hi everyone when I was a little girl I
did a language class Japanese and it was
very difficult and I failed
and my mother said what are you doing
and I said it's too hard I can't do this
and she said don't ever again tell me
you can't do something so I now she
regret saying it so she says she says
sometimes she says don't you ever think
you can't do anything
don't you think sometimes that this is
not worth doing but I remind her that
she was the one who who told me that you
can't never say you can't do anything
and in fact it's only that something
which is more difficult which is more
worthwhile so if you think you can you
can so when you see something happening
in front of you what do you do in my
case I saw sand mining happening in
front of the house where I grew up I'd
spent all my childhood holidays there I
had I had a great deal of feeling for
this place and of course I didn't want
in any way that did my beach should
disappear so I saw how the land was
going backwards
I saw the sand was being eroded I saw
these deep craters in the sand
I saw how when we walked on the beach at
night which we used to do regularly we
would fall into the craters so what do
you do you go of course and you complain
to the authorities very naively because
I knew nothing about the authorities as
a mother of young children and the
authorities laugh at you and they say
well you know this is a beach there's
plenty of sand sand comes in every day
why are you worried why are you
complaining why you you know just go
home and look after your children don't
bother about such things and then
finally he says you know we don't know
who's mining the sand anyway and I say
well you know the it's strange because
the whole village knows who's doing it
and not only does the whole village know
they've actually told me to keep away
from them because they're important
politicians of the
so he says well in that case you will
have to catch them red-handed because
that's the only way we are going to take
action so of course what do you do then
you go and stop a truck when you're told
that they are there Mining sand at
midnight and it didn't go well I don't
think this is what my mother really
meant and I don't think that when you
take an issue of this kind which nobody
knows about which nobody is willing to
tackle which nobody is willing to even
talk about that you're going to get any
kind of guidelines as to how you're
supposed to tackle it beyond these kind
of vague statements go catch them
red-handed which does seem now in
hindsight and didn't go well because
when I stopped the truck the first time
I bought away with it and they actually
stopped mining sand for a period of time
but when I stopped a truck the second
time the politicians son was a charge of
the truck and they actually attacked me
and put me in hospital with a paralyzed
hand so I didn't know at that time that
this kind of issue would lead to this
kind of thing nobody knew it this is in
2004 and then what do you do so if you
just I mean there's so many things that
were unexpected unseen caveats of the
unseen this is not what I had expected
that I'm going to end up in hospital so
I then started gathering data about sand
mining because of course then what you
can do is give up because it's too
dangerous or you can decide to continue
because you realize that this is an
issue where someone is actually willing
to attack you to this level so you
having been told there's nothing you
can't do you start gathering data and
realize that there isn't any so then you
have to generate the data and how do you
generate the data in those days the only
way to generate the data was by going to
various sites and taking photographs
which of course was not a very sensible
thing to do but that it
then became the basis for the first
public interest litigation on sand
mining and so again without knowing what
I was doing without knowing too many
lawyers without knowing anything about
how public interest litigation was to be
filed I filed this litigation and in the
you know while while filing litigation
when you filed litigation this was
actually not my first litigation my
first litigation was on sand mining
sorry was on noise pollution and sand
mining is a rural issue which happens a
little bit outside the city mostly noise
pollution happens in the city but while
working on both you realize that
actually the kind of steps that you take
the tools at your disposal are the same
and they apply to me they applied to
these two very different issues that I
took up noise pollution and sand mining
but they they basically come down to
this that we have the law which
everybody is supposed to follow which
means public interest litigation in
India we have advocacy which means
appealing to the good conscience of
government administrators law enforcers
and we have awareness which means
bringing this issue to greater knowledge
so this is filming for a film called
line in the sand which was made by the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation it
was made so the first attack on me was
in 2004 this film was made in 2017 so it
also means that you have to keep on
working at things because when you're
taking up an issue without any road map
without any guidelines purely on
intuition without any knowledge even you
just have to keep trusting that you're
going to take the next step and the next
step and the next step and that it was
all leads somewhere even if you're not
sure where of course that's easier said
than done because then after firing the
first public interest litigation and
getting an order that's and money and in
the whole cost
districts of the state of Maharashtra I
was you know these things then start
getting reported by the press
