Friday, June 7, 2013

Remarks of Shri Kapil Sibal at the release of the Earth Anthem written by Abhay K




My colleague in the Council of Ministers, Shashi, Anita, Abhay, Distinguished Colleagues, First of all, my congratulations to you for this very important step that you have taken for uniting everybody, for them realize what a fragile place we live in, how important it is for us to realize its fragility and ensure its unity and that's really the message that comes through your anthem. Way back in 1971, Secretary General of the United Nations U Thant signed the proclamation declaring the Vernal Equinox,I think it was on March 21, 1970, that he made a statement, which is declaring the Earth Day and Earth Day is celebrated every year on that particular day, he said something very important and I have as a quote-"may there be only peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful spaceship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space within its warm and fragile cargo of animate life." We share this space with others, by and large we forget this fact that we share this with planet with others, we forget that over the years, despite all the talk of climate change, global warming, the melting of the ice of the Arctic and the melting of the ice of the Antarctic, I don't think the global community is really serious about taking some steps forward in that direction so that we preserve the planet Earth. So I think it is important to have a rallying point, to ensure that all of us come together to realize to maintain the dignity of our planet, we all attempt to maintain our own dignity, but we never realize that there is yet another dignity that we have to maintain but we seldom do. I mean we cant even imagine how pollination takes places, how little squirrels bury acorns in the ground that is the beginning of growing of a tree, we never think of those things, we never think what enormous contributions little things, little animate objects, little life makes to the planet. Our only anthem, if I may say so, even in the Western world, is exploitation. I think we need yet another anthem to deal with the senseless exploitation that is taking over planet earth, so I really think this is something that needs to be done. What is an anthem, anthem is a mode of identifying yourself with a purpose, you have a national anthem because you identify with your country, you have a school anthem because you identify with your school, do Homo Sapiens identify with planet earth? I doubt very much. We have issues of territorial identity, racial identity, religious identity, all kind of identities and Shashi talked about diversity, these are all diversities which have an identity but is there an identity of the planet Earth? I doubt. It is important to have an anthem of the Earth that allows us, persuades us, cajoles us to identify with the planet Earth and I think what you have done today is to take a very big step forward in persuading us to identify with the planet Earth and I am sure that when this goes viral on the net millions around the world, I hope that happens, identify with the need for us to preserve planet Earth better. Thank you.

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