Why India Never Turned to Green Politics
Posted on : April 7, 2025Author : Allen David Simon
‘Environmentalism’ denotes a praxis, both a concept and a practice. Environmentalism locates an eco-centric reality, and unlike other isms, environmentalism calls for an urgency of action against global environmental degradation. This distinction makes environmentalism not solely an approach and/or an ideology, but necessarily an activity seeking change, space and agency in the public and policy (Wainwright, 2022). While it may be more direct to hypothesize that in India’s prismatic society, divided between the material “political” and the post-material “civil” society, green politics upholds tenants which run as parallel perianal elements of both legal constitutionalism and political discourses, be it of Gandhian non-violence and participatory democracy, Ambedkarite social justice, or Nehruvian pluralism.
While one may consider Partha Chatterjee’s “political society” (Bhattacharyya, 2021) to bear disinterest against bread-and-butter issues; the numerous environmental movements in post-colonial India has witnessed participation from varied sections of society. The Chipko Movement against commercial deforestation was initiated by rural women, while the Narmada Bachao Andolan was primarily led by tribals. As against the complete NGOization of most post-material issues (like gender equity), environmental movements in Indian have not been professionalized or made technocratic. Most of these movements have been against the uncaring nature of development that have emerged as a result of state reliance on the market/corporates to drive progress post-1991. These resistances garner mass attention when they spawn, however gradually fizzling down as demands are either negotiated or accommodated, not resulting in any prolonged political impact, electorally or ideologically. Yet, even as we see no political party with environmentalism at the forefront gain mass electoral traction, parties have evoked environmental issues (like land rights in the Singur movement by the AITC, or access to clean drinking water by parties in Delhi) from time to time, catering to specific segments of population and local demands. Moreover, such issues are not presented as environmental issues but issues of poverty, injustice and governance.
Thus, environmental movements in India have been erratic and sporadic – neither sustained overtime nor pan-country. Even as environmental movements have been a historic part of Hindu animistic culture and the practice of totems (like the Bishnoi movement in the 18th century CE), none have been a vociferous movement for environmental actions but targeted towards more localized issues of land rights, cultural beliefs, displacements for development, livelihood (like the Chipko Movement 1973, Appiko Movement 1983 or Narmada Bachao Andolan 1985) or conservation (like the Silent Valley Movement 1973-86) (Aiyadurai, 2024). This is dissimilar to other movements in India. Be it the Indian against Corruption movement that metamorphosized into the Aam Aadmi Party in 2012, caste mobilization that inevitably result in clientelist parties (e.g. BSP) or linguistic ‘asmita’ movements that have resulted in regional parties like the Shiv Sena’s Maratha sons of the soil movement. This is consistent with Asian environmental movements. While such movements have led to sporadic mass movements and resulted in political formations, none of these have been able to secure electoral success as single-issue parties.
Aiyadurai in “Why politics in India do not rally for environmental issues” argues that while developed post-material societies place environmental issues in political forefront, in a society “struggling to meet their daily needs,” environmental issues are secondary, with economic development and welfare as more effectively causes for mobilization, and environmental risks thought of as appropriate cost for progress and opportunity. The electorate finds tangible issues like employment more relatable, direct and proximate to daily life, as against environmental degradation which is a gradual but progressively harmful phenomenon. He argues that the environmental discourse in India needs to harp on the need for environmentalism both as a collective and individual necessity – for sustainable society as well as individual health and human security. Environmental security suffers from the intangibility of its benefits, as compared to the tangible promises of economic development (in terms of infrastructure and the statistics of jobs created, investments attracted, etc.).
Moreover, the climate crisis is especially acute in India due to the asymmetric nature of its impact on communities. While privileged classes have greater access to support systems to mitigate against the environmental degradation, the lower strata of the social hierarchies like caste, and marginalized groups like ‘dalits, ’ the poor, tribal populations, etc., are more vulnerable to the climate crisis. However, Lahiri in “Green Politics and the Indian Middle Class” contends that it is the middle-class in India which both has “reasonable” level of education, information dissemination, income and social capital to encourage environmental issues in politics in its “opinionmaker” role (Lahiri, 2015). However, this argument assumes against Gramsci’s differentiation in the entrenchment of the civil society (Buttigieg, 1995). Gramsci considers the consolidation of the civil society to be a cumulative and gradual process rather than a dramatic process. Although the Indian middle class is an aspirational status, it is a class that outspends and exists in ‘superficial poverty.’ Moreover, the Indian middle-class is numerically miniature to be considered a politically relevant electorate. Thus, the middle class cannot be the sole sanction behind green politics in the Indian context (Fernandes, 2000).
