Environment, law, and democracy in India

Abstract

Some years ago, in his contribution to a collection of essays on the Supreme Court and the Indian Constitution, Pratap Bhanu Mehta emphasized the political significance of the Court, saying, "there is not a single important issue of political life in India that has not been, by accident or design, profoundly shaped by its interventions ... the courts participate and collaborate in governing India" (Mehta 2006, 162). How exactly might this happen? In beginning to explore answers to this question, I want to focus on the formation of a distinct environmental jurisprudence and its relationship to the changing and dynamic qualities of a democratic polity in India. And in formulating my analysis I draw here on my current work on courts and the environment in India or how the environment came to be a legal object in India over the last century. © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2011.