Shoestrike at Hyderabad for Climate Justice

পোস্টটি দেখেছেন: 56

Angel Vinod

A clear understanding of the looming climate crisis at our doorstep is what spurred the volunteers of Friday’s for Future, Hyderabad to respond to the call to action for the Global Climate Strike on September 25th 2020. Youth and citizens of the city have been striking for nearly 2 years demanding that the government declare a climate emergency and release an action plan. However, apart from small wins, these demands have largely fallen on deaf ears. Apparently, what children understand so well about climate change is yet to be understood by our elected representatives, even in the midst of a pandemic. We realised that we could not have our usual strikes, where thousands gather. But we still had to make our voices heard. The world is spurring towards the tipping point – the point of no return where climate change is beyond human intervention and control. This apparent lack of political will would result in our beloved city of Hyderabad becoming inhabitable.

Table of Contents

Our Strike and actions:

The work behind every strike begins with weeks of deliberations: what is the purpose of our strike? What demands are we placing before our elected representatives? How can we make this a safe and impactful strike? These deliberations are very exciting and a steep learning curve for our team. We debate, discuss & plan out every single detail. We engage in conversation with environmentalists, policy experts, scientists, other environmental grassroots groups and citizen collectives in the city in order to tap into their insights to ensure that our climate action is powerful and well informed. Moreover, this is an amazing space for young climate activists to directly and unabashedly learn about complex environmental issues from experts. All of this is an enriching, democratic exercise of our role as citizens of this country.

We decided to do a shoe strike – a unique and powerful way of striking that had not been used in India for environmental strikes yet.Over 1200+ pairs of shoes were received and lined up at the strike location to represent all the citizens participating. But where would the shoes go after the strike? We did not want to generate such a large pile of waste. A little more planning went into making our strike circular and zero waste – citizens were requested to send in a good pair of shoes so they could be sent to an NGO that would redistribute them to underserved communities in Hyderabad after our strike.

Our venue:

Our venue was also carefully decided for maximum impact. We had our shoe strike on the lake bed of the Osman Sagar Lake. With surplus rains in Hyderabad, the lake bed was somehow still barren. Thus, the venue of our strike itself was a powerful testament to the fact that something wasn’t right. This 100 year old lake, that once supplied water to the city & was constructed to prevent further floods after the devastating Great Musi Flood of 1908, was empty. We hope that striking at this location will prompt many questions & conversations.

Climate Justice is Essential:

Climate justice, meaning we acknowledge that marginalised and low income groups will be affected more severely and disproportionately by the climate crisis, is vital.. For example, a natural disaster might destroy houses.The ability to rebuild and survive is easier for those who are wealthy as opposed to people from the lowest socio-economic belt. Globally, India comes under the Most Affected Areas and People (MAPA) or the Global South, that has lower climate resilience and needs climate justice. Similarly, in Hyderabad, we contacted and received shoes from those who will face this climate inequity – women, children, the aged, farmers, tribals and indigenous groups, urban poor, etc. Their plight requires due representation and they should receive climate justice through policy that uplifts them and gives them tools, resources and power to become climate resilient.

Environmental degradation at Telagana:

Our Demands to Telangana State Government

Climate change is felt globally and the best way our group can address it is by highlighting the local impacts of this crisis. The destruction in our city is evident as this “City of Lakes” is now in a disappointing state – over 55% of wetlands have been encroached, polluted, natural waterways altered and lakes depleted. Land sharks and state authorities alike have laid roads, altered boundaries to reduce Full Tank Level (FTL) and constructed buildings on lake beds.The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) states that Telangana tops the list in giving tree-felling permissions, with about 17,34,995 trees axed from 2016-2019.

Our Demands:

Our deliberations resulted in two clear demands to the government:

1.Restore hydrological regimes of Hyderabad’s lakes.

Right now, the government is using taxpayer money to beautify polluted lakes.This means that the lake might be a stinking dump, but it would have a walking track and boating facility for people to access. As policy expert Narsimha Reddy Donthi put it, “Beautifying lakes is like putting a wreath on a dead body.” Cosmetic beautification of the lake was taking precedence and we demand that the government instead rejuvenate all urban lakes and restore their entire hydrological regimes by 2022. These wetlands are vital to sustain the complex ecosystem that affects our food systems, water & air.

2.Conserve Forests by making them No-Go Zones.

Recently, a famous actor donated Rs. 2 crore for the development of an “urban park” by encroaching into 1600 acres of the Kazipally Reserve Forest – an untouched forest & rich biodiversity hotspot. This sets a dangerous precedent as the government is inviting others to “adopt” our forests. Already, multiple big pharmaceutical companies have come forward for the same & this model is being lauded by IFS officers of other states on Twitter and being touted for replication in their states. These forests do the extremely important job of sequestering carbon to prevent climate change and being home to a plethora of flora and fauna. Urban parks will only mean more tree felling, noise pollution, concrete walking tracks, littering and all the destruction that will come with humans stepping into these forests. Without these forests, Hyderabad is set to experience an increase in temperature by 3-5°C. We demand complete conservation of these forests as No-Go Zones, by 2022.

Way Forward: Do strikes bring effective change?

Even after our shoestrike, our volunteers are buzzing and full of questions. Why doesn’t the government work with citizen groups & communities to rejuvenate our lakes? Why don’t they revive barren land instead of encroaching forests for “development”? Do they understand the urgency of climate change? With each strike, we know that we are able to cast a wider net to spread our message of the urgency for climate action and justice now. There are always more conversations, collaborations and questions.

With each step of this exciting and hard work, we create a larger space to talk about climate change, to amplify the work of experts and the voice of all citizens. With time and citizen participation, we believe this push will be big enough to get a climate action policy enacted. The recent Hyderabad floods is a scary reminder of climate change, coupled with poor urban development, that both our elected representatives & us citizens have long ignored. However, there is still a decade of policy decisions & democratic, non partisan citizen activism that can bring transformational change before it is too late.The time to act is now.

About Author

Angel is a volunteer and climate activist at Friday’s for Future, Hyderabad. She is currently pursuing her Master’s in Development at Azim Premji University and hopes to continue working towards a green, equitable and sustainable future for communities in India.

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