NATURES WARNING – A CASE FOR INCLUSIVE PROGRESS (PART 2)

The first part of this piece was to highlight that nature is not a constant phenomenon but rather is constantly altering its character, changing its behavior, modifying its shape and structure. Geologically it is always in a lurch due to multiple forces and energies which are reacting with each other at all times. Humans instead of accepting and living with nature as it changes, has decided in his wisdom to modify and challenge nature. Human endeavor is to create a stable living condition for itself based on a presumptuous assumption that he could outlast nature and survive defying whatever conditions thrown at him. Such arrogance would be fatal in the short run. The end result for sure is that planet would survive humans just like it has it has seen the end of dinosaurs.  

This second piece is to take a closer look at things around us and hope that wisdom dawns on us.

When we see a tree some rather strange kind of peace and happiness creeps into our heart. A dense forest with huge and tall trees makes us wonder and increases the happiness manifolds. Picture of a dense rain forest enchants our imagination. The thoughts that come to our mind is not that of suffering and fighting but of some wonderful tranquility, which cannot be easily expressed in words. We long for some holidays in the peace and quiet of the forest, sit under a tree, near a stream, watch some animals go on with their life. It is not merely the fresh oxygen that attracts us to the trees. We also are envious of the harmony with which it exists with nature. We wish to share and become a part of this amity.

Let us not a silly moment assume that trees are unintelligent creatures. Trees have feelings and they take care of their friends. Trees together fend off the harshness of nature. They protect the animals living in their midst and also the smaller plant life. They ensure that life in whatever form survives in the forest or the wild. They have never fought nature but rather have prostrated themselves to the vagaries of nature if such a condition does come about like an earthquake or flood or wildfire. They have survived. Plant life and vegetation existed on this planet since the beginning of life itself. Today we humans extract coal from under the ground. Can we spare a second to think as to how do the todays trees survive when their ancestors were burnt to coal?

The vibrations that emanate from a tree or a forest are not that of a violent being which is uncomfortable in its existence. Had that been so, we would never venture anywhere near them. Tree bear up with nature, are not bothered with fighting against nature, continue with their peaceful coexistence, serve one and all with every aspect of its being, and these are the qualities that draw us towards them because we find these missing in us. In the bottom of our heart we realise that trees are wiser than us humans and we seek this wisdom from them.        

Moving on, the wise amongst us have said that there are two basic purposes of life. One is to simply be happy without reason and the other is to help other life forms coexist in peace. But since wisdom is an inflation driven over valued fictional commodity, we no more care for it. Commonly amongst us, we believe that it is not possible to be happy without reason. Essentially it needs some materialistic thing in our lives to make us happy. Be it money, wealth, tangible as well as intangible commodity and property, which will prove one amongst us to be superior to the other, pander to our desires and bloat our personal ego. In the process we do accept that it is perfectly fine to destroy one another since we have twisted the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ to its vilest and basest interpretation. When we no more care for fellow humans, to care for other life forms is a far-fetched argument and to abide by which would be foolish and coercive. We deem it too extravagant and against our fundamental human rights of survival.

Look at the havoc we have unleashed on our planet. To imagine that we propose to inhabit neighboring planets is so preposterous. But then to seek and desire more has been a stable human trait. We human have always been omnivorous and have therefore moved to more and more greener pastures hunting for food in the form of animals and fruits. The advent of agriculture diverted the desire of more and more to cultivable land. We then destroyed the trees and drove away the animals to make more and more land ours. Once villages were formed, we wanted better facilities and made them into towns and cities. Humans from villages wanted to move into cities and those from smaller cities to bigger cities. People from undeveloped countries wanted to move to developed countries. In this pursuit of more and better, we have battered the natural environment, we have hunted some birds and animals to extinction, and we have made the planet a big uncontrollable mess. So now we seek the next.

