India's environment history: Does it provide any answer for sustainable development

Today world is facing a perilous state of climate and weather patterns. The year 2015 is termed as hottest year of earth's recent civilizational history. High level emission of carbon di oxide and other green house gases has pushed the temperature by nearly 1%. According to research report, an increase of 2% would lead to irreversible state. It may cause unbearable change in crop and climate patterns. An increase of 1.5% would lead to submergence of many island nations like Maldives and indo-pacific islands. It will lead to submergence of more than 50% of rice cropping area of Bangladesh. In India, It may lead to change in crop seasons, frequent droughts during Monsoon season and more intense rain in localized regions. Scholars proposes Sustainable development strategies as possible solution to curb such menacing trends.

Sustainable development refers to judicious usage of existing resources so that we can save enough for our future generations. Today, we are surviving on finite resources like oil, water or minerals. With increasing population, these resources are going to finish very soon. Therefore, it is advisable to use them as per our need and not as per our greed.
India's environment history presents various lessons about this.

India has a civilizational history of nearly 3500 years. The land has various sort of geographical features be it mountains, rivers, snow clad peaks, deserts, plateau or coastal island. We have survived many environmental calamities in the past. We have also created some environmental tragedies for ourselves in current past and present epoch. Thus India's rich civilizational knowledge teaches us some positive lessons on sustainable development and simultaneously it tells the world about various don'ts to preserve the environment.

If we study Harappan Civilization, we find evidence of water harvesting in Kalibangan. The architectural design of cities and houses could be useful for current day problems of water resource management. In Kalibangan, houses were devised in such a manner that any waste water from Kitchen would flow into the deep earth. This principle could help us in managing water in water stress regions.

Similarly, in Dholavira, Houses were made of burnt bricks but they were plastered with powder made of rice husk. This acted as artificial air conditioning for the house. This way people survived even in hot and humid season without any electricity or diesel fuel consumption. Such architectural knowledge could help us in dealing with problem of reducing hydrocarbons or electricity shortages.

The houses in Ashoka's time were made of woods. This architectural design was suited for earth-quake prone Indian landscape. Currently nearly 68% of Indian landmass falls under earth-quake prone region. If we could learn from these examples of dealing with environmental calamity then we can achieve the goal of sustainable development.

Similarly, if we look at our traditional knowledge then we can derive immense amount of information which could help us in developing in sustainable manner. For example, recently Farmers of Nalanda city in Bihar recently used system of rice intensification technique to increase rice productivity by 4-fold. This has set a guinese book world record for maximum rice productivity in a given sphere of land. This feat was achieved without use of any pesticide or insecticides. It was purely organic in nature. If we can spread this practice to all over India then we can reduce our consumption of artificial fertilizers. Fertilizer manufacturing uses nearly 80% of our natural gas consumption. Thus subsequently, our natural gas usage would be reduced. This natural gas could be used for other productive purposes or be saved for future generations thus helping us in achieving ideals of sustainable development.

Another model from our environment history could be learned from Village Ralegaon Sidhdhi. Here, efforts of Anna Hazare has turned a once barren land into productive land with the use of organic farming and social capital. Similarly Tarun Bharat Sangh has achieved similarly feat in Alwar district. Tarun Bharat Sangh used the concept of water budget. He gathered 120 villages which were facing water problems and devised canal system which could help in solving their water problem.

There are numerous other example from Indian civilizational history which have turned the hostile environment into a profitable proposition. For example, Local harvesting system like Bawari in Rajasthan, or Use of solar+wind lamps in Laddakh or social movements like chipko or Appiko which helped in saving large amount of natural resources and forests.
We can draw lessons from these best practices and environmental movements. These explain the power of social capital and awareness. This would certainly help in reducing our resource consumption and sustainable development.

However, failure and mistake is a better teacher in life. This stands true in the context of our environment history as well. India has committed countless mistake in managing environment. We can draw bigger lessons from those events. One such example comes from city of Faridabad.

Faridabad is located hardly 20 km from the national capital. The city had nearly 800 small and big lakes at time of independence. However, recent survey shows that city has hardly 10 lakes left. Moreover, the biggest lake which was used for boating and water activities has turned into playground for kids. The water table has gone abysmally low. Why has this happened? This happened because of neglect of administration, sudden upsurge in population of the city and irresponsible and unaccounted use of water for agriculture and industrial activities. From this, we can learn to avoid mismanagement of existing resources.

