AJEET
COUR’S LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA
July 6, 2009
My
dear Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh jee,
1. Can I have 4-5 minutes of your precious
time ?
2. Many years back, I and my first cousin
Sqn. Leader Manmohan Singh Mitwa came across, 500-years-old trees, branded
with hammer-marks. Beyond Mashobra, near the Gumma catchment
area from where water is pumped to the whole of Shimla,
About 400-500 of them ! Huge giants,
standing in eternal prayer for the welfare of humanity, branded as goats for
‘kurbaani’ for Bakrid.
Standing there, mute and silent, waiting
to be slaughtered!
The poor ignorant people of village
Baldean told us, with tears in their eyes. ‘These have been identified to
be chopped off !’
We wrote to the then Prime Minister Rajeev
Gandhi,
“If this thick forest is molested and slaughtered, the catchment area will
eventually get dried up. “Shimla will go thirsty, and will eventually die”.
On the third day, one Mr. Lamba
arrived in Shimla, and said he had been deputed by the Prime Minister, to
personally inspect the situation.
He was in tears when he touched a
couple of those wounds of the forest.
In a day, the local authorities were
summoned, the scandal of the land mafia – in connivance with the officials,
as always – was unearthed, and verbal message of Prime Minister was
delivered to the then Chief Minister of Himachal : “Even if one tree
goes, his government would go !”
The result ? Trees are still
standing there, erect and in eternal prayer !
3.
But here, in Delhi,
NOBODY LISTENS !
NOBODY BOTHERS !
We, the concerned citizens, have
been writing to all the authorities.
No response from the Chief Minister, because she is
intoxicated by the ‘GLAMOUR’ of Commonwealth Games, and Sonia jee adores her !
No response from the Lieutenant Governor, though I have known
him since 1972.
Silence is the order of the day !
Even Supreme Court has finally said, “We will see
after the Games”, in response to Harish Salve’s and M.L. Lahoty’s plea
that ancient forests which have been chopped off should be REPLANTED,
here in Siri Fort Area.
The 23 acres of ancient forest, chopped off, IN
EXCESS of the requirement of the so-called Badminton Court, which in itself was
a bad idea.
Protesting against the idea, when it
was being ‘hatched’, Charles Corea had resigned from the Urban Arts
Commission.
Only your dear friend, the Sports Minister Mr.
M.S. Gill, was decent enough to call me on phone in response to my letter,
and said, “You should fight with the Prime Minister. What can I do? I
have been deputed to see to it that Commonwealth Games should be organized in
all their glory, and I am just doing my duty !”
4.
Slaughtering the trees, destroying the environment, raping
the only river : Delhi’s
own Yamuna, destroying roads,
uprooting the poor, vandalizing historical heritage : like
they destroyed the Siri Fort Wall here ! In the name of Commonwealth Games
!
The wall of Siri Fort where Mangols were
defeated. For the first time ever ! The most glorious symbol of our pride,
because what the Great Wall of China couldn’t
achieve, this Wall of Siri Fort did ! Mangols never dared to attack any other
country after that !
But right now, Delhi gives a look of major
collective invasion by Changez Khan-Babar-Abdali-Mangols !
Every day more and more trees are being cut,
and the media is flashing their pictures. Promises of ‘replanting’ are hollow.
Even if we trust these rogues who had the
audacity to butcher the ‘protected forest’, who knows what sort of lies they
are fabricating now ! And where these so-called trees are being planted,
because they don’t tell the ‘location’. Who is responsible to go and
see the location where the trees are being ‘planted’ ?
Even if a committee of some mad and concerned
citizens goes to check, the DDA will have a ready answer, “It was so hot, so
the saplings got dried up ! or… They were eaten away by stray cattle ! Or
whatever !
What sort of age are we living in !
Even if they have planted some saplings,
somewhere miles away from the site of slaughtered ancient forest, it is of no
use to the people whose environment is affected and whose forest covers are
destroyed.
Pollution levels of air are drastically
rising in South Delhi, particularly in
colonies like Siri Fort area. So do the Media Reports show.
5. What sort of legacy do you want to leave
for the coming generations ?
“Dilli
jo ikk shehar thaa
Aalam mein
intikhab,
Ham rehne waale
hain
Usee ujrhe
dayaar ke!”
6. Who knows better than the Chief Commander
of this country, our Prime Minister, who looks after environment too, I
am told !
