Pollution is religion-blind

In his book, “The History of Fireworks in India Between AD 1400 and 1900”, which was published in 1953 by the Indian Institute of World Culture, Bengaluru, late historian Parashuram Krishna Gode gave an account of how the use of fireworks started in India.

According to him, Arabs brought gunpowder technology into India after 1400 AD from China where it was accidentally invented in the 11th and 12th century. Gunpowder was used in the Indian warfare. It later made its way into Diwali celebrations, as it was its main ingredient.

The use of fireworks was limited to wealthy and royal households and infiltrated into the middle class as their economic prosperity improved gradually.

As for the evolution of 'loudspeaker' is concerned, not before Johann Philipp Reis installed an electric device in his telephone in 1861, nobody had heard about it. Later, Alexander Graham Bell patented it in 1876.

Ernst Siemens and Horace Short improvised it further in 1877 and 1898, respectively. However, the modern version of loudspeaker was developed by Chester W Rice and Edward W Kellogg in 1924. By 1930, fixed-magnet loudspeaker introduced by Jensen Company came into the market and was used widely including at ‘religious places’ across the world.

Durga pujas during Navaratri, and Ganesh Chaturthi came to be celebrated in public in Bengal and Maharashtra, respectively, towards the end of the 19th century as mass community events as a tool to fight the colonial regime.

It slowly spread across the country, and its purpose was served. However, the nature of celebrating these festivals continued even after independence - in fact, with more fervour, pushing religious and spiritual essence to a relegated position.

It was heartening to read a report in Deccan Herald (November 18, 2020) about a drop in air and sound pollution in the city of Bengaluru compared to last year due to the prevailing pandemic situation.

Yet, there is no denying that the culture of bursting firecrackers even in small measures affects not only human beings but also hurts birds, animals and aquatics adversely.

It is becoming menacing year after year despite appeals made by the government, celebrities and organisations working for saving the environment. As for sound pollution is concerned, there are court rulings already in place against the violation of the permissible decibel levels.

Overall, religious activities performed as mass events are increasingly disturbing the normal life of common people. All this contributes to aggregating pollution - air (firecrackers), noise (loudspeakers and firecrackers) and water (immersion of idols prepared from banned materials like clay and toxic colours) besides causing traffic inconvenience by road blockades for hours and days.

Why the evolution of religious celebrations as prelude? Here, history is illustrated as a prelude to the context to highlight the fact that except Sikhism which was founded in the 15th century, all major religions practised in India were born much before the invention of fireworks, loudspeakers and celebration of religious festivals as mass community events.

It is clear that there is no link as such between the original tradition and what is practised in the present day in the name of religion. Hence, violation of legal norms of any kind cannot be acceptable – be it every day or once a year practice.

Dissuading voluntarily from this culture would go a long way in restoring a serene and peaceful aura expected from religious practices or celebrations.

Responsibility of the government: The discussed forms of pollution caused in the guise of religion cannot go unchecked forever. Nobody has the right to hold society to ransom with her or his whims and continue to harm the environment – religious and natural.

It is high time the state governments acted sternly against the violators. The politicians in the government must remain neutral in dealing with these kinds of issues to make a telling difference on the ground.

On the other side, as long as we remain polarised based on religion, we cannot focus on containing pollution caused by ‘bigger players’ who make huge profits at the cost of the environment which affect our lives profoundly.

The concerns like industrial waste, vehicular emission, construction and demolition, chemical use, harmful light emissions, use of chemical and synthetic products and so on require urgent attention before nature takes its course for worse through climate change.

White froth

Spewing of ‘toxic white froth’ on a couple of occasions from the Bellandur lake in Bengaluru since 2015 is one example. Numerous disasters of similar kind happening all over the country go unreported.

Given the socio-religious set-up of our country, is it difficult for the government to function decisively? It is worth recalling here an article (How Personal is the Law?) written by M J Akbar on July 28, 2003 in Deccan Chronicle.

It had a message in it. Describing the difficult decision to ban “sati”, Akbar wrote that Lord William Bentinck (Governor-General of India between 1828 and 1835) was able to call for it because the British Raj by then had a clear motto of “Just do it”.

The decision was significant because there was not a murmur in reaction. This was in complete contrast to what was feared by Lord Amherst who was Bentinck’s predecessor - he was advised against such move by all the seven European district magistrates of central India. They warned that such a move would not be acceptable to the people.

Today, we have realised how humane and path-breaking this decision was in removing this social ill from our society. The moral of the story is, if the intent were clear on part of the administrators, the result would be effective and beneficial to the people.

(The writer is a faculty member with the Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad)