Why I Should Be Tolerant (Sunita Narain)

Down To Earth
Why I Should be Tolerant is an

environmentalist’s reflections, reactions SUNITA NARAIN
and arguments on contemporary issues
related to the environment and development.
The writings make the critical connection
between local and global developments
and between the developments of the 20th
century, and how they continue to impact us
in the 21st century. The writings stem from
the author’s own experience in forests, farms
and factories, besides the numerous debates
she has been part of during her 30 years in
public life. Every piece of writing featured
here represents various threads of public
discourse that have haunted the world on its
relationship with nature.
On environment and
environmentalism in
SUNITA NARAIN
the 21st century
Down To Earth
FORTNIGHTLY ON POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT,
ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH, SINCE 1992
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SUNITA NARAIN
On environment and environmentalism
in the 21st century
Down To Earth
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Sunita Narain is a writer and environmentalist
who uses knowledge for change. She is currently
the Director General of the Centre for Science
and Environment and the Editor of the fortnight-
ly magazine, Down To Earth. She has been in
public life for the past 30 years.
She asserts that the poor must be put at the core
of the sustainable development agenda. In her
writings and advocacy, she has championed the
environmentalism of the poor.
In 2005, the Government of India awarded her
the Padma Shri. The same year, she received the
Stockholm Water Prize for her contribution to
build a water-literate society. In 2016, Time mag-
azine put her on the list of the world’s 100 Most
Influential People.
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To the women of India’s villages
who taught me environmentalism
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Editors: Richard Mahapatra, S S Jeevan
Editorial support: Rajit Sengupta
Design: Ajit Bajaj, Chaitanya Chandan
Illustrations: Sorit Gupto
Production: Rakesh Shrivastava and Gundhar Das
Special thanks to Environment Resource Unit, Centre for

Science and Environment (CSE), for their expert archival services
The designations of persons and officials mentioned in the book are what
they held at the time of the original reports.
CSE, founded in 1980, is a public interest research and advocacy organisa-

tion based in New Delhi. CSE researches into, lobbies for and communi-
cates the urgency of development that is both sustainable and equitable.
Down To Earth is a fortnightly on politics of environment and develop-

ment. In its 25th year of publication, it continues to adhere to its founder
Anil Agarwal’s objective of bringing out news, perspectives and know-
ledge to prepare citizens to change the world.
ISBN: 978-81-86906-94-1
Price: `350
Published by
Centre for Science and Environment,
41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi 110 062
Phone: 91-11-4061 6000
Fax: 91-11-26085879
Email: cse@cseindia.org, Website: www.cseindia.org
© 2016 Centre for Science and Environment
All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in
any manner is prohibited.
Printed at Multi Colour Services, New Delhi
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{ CONTENTS
8 Preamble
chapter 1
12 Climate Change
chapter 2
40 Excreta
chapter 3
58 Energy
chapter 4
82 Governance
chapter 5
100 Urbanisation
chapter 6
116 Air Pollution
chapter 7
128 Health
chapter 8
150 Water
chapter 9
174 Forests
194 Index
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{ Preamble
The environmentalism of the poor
India’s environmental movement, like so much else in the country, is about

managing contradictions and complexities—between rich and poor; between
people and nature.
But the movement in India has one key distinction, which holds the key to its
future. The environmental movements in the rich world emerged after periods of
wealth creation, and during their periods of waste generation. So, they argued for
containment of waste, but did not have the ability to argue for the reinvention of
the paradigm of waste generation itself. However, the environmental movement
in India has grown in the midst of enormous inequity and poverty. In this envi-
ronmentalism of the relatively poor, the answers to change are intractable and
impossible, unless the question itself is reinvented.
Just consider the birth and evolution of the green movement. Its inception
dates back to the early 1970s with the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi made
that now fabled statement at the Stockholm conference on environment: “Poverty
is the biggest polluter.” But in this same period, the women of the Chipko move-
ment in the Himalaya showed that the poor, in fact, cared more about their
environment. In 1974, years before environment became fashionable fad, the
women of Mandal, a poor, remote village in the upper Alaknanda valley, stopped
loggers from cutting down their forests. This movement of poor women was not
a conservation movement per se, but a movement to demand the rights of local
communities to their local resources. The women wanted rights over the trees,
which they said were the basis for their daily survival. Their movement explained
to the people of India that it was not poverty, but rather extractive and exploita-
tive economies that were the biggest polluters.
This is because in vast parts of rural India, as in vast parts of rural Africa and
other regions, poverty is not about a lack of cash, but a lack of access to natural
resources. Millions of people live within what can be called a biomass-based
subsistence economy, where the Gross Nature Product is more important than
the Gross National Product. Environmental degradation is a matter of survival.
In these cases, development is not possible without environmental management.
In the environmental movement of the very poor, there are no quick-fix tech-
Why I should be tolerant
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9
nological solutions that can be suggested to people who are battling for survival. In
this environmentalism, there is only one answer: to reduce needs and to increase
efficiency for every inch of land needed, every tonne of mineral and every drop of
water used. An environmentalism of this kind will demand new arrangements for
sharing benefits with local communities so that they are persuaded to part with
their resources for common development. It will demand new paths to growth.
I say this because the environmental movement of the relatively rich and
affluent is still clearly looking for small answers to big problems. Today, everyone
is saying that we can deal with climate change if we adopt measures such as energy
efficiency and some new technologies. The message is simple: managing climate
change will not hurt lifestyles or economic growth; a win-win situation where we
will benefit from green technologies and new business.
Years before India became independent, Mahatma Gandhi was asked a
simple question: would he like free India to be as “developed” as the country of
its colonial masters, Britain? “No,” said Gandhi, stunning his interrogator, who
argued that Britain was the model to emulate. He replied: “If it took Britain the
rape of half the world to be where it is, how many worlds would India need?”
Gandhi’s wisdom confronts us today. Now that India and China are threat-
ening to join the league of the rich, the environmental hysteria over their growth
should make us think. Think not just about the impact of these populated nations
on the resources of our planet but, again, indeed all over again, of the econom-
ic paradigm of growth that has led much less populated nations pillaging and
degrading the resources of Earth.
The Western model of growth that India and China wish most feverishly
to emulate is intrinsically toxic. It uses huge resources and generates enormous
waste. The industrialised world has learnt to mitigate the adverse impacts of
wealth generation by investing huge amounts of money. But the industrialised
world has never succeeded in containing those impacts: it remains many steps
behind the problems it has created.
The icing on the cake is a hard fact: the industrialised world may have cleaned
up its cities, but its emissions have put the entire world’s climatic system at risk
and made millions living on the margins of survival even more vulnerable and
poor because of climate change. In other words, the West not only continues to
chase the problems it creates, it also externalises the problems of growth onto
others, those less fortunate and less able to deal with its excesses.
On environment and environmentalism in the 21st century
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10
It is this model of growth the poor world now wishes to adopt. And why not?
The world has not shown any other way that can work. In fact, it preaches to us
that business is profitable only when it searches for new solutions to old problems.
It tells us its way of wealth creation is progress and it tells us that its way of life is
non-negotiable.
But I believe the poor world must do better. The South—India, China, and
all their neighbours—has no choice, but to reinvent the development trajectory.
When the industrialised world went through its intensive growth period, its per
capita income was much higher than the South’s today. The price of oil was much
lower, which meant growth was cheaper. Now the South is adopting the same
model: highly capital-intensive and so socially divisive; material and energy-in-
tensive and so highly polluting. But the South does not have the capacity to make
investments critical to equity and sustainability. It cannot temper the adverse
impacts of growth. This is deadly.
There is no doubt we live in an increasingly insecure world. Indeed, the state
of insecurity in the world is made more deliberate, more wilful, because of the
intentional and unintentional actions of nation-states and governments in the
name of development and global justice. So, if the rich world is increasingly para-
noid about its defence from the failed, bankrupt and despotic states of the devel-
oping world, the poor are insecure because they are increasingly marginalised
and made destitute by the policies of the rich. The challenge of climate change is
adding a new level of insecurity for the world’s people. It is also equally clear that
the business-as-usual paradigm of growth will lead the world towards a vortex of
insecure people, communities and nations.
It is here that the countries of the South face even greater challenges. They
will need to rebuild security by rebuilding local food, water and livelihood security
in all villages and cities. And in doing this, they will have to reinvent the capital and
material-intensive growth paradigm of the industrialised North, which deepens
the divide between the rich and the poor. They will have to do things differently in
their own backyards. But, more importantly, these countries will have to become
the voice of the voiceless, so that they can demand changes in the rules of globali-
sation in the interest of all.
Sustainable development needs to be understood as a function of deepened
democracy. It is not about technology, but about a political framework, which
will devolve power and give people—the victims of environmental degradation—
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11
rights over natural resources. The involvement of local communities in environ-

mental management is a prerequisite for sustainable development.
The South’s quest for an alternative growth strategy should have two essential
pre-requisites. Firstly, a high order of democracy, so that the poor, the marginal-
ised and environmental victims can demand change. It is essential to understand
that the most important driver of environmental change in these countries is not
government, laws, regulation, funds or technology per se. It is the ability of its
people to “work” democracy.
But democracy is much more than words in a constitution. It requires careful
nurturing so that the media, the executive, the judiciary and all other organs of
governance, can decide in public, and not private (corporate) interest. Quite sim-
ply, this environmentalism of the poor will need more credible public institutions,
not less.
Secondly, change will demand knowledge: new and inventive thinking.
This ability to think differently needs confidence to break through a historical
“whitewash”, the arrogance of old, established, and ultimately borrowed ideas. A
breakthrough—a mental leapfrog —is what the South needs the most. The most
adverse impact of the current industrial growth model is that it has turned the
planners of the South into cabbages—making them believe they do not have
answers, only problems, for which solutions lie in the tried and tested answers
of the rich world.
It is also important that this environmentalism of the poor—building bottom
up, based on the principles of equity and human need—must influence the world.
If the world wishes to achieve sustainable development and combat climate
change, it must learn from these movements about the need to share resources so
that we can all tread lightly on Earth. n
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01Climate Change(12-39).indd 12 23/05/16 8:09 PM

{1 Climate Change
Rich nations gamble their way to maintain status quo,
even as the world is running out of carbon space

14
{ Goats, grazing and global warming

Survival emissions can’t be equated with luxury emissions
I remember how I first learnt about global warming. It was in the late
1980s. My colleague Anil Agarwal and I were searching for policies
and practices to regenerate wasted common lands. We quickly learnt
to look beyond trees, at ways to deepen democracy, so these commons
—in India, forests are mostly owned by government agencies, but it is
the poor who use them—could be regenerated. It became clear that
without community participation, afforestation was not possible. For
people to be involved, the rules for engagement had to be respected. To
be respected, the rules had to be fair.
In the same period, we had Maneka Gandhi as the environment
minister (1989-91), and data released by the World Resources Institute,
a prestigious US research institution, completely convinced her it was
the poor who contributed substantially to global warming—they did
“unsustainable” things like growing rice or keeping animals. Anil and I
were pulled into this debate when a flummoxed chief minister of a hill
state called us. He had received a government circular that asked him to
prevent people from keeping animals. “How do I do this?” he asked us.
“Do the animals of the poor really disrupt the world’s climate system?”
We were equally foxed, and outraged. It seemed absurd. We had been
arguing since quite a while that the poor were victims of environmental
degradation. Here they were now, complete villains. How?
With this question, we embarked on our climate research journey to
understand the complex tapestry of climate politics. We began to grasp
climate change issues, and quickly learnt that there wasn’t much difference
between managing a local forest and the global climate. Both were com-
mon property resources. What was needed was a property rights frame-
work which encouraged cooperation. We argued in the following way:
One, the world needed to differentiate between the emissions of the
poor—from subsistence paddy cultivation or animal rearing—and that
of the rich—from, say, cars. Survival emissions weren’t, and couldn’t be

15
equivalent to luxury emissions. Two, managing a global common meant

cooperation between countries. As a stray cattle or goat is likely to chew
up saplings in the forest, any country could blow up the agreement if it
emitted beyond what the atmosphere could take. Cooperation was only
possible—and this is where our experience with forest issues came in
handy—if benefits were distributed equally.
We then developed the concept of per capita entitlements—each
nation’s share of the atmosphere—and used the property rights of enti-
tlement to set up rules of engagement that were fair and equitous. We
said that countries using less than their share of the atmospheric space
could trade their unused quota and this would give them the incentive
to invest in technologies that would not increase their emissions. But in
all this, as we told climate negotiators, think of the local forest and learn
that the issue of equity is not a luxury. It is a prerequisite. n

16
{ The real inconvenient truth

Even the richest in India emit less than
the poorest Americans
Many years ago, in a desperately poor village in Rajasthan, people decid-

ed to plant trees on the land adjoining their pond so that its catchment
would be protected. But this land belonged to the revenue department
and people were fined for trespassing. The issue hit national headlines.
The stink made the local administration uncomfortable. They then came
up with a brilliant game plan—they allotted the land to a group of equally
poor people. In this way the poor ended up fighting the poor. The local
government got away with the deliberate murder of a waterbody.
I recall this episode as I watch recent developments on climate
change. At the climate change conference, held in Durban in December
2011, small island nations—from the Maldives to Granada—believed,
rightly so, that the world has not delivered on its promise to cut emis-
sions and is jeopardising their future. But they do not have the power to
fight the powerful. So, this coalition of climate victims turned against its
partner developing countries, targeting India, for instance, for inaction.
These nations pushed for India to take legal commitments to reduce
emissions, dismissing its concerns of equity as inconsequential.
The divide is complete. According to Bangladeshi climate change
researcher and old friend Saleemul Huq, the issue of equity—the setting
of emission targets based on the contribution of each country to the
stock of CO2 in the atmosphere—is an old fashioned idea. He says it will
not work in the new world where the dichotomy of the rich and poor
countries has vanished. Instead, there are equal and big polluters like
China, India, South Africa and Brazil (basic). These, he says, are equally
responsible and must take steps to cut emissions. He wants the notion
of historical emissions junked. For him, countries like the Maldives and
Bangladesh are victims. India is a polluter, a rich country whose govern-
ment is hiding behind the poor to avoid cutting emissions.
But the fact is Maldives’ per capita emission is higher than India’s.

17
So, should the Maldives take mandatory emission reductions? Is it a

victim or a polluter? India also has a longer coastline than vulnerable
Bangladesh. Is it a polluter? Or an equal victim? Sivan Kartha, a climate
change researcher with the Stockholm Environment Institute, tears into
this argument that is dividing the poor world and taking the focus away
from countries that need to be told to take action fast. He compares
India and Africa, countering the charge that Africa is being destroyed
because of rich India’s reluctance to take emission reductions. “Actually,
1.1 per cent of Africans have made it to the top global wealth decile
against 0.9 per cent Indians. As against this, 21 per cent Americans are in
the top global wealth decile. Then, India’s total emissions are only two-
thirds of what Africa emits.” As against this, US emissions are four times
that of India. In this way, while the poor fight over crumbs, the cake is
eaten by the rich.
We analysed income distribution and emissions data to see if rich
Indians emitted more than their counterparts in rich countries and
found that the per capita emission of the richest 10 per cent of India’s
population was the same or slightly less than the per capita emission of
America’s poorest 10 per cent. It was less than one-tenth the per capita
emission of America’s richest 10 per cent. In other words, the rich in
India emitted less than even the poorest Americans. This is not to deny
that Mukesh Ambani’s enormous house and electricity consumption—
reportedly H75 lakh a month—is distasteful. But energy and emission
apartheid in the world remains unacceptable.
Simple plot. Sinister design. The poor have been divided to fight
over who is more vulnerable. But one must realise that this divide is a
deliberate creation. In 2009, at the Conference of Parties in Copenhagen,
two categories of countries were devised. One, vulnerable countries that
would get fast track funds to adapt to climate change and two, emerging
polluters grouped under the basic banner. The bribe and divide was
blatant and successful. It was openly said in the conference plenary that
polluting countries like India, who wanted an agreement based on equi-
ty, were blocking funds that would flow to Bangladesh and the Maldives.
That penultimate night of the conference the poor fought the poor.
Since then the divide has grown. n

18
{ The rite to pollute and the right to shout

Let poor people shout and scream. Only then will
the rich provide space
In 2006, a study commissioned by the British government concluded

that evidence not only shows that climate change will be disastrous for
countries, particularly the poor, but also that it would cost the world
much less if it invested today in mitigating emissions. The UK report
authored by economist Nicholas Stern is important for this reason. It
is an economist’s warning in a world run by them. I say this because
for far too long these smart people have argued that climate change is
too uncertain and, therefore, there is no reason to take high-cost action
today. It is better to wait and see, if necessary adapt. It has also been
assumed that in this scenario, as climate change happens in the far
future, technological innovation and transition will also happen. The
market will happily provide answers. But at most this breed has lulled us
into complacency. There will be no costs for the transition towards an
economy which is able to delink economic growth with the growth of its
emissions, they said.
Let’s sort this issue. It is widely accepted keeping global temperature
rise below 2oC, measured from pre-industrial levels (1850), is the
threshold that will leash climate change from being “dangerous” to
becoming “catastrophic”. To put this number into context, consider
current average global temperature increase is 0.8oC; add to the fact that
another 0.8oC is inevitable, because of the amount of greenhouse gases
(ghgs) already pumped into the atmosphere. So, we are already close to
the threshold.
It is time we stopped fooling ourselves. The fact is that warming of
the global atmosphere is possibly the biggest and most difficult econom-
ic and political issue the world has ever needed to confront. I say this
because, firstly, emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are directly linked to
economic growth. Therefore, growth as we know is on the line. We will
have to reinvent what we do and how we do it. There will be costs, but

19
as Stern says, the cost will be a fraction of what we will need to spend
in the future. The fact is ghgs have a very long life in the atmosphere.
Gases released, say, since the late 1800s when the Western world was
beginning to industrialise, are still up there. This is the natural debt that
needs to be repaid, like the financial debt of nations.
It was for this reason the Kyoto Protocol, agreed in 1997, set emis-
sion limits on industrialised countries—they had to reduce so that the
developing world could increase. It is a matter of record the emissions
of these countries continued to rise. As a result, today there is even less
atmospheric space for the developing world to occupy. It is also evident
the industrial world did nothing; it knew it needed to fill the space as
quickly as possible. Now we have just crumbs to fight over.
It is also no surprise, then, that Western academics have been call-
ing upon the developing world to take on emission reduction targets
as there is no space left for them to grow. The logic is simple, though
twisted and ingenious. No space left to grow. Ergo, “you cannot ask for
the right to pollute,” they tell the developing world.
So what we have is a pincer movement. The already-industrialised
countries do not want to set binding interim targets to reduce their
emissions drastically. They want to change the base-year from when
emission reduction will be counted—2005 or 2007, instead of 1990. This
means two things. One, they want to continue to grow (occupy space) in
the coming years. Two, the space they have already occupied—as their
emissions vastly increased between 1990 and 2015—should be forgiven.
All this when we know meeting the 450 parts per million (ppm) target
requires space to be vacated fast—they must peak within the next few
years and then reduce drastically by at least 40 per cent by 2020 over
1990 levels. But why do this, when you can muscle your way into space?
The issue is about sharing that growth between nations and between
people. The fact is that global economic wealth is highly skewed. Put in
climate terms, this means that global emissions are also highly skewed.
The question now is whether the world will share the right to emit (or
pollute) or will it freeze inequities. The question is if the rich world,
which has accumulated a huge “natural debt” overdrawing on its share
of the global commons, will repay it so that the poorer world can grow,

20
using the same ecological space?

Climate change is about international cooperation. The fact is that
climate change teaches us more than anything else that the world is one;
if the rich world pumped in excessive quantities of CO2 yesterday, the
emerging rich world will do so today. It also tells us the only way to build
controls will be to ensure there is fairness and equity, so that this biggest
cooperative enterprise is possible. Think of climate change as the fallout
of the feverish embracing of the market.
What must we do to contain it? We must accept the world needs
to go beyond the weak commitments of Kyoto Protocol to even stabi-
lise CO2 emissions at 550 ppm. This level is considered by many to be
extremely dangerous because it accepts doubling of pre-industrial levels
of CO2 in the atmosphere. By most assessments, this stabilising will
require cuts between 30-50 per cent of the current emissions soon. All
this means we need to take hard action, fast.
The way forward would be to re-negotiate the world’s agreement on
combating climate change. The agreement must be political, however
politically incorrect the discourse might be. It must reflect the desperate
urgency of the world. It must be fair and meaningful. In other words, it
must not take the world another 15 years to cut emissions and get some-
thing as weak and pusillanimous as the current Kyoto Protocol.
The fact is that the world has changed in more ways than one. There
is clear understanding that the rich and the emerging rich world needs to
make the transition to a low-carbon economy. There is also much better
understanding that the route ahead is made up for technologies that we
have in hand currently. It is not about inventing new things, but using
much more efficiently and effectively the technologies of the present.
Therefore, answers will lie in increasing efficiencies in both the genera-
tion of energy and in the use of energy in manufacturing other products.
It will also lie in the change in how we do things from transportation
policies in our cities to everything else. The fact is that we need to know
how to change.
It is also clear that the emerging rich world—China, India and oth-
ers—is showing itself to be more efficient per unit of output within their
limited means than the industrial world was. The fact is they would want

21
to improve if they were compensated for it. The question then is why
can we not move ahead?
The answer lies in the way we have framed the questions. It has been
lost in the obduracy of the US government, which has never accepted
the need to build a fair and cooperative agreement to combat climate
change. The US, which has historically been the world’s largest contrib-
utor to climate change and whose emissions continue to grow, says it
will not join an agreement which does not involve India and China. The
result has been a weak and compromised agreement called Kyoto, which
allows renegade polluters—the US and Australia to opt out.
This is equally true of the equally energy-profligate rich of our coun-
try. They also will do little to avert climate change. Clearly, if it is going
to be in the interest of the most marginalised to demand effective action,
then the effort has to be to give them a voice. Give poor people the fora
to shout and scream, so that the rich everywhere will have to provide for
space, and the poor secure their present and future.
Take Odisha for example. The Centre for Science and Environment
had published a briefing paper for state legislators, explaining how vul-
nerable and disaster-prone the state had become—reeling under vicious
cycles of drought, flood, cyclones, hurricanes and heat waves, and even a
bitter cold wave. Thus, it would be right and just for the Odisha govern-
ment to demand that the Central government takes the US to task for not
doing enough on climate change. And precisely for this reason, it would
also be perfect for the Odisha government to demand that the poor, who
are underutilising their share of atmospheric space, have the right to build
their lives. It is their inalienable right. It is the government’s responsibility.
But the worst thing about globalisation is that not only is it leading to a
loss of national and local decision-making powers, it is also leading to a loss
of control over our leaders’ attention span. It is this globalisation of politics,
where leaders find it easier to externalise public attention by focusing on
terrorism, war and in case of India, Pakistan, that is letting them get away
with murder. How else can you explain that in a democracy, when more
than 100,000 people can die due to extreme climate events in the last
15 years, there is neither a whimper nor a squeal? The scenario is business
as usual. The scenario is only more indifferent than ever. n

22
{ The weather dice is loaded

So why are we still hedging our bets?
It is clear, the world geography is scarily looking similar. It is not only

the depressing glass-and-steel high rise buildings and the unfathomable
traffic, but also the weather. During my weekly conversation with my
Washington-based sister I regularly share with her about the unusual
searing heat, the milder winter or a severe cold wave that kills hundreds,
the problems of power cuts, and how we are coping in India. She, in
turn, talks about terrible storms and drought that sweep the US. On
Washington, she talks about unbearable heat waves. Both of us, living
across the oceans, in different countries, with vastly different circum-
stances, are similarly placed. Even though she being in the US might have
been better placed to absorb the shocks of such extreme weather events.
Is this, then, what the future holds for us—a changing weather that
knows no boundaries or preferences. In the preceeding essay, I talked
about the shocking number of deaths due to extreme weather events
in India. Why are we still so reluctant to make the connection between
weather events and a changing climate?
Every year in the 21st century, like most in late 20th century, has seen
unusual and extreme weather events. In the UK, where weather is always
the subject of conversation, it has become even more so. One swallow
does not make a summer. But when unusual, extreme weather events
begin to happen with increased intensity and frequency, they should
make us ponder. According to the World Meteorological Organization’s
(wmo) Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 2015, the year
broke all records including milestones for global temperatures, carbon
dioxide levels and ocean heat. “The future is happening now,” it said.
The rate at which these extreme events are striking is not normal.
The average global temperature for 2015 was 0.76oC above the average
from 1961-90. According to the wmo, this was 1oC above the average
for the second half of the 19th century, meaning global temperatures are
already halfway to 2oC above pre-industrial levels.

23
One may ask: how does the world measure the “increased” frequency
of extreme weather? After all weather is always variable. Meteorological
departments across the world keep records of changing weather events
and patterns. Their records can point out similar events in the past when
there was a similar cloudburst or frost or cyclone or freak snow. How
does all this add to climate change? The fact is change will happen in our
present and our future. Since the world is only now beginning to see the
impacts of rising temperature, data over several years does not exist to
establish a trend in extreme weather events. Science, at best, can use a
model to predict impacts of global temperature rise on climate.
Even if extreme events are now being seen and recorded, how does
one know this relates to human-made emissions? All this is further
complicated by the fact that multiple factors affect weather and another
set of multiple factors affects its severity and impact. In other words,
the causes of devastation following extreme events—like droughts or
floods—are often complicated and involve mismanagement of resources
and poor planning. For instance, we know floods are caused by unusually
high rainfall. But it is also clear we have destroyed drainage in floodplains
through utter mismanagement. We have built embankments believing
we can control the river only to find the protection broken. Worse, we
built habitations in floodplains. The devastating recent floods in Kashmir
and Chennai are stark reminders.
This complication hurts people but helps climate deniers. They have
a field day saying there is no link between variations in weather and cli-
mate change. For instance, when Washington DC had both heat wave
and extreme cold waves in a year, a Republican senator, known for his
strong views against climate change, built an igloo in a shopping mall.
This was to mock climate change believers because it was cold, not hot.
He could not read the signs. And he is not alone. US media has been
squeamish about making the connection between extreme weather
events and climate change. It is difficult to say whether this is because
the climate skeptics have got to them, or because they are unable to
understand the nuances of scientific messages.
Climate scientists like Myles Allen of University of Oxford in Britain
will tell you that the world must begin to differentiate between exter-

24
nally driven changes in climate (or human-induced climate change) and

specific weather events. In 2000, Allen’s home was flooded when waters
inundated many parts of England and Wales. In 2011, he published a
report, which quantified the role of human-induced climate change and
concluded that it had doubled the likelihood of floods in the UK. There
is more evidence now that weather events today are confirming the pre-
dictions of models. We know then that human influence has loaded the
weather dice to make a particular event more likely. The deck is stacked
against us. We will see more impacts of a changing climate in extreme,
variable and devastating weather events. Science is now certain. So why
are we still hedging our bets?
Climate sceptics, who had torn apart the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change’s (ipcc) 2013 report, are still trying for ways to
manipulate public opinion. They know that public perception is not
based on hard science or its many nuances. It can be influenced by get-
ting a single message out however distorted it may be. So even before the
report was released, there was a selective leak that the report has found a
“pause”—the world is not warming as fast as predicted earlier. This word
was quickly circulated, and the media picked up the buzz and hoped
opinion would be formed.
Unfortunately for the sceptics, this tactic cannot work so easily any-
more. People across the world are beginning to experience some change
or the other. They are seeing increased activity of tropical typhoons;
unseasonal and extreme rain events leading to devastating flooding;
extreme heat and cold waves, and, the fast melting of the Arctic. They
hardly need ipcc to tell them about the inevitability of climate change.
The fact is that ipcc never said that there was a “pause”. A selective
reading of a leaked draft report was used to spread the canard. The final
report states that the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998-2012)
is less than the rate calculated since 1951 per decade. But the report
qualifies this by saying that the base year (1998) was when El Nińo was
the strongest and the world had seen higher than ever temperatures.
Therefore, not only is there no evidence of a pause, but on the con-
trary, there is evidence that past scientific models and projections have
been accurate and reliable. For instance, it is now confirmed that the

25
atmosphere and oceans have warmed; the amount of snow and ice has
diminished; and the concentrations of ghgs released because of human
activity have increased manifold. That is what should frighten us. For
the Indian subcontinent, there is news and it is not good. For the first
time, the ipcc has included a special mention of the region’s true finance
minister, the monsoon. Till recently, most regional models did not take
into account this capricious phenomenon, which rules our lives, so there
was little knowledge about how precipitation patterns would behave in
an increasingly warmer world.
Now the models project the following: there is medium confidence
(ipcc terminology used when models predict less than high certainty)
that Indian summer monsoon circulation will weaken, but will be com-
pensated by increased moisture content in the atmosphere because of
warming oceans, ultimately leading to more precipitation. More rain is
predicted, but worryingly in fewer days. The monsoon, says ipcc, will
probably be most impacted by extremes as compared to elsewhere. It
also says monsoon onset is likely to become earlier and retreat very like-
ly delayed, leading to longer rainy seasons. While ipcc juggles with the
degree of likeliness—its definition being that very likely signifies 90-100
per cent certainty and likely 66-100 per cent certainty—science theories
are being enacted in the real world. In India, we are seeing right now
how the monsoon has become unpredictable.
It is time science led to action. At the global level, nations have to act
to reduce emissions—drastically, urgently and keeping in mind issues of
equity. At the national level, our agenda must be to cope with extreme,
unseasonal and variable rainfall. This means becoming obsessive about
water management. The fact is that climate change is not all bad news
for us because it will rain more, not less. The key is to learn to hold
the water, store it and recharge groundwater with it. It will also mean
planning better to forecast extreme rain events so that we can mitigate
the damage like the 2013 Uttarakhand calamity. It will mean valuing
the raindrop. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was only half-right
when he said India needs toilets not temples. In an increasingly warmer
world, India’s only temples can be the ditches, drains, lakes and rivers
that can hold the rainwater, and not let it cause floods or droughts. n

26
{ Let’s get a little less male

Why is the Indian scientific establishment obsessed
with “muscular” subjects?
In India, we are just beginning to map impacts on our glaciers because

of human-induced climate change. We can draw inferences from the
changes that are being observed and predicted in the rest of the world.
But we will have to do our own leg work—to understand both what is
happening and what the receding glaciers will do to our water security.
The question is can we do this?
I ask this because in many ways climate change science, because of
its many variables and very many scenarios, is a game of chess which can
only be played by investigative and highly inquisitive minds. The scien-
tist will get clues and the answers will have to be tweaked from scientific
evidence, from plain common sense and from what can be observed in
the real world.
It is not in the nature of our science to do this kind of imaginative,
investigative research. It is certainly not in the manner of our science to
draw inferences when there is uncertainty. In the easiest of times, our
scientists find it against their nature to cross over the threshold, from
what is already established science to what is emerging science. They
prefer to play safe with what they know. In the case of climate science,
they prefer to be cautious in their words, very conservative in their
assessment and take refuge in the inherent uncertainty of science.
For instance, it will be easy for “safe” science to say that even if gla-
ciers are receding at a rapid pace, it is nothing new or surprising. They are
simply passing through a phase of recession as a natural cyclic process.
It will also be possible to say (and I have heard this being said very often)
that even if we know glaciers are melting, there is no evidence to say that
this melt will lead to any significant changes in our hydrological systems.
Why? Because our ongoing research does not show anything deviant. It
is another matter that the data or method used for the research might
be insufficient. Or that the scientist may not have investigated the slim

27
leads that nature was disclosing about herself.

Let’s accept that there is a problem. The Indian scientific establish-
ment has been for far too long just that, an establishment. It has chosen
only to work with established science that is peer-reviewed, empirical
and unchallenged. Worse, because of the nature of its institutions—
which are closed to outsiders on the one hand, but subservient to offi-
cialdom on the other—it will not engage in any public discourse.
But climate science demands new approaches. It demands breaking
away from what is already known to discover what needs to be known
and how. It will require crossing the line so that inferences can be drawn,
however tentative. It will require, most of all, active engagement with
the “outside” world of ordinary people. It will need to pay careful heed
to everyday events and meticulous observation of scientific processes as
they play out in our gardens, in our agricultural fields and in our glaciers.
Finally, if I can say (without offence), Indian science, to respond to
climate change, will have to get a little less male and perhaps even a
little less old. “Male” science (if we can allow for some generalisation)
is not interested in soft issues like the environment or nature. These
are non-issues in a world of nuclear, space or rocket technologies. Why
young? Because climate change science (and the world) needs all the
impatience and the desperation of the young. n

28
{ ‘Friend’ Obama is ozone-smart

My refrigerator is freezing with a million dollar question:
profit or planet?
Just before the first bilateral meeting of Prime Minister Narendra

Modi and US President Barack Obama in September 2014, the hype
was overwhelming. It was an unthinkable media event in India. But, one
item on the agenda has Indian commentators flummoxed is hydrofluor-
ocarbons (hfcs). hfc is the chemical that the world introduced to phase
out hydrochlorofluorocarbons (hcfc), an interim substitute for chloro-
fluorocarbons (cfc). Both hcfc and cfc were indicted for damaging the
stratospheric ozone layer that blocks harmful ultraviolet rays. The joint
statement issued after the meeting of the two heads of State says rather
ambiguously that the two sides agreed to cooperate on “next steps to
tackle the challenge posed by hfcs to global warming”.
hfc has been a bugbear in the India-US relationship. The US wants
to begin negotiations for the phase-out of hfc—a chemical used in
a wide range of industrial and household products like refrigerators,
air-conditioners and solvents—under the UN’s Montreal Protocol.
India argues that the Montreal Protocol is for protecting the world from
ozone layer depletion and hfc is harmful because it contributes to cli-
mate change, so discussions should take place under the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc).
Seemingly, the US is driven by green concerns, as hfcs are green-
house gases 2,000 times more potent than CO2. But the outcome
depends on the alternative the world chooses. When this chemical was
introduced it was understood that it would be bad for the climate. The
world decided to solve one problem by creating another.
In the past decade, the use of hfc has grown by 8-10 per cent annu-
ally, mostly in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia. Now developing
countries will begin to phase out hcfc. Should they first phase into hfc
and then phase out of it because it is bad for climate? Or should they
leapfrog to new substances, good for both ozone and climate?

