The gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab is hell­bent on de­stroy­ing the Mat­te­wara For­est on the banks of the river Sut­lej, near Lud­hi­ana. De­spite protests by the poor in­hab­i­tants, re­sid­ing in the area for decades and spir­ited protes­ta­tions by en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists and ac­tivists, the land ac­qui­si­tion arm of the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment -PUDA -Pun­jab Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­ity is bull­doz­ing dis­sent, protest, flour­ish­ing fields, forests and home and hearth of the poor in­hab­i­tants to pass on the land to big busi­ness houses and in­dus­tri­al­ists. Au­thor-men­tor Harpreet Kaur Ahluwalia delves deep into Gur­bani to demon­strate that life has to be a holis­tic whole with Na­ture and hu­man be­ings have no choice but to live with all cre­ations of the Cre­ator.

GURU NANAK’S SIKHI IS A WAY OF LIFE. It en­com­passes eter­nal truth re­vealed to Guru Sahib by the God Almighty and thus in­cludes all as­pects of liv­ing. It is no won­der that Sikh ac­tivists are up in arms against the de­struc­tion of the Mat­te­wara forests, on whose banks, Guru Sahibs cre­ated a bio-di­verse ecol­ogy to them­selves demon­strate the sig­nif­i­cance of liv­ing in tune with Na­ture.

The sev­enth Mas­ter -Guru Har Rai Sahib de­vel­oped Ki­rat­pur Sahib as a town of parks and gar­dens with a trib­u­tary of Sut­lej flow­ing along­side it. He planted flow­ers and fruit-bear­ing trees and cre­ated bio­di­ver­sity and eco­log­i­cal abun­dance in the area.

The founders of the Sikh faith -the Gu­rus were pi­o­neers of in­cor­po­rat­ing the call for en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion by men­tion­ing it in Guru Granth Sahib. The Gu­rus em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of trees and their use­ful­ness like the bo­har, karir, jand, pi­pli, reru, tahle, imli, amb, nimm, ritha, ber, pha­lahi, etc. Some of these trees even find im­por­tance in Sikh shrines like the Ber at Har­mandir Sahib and Sul­tan­pur Lodhi, Reru Sahib named af­ter Reru tree.

From the word go -from the verses in the first Bani -Jap Nis­san it­self, Guru Nanak Sahib sets the ball rolling by em­pha­siz­ing that Na­ture is a whole­some cre­ation of God. He says,

ਕਵਣਿ ਸਿ ਰੁਤੀ ਮਾਹੁ ਕਵਣੁ ਜਿਤੁ ਹੋਆ ਆਕਾਰੁ ॥
ਵੇਲ ਨ ਪਾਈਆ ਪੰਡਤੀ ਜਿ ਹੋਵੈ ਲੇਖੁ ਪੁਰਾਣੁ ॥
ਵਖਤੁ ਨ ਪਾਇਓ ਕਾਦੀਆ ਜਿ ਲਿਖਨਿ ਲੇਖੁ ਕੁਰਾਣੁ ॥
ਥਿਤਿ ਵਾਰੁ ਨਾ ਜੋਗੀ ਜਾਣੈ ਰੁਤਿ ਮਾਹੁ ਨਾ ਕੋਈ ॥
ਜਾ ਕਰਤਾ ਸਿਰਠੀ ਕਉ ਸਾਜੇ ਆਪੇ ਜਾਣੈ ਸੋਈ ॥
ਜਪੁ, ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ : ਅੰਗ ੪

What was that sea­son, and what was that month, when the Uni­verse was cre­ated?
The Pan­dits, the re­li­gious schol­ars, can­not find that time, even if it is writ­ten in the Pu­ranas.
That time is not known to the Qazis, who study the Ko­ran.
The day and the date are not known to the Yo­gis, nor is the month or the sea­son.
The Cre­ator who cre­ated this cre­ation-only He Him­self knows.
Guru Granth Sahib, Jap, Ang 4,

