Indian Institute of Technology, (IIT) Bombay, now Mumbai –
my alma mater – has undoubtedly been a happening place, even when I was
there some 25 years back. Still, I was quiet taken aback to see how much was
“happening” when I visited it sometime last week. This was not the usual campus sort of
activity. Rather, what is happening is that the campus is in the middle of a
construction boom. It is abuzz with the sounds of excavators (popularly called
JCBs), bulldozers, concrete mixers and the likes. Mingling amongst young men
and women wearing the characteristic look – half earnest, half I could not care
less – of students on campus, are seen men in plastic hard hats and bright
yellow and green coloured reflective jackets. Construction is on everywhere.
Excavator at a construction site near YP Gate |
Now anywhere in the world, construction is a sure sign of
progress – or, to use a more nuanced and lively word, construction is a sure
sign of “vikas”. In the last few months, the word (and its more mundane
sounding English equivalent, “development”) has been much thrown around as
India witnessed an energetic and loquacious election campaign. While India
waits for the new government to unleash vikas, the IIT Bombay campus –
as always – seems to be miles ahead of the country.
Naturally, all this must be great for the campus and its
residents. But somehow I am left feeling just the opposite. Not surprising, of
course, because I am amongst the minority which believes in such odd ball
things like rivers should flow, and dams that stop the flow of a river are not
exactly great news; that open spaces are nice, nicer than glass fronted tall
buildings; that mountains are great, particularly when they are not hollowed
out and cratered by mine pits; that if we need to forego some coal extraction
to keep in place centuries old forests, that’s not a bad deal; that animals,
plants, fish – in fact, the entire non-human biota, have a right to live and a
right to an ecological space that will ensure that they live; and that such a
right accrues to them not because they are useful to the human race, but rather
because its intrinsic to their being on this planet.
So when I saw the campus last week, I was, to repeat what I
said earlier, quite taken aback. I saw in the happenings on campus a microcosm
of what is happening in the larger world out there, things that go against the
grain of what I have outlined in the earlier paragraph.
But I must qualify my above thoughts. I am not an extreme
ecologist nor, to use a word that has often been thrown at me and my friends,
an eco-terrorist. If I think a river should continue to flow, I also agree that
it’s okay to extract some of its waters for human use. But some, not all. How
much, and how to arrive at this how much, is a complex interdisciplinary field of
science, technology, social, environmental and political processes, called
“environmental flows”. Similarly, I feel that we need to mine minerals, but
“how much and how” remains the crucial question. This approach needs to be
extended to all things described above.
So when I felt bad at what was going on at IIT campus, it
was not because open spaces are being eaten away rapidly, but because it seems
to be done in a mindless manner. I understand that IIT badly needs more
hostels, residential quarters for staff, departments and so on. Yet, I wonder
whether all this cannot be built without destroying open spaces, dumping muck in
the lake and destroying the greenery?
Old Hostel 10 makes way for a new high rise 16 storey H10 |
Indeed, if there was one place where one could expect an
innovative answer to this question, which is a smaller version of the larger
question confronting humanity – how can we meet the needs of human beings at
the same time ensuring that we destroy the surroundings the least – then it
could have been IIT Bombay. It has the brains, it has the talent, it has the
funds; what it probably lacks is the interest to take a particular approach to
developing the campus. Else, we would not have a flashy new air conditioned
sports complex coming up on the gymkhana grounds – a sports complex that takes
away significant part of the sports ground itself! (Alumni may be interested in
knowing that construction is coming up on all three sides of the gymkhana
grounds H1 to H3 side, H4-H5 side and H8 side.). Or muck being disposed into
the Powai lake. And so on. When I asked around if there was indeed a master
plan, several people – who I know are sensitive and concerned campus residents
– said if there was one, they were not in the know of it.
While walking along the lake side path from the (old) guest
house to behind hostel 8, (hardly a lake side path, now that the lake has
receded so much), I wondered aloud: With so many alumni donating generously to
the Institute for a variety of causes, including for big new departments and
buildings (sometimes named after themselves!), why has someone not thought of
donating funds with an express purpose of preserving a part of the campus? A
sort of a no-build fund, a modified version of “debt for nature swap”?
My friend, an alumnus and a faculty, Prof. Milind Sohoni, immediately
responded saying that apparently the batch of 1980 had done something like
this, giving funds to preserve the very stretch of the path that we were
walking on. I also saw a small park called Kshitij built as a part of
this. But it seems the authorities have renegaded on the promise to preserve
the area, as there is a new big multi-storey guest house being built next to
this very path.
A heap of excavated debris piled up. A common site at several
places in the campus
|
Certainly, part of the reason for me to feel bad about the
campus is because I spent five incredibly great years there, and have a
residual attachment to it. But I don’t want to make too much of this attachment
– I no longer live there, and have visited it probably all of 10 times in the
25 years since I left it. But my disquiet stems more from a sense of missed
opportunity. IIT could have showcased a different way of doing things, an
approach that would not only keep the campus as beautiful it was, but would
have also been an inspiration and guide for how to do things in the larger
world outside.
But then again, may be IIT, and the world outside wants to
do things in this very manner, and they are indeed showcasing and inspiring the
world with an approach they believe in?
May be I am really in a minority?
27 May 2014