29
This is where the politics of technology becomes murky. The same

companies that first invented cfc and then profited from its phase-out
are now ready with another alternative. It is not a coincidence that US
companies DuPont and Honeywell are promoting hydrofluoro-olefins
(hfos) for air-conditioning and hfc-1234yf for car air-conditioning. But
these new generation chemicals are plagued with same problems. hfo
is good for ozone, has less global warming potential but still not so good
for climate because it is energy-inefficient. Since indirect emissions (due
to energy use) from appliances are responsible for over 80 per cent of the
problem, this chemical will add to climate change.
But the commercial interests are huge and powerful, hence the push
to move discussions to the Montreal Protocol, where the US is a party
and things can be expedited. The Indian government’s position is equal-
ly driven by commerce. Its four companies that made ozone-depleting
cfc got a windfall of US $82 million to move to hcfc. Now they want to
be paid for the next phase-out to hfc. Worse, they were paid millions of
dollars to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from hcfc plants under
the climate convention. It is, therefore, in their interest to keep the nego-
tiations under the Montreal Protocol to phase into an ozone-friendly
gas, which is bad for climate.
The Modi-Obama joint statement indicates a movement ahead by
recognising the need to use the Montreal Protocol to reduce hfc and
to continue to account under the unfccc. This is good. Now the real
work begins. It is important for India to take a proactive position. It
should first get industrialised countries to agree to an ambitious phase-
out of hfc by 2020, instead of 2035. Next, it should ask for changes in
the Montreal Protocol so that countries can leapfrog the fluorinated
chemicals treadmill. Alternative technologies, rated on the basis of their
life-cycle energy emissions, are available. For instance, some companies
are moving to hydrocarbons, such as propane and butane, for refrigera-
tion and air-conditioning. The US still does not allow this shift, arguing
inflammability problems associated with these off-patented technolo-
gies. This is what needs to be changed.
The question is: profit or planet? n

30
{ Deal won, stakes lost

Cancun deal shifts the burden from developed
to developing countries
Under the Cancun deal, signed on December 11 at the United Nations

climate change conference in Mexico in 2010, all countries, including
India and China, are now committed to reduce emissions. India’s pledge
to reduce energy intensity by 20-25 per cent by 2020 is part of this global
deal. After all, all countries must be part of the solution. It is also in our
best interest to avoid pollution for growth.
But surely nobody can agree that the burden of the transition should
shift to the developing world. But this is what has happened at Cancun. If
you compare the sum of the “pledges” made by the industrialised coun-
tries against the “pledges” made by developing countries, including China
and India, a curious fact emerges. While the total amount the rich will cut
comes to 0.8-1.8 billion tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent), poor
developing countries have agreed to cut 2.3 billion tonnes of CO2e by
2020. In other words, emission reduction promised by the industrialised
world is pathetic. And the principle of equity in burden-sharing has been
completely done away with.
Cancun makes no pretence that global equity is a principle best
trashed into the world’s dustbin. Just consider. All previous drafts of
this agreement stated that developing countries would have equitable
access to the global carbon budget. This has been crucially diluted in the
Cancun agreement. It reads in a fuzzy and meaningless way that there
will be “equitable access to sustainable development”. We have surren-
dered our demand to apportion the global atmospheric space based on
our right to development.
This is not the worst. For a moment let’s say India should be willing
to pay this price for the global common good. But the pledges will add up
to practically nothing in terms of averting the worst of climate change.
With the Cancun deal in force, the world is in for a 3-4°C temperature
rise. We are most vulnerable. Already, when world average tempera-

31
tures have increased by just 0.8°C, our monsoons are showing signs of
extreme variability leading to floods and droughts. Then how can a weak
and ineffective deal on climate change be good for us?
But the spin doctors want us to believe otherwise. The Western
media is hailing Cancun as the much-needed breakthrough. That’s
because the Cancun deal protects the interests of the rich polluters. It
is their prize.
The fact is we hate being hated in the rich man’s world. Cancun was
about our need to be dealmakers on their behalf—even if it costs us the
Earth. However, after four years, the developing world came to know
about it for sure. China joined the US to redefine the equity principle
throwing the planet into the clutches of climate change. n

32
{ Sino-US climate deal

It is time India occupies more carbon space
I believe the fight against climate change has to be political, as it inti-

mately relates to local to global governance: from how a village manages
its ecology to how global leaders equally manage the common property
called atmosphere. While concern on global warming reaches a cre-
scendo, the world, instead of finding resolutions, is hurtling towards
discord and dispute. We do not have time to waste on bad politics and
bad politicians.
Currently, two things are happening. One, China and India are being
projected as the new villains—they pollute; they will increase emis-
sions; they don’t want legally binding commitments and are, therefore,
blocking global negotiations. Two, the climate-profligate and renegade
nations—the US and Australia—are being treated with kid gloves.
They, we are told, want to work in global interests but their efforts will
be negated by the growth of emissions from dirty China and India. In
this, Europe and Japan are playing mediator—bringing warring sides
together; asking China to relent so the US can bend. Little is said of how
Europe’s emissions have risen in the past year.
If China raises equity issues—saying how the rich world is respon-
sible for climate change—it is told it is obstructing action; that the time
for this blame game is past; that the world must act decisively. In other
words, what we did, we did for our growth, but you must not do the same
in the interest of the planet. It is forgotten that China will also be a victim
of climate change. It is forgotten that this is not a problem it created.
If we had time for games, this shadow boxing would be entertaining.
But we are running out of time. What we need are politicians to lead
us out of this mess. We need leadership and sagacity; not shenanigans
and procrastination.
I believe we have a basic frame within which we can move ahead.
First, we need to agree once and for all that the industrialised world is
responsible for climate change. The facts are clear.

33
The second part of this agreement is China’s and India’s need to

grow. Their engagement will not be legally binding but based on nation-
al targets and programmes. We know it is in our interest not to first
pollute, then clean up; or first to be inefficient, then save energy. The
question is to find low-carbon growth strategies for emerging countries,
without compromising their right to develop.
But the script took a turn. In November 2014, the US and China signed
a bilateral agreement to cut ghg emissions. Western commentators
have been ecstatic, lauding the deal as both historic and ambitious. With
China in the bag, India is the target. It is already painted as the bad boy
in climate change negotiations. The question on the minds of US-based
journalists and non-profits is: when will India agree to cut its emissions?
A week can be a very long time in climate change negotiations.
While the world has not been able to operationalise equity for the past
20 years, US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping
did it in one stroke. They operationalised equity, but in a way that will
take us all to a sure catastrophe.
How? Under this agreement, the US has agreed to take domestic
actions so that it will reduce its ghg emissions by 26-28 per cent below
the 2005 levels by 2025. China has agreed that it will peak its ghg emis-
sions by 2030 and then start reducing it. It has also agreed to raise the
share of non-fossil fuels to 20 per cent of its primary energy mix by 2030.
Time for a loud hurrah? Not so fast.
First, what this means is that the US and China have agreed to
“equalise” their emissions by 2030. Both countries would have “equal”
per capita emissions in 2030. The US would reduce emissions marginally
from its current 18 tonnes per capita and China would increase from
its current seven-eight tonnes. Both the polluters would converge at
12-14 tonnes per person per year. This is when the planet can effectively
absorb and naturally cleanse emissions not more than two tonnes per
person per year.
In fact, the cake is carved up in such a manner that each country
would occupy equal atmospheric space by 2030. We know that coun-
tries have a cumulative share of emissions in the atmosphere. The
US-China deal makes it clear that both the countries individually get

34
16 per cent of the atmospheric space by 2030.

The problem is that the occupier gets it all. This deal has defined
equity as good for the US and China, but bad for the planet. At this level
of emissions, the world will definitely cross the 2°C mark and go towards
4-5°C, unless India, Brazil, South Africa and all the rest of the emerging
world stop their emissions right now.
This is now the next move. In the well-orchestrated media and ngo
campaign, pressure is being put on India and the rest to forego their
right to development. They must act, says the pack. The US and China
together have shown the way.
So, what should India do? Going by the US-China deal, India needs
to do nothing. Its current per capita emissions are 1.8 tonnes and by
2030, under the business-as-usual scenario, it will be four tonnes—
nowhere close to that of the US and China. Between 2011 and 2030,
China will take over 25 per cent of the remaining carbon space; US will
occupy 11 per cent more and India only seven per cent more. So, unless
the Indian government wants to tell its people they are second-class cit-
izens of the world, it should start occupying more. In other words, post
the US-China agreement, India should be accelerating its growth so that
it can catch up.
Clearly, this is not what we should do as it is not in our interest to
blow up the world. But equally (this is really difficult to explain to the
US-based media and ngos) it is not in our interest to believe that the
US-China deal is good for the world. It sets the world on a dangerous
path where all countries will want their right to pollute. It is in our
interest to demand that the US and China must reduce emissions at the
scale and pace needed to ensure that the world stays below the danger
mark. It is in our interest to demand that we will all accept limits, but
based on equity. n

35
{ Why I should be tolerant

There is no longer the other side
In 2015, the word “tolerance” almost assumed the status of the fabled
Holy Grail. Though mostly debated from religious and ideological per-
spectives in public and political domains, I have often wondered how
perfectly the word “tolerance” or its opposite “intolerance” described the
state of environment and environmentalism in the 21st century. And I
am sure in the coming years, this intolerance will only grow—unless we
recognise it and make the changes we need.
I was in Paris participating in the much-talked-about 21st meeting
of the Conference of Parties (cop-21) to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (unfccc) in December 2015. I will deal
with the agreement the meeting delivered later in the essay. But my days
in Paris before the agreement was finally adopted availed me the opportu-
nity to witness and suffer intolerance of a different but devastating kind.
That is the climate change intolerance. Two days to the endgame at
the Paris conference, there was little breakthrough on the contentious
issues that eluded an agreement, but still everybody was clear that there
would be an agreement. This confidence alerted me to the grave intoler-
ance brewing within the world community, supposedly fighting together
to rescue the only liveable planet we know from the edge of a climate
change-driven catastrophe. Let me explain.
For the first time since the beginning of climate negotiations, the
erstwhile climate renegades were in control of the dialogue, narrative
and the audience. The Umbrella Group is a grouping led by the US and
includes the biggest rich polluters, such as Australia and Japan, who have
always been in the dock for not taking action to combat climate change.
In Paris, these countries went through an unbelievable image makeover.
They were now the good guys. They wanted the world to be ambitious
in meeting not just the 2°C temperature threshold, but were pushing for
even staying below 1.5°C. They said they are pushing because they care
for the small island nations, which will suffer horrendous consequences

36
with rising temperatures. They also wanted an effective arrangement to

monitor progress and to ramp up actions to meet these targets.
How could this can be wrong, echoed a spellbound audience. But it
was clear that this makeover was not overnight, or sudden. These coun-
tries had done their homework. They audaciously crafted the script that
made propaganda believable and sellable.
Their civil society had been cajoled into believing that this was their
time. The US ngos’ allegiance was absolute because they (genuinely and
naively) believed that their government was doing all it can in spite of
Republican Party opposition.
Their media was in full attention—the likes of The New York Times
and BBC had been seconded to scold and reprimand the governments
of developing countries like India for misbehaviour. So, what the US
government officials could not say, their media spelt it out. It was fine
tactics and grand theatrics. And nobody spoke without a cue.
The intolerance was absolute. If you were not one of them, then the
script was also pre-rehearsed for you. The promptness of the response
should tell you this. The New York Times published an article chastis-
ing the Indian prime minister for daring to speak about fair share of the
carbon budget within hours of his speech in Paris.
The screenplay went like this. If anyone raised an issue, it was first
dismissed as being obstructionist. Then, it was said, these issue-raisers
are anti-American or—even more reductively—anti-something. Then,
if you persisted, you were told you are merely an unwanted pest. You
were basically told that you should get lost, because the party is over.
Climate change is real and now all the emissions that could be burnt
have been burnt and nothing remains.
But you don’t give up. If you still persist and demand that the deal
should be equitable—that their lack of ambition is what has put the
world at risk today and that they must vacate space—their response was
the ultimate shut-up. They simply said: “Catastrophes are on our door-
step and you are asking for bread? How immoral and insensitive can you
be? Shame on you!”
So, intolerance was scripted so that the other side’s version was
erased. In this way, rich and industrialised countries forgot that it was

37
the very countries that are experiencing the worst weather-related

calamities who were asking for the leftover crumbs. They tried to erase
the fact that developing and underdeveloped countries have not con-
tributed to the emissions that are causing the increase in temperature.
But they are certainly worst impacted today. The stock of gases already
in the atmosphere comes from the same countries that are on the high
pedestal today.
The fact is that the Umbrella Group has spurned all efforts to control
their own runaway emissions. They have not contributed money. They
have not contributed technology. They have not done anything to pay
for a transition to clean energy in the developing world. Ironically, they
want the transition to happen only in the developing world.
But it is also a hard fact, not an irony, that once the carbon budget is
consumed—as they have done—there would be little that anybody can
do about it other than cry injustice. It is also a fact that these countries
continue to have unambitious plans to curtail their emissions. But since
their takeover of the climate talks is complete, there is nobody to ask
these inconvenient questions.
There is no other way to explain the absolute lack of dialogue that
exists now. In cop-21, there seemed nobody else was in attendance.
There was only one narrative and no conversation. The Europeans who
hosted the conference were lost. The French, always adroit in managing
conflicts, seemed vacuous and irrelevant.
But it is clear that if we want to live in an interdependent world, voic-
es of dissent cannot become illegitimate or be put on mute. This is how I
define climate change intolerance. And like all intolerance, this must be
resisted and won over. Even if I become “intolerant”.
Back home in India, there were many events that point at intense
environmental changes and consequent human tragedies. The year 2015
was full of events that are interconnected and foretell our future in a way
that should enormously worry us. And, hopefully, get us all to rise to the
challenge of environmental tolerance, or intolerance.
Cut back to Paris. The Paris climate change talks ended with an
agreement far from ambitious and way off from being equitable. It has
left the world even more vulnerable; the poor, even more deprived of

38
basic human development.

Then there was the Chennai anomaly in November-December,
2015. Usually dry and desperately water-scarce, the city sank underwa-
ter. What a way for citizens of this, and every other megacity, to realise
that they are living in an increasingly climate-risky world. What a way
to understand that if we keep mismanaging, extreme weather events are
going to make us all go under.
Then my city of Delhi, choked and spluttered, and has run out of
clean air to breathe. It has learnt the really hard way that it must find leap-
frog options, combining both technology and lifestyle choices of mobility
patterns, if it wants to live on something as basic as breathable air.
The past few years have brought home tough messages. One, envi-
ronmental issues cannot be ignored if we want to secure life and health.
Two, development has to take a different path, for we must—starting
now—mitigate its visibly adverse impacts. Three, since we live in a
planet where warming is now unleashed, unbridled, what we do must
be done at an extraordinary speed. This way, 2015 has done all of us a
huge favour: it has been a tea-leaf reading of our future. Dire warnings
we must heed. But are we?
Let’s take the Paris Agreement as a symptom. The world today is
hurtling towards two catastrophes: one, caused by our need for eco-
nomic growth, and the other by unparalleled and gluttonous consump-
tion that impels emissions into the atmosphere. These greenhouse gas
emissions, primarily emitted because we need energy, contain portends
of a future being placed at extreme risk. We already see how weather
variation—linked to climate change, or not—has jeopardised the liveli-
hoods of millions of farmers in India in 2015 and 2016. Farmers are now
driven to ultimate desperation—suicide. These failures, a combination
of poor policies, are now exacerbated by untimely, weird weather, and
have caused so much human pain.
In this manner, the development dividend, which is so hard to secure
in the first place, is being lost. And there is much more to come. Paris, with
its weak and unambitious text, has failed us abjectly. The already-rich and
the becoming-rich have signalled that they don’t want to compromise
on their growth, or consumption, in the interest of the rest. But the real

39
catastrophe that awaits us in 2016 is about living in a more inequitable,

insecure, and intolerant world. Let’s be clear. The Paris Agreement tells
us, more than ever, that the rich world has bubble-wrapped itself, and
believes that nobody can prick it or burst through. To be secure in the
bubble, conversation is restricted to only what is more convenient. In
this age of internet-enabled information, ironically, the world is actually
reading and being sensitive to less, not more. The circles of information
have shrunk to what is most agreeable to listen to. It is no surprise, then,
that in climate change negotiations—in trade talks, too, or international
relations—there is one dominant discourse.
The most powerful nations would like to believe that there is nobody
on the other side. There is no longer another side. So, there is no respect
for another’s position. It is believed that the other side is either a ter-
rorist, a communist or is just corrupt and incompetent. There is a fatal
refusal to fathom, or approach, opinions or realities that are different.
In all this, there is growing inequality in the world. No amount of
growth and economic prosperity is enough anymore, because aspiration
is the new God. This means anybody who is poor is marginalised simply
because they have just not made the grade. There is no longer space for
such “failure” in our brave, newer world. It is about the survival of the
fittest, in a way that would have made Darwin insane.
It is no surprise that we, in India, are mirroring this grave new world.
The real plight of the poor, distressed, flooded, drought-stricken and
famished is banished from our television screens and newspaper articles.
Our world is being cleansed. If we do not know they exist, we do not
need to worry about their present or future. We can think about a way of
life that benefits us, solely. This is the true emerging face of intolerance
in an intolerably unequal world.
This does not make for a secure future. No. It makes for a bloody war.
But that is what we have to change, now and forever. I haven’t lost hope.
Intolerance will not make for a world that is safe or liveable. This is why
we will have to be tolerant; we will have to be inclusive. So that we can
be sustainable. n

02Excreta(40-57).indd 40 23/05/16 8:10 PM

{2 Excreta
In the 21st century, managing excreta will be
India’s biggest public policy challenge
02Excreta(40-57).indd 41 23/05/16 8:10 PM

42
{ I flush, but don’t forget

Our sanitation system reflects the caste system, where
removing waste is considered somebody else’s job
While attending the Stockholm Water Symposium about two dec-

ades ago, my colleague and environmentalist, Anil Agarwal, and I were
invited to a banquet by the king of Sweden. But instead of dining in
splendour we were checking out toilets in some remote parts of the city.
I was not too convinced of our mission. We opened the hatch of “alter-
native” toilets bins, where the faecal matter is stored before composting.
We were regaled with information about how urine could be separated
in the toilet and used directly for agriculture. Our friend, Uno Winblad,
toilet crazy like Anil, then took us to supermarkets in Stockholm city
where there were a range of toilets—from water-saving to electric and
of course, urine separating toilets. Anil, who hated shops, was delighted.
And I began to understand the links.
Like millions of Indians, I too use the flush toilet, but I don’t forget
how ecologically insane the system is. The flush toilet and the sewage
system—which I always believed embodied personal hygiene and envi-
ronmental cleanliness—are a part of the environmental problem, and
not the solution. I began to understand that this technology is quite sim-
ply ecologically mindless. More critically, we choose to tend to ignore
the political economy of defecation.
Consider the large amount of clean water that is used to carry even a
small quantity of human excreta. In India, flushes are designed to be par-
ticularly water-wasteful. So with each flush, over 10 litres of clean water
goes down the drain. We invest in huge dams and irrigation systems to
bring water to urban areas. This water which is flushed down the toilet
goes into an equally expensive sewage system, all to end up polluting
more water—invariably our rivers and ponds. Most of our rivers are
today dead because of the domestic sewage load from cities. We have
turned our surface water systems into open sewage drains.
This heavy use of surface water is leading to growing conflicts
02Excreta(40-57).indd 42 23/05/16 8:10 PM

43
between urban and rural users and also due to overexploitation.

Moreover, the discharge of domestic sewage is leading to heavy pollu-
tion of rivers and urban groundwater aquifers.
The strategy has been to invest in huge river clean up programmes
like the Ganga Action Plan, the Yamuna Action Plan or the National
River Action Plan to treat sewage. These expensive river action pro-
grammes are the sanitary engineer’s dreams. The aim is to divert sewage,
which earlier flowed directly into the river, to a sewage treatment plant
(stp). This sewage, incidentally, comes from the flush toilets of the rich,
not the poor.
The more water you use, the more investment is needed to clean it
up. The political economy of sewer systems is simply atrocious in devel-
oping countries. Hardly any poor city is able to recover its investments in
sewer systems (other essays in the book have explained this in detail). As
a result, the users of these sewer systems get a subsidy. Thus, sewers only
lead to a subsidy for the rich to excrete in convenience. The poor always
remain the “unserved” in this waste disposal paradigm. In addition, the
government has to invest in stps whose costs are again rarely recovered
from the rich users of flush toilets.
It is virtually impossible for governments to catch up with the targets
of building stps. Government programmes chase targets hopelessly and
remain miles behind the volume of sewage being generated. In a rapidly
urbanising situation, the city would soon outgrow the sewage treatment
capacity. Further investments would be needed all over again.
In urban areas, drinking water is a small component of the total
water use. It is sewage and other waste disposal systems that require
maximum water input. This huge demand for water for our cities comes
at very high political cost as conflicts between urban and rural users for
water are reaching a flashpoint.
We should be angry: we are already a generation which has lost its
rivers. But more worrying is the fact that if we don’t change our ways,
we will deliberately murder more rivers, lakes and waterbodies. We will
then be a generation that has not just lost its rivers, but has committed a
deliberate “hydrocide”. n
02Excreta(40-57).indd 43 23/05/16 8:10 PM

44
{ Why excreta matters

Saving the country from a deliberate “hydrocide”
Water is life and sewage tells its life story—how urban India is soaking
up water, polluting rivers and drowning in its own excreta. It has a seem-
ingly simple plot: it only asks where Indian cities get their water from and
where does their waste go. But this is not just a question or answer about
water, pollution and waste. It is about the way Indian cities (and perhaps
other parts of the world that are similarly placed) will develop. It is about
the paradigm of growth that’s sustainable and affordable.
Urbanisation in India, relentless as it is, will only grow. How should
the country manage its water needs so that it does not drown in its own
excreta? What has amazed me is the lack of data, research and under-
standing of this issue in the country. This is when water concerns all.
People in cities get water in their houses; they discharge waste; and they
see their rivers die. But they don’t make the connection, between flush-
ing toilet and dying rivers, as the previous essay argues. It is as if they do
not want to know. But they should.
This may be a reflection of current governance systems, where water
and waste are government’s business, and within that the business of a
lowly water and sanitation bureaucracy? Or is it simply a reflection of
Indian society’s extreme arrogance—it believes it can fix it all as and
when it gets rich; that water scarcity and waste are only temporary prob-
lems; that once it gets rich, infrastructure will be built, water will flow
and the embarrassing stink of excreta in cities will just disappear.
It is clear Indians know very little about the water they use and the
waste they discharge. We at the Centre for Science and Environment
had to collect data the hard way—city by city, ferreting out the material
from government offices, which are rarely visited by researchers for the
Seventh Citizens’ Report that profiled 71 cities on their water-sewage
journey. Each city is mapped to know more about its past, current and
future water footprint. Each city is mapped to know more about where
the waste generated from such use of water goes. It is a geography lesson
02Excreta(40-57).indd 44 23/05/16 8:10 PM

45
that’s essential to learn.

When we researched for this report, we were struck by one fact that
should make us all angry, really angry. We found countless instances
where a city’s drain, called nullah today, was actually a river. Delhi resi-
dents are familiar with Najafgarh drain, which discharges the city’s waste
into the Yamuna. But most of them do not know that this “drain” has its
source in the Lake Sahibi. Now Sahibi is gone, and what has replaced it in
living memory is a drain carrying only filth, not water. Worse, Gurgaon
(now Gurugram) is now dumping its sewage into the same Najafgarh
jheel (lake).
Buddha Nullah in Ludhiana is referred to as a drain because it is that
—full of stench and filth. But not so long ago Buddha was called darya
(river). It was a clean freshwater stream. One generation has changed its
form and name.
Mithi is Mumbai’s shame. When floods drowned the Maximum City
in 2005, it learnt it had a clogged drain called Mithi, marred by encroach-
ments. It did not realise that Mithi had not shamed the city, the city had
shamed Mithi. This “drain”, which originates near the city, is actually a
river. It was recognised as a river. It flowed like one. But today even official
environmental status report calls this living river a storm water drain. One
more city has lost its river. These lost rivers are our collective shame.
But should Indians be surprised? Today they take water from their
rivers—for irrigation, drinking and power generation—and give back
waste. Water no more flows in its rivers. It is the load of excreta and
industrial effluents.
Indians should be angry over the loss of its rivers. More worryingly,
if we do not change our ways, we will lose the remaining rivers, lakes
and other waterbodies. This generation will then not just be pitied for
losing rivers, but accused of committed deliberate “hydrocide”. Coming
generations will forget that the Yamuna, the Cauvery and the Damodar
were rivers. They will know them as drains, only drains. n
02Excreta(40-57).indd 45 23/05/16 8:10 PM

46
{ Two cities, two cultures

Rome’s environmental stupidity V Edo’s ecological logic
The water culture of people is an important indicator of their level

of civilisation. Take the two ancient cities, Rome and the town of Edo,
which grew into the mega-metropolis of Tokyo. The people of Rome
brought their drinking water with the help of long aqueducts, which
are today regarded as architectural marvels of the bygone Roman civi-
lisation. But the people of Rome lived on the banks of the river Tiber.
They didn’t need to bring water from afar. Unfortunately, they did not
know how to dispose their human wastes, and like the modern Western
civilisation, they ended up polluting the river, thus being forced to go far
in search of clean water. This makes Roman aqueducts not a symbol of
intelligence, but one of great environmental stupidity.
On the other hand, Edo, which too was situated on several streams,
ensured that all its human wastes were collected and returned to the
farmlands. Its neighbouring rivers remained clean and it tapped its water
from them through an extensive piped water supply.
But today we are all children of Rome, and not Edo. We have turned
our backs on our waterbodies, and if we don’t have money to clean our
mess, then we will have nothing but polluted waters.
Worse, the political economy of defecation is such that no democrat-
ic government will accept the hard fact that it cannot “afford” to invest in
modern sewage systems for its citizens. Instead, it continues to subsidise
the users of these systems, in the name of the poor, who cannot afford
these systems in the first place. The cost to build stps is externalised
through these environmental programmes. The logical policy would be
to accept the cost and then to impose differential pricing so that while
the rich pay for the cost of the capital and resource intensive sewage and
waste disposal technology, the poor pay for the cost of their disposal
system, which is invariably unconnected to the sewerage system and
hence low cost.
But this is easier said than done. The “socialist” framework in our
02Excreta(40-57).indd 46 23/05/16 8:10 PM

47
country forces political leaders to keep water and waste pricing afforda-
ble for large sections of urban populations. In this situation, private
investment also looks for an easy way out. Their answer is to invest in
water services and leave the costly business of cleaning up the waste to
government agencies.
In the meantime, the use of sewer systems would have totally des-
troyed the aquatic ecosystems in the developing world, posing enor-
mous threats both to public health and aquatic biodiversity. In India, we
don’t even have to look a few years ahead. We already see the signs of
this “hydrocide”. Literally, no small or medium river today is clean. Every
river that passes through a city or a town becomes a stinking sewer.
While our scientists think about going to the moon, the toilet is
not in their vision at all. There is absolutely no thinking about the need
to find environment-friendly sewage systems in our country. We will
need massive investments in r&d for non-sewerage alternatives. While
investments in sewers run into crores of rupees every year despite all the
problems they create, research investments in non-sewage alternatives
hardly exist. n
02Excreta(40-57).indd 47 23/05/16 8:10 PM

48
{ Closing the nutrient loop

The traditional way of waste disposal is staging a
21st century comeback, but not in India
At a meeting, an official of a state government was explaining the pro-

gress made to set up stps, drains and diversionary sewers in pursuit of a
Supreme Court order to clean up the Yamuna river in the northern end
of Delhi. A number of planned activities were complete. A lot of money
was spent. Impressive. I then asked a basic question: “What is the impact
of all this on the quality of the river’s water?” My question was met with
silence. Indeed, utter surprise. What did the two tasks have in common?
The real story soon tumbled out. The quality of water had worsened.
Every indicator measured by the pollution control board showed that
the river had become a more putrid cesspool of the city’s waste. In the
meantime, three stps were commissioned for this area. Now the facilities
were being busily augmented, pumping stations being built to carry the
waste. The problem, explained the officials, was that the sewage plants
they were showcasing were grossly underutilised—there was a plant, but
no sewage to treat. This, officials pointed out quickly, was not their fault:
people living close to the plant were “refusing” to build toilets and take
a sewage connection because of the cost involved. Furthermore, there
were large numbers of unauthorised—illegal—colonies, which could
not be provided sewage connections by law, the officials rued.
If this is the case, what is the solution? Is a stp, an adequate answer
to polluted rivers? Wouldn’t it be better if we began by understanding
the sociology and technology of human excreta and sewage manage-
ment? Should we not examine why people living in wretched condi-
tions—without access to closed drains, living in dirty and unhygienic
conditions—would not want a connection to a better life? Studies done
in cities show that poor communities are “willing” to pay for better ser-
vices—clean water and sanitation. Why not here? This is a desperately
water-starved area of the city—as are all areas in which poor and illegal
settlers live. Should we not, therefore, examine if the sewage connec-
02Excreta(40-57).indd 48 23/05/16 8:10 PM

49
tions would demand more water to flush the underground drains, which
the administration cannot and will not provide? Also, if the amount of
wastewater—80 per cent of water supplied is discharged—doubles, per-
haps triples, would this not make stps ineffective?
Let me now contrast this official meeting with another I attended in
a music hall in a small town in Germany, where some 400 people had
gathered to discuss ecological sanitation. The conversation—highly
technical and involved—was about building urine-diverting and other
systems, so that nutrients in human excreta could be returned to the
land, and not pollute waterways. Waste is rich in fertilisers—for every
250 gm of grain consumed, some 7.5 gm of nitrates, phosphorous and
potassium is excreted. Human kidneys are nitrogen factories—urine is a
cheap and rich source of nitrogen and does not contain pathogens found
in faecal waste. Emerging technologies are using this understanding to
their advantage. They separate out the faecal and urine streams, drasti-
cally reduce water consumption, treat and recycle waste to be used as
compost. The guiding principle is: close the nutrient loop.
This approach is leading to technological innovation—from urine
separating dry toilets to highly sophisticated electric and vacuum toilets.
Fascinating science. Fascinating technologies. But as I learnt, I realised
that the approach is not new. This is the traditional system of waste
management—dry human waste composted and reused on the land—
that is being revived under a new name.
The problem is that, in India, traditional waste management has
dehumanised and degraded the individual handling this task. The
problem also is that traditional technology—rudimentary at most
times—could be unclean and unsafe. But should we throw the baby out
with the bathwater? Clearly, the principles of traditional sanitation—if
not its practices—were sound and sustainable. These were built on the
extremely modern concepts of recycling and reuse. Is it so impossible to
re-engineer the traditional composting toilet for today’s modern indus-
trial world? But this would require Indian scientists to think outside the
wretched caste system of their lives and minds are mired in. India has a
massive and well-funded scientific paraphernalia. But how many scien-
tists are working on the toilet? None. Not even one. n
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50
{ A water-excreta account
Breaking down the economics of water and sewage
How will India supply drinking water in cities? Many argue the prob-
lem is not inadequate water. The problem is the lack of investment in
building infrastructure in cities and the lack of managerial capacities to
operate the systems, once created. This line of thought then leads logi-
cally to policy reform, to invite private investment and hand over public
water utilities to private parties to operate.
As a result, public-private partnerships have become the buzzword
in water management circles. The problem is that this strategy assumes
too much, knows too little. It has no clue about the political economy of
water or sewage in India (and with other similar countries). It, therefore,
makes a simple assumption that if water is correctly priced—what is
known as full cost pricing—it would facilitate investment from the pri-
vate sector and provide a solution to the water crisis facing vast regions
of the developing world.
As a result, municipal water reforms have become synonymous with
the World Bank promoted scheme of 24x7supply of constant water so
that pressure in water pipes will reduce leakage from adjoining sewage
pipes and reduce the enormous health burden caused by dirty and pol-
luted water. In the 24x7 water distribution scheme, governments hive
off parts of the city water distribution to private contractors. The key
presumption is the contractor will reduce water distribution losses cur-
rently estimated to be between 40-50 per cent of water supplied in our
cities (more on this in the essay on water).
The reasoning is impeccable, except that it forgets the cost of the
system has to be affordable, so that it can be sustainable. In India,
municipalities rarely compile water and sewage accounts. But our recent
research in compiling city-level data shows a pattern difficult to miss.
Almost all the 72 cities we surveyed are struggling to balance their
accounts and are failing. The one expense that is killing them is the
cost of electricity to pump water from long distances to the city and to
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51
pump water to each house, and then to pump the waste from the house
to the stps. Bhubaneswar, for instance, brings its water from the river
Mahanadi, some 30 km from the city, and spends 56 per cent of costs
on electricity. Pune, which has invested in creating a citywide water dis-
tribution network, spends roughly R25 crore annually to pump roughly
800 million litres daily of water it supplies to its people.
Thus, when cities search for new sources of water, they rarely con-
sider what it will cost them to bring the water to the city. The plan is sold
as an infrastructure project. The costs are paid for as capital expenditure.
But what is not considered is how the project and the length of the
pipeline or canal will impact the city’s finances, and indeed, whether the
city has the money to spend, month after month, on its electricity bills
to pump the water. What is also not considered is how the city, which
spends higher and higher costs on electricity, will spend on the repair
and maintenance of the pipeline. And, if it cannot, will it be able to sup-
ply water to all? In other words, can it afford to subsidise all and not just
the water-rich? But this is yet half of the sum. The other half involves not
water, but the waste the water will create. The agency will have to price
the cost of taking back the waste: the more the water supplied, the more
the waste generated, conveying it, and then treating. More costs.
Even this is not the full story. If the agency cannot pay for the sew-
age disposal system, its waste will pollute more water, either the water
of its downstream city or its own groundwater. Remember, also, we all
live downstream. The cost of pollution makes water economics more
difficult. For instance Agra, located downstream of Delhi and Mathura,
spends huge amounts of its water budget on buying chlorine to clean
water. Now it wants to get another source of water. How long will that
stay clean is another question.
The fact is no municipality can do what economists preach: raise
prices to reflect the full costs. Instead, they spend money on supply
and as costs go up, they increase the subsidy to the users or supply less
to most. But such pricing of water and waste is incomplete without its
political economy. For, who gets the water and how much? In answering
that, you will learn the political economy of water and excreta where the
rich, and not the poor, are subsidised in urban India. n
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52
{ Back to toilet school