We no more seem to understand the definition of the word development. The western world took to materialism in a big way and considered themselves developed. Is it material wealth alone which signifies development? Is it development when such wealth is concentrated in the hands of only a few? Does the acquisition of material wealth through the destruction of natural environment and brutal repression as well as exploitation of fellow humans and animals connote development? We have witnessed recent history when the mighty western powers brought in globalization, forcing the undeveloped countries to accept WTO and other trade agreements so that they would be able to expand their market and grow further rich. Today when they realise that instead of their products, it is their jobs that have flown to those poor under developed countries all these agreements are being retracted and globalization is being revered. Similarly with climate change agreement, when the western countries grew economically they used only fossil fuel. Now when the under developed countries want to grow jogs through factories, the western countries want these undeveloped countries to retain forest cover, use no fossil fuel, and probably continue to remain poor, forever. We humans don’t even realise what our pursuits are costing us in terms of human sufferings. Policies have always been framed and implemented without considering their long term consequences on this planet and on every other life form. One such consequence we face today is global warming. Can any one country be insulated from the effects of global warming when the planet itself is getting warm, throwing rain, snow, floods, heat waves into unpredictable patterns. Migration has always been a human methodology to overcome difficult conditions set by nature. Today as a consequence to our short sighted policies (economic as well as political) we are witnessing countries blocking its borders and not permitting human migration. Is this the meaning and intent of development?

We humans need to understand and accept that it is false education that has lead us to this futile path, for which the destination is self-destruction alone. We are ruled by fear rather than love. We are short-sighted and selfish. Our religions are all worthless and we worship false gods. Unless we learn to sacrifice our personal interests and even ourselves for the common good of all, unless we learn to gauge the impact of our policies on the last man standing in the poorest country, unless we balance our needs and desires with those of animals and plants who share this planet with us, unless we use our talents and capabilities for the common benefit instead of personal benefit, we are doomed. Fortunately a few individuals who have become incomprehensibly rich in material terms realise this and have turned into philanthropists, channeling their wealth towards uplifting the living condition of the poor and those of animals who can’t speak out their sufferings.

The trees are mocking us our so called development. Can we make them our Guru and emulate them?    

NATURES WARNING – A CASE FOR INCLUSIVE PROGRESS (PART 1)

The title is in two parts. In the first part is ‘Nature’ which stands for whatever is natural in this world, as existing before the advent of humans. The system of things existing, the rules of physics, chemistry and biology as designed by nature itself. This is not about God per-se because for humans God represents everything which he does not understand and this metaphor has been constantly changing over the centuries.  I am therefore highlighting things tangible, substantial and those that adhere to procedures and maintain a unique balance within themselves.  The second part is ‘inclusive progress’. The phrase ‘inclusive development or growth’ has become cliché ridden pandering to the socialists as well as the capitalists theories and thought propaganda. For want of a better word I replaced this with ‘progress’ and my indication is towards a happy living condition for all life forms. This leans heavily into a spiritual concept of a contended life, living in harmony with nature and each of its components.

At a macro level to start with, let me draw everybody’s attention to the fact that nature is not a constant and consistent phenomenon. Temperatures, chemical contents, energies of different types, and several such forces which have a huge range and variety, react differently when their components say hello to each other. Nature definitely follows rules but it can get wayward in the intensity of application of its own rules. Events in nature happen spontaneously, caused by some factor and ending into its defined conclusion. Once a process gets rolling it is no more in anybody’s control. Spectacles’ life gravitational waves, bending of light, black holes are not yet fully deciphered. We don’t even know how and why water came to exist on this planet after its existence as a ball off volcanic and molten material post the big bang. A meteor crashing into this planet is not and cannot be a rare event, though the size and velocity may differ.     

Nature does not merely mean that which exists on this planet alone. The whole of existence including all the galaxies and spaces surrounding this planet is nature itself. The fact is we know hardly a miniscule proportion of huge tangible reality. We are baffled by what ‘dark matter’ stands for. We cannot see beyond some many thousand light years into space with our telescopes. We know that our moon is moving around our planet and in turn our planet is moving around our star the Sun, but we are not aware in which direction is the Sun moving.  We would be dumb to assume that it is constant and non-moving. We cannot deny that everything around is constantly reacting. It would be therefore wise to acknowledge that we should be prepared to expect the unexpected at all times.

At the micro level we humans have rather ruined ourselves with our gifted capability of desire and self-centeredness. Every life form on this planet suffers from insecurities of existence because of which all of us try to eat up or destroy the weaker species. However we humans execute this trait to an extreme form. We try to mold everything around us in the pretext that it will make our lives comfortable and easy and will help our survival into the future. We toy with nature resources available on this planet under the garb that they exist merely for our consumption. We dig up fossil fuel, burn it to make energy, to run our factories and our air conditioners and also our transport. We care little about the permanent collateral damage caused because our focus is on the immediate and yet temporary advantages gained. We annihilate wild beings like tigers, elephants and dolphins for our desires. Beings which are not so wild, like cattle, chicken and fish, we do rear but only to kill them for our palate. We have cut trees extensively to expand our homes, communities and agriculture. Such large scale manipulation of nature has never been documented before.     

