‘Man-made climate collapse, not natural’: Acharya Prashant on North India’s floods

New Delhi, Sep 7 (IANS) As relentless rains batter North India, philosopher and author Acharya Prashant has called the devastation “a mirror to our misplaced idea of progress”. Speaking on the eve of the launch of his forthcoming HarperCollins book 'Truth Without Apology' at India International Centre, New Delhi, he warned that calling floods and landslides ‘natural calamities’ is a dangerous denial of their man-made roots. 

Himachal Pradesh has lost over 340 lives since June 20, with landslides and flash floods cutting off entire districts. More than 1,300 roads remain blocked. In Jammu & Kashmir, rivers have surged past danger levels, while Punjab reports damage across 1,400 villages. Even Delhi and NCR are battling waterlogged streets, cancelled trains, and transport shutdowns. “The scale of loss dwarfs every relief effort,” Acharya Prashant said.

“Himachal’s hills are collapsing because we drilled, blasted, and cemented them year after year,” he said. “When rivers are forced into concrete and wetlands into real estate, the monsoon is bound to return the debt.”

He pointed to the stark contrast between rural helplessness and urban negligence.

“Villages in the Himalayas collapse because they are too weak to resist. But what excuse do Delhi and Gurgaon have? These are the richest cities. They drown not from poverty, but from negligence: storm drains buried, floodplains encroached, responsibility ending at the boundary wall.”

Acharya Prashant stressed that climate change is the decisive force behind today’s devastation. “Asia is heating nearly twice as fast as the global average, which means more violent bursts of rain and more frequent cloudbursts. NASA confirms floods and droughts have already doubled worldwide in two decades.”

According to the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, the average number of flood-affected districts in India has jumped from 19 a year (1970-2004) to 55 a year (2005-2019). “This is not seasonal wrath; it is climate collapse unfolding before us. Yet three out of four of India’s flood-prone districts still lack proper early-warning systems.”

He added that this crisis is inseparable from global climate feedback loops:

“Permafrost is releasing methane, glaciers are vanishing, and coral reefs are dying. Once these cycles begin, they drive themselves. To dismiss floods as accidents of weather is not realism - it is denial. This is not pessimism, it is physics.”

On the deeper injustice, he noted: “The world’s richest 10 per cent drive emissions with private jets and excess lifestyles, while farmers and labourers lose lives and crops. Climate change is not only an ecological crisis. It is the violence of the rich upon the poor.”

He called for urgent reforms: restoring wetlands and floodplains, taxing carbon-heavy consumption, and disclosing the footprints of corporations and celebrities. “We need to redefine progress. A ‘good life’ cannot remain defined by bigger cars, bigger houses, more air miles. That definition was implanted by those who profit from our desires,” he said.

But he warned that no reform will hold without a shift in human consumption.

“Policies will fail unless minds change. Festivals need not mean firecrackers. Joy need not mean excess travel or display. The climate outside reflects the climate within, and when the inner self is restless, nature too collapses.”

He also referenced Operation 2030, the PrashantAdvait Foundation’s mission to awaken citizens before the UN’s climate deadline.

“Scientists warn that unless warming is capped at 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030, feedback cycles -- melting glaciers, rising seas, collapsing ecosystems -- will lock us into irreversibility. Operation 2030 rests on one insight: only inner clarity can anchor outer change.”

He concluded with the Gita: “Action born of inner clarity liberates, while action born of delusion destroys. Development without wisdom is rehearsal for the next tragedy. The monsoon has spoken. The question is, will we listen?”

--IANS

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