Today is Blog Action Day – a day when thousands of bloggers commit to blog (write) on a topic to create awareness and initiate discussion around an issue of global importance. This year’s issue is Climate Change.
Hinduism has always stressed the need for living in harmony with nature and almost all the elements in Nature are part of worship in Hindu religion – Sun, moon, wind, plants, animals, mountains, rivers… They have been included in the daily worship of Hindus by our Sanatana Dharma tradition after realizing that all animate and inanimate rise and fall in the Supreme Being and that each element is interdependent and very essential for the survival of living beings.
But climate change trigged by human greed is rapidly affecting many elements worshipped by Hindus and the most important among it is River Ganga. (Since the topic here is climate change I am ignoring pollution which is the greatest threat to Ganga.)
Gangotri glacier, which provides up to 70 percent of the water of the
This means Ganga Ma will disappear during the summer season – bringing the life of millions of people to a standstill – leading to large scale migrations and social and economic problems. The death of
If we don't act now, there will be no Mother Ganga to offer prayers and rituals. The water of
Hindu scriptures are full of stories and lessons about the pitfalls involved in excessive materialistic life. Global warming and Climate Change are the products of this excessive materialism and economic greed.
For Hindus, the
So what can an individual who is reading this article do? Create awareness, discuss, spread the news, get informed about the dangers of climate change – this will put pressure on the political bosses to act. Make climate change an election issue. Buy only green products. Stop purchasing the products of those companies and countries that do little to stop global warming - Gandhiji shook the very basis of British Empire by boycotting foreign made goods.
A couple of years ago the whole of
Can’t we start a similar campaign to Save Ganga – which is a lifeline to millions of people in
7 comments:
Plant plants & Climate change.
i do agree with you that we should stop polluting all rivers. It is not only industrial pollutants(which, of course is a major pollutant) but also our mindless ways of trashing things. All along the banks of the Ganga, one can see flowers, papers, plastic bags and cups all floating along the river. It pains me to see that we treat our loving Ganga Maata like a trash can. Can we as pilgrims, treat her with dignity and grace and stop using her like a dust bin.We should ( as pilgrims, tourists and residents)treat her with respect and i request all of us to treat WATER itself, with a lot of respect like how our rishis and yogis treated them
India got whole lot of financial aid from the World Bank to clean the Ganga. That should have been used to build sewage cleaning plants.
It is not only the Ganga that is polluted. More or less all rivers are in a disastrous condition. The schziphrenia of Hindu people is they destroy what they venerate. Veneration of Ganga on one side, its total destruction on the other; veneration of womanhood here, raped woman (on a daily basis) there; veneration of cow on the one hand, on the other there she eats filth and is set free to die a lonesome death; veneration of the earth (soil) here and there nothing is done to clean the soil in Bhopal (though that money which was given by Carbide would have been sufficient to decontaminate the soil and protect ground water from getting polluted).
India's environment should be put under the protection of an international environmental commitee, this seems to be the only way, how things will change, not otherwise.
There are almost no public toilets in the country. Millions of people shit, urin, spit, clean their noses just there along the railway lines and roads. This behaviour is a disaster for the environment.
Water closets at least have the chance of being connected to a sewage plant.
Lack of public cleanliness is the one reason why diseases like malaria, dengue, etc. spread here.
Here we have no proper canalisation in India so that water collects in pools in the monsoon. (There are other countries like Japan that have heavy rains as well, but just see there drainage system.) India would also get help, only if she would also take it and ask for it.
Other Asian countries Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan have a global standard, but not so India...This is really painful, because India is a country with high potential and does nothing to meet global standards, in spite of the ultra modern technology that is available and India could afford it. No doubt!
India is the one of those countries that introduces new products like polythelene bags, plastic shampoo bottles and gives no thought to recycle these leftovers. Industrialised countries have learned their lesson and India should learn from them like a clever fellow and not make the same mistakes.
Industry cannot pump their sewage into rivers or air. Other industrialised countries have filters built in their production machinery so that the emissions into the are filtered beforehand, that industrial wastage is clarified in sewage plants before it can be inducted into the rivers. Trash is collected separately and recycled and not left to cows, pigs who eat it. Heaps of garbage in this country are a sad sighting. Though India is proud of its development, it will continued to be ridiculed because development is not a one-sided coin. It ought to go together with environmental development and conservation.
Ganga is polluted partly because there are no proper laws on industrial wastage, not sufficient sewage plants, and partly because some traditional practices like:
- corpses are thown into the Ganga
- hair after tonsur goes into the ganga
- whole lot of other trash is thrown into the rivers
- washers wash their laundry their, be it hospital laundry, or from households
- Are these practices necessary to practice Hindu religion?
- strictly speaking, it is forbidden in the scriptures to urinate, etc. near any river.
- India cannot modernize itself as long as she keeps holding some traditions which could well be some degenarated form of religion.
Government should provide for crematoriums and it should be forbidden by law to throw corpses into the Ganga or into any river. Burning of corpses may be so expensives for some people that they throw the corpses into the rivers.
For a population of Billions India would need Billions of public water closets or more econonical closed water system water closets or vaccuum closets, billions or trillions of public trash cans, billions or trillions of recycling plants, sewage plants, a functioning drainage system that would cover a population of billions, filtering plants, billions of trained environmental workers and engineers (thus, a market with scope; unemployment would be reduced); trillions of trash collecting trucks and workers;
for regions with arsenic water trillions of puriying plants or filters; laboratories to control the rivers water quality, drinking water quality.
And to accomplish all this - if we start today and work day and night in shifts - 25 yrs or more will be required.
Why environmental conservation and education goes hand in hand?
Education is necessary. In order to hold that standard people will have to be educated to use the water closet for example.
Teachers and adult educationists will be needed.
Mass media could be used to impart education to masses. India is a sunny country and should consider the development of solar energy plants. Many European countries have projects like this.
Whole lot of effort is needed before India can meet the global standard of developed nations. It is not only the environment, it is just everything in India:
You only need to put your hand anywhere and there you feel the aching. Be it traffic, road accidents, emissions of cars, education of masses, women rights or human rights....
"Devi sureshwarii bhagavatii gange
tribhuvan taariRiNi tarala tarange..."
Oh Ganga!
Why must you flow in India?
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