The government claims to have built toilets in all schools.
But do they have water for use?
On August 15, 2014, speaking from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime
Minister Narendra Modi made a very important announcement—his
government would ensure “there will be no school in India without sepa-
rate toilets for boys and girls” by the next Independence Day. Exactly one
year later, the Ministry of Human Resource Development announced
that this target has been met and that some 417,000 toilets had been built
in 261,000 schools.
This is no mean achievement, especially given the dire urgency and
importance of this task. The fact is that lack of sanitation facilities is a
reason for high dropout rates in schools—particularly of girls. It is also
linked to higher disease burden. It is a basic human need—as basic as
eating or breathing—and needs to be secured for human dignity. Most
critically, toilets in schools are potential game-changers in society: quite
simply, children learn the value of personal hygiene and bring the mes-
sage home.
School toilets are harbingers of tomorrow’s India. So, it must be asked
if the target has really been met or is this just about numbers. To know
this, the related question is: are the toilets that have been built at this
breakneck speed in use? Do they have running water; is there provision
for regular cleaning and maintenance? Only then can we boast that the
task has been accomplished.
The government, while claiming 100 per cent success, says that it
has repaired some 151,000 toilets and built the rest. On its website, it
also explains that if anybody would like to volunteer to build toilets
in schools, then it can provide designs. The cost of each toilet ranges
between R80,000 and 130,000. In addition, it says that a hand pump—in
cases where there is no piped water—and water tank would be needed,
costing R80,000, and another R20,000 per year would be required for
maintenance. The original plan was that corporate India would scale
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53
new heights and build these toilets. That has not happened. Private com-
panies have been miserly and public sector undertakings are struggling
to meet their school toilet commitments.
Funds, however, have never been the constraint. The last govern-
ment’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan—a scheme to enforce the right to uni-
versal primary education—includes substantial money for civil works
to build school infrastructure, including toilets. In February, 2015, the
government extended the provision to include reconstruction of dys-
functional toilets as well. It is also to the credit of the government that it
did not lose sight of the importance of this task.
The Prime Minister’s Office, it is said, monitored week-by-week
progress. The deadline was clearly on everybody’s mind. Some 2,850
toilets were built each month between August 2014 and March 2015. As
the deadline drew closer, construction moved to feverish pace. Between
April and August, some 100,000 toilets were built each month. This, in
itself, is not bad. It could be that the government ramped up its capacity;
it wanted to ensure it reached its goal.
But it is exactly because of all this that we must ask again: are the
toilets functional? Frankly, there is no information about this in any
report of the government. But media reportage from across the country
suggests there is still a long way to go before we can talk about total
sanitation, even in schools. This is not surprising. There is enough data
and experience to tell us that just installing the hardware is not sufficient
to ensure a toilet’s functionality. The lack of water is a major concern.
India’s water programme has seen that even as settlements are “reached”
with supply, through hand pumps or wells, the number of unreached
settlements goes up. The water dries up, hand pumps get broken and
pipes collapse.
Same is the case with sanitation—toilets are built, but either never
used or become dysfunctional. More importantly, there is the matter
of where the waste goes and how it is treated. So, building a receptacle
to collect human excreta is only a small part of the access to sanitation.
We know, however, that school toilets are an easier part of the sani-
tation challenge. Schools have space for building toilets; ownership and
control is clear and maintenance can be ensured. However, we still need
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54
a plan to make sure it happens. Unless this is done, the ministry cannot
say that it has met its target. In fact, what is happening could have the
reverse effect. Between August 2014 and 2015, toilets have been built
using funds allocated to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. But in the Union
Budget, 2015, money for this scheme has been cut. Now the question
is: how do schools plan to maintain these facilities? Who will hold them
accountable and how will this be reported?
The fear I have is now that the task is shown as completed—it is
checked and off the agenda—there will be little attention to the crucial
detail that is everything between success and failure. We do not need
just toilets, but working toilets, which are used and cleaned. This is what
total sanitation is all about. We need to re-learn it. n
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55
{ How to reinvent the sanitation wheel

Modern designers can find an image makeover with
the help of septic tanks
Swachh Bharat Mission, the government’s much-needed flagship

programme, is not just about building toilets. It is about building toilets
that people can use, and most importantly, are linked to the waste dis-
posal and treatment systems. This much is clear. But how will this be
done? This is still a million dollar question. The reason is that we do not
even know where our waste comes from and where it goes.
I have studied the excreta sums of different cities. The city “shit-flow”
diagram shows that the situation is grim as all cities either do not treat
or safely dispose the bulk of the human excreta. This is because we often
confuse toilets with sanitation. But the fact is that toilets are mere recep-
tacles to receive waste; when we flush or pour water, the waste flows into
a piped drain, which could be either connected, or not, to a stp. This stp
could be working, or not. In this case, the faecal sludge—human excre-
ta—could be conveyed, but not safely disposed as it would be discharged
into the nearest river, lake or a drain.
In most cities, this connection from the flush to the stp does not
exist. According to Census 2011, the flush water of just 30 per cent
of urban India is connected to a piped sewer. But in most cases, these
underground drains have either lost their connections—they need
repair—or are not connected to stps.
There is another route for excreta to flow. The household flush or
pour latrine could be connected to a septic tank, which, if it is well con-
structed, will retain the sludge and discharge the liquid through a soak
pit. The faecal sludge would still need to be emptied and conveyed for
treatment. But in most cases, our survey found the septic tank is not built
to any specifications—it is a “box” to contain excreta—and it is either
connected to a drain or emptied out. This is where the drama of faecal
sludge begins.
Who collects it? How is it transported, and most importantly, where
02Excreta(40-57).indd 55 23/05/16 8:10 PM

56
does it go? Nobody knows. There is a focus on sanitation—providing

toilets—and, a focus on pollution—building stps. But the fact is that
the bulk of Indian households with access to sanitation are connected to
septic tanks—40 per cent of urban India, according to Census 2011. It is
also a fact that as underground sewerage is unavailable, people, including
large builders, have no options to provide containment of human excre-
ta on-site. They build septic tanks and call for help to remove the faecal
sludge and take it somewhere else. My estimate is that the quantum of
this “waste” is roughly 1.75 million tonnes daily—even more than the
estimated solid waste generated in the country.
This is the sewage collector’s tanker business—in almost all cities, it
is private, thriving and underground. The economics are simple: tankers
with pipes suck and empty the sewage for a fee that ranges between R800
and 1,200 per visit. The faecal sludge is then emptied into the nearest
drain, river, lake, even a field or forest.
I see this every day on the road outside my office in Delhi. The tank-
ers are ubiquitous—you will not even notice them. But watch carefully,
and you will see a pipe extended from the tanker emptying into the
municipal stormwater drain, right outside a major hospital. This drain
will make its way to the river. It is no wonder that cleaning our rivers
remains a farfetched dream.
But this is not all bad news. The fact is that septic tanks are decentralised
waste collection systems. Instead of thinking of building an underground
sewerage network—that is never built or never completed—it would be
best to think of these systems as the future of urban sanitation. After all,
we have gone to mobile telephony, without the landline. Individual septic
tanks could be the way to achieve full sanitation solutions.
This demands three changes. One, governments recognise that
these systems exist, and what is needed is to incorporate them in future
sanitation plans. Two, they provide oversight to the building of these sys-
tems—the codes exist, but they need to be implemented and structures
certified. Three, they provide minimal regulation for the collection and
transportation faecal sludge business so that waste is taken for treat-
ment, and not dumped somewhere.
And most critically, city governments must work out the treatment
02Excreta(40-57).indd 56 23/05/16 8:10 PM

57
system for faecal sludge. This is where the real rub lies. The fact is that
this sludge is nutrient rich. Today, the global nitrogen cycle is being
destroyed because we take human excreta, which is rich in nutrients and
dispose it in water. In this case, we can return the human excreta back to
land, use it as fertiliser and reverse the sanitation cycle. The faecal sludge,
after treatment, can be given to farmers and used as organic compost.
Or, it can be treated and mixed with other organic waste—like kitchen
waste—and used for biogas, or to manufacture fuel pellets or ethanol.
The technologies exist.
But for all this to happen, the nation must know: where do its flushed
excreta go? Ask and find out. n
02Excreta(40-57).indd 57 23/05/16 8:10 PM

03Energy(58-81).indd 58 23/05/16 8:10 PM

{3 Energy
Designing technologies for diversity and affordability
is more complex than sending a man to the moon
03Energy(58-81).indd 59 23/05/16 8:10 PM

60
{ The chulha conundrum

The traditional Indian cookstove stirs a global controversy
About 24 years ago, I was in a house in a small village some distance

from Udaipur town in Rajasthan. A government functionary was
explaining how an improved chulha (cookstove) worked—they had
installed it in the kitchen. At that time, India was waking up to forests
being devastated. It was believed then (wrongly, as it turned out) the
key reason was poor people cutting trees to cook food. It was also being
understood that smoke from chulhas was carcinogenic and women
were worst hit by this pollution. The answer was to design improved
chulhas—for better combustion and with a chimney.
The woman owner of this improved stove was cooking the day’s
meal. I asked if she was happy with what science and government had
donated to her. Her answer was simple: “Looks good, does not work. I
modified it.” Her problem was that, in this area, women cooked gruel on
big utensils. Her home-made original stove was fitted to her diet and her
utensils. The improved chulha, with its small opening to streamline the
fire, was of little use. When the chulha was designed, nobody asked her
what she needed. Nobody explained to her the laws of thermodynamics,
so that she could fathom why the stove looked and worked as it did. And
nobody was there who could repair or reshape her cookstove. She had
simply broken the opening to fit her needs.
I learnt my most valuable lesson that day. Designing technologies for
diversity and affordability is much more complex than sending a man
to the moon. Consider the government’s own statistics. By 1994, some
15 million improved chulhas were introduced across the country. A
survey by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (ncaer)
found that in many cases, the stoves were not appropriately designed or
had broken with use; over 62 per cent of the respondents said they did not
know who to contact for repairs. No surprise here. Technology deploy-
ment in poor and unserviced households is a job the market does badly.
But why am I discussing this moment of development history? Well,
03Energy(58-81).indd 60 23/05/16 8:10 PM

61
cookstoves are back. This time, on the world stage. Science has discov-
ered black carbon—soot—is a key contributor to climate change; these
particles warm the air; when they settle on glaciers, the latter melt. So
now, soot from chulhas that poor households use—burning wood,
twigs and cowdung—stands indicted for climate change. A bill has been
introduced in the US Congress requiring the country’s environment
protection agency to regulate black carbon and direct aid to black car-
bon reduction projects abroad, including introducing chulhas in some
20 million homes.
Chulhas—cookstoves for poor women who collect sticks, twigs and
leaves to cook meals—are today at the centre of failing international
action. Women are breathing toxic emissions from stoves and these
emissions are adding to the climate change burden of the world. The
2010 Global Burden of Disease Report established that indoor air pol-
lution from cookstoves is a primary cause of disease and death in South
Asia. As many as 1.04 million premature deaths and 31.4 million disabil-
ity adjusted life years (dalys)—a measure of years lost due to ill-health,
disability or early death—are caused by exposure to biomass burning in
poorly ventilated homes.
But what has spurred action is the science that there is a connection
between local air and global air pollution. The particles formed during
incomplete combustion—in diesel cars and cookstoves—are seen to be
powerful “climate forcers” because they absorb light and convert it into
heat. It has also been found that these particles or aerosols interact with
clouds and affect rain patterns.
Moreover, particulate matter or black carbon is short-lived. Its life
span in the atmosphere is three to eight days, unlike carbon dioxide,
which has a life span of 80 to 100 years. So, combating emissions brings
quick results to an increasingly over-heated planet, even though their
impacts are more regional and local. The current discourse on climate
change is focused on these short-lived climate forcers as a way ahead.
This is not to say that science is completely in agreement on the
matter of how serious is the contribution of particulate or black carbon
to global climate change. This is because there are good aerosols which
cool the planet because they reflect light, and bad aerosols that warm
03Energy(58-81).indd 61 23/05/16 8:10 PM

62
the planet.
But what is emerging is that the good or bad could well depend on
the source of pollution. While open burning or biomass burnt in cook-
stoves produces particles with a higher proportion of organic carbon
that scatters sunlight, emissions from fossil fuels have a higher propor-
tion of black carbon, which absorbs light and forces heating. Seen this
way, the use of low-sulphur diesel has the highest net positive radiative
forcing—it warms, not cools.
Politics of particles, therefore, differentiates between survival emis-
sions from the cookstoves of the poor and the luxury emissions of suvs
of the rich. The fact is, however, that though many countries like India
(and parts of China and Africa) may have modernised, the bulk of cook-
ing in villages is still done using firewood and twigs.
Globally, it is estimated that 2.67 billion people still rely on biomass
for cooking food, with 80 per cent of Sub-Saharan Africa and 66 per
cent of Indians using this inefficient and polluting fuel. This adds up to
roughly half the developing world and 40 per cent of the world. Even in
2030, the World Energy Outlook report estimates that 43 per cent of the
developing world (33 per cent of the world’s population) will continue
to cook on biomass. Even in fast growing China where 33 per cent use
biomass, it is estimated that by 2030, 19 per cent will continue on this
fuel. The report also points out that “there is evidence that where local
prices have adjusted to recent international energy prices, the shift to
cleaner, more efficient use of energy for cooking has actually slowed
down or even reversed”.
In India, Census 2011 shows that 75 per cent of rural households
continue to use biomass and dung to cook, as against 21 per cent of
urban Indian households. In addition, data from the National Sample
Survey Office (nsso) on energy sources of Indian households for
cooking and lighting reveals that nothing has changed in the past two
decades. In 1993-94, as many as 78 per cent households in rural India
used biomass as cooking fuel and in 2009-10, 76 per cent used this fuel.
Therefore, in this period, when urban India moved to lpg (from 30 to
64 per cent), rural India remained where it was, cooking on highly inef-
ficient and dirty stoves.
03Energy(58-81).indd 62 23/05/16 8:10 PM

63
There is a definite correlation between wealth, availability and meth-

ods of cooking. The same nsso data shows that only in the highest (9th
and 10th) class of monthly per capita expenditure does the household
make the transition to lpg in rural India. In urban India, in contrast, even
households in the lower level of monthly per capita expenditure use lpg.
This is because lpg is subsidised and more available in urban areas.
Therefore, it is poverty that is at the root of the chulha conundrum.
This is where the climate change knots get entangled. The fact is that
lpg is a fossil fuel being sold in large parts of the world as a clean cooking
medium. Advocating use of this fuel to meet the needs of poor women
in vast parts of the world will only add to greenhouse gas emissions. The
other problem is that any programme to reach the poor will necessarily
require subsidy. The world frowns on subsidy for fossil fuel, which is
partly why governments across the world are scrambling to remove
subsidy from kerosene and even lpg. So, what is the way ahead?
It was widely said in the 1970s and 1980s that the “other energy
crisis” is firewood for cooking as its supply was short and women had to
walk for hours to collect this basic need. It was also said that this use of
energy by the poorest would devastate the forests. In 1973, after the first
oil shock, the government of India set up the Fuel Policy Committee,
which noted that the widespread use of non-commercial sources of
energy has led to “large-scale denudation and destruction of forests”. But
there is little evidence that this has happened. Why?
Anil Agarwal, founder of Centre for Science and Environment (cse),
was always fascinated by household requirements for cooking energy. In
the early 1980s he organised the country’s first conference on this issue.
Writing in the First Citizens Report in 1982, he warned of an impending
firewood crisis as demand would outstrip supply. But he also said that
there was little evidence to suggest “energy-gathering families of India
were responsible for deforestation as then all trees should have disap-
peared by now”. The problem was not the energy needs of the poor, col-
lected most often by women and children, as this depended on twigs and
branches. The “biggest threat to forests is because of commercialisation
of firewood—growing use in urban areas”.
Anil asked this question once again in the late 1990s and found
03Energy(58-81).indd 63 23/05/16 8:10 PM

64
his earlier assessment was confirmed by developments over the two

decades. By then, there was no apparent firewood crisis—this, when all
evidence suggested that biomass use for cooking continued across the
country. He analysed data from the ncaer, which showed that the fire-
wood demand in urban areas had gone down, because of the switchover
to commercial fuels like lpg and kerosene. At this time, subsidies made
these two fuels cheaper than even firewood for urban areas, where they
were available.
The ncaer survey, published in 1995—ironically, the last such coun-
trywide assessment of cooking fuel consumption—compared its data
with the previous survey done in 1978-79. It found the following:
l In 1992-93, total household energy consumption in rural India was
153.4 million tonnes of coal replacement (mtcr)—coal replacement

being the amount of firewood converted into the amount of coal that
would be needed to replace one tonne of firewood. But of this, 30 per cent
came from firewood twigs and another 32 per cent from firewood logs.
l The share of cow dung and crop residue in the household energy bas-
ket had gone down in these two decades, but total quantity had increased.
l The total firewood—twigs and logs—used for household energy
consumption was 130 million tonnes, with a greater share coming

from more superior quality wood fuel logs, and not leaves or twigs. But
interestingly, even though the share of logs had increased, people were
buying less. Therefore, they were finding better quality wood to burn in
cookstoves, which could be collected.
l But this better quality wood was not coming from forests. The sur-
vey found that between the two decades, the percentage of households
collecting firewood from forests had halved. Instead, firewood was com-
ing from farms and other lands.
Analysing data from other studies, Anil found that the other fire-
wood crisis had been averted because people had gone in for tree plan-
tation on private land and had started using exotic “weed” trees such as
Prosopis juliflora. People were not dependent on forests for firewood
needs and, therefore, large-scale forest destruction (as predicted in the
1970s and 1980s) had not happened. The 2011 State of Forest Report,
published by the Forest Survey of India, corroborates this. It estimates
03Energy(58-81).indd 64 23/05/16 8:10 PM

65
that in 2010, the total fuelwood used was 216 million tonnes, but of this
only 60 million tonnes—or 27 per cent—came from forests. The rest
came from private lands or wastelands. “All this evidence points that
people have averted the ecological crisis through a rational response
of community and individual action. But very little is studied or under-
stood of what people have done and at what cost,” Anil wrote in 1999.
Since then even fewer studies have been done on the firewood
demand for household energy use. But what is emerging from the scat-
tered and limited studies is that in many parts of the country (perhaps
also the developing world) people make rational and careful choices
of multiple sources of cooking energy fuel. They use a combination of
biomass, expensive and often unavailable lpg and even kerosene to cook
depending on the food type and cost involved.
But unfortunately, energy experts discount these non-commercial
sources. So, little is known of their use and little can be then understood
about policy options that would work for this half of the world’s people.n
03Energy(58-81).indd 65 23/05/16 8:10 PM

66
{ See the light

India needs energy, but why are people protesting
against power projects?
There is no question that India desperately needs to generate more

power. The energy indicators say it all. The country has the lowest per
capita consumption of electricity in the world. This when access to
energy is correlated with development, indeed with economic growth.
Let us not dismiss the need for energy as a simple issue of intra-
national equity when the rich use too much, while the poor do not have
enough. This may be true for other natural resources, but energy scarcity
is more or less all around. Data shows India’s energy intensity has been
falling—we do more with each unit of energy produced.
The reason is not hard to see. India has one of the highest prices of
energy and it does pinch industry and the domestic consumer. So saving
is part of the energy game. This is not to say we must not do more to cut
energy use and be more efficient. The point is there are limits to efficiency.
But why am I stating the obvious? The reason is that even though
India knows it needs more power, it does not realise it will not get
it through conventional ways. It will have to find a new approach to
achieve energy security, before the high-sounding targets of the power
ministry are derailed, and ultimately energy security compromised.
Just consider what is happening in the country. There are widespread
protests against building major power projects, from thermal to hydel,
and now nuclear. At the site of the coal power plant in Sompeta in
Andhra Pradesh, the police had to open fire on some 10,000 protesters,
killing two. In the alphonso-growing Konkan region, farmers are up in
arms against a 1,200 MW thermal plant, which, they say, will damage
their crops. In Chhattisgarh, people are fighting against scores of such
projects, which will take away their land and water. The list of such
protests is long even if one does not consider the fact that most of
the coal needed to run them is under the forests, and the mines are
contested and unavailable.
Hydel projects are no different. Environmentalists are protesting the
03Energy(58-81).indd 66 23/05/16 8:10 PM

67
massive numbers of projects planned on the Ganga that will virtually

see it dry over long stretches. The Assam government is asking for a
review of the hydel projects in upstream Arunachal Pradesh because it
believes these are resulting in floods. Assam’s 2,000 MW Subansiri pro-
ject is in trouble because state-appointed experts say the dam could have
serious impacts in downstream areas. The two yet-to-be-built nuclear
projects—the 6,000 MW Jasapara project in Bhavnagar in Gujarat and
the 9,900 MW Jaitapur project in Konkan—are already facing people’s
enormous anger.
We are not seeing the big picture as yet. We still believe these count-
less struggles are a minor hiccup. People’s anger can be disregarded, paid
for or just squashed. But I believe not. As I have argued in other essays,
this is the environmentalism of the very poor; people across the country
are fighting for survival. They know their poverty will only be replaced
by more destitution if and when these projects are built.
It is time we accepted this fact. It is time we accepted that many of
the projects, planned or proposed, will not be built. The availability of
land and water will be the real constraints on growth. So what do we do?
One, we need a law that makes basic energy a fundamental right
of all Indians, like the rights to education and food. This will ensure
people are empowered to demand energy as a right and that the State
has to share whatever it has with all. This will create real conditions for
generating energy in new and different ways. Power generation could be
decentralised, local or even grid-connected. This will give every commu-
nity a real stake in power development.
Two, India must accept it cannot build all the projects it has planned.
It has to prioritise them taking into consideration the cumulative capaci-
ty of the environment. In other words, it needs to assess how much water
can be taken away for hydel projects while ensuring natural flow in rivers
at all times. It must allow only those projects that do not compromise
the environment and people’s livelihood. Currently, this is not done.
Every stream and every district is up for grabs. For instance, in Arunachal
Pradesh, there are 10 projects on every stream; some 150 memorandums
of understanding (mous) have been signed, adding to some 50,000 MW
of power generation (roughly one-third of the country’s installed power
03Energy(58-81).indd 67 23/05/16 8:10 PM

68
a few years ago). Just one block of Chhattisgarh, Dabra, has nine thermal
projects in a 10 km radius. mous have been signed for 49 projects in
Janjgir-Champa district of Chhattisgarh. This madness must stop.
Three, India needs to enhance the capacity of environmental regulators,
so that they take correct and clear decisions. Projects need more careful
scrutiny, and the assessment must have credibility in people’s eyes.
We must first realise the need to change the game of development.
Only then will there be light, as the next essay points out. n
03Energy(58-81).indd 68 23/05/16 8:10 PM

69
{ Big mini revolution

We need a financial model that can give the poor
access to expensive power
We were standing in the only street of this small village called Mohda.
Located in the forested region of Chhattisgarh, the village had no access
to the road and markets. The women of the village surrounded me.
They wanted me to know that malaria was a serious problem for them.
They wanted something to be done about it. I was taken aback because
we were talking about solar energy—the state government had set up
a small power station in the village, and we were there to learn more
about it. “What’s the connection?” I asked. Pat came the answer, “Don’t
you see that we need fans at night so that we can drive away the deadly
pest?” We don’t often notice that electricity is one intervention in the
fight against malaria.
“So, why don’t you get a fan—after all, you have a solar power plant
in the village?” I asked. Now their anger spilled over. The solar plant
provides electricity only for a few hours in the evening and that too
enough to light only two bulbs, they explained. Officials were quick to
rebut this claim, “All the people in the village have television sets. Many,
in fact, have colour TVs, which consume more power. This trips the
power plant, and we do not have enough to provide assured energy to
all,” they said.
This clearly is not the way to go. The shift to clean solar power is a
great opportunity for villages unconnected to the power grid. It brings
energy, which in turn, is the starting point for literacy, communication
and productive work. But currently, most distributed solar energy pro-
grammes are based on giving households a few photovoltaic (PV) panels
and efficient light bulbs. This does not meet their aspirational needs.
Solar, then, becomes the energy source for the poor, because they are
poor. It will never provide the transition for millions living in darkness
to power through a non-fossil trajectory.
Chhattisgarh has, in fact, done something different. It has set up
solar mini grids in villages rather than provide PV panels to individ-
03Energy(58-81).indd 69 23/05/16 8:10 PM

70
ual households. Under this programme, the Chhattisgarh Renewable

Energy Development Agency (creda) sets up an array of solar panels at
one place and then distributes power to households through a mini-grid.
Some 1,400 such systems are located in remote villages that are not con-
nected to the grid. To ensure that they run smoothly, creda has hired
technicians. It is a pioneering scheme.
So, why do we hear such complaints? For one, the plants are small.
Demand for energy was assessed long ago; the capacity was based on the
requirement of two light bulbs per family. In Mohda, a 4 KW plant was
built to meet the lighting needs of 55 families. In neighbouring Rawan a
7 KW plant was planned for 130 cfl bulbs, but by the time power was
generated, there were an additional 150 lights, 25 television sets and 100
mobile phones. This change suggests economic growth and should be
welcomed, but officials see the higher use of electricity as “illegal” as the
system is not built to provide for growth.
The fact is these systems can be upgraded. That is why mini grids are
preferable. But then we need a financial model that can give the poor
access to expensive power. The state government pays the full cost of
setting up and running the system. It does this by charging a small cess
on every unit of grid-based electricity provided to consumers in the state.
But while the government pays `45 per household to the local operator
to run the system, a household pays only `5 per month, regardless of its
consumption. Clearly, this makes the system self-limiting.
This is what happens in grid-based power, where costs are mam-
moth but get subsidised. The subsidy often hides the inefficiencies of the
distributing utilities. This is also the reason governments cannot reach
power to the people—the costs are not paid and so the system collapses.
In the case of distributed renewable energy, there are no options but to
fix this. The capital costs are not insignificant—everything from a power
station to the distribution system has to be built. The advantage is that
once the system is built, the recovery of electricity bills is easier because
the user has a direct and close relationship with the supplier.
There are two approaches to fix this. In places where the grid will
never reach, the capital cost should be subsidised, but the operation
cost should be paid for based on consumption. This gives incentives to
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71
increase supply. In villages where the grid will reach (sooner or later),
the cost of the system should be paid through a feed-in-tariff, as is done
in the case of large solar plants. In this case, the government pays the
differential between the costs of setting up and running the system and
the power rate recovered from people. Today the poor pay for energy
needs—in these villages we found they spent between `150 and 200
for kerosene just for light. Paying the differential can ensure feasibility.
What’s more, the system interacts with the grid. It can sell excess power
or buy power and then supply it to the village. In this way, energy gen-
erated in millions of villages can light the homes of millions and many
more. This is the revolution we are waiting for.
How will solar energy be made to work in India? One, how will the
country pay for solar energy in a situation where there is no money to
pay for even the crashed costs of installation. Two, what is the best
model for the distribution and use of this relatively expensive energy in
a country where millions still live in the dark? Three, how should India
combine the twin objectives of supply of clean energy and creation of
domestic manufacturing capacities?
The government proposals for funding the differential costs of
solar are twofold. One, under the National Solar Mission phase II draft
guidelines, the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy proposed
a viability gap fund for new projects. In other words, it wants to go back
to the era of capital funding, which has been riddled with problems.
For instance, wind energy suffered because the operator had no real
incentive to generate power; it only eyed the benefits of capital finance
and depreciation. The plants’ performance was abysmally low; therefore,
generation-based incentive was introduced. It paid the differential, but
only based on actual power generation. Reversing this will be disastrous
in a sector where there is a huge gap in performance of systems. Capital
funding will be used without consideration for efficiency and output.
The second option—open to states—is to fund solar through renew-
able purchase obligations or feed-in tariffs, where the power utility is
required to buy a certain proportion of its energy from renewable sourc-
es. Andhra Pradesh (undivided) and Chhattisgarh announced ambitious
solar policies built on this premise. Tamil Nadu has gone a step further
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72
in solar purchase obligations on big-end consumers. But this looks good

only on paper. The fact is all energy utilities are bleeding. They cannot
pay the cost of energy they procure, let alone more expensive solar ener-
gy. Banks will not lend money to any solar entrepreneur if they are told
that state utilities are guaranteeing the viability of the project through
payments. It will just not work.
This is when costs of solar are definitely down and the costs of energy
through other sources like coal or gas are definitely going up. The only
option is to build a feed-in tariff mechanism, which will pay the differ-
ential costs, with guarantees of no default. The National Clean Energy
Fund (ncef) can be used to pay this cost. Why not allocate a portion of
this fund to do what it is meant to do, that is to generate clean energy?
But this is also related to the second question about who should ben-
efit from solar energy. Should we continue to invest in large, grid-based
solar projects, which feed the already fed? Or should we find innovative
ways of upscaling decentralised solar energy—rooftop panels and mini-
grids—to reach remote villages and institutional users? Currently, when
we think of this option we tend to think small, literally. So we think of
distributing individual solar lamps or panels that can light a few bulbs
or power a fan. These are essential, but do not match the needs or aspi-
rations of the people, as the last essay argued. In other words, solar is
considered only a transitional solution; it is for the poor, when they are
poor. This is a limiting option and will not work.
The best option would be to build grid-interactive mini-power plan-
ts—also funded through a feed-in tariff paid through the ncef. But these
installations cost more, and in addition, the purchasing power in remote
villages is low. Therefore, the differential will have to be paid partly
through generation-based incentive and partly through tariffs collected
locally by the developer. But the key is to provide viable opportunity for
investment in providing clean energy to the very poor. A similar model
should be evolved for rooftop solar as well. Getting this right would be
the real game changer.
The third big question is how to incentivise domestic manufacturing
in an over-supplied global market. One option is to mandate domes-
tic procurement. There is another option as well. Today, Indian solar
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73
developers buy US products, not because they are cheaper or better,

but because they get loans at low interest on the condition of buying US
products. Since the cost of capital determines their project viability they
accept the condition. The Indian government should do the same—pro-
vide low-interest loans to companies and mandate domestic equipment
procurement. Surely, this is not too high a price to pay for triple benefits:
clean energy, growth of domestic manufacturing and most importantly,
meeting the energy needs of all, not some.
Solar is clearly the answer. But only if we know what is the question. n
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74
{ Coal politics in an unequal world

With huge unmet power needs, India cannot instantly
make a transition to renewables to replace coal
Australia is a coal country. It is big business—miners are important

in politics and black gold exports dominate the country’s finances. But
dirty and polluting coal evokes strong emotions among environmentally
concerned people. Coal-based power provides 40 per cent of the world’s
electricity and emits one-third of global carbon dioxide, which is chang-
ing the global climate.
Given this, on a visit to Australia, it was obvious I would be asked
about my opinion on Australian coal exports to India. My answer, at
the end of a discussion on the environmental challenges the world faces,
was that as long as Australia was addicted to coal for energy, it would
be hypocritical for it to ask countries like India to give up coal. It is also
important to note that Australia’s per capita carbon dioxide emissions
are the highest—18 tonnes per person per year, compared to India’s
1.5 tonnes per person per year.
This position is not acceptable to anti-coal campaigners, so I have
been scolded in email after email for betraying the cause. Anti-coal
groups, largely led by big US ngos, are on a warpath to stop the use of
coal in our part of the world, as they believe we can make the transition to
cleaner energy sources like solar and wind. We should not make the mis-
takes of the rich world; we should not add to the climate change problem
because we want cheaper energy from coal. Furthermore, they argue that
the real cost of coal is very high in terms of health and environment.
And efforts to stigmatise coal have been successful. Anti-coal groups
have bullied the World Bank into agreeing that it would not fund coal-
based power in developing countries. US President Barack Obama
became their star campaigner as he persuaded his Dutch counterpart,
Prime Minister Mark Rutte, to join the US-led effort to end public
financing of coal-fired plants abroad.
What is my position as an Indian environmentalist? We do believe
that coal mining will destroy forests, water sources and livelihoods of the
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75
poorest. We have pushed policy to recognise this, taking careful and cau-
tious decisions on the clearance of coal mines and, most importantly, to
heed the voices of communities when they protest mining in their back-
yard. This, we recognise, will reduce the availability of domestic coal and
will increase the cost of energy as plants depend on imported coal.
In addition, we want stringent standards on pollutants from coal,
including mercury. We also want all industries, including coal thermal
plants, to pay for the real cost of raw material, including water. All this
will make coal-based thermal power more responsive to environmental
safeguards and local concerns and make clean fuels more competitive.
Having said this, I do not accept the assumption that countries like
India, with huge unmet power needs, can make a transition to renewa-
bles so that we replace coal in the short run. Currently, coal accounts for
over 65 per cent of India’s power generation. India needs to massively
increase its power generation and make sure that the cost is afforda-
ble to the poor. In all this, it is clear that we need to aggressively push
renewables, particularly with the objective of energy access, so that the
current energy poor move to clean sources of power. But we must also
recognise that this will be expensive. The objective is to do what the rest
of world has not: reach the poor, not rich, with relatively more expensive
power. But even after doing all this and more, it is also a fact that India
will remain dependent on coal for the coming years.
So, why do I say it is hypocritical to ask India not to use coal? The
fact is that coal is still the mainstay of energy production in most parts
of the rich world. The only countries, which have weaned themselves
away from coal, are those that use nuclear on a large-scale (like France
and Sweden) or those with natural gas (like the US and large parts of
Europe). The hard inconvenient truth is that the US President is an
anti-coal campaigner because his country has options of large finds of
shale gas. It is gas versus coal, not climate concerns versus coal. It is now
convenient for him to be green and to preach to the world.
The fact also is that shale and natural gas are not necessarily clean or
green. Gas is also a fossil fuel, and even though its carbon dioxide emis-
sions are lower than that of coal, there is huge uncertainty about meth-
ane emissions from gas. Therefore, transition to gas from coal is not
03Energy(58-81).indd 75 23/05/16 8:10 PM