To those in­quis­i­tive to know how and when it hap­pened, Guru Sahib elab­o­rated,

ਖਾਕ ਨੂਰ ਕਰਦੰ ਆਲਮ ਦੁਨੀਆਇ ॥
ਅਸਮਾਨ ਜਿਮੀ ਦਰਖਤ ਆਬ ਪੈਦਾਇਸਿ ਖੁਦਾਇ ॥੧॥
ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ : ਅੰਗ ੭੨੩

The Lord in­fused His Light into the dust, and cre­ated the world, the uni­verse.
The sky, the earth, the trees, and the wa­ter – all are the Cre­ation of the Lord. ||1|| Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 723

Sikhism talks about the one­ness of hu­man­ity and cre­ation. Hu­mans are sup­posed to be cus­to­di­ans of the cre­ator’s cre­ations and one of the pur­poses of hu­man life is to pro­tect the en­vi­ron­ment and un­der­stand that we as in­di­vid­u­als are re­spon­si­ble for our ac­tions.

On page 4, Guru Granth Sahib re­it­er­ates that ‘as you sow so shall you reap.’ If we con­sciously or un­con­sciously dam­age the eco­log­i­cal bal­ance we are sow­ing seeds of our own de­struc­tion. Guru Nanak says,

ਸਾਚੇ ਤੇ ਪਵਨਾ ਭਇਆ ਪਵਨੈ ਤੇ ਜਲੁ ਹੋਇ ॥
ਜਲ ਤੇ ਤ੍ਰਿਭਵਣੁ ਸਾਜਿਆ ਘਟਿ ਘਟਿ ਜੋਤਿ ਸਮੋਇ ॥
ਸਿਰੀਰਾਗੁ ਮਃ ੧, ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ, ਅੰਗ ੧੯

From the True Lord came the air, and from the air came wa­ter.
From the wa­ter, He cre­ated the three worlds; in each and every heart He has in­fused His Light.
Sri Raag Mo­halla 1, Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 19

On page 19, Guru Granth Sahib says that air orig­i­nated from the true Lord, the wa­ter from the air and in turn, the wa­ter orig­i­nated the en­tire uni­verse and in each be­ing the Lord’s light is en­thused. Fur­ther, on page 8, it em­pha­sizes, ‘air is the Guru, wa­ter is the fa­ther, and earth is the great mother of all. Day and night are the two nurses, in whose lap all the world is at play.’ So, if we harm any of these, we harm the Lord and thereby my­self.’

Every part of na­ture -trees, flora and fauna, birds, wa­ter, et al are all equally nec­es­sary for com­pos­ite liv­ing. Guru Nanak Sahib took this to a new height by equat­ing each part of na­ture with God -the Cre­ator.

ਪਵਣੁ ਗੁਰੂ ਪਾਣੀ ਪਿਤਾ ਮਾਤਾ ਧਰਤਿ ਮਹਤੁ ॥
ਦਿਵਸੁ ਰਾਤਿ ਦੁਇ ਦਾਈ ਦਾਇਆ ਖੇਲੈ ਸਗਲ ਜਗਤੁ ॥
ਚੰਗਿਆਈਆ ਬੁਰਿਆਈਆ ਵਾਚੈ ਧਰਮੁ ਹਦੂਰਿ ॥
ਕਰਮੀ ਆਪੋ ਆਪਣੀ ਕੇ ਨੇੜੈ ਕੇ ਦੂਰਿ ॥
ਜਿਨੀ ਨਾਮੁ ਧਿਆਇਆ ਗਏ ਮਸਕਤਿ ਘਾਲਿ ॥
ਨਾਨਕ ਤੇ ਮੁਖ ਉਜਲੇ ਕੇਤੀ ਛੁਟੀ ਨਾਲਿ ॥੧॥
ਜਪੁ, ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ, ਅੰਗ ੮

