Guwahati’s Road to the Greens

The government, for its part, needs to spend its resources on bringing back to the people of Guwahati what they have lost--an incalculably beautiful green heritage

It was in the very early ’90s that the governor of the day DD Thakur ran into rough weather as hundreds of homes were demolished in the course of an eviction drive at Norokaxur Pahar, on the hill behind Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH). There was President’s Rule in the state then, and the Governor was boss. Even as people protested and families were turned onto the streets, the logic to the demolition was that Guwahati, “much like Delhi, needed a pair of lungs”.

At the peril of sounding cliched, or even predictable, that theory, however, wasn’t quite the breath of fresh air that it was being made out to be: Guwahati was still green, still cloistered (as it is now at least to an extent) by a number of forests and wetlands–Amchang, Gorbhonga, Deepor Beel, Khamranga Beel et al–while Delhi was dusty, madly hot, its air difficult to breathe and the Yamuna, unlike the Brahmaputra, polluted as can be. Guwahati was hot and humid, but its lungs still quite robust.

Guwahati’s story in 2023, though, is a different script all together: shrinking forests, disappearing wetlands, flash floods, dust, construction everywhere, a burgeoning population that constantly grows, rivalled only perhaps by the number of new fossil-fuelled cars that come onto its streets every day.

For anyone who has seen that story flash past, the turning of the old jail complex at Fancy Bazar into a Botanical Garden, with a list of trees that stand described in terms of utility, species and “climate tolerance”, accompanied by “rejuvenated water bodies” is perhaps just what a city that urgently needs to pull back from the brink, a brilliant idea and one that can be easily replicated, given the abundance that Guwahati has always had.

• Botanical Garden is built at the premises of Old Jail in Fancy bazaar
• The Botanical Garden is built at a cost of Rs 58 crore
• The garden is spread across 11.7 acres of land
• The park houses 85,000 species of trees
• It also has an ancient temple, lotus pond and a rejuvenated waterbody
• It has a 2.5 km-jogging track, children play area & a yoga corner
• Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma inaugurated the Garden on October 1

Northeast Live Digital Desk

Guwahatians are a good lot, proud of their city at the end of the day, no matter how much we slam ourselves for the mess we’ve created. Unlike Delhi, that has roads and localities named after conquerers and their legacy–Lodhi Colony, Akbar Road, Aurangzeb Road, to name a few–Guwahati, that was once Prajyotishpur, is green bound. And hence RG Baruah Road was Neemtol, Gitanagar still has a Borgostol, there’s Beltola, Digholipukukhuri, Xilpukhuri, Nilasol Pahar, Ashwaklanta Pahar, Norokaxur Pahar, Nobogroho Pahar, Jor Pukhuri, Deepor Beel–to complete the lung metaphor, the many bronchioles that have, through time, helped Guwahati breathe free. This is a city that only needs to be nurtured back to what it had. The new Botanical Garden at Fancy Bazar could well be a starting point.

The government, for its part, needs to spend its resources on bringing back to the people of Guwahati what they have lost–an incalculably beautiful green heritage, that now lies bracketed in places such as the Botanical Garden and the Government-run Aromatic and Medicinal Plants Garden near Deepor Beel, a treasure trove of greens that just about nobody visits. There needs to be a campaign to tell people what to plant in their homes–that areca palms, money plants and snake plants can clean up indoor air, that builders need to as a rule build tree barrier, not just to clean up the air but to also reduce noise, a pollutant that we don’t seem to talk about, but something that can cause serious hearing and other health hazards.

The good news is that Guwahati already has what it takes to turn green once again. Any Social Forestry nursery in the city is a treat to both the eye and mind and we have so many of them, looked after by people who definitely know their plants. The idea is to now reach within. Guwahati’s road back to the greens can be a lot shorter than we perhaps believe it to be.

Also Read: Educational institutions shut, exams postponed amid floods in Guwahati

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