Shanthala Ramesh
I am a female in transition: from a rural adolescent to a young urban adult. As I am draped externally by boundaries and opacities, deciphering them and finding my way through them remain my prime concerns. Through these acts I engage myself with the power matrix around.
Culturally given gender boundaries are burdening me. The urban landscape around is dark and opaque. Equipping me with the tools of analysis, now, I drape myself with rays of hope.
Getting introduced to the Categories of Boundary, Opacity, Power and Serendipity
I had grown up in a valley of the Western Ghats. As I was homeschooled till I was 13 years old, I was moving through the valley's lakes, rivulets, plants, insects and birds photographing them and getting immersed in their colours and forms. Joining a school for tribal children in the plateau beyond the valley at 14 years of age, made me cross the valley for four years every day. Inside the school, I realised the uniqueness of tribal life. My tribal friends were an extension of their habitats. Their landscape was always transparent to them. They knew every aspects of it in time and space. Even though I had spent much time with the plants, insects and birds of the land around, the knowledge my friends had about them was more intimate than mine. Theirs was an extension of their ancestors. Mine was an interaction between my planned journey, camera and field guides.
A week after I had entered my 11th Grade, when my mother and I were returning home through the mountain road in scooter, we were hit by two drunken men in a motorcycle. My mother passed away at the spot and I was carried for miles to be hospitalised. My father, an allopathic doctor practicing in the valley for a quarter century, sat on the road along with my mom's body demanding the authorities to close down the only TASMAC shop in the mountains responsible for making the young men drunkards. The tribals in the area had staged protests in vain earlier for years against this shop as it had ruined many families. The sit in protest and the burial of my mom by the tribals in the forest were publicised by the media widely in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. This made the closure of the shop permanent.
I returned to the school after three months. A few months later, the Pandemic followed. I finished my schooling. Sunk in PTSD, gazing at the curry tree, the moon and the stars through the window was the only solace.
Alone and abandoned, something unexpected happened.
I started painting. I surrounded myself with colours, light and forms.
When the rain came and the downpour was unusually heavy, I remembered the stream near our home where I used to wander as a child. When I went there I was shocked to see it bone dry. The Shepard who was passing by told me that the stream was dead for the past nine years and the brick quarries and kilns up stream in the valley were the culprits. I was sad.
Why the tribals, in spite of their efforts for many years, could not close down the TASMAC Shop that was ruining their lives? Why couldn't they save the mountain and the valley from the illegal brick making mafia even though their knowledge of the environment was exemplary? Why couldn't they stop the mushrooming of resorts in their land, even though these were undermining their cultural fabric every passing day? Why was my school, though run by a powerful family from Chennai that belonged to India's first Industries Minister, to champion the cause of the tribal folks just not interested in these issues? Why and how did my mother's death catalyse at least a partial solution? These were the questions that were blowing over my mind.
I looked around. There were two men in the nearby village who were working against the brick making mafia. They were from the local dominant caste and were rich. Ironically, they were from the same caste and were blood relatives to majority of the brick makers. Up till a few years before, one of them was even running a lathe workshop linked intricately with the brick industry. The other one was an elder having a long history of being a local bigwig in AIADMK. Utter disregard by the brick makers to hear their woes about the physical distress their children were suffering from the dust emanating from the convoys of lorries on the village roads had enraged them and initiated them to work against the brick industry.
There were about 180 brick industrial units with about 800 quarries catering to the needs of Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Erode and Nilgiri Districts with their annual turn over exceeding thousands of crores of Rupees. The owners of these units were tightly linked to all the branches of the District Administration and to every single political party. They were running these units illegally for more than a quarter century. It was absolutely impossible to oppose them and close down their operations.
The industry was operating from early 1990s. From 2000, it became highly mechanised. Apart from the local workers, people from Madurai, Sivagangai and Dharmapuri districts were employed. However, from 2015, they were all slowly replaced by cheap labourers from North Eastern States. Profit accumulated astronomically in the hands of a few. The local population was about 50,000 and a chunk of them employed so far by the brick making units were displaced and had to find jobs in the city. A deep estrangement had crept in the local society between the rich and the poor.
