In conversation

Sunderlal Bahuguna with George James

GAJ: Sunderlalji, we have been speaking about the proposed project of interlinking the water sources in India. You have suggested a number of alternatives to this strategy – restraint in water use, alternatives to water intensive crops, and afforestation. Could you say a little more about the need for austerity in the use of water?

SB: Austerity is needed not only in agriculture but also in industry. Industries make intensive use of water and pollute water as well.

 

GAJ: It’s my understanding that the water of the Yamuna that departs from Delhi contains 3000 times more coliform organisms per 100 ml than the water that enters the city.

SB: It is for the sake of Delhi that this dam [the Tehri Dam] is being constructed. Water is being diverted to Delhi. I ask our rulers, ‘What have you done to the Yamuna? You have polluted the Yamuna and now you want the Ganges water to wash off your sins in Delhi [laughs].’ So the third thing is afforestation, tree farming. The central vision behind it is that the population is increasing and the land is degrading. So you have to get more production from less land. The only way out is tree farming.

 

GAJ: It is my understanding that tree farming has been undertaken in India, with crops of eucalyptus.

SB: No, no, no, that is foolishness! The first priority should be trees with big canopies and broad leaves because they give more oxygen and absorb more carbon dioxide. Today our lifestyle is very different. We do not think about oxygen. Our first priority should be oxygen and the absorption of carbon dioxide. And the conservation of water depends on the tree species. Eucalyptus grows very high but does not have a dense canopy and its root system is such that the water goes down. Eucalyptus transpires too much water from the soil. I remember Richard St. Barbe Baker, the man of the trees. When he was travelling with me he stopped the car and asked who planted this foolish tree. Then he told me, ‘Trees should have more capacity to absorb water and not only conserve water but also purify water.’ So trees should give more oxygen, and absorb more carbon dioxide. They should conserve more water and purify the water. The oak tree here is regarded as very useful because it both conserves and purifies the water. All of our water sources are in the oak forests. Then comes food, trees giving food, giving fodder, and giving fiber. That means making communities self-sufficient in all their basic needs. That is the real economy.

 

GAJ: By a real economy you mean a local economy in which the people actually live from the land they live on, rather than what you have called a money order economy, where young people go away to work and send money home.

SB: Yes, people sitting here get money from the outside. And how do they use that money? They use that money for meeting their basic needs.

 

GAJ: You have also spoken of these things in terms of religion. You have spoken of the sacredness of trees, and the sacredness of water. I read recently that you were quoted as saying that the Hindus give water to their dead while the Muslim Emperor Aurangzeb refused water to his dying father.

SB: Shahjahan, his father, said that.

 

GAJ: Please explain.

SB: Aurangzeb had put his father in prison. Later his father, Shahjahan whom he had put in jail, sent this to him: [Sunderlal quotes from the Urdu source and translates]. ‘The Hindus are praiseworthy. They give water to their dead. Oh Muslim! Are you so cruel that you cannot give water to your own father in jail?’

 

GAJ: I think the source I read must have misquoted you.

SB: You know there is a saying: the devil quotes the Bible. The real spirituality is to see life in all living beings, to see life in trees, in rivers, in mountains. That would be an ideal society. Today what we are doing is getting all of our things from far away. So this society is harming other beings for the sake of human beings. We have destroyed the habitat of the birds; we have destroyed the habitat of the fish. We have destroyed the habitat of other species. Man has been given the advantage of heart and hand in order to protect other species, but now he is using these in order to finish all other species. See how poor we are compared to our ancestors whom we call primitive. Today we have constructed big cities, a large network of railways, and so many other things. But in the process so many species have become extinct for the sake of and the pleasure of human beings. Those who are the protectors have become the destroyers of other species. So I believe in the moral duty of human beings.

 

GAJ: Do you see that duty as related to the Hindu religious tradition?

SB: There is an idea in Hindu dharma, vasudhaiva kutumbakam, ‘This whole earth is my family.’ It is what Gandhi tried to translate into secular life. He never said that the British were our enemy. He said I am doing this for the benefit of all. And because we have lived together for so many years I also want to bring benefit to the British people. So he was working for all human kind. He was not a nationalistic man. He didn’t even think that he should only do everything for India. He said, ‘I am working for India so that all other nations can benefit. And all others should be free.’

In his prayers he chanted eleven vows of life: ahimsa (non-violence); satya (truth); asteya (not to take another’s things; not to steal); brahmacharya (celibacy); ashangra (not to collect too many things); shram (bodily labour); asvada (not to hanker after taste, the taste of the tongue); abhaya (not to be afraid of anybody and not to make anybody afraid); samanalok (the belief that all religions are equal). Gandhi included in his prayers, the prayers from all religions. Then swadeshi (self-reliance), and sparshabhavana (not to practice untouchability). These are the eleven vows of life. We have to apply these eleven vows, these eleven disciplines of life. What I have tried to do is to carry on Gandhi’s work after independence. Gandhi was the first leader of the world who didn’t join the government after the country became independent. Did you know this?

