The monsoon has virtually receded for this season in India, and therefore there is no possibility of rains, particularly torrential spells. We can now hope not to hear the depressing news of our crumbling hills and their habitat in the Himalayan region, at least till the next season.Yet, we cannot complain that we did not get warning signals. For the past several years, severe traffic jams to reach north Indian hill stations such as Nainital (and other Tal towns in proximity), Shimla and Mussoorie have been reported.These have spurred questions about the carrying capacity of our ‘hill stations’, and pressure is mounting for building regulations to control the unhindered concretisation across the Himalayan region in order to make the habitat sustainable.India has had an ‘urban’ tradition since the time of Mohenjo-daro, and its epics too speak of grand capital cities, but there is no word for ‘hill station’ in any local dialect, indicating that the hills must have had human habitations, but no urban centres – small, medium or big. Obviously, there was no tradition of the kings running away to or maintaining a summer capital in the hills.Colonial urban developmentEven the history of Srinagar indicates that despite various dynasties ruling Kashmir over the centuries, urbanisation was slow to begin in the region described as a piece of heaven on Earth.The Mughal rule since 1586 witnessed development and growth in Srinagar. The Sikh empire since 1819 did not add to the process of urbanisation in the hill state.Following the first Anglo-Sikh war, the British, under a treaty with Dogra monarch Gulab Singh, sold Kashmir for Rs 75 lakh in 1846. In 1872, Ranbir Singh began the tradition of having two capitals – Jammu (winter) and Srinagar (summer). And thus began the tradition of the ‘durbar move’ as well as of having a capital in cool climes during the summer.Though Kashmir – Srinagar in particular, but equally significantly Pahalgam, Gulmarg and other such smaller habitations too – developed to cater to the British colonisers’ needs of beating heat in the north Indian plains, it does not represent an appropriate example of the colonial urban development in India that led to the emergence of hill stations in India, currently a craze for the expanding Indian middle class.Since hill stations sprouted in different regions a historical view gives a better view.Anthony D. King’s Colonial Urban Development: Culture, Social Power and Environment, a classic on the subject, gives both theoretical and processual perspectives.That the colonial rulers built ‘civil stations’ or (lines) and cantonments to bypass cities since the 19th century, more particularly since 1857, is part of common knowledge of the urban studies in India. Another significant additions since the arrival of the railways in the mid-19th century were the railway colonies, so brilliantly captured by John Masters in his novel Bhowani Junction. King suggests, ‘The hill station was the third system in the urban system of the colonial community; its function, institutions, and form are to be understood within a framework which includes the civil station “on the plains” and urban developments “at home”.’He explains the development of ‘hill stations’ by reference to the three main variables of culture, technology and the dominance-dependence relationship of colonialism. It emerged as a socio-cultural organisation peculiar to colonialism. Evidently, they began as ‘health sanitaria’ functioning as part of a British colonial eco-system. Darjeeling’s history clearly indicates this. Bhowali near Nainital, for example, was developed as a TB sanatorium. While Shimla with its Viceregal Lodge on Summer Hill was developed as the summer capital of the British empire in India, Nainital served the same purpose for United Provinces.Thus, not surprisingly, between 1815 and independence of India, nearly 80 hill stations were developed, their elevations varying between 4,000 and 8,000 feet. As they proved convenient and useful, such urban settlements on hills were developed in lower mountain regions, clustered in four regions. Accessible to the European population, the Shimla-Mussoorie region had the largest number of them. The second cluster was developed in the northeast of India. Darjeeling, Shillong and some others. The Bombay Presidency also required a large number of European population, so the third cluster was developed in the Poona (now Pune)-Mahabaleshwar region. In the south, Ootacamunde, Kodaikanal and Coonoor were developed for the officers situated in the Madras Presidency. Thus, a number of well-developed for the European conditions urban settlement with office complexes, market to cater to the seasonal inflow, ‘public’ schools, town hall and a club, were developed. All of them had a seasonal economy, so the process of urbaniSation was slow.Post-independence developmentsHill stations continued to be summer escape for the rich and the powerful in the country post-independence. Most hill stations had limited accessibility by the train system developed during the colonial era and roads that were not very welcoming. A tiny segment of the affluent could afford to travel by air partially, because all the hill stations did not have aerodrome. A family outing to the hills was neither in vogue, nor affordable for India’s tiny middle class. However, the hill vacation was middle-classised with its expansion since the mid-1980s, certainly since the 1990s. The leave travel grants in the government and the public sector added to it. The craving for it was heightened once India began turning into a ‘car society’ around the same time.Most of the hill stations were for the elites and designed for a limited population settled there and a few thousand tourists trooping in during summer. With the need for more hotels, eateries and other tourist services, the need to expand infrastructure arose. That created requirements to upgrade roads for transport for automobiles. The increase in building activities, in which the local business and monied class also participated, resulted in denuding the hills of forests.Shimla, for example, began as a city for 25,000 persons. In 2023, the population of Shimla metro region was 2,35,000. This is true of all the ‘hill stations’. Shimla, Mussoorie, Nainital, Bhimtal, Gangtok, Darjeeling and others lately are unable to take the inflow of tourist vehicles during summers. Even once quiet Manali has been reduced to concrete jungle.The hills and their habitationsIndeed, the hills have their habitations living there for generations. But they depended on nature and respected it. Concrete was rarely used for construction. Described as vernacular architecture in the language of architects, most building were constructed with local material. The maddening concretisation of the habitat copying the planes over decades became the bane of hill stations. Not only trees that held the hills erect were cut and removed, an extra burden of brick and concrete has been put on them in the past three decades.The hills also situate a number of Hindu shrines. The lower Himalayas have glaciers that are sources of Ganga (Gangotri) and Yamuna (Yamunotri). Very few pilgrims used to visit them due to difficulty in travel and staying arrangements. Kedarnath and Badrinath are two of the holiest Hindu shrines in proximity. They also had limited pilgrim inflow. But due to the transport facilities and other infrastructure generally improving in the past two decades, there has been a torrent of pilgrims there.In 2019, soon after his historic electoral victory, Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally visited Kedarnath and stayed in a cave dwelling constructed there. In 2023, he announced the Char Dham Mahamarg Vikas Pariyojana that also includes the extension and development of railway line to the farthest point. This was against the advice of the geologists and other experts of ecology. It had to have its impact.Not only do the hills need a sound habitat policy, they need rational and scientific development projects beyond electoral calculations to conserve them and make them sustainable.Ajay K. Mehra is a political scientist. He was Atal Bihari Vajpayee Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 2019-21 and Principal, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Evening College, Delhi University (2018).