Thoughts by eminent followers of Mahatma Gandhi
ENVIRONMENTALISM
Lester Thurow (1980), MIT Economist: “Environmentalism is an interest of the upper middle class. Poor countries and poor individuals simply aren’t interested”.
But Indian scholars posited
“Livelihood environmentalism v/s Full stomach environmentalism”.
It is a modern phenomenon which came into being after their occurred with an increase in
- Speed of Industrial Revolution
- Fossil Fuels
- New Transport
- Urbanisation
- Synthetic chemicals
- Industrial scale mining
- Human population.
Indian Scholars:
Scientists: Madhav Gadgil
AKN Reddy
Journalists: Anil Agarwal
Sunita Narain.
Activists: Medha Patkar
Ashish Kothari
Vandana Shiva.
Scholars: Patrick Geddes
Rabindranath Tagore
Western scholars:
John McNeil: Environmentalism is a view that humankind ought to seek peaceful coexistence with, rather than mastery of nature.
A post materialist phenomenon after reaching material prosperity.
Rachel Carson
Roderick Nash
John Muir
Aldo Leopold
Henry David Thoreau
Alexander von Humboldt
Ecological Town Planner of India : Patrick Geddes
Followed MK Gandhi’s thought: India lives in her villages. In agriculture and animal husbandry after sensing urbanization in India.
Met Vivekananda 1in 1900, in contact with his Irish disciple Margaret Noble (Sister Nivedita) who suggested the IISc, TISS model through Jamshed Tata.
Educated and worked in London, Mexico, Scotland, Edinburgh and Dundee as a Zoologist, Botanist and Economist.
His concepts on Politography and Politogenics —forgotten
Metropolis, Megalopolis and Conurbation remembered.
Energy utility through Paletechnic, Neotechnic and Techno culture.
Coined Carboniferous Capitalism (1915): Dominance of man by machine, finance and military.
1915 to 1924 – Went around 20 Indian cities to make an urban plan. Worked in winter and spring but moved to Europe and Scotland for the summer.
Town planning: Respect for Nature, Tradition and Democracy.
Ecological concerns:
Water – Rivers are sacred
Spaces – for tress, gardens and parks
Resources – Conservation tanks and wells
Recycle – Night soil as manure.
TO POSTPONE IS TO CONSERVE…
Small cities are better:
- Easy reach of nature
- Family and neighborhood life richer
- Administrators are less impersonal
- Deep sense of local patriotism
- Biocentric than mechano centric
- Safe, pleasant and secure housing for different classes
- Transport to work place
- Water and energy for commons
- Environmental sustainability
- Aesthetics
JC Kumarappa
J.C.Cornelius (1892) renamed himself as J.C.Kumarappa in 1929. Deputed as Professor of Economics in Gujarat Vidyapeeth by Gandhi after his letter on rural development. Published a survey of Matar Village (Ahmedabad) in 1931 – “Irrigation for farmers and drinking water for untouchables”.
Gandhi started All India Village Industries Association (AIVIA) in 1933 to hold his political struggle and get into constructive work. JCK was the Secretary General with JC Bose & C.V.Raman in the advisory board. Constructed his own 12×14 room. In 1938 Subash Chandra Bose, President of Congress invited him for the National Planning Committee chaired by Jawaharlal Nehru. But lasted only a year as he was irked by the Soviet model. In 1941 he organized a Khadi exhibition at Bombay after his friends started ignoring his radical thoughts. Against machine driven paper factories, weaving mills and sugar mills. Innovated Magan Deep and Magan Choola.
Like Gandhi, believed in “No industrialization without predation”. Violent, Large supply of goods, irrespective of use, Clever advertisements create demand, Economy of transience”. Agriculture “Greatest among all occupation” – Natural mutation with the environment, Economy of permanence.
Progress – Pull along nature’s dictates not creating violence and destruction.
Produce everything, we want from a limited area, we are in a position to supervise the method of production. Else, if we draw our requirement from ends of the earth, its impossible to guarantee the conditions of production.
Wrote in Harijan (Jan 24, 1948) – Swaraj to the masses – Gandhiji himself confessed – we do not have the requisite number of selfless workers. After 5 days, Gandhi suggested that Congress be disbanded and reconstituted as a body of constructive workers named Lok Sevak Sangh. Work on Untouchability, religious harmony, renewal of rural economic life, education, sanitation etc., The Next day he was assassinated.
