Environmental Humanities is an interdisciplinary academic field that brings together insights from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences to explore and understand environmental issues. In India, Environmental Humanities has gained prominence as scholars, writers, and activists grapple with the complex interconnections between humans and their environments, focusing on ethical, cultural, historical, literary, philosophical, and socio-political perspectives. This field engages critically with environmental problems by placing human experiences, cultural expressions, and socio-political narratives at its core, moving beyond the traditional confines of environmental science and ecological studies. By doing so, Environmental Humanities in India offers unique insights into the country’s environmental crises, challenges, and possibilities for sustainable living and coexistence.
Historically, Indian environmental thought draws heavily upon its rich philosophical and spiritual traditions, prominently featuring concepts such as dharma, karma, ahimsa (non-violence), and the interconnectedness of all beings as articulated in texts like the Vedas, Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita. Moreover, the Indian tradition of ecological consciousness is exemplified through Gandhian philosophy, which advocates simplicity, self-reliance, sustainable living, and ethical stewardship of natural resources. Gandhian perspectives emphasize non-exploitative human relationships with nature, calling for harmonious co-existence rather than human domination over the environment.
In contemporary Indian academia, the Environmental Humanities is influenced significantly by postcolonial theory and subaltern studies. Scholars such as Ramachandra Guha, Madhav Gadgil, Vandana Shiva, Amitav Ghosh, Mahasweta Devi, and Dipesh Chakrabarty have significantly contributed to this field through their writings, which critically examine the intersections between environmental degradation, socio-economic inequalities, indigenous rights, gender, and global capitalist forces. Ramachandra Guha and Madhav Gadgil’s pioneering work, This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India (1992), offers an incisive historical narrative that outlines India’s complex environmental history, emphasizing how colonialism, modernity, and resource exploitation have shaped contemporary ecological challenges.
Vandana Shiva’s extensive work, including books such as Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development (1988) and Monocultures of the Mind (1993), addresses issues such as ecofeminism, biodiversity, biopiracy, sustainable agriculture, and the empowerment of rural women. Her contributions highlight how environmental issues intersect with social justice, gender equity, and resistance to neo-colonial exploitative practices. Amitav Ghosh, through his influential literary and critical works such as The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016), urges literary scholars, writers, and intellectuals to reconsider human agency and imagination in relation to the profound environmental transformations taking place globally and particularly within the Indian subcontinent.
In literary studies, Environmental Humanities has fostered ecocriticism, a vibrant branch of literary criticism that examines how literature and narratives represent human relationships with the environment. Indian ecocriticism has engaged extensively with regional literatures, oral traditions, and indigenous narratives, particularly focusing on writings by marginalized communities whose cultural survival is closely tied to ecological sustainability. Literary figures such as Mahasweta Devi, in her stories depicting indigenous lives affected by environmental degradation and dispossession (e.g., “Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, and Pirtha”), and Arundhati Roy, especially in her essays like The Greater Common Good (1999), reflect how environmental concerns in India are closely tied to the issues of displacement, development-induced migration, and violation of indigenous rights.
Further, the emerging field of Environmental Humanities in India engages robustly with environmental justice movements. Scholars explore grassroots movements such as the Chipko movement in Uttarakhand (1970s-1980s), Narmada Bachao Andolan in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh (1980s-present), and recent activism against mining, deforestation, and land degradation in states like Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh. Through interdisciplinary lenses, scholars highlight how these movements articulate a profound critique of neoliberal developmental paradigms, underscoring ecological democracy, human rights, sustainability, and cultural survival.
The Environmental Humanities in India also interacts critically with visual culture, film studies, and media. Indian cinema, documentaries, and visual arts increasingly represent environmental themes, offering compelling critiques of ecological crises and their socio-cultural ramifications. Documentaries such as Anand Patwardhan’s A Narmada Diary(1995) and Sanjay Kak’s Words on Water (2002) exemplify how filmic narratives powerfully represent environmental struggles, giving voice to marginalized communities and foregrounding narratives of resistance against ecological exploitation and displacement.
Moreover, Indian Environmental Humanities engages rigorously with climate change studies, critiquing global environmental politics from the perspective of the Global South. Dipesh Chakrabarty, in his seminal essay “The Climate of History” (2009) and subsequent book, The Climate of History in a Planetary Age (2021), argues that contemporary environmental crises compel a reconsideration of historical and philosophical assumptions about human agency, modernity, and anthropocentrism. Chakrabarty’s intervention illustrates how scholars from the Global South contribute significantly to global environmental discourses, emphasizing differentiated responsibilities, colonial legacies, and socio-economic inequalities exacerbating environmental vulnerability.
Educational institutions and research centres in India, such as Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, and Ashoka University, among others, have actively integrated Environmental Humanities into their curricula and research programs. Conferences, seminars, and scholarly publications are increasingly dedicated to fostering dialogue on ecological sustainability, human-nature relationships, and environmental ethics. Indian environmental humanists engage with international dialogues, contributing critical voices from the Global South and promoting cross-cultural understanding of environmental issues.
In conclusion, Environmental Humanities in India is an evolving, vibrant field grounded deeply in India’s socio-cultural traditions, historical contexts, and contemporary political and ecological struggles. By integrating literature, history, philosophy, cultural studies, and activism, it offers nuanced understandings of India’s ecological realities and significantly shapes the country’s ongoing environmental discourse, both nationally and globally. Through critical engagement with local narratives, grassroots activism, philosophical traditions, and interdisciplinary scholarship, Environmental Humanities in India contributes profoundly to rethinking human-environment relationships, advocating for sustainable and equitable futures.
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