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India’s Green Tribunal, the body tasked with environmental management sure has a challenge when it comes to tackling pollution and general waste issues, as anyone who has traveled in that country can testify India apart from the sanitized and controlled government areas, or the ever expanding hotels and shopping mall areas, garbage is everywhere in plain sight. Meanwhile India’s towns and cities choke each day under a fog of heavy particulates belched out by a frenzy of vehicles, often using unregulated fuels and heavy on diesel.
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Given India’s colossal environmental problems it would be reasonable to imagine that the Green Tribunal would have neither the time no resources to waste away in the forested hills surrounding the exiled Tibetan settlement of McLeod Ganj. However it is pressurizing the local authority of that region to put an end to the traditional Tibetan practices of hanging Buddhist prayer flags and painting religious mantra on rocks. According to the Times Of India Report the tribunal had advised officials that such practices:
‘are polluting the serene environment of the hill destination, which would have serious repercussions. Environmentalists have also stated that this needs to be curbed at an early stage and if allowed to continue, it would deface the natural environment in the hills.’
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Really? Are these people serious? The hills of Northern India are entirely defaced by gaudy advertisements, while the sidewalks, where they exist, are often uncleaned, with garbage dumped openly in streets and roadsides. To target therefore a Buddhist tradition that has such negligible impact as some form of environmental hazard is way beyond surreal and risks being seen for some form of vindictiveness, a bullying perhaps of a disenfranchised minority.
If as seems the case the Green Tribunal is not afraid to protest against religious practices that it claims have harmful environmental consequences, will it be turning its attention to Hindu Festivals which environmentalists claim are causing pollution to India’s rivers and lakes? Report Here During September and October religious idols containing toxic materials, such Cadmium, Lead and Mercury and covered in hazardous paints and dyes are cast into waters across India, the resulting pollution has a serious ecological impact upon fish, while toxins pass into humans through crops being fed by polluted water.
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Meanwhile what of India’s Holi Festival will the Green Tribunal be ordering local governments to crackdown on the custom of throwing colored powders, which some studies have determined can contain industrial toxins linked to asthma and skin cancers?
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Clearly the Green Tribunal has far more serious and damaging environmental issues it could, and should be addressing, rather then bullying Tibetans into ending a cultural tradition that in comparison to the ecological damage inflicted by the practices mentioned above has a minimal environmental impact.
Digital Activism Im Support Of Tibetan Independence 