not because of sand my one cares about
but because of the fact that I was
attacked
so the first reports were on the attack
and then I was attacked the second time
because after the court order banning
signing I started getting calls from
people who were who were affected by
sand mine religious so I realized that
and they said to me please come here and
see you got you sit in Bombay every
tower keep firing public interest
litigation nothing changes on the ground
so I went there and I was attacked took
the first photographs of sand mining at
a large industrial scale at Mahad and in
in 2010 and I was again attacked the
time the intent was to kill there was an
accident engineered accident on a bridge
with a hundred foot so again there were
all kinds of influential people involved
the police didn't want to help and again
my family my daughter said mom you're
great and all that but you need to stay
home and start cooking and but again I
remember my mother saying don't say you
can't so you keep working you keep doing
it instinctively and then fortunately
for me after the first attack we had set
up a group called Metra movement against
intimidate threaten revenge against
activists and had fired public interest
litigation in the court to protect
activists working in the public interest
who were being threatened by vested
interests and the very next day again by
fluke because we no one knows how these
things happen in this world again by
fluke by some divine providence or
whatever that case was the next day and
we got help from the court the other
thing which made it very clear that it's
not you who's working it's not me who's
working it's some unknown way that
things happen is the way this accident
happened that I had been you know it on
a site visit like this I would never
myself I mind a drive-up be driving and
I would be sitting back because there
were journalists with me there were
local villagers with me and we would be
discussing the case but it so happened
that after we took the photographs on
the Crete and got back into the car I
had this feeling that somehow things
were not right and I don't know where
this feeling came from it was completely
instinctive and for the first and only
time in my life I told my driver
I said please move I am going to drive
and he he was shocked he was surprised
and he said he said why and I said I
don't know I just think I want to drive
my husband is a dirt track rally racer
driver and he had just a little bit
before that and of course through all
the years of our marriage he had been
giving me tips how to drive on these
very very mountainous hearts dirt track
roads and when we started being followed
by these guys who were trying to cheer
who first stopped us and threatened us
and then started following us and this
truck actually crashed into us I am a
hundred percent certain that firstly we
would never have escaped that lonely
area had I not been driving because they
couldn't catch up with me and I had to
do some maneuvers off-road driving to
actually keep ahead of them when a
second car came head-on and nearly
crashed into us and then when we got to
the truck I'm also certain that that
trucks instructions were to push us over
the bridge it would have been an
accident we would have fallen a hundred
feet below and they would have said oh
she was driving rashly which is exactly
what the police said when we went to the
police station and they wanted to book
me for rash driving rather than to book
these people who were trying to kill us
so you don't know what's going to happen
what's going to come out of what you
keep working I can't say this is a way
that I would advise anyone I don't think
this is what my mother meant but
nevertheless this happened I learned a
lot of lessons from it again these
common issues noise pollution and sand
mining so how do you bring them up two
four one way is by being attacked but of
course a simpler way is by simply making
it more and more
like with noise pollution where there
was no attack to just keep talking about
it again and again and again until
people get the message so this is
training the police because of course
it's the enforcement authorities which
alternate lis going to take action you
can get all the court orders in the
world but unless you have enforcement
nothing works and in your after the very
first public interest litigation which I
had filed on noise pollution my lawyer
said to me that if you don't get this
order banning loudspeakers in silent
zones and first you have wasted all our
time we've all were pro bono for you and
I didn't know what to do but I realized
that the way was to train the police and
so this is in a training session with
the police and there are of course other
ways as I said teaching people
conducting drives people to volunteer in
cities like Mumbai there are no
volunteers who are just ordinary people
capable of holding banners on the road
only they are all professionals and they
can contribute professional expertise so
they have all contributed various things
campaigns have been done called by
advertising agencies lawyers have worked
really of cost in every field and this
is the public participation and
awareness that you need to generate so
you need to generate the data in the
case of sap mining it was photographs of
illegal sand mining sites and
encouraging other people to tell us in
the case of noise pollution because
there was no data there either it was
actually actually getting this meter
which is such a simple device it's a
handheld device and generating the data
which was later used in the courts this
is telling people on the street
celebrating a festival how they
themselves are being affected they have
in the city of Mumbai they have really
