ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL MOVEMENTS
The first lesson is that the main source of environmental destruction in the world is the demand for natural resources generated by the consumption of the rich (weather they are rich nations or rich individuals and groups within nations)….
The second lesson is that it is the poor who are affected the most by environmental destruction.
(Anil Agrawal, 1986)
Environmental movements of various countries have emerged due to different reasons. It is basically due to prevailing environmental quality of the locality. The environmental movements in the north are basically on the issue of quality of life. Whereas the environment movements in the south arise due to some other reasons, such as due to conflicts for controlling of natural resources and many more. The participants of these movements in North are the middle class and upper class people, who have concern for the nature. But in the south the protesters are generally the marginal population – hill peasants, tribal communities, fishermen and other underprivileged people. The different environmental movements in our own country support this argument. The examples could be taken as Chipko, N.B.A. , Mitti Bachao Andolan, Koel-Karo Andolan etc. That is why the environmentalism of the North is refereed as “full stomach” environmentalism and the environmentalism of the south is called as “empty – belly” environmentalism.
Environmental and ecological movements are among the important examples of the collective actions of several social groups. Protection and recognition of constitutional and democratic rights, which are not defined by law but form an important part of the day to day living of the subaltern masses like the control over their resources, the right of indigenous people to preserve their culture, protection of environment and maintenance of ecological balance are significant concerns of these movements, as they affect the human life to a great extent.
These movements also reflect an enlarged vision of economics and politics. Economic justice sought by these movements does not mean mere distribution of resources but encompass a larger vision like enhancement in the quality of life through recognition of people’s right over their natural resources, their right to live with dignity, and their participation in the decision–making. The concerns of human environment received spectacular attention of scholars following the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on Human Environment, Stockholm in 1972. By the 1980s the “green movement” became a worldwide phenomenon encompassing various countries of the world including India.
While agrarian or working class movements have had a long historical trajectory, environmental or ecological movements gained worldwide attention only in the second half of the twentieth century. These movements focus not only on basic survival issues but also on larger ecological concerns. These are different from earlier social movements. In general these movements are grouped under tribal and peasant movements and as well under New Social movements. This is so because ecological aspects are generally associated with peasant and tribal’s whose survival is associated with the state of natural resources like forests, water etc. Some treat them as middle class or elite movements as the problems and concerns of the local communities, indigenous people or non–tribal poor are generally articulated by the urban middle class elite. In fact, there has been no single unified and homogenous environmental discourse in India. There has been what Guha calls ‘varieties of environmentalism’.
ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENTS IN INDIA: ISSUES ANDCONCERNS:
The environmental movement is a broad generic term which is generally used to describe and understand different types of local struggles and conflicts concerned with livelihood issues and ecological security within the larger context of the development debate. These struggles in fact critiqued and questioned the notion of development and conservation ecology pursued by the Indian state and its officials since colonial time.
The genesis of the environmental movement in India can be traced to the Chipko movement (1973) in Garhwal region in the new state of Uttranchal. In fact, between1970s and 1980s there were several struggles in India around issues of rights to forest and water which raised larger ecological concerns like rights of communities in forest resources, sustainability of large scale environmental projects like dams, issues of displacement and rehabilitation etc.
The Indian environmental movement is critical of the colonial model of development pursued by the post–colonial state. The post–independent state failed to build up a development agenda based on the needs of the people and continued to advocate the modern capitalist agenda which led to the destruction of environment, poverty and marginalisation of rural communities. Formation of national parks, sanctuaries, protected areas in India, in fact represents the conventional environmentalism which the Indian state advocated with the aim of preserving wildlife and biodiversity by pushing people out of these areas.
In response to this conventional environmentalism which considered the Indian state to be the custodian of natural resources, the environmental movement in India advocated the ideology of ‘environmentalism of the poor’. It not only criticized modern developmentalism but also strongly advocated the revival of traditional ‘self –sufficient village economy’. It brought communities to the centre stage of Indian environmental discourse. The environmentalist stated that local communities were best suited to conserve natural resources as their survival depended in the sustainable use of such resources. They argued that in order to make the sustainable use of the resource the customary rights or traditional rights should be given back to the people which were taken away by the State, and traditional institutions should also be recognized. In a nutshell, the environmental movement in India concentrates on the issue of equity in relation to access and use of natural resources.
Unlike in the West, a significant characteristic of environmental movements in India is that they have mainly involved the women, the poor and disadvantaged masses who have been directly affected by or are victims of environmental degradation. Thus these movements are primarily political expressions of the struggle of local communities’ and people who are victims of environmental degradation or abuse of resources.
Gadgil and Guha identify four broad strands within the environmental movements in India based on vision, ideology and strategy.
- The first types are those which emphasize on the moral necessity to restrain overuse and ensure justice to the poor and marginalised. Mainly Gandhians belong to this strand.
- The second strand stresses on the need to dismantle the unjust social order through struggle. Marxists mostly follow this strand.
- The Third and fourth strands advocate reconstruction, i.e. employing technologies appropriate to the given context and time. They reflect the concerns of the scientists or the spontaneous efforts of the communities at the village level who aim at protecting local community forests or the right to pursue environment-friendly agricultural practices.
