According to Bauls, excessive consumption, wasteful lifestyle, and piling up of wealth and money that are considered socially, religiously and environmentally immodest or extravagant are illusive.
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I’m Harun Baul Speaking
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Baul’s views on social, economic and environmental sustainability management are more focused on people than technologies. In order to inform people about their individual sustainability issues such as mortality, acquisition of wealth, consumption habits, lifestyle etc., Bauls depict this world as a place of transit to human’s next destination – eternal or cyclical.
Bauls, therefore, cry:
Silam kotha, elam hetha,
Jabo kotha, vebe mori. – Lalon Fakir
(Where have I been before, where am I now, and where will I go next - I think about it relentlessly).
The persistent thinking about mortality of all living beings moves the Baul mind that manifests itself as one of their philosophical values. They remain indifferent to illusive engagement while doing worldly activities. According to Bauls, excessive consumption, wasteful lifestyle, and piling up of wealth and money that are considered socially, religiously and environmentally immodest or extravagant are illusive. All are utterly anti-sustainable. Bauls are shocked observing that the more a person is formally educated (Pundit), the more s/he is materially egocentric. In contrast, the laity people demonstrate a better sociality and civility over the Pundits’. Lalon Fakir warns:
Tumi ba kar keba tomar
a bhaba samsare?
Misse mayai mojia mon
ki karore?
(Who do you belong to and who belong to you
during this worldly life?
Engaging in falls illusion
what do you do?).
Lalon informs people about the hard reality of this worldly life where people are apt to engage themselves in illusive activities pertaining to their personal, social and political matters. Corruption and crime in order to acquire money and power depict people’s strong attachment to illusionary activities, which are currently pervasive in socio-political scenarios of Bangladesh.
My guru Aziz Shah Fakir (93) of Charaikole. Kushtia discourses that time tells people what to do. A time has now come for Bangladeshi people to reinforce themselves with the lost politico-moral values. This is an easily achievable way out for people to graduate from current politico-social tyranny into a sustainable political environment where social, economic and environmental justice prevails. Most politicians are now far off from their professional ethics and cultural values such as honesty and simple living. Rather, they are engaged in all sorts of corruption and crime. It is now an open secret that most dangerous muggers are some politicians’ own creation.
In the past, the tradition/culture of plain living and high thinking was the politicians’ way of life. Now a days politicians are just opposite of what they aught to be. They consume bestially divulging their utter selfishness. MPs spend large amounts of money to win elections and they consider this spending as a profitable investment. The widening trends in politicians’ corruption and crime are largely to recover their widening financial investment during their election campaign. Such a practice alone has largely ruined our pro-people political culture.
The guru urges for new leadership to encounter this grievous situation. He predicts that the majority of our population would support a new leadership provided the leadership is an inclusivist like a Baul guru or a Sufi saint. Both Baulism and Sufism teach socio-religious and environmental inclusivism. They utterly oppose exclusion of people on the basis of their social strata or religious identity. They believe that
Bhaktir dvare bandha asse sain.
Hindu ki jobon bole jather bichar nai. Lalon Fakir
(Creator is receptive to devotion. He is indifferent of the religions of Hindus and Muslims).
Guru Aziz Shah Fakir even opposes exclusion of environmental goods (species) from economic activities. His un-compromising attitude towards any sort of mono-culture in agriculture and selective pisciculture manifest his inclusivistic conviction. The guru sees inclusivism as one of human values, which is generated out of the synergy between two or more (ethical) values such as honesty, simplicity, charity, kindness, (cultural) compatibility, environmentalism, naturalism etc.
Acquiring Baul inclusivism is, thus, a way out for Bangladesh to acquire all values in one value pack - inclusivism. The guru stresses that inclusivism is a moral software for holistic sustainability management, including politics. Inclisivism makes people auto-political, literate and wise.
Bauls are though judged as ‘illiterate’ within a written culture, but hearing their innumerable songs, one cannot but regard them as supreme Pundits of sustainability wisdom. My guru stresses that his grand guru’s (Dada guru’s) guru Lalon Fakir did not read any religious books, but in discussing religion, he displayed an extraordinary knowledge of the Scriptures. The guru says: We do not believe in writing down our spontaneously composed songs. We sing as we go along, and as feelings come to us.
Lalon depicts how the lack of persistent inclusivism compells Pundits to seek knowledge from the laity:
Lila dekhe lage bhoy.
