As far as I can recall, the Art of Living Foundation’s World Cultural Festival – that was lambasted for the environmental damage it has done to the fragile Yamuna riverbed – was one of Delhi’s most publicly contested projects.
In the run-up to the March 11 event, as the Art of Living battled public opinion and argued with the National Green Tribunal for permission to hold the event on the riverbed, it strutted its green credentials. It ignored the argument that doing a few things right does not legitimise doing something wrong. Nor did the Art of Living acknowledge basic ecology – that a river is not merely a liquid stretch of water but comprises the sandy, marshy banks alongside too. In short, river = water + flood plain + all fauna and flora therein.
I visited the area two days before the festival started. This was a day after the Art of Living reiterated nothing had been damaged, but the National Green Tribunal had still not cleared the event. The organisation claimed that not a tree was cut. But that was a moot point. In a reed bed, trees are not central. As I walked around amidst plastic trash, loud, reverberating music and signs that forbade photography, I knew I was no longer on a functional riverbed. The ground was hard, compressed and incapable of absorbing water. It was evened out so that the smallest of water bodies were gone. The reeds, understood as weeds by the Art of Living in a previous communication, were flattened. There was certainly a tree or two untouched – even by the birds. During an interview that took place on site, a formation of Little Cormorants flew above us. “Look, Look,” pointed out an excited and very relieved Art of Living spokesperson, “Birds, we haven’t shooed them away.” But the birds flew over our heads and headed off to Okhla Bird Sanctuary nearby.
The organisation had also claimed it used only eco-friendly materials, a fact belied by the fake giant elephants, a golden stage and other accoutrements made of plastic and painted brightly that dotted the site.
Meanwhile, the Art of Living claimed it was healing the river by pouring enzymes made of jaggery, and vegetable and fruit peels into it. A hundred thousand followers, it announced, were brewing this potion, which would be poured into the Yamuna to cleanse it. The Delhi Pollution Control Board had given no permission for this action, which many viewed as a form of pollution rather than purification. Indeed, it asked Art of Living followers to stop pouring anything into the Yamuna on March 10. The Art of Living founder, Ravi Shankar, also claimed that buffaloes, which had abandoned the river, were back to the water. But buffaloes are not indicators of a river’s health or indeed its miraculous recovery. As far as I am concerned, if you pour something into a river without permission, you have polluted it and ought to be tried under the Water Act. That’s what would have happened to you and me if we had tried something like this.
For these and other acts, the National Green Tribunal gave the Art of Living a well-publicised and severe rap on the knuckles, and asked it to pay an environmental compensation of Rs 5 crore. This is only an advance since the actual damage will be assessed now, and could run into a few hundred crores of rupees. The Art of Living said it would challenge the order, and Ravi Shanker told a television channel that he would rather go to jail than pay up. In the end, the organisation paid only Rs 25 lakh of the Rs 5 crore fine and was given three weeks to pay the remainder. The next hearing comes up on April 4.
Now what?
The real challenges are only going to stare us in the face now.
Sources say that the Art of Living might campaign for its contentious enzyme to be accepted as an innovation that may have been poorly executed in a moment of mass enthusiasm, but one that must be treated as a positive step. If it can get the courts to acknowledge this, it will be a small step in regaining a small sliver of its self-appointed title of being a green organisation. But it still won’t or, is unlikely to, agree to pay the fine, claiming that it is way more than it can afford.
The National Green Tribunal order, unintentionally, has offered it a way out, by proposing a bio-diversity park in the area the cost of which shall be paid by the foundation and the Delhi Development Authority.
But a bio-diversity park on the Yamuna riverbed is a flawed idea. Those in favour of it argue that the riverbed is being gnawed upon rapidly by all kinds of actors. They feel that the unregulated commons, which is the riverbed at present, must be fenced in order to protect it. But what exists on the riverbed, wherever it still remains unencroached, is an example of bio-diversity – birds, marshy land, pools of water, reeds, grasses and a few trees. Why would anyone want to create a designer bio-diversity park that mimics bio-diversity that already exists?
Most people outside the world of ecology seem to think of bio-diversity as a conglomeration of beautiful plants that feels like a tamed wilderness. This is not it at all. In parts of Rajasthan, grasses and thorny bushes are part of the area’s bio-diversity, while in parts of Arunachal, old tropical trees interspersed with thick undergrowth are also part of bio-diversity. Within the Delhi region itself, we have both the riverbed and the dry scrub forest of the kind we see in the Gurgaon and Aravalli bio-diversity park.
Even if restoration was the key idea behind the bio-diversity park proposal, the funds for at least the destroyed patch of land will come from the Art of Living penalty. The foundation has indicated that it is likely to appeal against the penalty anyway saying they cannot afford it. If it comes to that, the green tribunal could consider attaching their ashram in Bengaluru and other properties to recover the amount.
It will come as no surprise if the organisation offers the sweat and toil of its volunteers to create this park. But it will be morally wrong to accept this offer, because then the organisation keeps its most valuable currency, cash, and offers up the toil of others. In other words, Art of Living would externalise the penalty.
Accepting any proposal that Art of Living volunteers be used to develop the bio-diversity park will turn a moment for public atonement into an opportunity to squat on the land. The park will not be built in one short year. It will take much longer. If Art of Living volunteers are part of the project, they will need infrastructure to function from. And that infrastructure, as experience in India shows, will become permanent. Removing them, including any sacred site they may create, will be almost impossible. Allowing any volunteers at all is likely to result in a slow, but sure, land grab. Let’s be sure of that.
Thus, if anyone has to restore the area, it must be an external agency, which will be paid for its work and supervised by the experts committee the National Green Tribunal has been relying on.
Although many believe the Art of Living was targeted because it was a Hindu event, nothing can be further from the truth. This issue is not about the Art of Living. It was contested because, despite its environmental credentials, it was ruining a thousand acres of riverbed. Many organisations and the public would still have expressed outrage even if any other organisation – domestic or international – had planned something as noble as the planet’s biggest blood donation camp on this or other fragile eco-systems.
By going ahead with the festival, the Art of Living is stuck with the ugly legacy of trampling upon a riverbed. It is also saddled with an equally undesirable legacy – creating a precedent about respecting the judiciary and taking it seriously. Many others will be watching how defiant a polluter like the Art of Living can be, and what it get away with. If such a high-profile organisation is not pushed to pay, and if it continues to negotiate with the National Green Tribunal to water down its penalty in any way, then the tribunal’s own moral authority is in danger of being eroded. That will truly be a big blow to the environment across India.
Bharati Chaturvedi is the director of the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group.
