Environmental Challenges: Posing the Problem

Vijay Laxmi Pandey,

Associate Professor, IGIDR, Mumbai. Email:

Environmental Issues in India: A Reader

Edited by Mahesh Rangarajan;
Pearson Longman, New Delhi;
Pp. 570, Rs 199.

This book compiles the diversity and complexity of environmental challenges and intends
to place contemporary issues of environment in India, against a large social and historical
background. It gives an assimilative insight from ecological past to step forward a
sustainable future. Book is consolidation of the reading material, mostly published
earlier, put together for the workshop on environmental issues conducted by the History
Department of University of Delhi in September 2005. The book is divided into five
thematic sections covering 33 essays by eminent scientists and thinkers. The first three
sections explore the environmental condition in pre-colonial, colonial and independent
India. Environmental movements and India’s global environmental concerns are
examined in the last two sections. The book has a good flow and the introductions at the
start of each section are comprehensive and well written. However, to give an overall
penetration and depth to the environmental issues in India, it would have been better to
include papers on air pollution both indoor and ambient, water pollution, solid waste
management, health impact of environmental pollution and the impact of globalization.
The book is very useful to development practitioners, researchers and students for
understanding human-nature relations.

Section I of the book deals with the environmental issues in pre-colonial India and looks
into the ecological footprint. V. N. Mishra carefully examines the factors responsible for
the rise and fall of the Indus valley civilization. Makkhan Lal looks into the issues of the
large scale use of iron tools, forest clearance and the urbanization of Gangetic plains in
India and shows that the urbanization was not due to the iron technology and
overexploitation and extensive tilling of the agricultural land but mainly due to
culmination of several social, political and economic factors. Romila Thapar explores the
forest-settlement interface and suggests that innovations have to be examined more
carefully to assess the alterations that they will introduce in the interaction of man, nature
and culture. Mahesh Rangarajan extracts and puts together evidence from ancient and
medieval periods to understand interaction of humans and nature. Divyabhanusinh
focuses on 16th and 17th century Mughal hunts providing powerful and convincing
evidence of landscapes that subsequently vanished.

Ecology and traditional systems of water management is enquired by Mayank Kumar by

exploring the various systems of water appropriation and agricultural practices adapted
by society in arid and semi-arid conditions of medieval Rajasthan. The author has
challenged the general perception that states in traditional societies played a very limited
role with respect to water management for settlement purposes and agriculture. Sumit

eSS Book Review/Environment/Pandey

August 2007
Guha in his paper on control of grass and fodder resources in eighteenth century
Maharashtra, shows that how power and privilege could help a few to corner the wealth
of nature.
Section II focuses on colonial India. The British rule saw many changes and phases,
unleashing new economic and political pressures of far reaching impacts. This section
gives a glimpse into the life and work of three men who exemplify very different facets
of India’s environment or indeed the colonial encounter. Ramachandra Guha asks
whether Mahatma Gandhi was an early environmentalist. The author takes us to the
Gandhi not commonly known and leaves the reader with a better appreciation of his
legacy. Madhav Gadgil discusses making of Salim Ali, a great Indian biologist and an
ornithologist, who became a legend in his own lifetime. Salim Ali’s scientific work was
grounded in a careful, painstaking observation and recording of events in the living
world. His views on the world of nature were of profound importance to the new
emerging India. The life story of Jim Corbett is discussed by D.C. Kala. Though Jim
Corbett shot many tigers, he later turned to the camera and labeled the big cat ‘a
gentleman of the forest’ that harmed people only when driven to desperation.

Independent India’s environment is discussed in the third section, consisting of 11

chapters covering environmental concerns which show signs of both change and
continuity from earlier days. M. S. Swaminathan analyses the problems and possibilities
for agriculture development. Integrated land use involving a relevant combination of
agriculture, forestry, fishery and animal husbandry, integrated strategies of nutrient
supply and pest control, greater attention to organic recycling and water conservation and
extensive tapping of sunlight through the agency of green plants can help India to
improve rural economy without ecological harm. J. R. McNeill addresses the ecological
consequences and costs of the green revolution, which made agriculture more land and
labour efficient. It could not match the ongoing productivity increase in West and Japan
and did not engineer income redistribution. It promoted monoculture, which invites pest
problems and alters the species diversity of agriculture. N. C. Saxena examines the
present approach to wasteland development and suggests measures to improve the
sustainability of the current programmes. N. S. Jodha quantifies some of the contributions
of common property resources (CPRs) with special reference to rural poor and also
examines the changing status of CPRs, using household and village data from 21 dry
tropical districts in seven states of India. Privatization of CPRs as a strategy to help rural
poor yielded a negative result. The management or regulated use of CPRs is important to
raise their productivity.

