If you’re reading this, you are most probably a student under 25 years of age, most probably studying in 

 or some other leading university of the country. At the risk of sounding like an alarmist, this also means that if you’re reading this, it is inevitable that you are going to witness the radical destabilization of life brought about by the effects of climate change in your lifetimes, something what the scientists call have been calling the ‘climate collapse’.

, you can choose to be part of various schools of thought: either you can imagine that the climate collapse is preventable, and try your best to at least delay it, or you could choose to believe in the inevitability of the destruction of our species, and start working with that, for any action taken in the absence of consequences becomes an exercise in hope, or, you could choose to be aggressively stupid and ignorant about all of this and decide to go down in a blaze of glory while the 

 goes through its first heatwave and the island nation of 

Draft EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) Notification of 2020

. If you don’t know, the EIA Notification is a document that is used as a framework to evaluate the environmental impact of any given project in the country that accesses, utilizes, and/or pollutes natural resources. It was introduced in 

, which in turn was formed as a reaction to the gas leak at the 

, which was the first major event to draw attention to the environmental consequences of industries in 

It is a well-documented fact that the amendment to the EIA Notification, 2020 has been drafted in way that would ensure ‘ease of business’ in a post-lockdown world and fast-track the economy back on track. The main point of the whole amendment is to make up for the losses that the economy incurred during the 

, which can be very conventionally interpreted as a part of the ‘

’ debate and the government prioritizing the latter over the former. The basis of this dichotomy rests in a worldview which bears the imprint of the thought processes of the generation before ours, formalized by the 

, where the economy and the environment were things to be balanced. But, those ideas are outdated now: the major reason behind it being that we as species have outgrown these ideas, the subtext being that any ideas of morality or ethics or legality that we codified when our civilization was in its formative stages: for example, the idea of murder being accepted universally as illegal or unethical probably springs from the fact that we had achieved a stage in our evolution where killing another member of the same species would hurt the general equilibrium of the larger human group and similarly, a school of scholars believed that the institution of patriarchy was instituted and formalized because at some point in the evolution of our species, it was necessary that women primarily take the roles of mothers and nurturers.

 theorizes that the goal of humans as species is not to attain salvation in the after-life or attain heaven for eternity, it is to survive, something which 

 describes as life force. Therefore, every decision we make as a species, despite the fact that the human civilization is an attempt by our species to escape its nature, still revolves around the very natural instinct to survive. The society that was created during the industrial revolution was not faced with the urgent question of survival, nor did subsequent generations until today. To you and I, climate change is not merely a threat lingering in the background, it is an existential threat. Therefore, to us, the economy is not a viable competitor to the survival of our species. This is a problem that is the most pronounced in our generation and will amplify with forthcoming ones. Make no mistake, no other issue will exist if we don’t have the 

Another byproduct of the way of thinking that originated with the 

 is what has been perhaps an attempt by humanity to escape its own inherent nature and build something which stand in gross opposition. Since the second half of the 2010s, starting with 

, there has been a rise in governments that would consider money a more essential commodity than natural resources, and these governments aren’t in third-world nations you’ve never heard of, but in countries like first world countries like 

I would like to argue here that the apparent motives of the Draft EIA Notifications of 2020 are a representation of that very idea that still considers the economy to be something that comes with the environment as what a basic economics textbook would tell you is the ‘opportunity cost’, where development comes with destruction, which is absolute hogwash. The generations before ours could afford to maintain some sort of balance between the two, but when the survival of a species is threatened, extreme steps become inevitable. Following this line of thought, I would consider the Draft EIA Notifications of 2020 a step that goes towards endangering the very existence of our species in the name of a quick buck. Let me tell you how specifically. For the purpose of convenience, I will put them in a numbered list.

 seeks to alter the process of public participation, which was instituted by the 

. The process of public participation is necessary to obtain environmental clearance for any project – 

Presiding Officer’s Consent, Newspaper Publication, Public Response, and Sending Proceedings to the Regulatory Authority

the Member Secretary’s Finalization took 7 days, there was no deadline for Newspaper Publication, 30 days were given for public response, and within 8 days, Proceedings were to be sent to Regulatory Authority.

 This process ensured that the local communities that were being impacted by a certain project had a say in its approval, because they are the ones facing long term consequences in the immediate vicinity. This has become more important in the light of sensitive projects such as the 

, which are home to communities who don’t have much access to mainstream education and thus tend to not understand what the consequences of a certain project can be, or they have such minimal say that they can’t impact the power large organizations have over the whole process, as has been shown by the 

. The 2020 rules seek to alter the amount of days that the processes of public clearance take. So, 

ten days are given for the Presiding Officer’s Approval, 5 days for Newspaper Publications, 20 days for Public Response and 10 Days for Regulatory Authority’s approval.

equal focus is given to Authorities and the People themselves.