The whole world is crying, and so do
you also lament, in international fora, that the glaciers are melting,
the whole globe is heating up, the ozone layer is being depleted,
etcetera etcetera.
The whole world is trying to control
gas-emissions ! Trying to cover this poor eroding earth by covering it with
trees.
7. And here we are, butchering
trees and denuding the earth from its green cover which nature gave it in
its benevolence ! In a rat race for one single glamorous event: Commonwealth
Games !
Commonwealth Games are neither for the
development of the country nor for increasing our GDP. Neither they are going
to help the ‘aam aadmi’, nor they
will bring inclusive development.
Aren’t we living in strange paradoxes ?
Why are we ignoring the cry of the earth ?
Tsunami was nothing but an agonizing wail
of the sea.
8. Please save
Delhi ! Save India ! By saving India,
you will be helping in saving the planet also !
9. Can I hope you will break the deadening
spell of this tyranny of Kafkaesque SILENCE, and will respond with a
positive decision ? And a creative, sensitively positive step in this matter ?
Can I please expect a word in
response ? Not the usual word by one of your Secretaries, “The Prime
Minister has received your letter. Matter is under consideration!”
I wish you would, if you have time and
inclination, write to me.
Actually I don’t see any reason why you
should, to a non-descript, humble writer like me !
But it will be your magnanimity if you show a
little CONCERN for this very genuine issue of ‘cheer-haran’ of Delhi
!
10. Why don’t you take a round of all the
horrible slaughter – the corpses of dear old greens of Delhi, all the dead
peacocks and eagles and other winged beauties, and the Yamuna !
The way kings of old times surveyed their kingdoms ‘incognito’ ! And get
a first-hand glimpse of the destruction of
Delhi !
11. I am sending this ‘fariyaad’ to you FOR THE FIRST TIME, after about
six years of your ‘raaj’ !
I therefore expect, ki laaj rakhoge ais faryaad dee !
With
warmest regards, as ever,
AJEET COUR
Dr. MANMOHAN SINGH
Hon’ble
Prime Minister of India
PRIME MINISTER’S REPLY
ANOTHER
LETTER OF AJEET COUR TO
PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA
January 9, 2010
My dear Prime Minister
Dr.
Manmohan Singh jee,
You have achieved an undisputed,
mind-bogglingly exciting stature in international arena, and have globally
emerged as a major force and a unique mind !
Whatever your brilliant success in
Copenhagen, I will salute you only when you :
1.
SAVE THE ‘PROTECTED’ FORESTS
In other words,
save the forests, which are ‘protected’ in papers, but are
being shamelessly slaughtered.
·
Last time when I wrote to you on July
6, 2009, I was overwhelmed when I got your signed response !
·
You said you had written to
Environment Minister,
Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, and the Chief Minister of
Delhi.
I sent reminders to all of them.
NONE OF THEM RESPONDED.
·
Since my old friend Mr. Shyam Saran is
looking after ‘environment’ under
your guidance, I called him also. But he said he was helpless.
2.
Can
there be any living being more helpless than this
peacock, whose photograph
taken yesterday morning, is enclosed.
We almost snatched
him from the jaws of a street dog.
Arpana took him to
the Birds’ Hospital at Chandni Chowk, near the place where Guru Tegh Bahadur
Sahib was executed.
This bird has been
executed by the greed of DDA, which destroyed thousands of nests of these
helpless ‘NATIONAL BIRDS’ in the name of Commonwealth Games!
Two innocent souls
executed by blind greed for power and money, in the same Chandni Chowk vicinity
!
The Peacock is in
coma right now !
Can you please save
further devastation of these poor souls ?
No Environmental
Concerns can be addressed without taking care of the co-habitants of this
planet : the trees and shrubs, the forests and all the ‘jeev jantoo’ living in them, the birds and bees, the animals
and the fish !
Do we intend
slaughtering all these for money, for power, for the so-called glory and
so-called ‘national pride’ of Commonwealth Games ?
NATIONAL BIRD
GUILLOTINED FOR NATIONAL PRIDE ?
That is the stuff
Greek Tragedies were made of !
Do I expect a
positive response, and more importantly, a POSITIVE ACTION,
please ?
With most
affectionate regards, and genuine love
and reverence for all your
achievements,
AJEET COUR
VERY HONOURABLE DR.
MANMOHAN SINGH JEE
PRIME MINISTER OF
copy for SARDARNI GURSHARAN KAUR JEE
WELCOME SPEECH BY AJEET COUR
AT
SAARC FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE
NEW DELHI
Let me welcome all of you,
my friends, writers and scholars, members of our Intellectual Think Tank, our
Governing Council Members, to this annual SAARC FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE.