Strangely, the estrangement of the poor did not pose any immediate threat to the industry. However, the personal estrangement suffered by two men in the hands of brick manufacturing mafia, cost the illegal industry dearly in the days to come.
The two rural men did not have an overt local support to stage a protracted opposition in the form of protests. Their only option was to oppose the industry legally. Slowly, they learned to perfect this by their sheer perseverance.
Unlike the Irula tribals in the mountains and plateau around having a history of 2000 years of settlement, the dominant social groups (castes) in the valley (excepting that of the Pooluva Gounder caste of Periya Thadagam village) had settled here only after 1800 CE. These two men belonged to the dominant caste's 6th and 7th generations living in the valley. The elder had studied upto 5th class and the younger upto 12th class. However, the elder happened to be an important local politician of AIADMK in 1980s and early 90s who was also a farmer and a cow-herder. The latter was the son of a local tool maker who had taken up his father's lathe. The elder's life experience of moving with Government machinery was of great help.
All their initial efforts to contact and arrange a lawyer from the nearby Coimbatore city were thwarted by the mafia. Meanwhile, their interactions with environmental and RTI activists from Coimbatore had impressed upon them the need to collect Government documents from various departments that were related to the brick industry's legality. They meticulously collected these from late 2018 to early 2019 using RTI Act. They learned the value of documenting them and registering complaints based on the documents to the various Government departments at the District level. Their complaints were largely ignored by the District authorities. However, when they had registered enough complaints, they succeeded in arranging an advocate to file the case in the Madras High Court.
As they were preparing to file the case, a chance event helped them immensely. A fine example of serendipity.
On 24 August 2019, Prakash Javadekar, the Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change attended an event held in Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) at Anaikatty, Coimbatore. He had to pass through the valley to reach this institution, as it is located in the adjoining plateau. The minister was aghast seeing the industries crammed up in the valley polluting the sky with the thick smoke from their chimneys. Three days later, he directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to conduct a study. Scientists from CPCB and Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board visited the valley on 29 August. The issue was slowly losing its opacity and was becoming transparent. The local power matrix was facing its first credible challenge by this transparency.
On 6 September 2019, the elder activist succeeded in registering the case in the Madras High Court. As a coincidence, an elephant conservationist from Chennai, also succeeded in filing a case on 10 September 2019 regarding the issue of Human Elephant Conflict (HEC) going on in the valley. This was three months after my mother's demise. I was in my 11th class.
Nothing happened at the High Court after that. All the lawyers who had taken up the case for the activists, for reasons not known, were not attending it. The brick making mafia, sensing trouble, was increasing its production many folds. Incidences of HEC increased phenomenally, leading to a sharp increase in human deaths.
The case had to wait till 6 January 2021, when the High Court Bench comprising Chief Justice Sandeep Banarjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamurthy directed the Principal Chief Conservator of the Forests (PCCF) to submit a report on Human Elephant Conflict in the valley within the next 6 weeks. The Bench also directed the District Officials to take actions on all the illegal brick kilns. At this point, the activists had collected enough documents to prove to the Court that all the 180 kilns were operating illegally for all these years. On 10 February 2021, the Bench directed the Chief Secretary to file a Status Report within the next 6 weeks about the elephant corridor and illegal brick kilns in the valley. On 19 March 2021, the District Administration finally closed and sealed all the brick kilns and their quarries in the valley. The Chief Secretary subsequently filed his Status Report on 30 March 2021. On 14 April 2021, the National Green Tribunal (South Zone) took over the case Suo Moto. It constituted a four member Joint Committee on 4 June 2021 headed by the District Collector to study the issue and ascertain the environmental damages caused so far and to calculate the quantum of environment compensation.
By this time I had completed my 12th class and was waiting for the results.
Getting ready for the Study
Two years had passed since the loss of my mother and grand mother. I could not come out of the vacuum they had left; and when I came to know that the stream near our house had stopped flowing for years, I was shattered.
