What does Mrs.Indira Gandhi say about the relationship between poverty and environment?India Gandhi's speech on 'Human Environment' marks 6
Answers
She asked, "Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?". Mrs. Gandhi put the case for the "world’s poor with eloquence and went on to plead that a higher standard of living for the impoverished people of the earth be achieved without alienating from their heritage, without despoiling nature of its beauty, freshness, and purity so essential to our lives." She also insisted that "Poverty was the greatest source of pollution".
She also quoted a hymn from the Atharva Veda to emphasize India’s age-old concern over ecological balance.
She also warned the UN conference on human-environment against an ecological crisis adding to the burdens of the weaker nations by the introduction of new considerations in political and trade policies of the rich countries.
Indira Gandhi expressed her views about the relationship between poverty and environment at the launch of the National Committee for Environmental Planning and Coordination at Stockholm in 1972. According to her poverty and need are the greatest polluters.
She said that it was not possible to ask the people who live in villages and slums to keep the oceans, rivers and the air clean, when their own lives were contaminated at the source.
She felt that it was necessary to raise the standard of living of the impoverished people of the earth without despoiling nature of its beauty, freshness and purity which is so essential for our lives.
She quoted a hymn from the Atharva Veda to emphasize India's concern about the ecological balance since ancient times. She said that modern man should re-establish the link with nature. Like the ancient Indians he should follow the principle that one takes from the earth and the atmosphere only so much as one puts back into them.