76
even an intermediate solution to countries, which should be reducing

their total emissions in the interest of climate change. While countries
like India need atmospheric space to grow, countries like the US and
Australia and even Europe have exhausted their claim to the common
atmospheric space (more on this in the climate change chapter). They
have to make the transition, not to shale, but to solar. Not tomorrow,
but today.
But this is not what global ngos are screaming about. The rich have
not reduced their carbon footprint by reducing consumption. As yet, it
is only a game of switching from dirty to not-so-dirty fuels. In this view,
the poor in the world have to take on the burden of climate change by
moving to renewables and reducing consumption. This is the definition
of justice in the rich man’s world. n
03Energy(58-81).indd 76 23/05/16 8:10 PM

77
{ Closed circle
The renewable energy sector is limited to
consultants who want the business and the industry
It was a trade exhibition, abuzz with the restrained chatter of busy

suited executives at company stalls making contacts and finalising deals.
Nothing out of place except that this trade was about renewable energy
technologies, which have unconventional reasons for growth. First,
these technologies are seen as the most economical and feasible source
of energy for millions of people unconnected to the electricity grid
and having no electricity to light their houses or cook their food. This
energy poverty is disabling and needs to be eradicated. Introduction
of decentralised and improved technologies paves the way to catapult
the poorest of the households into the most modern systems. Secondly,
these technologies—from wind and solar to biomass—provide cleaner
low-carbon energy options to combat climate change. These are future
systems critical for the survival of all.
Strangely enough the gathering knew none of these objectives. For
them it was just a business, made lucrative by public investment. It was
only business as usual. But this is a fundamental disconnect. The fact is
that the business of renewable technologies is based on a different ration-
ale and explicit social objectives. The fact also is that this business, because
of these objectives, is being supported through public financing and sub-
sidy. Therefore, the business is not about the usual, but the unusual.
This unusual business requires different models of growth, which
can promote entrepreneurship, innovation and profit, but for common
and environmental good. If this does not happen, the public subsidy and
public goodwill for this business will be lost. The future will be squan-
dered. We know that the fastest penetration of new energy sources is
most likely to happen in regions still growing in provisioning of basic
necessities. The already rich have built their energy infrastructure; they
are energy reckless. They need to move to clean energy, for their massive
carbon footprint is taking the world down. According to the International
Energy Agency, the growth of primary energy supply in Organisation for
03Energy(58-81).indd 77 23/05/16 8:10 PM

78
Economic Cooperation and Development (oecd) countries is expected

to be 0.3 per cent annually, while in India, it will be the highest at three per
cent annually between 2009 and 2035. The infrastructure is being built
now; it is most appropriate not to “lock out” renewable and clean energy.
We also know that the countries ahead in building new energy infra-
structure also have the largest number of poor people, who do not have
access to energy. The World Energy Outlook also tells us that there is
huge energy poverty in the world, and that this energy source is still priced
higher than conventional energy systems. Here lies the nub of the prob-
lem. The poorest need access to what are currently the most expensive
systems. This is possible only with massive public-financed programmes
that drive down the cost.
It is not as if renewable energy is per se a new venture. Currently,
10-12 per cent of the primary energy supply comes from renewable
sources (not counting hydroelectricity). But new renewables—tech-
nologies of the future—still make up only one to two per cent of this
supply. The rest comes from biomass systems of the poor like the stove
that burns wood or cow dung. These are the clients who can now either
take the next step on the energy ladder to kerosene or lpg, or can jump
to the top of the ladder by moving to modern biomass energy sources.
These are the same clients who are in the dark and today have the option
of selecting decentralised mini-grids for their energy needs. But if these
are the people who are the targets of the new venture, then business is
completely out of touch with its customers.
The future is becoming dark. The same business with the same
wheeling and dealing to make a fast buck is taking over the future. A
few years ago, when the Centre for Science and Environment studied
the wind energy scenario in India, it found that the business had
subverted the purpose for profit. Wind farms set up across the country
were generating little energy. It found that the business of wind had
the worst characteristics of the market: it was closed, monopolistic and
unregulated. The turbine manufacturer was also the energy supplier.
Capital incentives given to this crucial sector were used to create
investment, not power.
The solar scam—where a single company, lanco, a coal power
03Energy(58-81).indd 78 23/05/16 8:10 PM

79
major, used every dirty tactic in the corporate larder to subvert govern-
ment guidelines and take over the public subsidy package—is another
instance of this business going the wrong way. This is not the business
of clean energy. This is the dirty business of "dirty" energy. The problem
also is that nobody wants to talk about this “aberration”. The proponents
of clean energy are social and environmental advocates. They do not
want to rock the boat. As a result, there is no public scrutiny of research
on this new business. The circle of knowledge and influence in this sec-
tor is limited to consultants who want the business and industry, which
is in the business itself. It is in everybody’s interest to keep a tight lid on
the murky side of the operations. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is their motto.
It’s time to change. This time, for the better, not worse. n
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80
{ Green politics for green technologies

The sector is growing with the worst characteristics of the
market and we continue to pour huge public largesse
That we need “green” technologies—wind, solar or biomass gasifica-

tion—for future energy security is no longer a matter of debate. The
critical question, now, is: under what conditions can these emerging
technologies be introduced into the market? The answer is not so sim-
ple. Most innovation and manufacture in these new sectors lie with pri-
vate players. At the same time, the creation of “favourable” conditions
for application is at the door of government and public policy.
The question becomes even more complex when you consider both
technology and application belong to an uncharted territory. As with
any new technology, there will be a learning curve in its application,
which must lead to innovation, both in technology development and in
its practice. Herein lies the catch. If we don’t get the public-private part-
nership right, if we don’t allow for research, regulation and scrutiny, we
will end up nowhere. The technology will be a sham applied for short-
term profit, not change.
There is no denying that incentives are needed. The problem is fiscal
benefits come without regulatory support. The sop-soaked package of
giving 80 per cent depreciation (it was 200 per cent some years ago) in
the first year is a tax bonanza. So it should not come as a surprise that
hotel companies, spinning mills and even film stars have invested in wind
energy. It pushes investment. But there is no interest in power generation.
The fact is we promoted this technology in the business-as-usual
mode. We did not demand a new working relationship between pub-
lic and private. In fact, we allowed this sector to grow with the worst
characteristics of the market and we continued to pour public largesse.
Currently, the wind energy business is closed, monopolistic and unregu-
lated—the turbine maker (very few in the market) arranges with investor
companies to set up wind farms. The same turbine maker then supplies
equipment and is further paid to operate and maintain equipment. In this
completely integrated business, nobody knows the cost of manufacturing
03Energy(58-81).indd 80 23/05/16 8:10 PM

81
a wind-mill. Nobody knows what it costs to manage a wind farm that does
not generate much power. Nobody is interested in reducing costs and
increasing efficiency of power generation. As a result, unlike other parts
of the world, in India, the capital and running costs of wind power gener-
ation have increased, even though the market dictates the cost decrease
with economies of scale.
In this “closed” economy, there is little public scrutiny, or research.
The only people who know are in its circle of influence—consultants
who get business, or business itself. Not a single wind company respond-
ed to issues we raised. Not a single “expert” was willing to go on record.
Nobody could explain why the plant load factor (plf) of wind energy
projects is so low, or what it should be. Is this because of lack of data
on the actual performance of wind energy projects? Is it because wind
energy data, though available, does not reflect the variability of wind
regimes? Can the technology potential be optimised? the potential of the
region? Questions never asked. Answers, not given.
This is deadly, when you consider all new technologies have a “learn-
ing curve”. The application must cause public programmes to be modi-
fied and so evolve. In the case of wind, policy must promote incentives
for generation—increase tariffs and reduce subsidy for capital. Also, if we
don’t fix the public-private relationship at the beginning, vested interests
will creep in and make it difficult to go for change. In July 2008, after
much delay, government did bite the bullet and agreed to a genera-
tion-based incentive scheme for wind energy. But it has not modified the
existing scheme, which gives incentives for capital. So this add-on
scheme, meant for those who “choose not to take advantage of capital
subsidy and tax depreciation” will clearly lead to little change. We need a
new model in all these cases. It has to be 4Ps—public-private-pub-
lic-partnership. The public regulator has to drive the purpose of technol-
ogy introduction; private industry must be accountable since public
funds fuel its business, and, at all stages, public research and public scru-
tiny must be welcomed. Let us be clear, green technologies need green
politics as well. n
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04Governance(82-99).indd 82 23/05/16 8:10 PM

{4 Governance
The mandate of the people must become
our insurance for change

84
{ Nirbhaya in a deaf world

The quintessential protester reflects
our crumbling governance system
The last image of 2012 was protesters storming the bastion of Delhi,
outraged at the brutal rape of a young girl, named by one media house
as Nirbhaya or fearless, and the culture of violence against women. This
outburst by the educated middle class, many of them young women,
was spontaneous as much as it was leaderless. We need to think about
the response of the government to this protest and others. We need to
understand if the Indian State has any clue about what is going on under
its nose—and feet.
In this case, on the first day people had gathered, peacefully but res-
olutely, to register their anger. The educated middle class was innocent,
and arrogant, enough to believe it should be allowed to march to the
grand presidential palace, a symbol of power and compassion in their
eyes. But the government reacted with horror. It used water cannons
and tear gas shells to quell the protest. The next day, the numbers
swelled, social networks got busy calling for a gathering and sadness for
the young victim turned into anger against the callous State.
In all this, there was absolute silence from top politicians. Nobody
walked into the crowd, held a megaphone and shared the grief of the
people. Nobody came out to explain that the government would indeed
take the required action to fast track conviction of the vile rapists and
beef up security across the city; that it would make its people feel safe.
Instead, politicians and bureaucrats hid behind their many-layered secu-
rity walls. The irony was there for all to see. The disgust grew.
To make amends, the then ruling United Progressive Alliance (upa)
chairperson Sonia Gandhi and her heir Rahul Gandhi decided to meet a
few “representatives” to convince them of the government’s intent. But
the fact is that this “movement”—for want of another word—has no
representatives. It is leaderless. It is just a collection of people brought
together by common anger. They needed to talk to all, not some.
This was not the first and last time this has happened. Take the protest

85
against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, just before
the protests over the gangrape incident. As the plant came close to com-
missioning, protesters blockaded the plant and held vigils and rallies to say
that they believe the plant is a hazard to their life and livelihood as fishers.
In this case, unlike the middle-class Delhi protesters, it was fisherfolk who
were agitating. They had seen what had happened in Fukushima on their
television screens. Whether right or wrong, these ordinary Indians were
convinced of the dangers of nuclear power. They needed answers. They
needed assurance from their leaders.
Instead, what they got was first disdain—what do the illiterate know
about complicated nuclear affairs. Then contempt—scientists chosen to
examine safety concerns were top pro-nuclear scientists. Then rejec-
tion—the government dismissed the movement as funded by foreign
money. When all this did not work, the response was brutal police action.
No leader had the credibility to speak to their own people to explain the
hazards and the steps taken to safeguard the plant.
But there is much more to these protests. We must fear we are losing
the plot. The fact is that each such movement reflects concerns—valid,
exaggerated or emotional—that need to be addressed. And the failure
in doing so will eat up our insides, corrode the very being of the country.
On the one hand, the establishment of governance is crumbling. It
has inadequate ability to research, to enquire and, therefore, to assure
that it will protect the interests of the weakest. Our regulatory institu-
tions have been dismembered and disabled so they have no credibility.
They cannot prepare independent safety assessments. They cannot
drive any change to build confidence that all is well.
On the other hand, our political leadership is losing its ability to face
the very people who elect it to power. They cannot stand up and talk.
And every time they do not reach out to the people, they get even more
cocooned and even more isolated. And every time, people lose faith in
the political establishment—urban middle classes embrace fascism and
the poor arm against the State. It is a bad portent.
In 2011, Time magazine anointed “the protester” as the person of
the year. Clearly, this is the image that has captured the world—from
dissent against the lack of democracy and repression in large parts of

86
West Asia to anger against economic policies in vast and disparate parts
of the world in 2011, as well as in the years that have passed on since.
People, all over, are saying enough is enough. But what will happen
to these voices in the coming years? Will the movements of protesters be
enough to change the way the world runs its business? Do these move-
ments even know what they want?
It is important to understand that there are similarities and yet huge
differences in protest movements against economic policies in the rich
and the getting-rich world. The US-born Occupy Wall Street move-
ment’s slogan was “we are the 99 per cent who will no longer tolerate the
greed and corruption of the 1 per cent”. The movement, which began in
New York and then spread across many states, was squelched in many
places by aggressive city governments.
The movement was leaderless and people-powered. It had no mani-
festo and no actionable agenda on how Wall Street must be reformed or
how the global economy must be restructured so that it could meet the
needs of all. In this way, it is easy to dismiss this movement as just one
more protest that will go nowhere.
In Atlanta, the occupy-our-home movement wanted to take over
houses of people who would be thrown out by banks because of default
in mortgage payments. It argued the assessment of property values was
too high and banks had too much power to throw out people, even if
they defaulted on one payment. In Washington, the occupy-the-vote-
DC movement demanded electoral representation for the federal city.
The list goes on.
But there is another possibility. The fact is that this movement—as
with many similar movements in the rich-but-economically-troubled
world—has struck a chord. Today, the same rich world, which was
secure in its consumption and comfort, is finding the going tough.
Things it took for granted are no longer easily available—from homes
and medical facilities to education and jobs. Ordinary people are being
hit by what governments call necessary austerity measures. They are
hitting back in every way they can.
These movements represent many uncomfortable and inconvenient
issues that are refusing to go away. The rumbling that began in mid-2008

87
with the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers has become a roar as more
banks and national economies collapse. This is in spite of governments
doing all they can to portray that they have arrested the financial col-
lapse. The problem is that the world’s economic managers do not believe
there is any real option to restructure economies so that they consume
less, pollute less and still grow in wellbeing, if not in wealth.
The problem is that we are wedded to this one ideology of growth. It
is for this reason that in spite of all the perturbations and upheavals, the
same people who have put us in this place continue to be in charge of fix-
ing the problems of growth. It is no wonder that the protest movements
are also on the rise. And even if they do not have the answers to the prob-
lems, they know that the current policies are not working. Their anguish
reminds us that real change must happen, tomorrow or the day after. n

88
{ Ordering a new “natural” world

The world is fast becoming a giant US trusteeship
The world has changed after Iraq, everybody who is somebody would
believe this in the 21st century. “Iraq” is almost a duly recognised word
to mark the invasion of country by the US in 2003. It’s a defining geo-
political event. But just how much has the world changed? The picture
that is emerging from the contemplations of the most powerful minds
sets out the game-plan of a drastically changed world. Today’s foreign
policy is based on security concerns. Terrorism is an invisible enemy and
can never really disappear. So the world will be ordered by a doctrine of
“search-destroy-control”.
Sources of insecurity have been redefined too. It is not only enemy
states that are threats. But insecurity arises from the “new wars”—vio-
lence of the state against civilians, organised crime and the “new viruses
of national and religious extremism”. These threats breed in what are
known as collapsed or failed states—authoritarian regimes, unable to
adapt to the pressures of globalisation.
The theory is that the natural resource regions of the world—oil-
rich, mineral-rich, forest-rich—remain marginalised and poor because
the elite and powerful in these nations appropriate the enormous
wealth. Natural resources like oil become an impediment to democ-
racy and wealth distribution. These are the resource-rich, low-income
nations, with weak institutions and failed public policy. The “failed” State
breeds civil wars and growing cycles of violence. Therefore, there is a
need for global intervention so that the rule of law can be established,
new institutions built and natural resource wealth equitably distributed.
“Oil for the people” is the war dividend in Iraq and would be in many
other countries, where such intervention would be ordered.
Therefore, it is argued that peace, order and stability can best be
furthered “not by reconfiguring the distribution of power among states
but by altering the authority structure within states”. In other words,
America’s protection demands that it should fix messy-nations quickly.

89
Speed is part of the foreign policy design. Traditional interventions

through the UN or through the aid and assistance programmes of mul-
tilateral agencies take too much time and are inefficient. Therefore, the
principles of international legal sovereignty, under which intervention
was possible through international agreement must be abandoned and
replaced by the doctrine of coerced regime change.
The new principle is about “shared sovereignty”—in which external
actors take on the management of the resources of these repressive and
corrupt regimes. What is being discussed, certainly in top US academ-
ic-security levels, and perhaps in the top echelons of the administration,
is to look for new and innovative and institutional methods—other than
military action—for coercing change.
For instance, there are proposals to use external actors like the
International Monetary Fund (imf) for the oversight and management
of national central banks; American law enforcement officials operating
in these countries; foreign government and even private firms taking
over the running of the different departments of the “collapsing” coun-
tries. There is also the possible creation of a corporate style board of
directors—comprising World Bank, imf and oil companies and even
civil society—as permanent and long-term arrangements of states. The
Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline project of the World Bank, which has
created a trust fund for revenues and oversight by global civil society, is
cited as an instance that can be replicated at a much larger scale.
The plan is delicious because it is so simple. Run the country, deliver
justice and share the proceeds of the natural resources with the people,
not the elite. The world will be a giant US trusteeship. But what the old
imperialists—Europe—should tell the US is that such plans often go
awry. It is not always easy to foster democracy through the gun or even
the dollar.
But this is the realist world view, which places priority on the sacred
selfishness of countries and the defence of their self-interest. This is also
another view which is gaining over the fading multilateralist world view,
which demands giving up sovereignty in some areas, so that internation-
al rules for cooperation can be the basis of action. The problem is that
the rule-making class—Europe and its allies—are seen as the wimps.

90
The warrior class is on the ascendancy.

But all is not lost. To bring change, it is important for us to accept
that the global problem-solving mechanisms are not working adequate-
ly. We also need the redesign or reform of current global institutions
or new ways of working around the system—networks of institutions,
private-public actors—to rebuild the global consensus once again.
Rethinking the old world order is vital if we want to reinvigorate it. The
world is increasingly interdependent. It is increasingly small. It requires
the cooperation of all, not the coercion of some. n

91
{ Time to be different
The 2009 elections that could, but did not change India
The United Progressive Alliance (upa) government was thrown out

in 2014 after a decade in power. For many political pundits, the victory
of the Bhartiya Janata Party (bjp) is a game changer and they pointed
out what a young nation wanted from a government. But for me, the
re-election of the upa in 2009 is a much more powerful indicator of what
people in world’s largest democracy want in terms of governance.
Let me explain. It was not the Indo-US nuclear deal which won
the Congress party the elections in 2009. It was the National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act (rechristined as Mahatma Gandhi National
Rural Employment Guarantee Act in 2009), which provided people
entitlement to work, gave them cash to survive drought or a flood.
Similarly, it was not the ecstasy of the stock market, the opening of the
retail sector or the grandiose special economic zones that won the day.
This government was re-elected—as its leaders reminded people in their
rallies—because it gave better prices to farmers, wrote off loans and gave
tribals and other poor forest dwellers rights over their land.
In other words, it got elected for all the “wrong” things, as the reform-
ists put it. The reformists, immediately after the re-election, made it clear
that as the noisy, obstructionist Communist formation was out of the
alliance, they wanted more reform. They wanted it fast. They wanted to
divorce politics from governance. They wanted “populist” things, good
to win votes and rally people, out of the way. Corporate leaders had
taken over the airwaves to hammer in the market reform agenda. People
seemed already forgotten within a few weeks of government formation.
Finally, after a tenure that got washed away by a deluge of scandals and
the ever under-performing economy, the upa government was thrown
out. The bjp came to power and its mantra seems to be what econo-
mists/experts prescribed the upa in the second term.
So are we in for another interregnum between elections, when the
government will focus on the “real” agenda of the corporate world and

92
forget the issues that got it the votes?

After all, this is a time the entire free-market loving world is learning
that greed is not so good, and that a corporate-driven agenda creates
havoc. Today, all countries are re-evaluating their policies—some seri-
ously. All top know-it-all economists agree they still don’t know how the
world economy will fare. They are beginning to admit, albeit in whispers,
the consumer-driven economic model shows fatal weakness. It is now
clear that countries are more vulnerable when driven by the assumption
that people living somewhere else will have an infinite ability to spend
and consume. In these times, we also need a new growth model, driven
by resilience and sustainability.
This is a time for difference. Instead of focusing on bankrupt ideas—
disinvestment in the public sector; foreign direct investment (fdi) in
retail; privatisation of insurance, banks and pension funds—we can
think of strategies that combine the needs of all with growth for all.
Take the employment guarantee scheme, dismissed as a corrupt,
inefficient programme. The fact is this scheme is no different from what
the rich world is today re-discovering in the name of Keynesian public
investment-driven recovery programmes. It invests public funds to cre-
ate public assets with the labour of poor people. The opportunity lies in
using such labour to build assets: for relief against drought, for instance.
The national rural employment programme is already the world’s big-
gest ecological regeneration effort—more than 12 million waterbodies
being dug, desilted or renovated. We must make sure these waterbodies
are not just holes in the ground, but those that will capture the next rain
and recharge the aquifer.
It is possible. Doable. People’s desperation and demand for work,
already recognised, must now be converted into a demand for develop-
ment. People will use their labour to plan their village regeneration plans
and then build their own durable assets. This is not possible without
giving people rights over their resources—their local forest and their
water resources. This is the “reform” the top leadership must believe in.
This is particularly relevant to the bjp-led government that had to man-
age two severe droughts in its first two years. The 2016 drought is very
severe and the attention is back to the most fundamental necessities like

93
availability of drinking water.

Another big-ticket concern is dryland and rainfed agriculture.
Most of today’s India, after years of public investment in surface irriga-
tion structures, remains dependent on increasingly variable rain. The
monsoon is the true finance minister for most poor Indians. We must
recognise multipurpose agriculture as practised in dryland areas—com-
bining coarse cereals with animal care and its products all mixed with
off-farm products like artisanal craft—is one way to build affordable and
resilient economies. Today our policies discount and destroy these local
economies. Tomorrow, our strategies must build on their strengths. For
instance, fiscal policies must recognise crops that minimise the use of
water—more crops per drop—and include “coarse” cereals in the public
distribution system. Simultaneously, we must build local water security,
to enhance productivity. We must do this not by increasing costs of cul-
tivation but by reducing costs and investing in resilience.
The challenge is also to invest big in building employment oppor-
tunities for the future. But this will demand recognising jobs where
we do not see they exist. Currently, all our policies push for organised
business, in retail or in manufacturing. But we forget this business is not
labour intensive and tends to collapse when the world sneezes. We need
employment which is domestic, built on multiple opportunities and
comprises millions of enterprises.
The next reform must be in education and health—reinvent ways to
ensure the systems are efficient, affordable and accessible to all. Public
investment in these sectors does not work if it is not accountable. And
private investment will not flow into these sectors, which, being about
the poor, are not profitable. So, we will have to do things differently,
without dogma, with the idea of reform for those who voted the gov-
ernment to power. Remember, corporate India had anointed Narendra
Modi as their prime minister when he was the chief minister of Gujarat
with the hope that their bankrupt ideas would get political traction.
They dumped Manmohan Singh, the former prime minister and who is
recognised as the father of economic reform. However, this government
should realise that the power didn’t come from the corporate, but from
the hope of the poor. This trust must be kept. It is time to be different. n

94
{ The battle of the Indian bulge – I

The poor are always the losers when profiteers are the
managers of the State
In Nagpur city, women gathered outside a court on August 13, 2004. In

broad daylight they lynched a local serial rapist. When four women were
arrested, a few hundred women owned up to the crime. They said they
killed Akku Yadav because the local police did little to stop his criminal
reign of terror; they feared the court would release him, and took mat-
ters in their hand. But why am I writing about vigilante killings?
To me, this incident is less about the women. It is more about their
fear that they would not get justice. Their desperation shows just how
disabled the State has become. The apparatus—of services, or law and
order—is today thoroughly compromised. Broken in spirit, the State’s
capacities stand decimated, through deliberate abuse or apathy. For
Nagpur’s women, there is no State.
Now switch to another scene: an evening lecture in Delhi. A mid-
dle-class audience is discussing the pollution of the river Yamuna, which
flows through their city. This pollution is also about how the city’s rich
use water and the sewage system, but are loathe to pay for it. The real
pollution is this subsidy the rich enjoy, in the name of the poor, so that a
public utility is unable to manage its business. But that is not the way this
audience sees it.
They are categorical about their angst vis-a-vis the State. It should
wither away, they believe. “We generate our own electricity with gener-
ators, we buy bottled water to drink, we have our own security agencies
to guard us, we go to private hospitals to be treated.” “Why should we
pay for these services, why should we pay anything to the government?”
So goes the rhetoric, of these rich vigilante citizens.
Was it then a coincidence, that in one of his Independence Day
addresses, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to remind
us “governments cannot be wished away?” What does it mean when a
nation’s leader has to defend the right of the State to literally go about

95
its business?
Whether it is a case of the State failing its citizens—Nagpur—or
citizens failing the State—Delhi’s rich—the fact is that, today, a system is
being worked to death. We are working it to death. And helping us is the
bureaucracy—the State’s managers—by conveniently handing over its
work to “whosoever it may concern” without losing the perks that come
with their non-jobs. This is visible in every sphere of our lives: education,
health, transport or water.
First, we deliberately disable our public institutions. We do this by
not investing adequately in these services, and then in creating an inter-
est in running inefficient and incompetent institutions for the sake of it.
Most public institutions today run to pay salaries, not to deliver services
to the people they are meant for. In public health service institutions, for
instance, salaries gobble up 70-80 per cent of the total (meagre) funds
allocated to this sector. How can such a system deliver? If its managers
compromise the public system, its workers maul it; whatever is left
becomes the playground of the very rich. And all of this happens in the
name of the poor.
Let’s look at the health sector. In this poor country, as much as 82 per
cent of all outpatient visits take place in the private sector today. And
government’s tactical support is evident. It gives away land at throwaway
prices, subsidises the private sector, in the name of the poor. The rich
hospitals are “expected” to use their largesse to provide free or accessi-
ble services for the poor. But this rarely happens. Why should it? In this
way, public health services are completely compromised. Worse, given
the enormous disparities in income, the poor are denied access. Only an
efficient and high-quality public support system can provide health care
for all. But by now, too much has been lost.
Second, we create vested interests, which then work against change.
Transport is a perfect example of this. We have decimated the public
transport infrastructure—railways and city buses—so that today, at
best, it is a playground for petty trade union politics, which survives
on State largesse. In its place, a massive industry built on private trans-
port—trucks, cars and scooters—has come up. The private sector has
been given a free run, the argument being that it would be profitable and

96
efficient. But few of us realise that all road infrastructure projects, being
built by the “efficient” private sector, are subsidised by the State—as
much as 20-30 per cent of the land acquisition costs are borne by the
exchequer in these projects.
No wonder the poor end up as losers. No wonder that the real prof-
iteers end up being the managers of the State. Electoral politics dictates
that their interests are not fiddled with. They have even less to do, but
can make more money by milking the private sector for personal gains.
They have the ultimate interest in weakening the government. It is this
battle of the Indian bulge that will determine our future. n

97
{ The battle of the Indian bulge – II

We have become a knowledge-proof society
I never thought I would write in defence of the Indian State. But I am.
The de-construction of the notion of public space and the practice of
public service is evident and will cripple us enormously. But I am also
clear that re-construction will demand considerable innovation. We will
be fooling ourselves if we believe that merely doing more of what we do
now serves any purpose. The State is vital. But today it is too full of blub-
ber. It is this bulge which needs to be revamped and re-strengthened, so
that the State can play its role effectively. In this dog-eat-dog world, it
must function as a true custodian of the public interest.
So any reform that seeks to strengthen its institutional fabric will have
to be driven by its real political and public masters. In other words, the
State will have to be driven to work. How should this be done? First, I
would argue we need to ascertain, quite literally, the role of government.
This issue cannot be taken for granted anymore. We need to clarify what
its role will be, so far as basic services, education and health and basic
needs, water and food are concerned. We also must clarify the govern-
ment’s role as the public interest regulator. This clarity of purpose is vital.
For today, most government action is taken in a mindless and heartless
manner. Government agencies have turned into paper pushers; they fid-
dle with procedures and budgets, without knowing why or what it is that
they are doing. Government has become one large bloated clerkdom.
Then, we need to plug its weaknesses. We need to critique its failures.
Not so that we move to paralysis by analysis, but for the sake of cathar-
sis by analysis. For instance, we must accept that public agencies today
seriously lack expertise to manage change. Take water services. Everyone
will agree that clean and safe water is a must for all. Yet, everyone will also
agree that public institutions are not delivering this basic need. Therefore
as the State falters, the private sector steps in. Today, large parts of rich
urban India drink bottled water. Remember, this is water the private
entrepreneur does not pay for but simply rips off the aquifer, cleans (to

98
some extent) and then bottles to deliver to homes. But it services a need.
The health costs of unsafe water are deadly for the poor. And in all this,
the battered public services continue to provide subsidy to the water and
sewage of the rich. Everyone will agree this is unacceptable.
But what everyone will not agree upon is the way ahead. Some will
argue for public-private partnership, for them a euphemism for private
takeover of the publicly created facility. Others will argue for control of
the public institution: there should be no talk of private capital and cer-
tainly no talk of capitalist tools like pricing of water or fiscal regulations.
As I see it, both are right, to an extent. The public-proponents are
right in saying that the public purpose of the service must be maintained.
But the private-proponents are also right when they say the public
institution is weak in capacity and expertise. The Delhi Jal Board, for
instance, has employees far in excess of what it needs to discharge its
functions as a public water utility. Even worse, this is a workforce with-
out expertise. Therefore, to do anything at all, technical or innovative, it
needs to call in external consultants. Because it cannot fix from within,
and it is easier to bypass than to reform.
Such a lack of expertise is a serious problem because it forces a silent
takeover by parties that possess some knowledge but has lots of vested
interest. In all this, the role of the State as public regulator is grossly
compromised because it just does not possess the ability to negotiate
on behalf of public policy. And so it happens that state institutions can
work for private and sectoral interests in the guise of public interest. The
system does not demand any performance or merit. It only demands
complacency. Roll over and play dead. Let the competing private inter-
ests slug it out. Slugfest over, profit again by declaring the temporary
winner. In all this, arrogance and the stench of power covers up the
incompetence.
In other words, the reform of public institutions will demand
strengthening of its knowledge capacities. How will this be done? It
is often mistakenly said, given the chimera of our software business,
that we are a knowledge society. In fact, we must realise that we are
increasingly a knowledge-proof society. Public institutions are immune
to knowledge. In fact, I would say, they are insured against it. And it is

99
precisely this insurance against change that must be dismantled. The

chinks in the armour must become a hole. How? The mandate of the
people, the very one our politicians love to boast about, must become
our insurance for change. n

05Urbanisation(100-115).indd 100 23/05/16 8:11 PM

{5 Urbanisation
In our rush to create resource and capital intensive
behemoths, we are leveraging our survival spaces

102
{ How to think smartly?

Use the trajectory of the mobile phone and build future
solutions by skipping the landline
Smart is as smart does. The National Democratic Alliance (nda)

government’s proposal to build 100 “smart” cities will work only if it
can reinvent the very idea of urban growth in a country like India. The
advantage is that there is no agreed definition of smart city. Very loosely
it is seen as a settlement where technology is used to bring about effi-
ciency in resource use and improvement in the level of services. All this
is needed.
But before we can bring in smart technology, we need to know what
to do with it. How do we build new cities and repair groaning urban
settlements to provide clean water to all, to manage the growing moun-
tains of garbage, to treat sewage before we destroy our rivers and to do
something as basic as breathing without inhaling toxins?
It can be done. Take water, sewage, mobility or air pollution. The
current model of resource management, developed in rich Western cit-
ies, is costly. It cannot be afforded by all. Even these cities cannot rebuild
the paraphernalia for providing services to their people. This system
was built years ago, when the city had funds and grew gradually with
recurring, high investment. Even if we were to build greenfield cities, we
cannot wish for such investment. We need a new approach to humane
urban growth.
The first principle in this is to accept that we have to renew what
already exists. Take water, for example. Our cities have been built to
optimise on the available resources. They were smart in building lakes
and ponds to harvest every drop of rain. This ensured that the city
recharged its water table and did not face floods every time it rained. We
need to revive that system. It may not be adequate to meet the growing
needs of the city, but will cut costs by reducing the length of the pipeline
and bring down distribution losses. Once we do this, we should add the
smartest technology for measuring supply and for reducing demand.
Flush toilets are antiquated. We need smart appliances to conserve

103
water and smart ways to recycle it.

