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Sep 6, 20216 min read

O KING, STOP KILLING THE ENVIRONMENT OF OUR TAPOVANA (HERMITAGE), THE AKHANḌ HINDU BHĀRAT

Posted on 6th September, 2021

“If you want to cherish my memories, plant trees and save them. This would give me pleasure.”

Dedicated to

Late Anil Madhav Dave (6 July 1956 – 18 May 2017)

Environmentalist

Founder, Narmada Samagra⤡ for reviving the Narmada River

Minister of State (MoS) independent charge of Environment, Forest and Climate Change

(5 July 2016 – 18 May 2017)

यदिदं किंच जगत्सर्वं प्राण एजति निःसृतम् ।

महद्भयं वज्रमुद्यतं य एतद्विदुरमृतास्ते भवन्ति॥2.6.2 ||

yadidaṃ kiṃca jagatsarvaṃ prāṇa ejati niḥsṛtam |

mahadbhayaṃ vajramudyataṃ ya etadviduramṛtāste bhavanti ||

All this universe evolved (from prana, life) moves while Prana is; a mighty terror, the thunderbolt uplifted; those who know this become immortal.

“All that is vibrates with life, having come out from life.”

Eight forms has Shiva, lord of all and king:

And these are water, first created thing;

And fire, which speeds the sacrifice begun;

The priest; and time’s dividers, moon and sun;

The all-embracing ether, path of sound;

The earth, wherein all seeds of life are found;

And air, the breath of life: may he draw near,

Revealed in these, and bless those gathered here.

Translation: Arthur W. Ryder (1914)

To

The Honourable President,

The Republic of India,

Rashtrapati Bhavan,

New Delhi- 110004

SUB: O KING, STOP KILLING THE ENVIRONMENT OF OUR TAPOVANA (HERMITAGE), THE AKHANḌ HINDU BHĀRAT

Respected Ācārya,

Yet we ascetics view the worldly crew

As in a house all lapped about with flame.

Translation: Arthur W. Ryder (1914)

We are really feeling uncomfortable like two disciples (Śāraṅgarava and Śāradvata) of Maharṣi Kanva in the Mahākavi Kālidāsa’s classic play Abhijñāna Śakuntalam in the royal palace of the Rāṣṭrapati Bhavana or in the midst of imperial architecture. Within this mimic world of ongoing restoration or renovation or makeover of Kashi Vishwanath Dham Corridor Project or in the ostentatious display of the Central Vista, we are bound to submit a working paper on:


We are sharing this document to you on the different developmental projects by keeping in mind the fact that we are already within the mahāpralaya (great dissolution) due to anthropogenic glocal (global+local) heating.

The anticipation of the pralaya (dissolution) or mahāpralaya (great dissolution) due to anthropogenic intervention (which was much emphasized by Late Anil Madhav Dave) in the corporeal of nature (prakṛti, the meaning of which is ‘matter’ in the sāṁkhya darśana) led Indian thinkers to idealize the praxis of life in a “different” manner.

Prof. Girindrasekhar Basu, the first psychoanalyst in India, observed that the process of archewriting (śruti or the Veda, i.e., orally transmitted mnemonic device) was developed by purāṇkāras to avoid depreciation of written texts due to the great dissolution. They followed the technique of archewriting to preserve their wisdom (1924). (Cf. VEDIC SONGS: TECHNOLOGY WITHOUT MACHINE⤡)

Therefore, we are earnestly requesting you for not to demolishing the nature and heritage for the irreasons of “development” or “beautification”. We are reiterating a hermit’s request to the King Duṣmantya in the play, Abhijñāna Śakuntalam in this context. The hermit was forbidding the king’s hunt for a deer:

“O King, this deer belongs to the hermitage.

Why should his tender form expire,

As blossoms perish in the fire?

How could that gentle life endure

The deadly arrow, sharp and sure?

Restore your arrow to the quiver;

To you were weapons lent

The broken-hearted to deliver,

Not strike the innocent.”

Translation: Arthur W. Ryder (1914)

It has been observed that the very first urbanization (Indus Valley Civilization) in India survived only for 250 to 300 years. Rampant deforestation for the brick industry and building dams were the two of the many causes for the elimination of this urbanization.

The second urbanization (600 B.C.) also lasted for 250 to 300 years.

The Indian people took their recourse to moneyless society (often perceived as a disease by the Marxist Historians: Monetary Anemia) and de-urbanization (it is also branded as disease: Urban Anemia) through the agrahā system (3rd C. A.D.)

However, there is another way of perceiving it:

It is not a disease, but symptomatic return to jouissance (āhlāda) or sinthome (a la Lacan), as the people of India realized the fates of the two urbanizations.

The essential “inner domain” of India took a different techne: technology of corporeal, a movement within the body to avoid carbon-emitting civilized society.

Their goal was not to pollute the sacred nature.