I travelled through the valley. The brick kilns had stopped their production. Thousands of heavy vehicles and lorries involved in quarrying had gone silent. I could feel the eerie silence of a devastated war field surrounding me.
But what could I do? I was just a small girl. I myself was devastated like the land around me. Still, something had be done and that too immediately.
I had heard about the documentation works of the activists from my dad. I had also known that they could read or write English only with someone's help. However, all the proceedings in the Court was in English. The newly created Joint Expert Committee to study the valley would be putting forward its works in that language. And, by chance, if the experts allowed themselves to be influenced by the powerful mafia, the cause of the valley would burst and vanish. As the activists had no works that described scientifically with unquestionable proof, the devastation done to the valley's streams, flora and fauna including its human residents, their claims could be diluted and eventually be dismissed. Without these materials in hand, the counsels representing them would be at a loss in the Court in the future.
I drowned myself in the internet. I could get a couple of research papers and reports done by wildlife biologists on Human Elephant Conflicts in Coimbatore Forest Division of which Thadagam valley is a part. However, I could not find even a single scientific work related to the streams of the valley. I decided to take up that work myself.
Acquainting Geo-spatial analytical tools
I grabbed my dad's iMac. Days and nights came and went. Most of my classmates were enrolling themselves to colleges. I was sitting alone at home trying to anchor my study. At last, after a month I pitched in to the "Historical Images" available in Google Earth Pro. That was my "Eureka" moment.
Google Earth Pro's images were of high resolution. Its "historical images" showed how a location was like in a particular point of time. The images were available from the year 2011. By and large, there were three images available for each year. You could use the application to measure your study area. You could also identify the altitude of a particular point in the area of your interest. You could visually identify the streams (or an object like the chimney of a brick kiln) and you could digitise and save them as a KML (Keyhole Markup Language) File for your use.
I now had a tool to mark every brick kiln and quarry. It also helped me to identify the time period when each one of them was established. Screenshots of them with the respective dates would become the irrefutable evidence in the Court of Law.
I then read extensively about watersheds, stream networks and stream orders. I set out to construct my own stream network map of the valley. Maps available in the net, neither had specific name labels for the hillocks surrounding the valley nor its streams. I had to find them and label them first.
An elder named Vellingiri from Chinna Thadagam village helped me. He belonged to a caste whose members were the traditional hunters in the valley. He knew every inch of the landscape. With his help, I could at last create a 3 dimensional map of the valley with its hillocks and streams neatly labelled. My own alienation from the landscape surrounding me was slowly getting lifted like the mist in the morning sun light.
I then found out the availability of images of Micro Watersheds of entire Tamil Nadu and India at "Soil and Land Use Survey of India" website. The site provided me four micro-watershed images for Thadagam valley. As I was trying to incorporate them in my map, I came across an Open Source software called "Quantum Geographical Information System" (QGIS), that would aid my work immensely.
It was the time when I bumped upon the YouTube channels of Professor Hans Vander Kwast (of IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, The Netherlands) and Mr.Ujawal Gandhi (Founder of Spatial Thoughts) giving immense help to acquaint and master QGIS software. Their study videos slowly guided me to finish my first book by 10 December 2021. The book was titled "Stuck in the days of Abundance : The Strange Case of Streams of Thadagam Valley".
For the first time, the book had made a visual presentation of the the micro watersheds and the stream networks in the valley and how they were connected to the larger Noyyal River network which in turn was a tributary of the Cauvery River. Using the historical imagery of google Earth Pro, the book had traced the timeline of the establishment of the illegal brick kilns and quarries. It then had taken one of the four micro-watersheds of the valley for a closer analysis and had plotted each kiln and quarry present in the micro watershed to analyse how they had destroyed the streams and their banks. The book had also documented the antagonistic relationship between the heavy vehicles using the dry stream beds as roads leading to quarries and the elephants using the same stream beds as their migratory routes. The book had proved conclusively that this antagonistic relationship was the reason for the valley's top position in Human Elephant Conflict (HEC) occurring in the entire Coimbatore Forest Division. After the quarries and kilns were closed by the Court Order on 19 March 2021, the valley had not faced even one single HEC event in three and a half years. The book had also calculated the volume of brick earth quarried in the micro watershed and also the number and the market value of bricks produced illegally. The book was foreworded by two eminent environmental scientists (Director of Salim Ali Center for Ornithology and Natural History and the Professor of Environmental Sciences, Bharathidasan University)and a Botanist from the USA.
