Winds of change -- Doon Valley endeavours to return to its cerebral roots

Winds of change -- Doon Valley endeavours to return to its cerebral roots
J K Chopra

Dehra Dun, Dec 3: This little town nestling in the foothills of the Himalayas is planning to return to its cerebral roots as a new millennium dawns.

Regarded as the seat of meditation of Dronacharya in the Mahabharata era, it became famous as the `dera' (camp) of Guru Ram Rai at a later age. Then the British discovered it and its location, almost on the portals of the hill station Mussoorie, appealed to them so much that they set up schools and other institutes. Many of the academics and writers, enamoured of the natural beauty and climate, chose to settle down here.

But the tourism explosion and denudation of the vegetation of the hillsides by avaricious builders and businessmen in this century have all but reduced it to the status of a dusty and dingy town.

Things are now set to change as the Government has decided to develop a software park. ``Dehra Dun has the wherewithal to emerge as a major centre for higher education in the next millennium with the private sector playing a leading role'', says DrB K Joshi, former vice-chancellor of Kumaon University.

``If higher institutes of medicine and engineering are set up in Doon, it would bring about radical changes in the city's personality'', according to Ashok Prasad Mishra, editor of the English weekly, Green valleys and golden fields.

However, stepping onto the new millennium, people of the Doon valley look wistfully back at a glorious past that seems to have left few remnants. Once upon a time, it was known for its exquisite climate, lush green forests and clean and tranquil environment.

Over the past two decades, the changes have been rapid and drastic. Once known the world over for its fragrant basmati rice, luscious lichis and mangoes, Doon is no longer the valley of ``grey heads and green hedges''. The wilderness has shrunk and shrunk at an alarming rate.

Deforestation and global warming have brought about drastic changes in the town's climate which had been the biggest lure for the British who came to the valley to escape the ``heat anddust'' of the Indian plains. Several curious phenomena like the ``four o' clock rain'' are becoming rare and may soon be extinct.

Even at the peak of summer, after a couple of hot days, dark clouds used to gather in the afternoon and by four, the valley was bathed in refreshing showers.

In the 1960s and '70s, Doon pursued the self-destructive path of indiscriminate mining of the hills around it till stopped by a Supreme Court judgement in 1988. Then followed a period of polluting industrialisation which brought forth the regulatory response from the ministry of environment and forests. The 1980s and '90s saw large-scale building activities in the name of tourism, especially in Mussoorie, till the Apex Court intervened once again.

Mishra says things would improve in the new millennium only if the common man became more conscious of protecting the environment. ``The young people are busy building their careers and show little concern about the environment while the protection groups are only interested inthe funds they can generate in the name of environment'', he adds.

Artists and writers once looked upon Doon as a haven for pursuing their creative endeavours, but the muses seem to have departed from this pollution-filled valley today, leaving no atmosphere or inspiration for aesthetic pursuits.

And to think that this is the same town to which Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru always looked forward to visit, even if it was to be interred in its jail. Nehru was put in the jail three times between 1932 and 1941. It was here that he began writing his autobiography, the Discovery of India in 1934, during his third and last term.

Yet another author, almost synonymous with Doon and Mussoorie in the minds of those who have read his numberless works written with the valley as the backdrop, is Ruskin Bond. After having spent most of his childhood in Dehra, Bond returned to Dehra and Mussoorie time and again and finally settled down in Landour in Mussoorie about 40 years ago.Today, except for revered institutions like theIndian Military Academy (IMA), the Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC), and the doon school, there are not many other landmarks or institutes that have withstood the ravages of time. Unstinting discipline, devotion and hard work have, no doubt, gone into keeping traditions and surroundings of these institutions alive.