The death of a city is no different from that of a person. Like him, it has its childhood, gets old and is then reduced to ashes. Tehri, a town in Uttranchal, has the same story to tell. After reaching the age of 190, it is meeting a watery death. This is not because of any national calamity but because of the government’s decision to build a high dam, the fifth highest in the world, which has nearly inundated a pulsating town.

Activist Sunder Lal Bahuguna fought a relentless battle to save it and even met two Presidents of India to request them to intervene. He vainly argued that the dam was built in the volcanic area which, if ever active, could wash away Meerut and a host of cities right up to the outskirts of Delhi. Bahuguna’s appeal to the Supreme Court was also of no avail. Many expert committees did not think that the place where the dam was coming up was in a seismic area.

People are still visiting the town

Today the town is almost under water but still lingers in the memory of many. They recall the time when they were living there and bathing in the river Bhagirithi which, down below, takes the shape of the Ganges. Some people are still visiting the dying town from afar and telling their young ones about the years they spent in the town. They are still not reconciled to the fact that Tehri town is no more on the map of India.

In his book, Jean Christopher, Romain Rolland says that the old man must die for a new man to be born. The sun must sink in the horizon for another sun to rise. Should cities meet the same fate? In fact, the older a city, the more endearing it becomes. Take London, Paris or, for that matter, Delhi. Why did Tehri have to vanish for a dam to come up? Were no adjustments possible?

The rehabilitation of the uprooted does not give them the same old life, even if the comfort of road, water or electricity exists. People are not robots that can be picked up from one place, put at another and then switched on. They have feelings which get crushed when they are plucked from where they had grown up. Has the state any right to ask them to quit a place and go to another, to begin their life all over again? This is the biggest violation of human rights, feelings and aspirations.

I went through the same loss of emotions when I had to leave my house in Sialkot city after the partition in 1947. My mother asked me why we should leave the place where our forefathers had lived. She put a double lock on the door, but said haltingly that if an outsider could break one lock, he could break the other one too. We left, but the city, unlike Tehri, lived. When I revisited Sialkot city 25 years later, I felt that nothing had changed; the same type of bamboo curtains had once shielded the windows, the same cemented projection with the flower pots stuck out incongruously against the shabby surroundings. But it was somebody else’s house, a refugee from Delhi now occupied it. I thought of going in, but decided against it.

Word went round that an Indian was in their midst. There was no hostility but much curiosity. People stood in small knots at a distance — just looking and talking among themselves. To me they were all strangers and I felt out of place. Suddenly it was a different town. Something had gone from the place — something never to return. A town is made not by bricks and mortar but by people. And how could I think I could find the old familiar faces? People from Tehri town must be having the same feelings at the new places they have started living.

Like Bahuguna the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative is also an untiring body. It has been relentlessly pursuing police reforms. It holds seminars, publishes papers and conducts consultations with MPs to push suggestions. Recent study on police reform

It has recently held a study encompassing all the Commonwealth countries. The study says: “In many countries, governments are failing in their primary duty to provide the public with an honest, efficient, effective police service that ensures the rule of law and focusses on an environment of safety and security. The only legitimate policing is policing that helps create an environment free from fear and conducive to the realisation of people’s human rights, particularly those that promote unfettered political activity… At the heart of democratic policing lies the need to create accountability to transform police organisations from oppressive engines of a few interests to a service for all.”

By and large, the study shows that 1.8 billion people do not have the policing they deserve. “Police reform is now too important to neglect and too urgent to delay’’. This observation may influence the Manmohan Singh government, which has already received a paper from six retired Directors General of Police to plead for the replacement of a more than 100 year old police act with a new one. Home Minister Shivraj Patil has said in a statement that the government was in the midst of drafting a new Bill. The ministry should also retrieve the 28-year old report on police reforms. What was known as the Dharmvira Commission made recommendations on how to reform police. But since the commission was appointed by the government which defeated Mrs. Indira Gandhi after the emergency, its recommendations were never given any importance. For the first time, the commission had recommended the constitution of an autonomous council for postings and transfers of senior police officials. The council included the opposition leaders. I wish the government could keep the idea of an autonomous council intact because that may keep the police above politics which at present is forced on them all the time.