Column | Thoughts on the Wayanad tragedy

As someone who has been spending extensive time in Kozhikode over the last few years, the news of the latest tragedy in Wayanad district sent shivers down my spine. There are few greater temptations in the Malabar heat than to just escape the historic city by the Arabian Sea for the misty mountains and cool air of Wayanad.

Hearing about the Kerala landslides from the distant comfort of Kandy, my first thought was to try and get in touch with an Indo-English couple, who gave up living in London and decided to build their dream home in the beautiful hilly region. I found out that they lived in an area that was not affected by the natural disaster, but were obviously unsettled by the loss of more than 400 lives.

Since so many parts of the country witness hot weather for most of the year, it is the quintessential Indian dream to have a home in a hill station. The era of remote working has also helped fuel a real estate boom in many of these hilly areas. Wayanad, with its moderate weather and Malayalam-speaking populace, is as close to an ideal place for a Keralite as any.

Residents of urban jungles all want to live close to real nature and get a peep of wildlife, at least from a safe and healthy distance. But, do these erstwhile virgin spots have the capacity to take in even a small population influx? The concept of mass domestic tourism also affects the fragile ecosystem of Kerala.

The state periodically witnesses monsoon floods, erosion of land by the Arabian Sea and landslides. These are not new occurrences. Let’s go back to July, 1907, when an article in the Straits Times talked about “dangerous encroachments” made by the sea across what is now the modern-state of Kerala.

“Vypeen, a picturesque port, which sprang up in the year 1341, and has been colonised by a few Eurasian settlers of Dutch descent, is in a very bad way, and it is expected that it will be totally engulfed in a short time unless the sea is prevented from encroachment by some scientific operation,” the newspaper said.

The article mentioned a similar danger being faced by Calicut and other seaside towns. “Tellicherry is another port that has from time to time suffered greatly by the washing away of the waves,” the paper added. “A few years ago, a part of the fishing village was washed away by these erosions.”

In July,1941, almost 200 people died on account of a cyclone and floods in the Malabar district. Fifty thousand people were rendered homeless because of this disaster. Floods also ravaged Beypore and Ponnani in 1953.

Wayanad is particularly prone to horrible landslides. The newspaper archives mention one back in 1953 in Mananthavady. Of course, things have gotten progressively worse over the last few decades. Any visitor travelling to Wayanad from Kozhikode in the drier months would notice that there is a great degree of quarrying and deforestation.

This is not the time to get into a political blame game, but actually to think of long term solutions for the environment in Kerala. We need scientific solutions that help keep in mind the ecological impact of development. It would be drastic to say that all new construction should be banned near forests, rivers, hillsides and the coast, but where and how does one draw the line? How does one uplift the lives of marginalised groups and indigenous communities in places like Wayanad, and at the same time keep a proper check on overdevelopment? These are difficult questions to answer, but we need to come to a proper understanding across India, if we are to reduce the impact of nature’s fury on human life.

As is the case with any natural or man-made tragedy in India, Wayanad 2024 will become a footnote in history in a matter of weeks. Four hundred-plus lives lost, families, homes and dreams shattered, but for those unaffected by the landslide, this too will escape immediate memory. Until the self-proclaimed middle class of this country takes ecological concerns seriously, and stops accusing all environmentalists of having some sort of hidden and devious anti-development agenda, more and more precious lives will be lost in future natural disasters.
(Ajay Kamalakaran is a multilingual writer, primarily based in Mumbai)