Naukar upor gonga bojhai,
dangai baye jai.
(It is frightening to see that the river Ganges is loaded on the boat and runs through the dry land).
Messages hidden in this song invoke today’s problems. Things are turning upside down. Economy, sociality, environment – all are showing irregular (opposite) trends. Pundits from home and abroad now seek local knowledge from the rural illiterate elders in pursuance of achieving the best practices for sustainable development. This is an indication of Pundit’s educational poverty. This is as if the Ganges has so little water that it seeks help from the boats in order to keep flowing. Naukar upor gonga bojhai, dangai baye jai.
Although the pundits engaged in rural developmental work have already caused a lot of damages to global social, economic and environmental sustainability, Bangladesh has not yet reached the point of no return. Some basic/simple socio-cultural, religious, economic, environmental, educational and political reforms can revitalise the spirit of Bangladesh, resembling the vibrant sustainability scenarios in the 1950s.
My guru emphatically says that in order to revitalise Bangladesh, people need no help from the outsiders and their local agents; rather people should say ‘good bye’ to the outsiders, and re-educate their local agents to remove their illusion/ignorance. NGO bosses have forgotten about the socio-economic and environmental reality and potential of the country. They have lost our traditional values. They need to receive values education for their own sake and for the sake of others. The sooner this happens, the better for the sustainability of Bangladesh.
The Guru stresses that values education for sustainability will help NGO operators realise that Bangladesh need no borrowing from outsiders. The country has enough local resources for generating self-reliant sustainability. Self-reliant sustainability is an ecosystemic state/norm where people intra-dependently create a synergy towards enjoying self-sufficiency in basic needs – food, shelter and clothing. Education for acquiring values and occupational skill automatically flows in order to sustain the state of self-reliance. My guru’s devotees can provide outcome-based education to NGO operators, focusing the precepts and practices of sustainable development in local contexts.
My guru suggests that an NGO must work in a particular locality, with a mission to achieve sustainable development in social, economical and environmental contexts of the area. It is suggested that even more than one NGO can conjointly operate in a locality undertaking the responsibility for holistic sustainable development of the locality. Any particular NGO must not be allowed to run all over the country, showing no positive, visible and sustainable outcome. NGOs are frequently blamed for cheating poor people. This also must be stopped.
NGOs are part of Green Revolution (GR) technology transfer. My guru is utterly against the GR technologies. He claims that though the GR technology tripled food production in just a few decades, it also has created a wide range of problems. Some of these are pollution of water bodies by farm chemicals, accelerated land degradation, increased pressure on water supplies, loss of genetic variability in crops, enhanced vulnerability in crops, enhanced vulnerability to pest and crop diseases. It has also brought a series of social and cultural problems, including widening the economic gap between affluent and the poor farmers.
The guru also stresses that exploitative forms of economic growth, devastative forms of social changes since the birth of the nation have accelerated the technological transformation (of nature), generating ecological imbalances and degrading the basis of sustainability of our economic order. This process has led to degrade natural resources and a decline in ecosystems’ productive potential.
To reverse the situation, guru Aziz Shah Fakir reveals that knowledge of the productive practices and cultural values of traditional societies appears as an important point of departure for developing innovative technological systems that could more adequately utilize the productive potential of ecosystems without degrading them. Productive practices are articulated with the values of each community, with their consumption patterns, with their socially sanctioned access to resources, and with their religious beliefs.
The guru maintains that in order to re-achieve our ecosystemic health, we need an alternative political party to emerge. The party is to be formed by the inclusivists. Baul followers and the followers of Sufi saints such as Khaja Moinuddin Chisty are all inclusivists. People from all social strata and religious beliefs have reverence for Lalon Fakir, the Chisty and their Khalifas (successors), because of their open demonstration of social, religious and environmental inclusivism.
Contrarily, the followers of a religio-political party and the Wahabis in Bangladesh are exclusivists. They exclude all humans from their folds except a few Muslims who are far less respectful to the Prophet and his descendants than that of the rest of the believers – followers of Baulism and diverse Sufism.
In 1801 Wahhabi forces raiding Iraq destroyed the dome of the tomb of Imam Husayn in Kerbala. More than a century later, when the Saudi family consolidated the hold of its monarchy over Arabia, they carried out a massive demolition of all the tombs in Medina, particularly the tombs of the Imams and members of the family of Mohammad.