Himanshu Thakkar has discussed role of community and public action in the context of
water pollution control. It is emphasized that there is a need to institutionalize the right to
information, right to inspect and right to participate in the activities affecting
communities’ lives. The polluter must be made to pay for release of effluents. Mukul
Sharma draws attention toward groups who live in the riverine tracts of Bihar, known as
Diara. People feel a sense of defeat, caused not only by the indiscriminate nature, but also
by indiscriminate oppression of landlords, criminals and state agencies. Arun Agrawal
and Vasant Saberwal raise the environmental question in the context of pastoralism and
show that these pastoralists are not hindrances to forestry.

eSS Book Review/Environment/Pandey

August 2007
Daman Singh has discussed the new land use policy with special reference to forests in
Mizoram. The paper outlines the past and present efforts of people and government to
introduce new farming systems in Mizoram as an alternative to shifting cultivation. The
relationship of women with environment has been critically examined by Bina Agarwal.
M. Krishnan provides a lucid rationale for preserving stretches of land and waterscape.
The author is of the view that the flora can regain its pristine glory if left alone and
allowed to regenerate. L. Ullas Karanth gives the biological logic for protecting the
scared groves in which wildlife has to survive into twenty-first century. It is shown that
the paradigm of sustainable use has outlived its practical utility and the alternative
concept of ‘sustainable landscape’ combined with ideas of ecological economics may
provide required protection.

Section IV, with eight chapters, deals with movements and alternatives for environmental
protection. Madhav Gadgil and Ramchandra Guha have discussed ecological conflicts
and environmental movements in India providing suggestions with holistic alternatives.
Darryl D’Monte in ‘Monumental folly’ emphasizes the need of awareness of the citizen
and responsible media to avoid damage to our monuments. Sanjay Sangvai has discussed
the tragedy of displacement based on his own experience of movements against the
Narmada dams. Ajantha Subramanian describes a complex set of ecological concerns and
changing ideas of community on the Coromandel Coast. Analysing the July 2005 deluge
of Mumbai, Aromar Revi presents priorities at levels of nation, state, city, neighborhood,
private sector and civil society to avoid such havocs in future. Savyasaachi, has explored
the ways in which man and nature are interlinked. Madhu Sarin explores the factors
affecting women’s position in a particular forest based society and effectiveness of the
devolution policies for empowering women to participate in forest management. Roopali
Phadke has reflected upon some of the lessons from Vilasrao’s efforts of Pani Panchayat
in changing the rural landscape towards ecological and social sustainability and shows
that participatory watershed planning can result in transformative social and economic
effects for rural societies.

The last section, with four chapters, deals with global environmental issues. Some of the
environmental issues and concerns that exist within boundaries of one nation/state have
close linkages with the land and peoples beyond. Dunu Roy has focused on the need to
comprehend the linkage between environment and other phenomena. The Bhopal gas
leak prompted a range of responses which have played out over two decades. Vijay
Nagaraj and Nithya Raman raise and assess the preparedness for tragedies and conclude
that we are not able to bring together the executive, legislature and judiciary to act and
meet the challenge posed by globalization, hazardous technology and the power of
transnational capital. Fears of global warming due to fossil fuel use have prompted the
drive to the renewal of nuclear energy industry. The question, as to whether it can be
used peacefully and safely is raised by Eliot Marshal. In the light of increasing pressure
on India and other large developing countries to reduce emission of green house gases,
Anand Patwardhan suggests the need to develop a clear understanding of emission
inventory and analysis of the efforts towards reducing atmospheric green house gases.

eSS Book Review/Environment/Pandey

August 2007