 This takes away time from the local communities to voice their own grievances.

If a constructed structure is expanded without 

, which can be fixed by certain set processes: the project component has to assess the ecological damage as per 

 guidelines. According to this assessment, the 

 then decides remedial measures, and a penalty is levied on the violator on a per day basis However, any sense of illegality is removed from these extensions, and the people who are violating environmental norms can get away without any sort of punishment for their deeds. Therefore, any such activity is not illegal anymore and thus the perpetrators can be let go with something as small as a fine. This provision comes from 

Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action vs. Union of India

, which established the polluter pays principle, where anyone carrying out such activities must compensate the individuals who are getting impacted by it. But, as established by the 

Sonal Ailawadi vs. Volkswagen India Pvt. Ltd. Case

, the polluter pays principle didn’t mean that someone can pollute and then get their way by paying for it. However, if we were to understand the precedent that has been established the regularization of illegal constructions in cities like 

, it means the polluter can pay and get away with it, which were done because illegal constructions were too huge in numbers to be deemed illegal. Therefore, it won’t be a notion far from reality that this rule stands in direct violation of the 

 ruling. This is done by the granting of 

, which means projects currently violating the norms can apply for clearances.

, 40 kinds of industries have been exempted from 

’ by the government. The details of these projects do not have to be presented before the public or get clearance from them either. The clever play here is that any area that is under 100 kms of the 

 falls under this rule too, therefore covering much of the 

. Highways, Inland Waterways, and small construction projects, under 1.5 lakh square kilometers are exempt too.

Now, because the acts of unauthorized constructions themselves have been stripped of their illegal aspects, it naturally follows that it would be harder for anyone to seek grievances against them. Really pay attention now, because this is where the damage becomes more apparent than other subtle changes. Under 

’ cannot report unauthorized constructions or projects, the right is simply transferred to 

 applications or governmental authorities. Therefore, any common person – it doesn’t even matter if they are directly impacted by the environmental impact of a certain construction or not – cannot seek recourse against these actions without going through a proper governmental channel or unless the people who are perpetrating the very act themselves openly admit that they are the ones breaking the law. This ensures that environmental activists and even the very people whose lives are potentially at risk by the completion of a certain erstwhile illegal project stay away from the legal side of things.

The question that thus follows for the conservationist is: 

 The answer to this question comes from the observation of a certain pattern: capitalism, in the neo-liberal form that it exists in today, has conditioned us to fight climate change as individuals and not as communities: look no further than any advertisement regarding climate change that is issued in the mainstream. Now, any such ad would teach you to take individual action: 

conserve electricity at home, use the stairs instead of the elevator, save paper, buy local, cut down on meats, switch off that damn air-conditioner, plant a tree and in extreme cases, do not have a child

. The response that we are expected to give to 100 corporations causing 71% of carbon emissions since 1988 is to live a feeble lifestyle. I am not against these actions in themselves, because their outcomes can, and in most cases are, positive. I would rather focus on what this lifestyle does not mention, because what language omits is as important as what it tends to mean. A feeble lifestyle ensures that you accommodate these big money organizations are actively doing to harm the lifestyle. No environmental studies textbook in our current curriculum will ask a student to actually stand up against the railway line being built through one of the largest biodiversity hot-spots in the country or the hydroelectric projects that will upset the ecological balance of a whole valley in 

, but nobody will talk about how it was resisted by the 

. We are brought up in a way that we completely ignore that fighting for a cause means fighting against something. There are no faceless corporations causing environmental damage, we know their names and we know their faces and we know how they tend to dominate ways of thought that diminish climate change as a threat throughout the world, or even worse, tend to appropriate it: go online and check for a 2000 rupee Woodland Jute Bag that is healthier for the environment, or if you hit me up, I’ll tell you about a 3000 rupee wooden toothbrush someone I know uses to be environmentally conscious.

Realize there’s an enemy. And then Organize. Read, Educate, form action groups. Donate, start petitions, spam the inboxes of the government (even with the

https://fffindia.github.io/withdrawEIA2020/

, use this link to join the mail campaign), and if it comes down to it, go down to the actual place where the earth is being violated, and agitate.

 who have conditioned us to believe in the survival of the fittest are wrong, because as a preliminary reading of 

 will tell you, in any numberless animal society, survival of the fittest is replaced by co-operation, which leads to the development of moral faculties within the organism, and increases its chances of survival, and thus at some point of time during our evolution was promoted by natural selection. The will to come together and stay alive is stronger than the will to lead a life full of riches at the cost of the very existence of other people.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of The Jamia Review or its members.

Draft EIA Notification, 2020: An Assessment

 wrote an essay about the importance of bipartisanship during the crisis that the nation and the world at large is going through for the 

. This essay is in a response to that, as an attempt to trace the rise of extremist agendas within political parties, especially in 

, and how we need to get rid of it if we are to ensure a safe post-pandemic world.

