Meaning what we say

India will soon commence its one-year tenure as Chair of the G-20, a multilateral grouping of 19 economically and militarily powerful countries and the European Union. At the closing session of the G-20 meet in Bali last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared “One Earth, One Family, One Future” as the theme of India’s G-20 Chairpersonship. Let’s briefly engage with the three ‘priorities’ he specified as being integral to this theme.

(1) “The sense of ownership over natural resources is giving rise to conflict today and has become the main cause of the plight of the environment. For the safe future of the planet, the sense of trusteeship is the solution.”

International trusteeship over the world’s natural resources is indeed a noble ideal to pursue: the idea that a country can do what it pleases with the natural world found inside its territory is no longer tenable since its harmful effects are felt in countries outside it. But India’s pursuit of this ideal in the world arena will seem meaningful only if it is continuous with what happens inside the country. To take an instance: mining companies get exclusive access to mine minerals in tribal settlements without prior consultation with the tribal communities or securing their rights over their land or offering them a fair share of the profits. Another instance: the proposed recent amendment which makes the violation of the provisions of the Environment Protection Act, 1986, no longer a criminal offence but a civil one, and protects the offending private companies simply doesn’t align with the ideal of collective trusteeship over natural resources.

(2) “LiFE i.e., ‘Lifestyle for Environment’ campaign can make a big contribution to this (the ideal of trusteeship). Its purpose is to make sustainable lifestyles a mass movement. The need today is that the benefits of development are universal and all-inclusive.”

Promoting sustainable lifestyles, a laudatory goal, no doubt, can happen only if the model of development is rethought everywhere. The so-called developed countries will need to scale down the heavy strain they cause to the environment even as the rest of the world explores its own ways of being restrained with natural resources. ‘Development’ therefore cannot be seen as the same uniform activity everywhere with ‘benefits’ for all. To see otherwise is to ignore more than a century of rich debates seen the world over on reimagining modern lifestyles and development in sensible and plural ways.

India shouldn’t aspire to recreate Western lifestyles, which have done much to precipitate the climate crisis. On the contrary, it is the West, and all those countries that have mimicked it, who ought to find inspiration from the simple lifestyles of millions of Indians. This is, of course, not to ignore the serious problems of hunger, homelessness and poor health found in India, but to appreciate how large numbers of Indians have stayed immune to the pathology of constant consumerism. It is this culture of restraint that constitutes the moral wealth of India, and indeed of several other countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Had the Union Minister of Road Transport understood this detail, he wouldn’t have promised to bring the roads of Uttar Pradesh on par with those seen in America.

(3) “We have to extend the benefits of development to all human beings with compassion and solidarity. Global development is not possible without women’s participation…Without peace and security, our future generations will not be able to take advantage of economic growth or technological innovation.”

Compassion and solidarity are truly noble guides for policymaking, but it would be very hard to see them in the work of the present government in India. And, socio-economic inequality and everyday violence are acutely felt not only by women, but by minority religions, castes and tribal communities, too. Further, peace and security are not merely the absence of conflict between countries but a flourishing condition of non-violence, both inside the country and outside.

Putting its house in order is essential for India’s desire to offer global leadership in economic and ecological matters abroad to acquire meaning.