The North and the South Greens : A rereading of Ramachandra Guha's Environmentalism

 

    Ramachandra Guha’s book Environmentalism strikes a chord in the heart of every one sane enough to save the planet earth. In his chapter of The Ecology of Affluence, he elaborates the great impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring that fired the activism in many  countries such as America, Germany and Sweden etc. Carson’s crusade against pesticides such as DDT which affects from insects to  plants to animals to humans stirred  not only the conscience but also the brought in legislations such as The Pesticide Control Act ,1972 , Toxic Substances Control Act,1974. Carson called pesticides as ‘elixirs of death’ but we may call them Halahal, the poison born out of the  churning of mountain  Manthan in Hindu mythology.  Carson argued that nature was  ‘ an intricate web of life whose interwoven strands lead from microbes to man.” (qtd. In Guha ,97)  Guha writes  that Carson had not mentioned her predecessors of movement such as George Perkins Marsh, John Muir, and Aldo  Leopold and attributed this to the Age of Ecological Innocence.

     Guha chronicles the movement by writing that after Carson, other biologists who have professional expertise and passion for various forms of life forwarded the movement. Among them Raymond  Dasmaan ( The Destruction of California), Paul Ehrlich (The population Bomb) ,  Garret Hardin ( The tragedy of the Commons) , Barry Commoners ( the Closing Circle). In Europe the noted environmentalists were biologists-  microbiologist Bjorn Gillberg ( Sweden), biochemist  Palmstierma (Sweden), C J BreJe`r, and from the UK they were  Eric Ashby, E.F.Darling, C.H.Waddington and Julian Huxley .

    Guha also write how environmentalists were criticized by capitalists as deviationists from  free market and by socialist as of class struggle. The environmental movement gained numbers in the course of time. The movement which took a  militant turn in 1960’s became involvement tin structures of governance in 1970’s and 80’s and again roots of protest in the streets in 1990’S and early 21^st century. Gandhian ideas of conservation inspired by Thoreau, Ruskin  and Carpenter   revisited by David Foreman, Chris Maile leading to testimony  of “the global and cross-cultural character” (115) of the movement.  Guha also elaborate deep ecology movement spurred on by Arne` Naess  .This movement focused on intrinsic worth of human and nonhuman living and argued for moving away from crude utilitarian viewpoint. While  deep ecologists foused on the wild, another strand called environmental justice movement focused on human habitations and clean -up movement of Love Canal polluted by the firm of Hooker Chemicals   in upstate New York and protest against dump yards in localities where  predominantly black people live  in Houston city .  A sociologist Robert Bullard first pointed out this and Lois Gibbs formed a body called , The Citizens Clearing House for Hazardous Wastes(CCHW)   Women took active part in the movement. In Germany the greens formed a party and gained entrance into their parliament called  the Bundestag . In German greens one strand ‘Fundis’ focused on movements outside whereas another strand ’ Realos’ were ready to participate in government. German greens realised the responsibility of the Western Europe in economic and  ecological exploitation of the third world. The Greens  gave more than 50 percent  representation to  women in their party and parliamentarians  which had  ask “for the cancellation of all international debt, the banning of trade in products that destroy vulnerable ecosystems and most radical of all, for the freer migration of peoples from poor countries to rich ones.”(133). The main stream parties too had to give into  Greens’ demands such as end of nuclear energy,  end of linear growth, unilateral disarmament and proportional representation  of women in all fields.  

   The South  seeks justice    

    While there were arguments that environmental movements are the prerogative of the rich countries , the Global South countries proved it otherwise. The  protests by  the  Penan community in the forests of Sarawak( Malaysia), ‘Narmada bachao Andolan’  against submergence of villages and flora and fauna  under the leadership Of Medha Patkar in Gujarat( India ), the Buddhist-led peasant protest against eucalyptus tree plantation which depletes water level for the benefit of the  Japanese companies in Thailand, The movement led by the poet and martyr Ken Saro-Wiwa against oil drilling by Royal Shell of Anglo-Dutch Conglomerate in the Ogoni region ( Nigeria) and The green belt Movement by Wangari Maathai in Kenya   are a few examples of the ecological consciousness of the global South. There were also movements against mega projects, lime stone mines and  quarries, the high tech trawlers, the Paper factories by the affected sections -tribals, peasants, fisherfolk, communities living downstream respectively. The Peruvian villagers  fought against the mining industry that destroyed their valleys, rivers and forests and their livelihood and Nahuatl Indians in Mexico  opposed  San Juan   dam on the Balsa river. In these movements    Gandhian methods as well as more militant methods are used in case of negligence by the authorities. Baes on native ideologies of justice such as Gandhism.  

    Guha compares Brazilian and Indian movements . while the northern movements focused on quality life, in the global south, it is about livelihood and social justice. In both countries, the struggles are concerned with forests, dams, pollution and biodiversity. In Brazil the  movement comes form the urban squatters and the  indigenous people responding to dramatic degradation whereas in India the rural communities responded to take over of the common resources  by the State or private companies. The professional middle classes in India responded reluctantly to the movement by the peasant and tribals whereas in Brazil, there is more support from them to the urban poor, forest dwellers and dam-displaced people.in both countries this has led to deepening of democracy , more transparency in decision making and more accountability for decision-makers.  The destruction of Amzon forest by  road expansion and logging led to “the most intensive destruction of biomass in world history.”    (161)  Drawing strength from native ideologies such as Gandhism, Buddhism or Catholicism and also by  eco-feminism, the poor redefined development in favour of eco-friendliness  and decentralization. Practical solutions such as small dams, traditional irrigation methods such as tanks and wells and community control of natural forest have been offered by the poor environmentalism  in the place of big dams, and selling of public land by the State to industries.

    While the Northern Greens cared more for endangered species and plants, the Southern Greens drew attention to the rights of the Poor . in Malaysia and India, the corporate-State bureaucratic interests depicted environmentalists as anti-development whereas the latter “spoke truth to power” and questioned ‘’Development at what cost?” (170) 

Today  environmentalists have to make common people and intelligentsia  understand that the real development lies not in privatization of profits  and   pollution form relentless industrialization but  in the socialization of   the surplus value and protection of biodiversity. For this democratic protests as well as  influencing the policy change at the governmental level are need of the hour.