Critically examine the nature and scope of environmental movements in Independent India.

Answer:

Environmental movements in independent India have generally arisen from the struggles of local communities whose livelihoods were threatened by development projects, so they have combined ecological concern with questions of social justice and rights over resources.

The principal movements

• The Chipko movement of 1973 in Garhwal resisted commercial felling, with women prominent.
• The Silent Valley campaign in Kerala saved a rainforest from a hydroelectric project.
• The Appiko movement carried Chipko's methods to Karnataka in 1983.
• The Narmada Bachao Andolan under Medha Patkar opposed large dam displacement.
• Fishworkers' movements and anti-mining struggles followed similar patterns.

Their nature

• They were largely non-violent, using satyagraha, marches and legal action.
• Livelihood and survival, not abstract conservation, were usually the driving concern.
• Adivasis, women and the rural poor formed the core constituency.
• They questioned the model of development itself, not merely its execution.

Scope and impact

• The Environment Protection Act of 1986 and Forest Conservation Act of 1980 followed such pressure.
• Public interest litigation gave the movements a judicial route.
• Ramachandra Guha describes Indian environmentalism as the environmentalism of the poor.
• Critics argue they have sometimes obstructed needed development without alternatives.

Institutional outcomes

• The National Green Tribunal was established in 2010.
• Environmental impact assessment became a statutory requirement.
• The Forest Rights Act of 2006 recognised community claims over forest resources.
• Debate over displacement and rehabilitation entered mainstream policy.

Indian environmental movements are therefore distinctive in linking ecology to livelihood and equity rather than to wilderness preservation. As Ramachandra Guha has argued, they represent an environmentalism of the poor, and their chief achievement has been to force questions of justice and sustainability into the national development debate.