Lake it or not, we are all responsible

There is something surreal about the way people – from politicians to citizens – have been reacting to two incidents: the order of the National Green Tribunal penalising two real estate developers for unauthorised constructions in the city's lakes, and the frothing over of Varthur lake. The decay and obliteration of Bangalore's lakes is not news, and neither are the reactions of one and sundry.

The outrage is misplaced, since it seems politicians and real estate developers are the only ones responsible for the state of affairs. The citizenry refuses to own up for being the equal benefactors of the real estate boom that has gobbled up the city's lakes, and also for repeatedly electing those actually ought to be in the dock for Bangalore's environmental collapse.

The few fighting for the protection and rejuvenation of lakes, have been crying themselves hoarse for years. The occasional reports and fewer court orders make for good stories. They appear one day, and ease out of public memory the next. The contention that nothing happens is borne out of the fact that in spite of the meticulous and damning research studies and the scathing court judgments, the regression has been unabated. No one has been answerable, or taken to task.

Varthur was waiting to happen

Sooner or later, Varthur lake would have indeed resembled an overflowing washing machine, the foam spilling over on to the adjacent streets and making for a spectacular news story. For days the news media raged and the social media ranted about the sorry state of affairs. But such an environmental disaster was always on the cards. The fact that this didn't happen earlier is just a coincidence.

The consquences of polluting and choking Varthur lake have been laid threadbare by a number of research studies. For instance, the Energy and Wetlands Research Group at the Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has conducted five studies of the Varthur lake alone.

The last of the above, in January 2011, had dwelt at length on anthropogenic activities taking a toll on the lake. The study had remarked, "Higher values of BOD (biological oxygen demand), COD (chemical oxygen demand), nitrates and phosphates reveal that lake water is severely contaminated... Profuse growth of water hyacinth limits air water interface, light penetration and consequently there is a drop in the penetration of atmospheric oxygen as well as algal photosynthetic activities..."

Unfortunately, it was another of those CES studies anchored by TV Ramachandra that morphed into a newspaper report one fine day, and soon disappeared from public imagination.

Studies and more studies

The modern history of Bangalore's lakes is a history of fact-finding reports and scientific studies that have been ignored by governments, irrespective of political affiliation. These have dominated public discourse occasionally, but haven’t had any effect on policy-making or made polluters pay either.

The Karnataka government, in a knee-jerk reaction to the Varthur disaster, has asked sub-registrars in the city to dig out land records and sale deeds dating way back to 1930s – all by the end of this month. The exercise is meant to ascertain the original extent of lakebeds as it existed in 1938 when a detailed survey was done by the British. This could well be seen as a face-saving gesture by the state government, since less than three weeks is hardly enough to carry out such a monumental task. The results are bound to be sketchy or incomplete, perhaps both – it might have been a better idea to take the 1986 Lakshman Rao committee report as a benchmark and compare the situation accordingly.

While it is important to conduct a survey so as to know the current status, it is equally worthwhile to note that there are innumerable studies that have already looked into the issue. The only thing this survey can do is identify the culprits. Whether action will or can be taken is a question of speculation.

After all, reports that are an indictment of the establishment are never popular or acted upon. The last of the reports came out only last year – one that was conducted by Namma Bengaluru Foundation. It found rampant encroachment and flagrant pollution of 16 lakes that it surveyed. The 262 wetlands that existed in Bangalore in 1962 plummeted by 58 per cent by 2007, according to CES. While the city’s built-up area jumped by 466 per cent between 1973 and 2007, active wetlands in the city dropped from 51 to 17. During the same period, the number of lakes in Greater Bangalore dwindled from 159 to 93.

Who are the culprits?

It is easy and convenient to blame politicians and the real estate “mafia” for the disappearance of Bangalore’s lakes. It is more difficult to take collective responsibility for the same. Builders only gobble up lakes, and politicians facilitate or connive at the process. But at the end of the day, it is the ordinary citizen who is the end-consumer: one who benefits from the death of the lake ecosystem. From buying flats in apartments that have been built on lakebeds to enjoying a hockey match, and from catching a bus from Majestic to ending a marathon at the Kanteerava Stadium, citizens are will-nilly direct or indirect benefactors of the great crime that has been taking place in the city.

It is, therefore, not going to be easy to bell the cat.