Listening to the movers and shakers of the “Indian economy miracle”, one would be led to think that anyone who raises doubts over the non-sustainable nature of the industrial type development is just spoiling the party.
There is very little information about the serious problems faced by farmers, rural people and tribal people in India, forcibly displaced and deprived of their livelihood to make place for dams, large industrial complexes, and so on.
The news comes to the surface only when some protesters are killed by the police, or Mamata Banerjee goes on hunger strike. But even then, the short attention span of the Indian public is quickly lost into the latest cricket game and the love life of Bollywood stars.
It is a source of great surprise to me, how few Hindu activists have expressed less than enthusiastic appreciation for the uncontrolled industrialisation of India.
The machine of industrialisation certainly does not bow down for temples or holy places: road-side temples are demolished without a second thought to make highways, and the energy of the protests of Hindu activists and organisations does not make much noise on the news or on internet. Now and then some internet petitions circulate, and then everything dies out.
Even Rama’s bridge is dismantled to give a broader passage to large ships. I remember when there was talk about the project, protests quickly died out, and one Hindu of Indian origin objected to my passionate appeals, demanding “proof” that the bridge had actually been built by Rama. To my knowledge nobody, except me, questioned the foolishness of such objection.
The Braj hills have become mining fields and garbage dumps – and talking about garbage, it is difficult to find a sacred river or holy place that is not polluted with garbage. What was the outcome of the protests? It seems it has simply been forgotten.
Meanwhile, the advertisements for faster and faster cars multiply, and the spot of a new bike says, “thinking is such a waste of time – danger is fun”.
Another TV spot ridiculises “Mr. Happy” who is happy and contented about his job and life and feels no urge to engage in the rat rice. The spot shows Mr Happy is quite well off – well fed without being out of shape, dressed smartly, affording a taxi to go to work, and at his workplace nobody is harassing him when he takes a break for tea. Yet, the entire point of the spot is about how stupid he is, and how unthinkably stupid would be anyone who behaved like him.
The old naukri.com TV spot (spelling Hari, as H for Hitler, A for arrogant, R for rascal, I for idiot) is back on air. However, no protest has come up this time yet, as far as I know.
However, the International news are still subject to strict censorship by the Indian “Big Brother”. For example, Indians will never come to know that in Western countries the industrialised model has not brought happiness and well being to all, and that the gap between the rich and the poor has only widened. They will not be told that allopathic medicine and hospitals are miserably failing in the West, and that diseases multiply instead of being vanquished – because the interest of the pharmaceutical industry is to have more consumers. In one European country only, every year there are 450,000 to 700,000 nosocomial infections (i.e. infections caused by poor hygiene or incompetence of medical workers in hospitals), with consequent 4500 to 21,000 deaths. Not to speak of the steep increase of tumors and other degenerative diseases connected to pollution.
There is not much talking about the immense damage already created by climate change in the world, and the future dangers. Or about the closing down of nuclear power installations in Europe due to general protests and the blockades of the European environmental activists against the “nuclear train” carrying spent nuclear waste around.
I am not saying that technology and economic development are bad things. I am not even saying that Western culture is totally bad in itself.
I am not saying that we should all desert cities and go back to live in the woods like hermits, or that cars, TVs or airplane traveling are bad.
I am saying that we need to remember that factories cannot manufacture happiness. They can’t even manufacture food: they only process the products of Mother Earth, and when they try to take over the production of life itself, they just make a big mess.
Materialistic scientists cannot produce even a blade of grass or a grain of wheat or rice: they can merely take grass, wheat or rice and tamper with them, transforming them into monsters without knowing the consequences of their actions.
Even for those who do not worry about genetic mutations, however, there is a more pressing and near concern:
technology is in the hands of industry, and industry is NOT run on charity basis.
The non-sustainable development paradigm is intended to enslave people – to make the poor poorer, and to tie the rest to the grinding stone so that they will live to work, and work to make money, and to make money to buy stuff they don’t really need.
Even those who rank on the higher levels of this profit chain are slaves because they are not allowed to stop and think what they are doing to themselves, to their children, to the planet. To keep themselves from thinking, they need to gulp down medication, pay expensive psychiatrists, and continue the mad pursuit of something they will never be able to attain: perfect happiness in mere sense enjoyment and possession.
Now and then, we stumble upon some internet appeal.
The problem is: what is the protest about? What will the protest obtain?
Is anyone speaking of sustainable development and self-sufficient village economy, raising of the self-empowerment awareness of farmers, making the right choices or cooperation and fair trade, cooperativism, self-empowered water management?
I don’t see that.
The protest is simply about asking the government to take up matters in their hands more and more. And what would the government do (in the best case)? Give 2 lakh to each family without educating them on how to use that money properly? Recognise that alcoholism, family disputes and social tensions are generated by the ignorant reaction to helplessness and inability to live decently?
PKD
= parama karuna devi - italian person - pavan india
