Turmeric yellow, hibiscus red: Campaigning for a 'green' Holi
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COMMENTS 
This year, Holi celebrations in Pune turned organic thanks to a campaign spearheaded by the environmental NGO Kalpavriksh that promoted the use of natural colours instead of hazardous chemicals
Fun that's safe, colours that are natural and festivities that don't harm the environment or human health. Welcome to an initiative that made Holi just that little bit more meaningful.
This is precisely what the festival of colours must have been all about, when it began years ago. The colours that were splashed about then were from natural sources: yellow from turmeric or marigolds, red from hibiscus, deep pink from beetroot, orange from 'flame of the forest' flowers (palas), blue from indigo and green from a combination of leaves.
Over time, things began to change as the range of colours, their various shades and brightness increased. But what most of us do not realise is that the basic materials used to make the colours also drastically changed. Toxic chemicals began to be used. Black (and renal failure) from lead oxide, green (and eye allergies) from copper sulphate, and red from mercury sulphite, a known carcinogen. And that's only an indicative list!
This year then, Pune witnessed an initiative that attempted to address the issue. Not just by informing people about the dangers of using chemicals, but also, more importantly, providing them with alternatives.
A range of players was involved in the campaign: NGOs, the media, even a small set of commercial establishments. The environmental NGO Kalpavriksh took the first step and was joined by others like the Centre for Environment Education, Parisar, Gomukh and the World Wide Fund for Nature.
There were a number of aspects to the campaign. It begun many months ago when a collaboration was struck with the Malenadu Home Garden and Seed Exchange Collective (MHGSEC), a group of women farmers based in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka. They agreed to work on creating the alternatives, the organic colours that would be provided to interested residents in Pune city. Over a period of eight months, the group came up with nearly 250 kilos of four different colours, all prepared from natural materials. Yellow from turmeric (lemon juice was added to the turmeric to get red), pink from kokum and green from various leaves, prominently henna.
A few days before Holi, the NGOs got together to organise a public lecture in the city titled 'Colours of Life'. This was part of the Signs of Hope lecture series on environment and development that's been going on in Pune for more than three years. Presentations were made on the occasion by a representative each from Kalpavriksh, the group from Uttara Kannada and Toxics Link (TL), an organisation that works on informing people and fighting the scourge of toxic materials in our lives and environment. While Indu M G of TL talked about the impact of chemical colours and their ill-effects, Manorama Joshi from the women's collective explained the process by which they had become involved in the campaign, and how their colours had actually been made. "Why for a day of celebration," she asked, "should we suffer for months?"
Over the next few days, the colours the group produced were made available in packets of 200 grams, in a set of shops across the city that took part enthusiastically. Not only did they offer shelf space for the colours, they even agreed to forgo commissions or percentages on the sales. The press, of course, played a key role by publishing a range of articles on various aspects of the colours used during Holi: the toxicity of chemical colours, the availability of natural alternatives and the fact that these can even be made at home.
The response from the general public in Pune, although slow to begin with, caught on fast. Kalpavriksh received calls and queries from places as far away as Mumbai, Amravati and even Chennai. Interestingly, not all were about how to procure the colours. One caller wanted to know whether they could be used for painting. Another wanted to know if they could be used as a biodegradable pigment for industrial application. A group of women in the city wanted to figure out how they could turn this into a small home-based livelihood-generation initiative for the next year.
Clearly the interest was alive and kicking, almost waiting to be tapped as it were.
All through, the campaign stressed that buying the natural colours was not the only way to celebrate a safe Holi. Colours could easily be made at home. The 'recipes' of various colours were made widely available. On the eve of Holi, demonstrations were held at three places in the city where the 'home remedies' were explained and shown to interested audiences.
As far as the success of the campaign went, the proof of the pudding had to be in its eating. In a sense, one important indicator would be the efforts put in by interested citizens to procure the natural colours from the limited outlets where they were being sold.
Fortunately, it did not take too long to find that out.
One day after the festival of colours it was found that nearly 90% of the colours that were made available had sold. Two hundred kilos in a city the size of Pune is about the size of a drop in the ocean.
Most, however, would agree that this is a rather good beginning!
(Pankaj Sekhsaria is an environmentalist with Kalpavriksh, a Pune-based environmental action group)
InfoChange News & Features, March 2004