Air is the Guru, Wa­ter is the Fa­ther, and Earth is the Great Mother of all.
Day and night are the two nurses, in whose lap all the world is at play.
Good deeds and the bad deeds-the record is read out in the Pres­ence of the Lord of Dharma.
Ac­cord­ing to their own ac­tions, some are drawn closer, and some are dri­ven far­ther away.
Those who have med­i­tated on the Naam, the Name of the Lord, and de­parted af­ter hav­ing worked
by the sweat of their brows
O Nanak, their faces are ra­di­ant in the Court of the Lord, and many are saved along with them! ||1||
Jap, Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 8

Guru Nanak saw no dif­fer­ence be­tween the cre­ator and the cre­ation. Who is who in life, has been clas­si­cally ex­plained,

ਆਪੇ ਭਵਰੁ ਫੁਲੁ ਫਲੁ ਤਰਵਰੁ ॥
ਆਪੇ ਜਲੁ ਥਲੁ ਸਾਗਰੁ ਸਰਵਰੁ ॥
ਆਪੇ ਮਛੁ ਕਛੁ ਕਰਣੀਕਰੁ ਤੇਰਾ ਰੂਪੁ ਨ ਲਖਣਾ ਜਾਈ ਹੇ ॥੬॥

ਮਾਰੂ ਸੋਲਹੇ, ਮਃ ੧, ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ, ਅੰਗ ੧੦੨੦

You Your­self are the bum­ble bee, the flower, the fruit and the tree.
You Your­self are the wa­ter, the desert, the ocean and the pool.
You Your­self are the great fish, the tor­toise, the Cause of causes; Your form can­not be known. ||6||
Raag Maa­roo Mo­halla 1, Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 1020

On page 13, in the Aarti, Guru Granth Sahib po­et­i­cally de­scribes the re­la­tion­ship be­tween na­ture and God. It talks about the great­ness of na­ture, the stars, moon, sun and the air.

ਗਗਨ ਮੈ ਥਾਲੁ ਰਵਿ ਚੰਦੁ ਦੀਪਕ ਬਨੇ ਤਾਰਿਕਾ ਮੰਡਲ ਜਨਕ ਮੋਤੀ
ਧੂਪੁ ਮਲਆਨਲੋ ਪਵਣੁ ਚਵਰੋ ਕਰੇ ਸਗਲ ਬਨਰਾਇ ਫੂਲੰਤ ਜੋਤੀ ॥੧॥
ਕੈਸੀ ਆਰਤੀ ਹੋਇ ॥
ਭਵ ਖੰਡਨਾ ਤੇਰੀ ਆਰਤੀ ॥
ਅਨਹਤਾ ਸਬਦ ਵਾਜੰਤ ਭੇਰੀ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
ਸਹਸ ਤਵ ਨੈਨ ਨਨ ਨੈਨ ਹਹਿ ਤੋਹਿ ਕਉ ਸਹਸ ਮੂਰਤਿ ਨਨਾ ਏਕ ਤਦ਼ਹੀ ॥
ਸਹਸ ਪਦ ਬਿਮਲ ਨਨ ਏਕ ਪਦ ਗੰਧ ਬਿਨੁ ਸਹਸ ਤਵ ਗੰਧ ਇਵ ਚਲਤ ਮੋਹੀ ॥੨॥
ਸਭ ਮਹਿ ਜੋਤਿ ਜੋਤਿ ਹੈ ਸੋਇ ॥
ਤਿਸ ਦੈ ਚਾਨਣਿ ਸਭ ਮਹਿ ਚਾਨਣੁ ਹੋਇ ॥
ਗੁਰ ਸਾਖੀ ਜੋਤਿ ਪਰਗਟੁ ਹੋਇ ॥
ਜੋ ਤਿਸੁ ਭਾਵੈ ਸੁ ਆਰਤੀ ਹੋਇ ॥੩॥

