“Rivers must have legal rights like
human beings”
River diversion projects like Inter-linking of rivers, an outcome of anthropocentric
approach
New Delhi: At the UN Information
Centre (UNIC) in New Delhi during a program to mark World Water Day on March 22,
2013 there was a demand made for rivers to be granted legal rights like human
beings to ensure that the rivers survives for coming centuries as living
entities and not as pipelines. The program
was on "Rivers of our land: messengers of water insecurity".
Speaking on the occasion, Gopal
Krishna of ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA) dwelt on how commercial benefits of
damming rivers is talked about a lot, the in-stream and off stream monetary and
non-monetary benefits and advantages of flowing rivers has not been assessed so
far. He argued for a river basin approach which undertakes such assessment. He made an appeal to the organizers of the
conference to send a petition to the Government of India seeking legal rights
for rivers. This appeal was promptly endorsed.
Bolivia, Ecuador and Pittsburgh
have given nature legal rights equal to those of human beings. Bolivian Law of
Mother Earth decrees that nature has 11 rights including the right to
biodiversity without genetic modification, the right to water in sufficient
quantity and quality to sustain life, protected from pollution, the right to
clean air, and the right to restoration of ecosystems damaged by human
activity. Government of India should also ensure legal rights for nature. Ecuador Constitution includes rights for nature.
It is learnt that besides Pittsburgh some two dozen municipalities in the US
have passed similar ordinances. UN legal
texts like UN Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary
Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) that became global on
February 6, 2013 must incorporate the legal rights of nature. Government of India, State Governments, Municipalities
and Panchayats must ensure that rivers in particular and nature in general gets
legal right.
Krishna recalled the Tamil
proverb that says “sea begins in the mountains” and criticized the proponents
of interlinking of rivers who unscientifically argue that water which goes to sea
is wasted. River diversion projects like Inter-linking of
rivers an outcome of anthropocentric approach.
He reminded the participants about the Morning Prayer that is sung in
schools which underlines the water cycle wherein water moves from one reservoir
to another, such as from river to ocean, or from the ocean to the atmosphere,
by the physical processes of evaporation, condensation, precipitation,
infiltration, runoff, and subsurface flow. In so doing, the water goes through
different phases: liquid, solid (ice), and gas (vapor). He strongly disagreed
with the former President A P J Abdul Kalam who has been advocating “smart
water grid” to stop water from flowing into the sea because he has failed to
appreciate that water cycle is the natural water grid.
Krishna disapproved of the
act of declaring Ganga as a national river. It is a universal fact that Ganga
is an international river. He stressed the
need for looking at the river as an ecological entity and addressing issues of
quantity in terms of water flows along with issues of quality. He demanded that
the colonial legacy of treating water and land separately should be given up because
they co-exist.
He underlined that the current official
river basin approach applies to only 79% of Ganga basin, which is in India. It
does not include 13 % of Ganga basin that is in Nepal, 4 % in Bangaldesh and 4
% in Tibet. He spoke about the relationship with the river systems and with the
composite Ganga-Brahmputra-Meghna basin and its consequences.
He demanded that the central
government, the governments of states and neighboring countries must make policies
of Industry, Power, Agriculture, Urban Development, Health and Environment by factoring
the health of river basins a priority whenever there is a conflict between
rivers and development.
He underlined the biggest threats
to river basins as interlinking of rivers, competition between Indian and China
to exploit Brahmaputra, amputation of river channel from the flood plains and
engineering interventions like the ones witnessed in Kosi basin. He held that rivers are more important than
development and the ecological entity of the river basin is non-negotiable.
Kiran Mehra Kerpelman, Director,
UNIC read out the UN message for World Water Day. The speakers at the program included Razia
Ismail of Women’s Coalition Trust India Alliance for Child Rights, noted author
Bharat Dogra, Vimal Bhai of Matu Jangathan affiliated with National Alliance
for People’s Movement and Mangal Singh, rural innovator and inventor of the
“Mangal Turbine”. Tribute was paid to Veer Bhardra
Mishra, the former member of National Ganga River Basin Authority who passed
away on March 13, 2013.
For Details: ToxicsWatch
Alliance (TWA), Mb: 9818089660 (Delhi), E-mail: krishna1715@gmail.com, Web: www.toxicswatch.org
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