Ramachandra Guha's new book is a must-read on India's history and nature

Speaking With Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism  

Author: Ramachandra Guha

Publisher: Fourth Estate 

Pages: 406

Price: Rs 799

 

The premise of this collection of essays on prominent naturalists, mainly Indian, is notable, needed and quite frankly, inspirational. It contests effectively the widely held notions that love for nature and the creation and adoption of methods that help the environment are western constructs and inventions that India has adopted. Nor does it pander to the equally western idea of the “Noble Savage”, who by his or her daily behaviour has some spiritual connection with nature. 

Ramachandra Guha has collected a formidable cast: Rabindranath Tagore, Radhakamal Mukerjee, J C Kumarappa, Patrick Geddes, Albert and Gabrielle Howard, Madeleine/Mira, Verrier Elwin, K M Munshi and M Krishnan. Each has a separate area of expertise and the reach here is broad— from poetry and understanding the ways of nature, to sociological ecology, a grassroots Gandhian village view, town planning, agriculture, hands-on environmentalism, tribal and community connections 

to forests, tree-plantations from a Hindu perspective to a naturalist and wildlife specialist. 

These names and subjects cover every aspect of environmentalism as we understand it, and if climate change and global warming are missing from the list it is only because humans did not pay heed to the words and examples of those mentioned here. 

Western imperialism and industrialisation are the threads that run through the essays because almost everyone saw them as evil, as the enemy to the natural world. Some of the names are well known, others such as the work of Radhakamal Mukerjee, J C Kumarappa and the Howards are revelations. The inclusion of Munshi is a bold move,  

Dr Guha calls him a “Hindutva environmentalist” but his contribution is important. 

Much is also revealed about how environmentalism grew in India during colonial rule and in the early days of independent India. The conflict between the village focus of Gandhi and the more industrial route of the first government under Jawaharlal Nehru shows up several times, especially in the chapter on the indomitable Kumarappa. 

Indeed, this quote from Gandhi (1928) begins the book: “God forbid that Indians should ever take to industrialisation after the manner of the West. The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom is today keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts.” 

Sadly, none of the pioneers, fighters, poets and writers could stop India from following in those footsteps. Or indeed, the rest of the world. And that is a price we leave behind for the generations which follow us. On the other hand, they also set the background and the platform for several of our more successful environmental policies. To read their stories and about their work serves as a timely reminder that our own history can sometimes save us from ourselves. 

 Where the reader will be disappointed is in the lack of analysis by the author, a formidable social and contemporary historian, who has written extensively on the environment, on Gandhi and on Verrier Elwin. But quoting from the works and the words of the people profiled here, we are left wanting. The author’s perspective would have been invaluable, and not just to provide context but also to interpret and explain the worth and heft of so many ideas represented here. There is some analysis, don’t get me wrong, but not enough. 

In fact, the epilogue provides some of the much-needed analysis, which leads one to believe that it should in fact have been the prologue. This would have helped readers and not just pushed them into the deep end without a lifebelt. 

That said, there is much to be astonished and enlightened by. The travails of Geddes as he grappled with both the Raj and with maharajas, to get his nature-friendly towns approved into reality. The resistance the Howards faced with their successful methods of composting for agricultural use. How Munshi was commandeered into the Hindutva movement after his death, although he never expressly joined any Hindutva parties in his lifetime. The writings of Krishnan were clear that humans needed to be kept away totally from wild life. Yet as Dr Guha writes and as naturalists have since discovered, total segregation can also be detrimental to ecological systems. 

Anyone interested in the planet, in India, and in India’s history would be well-served by reading  Speaking With Nature. Each person presented is different and each serves a different aspect of the environment and ecology. As Dr Guha writes, we have reached such a stage that we are all environmentalists now. Or we should be. Since the people featured here played their role, many Indian environmentalists have emerged. Now we know whose shoulders they stood on. 

I shall end where Dr Guha began, with Tagore. This is from a lecture he gave in America: “Take man from his natural surroundings, from the fullness of his communal life, with all its living associations with beauty and love and social obligations, and you will be able to turn him into so many fragments of a machine for the production of wealth on a gigantic scale. Turn a tree into a log and it will burn for you, but it will never bear living flowers and fruit.” 

It is a lesson repeated to us over and over again. Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, comes to mind here. Rampant development is just rampaging greed. Here’s a salute to the men and women featured here: May we pay their ideas some heed. 

The reviewer is an independent journalist who writes on the media, politics and social issues