Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of good governance not only means development but also means environment-conscious, sustainable development. This is significant because India, led by the Prime Minister, is now playing a global leadership role in steering the planet to a cleaner, greener future for the sake of future generations of mankind.
That Narendra Modi took on the mantle of leadership towards environment-conscious governance in India once he became Prime Minister was imperative, and in many ways expected. But it is heartening that he has also taken India itself towards a leadership role in the global battle for environment conservation.
On World Environment Day, it is important to reiterate that the Prime Minister’s outlook is that it is vital to pursue growth to bring millions out of poverty, achieving this in such a way we do not do lasting damage to our environment.
Prime Minister Modi has often said that the quintessentially Indian ethos of considering the environment as sacred is naturally compatible with the ideas of preserving our planet and staying connected with nature. Right from the sacred and ancient hymns of the Vedas our cultural history is marked with refined thoughts on loving nature. Even to this day, one can hardly travel a kilometre in India without noticing a natural entity like a tree, a river, a stone or even an animal that is being worshipped as a sacred embodiment of the divine.
Right from his days as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi has shown that he is much ahead of his contemporaries in not only recognising environmental conservation as a crucial issue but also in unfurling concrete environment-friendly policies and governance. The leadership and commitment that he has displayed in this matter is too passionate to be an accident.
Prime Minister Modi cemented his global leadership in the discourse of combating climate change when he pioneered the crucial narrative of Climate Justice. Climate Justice implies a fair and equitable burden-sharing arrangement among nations in fighting climate change. Developing and emerging powers must be accommodated by ensuring their quest for growth is adequately supported by developed countries in terms of finance and technology transfer that boosts environmental preservation.
Climate Justice is a concept that seeks to stress that one-size-fits-all methods to combat climate change would be grossly unfair to developing nations.
The leadership in this matter of Climate Justice had to come from emerging powers and it came from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the battle against climate change, emerging powers have a greater say since they must not only pursue environment-friendly policies but must also ensure that millions of their poor citizens are lifted out of poverty through rapid but sustainable development.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been making the case for environment-conscious policies allied with climate justice in platform after platform on the global stage. He has also been leading the international community into policymaking and sustainable development.
Take for example the International Solar Alliance, led by India, that consists of more than 100 ‘solar rich’ countries that are situated in between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. This coalition looks to provide a collaboration platform for these countries to address their energy needs, especially through utilization of solar energy, to promote sustainable energy models.
ISA works to identify opportunities to accelerate development and deployment of existing clean solar energy technologies, a largely untapped domain. The increased deployment of solar technologies will benefit the countries by generating direct and indirect employment, trigger economic activity because the large-scale adoption of solar energy also leads to greater chances of power self-sufficiency in rural areas of developing nations. Access to electricity, as repeatedly observed, directly empowers communities and positively impacts their socio-economic mobility.
Development and environment-conservation need not be extreme ends that cannot be reconciled. This calls for a fine balance that has to be tread where the narrative cannot be about extreme measures.And who better to lead this narrative of moderation than India, the home of an ancient school of thought that shuns extremes and teaches tolerance.
And who better to lead this global movement than Narendra Modi who not only has a record of environment-friendly governance but also has an insightful book “Convenient Action – Continuity For Change” on the threat of climate change and how to deal with it.
Recently in an interaction at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unequivocally said that the New India he envisaged would be based on ancient Indian philosophy which says that humans have a right to utilise nature but not to exploit it. He also firmly established India’s leadership and commitment to combating climate change when he said, at SPIEF, that whether the Paris deal stayed or not, his commitment and India’s as well, is towards preserving the earth for future generations.
At home too, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been raising awareness and spurring action on the issue of environment conservation. Swachh Bharat, the call for cleanliness has now acquired the scale of a mass movement where people are organizing themselves and becoming more and more conscious of their surroundings.
In the May-2017 episode of his widely popular Mann Ki Baat, the Prime Minister informed people that the theme chosen for this year’s World Environment Day by the UN was “Connecting People To Nature”. He said that connecting with nature simply means nurturing a better planet. He remembered Mahatma Gandhi’s quote, “One must care about a world one will not see”.
He also connected the ancient with the modern seamlessly by invoking the Atharva Veda as the most authentic guiding scripture about nature and environment, as it says, “Earth is the mother and I am her son”. Most of our festivals are about worshipping nature or natural phenomena and we only need to get back to the basics to appreciate our environment better and connect to it.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi reminded the nation that connecting with nature is akin to connecting with oneself. Even a splash of water, a boon of nature, has a great rejuvenating effect on us after a tiring day. The best way to conserve our environment is to first connect to nature and realise its powerful beauty.
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