 Nominee, was holding a rally. He was taking questions from the crowd, and a middle-aged woman, who had obviously been taking her news from dubious sources, expressed her concern in front of her nominee: ‘

, a war veteran, and one of the toughest men to ever walk the face of the 

, shook his head vigorously, and replied: ‘

He’s a decent family man, a citizen, that I happen to have disagreements on about fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about

‘. The crowd, which was filled with conservatives, responded with vociferous boos. A similar incident is noted during the run-up to the election to the 

, met during a door-to-door campaign in the northern outskirts of then 

. Back then, there was a strict ideological clash between the two parties, much of which would come to dominate 

 politics after the independence, particularly the question of 

 and how relevant it was in the context of the southern states. When they came face-to-face 

‘, and the two men parted their ways. That incident left a deep impression on one of 

‘s aides — he later even developed a reputation for unnatural civility — a then 29-year old 

. These incidents highlight a very peculiar phenomenon that we’re observing, perhaps on an unprecedented level since the beginning of the 

We are undergoing, for the lack of a better word (or I’m just dumb who knows), a period of ‘

‘, across democracies around the world. Political parties, which earlier used to accommodate different ideologies and ways of thought, have seen the formation of certain superficial identities which have closed down any dissent in the rank and file in the party and have turned them into camps for all practical reasons. This has led to the radicalisation of ideas in every major political party in the world, to the point that 

 questioning his own party surprises us. The best example of radicalisation working on the practical level from 

, could be the tweets that emerged from the accounts of various 

 of a photo of bills which had passed in the Senate lying on 

‘s (the senate majority leader) table. 

, and refused to let them through, which, we know for a fact, did not arise due to his evaluation of their merits or demerits, as he has himself claimed (perhaps in a different context). Closer home, we are now living in times where one of the most long lasting impacts of the 

 was an endless barrage of memes about the leader of a 

, which has positively shut down his chances of assuming any power in the near future. The rhetoric has fallen down to name calling, and terms like ‘

 are being used to reduce people on opposing sides into categories and stereotypes, to the point where arguments are centred around justifying those tags one is giving the other person, instead of it being the other way around, which beats the whole point of a certain scientific mode of thinking, where the conclusion follows the argument, not the other way around. This vitriol, definitely, is a top-down phenomenon, parties issuing whips now even to their followers to fall in line. Historically speaking, this phenomenon is rather recent, and can be considered almost concurrent in both the democracies in question; in 

, it can be traced to the popular pressure that built throughout the 60s and exploded with 

 losing its footing across the board, and in 

 we can easily trace it to the emergence of 

 Governments in the country, along with the passing of the 

 steps in. Now, of course, in today’s political atmosphere, 

 is a very politically charged term, but the invocation of his name is kind of the whole point behind this long post. Once again, any criticism just on the basis of him being 

 must be evaluated, for there is more to life than one’s immediate impulse, and following that impulse would mean falling into the same pattern of tribalism I have spent two paragraphs talking about. Consider this an exercise in patience, and a little rationality. 

, over a long period of 300 years, had slowly had most of its economic resources consumed by the 

 for their own interests, we can’t call them necessarily economic because in certain cases, they were also recreational. Therefore, when the country got its independence, it was necessary that it had its best minds working on the process of nation-building, a process that was also hampered due to the mass migration of people to and from 

 realised it. He also realised that these minds, however bright they were, did not necessarily belong to the same political party, let alone political affiliation. Therefore, we got a cabinet where 

 (for however a short period he might have served) was serving as the 

, even though they disagreed with each other, and the 

, on fundamental issues. Yet, they came together and decided to work together, for the sake of building a nation. Their basis of qualification was not an affiliation, but the fact that they were both accomplished individuals in their respective fields.

Those were unnatural circumstances for any democracy to be in, but then the times we are living through, the circumstances, still, are far from natural or normal. We are fighting a global pandemic in a country where actual, scientific information faces a very real threat from sensationalist news, which in most cases turns out to be fake. Therefore, we must bring together, regardless of their party affiliations, and work towards safeguarding our citizens, both in the short and long terms. Of course, this addresses the prospect that some people in the opposition parties might be more competent on a relative scale than ones in their same organisation, but that cost is miniscule as compared to what benefits might follow such a decision. This would perhaps give the government the freedom to consult people who have had years of experience being in the positions that their ministers are in currently, and a plethora of experience could be drawn from to move the country forward.

REVISITING HISTORY

Looking at the Mausoleum of Dr. Zakir Hussain in the middle of the campus of Jamia Millia Islamia, I couldn’t help but think about how artificial the concept of time is and how the past and present, at some point of time, become merged into a sort of ubiquitous wetness that is time, where one cannot tell them apart.

