Consequences of Environmental Plunder -Jean Dreze, Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen was born in Santiniketan in 1933 and received his schooling there. An economist by profession, he has held prestigious academic positions at the Delhi School of Economics, the London School of Economics and Political Science, Oxford University, Harvard University and Cambridge University. He was award the Nobel Laureate in Economics in 1998. Jean Drèze is Honorary Professor at the Delhi School of Economics.
In this article, extract from the above-mentioned book, Drèze and Sen discuss how thoughtless exploitation of the environment counteracts the positive effects of development. They identify three factors causing serious concern. Firstly, even where some development has taken place, the quality of life does not improve because the environment has been destroy. Secondly, development itself is hamper where there is rapid environmental decline. Thirdly, such decline makes access to basic amenities of life even more difficult for the poorer people. The article is in the form of an argument supported by suitable examples. What, then, are the main reasons for being concern about environmental degradation in India and its relation with current patterns of development? Are there real reasons for disquiet? There certainly are overwhelming reasons for this concern.
First, environmental degradation has compromise or 'undone' many of the improvements that were otherwise make possible by greater economic prosperity. For instance, it is arguable that, due to rising congestion and pollution, the quality of life in some of India's larger cities is lower today than it was twenty years ago, in spite of a large increase in per-capita incomes. In rural areas, too, environmental degradation has often been considerably diluted if not defeate the gains of economic development.
In districts such as Kalahandi in Orissa, for instance, the collapse of the environmental base especially forests has undermine people's traditional livelihoods and force a large proportion of the workforce into seasonal or permanent migration. While Kalahandi occasionally makes headlines for extreme cases of starvation, there is a much larger story behind the headlines, in which environmental degradation plays a major role as a causal antecedent of chronic hunger and deprivation.
Second, the present trends of environmental decline are not only intolerable already, they are also incompatible with the basic requirements of sustainable development. To illustrate, air pollution levels in Delhi are already much above WHO "standards, yet the number of motorize vehicles-which account for the bulk of the problem-continues to grow at more than 10 percent per year. Clearly, something needs to be done, and has to be done soon, given the cumulative effects of this growth. Similarly, present trends of rapid decline of groundwater tables "in large parts of the country are utterly unsustainable, and call for urgent attention.
Third, in many cases environmental plunder is an infringement of distributive justice and the basic rights of the underprivilege. In urban areas, for instance, a minority of car owners cause massive pollution, congestion, noise, tension and accidents-all at the expense of the public at large. The people whose lives are impoverishe and shattere in this way are often among the poorest in the society, from street vendors to pavement dwellers. There is an aspect of being called 'disguised violence' or even perhaps 'disguised manslaughter' in the hidden processes that make the fortunes of some dependent on the sufferings and perils of others.
Similarly, in rural areas, intensive groundwater exploitation on the part of the privilege farmers has often deprive others of access to irrigation and even to drinking water. It is perhaps worth remarking here that even the heate and prolonge disputes surrounding the construction of the Narmada dam are, to a great extent. About distributional issues. Indeed, the main concern raise by this project is its adverse impact on the lives of those who are being. Displacid without consent and without decorous compensation, many of them also happen to belong to some of the most deprive sections of Indian society.
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