Gandhi was a great advocate of using Indian products in India rather than importing western and therefore colonial merchandise. He famously encouraged Indians to particularly wear clothes that were homespun in preference to trendy European and American imports, so maintaining Indian identity and boosting local economies.

Now Gandhi’s ideas are being re-worked in his native state of Gujarat, but this time the homespun principle is directed at curbing climate change. Rather than relying on western technology and expertise, Indians are saying that local solutions will work best, and they don’t just say it – they are doing it.

One example of an Indian solution to an Indian problem is being rolled out in Ahmadabad, Gujarat’s largest and most heavily polluted city. Jagganath temple in the city centre feeds around 1000 pilgrims every day. To use environmentally unfriendly electricity or gas would be expensive and ecologically wasteful so it relies on something else – gas produced from cow dung. Dung is collected (providing jobs, pardon the pun) and stored in vats sunk in the ground. Water is added and the mixture allowed to ferment so producing gas which is then piped into the temple kitchen, and the  ovens are consequently fired by renewable energy.

And of course it’s not as ingenious as all that – people have been cooking over cow dung fires since the discovery of fire, fuel and cooking, but it’s the production of large quantities of gas and it’s piping into kitchens that is novel. And don’t other countries have cow dung that they could use?

The implementation of this project is not going to lead to a dissipation of Ahmadabad’s smog overnight, but at least it’s a start and, along with schools teaching about environmental issues, it demonstrates India’s sense of responsibility on this issue, and in engaging a distinctively Indian solution to the problem it’s more likely to be attractive than any expensive, western way. Gandhi would surely approve.

http://socyberty.com/death/come-on-baby-light-my-pyre/