After finishing the book, I met the District Collector, District Chief Conservator of Forests and the Tamil Nadu Secretary for Environment, Forests and Climate Change and briefed them and presented the copies of the book. I had also met eminent hydrologist Prof.Janakarajan in Chennai and presented my book. The Secretary and the Professor asked me to visit the streams physically once the December rains were over and document their state.
In the hands of the Mafia and exposure to the National Green Tribunal
The rain had stopped in the last week of December 2021. On 1 January 2022, two activists and I made a visit to a stream that I had analysed in my book. We were surrounded by the brick kiln mafia and thrashed. This became a big news across the State and helped the cause of the struggle immensely.
I was to turn 18 on 1 February. The two activists, my dad and I travelled to Chennai to meet an eminent lawyer in the field of environmental conservation. Advocate Mr.T.Mohan after seeing my book, said immediately that he would implead us in the case going on in the NGT, and that he would argue the case Pro bono (without payment). The next day we three were impleaded in the case (14,15 & 16 Respondents of O.A.119 of 2021). The two activists were having trouble in finding the right lawyers and this event provided them hope and boosted their spirits.
The year dragged on. Die hard conservationists of elephants in Coimbatore were not forthcoming to write a document on the effect of the illegal brick industry on the migrating elephants. They were simply not ready to adhere to the schedules of the NGT case and offer their help. Hence I was forced to study and write about the elephants' plight in Thadagam valley. This introduced me to two eminent conservationists namely Professor Priya Davidar and Dr.Jean-Philippe Puyravaud. Interaction with Dr.Jean helped me to understand HEC in Thadagam Valley more clearly.
I created a blog and started posting all my articles. I also started archiving the important documents from the activists and prepared two easily accessible tables containing their essence.
The Joint Committee appointed by NGT in 2021 submitted its Report on 25 July 2022. It had calculated the environment damage compensation amount as Rs.433 Crores. The study was partial and had not surveyed many quarries. Hence, we were forced to present our own calculations. This pushed me more into exploring QGIS further and I wrote and submitted the affidavit to the NGT on 25 August 2022.
The case draged on. The Madras High Court had directed Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) on 27 April 2023 to rope in an expert body to assess the environmental damages and calculate the compensation amount as per CPCB guidelines. The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) of Delhi was given the study project on 29 December 2023. The Institute would be submitting its final Report by March 2025. The case in the NGT is also alive.
Sense of Abandonment and the Peer pressure on boundaries of Self
In June 2023, I joined B.A.Journalism in Madras Christian College. Its century long history and its woods had attracted me more than anything else. Unfortunately, when I joined the college, my dad was admitted in a hospital and thus I had to travel with my aunt to the campus. Travelling to Chennai without my dad had ignited anxiety and a deep sense of abandonment in me. Sub consciously, I strongly yearned to find some one who would be empathic and provide an inclusive environment.
The initial days in the hall (hostel) were dreadful. The traditional initiation ceremony at the hall made me feel excluded. The hostel warden was anxious about me going to a psychiatrist for counselling. I vacated the hostel on 9 July, barely 15 days after I had entered its premises.
My engagement with the category of "opacity" was rapidly receding. Difficulties about discerning the boundary and security of my self was surging up malignantly. I longed to live in a space where I would feel safe and be cared for.
