Understanding the Existential Crisis of Environmental Movements in Neoliberal India

Abstract

The cases of Narmada Bachao Andolan and the Anti-Nuclear Movement at Kudankulam taught that environmental movements in neoliberal India are in ‘existential crises’. This crisis is associated with their inability to determine or change state policy and the environmental movement’s ineffectiveness of the existing language to negotiate with the neoliberal state. Most of the literature about the crises of environmental movements focuses only on the neoliberal challenge and state policies. This paper uses the case study method to argue that the ‘existential crises of environmental movements in India are caused not just by the state’s neoliberal challenge but also by some inherent theoretical positions and internal practical flaws in the current environmental movements in India.