Urban Pollution and Precarious Landscape - A Pali Case Study
“Nature in this system is viewed simply as a ‘free gift’ to capital, while the vast majority of human beings are treated as an exploitable and expendable mass from which to generate surplus for the wealthy owners. The result is a system that knows no bounds, is oblivious to genuinely human needs, and is inherently unsustainable – now confronting its absolute limits in the Anthropocene.”
—John Bellamy Foster, Capitalism in the Anthropocene
As the clock chimes, giving way to dawn, American grasslands get whelmed with prairie dogs, like any other Sunday. On the other side of the world, the beds of oysters breathe in the backwaters of Cochin. Los Angeles runs abyss with cosmopolitan crowds, while an unnamed village in Kolkata practises its daily fishing in Ganga. Locally distinguished, all these spaces and organisms have a symbiotic relationship globally. Urban landscapes and Nature have interdependent metabolic functions. Hamburgers, food, water, and fuel—co-exist together and combine different physical and social processes. This is why, in turn, the monopolisation of nature due to burgeoning capitalistic urbanisation has a major impact on socio-environmental problems and injustices. One of the viewed ‘nuisances’ amongst these environmental issues is the ubiquity of waste—which affects society unequally and nature holistically.
Waste is a recurring buzzword that gets utilized in colloquial conversations and amongst environmentally active netizens apart from the revered academic and proficient circles and labelled ‘experts.’ The misunderstanding surrounding this universal phenomenon is its alleged erroneous origins and it being termed as a recent, urban-metropolitan crisis. While true, the notion that solely urbanisation directly contributes to waste generation often obscures a living, deliberately concealed reality. According to the Ministry of Rural Development and the Department of Drinking Water Supply, in rural regions, waste is a severe threat to public health concern and cleanliness. For example, according to an estimation, rural people in India are generating liquid waste (greywater) of the order of 15,000 to 18,000 million litres and solid waste (organic/recyclable) 0.3 to 0.4 million metric tons per day respectively. This statistical analysis shows the sheer coverage that waste, in every form of matter, penetrates its tentacles only through human ‘advancements’ and encroachment upon lands—be it urban or rural.
The emerging field of Urban Political Ecology emphasises viewing the growing urbanisation of nature as not only a metabolic flow but a violent and destructive force that gives fuel to socio-justice inequalities in the marginalised society. Waste poses a threat, sometimes if not always, more to the peripheral social sections than the handful, power-accumulating cohort in Pali. This is due to conflicts, power relations, and a series of political involvements that produce and maintain the capacity, location of waste, and its eventual dumping in neglected areas—which is the primary focus.
The interplay of politics, ecology and justice get entangled in a spider’s web–with each element affecting the other, especially in Pali–which has become nothing more than a waste site in the eyes of the regime. Linking both human and more-than-human components of the biosphere and acknowledging their non-dichotomous characteristic is essential to giving way to a broader understanding of the problem of waste in peripheral towns and city hinterlands. Jane Bennett’s reformulation of political theory in light of an incipient materialist perspective implies that politics is always a collective assemblage of the human and the nonhuman, as well as a congregation of distributive agencies implicated in events. An efficacious political ecology thus ‘give[s] up the futile attempt to disentangle the human from the nonhuman’ and pays more attention to shared environments in which we all participate. The case study of Pali in Faridabad, Haryana elucidates this political power-play vis-a-vis waste accumulation and environmental benevolence.
Nestled amongst the 3 billion-year-old Aravallis, Pali lies in the vicinity of the New Industrial Town, Faridabad. The village, lined with Kikar trees, sowing wheat and bajra as dominant food crops, happens to be a blind spot in the eyes of the governmental establishment. The Gujjar village, after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned the dumping of waste at the Bandhwari site, is transforming into an alternative for the Bandhwari landfill. Waste dumping in Pali agricultural fields, and in a ‘Gair Mumkin’ hill i.e. the hill that is fallow—has been a recurring process being met by protests by local villagers and environmentalists.
According to Jitender Badhana, a 42-year-old activist from Pali and the founder of Save Aravali Trust, Pali became one of the largest stone crusher zones in the late twentieth century, after the setting up of a hazardous bio-medical waste plant. These crushers were displaced from Delhi after the M.C. Mehta vs The Union of India case. He elaborates, “In 1992, the government of Haryana gave land for a crusher zone in Pali for industries and revenue generation. The authorities gave a ‘toffee’ to the villagers by saying that everyone would be employed and schools would be there. That year, villagers were always starving so they naturally got excited and signed the agreement. Overnight, the Parishad and Sarpanch signed. The agreement recorded that the entire land and property is now under Nagar Nigam. The entire village was very happy. After 2 months, it was issued that the village won’t be taken into a nagar nigam. The land, however, was turned into a governmental property. Gaaon out, Zameen in.”