Upon that cos­mic plate of the sky, the sun and the moon are the lamps. The stars and their orbs are the stud­ded pearls.
The fra­grance of san­dal­wood in the air is the tem­ple in­cense, and the wind is the fan. All the plants of the world are the al­tar flow­ers in of­fer­ing to You, O Lu­mi­nous Lord. ||1||
What a beau­ti­ful Aar­tee, lamp-lit wor­ship ser­vice this is! O De­stroyer of Fear, this is Your Cer­e­mony of Light.
The Un­struck Sound-cur­rent of the Shabad is the vi­bra­tion of the tem­ple drums. ||1||Pause||
You have thou­sands of eyes, and yet You have no eyes. You have thou­sands of forms, and yet You do not have even one.
You have thou­sands of Lo­tus Feet, and yet You do not have even one foot. You have no nose, but you have thou­sands of noses. This Play of Yours en­trances me. ||2||
Amongst all is the Light-You are that Light.
By this Il­lu­mi­na­tion, that Light is ra­di­ant within all.
Through the Gu­ru’s Teach­ings, the Light shines forth.
That which is pleas­ing to Him is the lamp-lit wor­ship ser­vice. ||3||
Aarti, Guru Granthi Sahib, Ang 13

The Gu­rus lived by ex­am­ple and their love and re­spect for na­ture were clearly vis­i­ble. Guru Nanak al­ways sat un­der a tree and took in­spi­ra­tion from na­ture. The Tenth Mas­ter, Guru Gob­ind Singh is leg­endary as ‘the True Lord one with the fal­con.’ He talked about ap­ply­ing mod­er­a­tion to every­thing in life in­clud­ing the use of earth re­sources for the ben­e­fit of all. Sikhism lives by ‘Sar­bat da Bhala -wel­fare for all.” Wel­fare for all in­cludes the wel­fare and well­be­ing of all cre­ations of the Cre­ator.

The Sikh Gu­rus taught peo­ple to be com­pletely self­less and con­sider them­selves as cus­to­di­ans of planet earth. Guru Nanak said,

ਪਹਿਲਾ ਪਾਣੀ ਜੀਉ ਹੈ ਜਿਤੁ ਹਰਿਆ ਸਭੁ ਕੋਇ ॥
First, there is life in the wa­ter, by which every­thing else is made green.

There are liv­ing be­ings in wa­ter and if the wa­ter gets af­fected, these liv­ing be­ings will die and it will thereby af­fect the qual­ity of wa­ter. Ac­cord­ing to him, even stones have liv­ing in­sects and God takes care and feeds them as well.

So, what went wrong to cre­ate so much eco­log­i­cal dam­age, global warm­ing, in­crease in pol­lu­tion, and con­cern about hav­ing a non-sus­tain­able biosys­tem. The en­vi­ron­men­tal cri­sis has been caused by us and our greed, by over­ex­ploita­tion of na­ture and its re­sources, de­struc­tion of forests and overuse of land for graz­ing and agri­cul­tural use. Clearly, Guru Sahib would not en­dorse the de­struc­tion of the Mat­te­wara forests and their re­lated ecol­ogy.

Per­son­ally, I feel that the Sikh com­mu­nity, in its wis­dom, may add in the ever-evolv­ing Ar­das -sup­pli­ca­tion to God and Guru, a sen­tence about com­mit­ment to sav­ing the en­vi­ron­ment around one­self and the world at large.

All around us, we see that we have con­t­a­m­i­nated air, wa­ter and soil in the name of mod­ern­iza­tion and de­vel­op­ment. All the waste gen­er­ated is non-biodegrad­able, non-reusable and is only ex­pe­dit­ing the ex­tinc­tion of all liv­ing species.