He even blamed Nehru for moving into the Commander in Chief’s palace.
Mahadev Desai – Secretary of Gandhi referred him as “The violent exponent of the non-violence”.
Rastrapathi Bhavan signage in 1951 – “Bullock carts not allowed”. JCK told Nehru “When there are two persons in public and the presence of one is likely to be a menace to the other, my common sense would lead me to restrain the source of danger rather than the possible victim”.
Preferred Kaveri, Godavari, Krishna, Mahanadhi states rather than their division on linguistics.
Vinobha Bhave – Bhoodhan Movement – Proper utilization of land is important than distribution.
His last(ing) statements from the hospital in Madras
“Bapu is better dead than alive”
for there is a no trace of him within a decade after his death”.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE. D (1861 – 1941)
“Modern machinery has encouraged humans to embark on a career of plunder that entirely outstripped nature’s power for recuperation. Their profit makers dig big holes in the stored capital of the planet”.
“Humans created wants which are un natural and provisions for these wants are forcibly extracted from nature”.
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“Take a man from his natural surroundings, from his fullness of his community life, with all its living associations of beauty and love and social obligations, and you will be able to turn him into so many fragments of a machine for the production of wealth on gigantic scale”.
“TURN A TREE INTO A LOG. IT WILL BURN FOR YOU, BUT IT WILL NEVER BEAR LIVING FLOWERS AND FRUITS”.
ALBERT HOWARD (1873 – 1947)
Son of a 550 acres land owner – farmer. Cambridge educated. Indian assignment in 1905 as Inperial Economic Botanist in Imperial Agricultural Research Institute (IARI, Pune, Bihar). With her love Gabrielle Matthaei, a German.
After two decades and confronting with the British, they moved to Indore, Capital of Holkar. Established Institute of Plant Industry in a 300 acres plot and highlighted Indore Method of Composting to the world.
Garbrielle died of Cancer in 1930 and hence he moved out of India, married and stayed with her sister Louise in England. Became the most influential figure in the history of British Organic movement. After Howard’s death, Louise published his works. Gabrielle’s The Wheats of Baluchisthan, Khorasan and the Kurram Valley (1916) elevated her as the president of Botany section of the Indian Science Congress after seven years.
Howards and Gabrielle saw India as a land of villages. But they approached in a scientist perspective unlike Radhakamal Mukerjee (sociological analyst), JC Kumarappa (Gandhian constructive worker) as analytical sociologists.
Propagated Soil aeration, Limited/adequate water supply, improvement of fodder and forage, ill effects of soil erosion, Fermenting animal and vegetable wastes in a plot.
Believed in: Better research through agriculture rather than Better Agriculture through Research.
Wanted: Inter-disciplinary, trans disciplinary research rather than departmentalization.
Considered: Plant to be a joint system with soil.
Book on: Crop production in India:
(a) Loss of fertility because of lack of drainage.
(b) Sceptical on exotic crop.
(c) Study all branches of botanical science to learn plant in relation to environment (92% Indians could not read/write at that time).
Next book,
The Development of Indian Agriculture (1924) by both said
(i) Misconception that science can teach the cultivator nothing.
(ii) Even if the villager is helped, he will never alter his present practices.
OUP published An Agricultural Testament (1940) followed by
Farming and Gardening for Health or Disease ( UK – 1945) and The Soil and Health in US – 1947) cites
(i) Nature manages land and conducts her water culture.
(ii) No to mono culture as forests thrive in mixed growth.
(iii) Sunlight energy is used through foliage of the forest canopy falling down as litter.
(iv) Nature has never found it necessary to design the equivalent of spraying machine and the poison spray for the control of insect and fungus pests.
Chemicals can do nothing to keep the soil in good health.
All that they can accomplish is the transfer of the soil’s
CAPITAL to CURRENT account.
Approach to the problems of farming must be made from the field, not the laboratory.
Pensylvanian Jerome Rodale started a magazine Organic Farming and Gardening with the guidance of Howard and even commented Carson’s Silent Spring to analyse what commercial fertilizers are doing as far as disease and infestations are concerned.
