For Janhavi Prasada, the decision to take ‘Himalayan Echoes’ outside Nainital is less about expanding a festival than about responding to what is happening in the mountains.
For the first time since the festival began in 2016, its curtain-raiser was held outside its home in Nainital. The curtain raiser of the 11th edition was hosted at the Embassy of Switzerland in New Delhi on September 2, ahead of the main festival at Abbotsford Estate on October 30 and 31.
The Delhi event also marked the announcement of the second Radisson Himalayan Echoes Nature Prize, which was awarded to environmentalist and author Mridula Ramesh for her work on climate resilience, water security and sustainable waste management.
For Prasada, taking the discussion to Delhi reflects the urgency of the issues confronting the Himalayan region.
“Himalayan Echoes remains firmly embedded in the topography of the mountains. It is just that mountain voices have carried their sounds to the plains this time, waking and shaking up the narrative around the need of the hour — climate adaptation and climate mitigation,” she says.
“We are in the thick of its impact and each minute counts.”
Changing landscape
Himalayan Echoes began as a literature gathering at Abbotsford Estate and gradually broadened its conversations to include ecology, indigenous knowledge, music, food, art and the lives of mountain communities.
This year’s festival comes against the backdrop of increasing concern over extreme weather, environmental degradation and the impact of infrastructure and tourism on fragile mountain ecosystems.
Prasada says the worsening ecological situation has influenced the discussions, but she does not want the festival to become a forum solely for crisis.
“Even in the most adverse of times, hope never fails us,” she says, citing the survival of people found alive beneath debris after the devastating floods in Nepal.
“Environmental conservation and sustainability are at the heart of our festival conversations, but we must not forget to celebrate what still exists and can be preserved, the very essence of society — music, art, culture, literature and creativity,” she adds.
The festival will include discussions on literature, ecology, indigenous knowledge and mountain cuisine. It is being presented in association with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and Uttarakhand Tourism.
Nature Prize
The Radisson Himalayan Echoes Nature Prize, now in its second edition, recognises work connected with nature and the environment across writing, art, music, technology and activism.
This year’s recipient, Ramesh, founded the Sundaram Climate Institute and has worked on climate resilience, water security and waste management. She is the author of ‘The Climate Solution’, ‘Watershed’ and ‘The Pralaya Prophecy’.
The jury included writer and Jaipur Literature Festival co-founder Namita Gokhale, Jaipur Literature Festival co-founder Sanjoy K Roy and Prasada.
Prasada says Ramesh was chosen for her work in water conservation and her three books, as well as her work outside publishing.
“Apart from her writings, she is a ground-based, impact-driven change-maker for climate mitigation,” she says.
Ramesh, speaking after receiving the award, linked the environmental crisis to everyday experience.
“Water was invisible to me until it ran out,” she says. “We don’t remember the borewell — at least I didn’t — until my borewell ran dry. We miss the lake only till after it floods. We want the forest back only after the landslides.”
“Nature enters modern consciousness as a failure notice, and this past week, that notice came from the Himalaya.”
Gokhale says the prize is intended to recognise work that connects creative practice with environmental concerns and indigenous knowledge.
From the Alps to the Himalayas
The association with Switzerland is another new element this year.
Swiss Ambassador to India and Bhutan Maya Tissafi is hosting the curtain-raiser at the Swiss Residence. Swiss author Benjamin Viatte will participate as the festival’s first speaker from Switzerland.
Viatte travelled 14,000 kilometres on foot from Europe to the Indian Himalayas. He later settled in Dharamsala and travelled from there towards Ladakh.
Also Read: A voice for the mountains: Janhavi Prasada’s journey to sustainability
Prasada sees the participation as an opportunity for exchange between two countries with major mountain regions.
“This is the beginning of a relationship between the two nations that share similar mountains in their own countries — in Switzerland and in India or the Himalayas,” she says. “We face similar challenges that the environment and climate change are imposing upon us by the day. We must come together and exchange knowledge, technology and human resources to find ways for climate mitigation on the ground level.”
