| Youth
and the Environment by SK Sharma, People First |
Numerous programmes are being organised to inculcate awareness amongst our youth about concern for the environment. A major achievement of such programmes is dramatic reduction in the use of polluting firecrackers during Diwali. The CLEAN programme of Development Alternatives has, amongst other things, created a major impact on improving awareness about water quality.
Much more needs to be done about creating awareness amongst our youth in regard to our rich ethos covering social, environmental, economic and governance issues. Some with closed minds adopt bigoted attitudes while those influenced by the West, are critical of everything Indian. Both are misguided. To illustrate, some bigoted Indians are condemning celebration of Valentine’s Day while the "modern" youth considers it the in thing. Had they been aware of our wholesome attitude towards love and sex as propounded by sage Vatsayan, they could have begun celebrating Vatsyayan Day and given Vatsyayan cards to their loved ones!
India’s greatest strength is that it has been a
freethinking society, imbibing new perceptions in its ongoing search for truth.
Its degeneration started after subjugation under British imperial rule, western
education designed to denigrate our culture, and retention after independence of
oppressive imperial institutions in a pseudo democracy. The common people are
still subjects of an exploitative system.
Few amongst our youth are aware of our ethos of sensitivity towards the environment. They are even less aware of why we are a degraded society today. Globalisation is giving a false sense of progress but by fostering endemic corruption and creating vulgar wealth alongside abject poverty, it is leading to increasing foreign economic domination, environmental degradation and social violence. In most states, droughts and floods due to depleted forests and water systems are now dehumanising our people.
Bharat drew its strength from its several thousand year democratic ethos symbolised in Ram Rajya, the just rule of the epic monarch Ram. Our ancient scriptures mandate that every village, district and city shall be self-governing. The
local parliament would control all local resources and handle all local matters such as administration of justice, police, education, healthcare, land, water system and forests. The state could demand no more than 16 percent of local revenues for higher level functions and could not interfere in local matters.
Gandhiji advocated such true democracy calling its Gram Swaraj. If we had listened to him, the village parliaments consisting of all adult men and women would have adequate resources to engage good teachers and health officers, control the population and ensure sustainable use of forests and water systems.
Gandhiji favoured technology that empowers the people, not
makes them its slave. In the Chapter "Gandhi and Satellite" in his
book "The Third Wave", Alvin Toffler described information technology
as truly Gandhian. Coordinated by the district governments, the village
parliaments would have encouraged responsible entrepreneurship and industry. Our
villages would have acquired urban quality like Swiss villages, cities would not
have slums, and the nation would have become self-reliant.
Our leadership influenced by the Western and Soviet models, felt that Gandhiji was taking India back to the bullock cart age. It retained the faulty Westminster system and exploitative colonial institutions — centralised, non-transparent, bureaucratised. This has created heavy bureaucratic overheads, corruption and wastage, and led to all round degradation. In the Westminster system, since the executive and legislature are mixed up, every legislator is a potential minister. This fosters jockeying for power, horse trading, bribing legislators, jumbo
cabinets and instability. We see this every day in ugly reality. The watchdogs become wild dogs of governance! India, not Britain, is the mother of democracy symbolised in Ram Rajya.
Suppose in our cities, the citizens retain a stipulated share of the property tax with the neighbourhood parliaments (similar to Gandhiji’s village parliaments) to look after neighbourhood roads, parks, electricity and water distribution, garbage disposal and security. Would we then not become more responsible citizens and do much better and at less cost than the municipal officials? Our villagers may be illiterate but they know more about their environment than we do. After all, they protected our forests for 4000 years!
These are issues on which our youth needs to ponder upon. By the way, should our youth not have vacation in the festive winter months? They can then travel near and far, absorb our culture and environment and partake in active sports in the festive winter months. Hostels vacant in winter months can earn substantial funds as low budget tourist accommodation, to improve education facilities. In Europe, they have vacation in their festive summer months. Our colonial masters imposed summer vacations on us to visit the hills or enjoy British summer! We continue to be slaves of such faulty practices.
