By IANS,
Kolkata : Observing that India and Britain shared common problems and concerns, a University of Edinburgh professor said environmentalism was bringing the countries together.
“Historically, Britain and India have common problems and concerns. Climatic change has not only been a concern for us but for the whole world and environmentalism has been instrumental in bringing the countries together,” said Crispin Bates, director of the university’s Centre for South Asian Studies.
“Saving the environment has become a global concern and like all countries, Britain and India too are working closely in their endeavour to save the earth for our coming generations,” said Bates.
Speaking at a session on Indo-British cultural ties here, Bates said both the countries can benefit if mutual commonalties were analysed properly.
“We have a shared history and instead of interpreting in the colonialist versus nationalistic view, we need to move to people to people interpretation. We can learn a lot from each other if we properly analyse our commonalities,” said Bates.
He also said the problems of poverty and corruption were not peculiar only to India.
“There is misconception among Indians that poverty and corruption is peculiar only to India. But the fact is we too have the same problems. The need is to develop mutual cooperation so as to eradicate both the evils,” said Bates.