Why does Environment Fails To Become An Issue During Elections?
By Nupur Dubey
Whether it is the black and frothy waters of Yamuna in Delhi, the polluted backwaters of Kerala, the literal mountain of wastes or symbolic pictures of smog in Delhi, nobody is unaware of the fact that the environment in India is under deep stress. However, even after the physical manifestations of the environment are at risk, people still choose to turn a blind eye to it every single day. This indifference to the environment becomes even more puzzling when we know that more people in India die from pollution than from cancer. According to a December 2018 study on the seriousness of pollution in India, it was found that around 1.24 million lost their lives due to pollution in 2017. Not only this the same study found that consumption of toxic groundwater and polluted air reduces the life of a child by 20 days.
In such a pressing situation the silence of political parties, civil society organizations and people on the issue of the environment is baffling. The recent Himachal Pradesh election is the latest testimony of people’s indifference to the environment during elections. Himachal Pradesh is one of the most affected States when it comes to climate change. The apple farmers themselves have said that untimely rains and hailstorms in recent years destroy their crops. They have also said that due to warm temperatures apple farming has shifted to the upper levels. This evidence is enough to point out that people also understand that something unusual is happening with the climate which is harming them but they and the political parties fail to address it meaningfully.
So, it becomes vital to ask — what is stopping environmental issues to find a space in Indian politics? Firstly, civil society organizations even after understanding the pressing issue of the environment failed to develop an adequate vocabulary for it in the minds of the people. As a result of which the mobilization of people around climate issues remained very individualistic and narrow. One of the most recent environmental protests happened to stop the cutting of Aarey forests to make way for the Mumbai metro. However, even these protests were limited to the middle-class families of the Aarey colony and many scheduled castes families living near to colony in dilapidated conditions were not involved in it. There always seems to be a sense of a ‘not my problem’ attitude when it comes to environmental issues in India. To elaborate, a middle-class family is more likely to be moved by the dwindling numbers of Tigers in the Wildlife Sanctuary a thousand miles away, than the solid waste management issue in their city.
Secondly, environmental issues are multi-faceted and affect different groups of people differently. For instance, polluted ground water and the water-borne diseases from it, are issues for slum dwellers and not for a family which can afford a water-filtration system in their home. This gap is not just class-based but region based as well. As pointed out that people living in a mountainous region like Himachal Pradesh might not be as affected by air pollution as people living in Delhi. Hence, this makes it very difficult for both the regional and national political parties to make it an election issue. They simply do not have a common environmental issue to rally all sections of society around like caste or religion.
Here, it is also important to mention that there is also a glimmer of hope. This is so because in the last Delhi elections smog was an election issue and one of the weak points of the otherwise strong Aam Adami Party government was its failure of even-odd formula to curb air pollution. If Delhi elections are anything to learn from then it’s only a combination of strong civil society and awareness of common people which can push the environmental issues to the centre of Indian Politics.
In conclusion, the environment and its issues aren’t problems of the future anymore because their clear manifestations are all around us. Thus, given the pressing nature of the issue, we as a society and a country need to find a common vocabulary for it. It is only then that our political dispensation will seriously look into it and think about long-lasting sustainable solutions.
References
Vats, S. (2019, April 6). Protection of environment not a poll issue for parties. Timesofindia.Indiatimes.Com. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/protection-of-environment-not-a-poll-issue-for-parties/articleshow/68745161.cms
Ranjan, A. (2019, December 15). The Advent of Environmental Issues in India’s Elections. thewire.in. https://thewire.in/environment/the-advent-of-environmental-issues-in-indias-elections
Banerjee, T. (2022, November 5). Himachal Assembly polls: A look at 5 core issues facing the hill state. indiatoday.in. https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/himachal-pradesh-assembly-polls-2022/story/himachal-pradesh-assembly-polls-hill-sate-main-issues-2293536-2022-11-05
