Of late there has been much activism in regard to nature protection and some of them are politics in disguise.Many of the things that the activists of environment protection movement harp on now , were in fact articulated mainly By Schumacher(Small is beautiful) and Rachel Carson (Silent Spring)in the 70s. Earlier when there was less awareness about environment or nature, it was more or less safe. The degradation of nature and environment seems to go hand in hand with growing awareness.
Among the elite academic circle the theory of 'Ecocritism' is very much in vogue. It looks closely at the human culture-nature interaction in texts.It emphasizes the fact that nature and human are mutually influential and embodies an 'Ecological Consciousness'.
Ecofeminism which is a part of Ecocritism, if I am not mistaken , is based on the premise that the degradation and exploitation of nature and women go hand in hand. A good example may be Raj Kapoor's' Ram Teri Ganga Maili' a commercial blockbuster.Wherein the main character Ganga's(Mandakini-reminds me of Dawood) exploitation and degradation on her journey from the hills are depicted against the backdrop of the man-made pollution of the sacred river The Ganga.
The practitioners of Ecocritism argue that nature is 'naturalized' and 'femininized' with the language and value of a patriarchal world view. There is some truth in that. Notice the language Francis Bacon used in regard to nature.It may be recalled that Bacon was Attorney General of King James I ,and intimately familiar with the prosecution of witches. The metaphors that he used in the court room were used elsewhere too and particularly in regard to nature. He said that nature has to be 'hounded in her wanderings,bound into service , made a slave'. ' She was to be put in constraint' 'The aim of scientist is to torture nature's secrets from her'.
All these statements illustrate how an exploitative relationship has grown between nature and man or in broad sense human and non-human world.
Now let us come to our own Bhupen Hazarika. Do you remember his soulfully melodious song:' O' mur dharitri aai, charanate diba thai...' roughly translated it will mean:' O'my mother earth.Give shelter at your feet. We are helpless without you....I am orphan, I have no mother...so I plead you to be my mother'. The song is purportedly sung by a farmer.
The song 'naturalizes' and'feminimizes' nature and throws a searching light on the human and non-human world. The nature is bestowed with all the feminine in general and motherly attributes in particular. In fact that needs to our view of nature.
We can really improve ourselves by improving nature.
The problem of improvement isn't so easily settled. How would you define nature in the first place? Very often our vision is confined to the things we see around us. Let us take the live and let live theory. It argues all creatures, living things have as much a right to exist as human beings. I find this theory flawed. It is conveniently used only to suit us. It puts us on a pedestal where we can claim to have done good and pat ourselves in the back (Ecology is connected to ethics). If I ask - do you use Harpic, do you brush your teeth, do care about hygiene - the standard answer would be, "there's a limit to what we can do!" So, here also, like everything else, size does matter. I do not mean that we should not be concerned, if we don't the world is moving fast towards collapse (it is going to anyway, irrespective of what we think or do, but that's another issue). So, no arguments with doing good, but I think so much damage has been done that it is now beyond repair.
ReplyDeleteI agree. But my main argument is that the song sung by Bhupen Hazarika wherein he bestows motherly attributes to nature does not hint at 'exploitative' and 'patriarchal' relationship.And I believe that a 'country yokel'believes that way, who is ignorant of all the high talks about nature/environment.
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