Donning her glares & summer hat, Sheila walks into the voting booth. Middle aged women, Bharti & Rupalaxmi cover their rustic faces with scarves waiting to get inked for their right. At the stairs of the booth, Bansilal, an old man squats down dehydrated, just when he was about to reach the last step to elect his inspirational leader. But right now, all what Bansilal needs is water, which comes at a price! Across the road, Shaheen, gets her little daughter Aliyaa to the voting booth. Aliyaa doesn’t have a voting right yet, but can’t be left alone due to the asthama she got diagnosed last winter. Braving the air pollution, Aliyaa foresees herself getting inked when she grows up like her mom.
Sheila, Bharti, Rupalaxmi, Bansilal, Shaheen, Aliyaa & many others are reaching the voting booths braving the bare necessities of liveable temperatures, breathable air, garbage free land & pure water. They are voicing their rights based on the manifestos of smart cities, smart future & religion issues.
As citizens, we all have been oblivious to the voting scenario of no party having environment, as a priority in their manifesto. Without clean air to breathe or clean water to drink or clean land to live, no caste, no religion or no human foresees a future on this planet. Carl Sagan has rightly said, “Anything else you are interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water.”
India today, is still reeling from flood damages in Uttarakhand & Kerala. The draughts of Vidarbha are braved every year. Every monsoon, Mumbai breaks down with water logging. Pure water from the tap for 24 hours a day still seems a farfetched amenity in spite of the escalating land costs.
Endorsements of ambitious clean India need to connect behavioural changes at the grass root levels. The pursuit of ‘Nal se Jal’ in every household, contradicts the fact that the world is looming the warfront for the last drop of water.
Smart & Clean India branding wave has definitely built in a virtual dreamy cloud far from reality. It definitely has raised awareness amidst the masses at large, who are inspired towards a common goal for a better India. As the branding wave transcends to ground reality, the urgency of environmental changes occurring around us still remains tucked away from priority.
The environment does not understand political or linguistic boundaries. Until someone loses an election due to air quality or river pollution, don’t expect the issue to invite the political will to tackle this prevailing danger. Hoping the environmental crisis grants us basic survival until then. Till then, the question remains whether the environment and climate change will ever become an electoral issue in India?