Similarly, we can learn from Koena dam. The dam was built in a earth quake prone region. When quake came, it led to crack in the dam and as a result thousands of villages were submerged and great destruction of life and animals occurred. We can learn to focus on micro-dam instead of mega-dams. This teaches us to do proper geological research before taking this big projects.

Similarly, Tsunami crisis taught us importance of Mangrove ecosystem for coastal village life. The Villages which were shielded by Mangrove were protected better and faced little wrath of high waves. The villages where Mangroves were removed saw severe destruction. Moreover Mangrove vegetation in coastal zone acts as a fisheries zone. It provides various rich mineral and plants with medicinal values.

Our legislative history in environment domain teaches us about ill-effects of having a fragmented law. For example our air pollution, water pollution and noise pollution laws are separated. This creates problem for all stakeholders in implementing laws. Our state pollution control board have become non-functional due to poor finance and poor expertise.
Had there been a comprehensive law on environment, It would be easy to monitor different resources and various organization would not work at cross purpose.

Another fine example from our environmental history is of Excavation of Aravalli. Aravallis are considered residual mountain. They stretched from Gujrat-Rajasthan border to Delhi. They acts as major source of rainfall in Rajasthan during Monsoon. Recent media reports showed that in region around Delhi, Aravali are excavated so heavily that they are not more than mounds of sand or stone. Their distinguished geographical features are peeled off. As a result, we also see lesser rainfall in Delhi region.

Similar ambiguity in Land-use pattern laws have led to appropriation of forest land or conversion of forest land into industrial, or residential land. There are various other milestones in environmental history like Bhopal gas tragedy, frequent floods, Judicial intervention on CNG usage which teaches us various dont's and do's to achieve the ideal of sustainable development.

Today, world is facing serious problem of climate change and green house gas emission. If we continue driving the same road, then we may end up with oil wars, resource crunch, famines, which can ultimately lead to destruction of human civilization. Alternatively, we can learn from our mistakes in recent past like Koena Dam or Aravali Mountain or Mangrove destruction and implement our ancient knowledge to achieve the goal of sustainable development.

Gandhi Ji remarked "World has enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed". We need to follow these principles to achieve harmony with mother nature. We need mother earth more than mother earth needs us. Thus time has come that we shall be united in judiciously using our resources and use water harvesting, or natural sources of energy. Otherwise we shall perish.

Pluralism and Secularism in India

Recently, I was having discussion on "rising intolerance" and "economic agenda of Modi" with a friend on Facebook. After lot of push and pulls, my friend said "Beef ban could be justified on the ground that in democracy, majority wins the game of numbers so minority ought to be listen to them". Well, soon the election results were out. Seems like people of Bihar, did not like this notion of democratic majority. Modi received one of the "biggest electoral setbacks of his life". Bihar's mandate could not be construed as entirely "anti-modi" rather it should be seen in terms of combined wave created from caste-class politics, grass-root connections, "Bihari vs. bahari" debate and slowly evaporating warmth for Modi's grand promises during the national election and his speeches from high podium of Red-forts. However, My friend's line of thought left me pondering over question of pluralism and secularism in India.

Over 3500 years of continuous civilizational history, India survived the onslaught of Aryans (debatable, saffron leaders believe that horses were original inhabitant of India), Grecko-bactrian, Parthians, kushanas, Turks, Mughals and later European powers. While west struggled against nature, India struggled against invasion from the outsiders. The major reason behind this survival was our civilizational values of tolerance, accommodation, kindness and humanity. The impact of Indian culture was so deep that most of the kings were Indianized in the process. This could be reflected in historical antecedents where Kushana king named his son "Vasudeva" (an Indian name). Selucus married his daughter to Maurya Dynasty. Akbar had nine ratna in his court house, many of them were non-muslims. The geography, culture and way of life was so rich that invaders could find the right balance between their way of life and locals way of life together contributing to general theme of Indian way of life. This Indian way of life was characterized by values of "respect to other's way of life", "values of collectivism", "mutual interdependence", "tolerance to different opinions, customs, costumes, crafts, carnivals, cuisines, cloths etc", "kindness", "peace" and "humanity". This laid the foundation of India's plauralism and Secularism.

Amartya Sen writes in Argumentative Indian, "This is a unique country where among any cross section of 100 people you could find people of 8 different religions namely Hinduism, Budhdhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Muslims, Christians, Zorastrians, and Jews". Herder, a political scholar of Europe argues that a nation with multiple languages is eventually going to break. His thoughts have proved clairvoyant for modern era Europe but India stands a notable exception of his thoughts. Here not just the language but food, festivals, dresses, and many other aspect of life changes every 50 kilometers. We have more than 24 major constitutionally recognized languages and nearly 260 dialects for a country of perimeter of nearly 15K kilometers. Even Rama a major god in Gujarat is a minor god in Bengal. It is difficult to find any similarity between mannerism of a kerala muslims and UP muslims except the skull cap. This diversity of lifestyle and thoughts underlies our civilizational strength of pluralism.

