When will we listen?

Madhav Gadgil

Madhav Gadgil obviously is a sad man today. All those politicians ruling this country as well as in the opposition are ganging up to rubbish a comprehensive report painstakingly prepared by this man. Before doing so I wonder how many of them had really gone through the report and realize the importance of its implementation.

When the report was first submitted they found to their horror, how much attrition it may cause to their vote-bank if it is implemented.  Hence they immediately employed another man with Rocket Science back ground to make a new study on environment (sic) and provide suitable suggestions- and when I say ‘suggestion’ it is only a euphemism for the word ‘water-down ‘-on the existing report. He promptly did so; even identifying and naming hydro-electric projects as environment friendly and clean energy sources! Though the report was diluted to a very great extend; the political masters are still apprehensive of their real bread and butter namely the Vote-Bank being affected and are wondering how much more water can be added to the already diluted report.

This exercise of continuous dilution of a report to suit their political ends reminds me of a story of a sailor who went about to make a sailors cap from a precious little piece of cloth he got as a gift from his mother. First he approached a tailor for this purpose. The tailor took measurements and agreed to make a cap though he felt the size of the cloth was a bit less than required. The sailor felt that he should have a second opinion on this and approached another tailor with the same demand.

 This tailor offered him to make two caps with the same cloth instead of one.  This surprised the sailor. He thought that he should look out for more options and get someone who can make maximum number of caps out of the same cloth. Finally he found a tailor who promised to create four caps. Happily he placed the order with this tailor and when he got the caps prepared he found to his dismay that the caps were so small in size and is more suitable to be used as finger caps.

Ptolemy was a revered scientist of the middle ages. His postulate of the earth as the centre of the whole universe and all the stars and other heavenly bodies circling around it was the accepted idea then. It also suited the Church. When Copernicus, Galileo and their ilk came in the wake of Renaissance period with evidence to the contrary, every one opposed it tooth and nail. These Scholars even faced threats to their lives for propagating theories which were considered to be heretic.

Same kind of situation seems to be prevalent in the case of human development. Basically, as in the Ptolemy/Copernicus case there are two schools. One is economy and business centered development and the other ecology and nature centered. While the first ones declared aim is to have development at any cost the second group feels that a sustainable economy can only survive in a sustainable environment and all development should be nature-centric to be sustainable. 

  

The vested interests of the ‘economy’ group are very obvious. Short term and immediate gains are their objectives. Instead of educating the common man with the repercussion that the future generation would be facing due to the present generation’s greedy pursuits; they are projecting the immediate inconveniences as mammoth and life threatening. They even are able to woo the humble farmers and the common man by raising the boggy of loss of cultivable land and compulsorily confining to organic farming. Their stakes are quite high and they will go to any extend to protect their concerns.

Today those who bat for a nature-centric approach are in the minority and their task of fighting these vested interests are very great.  The time is ticking away. By the time wisdom dawn on those who matters; will it not be too late?