 

GAJ: In fact he thought that Congress should be disbanded after independence.

SB: Yes, in his last message on 29 January 1948, the day before he was assassinated, he wrote that the Congress should be dissolved. As soon as they heard that Gandhi had made this demand, Nehru and Patel went to see him. They must have wondered what the old man was up to. And they told him, ‘Bapu we hear that you have suggested that the Congress should be dissolved.’ Gandhi said, ‘Yes. It is right, because the Congress is at its height of glory, and if it survives it will be misused. So it should be finished.’

 

GAJ: And obviously they disagreed with him, and they went their way and…

SB: The other thing they asked was, ‘What will you do with the first class leaders?’ Gandhi said that the swaraj, the independence of his dreams, had not yet come. ‘As swaraj, I want a system in which every village is independent. So I want first class leaders in order to implement this idea. These first class leaders are trained to educate the masses. So I will tell them that each one should live in a village, and train people for that, to bring the real fruits of swaraj to the people.’

You know, Gandhi wanted to make every village self-sufficient in basic needs. And as I said earlier, I’ve tried to continue the work of Gandhi. So I thought that the first basic need is oxygen, then water, the third is food, then shelter and clothing. They need such big dams to supply water. Why not every village, every town, be self-sufficient in water? Why should they displace so many people for getting water? So you see what I have been trying is to implement Gandhi’s ideas in post-independent India.

 

GAJ: But now, when we look at this setting overlooking the river that has now been dammed, and we see the resignation of the people and the devastation of the town itself, are you discouraged?

SB: No, no, I am not discouraged because I think that good sense will prevail. Remember there is one belief in our country; Truth will triumph in the end. This is the basic truth. I would like to ask them: what will you do when this dam is silted up? Will you tell the cane growers that you must cultivate coarse grain now because there is no more water, the dam is over (laughs)? A river is a full ecosystem; it is not only the water. There is all this topsoil being manufactured in the Himalayas and distributed by the river all over the country. Then there is fish life. It is the folly of human beings that they disturb other life, even the home of the fish. What will you do if somebody threatens to destroy your house? You would become furious, but the fish will become extinct.

 

GAJ: Hinduism tells us that we are living in the Kali Yuga, the dark age, where evil seems to prevail over good. In the present world that doctrine has much support. How can you believe that truth will prevail in the end?

SB: You know, when there is darkness everywhere, even a single, small lamp that is lit somewhere far, far away, becomes the lamp of hope for those who are groping in the dark. So if you are far away and in the dark but you see a lamp you will go towards it.

 

GAJ: I’ve been very interested in the way you combine science and religion, particularly the Hindu religious tradition. I understand that recently you were in the Western Ghats, visiting Pandurang Hegde and his campaign to save the Kali river. One of the strategies of that campaign has been the padyatra. It’s my understanding that the padyatra is not just a walk in the woods, but that it has a religious history as well.

SB: You know, after all, you have to meet the people. When you are in a vehicle you are in a hurry. And you cannot stop the vehicle at every point where you meet people. When you are walking even if you meet a single person you will talk to him. It means that the padyatra is the best method to convey the message. It has been so from ancient times. Jesus had no car.

 

GAJ: I guess he was a practitioner of the padyatra that most Christians don’t recognize. He told his disciples to walk from place to place, to carry no goods, to eat what is put before them, to heal, and to teach.

SB: He is still reigning over our hearts on account of that padyatra. Because that padyatra is living. You know today the radio and television and so many other things are barking, but there is no impact. It is only a fleeting pleasure, a barking faith. But when you meet somebody you talk to him.

 

GAJ: To go back to the padyatra with Pandurang Hegde, the founder of the Appiko movement in Karnataka; how did you come to know him?

SB: Pandurang Hegde was a student of Social Work at Delhi University. And there is a requirement in Social Work that you have to do some fieldwork with some old social worker. So he came to my ashram in Silyara. After he was there for some time I asked, ‘Pandurang, what are you going to do after this?’ He replied, ‘I will do some service.’ After he went back, one day he wrote to me. ‘Please come here. I am going to start some work in Karnataka to save the Western Ghats.’ And then he launched the Appiko movement. Appiko is the word for Chipko in Kannada.

 

GAJ: It is my understanding that the padyatra is a very old religious tradition.

