‘Speaking with Nature’: Ramachandra Guha studies Indian environmentalism through ten individuals

Ramachandra Guha’s Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism should make our eyes widen and perhaps even make us shake our heads in regret. Environmentalism has only lately come to the fore of our consciousness – especially with the undeniable impact of global warming and climate change. But as Guha shows, through the work of people as varied and brilliant as Rabindranath Tagore, Verrier Elwin, Albert and Gabrielle Howard, M Krishnan and several others, the subject – and the problems it presents – were thoroughly thought through and expressed by these deep-thinking minds, and solutions proffered, most of which we have totally ignored if not gone completely counter to. They all, however, had as Guha writes in the Epilogue, “intellectual and ideological trajectories that were very diverse. They present before us many varieties of environmentalism, not just one.”

A composite image of the whole

Most of them were resolutely against the development model India followed – especially after independence – which was based on the Western model – involving huge capital-intensive industries, the building of mega-dams, and infrastructure projects. The West got away with it because they pillaged the resources needed from their colonies, stripping them bare of forests, minerals, and other natural wealth –...

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