21 Oct 2021  |   05:27am IST

We want good leaders!

We want good leaders!

Tallulah D’Silva

Yes we do, asserted the students of the Community Classroom in Taleigao. When we recently did an exercise where each child had to write about their aspirations and how they see themselves 5 years from now, many wrote about becoming a collector, councillor, politician, teacher, police officer, government employee or a leader! We then discussed values, working with honesty and commitment.

Soon after this we had the opportunity to take the students to a plantation drive in the neighbourhood of Taleigao. The drive was a clarion call to address indiscriminate destruction of the environment, a local neighbourhood beach in Caranzalem, a dense green patch of beach vegetation, already marked under the government urban forestry initiative, which was suddenly cleared out for making a wide access from the main road to the beach! There was an existing ‘paimvatt’ or pathway which the locals had been using for many decades. This was also used by the locals for Ganapati visarjan and as a pedestrian access to the beach. It also had a natural rain water channel. But recently a large hotel had been built across the main road and this access road was an attempt to connect the hotel to the beach. 

This was not the first time our students from the community classroom had participated in citizen initiatives like this. The farmers protest to save the Taleigao fields, the Save Mollem campaign, beach clean-up drives, night vigils for safety of women and girls are some of the events that the students had participated in. They had also taken part in numerous experiences of community farming, skill building and learning. 

On October 11, we had scheduled to take our students for a plantation drive at the tree clearing location on Caranzalem beach to demonstrate the critical need to nurture the environment rather than destroy it! But we were surprised to find an entire posse of our elected representatives all gathered there. The same coterie of elected persons who were possibly complicit in the destruction of the beach stretch. Complicit because all permissions are granted by the departments that all these members head or are a part of. And complaints of land filling, cutting are all handled by the same representatives in related offices like the revenue department including the flying squad at the Collector’s office. Now what was shocking was the fact that these government representatives were feigning ignorance and had arrived there before us to plant coconut saplings as a gesture of greening the space.

The students began asking questions. Why are the same leaders involved in destruction of the original vegetation and green forest now making an appearance pretending to care and planting coconut saplings? They found many flaws in the entire operation. They noticed that the saplings were planted with hardly enough spacing and depth. No manure or mulch was placed in the pits. Since the students had done gardening and grown vegetables earlier during the pandemic, they were well aware of how saplings need to be planted. So they were not convinced on seeing this exercise. After this they were put through a hostile interrogation by many of these elected representatives. Where have you come from? Which school do you go to? Don’t you have online classes? Have you been paid to come here? They found it intimidating and the behaviour of the ‘leaders’ very appalling.

Further to this when a couple of our students felt faint as they were holding the posters they had each drawn and painted and had stood in the sweltering sun, the same ‘leaders’ instead of showing concern began to speak abusively yelling, why have these children been brought here? Look how cruel you’ll are, to use students in your campaigns.

The students shared their feelings with us. Ma’am why were these ‘leaders’ not empathetic to us? Why didn't they also join us or appreciate us for what we were doing? Why did they not come to help us or offer us water? Why were they speaking to us as if they had something to hide? We love planting trees. We love growing food. In school we are taught these tenets, our teachers too impart these values. If we cut trees in the coastal area, who will protect us from changing climate and future sea level rise? 

When we began walking back with our students on completing the planting, the ‘leaders’ again began asking us questions and video filming each of us - why are you washing your hands in that dirty water? You are the teacher right? Why are you not telling them that the rain water may be dirty?  To explain became impossible to the many women, some possibly elected leaders, who descended on us yelling continuously, calling names, casting aspersions and making allegations on our good intentions. We waited till they had quietened down and then simply asserted that each and every student that had accompanied us was our complete responsibility. This was not the first time they had done this. You are an outsider, they yelled. So we showed them our IDs. 

The students asked, are leaders supposed to conduct themselves like this? Is this real? And what is their responsibility? As per the Constitution, protection to the environment is the primary duty, then comes responsibility to the community and public. Can they destroy what is pristine, is a part of our ecology, is our natural climate resilient infrastructure and then rush back to ‘show’ that they care and do ‘fake’ planting? Isn’t that what is drama? Isn’t that absolution of duty? Isn’t that political bullying? 

Yes we want good leaders, not political narkasuras!

(Tallulah D'Silva is an architect and features in the Top 20 Golden Door Awards 2020 shortlist of international writers.)


IDhar UDHAR

Idhar Udhar