GANDHI AND

ENVIRONMENT

IDEOLOGICAL STRANDS
about ENVIRONMENTAL
CONSERVATION

ENVIRONMENTAL
CONSERVATION
Environmental
conservation refers to a
practice of protecting the
environment, on individual,
organizational or
governmental levels, for
the benefit of the natural
environment & (or) humans

NEED FOR ENVIRONMENT

CONSERVATION
The environment of our planet is
degrading at an alarming rate
because of non- sustainable
urbanization, industrialization &
agriculture. Unsustainable trends in
relation to climate change & energy
use, threats to public health, poverty,
biodiversity laws & landuse brings
about a sense of urgency, short term
action is required, maintaining a
longer term perspective.

BROAD STRANDS
There are four dominant strands in the
Indian Environmental Movements.

REASONS BEHIND
DOMINANT STRANDS
Conflicts between
omnivores who have
gained
disproportionately from
economic development.
And Ecosystem people
whose livelihoods have
been seriously
undermined due to growing
degradation of environm

 Problems of environmental
hazards and degradations
are entrenched in scientific
& technological
development which has
lead to large scale
industrialization. The latter
has given to human
society tremendous
material pleasure &
prosperity but at the same
time it has caused
irreparable loss.

TWO PARADOXES (WHILE

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF
DIFFERENT MODES OF
PRODUCTION)

The more the spatial separation

from the forest, the greater the
impact on its ecology.
The faster the development of
formal, scientific knowledge about
the composition & functioning of
nature, the greater the rate of
degradation.

GANDHIS
IDEAS ABOUT
NATURE

 What we are doing to the forests of the

world is a mirror reflection of what we
are doing to ourselves & to one
another.

 Nature has enough to satisfy

everyones needs, but not to satisfy
anybodys greed.

 His ideas relating

Satyagraha based on:
Truth
Non-Violence
Simple Life Style &
Development

to

sustainable
development is possible

Reveal that

without doing any harm to

nature & our fellow beings.

 The Earth, the air, the land & the water

are not an inheritance from our
forefathers but on loan from our children.
So, we have to hand over to them at
least as it was handed over to us.

CONTRIBUTION OF
GANDHI TOWARDS
ENVIRONMENT
The whole world knows that Gandhi was a

political leader, a great thinker and a

revolutionary of an extraordinary type. It is also
widely known that he was a humanist and
pacifist of international fame. But very few
people know that he was an environmentalist
too.
In the contemporary context of the growing
environmental challenge, leading to global
crisis, Gandhi is becoming increasingly relevant
in a rather unexpected area of ecology. In a way
Gandhi was the worlds early environmentalist
in vision and practice. This is primarily because
the environmental problems have surfaced
largely in the post-Gandhian era .

 Mahatma Gandhi never used the words

environment protection however what he said and
did makes him an environmentalist. Gandhi tried
to carry the message to the mass through the life
he himself led. This is what made him an
environmentalist with a difference
Gandhi pointed towards the ills of industrialization
which is the base of modern civilization. According to
him Industrialization leads to centralization of
economic power, it flourishes on exploitation of both
man and nature and has now become the greatest
source of pollution.
He did not want India to follow the west in this regard
and warned that if India, with its vast population, tried
to imitate the West then the resources of the earth
will not be enough.
He argued even in 1909 that industrialization and
machines have an adverse effect on the health of
people. Although he was not opposed to machines
as such, he definitely opposed the large scale use of
machinery.

 He criticized people for polluting the rivers

and other water bodies. He criticized mills
and factories for polluting the air with
smoke and noise.
What he advocated in place of
industrialism and consumerism was a
simple life based on physical labor.
For he believed that earth provides
enough to satisfy every mans need but
not any mans greed.
In his words Nature works unceasingly
according to her own laws, but man
violates them constantly. . In different
ways and at different times, Nature tells
man that there is nothing in the world
which is not subject to change. He said
that people build cities to last forever. So,
natural disasters are a warning of nature
to remind humans that nothing is
permanent.

LEARNING THROUGH GANDHIS LIFE

Once, when asked for a

message to humanity, Gandhi
said, "my life is my message".
We can find everything we want
if we go through his writings, his
speeches and his life. His life
itself is an example. He
believed that one must be the
change that one wants to see
in the world and hence he
practiced what he preached.
Some of them are discussed
here.

Even before he became an

internationally known leader and a
Mahatma, he patterned his person life
and that of a small community on
these ideals. His Phoenix and Tolstoy
Farms in South Africa testify to it.
Subsequently, in India too he established
Ashrams on that pattern. He did preach
the village life but he was pained to see
the poverty, Illiteracy and unsanitary
conditions in Indian Villages. Therefore,
throughout his life he kept on telling
people and giving demonstration on
health, hygiene and sanitation. Hardly
any political leader of his stature in the
world had ever devoted so much of time
and energy on these problems with so
much sincerity and dedication.

 He put emphasis on
keeping ones home and
surroundings clean. One
of his tests to choose an
intimate in his Ashram test
in choosing his inmate in
Ashram he/she cleansed
his own toilet.
Gandhi and many of his
followers used scrapes of
papers for writing brief
notes and reversed envelop
for reuse to send letters.

 Every day when Gandhi was

taking bath in the (1920s 1930)
freely flowing and unpolluted
water of the Sabarmati near the
Ashram, he consciously used
only the minimum requisite
water needed for taking bath.
On being asked why he was
using the river water so sparingly
when it was available in
abundance he remarked that all
that was flowing in the river was
not his. A telling illustration of
Aparigraha (non-possession) and
a telling example of an exemplary
action related to conservation of
Natures resources.

 His close disciple and associate,

Kaka Kalelkar, narrates that he was
in the Habit of breaking off an entire
twig merely for four or five neem
leaves he needed to rub on the
fibers of the carding-bow to make its
strings pliant and supple. When
Gandhi saw that, he remarked: "This
is violence. We should pluck the
required number of leaves after
offering an apology to the tree for
doing so. But you broke off the
whole twig, which is wasteful and
wrong." He also described himself
as pained that people would
"pluck masses of delicate
blossoms" and fling them in his
face or string them around his
neck"

 Gandhi also promoted protection

of other life forms, i.e. animals
although he mostly comprehends
them in a domestic capacity.
Gandhis friends were not only
aware of the goat that he kept by
his side but also of his passionate
commitment to cow protection.
Gandhi felt, we can use the
bounties of nature; but not with an
element of greed. He was a
vegetarian and had compassion
for all forms of life. In fact, he
advocated man has no power
to create life, therefore has no
right to kill any life also.

 .Gandhi addressed to the problems of sanitation

and told Sanitation should occupy the
foremost place. His ashrams were repositories
for endeavors to change human waste into
organic fertilizers, and Gandhi engaged in
ceaseless experimentation to invent toilets that
would be less of a drain on scarce water
resources. Gandhi like many caste hindus did not
allow anyone else to dispose off his waste

 Once the great Nobel Prize winning Scientist, Sir

Albert Einstein spoke on Gandhi Generations to
come, will scarcely believe that, such a person as
this ever in flesh and blood, walked upon this
earth. The moral influence which Gandhi has
experienced upon the thinking of the people of the
world may be for more durable than it would appear
likely in our present age. The best way to pay the
proper homage to this immortal should today, is to
adopt his basic principles and policies towards life
through practicing the self-reliance and self
governance; which ultimately would help to achieve
environmentally sustainable development , enabling
us to return a Greener Globe to our future
generation, in fact from whom we have borrowed
this planet.