The dumping of waste on the hill leads to hazardous water contamination which flows down the village giving rise to serious diseases and insipid conditions in the residents. Mahinder, A 72-year-old citizen of Pali remarks, “Many cancer patients have grown in the village. Earlier, no one [knew] about cancer or anything. First, they put those stone-crushing machines there and now this waste.” Along with such anatomical health problems, the ambience of the village is encapsulated with a perpetual blanket of smoke which makes it arduous to stay out in the open for a long time. A priest at Chhontra Wala Baba Temple, who is on a temporary stay in Pali, substantiates this by commenting on his present surroundings, “At night, bubbles rise out of the land and water. It hurts to breathe. There’s a filthy Nala near this temple where two-inch mosquitos breed which causes diseases. Rickshaw drivers who come here, where will they [drink] water from? Where will poor people who do not have 100 rupees for a bottle of water go? It’s so brackish that I think if you pour lemon in [the lake], it will turn into a shikanji.”
Waste is so ubiquitous that it gives rise to myriad issues—water contamination, leachate, diseases, and increased emigration from the village. The niche insight given by a 47-year-old citizen of Pali working in water supply management, “There should be a different place for dumping this garbage. There must be some minister or a person at the top who’s doing all this. It’s all his grace. The Government is supposed to help people, instead, the public is facing many issues due to their activities.” This shows the collective belief in how this trajectory of segregating, dumping and collecting waste and its increase is not an accident or serendipity—it’s a tool weaponized by the ones in power to shift waste from Delhi NCR to places like Pali which is turning into a precarious landscape.
Badhana points out, “W.H.O. warns the people to not drink water if the fluoride level goes over 1.5 mg/l. Here in Pali, the content level is 260 mg/l in 2017! Why Pali? That is because it’s free, it’s in Delhi NCR. Had it been a mainstream area, everyone would’ve protested.” It turns out to be convenient for stakeholders and authorities to keep silent and continue traversing the road of putting waste unapologetically in the easily accessible and man-made dump yard. Populace living in Bandhwari, barely 10 kilometres away from Pali, go through a similar turmoil. People in this intersection between Faridabad-Gurugram are subject to respiratory and skin diseases. According to experts, grey water can cause gastrointestinal issues for people living around a landfill. Thus, inopportune disposal of solid waste, predominantly illicit dumping, can lead to rigorous air and dihydrogen monoxide pollution, land degradation, climate change, and health hazards due to the assiduousness of hazardous materials. As a result, the social and political hemisphere of the government towards Pali is threatening public and animal health and environmental conditions.
This agglomeration of Delhi’s urban waste in the hinterland of Pali can be described as an output of a hegemonic, obsessive, managerial regime of total command and control which causes massive disorder elsewhere. Urban political ecologists observe that the ecological quandaries in the third world are not simply a reflection of policy or market failures, but rather are a manifestation of broader political and economic forces. Those forces are associated with the planetary scale of capitalistic urbanisation. Adverse socio-environmental consequences of capitalistic natural-resource extraction include: logging, mining, fishing, and cash-crop engenderment. Waste acts as a careful reconstruction of urban socio-nature, social justice in the vicinity of landfills, and waste-to-energy plants. The possible solution to this prevarications is not in bourgeois environmentalism of ‘greenery’ or simply enacting legislations that work vis-a-vis the people getting affected by the waste and its toxicity. It lies in punctilious scrutiny of waste, its nature, capacity, the possible efforts towards consummating the metabolic cycle through composting and the efficient enactment of policies that work for the public.
While advocating against the state advocacy for deliberate mixing of waste, Jitender Badhana elucidates, “The man appointed to collect garbage and dispose it through Municipal trucks is supposed to ensure that 30% will be given to the nagar Nigam. So, the latter’s entire focus gets deviated on how their 30% will be accumulated. The 2,80,000 kilos of garbage will get turned into 10,00,000 kilos by night. They mix dust, debris, and everything in it. The government sings songs of segregating waste into wet and dry waste. But the truck itself puts it all together in front of your eyes. This is because they want to increase the weight of the garbage. Then, they dispose of this in Bandhwari. The workers’ job is to collect and dispose of the garbage. However, he knows the more the waste is—the more will he earn, and the more will the government earn.” Matters like these along with the Foucauldian understanding of power as diffuse and relational enunciates the notion that waste in Pali is not just deep-rooted neglect, but also an outcome of lack of policy enactment (like the Punjab Land Protection Act - 1900), lethargy and eco-justice.
