He believed that by breaking up that harmonious relationship with nature, god has only made us slaves of our own selves. He wrote: "Today, sitting in the darkness of early dawn, I was listening to the strange cacophony of demands all around me. Hey, where are the cows? Where's the book? I need some fire. Where is my tobacco? Call up the car. Why's the clay jar still here? When birds sing in the morning, they sound the same notes. But this strange human cacophony has neither any similarity of words nor of notes." Tagore wanted the natural and the spiritual to be in a harmonious relationship with each other. Let the two coexist in truth. We must not sever the two by spinning lies. We should not build walls of language, argument and blind faith around us and pass that off as the truth.
Referring to World War I, he said the terrible bloodletting shouldn't go in vain. It should wash away all the accumulated sins of mankind. That's what all humanity is praying for. "Just think how many parents are losing their life's savings. How many brothers are losing their brothers. That's why I sometimes wonder why there's no punishment for such crimes, why has the world to suffer such pain. But remember this: There's no division within mankind. It is one and the same. That's why son has to pay for his father's crime, friend has to expiate for his friend's misconduct, the weak has to accept the torture of the mighty. In human society, everyone has to share the consequences of anyone's crime."
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He maintains this faith even as he touches upon one of the biggest challenges that faces mankind today - that of reckless urbanisation. In an essay titled Tapobon (Forest Nook for Meditation), he writes: "The lotus on which goddess Lakshmi of modern civilisation resides is made of brick and mortar. It's called a city. As the sun of development rises to its zenith, the petals are opening one by one and getting scattered all around. The earth is unable to stop this victory march... But India seems like an amazing exception. The roots of its civilisation are not in the city. They are in the forest. We see them flourishing in an environment where people are not jostling with one another, becoming a pulp in the process. People had enough space to coexist with trees and rivers and ponds. There was open space, no crowded jostling. Yet this openness of space hadn't turned people's souls into static entities. We don't see such a thing anywhere else in the world."
But it was India of a different time and age. Things have vastly changed in this country and around the world. Would Tagore have maintained his position if he were alive today, I wonder. Not too long ago Pope Francis pointed this out when he mentioned climate change as a serious danger and called for a drastic reorientation of politics, economics, and individual lifestyles to confront it. He issued a sermon criticising consumerism and irresponsible development and called for swift and unified global action. He held apathy, reckless pursuit of profit, excessive faith in technology and political short-sightedness as directly responsible for the mess we are in.
Perhaps we are in a catch-22 situation here. Reckless pursuit of profit and excessive faith in technology may be environmentally unwelcome, but if we do nothing it will only aggravate the problem. If we think of population control it will affect demand and growth rate. Low growth means less employment opportunities, which will put a higher burden on the poor. If we become activists we will only worsen the climatic danger. Both ways, we are caught in a no-win situation.
In a rapidly urbanising and increasingly scary world, are we fighting a losing battle with climate change? Looks like it. In 2014, all the development banks together, including the World Bank Group, spent $100 billion in climate mitigation funding. To what effect? It has become a bottomless pit. Even a trillion dollars will not be able to salvage the situation. To decongest metros and make them smart we need networks of feeder cities around them. But feeder cities will need industries themselves to support their populations. There you go again, back to square one.