SB: You know, as a matter of fact, religions have become too narrow. But the real thing is spirituality. It means seeing the almighty in all beings, not only in human beings but also in birds, beasts, trees, mountains, rivers. That is spirituality. I have tried to marry spirituality and science. As Vinobha Bhave said, science plus spirituality is sarvodaya, the good for all. But science plus politics is equal to the atom bomb. When science is in the hands of politics then it is a disaster. I have tried to convince people that the main produce of the forests is soil, water, and pure air, not timber, resin and foreign exchange.

Our relationship to nature should be that of a child to the mother. Nature is our mother and we are the children. We should not go far away from nature. We should have a simple lifestyle. That is what Gandhi understood. And in a way E.F. Schumacher interpreted these ideas for the rest of the world when he said, ‘Small is Beautiful.’ But people do not understand that big is horrible. That is the other thing. In order to maintain big things you have to do injury to nature, you have to use other nations and underdeveloped areas. And what the rich countries have done is that they have made foreign exchange the God of the poor countries.

 

GAJ: This analogy between consumerism and religion is an interesting one. In some of your writings you’ve made the point that there is a new religion. And the leaders of Third World countries are eager to bring the god of that religion into their midst.

SB: The religion of economics.

 

GAJ: I think this is more than an analogy because in a religion that is integrated within a society, the people don’t think of it as a religion. It is taken for granted. In America modern economics is taken for granted. It’s not something they are aware of as being alien from themselves.

SB: Now many people think that Gandhi will come from the West. The wise people in the West will realize that they should do away with this consumerism and its theory of nature. Then people in other nations will also realize this.

 

GAJ: Another aspect of this consumerist worldview is that the wealth that westerners have accumulated does not seem to make them happy.

SB: Yes, material wealth does not make men happy. It only makes them greedy, to find satisfaction in more and more material things. You know the ultimate objective of life should be the achievement of happiness, peace and fulfillment, whereas the materialist society believes in temporary happiness, temporary peace, and temporary satisfaction. This is the basic difference between the two: materialism and the philosophy of Gandhi. We have to redefine development. Development is a state in which the individuals in society enjoy permanent peace, happiness and fulfillment. Whatever we have achieved today is by converting nature into cash. So we have to redefine our civilization. Those who employ the economic theory of nature are regarded as civilized. But those who live in perfect harmony with nature, who do no harm to nature, really they are the civilized persons.

 

GAJ: When you speak of economics as a religion, I take it that you see analogies in materialism for various aspects of religion. You have said, for instance, that you see the dollar as a new god, and the technicians and the bureaucrats as a new priesthood.

SB: They are all, politicians, technocrats, and bureaucrats. They all join to bring that god to the people, and allure the people to believe that their well-being depends on this god.

 

GAJ: And the temples of this religion? What is the analogy for the temples of this religion?

SB: The temples are these projects. Nehru started this thinking. He said they were the new temples of India. This is the basic difference between Gandhi and Nehru. Nehru was very impressed by Soviet Russia and by the development in the West, whereas Gandhi’s thinking was quite different. He believed in a decent life system, in a decent life society, in which power resided in these villages. He wanted to make it just like this. [Sunderlal takes a sheet of paper, folds it in half, and places it in front of him with the fold facing up.] This is a triangle. The base is here. So the base is wider. And the top is narrow. He wanted that all power should be at the base. And as you move up the triangle the power should go on decreasing. And in the end (at the top) there is very little power – only foreign affairs, defence, external affairs and so on. He believed in participatory democracy. Gandhi’s concept of democracy was direct participation of the people. The concept of other leaders was quite different because they were power hungry. They wanted power. And that could only be possible in a centralized system.

 

GAJ: So now we have an inverted triangle? The local people are without power, while the central government has enormous power?

SB: People have become like paupers. Whenever a government leader or minister visits the village they all come with their demands. ‘Please give us something.’ In a decent life system they should have direct control over the government, and all their problems should have been solved. So it is due to this centralized system in a poor country that we are under the debt we have. We incur debt for our development from other countries. When we achieved freedom, England was our debtor. Now we are indebted even to the smallest countries of the world.

 

GAJ: You have spoken earlier about a permanent economy, as opposed to a temporary economy. It’s my understanding that scientific studies of dams like this one reveal that they will eventually silt up. The developers have claimed that this dam will last a hundred years.

SB: Yes, but experts on Himalayan geology say that it will silt up in 30 years because the siltation rate in this river is very high. The other thing is that the measurements for water siltation they are using were taken in 1949 when they envisaged this dam. Today the water flow is only half of what it was. I was born in this area and have been seeing this river since then. Before it went under this temporary lake, you could see high water marks of previous times, and you could see that the river was very high and now it is low. I am also afraid that the dam will be constructed but it will not be finished, meaning that there will not be enough water to fill it. Water, as you know, is going to be an international problem, especially in the Asian countries, due to rise in temperatures, the dwindling of water sources, and the disappearance of glaciers.

