INDIA'S BEATING GREEN HEART

Ramachandra Guha's new book-Speaking with Nature-is a chronicle of homegrown environmentalism that speaks to the world

- Bijoy Venugopal

"The environmental crisis India faces is greater than the crisis of political corruption or even of caste and communal conflict," says Ramachandra Guha. Our preoccupation with climate change, he worries, distracts from more pressing ecological concerns.

India faces severe environmental challenges like air pollution, groundwater depletion, soil contamination, dying rivers, and forest degradation.

While climate change can worsen these, they primarily result from domestic policies and attitudes. Guha criticises the tendency to dismiss environmental concerns as a western conspiracy against the Global South.

SPEAKING WITH NATURE THE ORIGINS OF INDIAN ENVIRONMENTALISM

By Ramachandra Guha

HARPERCOLLINS/FOURTH ESTATE ₹799; 440 pages