india

Updated: Sep 27, 2019 22:45 IST

In July 2019, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, the spiritual leader of the Isha Foundation, announced a comprehensive agro-forestry plan named ‘Cauvery Calling’ with an aim to revitalise the dying river which is the source of livelihood, irrigation and drinking water for 84 million people, according to news agency PTI. Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the celebrities who is supporting the campaign.

“India’s rivers are severely endangered with many of its smaller rivers vanishing. Join Sadhguru and the Isha Foundation in their fight to preserve the Cauvery river,” the ‘Titanic’ star and climate change activist wrote in a message on his Facebook page recently.

However, the campaign has run into rough weather with the Coalition for Environmental Justice in India, a coalition of NGOs, civil society groups and individuals, writing to DiCaprio, expressing concern at his support for the Cauvery Calling campaign launched by Isha Foundation.

Reacting to the letter, the Isha Foundation has strongly refuted the allegations and specified what the Cauvery Calling campaign actually is slamming the environmental coalition for misunderstanding the very fundamentals of the initiative. The foundation has also alleged that a needlessly hostile campaign is being carried out against the initiative.

The Cauvery Calling campaign is an agro-forestry plan on a portion of private farmland in Cauvery basin districts. Earlier, the principles of Cauvery Calling have been supported by both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments. The campaign is also an economic solution for ecological problems that need to be implemented by farmers on their agricultural lands through agroforestry with local species.

The social outreach program that preceded the campaign involved volunteers visiting over 7,000 villages and interacting with 2.7 lakh people in the Cauvery basin. Panchayat leaders too have shown keen interest as the Cauvery Calling initiative addresses the crisis of water and agrarian distress that affects lakhs of farmers, according to the Isha Foundation.

The foundation also said that farmers and farmer association leaders have expressed their support for the campaign.