(Sanghnomics is a weekly column that tracks down and demystifies the economic world view of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and organisations inspired by its ideology.)
The alarming surge in air pollution across northern India during the winter months has become a perennial crisis. Different stakeholders in society have tried to deal with it in different ways, but one common factor is that the public discourse on this issue is dominated by accusations.
While political parties exchange barbs and turn it into a blame game,: environmentalists are also not left behind as they too blame industrial emissions; the governments leave the onus on agricultural practices like parali (stubble) burning; planners blame it on haphazard urban development and sociologists pin it down on mass migration.
All these factors are important but this situation reminds us of the blind men trying to figure out how an elephant in the room looks.
Searching for solutions in the wrong place
Despite spending huge amounts of money, launching several missions and programmes and even after creating awareness in the society about this challenge why we aren’t able to solve it. Rather every year, it keeps on getting worse.
Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that we aren’t treating the ailment, we are treating largely symptoms of a deeper malaise. The fundamental, yet often unaddressed, root cause of this problem and several other challenges that we have started facing in our day to day lives lies in the very unsustainable development model currently being pursued.
The solution lies right here
A genuine and lasting solution requires a paradigm shift towards a sustainable model. Fortunately, this does not have to be created from scratch.
India's ancient wisdom—which offered clear contours of ecological harmony and sustainability when judiciously blended with modern scientific and technological techniques can provide this solution.
In fact, India possesses a unique opportunity to not only solve its persistent environmental woes but also to present the global community with a viable, alternative development path to counteract the pervasive consequences of global unsustainability.
RSS is leading the charge against unsustainable models
A positive sign is that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS), the largest voluntary organisation in the world has decided to take a lead in this effort especially during its centenary year.
Earlier also, the RSS inspired organisations like Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, Laghu Udyog Bharati, Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat, Vigyan Bharati and Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram have been repeatedly pushing to shift from the current unsustainable development model.
Reckless consumerism’s consequences
Right since the second RSS Sarsanghchalak MS Golwalkar, all major RSS functionaries have emphasised since post-independence that India should have its own model of development. The core of this model is to check reckless consumerism that has become the driving force of modern economic models especially in the post-Keynesian era.
The formula for ‘Growth’ or ‘Economic Growth’ in today’s world is ‘greater the consumption, greater the demand, greater the production, greater the GDP’. A rise in GDP in pure numerical terms is considered to be a sign of growth. This has resulted in reaching such an impasse.
Herman E. Daly pointed this out way back in 1996(‘Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development; pp5), “If development means anything concretely it means a process by which the South becomes like the North in terms of consumption levels and patterns. But current Northern levels and patterns are not generalizable to the whole world, assuming anything remotely resembling even our best existing technology, without exceeding ecological carrying capacity that is, without consuming natural capital and thereby diminishing the capacity of the earth to support life and wealth in the future. It is clear that we already consume natural capital and count it as current income in our national accounts.
Economic models ignore ecological costs
He raised the question about consequences of this approach of modern economists, “Might such expansion destroy the ecological capacity of the earth to support life in the future? Perhaps, because such a "liquidation" can be "optimal" in the economists' models. The dominant model excludes ecological costs altogether, but even those models that recognize ecological costs, if they are based on present value maximization, also can lead to "optimal" liquidation. The higher the discount rate, the sooner the liquidation. This anomaly sometimes makes neoclassical economists uneasy, but not always. Their usual assumption is that additional manmade capital substitutes for liquidated natural resources.”
The current Sarsanghchalak of RSS Mohan Bhagwat has also precisely pointed out towards such consequences in his RSS’ centenary speech on October 2 this year, “The harmful consequences of the materialist and consumerist development model adopted worldwide, based on a materialist and compartmentalized approach, are increasingly becoming evident everywhere. In Bharat too, due to the same model, irregular and unpredictable rainfall, landslides, drying up of glaciers, and other similar effects have intensified over the last 3-4 years. The entire water supply of Southwest Asia originates in the Himalayas. The occurrence of these disasters in the Himalayas should be considered as a warning bell for Bharat and other countries of South Asia.”
RSS’ 2022 resolution
Earlier in a 2022 resolution, the RSS had called, “upon the citizens to work on Bharat centric models of employment generation to strengthen the economy and achieve sustainable and holistic development.”
The RSS has already taken up activities in the field of Environment protection and conservation through initiatives in three key areas- water conservation and water management, planting trees and eliminating use of plastic and other non-biodegradable material like thermocol.
A separate national level vertical under the name ‘Paryavaran Sarankshan’ (Environment Protection) looks after these activities and the organisation has already set up units at least up to the district level all across the country
Post-independence, ideologues and experts like Dattopant Thengadi, Deendayal Upadhyay, Bajrang Lal Gupt, Devendra Swaroop, Nanaji Deshmukh, MG Bokare and Anil Madhav Dave have created a whole body of literature about the “Bharatiya model of development’ that can address our perennial problems.
Conclusion
Unless we move towards a Bharat-centric model which is less consumerism oriented and more focused on sustainability, the perennial problems like air pollution and climate change would not only persist but are likely to get worse. One needs to go back to ancient wisdom as reflected in this famous mantra in Atharva Veda: “Mātā bhūmiḥ putro ahaṁ pṛthivyāḥ” that translates to the earth is my mother and I am her child. So it is my duty to protect her.
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