Had India followed the notion of democratic majority's subordination of minority then we would have been a homogeneous country with one language, one way of dress, one religion, one festival, one kind of food habits. And that would have marked the death of idea of India in the past. Some rulers tried to achieve this homogeneity but our spirit to live ( Eros ) was greater than spirit of dying ( Thanatos ). The plans of Bkhtiyar Khilji and Aurangzeb could never succeed. Leaders like Shivaji, Jat and Sikh rebellion kept Aurangzeb on his tenterhooks. And soon after his death, Mughals degenerated to become history.

India has never followed the tradition of democratic majority except for political usage of term. In India, Democratic majority is merely a mechanism for electing a government and a leader. But the government and the leader is bound to obey our civilizational treasure. The seat of power does not give absolute authority. Our age-old time tested value-system and rich cultural diversity draws some red-lines for any governing authority which should not be crossed. Hardliners may argue that "concept of civilizational values" is lame and ambiguous. They may look for some concrete doctrines which would help in governing in rule-bound manner.

Indian freedom fighters and constitutional forefathers were knowledgeable people who had understood Indian history vis-à-vis western model of majority rule. They used this civilizational strength to break the talisman of western hegemony over Indian culture. As a result, Indian constitution encapsulates these values in very articulate manner. It provides the necessary skeleton, the basic framework within which government of the day should rule. Those who wish to remain oblivion to Indian history, can learn about the idea of pluralism and secularism from the constitution. It may not be a treatise of history but it succinctly elaborate various rules of behavior for proper administration.

First, let us see the idea of secularism. Indian secularism is not same as Western secularism. Western Secularism derived concept of Secularism from Machiavelli's thought in "The Prince". Machiavelli argued that "religion should be completely separated from politics". Consequently, Religion should be limited to private sphere of life. This forms the basis of French policy of "Lucite" where Sikhs are banned from wearing turban or Muslims are banned from wearing hijab or the majority population of Christian is banned from flaunting cross in public. Indian secularism believes that state should maintain a principled distance with all religions. In fact, Indian constitution distinctly award certain rights to their citizen under article 25 to 28 and separately protect minority interest against majority domination under article 29 and 20. Under this, an individual has fundamental right to profess, propagate, and practice their religion.

In Indian landscape, religion has been very closely integrated with people's way of life. A number of our choices of food, cloth, and customs are derived from our religious belief. In this context, religion becomes a powerful source of identity for individual. Individual personal mental growth is closely linked with his freedom of religious expression. Ours is a country where ISRO's chief visits Tirupati temple before a major launch or leader of masses are seen wearing rings or trinkets. Thus Constitutional protection of these freedom of expressions becomes quint-essential for our well being and societal well being. No government of the day ought to cross this red lines in visible or invisible manner.

These written rules of secularism has become a guiding light to continue the tradition of pluralism in most integrational manner. Our pluralism refers to our diversity of custom, costume, cuisine, craft, carnivals, communication (Language) and most importantly opinion, thought and beliefs. This has become possible due to our past history of accommodation, respect to other's way of life, tolerance, peace and mutual interdependence. In the present context, concept of secularism as enshrined in our constitutional document provides us the vision and wisdom to maintain this plurality. It rejects the idea of homogeneity. It rejects the idea of domination of majority over minority's way of life. It also rejects the idea of one nation, one language, one religion.

This plurality and path finding light of secularism limits the notion of democratic majority to its political context. Probably, this is the reason India became the largest and one of the most vibrant democracy in the world. Almost all the countries which were emancipated from colonial rule during mid 20th century have succumbed to forces of dictatorship, oligarchy or coup. India stands as a notable exception. This could be attributed to combined DNA of plurality, secularism and democracy in veins of Indian masses. Ours is a country where a chai-walah became prime minister. At one point, we had President with religion affiliation with Islam, Prime minister with religious affiliations with Sikhism and Leader of largest coalition with Christian background. Such diversity could not be find elsewhere in the world.

So let us cherish this diversity and not be drained with the propaganda of beef ban, love-jihad, ghar wapasi or narrow other religious agenda. When the calamity comes, homogeneity is destroyed, Only diversity survives. Let us work together to make India more freer, diverse and consequently much more stronger.

Will look into grammar later..