We
are missing our Chairman Khushwant Singh because he is 95 years young and
refuses to move out. Mahasveta Devi was determined to come and participate, but
three days back, developed serious trouble in her eyes on her way back from Dhaka, and her doctor has forbidden her to step out. She
has sent her apologies to all of you.
With
the permission of Dr. Karan Singh, Dr. Abid Hussain, Bardhan jee, let me
request the following, dignitaries to honour this SAARC FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE
by Inaugurating it by floating the rose petals in water. Please come and oblige
us to declare the Festival open :
1.
Dr.
Karan Singh jee
2.
Dr.
Abid Hussain jee
3.
Mr.
A.B. Bardhan jee
4.
Excellency
Mr. V. Namgyel
5.
Gulzar
jee
6.
Dr.
Ashis Nandy
7.
Dr.
Nihal Rodrigo
8.
Mr.
Hamid Mir
9.
Prof.
Mushirul Hasan
10.
Ms.
Nosheen Saeed
11.
Mr.
Sarmad Sehbai
Our
intellectual Ambassador from Sri
Lanka, Excellency Mr. Prasad Kariyawasam had
to come and speak for 5 minutes. But there was a bereavement in his family and
he had to rush to Colombo
on Saturday night. His Minister Counsellor is of course here. All the High
Commissioners of SAARC countries in Delhi
are represented here.
Mohtrima
Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh has sent a very affectionate
letter of regret and has sent two of her representatives.
The
Secretary General of SAARC Secretariat, Dr. Sheel Kant Sharma who was
definitely coming to participate, had to rush to Bhutan
for an urgent meeting about the forthcoming SAARC Summit in Bhutan.
Hon’ble
Prime Minister of Bhutan Lyonpo Jigmi Y. Thinley, a brother to me, called to
apologise, and so did the Chief Advisor to the King of Bhutan Mr.
Lyonpo Chenkyab Dorji. They are understandably extremely busy because of the
forthcoming SAARC Summit.
Ambassador
Madanjeet Singh was also scheduled to participate, but has been held up
elsewhere.
Every
year, the major SAARC FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE picks up a theme which is of great
concern in the SAARC region to have serious deliberations about it in our
Academic Seminar. We, the writers are not only wordsmiths. We firmly believe
that writers should be concerned people. All the problems of the Region effect
us as sensitive human beings and as writers.
But
unlike the usual trend of Conferences we do not believe in presenting lots of Papers and make reports. We present
only research papers : with fresh and constructive ideas. For an hour and a
half every day.
The
rest of the day we exchange our creative writings, because they help us
understand each other’s concerns, and the literary trends in the neighbouring
countries. Underlining the important fact that the neighbours are not ‘others’
! Repeating our conviction that respecting the otherness of the others is the
only way to Peace !
Last
year our Agenda for the Academic Seminar was Terrorism. This time it is
‘Environment’.
Every
year, in chilling winter of December-January,
I and my daughter Arpana used to go to
Bharatpur Lake,
the bird sanctuary. A vast lake, with little mounds of earth scattered all
over, like small little islands, and on them, very old trees, not very tall,
but spreading their branches out over the water, like great grandmothers, to
hold hundreds of nests of birds. In each nest, eggs were layed, hatched, chicks
came out, and their parents fed them with fish kept safe in their gullets, to
be picked up by the little ones, to grow up and get stronger, and fly away !
It
was a whole world of birds : besides the local ones, they came from China, Mangolia, Siberia, flying non-stop for
thousand of miles, over the snow-laden Himalayas, their historical and genetic memories guiding
them on their flight, for 15-20-25 days at a stretch, at the most taking one
short breathes on way, to the beautiful
lake in Bharatpur.
Going
around the lake, on a gravel-path, we always saw with blood-coloured pain, a
larger stone which proclaimed the dates on which this and that Maharaja came
with this and that British Governor, to hunt, and managed to kill so many
thousands of birds ! Feeling piercing pangs
of pain, we cursed all those arrogant
Maharajs, and all those British
Governors whom they were trying to please ! That
lake is now dry !
Fish
are dead !
The
tasty fungi which was the main attraction for
all the foreign birds, because, paradoxically, all of them were
vegetarians, has dried up.
Which
Maharajas should we curse now ?
Which
Gora or Kala rulers ? Shall we ask
Bhagat Singh ?
