In her detailed retelling of three iconic movements in India, Professor Emerita Krishna Mallick, PhD, gives hope to grassroots activists working toward environmental justice. Each movement deals with a different crisis and affected population: Chipko, famed for tree-hugging women in the Himalayan forest; Narmada, for villagers displaced by a massive dam; and Navdanya, for hundreds of thousands of farmers whose livelihoods were lost to a compact made by the Indian government and neoliberal purveyors of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Relentlessly researched, Environmental Movements of India: Chipko, Narmada Bachao Andolan, Navdanya presents these movements in a framework that explores Hindu Vedic wisdom, as well as Development Ethics, Global Environment Ethics, Feminist Care Ethics, and the Capability Approach. At a moment when the climate threatens populations who live closest to nature – and depend upon its fodder for heat, its water for life, and its seeds for food – Mallick shows how nonviolent action can give poor people an effective voice.