The Sikh com­mu­nity has al­ways had an in­her­ent eco­log­i­cal mind­set. Seva or ser­vice for the com­mu­nity and Hukum has been the dri­ving force al­ways. The Gu­rupurb of Guru Har Rai Sahib has been rec­og­nized as Sikh En­vi­ron­ment Day and it en­cour­ages Sikhs world­wide to par­tic­i­pate in en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness dri­ves.

In 2009, Jathedar Gur­bachan Singh -head of Akal Takht Sahib, made a pub­lic state­ment say­ing that car­ing for the en­vi­ron­ment is the ‘moral and re­li­gious duty of a Sikh.’ This was a wel­come de­c­la­ra­tion of Go­ing Green.
–
Ef­forts for clean­ing Kali Bein (rivulet that runs through Sul­tan­pur) were taken up through Kar Seva un­der the guid­ance of Baba Bal­bir Singh Seechewal. He also cre­ated a green belt along the river and mo­bi­lized aware­ness of en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion among the masses.

Ef­forts for clean­ing Kali Bein (rivulet that runs through Sul­tan­pur) were taken up through Kar Seva un­der the guid­ance of Baba Bal­bir Singh Seechewal. He also cre­ated a green belt along the river and mo­bi­lized aware­ness of en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion among the masses.

It is a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment that Am­rit­sar and Nanded are part of the global green pil­grim­age net­work of pil­grim cities.

But is this enough? There is a cry­ing need to cre­ate a plan and a plat­form for dis­sem­i­na­tion of en­vi­ron­ment-re­lated knowl­edge among the Sikh com­mu­nity in In­dia and abroad and de­velop en­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tivism. We need to en­cour­age all Sikhs to sup­port the en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness pro­gram, es­pe­cially which talks about re­cy­cling, work­ing with clean re­new­able en­ergy sup­plies and lo­cally grown food re­sources.

Per­son­ally, I feel that the Sikh com­mu­nity, in its wis­dom, may add in the ever-evolv­ing Ar­das -sup­pli­ca­tion to God and Guru, a sen­tence about com­mit­ment to sav­ing the en­vi­ron­ment around one­self and the world at large.

It is a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment that Am­rit­sar and Nanded are part of the global green pil­grim­age net­work of pil­grim cities.

Along with this on an in­di­vid­ual level -we need to plant trees as much as pos­si­ble to give food and oxy­gen to the world. We have to boldly say no to chem­i­cal fer­til­iz­ers and pes­ti­cides in farm­ing and gar­den­ing. Re­duce, reuse and re­cy­cle as much as pos­si­ble to lessen the bur­den on land­fills and de­crease pol­lu­tion. Grow lo­cal and buy lo­cal food to re­duce the car­bon im­print.

It is al­ready too late to cre­ate a good wa­ter har­vest­ing sys­tem for rain­wa­ter, gar­den wa­ter and grey­wa­ter to im­prove the de­plet­ing wa­ter table. Con­vert the wet kitchen waste to fer­til­izer and help cre­ate healthy soil. Pro­vide food and shel­ter to birds, but­ter­flies, bees -hang bird feed­ers, bird­baths, plant na­tive flow­er­ing plants to help in the pol­li­na­tion process.

Let us unit­edly say no to plas­tic and other non-biodegrad­able ma­te­r­ial and say yes to ter­ra­cotta.

Let us unit­edly say no to plas­tic and other non-biodegrad­able ma­te­r­ial and say yes to ter­ra­cotta. Re­vers­ing bio­di­ver­sity loss is the only way to sus­tain a healthy planet and the lives it sup­ports. It’s time to recre­ate our re­la­tion­ship with na­ture and put na­ture at the fore­front of our de­ci­sion mak­ing.

I have no hes­i­ta­tion in think­ing that our Gu­rus would have done the same as their plans and ac­tions were al­ways in the Now. You and only you can take this call.

As Mat­te­wara forests are on the verge of an­ni­hi­la­tion, we need to give a call to stand up and in­tro­spect, “Are we in tan­dem with na­ture?”