M K Bhan
Everyone has a right to education and right to share the responsibility for the safety and security of flora and fauna. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and this green planet. Its main concern is to strengthen the respect not for Fundamental Rights and Freedom of human beings alone, but also for all creation of the god on this wonderful planet.
We can’t imagine our existence in isolation and by living away from this land. We have to live with it, fight and die for its survival. It is the question of sustainability and all users of natural resources have to think seriously what these resources can spare for us and not what can be snatched from it. The engineers, project surveyors and designers are coming up with bigger plans and projects for sucking these survived shrinking rivers for power generation without bothering that these rivers have to fulfill their primary obligations towards environmental, social and livelihood needs.
Educational institutions are facing many issues and crisis concerning the future safety and security of its students, that is right, but survival of this planet has become a primary concern for all of us. We are safe only when our planet is safe. Air pollution is killing 620,000 Indian every year. Toxic air is the 7th leading cause for the loss of about 18 million healthy years of life due to illness and remaining silent is in no way a solution to escape from it. Imbalances in consumption and production, Rapid urbanization and unplanned development have affected all water bodies and natural resources.
10% of country’s coal-based power is produced by the two border villages: Singruali (M.P) and Sonbhadra (U.P). The electricity it produces lights up homes of others at the cost of darkness of homes of these villagers. The same electricity has poisoned the people and the environment. Educated people of the concerned Power Corporation have not taken any step to curb this deliberate poisoning by mercury in the human blood and hair of these extremely poor villagers. We all have to share the responsibility and be prepared to face the self created crisis and disasters because of excessive human intervention in the eco-system.
In August 2010, over 1000 people suffered from gastroenteritis after drinking contaminated water in Doda Distt of J&K state. Before we can think of showing our concern for the treatment of contaminated water bodies, insurance companies and brokerage firms find it a suitable time for their market and launch luring insurance schemes with special offers in order to show their deep concern for the safety of general masses. We-the aware-beings have taken every care of our security, safety and wellness leaving no part of our body uninsured, even the materials like: cars, motor-cycles, houses, household item and all that we need or not-everything is insured, secured and kept safe for our dependents. It is all genuine and everybody will appreciate it. We have never bothered for the safety, security and existence of these natural resources. We have insurance policies and helpline numbers for the human population but no insurance policy and helpline numbers for the species under threat of human beings. However, some Acts and Laws were included in the Constitution after the extinction of the most valuable and endangered species on the earth. There are no laws for making utility of natural resources accountable to the people in the first place. Few National and International days are earmarked to show our solidarity, resentment and console for the left out helpless birds, animals, plants and dying rivers on this planet. This fashion of celebration fades away soon after the tea-parties and photographic session gets over. After making our earth a little hotter, water more acidic and crops more poisonous, we educated revolutionaries have invented new substitutes for us like: health clubs, fast and packed food centers, potable water, and even the masks for inhaling the pollution free air, but didn’t bothered them to come out of our comfort zone and think about the safety and security of flora and fauna! Is this the reason to claim that human being is the most intelligent specie among all existing living species of the world?
We have failed in our commitment to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at global, national and regional level. We are losing 116 square miles of rainforest, or about an acre a second. As a result of human mismanagement and population explosion, we are losing another 72 square miles by illegal encroachment of the lakes and deserts. 40 to 100 species get eliminated every day, and ‘The Red List’ of threatened species, prepared by (IUCN) International Union for Conservation of Nature, has listed 132 species of plants and animals as Critically Endangered from India. Every day we are adding 2,700 tons of chlorofluorocarbons to the atmosphere and 15 million tons of carbon. It is worth noting here that this is the result of work by people with highest qualification and professional degrees, the heirs of Aristotle, Kant and Goethe.
Education has failed to serve as adequate barrier to this barbarity against the mother Earth. We are Emphasizing theories instead of values, concepts rather than human feelings, abstractions rather than consciousness, ideology and efficiency rather than conscience. More of the same kind of education will only compound our problems. Educational institutions have to share the responsibility and prepare the upcoming generation to deal with the governance and leadership crisis in the country. The worth of education must now be measured against the standards of decency and human survival.
Knowledge and technology is not enough to manage the complexity and life systems of planet Earth, but it is in our hand to manage desires and control greed.
In 1930, After Thomas Midgely Jr. discovered CFC’s, no one even bothered to think or ask about this substance and its future implications on this planet until Chlorofluorocarbons started creating a general thinning of the ozone layer worldwide. We are claiming of touching the sky but are still at the base of the ladder to education, unaware of the treasures of this earth, the ecology of the top inch of topsoil and its relationship to the larger systems of the biosphere is still largely unknown. We still lack the science of land and space health. Important knowledge is being neglected in this developmental and progressive model of the earth. Our recent overemphasizing on the lucrative subjects like molecular biology, genetic engineering etc. have freezed the human mind in the areas of enquiry and creativity. The plain fact is that the planet does not need more “successful” people; it needs the people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. Educational institutes are producing graduates, post graduates and even more qualified people without any broad integrated sense of the unity of things. The lessons being taught are those of hypocrisy and ultimately despair and students are helpless to overcome the frightening gap between ideals and reality. We cannot imagine physics and ecology without economics and vice-versa? We add the price of the sale of a bushel of wheat to GNP while forgetting to subtract the three bushels of topsoil lost in its production. Our (NAS) National Accounting Systems do not subtract the cost of soil erosion, poison in the air or water, and the resource depletion from GNP (Gross National Product). No one is ready to take the responsibility for the tragedies of Ozone depletion, Chernobyl and other disasters created by the monsters of technology and its byproducts.
Our disintegrated system of education does not cultivate vision, imagination, aesthetic or spiritual sensitivity and what is best and noblest in human spirit. Challenging Goal of education is to work for ecological literacy and sustainable development, to make our students better planetary citizens. Mastery of subject matter is no longer the major concern for us; what is more important is the transformation of the existing man and seeking real solution for the emerged problem of sustainability.
The challenge before all educational institutions is to stop the overharvesting of flora and fauna, habitat destruction, unsustainable human population growth and loss of bio-diversity. Bullet ridden bodies of the most endangered species, disappearing of sparrows and other wonderful creatures on this earth are making appeals and demand justice from us. Melting ice-bergs, receding glaciers and thinning blue rings around the green planet are alarming the policy makers, scientists, educators’, conservation practitioners to look for a sustainable model of this earth.
(The author is Director SGC) Model School Sunderbani)
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