I went to live with a family of my dad's friend near St Thomas Mount. Travelling to and from the college in train with three of my male college mates was a real solace. The house I stayed was one where a young musical band was taking shape. The band used to play in the streets of Chennai on Sundays. I was a part of it and loved it. However, I sensed that the family considered me as an "other" and not as one of them. The stay lasted one and a half months and I had to leave.
My travel mates were my only solace. I felt "included" with them. In order to travel with them every day in the Metro, I joined a paying guest facility at Ekattuthangal. One of the mates proposed to enter into "relationship" with me. I was not ready. The travel became sour. I felt intimidated by my friend. I did not know a solution. I conveyed this to the student chairman in the college. He said he would sort the issue out. The tea shops beyond the Heber Gate was full of his friends. I started visiting the tea shop. These people were mostly MCC alumnus, who could not detach themselves from the institution mentally and physically. This was a motley group, with its loosely knit members practicing odd professions like writing film reviews, occasionally acting in small roles in Kollywood films, working in firms and selling tea leaves. I felt included and safe with them. By now I had come to stay in a flat near MCC along with four of my batchmates. The first semester was coming to an end.
Two of my classmates were close to me. I felt warm and included with them. I was with them for all the outdoor group projects given to us. Going to the Black Town was the first project. Visiting Seven wells and Armenian Church and reporting about them was a joy.
Gossip was the main stock among the girls in my class. I felt good until I myself became its subject.
The tea shop friendship was slowly taking me. Tobacco and chemical intoxicants slowly creeped in. The occasional actor/model and I had entered into a "relationship". For reason not known to me, he was adept to have the password of my "Insta" account, which I did not refuse. Slowly, all this was burdening me. I was failing to safeguard the boundary of my self. I was becoming vulnerable day by day.
I wanted to move away. I hired an apartment of my dad's friend in Mambalam, and decorated it to my taste. I got a Persian Cat to live with me. I wanted to live alone and to concentrate on my studies. I failed. Whenever I went into the college campus, even small things could trigger my anxiety. I decided to quit. But the sense of abandonment remained.
All along, in the depth of my heart, I was astonished to find most around me with well formed "self boundaries" but just not bothered about the opacity that surrounds us and very uncomfortable in conversing with it but comfortable with the power matrix around. And here I am, its opposite: comfortable in conversing with the opacity around but faltering in drawing my self boundaries and uncomfortable with the pre determined power matrix.
Opacity and College Works
"The fundamentals of design project" given to us in the first semester attracted me. I chose to have "Saving Adyar River" as my topic. I was disappointed when my teacher was not enthused and dealt it like any other topic. He was more concerned about the form and not bothered about the content at all. How can one deal with the form sans content?
Essay writing in our English class brought back my enthusiasm to talk about the real impending flood. I wrote a fine article about the possible flood event in Tambaram in the months to come and the precautions one needs to take. I even drew a map depicting the lake network that would be related to the flood event in Tambaram. However, to my dismay, it failed to interest my teachers.
And in December 2023, the floods did devastate Tambaram. The whole of MCC which always shouts and coos for other reasons, was dead silent about the flood event. It was adept in continuing its 85 year old tradition in Tambaram of keeping deaf and dumb, come what may.
For the Multimedia Project in the second semester, I was asked to report on Edaikazhinadu. I along with two of my friends decided to do a documentary film on the Kotha Tribe of the Nilgiris.
Edaikazhinadu was a joy. Located at about 100 Km south of Tambaram on the East Coast, there is no village or town called Edaikazhinadu. It is the name of a region, literally meaning "the land between two lagoons". I travelled to the region almost 10 times, stayed there for a couple of days and brought with me an experience one could cherish for life. I had the insight that its landscape to be one that resembled that of Chennai before the arrival of the British. I wrote all the articles with much spirit. The interviews that I had to conduct for the project befriended me with the most sincere environmentalists of Chennai today.
I was happy when my Guide was enthused about the images I had collected for my poster. These images were of the Kazhiveli Wetlands, shot by a drone for the Public Works Department. The engineer in-charge of the reservoir project was kind enough to share them with me. However, my Guide did not have any comments on the issue of the conversion of this brackish wetland into a freshwater reservoir for the sake of Chennai's drinking water needs. What is Journalism sans politics, I wanted to ask her.
