In Rio, try thinking of Kalavati Devi

HUMANITY never needed a global social contractmore than it does today. With the nations of the worldjointly facing a global ecological crisis but sharplydivided in economic terms, there never was a greaterneed for humanity to live as one. The forthcomingUnited Nations Conference on Environment andDevelopment (UNCED) could have provided us withprecisely such an opportunity.

No citizen on earth wants his or her environment tobe polluted and destroyed. But different economicconditions can force different environmental objectives and approaches on different nations and communities. While the rich and well-fed are more interestedin the environment because they want to secure theirfuture, the poor, caught in a daily struggle to survive,are interested in the environment because they want tosecure their present.

But none of the nations has tried to present an alternative vision of how to manage this earth in a fair andsustainable manner for all. European nations, undergreater pressure from their domestic environmentallobbies, have been more open than the US. However,the US insistence has finally worn them down andthey have caved in. The South did not even get off to astart. It accepted the Northern agenda of global warming and biodiversity right from the start and simplypressed for its traditional demands of additional aidand technology transfer.

In all this, nobody has cared to spare a thought forthe likes of a Kalavati Devi, the proud inhabitant of theHimalayan village of Bached. She herself may nevercome to hear of UNCED. But nobody knows more thanKalavati Devi the importance of nature. She walksmiles and miles every day to collect her daily needs offuel, fodder and water. With the forest line receding,her daily struggle becomes ever more arduous.

Yet she walks lightly on this earth. She emits little,she takes little, she destroys little, and she knows a lotabout the uses of trees in her neighbouring forest.

Nobody will mention Kalavati Devi at the conference. But Southern leaders will use her at every opportunity to tell the North that their nations have beenabstemious, austere, and have not contributed to theearth's destruction as much as the world's rich, especially those living in New York and London. This willgive them the moral.strength to demand money and4 technology in exchange for their commitments toobserve ecological discipline.

But what will they bring back for Kalavati Devi?Everything at the conference now seems to befalling into place. Malaysia's Mahathir has agreed toattend the Earth Summit after making a big ftiss abouthis right to decide the fate of his forests. The globalwarming treaty is now ready for signature. There isevery likelihood that the biodiversity convention willbe ready too. The Global Environmental Facility hasbeen accepted as the intetim funding mechanism forthe global warming treaty. The member-nations of GEFhave agreed to broaden its decision-making mechanism. There will now be a role for developing countries while donor countriies will also get a weightagefor their contributions. The stage is now set for theEarth Summit to become a "modest success".

What does all this have to do with Kalavati Devi?The North is not very wrong when it describes theSouth's demand for money and technology as a form ofblackmail. Of course, the ' Northern leadership says allthis only to protect its ecohomic interests and hideouslifestyles. But isn't the Southern elite also promotingits vested interests? It is not the elite of Delhi orNairobi which keeps greenhouse emissions low or contributes anything to our knowledge about the world'sbiodiversity. What guarantee has the Southern leadership offered to ensure that the flow of green moneyand technology that it has been so strongly demandingwill end with Kalavati Devi?

Bush, Kohl and Major may not have shown muchleadership, guardians as they are of the world's vestedinterests, but Mahathir, Li, Narasimha Rao, Mugabeand Collor, the representatives of the world's poor,have not shown much either.

Kalavati Devi is not a beggar. She is a very proudwoman and she would have held her head high. Shewould have readily accepted the need for global ecological discipline and convinced everybody how critical it is for her survival. But she would have given the rich and filthy a piece of her mind. She would havedemanded a fair and equal world and an acceptance ofher rights to her environment - from her immediateforests to her fair share in the earth's commonresources like the oceans and the atmosphere.

She would have proudly thundered, "I don't wantanything. just give me my fair share and I will gladlylive within it like any self-respecting person." Shewould have added, "Don't preach to me too muchabout your laws and the need to create more of them. Ihave seen the likes of many of them in the past. Justcreate a system'in which I can control you when youharm me and you can control me when I harm you" -a deepening of participatory democracy in the use ofthe world's natural resources and a democratic systemof checks and balances.

Kalavati Devi would probably have gone above theheads of Northern presidents and prime ministers anddirectly addressed herself to the young and vocal environment movement. She would have brought out thebest in the movement, inspired a new vision andargued from the strength of her traditions and her roots- the key strengths.of Southern societies.

Kalavati Devi would have probably not broughthome any more dollars than what our trained diplomats and bureaucrats have been as to. But she wouldhave inspired, used the occasion to put her concernsforward, and won the talking point.

Our leaders, however, have failed to make the grade.With all the rhetoric now over, they will quickly maketheir peace with the Northern elite in Rio. They willuse the morality and austerity of Kalavati Devi at everyopportunity. But she will not matter to anyone in theend.

The ecological crisis is the result of precisely suchhypocrisy.