What is the fun of being a consumer if we can't buy or spend? Well, these certainly are potent arguments but only in thenotso- broad sense of consumer issues. From a handful of people who would vow not to spend on one of the three hundred and sixty five days in a year, to a movement that has gained momentum among lakh of people across the globe—the 'Buy Nothing Day' could well become the linchpin of the sustainable consumption ethos. At a time when global warming is staring us in our faces, when natural disasters like Tsunami have become an inevitable reality, when air pollution is choking us in the cities we live in, and rivers have become virtual cesspools, consumer issues are no longer restricted to just MRPs and bills and refunds—the future of the planet lies in the hands of the consumers.

It has always been obvious but perhaps the realisation is dawning upon us only
now that legislation, Acts and laws alone will not protect us from environmental
degradation, and the resulting epidemics and hardship. They don't even address
the core problem. We have to do something that is more profound-change our
lifestyles. This could mean changing our consumption culture, consuming smarter
and consuming less. India has the good luck of always having been a votary of the
'frugal consumption culture'. We have never wasted; never over-consumed—our
traditional consumption habits have always been sensible. And there is no reason
to first undo our consumption patterns of several centuries, then adopt a
completely alien lifestyle replete with fast food and disposable but indestructible
packaging, and then again try and do a U-turn when our environment suffers. It is
indeed ironical that just as mall culture has begun to overtake our city lives, a
simultaneous fear has also begun to grip us consumer activists. This has to do with
the fact that the Indian consumer is increasingly getting equipped to spend more,
because India is not only producing and importing more, but also earning more.
The middle class incomes have been spiralling upwards for sometime now and our
youth is being lured by aggressive and pervasive market strategies to turn into a
generation of shopoholics. 'Shop till you drop' is no more a middle-aged
housewives personal obsession, it threatens to turn into a national nightmare. I
don't know if anyone else noticed or not, but during the sealing drives in Delhi
when a majority of shop-owners pulled their shutters down, the city suddenly
turned into a saner place for commuters. It could roughly be calculated that at
least 70% of our daily pre-occupations were, one way or another, driven by
activities related to shopping. On a Saturday the city offered an even more serene
face, when the government establishments too stopped work for the weekend.
One almost wished it could be so always, for our mental and environmental health.
The road rage, the criminality, the garbage could forever disappear from our lives,
as of course would eventually, all the conveniences we city dwellers are so hooked
on to.

The 'Buy Nothing Day' is just a symbol of the fact that attitudes need to change,
that an alternate world is possible. As the campaign wittily puts it, "Every
November, for 24 hours, we remember that no one was born to shop".

For us in India, it does not have to be November. It could be a very personal choice
of being moderate in one's consumption, and the best day to start with it is today!

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