Indigenous Wisdom Can Save Planet Earth!

Balipara Foundation Initiative

Sanjeev Kumar Nath

It was a pleasure to be in the audience of the second day (27 November, 2024) of The Eastern Himalayan Naturenomics Forum organized by the Balipara Foundation in the Phanidhar Dutta Seminar Hall of Gauhati University.

Indranil Gupta, Founder-Director, BrandNEW Associates India was the moderator of this session attended by the Founder and President of Balipara foundation Sri Ranjit Barthakur, the Vice-Chancellor of Gauhati University, Professor Nani Gopal Mahanta, many teachers, officers, research scholars, and students.

The agenda for the session was “Leadership for the Third Pole—Bringing Social and Environmental Lens to Business and Governance” and the speakers were Her Royal Highness Queen Diambi Kabatusuila representing the Elikia Hope Foundation, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dr Lobsang Sangay, Senior Visiting Fellow, Harvard Law School, S Ramadorai, Former CEO and MD, Tata Consultancy Services, Chanakya Chaudhary, Corporate Services, Tata Steel and Director, Tata Steel Foundation India Limited, Kalyan K, Senior Vice President, Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs, Tata Consumer Products Limited, Dr Vibha Dhawan, Director General, TERI, and Jani Viswanathan, Founder, Healing Lives.

From the interesting conversation that took place among the speakers it seemed that the panellists were divided among themselves (or may be, united among themselves) in highlighting four specific dimensions of the issue at hand :

1) corporate responsibility towards the environment and the society, 2) corporate insensitivity and irresponsibility concerning environmental degradation, 3) the importance of tapping indigenous knowledge about the environment, and 4) the need to start the change (for the better) with oneself.

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Chanakya Chaudhary, S Ramadorai, Kalyan K, and Dr Vibha Dhawan spoke about corporate responsibility towards the environment and the society, mentioning TATA endeavours in this regard. Dr Lobsang Sangay, however, spoke about big corporations destroying the environment in their blind race for multiplying profits.

While Chanakya Chaudhary was trying to clearly highlight TATA’s commitment to the environment and to society, but Dr Sangay seemed somewhat skeptical of any capitalist enterprise’s interest in anything but profits. Dr Sangay was of the opinion that tribal communities inhabiting various landscapes had their own ways of respecting the environment, while Mr Chaudhary stressed the importance of development, which he said, could be achieved in a responsible and humane manner, without damaging the environment.

Dr Sangay also spoke at length about the great importance of the Third Pole, i.e., the Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalayan System, spreading across some 4.2 million square kilometres of mountainous lands across Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Tajikistan, with ecosystems sustaining drinking water, food and livelihoods for over 220 million people directly and indirectly for over 1.5 billion people.

He spoke about the fragile ecosystems of the region and the inherited traditional wisdom with which people living in the region, such as the Tibetans living in the high Himalayan ranges, kept the ecosystems unharmed and thriving.

Queen Diambi Kabatusuila was very emphatic in her assertion that the world needed to tap the accumulated knowledge and experience of indigenous, tribal communities if the planet was to be saved from large-scale devastation of the environment, usually caused by greedy western, modern, capitalist entities.

Mr Chanakya Chaudhary at one point challenged the queen’s position, saying that we could not go back to the Stone Age, and that sustainable development was the solution, not any regress into the past. However, I think Mr Chaudhary, in his enthusiasm for stressing the need for development, misunderstood some of the things that the Queen had said.

The Queen did not speak about going back to the Stone Age; she did not favour regress but progress. All she said was that humanity needed to connect with traditional knowledge and wisdom that have been marginalized by the modern western, scientific systems. Since modern, western, scientific, Capitalist, consumerist society has been absolutely callous and cruel to planet earth, since the massive destruction of the ecosystems have been caused by the so-called modern development and progress, we need to embrace the ecological wisdom of our forefathers.

Embracing the wisdom of the past does not mean the rejection of science. The Queen was certainly talking about rejecting the one-sided, profit-driven, accumulative philosophy of modern Capitalism, but not about rejecting scientific knowledge. Also, most importantly, she was talking about recovering our faith in ourselves, in rejecting the idea that the western colonialists alone brought knowledge and progress to our (non-western) societies.

There is no doubt that the TATAs have been exemplary in their commitment to the environment and in not being blindly profit-driven. So much of the profits of the TATAs actually go into charities and social service. However, it is also true that as far the issue of the social responsibilities of big corporate houses is concerned, the TATAs are an exception, not the rule. This is something that Dr Sangay also asserted in his responses to some of the things said about the social responsibility of corporate houses.

Jani Viswanathan, Founder, Healing Lives took the position that all changes have to begin with the individual. When a student spoke about the huge amount of plastic used in India every year, and asked what could be done about that, Ms Viswanathan asked the student about what kind of practice for not using plastic he followed at his home. She made the important point that while we talk about big facts and figures concerning environmental destruction, we first need to change our own behaviour in an environment-friendly manner.

Overall, it was a very interesting conversation among the distinguished participants, very ably moderated by Indranil Gupta. Mr Gupta’s interventions during the question-answer session were particularly interesting because he gave priority to the students present rather than the teachers who wished to ask questions.

Future of the Third Pole and the Eastern Himalayas — the Eastern Himalayas

To me, Queen Diambi Kabatusuila and Dr Lobsang Sangay made the most significant remarks in their call for a renewed interest in the knowledge traditions of indigenous cultures.

The world can still provide for everyone’s needs and will continue to do so, but certainly, it cannot provide for anyone’s greed, particularly the greed of unscrupulous politicians and businesses. The need of the hour is to put ethics first, and none of us can afford to do any fence-sitting. As individuals, corporate entities and other organizations and governments, everyone must shoulder the responsibility towards our only home, the earth.

(Sanjeev Kumar Nath, English Department, Gauhati University, sanjeevnath21@gmail.com)

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