Focus on Cauvery or on water? Limitedness in our thought

Today there is a state wide bandh in Karnataka against the Cauvery River Authority's direction to the State Govt to release 9000 Cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu.
Click here for a  Link to an article from The Hindu

There is a team from the Centre visiting the Cauvery basin to assess the water and crop situation to give their information for a review.

As a citizen of Bangalore, I may fear the releasing water to Tamil Nadu in a year of low monsoon, because the water to my house might get affected. 

But the reality is that, while I hear protesters on the road swearing in the name of River Cauvery, I wonder whether we really give respect to water itself.

Most urban dwellers today have water supply from the municipality and regular in Bangalore. Many apartment complexes maintain swimming pools even. The basic water consumption per person is much higher than a rural household minus the irrigation. The original water source of Bangalore , its lakes have been encroached, dried, constructed upon, disposed sewage water into and so on. Having not taken care of its water resources within Bangalore, we imported water from  Cauvery at TK halli. Bangalore is to get about 1400 million liters a day from more than 120 km away using more than 190 km length of pipes. This consumes a whole lot of electricity too.

It is only recently that Bangalore has asked its citizens to do Rain water harvesting in their houses and offices. 

Bangalore expects water to be given to it all the way from Cauvery because it is the capital and it is the urban centre capable of making money through IT and other industries. So what if there is a shortfall of rain and less water for agriculture. With the money that it generates, we can always import food from a different poorer country!

Is this not water arrogance? 

another friend of this kind of arrogance is selfishness. See this getting revealed below ..

So the monsoon is less this season and the lower riparian state Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have to share  the limited water. Now Bangalore has to protect its water against not only the poorer rural Karnataka but also the powerful and equal contender of Tamil Nadu. So we shall fight for water. Incidentally it is also good business for a lot of people like the Kannada film industry, which uses this opportunity to ban all Tamil movies in Karnataka, for the liquor industry which sells liquor to vested interests to fuel the protesters, the pro kannada organisations who find a way of gaining publicity. None of them have any relation with water or agriculture but all benefit by protesting against Tamil and Tamil Nadu.

The process is well repeated and added to across the border in Tamil Nadu, for they are equally capable in it.

Is this not selfish ?

These attitudes and these fights are not only in Cauvery, not only in issues of water and not only in India. The basis of the problem is that each of us thinks that each of us are individuals distinct from others, desirous of a better life individually without looking at bettering all of us. This is the basic limitedness of our thought.

Who has heard the story of the water that goes as waste water, as untreated water from the city, the water that is used, thrown and splurged . Is this not the water that is waited for by the thirsty crops of both the states? 

We are so limited in our perception of ourselves as Bangaloreans, as Kannadigas, as Tamils, we fail to be citizens of the universe. 

As citizens of the universe can we not receive the rain as a blessing of the vulnerable eco system. Can we not share it like we share prasad or communion bread? We may have little but we can do so much with it if "we" operate rather than "I" and "you" operate. 

The amount of money we waste in protests and cause losses, if we were to use in things like harvesting, improving quality of pipes for transportation of water without evaporation losses, for dredging of lakes and reservoirs, for watershed development, we would all have more. Maybe none will have enough to splurge, but we all would have enough for a thriving life!

This would be the thought with the basis as "us" in contrast to "me". 

"We" receive rain, "we" have fossil fuels, "we" have diseases, "we" have the cures, "we" have poverty, "we" have resources, "we" are capable of working hard, "we" have the intelligence for making a planet better.

The consciousness shifts from me to we. 

Eco Leadership

Where have we derived our leadership qualities from? What impact has it created today by producing such leaders and allowing them to lead us so far?

When quantum physics started evolving, Newtonian physics went behind but the application areas are not dismissed. They are still useful. But they are not helpful to understand the quantum nature of the universe.

Similarly, the leadership models that we have followed so far is not going to be useful anymore

All the leadership models have in fact emanated from Scientific Management Theory of F M Taylor. In fact science was the ruling subject of intellectuals of t the time. Objective and logical thinking were the elements necessarily to be held and upheld if you want to prove yourself as thinker. Though not stayed openly, one cannot deny that in those days women and workers were not considered as thinkers as they were known for showing their emotions. The ruling belief was that emotional people cannot be logical and objective. In 18th Century, we find very less women researchers and almost no PhD holders from amongst women.

The advocacy of Scientific Management theory is -
 a) make profit,
 b)make the best of  workers capability,
c)maximise output with less input both manpower and materials,etc.

So the leadership styles were influenced by these concepts. It is not to blame F M Taylor for that matter, we bring this to our consciousness. There is Sanskrit saying: Lokham Thathvamasi which means Concepts defines the Universe.That is to say, we created our world based on these concepts. That is owned by us not to be blamed on Taylor.

There were more concepts than just Scientific Management Theory. There was Adam Smiths economics, Newtons predictive physics,etc. Highly deterministic, applied with specific goals involving what the person wants. The thinking wave of those days was objectivity,logic and deterministic. Even the prevalent psychology that emerged at this time was determinisitic with Freud and the American Behaviouristic schools prevailing over others life Gestalt.

In the name of focus we allowed limited perspective for leaders, in the of specialization, we stepped back from learning other subjects and other areas. It is not wrong to have focus and specialization, but where depth and vastness are needed, we sacrificed vastness. Where holistic thinking and focused approach are needed, we sacrificed holistic thinking. As a result we became selfish and self centred.

Nobody thought about Universal Management Theory. No one thought about Universal Leadership Model.The result is earth gets plundered, nature is abused, political strategy is meant to learn how to interfere with other nations sovernity.

Why should Somalians die without food and why should they now turn out to be hooligans of the ocean. Why should Bangladeshis migrate from their country to other nations and get killed.

For this kind of leadership, the consciousness of universal brotherhood is not a necessary perspective. Enshrined in the charter of UN, universal humanity is left for "flaky non profits", contribution to which eats into business profit, but necessary for publicity. Profit is mainstream and universal humanity is publicity.

Why not the wealth of earth be managed by universal citizens and directed for the benefit of all. We only need to learn higher management aspects in order to become universal citizens. We need to create models that are holistic than fermentative.

Unless we accommodate in our thinking the concept of Partnering with Universe, we cannot evolve further. The eco leadership model will provide foundation to such thinking.