Nature is bestowed with sacredness to protect it from contamination.

At the level of agriculture, Manusaṁhitā put an imperative:

कृषिं साधुइति मन्यन्ते सा वृत्तिः सद्विगर्हिताः ।

भूमिं भूमिशयांश्चैव हन्ति काष्ठमयोमुखम् ॥ ८४ ॥

kṛṣiṃ sādhuiti manyante sā vṛttiḥ sadvigarhitāḥ |

bhūmiṃ bhūmiśayāṃścaiva hanti kāṣṭhamayomukham || 84 ||

People think agriculture to be good; but that occupation is despised by the righteous; the iron-tipped wood injures the earth and the earthly creatures.—(84) “(Some) declare that agriculture is something excellent, (but) that means of subsistence is blamed by the virtuous; (for) the wooden (implement) with iron point injuries the earth and (the beings) living in the earth.” (Buhler’s Translation) (See also Vājasaneya Saṃhitā, 12.71)

It is a surprising statement from a book, which is often condemned by some for its conservativeness! King Janaka, Aśvapati et al. –all performed this vārttā (Agriculture and business-management)-vidyā after gaining the absolute knowledge (cf. Gita, III/20). This kṛṣividyā is to be performed cautiously without disturbing the non-humans. When modern agricultural science with the help of corporates is destroying the fertility of land by using chemical fertilizers; killing insects with poisonous pesticides; terminating almost 4000 varieties of indigenous rice-seeds by using hybrid seeds and GMOs; utilizing tractors by burning fossil oil, the above statement of Maharṣi Manu is a revolutionary one as non-humans, non-homo economicus is included in the statement.

And that was the point of departure from the developmental paradigm. Two points are to be noted here:

• Schumacher, when discussing “Buddhist Economics”, in his 1973 book, Small is beautiful vehemently opposed use of modern technological gadgets in agriculture; he also emphasized on the inclusion of non-humans within the ambit of epistemology, where living organisms matter.

• Fukuoka, in his revolutionary text, One Straw Revolution (1978), proposed a surprising hypothesis with ample empirical examples, “No farming is the best farming”. The above statement from Manusaṁhita that is emphasizing on the ecological sustainability, could only be compared with the endeavor of Fukuoka.

On the basis of such observations, anticipating the results of anthropogenic global heating, i.e., the dissolution of the earth within the span of 20-twenty to 2050, one must be decisive enough to take following resolutions:

1. Sustainable retreat from developmental paradigm as preached by IMF-WTO-WB:

2. Back to the forest as proposed by Tagore in “The Messages of the Forest” (1919):

3. Or to shun off urbanization, returning to agro-city or to simple self-reliant village as proposed by Tagore and Gandhi.

4. Tagore, as a futurist, emphasized on the concept of archetypical tapovana, where parāvidya could be practiced without performing carbon-emitting rituals, i.e., agnihotrādi karma.

Along with this catastrophic situation of the natural ecosystem, the financial ecosystem (especially neo-liberal crony⤡ monetary economy) is also devastatingly collapsing. Though, we have used the term, “financial ecosystem”, the term itself is fallacious as it is trapped by the fallacy of misplaced concreteness due to the stipulation of socially-constructed all-pervading “market” as a “natural” ecological phenomenon.

It is our humble appeal to your wise self to kindly rescue us, your citizens, from meeting this fate caused by the sakāma karma of the humans, i.e., the mahāpralaya because of anthropogenic glocal heating.

As members of a proud Hindu Undivided Family and adherents of the Sangh ideal of Akhanḍ Hindu Bhārata, we do not wish to be transformed into climate refugees and get mingled up with all sorts of lowly untouchable castes and infidel-religions in the soon-to-be claustrophobic refugee camps!

We also appeal to you for liberating us from the calamitous financial ecosystem due to the abrupt bankruptcies, which are turning us into homeless paupers, e.g., Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (2016), whose validity was already questioned by the Standing Committee of the Parliament⤡. Consequently, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has also been working with the RBI regarding the conduct of the Committee of Creditors (CoC) under the IBC ⤡. (Kindly see our earlier letters to you regarding this very issue: ⤡ ⤡). Kindly also note that 36 Central Banks all over the world are working on the green banking⤡, i.e., relating monetary issues with the climate crisis ⤡ ⤡! It is also to request the Honourable Governor of the Reserve Bank of India to initiate the green banking in India with your kind permission and advice.

Yours Obediently,

Dr. Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay

Mrs. Rupa Bandyopadhyay

Mr. Akhar Bandyopadhyay

COPY TO:

1. THE HONOURABLE PRIME MINISTER, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

2. THE HONOURABLE FINANCE MINISTER, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

3. THE HONOURABLE MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT, FOREST AND CLIMATE CHANGE, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

4. THE HONOURABLE GOVERNOR, THE RESERVE BANK OF INDIA

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