Wendell Berry, author of The Unsettling of America, a searing critique of agro-business and its destruction of human community and of the land itself too believed in Howard’s works as systematic, coherent and inexhaustible.
In 1990 – Organic Farming entered the official statute book of US Department of Agriculture specifying the standards.
MK Gandhi too wrote in Harijan about Howard’s mixture of cow dung, farm waste, wood ash and urine into an invaluable fertilizer.
“Hands to go hand in hands with (one’s) heads” – Gandhi
will place science in the service of humanity.
Ref: Ramachandra Guha, Speaking with Nature, Fourth Estate, Gurugram, 2024.
More to come about the works of India’s eminent environmentalists…
Rabindranath Tagore was an environmentalist who believed in the interconnectedness of all life forms and the importance of balancing progress and conservation. He was concerned about the impact of humans on the environment and sought to preserve nature’s harmony.
Tagore was in strict opposition of the self defeating nature of development activities, which cares little about nature, and the balance between man and the surrounding environment. He was very anxious about the unrestrained destruction of forest resources
Also one of his powerful quotes about environmentalism the greed of man’s power alienates him from enjoying the beauty of growing grass on the earth and blooming flower of plants.
Urban environmentalism in India is crucial as cities face escalating challenges like air pollution, waste mismanagement, water scarcity, and loss of green cover due to rapid urbanization. Initiatives like the Smart Cities Mission, Swachh Bharat Mission,and National Green Tribunal are paving the way for sustainable urban development. Cities like Indore, with exemplary waste management, and projects like the Delhi Metro and Miyawaki forests are inspiring models of urban sustainability.
However, combating issues like urban heat islands, traffic congestion, and river pollution demands stronger public participation, stricter enforcement of laws, and innovative green solutions. A collective approach involving governments, communities, and NGOs is key to ensuring livable, resilient, and eco-friendly urban spaces in India.
Pierre Pradervand, An Environmentalist from Switzerland to India.
Pierre Pradervand is a Swiss-born environmentalist, peace activist, and author who has dedicated over four decades to working in India. He is renowned for his pioneering work in sustainable development, environmental conservation, and conflict resolution.
Pierre has made significant contributions through his work. He founded Sarvodaya International, promoting sustainable development and environmental conservation. He has also worked with rural Indian communities to promote eco-friendly practices and developed innovative approaches to conflict resolution. His commitment to environmental stewardship, social justice, and peace has inspired a new generation of activists.
Urban environmentalism in India aims to balance rapid urban growth with ecological sustainability. Major concerns include pollution, waste management, deforestation, and climate change. Addressing these challenges requires sustainable planning, green infrastructure, and stricter regulations. Public awareness, government initiatives, and community involvement are key to creating cleaner, greener cities. Efforts like metro expansion, plastic bans, and afforestation contribute to a more sustainable urban future.
Rohini Nilekani: A Champion for Sustainable Water and Urban Development
Rohini Nilekani is a well-known philanthropist and environmentalist in India, with a strong focus on sustainable water management, urban governance, and social impact. She is the founder of Arghyam, a foundation dedicated to improving water security and access to clean drinking water across India. Through Arghyam, she has supported numerous initiatives in water conservation, decentralized water management, and sanitation, particularly in urban and peri-urban areas.
Apart from water sustainability, she has also been involved in urban environmental causes, advocating for better governance, civic engagement, and responsible urbanization. She has funded and supported organizations working on waste management, air pollution, and sustainable city planning.
As an author and thought leader, she actively promotes citizen participation in shaping sustainable cities and ensuring that urban development does not come at the cost of the environment. Her work continues to inspire new approaches to solving India’s urban environmental challenges.
Radhakamal Mukerjee (1889–1968) was an influential Indian sociologist, philosopher, and academic. He is widely regarded for his contributions to Indian sociology and his efforts in bridging traditional Indian thought with Western sociological theories. Mukerjee was particularly interested in the study of Indian society, its structure, and its development, emphasizing the importance of understanding indigenous cultures and values.
He played a key role in shaping sociology as an academic discipline in India and was a pioneer in promoting the idea of social reconstruction based on Indian cultural and ethical values. His work covered a variety of topics, including social change, the family system, and the concept of social integration. Mukerjee was also associated with the Indian Sociological Society and held important academic positions, including being a professor at the University of Lucknow.
