There is nothing in the news that makes one smile…nothing at all, except the Supreme Court ruling on Pepsi, Coke and now others, to pay substantive fines for destroying the environment. At least this is a lesson we have learnt from the United States where any damage to their natural treasures is met with severe punishment. For these cola giants, the days of applying double standards are over!
The disinvestment initiative has come to a grinding halt. It is quite unbelievable how we never seem to join the millennium we are in. We are a country that wallows in the past, our past, and what needs to grow and change avatars gets stuck in a time warp and that which needs protection gets ruthlessly destroyed. Old minds with frayed baggage continue to formulate policy and cannot passionately fight new challenges because working alternatives need people with energetic minds. The dearth of being able to find solutions and implement them is the real failure within our leadership. They are surviving the onslaught of change, for the moment, by going deeper into a nationalist shell, into the past. They exploit an already exploited people. Intellectual tolerance has gone out of the window. New ideas of a new generation are discounted.
Tragedies on the tracks have become as normal as rape and theft. Every horror of malfunction and mismanagement is seen to be either ?sabotage? or Pakistan engineered. This is a great excuse for abject failure and the complete lack of accountability that has become the hallmark of life in India in circa 2002. The top leadership turns a blind eye. No one takes a position. However, they collect the taxes with which they are supposed to govern…but they do not. The entire exercise has become a farce. If you pay your taxes legitimately, without bribing some officer of the government, you are hauled up for questioning. If you pay a bribe, you get exempted from paying your taxes…thank God they haven?t blamed ?sabotage? or Pakistan for that! Every Indian knows this to be true. The ministers and secretaries to government know it to be true and they consciously do nothing to stop this rampant exploitation.
This is Wildlife Week, the tail end of it. For India, the treasures that nature has endowed it with are truly valuable. Unfortunately, those who can help nurture the treasures understand nothing of the value and have plundered the earth. For them, ?value? is cash. They have broken laws blatantly. Politicians have encroached areas that are out of bounds under the law of this land, businessmen have exploited vast tracts of forests that are more often than not out of bounds. They have done this with the tacit support of the politician. All these misdoings have been laced with remuneration. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were the only two prime ministers who understood the crying need to keep the lungs of this country healthy and enacted protection laws. It was, therefore, heartening to see the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation celebrate the conservation of our forests and wildlife. Sonia Gandhi strongly reiterated her commitment to our natural heritage. If only the Congress Party would take on this cause on behalf of the future generations of Indians, since no other political party seems to have these crucial issues as part of their agenda.
When the living rooms of the metropolises resound with complaints of lack of water, overwhelming pollution and other such impediments in their lives, maybe they should sit back and use their minds for a moment. Industry pollutes our rivers with their waste; they trample on our forests that are also catchments areas; they belch out pollutants into the atmosphere…let us not forget that the three-wheeler killed our human lungs. It is surprising that the Confederation of Indian Industry has never thought of doing a jamboree on the environment ? forests and wildlife. Yes, it would probably be rather embarrassing for most of their members. But, it is never too late…even they can be educated about this treasure house and maybe they will become the new protectors.
It is now a question of conversion…from being exploiters to conservators and protectors.