A Tale Of Two Cities
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The road from Rishikesh to Uttarkashi, after climbing past the small towns of Narendranagar and Chamba, winds down to the Bhagirathi valley. A few kilometres off the Uttarkashi route, the road rolls over a small bridge into a rundown, dusty town. This is Tehri, once the seat of the Raja of Garhwal. Once a major centre of political and administrative activity, the town is now waiting for its death. This year, or perhaps the next, Bhagirathi will swallow it. To be precise, it will go under the lake formed by the Tehri dam on Bhagirathi. A few kilometres uphill, a new Tehri is being built. A memorial in cement to the old town.
At present, bureaucrats keep the city alive. Most government offices and personnel have shifted. At an altitude of 1,500 metres, the town is cool. Chir pines guard the well maintained roads within the town. The Rs 6,500-crore dam is expected to be completed in the next couple of years. The tunnels are completed. The power house is ready. Once the tunnels are closed, water from the Bhagirathi will flood the Tehri valley. It could happen this October, or may be the next. But it will certainly happen. An old town will then exist only in memory.

Like most Himalayan towns by the river, Tehri too looks away from the river. At an altitude of 670 metres, it is humid and yet the barren mountains that guard the town and the unceasing construction activity have turned it into a dust bowl. Built on the confluence of the Bhagirathi and Bhilangana, the town is situated on the left bank of the river.

At night, headlights of trucks passing through the town illuminate the barren mountains, like the fires which glow on hillslopes during summer nights.
Once, over 20,000 people lived in Tehri. Schools resounded with the laughter of children and people clogged the veins of the town. But this was when the dam was still a twinkle in the eyes of the planners sitting in Delhi. Gradually, that dream became a reality.

In 1995, the Old Tehri was officially laid to rest. Its populace was asked to move out — into the New Tehri, an hour’s drive uphill. Many did move — schools and offices. The others, older, more resistent are still waiting in the cobblestoned bylanes and bazaars of the old town, amidst the signs of death: crumbling buildings and eerie silences.

Wandering around the streets, a question pops up: When was a tin of paint last sold here?
‘‘No one does maintenance now, we know this will all be demolished,’’ shrugs J. P. Rathuri, a co-operative bank employee who also runs a lodge in the town. Rathuri can talk endlessly about how ‘‘foolish’’ it is to build such a big dam in the Himalayas. He had fought against it. He knows the cause is lost, yet believes the new town is inhospitable.

In the main market, shopkeepers sit in circles playing cards, unseen hands regularly replenishing their tea cups. ‘‘Petitions, demands... we have sent them all to the government, but there has been no response or action,’’ says Surajmani Dabhral, head of the Tehri Vyapar Mandal. Dabhral, who runs a small stationery store says there are about 1,000 shops in the town, of which 90 per cent are on rent. ‘‘The government has taken the position that only the landlord will be paid compensation. But most of us have been tenants for over 50 years,’’ he says.
The merchants’ association is demanding that each shopkeeper who has a shop registered before 1970 be paid Rs 5 lakh. There are more than 600 such shopkeepers. Until the compensation is paid, Dabhral threatens, the shopkeepers won’t shift. ‘‘By October 15, they say the tunnels will be shut. But we are all here. What will they do?’’ he asks with a trace of belligerance. Few shopkeepers, he claims, have moved to New Tehri. Shops have been allotted for those from Old Tehri, but they need to pay sums ranging from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh to take possession.

But there is a trace of hollowness in his tone. Weary with the wait, there are many traders who are willing to vacate. However, the priest of the town’s oldest Shiv Mandir has a different dilemma: ‘‘My father lived here, as did his father, and his grandfather. I grew up in this compound. Now they say they have built a new temple up there but this Shiv linga is swyambhu. I don’t know how they will shift it. And can they give me all these jamuns, the peepals, the Bhilangana,’’ asks Ramchandra.

TEHRI was a result of the Anglo-Gurkha wars in the early 19th century. When the British captured Garhwal from the Gurkhas in 1815, they handed over the area on the left bank of the Alakananda river to the erstwhile Maharaja of Garhwal, Sudershan Shah. But they retained Srinagar, Garhwal’s old capital. Shah’s search for a new capital ended at the confluence of the two rivers. And Tehri was born.
Over the years, the town expanded. Buildings came up, businessmen moved in, the palace at Simalsoo, the clock tower, and the temple that housed the state deity, the Badri Vishal all came up. The city gained in character. The Raja lorded over Garhwal from Tehri. During the 1930s and 40s, the town was the centre of the people’s movement against the Raja and his court. The Praja Mandal agitation gained momentum here. It was at Tehri jail that Sridev Suman, Garhwal’s foremost freedom fighter, launched a fast unto death. After 84 days of fasting, 29-year old Suman succumbed to pneumonia. The New Tehri planners have not forgotten him. The new jail is named after him.

