http://www.the-hindu.com/stories/05102523.htm THE HINDU, Wednesday, November 10, 1999 A lesson in humility By Vandana Shiva THE CYCLONE tragedy in Orissa should be a lesson in humility for us. As a civilisation we have always bowed before nature, knowing that Prakriti's forces are much more powerful than all our technologies. The ports and airports which we see as signs of progress and development, as symbols of power, were devastated by nature's fury - reminding us that our biggest and grandest man- made structures are totally fragile and vulnerable before nature's anger. In today's planning, building costly infrastructure as a subsidy for global trade has become the most important ``development'' activity of the State. But the more we are integrated into global markets, the more we are getting separated from our far flung villages. Four days after the disaster, the estimates of damage and arrangements for relief were still not organised. A ``high tech'' India, rushing into an ``information age'' could not get the basic information on how many lives had been extinguished and how many uprooted. Infrastructure projects and infotech are perceived as our bridge to the next century. Yet, as the Orissa cyclone reminds us, all these bridges can be rendered useless by one expression of nature's power and fury. The super-cyclone is an expression of nature's fury - its anger at our wasteful ways of pulling out its fossilised carbon and transforming it into carbon dioxide which pollutes the atmosphere and triggers climate change. The cyclone is not an ordinary natural disaster. It is a result of destroying coastal mangroves and shelter belts for industrial shrimp farms which today continue to operate illegally because in 1996 the Supreme Court ordered their closure. It is a disaster resulting from the profligate ways of a fossil fuel-based industrial society and the globalisation of trade. While the ecological processes unleashed by climate change are complex, unpredictable and riddled with uncertainty, while making disaster preparedness plans we need to take into account the climate instability induced by the Climate Change phenomena which are the results of atmospheric pollution. India has been dealing with the climate change issue on the basis of the ``right to pollute''. The ``right to development'' has been interpreted as the right to make, sell and use more automobiles, the right to set up more fossil fuel-based power plants, the right to promote a chemical and energy intensive agriculture, the right to set up shrimp ``factories'' for the rich consumers of the North while our farmers and fishing communities are robbed of their livelihoods and food. Interpreted in these terms, the ``right to development'' becomes the ``right to pollute''. However, this is not how the right to development was defined in the United Nations. The Declaration on Right to Development as contained in U.N. General Assembly Resolution 41/128 of 4th December 1986: 1. The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realised. 2. The human right to development also implies the full realisation of the right of peoples to self-determination, which includes the exercise of their inalienable right to full sovereignty over all their natural wealth and resources. The right to development was thus primarily articulated as an inalienable right to full sovereignty over natural resources. These, in the perspective of Third World communities, are the pre-conditions for environmental protection and conservation of resources. Development is a beautiful word, suggesting evolution from within. Until the middle of the 20th Century, it was synonymous with evolution as self-organisation. But the ideology of development has implied the globalisation of the priorities, patterns and prejudices of the West. Instead of coming from within, it is externally guided. Instead of contributing to the maintenance of diversity, development has created homogeneity and uniformity. The concept of development can however be interpreted in various ways. Development also has different meanings on the basis of whether it is defined in market terms or in people's terms. Market Development (DM) is a market centred concept. It is based on externalisation of environment costs as well as human rights and needs. It is based on market growth indicators. The right to development based on universalisation of market development is ecologically impossible. It ultimately means the right to destruction since the market prosperity of the North is characterised by per capita consumption and rates of natural resource utilisation 5 to 20 times higher than in the developing countries. Universalising this resource demand requires five planets rather than one and is clearly non-sustainable. It is with this non-sustainability in mind that Gandhiji had said, ``God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the West. The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom (England) is today keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts.'' That is why Gandhi promoted alternative development concepts and strategies. Such concepts are people and nature centred (DPN). The language in the U.N. Declaration on the right to development is in fact based on such a people centred development and not the market centred development which has become the dominant one and is put into practice by agencies such as the World Bank. A people and nature centred Right to Development is based on both ecology and equity. It includes the right to life of all humans (which translates into the right to the satisfaction of basic needs) and right to life of all species (which translates into an obligation and responsibility to protect the environment and all life forms dependent on it. Living within ecological limits and meeting human needs is both possible and desirable for all. A right to development based on these ecological and human criteria is an inclusive and universal criteria. Such a `sustainable development' can and should be applied to the North and the South. In the North it involves a shift from resource wasteful production and consumption systems to resource conserving systems. This shift reduces resource demands without reducing the meeting of needs. In the South resource prudent systems need to be protected while increasing the access of all people to resources needed to meet basic needs. While the market centred development necessitates a global apartheid between the North and the South and between the rich and the poor, in terms of people centred development, a convergence is possible between environment and development on the one hand and between the North and the South on the other. This is the unfinished agenda of Rio which still needs to be taken up by the world community for the survival of the planet and all people. This is the unfinished agenda which needs to guide WTO reform, beginning with the WTO, Ministerial at Seattle in November '99. The Orissa cyclone can be a reminder that we should take the costs of development and globalisation into account when we talk of growth and progress. Else, our mad rush for pseudo growth and false growth will leave graveyards of social and ecological ruins. (The writer is Director, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, New Delhi). -- For MAI-not (un)subscription information, posting guidelines and links to other MAI sites please see http://mai.flora.org/
