Lokogandhar

Dance Practitioner-Researcher, Artistic head, Prabaha Kalabhoomi, Kolkata
Faculty, Dept of Zoology, JCC College

ABSTRACT

Nature inspires ‘music, art, and aesthetics in human soul’, in the absence of which the soul is denied nourishment and remains neglected and starved. Indian civilization has been characteristic in locating its source of regeneration- both material and intellectual, in the forest and not the city. From ancient times, man has always been in communion with trees and rivers and lakes, away from the crowds. Our ancient scriptures remind us that the peace of the forest has helped the evolution of man…and hence Environmental conservation has always been an integral part of Indian culture. In representing our environment, literature plays a very important role and is indeed a very real reflection of modern-day society. ‘Eco-criticism’ is the term that pertains to the association between literature and the environment. Basically, it is the analysis of depictions of life and the relevance with literature as well as the environment. There is also a strong connection between literature and nature that many literalists have wonderfully portrayed. In today’s scenario, environmentalism, eco-criticism and ecology have become relevant concepts. Terms such as “environmental awareness”, “environmental education”, “sustainable development” etc are much in discussion. But long before this concept has been evolved by western thinkers, Rabindranath Tagore, one of the greatest poets, author, social reformers & environmentalists of our times developed almost the same idea based on our ancient Vedic-Upanishadic philosophy, to maintain a fine balance between environment and development. If we delve deep into Tagore’s literary treasure, we find ample evidences where he speaks about environment friendly development approach. Many of his works, specially the plays, talk much about environmental repercussions of economic development and provided solutions to embark on the path of development suited to Indian soil and situations. A visit to the world of Tagore presents ample evidences of his deep concern about nature and the self detrimental activities of the human race that have malicious bearing on environmental health. And yet his approach & execution was subtle, that makes it so sublime and universal. For him the vastness of the sky, the tranquility & untamed beauty of the countryside symbolized “Freedom”.
This article aims to delve into some of Tagore’s works to sift through these concepts perceived & practiced by him so many years ago to bring into light once more the wisdom, prudence & foresight of the great Indian sages & philosophers and their significance, especially in the context of the current global backdrop.

Keywords: balanced communion, ecology, environmental health, nature human symbiosis, sustainable development, eco-consciousness, eco-criticism.

INTRODUCTION

मधु॒ वाता॑ ऋताय॒ते मधु॑ क्षरन्ति॒ सिन्ध॑वः । माध्वी॑र्नः स॒न्त्वोष॑धीः ॥
मधु वाता ऋतायते मधु क्षरन्ति सिन्धवः । माध्वीर्नः सन्त्वोषधीः

………….Environment provided bliss to people leading their life perfectly. (Rig veda)

While the Vedic sages of India, vividly experienced the sacred reality of the environment in which they lived, even those who didn’t have this divine vision as their daily reality, nevertheless, had the deep understanding that the earth and nature’s processes were sacred, not to be taken for granted, and certainly not to be trifled with. At this point in human history, humanity didn’t see itself as divorced from its surroundings. On the contrary, we understood that the earth was our mother and like all loving and nurturing mothers, she was to be treated with love, gratitude and respect. The earth took care of us and we, too, took care of her. The universe and all its myriad processes were nestled into the sacred framework of the “Rta”, the eternal and all-encompassing law of harmony and balance.
In the language of our ancient Vedas & Upanishads, this concept of Rta is the universal, unchanging moral order envisioned as the essential pattern for all existence, macrocosm as well as microcosm. Through the divine harmony inherent in Rta, all individual parts of the infinite universe are bound into a harmonious whole, everything is related to everything else and so is everything bound to everything else. Everything is necessary for the balanced functioning of everything else.
In the language of Biology, we refer to this concept as the Ecological Food & Energy web.
And in the words of the one of the greatest prophets of Humanism, our Kobiguru……we sing it as….
আকাশভরা সূর্য-তারা Akash bhora surjo tara
বিশ্বভরা প্রাণ Biswa bhora pran
তাহারি মাঝখানে Tahari majhkhane
আমি পেয়েছি Ami peyechi
আমি পেয়েছি মোর স্থান Ami peyechi mor sthan
বিস্ময়ে তাই জাগে আমার গান Bismoye tai jage amar gaan
জাগে আমার গান Jage amar gaan

THE REAL SCENARIO

However, unfortunately that is not what we witness now……. Today we find our winds fouled by industrial pollution. The rivers have been contaminated by sewage and the toxic effluence of myriad industries. The plants and herbs that have sustained us for thousands of years have been eradicated and wasted by pesticides, while our trees too have been clear-cut for grassland or fuel. The heavens that protected us, now, have an expanding hole in the ozone layer. The sun that once kindly looked down upon us now glowers, as the effects of global warming become increasingly pronounced with each passing year. The cows’ milk, once so sweet and fresh, is tainted by toxic contaminants.
Tabulated below are a few scientific information & data that clearly explains the concern for ecological sustainability all across the globe.
 According to a 1998 survey of 400 biologists conducted by New York’s American Museum of Natural history, nearly 70% believed that we are currently in the early stages of a human-caused extinction, known as the Holocene extinction.
 Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have significantly increased since 1900. Since 1970, CO2 emissions have increased by about 90%, with emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributing about 78% of the total greenhouse gas emissions increase from 1970 to 2011. Agriculture, deforestation, and other land-use changes mediated by men have been the second largest contributors.
 10,000 years ago, 57% of the world’s habitable land was covered by forest which is roughly 6 billion hectares. Today, only 4 billion hectares are left. The world has lost one-third of its forest ………. half of total forest loss occurred from 8,000BC to 1900 and believe it or not, the other half occurred in the last century alone.
 Since the early twentieth century, the earth’s mean surface temperature has increased by approximately 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about two-thirds of the increase occurring since 1980. Scientists today assert that global warming is primarily caused by an accumulation of greenhouse gasses, produced by deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels.
 Biocide is occurring at an alarming rate. Experts say that at least half of the world’s current species will be completely gone by the end of the century. Wild plant-life is also disappearing. According to the (International Union for Conservation of Nature) IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, more than 41,000 animals worldwide are threatened with extinction, including 41% of all amphibians, almost 33% of reef-forming corals, 27% of the world’s mammals, more than a third of all marine mammals, and 13% of all known bird species and the list does not end here. According to most biologists, we are in the midst of an anthropogenic mass extinction
 In 2020, we overused our planet’s resources by at least 75%, or the equivalent to living off 1.75 Earths, according to the Global Footprint Network. Natural ecosystems have declined by 47% on average. In particular, the report found that about 75% of the land surface is significantly altered, 66% of the ocean is experiencing increasing cumulative impacts
 One of the main direct drivers of change in nature is pollution that have accelerated during the past 50 years. Marine pollution in particular has increased at least tenfolds, since 1980, that has affected at least 267 species, which includes 86% of marine turtles, 44% of seabirds, and 43% of marine mammals.
 The report of World Watch Institute (2015), shows that World coal extraction increased from about 10 million tons in 1800 to 7,900 million tons in 2013—a more than 10-fold increase since 1900.
 World oil production which started only in the late nineteenth century, but grew rapidly from 20 million tons in 1900 to 4,130 million tons in 2013—a 207-fold expansion since 1900. Use of synthetic fertilizer increased from 137 million tons in 2000 to 179 tons in 2013. From perhaps 25,000 cars on the world’s roads in 1900 and less than 1 million in 1910, the global automobile fleet crossed the 1 billion mark in 2013. The production of energy-intensive materials— cement, plastics, and steel—has more than doubled since 1992, far exceeding overall economic growth. Global resource extraction—of fossil fuels, metals, minerals, and biomass—grew 50 percent in the 25 years between 1980 and 2005, to about 58 billion tons of raw materials (Renner 2015). Global coal consumption rose from 2261 million tons of oil equivalent to 3826.7 tons of oil equivalent in 2013.

