The Statesman, Sept 7 2023
There is much excitement about the G20 summit to be held in Delhi this week. The city is looking beautiful. We have Ashoka lions placed at regular intervals and cut-outs of Langurs to keep away the common monkey. For animal lovers like me, this gives an earthy feel. The G20 slogan ‘One Earth. One Family. One Future’ is very positive. This summit is a wonderful opportunity for world leaders to follow the spirit of the slogan and set a new narrative wherein ordinary citizens’ concerns are treated as paramount.
When we think of a country, we think foremost of its people and culture. When we travel to a country, we are enticed by its natural beauty, wildlife, and heritage monuments. Travellers are not attracted to a country for its GDP, armoury, or foreign relations. Yet, often, when our elected leaders return from international visits, newspapers are filled with headlines outlining the intricacies of negotiated arms deals, lauding them as milestone achievements for our country. Unfortunately, there is rarely any mention of shared concerns regarding the environment, gender, race, or citizens’ rights. These issues are systematically swept under the carpet by categorizing them as ‘internal problems.’ This is reminiscent of when domestic violence used to be considered a ‘personal, family issue’ until it reached a point where almost one in three women became affected.
A wiser triaging of topics that must be given importance is necessary. Considering that the most serious challenges citizens face today are environmental issues, mass migrations and human rights violations, it makes sense to keep them centre stage in global, political discussions.
Here are some of the issues many citizens would appreciate seeing addressed by the heads of state in the G20 summit. Resolutely putting true wealth forests, above superficial wealth, machine-generated banknotes: Today, most countries face significant environmental problems, such as the raging wildfires in Canada and Hawaii or the fast-sinking townships in our Himalayan foothills caused by unrestricted construction.
Despite this, serious discussions about a green future are relegated to the annual conference of parties (COP). The complex financial arrangements countries draft at the COP with respect to compensation for past carbon footprints are time-consuming. Nor have COPs achieved consensus on putting a hard stop to coal mining. Relying on a single annual global climate summit for dealing with a pandemic of daily natural catastrophes is incredibly inadequate. It may be wiser to take small steps towards environmental collaboration at each intergovernmental meet, starting with G20.
For example, India could build on its ancient culture of revering trees, including the Peepul, Ashok, Neem, Coconut, and Bodhi tree (where Gautam Buddha is said to have found enlightenment). This would resonate with many other cultures such as Japan and Madagascar for example (with their love for Cedar and Baobab trees respectively).
A joint declaration by a handful of nations to protect our common natural, green heritage of ancient trees and prevent even one tree above 25 years old from being cut, as well as rebuilding our lost forest cover, is important. A concrete target of increasing mixed species forest cover by 5 per cent annually for three years, followed by 1 per cent annually thereafter, is easily achievable and will preserve our most precious universal commodity – natural carbon sinks.
Cutting trees or clearing forests under the pretext of ‘development’ must now be declared a crime against mankind. It is ironic that large business houses are allowed licences to destroy the creations of God – pristine forests, while climate activists who destroy man-made paintings to raise awareness about the need for environmental protection are sentenced to years in prison.
Leaders also need to talk about rogue governments that thwart international aid to citizens for political reasons when extreme weather phenomena wipe out lives, houses, and livelihoods. A grave collective threat to mankind’s existence is nonbiodegradable plastic, which harms the environment greatly. Insidious micro-plastic creates several health hazards in our bodies, affecting many systems such as the endocrine and nervous systems and exacerbates cancer development. Leaders, while sipping tea in sustainable earthen ‘Kulhads,’ a lovely Indian lifestyle accompaniment, can work out modalities of banning plastic altogether, rather than allowing its mere tweaking to the still hugely damaging ‘bio-plastics’ Capitalism as a failing model: Though political coffers benefit greatly from capitalism, it is time to acknowledge that unchecked capitalism has proved to be a failure.
