Of Consumerism, Responsibility, and the Indian Way!

The Earth is a beautifully balanced system.  It amazes me how every aspect of the earth and its environment are interconnected.  Just like a human body whose temperature goes up when attacked by a virus or harmful bacteria, the earth regulates harmful issues using various defense mechanisms.  At this point humans are certainly the virus (or harmful bacteria, your pick) for the earth!  As we continue on a path of technological breakthroughs for human health and comfort, it is important to understand and minimize the lifecycle environmental impact of the products coming into the market.

I would also submit that it is important to dive deep into the matter to avoid being hypocritical.  Recently, I was witness to a ‘green’ drive in my community, where T-shirts were given out to volunteers saying ‘Say No to Plastic!’  The problem was that the print was done using plastic!

Clearly, we have lost the stream of reason and have gone so deep into consumerism that it is difficult to see outside the well.  However, manifested issues with the economics of consumerism are slowly driving the world towards a culture of responsibility.  As this happens, I believe that the world has come full circle toIndia’s doorstep.  I would like share with you tidbits about two organizations driving grass roots research including life-style and technology for more responsible development.

Navadarshanam is a 100 acres of land intended to give the world a new vision.  Anantu is the familiar face at Navadarshanam, located about 40 kilometers from Bangalore.  I first met Anantu and the Navadarshanam team in 2004.  Stanford electrical engineering graduate, Anantu and the able team at the Navadarshanam Trust have dedicated themselves to creating an environment where the earth is recognized as a living entity that can nurture and self-heal if it is allowed to its own designs with minimal interventions.

By preventing excessive grazing in the 100-acre land, Anantu and friends, most of who are members of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, have been able to re-grow a lush forest in the midst of barren surroundings.  This forest now has over 200,000 trees and plants including several sandalwood and teakwood trees.  It is also home to several species of birds, snakes, animals, and insects.  There is an electrified fence with a low pulse shock to deter elephants and leopards.  Of course, the leopard does break in occasionally and makes away with a deer or a dog.  Then there is an elephant, which has figured out how to short-circuit the electric fence and make its way to feed on the crop being cultivated.  Every time I spend a night at Navadarshanam, I get to experience something offbeat.  Once it was the neighborhood villagers beating drums and scaring the elephants back into the forest and another time I woke up in the night to see a snake slithering past.   Despite these images, technology is still plentiful at Navadarshanam.  Navadarshanam does not draw from the grid, so there are battery-backed solar photovoltaic cells supplying electricity to the minimally used compact fluorescent light bulbs. There is a battery-backed mini wind-turbine with a 400-watt peak capacity, a diesel engine that runs on honge [1]  oil, a gobar [2] -gas facility for cooking gas and a student designed oven for producing charcoal from dead wood.

The homes, delightfully named after flowers, are made from hand-compressed mud-blocks with about 3% cement.  The homes are designed to use natural lighting, use arches for load distribution to eliminate the need for concrete beams, and are built to be airy so that fans are not required even in summer when the out-side temperature is 38 degrees centigrade.  The technology challenges faced by Anantu include the high viscosity of honge oil, the dropping efficiency of his solar panels, the low wind-regime of the region, and techniques to measure the quality of the mud used to make the mud blocks.

The Gandhigram Rural Institute is another organization that comes to my mind that has been driving similar ideals since 1956.  I learnt a lot interacting with Dr. Karunakaran and felt the energy behind the man.  An electrical engineering graduate who was faculty in four Indian Institute of Technology campuses (Delhi,Kanpur, Mumbai, and Madras), Dr. Karunakaran followed his heart to rural education and employment through technology. He was formerly the Vice Chancellor of the Gandhigram Rural Institute (currently he is the Director at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Rural Industrialization, Wardha).  Ten kilometers from Dindigul, Gandhigram is situated at a spot where Gandhi is supposed to have taken a break on one of his numerous train journeys crisscrossing India.  Today, at Gandhigram, you will see research on food production, siddha medication, energy efficient buildings, solar cookers etc.  Dr. Karunakaran himself is a big proponent of the concept of PURA – providing urban amenities in rural areas, a dream of Abdul Kalam, erstwhile president ofIndia.  The concept of PURA is intended to bootstrap the economy of rural India by providing connectivity – physical and electronic.  Of course, the connectivity should come at a cost that is affordable for the rural majority, be rugged to hostile environment (e.g. public phones in villages handle temperatures above 40 degree centigrade), additionally at least for now, the technology should be able to handle sporadic and low quality power.  At the same time, I would emphasize, that the technology should solve a practical problem, beyond romantic notions such as hand-spun charkas charging batteries to power a CFL lamp.

In the new millennium when our kids are turning their noses at adults for wasting resources, perhaps we need to remind ourselves of what Gandhi said “…the earth provides enough for every person’s need but not enough for every person’s greed.”  As we head toward acute energy and water shortage, perhaps the roti-kapada-makan culture does appeal again.  Or maybe as another wise man pointed out, when in doubt - follow the middle path.  It is always a debate, as man is driven to explore his surroundings and harness everything for his benefits.  However, the benefit for a generation could leave the future generations bankrupt in an ecosystem, which by now everyone accepts, is totally interconnected.  Also, as a practical matter, development is unidirectional and yesterday’s greed is today’s need.  There is no voluntarily going back from the age of motorcars, nightlife, and geographical spread of population in areas uninhabitable without technology, and entertainment at the fingertips.

James Watt was probably driven by a desire to understand the power of steam and to harness it for maximum benefit of mankind.  Little did he probably realize the cascading events of his innovation would lead to the industrial revolution and the resultant global warming which has already wiped out several species, is now threatening human life.  Nevertheless the opportunity to innovate is even higher now, as the current set of technologies needs to be completely replaced with those that take from nature only what we can give back in one life-time.

Anantu feels that Indiais better positioned to deal with the world of the future because of its spiritual strength and because of its ability to understand and live to the need rather than to the greed.  Among the major world economies Indiais one of least energy intensive and uses only 50% of the energy the United Statesuses per GDP point.  “The real electrical revolution is yet to come,” says Anantu who believes that while we have understood the effects of electricity, we have not understood electricity itself.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.