RSS inspired groups to produce India Declaration on Environment

A series of five conferences are being held across the country, which will culminate with the formulation of the declaration, according to a person aware of the details

A group of organisations, inspired by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and in collaboration with five union ministries, want to shape solutions to challenges of climate change and other environmental concerns based on indigenous practices that have been followed in India over the years, and draft an India declaration on environment. The RSS is the ideological mentor of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Mountains are seen from an airplane in Ladakh.

A series of five conferences are being held across the country, which will culminate with the formulation of the declaration, according to a person aware of the details.

“The culminating conference will be organised in Delhi in March 2023. The India Declaration on Environment, as a charter of solutions, based on the deliberations of all the five conferences, will be presented to the world in this program,” the functionary said, requesting anonymity.

Explaining the genesis of the conference and the need for an Indian charter, the functionary said, “This initiative is intended to present profound and pragmatic solutions based on the Bharatiya (Indian) thought to contemporary problems caused by the rapidly changing climate.”

While the Deendayal Research Institute will be the nodal agency for coordinating the activities, other RSS affiliates such as the Vijnan Bharati, and the ministries of environment, science, renewable energy, earth sciences and water resources will partner the initiative.

“Titled Sumangalam, the programme will present the unique Indian concept of securing the purity of the five basic elements of nature or panchamahabhuta – earth, water, fire, air and space – and attaining balance between them, for the survival and sustainability of life on Earth,” said the functionary.

Each ministry will partner in preservation of an element. For instance Jal Shakti will be involved in the preservation of water and earth sciences in the preservation of earth.

Five separate conferences and exhibitions for each of the elements will be held across the country, which will be attended by religious leaders, scientists, thinkers, social activists and those who engaged in seeking solutions based on indigenous thinking.

RSS and its affiliates have been focusing on environmental concerns, and in 2018, the Sangh at the meeting of executive board meeting, or the Akhil Bharatiya Karyakarni Mandal, discussed training swayamsevaks, or volunteers, to tackle natural calamities and intensify the work done on water conservation and environment protection.

“India has already declared its intent to cut its emissions to net zero by 2070. But there is a need to revisit the interventions needed to do so, based on Indian specificities,” said a second functionary who also declined to be named. “We also have traditional knowledge of reviving water bodies and soil preservation that can be collated and presented to the world.”