His key works include *The Social Framework of the Indian Economy* and *The Philosophy of Work*. Mukerjee’s approach to sociology was marked by a combination of idealism and a practical concern for social welfare and reform. His contributions remain foundational in Indian sociology even today.
K. Kalidas – Wildlife Conservationist and Founder of Osai
K. Kalidas is a renowned wildlife conservationist from Tamil Nadu, best known for his efforts in protecting the biodiversity of the Western Ghats. He is the founder of Osai, a Coimbatore-based NGO dedicated to wildlife conservation, afforestation, and environmental awareness. His work focuses on preventing illegal wildlife trade, rescuing animals, and reducing human-wildlife conflicts.
Kalidas has played a key role in protecting endangered species such as elephants, leopards, tigers, and various bird species. His organization, Osai, collaborates with the Forest Department and local communities to rescue injured and displaced animals and rehabilitate them in their natural habitat. He has also actively campaigned against poaching and deforestation, advocating for stricter environmental laws.
One of his significant contributions is raising awareness about human-animal conflicts, particularly in areas where urban expansion encroaches on forest lands. He works closely with local communities to educate them on peaceful coexistence with wildlife, reducing conflicts that often lead to harm for both animals and humans.
“Mother Earth never attempts to farm without livestock.”
Albert Howard advocated for mixed farming, where plants and animals support each other in a balanced ecosystem.
E.O. Wilson (1929–2021)
• Biologist and champion of biodiversity conservation.
• Developed the concept of “Half-Earth,” advocating for preserving half the planet for nature. Born in Alabama, Wilson found an early interest in nature and frequented the outdoors. At age seven, he was partially blinded in a fishing accident; due to his reduced sight, Wilson resolved to study entomology. After graduating from the University of Alabama, Wilson transferred to complete his dissertation at Harvard University, where he distinguished himself in multiple fields. In 1956, he co-authored a paper defining the theory of character displacement. In 1967, he developed the theory of island biogeography with Robert MacArthur.
Wilson was the Pellegrino University Research Professor Emeritus in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, a lecturer at Duke University,[2] and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. The Royal Swedish Academy awarded Wilson the Crafoord Prize. He was a humanist laureate of the International Academy of Humanism.[3][4] He was a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (for On Human Nature in 1979, and The Ants in 1991) and a New York Times bestselling author for The Social Conquest of Earth,[5] Letters to a Young Scientist,[5][6] and The Meaning of Human Existence.
Wilson’s work received both praise and criticism during his lifetime. His 1975 book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis was a particular flashpoint for controversy, and drew criticism from the Sociobiology Study Group.[7][8] Wilson’s interpretation of the theory of evolution resulted in a widely reported dispute with Richard Dawkins about multilevel selection theory.[9] Examinations of his letters after his death revealed that he had supported the psychologist J. Philippe Rushton, whose work on race and intelligence is widely regarded by the scientific community as deeply flawed and racist.[10][11
Vandana Shiva: Champion of Environmental and Agricultural Activism
Born: November 5, 1952 (Dehradun, India)
Field: Environmental activism, sustainable agriculture, ecofeminism
Key Issues: Seed sovereignty, biodiversity conservation, opposition to industrial agriculture
Early Life and Education
Vandana Shiva was born in India and studied physics before shifting to interdisciplinary research in science, technology, and environmental policy. She earned a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
Major Contributions
1. Seed Sovereignty & Organic Farming – Shiva has been a vocal critic of genetically modified (GM) crops and corporate control over seeds (e.g., Monsanto). She advocates for farmer rights and biodiversity through Navdanya, an organization she founded in 1987 that promotes organic farming and seed saving.
2. Opposition to Industrial Agriculture – She argues that industrial farming and monocultures harm biodiversity, deplete soil health, and increase farmer debt. Her work promotes traditional, sustainable farming methods.
3. Ecofeminism – She links environmental issues with gender, emphasizing how women, especially in rural areas, are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation.
4. Books & Advocacy – She has written several influential books, including:
•Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Survival in India
•Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace
•Making Peace with the Earth
5. Global Influence – She has worked with organizations like the United Nations, received the Right Livelihood Award (often called the “Alternative Nobel Prize”), and continues to speak on sustainability and climate justice worldwide.