As we celebrate the 135th birthday anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru today (November 14), it is of crucial significance to appreciate his ideas on conservation of nature in the context of rising air pollution and environmental degradation adversely impacting large tracts of northern India.
Nehru was an outstanding freedom fighter, the first prime minister of our country and the architect of modern India. But it is less known that he was very sensitive to environmental issues.
In his letters to chief ministers on August 5, 1954, after his visit to Chamba, Nehru wrote that too much human intervention in the sensitive parts of Himalayas would cause a crisis of natural disasters in the region. That part of India is now confronted with large-scale devastation because of the way in which nature has been trifled with.
In the aforementioned letters, Nehru wrote that he travelled on a motor road and reached the destination in a few hours in contrast to his previous experience of completing the journey in two full days on foot or horseback. “The new road,” he observed, “followed the winding Ravi and the changing scene was pleasant enough. Yet I remembered with regret our previous trip when we walked and rode through the dense forests, passing Khajjiar lake on the way. It is essential that the interior of these mountains should be opened out by roads and I am pressing for it all the time,” he said. “But at the back of my mind there is a feeling of sadness at the motor bus or lorry coming, puffing and hooting, and somehow desecrating the virgin forest, and perhaps interfering also in other ways with the charm of this mountain country,” Nehru added.
The desecration that Nehru was concerned about has multiplied across India and the rest of the world, causing the planetary crisis attributed to unchecked use of fossil fuels in the modes of transport used by humans.
In fact, the “puffing and hooting” which Nehru referred to in 1954 has become a dangerous new normal in 21st century life. It reminds me of Mahatma Gandhi’s warning in 1938, that if every Indian family would possess one car, there would be too many cars resulting in lack of space for people to walk. He, therefore, said with rare farsightedness that in his vision of Indian society, the possession of a car would not be considered meritorious.
Gandhi and Nehru’s warnings resonate today and constitute a categorical imperative to find solutions to the environmental catastrophe confronting the world.
In his letters to chief ministers on August 15, 1957, Nehru devoted almost two pages to the necessity of protecting the environment while pursuing developmental goals. He noted with regret that protection of the environment did not receive much attention.
He wrote, “We want both to exploit as well as conserve our natural resources. Sometimes, the desire to exploit them outruns discretion, and we forget the part of conservation”. In countries like the United States of America, exploitation of natural resources has gone on at a terrific pace, and now people there are worried about the future”. While stating that due to science and technology humans have multiplied their ability and power they “ignore the fact that nature cannot be trifled with”.
“There is a certain interdependence between man and his environment, and any upsetting factor may bring about harmful consequences,” he asserted. He observed that cutting down of trees and depletion of forests might affect the rainfall and even convert a fertile area into a desert. He flagged that “Highly industrialised countries of the world are now facing many problems both in the physical and psychological sphere of lack of adjustment of man to his environment”.
“Too much bricks and mortar at the expense of green zones may produce consequences which are not good. Too much use of insecticides, and herbicides may destroy some insects which might often play some useful role in the economy of nature. Too much destruction of birds has led to the growth of harmful insects which the birds used to eat,” Nehru cautioned.
Nehru’s words sound remarkably contemporary in our time, marked by a severe ecological crisis that threatens not only humans but all forms of life, including bird species and wildlife.
The fact that he was foregrounding these concerns, even at the formative stage of our nation building when hardly any such concerns were expressed at the global level, makes him a sensitive statesman.
He remarked in 1957 that “There is a certain economy in nature gradually established through the ages.We should certainly change this for man’s benefit. But in doing so we should take every care that the change does not lead to some other evil consequences also, apart from the good that it is intended to do.”
It is very fascinating to note that Nehru pinned his faith on science to find solutions to the environmental crisis. “Science today is advanced enough to be able to give us insights into all these aspects and to the possible consequences of any step that might be taken”, he wrote in 1957. “But this can only be done by a pooling of knowledge,” he said.
Interestingly, he, who went on to build several mega river valley projects, questioned himself about their environmental impact. “We have many large-scale river valley projects which are carefully worked out by our engineers. I wonder, however, how much thought is given before the project is launched, to have an ecological survey of the area and to find out what the effect would be on the drainage system or to the flora and fauna of that area. It would be desirable to have such an ecological survey of these areas before the project is launched and thus to avoid an imbalance of nature”.
Nehru also wrote about the recession of Himalayan glaciers in his letters. “In regard to Himalayan rivers which misbehave so often and cause floods, it has been suggested that there should be a study of glacier recession in the Himalayas to enable a better understanding of nature and the behaviour of these rivers,” he observed. These insights of Nehru indeed make him a statesman of extraordinary stature. Locating the issue of environmental issues in the global context, he referred to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources with its headquarters in Brussels. “This Union devotes itself to the encouragement of this larger outlook in regard to the conservation of flora and fauna and natural resources” Nehru remarked, and underlined the need for India to develop that outlook.
Nehru’s foresight testifies to his larger and universal vision which needs to be revisited to underline his enduring significance.
S N Sahu Served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan.