THE IMBALANCE

So, what went wrong? What resulted in this dire situation, this drastic imbalance?
As it turns out, we have been on the wrong road all along…. with its predatory industrialization, routine devastation of landscapes, evisceration of communities and livelihoods, unsustainable urbanization, forced migration and militarization of culture……the path was always doomed to be unsustainable.
We may thus very well infer that, the ecological crisis humanity faces today is the result of a spiritual, cultural & social crisis.

ECOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS: AN UPANISHADIC CONCEPT

The Global Ecology movement in most certainty, had its inception with the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, that detailed the environmental devastation surrounding the widespread use of pesticides
The public response that followed ultimately led to DDT being banned in US in 1972.This was one of the very exemplary instances of the symbiotic association between Literature, Culture & environment.
But as an Indian, I look back at our ancient Vedic principle of “Vasundhara Kutumbikam”: the earth as one family
As The first mantra of the Isavasya Upanishad says
Isavasyam idam sarvam
yat kim ca jagatyam jagat,
tena tyaktena bhunjitha, ma gridhah kasyasvid dhanam (Isa 1)

…….. which was distilled & translated by none other than our Kobiguru Tagore in The Religion of the Forest in his essay Creative unity in 1922, as “Know all that moves in this moving world as enveloped by God; and find enjoyment through renunciation, not through greed of possession.………”
He writes, “the ideal of perfection preached by the forest dwellers of ancient India runs through the heart of our classical literature and still influences our minds. The forests are sources of water and the storehouse of a biodiversity that can teach us the lessons of democracy; of leaving space for others whilst drawing sustenance from the common web of life”.
In his essay Tapovan Tagore writes: “Indian civilisation has been distinctive in locating its source of regeneration, material and intellectual, in the forest, not the city. India’s best ideas have come where man was in communion with trees and rivers and lakes, away from the crowds.”
The peace of the forest has always helped the intellectual evolution of man. The culture of the forest has energized the culture of Indian society. The culture that has been born from the forest has been influenced by the diverse processes of renewal of life, which are always at play in the forest, ranging from species to species, from season to season, in sight, in sound and in smell. This unifying principle of life in diversity, of democratic pluralism, developed into the principle of our Indian civilisation.
It is this ‘unity in diversity’ that forms the basis of both ecological sustainability and democracy because diversity without unity culminates as the source of conflict and contest. Uniformity without diversity becomes the ground for external control. This is true of both Nature and culture.
In Tagore’s writings, the forest was not simply the source of knowledge and freedom: it was a profound source of beauty and joy, of art and aesthetics, of harmony and perfection. It symbolized the complete universe.
Tagore says “that our attitude of mind “guides our attempts to establish relations with the universe either by conquest or by union, either through the cultivation of power or through that of sympathy”.
It was in this essence of ARANYASANSKRITI, that Tagore initiated Santiniketan, as a Tapovan – a forest school – not only to take inspiration from Nature and but to also create an Indian Renaissance.
Classes in Santiniketan were conducted in the shade of trees, not merely as a romantic idea but definitely as a deliberate way of bringing students closer to nature, to help them subconsciously learn to respect it. For Tagore, our relationship with the forest and Nature is a relationship that allows us to experience our humanity, for, the forest teaches us union and compassion.
He believed that “In all our dramas…Nature stands on her own right, proving that she has her great function, to impart the peace of the eternal to human emotions.” It is this permanence, peace and joy of living, not through conquest and domination, but through coexistence and cooperation, that is at the heart of a forest culture that formed the essence of our traditional Indian culture.
He went on to write, “while accepting gifts from nature man became greedy……. distancing the forest she left Mother Earth denuded” (Rabindra rachanabali, vol-2)
Muktodhara, written in 1922, actually anticipates the Narmada Bachao Andolon of the 1980s ……tells the story of man’s limitless greed & selfishness and how prince Abhijeet joins commoners to protect his people, the land & the environment……. a picturesque example of social ecology, eco-feminism & eco-marxism.
That the domination and exploitation of humans by other humans is also a root cause for environmental degradation is exemplified through the plays such as Raktakarabi, Dui bigha jomin, in short stories like Balai, essays like Atmashakti, Aranyadebata, Palliprakriti, among others
Tagore’s play “Raktakarabi” (Red oleanders) (1925) was inspired by the sight of a red oleander flower crushed by pieces of discarded iron that Tagore had witnessed while taking a walk in Shillong. The play’s central character was the King who cruelly exploited nature and man to develop an almost mechanised bureaucracy
Savyotar Sankat written in 1941 is a sad acceptance of the great decline of the west caused by their paths of blinding material prosperity.

