By Ameya Thachappilly
Climate change is a reality, and a hard hitting one. The Earth, as we know it, is barely holding on and entire ecosystems are vanishing all over the world. It is also not an unknown fact that the most ‘intelligent’ species on Earth is the prime cause for all this destruction. However, man is now too busy building walls and dams and fighting over non-existential differences to be bothered to fix his mess. Moreover, the recent trend, over a couple of decades, has been the seemingly never-ending blame game of nations deliberating upon who contributed to the mess we’re in right now. Apparently, it is not enough to realise that man is contributing to global warming and is the sole destroyer of species, but we must determine which large piece of land has contributed the most to this mess.
In India, saving the environment cannot be our primary focus right now, for we’re too busy building dams and statues, and ‘developing’. The onus is on the ‘developed’ nations to clean up their mess. And this is simply non-negotiable. The questions raised by Indian parliamentarians and leaders in high positions have always revolved around how we will not have enough resources to put towards climate change and carbon emission reduction, and how, as a developing nation, we cannot afford to spend time and money on this issue. We do have money to cut trees, build roads and even huge statues because evidently, that needs to be the focus of the hour. Clearly, our priorities are set straight, because the economy is going to outlive the Earth and we can afford to worry about our ecosystem later.
The Development Excuse has been constantly pushed forth by the leaders of my
country for several years. In the past couple of elections, there has been a very insignificant display of promises towards the environment. At the most, we have a “Swachh Bharat” initiative to clean up India, which has done its considerable bit in selective regions, and cleaned up some waste. This, at this stage of the crisis, is not enough. Every politician in the last few elections has advocated for better jobs, better economies and more development, but close to none have even mentioned the deteriorating forests and water bodies and volunteered to make a change.
And understandably so, we’re too busy ‘developing’.
Nations all over the world, including my own, have been taught that a certain kind of development is the right way to go. As a result, we divide the world in terms of nations that have ‘developed’ because they have built huge industrial empires and are economically more well to do, and nations that are ‘developing’ because they are backwards but will be ‘fixed’ because they too, will build better infrastructure and industries. There is also an unsaid hierarchy that prevails in such a divisive world, where the developed world reeks of superiority and the developing and underdeveloped one’s stoop down to those who are superior.
Developing nations have been waiving their responsibilities of fixing the mess we’re in using the Development Excuse. However, ironically, the whole concept of development has been literally ‘copy-pasted’ from the Western notion of development that has landed us in this mess in the first place. As a nation, we are not fundamentally questioning what we are striving towards. The climate change problem requires a common human and humane solution, not a divisive one. India need not follow the common standard for development. This does not mean to say that we do not implement free access, better infrastructure and jobs, but there are other ways to go about it.
The underlying fact remains, that any development rooted in consumerism and capitalism is detrimental to us and the environment. As a person living in a ‘Third-World’ country that is still developing, I’ve been betraying the cause of my fellow brethren. I do not want my country to develop. Not in the manner we’ve been taught to anyway.
Growing up, I have learnt about an India that worships the five elements and looks at land as something that is entrusted to us not to exploit, but to take from it only what is needed. I have learnt of an India that always used sustainable ways of farming and is enriched with indigenous knowledge of how to use what we have, without reaping more than we should. I have learnt of an India that believes in an Eco-centric approach to the world, that looks at man as one among the other million species on Earth and not the degenerative Anthropocentric view the world has thrust upon us now.
Development shouldn’t be about how many roads we have or who has bigger buildings. Development starts with the nation learning from the other nations' mistakes and moving towards a future where we focus not on cures, but on prevention. We must advocate stringent punishments for any harm to the environment, starting from simple segregation implementation to industrial waste effluents. These measures are absolutely essential, and do not require as much money as is being pumped into multi-crore infrastructure projects. We must spread awareness, about the dangers of over consumption, the merits of sustainable and slow movements, and preach about how our culture is rooted in oneness in nature, rather than flout about its tendency to divide based on religion and caste.
The Development Excuse does not hold valid. It never should. For my nation, or for any nation. If it does hold valid, we are digging our own graves by falling into the same consumerist notion of contemporary ‘development’ that will lead to more destruction and violence. We will be falling into the same trap over and over again, and by the time we are ‘developed’ there will be no home to live in. It is beyond high time for the world to work past lines drawn on paper and rebuild and rejuvenate what we have killed. We, as the human race, do not have any excuses left.
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