Resurrect Gandhian Principles for Equity & Sustainable Development
Al Gore and Dr. R.K. Pachauri (IPCC) under the Mahatma’s words!
Today is the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi - regarded as ‘Father of the Nation’ by the Republic of India and a ‘Global Peacemaker’ by the United Nations; so much so that this day is also celebrated as the International Day of Non-Violence. The Mahatma has also been the inspiration for US President Obama who believes that America has its roots in Gandhi’s India because the teachings he shared with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. helped change U.S. society through the civil rights movement.
Now, with the world facing a climate crisis and already on the crossroads of equity and/in development, it is time to resurrect and revive the Gandhian principles of simple living-high thinking, participatory governance, etc. at the global level.
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Gandhi has had a profound and celebrated influence not just on the nonviolence movement but also on several environmental movements as well. Many environmental activists who claim ‘deep ecology’ as their guiding philosophy have barely heard the name of Arne Naess, who coined the term but know Gandhi well. Naess himself admitted his debt to the Mahatma.
The Mahatma has also been a sustainable development pioneer and his teachings are as relevant today as they were a few decades ago. For India, he had warned when she first attained her freedom in 1947, that if the country tries to follow the western model of ‘development’, it would strip the world bare like locusts. Although the warning went unnoticed, this is true for India and other fast emerging economies who are now also rising up in the list of the top carbon emitter countries in the world.
But an alternate pathway to development can only be laid if the society at large is ready to accept that such a thing exists. And if the western countries who have the technology ready are willing to share it not for profit but as a cost of living on a habitable Planet. And only if the global outlook makes a transition from having an economic approach to having an environmental approach to development and all other things.
December is when world leaders will meet in Copenhagen to discuss the fate of the world, as we know it. Since Kyoto expires in 2012, they would also discuss the deal that is to be introduced after that. Lets hope this one passes the Gandhi test and gives the developing countries a fair and appropriate opportunity for a carbon free development.
It`s great, thank you !!
May the meeting be practical and bring a change in the development system or May the world rest in peace.