However, it should be well mentioned that Tagore was never against development……he was a modernist with eco-intelligence who proposed Samabayaniti for a successful sustainable living for all that finds expression through his life’s efforts in rural development in Shilaidaha, Patisar, Shantiniketan, Sriniketan. (‘Samabayaniti’Rabindra Rachanabali, vol-14 page 322).

In keeping with “Tapovan” philosophy of living, Tagore paid glowing respect to the trees in his poem “Briksha Bandana”, where the value of trees and their emotional attachment to humans are frequently highlighted in the poetry in this collection.
A glimpse into the poetry work, Banabani ( Message of the Wild, 1929) reveals how he praised trees and the natural world. Most of the poems are named after trees and plants, like Debdaru (Pine Tree), Nilmanilata (Nilmani Creeper), Amroban (Mango Orchard), Kurchi (Kurchi Plant), Madhumanjari (Madhumanjari Plant), Narikel (Coconut), Sal (Sal Tree), Chamelibitan (Chamelibitan Creeper), and so on.
As Amartya Sen quotes in Rabindranath O Bharatbarsho,1997, “He wanted more official and unofficial promises for protecting the environment” to clearly reflect as to what extent Tagore considered trees important for safeguarding the environment.
Today the World has introduced Water act, Wildlife act, Air Act, Forest Conservation Act, Earth Day and so on but it was Tagore who had pioneered the cause to preserve the Nature & environment, much ahead of his generation.
Hala karshan (tilling the land) was introduced by Tagore in July 1927 where he wrote the song Maruvijayera ketana urao he shunye………… which was a clarion call to increase the green cover across the deserts through tree plantation.
The festival of the earth too, is nonetheless unique. It was, perhaps, the first cognizant move in the world to build up a mass but subtle environmental awareness.
He also started an annual celebration of the arrival of the monsoon at the end of the dry season Borsha mongol, Basanta utsav to welcome spring, among several other festivals celebrating nature & her elements.

CONCLUSION

At length, hence, it can very well be concluded, that, in this time of an impending global ecological crisis, it is imperative to develop a population with the knowledge, attitudes, motivation and commitment to work individually as well collectively following Kobiguru’s slogan of ‘thinking globally and acting locally’, to achieve an Ecological, cultural & spiritual symbiosis towards reaching a Prakritik Swaraj, that could yet again be our very own ingenious and indigenous motto for the rest of the world to look up to us, as a unique & perspicacious nation.

REFERENCES

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Tagore, Rabindranath 1986. Rabindra Rachanavali, 2,l7,14.
Tagore, Rabindranath, 1913. The Gardener, Poem no 6, Macmillan and C.O limited.
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Web sources

Rabindranath Tagore & Environment Conservation

https://twocircles.net/2010may13/remembering_tagore_early_environmentalist.html

https://www.ipl.org/essay/Rabindranath-Tagore-Gitanjali-Summary-PCSDP6Z3XG

Tagore and the Environment

http://ignited.in/I/a/120147
https://www.differenttruths.com/literature/nature-and-environment-as-seen-by-rabindranath-tagore/
http://www.museindia.com