Environmental Struggles and Innovations in India: An Historical Perspective

Abstract

An historical account of environmental transformations in India, with drivers of such changes, is presented in this chapter. The account starts from the period of the Indus Valley Civilization and ends in the situation in present-day India, especially the period of high rates of economic growth in the past two decades. The main driver for environmental change was growth in population caused by both in-migration and natural growth, while the main environmental change was deforestation for agriculture, and to a lesser extent for expanding human settlements. There have been numerous environmental struggles as a result. At a later stage, water systems were transformed to expand irrigation and water supplies. The chapter identifies two significant innovations based on and prompted by environmental struggles. The first innovation was the community-based resistance to commercial forest felling in the present-day Indian state of Uttarakhand where, in the early 1970s, local people opposed the practice of appointment of wealthy private contractors from faraway cities for felling of forest trees, mainly for large paper and pulp industries. Instead, the movement wanted community-based controlled felling to feed local timber- and resin-based small industries. In 1974 the common people of village Reni, especially women, took the innovative step of nonviolent obstruction to forest felling by a contractor. The second innovation described in the chapter is on the introduction of the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by the Supreme Court of India. This innovative step has significantly helped strengthening of environmental justice in India.