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Our Vedas proclaim reverence for mother earth. Our religious literature calls upon all to worship girls and women through kanya puja and sumangali puja. The Mahabharata insists on protection of forests and tigers saying that tigers protect forests and forests protect tigers. 21 Our spiritual literature implores us to worship rivers, mountains and other forms of nature. It is these principles of Dharma embodied in our culture which have saved the Indian economy; environment and ecology in India. It has preserved the respect for parents, elders, teachers, women, nature. No other major religion of the world today makes it part of the religious practices to respect parents, teachers, elders and nature. In fact, it is a known fact that Bible’s stance is that all form of nature worship is not only idolatry, but also foolish, and to worship nature in any manifestation is to exchange the creator for the created.22 Islam is even more opposed to reverence for anything other than Allah. It calls upon the children to disobey the parents to obey the religion.23 Neither in Christianity nor in Islam are teachers other than those who teach of Bible or Quran venerated. How the cultural value of society and family influence over the individual is not just a theoretical idea but an effective functioning value is brought out in a commercial research to sell products. It says: ‘In India, social acceptability is more important than individual achievement and is given priority in an individual’s life. Group affiliations are given precedence with family traditions and values. For most Indians, family is the prime concern and an individual’s duties lies with the family. In India people’s search for security and prestige lies within the confines of the near and dear.’24 It is traditional cultural value which has sustained the Indian family, society T h e
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and economy, even when the Indian state had remained hostile to our Dharma for almost millennia, and continues to sustain even today. These values constitute the social, cultural, and civilisational capital of India. This cultural orientation is self-evident in the Indian economy. The family savings in India which is the direct product of family culture is now 25% of the GDP25 and according to Goldman Sachs, a top global banker, this has ensured that India does not need foreign investment for its infrastructure development. Since 1991 to 2011 the amount of foreign investment that has funded Indian development was only 2% of the total; while the rest 98% has been funded by local savings26 in which the family tops with 70% of the national savings.27 It is the culture of protection of the elders, care of young and the responsibilities which the family undertakes as a cultural institution, and the disciplining of the relations between humans and between humans and nature through the concept of Dharma and sustained by culture that has protected our economy and society. In contrast, in the West, the care of the parents, unemployed, infirm, ill-healthy are all the concern for the state. All family obligations are nationalised in the West, while in India it is culture founded on Dharma which takes care of all family obligations. Indian Culture Protects Environment In respect of protection of environment by inculcating cultural values there is no parallel to the Hindu ethos which look upon and train the people to look at nature as divine. On the contrary in monotheistic faiths nature is considered to be secular intended for the enjoyment of humans. In his famous essay published in the popular Science magazine in 1967, Lynn White held the biblical view of
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