“There are challenges, and the resolutions to these challenges can now come neither from the courts of India nor from the government of India. They don’t have solutions to these challenges because their priority is economic infrastructure.

And when this happens, ecology doesn’t remain a part of it. There’s a disconnect of ecology with life. The disconnection that exists between this government and ecology has resulted in we, the people, becoming helpless, worthless, and ill. If we want to set this right, then once again, the Constitution of India is the seed of hope, a ray of hope.

With that, we will have to tell officers to fulfil their commitment to the Constitution, but they will not do it because we tell them to. So, what’s the way out? We will have to raise a movement, undertake ecological-environmental-climate literacy. People will have to come out.”

These words from Dr Rajendra Singh, delivered in chaste Hindi with an earthy cadence, reverberated around the hall last Saturday evening. Singh, often called the ‘Waterman of India’, could just as well be the Mountainman of India or even a reformer of dacoit lands.

He was being his usual self, drawing from his 50-plus years........

© Free Press Journal