Gandhi as an Environmentalist

While we celebrate one more birthday of Gandhi as the world non-violence day, the country at large seems to grapple with a dry and warm September, another truant monsoon and looming threat of global warming looking menacingly at us. Well, it may do well to remember Gandhi as an environmentalist.

Many, of course, would look at it with mild scepticism, yet Gandhi was without doubt a moral ecologist. Even a cursory glance at Gandhi’s life would prove that he was a practicing ecological yogi who through his simple lifestyle and ethical conduct inflicted minimal damage to mother earth. As a true yogi, he practised yamas and niyamas that pertain to environment and ethics of resource use. Yamas are the principles that guide human behaviour in relation to other humans and living creatures and non-living materials. The five yamas are ahimsa or non-violence towards all living things,satya or truth, asteya or avoidance of destruction and vandalism, brahmacharya or celibacy to control mating instinct, andaparigraha or not amassing wealth beyond requirements.

The niyamas are self-based codes of conduct that emphasise cleanliness of mind, body, and surroundings, contentment, austerity, self-introspection and prayer.

Gandhi believed that there is divinity in all life and thus was a votary of conservation. His principle was simple. Since human beings had no power to create life, they therefore had no right to destroy life. His lifestyle was a highly sustainable one focusing on simplicity, austerity and need.

Today as we talk about sustainable development, Gandhi’s views appear highly contemporary. His focus on swadeshi, indigenous technology, village economy and austere life are all relevant as we are facing the wrath of nature due to rampant destruction of natural resources in the name of development. It is now being realised that the choice posited by the developmentalists was a misconceived one. It is no longer about healthy economy versus healthy environment. Rather, it is of healthy environment for healthy economy. The misconception that there is disagreement among scientists about damage due to global warming is a motivated campaign backed by small but powerful lobbyists of special interest groups. Such disinformation campaigns are a part of larger designs of vested interests.

Gandhi’s advocacy of an uninterventionist lifestyle now seems to be the answer to the present day problems of global warming. The phrase “health of the environment” is not just a literary coinage. It makes real biological sense because the surface of the earth is like a living organism. Without the innumerable and varied forms of life that the earth inhabits, our planet will become like other parts of the universe — drab and lifeless where living things cannot exist.

The Rigveda says that the earth is the mother and the heaven is the father who united to bring about the cosmic act of creation. The earth bears foodgrains in her womb. May those who desire foodgrains worship the earth. Similarly, it has mentioned the significance of forests and herbs by dedicating hymns to the goddess of forest. Mother earth needs to be respected and preserved and the vedic hymns were to remind mankind of this.

Gandhi was a votary of this view and a lot can be learnt from his life in this regard too. He was certainly an apostle of applied human ecology who practised life without meaningless consumption.