In this interview, Adv. Girish Raut talks about his journey as an activist. He emphasises on the harms of the industrial system and of the growth-based economic system. The industrial system needs to be stopped. It requires all of us coming to terms with the unsustainability of the numerous benefits we are repeaning of the industrial system. He talks about the necessity to respect all life forms on Earth.

Adv. Girish Raut is not a member of DGR. We agree with his analysis of the industrial system needing to be stopped down to protect life on Earth. At the same time, we disagree with him on a few other issues. Individuals stepping away from this industrial death machine is not a solution to the problem we are facing. The industrial system will continue even if thousands of people decide to live sustainably. The solution lies in coordinated actions taken to bring the industrial civilization down. For this we need to organize politically. We also do not adhere to nonvioence as a strategy. We believe that strategic coordinated underground action is required along with aboveground political action to bring the civilization down. At the same time, we would like to remind our viewers that DGR is an aboveground organization. As part of security culture, we refrain from knowing about any underground actions and/or people involved in underground action, unless the information has become public through different means.

Adv. Girish Raut has been practicing natural farming and advocating for personal transformation, while also resisting mega industrial projects. DGR believes that personal transformation alone cannot save us from ecological crisis. Personal transformation can, however, make us less dependent on the industrial civilization. In the context of resistance, peronsal transformation can help build resilient commnunities that can survive after the collapse.

Industrial civilization is killing the planet. To save the planet, we need to completely stop all industrial activities and begin the restoration of natural wild areas. Adv. Girish Raut discusses this. On top of that, IPCC, global temperature rise and its consequences, people’s addiction to the industrial culture (in Lewis Mumford’s term (the “Magnificient Bribe”), public denial against the ecological crisis, harms of “developement,” the necessity to see the interconnections between different developmental projects, the urgency with which we need to act, the traditional way of life in rural India, incapability of the legal system to defend the land, difference between science and technology are also discussed in the interview.

Happy listening!