Luminary Lecture 2023 - Lineages of Environmentalism by Ramachandra Guha

Towards community building across the many campuses of CMC, the popular Luminary Lecture series, one of the highlights of the Centenary Year of Medical Education in 2018, was re-started. This series aims to feature luminaries from non-medical disciplines, with a focus on humanities, social and environmental issues, etc. to educate, inspire and broaden the knowledge of the CMC community in its understanding of the world at large.
The first Lecture for 2023 was delivered by Ramachandra Guha, one of India's leading historians, on June 21.
Guha's talk focused on the prescient writings and work of five people from the early to mid-20th century. They raised the alarm that development sans ecological sustainability would only lead to environmental degradation and disaster for human populations in the long run.
Guha spoke of the aesthetic, educational and political environmentalism of Rabindranath Tagore; the sustainable agro-forestry of Mirabehn (who worked with Gandhiji for many years); the inter and trans-disciplinary ecological thinking and approach of Radhakamal Mukerjee (Professor of Economics at Lucknow University); the holistic urban planning principles and aspects that Patrick Geddes, a Scottish town planner, espoused, and the broad and comprehensive focus on sustainable environments by Madhaviah Krishnan, a pioneering wildlife photographer, writer and naturalist.