Environmental Capacity-Building: India’s Democratic Politics and Environmental Management

Abstract

The question of environmental capacity building and environmental movements in India cannot be separated from larger issues of India’s democratic political framework and its recent political history. The stability and endurance of India’s democratic government, it may be argued, present many observers with an intellectual puzzle: a multi-ethnic, caste-ridden, agrarian society with a rigid hierarchical structure, coupled with constitutional government, periodic elections, increasingly resilient political institutions, and freedom of expression. An ascendant regionalism, an unstable central government but still intrusive state, and international globalization pressures continue to raise doubts about the smooth functioning of Indian democracy. In the face of such threats, two aspects of the Indian nation state are perhaps the strongest guarantee of environmental rights and democratic freedoms in India. The first is a politically conscious citizenry whose literacy and awareness levels are constantly on the rise and which has proven itself capable of “throwing the rascals out” on at least four occasions in the past two decades. The second is the presence and development of a range of balancing institutional arrangements capable of engaging arbitrary actions of an intrusive state and an assertive market.