The legacy we shall bequeath to the next generation

[Guest guest]

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090818/jsp/opinion/story_11367469.jsp

 

REDUCED TO DUST

MALA FIDE - MALVIKA SINGH

Full-page stories in the newspapers declare that there are only 400 tigers left

in this country, which was once the ‘land of the tiger’. It is scandalous how

we, as a nation, have allowed the open and blatant breaking of statutory Indian

laws, and the deviations from the acts passed by Parliament, indulged in by

representatives of the Central and state governments whose mandate is to

protect, conserve, and prevent transgressions. Complacent babus — in cahoots

with greedy land, timber and other ‘mafias’ who have been busy raping India in

the name of development, acting in defiance of the law — have reduced our

forests, water-catchment areas and more to dust. With this destruction, we have

lost valuable flora and fauna, we have poisoned our rivers, we have transformed

a rich and wonderful country into a vast cesspool where diseases and shortages

plague our lives and those of our children.

 

The legacy we shall bequeath to the next generation is one that leaves much to

be desired. Short-sighted, faulty policies, political diktats meant primarily to

extract votes from some ‘bank’ or the other, administrators operating in denial,

turning a blind eye to the endless wrongs, are responsible for the overwhelming

pollution of the mind, body, soul and space that has engulfed us. The

diminishing number of tigers is symbolic of the fast-approaching state of

degradation. A desperate desire to participate in the ‘make-a-quick-buck’

scheme, regardless of right and wrong, has suffocated true entrepreneurship and

good governance, ensuring India’s slow-growth trajectory. In the name of the

poor and the disadvantaged, politicians and businessmen have looted the

treasures of the forests for their personal aggrandizement. Others in power have

handed over vast tracts of such land to ‘schools, universities and

institutions’— another easy way of grabbing land.

 

 

Passion play

 

Corruption in India is complicated, and tied up in knots with those who make the

laws and are expected to enforce them. Those who contest the fraud are hauled up

and deemed ‘lawbreakers’. That is the sad truth in India. Till date, no national

leader has had the gumption to stand up and denounce the wrong by staunchly

defending that which is right and within the law. Creating new addenda to

existing environmental laws, thus bringing forth another ‘interpretation’ of the

existing rule, for instance, is one of the ways in which the authorities beat

the laws they have formulated themselves. In the process, they have poisoned our

natural ‘lungs’, and with their bad decisions have ensured that the life-giving,

abundant rivers become thin streams breeding killer bacteria. Why is there no

accountability?

 

Swine flu is the current obsession of the electronic media. At the rate we are

destroying our natural environment, the new flu and its various mutations will

take the death toll to unimaginable proportions in the near future. Undrinkable

water, disease and more will pervade India. Water will stop first in the

highrises, in the Americanized habitats affluent people have created without

adequate infrastructure, or for that matter, without careful thought and

planning. How come the media do not debate and discuss these fundamental issues

while they are so obviously interested in the sensational superficial stuff they

peddle?

 

Those in power and others who wield influence in those supposedly exalted but

actually sterile, isolated and insular quarters, will have to face the wrath of

a long exploited nation. The restoration will happen at some point. But why does

our leadership not have the passion to start the renewal? Why this protection of

all that is illegal, wrong and inappropriate? Why are they not excited by the

challenge of real change? Why are they so uninspired? Where is the passion?

 

Thank you for your compassion !

With best regards,

Debasis Chakrabarti

Compassionate Crusaders Trust

http://www.animalcrusaders.org