Religion, Culture And Environment

1. Religion, Culture and the
Environment

2. Lecture Outline
1. Christianity and the environment: Lynn
White Jnr (1967) ‘The Roots of our
Present Ecological Crisis’. Science
2. Hinduism: are ‘Eastern religions’ the
answer?
3. Conclusions

3. White argued that:
• quot;What people do about their ecology depends on what they
think about themselves in relation to things around them.
Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our
nature and destiny -- that is, by religion.quot;
• Judaeo-Christianity the most anthropocentric religion –
nature is their to serve humans
• Associated with this, the West’s ability to change and
damage nature the highest because of science and
technology. A relationship between Christian values and
technological development since Medieval times.

4. Sparked huge debates:
E.g. over the messages within Genesis:
quot;God saw everything that had been made and
indeed, it was very good.quot; (Gen 1:31)
But ….
quot;Let us make humankind in our image, according
to our likeness; and let them have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air,
and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals
of the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creeps upon the earth.quot; (Gen 1:26)

5. Did recognise that:
Eastern, Orthodox Christianity more respectful, and
traditions within the mainstream Protestant and
RC church which were better (e.g. St Francis of
Assisi).
BUT:
Historically, the P. and RC church has been
blatantly unconcerned with the environment.

6. Prompted:
• 1986: The Assisi meeting, with
representatives from all the major world
religions, committing themselves to
promoting greater environmental
consciousness.
• A huge academic literature, meetings etc

7. Hinduism and the environment
• Analytical approaches
• The ‘standard popular’ argument
• Cautions and caveats
• Limitations of textual analysis
• ‘Environmentally problematic’ Hindu beliefs and
practices
• The challenges and realities of contemporary India

8. Analytical approaches to
Hinduism and ecology
• Exegesis of mytho-historical texts (e.g. the Vedas,
Upanishads, Gita) to uncover philosophical
precepts and teachings, and indications of past
behaviours.
• Ethnographic explorations of practices (e.g. sacred
groves, religious rituals)
• Socio-political analyses of movements and
struggles for environmental justice (e.g. Narmada
Bachao Andolan, Chipko)

9. Hinduism and ecology: the
‘popular’ argument
• The holism of Hinduism – the immanence of god
in all things, matter and consciousness – means
that humans recognise their part in divine creation,
and respect the rest of it.
• Gods and goddesses often take full or part animal
form; trees and plants are worshipped, and play an
important ritual role.
• The doctrine of reincarnation gives humans an
intimate sense of connection with other life forms
through the belief in the trans-migration of souls.

10. Variations of this argument have been
supported by:
• Orientalist scholars
• European (and especially German/Nazi)
Romantics
• Indian philosophers (from Vivekananda to
Gandhi)
• Lynn White Jnr (1967) ‘The Roots of our Present
Ecological Crisis’ Science
• ‘Neo-traditionalists’, post-colonial scholars and
ecofeminists

11. Organisations:
• Swadhyaya (Gujarat) – the immanence of
god in all things used to promote social and
environmental justice
• Various organisations in the Braj region
(just below Delhi) who use devotion to
Krishna to promote reforestation.

12. Cautions and caveats
1. Limitations of textual analysis
2. ‘Environmentally problematic’ Hindu
beliefs and practices
3. The challenges and realities of
contemporary India

13. 1. Problems with texts
quot;No person should kill animals helpful to all. By
serving them, one should obtain heaven“
(Yajurved, 13.47; quoted in Dwivedi and
Tiwari, 1999, p.174)
quot;He who plants even one tree, goes directly to
heaven and obtains Mokshaquot;
(Matsya Purana, 59.159; quoted in Dwivedi,
1990, p.206)

14. quot;Whether we are in a rural area, in woods, on a
battleground or in public meetings .. we should
always speak graciously about the Mother Earth
and be respectful to herquot;
(Atharva Veda, Kanda XII, Hymn I, verse
56; quoted in Dwivedi, 1997, p. 31).
quot;Of all that is material and all that is spiritual in
this world, know for certain that I am both its
origin and its dissolutionquot;
(Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita, 7.6;
quoted in Dwivedi, 1990, p.204)

15. Problems
• Reflect elite, Brahminic male views and
experiences, not those of the poor, rural, women,
low castes or adivasis.
• Value-behaviour gaps (what do they tell us about
the way people really thought and behaved?).
• Full of complexity and contradictions.
• Plenty of evidence (textual, historical,
archaeological) of less ‘ecologically harmonious’
views and behaviours
• The politicisation of environmental discourses

