Swacch Bharat: Departure from traditions like burning crackers a must for the success of the program

Should the ongoing national campaigns on cleanliness lead us to think about modifying certain religious practices as well, such, for example, as immersion of huge, painted idols into water bodies in ever increasing numbers in ever greater parts of the country? Is it possible for the residents of each town or locality to limit the number of idols that are immersed in the river to just one, representing all the idols of that locality and embodying all the piety behind them? Should the authorities identify the kinds of paints that do least damage to the environment and enforce pollution control norms for the materials that go into the making of idols?

Can celebrations that involve traditional use of fireworks be reorganised to replace distributed use of fireworks with community based firework displays that bring people together and limit the pollution created in the process? Such questions become relevant because of scale mismatches between human society and the environmental systems it impacts.

When communities were small and the impact their practices had on the natural environment was proportionately small, what people did was not of great consequence. But when communities grow large and their material and technological advance enables them to create ever greater feedback loops with their ecosystems, these activities need to be regulated.

This is necessary, not to keep nature pristine, but in the enlightened self-interest of the community at large, call it inter-generational equity or sustainability. If you draw too much groundwater today, you yourself will suffer tomorrow, facing water shortage and all that entails. People pack their morning prayer’s offering of flowers in a plastic packet and throw the whole thing into the river, seeking no more than to prevent sacrament from being trampled underfoot or getting mixed up with the garbage.

But in the process, they pollute the river they hold sacred. Should religious and community leaders take the initiative to avoid such unthinking wrongs? Traditions of faith can change, as the plastic packet itself testifies. Let them change in the interest of society at large.