The mood in the town is baffling. Why isn’t anyone feeling strong about abandoning their homes? This town, where once the peasants of Garhwal, during the Kisan
Andolan of 1946-47, stopped the Garhwal Raja from crossing the Bhagirathi, this same town which declared freedom from the Raja and established an azad panchayat under Virendra Dutt Saklani.

The local Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Anasuya Prasad Dobral posits an interesting theory. He says Tehri’s population is composed of three types of people: the old residents, those who came after the Partition, and government employees who live in rented accommodation. Many of the old residents have migrated to the plains, leaving behind their property. They were only glad to sell off the land to the State. Those on rent, most of them government employees, have shifted to New Tehri. The post-1947 residents also do not feel so deeply about the town. ‘‘So who is there to agitate?’’ he asks.

The man who did is now quiet. Despite his cheerful appearance and his optimism, Sunderlal Bahugana has become irrelevant in Tehri. Right in front of his tin-roofed one-room shed, the dam wall is gaining height at a furious pace.

Bahuguna and his wife Vimla came to Tehri in 1989 to spearhead the resistence to the dam. In the intial years, he received the support from the town. Few fasts, hunger strikes, memorandums, assurances from the Centre, marches... the State and its dam survived him. His support too withered away. Most people settled for the compromise of compensation. He couldn’t recreate the fervour of Chipko in Tehri. Many of those agitating with him failed to empathise with the larger issues he was highlighting: the dam would destroy the fragile eco-system of the Himalayas. Yet Bahuguna, when we meet him, looks at the monstrous cement wall, the muddy Bhagirathi and smiles: ‘‘A dam is a temporary solution to a permenant problem.’’

He continues to be eloquent about the stupidity of a high dam in the quake-prone Himalayas. He argues how electricity could be made from Bhagirathi at Tehri without building the dam and the lake. But there are few listners. The town no longer needs him. Faced with the inevitable, they assess the old man on his ability to get them compensation. The bridge across Bhagirathi which connects Bahuguna’s shelter to the town can no longer bridge the gap between him and the townfolk.

Where is New Tehri? Rathuri pointed to the clouds. Far away on the mountain top, specks of light glimmered. That is Bhagirathipuram, the dam township. New Tehri is further beyond. But you can’t live there yet, says Rathuri dismissively.

The potholed road to New Tehri crosses the Bhagirathi, and past Bahuguna’s Bhagirathi kuti and begins to climb. An hour on the barren mountain, the first set of buildings appear. Concrete blocks with manicured trees guarding them. Jeeps and important-looking men with files move around urgently.

Bhagirathipuram welcomes visitors with a huge board detailing the vital statistics of the dam. At full height, the dam will measure 260.5 metres. Two power houses will generate 2,400 MW. The lake which will be formed by the dam will store 35,400 lakh square metres of water. Thrity-seven villages will be submerged in full, and 88 partially, and 9,000 families will be affected by the dam. From Tehri, 4,500 families will be shifted. Sexy!

New Tehri lives up to its inhabitants. Its the Indian town-planner’s town. Concrete boxes, some two-storeyed, some three, painted in sarkari grey favoured in most administrative buildings. For those familiar with Delhi, this is Sarojini Nagar on a hilltop.

One of the persons in charge of rehabilitation is willing to give basic details about the new town, but doesn’t want to be quoted. He puts the total cost of the rehabilitation and the building of the new town at Rs 650 crores. The town can accomodate 50,000 people, Old Tehri had only 20,000. So who is living here? About 70 per cent of the old town’s residents. The breakup is interesting, and revealing. Government employees constituted 50 per cent of the old town’s population. They have all moved in. And 20 per cent of the rest too have shifted. They have enough power. Bhagirathi water is now pumped into the town. So far, so good.

The government acquired six villagess for the construction of New Tehri. But few of these villagers got plots in the town. Most were packed off to Bhaniwala in the plains. The highest point on the hill has an old temple and the guest house. The old temple has a new enclosure which sports a foundation stone: Nayi Tehri ki panch devta mandir ka murthiyam ki prathista Shri S. P. Simh, adhyakash evam prabandh nirdeshak tehri jal nivas ke kar kamalom dwara shri... (S. P. Simh, chairman, Tehri Jal Nivas, has installed the idols of five devtas...). Munendra Dutt Uniyal, the priest, says so far he has not been paid any salary.

From here, the eye can scan the entire valley and the horizon from the hilltop. Uniyal says it snows here in December. On a clear day, you can see snow peaks. Well, like Shimla, this bureacratic town too could develop as a tourist spot. What if it lacks the character of the Raj town, it is much closer to New Delhi. Six hours by car, Delhi’s nouveau riche can skate on the snow in winter. They could then drive down to boat on the Bhagirathi lake. Eva Sharma, District Forest Officer, Tehri Dam Forest Division, has already drawn up plans to plant trees around the lake.
Perhaps, some years down, some resident of the old town would tell a young friend: ‘‘I once lived beneath these waters. It was a town called Tehri.’’

BY AMRITH LAL

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