16. Dwivedi:
If Hinduism is so innately ecologically
harmonious, how can we explain the current
environmental situation?
The answer:
“700 years of foreign cultural domination” …
whose alien cultures, ideologies, religions and
institutions have “shaken the faith of the
masses in the earlier cultural tradition … and
greatly inhibited the religion from continuing
to transmit ancient values which encourage
respect and due regard for God's creation”
(1990, p.210-11)

17. quot;Environmental history becomes another location
in the struggle for the construction of and control
over a national political memory, and is not
innocent of its own implications. Over the last few
years, organisations such as the Hindu nationalist
Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (affiliated with the RSS)
have articulated a politics which shares many of
the assumptions of new traditionalism, defining
Indian authenticity on the basis of 'Hindutva'quot;
(Sinha, Greenberg and Gururani,1997, p.90).

18. quot;Vandana Shiva ... has become a leading
light of Hindu ecology, and makes
regular appearances in neo-Hindu [i.e.
fundamentalist] ashrams in North
America. Her work is most respectfully
cited in The Organiser, the official
journal of the RSS, the cultural arm of
Hindu nationalist parties”
(Nanda, 2002: 30)

19. 2. Beliefs and practices
Holism and dualism:
• Semitic religions critiqued for their
transcendental dualism – the separation of
humans from nature.
• But Advaita Vedanta also sets up a
dualism: matter and consciousness (maya)
on one side, and liberation/absorption and
loss the Self (moksa) on the other.

20. For the renouncer, seeking liberation from maya:
“The defects of the body, mind and objects of
experience are innumerable. The discriminating
have no more liking for them than for milk-
porridge vomited by a dog” (quoted in Nelson,
1998:70)
“Pure non-attachment is disregard for all objects –
from the god Brahma down to plants and minerals
– like the indifference one has towards the
excrement of a crow” (p.81)

21. Purity and pollution:
• The sacred landscape/river can be
worshipped, while the profane is neglected
(e.g. Alley, 1998, 2002 on the Ganges;
Haberman, 1994, on the forests of the Braj)
• One’s own self/house is kept scrupulously
clean, while pollution/waste is expelled out,
to be absorbed by lower caste/class groups
(e.g. Varma, 1998; Gupta, 2000)

22. “We ignore the social dimension of our
actions and practices. The late Dr Adiseshaiah,
one of our prominent economists and
academicians, wrote about his mother that she was
a high born lady who kept her house spotlessly
clean. Every morning she used to sweep and clean
the house herself, and then drop the rubbish in the
neighbour’s garden. Self-regarding purity and
righteousness, ignoring others, has been the bane
of our culture. It has created a gulf in our society
between people, even with regard to basic needs
and fundamental rights”
President Narayan, Republic Day address, 2000

23. 3. Contemporary realities and
challenges
• The ‘weak case’: Is any religion an appropriate or
sufficient basis from which to confront the sheer
scale and original nature of contemporary
environmental threats (e.g. Tomalin, 2000)?
• The ‘strong case’: religion is part of the problem,
not the solution. Environmental and social justice
cannot be achieved as long as people adhere to
religious myths of nature, existence, gender etc.
(e.g. Nanda, 2002, 2003)

24. The best analyses recognise:
• The enormous diversity of belief and practice
within and between various Hindu traditions
• Hybridity with other religions, including
Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and sarna
• The importance of situating analyses within their
changing historical, regional and socio-political
contexts
• Complex and non-linear ‘value-behaviour’
relationships
• AND some question whether religion/culture is
appropriate in particular cases or at all

25. The worst analyses propose:
• An essentialised connection between Hinduism
and ecologically sound values, beliefs and
behaviours.
• Rely on an anti-Semitic religion, anti-science
dualism
• Rely uncritically on Brahminic sources and
traditions
• Are inattentive to context, diversity, hybridity and
change
• Are inattentive to the hierarchies and oppression
of women and low castes that accompanies belief
in divine cosmological order.

26. Conclusions
• Most religions have a variety of traditions and practices,
and texts which are open to significant interpretation
• To what extent is religion a guide to behaviour?
• Problems with ‘cosmological’ (as opposed to
science/political) understandings of environmental well-
being.
• Better to frame environmental issues in ways that have
meaning for local people?
• More effective
• Opposes Eurocentric, techno-centric, economically
reductionist SD outlook
• Must be aware of specific contexts and issues