Dr. Zakir Hussain Mausoleun and Museum, built by Habib Rahman and completed in 1971, stands as a beacon of rationality and modernism: perched atop a raised mound, it stands for the scientific ideal of a human being, a human being who is not bound by history but is standing outside of it, dictating his life according to his needs. Habib Rahman built three mausoleums in his lifetime: one for Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, which stands next to the Jama Masjid in Old Delhi, one for the former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, which is in Raisina, and the 

 of Dr. Zakir Hussain, in the campus of Jamia Millia Islamia. These men, it can be argued, were the champions of his cause: they represented the conception of man that drove modernist architecture; learned, wise men who were not only aware of the history of this land and their communities, but wanted to move past them and add into this culture of scientific rationality that dominated the early years of Post-Independence India. And it is according to these basic scientific needs that this tomb was built: land, water, light. Its relation to history is only functional: it uses curving walls, inspired by some Tughlaq tombs built almost 700 years before it. The 

, with its curved walls with rough-cut marble surfaces, stands right next to the Jamia School campus, the first buildings to be erected here in the early 30s, which are more inspired by the buildings of Jacob Swinton, who believed in building according to how the ancestors of this land built — something that is now called the Indo-Saracenic style. Behind the tomb is the Jamia Central Mosque, which represents some other architectural ideal for a religion, with its white minarets and huge domes.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the past and present are two indistinguishable entities, existing not in a straight line, but side by side, telling us that we need to question what we perceive about time itself. Life, as most of us perceive it, is a constant process of unfolding, and there are certain things — in this case, buildings — that challenge this notion that we carry about life. The building will continue to stand there affirming the Heraclitan idea of time as a flowing river, unless we look at it as something that was built in the past and is just a passive reflection of the kind of thought that prevailed then, while we are comfortably grounded in the present, which remains a distinct entity from the past. But the building says something else. It was built according to the fundamental needs of humankind; needs that to some degree give a sense of order to our lives. The needs that Habib Rahman had in mind back are intrinsic to human nature: we have always needed to build according to land, water and light and these needs will remain at the core until our species inhabits this planet. The ideas of building here have been stripped to the bare minimum. Only the necessary is beautiful: the mausoleum and other modernist structures have been stripped of all their ornamentation — which to Ruskin was the principal part of building — and it is in this stripping of a building’s very medium that our brain perceives the beauty of it. The mausoleum and the museum right next to it are a testimony to the culture of scientific rationality Nehru enthused into this nation, a vision of which Dr. Zakir Hussain was a huge part. He lies buried along with his wife under the fragile dome that is supported by the structure, for this was a fitting tribute to the life he lived.

Someone told me a story about how when Hakim Ajmal Khan was in Germany on his medical mission, he asked Dr. Hussain, if he took him to a barren piece of land in Delhi and tell him this was Jamia would he follow him, to which the answer was a simple yes. It was in 1926 that the latter came to Jamia Millia Islamia, when it was facing closure due to a paucity of funds, and remained its Vice-Chancellor until 1948, and left the University with a singular legacy: one of a relentlessly nationalist institution, dedicated to preserving its culture and educating its people in it, and as a singular voice against communalism, things that he took to personally. And maybe now, more than ever, his vision of what Jamia should be is coming to life. Jamia was instrumental in the efforts of the Indian state to safely rehabilitate refugees during the Partition: minibuses of students would go from the university to the refugee camp in Purana Qila with aid. He believed in Jamia as a carrier for a great spiritual renaissance, one that represented the awakening of India and her people into their own. Jamia was India’s awkward foray into the truth of its own identity, of its own people. In 1948, he was appointed the Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University, after which he went on to become the Governor of Bihar, and later, the third President of India and during his tenure he also acted as the Chancellor of the University. He had once written about how he would dedicate his life to Jamia; it was decided when he died that he would be buried in the University he built with his own hands.

I visited Dr. Zakir Hussain’s mausoleum on a cloudy Tuesday afternoon. It stood there, with the kind of loneliness that a lot of modernist and brutalist buildings exhibit in solitude, with only a few people idling by at the museum nearby. Apart from a murder of crows, nobody really visits it. There is a certain beauty in the solitude of modernist buildings, for they often stand alone, like the ideas they once stood for. Jamia, and maybe even the country, are not what they were anymore. Maybe the temporal context in which the building stands has changed. Our needs are still the same, but we have created an illusion of reality for ourselves, a reality where we are more complex than our own inherent natures. Looking at this building made me look inward, onto my own needs and how there are certain things about our species that transcend all kinds of distinctions of the past and the present.

Articles by Srajit M Kumar

Draft EIA Notification, 2020: An Assessment

REVISITING HISTORY

Dr. Zakir Hussain Mausoleum and Museum

Draft EIA Notification, 2020: An Assessment

REVISITING HISTORY

Dr. Zakir Hussain Mausoleum and Museum