THE REASONS FOR EMERGENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENTS IN INDIA
CONTROL OVER NATURAL RESOURCES:
Control over natural resources is an important reason for emergence of environmental movement in India. Some good examples of these kinds of movements are like Chipko and Narmada Bachao Aandolan. In the first case, the reason for conflict was control over forest; whereas, in the second the reason was control over water. Let’s have a look on the reasons behind the emergence of Chipko movement in the Garwhal Himalyas.
The Chipko movement started in the Garhwal Himalaya in April 1973. Between 1973 and 1980, over a dozen instances were recorded where, through an innovative technique of protest, illiterate peasants, men, women and children- threatened to hug forest trees rather than allow then to be logged for export. Notably the peasants were not interested in saving the trees per se, but in using their produce for agricultural and household requirements. In later years, however the movement turned its attention to broader ecological concerns, such as the collective protection and management of forest, and the diffusion of renewable energy technologies.
Most of these conflicts have pitted rich against poor: Logging companies against hill villagers, dam builders against forest tribal communities, multinational corporations deploying trawlers against traditional fisher folk in small boats.
One important factor is that those poor peoples are solely dependent upon those natural resources for there survival hood. So, the changes in control of resources directly hamper their subsistence economy due to which their survival hood came in danger. Therefore the protest of the people rise against those outsiders, which had ultimately taken the shape of environmental movement in many instances.
POLITICAL REASONS:
After independence in 1947 people have great expectation from the indigenous government, it was assumed that the new government which was more aware of the Indian problems and was equally concerned for the people would definitely seek to eradicate all problems, with the installation of new government under the leadership of Nehru , with the observations of industrializations raised hopes but the government policies were only for industrialization without looking the environment and equal sharing of natural resources.
The governmental policies resulted into a lot of displacement of people due to large projects such as dams like Bhakra – Nangal and many others. These policies pushed the local people on the edges more often than not, the agents of resource intensification are given preferential treatment by the states through the grant of generous long leases over mineral or fish stocks, e.g., or the provision of raw materials at an enormously subsidised prices, with the injustice so compounded local communities at the receiving end of this process have no recourse except direct actions, resisting both the state and out side exploiters through a variety of protest techniques. So we can say these struggles might perhaps as seen as manifestation a new kind of ‘traditional’ class conflict were fought in the cultivated field or in the factory, these new struggles are waged over gifts of nature such as forests, and waters, gifts that are coveted by all but increasingly monopolized by a few.
If we talk in explicitly ecological terms then we can say that history of development in India can be interpreted as being, in essence, a process of resources capture by the omnivorous (individuals and groups with the social power to capture, transform and use natural resources from a much wider catchment area) at the expanse of ecosystem people (those communities which depend very heavily on the natural resources of their own locality). So, we can say the environmental movement is the resistance offered by ecosystem people to the resource capture by omnivorous: as embodied in movements against large dams by tribal communities to be displaced by them or struggles by peasants against diversion of forests and grazing land to industry.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC REAONS:
The other angles by which we look upon the cause of emergence of environmental movements are the socio-economic reasons. Almost most of the environmental movements in India are some how related with this aspect, also, if we see the location where these movements have started then we would found that most of these areas are tribal dominated. These people have strong beliefs regarding their forests, land and water. At the same time they are also totally dependent upon these resources for their survival hood. Therefore, when these forests or other sources of livelihood get disturbed by the outsiders, their socio-economic conditions get hampered and the ultimate recourse is the movement against those people who were harnessing those resources. Also, women had generally played an important role in these movements, in tribal groups; women are accustomed to responsibility and leadership for community survival. There work involves them directly and daily with forests and natural resources. So, whenever their survival came into risk, they take the lead role for the protection of their community and its resources.
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION/DESTRUCTION:
Environmental degradation is also an important cause which many time leads to environmental movement. One such e.g. was the silent valley case. Here the proposed dam by the Kerala State Electricity Board was supposed to submerge a large tract of virgin forest. Those are one of the few virgin rain forests left in the country. So, the local people of vicinity along with the N.G.O.s resisted this move. In this movement the K.S.S.P. also get help from scientist community of India and abroad. And the result was withdrawal of this project by the government.
One another e.g. of movement which arose due to the degradation of local environment was the movement against the limestone quarrying, in the Doon Valley in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
SUMMARY
To sum up, environmental and ecological movements became prominent in India since the 1970s, like other such movements. The concerns of these movements are not confined to any particular groups. They are all encompassing – the entire village and urban communities, women, tribals, peasants, middle classes and nature. Even the issues raised by them concern all sections of society in varying degrees. These issues are: protection of people’s right to access of natural resources, prevention of land degradation, preventing commercialization of nature resources and environmental pollution, maintenance of ecological balance, rehabilitation of displaced people, etc. These issues are also related to people’s dignity, environmental rights and their decision-making rights on the issues concerning them. The state in collaboration with the donor agencies disturbed the ecological balance in the society following independence. In the process this adversely affected the people. The latter launched environmental and ecological movement with their leadership, NGOs and other civil society organisations. These movements have raised the levels of people’s consciousness, and achieved some success. They form a significant aspect of democracy in India.
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