Note to PM: right to live is right to environment

The manifesto of every political party in the country upholds the cause of development. But the word ‘development’ is employed in public discussion with the least elaboration. All developmental initiatives of a government are meant for the wellbeing of the people. This wellbeing stems primarily from satisfying peoples’ need for clean air to breath, clean water to drink and uncontaminated food to eat. Any growth at the cost of this basic right of people cannot be called ‘development’.

The chapter on fundamental duties in the Constitution clearly defines the responsibility of every citizen to protect the environment. Article 51-A(g) says that “It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life and to have compassion for living creatures.” The right to a healthy environment is an important attribute of the right to live with human dignity. In MC Mehta vs Union of India, the Supreme Court treated the right to live in a pollution-free environment as a part of the fundamental right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Over the last few years, we have seen innumerable instances of people trying to save their lives from the clutches of ‘development’. Be it the killing of 13 anti-Sterlite protesters in Thoothukudi, ‘Jal Satyagraha’ over the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, or the Kolis of Mumbai opposing the proposed Sagarmala project, local peoples have always united to protect their land, water and air. The fight in Gurugram to save the Aravali and the fight in Mumbai to save Aarey are other examples of people’s outcry to safeguard their life-supporting resources.

In its first year of governance between August 2014 and April 2015, the Modi government implemented a list of 60 urgent action points submitted by the Confederation of Indian Industry, meant to remove the hurdles of environment clearances for industry. Laws were changed systematically across the states and at the Centre to perk up industry and growth.

The removal of a ban on the setting up of factories in eight ‘critically-polluted’ industrial belts, easing of clearances to allow mid-sized polluting industries to operate within five km of eco-sensitive areas, as against the earlier limit of 10 km, easing of norms for coal-tar processing, sand mining, paper pulp industries were unprecedented.

Thereafter, the government tried to undermine the independence of India’s environmental watchdog – the National Green Tribunal (NGT). It silenced the voices of protest by suspending the license for Greenpeace India to receive foreign contributions, claiming that it was retarding India’s economic development. The National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) was weakened by reducing the number of independent members.

Housing projects were allowed in vast lands of salt pans near Mumbai. In Goa, the state government classified the coconut tree as ‘grass’ so that it can be cut without permission to benefit the real estate sector (the decision was overturned in 2017)! In 2018, the environment ministry proposed major changes to the National Forest Policy and announced a draft Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification for promotion of business.

Proposals to de-notify several wildlife habitats for projects like bullet trains, river-linking, access to pilgrimage sites, coal mining, etc., threaten to destroy large tracts of Protected Areas (PA) in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh. Livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people in India who depend on the natural environment for their daily survival are in jeopardy. India stands at 177 (out of 180 countries) on the Environmental Performance Index 2018. In 2016, India was ranked 141 on the same index.

As part of the vision to make India the third largest economy in the world by 2030, the BJP’s ‘Sankalp Patra’ for the 2019 election promised “speed and effectiveness in issuing forest and environmental clearances.” There is assurance on supply of piped water to every household and linking of rivers from different parts of the country. The Ganga would be cleaned through Swachh Ganga programme by 2022. Some 60,000 km of national highway, 100 new airports and Rs 100 lakh crore of investment in infrastructure development are some of the other promises.

Virtually everyone wants the country to be cleaned up, but if human excreta is diverted from land to water through flush toilets using drinking water, is that cleaning up the country? We have to develop technological marvels like dry toilets or urine diversion toilets to overcome the problem holistically. Slaughtering cows for meat after exploiting it for milk and fertiliser may be a brutal act. But so is culling the Nilgai and destroying the habitats of thousands of other wildlife species.

We are proud to have a prime minister who is the recipient of the United Nation’s top environmental award, ‘Champion of the Earth.’ Let us hope that he will prove his merit to win such an award not only by pushing for solar energy or banning single-use plastic but also by showing the political will to protect our remaining habitats through a serious re-think on the production and consumption processes currently being promoted in India. He took his oath bowing to the Constitution. He has a responsibility to safeguard the people’s right to a clean environment.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterresin’s words in his address to the youth of New Zealand recently are worth pondering over. “Taxpayers’ money should not be used to boost hurricanes, to spread drought and heat waves, to bleach corals or to melt glaciers. We must tax pollution, not people. Shift taxes from salaries to carbon.”

(Antony is Zoology professor at CHRIST Deemed to be University, Bengaluru; Priyan­ka is an MSc student at Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural history, Coimba­tore. Both are part of Green Army, a students’ forum for conservation and adventure)