‘Who owns earth’ & otter stories

This incident happened a few years back in Bhubaneswar at a friend’s place. They found an otter stuck in the toilet pipe struggling to wriggle out. With some help, the poor creature was pulled out alive from the pipe. But since no one had seen such a scene or an otter in such a situation, there was some confusion regarding what to do with it. Finally, it was decided to release the otter so that it could escape into its habitat.

The poor, terrified creature, after being released, ran helter-skelter to escape. But soon passersby gathered and chased it. Some started throwing stones at the poor otter and killed it in the process. The killers felt elated with their achievement and left the battered otter to die on the road.

The present city of Bhubaneswar was originally a part of a dense forest system of Chandka. As it was decided to set up the new capital adjacent to the old temple city, vast areas of jungle were acquired and cleared to set up concrete structures for its burgeoning housing requirements. In fact, due to its original ecosystem, the concrete city even now, finds a lot of reptiles and creatures like mongoose and otters.

The friend’s father – who was witness to the entire process of the otter being stuck in the toilet pipe, its subsequent struggle to escape and finally being stoned to death – had a very scary dream. In his dream appeared hundreds of angry otters assembled inside their house, protesting the killing of one amongst them in the morning attack. The leader of the otters questioned his rights to stay in that piece of land.

The old man replied that he had bought that plot from the local government and had the papers to prove his claim and ownership status.

The leader of the otters then explained that he and the other otters too have been living on that land for thousands of years. All along, they lived happily with several creatures like elephants, reptiles and leopards and never had any such problem of being deprived of a place to stay peacefully. In fact, he wanted to know how a mere piece of paper could allow him to remove all the original occupants and build a nasty structure for him.

Utterly speechless, the old man woke up and pondered over the question the reptile leader had posed to him. Does the earth belong to us alone? Just because we have the money and the power to occupy and demarcate Mother Earth into individual plots, cities, states and countries, while other living beings have no such legal claims. Do we own the earth or we just have as much right to live on this earth as all other creatures? He had no answer, except deep remorse and shame for the way the otters perceived him and his fellow human beings as usurpers, cruel and indifferent to the other animals.

The author is municipal commissioner of Ahmedabad