Is Save Soil against Indigenous Communities?
I happened to read an article today that basically says that the Save Soil movement will not work.
https://agrowingculture.medium.com/save-soil-won-t-save-us-89c12344c262
This article follows the same old pattern of saying something is simplistic and will not work - till it is proven to work fine. People have tried this with the Cauvery Calling movement and now that movement’s success is for everyone to see.
The article in question has a fundamental premise which the author keeps reiterating again and again in different words, that we cannot address the damage to our environment without confronting the structural inequalities and violence attached to it.
We will address this flawed premise along with a more basic issue raised.
For argument’s sake, let’s just follow the same thread of thought that the author wants us to pursue.
Right now, let’s say some group X is now occupying the land that belonged to some other group A in the recent past.
- Do we know if group A themselves were born and brought up on that land that group X has appropriated now?
- What if group A had taken it in the past from another group B who have now gone extinct because of A’s violence? And what if B had also actually taken it from some other group C? Who is the rightful owner in this case?
- How long into the past are we planning to go to restore the so-called ‘social justice’ in restoring the land to its ‘rightful owners’? How long is that process going to take and will it even come to an end?
These are all pertinent questions because the entire human history has been violent when it comes to people migrating from one place to another and merging with the local communities or displacing them completely, causing more migration. This is an undeniable truth. Actually, the author accidentally stumbles upon this very same thought by asking some fundamental questions:
“Who owns the land? Who is native to the land? Why is the land divided unequally? Why are there so many landless people in the world?”
Did the SaveSoil movement or Sadhguru at any point in time, on their website or in any interview or anywhere else, deny that there may have been violence when it comes to who occupies a certain land?
The answer is a big NO.
They did not even broach that topic, because it is not their business to do so.
The key question to ask in this context is if we have enough time to keep debating about who is the land’s rightful owner when the soil health is degrading at a rapid pace.
Let us say we decide group X or group Y is the original landowner and we restore it to them. By that time, if the soil becomes completely useless what good does it serve anyone?
As a matter of fact, the Save Soil team talks about the role of indigenous communities in India and worldwide while raising awareness about soil. They do not see these two as different issues.
Sadhguru has always involved the local communities in whatever environmental or social movement he had started in India, be it Project Green Hands or Cauvery Calling.
The LandBack movement started sometime in 2016 or so. What it has achieved during this time is phenomenal. But shouldn’t one think why another movement started for reviving soil health should do or say the same thing as the LandBack movement?
Did the SaveSoil team declare they are not going to work with other environmental movements?
Absolutely NOT!
So, if the LandBack movement or anyone who wants to support giving the land back to indigenous communities, wants to further the cause of reviving soil health by giving ownership to the indigenous communities, they can do so by all means. Who is stopping that?
Perhaps protest is the only way the author of the article knew to express their angst against injustice but as the SaveSoil movement is showing, there are other inclusive ways of working for our environment also.
A bitter fact of truth, that any modern anthropologist or social science researcher would completely acknowledge & agree with, is that social inequalities have existed throughout the history of humanity. Such inequalities will continue to exist in the future too — unless human beings truly evolve spiritually and see that they are one with all life around them.
That, precisely, has been the work Sadhguru has been doing through teaching yoga and spiritual practices to millions of people across the world, not just making them feel responsible for themselves but towards every life they come in contact with.
Many a government and an environmental organization have come forward to partner with the SaveSoil team to further the cause of reviving our Earth’s health, mainly because this is an inclusive movement. Almost all these organizations from across the world are working towards the revival of environment and soil health WITHOUT going into the history of violence attached to land ownership or social inequalities.
Many people who have come in touch with Sadhguru have been inspired to raise awareness about soil on their own.
We will not address the other issues highlighted in the article which are completely off the charts and are factually incorrect. Most of these have already been addressed in my own posts of the past and in news media also. Basically, all this information is based on publicly available sources.
So, instead of trying to discredit someone simply because you do not agree with their ideology or way of working or whatever, I wish the author had spent some more time researching before writing that article castigating somebody.
- Isha is occupying a forest and an elephant corridor
https://bigfundu.medium.com/nakkheeran-the-fake-news-platoon-in-tamilnadu-5d10e3611184
https://bigfundu.medium.com/elephant-war-against-bharat-f71135d2a7e7
https://bigfundu.medium.com/yet-another-elephant-death-fake-environmentalism-70a737f96351
- Isha has occupied tribal lands
https://bigfundu.medium.com/isha-and-tribals-an-untold-story-f0883b531db7
- Isha has done no social work
https://bigfundu.medium.com/rohitha-and-the-desperation-of-an-ecosystem-6f08fca4a632
- Citing Newslaundry articles as investigation against Sadhguru :)
https://medium.com/@bigfundu/newslaundrys-dirty-lies-part-1-605aa8311859
https://bigfundu.medium.com/newslaundrys-dirty-lies-part-2-191cf5b7e4d0
https://bigfundu.medium.com/newslaundrys-dirty-lies-part-3-4ae027b55133
https://bigfundu.medium.com/newslaundrys-dirty-lies-part-4-7dfc6c0941ea
- Cauvery Calling has issues and is a scam for raising funds
https://bigfundu.medium.com/fear-mongering-or-opinion-d02c6e0bb888
https://bigfundu.medium.com/cauvery-calling-isha-foundation-or-isha-outreach-a77cb2c57626
https://bigfundu.medium.com/cauvery-calling-pil-drama-part-2-f71725080b61
- Sadhguru is islamophobic
https://bigfundu.medium.com/scroll-on-sadhguru-lot-of-opinions-zero-facts-a4ee7d7419e6
https://bigfundu.medium.com/caa-sadhguru-fact-checks-155978bd56df
The Save Soil movement is not about alienating anyone or any organization, whatever dumb things they may have done in the past. As long as they want to correct their mistakes and work for restoring soil health now, all humans should act as one force instead of again trying to divide ourselves into fighting groups, which leads to no real solution for the environment or for the society.
This Save Soil journey is no joyride traveling 30,000 KMs on a bike at 65 years of age, but it has already touched about 2 billion people and more awareness about our soil is needed for everyone. Every political party and religious group across the world is unifying to save our soil.
Let’s, as humanity, move towards finding solutions to problems and not trying to find problems in every solution when it comes to our environment.
