Kolkata :

It’s all right to brag about India evolving as the next super power, but what about its impact on wildlife? Why can’t we prioritize GEP (gross environment product) over GDP? Many such questions raised by Bahar Dutt, author of ‘Green Wars’, at an engaging conversation with British Council director Sujata Sen made the audience sit up and give them a serious thought.

At the launch of Dutt’s maiden literary attempt in Kolkata recently, the Green Oscar recipient, whose environment investigations for a television channel stalled an illegal shopping mall project on the Yamuna river bed or an airport on wetlands that were home to Sarus cranes in Uttar Pradesh, pertinently wondered aloud: Whose development is it, anyway?

“When we say development, it’s this brutal development that we are going through where we need to find out if the development is reaching the people living close to those resources,” said Dutt. “That is why I have named my book ‘Green Wars’,” she explained, after Nayantara Pal Chowdhury, president of the Indo-British Scholars’ Association, introduced her to the gathering at the British Council.

“It doesn’t read like a first book,” said Sen, initiating the dialogue with Dutt. “One just gets hooked on to reading this book. It’s very personal, but for every personal encounter, she takes you to the larger views. It’s so captivating.”

The British Council director made the most intriguing query. What made Dutt write the book? “For a television story, you spend 48 hours trekking through the forests, waiting for the animal that might never show up. Then your story comes down to two minutes. So I thought, in the humdrum of television reporting, how to get to the depth of the problem. You could say, ‘Green Wars’ is the back-story to my stories,” Dutt said, recalling: “I can’t say I was involved in the prevention of illegal mining in Goa. But in one of the chapters I have written about the incident where we were physically assaulted by the mining mafia, they tried to snatch our camera.”

Dutt, who had told her TV editor: “I don’t want to do cute-cuddly stories on wildlife, but the politics of it”, would take down notes after every reportage – perhaps to relive those exhilarating moments of her confrontations with wild animals in ‘Green Wars’ someday.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Kolkata / TNN / August 22nd, 2014