March 11, 2016 marked the beginning of the three-day World Culture Festival (WCF) held in India’s capital, New Delhi, to celebrate “The Art of Living’s (AOL) 35 years of service, humanity, spirituality and human values”. The Indian AOL is a non-governmental organization that founded in 1987 by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and today operates in over 152 different countries teaching people paths to self-development, inner peace, and happiness. The event was kicked off by India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who praised Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and his event, which in Modi’s opinion exhibited the country’s internal strength through an artistic prism. An estimated 36,000 performers from around the world lit up the stage, while 3.5 million spectators hailing from 140 countries showed up to the event to unite in celebration of AOL’s core beliefs.
The organizers claimed that the constructed stage was the ‘largest temporary stage’ in history, spanning seven acres, equivalent to about six soccer fields. In total, the venue covered about a thousand acres of land, and even included two pontoon bridges built across the sacred Yamuna by Indian army soldiers. Adding to the grandeur of the event was its guest list, which included influential politicians from India and around the world. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar claimed that the stage and event was not only a celebration of AOL’s past achievements but also a celebration of life, uniting the world as one family.
However, for an event that meant to celebrate an organization that stands for humanity and life, it seemed to severely fall short with its actions. The festival set out to a hesitant start, as heavy showers left the venue riddled with muck and puddles. Nonetheless, organizers of the event called the rain a ‘blessing from god,’ celebrating the deluge from their dry, VIP sitting area. Organizers also failed to take serious steps to ensure the safety of the performers, protect the livelihoods of local famers or ameliorate the environmental damages it likely caused. The Central Public Works Department and the Delhi Development Authority did not give ‘the stage the mandatory structural stability certificate,’ citing concerns about its stability. The pontoon bridges were also a cause of concern: whereas the proposed plan included seven pontoon bridges, with an approximate capacity of 15,000 persons per bridge at any given moment, only two were finally built. As a result, the inspectors were unsure whether the bridges could handle the estimated number the event was expecting. Others were concerned about possible stampedes or chaos in the event of an emergency and the difficulty in evacuating the stage, if necessary.
The event also took a heavy toll on local farmers. Over 50 agricultural families were displaced to make space for the event. Many also had their livelihoods permanently destroyed when bulldozers crushed their crops and transformed the land they cultivated into parking lots. Additionally, they suffered from water shortages after their access was cut off to reduce puddles and mud at the event. Compensation amounts paid out to the farmers were about five times smaller than the returns these farmers would make from selling a single batch of their harvest in the market.
On top of this, the AOL has been fined a whopping $1.02 million by the National Green Tribunal — an Indian tribunal set up in 2010 to monitor cases relating to environmental protection and to ensure fair compensations for personal injuries and damaged property — for the damage done to the floodplains of the Yamuna River. Nonetheless, the event, which was still underway at the time, was see as “fait accompli” and thus allowed to continue. As of now, the AOL has not yet paid the full amount. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has said that he would rather go to jail than pay a fine, and has repeatedly denied that any environmental damage was caused by the event. Moreover, Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu has dismissed the event’s critics, saying, “Some people say that the Yamuna is polluted but it’s not. In fact, the minds of those people are polluted. Guruji (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) is here to relieve the polluted minds.”
The Delhi High Court condemned the event as well, calling it an ecological disaster and criticizing the flattening of the floodplains and the removal of shrubbery. The court also criticized the government for giving the organizers permission to hold the event in spite of predictable environmental damage. Many environmentalists had also warned the organizers and the government that such damage to the Yamuna floodplains would dramatically reduce the area’s capability to absorb high tides and thereby increase the risk of serious floods, similar to the kind that Chennai and Srinagar recently witnessed. Indian President Pranab Mukherjee decided not to attend. The President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe landed in the capital, but decided to return to home, citing “inadequacies in protocol and security arrangements.”
In an ironic twist, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has claimed that even though holding the event elsewhere would have cost him less, he chose the Yamuna floodplains to draw attention to the polluted state of the river. He added that AOL plans to build a biodiversity park on the same plains, but there is no evidence that the organization will actually undertake the project.
The government’s failure to prevent the organizers from causing such significant social and environmental damage, ultimately raises a larger question for India’s public. Why are self-proclaimed God-men and God-women followed unquestioningly and allowed to act with little scrutiny? The government did not even condemn Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s celebration for lacking the necessary clearances from the police or fire departments. In addition, the use of Indian army soldiers for the construction of bridges at a private event raises serious questions about the government’s political priorities.
Indeed, AOL’s case is but one of many in India, where the socially and environmentally harmful behavior and questionable business models of self-proclaimed gurus are given free rein and even enjoy the active support of politicians endorsing them. Another prominent example is Baba Ramdev, who claims that the products from his company, Patanjali Ayurved Limited — which is catching up in terms of revenue to the biggest domestic companies — can cure and prevent cancer and HIV/AIDS. Besides raising questions about the commercialization of religion and spirituality, cases such as these reveal dramatic failures of governmental oversight. This may be explained by the mobilizing power of magnates such as Shankar and Ramdev over large swaths of voters, which makes them valuable sources of support for politicians. However, as the case of the “Art of Living” festival shows, these unsavory alliances can have disastrous consequences. It is time the Indian government started thinking less about the art of living and more about the art of governing.
It is interpretation. When it rained, the organisers called ‘a blessing from god’. To my mind, the Gods too were ‘CRYING’
AND DID TO FOR THREE DAYS.