This widespread callous rape of whatever is provided in nature could have been understood as parochial human behavior had it not been for the way in which we treat our fellow humans.  We have become grossly narrow-minded and massively engrossed in the nurturing of our personal egos and personal wealth that we no more care for the well-being of other humans. We don’t think twice about side-effects before manipulating drugs for medical treatment or selling them costly, we have popularized the use plastic even when its harmful effects are well documented, we extensively use pesticides in our agriculture knowing well that it would harm us. At another level we encourage GM seeds which by itself is a direct manipulation of nature.

A fragile nature ecology and selfish human psychology, both are accentuating the inevitable early destruction of the current life forms existing on this planet. It has definitely happened before when the planet went through the previous couple of ice ages and subsequent melt downs. Today we are talking about weather change and global warming; we are facing extensive drought and forest wild fires in some parts of the world and excessive rain and flood damages in other parts of the world simultaneously; we are seeing temperatures swinging to never seen before levels in countries near the north-pole like Japan, Scandinavia. Agriculture and cattle rearing both for food is a first major casualty in all the countries across the planet. Human migration is on the rise and would soon reach unimaginable proportions, gravely impacting those who are moving and those who they move into. When humans migrate, would animals not migrate as well. All these assaults against nature cannot have a happy consequence. Some scientists seem to suggest that we have already embarked on the one-way road to self-annihilation and that there is no U-turn possible anymore.  

Without sounding too pessimistic, let us understand and accept that everything else in nature barring humans represents a delicate balance. Everything or everyone else gets prepared to face rather than mold nature. We humans have turned out to be the cruel exception. In our endeavor to take control of our lives, we have merely ended up pulling down the curtain on life as it exists on this planet. To be honest, life on this planet has gone through several such upheavals before. The fact that there is a huge quantity of fossil fuel means that these existed as life forms at one time before they were destroyed. The causes of such destructions are not known except maybe the assumption that the meteor which blanketed the dinosaurs.  Destruction and resultant migrations due to climate changes has been witnessed at the Saraswati and Indus River civilisation where extensive geographies were impacted. Thus we can conclude that life will continue on this planet even without humans. Question is whether humans want to continue inhabiting this planet.

THE PITFALLS OF CASTE POLITICS

The past few months has been alive with news and views of Rohit Vemula and Kanhaiya Kumar both dalit students and political aspirants. Rohit played the death card to highlight his views or predicaments whatever one wishes to call it while Kanhaiya wore the crusaders hat and took campus politics into every house-hold, right into their drawing room during prime time. In the case of Rohit, the establishment with a tongue which is forked on the politics of caste, couldn’t help mismanage the whole incident. In the case of Kanhaiya, flowing in the center of the discussion was the subject whether he was anti-national. That brought into the arena multiple views about what constituted nationalism and then the subject digressed into patriotism and disrespect towards the armed forces. The drama soon shifted to Parliament and what followed was the big eyed histrionics of Smiti Irani, a minister who has no idea about the pressures of a PhD student. Very soon the arguments became partisan and it was proclaimed that loud expressions of ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ would be akin to waving the RSS propaganda. Later on as the melee continued, some students of an engineering collage in Srinagar Kashmir couldn’t contain their happiness as Indian cricket team lost to West Indies while a few others got thrashed by the state Police for creating a ruckus with the Indian national flag. All this back and forth exchange of heat and dust was being conducted under the umbrella of freedom of expression or ironically rather the perceived lack of it.

First, arguments should happen, even if it becomes a circus, as it is a healthy sign of a mature democracy and as long as nobody is trying to hurt another physically, they have the right to say anything, even something grossly stupid. In retaliation maybe they get out shouted. In such an atmosphere people tend to modify their views and maybe learn something new. The spectators also take some learning home. In no case should anyone try to stifle the voice of another. Inspite of myself I have to concede that the noise which Arnab Goswani creates on Times Now is good even though I hate watching it.

