BENGALURU: Environment and how man should act to ensure nature is minimally affected by the activities of progress has a strong link to history. Dr Mahesh Rangarajan, Vice-Chancellor of Krea University and Professor of History and Environmental Studies, speaks to The Sunday Standard on how we can take lessons from history to better our environment. Dr Rangarajan was elected Honorary Overseas Member of the American Historical Association earlier this month. A Rhodes Scholar, he studied in the universities of Delhi and Oxford. His most recent book is the co-edited At Nature’s Edge published by OUP.
Excerpts of the interview:
How has the environment changed over the years, what are the mistakes made in the past, leading to rain havoc and devastation like in Kerala, Uttarakhand and other parts of India?
We live in a time of more extreme events. So the amount of precipitation is not changing, but there are more intense wet spells and longer and more intense dry spells. In many places, recent construction has moved onto lands that are fragile or exposed to changes in water levels. So there are larger trends and also locale-specific choices. On the latter front, both in mountain regions and coasts or river banks, there is enough known to minimize loss of life and property.
The question is not what we know but how far we can cooperate and act to make the environment safe and habitable for all.
Can you highlight some of the wrong political, policy decisions which have been taken that have led to the present devastation? What correction measures need to be taken immediately now?
Rather than one or two decisions, let us step back and admit one point. Economic growth is not indefinitely possible on a finite planet. Each nation state wanted to grow faster and the race of each against all imposes costs. Most of all, the cost is on the life support systems of the planet. It is not about melting glaciers, vanishing species or changes in the carbon cycle, but how these interconnect. Over the last half century, however, there is an awareness that there can be different kinds of growths with far lesser destruction. But is that unfolding fast enough? Is the economic burden of change uneven? How will it play out? These are the issues we have to deal with.
During this pandemic, we have seen many experts, medical professionals going back to history for answers on how to deal with the situation, like what was done when plague hit in the past and so on. How important is heritage knowledge for the present. Is it being rightly used to address the situation now?
The past is important as a resource to learn from: It cannot be idealized or, for that matter, ignored. The black rat took the bubonic plague from China to Europe, and in each, over a third of the people died in the 13th century. Most of the deaths due to plague and the so-called Spanish flu, at the end of World War I, were of the poor and underclass in the British Indian empire. Scholars have shown government intervention to be vital, to isolate those who could be carriers, more so to provide all in need with food, medicines and housing. Prof David Arnold (historian who holds the position of Professor of Asian and Global History at Warwick University since 2006) has shown the level of loss of life in the Covid-19 pandemic to be far less in India than a century ago. This does not mean all is well. But there have been learnings in public health as much as action by government and communities. We need to take note that the end of smallpox via vaccination and the sharp decline of polio due to immunisation. There are serious challenges, but the gains also matter.
Earlier, every one was well connected with environment and depended upon it for many things. How can we reconnect with the environment? What needs to be done?
No human on the planet is free from the impact of microbes that can cross borders. Birds and fish ignore the frontiers of nation states. A change in ocean currents in the distant Pacific can impact the monsoon across twenty countries in Asia. The planet is unified by nature and there is no escaping that. What you refer to is the rift with nature. True, many urban, upper strata Indians struggle to name a tree with red flowers or the names of more than five bird species. Few would be able to tell you three common animals unique to the land (nilgai, sloth bear and bonnet monkey). But those rooted in cultures of nature may not all be benign. After all, if you have a meal to cook and cannot afford LPG how can you be blamed for using firewood? What we need is the knowledge of nature and also the means to lessen our footprint on it.
What is the historical reference of the environment and climate change. How did people cope then, and what lessons can we learn from it?
These are complex issues and can hardly be summed up in a line. History is not a morality play or an action movie: Some stories have no heroes or heroines. There are no easy lessons. As with life, you learn from the past, but not in a linear way. So China and India over 2,000-3,000 years each had expanding frontiers of cultivation and large wild animals like elephants. One reason the latter survived in India and Southeast Asia was that they were protected by the rulers as they were captured and trained for warfare. China had no such tradition and they were wiped out for paddy fields. Taboos did not exist among the Han and many were eaten. India has more elephants while a handful survive in the extreme south of China. State action as well as culture protected our elephants, but it was not protection for its own sake alone. So we learn from the past how to think about power, culture and nature. We need to think critically. There is no copybook answer.
We are at crossroads in almost everything and their interpretations are taking new dimensions and are being seen in a new light, like with Mahatma Gandhi or Babasaheb Ambedkar . What is your take on this?
The past cannot be divorced from viewpoints and attitudes of the present. Ambedkar saw the city and modern technology as emancipating women and the disadvantaged communities, whereas Mahatma Gandhi felt that the village could, with reforms, be all inclusive. Each had longer range implications for the environment. Prof Mukul Sharma’s (holds the WA “Tex” Moncrief, Jr Centennial Chair in the Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin) work shows Dalit engagements are with safety, health, housing and dignity. Gandhians like, the late Sunderlal Bahuguna, combined social reform with forest protection and community empowerment.
The past is open for debate but with evidence to support views. There is room for diversity of opinions and approaches.
Do you think a similar thing is happening on the environment and climate front too?
There are new ways of assessing past shifts via pollen remains or tree rings and carbon deposits. We know in the late 17th century there was protracted war in North India and many monsoon failures. The latter made it easier to recruit soldiers in times of crop failure and distress. Climate change was perhaps not driven by human action but gave a new opportunity as well as challenge. How these were used and by whom is the task of historians.