The Chipko movement gave us the environment department initially and then the environment ministry. It also gave us a whole new set of laws, the Environment Protection Act, the Forest Conservation Act, the entire legacy that governs us today. I always tell people that I learnt my quantum theory in the University of Western Ontario in Canada and I learnt my ecology in the university of Chipko in Uttarakhand. Unfortunately, our leaders are stuck in the dinosaur age-they think big is better. But we are a civilisation that worships small. Researches by my NGO Navdanya and the United Nations has shown that small farms produce more food. Our leaders are picking up the filth of the West's yesterday. The West today is going solar and we continue to say that coal is modern. People are fighting Walmart around the world and we are saying it's modern.
Our Planning Commission needs to be redone in the footsteps of Bhutan. The Bhutanese Government measures growth not as gross domestic product but focuses on gross national happiness of their people. Their planning commission is called the happiness commission. I think Montek Singh Ahluwalia should go for an internship there.
Nevertheless, there is a lot of awakening of the privileged urban people. We work with schools in a programme called the Gardens of Hope and I can see the enthusiasm among the young. So while we have the total blindness of the executive in Delhi, I can see India is not going to go into sleepwalk mode vis-a-vis the environment. The India of the people will continue to struggle to defend the land, water, soil, biodiversity, the seas.
- As told to Shravya Jain