ASIA / PACIFIC
March 2, 2015
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
Indian river, protected by a
curse, faces the modern world
By Tim Sullivan
The Associated Press
HAREH, India — For
centuries, it was a curse
that saved the river.
It was a series of curses, actually
— a centuries-long string of
unrelenting bad news in the
rugged, hidden corner of northern
India’s industrial belt. There was
an actual curse at first, a longheld
belief that the Chambal River was
unholy. There was the land itself,
and the more earthly curse of its
poor-quality soil. And above all
there were the bandits, hiding in
the badlands and causing count-
less eruptions of violence and fear.
But instead of destroying the
river, these things protected it by
keeping the outside world away.
The isolation created a sanctuary.
It is a place of crocodiles and
jackals, of river dolphins and the
occasional wolf. Hundreds of
species of birds — storks, geese,
babblers, larks, falcons, and so
many more — nest along the river.
Endangered birds lay small
speckled eggs in tiny pits they dig
in the sandbars. Gharials, rare
crocodile-like creatures that look
like they swaggered out of the
Mesozoic Era, are commonplace
here and nowhere else.
Today, tucked in a hidden corner
of what is now a deeply polluted
region, where the stench of
industrial fumes fills the air in
dozens of towns and tons of raw
sewage is dumped every day into
many rivers, the Chambal has
remained essentially wild.
But if bad news saved the river,
good news now threatens to
destroy it. The modern world, it
turns out, may be the most
dangerous curse of all.
Sages and bandits
The fears that shaped the region
go back more than a thousand
years, to when sages said the
Chambal (the term refers both to
the river and the rugged land
around it) had been cursed and
villagers whispered that it was
unholy. In a culture where rivers
have long been worshipped, far-
B
SURVIVAL OVER CONSERVATION? A bridge is seen under construction on the
Chambal River near Sagarpada in the western Indian state of Rajasthan in this April 30, 2014
file photo. A narrow 250-mile stretch of the Chambal was declared an official sanctuary in
the late 1970s, closing it to everyone except longtime villagers, approved scientists, and the
handful of tourists who made it here. But with India’s economic growth came troubles that
threaten the Chambal and its wildlife: polluting factories, illegal sand mining, and fish poach-
ers who hack at gharials with axes when the animals get tangled in their nets. (AP Photo/Altaf
Qadri, File)
As India modernized — as
mers avoided planting along the
river’s banks.
British rule gave way to inde-
“People always said things were pendence, and a modern nation
different in this area,” says a began to take shape — the
laborer
working
along
the Chambal remained a place apart, a
Chambal River on a hot afternoon. feared region where politicians
He is thin, with the ropy toughness seemed more like criminals and
and the distrust of outsiders so where, in most villages, bandits
common here. He gives only his were the true power.
first name, Gopal. “People,” he
“We were so isolated for so long,”
says, “were afraid to come.”
says Hemrudra Singh, a soft-
A few centuries later the bandits spoken aristocrat with a crumbling
arrived, men who hid in the maze family fort overlooking the
of riverside ravines and kept Chambal River from the village of
outsiders away for generations.
Bhareh. He understands that
They were the last true protec- isolation well. Until 10 years ago,
tors of the Chambal, it turns out.
Bhareh could only be reached by
For hundreds of years, the boat during the monsoon season.
outlaws ruled the labyrinth of
Only in the late 1990s did life in
scrub-filled ravines and tiny the Chambal begin to change
villages along the river. Spread significantly. Ancient dirt paths
across thousands of square miles, became paved roads, prying open
the Chambal badlands is a place villages that had been isolated for
where a dirt path can reveal a centuries.
tangle of narrow valleys with 100-
The bandits’ local political
foot-high walls, and where a bandit patrons were driven from power.
gang could easily disappear.
Their foot soldiers were killed in
The bandits’ power — rooted in shootouts with police, and their
caste divisions, isolation, and hideouts were forced deeper into
widespread poverty — was the ravines by the spread of new
enormous.
Countless
govern- roads. The last famed bandit,
ments, from Moghul lords to Nirbhay Gujjar, was killed by
British viceroys to Indian prime police in 2005.
Today, cellphone towers, motor-
ministers, vowed to humble them.
cycle dealers, and satellite TVs are
Countless governments failed.
everywhere. New businesses and
new schools have opened, ushered
in by years of Indian economic
growth. Farmers struggling with
the poor soil now have fertilizers
and tractors.
In so many ways, that has been
good news. Poverty remains wide-
spread across the Chambal, but
there are more roads now to get
crops to market, and mobile
phones to call the doctor when
someone gets sick. Unemployment
remains rampant, but there are
occasional new jobs.
With the good, though, came
troubles
that
threaten
the
Chambal and its wildlife: polluting
factories, illegal sand mining, and
fish poachers who hack at gharials
with axes when the animals get
tangled in their nets. As India’s
population and economy grows,
more people are moving closer to
the river.
Suddenly, the Chambal was no
longer synonymous with lawless-
ness. Instead, it meant cheap land
and untapped resources. Quickly,
people began to come.
And almost as quickly, the
problems began.
The new curse
The garbage multiplied. So did
construction projects near the river
and, with them, industrial pollut-
ants. Torn plastic bags now some-
times blow through the ravines,
and small stone quarries dump
refuse into creeks that feed the
Chambal.
In 2007 and 2008, more than 100
dead gharials washed up on
riverbanks — perhaps 25 percent
of the world’s wild gharials at the
time. While scientists have never
been able to pinpoint the cause,
and the population has grown back
to a degree, most experts believe
pollution introduced a toxin into
the river.
“In the old days, there weren’t
many people here to interfere with
the river,” said Dr. Rajiv Chauhan,
a scientist and Chambal River
expert with the India-based
Society for Conservation of Nature.
“But with the bandits gone, the
Continued on page 5
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