Conservation – What We Need Is A Cultural Shift

By: M.R. Lalu
There have been alarming repercussions that people across the world are made to face. This is mainly due to their madness of being threatening to the globe that once we considered our mother, that helped the human race survive and flourish and other species exist for millions of years. As we grow into a single clan of modernized minds all over the world with communication, transportation and tendency to come closer through innovative and scientific inventions, irrespective of geography causing hurdles, there seems a feeling of betrayal being sensed in the form of climatic disorders and environmental chaos.
Man brought science and got him everything as he swung his magic wand of innovation and inventions. But there was something that was unpardonably forgotten, his compassionate communication with nature that genuinely nurtured his aspirations and ensured his existence. There was this deafening disconnect that began to bring disruption as he, for a long period, had forgotten to fine-tune his cultural alignment with Mother Nature. All he wanted was comfort and what he did was restructuring his approach. And what we lost was its compassionate embrace, a gesture that ensured our congenial existence throughout human civilization.
More than exploration there has been insistent exploitation that humans frequently justified as an integral authority of his intellect. We have often made reasons to justify damages that our interventions caused on nature. Natural calamities, adverse climatic impacts and nature’s depleting resources have been warning signs. But human greed has been the driving force that frequently damages our planet and the species on it. Our understanding was that they are totally inferior and our minds seem to have been occupied with dominant thoughts of disruption that we keep executing without even the slightest regret. For instance let us take an example. Religious events and moments of community jubilations ensure the slaughtering of millions of innocent animals. All that we want is to find reasons to display our might that otherwise, are excuses to establish our right to conveniently disturb their ambiance of existence or declare our displeasure to coexist with less privileged species.
The common belief that has dominated the discourse is that man holds a divine right for disruption. Though he doesn’t recognize the depth of rot he is creating, an existential crisis for him and other species is looming. But the usual fable deliberately declares his right to explore and if needed exploit the resources. This view terribly contradicts the very traditional belief in India which propagated the conservation of nature and the preservation of its essential values of coexistence. This includes the survival of a blade of grass to the macro elements of life. But what we need to keep in mind is an existence bereft of preserving life’s variety of forms is totally dangerous. Advancing with meticulous scientific inventions, man’s interventions have always been deliberate and one-sided. To consider him as an apex species and forcefully disrupt other species with his intentional survival tactics, especially focusing on ways to reap benefits, has definitely become a catastrophic move. An emotional shift in the minds of people towards conservation of nature and strengthening cultural values in tune with its natural impulses, which is suitable for the modern period, is a requirement.
More alarming is the influx of different sophisticated gadgets into our sphere which manages to dangerously alter even the purest micromanagement of life called family. As the dominance of gadgets of disruptive sophistication has brought more silence and discord in their life, a small community of people under one roof is usually in mental disarray. So, basically, the human environment in modern days has partially been thrown into utter disorder. Ancient texts such as the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana show profound respect for Mother Nature and there are numerous ways to conserve it and practice our traditionalist approach. There are multiple traditions through which the ancient Rishi attributed his respect to nature. The first one was his understanding of nature as a divine entity and therefore to be worshipped. Every element of nature was worshipped in different forms and names. They were considered the most venerable and the Rishi, for that matter, remained meditative on practices that he could invent and propagate for its conservation.
Of course, India had maintained a spiritual stance on everything that was part of nature. That’s the reason why we named rivers, mountains, trees and celestial beings individually and revered them, considering their power and share in making the resources available for the wellbeing of all. We respected life in all forms and did not hesitate to worship them. Our essential understanding revealed the truth of the divine being manifest in everything. Ensuring their existence was our means of establishing dharma. Protecting life in its various forms was an ideal doctrine. Sacred groves attached to temples in Kerala even today attract people for the elevation of their spiritual impulses. Groves were considered places of worship for snakes and spaces of existence for other animals. And the emotion was to literally protect them in every village from human atrocity. Sacred groves naturally existed as healing centers and places of spiritual well-being. The universe being composed of five elements, the Hindu way of life embarks on a serious understanding of life. It declares the five basic elements as earth, water, fire, air and space with which the entire creation is designed. The concoction of these five elements is instrumental in life manifesting in various forms, declared the Vedic aphorisms.
India’s recent diplomatic outreach also reflected this congeniality taking solid shape. Its G20 presidency with the declaration of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” which means ‘the world is one family’ was an attempt to make an ideal outreach to the global humanity. This was a declaration that sensed urgency for humans to go back to our cultural roots well before we destroyed nature’s survivability.  India’s G20 presidency could bring back its traditional approach of interconnectedness of life onto the discourse table. This is because we, as a nation, have long ago realized the importance of coexistence, recognizing that humans, animals, plants and the environment are all part of a unified whole and therefore interconnected. Our fundamental belief system maintained reverence for nature and nurtured its resources. We believed in a natural order and balance in the universe and learnt to live without disrupting its harmony. Again, the reason that a large number of people in India still practice vegetarianism is this understanding. Our rituals and practices were fundamentally meant to promote environmental health. Sustainable agricultural practices without disrupting soil health were part of our collective responsibility.
Time has come to plan for the future generations before we destroy their rightful share of resources. Earth is not only for humans. Our fellow inhabitants, right from an ant to the most gigantic mammal have a right to amicably survive here. Humanity in real terms needs to become humane. We can’t end up as the last link of our civilization. We need to be known as the best part of its flow that kept plentiful for the generations to come, the flow that did not allow Mother Nature to dry and disappear.
(The author is Freelance Journalist)