Damage environment you just damage for ever!

Environment - How sacred?

'Ant in the Ear of the Elephant’(‘The Story of the people’s struggle against the Kodankulam plant’) by Minni Vaid highlights how human suffering is in a new phase

‘If you suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country’ said Jawaharlal Nehru, when speaking on Hirakhud dam, 1948 in his speech to the project displaced people, a type you call today as PAP - ‘project  affected people in the modern version’ of addressing the people; ignorance is the ting that affects them, as politics just forgets about their own welfare is the new thing today.

In Koodankulam Nuclear Power plant is being maintained by NPCIL today;

When an activist, in 38 year old Sundari, (activist ) against the plant) questioned,in her own style, she says  ‘We asked them, what they,  NPCIL (Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd) , would do with (radioactive waste) the waste from the plant , - they said:

Firstly, ‘they would  ‘let the ‘waste’,  from the plant, ‘into the sea’;

Secondly, they said,  they would, ‘bury it’;

She said, ; ‘If they let it (the waste) into the sea, we (a fishing community) cannot survive, as ‘fishing’ (if contaminated)  is our livelihood’;

Then, she added, ‘If they bury it (waste), the ‘radiation’ will spread  to all the crops and  

Grains, so even ‘ agriculture’  will be affected’; (meaning thereby, the people eating the   food grains produced there (in Koodamkulam area)  would get into many health issues  and  other attendant problems - a very pertinent observations by a fisher-woman (with robust common sense)  who is protesting for 677 days or further, against the existence of the  ‘plant’, there in Koodamkulam , Tamil Nadu)

She, (a beedi and pickle maker, as well), a VIIth classer, (mother of two children had then in the   spent  about 677 days in the agitation) adds, , in her 98 days jailing, on 78 charges, reciting ‘non-chalantly,running  from, “Breaking the windshield of the police van, making  coutry bombs,  talking derogatory about CM and PM, propagating violence, being called  as a ‘traitor’ to the Nation’..... Said, ‘People have to live, I am, to live (as a person),   privileged to fight, ‘for a cause’, which (cause)  will allow  people (here) to live (a peaceful   life), I don’t  have ‘any’ fear , I have God  with me.’...

...Only if you fight  you learn about the community’

What’s use is it to sitting at home?

‘I have learnt so much about women their problems, even when  I was in jail’ she  recounts;

She doesn’t care about her relatives when they don’t want to mingle with her, as they felt  her husband had not controlled her, when her problem ran over her head, she tries to say, the relatives are like some kind of  ‘fair weather friends’ , drop you like a hot potato when you are in  Trouble’ (she reasons out what good use is the relatives if they aren’t shoulder to shoulder  when you’re in serious troble, indeed a very pertinent and sensible common sense based thought).

Let us see,further the paradigms shift.

In the Return of the Native, of Thomas Hardy, he says, ‘Land is not a mere stage for the Enactment  of (a) human  history, but an entity  alive in itself’;

Roy Scanton, in his ‘Learning  to Die  in the Antropocene: Reflections on the End of  Civilization’, argues,’, in such a way, that we will begin to live our lives with greater  Awareness of what is meaningful?;

It is not unlike thinking about death;

Every human being is headed towards death, that is very much larger than an individual  

Death - precisely why it demands  a greater contemplation, as ‘direness of the results   prepares us of what is going to happen, at a personal level is not entirely ‘Negative thing’or thinking;

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Once knowing  ‘what lies ahead creates a  a serious urgency for ‘Reflexion’ that is the   level what Einstein talks about, as ‘Level ‘ based paradigms’;

‘The Significant problems we face  cannot be solved at the same level of ‘Thinking’, when we created them’

Under 123 agreement, ideas like Nuclear Clean energy surfaced; that is one level of Perception;

Then creation of Kudankulam reactors is an another level;

Then the environmental problems what brought out by the locals is one another level

NPCIL statements recorded as response to Sundari is an other level;

Sundari’s questions obviously one more other level;

That way when we analyse with the paradigm of Einstein , obviously clearly,  the levels of significant problems cannot be  solved at the same level what 123 agreement conceived nor what NPCIL responded to Sundari at Khudoonkulam;

In the similar way the envirnmental natural issues every such issue is containing several levels of sgnificant problems, what Einstein stated in his gem idea paradigm;

Similar view Scanton says or argues in his book, on different levels of issues.

Obviously confrontations are very normal, generally;

Obviously every issue proves a ‘fact’ of thought, at every ‘level issue’ is indeed a significant level problem;

What is really essential for us, as Sundari in Khoodankulam , precisely says or argues, is  ‘to confront’, the reality, that lies ahead, and in these circumstances of what she argues is that the government we have created, did create, the ‘wanton circumstances’(a level ‘again) like  Khoodankulam situation; so obviously she says we alone have to take on by confrontation such governents, that way she did question PM and CM, for they failed to take care of safety of the people of Khoodankulam, ( again another level); that way she argues’ she doesn’t  care when, she was arrested under 78 or so charges  by the state of Tamilnadu; (level);

Might be she was just an VIIIth class, but she has a ‘robust thinking thinker’ of ‘Level’; of what  Einstein Says in ‘his paradigm of levels’, a greatest scientist of the 20th century,  yet to be an  equal to him yet to be found by this world of 21st century;

‘So friends Stand and Stair the skies!

