Amid growing environmental crisis in Kashmir with shrinking water bodies, drying streams, and unchecked mining, Dr Muzaffar Bhat stands as a determined voice for nature.
The 49-year-old RTI activist and social worker from central Kashmir’s Budgam is leading the fight to protect Valley’s forests, glaciers, rivers, and wetlands, one step at a time.
From filing petitions in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to using social media as a tool for awareness, Bhat is working to awaken public conscience and demand action before it is too late.
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RTI research turns into environmental activism
Bhat says that he got concerned about environmental issues because of the information he obtained using RTI and the information government agencies provided to the NGT and the Supreme Court.
“For the last 22 years, I have been accessing a lot of information using RTI and I have converted it into articles, op-eds, news reports, videos and finally used it to draft petitions before the NGT. I got more concerned about the environment, especially waste management, when I began working for a social enterprise, BASIX, more than a decade ago,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“For the last 22 years, I have been accessing a lot of information using RTI and I have converted it into articles, op-eds, news reports, videos and finally used it to draft petitions before the NGT. I got more concerned about the environment, especially waste management, when I began working for a social enterprise, BASIX, more than a decade ago,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}BASIX was founded by Vijay Mahajan, an IIM Ahmedabad gold medallist who is Bhat’s mentor as well. “I left the company in three years, but my passion grew and I continued to do on-ground research and started studying environmental laws, began writing about it and also sought judicial intervention,” Bhat said.
By training, Bhat is a dentist and he practised dentistry as well, but continuous studies about environmental laws, mining laws, waste management rules and then writing about it and making videos on it made him a more passionate environmental activist.
“My activism did not stop at making videos or writing about it. I used the information to seek the intervention of the NGT and the SC, and in the last five to six years, I got some landmark judgments and orders both from the NGT and the SC,” he said.
From doctor to environmental campaigner
Bhat’s efforts have paid off. The orders by NGT and SC were enforced as well, like halting illegal riverbed mining and earth mining in many areas of Budgam district and other areas as well. “This made my resolve stronger,” he said.
“The lawyers who help me out also do not charge much; sometimes they do the work for free. Like in the SC case, senior advocate Anitha Shenoy did not charge anything from me and I got a great order on riverbed mining and the company involved was also imposed with a huge environmental compensation,” he added.
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Bhat has done a one-year fellowship on climate action in 2021 which helped him a lot to get ‘academic knowledge about climate and environmental issues’. “ Now I assist lawyers in drafting petitions on environmental issues,” he said.
He described waste, sewerage, water and air pollution as the biggest threats J&K is currently facing. “Rivers will die due to mining and the frequency of landslides and floods will increase manifold unless people intervene,” he said.