IAS officer’s foray: Using fiction to engage with environmental issues

CHENNAI: On first flip, this may sound like another Erin Brockovich-type David versus Goliath story in the cause of environment and sustainable development. The protagonist in that famous movie was played by Julia Roberts, though in the Indian setting genial charisma manifests rather differently.  

Or, alternately, one could see in these pages the presuppositions of an idealistic combo of what the historian and environmentalist writer Ramchandra Guha would see as taking forward the gains of Sundarlal Bahuguna's 'Chipko Movement' of the early 1970s' by the great visionary Chandi Prasad Bhatt. The latter turned “from protest to reconstruction, reforesting barren hillsides and promoting renewable sources of energy.” It is a stirring example of what Guha terms as the birth of “modern environmentalism through the protests of rural communities”.

Whichever way one is inclined to see the matrix and context of this new genre of 'environmental fiction', senior IAS officer currently posted in Tamil Nadu, Atulya Misra in his first book, 'Oxygen Manifesto - A Battle for the Environment', breezes through a similar teleological exercise using the format of a seeming quasi-novel to bring environment and sustainable development to the centre of our politics and polity.

Atulya Misra's work is a commendable maiden effort which is less on words and more on its perlocutionary force to get people to do things for the environment and show how “ordinary people” can take on the “might of the establishment”.

The author's story revolves around two main characters - 'Thatha' who lives in a remote part of Manipur, who with “missionary zeal totally changed the landscape of Moreh by planting trees without anybody's help”. It was preceded by a “regular drill of planting seeds, go into the wilderness to harvest seeds and plant them in vacant lands”. The other is Ravi, a young IAS officer from Tamil Nadu who is allotted the Northeast cadre. Circumstances bring them on the same page.
 
Interestingly, both are from Tamil Nadu making a quiet impact on the national scene- Thatha hailing from Sankarapuram in the deep south, goes to Burma, fights for Nethaji's INA and finally gets pushed into Manipur after Independence. At the other end, Ravi's parents, influenced by the Dravidian Movement, has his family roots in Tiruchengode in western part of the state.

For Ravi Chandran Bose, his environmental concerns finds an unmatched icon in the ex-INA man 'Thatha', who works tirelessly for greening the environment, shunning the limelight, awards and only committed action and anonymity is his USP! Though it may not be the author's intention, the two protagonists coming from difference circumstances in South and West Tamil Nadu, unwittingly point to a new emergence of social forces above caste, religion and geography.

Interestingly, Atulya Misra seems to be precisely using this template - the IAS experience is perhaps partly autobiographical - to redefine how an emerging, influential, younger section of the civil services, particularly IAS, would ideally want to look at the larger economic problems in the country, and a new type of governance that is needed which radically breaks from the earlier establishment comfort of the 'neta-babu-contractor' nexus. And all this is with the sole objective of bring back environment issues to the high table of perspectives and action, preferably under a new 'National government' of well-meaning Independents elected to Parliament on the new green approach of Ravi and Thatha and co-opting the entire formal opposition into this national task.

Ravi is in no hurry and works out the elements of the 'ideology of the Oxygen Manifesto' in stages, step-by-step, in line with his own experiences or rather progressive disillusionment with the present state of the administration. Ravi shares in his diaries profound thoughts such as this for instance: “India exists in the hearts and souls of Indians and not in the languages they speak, costumes they wear, or the religion they practice.”

Ravi's father, the author finds out as he traverses continents to dig out his past-, “had spent his entire youth fighting against the imposition of Hindi” in Tamil Nadu. Though Hindi became the official language “by virtue of a single additional vote in the Constituent Assembly”, Ravi sees in the tenacious implementation of the Official Languages Act in government departments, Hindi has a role in “increasing one's outreach”. But he realises that Hindi must not be confused “as an essential ingredient of nation building.” Building a nation on a single national language is only to create “narrow domestic walls”, as the author puts it.

Thus, it is hard issues of environmental degradation, pollution, untreated sewage worsening drinking water, e-waste and so on, besides climate change that informs the core of Ravi's 'Oxygen Manifesto', for which he has the blessings of the other hero in the novel, 'Thatha' too. The culture of 'non-biodegradable packaging' that comes with relentless consumerism, Ravi feels has to be changed. From there, he dabbles in development economics as well, when he says, “Poverty reduction and empowerment of citizens will follow suit if we make development environmental-centric.” Ravi radically roots for a 'carbon footprint-based taxation' that would “automatically promote the use of public transport”.

Even as Ravi's 'Oxygen Manifesto' is being continuously refined and sharpened, bringing in various problems of policy and polity to sharper focus, the author has kept the narrative light all through and refreshes it with his own sociological insights. Atulya Misra argues that the structure of the civil service is basically solid in India, and even its 'democratization' through quotas for OBCs' is timely.

People from “humble backgrounds and remote areas” are getting a first taste of what is to govern in a huge, pluralistic society like India. But other counter-trends are the minuses. For instance, Misra points out that the “third generation” of the political class after Independence, are so taken in by professionals, consultants and experts that its fallout is seen in the evolution of a bureaucracy “which was doomed to obey, not to assert.” “The Judiciary, however, has kept its character intact,” Misra emphasizes. Build 'cycles of trust', not new hierarchies, he exhorts.

As an IAS officer who has seen how the system works from within, Atulya Misra has several insightful observations on a range of subjects including caste
system. Yet, the author through his protagonists yearns for a new utopia based on environmentalism. Since any 'manifesto' wants to change things for the good, first romances with a medley of utopian ideals, are always welcome.