The India Sand Watch team traveled through Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal, Gwalior, Chhatarpur) in the second half of August, in continuation of our project to protect MP’s incredible rivers from illegal sand mining.
We began the visit by hosting our second Convening on Rivers in Bhopal, and spent the next two weeks meeting new folks, and catching up with old friends and collaborators across the state, to broaden and strengthen our network of people in MP working together to safeguard the state’s rivers!
You can read more about the convening at this link – ‘Re-convening’ on rivers in Bhopal
Read on for details of what we did, and the experiences and conversations we had over the course of our two-week visit to MP.
School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal | Reimagining River-Conscious Architecture
During the previous convening in Bhopal, we had met Prof. Saurabh Popli from the School of Planning and Architecture. After some enjoyable conversations about the intersection of our work and architectural practice, he invited the India Sand Watch team to SPA-Bhopal to interact with students from the Masters in Landscape Architecture program.
At the start of the session, we shared how sediment and sand play an important role in river ecosystems, and the impact of sediment extraction on rivers. This led to interactive discussions on how choices we make about building materials can impact rivers sometimes far away from the building site.
We then gave the students prompts to work in groups and create a roadmap of conscious architecture – the prompts were designed to encourage students to think about why & how we build, the impacts of our building choices, and what we could be doing differently by way of alternative building materials and methods to make our work more river-sensitive.
Each group presented their beautifully illustrated and thought out pieces at the end, and we enjoyed hearing their understandings and concerns, and the ideas for solutions they offered.
Are you in architecture, or the construction industry and are interested in doing some deep thinking and co-building a conscious architecture toolkit with us? Please reach out to us at sandwatch@veditum.org
Gwalior Day 1 | Meeting up with the Media
While in Gwalior, we met up with a group of local journalists that have been reporting on critical environmental issues for a discussion on sand mining reporting. We had the opportunity to hear from both veteran and young upcoming reporters on their experiences and challenges working in this field.
While the conversations highlighted the despondency and dejection well-meaning journalists are faced with, it also made clear the commitment the reporters feel towards creating societal change and their passion for impactful reporting on issues impacting the rivers they love.
The ISW team shared some of the insights from our recent media report analysis on sand mining reporting in MP, and the tools we are creating to address challenges, risks, and gaps in environmental reporting on sand mining. We discussed best practices for building evidence on the environmental impacts and clearance violations in sand mining, and using open-data for stronger and safer reporting. Ultimately, we concluded with a renewed hope in co-designing solutions and support systems to enable impactful, data-driven media reporting on this critical issue.
Gwalior Day 2 | Lots of Learning with Law Students & Lawyers
Our second day in Gwalior, we stopped over at ITM University for a session with the law students of ITM University for a session on Environmental Law and Governance. The India Sand Watch team introduced the governance systems and law behind river sand mining, and spoke about the role of the court in upholding these systems. We emphasized to the audience of young, budding law students, the critical place of lawyers in being the conduits between law and governance systems, and the people and species the law is supposed to protect.
Our collaborator, Abhay Jain from Zenith, gave a rousing talk about his formative years in the field of law and why (and how) he found himself pursuing enviro-legal cases. Tarun Nair from our partner organisation WCT-India also talked about the spirit of the law and constitution, and the legal mandates to protect the environment and critical species.
Later in the day, we also caught up with lawyers and law students we have had previous interactions with in Gwalior to discuss legal interventions in sand mining cases. Together, we had a productive and lively brainstorming session on ways to legally empower local people to take action on sand mining that impacts their communities, livelihoods, and local environments.
We also initiated conversations on possible legal interventions on sand mining court cases, to ensure stronger court directives, monitoring of sand mining, and enforcement of the law in areas deeply impacts by unregulated and illegal extraction.
Chhatarpur & Panna | Visiting the affected communities of the Ken-Betwa River linking Project
The last leg of our trip to Madhya Pradesh took a different turn. While we have been engaging with the places and people on our visits primarily through the lens of sand mining issues, we recognise the urgency and deep injustice being meted out to the indigenous people along the Ken river in Chhatarpur and Panna as part of the Ken-Betwa river linking project.
We met with Amit Bhatnagar, who has not only previously been very supportive of our work, but has been an instrumental and committed voice against the forced displacement of people in the region due to the construction of the Daudhan dam, the first stage of the river linking project.
We discussed ways in which help is needed to support and sustain the people’s demands for fair compensation and just resettlement plans, interspersed by visits to villages that were submerged, to be submerged, and others that had been forcibly and violently evacuated and forced to settle in makeshift settlements on short notice.
The visits brought us face to face with the reality of the devastating impact of these poorly planned, supposed ‘development’ projects on rivers, on the real lives of some of our country’s poorest people and vital ecosystems.
If you would like to join a small group of volunteers working on this, please reach out to asid@veditum.org
Every visit to MP we are faced with the harsh realities of how our relentless pursuit of development is threatening our river ecosystems and communities, but in meeting people we are also shown that when provided with a safe space, and the right environment, brave new ideas and creative strategies for environmental protection take hold.
Through this visit, we’ve been able to deepen our relationship with many existing and new champions of the cause of river protection in MP. We continue working with them within their varying roles and capacities towards better reporting, legal intervention, activism, architecture and design, and more – to enhance collective action for the protection of the rivers in Madhya Pradesh that we all love.
If you work on rivers in MP, or just care a lot about them, and would like to be part of these efforts, please consider joining us for data sprint, workshop or convening, or email us at sandwatch@veditum.org with your ideas!
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