Reduced to a ritual

By Pandurang Hegde
21 Apr 2010

The true spirit of Earth Day is to live in harmony with nature as older civilizations have lived for thousands of years.

On April 22, 2010 millions of people around the world will take pledge to protect Earth and participate in numerous activities to help rescue the wounded Earth. This massive public action is bound to raise awareness about the grave condition of the planet that gave birth to human beings and continue producing and providing for innumerable other species. While many people may get involved in personal actions to save Earth through direct actions, however, the political and business leaders would only pay lip service, like every year, towards rescuing Earth.

A long time conservationist and US senator Gaylord Nelson launched the idea of Earth Day in 1970. The main objective was to demonstrate nationwide concern for environment protection and to shake the political set up to initiate action.

The idea of Earth Day originated in a conference held in Seattle. Ironically the initiators of the idea had no clue that a representative of the original inhabitants of the United States, the Red Indian Chief from Seattle pronounced the testament to protect the Mother Earth two centuries before the idea originated. He said "Earth is our mother, not an enemy to be conquered. The white man treats his mother, Earth and his brother sky, as the things to be bought, plundered and sold like sheep. His appetite will devour Earth and leave behind only a desert."

Unfortunately, the wisdom of the Red Indian Chief has been ignored time and again and we continue to pillage Earth to meet our greed and leave behind the deserts through our unending appetite for materialistic development.

For those who are part of the ancient civilizations that survived for several thousand years, every day is an Earth Day in which the respect for the nature was the foundation for all the actions. The ones who neglected these basics could not survive for long. We have ample examples from Mohenjo-daro and Harappan civilizations to Incas. In contrast to these ancient civilizations that survived for several centuries, the industrial civilization has not even passed the test of three centuries. Within such a short lifespan it has created immense problems with global implications, threatening the existence of other life forms on Earth, including that of the human being.


Earth Day indicates the global celebrations and commitment to conserve environment. It has been able to satisfy the need to evolve a new ritual to celebrate, to elicit response from common people towards protecting nature. In the four decades of its existence, it has also been endorsed by the industry and the worldwide media. In the process, it has got reduced to a symbolic act. In reality, the political implications of decision making to destroy the natural resources take precedence over this symbolic act.

The epidemic of "affluenza" has engulfed the better off sections form both developed and developing countries. The high GDP growth, projected as a panacea for underdevelopment, is leading to unprecedented levels of material accumulation and over consumption leading to environmental and social disintegration. The overemphasis on economic growth model of development requires extracting increasing amount of natural resources. According to an estimate, it is 60 billion ton annually, or like consuming 112 Empire State Buildings every day! More than half of the extraction of the resources takes place in Asia, causing major social and environmental disruptions. The recent upheavals in the resource rich hinterland of Bastar and Odisha indicate the pillaging of natural resources for sacrifice at the altar of economic growth.

These glaring facts do not move the common man to act; neither do they motivate the world leaders to find a sustainable path to development. The failure of Copenhagen is a clear indication of parochial mind of our leaders, the fixation they have to continue extracting natural resources to meet the needs of the affluent sections and nations.

Under these circumstances, it seems Earth Day launched four decades back has had very little impact at the highest political levels, both where it originated as well as in other parts of the world.

This also indicates how globalisation invents new rituals like Earth Day, to replace the culturally rooted traditional rituals like "Bhoomie Hunnimme", Earth Day celebrated in some parts of Karnataka on a full moon day in which the farmers worship Earth for bountiful harvest. Similarly in Bastar region, the tribals perform "Surhul" or "Mati Puja" means Earth Worship. As we become global netizens, we find new ways to celebrate, and with media blitz, it becomes a trend, where eliminating older rituals is a non-issue.

The true spirit of Earth Day is to live in harmony with nature, attempting to tread carefully, with the minimal ecological foot prints to leave behind. However, those indigenous societies who practice this ideology are termed and treated as "primitive" and their beliefs are getting shattered by the high consumption models of development. The first step to protect Earth is to live simply. Can we take a pledge for that on this Earth Day?

(The use of the phrase 'the earth' has been avoided so as not to give an impression that we are separate from Earth: Ed.)