Ecology and Equity: The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India

225 Pages·1995·21.22 MB·English

by  Madhav Gadgil

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ECOLOGY AND EQUITY
Ecology and Equity presents a provocative interpretation of the environment
debate in a large, diverse and vitally important Third World country. Its focus
is not so much on the extent of environmental degradation in India as on
its manifold human consequences, using an original theoretical framework
for making sense of what is, from an ecological point of view, undoubtedly
the most complex society in the world.
The authors divide this society into three categories: omnivores, ecosystem
people and ecological refugees. The processes of environmental degradation
and social conflict are analysed in terms of the inequities in access to natural
resources by these competing classes. These conflicts have fuelled a vibrant
environmental movement, of groups varied in ideological affiliation and
strategies of action.
The book then turns from analysis to prescription, arguing for an
environment-friendly agenda for development. This agenda - termed 'Con-
servative-Liberal-Socialism' - creatively combines elements from different
political traditions. Its principles are developed for several key sectors, such
as forestry, information and population.
Ecology and Equity provides the first analytically sophisticated and empiri
cally grounded interpretation of environmental conflict in India. The book
innovatively combines political economy with ecology, emphasizing a
forward-looking agenda for environmental reform in the Third World.
Madhav Gadgil is a Professor in the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the
Indian Institute of Science; Ramachandra Guha is an independent writer.
They previously collaborated on This Fissured Land: An Ecological History
of India (1992).
1
ECOLOGY
AND
EQUITY
The use and abuse of nature
in contemporary India
Madhav Gadgil and
Ramachandra Guha
l
London and New York
First published 1995
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX 14 4RN
Transferred to Digital Printing 2005
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016
© 1995 United Nations Research Institute for
Social Development
Typeset in Garamond by
Ponting-Green Publishing Services, Chesham, Bucks
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-415-12523-5
0-415-12524-3 (pbk)
To the memory of
Jotiba Phule
J. C. Kumarappa
Mira Behn
Salim Ali
Abdul Nazir Saab
(The tragopan to the Bigshot)
'You say the town is short of water
Yet at the wedding of your daughter
The whole municipal supply
Was poured upon your lawns. Well, why?
And why is it that Minister's Hill
And Babu's Barrow drink their fill
Through every season, dry or wet,
When all the common people get
Is water on alternate days ?
At least, that's what my data says,
And every figure has been checked.
So, Bigshot, wouldn't you expect
A radical redistribution
Would help provide a just solution?'
Vikram Seth,
The Elephant and the Tragopan
Right
I will not stop cutting down trees
Though there is life in them
I will not stop plucking out leaves,
Though they will make nature beautiful
I will not stop hacking off branches,
Though they are the arms of a tree
Because -
I need a hut
Cherabandaraju
(translated from Telugu by C.V. Subbarao)
CONTENTS
List of plates viii
Acknowledgements x
UNRISD xi
INTRODUCTION 1
Part I The India that is
1 CORNERING THE BENEFITS 9
2 PASSING ON THE COSTS 34
3 A CAULDRON OF CONFLICTS 61
4 IDEOLOGIES OF ENVIRONMENTALISM 98
Part II The India that might be
5 CONSERVATIVE-LIBERAL-SOCIALISM 115
6 KNOWLEDGE OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE,
FOR THE PEOPLE 133
7 WHAT ARE FORESTS FOR? 148
8 IS THERE SAFETY IN NUMBERS? 176
9 RESOURCES OF HOPE 184
Glossary of words in Indian languages 192
Glossary of words referring to Indian communities 195
Bibliography 196
Index 204
vn
LIST OF PLATES
1 Ecological refugees in urban India struggling for water 14
2 India's elite now reach out to the remotest parts of the country 15
3 Mechanized fisheries and chilling and canning plants support a
major export industry 16
4 River valley projects have triggered deforestation 21
5 Fly ash blankets the land near coal-fired power plants 22
6 Railway line overhanging the landslide it has caused 30
7 Untreated sewage from Bangalore poses a serious health hazard 31
8 Shantytowns of ecological refugees 32
9 A fuelwood depot in Karnataka 40
10 Before extraction of the ore, natural grassy banks and evergreen
forest graced the site of the Kudremukh mines 44
11 The Kudremukh iron ore mines have laid to waste one of the most
picturesque parts of the Western Ghats 44
12 Unregulated removal of sand from river beds has led to disruption
of water regimes 57
13 Medha Patkar leading a dharna by Narmada Bachao Andolan
supporters and tribal people 62
14 There is inadequate control of industrial pollution 79
15 Rapid mechanization of fisheries has led to overexploitation of
fish stocks 82
16 Mechanized fisheries have become an important component of the
economy of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands 82
17 The site of an abandoned iron mine which once supported
primeval rain forest 90
18 Unregulated quarrying of granite is a significant cause of
deforestation and disruption of watercourses 90
19 Women carrying fuelwood out of the Ranebennur wildlife
sanctuary in Karnataka 93
20 A procession through Harsud, a town that was about to be
submerged under the rising waters of the Narmada 106
vin
LIST OF PLATES
21 Tropical rain forests still cover extensive areas of the Western
Ghats, a hot spot for biodiversity 150
22 The pristine rain forest of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands - a
treasure house of biodiversity 150
23 Forest-based industry is now increasingly dependent on the as yet
little-exploited forests of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands 152
24 Hills in dry parts of peninsular India, laid totally bare by charcoal
production 154
25 Earthen mound inside which an unusual bird, the Nicobar
megapode, lays its eggs 156
26 One of the many species of trees endemic to the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands 157
27 Rafts of timber floating down streams of the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands 163
28 India's forest-based industry is now tapping the rain forests of
the Andaman and Nicobar Islands 164
IX