To achieve prosperity, India’s environment must be central to its vision of growth

In his recent essay on India pursuing an environmentally responsible path to economic growth is worth reading, Ramachandra Guha makes a clear and cogent argument on how excluding environmental concerns is bad for India. Nonetheless, I fear that the essay does not go far enough to address the problems he highlights.

I agree with him thoroughly that “the disregard for environmental sustainability of Indian politicians is ecumenical; it operates across parties”. Having been in sessions with a number of policymakers, most of them fairly well-informed about the environment and climate issues over the last decade, my experience has been that all such meetings end with the politician saying something along the lines of, “You know, I agree with you people, but my constituency wants jobs and economic progress, and does not have time for this.”

While Guha is right to point out that the poor and marginalised pay the highest price for pollution and environmental degradation while the rich insulate themselves using water filters, air filters, and air conditioning, it is also the poor and marginalised that are – for obvious reasons – those who most demand economic progress and infrastructure.

Framed in this way – that environmental concerns can only mitigate disasters by “bad development” – ends...

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