My friends and I travelled to the Nilgiris to explore the lives of the Kotha tribals. When I was finishing the edit, I was already losing myself. I did not know what the Guide felt about the documentary.
The warm embrace
My college days were nearing to a pre-mature closure. My relationship with the "occasional actor" was over. I attended the third semester for two weeks and then stopped going to the college.
In May 2024, during the holidays, I started becoming interested in the landscape of Chennai. I started interacting closely with the city's environmentalists. I went to Ennore a couple of times. I was asked by a few if I could create a map that depicts the impact on the hydrology of the landscape and on Pulicat Lake by the newly proposed SIPCOT at Manallur near Gummidipoondi. I quickly grabbed the work like a hungry dog.
I was asked by the Climate Change and Action Group (CCAG), one of the city's prominent environmental Groups, whether I could draw the topography of Vyasarpadi region with its altitudes. I was excited to work on the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the area to plot the altitudes and the flow direction of the flood waters.
When the Ammonia gas leaked from the sub sea pipeline of the Coromandel Fertiliser Plant in Ennore on 26 December 2023, I was sad. I made a painting. It was liked by all and the fisher folks had used it to make "Kolams" in front of their houses.
These events filled my heart with warmth and love. I decided then, to study the City meticulously.
I started with its rivers. From the streams and rivers, I plotted the river basins. I got hold of Greater Chennai Corporation's (GCC) boundaries, from the ward to zonal levels. I collected both the 2011 and 2018 delimited boundaries of GCC. Using the DEM, I classified the wards according to their altitudes. This is an indicator of the possibility of flood hazard at this level. I gathered the ward level population data from the "2024 City Disaster Management Plan" to calculate the ward level population density. This would help me in predicting flood vulnerability of each ward.
I had made the flood inundation maps for the years 1721, 1976, 1985, 2005 and 2015. I also started plotting in real time the inundated areas in the city during 15 October and 30 November 2024 rains.
Based on these works I studied the proposed "Ennore Thermal Power Station- Expansion" project. I wrote an article titled "ALLOWING THE FLOOD BLIND ETPS TO PROCEED : WHAT WILL BE THE CONSEQUENCE? WHAT IS THE WAY FORWARD?". I submitted it to the District Environmental Engineer during the Public Hearing held for the Project at Ernavur on 20 December 2024.
I had collected historic maps drawn in the years 1794, 1822, 1922, 1970, 1976 and 2011 and have successfully Geo-referenced them. Using them, I would be able to understand the changes the landscape of Chennai had undergone over the past 230 years.
The city would be having its 3rd Master Plan next year. The Government is covertly implementing the important parts of this yet to be disclosed plan today, so that when the plan is released next year no one would be able to question it.
All these initiatives are being taken at the behest of industries. Urbanising the upper reaches of the river basins of Chennai is the prime agenda. This would make the city more vulnerable to floods. The dominant funder and the ideologue for this change happens to be Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Ironically, it also happens to be the one that has submitted "the Comprehensive Flood Control Masterplan" for the City to the TN Government in December 2024.
How can anyone hope to conduct a conversation with these powers if they did not do their home work to study their own environment? The knowledge gap between these powers and the common folks is huge.
The intellectuals at the Universities who use all the tools of analysis available today, should be aware of what is coming up in the future. But, they hardly speak in open. Their works remain in the corners of Global research journals difficult to fathom.
Finding them, applying them in the study of the landscape based on its historical problems and then understanding the dynamics of the city at present, remains my priority.
Communicating the results of this study to all the common folks would enable the light necessary to lift the thick fog of ignorance that is surrounding us today.
Equipping the common folks with this knowledge would enable them to converse equally with the powers that govern the world. Such a conversation would have the power to restrict destruction.
Journalists are the ones who can do this.
Whether she is a qualified one or a drop out.
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