Pragmatism Pays

Everybody who attended the Rakesh Sharma talk would have more than taken note of the bleak picture that he had painted for the future of our Earth, whose air we all are breathing. Now keeping aside the debate about how accurate or right his prediction is, it is nonetheless clear to everyone that the system is unsustainable and needs to be changed.

But a similar status-quo has existed for quite some time now (“Only one earth”, “Limits to growth” both were published in 70’s). Action taken to tackle this in form of summits such as Rio and Rio + were not much of a success. Even the climate change negotiations are going nowhere, owing mainly to nations turning the negotiations into an economic fight essentially commercializing the climate change talks and the general acceptance of Public for such a stand.

This failure of various governments makes it important that Civil society play a major role in changing the Public opinion which in turn would turn the policies of various governments. Thus the SNET (Sustainability Network) or the Green revolution Club are important instruments even if it succeeds in just creating a sustainability environment (Both physical and intellectual) in IIT Madras.

But I think it is important for such institutions to follow certain principles and come up with an ideology if they were to have wider acceptance. These can be

1)      It is important that they put humans at the centre of the whole exercise. This is because we have   come a long way in our materialistic pursuits and going back to a society in which environment is viewed equally to humans is not pragmatic, at least for a 21^st century human. So this requires that the word “Revolution” from the name be changed to something more” reforming”. Also such an Idea based on sustainability would allow the green movement to take along with them other sustainability movements (Such as Feminism, LGBT movement) and organizations.

2)      Science has been credited with bringing of creative destruction which replaces the old with newer, better institutions that will benefit the human race. This is how capitalism thrived. While pointing out the flaws in the theory of creative destruction, it is important that we realise that science can play an integral role in sustainability and this becomes even more of a prudent idea to follow in a scientific institution such as IIT Madras.

3)      Perhaps the biggest achievement of the Organization would be to internalise the Greenism (A much more reformist one which people can accept, at least for the time being). Much like capitalism or Communism, propaganda has to play a major role in achieving this. This is to be achieved through active political collaborations both at hostel and institute level, EML’s by famous personalities such as Rakesh Sharma which would further require collaboration with EML team, working with Shaastra, Saarang, departmental festivals and many other creative platforms.

The reformist attitude above is not in any way a critique of the revolutionary attitude (Which perhaps is the ideal solution to many problems of our times) but is a realization that, much like the 21^st century socialism, ideologies need to adapt themselves to the existing political realities. And through these slow reforms one can slowly but surely bring about a change in people attitude (Asking people to not play Holi is not going to help anyone). The battle might get longer but it will definitely yield some long lasting results.