We Are All Environmentalists! Framing Life in the National Green Tribunal, India

Abstract

India has set up one of the first national-level legal bodies, the National Green Tribunal (NGT), dedicated exclusively to address cases under environmental laws. My research follows a case filed in the NGT by an indigenous community against a hydel power project in the western Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, examining how diverse and opposing parties in this case represent themselves as environmentalists. It reveals a narrative sphere where entirely opposite actions and actors are legitimated in and through the NGT in environmental terms. This article suggests that green courts provoke green narratives and examines how diverse actors respond and engage with this demand. Individuals are interpellated in this juridical field to understand and present themselves as environmentalists. Environment is a meta-narrative in this juridical field, constituting environmentalist subjectivity of all actors within this field by the very process of hailing them.