HOMAGE TO OUR UNSUNG HEROES WHO FOUGHT FOR THE PLANET

Today is the 54th Earth Day. Since April 22nd, 1970, the world has shifted from worshipping oil to acknowledging its role in the greatest crisis today — climate change. This hasn’t happened just because of good governance. It happened because of “people power”.

Indians are lucky to have inherited a legacy of environmentalism. Apart from Gandhi, think of the Chipko Movement, 51 years ago. In 1973, a group of village women hugged the trees in a Chamoli forest in Uttarakhand, refusing to let contractors log them. The movement spread all over the Himalayas. Meanwhile, in 1979, pan-india protests erupted against building a dam on the Kunthipuzha river, in the pristine tropical forests of the Silent Valley in Kerala. Public pressure forced the project to be dropped. Meanwhile, protests against the Tehri dam, located in a highly seismic zone, continued from the 1980s to early 2000s. The fact that, 40 years later, lakhs of Indians can still connect Bhopal with a terrible toxic gas leak, is also testimony of the work of those who still seek elusive compensation for the victims.

As we watch landslides and floods in the Himalayas and floods in Kerala, and find toxic microplastics in our bodies, we realize how much foresight these movements offered.

Earth day is an opportunity to thank thousands of these relatively un-named, un-awarded, un-glorified environmentalists before us. Let’s walk in their paths by discharging our constitutional duty as citizens. Let’s not reduce this to consumption patterns but join hands for a paradigm shift that keeps the earth in balance.