As Parizeau puts it, waste is ‘imbued with cultural value.’ The environmental crises associated with space and authoritative dogmatism have socio-cultural imagery and relics. Places like Pali develop their saviour from the seemingly eternal lifetime of hurdles and trials. This ethos resonated in the fascinating tale of Baba Chhontra Wala of Pali:
“Chhontra wala Baba is a divine power. In this village, there were a lot of problems. Drought was the major one of them. This is a small village and grains failed due to these problems. People were suffering all over. Baba came here while exploring. He saw that people were leaving this village. They wanted to settle elsewhere. Today, they all act like Bhupati but [then] they were willing to leave their lands for free. Baba asked the reason for their deserting the village. People told him the reason and how their kids could die empty stomach here. Baba assured them not to go anywhere and that he would sit and perform Bhajan in a divine trance—certain that almighty will heed to his request. Certain elderly people believed him and supported him. Baba told the villagers to dig up some mud and make a tall mound for him to sit on. When villagers asked the reason he replied that this village would be filled with abundant rainfall and hence the high platform to avoid flowing away. That mound is a Chhontra. When Babaji sat on the Chhontra, around 6-7 PM in his asan, around 12.30 AM—it rained so heavily that people were delighted. This is 500 years old. This is a reality.”
The creation of Pali as a hazardous landscape is integral to Delhi and surrounding Metropolitan cities’ urban growth, massive concentration of production activities, and energy sources and its subsequent drift in the metabolic cycle of space impacts. The land which is called ‘bani’ was subject to grabbing and neglect. Testimony for this was given by the villagers as Pali transformed into a crusher zone. In 1984, in the M.C. Mehta case judgement clarified that a cluster would be made outside Delhi inspired by Italian technology. This was made with the apparent motive of systematic crushing and with no dust hindrance, the crushing gets carried out efficiently, and an industrial zone will be made which will lead to the employment of people. Badarpur was a crusher zone earlier where there was a plethora of dust, the condition was very deplorable. The entire Sarita Vihar and the surrounding area was always covered by dust. This was why no one bought apartments in this area—because of the stone crushers. The aforementioned case declared the abstraction of crushers. These now had to peregrinate somewhere. In 1992, the regime of Haryana gave land for a crusher zone in Pali in the guise of planting industries and revenue generation.
For bridging this gap between the metabolism of this landscape of Pali and reconnecting its denizens, even small steps engender a giant impact. However, sensitising that urban is as natural as a forest is a prerequisite to further advocate for long-term solutions for many places like Pali which are a victim of lack of vigilance and hesitance for raising concerns. Coercive and mute dumping of waste in precarious spaces like these will exacerbate the living conditions of people who stay there for generations. Meticulous treading must elongate beyond surface-level reforms to implement veritable waste segregation, prioritise public health, and enforce policies that benefit affected communities. Viewing waste as integral to economic and environmental equity, as optically discerned in Pali’s struggle, designates fostering an inclusive urban ecology that venerates local livelihoods and environmental salubrity. By potentiating communities and ascertaining equitable waste management, we can break the cycle of exploitation and engender resilient, socially just ecosystems.
The enunciation of both Pali illustrates the inevitable connection between urban growth, industrial expansion, ecological environments, and the social impact faced by the ones living on the other side of the spectrum. The carcinogenic waste polluting Pali’s landscape and water sources, this story exemplifies the unequal burden of ecological degradation shouldered by marginalised communities.
This systemic neglect of peripheries such as Pali and urban commons offers a glimpse into the commodification and exploitation of natural resources purely for the sake of economic gains without regard for social justice and ecological health. They are not singular events but symptoms of deeper, entrenched systems of political economies that prioritise profit over people and ecosystems. There has to be a paradigm shift in the management, perception, and value accorded to waste, water, and natural resources. There needs to be acknowledgement of the ecological interdependence of rural and urban regions, so that the benefits and burdens of urbanisation may be shared justly. Decentralised composting and waste-to-energy technologies ought to be implemented with robust monitoring and community participation for sustainable waste management practices rather than unapologetically affirming the ‘trickle-down’ economic criterion.
The challenges will only be resolved if well-being communities become central. Inclusive policies will be created by agencies, civil society, and environmentalists that address immediate concerns such as pollution and systemic issues such as inequitable land use and resource distribution. The environmental justice battle is not just for isolated, discrete environmental problems but in the building of a new socio-ecological ethic–for receiving nature not as a commodity but as integral to human and non-human life.
By Sonal Butley
Sonal Butley, born 2005, is a second year undergraduate student of Bachelor’s in History from Hansraj College, University of Delhi. She has completed her Higher Secondary education from Apeejay School, Faridabad. An aspiring academic, her interests are based interdisciplinary integration of fields of anthropology and ethnography with History along with colonialism.
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