what were echandiji's views om
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Dowhat were Gandhiji's views on conservation of resources
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Answer:
This most often quoted phrase by Gandhi depicts his concern for nature and environment. All the international conferences such as the Stockholm Conference of 1972 or the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 were convened much later than the concerns raised by Gandhi about the environment and its effects. Even in India the major movements to protect environment such as the Chipko movement led by Chandi Prasad Bhatt and Sunder Lal Bahuguna and the Narmada Bachao Andolan by Baba Amte and Medha Patkar derived inspiration from Gandhi. The concern of Gandhi about the environment, urbanization and mechanization was evident in his speeches, writings and his messages to the workers. It is apt to note that he was the “World's early environmentalist in vision and practice.”
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GANDHI AND EVILS OF URBANIZATION
Gandhi had cautioned the world, much before any modern day environmentalist, about the problems of large-scale industrialization, which we are confronting today. Gandhi visualized that mechanization will not only lead to industrialization, to massive urbanization, to unemployment, but will also lead to the destruction of environment. His seminal work, Hind Swaraj, written a hundred years ago in 1909 warned of the dangers the world is facing today in the form of environmental destruction and the threat to the planet. The Gandhian idea becomes still more relevant when sustainable growth and development is to be achieved because he emphasized on production by the masses instead of mass production. According to him this will result in the development of an economic system that can minimize environmental degradation and achieve sustainable development. His idea of Swaraj or self-rule enables a practical sustainable development that can be implemented without compromising the quality of life.
Regarding urbanization, Gandhi expressed his views as follows: “It is a process of double drain from the villages. Urbanisation in India is a slow but sure death for her villages and villagers. It can never support 90 per cent of India's population, which is living in her 7,00,000 villages” (number of villages in 1934). He was against the concept of removing cottage industries from small villages as he felt that this would remove whatever little opportunity was still there for making skilled use of the hand and head. “And when the village handicrafts disappear, the villagers working only with their cattle on the field, with idleness for six or four months in the year, must be reduced to the level of the beast and be without proper nourishment either of the mind or the body, and, therefore without joy and without hope” (Harijan, 7-9-1934).
As a matter of historical record, Gandhi was acutely aware of environmental pollution and of its consequences to human health. He was especially concerned about the appalling working conditions in industry, with workers forced to inhale contaminated, toxic air. He expressed those concerns in Indian Opinion on May 5, 1906: “Nowadays, there is an increasing appreciation among enlightened men of the need for open air.”
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NON-VIOLENCE AND CONSERVATION OF RESOURCES
“I need no inspiration other than Nature's. She has never failed me as yet. She mystifies me, bewilders me, sends me to ecstasies.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
The Gandhian idea of non-violence, if adopted at various levels from international politics to local levels, can be useful to reduce carbon footprints caused due to wars and production of missiles. Gandhi had emphasized the importance of natural resources and its conservation. This has a direct bearing on the man-and-environment relationship. The importance of Gandhian philosophy is well-felt in the present period in which the lifestyle of human beings has been developed in a direction of high consumerism and generation of waste. This has a two-way impact on nature.Firstly, the rate of depletion of resources has increased tremendously, and secondly, the presence of toxicity in air, water and soil has increased.
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