MAHATMA GANDHI
AND THE ENVIRONMENT- by Mr. Braj Behari Prasad
For a
majority of people,
Mahatma Gandhi was a symbol of peace, non-violence, freedom, justice,
equality, human rights, religious harmony and above all the greater
good to the humanity. A very few people are aware that he was a
champion crusader of environmental preservation and protection of
Mother Nature.
The world has witnessed
a very rapid industrial development during the last 50 years. In the
race for progress and economic domination, each nation is trying to
exploit the nature to an insurmountable degree thereby creating a
world that will soon become inhabitable not only for human beings but
all forms of life. In the words of James McHall, the human-being
has become the most dangerous organism that the planet has ever
hosted.
Gandhiji's
approach in dealing with the problems of environment was a holistic
one. He did not individually talk about the issues like climate
change, gas emissions, pollutions, ozone depletion, thinning of polar
ice and other negative natural phenomena but mainly dwelt on the basic
issues, which were contributing to the deterioration of living
environment. He did not believe in the band-aid solutions of
mitigating the environment problems but concentrated his thoughts on
bigger issues that could threaten the entire planet earth. His focus
was primarily on preservation and striking a balance between man and
machine, a balance in the use of renewable and non-renewable
resources. In other words, what he prescribed was the famous dictum
"simple living" which attempts to check on unlimited consumption and
reckless exploitation of natural resources. In fact, Gandhiji is the
precursor of the modern Green Movement as early as 1970, the Chipko
Movement in Northern India was a Gandhian movement aimed at stopping
the mindless felling of trees for industrial purposes. He emphasized
on less consumption and recycles of goods and services. One example is
worth quoting. He preferred to use ordinary postcard for addressing a
letter and whenever he received a postcard mail, he used the same card
for return reply. Gandhi believed that the earth had enough for all our
needs and not for all our greed. He was a staunch supporter of
village industries, which utilized the local raw materials. His
Charkha (Spinning Wheel) concept was based on the principle of
utilizing the manpower over the machine. He also believed that poverty
is a big factor in the overuse of natural resources. Poor people have
no choice but to fall back on nature to survive. In rural areas of
India, there were large-scale reductions in forest resources because
poor people cut those trees for fire to cook their meals, build
shelters and light fires to keep themselves warm during cold winters.
He believed the root cause of poverty was large-scale
industrializations that created wealth for a few. It is wrong to
assume that Gandhji was opposed to the use of technology. He suggested
that wherever the human hands could not do the jobs, machines were
appropriate tools to utilize. But where people can produce goods
without the use of machines; like in those remote villages of India,
efforts should be made to use human hands and their centuries old
acquired skills and ingenuity. The Khadi Movement was the result of
his beliefs in village self-sufficiency and decentralization of
economic initiatives. He was against building mega cities, like
Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Delhi and Kanpur because these human
concentrations not only created unsustainable environment but also it
resulted in an inequitable distribution of countries wealth. He said there is a need to put corporate interests aside and start putting
human interests at the center of our interactions with our
environment.
Gandhiji's
other holistic initiatives and the one that is very important was to
achieve a balance and order in the planet earth kingdom. The planet
earth eco-system is quite strained and there is an imbalance in the
biological components and an overall natural phenomenon. The human
beings, being a dominant and powerful biological species have
exploited the weaker species ruthlessly thereby threatening their
existence. In the name of progress, men have demolished trees, killed
animals, eliminated insects and worms through the application of
poisonous insecticides, chemicals and many other lethal weapons. In
the words of Gandhiji, man has no power to create life, therefore he
has no right to destroy life. Indian tradition holds mother nature
in high esteem and it emphasizes the need to protect her with a
rational behaviour. Gandhiji was quite blunt when he spoke, A I do
believe that all God's creatures have right to live as much as we have
and we should feel a more living bond between ourselves and the rest
of the inanimate world. He picked up cow's dung for an example and said,
The cow to me means the entire sub-human world. Man, through cow, is
enjoined to realize his identity with all that lives. He believed in
equality and his principle of non-violence in this way is universal
law of life and it manifests in love for all creatures.