The guru has the information that there was even a proposal to raze the tomb of the Prophet Mohammad in the name of preventing so-called idolatrous worship of him, but the structure was preserved as part of the original mosque of Medina. The anniversary of this destruction of the ‘eternal Paradise’ cemetery in 1925 is still marked by Shi’is with great sadness.
As recently as 1990, a senior Saudi religious official, Shaykh Bin Jibrin, declared that Shi’is deserve to be killed. It is clear that the motives of the exclusivists in combating pilgrimage to Mazars are political - not theological. The guru, thus, asserts that the politics of the exclusivists must be denied in Bangladesh, as our people’s (irrespective of religious denomination) spirituality is Mazar centric.
Guru Aziz Shah urges Bangladeshi inclusivists to soon come forward to form a new political party – say, Bangladesh Soth Party (BSP) - in line with Sufi political philosophy of inclusivism. Applying inclusivism, the medieval Sufis overwhelmed the world in terms of Islamisation. The guru affirms that more that 80% of Bangalee Muslims and most non-Muslims would support the party, because of its inclusivistic attitudes – the true secularism.
The guru reveals that a true secularism exists where people can acquire their respective religio-cultural values intrinsically and manifest them synergistically. This type of secularism will bury socio-religious conflicts as well as the dynastic democracy of the country. It will narrow down the materialistic gaps between rich and poor. It will function on the Straight Path – the Path of the Creator’s blessed personages.
The guru identifies the Scriptural blessed personages as those who are frequently visited by general mass, even after their apparent death/disappearance. Immorality such as corruption and crime is irrelevant in a society where people follow the lifestyle of the blessed personages who live/d their lives in line with the Scriptural revelations: One who amasses wealth and counts it, and thinks that his/her wealth would make him/her immortal. S/he will certainly experience the taste of crushing fire of hell (Huthama).
Guru Aziz Shah Fakir reveals that there is no ground for Bangladeshi people to be unfairly. Naturally, Bangladesh is country of sustainable self-reliance. Politicians need not make the country foreign (aid) dependant. There is no need for trade-tied aid from outsiders. Bangladesh lacks certain resources, which can be procured from exporting countries of these resources in exchange of our surplus wealth - manpower, medicinal and jute products, tea, vegetables, fruits. Fish is not surplus in Bangladesh; so fish export must be stopped. There is no need to give too much importance to the exploitative WTO, World Bank and IMF. Bangladesh still can import from and export to other countries, as it did for centuries in the past.
The guru claims that the importation of too many motorised vehicles is a social, economical and environmental crime. The vehicles not only claim a number of lives every day, it destroys cultural, economic and environmental norms of the country. A tiny land with 145 million people and hundreds of rivers is perfect for non-motorised vehicles and river boats. This would reduce road accidents, reduce imports and employ greater number of people in transport sectors than that of at present. This would also lead to increase land and water biodiversity/resources, and sustain the ecosystem health.
The guru reveals that human health is integrally related to ecosystem health. The Baul and Sufi devotees internalise ecosystemic norms in their day-to-day livelihoods. They pursue diverse religio-cultural rituals in order to comprehend nature’s own health management techniques. This is because they understand that human health management is not an isolated case from ecosystem health. It depends highly on the quality of the environment in which people live: for people to be healthy, they need healthy environments.
To accomplish all the needful things, the guru emphasises the need for a healthy political system. He asks the political leaders to sit together, dissolute their respective political parties and support BSP with presidential system of democracy. All political leaders must conjointly agree to eliminate the culture of spending money to win elections. Political corruption starts from here. The elected members are compelled to steal public money and wealth in order to (re)compensate their expenses plus profits. Consequently, Bangladesh people have been like a donkey turning a mill. The donkey goes round and round on its own track and never makes any advance.
Guru Aziz Shah Fakir observes that the sustainability icon for Bangladesh has two components - physical and non-physical. The physical components are natural resources, population and technologies including energy supply. Culture, poverty and political performance constitute the non-physical components. While the physical elements conjointly constitute a vehicle for progress, a transition toward a sustainable future of the country, the others generate ‘values’ that drive the vehicle. As the traditional values for sustainability management are gradually degrading because of the current state of the country’s educational policy and political system, the physical components are not being appropriately or optimally explored. This is where our sustainability problems lie. In order to find a pathway to future sustainability, the proposed (BSP) politics is undeniable. (To be continued).
Md. Amzad Hossain
Perth
Australia
