Pranab skips Art of Living show
NGT HEARING Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Yamuna floodplain festival in the balance
NEW DELHI: President Pranab Mukherjee will not attend the World Culture Festival, his office said on Monday, a day ahead of a court hearing that could decide the fate of the controversial event planned on the city’s ecosensitive Yamuna floodplain.
Spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shank ar’ s Art of Living Foundation which is organising the three-day extravaganza has come under fire for flattening the floodplain, destroying birds’ nesting sites and choking the polluted Yamuna with construction debris.
HT has written extensively on the damage and violation of construction norms by the organisers who have cleared more than 1,000 acres for the event that opens March 11.
“We have not heard anything from the office of the President. Had he cancelled, we would have known. Clearly it’s a rumour,” an Art of Living representative said.
The organisers have been informed, the President’s office said. “Two days ago, we have conveyed to the organisers that the President is unable to come,” a senior Rashtrapati Bhavan official said. Mukherjee was to deliver the valedictory address.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) is hearing a petition for a ban on the festival that marks the 35th anniversary of the Art of Living foundation. It will cause irreparable damage to the floodplain, says the petition to be heard on Tuesday.
In its report, an NGT-appointed panel said it was too late to scrap the cultural and spiritual meet, suggesting a fine of ` 120 crore. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the festival, which the foundation claims will be attended by 3.5 million people. Cultural performances, spiritual talk and yoga and meditation sessions will be held over three days.
Though Modi has confirmed his schedule, sources said his office was “aware of the controversies” and was “keeping a track of the developments”.
Construction is banned in the eco-fragile area, but a stage spread over seven acres has come up on the west bank of the Yamuna along with several other temporary structures, including pontoon bridges.
HT wrote about bulldozers and other heavy machinery being used to level the ground for chairs and carpets and pitching tents. Crops were damaged as farmers were asked to clear fields to cut roads.
“The floodplain has been completely destroyed; the natural vegetation consisting to reeds, and trees has been completely removed,” the panel told NGT, the country’s green court.
Several people wrote to the President, requesting him not to attend the event.
“Very happy that the President of India… has been listening to the voices of the people who are discharging their constitutional duty of protecting the environment and not legitimising this non-green event,” said Bharati Chaturvedi, director of the Chin tan Environmental Research and Action Group.
Chaturvedi also requested Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to give the event a miss.
Dismissing the NGT report as biased, Ravi Shankar said not a tree was cut and he would have received a red-carpet welcome in any other country for holding such an event. The spiritual guru, who has a worldwide following, denied that the floodplain was destroyed and said it was an eco-friendly function.