In
Kyoto and Copenhagen,
they are worried about only the gas emissions and the ozone layer !
No
doubts, environment has acquired not only several, multi-layered dimensions,
but has become the most crucial question that concerns the survival of human
species, all living things on the planet, and of our planet itself.
The
planet Earth was created as a place of harmonious coexistence of humans and
animals ; of earth surrounded by vast oceans ; by Multifarious and
multi-hued living species on the earth
and in the water ; birds and animals ; little blades of grass and huge trees ;
bees and insects ; little ants and snakes ; myriad life-forms, living in a
harmonious balance !
A
beautiful world without boundaries and borders !
Why
don’t we, the SAARC countries, with a single strong voice, stand up and be
counted, talking about our own problems which are our exclusive concerns ?
Besides
sharing our clouds and monsoons, our birds and animals, our oceans and rivers,
our flora and fauna, we in the SAARC region share long civilisational journeys, horizontally and
vertically, on micro and macro levels. We therefore share our pains and
anguish. The purple colour of this anguish is exclusively ours! Only we can
deal with it ! Forcelly, and with all the strength of our integrity.
Our
river waters are being placed in ‘nooses’, peaceful tribal villages around them
have become places of long struggles for survival; mindless mining all over our
countries is ruining our fertile lands; slaughtering and butchering of trees of
our ancient forests are pushing out huge numbers of tribal population which
have been living there from times immemorial. Forests are not only their homes
but also provide them their survival. Slaughtered trees are also homes of
innumerable, most of them rare species of birds which are being exiled and
pushed to extinction.
Right
now my daughter Arpana, the painter, is fighting a case in the Supreme Court
against butchering of several acres of so-called protected forest, which was
home to thousands of peacocks, rare eagles, and lakhs of little sparrows,
mynahs, bulbuls. The whole forest used to quiver with their early morning
symphonies which no Mozart can ever copy.
We
saw those dazed, exiled, peacocks being eaten by stray dogs. She pulled a
couple of them from the jaws of wild dogs and rushed them to the birds hospital, in old Delhi.
It
is fashionable to say ‘Save the Tiger’. Nobody says : Save the peacocks,
sparrows, all other birds, and the adivasi tribals too whose homes, the forests, you are mercilessly
slaughtering !
Nobody
probably want, to remember that Peacock is our ‘National Bird’.
Nobody
wants to remember that the whole cosmos was created in a very subtle but very
fragile balance. If man cannot disrupt the orbits of sun, earth, moon, stars,
galaxies, because they are too far away, why should he pounce upon and destroy
whatever is closer at hand ?
Who
has given him the right to destroy what he did not produce, and can in no way
replace after destroying it ?
How
can he dare to disturb the subtle balance of earth which is the home of all
living species.
If
forests are destroyed, not only the tigers and other animals, not only the
adivasi tribals and birds will be exiled, but also the beas and butterflies,
the little and large ants.
Is
anybody even aware that without the bees and butterflies, who marry all the
fruits and crops and vegetation by carrying the pollon from one to the other
will disappear and so will all the crops and vegetables and fruits will stop
growing !
I
can visualise the day – and it is no science fiction ! – when people from other
planets will come and explore our barren earth, wondering if any living thing ever
survived here !
If
industrial gas emissions are causing danger
to ozone layer, let us also articulate the danger to our own village
ponds, wells, pokhars and baulis which are drying up, and the water-level going down.
I
don’t know, but does anybody ever talk in International conferences about our
women who walk for tens of miles every
day in search of water?
Do
we talk about the chemical waste which affluent countries bring in their ugly
ships, and offload in our oceans, mostly near the coasts ?
Does anybody remember that
poor penguin soaked in oil who could neither fly, nor walk a step, sitting
bewildered and paralysed on the shore of a forsaken ocean, somewhere in a
seashore, because a whole oil tanker had
spilled its millions of tons of oil in the sparkling waters of the ocean ?
Tsunami
was a big sigh of disgust and helplessness of the sea !
Our
specific environment problems of the SAARC Region, apart from the global
concerns of gas emissions : like drying up of our village ponds, our ‘Chhappars
’ and ‘pokhars ’, our ‘bawlis ’ and lakes, and the depletion of
ground water level.
Can
we raise our own SAARC voice in international environment fora to save the
planet from extinction ?
We,
the inhabitants of SAARC nations have our own exclusive problems which we must
bring to the international agenda of ‘global concerns’ !