Getting the Five Elements Right

Visuals of floods, landslides, broken bridges, traffic jams, floating cars, garbage piles dominate my screens as I sit down to write this column.

- ANURADHA GOYAL Author and founder of IndiTales Follow her on X @anuradhagoyal

As the disaster mode settles, we will again go back to language wars, caste debates and regional pride. We will let our political leadership dictate our debates—each faction working on proving the other more corrupt. What we forget is that all elected leaders are sent there to work for us—at least that's the promise.

We need to hold our public representatives, the bureaucratic structure that reports to them, and ourselves responsible for cleaning our pancha tattvas—the five basic elements that decide the basic quality of our life. No matter what our economic and social status is, irrespective of how much tax we pay or subsidy we receive, these five elements impact us equally as humans.

Let's begin with prithvi or earth, which we proudly call our mother. This earth is being poisoned with chemicals poured to get the most out of it. Our forests are being cut and converted into concrete jungles. If earth and forests are not healthy, there is no way we can get food that would nurture us. A polluted earth can only give us polluted food. I am not even talking about the chemicals in our processed food, fruits, and vegetables to prolong their shelf life. Can we demand food safety bodies to work on a war footing to ensure healthy food? Clean and healthy earth is our fundamental right.