 

GAJ: An alternative to building a huge dam that will silt up is a technology called run of the river. Does any project in India use the run of the river technology?

SB: Yes, yes. On this very river, beyond Uttarkashi there are two such projects. You know, in the run of the river scheme, you just take a channel from the river. And after a few kilometres you can make a fall and generate electricity.

My plan emerged after the Chipko movement. In the Chipko movement we had to fight for eight years to make the truth known to the government that the main product of the Himalayan forests is not timber but water. The slogan of the Chipko movement was, ‘What does the forest bear? Soil, water, and pure air!’ While their [the government’s] slogan was, ‘What does the forest bear? Resin, timber and foreign exchange.’ Our plan was to convince the people that their well-being lies in planting trees. So I identified the trees, especially of the Himalayan region. The first priority is to trees giving nuts, like walnuts. Second, to trees giving edible seeds, like almond. There is a variety of wild apricot whose seeds are sweet like almond. That too can be grown here. The third priority is to trees giving oil seeds. The fourth for flowering trees, for honey. There is one tree, the bald cherry, that flowers in the month of November and December and is regarded as a divine tree in the Himalaya. When there is nothing for the bees this tree provides nectar. So flowering trees. And last, seasonal fruit. And this classification depends upon the survival period of the products. Nuts, edible seeds, oil seeds, flowering trees for honey, and last seasonal fruits. Because the survival period for seasonal fruits is too short.

Modern civilization has made man the butcher of nature. We kill nature and become prosperous. But that is temporary economics. So I raise the question, how long will this dam work? It is temporary. But if they plant the whole Himalaya with trees, the water renewing capacity of Himalaya will increase. And that will be permanent. It will make the hill people prosperous also. Today what has happened to the hills by felling the trees is that there are landslides and the soil, which is the flesh and blood of the mountains, is flowing down to the sea. And do you know that there is an ecological rule that men follow their soil. The people are going down to the plains.

 

GAJ: This ties in to what you said earlier about the money order economy, that people go down to the plains to get jobs.

SB: It’s like attempting to catch the soil; but the soil is gone. So they are there and their people are here waiting for the money order to come.

 

GAJ: We hear a lot in the media about globalization. Where there are cheap labour resources, that labour can be exploited electronically, on a global scale. People are working at an extraordinary distance from the land they occupy. I’m wondering if you see globalization as completely negative, or whether globalization can be accommodated in some way to support a local economy.

SB: I will tell you a very remarkable slogan: ‘Think globally and act locally.’ In your actions you should think about the whole world, about the well-being of all. But actions should be local, production should be local. And I do not believe in so much foreign trade. People should be self-sufficient from their own resources. You know Gandhi was a deep thinker. The first book he wrote was Hind Swaraj, in 1907. So today the question is man’s relationship with nature and with other species. This is the first thing. It is the test of our civilization. Because we say that we have become civilized. But I would argue that we are like tigers in a cage, getting our sustenance from far away, and impoverishing others, the weaker people, alluring them with foreign exchange. And as I told you, for the governments of poorer countries the dollar has become next to God.

 

GAJ: I’ve heard some people suggest ways of renovating globalization, of adjusting it, so that local people will receive more from the raw materials they are loosing.

SB: You know there is a class of middlemen, traders. In some cases the government is the middleman. The middlemen do nothing for the benefit of the local people, although they always get the biggest share. Under the motive of profit they will grow too much. And too much production is like squeezing out the last pound of flesh from our body. In a natural system there is a harmonious relationship between human beings, animals, plants and so on. But that harmonious relationship is destroyed by this centralized system of production, and by money economics. And money becomes next to God. In order to bring that god to their home they will sell everything. The exploitation of oil resources by the Arab sheiks in the Middle East is an example. Any system that is based on non-renewable resources is temporary. The essence of Gandhian philosophy is that your life should depend upon renewable resources, which you get from your surroundings.

You know that is why that old man [Gandhi] used to peddle a bicycle. In the production of energy, the first priority should be human energy. You can improve the machines, make them more efficient. With less energy you can get more. The second priority should be animal energy. Not animals for eating! Third is biogas from human and animal waste. Fourth is solar energy, where there is enough sun. Fifth is wind. Sixth is geothermal energy. And the seventh is hydroelectric power from the run of the river. These should be our energy priorities in a non-violent and permanent society. Today we are doing violence towards the earth, toward nature. We have become butchers of nature.