This then is the next agenda. We know our cities do not have under-
ground sewerage to speak of. A very un-smart thing to do would be to
fall into the trap of civil engineers to build sewerage network. Delhi,
which has the highest network of sewerage lines (some 5,000 km), needs
to build another 10,000 km to meet the need of its current population
(more on this in the next essay). Now, knowing that the existing network,
built over a century, is already clogged and broken, the task is impossible.
We know our cities used septic tanks or open drains for sewage man-
agement. So instead of burying these drains, the aim should be to treat
sewage in these channels and to reuse the recycled water. Use the trajec-
tory of the mobile phone; build future solutions by skipping the landline.
We can do this in the case of energy as well. Today, our cities are
pampered by subsidy because energy cost is high and supply is squeezed.
Why can’t we build a new grid for the city based on solar rooftop gener-
ation and super energy-efficient appliances?
This should also be the approach for designing mobility. Our cities
have been built to be car-free. We are now desperately shoving, pushing
and parking vehicles down the narrow lanes. Think smart. Change the
idea of mobility itself—build for walking, cycling, bus and metro.
So we can only build smart cities if we are smart. Really smart. n

104
{ Pampering abuse
Lutyens’ Delhi is an elite gated community that overuses
every resource. Why is it then in the Smart Cities list?
At the heart of the world’s biggest economy, exclusion is the gram-

mar of governance. The Government of India has decided to select
New Delhi—Lutyens’ Delhi—for the smart city makeover. Under this
scheme, 20 cities have been selected based on “rigorous” criteria to
improve urban living. The Government of India will now provide funds
and expertise to make the city “smart”—defined as innovative approach-
es to improvement in urban services. This means that the government
will spend on facilities to make its own living area even better and more
removed from the squalor, poverty and pollution of the rest of India.
The announcement declaring New Delhi Municipal Council (ndmc)
a winner of the smart city challenge came when the rest of Delhi was
drowning in urban waste. Municipal workers had gone on a strike in
January, 2016, alleging non-payment of their dues. They blocked traf-
fic; sanitation workers dumped garbage on the roads; and they almost
created a law and order problem. The contrast between where the gov-
ernment lives and where the rest of the citizens live could not have been
more evident and striking. The fact that the government was now invest-
ing even more to make its own world better is a damning indictment of
its non-inclusive approach to urban India.
Just think. This is India’s gated community of elite access. Of the
total land area of Delhi, Lutyens’ city—named after the British urban
planner and constructed to reflect the grandeur of the colonial state—is
only three per cent. The Government of India owns over 80 per cent of
the land, including the buildings in the Lutyens zone. No democracy is at
work here. The ndmc is a council and not a corporation, so it is headed
not by an elected representative but by a bureaucrat.
It is also a parasite of a city; it has the highest water footprint as
compared to any other part of India. Its daily per capita water supply is
462 litres, while in other parts of the same city people get below 30 litres.

105
Even as per government’s own norms, which specify highest water sup-
ply as 150 litres per capita per day, this is excessive, indeed gluttonous
and wasteful. This water inequity is shameful and should have, in fact,
disqualified Lutyens’ Delhi from any smart city challenge in my view.
It is also highly land-extravagant. While the city of Delhi has been
imploding with a decadal growth rate of almost 50 per cent, the ndmc
area is so privileged that it has a negative decadal growth rate of two per
cent, according to its own sub-zonal plan. In other words, people are
not welcome in this gated city. In this city of India, over 30 per cent of
the land is under recreational purposes. This is so out of sync with the
rest of the city and indeed the rest of India that is fighting for its inches
of green spaces.
But even with all this land, the gated city of ndmc does not manage
its own waste. This is sent to the rest of Delhi’s landfills. Its land is too
precious for its waste. It does a lot of “cute” stuff like segregation of
waste and even involves rag pickers in collecting waste from households.
But the bulk of its waste goes to Okhla, where the compost plant is dys-
functional, and the rest to Delhi’s overflowing Ghazipur landfill. This is
when it has no shortage of funds as government spends on itself without
any questions.
New Delhi is not a smart city for all these reasons. It is certainly not
a city that can be replicated in the rest of India. It is resource-inefficient,
highly iniquitous and highly environmentally unprincipled. This is not
what smart cities should stand for.
Former New York mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s foun-
dation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, is government’s knowledge partner
for the Smart Cities Initiative. This initiative will define what smart cities
will mean for India and what we must aspire to. It is important for this
reason alone that they must choose wisely. n

106
{ Breaking the green building myth

Why nobody wants the new God to be questioned
There is no question that India and other parts of the still-under-con-

struction world must build green. The building sector is a major contrib-
utor to climate change and local environmental destruction because of
construction materials used; energy expended for lighting, heating and
cooling; and water consumption and waste discharge. This is the threat.
There is an opportunity as well. Most of India is still unbuilt—over 70
per cent of the building stock is yet to be constructed—so unlike the rest
of the already developed world, India can build anew in an efficient and
sustainable manner. But how?
This is an issue that troubles me. Over the past few years the idea
of green buildings has gained popularity—everybody, it would seem,
has turned a new leaf. Across the country large and small constructions
are advertised as the greenest of green. To prove that they are indeed
environment-friendly, the business of certification has also grown.
There are agencies that now rate and award individual buildings based
on certain parameters. Many state governments are making these
same standards of “greenness” mandatory. Some are even providing
incentives, like exemptions on property tax, to those buildings that
qualify as environment-friendly.
All this is important but do we know what green means?
When I began asking this question, what surprised me was the hos-
tility with which it was received. Nobody wanted the new God to be
questioned. Nobody wanted to be asked something as simple as what the
post-commissioning performance of a green building was. We realised
that the interests—of architects, builders, auditors and certifiers—in this
new industry were already entrenched. It was a cozy club and nobody
was keen to give us entry.
We dug in our heels. Buildings are the key to a cleaner and green-
er future. The building sector uses, already, some 40 per cent of the
country’s electricity generation. So, every effort made to reduce energy

107
intensity of buildings will go a long way. We wanted to know what was

happening and what more could be done to reduce the material-use
footprint and emissions of every construction.
Let’s bust some myths and explore alternative approaches. First,
the general approach is to build wrongly and then “fit in” the green fea-
tures. For instance, glass-enveloped buildings are certified green, simply
because they install double or triple insulating glass or five-star air-con-
ditioners to cool places that were first heated up deliberately.
Secondly, rating systems are being pushed through government and
municipal schemes without any evidence that green-certified buildings
are actually working. Data on the performance of the green buildings
after they have been commissioned was, till very recently, not disclosed.
So, even though rating agencies say that green-certified buildings save
between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of the energy and reduce water
consumption by 20-30 per cent, they have no corroborating data.
Thirdly, these so-called green technologies end up hiking costs to the
extent that buildings become unaffordable to most. What India needs
are building standards that are appropriate and cost-effective. Green
architecture should not be a barrier to inclusive growth.
This is where old knowledge has a role to play. Traditional architec-
ture is based on the principle of “localising” buildings so that they can
optimise natural elements and be efficient in resource use. Many archi-
tects, engineers and builders are innovating with this old-new science.
That’s how the knowledge and practice of affordable and sustainable
buildings will evolve. But big builders will adopt it only if and when the
facade of green buildings is lifted.
Take the glitzy Delhi airport building that has been given a green
tag because it invests in energy-efficient lighting, sewage disposal and
rainwater harvesting. All these are important initiatives but the question
remains: could the airport have been designed differently so that it used
much less energy in the first place? For instance, the challenge before
green airports today is to make them compact to reduce the time it takes
from entering the building to entering the aircraft. This “frugal” planning
will make everything more efficient—take less building materials to
build and less energy to cool and heat. But planners first think of building

108
the biggest structures and then try sugarcoating them. I say this without
even discussing the need for airports to give way to other modes of much
more efficient transport like railways.
If one begins to think green in a locally appropriate way, one will
realise that traditional architecture was green in many ways. Every part
of India had its unique stamp of buildings. This is because creative and
architectural diversity was built on biological diversity. So buildings in
hot regions would ensure corridors directed the wind so that it naturally
cooled the interiors. In wetter regions, architects would build using the
natural breeze and light. All in all, traditional architects knew how to
optimise the use of elements.
Today, Indians have forgotten how to build for their environment.
Instead, modern buildings are examples of monocultures—lifted from
the building books of cold countries where glass facades are good to
look at and appropriate for their climate. The same building in India is
a nightmare; the glass traps the heat. The building cannot be naturally
cooled because windows cannot be opened. It needs central air-condi-
tioning and heating. In this situation, turning the building green means
using very expensive glass to insulate better. Builders avoid this. So the
only band-aid green measures left are to include a few token items like
efficient lights and water-saving devices in the toilets.
Architects say God is in the details. In this case, the details are about
both simplicity and diversity. Sun is both the source of light and heat.
Traditional architecture made use of a small but critical detail: the window
shade. Modern facades are built without these shades because they don’t fit
the image of the western building. Just raise your head and look at the glitzy
building out there, you won’t find this simple but effective detail.
Clearly, the buildings of the green future have to be different. This
will require setting the right policy so that practice can follow. The fact is
even today we have no mandatory green standards for builders to follow.
The National Building Code does not include energy, water or material
efficiency standard. The only standard that exists is for energy—the
Energy Conservation Building Code (ecbc)—and it is voluntary. The
first and urgent step is to incorporate this voluntary energy code into
the mandatory National Building Code. The second step is to ensure its

109
implementation so that builders measure and reduce the energy usage

of their construction. But most importantly, the code must be developed
so that it sets the mandatory benchmark for builders to follow—tough
standards for energy usage for each square metre of built-up area. This
will then allow architects and builders to do things differently. They can
build for efficiency and cut costs rather than build for inefficiency and
then spend money on making the building more efficient. This will bring
back the knowledge and practice of building to maximise passive energy,
natural light and wind, while keeping away the heat.
Building green is definitely important. But equally important is to know
how green is a green building. Take the glitzy, glass-enveloped buildings
popping up across the country. It does not matter if you are in the mild but
wet and windy climate of Bengaluru or in the extreme hot and dry climate
of Gurgaon (now Gurugram), glass is the in-thing. I have always wondered
how buildings extensively using glass could work in such varied climatic
zones, where one needs ventilation. Then, I started reading that glass was
green. Buildings liberally using glass were being certified green. How come?
Here the story becomes interesting. ecbc has specified prescriptive
parameters for constructing an energy-efficient building envelope—the
exterior facade of a building. The facade, based on the insulation abili-
ties of the material used for roof and wall construction, will reduce heat
loss. It will also reduce energy use if it allows daylight to come in. It is,
therefore, important for any green building to have the right material
for its exterior.
Simultaneously, the code needs to be expanded to include water and
waste standards—to reduce water usage in toilets—and to ensure that
institutions and large residential complexes recycle and reuse sewage.
Similarly, these complexes must be provided space to compost kitchen
waste. But priority should be segregating solid waste. Separate what can be
composted or recycled and minimise what cannot be reused (like plastic).
This is only the beginning. Green buildings alone won’t make a city
green. If green homes cannot be connected with public transport then
the lives of the people living in them and the environment would still be
brown and dirty. n

110
{ A tale of two cities

Indian cites have chosen to forget their rich ecological
past and have taken the beaten track
Once I travelled to two different cities in two different states—Indore in

Madhya Pradesh and Guwahati in Assam. I came back with images iden-
tified by common distinctions: piles of garbage and glitzy new shopping
malls. Is this our vision of urban development? There is no question that
cities are imploding; growth is happening faster than we ever imagined.
Construction is booming and expansion is gobbling agricultural land.
But the quality of life is no better. In most parts there is traffic, dust,
air pollution and most of all the chaos of unplanned growth. Road
expansion is eating up lines of shady trees—in Guwahati I saw the
most majestic trees hacked down mercilessly. The city’s lungs are going,
and so are its sponges, as waterbodies are making way for buildings. In
Indore, its residents will tell you that the names of the colonies are the
names of the lakes they are built on. In Guwahati, the airport has been
built by killing the grand Deepor beel (lake). First a road was built (obvi-
ously without culverts to channelise the water), then as the waterbody
died, it was filled to undertake new construction. It is not unusual that
Guwahati airport is flooded and air traffic disrupted.
The two cities are different ecosystems, so they should have had
different water and waste issues. One is located in the relatively dry
Malwa plateau and the other in the high-rainfall region on the banks
of the mighty Brahmaputra. But both cities have acute water stress,
even as rain leads to swamping of cities, disrupting life and destroying
property. Both cities today have no water culture. Both are drowning in
their waste.
Indore, because of its location, had a rich tradition of lakes. Rainwater
was harvested and stored in structures, which recharged groundwater.
Then, in 1977, the city brought Narmada water from some 110 km to the
city. In fact, our flatulent cities today get their water supply from further
and further away.

111
But Indore should have had enough to drink and to swim. But 39
years later, the water has still not reached all distribution pipelines.
A significant portion of water it sources is lost in distribution, which
means there is far more costs but far less water to supply. The city water
utility has no money to repair and extend its water system. It spends all
it has and more in just electricity costs of bringing the water. Politicians
are vying with each other to bring the water from the Maheshwar dam.
The recent jal samadhi by the Maheshwar dam-displaced has met with
enormous anger from Indore’s power elite. They say they need the
dam’s water at all costs. They do not care if the people, whose land has
been submerged by the dam, have not received compensation or been
resettled.
In all cities, groundwater levels are declining precipitously in urban
areas as people bore deeper in search of the water that municipalities
cannot supply. So when it does not rain, the city cries. And when it does
rain, still it cries. It is a tragedy because this continuous cycle of depri-
vation and disruption is completely unnecessary. What is imperative
is that cities must begin to value their rainfall endowment. This means
implementing rainwater harvesting in each house and colony.
But it also means relearning about the hundreds of lakes, tanks
and ponds that built, indeed nourished, cities. Almost every city had
a treasure of water harvesting structures, which provided it with a
flood cushion and allowed it to recharge its groundwater reserves. But
today’s urban planners cannot see beyond land. Where there is water,
there should be land, is their money-spinning philosophy. So it is that
waterbodies in cities today are a shame to our traditional imagination—
encroached, full of sewage, garbage or just filled up and built-over. The
cities forgot they need water. They forgot their own lifeline.
The power elite never demand systems to deal with the sewage they
flush out of their homes. In Indore, the sewage system was constructed
in 1936 at the time of the Holkars. Independent Indore has added to it
insignificantly. The bulk of the sewage pours into its rivers, Khan and
Saraswati, and Piliyakhal Nullah, untreated. It forgets that the Khan pol-
lutes the Kshipra; the main water source of the neighbour, Ujjain.
In fact, lake ecology defined Indian cities in the past. Every city gave

112
its land for rain. Bengaluru in the early 1960s had 262 lakes; now only
10 hold water. The Ahmedabad collector—on directions from the high
court—listed 137 lakes in the city but also said that over 65 had been
already built-over. In Delhi, 508 waterbodies were identified—again, on
court orders—but are not protected.
I find that the hue and cry about water harvesting and rejuvenating
lakes still remains a chimera. Urban planners simply don’t know how
important these two activities are. They simply refuse to believe that
both are perfectly possible. They flirt with the idea, but then do not even
begin to integrate the city’s water needs with its rainwater wealth.
There are also other problems. Firstly, builders and architects today
have simply never been taught the many other ways of holding water,
that exist outside the syllabi they conned as students. They have been
trained to see water as waste and to build systems that dispose it off as
fast as possible. Of course, given the sheer mess of urban India, even
the stormwater drains have become conduits for sewage, or get choked
with garbage or in many cases just don’t get built. An entire generation
of Indians will have to be retrained. It is crucial that future architects and
planners understand water once again. Our society cannot let go of its
own wisdom so easily.
This, when other countries are profiting from our wisdom. In
Germany, city authorities have learnt and are using our knowledge. To
save investing in stormwater drains, they provide incentives to house-
holds to harvest and recharge rainwater. The city charges tax based
on the calculation of the paved area and the water-runoff coefficient.
If rainwater harvesting is done and the load on the city’s stormwater
drainage is reduced, the burden of tax on the house-owner is reduced
accordingly. But this demands governance capacities, something we
desperately lack.
Secondly, the business of land is far more powerful than the business
of water storage. In spite of all the efforts of civil society groups to use
the strategy of judicial intervention, the movement to protect and revive
lakes is facing an uphill battle. The administrative framework for manag-
ing a waterbody just does not exist in our cities anymore.
Having lost its waterbodies, floods ravage Guwahati. Residents

113
explain the intensity and duration of floods had made life impossibly
difficult. They also spoke of desperate water shortages in this region of
plenty. Worse, life-giving water is now the cause for diseases—death by
dengue fever is a yearly feature.
This is when cities have options to do things differently. They are yet
to build all their homes, roads and water and sewage systems. They can
execute a plan, which allows them to modernise but with quality of life
intact and even better. This requires not wanting to grow the way Delhi,
Mumbai or any other “old-growth” city has.
For instance, these cities should not repeat the mistake of allowing
fleets of cars to take over their roads. Indore was an enlightened city to
plan for a bus-based future. Some years ago it invested in new buses,
rationalised routes, created systems for efficient operation and put gps
in place to track and inform customers. Now the cost of bus fuel is up,
fares have not been revised and buses are losers. Still the majority of the
city population commutes by cycling or walking, even though the city’s
footpaths are long gone.
Guwahati’s footpaths are gone as well, taken over by mounds of
garbage. The city has taken the route of its bigger cousins. It has put the
task of garbage disposal out to a concessionaire, who, it hopes, will sweep
the city clean. It does not. Instead, Guwahati could collect, segregate
and compost garbage at the household level. It could reserve areas in
colonies for environmental services. This way it would not have to first
collect and then transport the waste. It would not have to live in filth.
Indore and Guwahati are the creations of its residents. The only ques-
tion is whether they will be dreams or nightmares.
Politicians and planners believe that water is God’s gift to their elec-
tion promises. People must now begin to believe it is something they can
gift to themselves. We are all mindless about wasting water; now, let’s
get mindful of retaining it. Then, the modern-day urban tragedy called
timely rain will receive a popular denouement. n

114
{ Shifting sands of (mal)development

Beaches are rivers of sand. But Puducherry is constructing
granite structures on sand dunes and facing inundation
We were on a beach. Somewhere close to Puducherry. The sight was

surreal: half-smashed houses with wide open fronts, people still living in
them. The devastation was caused not by a sea storm or a cyclone, but
by the eroded beach. The sea had crept up to the village; there was no
protection between the sea and the village.
Why was this happening, I asked. My guides were members of the
Pondy Citizens’ Action Network (Pondy-can), which has worked tire-
lessly to bring beach erosion to national attention. To understand this,
we walked a little distance away. From the beach, I could see massive
granite stones piled up to build a groyne stretching into the sea. This
structure, made to protect villages from erosion, ends up with protecting
one village, but destroying another, explained my guides.
But I still could not see the connection. How could one small struc-
ture like this change coastal ecology? Then I got a lesson of my life.
Civil engineer Probir Banerjee and marine engineer Aurofilio Schiavina
explained that a beach is not just a lot of sand. “Beaches are rivers of sand”
because each year the waves transport huge quantities of sand from
north to south and from south to north. During the southwest monsoon
some 600,000 cubic metres of sand is moved towards the north, and in
the three months of the northeast monsoons (when winds are fierce)
100,000 cubic metres are transported towards the south across the
eastern coast of the country. So beaches are living creatures—winds and
waves bring sand in one season and take it away in another. My teachers
further explained marine science to me: “Then, think of the groyne as a
dam in a river which will block the movement of sand, not water.” In this
case, the groyne has stopped the movement of sand to the beach ahead.
This beach does not grow and when the wind changes, the monsoon gets
fierce, the sea moves in. There is no beach to protect the land beyond.
The lesson was not finished yet. Our next stop was the Puducherry

115
harbour, with a breakwater fingering its way into the sea to protect the
boats. This structure, built in 1986, marked the beginning of devastating
changes in the coast. Once the harbor was built, it first changed the
beach closest to it—the beach along the city of Puducherry. All I could
see was granite stones piled along the ocean promenade. By then it was
evening. People had gathered, as they do to enjoy the beach and the sun-
set. But there was no sand or beach. Only rocks. All this had been lost in
a living memory of 15-20 years. A people had lost their playground. More
importantly, a city had lost its critical ecosystem.
This is just the beginning, explained Banerjee. This structure, small
by any standard of modern harbour or port, has spun a chain of beach
changes along the coast. The groyne we saw earlier had been built
because the length of the coast stretching 10-20 km was now desta-
bilised. We could see piles of sand accumulated before the harbour,
blocked from making its way to regenerate the beaches. Now every beach
needs a groyne and every groyne adds to the problem of the next beach.
Besides, just think of the amount of granite that is brought from long
distances after destroying hills; carrying trucks adding to the pollution.
Ports are interventions to the natural ecology of coasts. But we
neither understand the impacts, nor worry about ways to deal with
the damage. A few years ago, Puducherry woke up to the reality that
their harbour was to be rebuilt and contracts and concessions had been
awarded to transform it into a massive port. The citizens’ group went to
court against the project. In this stretch of some 600 km, one can count
seven ports that exist and another three are proposed. This is when each
existing port is not used to capacity and is being upgraded big time.
Then why are we building more ports? There is no policy for silting and
number of ports in the country.
The Central government knows only about “major” ports and leaves
the rest of the business—permission to locate and build other ports—to
state governments. There is no distinction between a major port and a
state port. It is just a matter of how many one can fit into the coast as fast
and profitably as possible. Nobody, therefore, knows how many ports
are being built. Nobody cares about the cumulative impact on rivers of
sand. Surely, this cannot be called development. Can it? n

06Air Pollution(116-127).indd 116 23/05/16 8:11 PM

{6 Air Pollution
We have more sellers of cars,
and less sellers of public transport

118
{ Cars, more cars

It is the poor in India who, ironically, enable
the rich to have a luxurious way of life
The singular impression I have of Indian cities is one of noise, pollu-

tion, plastic, garbage and filth. But most of all what hits you is cities over-
run by vehicles—cars, more cars. Every city is now bumper to bumper.
Even Bengaluru, the sanctuary city, is a car mess.
This nightmare has crept upon us, insidiously. Most people living in
cities cannot even comprehend, let alone contest, this change. The pace
has now swamped us. When my colleague Anil Agarwal made presenta-
tions to the Indian Parliament in the mid-1980s about India’s environ-
mental challenges, he found no reason to speak of urban chaos and its
deadly impacts. It was not there to see, then. So, this change is really the
story of the last 15 years. In other words, it is an ecological history old
enough for us to lament about. But isn’t it young enough for us to rectify?
Over the last 20 years, is it only that we have intensified our efforts
towards economic growth? Or is it that we have intensified growth
without public action? It is fair to ask: if the consequence of this growth
is not intentional, then what has government after government been up
to? Did they ever exist?
Let’s stick to transport. Take any city’s data: the increase in the num-
ber of vehicles far outstrips growth in human population. Chennai, for
instance, has seen a 10 per cent growth in population and a staggering
108 per cent growth in on-road private vehicles in the last decade. I do
not think this is accidental. Private vehicle growth has paralleled decline
in public transport.
At this point, many might argue that population growth is inevitable.
What can city planners do? Human population growth may be ordained.
The growth of private vehicles is certainly not. Remember, the decline in
public transport leaves people with no choice but to move towards pri-
vate vehicles. In all these cities, as public transport has declined, people
have moved towards two-wheelers and cars. In the jargon of transport

119
planners, a substantial modal shift in transportation has occurred in

these cities!
I remember reading, many years ago, how the automobile industry
in the US had deliberately bought out the railways and the tramways, so
that it could decimate its competitors. In India, as usual, the story is sim-
pler. Private interests have gained from the destruction of public service.
But they have not had to invest in this destruction. The wound is official-
ly self-inflicted. The last 20 years are about neglect and apathy. And no
interest speaks for the public good any more. Another indication of the
total collapse of government.
The change from public to private came, in India, with setting up the
public sector company Maruti—what an irony!—with the imperative
of making the car affordable for all Indians. Maruti, since then, has been
joined by a horde of other car-makers, all competing to make the car
more sexy and more glamorous. They have done well indeed, and made
the car or scooter every Indian’s dream-turned-reality. But this “revolu-
tion” has come at a deadly cost.
The problem is not that there are sellers of cars. The problem is that
there are no sellers of public transport. Worse, even its “owners” have
become its enemy. In most cities, bus fleets operate not as transportation
companies, but as employment services. Most of the government-run
public bus companies have unimaginable staff strength making them
economically unviable. At the same time, governments have not invested
in improving public transport. In fact, it has vociferously argued that it has
no money to invest in public transportation. It is, after all, a poor govern-
ment of a poor country. But this would be more than complete falsehood.
Let me explain. First, every city reluctant to invest in public trans-
port is busy building flyovers to take care of the burgeoning traffic. This,
when it knows flyovers never solved the problem anywhere. They are
like the proverbial Internet, where points of traffic jam shift; even as you
invest in more space, cars fill it up. The answer to congestion is not more
road space, but less.
But more on misleading sarkari economics. Delhi, for instance, has
spent huge amounts of money in creating an extensive network of fly-
overs. Now, we know that private vehicles control over 90 per cent of

120
the road space in our cities. Therefore, this is a subsidy for this mode of
transport. On the other hand, the same money spent on public transport
would have substantially upgraded services for all. In many ways, it is an
incentive to pollute more.
Secondly, and shockingly, private vehicles pay less road tax than
public transport vehicles. So, let us be clear that this is a mockery of
economics; here, the poor support the rich.
But in case these facts make you believe public transport is not used
in our cities, let me correct this. In many cities, public transport, however
it may exist, still moves over 50-70 per cent of commuters. But private
vehicles constitute over 90 per cent of all vehicles in our cities. In other
words, this is not the story of the US, where the car replaced the bus. It is
the story of poor cities—Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune—of a poor country,
where the poor have not become rich.
They have only been neglected. Murderously so. n

121
{ Lifeless on the fast lane

What is the real cost of owning a car?
The manufacture and sale of vehicles are important parameters of the

national economy. The millionth-vehicle yardstick says the economy’s
fundamentals are buoyant, and everybody tends to agree. I have no quar-
rel with this. But I do find this economic assessment rather incomplete
and simplistic. Because vehicles require resources to operate, maintain
and even park. Where will these resources come from? Who pays? Who
does not? These assessments are critical to learn the economics that
really matters: what is the cost of this growth, and how should we pay
for it?
At the very least, five costs have to be added to the price of each
vehicle. One, the cost of building a road. Two, the cost of maintaining
roads, the cost of policing on the road, the cost of powering the millions
of traffic lights. Three, the crippling cost of local air pollution and bad
health which requires monitoring, control and regulation. Added to this,
the evidence that vehicles are key contributors to pollution, which is
feeding climate change and will result in even bigger costs. Four, the cost
of congestion, which every motorist on a busy road imposes on fellow
travellers—from delays that cost time, to increased fuel consumption
that costs money. Five, the cost of space for parking vehicles, at home
and at work.
We need to ask why economists—the ones who normally rant about
markets, the need for full cost pricing and removal of subsidies—never
account for these costs in their calculations of growth. After all, the
cold logic of the market, repeatedly cited when it comes to the meagre
support given to farmers, should apply here as well. Could it be that our
economists are so vertically integrated to the market—with mind and
matter—that these distortions fail to catch their attention?
Take roads. We know that cars on roads are like the proverbial cup
that always fills up. Cities invest in roads, but fight the losing battle of the
bulge: congestion. The US provides up to four times more road space per

122
capita than most European cities, and up to eight times more road space
per capita as compared to the crowded cities of Asia. When more roads
fail to solve the problem, governments invest in flyovers and elevated
highways. These roads occupy space—real estate—and are costly to
build and maintain. It has been estimated that in Western cities depend-
ent on automobiles, it could cost as much as US $260 per capita per year
to operate these facilities.
But this investment is also not paying off as ever increasing cars fill
the ever increasing space. This is why experts say building roads to fit
cars is like trying to put out a fire with petrol. Britain’s orbital motorway,
something akin to Delhi’s Ring Road that “bypasses” the city, was built
more than two decades ago. Since then, it has been expanded at huge
costs to 12 lanes. But bumper-to-bumper traffic on it has dubbed it the
nation’s biggest car park.
Congestion costs the Earth, in terms of lost hours spent in traffic; in
terms of fuel and in terms of pollution. In the US, the congestion bill for
85 cities totalled to a staggering US $63 billion in 2003. This calculated
only the cost of hours lost—some 3.7 billion—and extra fuel consumed,
not the loss of opportunity because of missed meetings and other such
factors. In the UK, the industry has pegged the figure at US $30 billion.
Our part of the world is similarly blessed: Bangkok estimates that it loses
six per cent of its economic production due to traffic congestion. These
costs do not even begin to account for pollution: emissions of hydro-
carbons and carbon monoxide are linked with speed and frequent stop
and start.
The logic of the market tells us that people overuse goods and servic-
es that come free. Why, then, should this dictum not be applied to roads?
Why should fiscal policy not be designed to reflect the real cost of this
public asset? Why not charge for it?
The answer to who should pay is simple: the user. But what is often
not understood is the nature—colour and class—of the “real” user of
the public largesse in our economies. While in the Western world, the
car has replaced the bus or bicycle, in our world it has only marginalised
its space. Therefore, even in a rich city like Delhi, cars and two-wheelers
carry less than 20 per cent of the city’s commuting passengers. The rest

123
are transported by buses, bicycles or other means. But the operational

fact is that these cars and two-wheelers occupy over 90 per cent of the
city’s road space. Therefore, it is evident that the user of the public space
and the beneficiary of public largesse—the road, the flyover or the ele-
vated highway—is the person in the car or the two-wheeler.
Cars do not only cost on the road. They also cost when they are
parked. Personal vehicles stay parked roughly 90 per cent of the time;
the land they occupy costs real estate. Cars occupy more space for park-
ing than what we need to work in our office: 23 sq metres to park a car,
against 15 sq metres to park a desk. My colleagues have estimated that
the one million-odd cars in Delhi would take up roughly 11 per cent of
the city’s urban area. Green spaces in the city take up roughly the same.
Khan Market in boulevard Delhi is said to be the most expensive real
estate in India, maybe even in the world. But in this richest shopping des-
tination, buyers do not want to pay for parking their vehicles. The shop-
keepers’ association has taken the local city council to court, saying it has
the right to free parking. In court, it ridiculed the connection between
parking and car restraint—how can pricing of parking spaces bring
down car usage in cities? The very idea was farfetched, said its lawyer to
the judge. Standing in the court, I could see the judge was also bemused.
This is when Indian cities are desperately jostling for space for park-
ing their growing fleet of personal cars. Just about every street is chock-
a-block with cars, so much so that there is no space to walk and there are
fights—even shootouts—over parking. This is also when Indian cities
are adding huge numbers of vehicles every day on to roads, worsening
pollution and congestion, and also adding pieces of hardware, which
need to be parked. And this is when space is at a premium in cities and
unavailable for most important needs, including housing for the poor.
A car’s requirement for space is not small. Just think: each vehicle we
own and use needs to be parked at home, at office and then at shopping
space or anywhere else we may need to go. Planners who think of car
spaces, therefore, always assume three car spaces for each vehicle. On
this basis, the current fleet of vehicles in Delhi already occupies nearly
10 per cent of the urban space. The daily registration of cars will need
an additional 2.5 million sq m, which is equivalent to 310 interna-

124
tional football fields.

