In their September 6, 2021, open letter to the President of India, Debaprasad and Akhar Bandyopadhyay express deep concern over environmental degradation resulting from developmental projects like the Kashi Vishwanath Dham Corridor and the Central Vista redevelopment. They draw parallels between these initiatives and the destruction of sacred natural spaces, such as the Tapovana hermitage, emphasizing the detrimental impact on India’s ecological and cultural heritage. Citing Kālidāsa’s “Abhijñāna Śakuntalam,” they urge a reevaluation of development priorities to prevent further harm to the environment and preserve the nation’s spiritual and natural legacy.
Category Archives: Ecosophy
OBMA’s initiative “Ecotopians of Alternity” (EOA) responds to the contemporary crises of the natural environment, crises that expose the deepened hyper-separation of human beings from the natural world and/or other-than-human life forms. EOA underscores how the Global South disproportionately bears the burden of a so-called first-world consumerist lifestyle, alongside a debt-ridden developmental paradigm that enslaves minds, bodies, and ecologies. Rather than the term ecology, EOA activists adopt the concept of ecosophy—coined by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss—to signify the interrelated and (w)holistic nature of today’s polycrisis, encompassing environmental, social, political, and psychological dimensions. In place of extractivist modernity/coloniality, EOA envisions localized, small-scale, decentralized, low-energy societies—ecological utopias or ecotopias—as the ideals to be cherished and pursued.
Once in a Blue Moon Academia 