Tissafi says the subject has a natural connection for Switzerland.
“As a Swiss, an evening devoted to mountains feels close to home,” she says. “When we speak of the Alps and the Himalayas, we are speaking of two countries that can learn from each other.”
She also points to Switzerland’s work with Indian institutions on climate resilience, disaster risk reduction and environmental protection in the Himalayan region.
Problem of migration
For Prasada, environmental concerns cannot be separated from the economic and social problems facing people in the hills.
Youth migration to the plains is one of the issues she identifies as particularly serious.
“The biggest concern is that of migration of the youth from the hills to the plains,” she says. “Which means more and more people are moving away from their lands, leaving the older generation to work on the fields.”
She argues that agriculture needs better economic support, particularly through opportunities in organic farming, improved supply chains and access to urban markets for products from remote areas.
She also wants greater involvement of NGOs working with communities on the conservation of land and water resources.
Construction is another area where she believes changes are required, with greater use of designs suited to the ecological conditions of the mountains.
Development and tourism
Prasada does not argue against development in the hills, but says it needs to account for the landscape in which it takes place.
“With cultural conservation comes awareness of our landscape and how to navigate ourselves around it, in sync with it,” she says.
“Development is necessary but without exploitation that shakes the eco-balance of the region.”
Tourism, in particular, presents a difficult balance. It brings income to mountain communities but can also increase pressure on waste systems, roads, water resources and local ecosystems.
Prasada believes waste management needs to place greater responsibility on visitors while involving local communities.
She is also in favour of measures that give damaged landscapes time to recover.
“I want to see Himalayan trekking trails closed for a decade to allow them to rejuvenate and restore,” she says.
She also wants restrictions on loud noise around national park zones within a 50-kilometre radius.
“The list is endless. But one at a time,” she says.
Record of the Himalayas
The festival’s examination of the mountains extends beyond contemporary environmental concerns.
An exhibition of 19th-century aquatint engravings will present works by Scottish artist and traveller James Baillie Fraser and his brother William B Fraser, based on their journey through the Himalayas in 1815.
Presented in association with Nippon India Mutual Fund’s investor education and awareness initiative, the exhibition includes depictions of Gangotri, the shrine of Mahadev, the old town of Rampore, the rope bridge at Srinagar in present-day Uttarakhand, the Bhagirathi River and landscapes around Yamunotri.
The engravings document a Himalayan landscape that existed more than two centuries ago.
Prasada says some of those landscapes can still be found in remote parts of the region, although increasing access and development are changing them.
People in remote areas, she points out, need roads, schools, hospitals and electricity. The problem arises when such development is not suited to the ecological conditions of the region.
“With this access comes development that is not sustainably designed; as a result, the natural surroundings get affected,” she says.
“We are in a very tricky situation with a landscape that is highly fragile.”
Keeping the festival small
Himalayan Echoes has remained deliberately limited in scale since its first edition.
Prasada says the festival’s audience is small and its focus is niche, which creates financial challenges as the event grows.
“There is no growth without challenges,” she says.
The festival is sustained largely through the efforts of people who support its focus on the mountains, including its literature, music, food traditions, flora and fauna and ways of living.
“We are small but loud,” she says.
The decision to hold the first public event outside Nainital does not change that approach. The main gathering remains at Abbotsford Estate, where the 11th edition will take place on October 30 and 31.
For Prasada, the central concern after 10 years remains the same: how the mountains and the people who live there can adapt to a rapidly changing environment without losing the culture and practices that have shaped mountain life.
“The attention and urgency to hear the mountains and their people is of prime concern as of today,” she says.
Over the past decade, Himalayan Echoes has brought together voices from India, Nepal and Bhutan around questions of literature, culture, ecology and livelihood.
This year, those conversations begin in Delhi before returning to the hills.
