Diwali Dilemma

As Diwali approaches, so do the campaigns and calls for a "Clean", "Green" and "Humane" celebration. They say we are to avoid crackers which are polluting and noise making, curtail excessive consumption & spending and even try and understand the plight of the animals on the night.

All of these calls are very noble except this sensitive side of some sections of the population seem not just naive but also misplaced expressions of political opinion in the marketplace, as this article explains: Boycott Minus the Pain by Anand Giridharadas. The use of consumption as a political platform is not new in India - the swadeshi movement of the pre-independence era was a forerunner of a lot of the boycott movements of today.

But the trend of limited-liability politics currently seen, although new is not totally desirable. Campaigns like the Lights-Off campaigns at the designated "Earth Hour" which are token environmentalist movements only end up obstructing the achievement of their own objectives by using up the public goodwill in meaninglessly trivializing their cause. Therefore just as there is a dip in the grid consumption of electricity for the hour, at the end of the hour there is also a massive spike in the consumption while the production remains constant. Everyone feels a little more saintly but as an employee of the electricity distribution board will tell you - electricity is not petrol.

There is no "saving" of electricity through non utilization, only thing saved is the bill amount. Electricity is like rainwater which ends up in the drain if unused. In reality the only way to save power is by planning out consumption patterns and coordinate with various players in a complex jigsaw operation to have optimum utility. Surely too many details for the instantly gratified do-gooder.

The fact is that India being a poor country, we have to pollute more to develop. Pollution is the pound of flesh to be paid for progress and there is no getting around that. It will not be pretty or morally justifiable. And it is not out of ignorance that we deny climate change and other environmental concerns but through our knowledge of greater concerns. The sacrifice we make is that future generations might not get the best possible environment but these sacrifices are made with the hope that we can avoid passing on to them the miseries of our lives.