No Dirty Gold

Indian culture, its a culture with many values, rituals and ethics, and gold has an important place in it. It entwines with our culture, and it has been marking its path in our rituals for centuries. Presently, it has become a symbol of love and commitment. Nearly everyone in India, are practically mad on gold. Not only the women, even men like its glittering purity and divinity.
But many of the gold consumers in India, and in Foreign countries too, dont know that behind this so called sign of purity, there are human right abusals, imprisonment, beatings and murder, and damage to the eco-system. Gold mining is done mostly in the US, remote parts of Indonesia and other places. In Africa, nearly 30,000 people were abused and killed because of the gold mining activities between 1990-98.
“Blood Diamond” brought forth the devilish treatments employed to obtain diamond. Two years before this movie was released, an international compaign was established in the US, called “No Dirty Gold”, on February 11th 2oo4, which was not against gold, but the method in which it is mined, sold and bought. They started this compaign three days before the Valentine’s day, during which the sales of gold goes high.
Right from the day it was established, the activists of this compaign started distributing Valentine cards which said, “Don’t tarnish your love with dirty gold”. These activists have been working hard for safe-guarding human rights and our environment for nearly three years now. Wedding rings and engagement rings, surely, they are a sign of love and happiness, but, the production of a single gold ring, weighing less than an ounce, generates nearly twenty tons of mine waste! Not only this, they use huge quantities of pure water for the mining, after which, the dirty water is just dumped in the rivers. And, the lands which they mine, most of them are illegally forced out of poor people in the remote parts and once they are mined, they are not suitable for either agriculture, grazing or for any other activities.
“No Dirty Gold” activists have atlast succeeded in making atleast some of the Jewellers in US to say “no” to this dirty gold and to purchase pure gold, which comes at a higher rate, but is mined without causing damage to life and environment. These Jewelleries advertise as “No dirty gold is sold here”.
Well, here in India, its not so easy to bring about this change. Though some social activists in TamilNadu are emphasising on this compaign, its not easy to convince our people to reduce their gold purchase and to make sure they dont buy “dirty gold”. Gold and diamond, should we adorn ourself with ornaments made of these, at the cost of the burial of humanity?