Challenges in the making of future India

How do we fit in resource utilisation and development with preservation of environment is the main challenge for today’s India in the making of future India.The political elite compromises with indiscriminate industrialisation---depletion of natural resources and clean surroundings.It is permitting degradation of environment by allowing unlimited number of companies which promise to bring progress and industrial development. By making environmental clearances ambiguous with vague and non-transparent policies, Indian government is degrading the environment further and further.This trend is set not by the Indian mind but it comes from those foreign minds which do not want India to prosper.(Why would we destroy ourselves) New form of post neocolonialism has emerged; Indian polity is being used by foreign powers which want to undermine positive growth in IndiaWesternized world wants to keep itself clean, and move industries to developing countries like India.While benefits of organic farming were known and Western world had stopped using pesticides (likeDDT) in farming, they had recommended that India use chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Listening to them, we had used these chemicals and  had poisoned our environments.

The poor are the worst affected as they are in constant battle with limited resources and rising costs. For instance the poor need firewood as fuel and they are not able to cut trees which are a free source of fuel as before. Regulations to stop cutting of trees has meant that there is no source of fuel. Government has not made a source of fuel which would replace firewood for the poor.This tightens the noose and the poor are hurt badly, and are pushed into further impoverishment.

People are not part of the growth agenda in India’s growth story. Dams and hydroelectric powers affect water sources and reduce the fish stocks which feed the poor. No fish means no food for the local people. No alternative livelihoods have been offered to the fish-folks; now what would they eat, how will they live? Dams are very important in making of  infrastructure in India, but they are built at the cost of livelihood of the poor  people. Are not dams built for the economic growth of the people? Growth for whom? Dams are needed badly, but the local population should be offered livelihoods first.

Factories are made in tribal lands; promises are made by offering jobs to locals. They only bring further impoverishment of the people who are given bare minimum wages. Factories pollute the water, and poison the land and degrade the environment. Development does not mean loss of environment and impoverishment. People's needs should be met before the infrastructures are built.

We, the educated elite are able to visualise the potential hazards and see how healthy growth is being stopped and subverted in the guise of development. But we are not able to bring to senses the dominant political elite who is not able to see the problems of the people.How fast we realise the danger and how we can stop the making of the haphazard policies will determine the future of India.