According to a recent Oxfam report, the top 1 per cent richest humans garnered 63 per cent of the total increase in wealth during the last 2-3 Covid years. At the other end of the financial spectrum, we find 47 per cent below the poverty line and 8 per cent of the world living in extreme poverty. Three billion people (out of a total of 8 billion) cannot afford a healthy diet. That millions remain entrenched in poverty indicates that this economic model is spectacularly inefficient on a larger scale. In other fields, ineffective models are quickly replaced. In medicine, for example, before any drug is licensed for actual use, it must surpass the efficacy of pre-existing drugs. For any surgical technique to be widely adopted it should have a high success rate across patients.
Given that only a small fraction of humanity has benefitted from it, capitalism needs huge overhauls or replacement. It is also truly concerning that a significant part of the economy of the world over is based on war, smoking, and illicit drugs sales. For example, the sales of U.S. military equipment to foreign governments rose 49 per cent in 2022. A joint resolution on implementing curbs on market shares of any one company to a maximum of 10-15 per cent will discourage monopolies, facilitate diversity, and spread economic prosperity among more citizens. Independent India abolished the Zamindari system, and put in place the land ceiling act (which sadly has been diluted in many states in more recent times) to curb excessive land ownership by individuals.
This experience and equitable thought make India ideally suited to usher in meaningful change for a more just distribution of market resources as well. Common justification for capitalism centres on the idea that without financial incentive, people would lose their desire to excel. This is debunked by the existence of several creative geniuses, who lived and died in penury, including Gauguin, Modigliani, De Kooning and Mirza Ghalib. Chore-burdened housewives are not paid, yet they create delicious food and decorate their houses stylishly.
The present model of capitalism does not suit today’s environmental needs. For an idea to be implemented or even researched, it must first prove its market viability (profitability). Due to this, we are losing out on scientific progress that could assist with the worsening climate change crisis. For example, fuel-driven cars are being replaced with electric ones but why not more research on faster versions of simple, light frame, human pedalled ones that would cut down on all external energy and keep human beings fitter too?
Human rights issues: Human rights discussions are frequently brushed under the carpet at important summits. Poorly executed military operations and botched up intelligence reports have often resulted in an unacceptable loss of civilian lives, conveniently glossed over as ‘collateral damage.’ The recently made movie ‘Oppenheimer’ reminded us of the most devastating face of collateral damage when entire cities full of civilians were blown up in Japan, in total contravention of wartime conventions (such as the Geneva convention). Some states in India have suffered unusually prolonged internet shutdowns due to ‘security reasons,’ due to which decent, innocent citizens have lost jobs, students have been unable to study and medical assistance has been difficult to find. There is no redressal or compensation for the loss of productivity, happiness, or destroyed futures.
Apart from the bugbear of unemployment, even citizens in secure jobs find it difficult to flourish. Academicians cannot publish research or direct theses that are unapproved by politicians, journalists are troubled and often jailed for speaking candidly. Artists and singers invited to a public event to perform, suddenly find their shows cancelled if their political leanings upset some official in charge. All these factors lead to a very poor quality of life for the average citizen. Citizens cannot speak freely in many countries specially when their ideology does not match that of the ruling party. In India, for example, elected representatives can freely expound their views on any topic as per their convenience from any forum at any time, with security forces helping with the arrangements for such ‘political rallies.’
On the other hand, citizens who want to express their views, or raise legitimate concerns are only allowed to do so in small designated areas and often treated very shabbily by uniformed policemen. When our Constitution unequivocally confirms the equality of all citizens, these differential rules are jarring. The lovely rural Indian ethos of village elders deliberating every evening on village issues under a large canopied tree (likely in several other countries too), can be magnified to a bigger stage with inclusive spaces for wise elder citizens to openly contribute their wisdom to leaders, with more women members and fewer Hookahs of course! It is unfortunate that when elected representatives of people meet, they prefer to talk more about arms sales, military alliances, and strategic relations rather than share concerns and ideas for the wellbeing of their citizens.
India can make a bold positive contribution at G20 by pulling out the world from the rut of discussing stale agendas to invigorating the hopes of citizens by discussing vital human topics on priority. For as Ellen Glasgow once said ‘The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.’
(The writer is a Delhi-based medical practitioner.)
