Postcolonial environmental justice: Government and governance in India

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the context within which struggles for environmental justice are taking place in India. We explore the ways in which postcolonial patterns of government and governance in India affect the ends, the means and the representation of these struggles, focusing on three particular areas: state reform, the judiciary and public interest litigation, and environmental social movements. We argue that India differs from west in the ambitious yet incomplete and contradictory nature of government-sponsored intervention in the environment, and in the particular nature of its public sphere, both of which have been important in shaping struggles for environmental justice. Our wider intention is not merely to catalogue these differences, but to use the Indian material to raise questions about the emphases and implicit assumptions of western environmental justice literature, and reflect on how these may be need reconsideration when working in postcolonial contexts.