Of shaping opinions: Down To Earth at 30

It’S 30 years of Down To Earth. It is a lifetime — or at least that is what it feels like.

When Down To Earth was launched in May 1992, the world was at a turning point. Our very first issue was about our expectations from the Rio Conference to be held a month away. We discussed why the world needed to come together on the issues of the environment but we also warned that the meeting would fail — it was a green farce.

We said that the issues that mattered to the developing world were being given a short shift. It was also the time when the Indian economy was going through structural adjustment — liberalisation for growth was the buzzword. We debated with top economists about what would ensue in this growth-only period and what needed to be done to safeguard our natural resources.

By June that year, we had travelled across the country looking for answers to combat crippling droughts and water shortages. “Are droughts here to stay”, we asked provocatively.

In July we featured the desperate plight of the wood carvers of Saharanpur, whose craft was being lost because of the shortage of this resource. At Down To Earth, our concern has always been about the nature of the economy; livelihoods of the poor would be lost if it is not sustainable.

By September, journalists of our magazine travelled down the Ganga to bring you the story of why the river remains dirty. In October we discussed the traditional science of medicine, saying somewhat sarcastically that “science has discovered neem, the wonder plant, only now”. We ended that year with our feature on the post-Rio world and why the dice is loaded heavily in favour of the industrialised North.

And we began 1993 with a special issue on “why the world is on the boil”; we talked about globalisation, erosion of sovereignty, racism, patent wars, rampant consumerism, recession, aid cuts and disease resurgence. Sounds familiar, you may say.

I am listing these here to explain how our world has changed, but not changed enough. And at Down To Earth, our job too has not changed, except that now the fortnightly is also a daily — we report news as it happens on our website; we publish in Hindi; and we do films and use multimedia. We also publish separately for the young.

We want to reach you. We desperately want to tell you what is happening in the world so that you can make the difference. We believe in the power of information. And we believe in you.

At the end of each year, when we list our cover stories and features, we find that we have chronicled our world — its high and low points. We see ourselves as honest and fact-based storytellers. This is not to say that we do not have our politics of what we want the world to be. But our task is to tell it as it happens — and from where it happens.

We hope that our work has moulded your perspectives; shaped your opinions; given you inspiration and ideas of what you can do to improve conditions in your backyard and in our common world. We are in the business of change — not through politics of power but through hard facts.

So, as we put together this 30th anniversary issue, it is time to take stock. It is clear that we have made progress in many fields — we now understand the imperative of environmental management. We know that we must do more; and that business as usual will only bring us small incremental gains in tackling our local and global environmental challenges. It is not good enough. Not by far.

We also know that climate change is a reality that is not going away. It is in our face — in my city of Delhi, we are in the midst of the worst heatwave in a century. It is the apocalypse that we feared would come, but believed that we could wish it away.

We know that the world is more divided today than yesterday. But we also know that we need to cooperate more than ever before — SARS-CoV-2, an RNA virus that has brought our world to its knees, should teach us this. If not now, then when?

So, there is a lot to be done. But there is also hope. In every issue of Down To Earth we now feature a green warrior: An idea that has led to change; a practice that has become policy; an innovation that is changing our world.

Ultimately, the present and the future are in our hands. We have to believe in the possibility of this different tomorrow. And we can do this with determination only when we know that there are successes that we can build upon and learn from. We owe it not just to the next generation; we owe it to ourselves.

Our promise, then, is to you, dear reader: We will stay on course. Please stay with us. This journey is not over.

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