A Deepavali wish

The dozens of full-page, all-colour Deepavali sale ads in newspapers leave no doubt that the government, businesses and the consumers are all happily getting on without ecological concern anywhere in their minds. Had the ecology mattered at all for even one of them, the ads would have had to show for it.

Led by glacier melt and a heavier-than-usual monsoon, the recent floods that brought a third of Pakistan’s territory under water have killed over 1,500 people, destroyed thousands of houses, and extensively damaged crops and animal livestock, making its politicians, journalists and the wider public together ask -- for the first time -- for reparation for these losses from the Western countries which are largely responsible for the climate crisis in the present.

An intense heatwave in Sichuan province made the Chinese government shut down local factories to free up electricity for home air-conditioning. The weather in Europe will be drier this year than at any other time in the last 500 years: nearly two-thirds of the continent is on a drought alert. Last year, when flash floods in Germany and Belgium took a toll of close to 200 lives, Angela Merkel, the former German Chancellor said after visiting the flood ravaged town of Adenau: “The German language can barely describe the devastation.” A series of tropical cyclones has devastated Madagascar and other parts of South-Eastern Africa. Large or small in their scope, climate change-induced tragedies have been seen in every region of the world.

Scientists have, of course, documented the unfolding climate catastrophe with much care over the years. While their pleas for checking global warming have spurred a new ecological activist consciousness, they are, however, yet to instil a foundational urgency and care among policymakers, businesses and the public at large, which treat the problem in an episodic fashion, on a case-by-case basis, and not as requiring constant caution and care. Global fossil fuel-led carbon emissions are now back to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019, after seeing a fall in 2020 due to the lockdowns.

In India, the opinions of scientists and others dedicated to the study of climate change and the means of checking it have not mattered to the extent they should – both in the realms of policy as well as of public opinion. Those of political and religious figures, by contrast, have carried more authority. But the inability to appreciate ecological issues and the more general policy callousness seen among politicians and the apathy that religious leaders have shown towards renewing their moral worldviews in relation to climate change realities have meant a silence from the two constituencies whose words and deeds can go a long way in awakening new ecological sensibilities in Indians. It isn’t clear though whether the ecologists have a strategy for engaging political parties and the heads of religious faiths on the issues they care about.

Not simply an issue demanding a technical fix, climate change might transform the taken-for-granted ideas of family life and urban society, among others. The size of the family and ideas of socialisation will likely transform in relation to the new restraint demanded of everyone with respect to their energy dependence. Having more than a half of the world’s population at present and responsible for nearly 70% of human-led carbon emissions, the cities might come to seem like sociopathic entities, rather than places for seeking the pleasures of individual freedom and anonymity. Further, the confidence about the perpetuity of human society, which animates the spirit of our festivals and the seeking and offering of blessings, might itself give in, should the current levels of non-awareness and neglect of the ecological crisis persist.

On the occasion of Deepavali, the festival of light, I hope the country and the world make space for the new ecological consciousness and think of how best to proceed further. Not in the spirit of paranoia or realpolitik cynicism, but with a caring and determined reconstructive spirit that gives the matter the best possible attention.