Latha was a passionate ecologist: Jairam

OLLUR: A day before Dr Latha Anantha left us she seemed to be at peace. She had stopped responding to even liquid food, but was breathing quietly, as her favourite oriental music was playing softly in the background.

Her life partner, Unnikrishnan, and in many ways her Buddha, was sitting nearby calmly, as she entered her last sojourn to eternity.

Karthika was their green recluse, an old Tharavad full of overgrown trees, right in the heart of Ollur town, and it was here that Latha returned to rejuvenate after battling several environmental issues.

Latha was an authority on rivers of India and unlike many other greens, hers was a sane voice based on facts and scientific evidence. She was against setting up of mega dams in the country, a developmental concept that she felt was even outdated in the west.

As the founder of

River Research Centre

, her greatest contribution to the forest conservation movement in Kerala was taking up the issue of Athirappilly hydel project, which would have destroyed the already depleted Chalakudi river basin.

Her contemporaries vouch that Latha could succeed because she went beyond the issue and looked at how the project would impact the entire livelihood of the people in the region.

For instance, when she took a stand against the Athirappilly project, it was never against the project per se, but she looked at the larger ecological and social losses that would follow.

Even after the project was dumped, thanks to the intervention of the then

minister of forest and environment

,

Jairam Ramesh

, Latha continued her battle against the river’s destruction, be it dumping of waste or sand mining along the river.

As former school mates at Kendriya Vidayalya, Ernakulam, we felt that there were two Lathas, the one who was a brilliant topper who wanted to do research in agriculture—she worked for a while with the agriculture department—and the later Latha of the 1990s when she plunged deep into green activism. Hailing from a middle class family, she and her activist husband were committed to the cause and had decided to have no children.

It was no wonder then as one of the founder member of the Save Western Ghats group Latha pushed for an audit of the Western Ghats region, which later paved away for the historic Madhav Gadgil headed WGEEP report.

Jairam Ramesh summed her spirit: “To her, I owe my interest and involvement in the

Athirapilly project

going back to 2009 and found her a deeply committed and passionate environmentalist.”

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