stepped up I was shocked to know later
that people who had been my staunch
adversaries later decided to join me and
that's what makes things a public
movement when I say in the case of noise
pollution when the grandpa team and ours
the state government they declared 2018
as a year of no honking in spite of the
fact
they were the ones who never wanted to
take noise pollution seriously in fact
during the first conferences I was told
I was wasting the police's time one
police officer actually refused to speak
when given the mic because he said you
have wasted our time bringing this
non-issue to us when we have far more
serious issues now they have changed
their minds they are taking up these
issues I am very grateful to them and
it's the people ultimately who make
these causes it's up to us to create
awareness and this is creating awareness
and data you from 2004 from the attack
the public interest litigation in 2012 I
presented the issue of sand mining to
the UN for the first time and the UN who
said that coastal issues were some of
the most serious issues they had on
their agenda didn't have any
documentation on sand mining it took
them until 2019 to come out with this
report which is the first-ever global
report on sand mining I was honored to
contribute substantially to this report
about the actual situation on the ground
in India which in spite of so many court
orders is still not we are losing sand
we are not taking measures to to think
of the alternatives which are feasible
which the which the iit-bombay says that
you can recycle the entire garbage dump
legacy waste what they call in Mumbai
and get enough aggregate to substitute
the entire sand mining of the country
which they have quantified both the sand
available at the sand requirements as
well as the garbage dump availability
which would solve so many issues at once
the garbage issue of which India faces
the air pollution issue of garbage
burning the sand mining issue and the UN
has put these things in their report and
recommended that India has the potential
to lead the world in these kind of
technologies so we have the solutions we
have the ways it's a question of taking
an issue from something saying all the
sea brings in plenty of sand -
recognizing that no actually the sea
doesn't bring in plenty of sand because
it's a huge global issue there is a
transnational trade there is a
the UN has taken it up the government of
India still hasn't taken it up
adequately we still have policies which
are an enforceable but we do have to
stand up in spite of the problems that
with standing up again in 2019 noise
levels during the festival season was at
their lowest in the last 15 years since
I've started recording data again this
is because of people's inputs the
government the police all of whom
partnered and most importantly the noise
makers themselves who came to realize
that yes it is an issue they do have to
take action they do have to do something
it's very heartening to know that these
things can happen from something which
nobody knows even today if you ask me
what's your next step it will be very
difficult to say because is constantly
shifting moving changing you don't know
what's happening but you have to just
keep trusting hoping for the best
keep working something happens so what
are the challenges that we face in
future we don't know what the challenges
are going to be just like when I started
these challenges I didn't know what the
challenges would be I didn't even know
these were challenges I just did them
because they happen to be there in front
of me so we don't know what the actual
challenges are going to be but we do
know that there is some global challenge
on climate change of which sand mining
is a contributing factor there are so
many other contributing factors we do
know that we have come to the situation
because of mismanagement
misunderstanding misrepresentation
vested interest so many other things
that my generation has been responsible
for and that the younger generation is
going to then bear the burden off we
also know that these are going to be
likely technology technological driven
solutions because for example sand
mining as I said you can have the whole
garbage dump as the source of replacing
natural sand if only you come up with
the engineering technology the theory
mainstreaming it
realizing it as has been done for when I
was young it was considered that without
oil and coal the world will stop today
we all know it it has not stopped we
need this to be done for sand which is
the second most extracted material in
the world after water we really need to
do it we need to do it for noise
pollution why we are stuck in the
technology of yesterday we are using
loudspeakers we're using horns we have
so many other methods today of
communication we can communicate through
apps mobile phones we don't need
loudspeakers at all in fact we did a
function at the National Institute of
Design in January where we had the
entire college festival including the
closing speech by their director music
performances using mobile phones and
mobile phone headphones connected to the
source it was a perfectly good open air
function everyone enjoyed it but there
was no noise so it's up to you guys
finally to take this up and do it take
action without expectation of result you
neither know what the challenges are no
do you know what result you're going to
get you don't know if it could be good
or bad this is the karmayoga
and that's what we are all living in
today we are facing new challenges we do
can't quantify them we don't know how
they will end up but Nevers not don't
take action because of that just keep
taking action
something will happen leave it something
will happen thank you very much
you