Again Sundari is obviously, taking, in the lines of Thomas Hardy (of England) or Roy   Scranton  (Europe), a rural background (a level):

Rural only moves to urban; but perceptions change, either due to pausity of time or anything else to care for (a level);

See, One Amitav Gosh a Journalist turned Environmentalist, by his extra private studies   of subjects - Geology, Natural /History/, Botany and his own private research, on climate  and Environment rightly, says in his works - Novels, and novel based non fiction writings  says rightly reiterates;

‘Mumbai is made of seven islands, which the then British connected by reclamation as these islands were low lying areas compared to the sea level - i mean  Arabian Sea Level.

Here in spiite of CRZ (coastal region zones) restrictions under Environmental laws of the Union and State, gets into so called vexatious ‘relaxations on the stringent conditions, as if Man can be just a dispenser of  justice like God; that power can be likened to  like ‘dejure’ voter transfers his dejure power to ‘defacto’ representative entities like MPs or MLAs, by the ballot box; some one of them become PM or CM; (another couple of levels - commitments obviously different, so greatly significant prblems, what Einstein says!

These representative entities grant CRZ relaxations to the builders; to put up high rise   buildings on the coastal border land of Mumbai and its surroundings; ,obviously violating  already available knowledge with man’; the residents (suffering from ‘greed of comfort’  while equally highly ignorant of how to live, though ‘ignorantia legis is non excusat’ is again another level: principle paradigm of law and justice is ‘ignorantia legis ist non excusat in those is a fact), when nature’s fury attacks the residents (a level) (in those high rise ought and should suffer the consequesnces, (level) that tax payers moneys should not be used to save such ‘muddy brains’, as they voluntarily fall into the  trap)  must and should suffer the consequences of events (level); would be the view of the ordinary citizen (level); whose livelihood is getting destoyed like the fisher women like Sundari, (level of high significance);

Mumbai is the fishermen’s villages originally too like Khoodankulam  near Chennai, in   Tamil Nadu;

There is no Disaster preparedness in India( level); as wantonly Indians damage the environment (level);

In what all the ways, possible, one can damage, like the then demonish - kings, in   Hiranyaksha or  Hiranyakasapu, is our governments today is the essence of Sundari’s claim or  Position, at Khoodankulam;

In south Bombay alone, we have a population of 11 millions,(level); lot of middle class office  goers or  factory goers like they ‘sink’, their hard earned savings(level);

In Navi Mumbai too, now at Kharghar  there is an international airport  idea, where millions of $  worth tax payers funds is to be sunk, irrespective of the fact, the international airport is to be laid on ‘unsafe’ land Pieces(level); which are susceptible to natures firy at any time (level); none can predict when (level); a lot of  populace adjuscent would be the hit too badly (level); that is also another ‘level’, as Albert Einstein  conceived.

If there is a natural disaster like earthquake(level) or tsunami(level), as it happened in 2005 deluge all  over, due to underground earthquake at Aech, in Indonesia then, that took a great toll  (level); besides ‘sinking’ several land pieces (level); none knows when such things could happen,(level);

Difficult ‘evacuation in 3 or 4 or 5 days (level) ‘ is always not possible as you have to convince people(level) to move out for safety; as a lot do not know where to go; (level);, what could happen for jobs,(level) (jobs are scarce any time, anywhere in the world, besides skills may not be suitable to take up  other jobs, as jobs today are highly professional, skilled or highly scientific none cannot be ready  and  willing to take up (a very significant level),; as want of skill is very dangerous, as wrong permutations and  combinations caused  Bhopal tragedy in 1980, might be fresh in memory;(level); so Chernobyl (Ukraine)(in USSR), (level); obviously you would be in sixes and sevens (level); besides you took very big unmanageable bank loans speading about 20 years or so, if failed to service your roof would be lost over night(level); as bankers pounce upon you if you fail 2 or 3 EMIs (level) - all these  weigh on the minds of residents affected by these calamities perpetrated by nature (level); besides there are ‘terrorists’ take advantage to explode bombs to cause havoc for one  reason or the other(significant level).

You could imagine what happened when heavily laden clouds hit south Bombay/Mumbai  in 2005,(level), (very strange configuration of weather , where in 2005, stayed position to north of Mumbai, and dumped all rain there in much faster pace(significant level), no outlets to siphon the excess (significant level),water; as sea was also swollen then (level); none could predict such things how recur (level), as our present knowledge level are no where near by to such situations, to cope up with(significant level);

Unfortunately, today we call people like Hardy, James Joy, Adwita Mallabarman (wrote: ‘ A River called ‘Titash), Roy Scranton, about Natural world and the like are considered to be and thought to be ‘Archiac’.(level);

The trajectory  of Modernist imagination  is such that being  tied to anything  other than ‘Human Will’ and agency,  is again considered Archiac (significant level); as our narratives are basically  ‘Urban’, lost touch with rural facts.

Dr. Guru Balakrishnan PhD, M.L.,