Now in fact, the city municipal corporation is desperately looking for
more land; it sees all parks in the city as potential parking spaces. It wants
to rip them out, build parking lots underneath and turn the top into
pretty green museums or shopping arcades. But where will the children
play? This is what the statutory authority, of which I am a member, has
asked. Nobody wants to answer. Ultimately, the issue is not even what
it costs. The issue is why we are not computing the costs or estimating
its losses. n

125
{ The right right

Nano and the story of 21st century’s greatest extinction
The world’s cheapest car, the Nano, is more or less a forgotten story
now. But the message it has left lingers on. Manufacturer Tata Motors
said it would change the way Indians drove, for it placed the personal car
within the reach of people who once could only dream of owning one.
Indeed, the Nano was marketed as an “aspiration”—the right of every
Indian to own a car. No quibble here. There is no question an affordable
car is better than an expensive one; or that a small car, being more fuel
efficient, is better than a big one. No question, too, that every citizen
of India has as much right to a car as every citizen of America, where
vehicle numbers are obscene: some 800 vehicles for 1,000 people (old
and young) against our measly seven per 1,000 people (urban and rural).
So, the issue is not the Nano, but whether cars still are the future
of the world economy. Over the years, in different continents, vehicle
manufacturers invented and re-invented this appliance for self-mobility,
for different market segments. In India, two-wheeler manufacturers can
rightly claim that in the 1980s they, too, provided technology innovation
and affordable mobility for vast numbers. They can also claim they were
the first to break the class barrier. Then, in the early 1990s, when Sanjay
Gandhi’s people’s car, the Maruti 800, hit the roads, gender barriers also
fell—this was a car women could drive and it gave new freedoms. No
question, therefore, of what Nano would have brought to new owners.
But the car came at a time when the production of personal vehicles
itself was becoming old-economy. It is not surprising the car industry has
become the first big dinosaur of the 21st century. Every country today is
working to bail out its automobile industry. The big four companies are
still struggling with their accounts. There is huge over-capacity in the
world of cars—sales are down and the industry is bleeding. You might
think it is a temporary phase: cars will zoom again, as recession blues
turn pink. But this is far from the reality.
The fact is cars could only make it big in the old economy because

126
they were highly subsidised, or incentivised through cheap bank loans. If

people could not afford the next car, the bank worked overtime to make
sure the loans kept rolling, even if that eventually broke the bank’s back.
But that is the past. The future, too, will not be too different. The bank
might recover, but the cost of the fuel to drive the dream vehicle will not.
Oil experts will tell you black gold prices will rise again, when the world
economy re-boots.
Add to this what can only be called the mother of all subsidies—the
free-ride personal vehicles have got, in the world, to emit large amounts
of greenhouse gases and pump them into a common atmospheric space.
As the rights over this ecological commons will be determined, as they
must, carbon dioxide emissions from the cars of the rich will have to be
limited and taxed. This will cost. It will make driving more expensive.
The global automobile industry knows it is not our future. It is our
past. Unfortunately, this message has not yet come home. Unlike the
car-saturated West, we still have a large number of people who are
potential buyers. But the fact is in India, because of the even greater
price-sensitivity, personal vehicles are viable only if they are subsidised
to the brim.
Take the Nano. Incentives rolled out by former Chief Minister
Narendra Modi’s Gujarat government amounted to a fat write-off—as
much as R50,000-60,000 per this R1 lakh car. In other words, its cost
was so low only because the state doled out a largesse. Every past and
present automobile has got this benefit (more or less). We can afford a
car because our government pays for it. We can also afford it because we
are not asked to pay the price of its running (last essay dealt with this).
Public buses pay taxes as commercial passenger vehicles, each year
and based on the number they carry. In many states, they pay over 12
times more tax than cars. Think of the public transport bus service in
your city and ask how much of its revenues go in taxes: half, in most
cases. Think also that the same Tata company, that managed to roll out
the car of our dreams in record time, does not possess the capacity to
build the buses cities need.
Such an old-economy approach becomes completely perverse when
one considers that already today, and definitely tomorrow, the greater

127
proportion of people who are or will commute are using and will con-
tinue to use public transport—a bus or a train. Today, as much as half of
rich Delhi takes a bus, and another one-third walk or cycle because they
are too poor to even take the bus.
Think again about the car inequity in India—seven per 1,000 people.
Can the government write off the costs—Nano style—so that all can
buy the car? Can the government pay for our parking, our roads and our
fuel, so that all can drive the car? If not, then is this the right right at all?
The issue, then, is not the right to own a Nano. The issue is the right
to a slice of the public subsidy so that everybody has the right to mobility.
There is no other right. n

07Health(128-149).indd 128 23/05/16 8:11 PM

{7 Health
The mammoth food industry has not only swallowed
biodiversity, it has also added hard-to-detect toxins
07Health(128-149).indd 129 23/05/16 8:11 PM

130
{ The dirty dozen

How the cola majors perfected the science
of diversion, denial and dismissal
In August 2003, the Centre for Science and Environment (cse) found
samples of 12 major soft drink manufacturers contained residues of four
extremely toxic pesticides and insecticides—lindane, ddt, malathion
and chlorpyrifos. We made the findings public and termed them as the
“dirty dozen”. We took on the might of the multinational companies
known to topple governments. I narrate here the initial few weeks of
the fight because it throws light on how multinationals clinically subvert
food safety issues.
When we released our study on pesticides in soft drinks, our objec-
tive was clear: we needed action on regulations, which had been stymied
because of corporate pressure. What we hadn’t anticipated was the
response of the cola majors. The response then had been immediate and
vituperative. “There are no pesticides in our drinks and cse cannot test
our products” was the line taken by the cola majors. This challenge led
to the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (jpc)—the first one
on health—to investigate, not the pesticides in colas, but our institution,
cse. We were given the bitter taste of the power of these companies.
What a line of attack! PepsiCo, in its advertisements, said there were
more pesticides in tea, eggs, rice and apples. Coca-Cola, in its defence,
similarly argued that as everything in India is contaminated, its drinks
are safe. They said this was being done to target them, because they
are big brands and US multinationals. On the other hand, the pesticide
industry, in its public response, wanted the focus not to be on pesticides,
but on heavy metals and other contaminants. They also said they were
being singled out.
What should we understand from all this? One, we should not target
US companies, not target the pesticide industry, and in fact, not target any
particular industrial sector, but keep the issue at the level of generalities.
Two, we should not try and fix any specific problem, like pesticides in
soft drinks through improved regulations. But we should keep our work
07Health(128-149).indd 130 23/05/16 8:11 PM

131
focussed on everything that is bad—from pesticides in milk to heavy

metals in soil. Three, we should not try to get the government to set reg-
ulations for soft drinks. We should, instead, try and fix something else.
Let’s put this spin-doctoring aside, because this is almost official
about corporate houses. We know this is the first step of a game plan to
divert public attention from what needs to be done or to feed helpless-
ness and part cynicism that everything is so bad, so why bother.
Let’s focus on what the test wanted to achieve. There is no doubt that
water is increasingly contaminated with all kinds of bacteria and that
dirty water kills more babies than anything else in our country, which is
clearly and absolutely unacceptable.
Worse, we have a double burden—of both pollutants and diseases.
So there are biological contaminants mixed with trace chemical toxins
from the modern industrial world—from arsenic, mercury, hormones
and pesticides to even more deadly dioxins and furans.
All this contamination has to be challenged. All this has to be min-
imised so that it does not jeopardise our health. All this will have to be
done urgently and together. But all this can only be done with a clear strat-
egy and prioritisation of action so that we can bring deliberate change.
Let’s take the issue of water and food safety. The government’s own
research shows that raw agricultural commodities—from milk to veg-
etables—are often contaminated with pesticides. We also know that
regulations for pesticides in raw agricultural commodities are set, but
are lax and not enforced. Therefore, the strategy is to ensure that we can
revamp regulations that govern the safe use of pesticides.
The agenda for reform here is manifold: to ensure that no pesticide
is registered without the setting of a maximum residue level, which
defines what is safe residue in our food; to ensure that the sum of all
toxins are kept within an overall safety threshold—called the acceptable
daily intake by toxicologists—and, to ensure that there are credible and
effective ways of enforcing these standards.
In this we can learn from governments across the world. For instance,
the UK government has a policy for “naming and shaming” suppliers of
food that are contaminated. Our government can also check milk and
vegetables on a random basis and make the data it collects available
07Health(128-149).indd 131 23/05/16 8:11 PM

132
publicly. They do this sometimes, but it is still not a habit.

In addition, it will be important to work with farmers who overuse
and misuse pesticides, because of the lack of information supplied by the
industry. Remember that the problem is exacerbated by the fact that the
government has virtually abdicated its role of agricultural extension to
private pesticide and seed industry interests.
But like all our other double-triple-burdens, we cannot take the step-
by-step approach. The industrial world first cleaned up its water of bacte-
ria, then pesticides, then heavy metals and is now dealing with tinier and
even more modern toxins like hormones and antibiotics. We have all of
that in our food and water.
We also do not have the luxury of first cleaning agricultural raw
material, then building our processed food industry. We will have to
clean both ends of the food chain—the farm and the fork. We will have
to do it together.
In all this, we know that diversion is just one of the ploys. The second
is to deny. This is where “science” becomes a handy weapon. Modern
science fails us. Even though it has created modern toxins, it is slow on
generating knowledge about the impact of these toxins and pollutants
on our bodies and our environment. Take climate change, take tobacco
or even pesticides. The polluters want “conclusive” and “incontroverti-
ble” evidence that there is cause and effect. We the victims have to prove
our science.
The third tactic is to dismiss by saying that your science is not good;
it is not validated or peer reviewed. The then health minister did exactly
this when she used a half-baked report to try and discredit our laboratory
and our work on soft drinks and pesticides.
It did not matter that the same laboratory, its equipment and meth-
odology had been examined and endorsed by the highest parliamentary
committee. It did not matter, because the purpose was not science, but
to use their power to discredit and to dismiss. The fourth step of the
polluter’s game plan is to damn and to destroy.
Food we know is a sunshine industry. And industry tells government
that the regulatory regime is cumbersome and corrupt. This, it adds,
strangles the industry. These arguments are correct.
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133
But, we must note, food is not only about business. Food is about
people who grow it, and small producers and manufacturers who source
and supply it to our tables. Food, most importantly, is about our health
and livelihoods.
Industry has discovered that reaching for our stomachs is a lucrative
business. The food on our table is changing—it is less natural and more
manufactured—mirroring the situation in the developed world. This
is a consequence of what is known as value-addition: industries source
raw material, process, mix and manufacture it, and, most importantly,
package it.
It is said farmers will benefit. But the fact is big business squeezes
prices in the name of reliability and quality, and the inevitable losers are
those who grow the raw material for the food we eat.
This is part of the logic of subjecting nutrition and health to the mer-
cies of the market. In this paradigm, food becomes a matter of marketing
rather than nutrition, health or consumer rights. Industry is winning
because Indians, both rural and urban, are beginning to crave packaged
goodies. We now spend more on buying manufactured foods than on
buying fresh fruits and vegetables. We spend more on beverages than
on milk.
The irony is we are taking the path of the rich world, which has
learnt that food as business is bad for health, because lifestyle diseases
are linked to bad food. It is also learning new definitions for safe food as
bacteria are being replaced by tiny toxins—from chemical additives and
preservatives to contaminants like pesticides, dioxins, hormones and
other harmful things. n
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{ The GM debate
We can’t assume that we are powerful enough to use
modern substances, but too weak to regulate its use
Introduction of genetically modified (GM) food crops continues to

polarise the country’s scientists and activists. There have been public
protests against this. Whether it is a government-led by the Congress
party or the Bharatiya Janata Party, the term GM evokes cautious reac-
tions. Public protests have virtually stopped the introduction of GM
food crops.
It is all too easy to deride the opposition to GM as the handiwork of
some misinformed eco-fundamentalists or miscreants out to seek cheap
publicity. It can also be argued that these actions will impede scientific
progress designed to find answers to malnutrition and food insecurity in
the country. It can then be logically concluded that these actions give the
country a “bad” name and dissuade foreign investment.
But if critics of such civil action pause and ask what is it that forces
people to take such extreme steps, they will invariably find that the
blame lies elsewhere. This happens because our regulatory institutions
are compromised and weak. Because popular confidence in their ability
to work in public interest is low. The fact also is that industry system-
atically undermines these processes. On being caught out, it cries foul.
The raging debate is whether Bt brinjal can be grown and eaten in
India. So, at the outset, let me make my own bias clear. I am not an anti-
GM person; I have no ideological problems with the use of GM technol-
ogy to improve crop yields.
But I am definitely anti-Bt brinjal: I believe it should not be given
clearance. My reasoning is as follows. First, we are talking brinjal: genet-
ically modifying, for the first time ever, a vegetable that, moreover, is a
common food of near daily use in all our homes, sometimes uncooked.
So we cannot judge such technology modification at par with Bt cotton,
which is at best used as fodder or processed to make cottonseed oil.
Indeed, all other GM crops used widely across the world are either
eaten in processed form (soya) or used after industrial refining (corn or
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135
rapeseed oil). Thus, in this case, simplistic correlations—that GM crops

are safe, or known to be so—cannot be applied.
Second, the jury is out and still arguing about the tests done to estab-
lish the safety of this gene-modified vegetable vis-a-vis our health. The
debate centres around two issues: whether enough has been done to
study the chronic impact of eating this daily vegetable on our bodies and
health, and who has done these studies.
Studies by Monsanto, and Mahyco—the owner company—show
the bulk have looked at acute toxicity, a lethal dose 50 or more, a dose
at which there would be mortality of 50 per cent or more. The company
has also done studies on allergic reactions and skin irritation. On the
other hand, studies on sub-chronic toxicity are few—90 days on rats,
rabbits and goats.
The question that then emerges is: are the studies good enough to
understand the long-term impacts of ingesting Bt brinjal? The company
says yes, while the opposing scientists say no. So the chronic impacts
need a different protocol of study. Furthermore, there is still the issue of
how the Cry1Ac toxin breaks down in food and in our bodies. The com-
pany says its data shows the protein breaks down in cooked food and in
our digestive system, but admits it remains active in an alkaline medium.
The opposing view is that brinjal is sometimes eaten raw and that
even our digestive system is mildly alkaline. The jury, as I said, is still out.
Then there is the big issue whether you and I, who are going to eat
this vegetable, can “trust” this research being largely conducted by same
company that stands to gain the most if the go-ahead is given. Currently,
all research is funded by companies and then presented to regulators for
clearance. This leads to an enormous lack of credibility—people do not
believe what the companies say has been done.
And, given the horrific and scandalous track record of private research
misguiding policy in the case of drugs or food, why should this be surpris-
ing? It is clear we need a new system: research must be publicly funded
and openly scrutinised. The money must come from companies, but in
the form of a cess collected into a fund. Without that, even good research
will be tainted by the lack of public faith.
My third reason for rejecting Bt brinjal is more basic and fundamen-
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136
tal. Fact is I want the right to decide if I want to eat Bt brinjal or not. But
India has no labelling system to distinguish the GM-hybrid from its ordi-
nary cousin. You and I will have no choice. Furthermore, it is virtually
impossible to set up a labelling system for a vegetable, in a country the
size of India, where tests would have to be done on the farms of GM and
non-GM crop growers.
Labelling also demands the country must have a laboratory network
and a functioning regulatory system, so that GM content can be ana-
lysed and told to consumers. This is far from the set-up we have in the
country. The Centre for Science and Environment for instance, tried to
get edible oil checked for GM traces, but we were turned away by most
laboratories in India. They could not test; they had limited facilities; the
tests were prohibitively expensive or was not possible.
With Bt brinjal, therefore, arises a similar problem of wanting “mod-
ern” technology without “modern” facilities to ensure safety and regula-
tion. The same deadly combination.
Over and above this, there are concerns about what this “foreign”
introduction will do to the biodiversity of brinjal—India is the centre
of origin of this vegetable, over 2,500 varieties of which are grown here.
While company scientists say Bt brinjal will not contaminate other vari-
eties, research also shows that cross-pollination is definitely possible. Can
we risk losing these staples—long, short, round or twisted—of our table?
To me the outcome is clear: Bt brinjal is not worth the risk and the
uncertainty it presents. This is not a verdict on GM crops. It is a demand
for choice: to eat or not to eat.
The case of GM organisms is similar. Some people are ideologically
opposed to GM crops. But there are others—like me—who want these
crops introduced, but with all precaution to ensure our safety. In other
words, we want a credible and effective (kicking) public regulatory poli-
cy and framework for the use of GM products in the country.
But it seems that is too much to ask. We have no real policy to decide
which GM crops should be allowed. Several parts of the world fear this
technology and have disallowed any food products which contain GM
organisms—accidentally or intentionally. US rice exports are in deep
trouble because of this. GM rice has not been permitted anywhere in the
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137
world. Should we allow it?

If yes, how are we to minimise economic, ecological and health dam-
ages? Should we allow field trials in states like Chhattisgarh, which is a
centre of rice diversity? And what about states like Uttar Pradesh, which
produce the prized basmati rice?
If we are to allow trials, how will our regulatory system ensure com-
pliance? For instance, all the farmers who were questioned after their
field was uprooted or burnt said that they did not know what was being
planted. The field was leased out to the seed company, Mahyco. The
information about field trials was kept secret, till activists got it by using
the Right To Information Act. The rules require that state and district
level monitoring committees oversee these trials. In this case, even the
state governments had no clue.
If we assume compliance on all these counts, how will we test that
our farm produce does not contain GM traces? Do we have the labora-
tories, or an effective monitoring and enforcement system to tell us if our
rice or brinjal is GM? If we are to have a right to choose, it requires funds
and facilities for ensuring effective regulations. Can we afford all this?
We have no labelling requirements even; much of the food imported
into India is likely to be GM.
We can’t assume that we are rich and powerful enough to use mod-
ern substances, but too poor to regulate their use in the larger interest
of health and the environment. That would be wrong. No, it would be
criminal. And it is. n
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{ Hatching conspiracy
Industrial poultry is a trap where we kill the local
in the name of global
India’s chicken eaters are regularly shaken by the outbreak of avian

influenza viruses. The viruses impact millions of poultry and trigger des-
perate measures of culling. After a few months of sabbatical from a chick-
en meal, consumers get back to their original delicacy feeling confident
that the virus is contained.
But it will be a mistake to believe that we have contained the prob-
lem, simply because we have culled (killed and buried) some hundred
thousand birds and may vaccinate some hundred thousand more chicken
in the future. We are simply missing the point: the mutating virus is not
about birds, but about the practice of “cultivating” these birds and how
this is changing the modern food industry.
It is important to understand that the world’s favourite chicken is
increasingly grown in places known as “factory farms”. Unlike the tradi-
tional backyard or household poultry, these operations are highly automat-
ed and industrialised where thousands of live birds are squeezed into spac-
es so small that they cannot even move. The chicken is vaccinated time and
again to prevent diseases; it is fed everything from antibiotics to additives in
its feed to promote growth in this profitable production system.
The business is built on the model of large-scale vertically integrated
agri-business companies. Simply put, it means that a few large companies
franchise chicken growing to contract growers, to whom they supply
the newly hatched chicken and all other materials, like feed, vitamins,
vaccines and antibiotics till the chicken is taken back for sale or export.
In the US, for instance, only four companies control 60 per cent of the
broiler chicken industry. Tyson Foods, which calls itself the world’s
largest protein producer, has sales of above US $26 billion annually. This
company and others are now moving into Asia, which itself is fast moving
towards this model of food business. In Thailand, for instance, the Food
and Agriculture Organization (fao) notes in its report on bird flu that
chicken exports are controlled by the 10 largest integrators. The fact that
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139
this business is so highly integrated—a single company breeds the chick-

ens, makes the vaccines, manufactures the feed and the additives—that is
virtually impossible to regulate.
In India, Venkateshwara Hatcheries—Venky’s India Ltd—is one such
an integrator company, working in the Nandurbar district, Maharashtra,
where bird flu often hits. The scale and control of this firm gives it the
power to cover up—as indeed did Venky’s in Nandurbar—and it can
impair public health with impunity.
The world is more vulnerable to disease because of the nature of the
business. Farmers have coped with avian diseases for centuries. Farmers
have also coped with the mutants of various viruses, which occur because
of the proximity of livestock and because virus strains jump from one
creature to another. But now the problem is different. People move from
farm to farm, fly from one country to another and could carry the virus
with them, turning the problem from local to global within days, even
hours. This is why the world is scared that this virus, if it mutates to trans-
mit directly from human to human, could create a pandemic.
The problem is also that in this model of growing chicken there is
a highly conducive environment for the virus. Chickens breed in envi-
ronments—tightly confined, often poorly ventilated with exposure to
chemicals, blood and faecal matter—where the disease can spread, can
spread fast. In this environment, the birds also have lowered immunity—
because of their genetic uniformity and need for frequent vaccination. In
other words, these poor creatures are almost literally sitting ducks when
the disease hits.
This fact is clear when we understand that as yet little is known about
the origins and spread of the disease. Wild migratory birds, natural
carriers of the virus, have been widely indicted, but with little evidence.
fao, in its report in the aftermath of the avian influenza outbreaks in
Asia, says the source of the virus is not officially reported “although it is
openly mentioned in Cambodia that it was introduced by a consignment
of chicken imported by a private company from Thailand”. The tales
(anecdotal) are similar in other countries as well, says the agency.
If this is the case, then clearly, what is needed is to better regulate
the industrial processes to grow chicken so that the virus does not breed
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140
and does not grow. The business needs to improve the genetic stock of
the birds and strengthen their immunity against diseases, like traditional
backyard poultry farmers do.
But instead of reforming the poultry industry the business of the flu
is ending up promoting the very industry and its practices. In fact, it is
destroying the livelihood of the very people who practice a different kind
of poultry, the small and marginal farmers.
After the avian flu hit Asia, fao told governments that while it would
be possible to tighten biosafety in commercial poultry farms, it would
be impossible do it for non-commercial enterprises, such as backyard
production systems, where flocks forage outdoors. Its recommendation
was that animal production should move to larger farms, where surveil-
lance is possible. Danielle Nierenberg, who researches this sector at the
Washington-based Worldwatch Institute, reports that this led Vietnam
in April 2005 to impose a ban on live poultry markets and asking farms
to convert to factory-style methods. Thailand planned to follow suit.
The virus is clearly and most certainly deadly and not only because it
mutates. fao itself reports that smallholder poultry is critical for liveli-
hood and food (nutrition) security in vast parts of the poor world. Food
(and chicken) then is too serious a business to be left to the industry
alone. This lesson must be learnt. n
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141
{ The Satyam in our oil

The perils of my mustard oil losing colours
Which cooking oil is best for us? Why do I ask? Are we not bom-
barded with advertising messages telling us there is a healthy oil that is
good for the heart? They talk of monounsaturated fatty acids (mufa),
and polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufa) and of course, catch-us-words
like omega properties. I am sure you, like me, try to understand this sci-
entific jargon and conclude that any oil that has all these elements must
be good. Then we presume if we are being told the product is healthy,
somebody must have verified the claim. If not, we depend on food reg-
ulators of the rich world. Food is after all nutrition and even medicine.
It must be taken seriously, we are sure. So, we, as aware citizens, go out
and buy the “healthy” oil.
Like you, I also thought I had it figured out. Then the Centre for
Science and Environment’s pollution monitoring laboratory tested
various types of oil—from peanut, mustard and safflower to sunflower,
olive and more. As the results came in, we compared them with what we
knew about these oils. It is then we realised we had not even begun to
understand the science of our food and its relation with our bodies—in
a world, where our food is not our own anymore. The business is in our
kitchen. In this business, our nutrition and its science are also business,
even profit. If food regulators slip—unmindfully or negligently—our
health is compromised.
This for me is the story of our cooking oil and our bodies. Let me
explain. We started with the presumption, verified by nutrition regula-
tors that a healthy oil is one that has less saturated fat, more mufa and
the level of pufa is balanced between saturated and mono. In addition,
we need to consider the sub-constituents, the essential fatty acids—
omega 6, omega 3 and the current poster boy, omega 9. The oil, which
has these in some proportion, is the best. We thought we had cracked it.
On further research we found that this science is not simple, nor
exact. Coconut oil, which has a high amount of saturated fat, scores
poorly on this good-oil matrix, there is now more evidence that we have
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142
misunderstood it. It is being learnt that coconut has antimicrobial com-

ponents like lauric acid and capric acid, which build the body’s immune
system. It is well known this fatty acid is what gives mother’s milk its
special kick—babies suckle to make disease-fighting fatty acid derivative
monolaurine from the lauric acid they get from mother’s milk. Why is
it we discount coconut oil as unhealthy? Could it be because there is so
little public research, coming from different regions of the world, with
different diets and different traditional foods?
Before you think this is another big-business conspiracy, take the
troubling case of trans fat in our oil. Trans fat is indicted across the world
for being really bad for us because it increases the bad cholesterol (ldl)
and worse, even reduces good cholesterol (hdl). The fact is nutrition
science has been warning us about the evils of trans fat for many years.
Nobody listened. Is it because this involves the core business interests of
cooking oil companies? The fact is that trans deviation in the oil chain
happens because of the industrial process of hydrogenation—some-
thing companies have perfected so that they could sell oil with a longer
shelf life and soft to use. Just consider how this science was deliberately
suppressed in the fast-food haven of the US, where food regulators
refused to accept it even when state after state, restaurant after restau-
rant is now switching to better alternatives.
This complicity is worse because science is not simple. Take the
fatty acids sold to us through best-selling recipe books for their health
benefits. What is not explained is the ratio—the amount of omega 6
we consume in relation to omega 3. As most commercial oils are rich in
omega 6 and low in omega 3, our diet and health are hurt. This is the fine
print we must learn about.
But the most interesting issue is about how the market changes the
way we like our food. Therefore, over time our oil has come to be this
colourless, odourless thing. All oils taste the same because industry
extracts it (using various chemical solvents), then cleans it and because
we want it, even sells it as double and triple refined. This also means we
don’t know what we consume. In other words, there could be a mixture
of edible oil, or even in rouge cases, and non-edible oil in our bottle of
gleaming liquid. But then we don’t like its taste, do we?
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143
In all this, we have destroyed, indeed discredited the art of cold-

pressed oil—where we extracted it fresh and ingested its best qualities.
Next time, you are sold the benefits of olive oil, remember, this is its
secret—cold-pressed and natural. Why then have we turned our backs
on cold-pressed mustard oil? Another case of another local oil and
regional flavour being lost in our one-market world?
All this would have been just rant, if our regulators functioned in
public interest. Then science (not profit) would be policy. Consider what
the ministry of health has issued in the name of labelling nutrition facts
and you will know how our food is at risk. It literally allows companies
to get away with anything—as long as it is on the label.
And this is the time when we must be even more vigilant because
our food is in the hands of the most powerful. Who makes our cooking
oil today? Everyone from multinational Cargill or ConAgra—who have
worked the system, in many continents, for long.
Remember we cannot afford a Satyam—the information technology
giant that collapsed due to forgeries—in our food. This is about our
bodies. Our health. No monkey business is allowed here. n
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144
{ Honey, this is not honey

It is contaminated by a cocktail of antibiotics,
banned and prohibited in food
They say you are what you eat. But do we know what we are eating? Do
we know who is cooking and serving us the food we take to our kitchens
and then into our bodies?
The more I dig into this issue it becomes clear that our world of food
is spinning in directions we know nothing about.
Take honey. A sweet preserve we take for granted that it comes from
bees, which collect it from the nectar of flowers. We pick up the bottle
from a local shop, believing the honey was collected naturally, is fresh
and certainly without contaminants. In most cases, we think that small
farmers produced it or it was collected from the wild and packaged by
large companies. We consume it as a natural tonic against the chemical
assaults of the modern world.
But little do we know how the business of honey has changed. Nobody
explains us that the culture of food is linked to biodiversity. And this is
further connected with the business—and not pleasure of food. But mess
with biodiversity and you mess with food. The ubiquitous bee is one such
instance. Some decades ago, leading scientific institutions in India sold the
idea of introducing the European bee (Apis mellifera) into the country.
This prolific honey producer bee took over the business, virtually replac-
ing the humble but more adapted Indian bees (Apis cerana and Apis
dorsata) from our food.
At the same time, the business of honey moved away from small
producers, collecting honey from the wild and cultivating it in natural
conditions. It has become a highly organised business, controlled by a
handful of companies that handle all aspects of the trade—from the sup-
ply of queen bees to the paraphernalia of bee-housing, from feeding and
disease control to linking up with producers across different states. It is
an outsourced business, run by franchisees whose job is to find places,
like the apple farms of Himachal, where there is nectar for bees.
We have lost the biodiversity of the bee—Apis mellifera now large-
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145
ly makes our honey—and we have lost the diversity of the business.

Business is now about commerce, not food. But nature has its way of
getting back at us. The European bee is showing signs of overuse across
the world. In the US and Europe, there is worrying news about honeybee
colony collapses—bees are disappearing from colonies. This, in turn, is
hitting crop production in the US as bees play a critical role in pollinat-
ing food crops—a service, officially billed at some US $20 billion annu-
ally. The trade in pollinator bees involves carting bee colonies across the
county, where crops need their service. But now there is evidence that
such overwork, combined with the use of nasty new pesticides, new dis-
eases and immune-suppressed bees, are destroying bee diversity.
In India, things are no different. The dependence on an introduced
species and emphasis on overproduction means the overworked bees
are susceptible to diseases. The creatures are immune-suppressed and
not adapted to local conditions. So, the answer is to feed bees antibiotics
mixed liberally in sugar syrup. The bee makes honey and with it comes
the lethal dose of antibiotics.
When the Pollution Monitoring Laboratory of cse checked honey,
it found cocktail of antibiotics—mostly banned and prohibited in food.
It found everything from the commonly used Ampicillin, Enrofloxacin,
Ciprofloxacin, Erythromycin to the strictly banned Chloramphenicol in
honey made and packaged by the biggest and the most known compa-
nies. Any doctor will tell you these antibiotics in food are bad, because
they not only have health impacts, but also make disease-causing bac-
teria resistant to antibiotics. Over-exposure to antibiotics is not just
leading to super-bugs in hospitals, we are also getting small doses of
antibiotics through food. Because of this, doctors want us to be careful
with antibiotics. It is also because of this that food regulators say there
should be no—or minimum and controlled—antibiotics in our food.
This is where the equation between big businesses and food gets
murky. cse’s laboratory checked two foreign brands bought from the
local store. We know Europe has banned Indian honey for having these
antibiotics. They did this because they say they care about their health.
Good. But then who cares about our health? Both brands we
checked had high levels of antibiotics. The health-conscious companies,
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146
in this case from Australia and Switzerland, do not check antibiotics in

products they export to our world. It is about double-standards and it
stinks. But why should they care for our health, when our government
does not? The same government, which makes strict standards for
exported honey, does not care about what we use domestically. There
are no standards for antibiotics in Indian honey.
This is the age of big and powerful business taking over our kitchen,
because we have complicit food regulators. India’s Food Safety and
Standards Authority has been dead on entry. Do not be surprised. Be
angry. This is not a business we should allow for a takeover. It is about
us. Our bodies. Our self. n
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147
{ How do you like your food, sir?

Our social imperative may be to produce large quantities
of food. But what about nutrition and contamination?
My local vegetable vendor sells ordinary lemons packed in plastic

bags. It got me thinking if this is a sign of improving standards of food
safety and hygiene. After all if we go to any supermarket in the rich and
food-processed world, we will find food neatly packed so that there is
no contamination through human hands. Then there is the army of
food inspectors, who check everything from the processing plant to the
supplies in restaurants.
The principle is clear: the higher the concern for food safety, the
higher the standards of quality and consequently, the higher the cost of
enforcement. Slowly, but surely, small producers get pushed aside. This
is how the business of food works.
But is this the right model of food safety for India? It is clear that we
need safe food. It is also clear that we cannot afford to hide behind small
producers to say that we should not have stringent standards for quality
and safety. We cannot also argue that we are a poor developing country
and our imperative is to produce large quantities of food and reach it to
the large number of malnourished. We cannot say this because even if
we are poor and hard-pressed to produce more and reach more food to
people, we cannot ignore the fact that we are eating bad food, which is
making us ill. This is one of the many double burdens we carry.
The other double burden concerns the nature of “unsafe” food. The
most noxious of problems is adulteration—when people deliberately
add bad stuff to food for profit. In India, milk mixed with urea or chilies
added with chemical for colouring are just the tip of the adulteration
iceberg. We know we need effective enforcement against it. But it is also
a fact that these scandals are not confined to India. A few years ago, mel-
amine-contaminated milk killed babies in China. Horsemeat sold as beef
sent Europe into a tizzy. There are unscrupulous people in this business
that concerns our body and well-being.
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148
The second worry is regarding the safety of what is added to food

when it is processed. This is not adulteration because in this case addi-
tives permitted under food standards are used. The question is whether
we know enough about their side effects. Invariably and sadly, science
finds out the problems too late. For instance, there has been a huge row
over dangers of artificial sweeteners, first saccharine and then aspar-
tame. In the world of industrially manufactured food, the problem also
is that each product is backed by vested interests that claim it to be safe
till proved otherwise.
Often we know very little about the additives allowed in our food.
For instance, we eat vanilla thinking it is the real queen of spice, flavour-
ing ice creams and cakes. Little do we know that most of the vanilla in
food is made synthetically, and that this chemical, believe it or not, has
been harvested from effluent waste of paper mills or coal tar compo-
nents used in petrochemical plants. It is cheap and it has been passed
for human consumption by the food and drug administration of
different countries.
The third challenge comes from the toxins in our food—chemicals
used during the growing and processing of food, which even in minis-
cule quantities add up to an unacceptable intake of poisons. Exposure
to pesticides through our diet leads to chronic diseases. The best way is
to manage the food basket—calculate how much and what we eat—to
ensure that pesticide limits are set at safe levels. We have no option but
to ingest a little poison to get nutrition, but how do we keep it within
acceptable limits? This means setting safe pesticide standards for all
kinds of food.
There is a fourth food challenge, which may just provide answers
to this question. Food has to be not just safe, but also nutritious. Today,
the world’s panic button has been pressed on the matter of food that is
junk—high on empty calories and bad for health. There is more than
enough evidence that bad food is directly linked to the explosion of
non-communicable diseases in the world. There is enough to say that
enough is enough.
The answer is to think of a different model for the food business. It
cannot be the one-size-fits-all design of industrial production. It must be
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149
based on societal objectives of nutrition, livelihood and safety first, and

profit later. If we get this right, we will eat right. n
07Health(128-149).indd 149 23/05/16 8:11 PM

08Water(150-173).indd 150 23/05/16 8:12 PM

{8 Water
India’s water quandary is beginning to explode. The
problem is not scarcity, but lack of understanding
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{ Drought, but why

We don’t need drought relief, but relief from drought
Jhabua, late 1980s. This tribal, hilly district of Madhya Pradesh resem-
bled moonscape. All around me were bare brown hills. There was
no water. No work. Only despair. I still remember the sight of people
crouched on a dusty roadside, breaking stones. This was what drought
relief was all about—work in the scorching sun to repair roads that got
damaged each year or dig pits for trees that did not survive or build walls
that went nowhere. It was unproductive work. But it was all that people
had to survive the cursed time. It was also clear that the impact of drought
was pervasive and long-term. It destroyed the livestock economy and
sent people down the spiral of debt. One severe drought would set back
development work for years.
2016. The country is once again reeling from a crippling drought. But
this drought is different. In the 1990s, it was the drought of a poor India.
The 2016 drought is of richer and more water-guzzling India. This class-
less drought makes for a crisis that is more severe and calls for solutions
that are more complex. The severity and intensity of drought is not about
lack of rainfall; it is about the lack of planning and foresight, and criminal
neglect. Drought is human-made. Let’s be clear about this.
In June 1992, Down To Earth published an article by editor Anil
Agarwal and colleagues on the state of drought. Their analysis was that
while large parts of India were under the grip of drought, by official
meteorological accounts it was a near-normal rainfall year. He went on to
argue that drought would be here to stay unless we learnt again the mil-
lennium-old art of managing raindrops. Harvesting water in millions of
waterbodies and using it to recharge groundwater was critical. By the late
1990s, when drought reared its ugly head again, Down To Earth explored
how villages had beaten the odds by managing their water sagaciously. It
was a lesson taken by political leaders as they then launched water-har-
vesting programmes in their states.
However, this effort to rebuild water security was wasted in the fol-
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153
lowing decade despite the opportunity to get it right. There was rain—
years of deficiency were fewer—and there were government programmes
designed to build water structures. Under the Mahatma Gandhi National
Rural Employment Guarantee Act (mgnrega), millions of check dams,
ponds and other structures were constructed. But as the intention was not
to overcome drought, but only to provide employment, the impact of this
labour has not shown up in the country’s water reserves. The structures
were not designed to hold water. In most cases they were holes in the
ground that quickly filled up with soil by the next season.
But this is not the only reason for water desperation today. India has
prospered over these decades. This means today there is more demand
for water and less availability for saving.
Yet governments do not have a drought code that can handle this
situation. In bad old times, when there was drought, the British-designed
drought code would kick in. It meant that water for drinking would be
requisitioned by the local administration; fodder for animals would be
procured from long distances; livestock camps would be opened, and
food-for-work programmes would be started. The objective was to check
misery and as far as possible and stop distress migration to cities.
But this code is outdated. Water demand has increased mani-
fold. Today, cities drag water from miles away for their consumption.
Industries, including power plants, take what they can from where they
can. The water they use is returned as sewage or wastewater. Then farm-
ers grow water guzzling commercial crops, from sugarcane to banana.
They dig deeper and deeper into the ground to pump water for irrigation.
They have no way of telling when it will reach the point of no return. They
learn this only when the tubewell runs dry.
This modern-day drought of rich India has to be combined with
another development: climate change. The fact is that rain has become
even more variable, unseasonal and extreme. This will only exacerbate
the crisis. It is time we understood that since drought is human-made, it
can be reversed. But then we really need to get our act together.
First, we should do everything we can to augment water resourc-
es—catch every drop of water, store it and recharge groundwater. To do
this, we need to build millions of more structures, but this time based on
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154
water planning and not just employment. This means being deliberate
and purposeful. It also means giving people the right to decide the loca-
tion of the waterbody and to manage it for their needs. Today, invariably,
the land on which the waterbody is built belongs to one department and
the land from where the water will be harvested belongs to another.
There is no synergy in this plan. There is no water that can be harvested.
The employment that will be provided during this drought must be used
to build security against the next one.
Second, revise and update the drought code. It is not as if the richer
parts of the world do not have droughts. Australia and California have
gone through years of water scarcity. But their governments respond by
shutting off all non-essential water use, from watering lawns to hosing
down cars. This is what is needed in India.
Third, obsessively work to secure water in all times. This means insist-
ing on water codes for everyday India. We need to reduce water usage
in all sectors, from agriculture to industry. This means benchmarking
water use and setting targets for reduced consumption year on year. It
would mean doing everything from introducing water-efficient fixtures to
promoting water-frugal foods. It means making our war against drought
permanent. Only then will drought not become permanent. n
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155
{ The business of water

The urban rich and industries must bear the real cost of
water, as well as the wastewater they generate
In 2016, India was flooded with stories of water scarcity as the country
faced one of the worst droughts in recent history. As in the past, the issue
of how to manage water, and in such a way that everybody gets equal
share is being discussed aggressively. And as usual, some are throwing up
the old idea of privatising the business of water. Reportedly, niti Aayog,
India’s planning agency, has started a discussion on how to monetise the
water sector.
Excessive heat and little light is how I would describe discussions
on the privatisation of water. Protagonists say this is the magic bullet
that will deliver safe water for all. Antagonists insist the private sector is
interested only in profit, not in public good. Their claim that “rivers are
being sold to multinationals” evokes outrage.
So where does the truth—if there is anything of the kind left—lie?
Way back in 2003, a French multinational, Degremont, was awarded
a contract by the Delhi Jal Board, a state-owned water authority, to treat
raw water for supply to Delhi’s residents. This water was to come from
the river Ganga. And at a stupendous cost: pipelines were to be laid over
long distances to meet the guzzling city’s needs. The cost of building
the pipelines and transporting water remained with the State. But as a
company would build and run the water treatment facility, it became a
privatisation model. In this build and operate scheme, the State still set
tariffs, collected revenues and managed the overall water services.
In the second model, the responsibility shifts to the private entity.
The state plays, at best, a regulatory role. The problem arises when the
“entity” sets tariffs—to pay for operating costs and to rake in profits—for
a service like water. For instance, in Metro-Manila in the Philippines, a
successful privatisation venture ran into trouble when local politicians
blocked water multinational Suez SA’s moves to increase the rates.
Water is a business, and if not profitable, the company moves out. Even
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156
so, the State technically remains the custodian of the resource.

