Peace, Gandhi, Khadi and sustainability

The philosophy of Gandhi and India are rather intertwined. Visiting Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad is a rather transformative experience for anyone who steps foot into the sanctuary. 

In terms of today’s sustainability universe, Gandhi, apart from being Father of the Nation and the face of peace, could also have been the flagbearer of ESG. 

Sustainability was in every cell of every Indian back then, but with Gandhi, it was something different.

The Civil Disobedience Movement and the subsequent Dandi March was of course a freedom struggle and a nationwide symbol of nationalism, but it was also in direct association with levels of ‘consumption’. The Charkha and Khadi have become a worldwide symbol for ‘vocal for local’, ‘homegrown’ and modern-day do-it-yourself facilitators - and while everything that Gandhi propagated stood for self-sustenance, it is interesting to think that this was at a time where convenience, immediate gratification, and fulfilment; were three feelings which would have been beyond imagination.

These three are the core culprits of today’s unsustainable reality. In this globalised world where high-end fashion is still made in South- and Southeast Asia and handloom has become prized, time and psychology has somewhat reversed.

If we are talking about Governance, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a man who changed everyone’s perspective around governance.

This is not about having a stance on non-violence but is rather about sheer determination and the will to create an opposition and a front so powerful that it cannot be ignored. It is about changing systems which have been created through a farce, and about breaking belief systems inculcated for long. It is about breaking all notions of dependence and preaching independence in a new-age way, which was ancient and sadly forgotten.

It is about bringing together people through ideas that matter, through basic commodities such as salt and necessary ideas that we take so very granted today - freedom. 

If we think about our global goals, in a contemporary world, Mahatma Gandhi worked upon 12 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, if not more.

For Gandhi, sustainability was granular. Today we struggle with going at the grassroots, but with ‘Sarvodaya’, ‘Swaraj’ and ‘Gram Swaraj’ – ‘Compassion’, ‘Freedom, and ‘Federalisation’, Gandhi saw people in every individual and wanted decentralised power in society, to build a mutually interdependent world with a cooperative working style for a better environment.

This also brings us to the ‘Social’ concept. 

Well, everything about Mahatma Gandhi and everything he did is linked to the Society.

The India of then, the India of now. From a Global Icon of Peace to his face on the currency, from wearing Khadi, to a minimalistic living, to social reforms in every way and making his Ashram an inclusive haven, Gandhi was a social reformer, and not only for India.

The story of Rosa Parks and Gandhi, of asking similar questions asked before, but in a difficult way - being more sound, being heard better and setting up a peaceful righteous protest, our current society still is based on a similar outline. He brought the basics back, made fundamentals clear for all - in one of her pieces, Dr. Vaidehi Daptardar said, ‘Gandhi was an economist of masses and an environmentalist without any structured model. Although he did not give a structured model of environmental conservation and sustainable development, interlinking all his thoughts together, we get his logically built environmentally sustainable development model.’ and this really stands so true.

Environmental concerns at the time did not exist, but people still were mindful. 

For a land that was undivided and needed freedom, wanted freedom and was fighting for it - India preserved and conserved everything, including its ecological surroundings. 

I read a very interesting paper on a similar issue as well, linking political freedom to environmental sustainability, or between democracy and the environment.

In the paper, conceptual lenses of the Quadruple and Quintuple Innovation Helix Frameworks were used as they emphasise the importance of democracy and ecology (environmental sustainability) for knowledge and innovation and vice versa. The empirical model focused on the following research question: What is the correlation between political freedom and environmental performance? In essence, all countries in the world with a population of one million or more were included (a total of 156 countries), and the reference year was 2016. The empirical outcome of the correlation analysis was a positive Pearson correlation of about 0.56 (or 0.73 if we examine regional country groups), and, perhaps even more significantly, this correlation was significant at the 0.001 level (two-tailed). The correlation results lend themselves to the following interpretation: The higher the political freedom in a country, the more likely it is to have a higher environmental performance. Similarly, the lower the political freedom in a country, the more likely it is to have a lower environmental performance. As a preliminary proposition, therefore, democracy, environmental sustainability, and innovation-driven knowledge economies may have a highly symbiotic and synergistic dynamic and non-linear relationship.

In the era of the Indian freedom struggle, there were many heroes who were noticed and many were left unsung. We have stories of horror and stories or victory, we have stories of bloodshed as well as of harmony and glory. What stands apart through these stories is sheer willpower and grit, to get what is our own, land, people, name, identity and indeed freedom.

Mahatma Gandhi also was very vocal about ecological safety and security in general as well. 

From Germany’s Green Party which credits Gandhi for their founding idea to the World Future Council propagating how non-violence can facilitate a sustainable world; conversations of water security in the 1930s and over-industrialisation as an offset of deforestation - all these topics in one way or another, were normalised by Gandhi.

Khadi, as discussed earlier, is a symbol of ‘make in India’, but this natural and handspun fabric also has a very low carbon footprint. 

Even today, the Khadi industry is an industry looked over mainly by the government through KVIC (Khadi and Village Industries Commission) and KVIB (Khadi and Village Industries Board). The industry helps in the upliftment of rural India by generating employment, providing saleable articles, creation of self-reliance among rural India, and building strong rural community spirit.

The revolutionary cloth, in these turbulent times, has an emphasis on sustainability in the textile industry as conscious consumerism is rapidly growing. Khadi requires limited electricity and no energy for its manufacturing. A metre of khadi fabric consumes three litres of water, while one metre of mill-produced fabric requires 55 litres of the natural resource. 

The Indian freedom struggle should have made India realise its innate potential, something that is of importance today and forever. And essentially, is the spirit of sustainability. 

Of who we are, what we are trying to become, what can we become, does our potential come from our past, and can our past few will lead us towards a better future - all these questions are what help us find better answers, and it is mostly about this discovery that propels any sort of Sustainability.

What we can learn and imbibe from Bapu is unending, but the least we can do for ourselves and for our India is be better humans, be conscious, be cautious and be grateful. Bear peace with pride, bear our identity with grace and only create winnings from there on - but sustainably.

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