Secondly let us look at the root cause; the problem of caste discrimination. Caste system today is like a weather beaten mountain full of rocks which though unmovable has developed several cracks and with vegetation growing from every nook and corner. It is regrettable and a crying shame that it still remains non-budging. Caste is the English language word for the pre-Vedic or could be even the Vedic varana system of classification of people and their rights and obligations on the basis of their work skills and contributing abilities towards society. The knowledge bearers / teachers and the soldiers / protectors snatched a higher ranking. This is a practical and commonsense approach to acknowledge those who had the ability to help others realize their passions and those that protect while they learn the requisite skills. The farmers, traders, artisans and other service providers accepted the third ranking of those who are required in a society and helped to make it vibrant and colorful. The last category was left to those who couldn’t learn any skill or those who were too rustic to be molded or most probably those who were forest dwellers and outsiders to that specific society and its way of life. Apparently work skills and contribution to society was a matter of personal abilities and likings. People could move up and down the varanas based on their personal choice and it had nothing to do with rights by birth. Probably such segregation served some purpose because it became extremely popular and stuck on. People soon realized that the rights and benefits were too attractive to be given up and thus they manipulated it to teach their skills to their children even forcibly so that they do not get downgraded and lose out on living standards.

Over a fairly long period of time in came Alexander, then the Turks, the Mughals and finally the British. Society changed. Passing on skills sets to children was no more essential. What remained was the existing caste of the family which became permanent. The entire concept has been rendered useless now because (a) the lesser varanas had no way to get rid of their caste even if they have better skill sets and ability to contribute to society, (b) the higher varanas still control faith and resources which are important to living (c) the higher varanas find no motivation to give up privileges which they have become accustomed to over several generations. This dilemma has lead to social unrest; however unrest in society due of caste considerations is not a new phenomenon. If I may be permitted my mirth, I do subscribe to the opinion that Indian mythology is not all fiction, it is part itihasa as well, or in other words, there are a lot of facts which go unacknowledged. I would like to draw upon the story of Parasurama, a Brahmin, who vowed and also is reputed to have killed several thousand Kshatriyas for the reason that the latter community were either misusing their privileges or were ill treating the Brahmins or in were interrupting his ambitions. Another inference that I draw from Parasurama is that all the four varanas were not defined in a vertical manner but rather in a horizontal. To start with all of them were described as equal, and segregated by their contribution to society. Subsequent developments of war, security, religion, rituals, food and material comforts were reasons to pitch one community against another and society ended up in accepting one community above others with the Shudras or Dalits taking the last position.

Returning back to where we started, a major casualty of the caste politics has been the alienation from the feeling of nationalism. That society which considers one person superior for the mere chance of birth can never bind itself together as a nation. That society which considers some sections so inferior that others cannot be permitted to mix with them, can never bind itself together as a nation. Such segregations are breeding grounds of hypocrisy; where if a Brahmin commits a crime he is let off with a warning but a Shudras or Dalit is thrashed and left to die, where fruits of development is restricted to one’s own while others are denied and ignored, where one justifies one’s own corruption as a no-other-alternative or as a way of life while criticizing others. How does one convince to nationhood a sufferer due to society’s indifference? History is replete with stories of traitors to the national cause.

The demography of this country is slowly but surely tilting towards the lower castes and to my mind the best way ahead is to totally dismantle the caste equations, and I really mean totally. Caste comes in handy in certain aspects of life for instance while arranging a marriage alliance and while evaluating the extent of religious rituals. Even in such neutral regions it would be better to find some other alternatives and bypass the caste factor. People have to give up on identifying themselves with their caste, and look up for some different paradigm which will consider all people equal and rather evaluate them based on their skill and contributing capability. Today, we can see that while ordinarily people don’t concern themselves with caste when dealing with others in their endeavor to earn their daily bread, however some disgruntled ambitious elements are manipulating this subject for their political and economic benefits. 

SPIRITUALITY IN DAILY LIFE

Bo, staying alive is itself a struggle

When body mind and intellect

Do not remain consistent every moment

And emotions play havoc on the soul

Having a dream isn’t the mistake

You can even work towards a goal

So put forth your best efforts

Since purpose of living is to be happy

The fault lies in wishful expectations when

Dreams become desire exceeding merits

Then you merely become a victim

Because only a fool challenges his fate

Otherwise success kisses the feet

Of toilers with indifference to results

For destiny smiles on the patient

While acceptance can never kill

Faith and rituals do help

To inspire and to stabilize the ego

Maintaining a pleasant state of mind

And never lose hope.