In the third model, “ownership” shifts to the private enterprise. This
is the river-leasing model. The Chhattisgarh government entered into a
contract with a private company to invest in a barrage on the Sheonath
river and provide water to the local industrial estate. In this build-own-op-
erate model, activists alleged that a 23-km stretch of the river was leased
to the company for 22 years. Contract details were unclear, but people’s
access to this stretch had been reportedly curtailed. This is not an entirely
new approach. In other parts of the country, small stretches of rivers have
been leased to industries.
The fourth model is more unregulated. Here, the water resource is
free for all. An example is the use of groundwater by bottled water or
beverage companies. Under the existing legal framework, companies can
simply bore a hole in the ground, extract water and make profits. Nothing
extraordinary, you would say. All industries, institutions, house-owners
and farmers that consume groundwater are part of this “private” army
of users. Of course, the use of this free resource by a superbrat profitable
company—national or multinational—cannot be equated with say, a
farmer, rich or poor.
So is privatisation of water a solution or a disaster? Before this, let
us understand why privatisation is happening in the first place. Is it only
because the World Bank and water companies want to “commodify”
water and push water-services in our part of the world? These agencies
clearly smell lucre. We have dirty and scarce water, incompetent and
bankrupt municipal agencies and growing populations. Our desperate
need for clean water provides a fantastic business opportunity and grist
to their greed.
But I would argue that it is the rich and middle classes of developing
countries who are actually responsible for the privatisation of water. I
would, in fact, go so far as to argue that water scarcity and pollution are
the outcome of the fact that water has for too long been considered a
free good. A free good that benefits not the poor, but the relatively rich
of the developing world.
For the poor, there is no free lunch. They pay—through their labour
or with cash—for the meagre stinking water they get. In truth, they pay
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157
for it through worsening health. The relatively rich, in stark contrast, are
grossly subsidised.
But this is only half the story. The main cost is not in providing clean
water, but in taking back the flushed dirty water in the sewage systems
and treating it before discharging it into rivers. We know that sewage and
drainage costs can be as high as five to six times more than the cost of
water. And with increasing chemical pollution, water treatment costs are
only going to increase. Urban populations do not even think about this, let
alone pay. Therefore, literally, they are subsidised to defecate in conveni-
ence. No wonder we have massive water pollution problems.
Privatisation or not, the subsidised middle class of the develop-
ing world cannot and will not pay the true costs of water and sewage.
Therefore, is the issue more about the re-appropriation of this natural
monopoly by the poor, and not about privatisation per se? Is the private
sector the devil? Or the State? Or both?
These questions continue to haunt me, but let me try and work
towards some resolution. Firstly, there is the issue of pricing of water for
the relatively rich of the developing world. It is evident that urban and
industrial sectors in the developing world have not even begun to pay
for the water they use; indeed, they misuse it in their toilets and factories.
Therefore, municipalities are bankrupt and this, along with all other ineffi-
ciencies, makes them lousy service providers. The private sector is, in this
circumstance, given a messianic role, because good credit rating can bring
in financial investment, those “billions” needed to provide safe water for all.
The question arises: is the contract that is signed between the private
entity—interested in profits—and the public entity incapable of raising
profits fair? Clearly not. The municipality or local government will either
see the private sector as an instrument to recover money from subsi-
dised consumers, or simply see it as a way to provide some efficiency
even as the government continues to subsidise its consumers and also
pays the private sector its pound of flesh.
All this is done in the name of the poor in this strangely “socialist”
country of ours. This, when all politicians realise that it is the rich, or at
least the relatively rich, that guzzle water and that it is they who are being
subsidised. The poor get a few bucketfuls; studies clearly show they pay
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158
much more for the little they use.

It is the same with industry. They, too, pay a pittance for profligate
extraction. Therefore clearly, more than the issue of privatisation, it is
the issue of payment for water by the rich and relatively rich that must
be resolved first.
Secondly, there is the issue of “ownership” of the resource itself.
Under existing law, the State has full jurisdiction and control over water.
It gives itself these rights to manage in the interests of all. But this also
means that it can transfer, at will, certain rights over the resource in the
interests of a few. This certainly creates problems for the privatisation
option because, then, something much more fundamental than contrac-
tors-at-work is involved.
Thirdly, there is the key issue of: safe water for whom? The private
sector has no answers for the poor in the developing world. They are not
markets. They are scattered. They cannot pay. Therefore, anyone who
argues for private sector involvement in the name of the rural poor is, to
put it bluntly, a fraud. But worse, governments also do not care. It is the
resource of the poor that gets appropriated—surface water extracted
and returned as sewage, or groundwater piped out and away—from
their villages and neighbourhoods, exclusively for cities and industries.
Given all this, I would like to step beyond the Bushism of a “with-
privatisation-or-against-it” argument. I would certainly not argue that
the private sector can solve the water problems of the world. But I would
also not argue to exclude it in playing a role in water services.
But a contractor private sector can only work within the terms
society sets for it. It cannot own the resource. It certainly cannot be its
custodian. It can only be contracted to deliver clean water and take back
sewage. Sewage must be included in all water contracts because this is
the real and dirty business of water.
The private sector can also be asked to set the price and recover dues.
But setting the tariff must be fully transparent about the full costs of
treating and delivering water and waste. Governments that subsidise its
middle-class electorate must not hide behind socialist rhetoric. I expect
that, once some measure of the real price is paid for water and waste,
this dependence on the private sector will also magically disappear. The
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159
public utility sector could become more, or at least equally, efficient

as the private company as its returns on equity—profits—can be fully
reinvested in the system.
In the water management framework, the issue of “ownership” needs
resolution. This is important. Not only because the rights of the poor
must be safeguarded in present and future agreements, but also because,
as the State and the private sector will not and cannot provide water for
poor urban and rural communities, the rights of these communities to
control and manage their natural asset must be secured.
Therefore, to my mind the real issue is about the governance and
regulatory framework to secure the rights and access of all to clean
water. It is about the right to life of all. Let us not lose sight of this. Not
even for an instant. n
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160
{ Why liquidate our future?

Local communities must be the
custodians of groundwater
Who does the water under the ground belong to? Who has the right
to exploit it? Are there limits on what can be extracted? Groundwater
under Indian law belongs to the person who owns the land. In other
words, the owner of the land is the de facto and de jure owner of the
resource underneath. But as the amount of groundwater that can be
exploited does not depend on the amount of land owned, in effect, there
are no limits to how much can be extracted. Exploitation, therefore,
depends simply on the money to drill deep, electricity to pump and of
course, water available in the aquifers below.
But this was till the Kerala High Court in 2003, listening to the
matter of groundwater use by Coca-Cola company in Palakkad district,
judged that it was time to look afresh at the use of resources meant for
public use. Justice K Balakrishnan Nair deliberated on how this legal
provision, which gives unfettered rights to the landowner to extract
groundwater, was adversely affecting people living in the vicinity. He
judged that underground water belonged to the public, with the State
as trustee, its duty being to prevent overuse. “The inaction of the State
in this regard will be tantamount to infringement of the right to life of
the people guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” he
ruled. Therefore, if the panchayat and the State are duty-bound to ward
off excessive exploitation, it would also mean the landowner does not
have unfettered rights to the water beneath.
The matter pertained to the use of water by a large water-consuming
industry, and the judge ruled that this “extraction of water at the admit-
ted amounts by the 2nd respondent (Coca-Cola Company) is illegal”.
He argued that the panchayat in Kerala state had been made responsible
to maintain traditional water sources and, therefore, was duty bound
to prevent overexploitation of a resource held by it in trust. The judge-
ment directed that the company should not have unrestrained rights
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161
over groundwater. Instead, the company can only draw groundwater

by digging wells, which must be equivalent to the water normally used
for irrigating crops in a land area the size of the company’s plot. In other
words, a principle for allocation and use has to be arrived at. The amount
of water that can be extracted has to be decided by the panchayat; this
cannot affect availability of drinking water in the neighbourhood.
This judgement could well change the way we do business with
groundwater. As it must. Academic and water expert Tushaar Shah has
spent many years understanding groundwater economy and politics. He
estimates that groundwater alone irrigates over 60 per cent of the cropped
area in the country; another 20 per cent is irrigated using groundwater
in conjunction with tanks and canals. In other words, 80 per cent of the
irrigation in the country is from groundwater—astounding if you think
of the huge public investments in surface irrigation systems like dams
and canals we have made over the past five-six decades. Moreover, there
are various estimates that over 90 per cent of drinking water is sourced
from aquifers.
Just think: 80 per cent of irrigation and 90 per cent of drinking water
come from groundwater sources. Clearly, this is the lifeline that will
make India shine or sink. But it is also the lifeline we are least mindful of.
Groundwater tables across the country are declining sharply. Technology
has made possible deeper and deeper penetration and extraction. The
electricity subsidy—cheap and unreliable energy for pumping—worsens
the situation, with estimations that farmers end up using almost double
the water for each unit of crop when they have access to cheap or free
power as compared to pump-sets using paid diesel. Then, there is no
regulation for the big users: industry, whose use is growing unchecked
and unrecorded. Growing pollution complicates the situation further. All
in all, a mess.
The Kerala judgement could kickstart a reform agenda. But only if
we understand that regulating groundwater will demand tremendous
innovation and management ingenuity. There are an estimated 20 mil-
lion users of groundwater in the country. If the answer is to license each
well and to manage its extraction through bureaucratic fiat, we can be
sure of an unmitigated disaster. Isn’t there a better way? I think so. Can
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162
the “devolved” State—the panchayat or the local community—become

the custodian of this public resource? In this new equation, the State
agencies would be charged with providing information about the state of
the resource and its availability to the managers. This means we need a
strong groundwater bureaucracy, one that is able to generate the knowl-
edge. Weak and inconsequential groundwater boards will simply not do.
Clearly, this would have to be combined with reform of the electrici-
ty boards, so that farmers get power when they need it most to optimise
on irrigation and at a price which does not discount their use of water.
Additionally, the commercial users of this water, much as the High
Court of Kerala has directed, must be made to pay, with limits imposed
on their use.
The good news is that groundwater is a replenishable asset. We must
invest in each monsoon, so that drops of rain are channelised into the
aquifers with planned deliberation. In other words, these wells are the
underground tanks that need to be recharged each year so that we ensure
that abstraction—use—is limited only to what we can annually recharge.
It does not take a banker to tell us that a healthy bank account is one
in which we live on the interest, and not on the capital. Then why are we
hell-bent on liquidating our future? n
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163
{ Water wars
Conflicts are spreading across India due to
poverty of policy
It is often said that the next war in the world will be fought over water.
I do not know if this prophecy will come true. But I do know that skir-
mishes and even full-fledged battles over water are here to stay in India.
And I also know that these battles are deliberate and willful creation of
governments and their policies.
Let me take the case in Sriganganagar district, Rajasthan. Four farmers
were killed in police firing in November 2004 as they were agitating for
their share of irrigation water. The fact is that these farmers were settled
in the desert by the government. They were brought there to cultivate
the arid land, make it prosperous with waters of the Rajasthan canal. The
government gave each farmer 6.32 hectares (ha) of land for a nominal
long-term interest free payment. The plan was quite simple. Rajasthan’s
desert was to bloom like the fertile lands of Punjab and Haryana. Farmers
were encouraged to intensify their agricultural practices. By 1983, things
were looking good: over 244,000 ha land was being irrigated and the
desert was in bloom. The government’s policy told farmers that the water
was theirs to take. The policy encouraged them to grow crops, which
used up irrigation water—wheat, cotton and even rice.
But there is one homily that never fails to hit home: there is never
enough water. The fact is that government was planning phase II of the
project, when the canal would extend deeper into the desert and more
areas would be brought under irrigation. The water was to be shared
ultimately over an area, which would double the irrigated area of phase I.
But the project had other water demanders. As cities and industries in the
desert grew thirsty, the canal water was diverted to them.
Then there is the oft-repeated allegation that the upstream state
has reneged on its commitment of releasing the water allocated to the
canal. But monitoring and administrative mechanisms, which should
confirm this allegation, do not exist. The government had decreed by
policy that farmers living on the sides of the feeder canal, taking water to
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164
the desert, would not use its waters: it was “reserved”. But policy cannot
dictate thirsty farmers. The canal was breached and its water taken out,
so allege its downstream claimants. So, on one hand, secure in the policy
of plentiful water, farmers increased water use. On the other hand, pol-
icy continued to create more demand. The situation was gently stoked
towards a conflict. The fact is policy could have fostered a water-prudent
society, if only it had been designed to accept that water will never be
enough—however plentiful, it might seem.
The fact is that water was brought into the desert, which has a spe-
cific agro-economy. It is based on animals, and not on crops. Water is
scare, so it is used, not to irrigate crops, but to grow fodder for animals to
survive. The land is used to grow grasses or trees, which provide fodder
in critical winter months. The system is geared to optimise productivity,
not of land but of each drop of water. It’s meant to transform waterdrops
into milk, wool and meat. Similarly, if drinking water needs of rural
households and even large urban townships are harnessed carefully from
rain, the inhabitants will not need to appropriate from the region beyond.
Therefore, if policy had respected water frugality, it would have
designed a supportive structure to enhance productivity, without suc-
cumbing to water greed. For instance, it could have ensured that irrigation
water was given first to the common grazing lands, so that the desert
economy prospered. Even the agriculture could have been centered
on this animal-milk economy. Then, it could have maintained that all
rural-urban centers and industries would have to first meet their water
needs from their rain endowment and only the deficit would be made
good by the water from the canal.
The fact is that we need to learn this policy prescription fast. Water
tensions are on the increase across the country. When Chennai looks
for its drinking water at the Veeranam Lake, farmers agitate against the
withdrawal for the thirsty city. The desperation for water is real. And
the conflicts will not just simmer, but burn in times to come. Until pol-
icy begins to respect the idea that frugality is not about poverty. Until it
acknowledges that scarcity is not about the lack of resources, but about
being wise in using resources; until policy is not poor. n
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165
{ The message in the bottle

While the world is learning why water doesn’t grow in
bottles, India is sucking up to the idea
The bottled water industry is global in nature. But it is designed to

sell the same product to two completely different markets: one water
rich and the other water scarce. The question is whether this industry
will have different outcomes in these two worlds. Or will we, for two
opposite reasons, agree that their business costs us the Earth and that it
is not good for us?
In the water and economically-rich world, bottled water started as
a luxury—a non-essential item of desire, health and status. The water
came from fancy mountain streams they were packaged and sold as
mineral-filled sparkling water. It was different from tap water and a
healthy (and snobbish) alternative to sweet and street smart colas. But
soon, the industry grew. In most cases, the companies sold water that
was not sourced from mountain springs, but from public water munici-
pal water sources. Once the snob habit was formed and the market cre-
ated, the companies simply packaged tap water in most cases into plastic
bottles and sold it from supermarkets. Like nobody said the emperor
had no clothes on. Nobody asked why they were buying water for 10
times the municipality’s price. Call it a great advertising success, but this
non-essential industry is growing exponentially.
But the bubble is bursting. Way back in 2007, San Francisco’s mayor
banned the use of bottled water in government buildings, incriminating
billions of disposed plastic bottles that filled landfills. But equally impor-
tantly, the mayor stressed that his city’s municipal water came from
pristine sources inside a national park. This was as good, if not better,
than the bottled water sold by companies, he said.
He was not alone. A year before this, Salt Lake City’s mayor asked
public employees to stop supplying bottled water at official events. New
York launched a US $1 million campaign to encourage people to drink
its famously clean public water. Top-notch restaurants refused to serve
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166
bottled water. In 2007, junk food giant Pepsi was forced to admit in the
US that Aquafina, its bottled water, was nothing more than tap water. It
agreed to label its bottles to say what it didn’t want to: Aquafina was tap
water from a public water source.
The bottled water industry is in a damage control mode. But I believe
that this scream could easily become a shout as people realise the envi-
ronmental cost of this product and realise the sheer stupidity of paying
dearly for something that is cheaper and readily available.
Bottled water is growing big time in India. The industry was worth
US $160 billion in 2013 and it is estimated to be worth US $160 billion
in 2018. But in India, bottled water is growing as an item of necessity.
Private industry is meeting the drinking water demand that public utili-
ties don’t meet. People are paying prices that they cannot afford because
they have no alternative.
In India, this water does not come from municipal taps, but from
groundwater. Companies simply drill a hole in the ground, pump and
clean (sometimes) to bottle it and then transport it to cities. Simply put,
this is the privatisation of drinking water.
The fact is that bottled water is no different from water that should
come from our taps. The only difference is it is packed in plastic and not
conveyed in pipelines. But, while the Indian rich can afford to buy bot-
tled water, the poor cannot. The rich have the choice and they opt out
of the failing municipal systems. What is forgotten is that Indian water
systems are failing because the rich in the country—who can afford bot-
tled water—are still supplied water at a 10th of what it costs the munici-
pality. Worse, our wastewater is conveyed and pumped from our homes
and even treated (at times). None of these costs are recovered. In other
words, it is our subsidy which is leading to poorer and poorer delivery
from water agencies. It is the rich, who have the option to drink bottled
water, who are failing the system. n
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167
{ Grandstanding on river interlinking

The idea is to centralise control over water. But no state
would want to share its own waters with its neighbour
In 2012, the Supreme Court issued a diktat to the government to imple-

ment the scheme to interlink rivers. And the much discarded idea of
fighting water scarcity is back in the public domain. The directions were
straightforward. The government shall set up a high-level committee
of ministers and other representatives on interlinking of rivers; the
committee shall meet “at least, once in two months”; in the absence of
any member, the meeting shall not be adjourned; the committee shall
submit a biannual report on actions to the Union Cabinet, “which shall
take final and appropriate decisions in the interest of the country as
expeditiously as possible and preferably within 30 days from the matter
being placed before it for consideration”.
Without getting into the obvious matter of judicial overreach, let us
take a careful look at what interlinking is all about and what the deci-
sion will imply. The fact is that transfer of water from one river basin to
another is not, per se, either a novel or an untested idea. Every irrigation
project involves such transfer at some scale. The question is what this
particular idea of linking rivers implies.
The term river linking has come from the idea floated by irrigation
engineer K L Rao way back in 1972. He proposed the construction of a
grandiose Ganga-Cauvery Canal, which would divert floodwaters of the
Ganga near Patna for about 150 days in a year to river Cauvery some 2,640
km away in the south. This idea captured imagination: take excess water
from the Ganga to the water-deficit and stressed areas of Tamil Nadu.
A pilot, Captain Dinshaw J Dastur, suggested a variation: con-
struction of garland canals, one for the Himalayan watershed and the
other for the Western Ghats. This idea was also appealing, simple and
essential. Long-distance irrigation projects then spawned a huge water
bureaucracy. In 1982, the National Water Development Agency was set
up to study and implement the project to first link peninsular rivers and
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168
then Himalayan rivers. Its objective is based on the same simple concept:
there are floods in some parts, droughts in the other, so if we link the
rivers, we will all be happy.
But for equally obvious reasons the agency’s proposals were, govern-
ment after government, studied, considered and buried. But not forever.
In early 2000, the Supreme Court and government got back into the
game. The court ordered the government to speed up implementation of
the project and set the deadline of 2016 for its completion. The National
Democratic Alliance, then in power, quickly announced the setting up
of a task force for linking rivers. It was to complete some 30 river links in
two years, adding some 1,000 km of canals. This task was a non-starter.
The next government came to power and while the concept
appealed, better sense prevailed. Interlinking was found technically
unfeasible and costly. But the water bureaucracy did not give up. In
2008, the National Council of Applied Economic Research produced a
study volume, in which it explained in simplistic terms that the project
would cost R444,331.2 crore at the 2003-2004 rates. But this investment
would lead to rich dividends in terms of increased household income
and prosperity for all, it stated. The report would have gone unnoticed,
but for the Supreme Court, which has bought this line and ordered the
government to obey or face contempt.
The question still is: what does this project imply, given that a mas-
sive number of irrigation projects on the government’s wish list remain
incomplete? First, it implies the notion that there is a huge surplus of
water in river basins. This assumption is flawed. Most river basins today
are overextended in usage, and in most regions, tension is growing
between old rural users of surface water and new industrial and urban
users. The Mahanadi basin, which would be linked to the Godavari is a
classic example of this error. There is little unallocated water in the basin.
The second assumption that floodwaters can be channelised is
equally erroneous. The fact is when one river is in spate so is the next
river, and transferring water would require huge storage facilities.
Construction of large reservoirs has massive environmental impacts not
considered in the scheme. Many irrigation projects are stalled on this
count. More importantly, the government’s track record in resettling
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169
people displaced by such projects is abysmal.

The third assumption is that India will gain from investment in irri-
gation projects is indeed true. But it is equally true that the current chal-
lenge is to ensure that the projects, already built and commissioned, are
kept operational. The 12th Five Year Plan working group clearly states
that priority is bridging the growing gap between the irrigation potential
created and utilised.
The idea of interlinking rivers is appealing because it is so grand. But
this is also the reason it is nothing more than a distraction that will take
away precious time and money from the business at hand. The task is to
provide clean water to all and to use the resource with efficiency. This
agenda needs our attention. Indeed our obsession. n
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170
{ Power the mind, first

The river has enough to give us, but only if we put the
river first, our needs next
Hydropower is important. But how important? Is it important enough

to dry up stretches of our rivers? Or is there a way to balance the need
of energy with the imperative of a flowing, healthy river? I have been
grappling with these issues for the past few years. I was a member of a
government committee that looked into the issue of hydropower pro-
jects on the Ganga. The committee submitted its report in 2013. This
gave me a ringside view of how we should or shouldn’t manage the river
that has become the symbol of river rejuvenation in the country.
The Ganga in the upper reaches has been an engineer’s playground.
The Central Electricity Authority and the Uttarakhand power department
have estimated the river’s hydroelectric potential at some 9,000 megawatt
(MW) and planned 70-odd projects on its tributaries. Their dreams
are gargantuan. In building these projects the key tributaries would be
modified—through diversion to tunnels or reservoirs—to such an extent
that 80 per cent of the Bhagirathi and 65 per cent of the Alaknanda could
be “affected”. As much as 90 per cent of the other smaller tributaries could
also be “affected” in the same way.
In this way, hydropower would re-engineer the Ganga. It would also
dry up the river in many stretches. Most of the proposed projects are
run-of-the-river schemes, which are seemingly benevolent as compared
to large dams. But only if the project is carefully crafted to ensure that
the river remains a river and does not turn into an engineered drain.
On the Ganga, many projects were planned and were being built so
that one project would divert water from the river, channel it to where
energy would be generated and then discharge it back into the river.
But the next project would be built even before the river could regain
its flow. So, the river would simply dry up over entire stretches. Energy
generation was the driver; indeed, the only obsession. The plan was
based on using up all the water in the dry season to make energy. The
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171
river would have died.

We discussed various options for ecological flow (e-flow) in the
committee—why and how much water should be left in the river for
needs other than energy. The hydropower engineers argued for 10 per
cent e-flow, which they said they could “accommodate” in project design
without huge loss of energy generation. The Wildlife Institute of India,
commissioned to look at ecosystem and fish biodiversity needs, suggest-
ed between 20 per cent and 30 per cent e-flow in different seasons.
I said this was inadequate. In most stretches, the lean flow (from
November to April) was less than 10 per cent of the high monsoon flow.
Leaving just 30 per cent would mean a trickle. It was not acceptable. I
proposed 50 per cent e-flow at all times. But clearly, this was completely
and absolutely unacceptable to the other side.
My colleagues at the Centre for Science and Environment decided
to do some number crunching. The committee had been provided, on
repeated requests, hydrological data of 24 constructed and proposed
projects. My colleagues took this data and analysed what would be the
impact on energy generation and tariffs in different e-flow regimes.
They found that in the 50 per cent e-flow scenario, there was substantial
impact on the amount of energy generated and, therefore, on the tariff.
But if we modified this a little and provided for a little extra water for
energy generation in the high discharge season, but kept the 50 per cent
e-flow for the lean season, the results changed dramatically. In this case,
the reduction in energy generation was not substantial. Therefore, tariffs
were comparable. The reason was simple: the projects actually did not
generate much energy in the lean season. The plant load factor, project
after project, showed that even in the unrestricted scenario (e-flow of 10
per cent or less) there was no water to make energy in the lean season.
We suggested that mimicking river flow was the best way to optimise
energy generation. The river had enough to give us, but only if we put
the river first, our needs next. Based on this, our proposal was to provide
30 per cent e-flow for six months (May to October) and 50 per cent for
six months (November to April). But as expected, this analysis did not
suit the power interests. iit-Roorkee, also a member of the committee,
was asked to review the analysis.
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172
The games started. iit-Roorkee, represented by its Alternative

Hydro Energy Centre, disputed our conclusions. We asked why? No
data was provided on the method of estimation. But hidden in the back-
ground sheets provided by iit-Roorkee was data from two projects of
hydrological flow used to disprove our figures. We checked. We found
to our shock that figures of flow had been modified; suddenly there was
no water in the river in the first place, so a higher e-flow regime would
naturally mean lower energy generation. We checked again. We found
that even levelised tariff figures had been “changed” from what was pro-
vided earlier to the committee.
A round of data contest began. My lesson: rivers should not be trained;
it’s Indian water and hydropower engineers who need re-training.
The final report of the committee has accepted the need for a 50 per
cent flow but with conditions, which leave it vague and weak in applica-
tion. We have differed and given an alternative view. Our analysis shows
that winter (lean) flow is less than 10 per cent of the high monsoon flow
in almost all 24 projects for which hydrological data is available. In other
words, if less than 50 per cent water is left in the river, it will be reduced
to a trickle in these months.
Our position is clear: it is possible for hydropower development to
be feasible, even if there is a mandatory provision for 50 per cent e-flow
for six months of lean season. It is not too much to give for a flowing,
living river.
But I believe this issue raises bigger concerns that need to be dis-
cussed. Firstly, the question of how the potential of hydropower genera-
tion is arrived at. In this case, the Central Electricity Authority estimated
hydropower potential way back in the late 1980s. This estimation did
not take into account e-flow, competing needs of society for water or
indeed anything else. But any reduction in this “potential” is seen as
a financial and energy loss. Any reduction is resisted. But what is not
questioned is the very basis of the potential itself.
Secondly, there is the question of cost of generation. Energy planners
push for hydropower because they say the tariffs are low and this source
provides power during peak demand hours. But they discount water
used as raw material and the necessity of a flowing river.
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173
Thirdly, there is the question of making hydel energy sustainable.

Currently, the way projects are being executed is disastrous. But if any
project is stopped, states ask for compensation—as Uttarakhand is
doing—for not destroying the environment. This sets a bad precedent as
it induces states to degrade the environment recklessly or be paid to be
good. But this also happens because there is no framework to establish
the boundaries for resource use. It is necessary to establish sound prin-
ciples for hydropower development—ecological flow and ideal distance
between projects.
The fact is that rivers cannot and should not be re-engineered. But
dams can certainly be re-engineered to adapt to these limits. n
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09Forest and Wildlife(174-193).indd 174 23/05/16 8:12 PM

{9 Forests
If you alienate people from their habitations,
you will only beget violence and lose productivity

176
{ Can we use our forests well?

We need a forest policy that can straddle conservation as
well as productivity
Conserving forests is a burden states are no longer able—or

willing—to afford. This has happened because in India, as concern for
natural resources grew, the harvesting of forests stopped. For these
states, revenue has dried up, but the establishment costs of maintaining
forest departments—intent on protection—continues to climb. In the
mid-1990s, for instance, Madhya Pradesh made money from its forest
resources. Its revenue was higher than its expenditure in this sector. But
by 2005, the situation completely reversed. Now the state spends more
than it can earn. Arunachal Pradesh’s spending on forestry is as high
as its revenue used to be in the mid-1990s. As much as 80 per cent of
the state is forested, but today it makes practically nothing from its vast
forest wealth. The situation is such that India has today now become a
major importer of wood.
You might argue: so what? After all, this is merely a cost the nation
is paying for a higher good. It is saving its forests, vital for ecological
and water security. But the picture becomes more complex when other
questions are also asked. For instance: who really pays the cost for pro-
tecting our forests? Who bears the brunt of protection?
First, it is the forest-dependent states that bear the cost. They are
already close to bankruptcy; loss of revenue from resources they possess
cripples them further. So, states cut vital social sector expenditures. They
hardly like to budget for maintaining and enhancing their forest resourc-
es any more. The result: forest-rich states compromising their growth.
Second, understand that it is the poorest that bear the burden of con-
servation. Forest areas in India are enormously rich in land, but people
who live there are the poorest. Their lives are crucially linked to using
the many resources a forest provides. They exist in a forest economy.
But nobody is interested in building a future, economically speaking, on
these resources. So it is no wonder, or accident, that the poor in such

177
areas get poorer.

We just do not know how to build futures in forest land. Economic
progress, to us, has nothing to do with hugging our forests to ourselves.
The profit is in destroying them: for mining, for industries. Similarly, for
the poor, managing forests as forests does not bring them wealth. They
can only survive if they clear forests to cultivate marginal and degraded
lands, to eke out an ever-meagre return. The land degrades, the people
become more destitute: so turns the vicious cycle of poverty.
What we desperately need, therefore, are new ways of managing our
forest wealth. We need a forest policy and practice that can straddle
conservation as well as productivity. Firstly, we should determine which
forests need to be protected, at all costs. These are areas of high ecolog-
ical value, or of important water sources, or vital for species protection.
These lands have to be managed only for conservation.
Secondly, we need to realise that this conservation will cost money.
We cannot piggyback upon the poor, for our sake. Therefore, we need to
incorporate the principles of valuing forests for tangible as well as intan-
gible benefits. And we must pay. We must pay to the communities who
live in and around forest lands; they must be compensated for protecting
resources, when allowed to. The cost must be paid, by users—us—for
water, recreation or other services, for its protection and maintenance.
Currently, there exists a provision to calculate the net present value
(npv) of forests, and pay up an amount when they are diverted for
non-forest purposes. But this is payment for destruction. This is not
payment to protect forests as forests. Also, the money goes to a central
authority, not to the state that has sacrificed its forests. Certainly not to
the community that bears the cost of this “diversion”. This only makes
forests “unprofitable” and “uneconomical”. There is no incentive to
protect or to grow forests. Of late, the Finance Commission allocates
certain incentive funds to states that have significant forest cover like
Uttarakhand. But, whether this is enough incentive to protect forest,
time will tell.
In the remaining forest land, what we could do—and this is my third
recommendation—is revamp the conservation policies for forests. We
need to plant trees, to also cut them. We need, quite literally, to make

178
money on our forest wealth. But we need to learn how to make money
without destroying the forests. It is here that we must learn from our
mistakes, to build forest policies that have a future.
We know our forest lands are populated and intensely “used”. We
know livestock pressure on them is high and that animals suppress
regeneration. At the same time, people need forests for their livelihood
needs. Currently, bureaucracies manage these lands. They pay lip service
to community forest development and joint forest management. But the
truth is that vast swathes of forest land in the country lie underutilised
and remain unproductive, simply because we have not learnt how to
increase productivity by involving the people who use these increasingly
degraded lands. If we were to learn from our mistakes, we could invest
in these lands, to build economic futures. We could plant trees; we
could cut and sell. Make money from. When people will earn, they will
also plant once again. There will be jobs, economic prosperity. In short,
we need a policy that values our forests and a policy that increases the
value of our forests. Our forests are too important to be left unused and
uncared for. n

179
{ Money does grow on trees

We have never really learnt how to use the environment
for productive purposes
My initiation into environmental advocacy began in the mid-1980s.

