P. A. Chacko
The figure represents Mother Nature. She provides and sustains everything on the earth. We are encouraged to love nature, promote her welfare and growth for now and for future generations.
This is the latest figure in our Tribal Heritage Garden at Arrupe Tribal Cultural Centre, Bhognadih in Jharkhand state, eastern India.
Mother Nature is provident and kind. She needs our care and concern, respect and love. It appears that, for many of us, the word gratitude is not in our dictionary. We turn insensitive. We take things for granted!
We care little for the environment. We are not concerned about the need for preserving and promoting ecological balance. What environmentalists, eco activists, analysts and researchers tell us is not our concern at all.
We are greedy for aggressive consumption. Greed has gripped us. The greed for consumption has deprived many others of the fundamental rights for their basic needs.What the Father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi, has stated is so true: “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”
When greed overtakes us, we grab; we overexploit natural resources. Becoming slaves of the greed for accumulation, we write off the needs of others and the need for conserving nature’s gifts and resources.
The indigenous people live in the lap of nature. For centuries, they have protected nature, mother earth and environment. They would take from nature only for their needs, not for any commercial gain or for storage.
But the way the outside elements have become predators over natural resources in the indigenous dominated areas has become a curse for the indigenous and for the nation as well. Quarries and mines, owned and operated by commerce minded outsiders, dot the forested areas and hills.
Largescale evacuation and displacement of landowners take place. Forests get decimated, and hilly ranges get carved to look like Ajanta, Ellora caves. Soil erosion, lack of fertility of land, and frequent draught are becoming the byproducts of such depradation, rape of the forest and wanton forage.
Mother nature suffers. She weeps for her distraught children who become victims of environmental disaster and ecological imbalance. She also weeps for her wayward children whose wanton acts of avarice and madness are causing much damage to green cover, fresh air, water sources and sunlight, hills and valleys, human and animal habitations and all vegetation.
Will our sense and sensibility prevail over our pride and prejudice, bombs and ballistic missiles, misguided wars, politics of arrogant politicians, and commercial greed?
Nature is a gift to us. If only we realize this fact, we shall not dishonour the gift-giver nor devalue the gift.
