By Keya Acharya
HONNAVAR, India, Mar 18 1999 (IPS)

Last year on Mar 14, a frail, 60-year-old woman called Kusuma Sorab from this southern Indian town, got off a bus at night and was hit by a speeding, oncoming bus as she crossed the road. She died instantaneously.

With Kusuma died a relentless, 15 year battle she had led against the southern Karnataka state government and the Indian government to save 700 hectares of evergreen forests bordering the beautiful Sharavathi river in the state.

The Sharavathi runs for 131 kms through the biodiversity-rich gorges of the Western Ghat ranges, to drop 238-metres at the picturesque Jog Falls, India’s highest, before flowing another 65 kms to the Arabian Sea.

Kusuma, a practicing surgeon, had left the industrial city of Bombay some decades ago to start a network of rural hospitals and health programmes in the villages bordering the Sharavathi river in her hometown, Honnavar.

‘Sneh Kunja’, a non-governmental organisation she founded, is continuing that work. But it was her life as an environmental activist that made history.

In 1985, a proposed World Bank-financed 240 MW dam at Gersoppa near Honnavar on the coast, was threatening to inundate dense forests, and destroy the livelihoods of hundreds of villagers.

Kusuma raised her voice in protest, questioning its necessity in a region already dotted with dams. The Sharavathi Tail Race project, as the dam was called, was part of the 900 MW Sharavathi Hydel Project undertaken by the state-owned Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL).

The Linganamakki reservoir downstream on the river, had already submerged 37,500 ha of land. The Tail Race dam was planned to harness the remaining waters near Gersoppa.

Kusuma found wide support among local people who knew that a similar movement in neighbouring Kerala state had forced the cancellation of the giant Silent Valley Project in the virgin forests of the Western Ghats only a few years ago.

However the Karnataka government was deaf to their appeals. “Instead of democratically convincing the people, it pursued the project in isolation and that strengthened our agitation,” Kusuma recalled in a 1995 interview.

Kusuma petitioned the local courts but they said it was beyond their jurisdiction. In 1987 she took the case to the Karnataka High Court in Bangalore, the state capital – the first environmental case to be heard by the court.

She demanded that forest officials, KPCL and the Environment Ministry that gave clearance, listen to people’s views on the issue – the first instance in India’s environmental history of a community demanding it be consulted on a project.

Judge Rama Jois who heard the case created judicial history. He advertised a public hearing in local papers in 1988. He said he wanted to hear everyone out, and asked the petitioners to scientifically present their ecological and other concerns.

A university research report then undertaken stated that the project would submerge 700 ha of endemic forests, which apart from being a rich reserve of flora and fauna was the last home of the endangered Lion-tailed Macaque and the Malabar Squirrel.

It was also found that World Bank sanction was on the basis of a cursory report on the dam — after a five day study — by Bush Bachner, a foreign consultant contracted by the Bank. The Bank was to withdraw support when the issue became litigious.

The Karnataka High Court ruled the project must be halted, but the state government took the matter to India’s apex Supreme Court which ruled in its favour. But soon after the Ministry of Environment withdrew its clearance.

A year later however the dam authorities restarted the scheme by renaming the project and clearing it with the Environment Ministry in New Delhi.

Y.P. Ramakrishna, an engineer and member of Samagra Vikas, one of the anti-dam groups, recalled that that green signal was secured by political meddling. In 1992, both the state government and the minister of environment were from the Congress party.

The spirited movement to save the unique forests of the Sharavathi – the area is the conjunction of the northern and Deccan plates in India – lost heart with that, and a series of tragic deaths that followed.

Their first defence lawyer lost his memory in a serious road accident. His successor K.R.D. Karanth, a senior advocate died in

another road crash. Kusuma who was on her way back from Bangalore when she was hit, was in the process of looking for a new lawyer.

One year after her death, the movement she spearheaded is trying to pick up the pieces and renew the battle against the dam project which has cleared 450 ha of forests since.

Kusuma’s crusade was not all in vain. That and similar protest movements across the country have secured big victories for the environment movement in India.

Now all new project proposals have to submit an ‘Environmental Impact Assessment’ report. Kusuma’s revolutionary demand for a “public hearing” was also incorporated in April 1997 into the India’s Environment Protection Act.

With this, people’s groups have the right to challenge projects that affect the environment, in her Karnataka state at least.

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