While there has been a rapid emergence of new green parties in India in the past decade, these have been capsized by limited electoral success (Bhushan, 2024). Even as India’s party-dominated election cycles in a multi-party framework with first-past-the-poll voting discriminates against fringe parties, green parties, as a single-issue party has rarely occupied significant representative numbers to hold government (except for the Greens in Germany), mostly acting as parties of pressure. Green parties also suffer from the disadvantage of expanding number of centrist de-ideologized big-tent parties and post-globalization policy convergence in the global south (Drezner, 2001).
However, there is a need to add another dimension to Aiyadurai’s unidirectional argument. Yes, environmentalism has not achieved electoral success in Indian, at least not in form of green parties. But, does politicization of environmental protection necessarily indicate a social consensus over the need for climate action? Further, do these societies necessarily see an expansion of environmental-friendly policies for sustainable development? A solid counterfactual can be spotted in the case of green politics in USA, where the left has coopted environmentalism and the right has denied science to refute climate action as “conspiracy,” polarizing a factual issue into a completely politicized matter of opinion and partisanship (de Nadal, 2024: Thapa Magar et al, 2024). While this line of argument may be accused of counterphobia, the value judgement latent in the query over “why” no green party has seen electoral success in India. What merits more scrutiny is does it necessarily redact environmentalism as a concern or a practice? Since we have already established that environmentalism is not only a concept but also a practice, greater consideration on the topic should be whether its absence as an ideology demerit its practice as a whole.
References
Aiyadurai, A. (2024, April 22). Why politics in India do not rally for environmental issues. Heinrich Böll Foundation. https://in.boell.org/en/2024/04/22/why-politics-india-do-not-rally-environmental-issues
Bhalla, R. (2022). Environmental movement in India. Journal of Research in Environmental and Earth Sciences, 8(2), 12-17. https://www.questjournals.org/jrees/papers/vol8-issue2/C08021217.pdf
Bhattacharyya, H. (2021). Partha Chatterjee’s concepts of civil society and ‘uncivil’ political society: Is the distinction valid? Journal of Civil Society, 17(1), 18–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2021.1886759
Bhushan, R. (2024, March 28). India: No country for a Green Party? The New Indian Express. https://www.newindianexpress.com/web-only/2024/Mar/28/india-no-country-for-a-green-party
Buttigieg, J. A. (1995). Gramsci on Civil Society. Boundary 2, 22(3), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/303721
de Nadal, L. (2024). From Denial to the Culture Wars: A Study of Climate Misinformation on YouTube. Environmental Communication, 18(8), 1186–1203. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2024.2363861
Drezner, D. W. (2001). Globalization and Policy Convergence. International Studies Review, 3(1), 53–78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3186512
Fernandes, L. (2000). Restructuring the new middle class in liberalizing India. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 20(1-2), 88–112. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-20-1-2-88
Lahiri, A. K. (2015). Green Politics and the Indian Middle Class. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(43), 35–42. https://www.epw.in/journal/2015/43/perspectives/green-politics-and-indian-middle-class.html
Thapa Magar, N., Thapa, B. J., & Li, Y. (2024). Climate Change Misinformation in the United States: An Actor–Network Analysis. Journalism and Media, 5(2), 595-613. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia5020040
Urfi, A. J. (2021, March 17). The origins of India’s environment movement. Nature India. https://www.nature.com/articles/nindia.2021.40
Wainwright, J. (2022). Praxis. Rethinking Marxism, 34(1), 41–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/08935696.2022.2026749
Picture courtesy of Bhushan, R. (2024, March 28). India: No country for a Green Party? The New Indian Express. https://www.newindianexpress.com/web-only/2024/Mar/28/india-no-country-for-a-green-party
Allen David Simon
Intern, Asia in Global Affairs
The views and opinions expressed in this book review are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Asia in Global Affairs. The review is intended for academic and informational purposes only. It is not an endorsement of any particular viewpoint, nor is it intended to malign any individual, group, organization, company, or government
