Betraying Our History Of Eco-care
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Once upon a time we were people, a community.
Today we are individuals. Once we were not wasting a grain. Today not wasting
food means that you are not a good consumer. Once we ate meat occasionally but
were healthy as were our sub-alpine pastures. Today, we are great consumers of
protein and calories but are not healthy. Once almost everything used in
construction industry was obtained from local materials, waste products or
byproducts. Today we are replacing almost every local material with imported
one. Once we used to employ local committees to manage most of our local
resources, and today we are competing with one another in destroying them.
Once it was unacceptable to more conscious Pir
families to buy land. Today they have amassed huge land property. Once we
didn’t keep repeating an posh’ teli yeli wan posh’ but preserved forests, and
today we outcompete fast developing economies in deforestation drives. Once
most medicines were locally available and local hakeems effectively catered to
most requirements. Today we have the largest number of medical shops amongst
all Indian states, thousands of local registered drug companies and health has become
a casualty in the process.
Once we had great water bodies and our wetlands
were known to birds from Siberia and today they are shrinking and shrinking
fast. Once we grew food and today we grow money, and lose our soul in the
process. Once environment counted as a sacred entity, and today it is only
taught as a subject in academic institutions. The lessons on environmentalism
were once in our hearts and today they are only remembered for the sake of
passing in examinations. So, we have become a sad story of degeneration. Let us
review our sins regarding environment.
Our sins begin with our embracing the model of development and rejecting the
community approach that we had inherited from our forefathers. Sometimes we
have not developed either and destroyed environment for peanuts. We have
polluted water, dried up springs, affected the water table, encroached upon
water bodies and irresponsibly played with ecology of fish and other creatures
of water.
Springs in every village were divine gifts and
if they dried up local saints were called to revive them. We have degraded our
land at most places, thanks to our embracing modern concept of development and
modernization of agriculture. Pastures are disappearing. Forests are being used
for construction industry, for roads.
We need to remind ourselves that once upon a
time we were concerned about the environment, at a time when people had not
heard about environmental crisis. The warm earthly religion of mysticism has
been always characteristically eco-coconscious. In fact, the Reshi movement in
Kashmir has successfully implemented its ecological vision. There could be no
such things as environmental crisis in the Kashmir of the Rishis.
The land of Nuruddin is so deeply respectful of
every blade of grass, not to speak of forests that we could see Kashmir as a
sanctuary. The Reshi’s aversion to causing injury to all animate beings including
plants, insects and animals, their concern for conserving forests, dissuading
hunters from hunting hangul, personal care of pets, tamed animals and birds is
well-known and unfortunately well-forgotten now.
As our patron saint of ecology, or St. Francis
of Kashmir, Nuruddin’s Reshi-thought and practice involved such things as
vegetarianism, asceticism, planting trees, creating springs, adoring nature,
non-violence to all animate things, belief in the divinity of man and sacred
character of life, glorification of faqr, economy of sharing, sulhi-kul,
attainment of peace within and without, altruism and transcendence of ego
principle.
Today we are suffering from environmental
crisis caused due to the worldview characterized by violence, both metaphysical
and political, and by spiritual aridity, ethical relativism, alienation and
loss of centre. Eco-conscious, earthly, “matriarchal”, socially relevant and
pragmatic philosophy of Reshiyyat could be advocated as a remedy of so many
ills that affect not only Kashmir but also the whole world.
We have heard enough of abstract theoretical
discourses, sentimental sermonizing, and lamentation sessions on the problem of
eco-degradation. We have seen that these don’t make a significant difference.
We need concrete proposals and legislations and measures to see implementation
of these legislations. Action, concrete and revolutionary action is what is
needed today.
Let us question our development planning from
the perspective of the Sheikh. But can we afford it or do it? Or we will be
content with some hollow seminars and broadcasts or telecasts about Sheikhul
A’lam?
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