share holders themselves. Such huge cooperatives could sell some of the produce back to the farmers at a discounted rate, while the rest is sold in to the market. This would allow the cooperative to get professional management people, more technical help, and most importantly cheaper seeds and cost-effective machinery.
Last but not least, we have to turn our passion to saving the biodiversity of the Subcontinent. We need to increase and improve our conservation programs with better management, more scientific research, better surveillance, more staff, more security. The humans have become the coronation of all beings on the planet. This gives us the responsibility to consider all other species to be under our protection. It is important that we protect the various ecological systems and wild life, so that our children also get to see the wonders of the world.
Summarizing, the Subcontinentals would have to find a good water management solution, to prevent floods and drought, we would have to replenish our ground water table, and our water quality needs to improve. We would have to concentrate human habitations into mega-cities, so that a lot more land can be freed up for forests and agriculture. And we need to make agriculture a lot more efficient.
A Pan-Subcontinentalist would take active interest in recycling, in energy-conservation, and would make the effort to take an active interest in the conservation of at least one ecological system in the Subcontinent or at least one species. Pan-Subcontinentalists see that many of the environmental challenges can only be solved we the whole Subcontinent puts their minds to solving them together.
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