Can faith move mountains?

Western Ghats Calling - 7

(From Feb 8-10, 2009, a large group of persons drawn from diverse backgrounds converged at Goa to assess the damage that has done to the pristine Western Ghats in developing strategies to bring about order in the prevailing insanity. The consultation delved into areas that have hitherto remained outside the domain of most civil society discourses. One amongst them has been the linkage between faith and ecology. This is the 7th in the series of despatches leading to the historic event).

by Sudhirendar Sharma

Recent news reports indicate that towards the close of the year, the hotspots of man-animal conflict will get mapped across the country. First of its kind study aims to do a comprehensive assessment across forest divisions in all states. Over past few years, man-animal conflicts have assumed serious proportions. While monkey menace is
commonplace across urban areas, incidents of dreaded King Cobra entering households living close to the forests have come to light in parts of the Western Ghats.

Forest clearing and habitat alterations are undoubtedly at the core of growing incidences of man-animal conflict. Interestingly, however, the cause-effect relationship of such conflicts are often restricted to species that are notoriously dangerous. But what about myriads of other species whose defence mechanisms are not as potent, and who fall victim to its habitat destruction? The Lion-tailed macaque is one species that is threatened on account of habitat fragmentation in its only home in the Western Ghats.

However, the story doesn't end here. The habitat alternation unleashed by the development juggernaut is alienating its very own people, the notion being that too poor and too disempowered people, like the mute creatures in the wild, cannot adequately articulate their own interests. People have been pushed to the limits of tolerance, man-man conflicts manifests in armed encounters across forested areas. Growing same-species intolerance has become a potent political tool to incite
hatred amongst different faiths.

It has long been argued that living close to and in harmony with nature has therapeutic value. Any disconnect in this relationships must trigger divergent responses - intolerance is amongst the first. However, the mechanistic world view that ascribes economic value to every transactions has deeper limitation in evaluating such relationships: as its evaluation is often based on a contract drawn up and signed by single party, leaving little scope for the intepretation of the symbiotic needs of co-habiting species and ecosystems.

Entire notion of living with nature is based on faith, often enshrined in diverse local cultures. Habitat alteration not only erodes prevailing faith(s) but makes people (and animals too!) vulnerable. Accumulated insecurity on account of vulnerabiity results in violence. This is one of the reasons why the Naxalite insurgency - which the Prime Minister has acknowledged to be the single most serious threat to the country - has found such fertile ground in India's forested lands. Western Ghats have not remained isolated from such influences.

Can rebuilding faith(s), not religious polarisation and bigotry, bring about sanity in man-man and man-nature relationship? Given the fact that science cannot be the final arbiter in the matter of our relationship with nature, increasing tolerance for eachother through inter-faith dialogue can help bring some order in a society that has been torn apart. While science has its limitation so has political action, as it cannot generate the imaginative resources that are necessary to a rethinking of the human relationship with nature.