My colleague Anil Agarwal was involved in a fight against the Karnataka
government’s proposal to give forest land to Harihar Polyfibres—the
Birla-owned pulp mill based in the state—to grow its raw material. The
matter was in the Supreme Court and we had to put together informa-
tion to convince, first our lawyer and then the judges, on why environ-
mental groups were fighting against an “eminently” sensible and green
proposal to afforest land.
The problem, we explained after careful research, was that this forest
land being given to the paper industry for its captive plantation was the
mother of all subsidies. This industry had in the past been given vast
areas of forests at a throwaway price. With interest in forest conserva-
tion growing, this strategy had to be reworked. Industry wanted the easy
way out. It wanted government to grant it forest land for afforestation.
But we believed that this grant of cheap land would destroy the possibil-
ity of asking industry to source its wood from farmers. So, we were not
against the paper industry getting wood for its raw material, but we were
against it getting forest land to grow that wood. But company lawyers—
the best—argued that the land being given was “wasteland”. Hectares
after hectares of it are lying waste across the country. So how could we
oppose their client’s “green” efforts?
We explained ourselves to the court. We showed how this land was
not unused. It was degraded because of intense human and animal pres-
sure, which suppressed natural regeneration. And if this was the case, what
would happen to those “illegal” but “customary” users of this state-owned
common land, once the land became “private” plantation property?
Where would they go to graze their cattle or collect their firewood? Was
it not more important to involve these very people in regenerating forests,
so that livelihoods could be protected and land—all the hectares (ha) lying

180
waste—could be afforested?
Government accepted this view. The national forest policy of 1988
incorporated our proposition and asked industry to go to farmers to
grow trees. But industry kept the fire burning. Every new minister was
sold this magic pill: give degraded forest land to industry, which will use
its immense financial and managerial prowess to afforest India. Each
time this proposition was raised, it was opposed. But it is one of those
ideas that continues to simmer. Recently, the National Democratic
Alliance (nda) government issued guidelines for the participation of
the private sector in afforestation of degraded forests. The reasons are
usual: improving productivity of degraded forest lands, enhancing forest
financing and enhanced material availability for industry.
This message needs to be heard. Clearly. There is no denying indus-
try will remain a voracious user of wood. The question is of strategy: can
we turn this threat into an opportunity, so that growing trees becomes
an enterprise for rural households—rich and poor? The potential is out
there. The space for wood sourced directly from farmers is increasing in
the marketplace. Farm-grown wood has even begun fighting an unfair
competition with the forest department, whose cheaper wood distorts
the market.
The pattern is changing also because some paper companies are show-
ing enormous ingenuity in building up this sustainable supply chain. They
are working with farmers, dramatically improving the yields of wood, so
that instead of the 6-10 tonnes per ha that the forest department would
cut, farmers can reap up to 200 tonnes of wood from each ha of their land.
Even on unirrigated lands, yields go up to 50-70 tonnes and the farmers
find that money does really grow on trees. The key, these companies find,
is that sustainability of their supply lies in sustaining the farmer’s interest.
Trees take time to grow. If the price fluctuates or news of a crash
spreads, farmers will speedily switch to whatever gets them a return
on their investment. They are quick learners. They are survivors. So,
the onus is on the industry. In the late 1980s, as wood grown by farm-
ers reached the markets, it was industry that had forced the market to
crash. It successfully arm twisted the government into supplying cheap
wood from its forests. It also persuaded the government, using the

181
“green” argument, to allow pulp imports to be brought under the open

general license category. This literally made it cheaper to import pulp
from Canada than to buy wood grown by farmers in Punjab or Haryana.
Farmers literally plucked out saplings and threw them away.
The question, I repeat, is about strategy. So far, we know only two
ways of working the environment. We either use it for extractive pur-
poses, in which we rape our resources. Or we throw a protective ring
around it, to stop the environment from degrading. But we have never
really learnt how to use the environment for productive purposes, in a
sustainable manner. Maybe the paper industry will teach all of us how. n

182
{ Bullets are not the answer

The poorest people live in the richest lands of the country
The violent method of the Maoists seeking a classless society is rep-

rehensible. In at least 15 states, Maoists have presence and mostly they
operate out of dense forests, also India’s poorest areas. We cannot brush
aside the underlying poverty, deprivation and sheer lack of justice that
are breeding tension and anger in vast areas of rural, tribal India.
We cannot say that these developmental issues are long term while
the immediate task is to annihilate the Maoists. Because, unless we can
fix what is broken here, let us be very clear, there is no real solution at
hand. It is a devastating irony that vast parts of our country, that are
the richest in terms of minerals, forests and water, are also where the
poorest people live. Again I ask, again and again: what is wrong with our
development model that the poorest people live in the richest lands of
the country?
We know Maoists profit from the anger against the collective loot of
the resources these lands possess. These are the lands we get minerals
from; the electricity that lights our homes is enabled here. But the peo-
ple who live there have no electricity. They should own the minerals, or
forests; they should profit from development. But they get no benefit
from the resources that are simply extracted. By policy and design, their
lands are taken away, their forest cut, water polluted, their livelihoods
destroyed. Development makes them poorer than they were.
But we want to hear none of this. A few years ago, in Raipur,
Chhattisgarh, while releasing our detailed report on mining and environ-
ment, I saw how intolerant we have become. The state’s governor was to
release the report. But even before we arrived, there was a media buzz
our critique of mining policies and practices meant we were partners
with Maoists. At the release function, the room was “filled” with mining-
at-all-cost supporters. They shouted down any voice that spoke of the
problems, and poverty, mining had caused in the region. The governor
was visibly in a bind. He could not deny our data and analysis. But he was

183
also desperate to brand us as insurgents who raise uncomfortable issues.

The next day, the machinery whirred into action. It openly challenged
us. The next step: we were against the state, so we were with Maoists.
With us or against us. This is a Bush slogan, but also a war syndrome,
which cannot buy us peace at any cost.
We have to rethink the development India has practised so far. Let’s
just think forests. These are the very lands where India’s tree wealth
exists. Some 60 per cent of the country’s dense and most bio-diverse
and economically rich forests are in these tribal districts. Think minerals
now. The bulk of what we need for growth—iron ore for steel, bauxite
for aluminum and coal for power stations—is located here. These are
also the same districts—poor and backward—our beloved tigers roam
in. Here’s where the country’s major watersheds are located.
How can we build a growth model which uses the wealth of the
region for local development first? Such a development model would
mean listening to people who live on these lands, about what they need
and want for their growth. It means seceding to what people want: the
right to decide if they want a mine in their backyard, or the forests cut. It
means taking democracy very seriously.
If this is accepted, protests will have to be seen in a new light. There
are no misguided people, or Maoists, holding up Vedanta in Odisha (the
local communities have rejected the project, in what I like to call India’s
first environmental referendum), or Tata in Chhattisgarh. These many,
and there are many, mutinies will have to be carefully heard. This coun-
try cannot brush aside people’s concerns, in the name of a “considered”
decision taken, in Delhi or somewhere else. Government must stop
believing it knows what is best.
Once we accept local veto over development decisions, the tough
part begins. For, this means seriously engaging with people to find ways
that benefit all. It means sharing revenue from minerals with villagers,
not the poisoned peanuts they get now. It means changing priorities: val-
uing, for instance, a standing forest as protector of water, wildlife, even
a low-carbon future. It means paying directly to local communities so
that they decide to protect forests, because it benefits them. Ultimately,
listening to dissenters means reinventing development. n

184
{ Vedanta and lessons in conservation

Will the victory change our ecological beliefs?
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recog-

nition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, also known as the Forest Rights Act,
came after considerable and bitter opposition from conservation groups.
They said the Act, that grants land and forest management rights to
tribals and other forest dwellers, would destroy forests and wipe out
wildlife. Worse, the rights would make it easy for developers to take over
forests. In other words, acknowledging the right of people over their
forest was a bad idea.
As we celebrate many decisions, like the Vedanta case (dealt in last
essay) favouring environmental justice over destructive development,
we must stop and ask: have we really understood green concern in this
poor country of ours? In the 1970s, when the environmental movement
took root in the country, it had two distinct streams. One was a move-
ment to conserve wildlife. The 1970s saw the beginning of tiger con-
servation in the country. With this grew the conservation movement,
aiming to secure habitats for animals but failing to safeguard the needs
and rights of people who lived there.
In the same decade the Chipko movement was born— women in the
Himalaya stepped in to protect their trees from wood cutters. But their
move was not to conserve trees; they wanted the rights to cut trees. They
also said—but few heard them—they would not cut the trees because
the forest was the basis of their survival. They knew the value of the
environment. This was the other stream of environmental conscious-
ness, which got lost somewhere along the way. We began to follow the
environmental movement of the rest of the world, which would first
destroy and then learn to repair or conserve (I have explained this in
my introductory piece). The Western environmental movement was
not about changing the way we did business with the environment itself.
I believe the reason we followed the Western model was we did
not trust the poor in the country with protecting the environment.

185
Even when it came to afforestation and regeneration of waterbodies in

villages, we trusted officials over people. The policy kept people out of
their forests, made them trespassers in their own land, denied them their
rights and their choice for development.
But today, the modern Indian environmental movement should
stand humbled. It is the activism of the same people we middle-class
environmentalists distrusted that has defeated one of the world’s most
powerful companies, Vedanta. This is the environmentalism of the very
poor. Their activism is driven by the need for survival. They know their
livelihood depends on natural resources, the land, the forests and the
water. They also know that extractive and resource-capital intensive
development is not inclusive of their needs. They are poor and will be
poorer once the mine is dug or the forest is cut. It is for this reason they
have fought relentlessly against Vedanta. Let us be clear, this is not a
movement of the city-bred green lobby. This is a movement of primitive
forest dwellers who worship the Niyamgiri hill. It is their belief in their
culture that made them fight.
The question I have is whether their victory will change beliefs. Will
we learn the development lesson—to create a model of growth and con-
servation that uses people as a resource for local development?
It is important to understand that green actions that drive people
out of forests are today roughly equal to the assault by the development
lobby that takes away their resources. On the one hand, development
needs their land, their water and their forests. On the other hand,
conservation wants to throw them out of their land and forests. India’s
forest policy, for instance, has been broadly driven by two imperatives:
to extract the resource for industry or to conserve the resource for wild
animals. In all this, people have increasingly nowhere to go. This is why
India is seeing more anger against wild animals, more violence in forests
and more destruction of habitats.
It is time we trusted people. If and when we do, the victory over
Vedanta (and others like it) will be complete. Only then. n

186
{ Losing smell, taste and nature

With monocultures taking over, the only biodiversity that
will remain will be stored inside gene pool laboratories
Food is personal. We know that. What we often don’t realise is that

food is also more than personal. It is also about culture and, most impor-
tantly, about biodiversity. We often do not think how the flora and fauna
around us make up our culture. We do not think that food diversity,
indeed cultural diversity, is linked to diversity in the biological world.
As a result, we often do not value this biodiversity that grows in the
farm, the forest and the lake and the ocean. Each region of India, indeed
the world, is diverse in its food habits. It has its own recipes; it cooks with
different ingredients; it eats differently. This is not an accident.
Every region, for instance, has its own rice variety. Many of these
come with medicinal properties. Most are specific to the ecosystem
they grow in. If the region is drought-prone, the variety survives in
tough conditions, like Kayame rice of Karnataka. The Orkaima, Pokkali
and Kuttanadan varieties found in low-lying districts of Kerala are salt-
resistant, hence suitable to grow in seawater. In the highlands of the
same state, another rice variety is grown: Navara (in Palakkad), which
has medicinal properties and has received the Geographical Indication
Certificate in 2007.
This richness of variety resulted in culinary methods that were
equally diverse and equally rich. Bengal, for instance, has a tradition of
cooking different rice in different seasons. This is food and culture. If
biodiversity disappears we will lose the food wealth on our plates. Food
will become impersonal. It will become a sterile package designed for
universal size and taste. This is what is happening today, where food
comes in plastic cans. We have to join the dots. Food biodiversity needs
our care and attention. With monocultures taking over, the only bio-
diversity that will remain will be stored inside the cold and controlled
environments of gene pool laboratories. It will not flourish in the living
world around us. The world that gives us life and the joy of living.

187
Consider makhana, the seed of a member of the water-lily family.

The plant grows in the multitude of lakes and ponds that once made up
the flood plains of north India. The water bodies were crucial for survival
in this region destroyed periodically by rivers that bring water, silt and
sorrow. The ecosystem was built by channelling the water of swollen
rivers into ponds. This took away the pain of the flood. It provided for
storage of water and, in turn, recharged groundwater, giving economic
life to agriculture. But most importantly, the wetland gave alternative
sources of food. One of which is the protein-rich makhana. Once the
ponds are gone, the plant will not survive. Our source of food will be lost.
One more taste will be forgotten.
One may argue that biodiversity does not need the ecosystem. It
can be cultivated and can still be available to us. That is indeed possible.
After all, potato originated in far away lands of South America. It was
brought to India not so long ago by the Portuguese rulers and is now an
essential part of our cuisine. We cannot imagine food without potato.
Yet we miss the biodiversity of potato that gives South American food
its richness and, indeed, its health. We cannot imitate nature. We cannot
manufacture biodiversity.
But we can choose to live with it. We can value it in the wild and in
the farm. We can savour its taste and smell. This is joy of living. This
is what we must not lose. Ever. If we can make nature part of our lives
again, make the connection between what we eat and why we eat it,
then we can also safeguard this resource for tomorrow. But if we lose the
knowledge and culture of our local cuisines then we lose more than their
taste and smell. We lose nature. n

188
{ The Western Ghats imbroglio

It is not possible to plan for Western Ghats
only as a fenced-in wilderness zone
Madhav Gadgil and K Kasturirangan are both scientists of great

repute. But both are caught up in a controversy on how the Western
Ghats—the vast biological treasure trove spread over the states of
Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu—should
be protected. First the Ministry of Environment and Forests asked
Gadgil to submit a plan for protection of the Ghats. When this was done
in mid-2011, the ministry sat on the document for months, refusing to
release it even for public discussion. Finally, court directed the govern-
ment to take action on the recommendations. The Kasturirangan com-
mittee was then set up to advise on the next steps.
In April 2013, the Kasturirangan committee (I was a member of it)
submitted its report, which evoked angry reactions. Ecologists said it
is a dilution of the Gadgil report and, therefore, unacceptable. Political
leaders and mining companies joined hands to fight against the report.
A virulent political agitation, led by the church and communist party
leaders, was launched in Kerala.
The debate on the two reports has been personal, messy and unin-
formed. Instead, we need to understand the differences and deliberate
on what has been done and why. As I see it, there are three key differ-
ences between the Gadgil and the Kasturirangan report. First is on the
extent of the area that should be awarded protection as an eco-sensitive
zone (esz). The Gadgil panel identified the entire Ghats as esz. But it
created three categories of protection regimes and listed activities that
would be allowed in each based on the level of ecological richness and
land use.
The Kasturirangan panel used a different method. It removed cash
crop plantations like rubber, agricultural fields and settlements from
esz. It could do this because it had the advantage of using a finer remote
sensing technology. It also made the distinction between what it called

189
cultural landscape and natural landscape deliberately. The purpose was

to remove already modified areas under private control from protection
as governing these areas through permit and fiat systems would lead to
unnecessary conflict.
In this way, the Kasturirangan report’s area of esz is 37 per cent of
the Western Ghats—still a massive 60,000 hectares (ha) but much less
than 137,000 ha proposed by Gadgil. What should concern us is that so
little of the region’s natural area remains and the ways to conserve it.
The second difference is over the list of activities permissible in the
protection regime. The Gadgil committee’s recommendations on this
are comprehensive, from banning pesticide use and genetically modified
crops in agricultural areas to decommissioning of hydropower projects
and gradually shifting from plantations to natural forests. It is perhaps
exactly the right formula for this region, declared a natural heritage of
humankind by unesco.
The Kasturirangan panel had already removed substantial areas of
humanly modified lands from protection, so it decided to impose restric-
tions on what it called highly interventionist and environmentally damag-
ing activities in the esz area. All mining, including quarrying; red-category
industry, including thermal power; and buildings over 20,000 sq m would
be banned. In the case of hydropower projects, the panel set tough con-
ditions to ensure adequate flow in rivers and distance between projects.
Our reasoning was that it would be very difficult to take decisions on such
complex and conflicted issues across the 60,000 ha.
The third difference concerns the governance framework. The
Gadgil panel had recommended a national-level authority, with coun-
terparts at the state and district levels. The Kasturirangan panel argued
for strengthening the existing framework of environmental clearances
and setting up of a state-of-the-art monitoring agency. But beyond the
two reports, more serious questions need to be raised for policy. I have
serious misgivings about the capacity and ability of governance systems
(new or old) to regulate protection through permit and prohibition.
The Gadgil report summarises the poignant case of a strawberry
farmer and rose cultivator in Mahabaleshwar, notified as esz. The farm-
er was not even allowed to build temporary sheds or cowsheds, whereas

190
large constructions came up illegally. Similarly, in the esz near a sanctu-

ary, poor tribals were stopped from using kerosene lamps for lighting—
the reason given was that the use of artificial lights would disturb wild
animals and was listed as a prohibited activity. Will such a regime based
on rigid bureaucratic controls and combined with weak institutions of
governance not be easily subverted and work against the interests of the
poor and the environment?
That is why we need different ways of governance in the coming
years. The Western Ghats are inhabited even in the areas categorised as
natural landscapes. It is not possible to plan for Western Ghats only as
a fenced-in wilderness zone. This is the difference between the natural
landscapes of a densely populated country like India and the wilderness
zones of many other countries.
The big question is how policy can incentivise, indeed promote, devel-
opment that is sustainable in the cultural and natural landscapes. Until we
answer this, we will end up with smaller and smaller areas to conserve. n

191
{ Let the tiger roam

The protection of the tiger needs inclusive conservation
“She has never seen a tiger.” This is how some conservationists ques-
tioned my credentials to chair the tiger task force set up by the then
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2005. It did not surprise me. Cola,
pesticide or diesel car-making companies reacted precisely like this to my
work. Discredit the messenger and hope the message also gets dismissed.
But it did worry me. Here were people we work with. Saving the tiger
is surely common to all environmentalists. So, was it really so important
for me to have seen a tiger to have the expertise for what could be done
to safeguard it? Why did I need to prove my “loyalty”? After all, this was
not the fanaticism of religious extremism or the jingoism of right-wing
nationalism. Was it?
The task was to understand how to secure the tiger’s future. It was
clear the tiger was under threat on many fronts. There was the poacher,
whose network extended from the poor hunter to sophisticated trade
cartels. There was the miner and developer, out to grab the tiger’s home.
Then there were the desperately poor people sharing the tiger’s habitat.
We needed to understand what had been done so far—successfully or
unsuccessfully—to find answers.
We learnt how critical conservation history was to the tiger’s future.
Project Tiger began over 40 years ago, amidst international concern and
foreign advisors who believed large areas—reserves—would have to be
set aside just for the tiger. The history I read showed the Indian archi-
tects of this programme knew—even then—this was not possible in this
densely populated country. They fiddled with the concept of creating
reserves, embedding them within larger landscapes of forests so that the
tiger could roam and multiply. They knew coexistence was critical. By
the early 1980s—just 10 years after Project Tiger began—they realised it
would need innovative strategies to involve people in regenerating lands,
so that tiger habitat could expand. Without this, they knew, the ‘islands’
of conservation would be lost over time.

192
Sadly, this message never went home. What happened instead was
this: on the one hand the threat to the tiger grew; on the other, protec-
tors responded by raising the barricades higher. Their paranoia grew;
they began to believe everybody else was increasingly against the tiger.
Their solution should have worked. But the fact was the war of conser-
vation began to be lost.
Each time a tiger crisis hit headlines, and it did many times in the last
30 years, the response was: more guns, more guards, more fences. Sariska
Tiger Reserve received over R1 crore per tiger in the first 25 years of its
existence, against the national average of R24 lakh per tiger. It received
over R2.58 lakh per sq km over this period (the average for the rest of the
reserves was a little over R1 lakh per sq km). Yet Sariska lost all its tigers. In
short, money and infrastructure for protection was not the simple answer.
Our inquiries taught us many things that need to be done. We must
throw a protective ring around the tiger, not by deploying more armed
forces but carefully improving internal management and scrutiny so
that defences will not fail. We have to break wildlife crime, by building
investigative and forensic capacities; most of all, we have to amend the
criminal provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, so that the
poacher can actually be convicted.
But all this is half the work. In over 40 years of conservation, we have
never really discussed what has to be done about the people that share
the tiger’s home. Most reports or policies for wildlife conservation talk
notionally about them; they either fail to mention their existence or
dismiss it.
The people who protect the tiger believe people and tigers cannot
coexist. This logjam—tigers versus people, or for people—had to be
resolved. It was not about polemics, but the reality of winning the war
of conservation. We sought answers. How many people lived in the
reserves? How many were relocated? How much land was needed for
relocation? How much money? Nobody knew.
We sought replies. The answer was: very few villagers were in fact
relocated from the country’s 28 tiger reserves. Relocation was fraught.
Many of the relocated had returned, or turned against the park. The law
provided that the rights of people had to be settled before a protected area

193
could be notified. In other words, people should have been resettled or

compensated before protection began. But this was not done. Relocation
did not happen. People continued to live within reserves, where conser-
vation imperatives became hasher. They needed resources. Extraction
continued, illegally and unsustainably. The conflict between people and
park authorities grew. Here was a deadly stalemate for conservation.
So it is that we learnt, and have espoused, that there will have to be
an Indian way of conservation. Even as we secure inviolate areas for the
tiger by relocating people, we will have to accept not everybody can be
relocated. We will have to practice coexistence—sharing benefits of
conservation to gain reciprocal protection. It is here we will have to learn
managing multiple and competing needs without compromising the
protection needed to secure the tiger’s future. We know it is not easy.
But it will have to be done.
The protection of the tiger needs inclusive conservation. It is clear
to me the issue of protecting the tiger cannot happen unless there is
scope for dialogue, unless the process becomes much more inclusive.
It is time to put a stop to distrust, and slander. It is time to hear a multi-
plicity of voices, to converse, and continue to converse. Only then, can
the tiger roam. n

194
{Index
A E
Aerosols, 61 El Ni o, 24
Afforestation, 179 Energy Conservation Building
Anil Agarwal, 14, 63, 65, 118, 152, 179 Code, 108, 109
Arctic, 24 Environment movement, 8, 9
Aurofilio Schiavina, 114

Australia, 35, 74, 76 F
Aquafina, 166 Finance Commission, 177
Food safety, 147
B Food and Agriculture Organization,

138, 139, 140
Barack Obama, 28, 33, 74, 75
Forest Rights Act, 184
Bharatiya Janata Party,
91, 92, 134 Food Safety and Standards
Authority, 146
Bloomberg Philanthropies, 105
Forest Survey of India, 64,
Black carbon, 61, 62
France, 37, 75
Bottled water, 165, 166
Fuel Policy Committee, 63,
Bt Brinjal, 134, 135, 136
Fukushima, 85
C
G
Cancun CoP, 30
Ganga Action Plan/Yamuna Action
Captain Dinshaw J Dastur, 167 Plan/National River Action Plan,
Cargill, 143 43, 170, 171, 172, 173
Census 2011, 55, 56, 62, Genetically modified crops, 134, 135,
Centre for Science and 136, 137
Environment, 21, 44, 63, 78, 130, Germany, 49, 112
136, 141, 145 Global Burden of Disease Report, 61
Central Electricity Authority, Green buildings, 106, 107, 108, 109
170, 172
Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline
project, 89 H
Chhattisgarh Renewable Energy Honey/antibiotics, 144, 145
Development Agency, 70
Honeywell, DuPont, 29
Chennai/Kashmir floods, 23, 38, 164
Holkars, 111
Chipko movement, 8, 184
HFCs/CFCs/HCFCs/HFOs, 28, 29
China, 21, 31, 32, 33, 34, 62
Chulha (cookstove), 60, 61, 62, 63
Copenhagen CoP, 17 I
Indian Institute of Technology,
Roorkee, 172
D Influenza virus/chicken, 138
Delhi Jal Board, 98, 155 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Drought, 152, 153, 154, 155 Change, 24, 25
Durban CoP, 16 International Energy Agency, 77
10Index (194-196).indd 194 23/05/16 8:26 PM

195
International Monetary Fund, 89 National Clean Energy Fund, 72

National Council of Applied
Economic Research, 60, 64, 168
J National Democratic Alliance,
Japan, 46, 35 102, 168, 180
Jasapara project, Bhavnagar, 67 National Sample Survey Office,
Jaitapur project, Konkan, 67 62, 63
Joint Parliamentary Committee, 130 National Solar Mission, 71
National Water Development
Agency, 167
K New Delhi Municipal Council,
Kerala High Court, 160, 161, 162 104, 105
K Kasturirangan, 188, 189, Nirbhaya, 84
Khan Market, New Delhi, 123 Net Present Value, 177
Kudankulam Nuclear Power Niyamgiri/Vedanta, 183, 184, 185
Plant, 85 Nicholas Stern, 18
Kyoto Protocol, 19, 20
O
L Occupy Wall Street movement, 86
Lanco, 78 Omega, 141, 142
Lehman Brothers, 87 Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development, 77
Orbital Motorway, 122
M Ozone, 29
Madhav Gadgil, 188, 189
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act, 91, 153 P
Maheshwar dam, 111 Paris CoP, 35, 37, 38, 39
Malaria, 69 PepsiCo, Coca-cola, 130, 160
Maneka Gandhi, 14 Pondy Citizens’ Action Network, 114
Manmohan Singh, 93, 94, 191, 192 Prime Minister’s Office, 53
Maoist, 182 Probir Banerjee, 114, 115
Mark Rutte, 74
Maruti, 119, 125
Monsoon, 31
R
Rahul Gandhi, 84
Monsanto, 135
River interlinking, 167, 168
Monounsaturated fatty acid,
polyunsaturated fatty acid, 141 Rome, 45
Montreal Protocol, 28, 29
Mumbai flood, 45 S
Myles Allen, 23, 24 Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, 53, 54
School toilets, 52
N Sewage Treatment Plant, 43, 48,
49, 51
Nano, 125, 126, 127
Sheonath river, 156
Narendra Modi, 25, 52, 93, 126
Sino-US deal, 32
National Building Code, 108
10Index (194-196).indd 195 23/05/16 8:26 PM

196
Sonia Gandhi, 84 Wildlife Institute of India, 171

Sompeta coal power plant, 66 World Energy Outlook, 62, 78
Smart cities, 102, 103, 104, 105 World Meteorological Organization,
Sriganganagar, Rajasthan, 163 22,23
Small Island Nations, 16, 35 World Resources Institute, 14
State of Forest Report, 64 Worldwatch Institute, 140
Stockholm Environment
Institute, 17
X
Stockholm Water Symposium, 42
Xi Jinping, 33
Subansiri project, 67
Africa, 8, 62
Supreme Court, 48, 167, 168, 179
Survival emissions, 14
Suez SA, 155
Swachh Bharat Mission, 55
Sweden, 75
T
Tata, 125, 126, 183
The New York Times/BBC, 36
Tiger, 191, 192, 193
Time magazine, 85
Tyson Foods, 138
U
Union Budget, 54
Union Ministry of New and
Renewable Energy, 71
United Nations, 89
UNFCCC, 28, 29, 35
United Progressive Alliance,
84, 91
USA, 21, 22, 28, 88, 89, 119, 121, 138
Uno Winblad, 42
Uttarakhand floods, 25
V
Veeranam Lake, 164
W
Water supply 24X7, 50
Western Ghats, 167, 188, 189, 190
World Bank, 50, 89
10Index (194-196).indd 196 23/05/16 8:26 PM

Other works by Sunita Narain
n Not in My Backyard: Solid Waste Management in Indian Cities
n Capitan America, US climate goals: a reckoning (Co-author Chandra Bhushan)
n Excreta Matters: Seventh State of Environment Report
n Paryavaran Ki Rajneeti (Hindi)
n Reclaiming Nature–Environmental Justice and Ecological Restoration (With James K
Boyce and Elizabeth A Stanton); Anthem Press, London
n Making Water Everybody’s Business: Policy and Practice of Water Harvesting (With
Anil Agarwal)
n Poles Apart: State of Global Environmental Negotiations
n Green Politics: State of Global Environmental Negotiations
n The Smokescreen of Lies: myths and facts about CNG
n State of India’s Environment: the Citizens’ Fifth Report (Editor)
n State of India’s Environment-4: Dying Wisdom: Rise, Fall and Potential of Traditional
Water Harvesting Systems (Editor)
n Towards a Green World (With Anil Agarwal)
n Global Warming in an Unequal World (With Anil Agarwal)
n Towards Green Villages: A Strategy for Environmentally-Sound and Participatory Rural
Development (With Anil Agarwal)
This is a selected list . To access her writings visit: www.downtoearth.org.in
DownToEarth BOOKS
n State of India’s Environment Report-2016
n State Of India’s Environment 2016 : In Figures (e-book)
n Body Burden 2015 - State of India’s Health
n Why Urban India Floods (e-book)
n Environmental History Reader
n First Food: A Taste of India’s Biodiversity
n Bhopal Gas Tragedy After 30 Years
To buy online visit: www.downtoearth.org.in/books
11Books by SN (197-198).indd 197 23/05/16 8:27 PM

11Books by SN (197-198).indd 198 23/05/16 8:27 PM
Down To Earth
Why I Should be Tolerant is an
environmentalist’s reflections, reactions SUNITA NARAIN
and arguments on contemporary issues
related to the environment and development.
The writings make the critical connection
between local and global developments
and between the developments of the 20th
century, and how they continue to impact us
in the 21st century. The writings stem from
the author’s own experience in forests, farms
and factories, besides the numerous debates
she has been part of during her 30 years in
public life. Every piece of writing featured
here represents various threads of public
discourse that have haunted the world on its
relationship with nature.
On environment and
environmentalism in
SUNITA NARAIN
the 21st century
Down To Earth
SN Reader Cover_final.indd 1 23/05/16 8:13 PM

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Why I Should be Tolerant is an

the 21st century

SN Reader Cover_final.indd 1 23/05/16 8:13 PM

00Preamble(03-11).indd 3 23/05/16 8:09 PM

00Preamble(03-11).indd 4 23/05/16 8:09 PM

00Preamble(03-11).indd 5 23/05/16 8:09 PM

Special thanks to Environment Resource Unit, Centre for

CSE, founded in 1980, is a public interest research and advocacy organisa-

Down To Earth is a fortnightly on politics of environment and develop-

Printed at Multi Colour Services, New Delhi

00Preamble(03-11).indd 6 23/05/16 8:09 PM

00Preamble(03-11).indd 7 23/05/16 8:09 PM

India’s environmental movement, like so much else in the country, is about

Why I should be tolerant

00Preamble(03-11).indd 8 23/05/16 8:09 PM

On environment and environmentalism in the 21st century

00Preamble(03-11).indd 9 23/05/16 8:09 PM

Why I should be tolerant

00Preamble(03-11).indd 10 23/05/16 8:09 PM

rights over natural resources. The involvement of local communities in environ-

On environment and environmentalism in the 21st century

00Preamble(03-11).indd 11 23/05/16 8:09 PM

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 12 23/05/16 8:09 PM

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 13 23/05/16 8:09 PM

{ Goats, grazing and global warming

Why I should be tolerant

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 14 23/05/16 8:09 PM

equivalent to luxury emissions. Two, managing a global common meant

On environment and environmentalism in the 21st century

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 15 23/05/16 8:09 PM

{ The real inconvenient truth

Many years ago, in a desperately poor village in Rajasthan, people decid-

Why I should be tolerant

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 16 23/05/16 8:09 PM

So, should the Maldives take mandatory emission reductions? Is it a

On environment and environmentalism in the 21st century

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 17 23/05/16 8:09 PM

{ The rite to pollute and the right to shout

In 2006, a study commissioned by the British government concluded

Why I should be tolerant

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 18 23/05/16 8:09 PM

On environment and environmentalism in the 21st century

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 19 23/05/16 8:09 PM

using the same ecological space?

Why I should be tolerant

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 20 23/05/16 8:09 PM

On environment and environmentalism in the 21st century

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 21 23/05/16 8:09 PM

{ The weather dice is loaded

It is clear, the world geography is scarily looking similar. It is not only

Why I should be tolerant

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 22 23/05/16 8:09 PM

On environment and environmentalism in the 21st century

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 23 23/05/16 8:09 PM

nally driven changes in climate (or human-induced climate change) and

Why I should be tolerant

01Climate Change(12-39).indd 24 23/05/16 8:09 PM

On environment and environmentalism in the 21st century