Social movements and grassroots discourse of climate justice in the context of droughts in semi-arid regions: A case study in India

Abstract

India’s encounter with farmers’ protests since 2015 has highlighted the constructivist attempt of grassroots movements in confronting the state’s monopoly over production of law. Farmers’ groups and civil society organisations have been mobilising legal and extra-legal tactics to gain discrete legal responses from the state towards guaranteeing farmers’ fundamental rights in the context of climate change adaptation to droughts in semi-arid parts of rural India. This paper discusses the strategies used by such actors to frame the contours of climate justice. The movement highlights the need for India’s policies to align with transformational, procedural and distributional justice goals that recognise and redress structural (socio-economic, cultural, colonial) roots of vulnerability towards just and sustainable adaptation processes. It also highlights the responsibility of the nation-state to safeguard the fundamental/constitutional rights of farmers who contribute to the nation’s food security while being the most vulnerable to climate impacts at sub-national scales.