Cosmos: A Journal of Geography

People’s Movement in India That Inspired Environmental Change

The concern for the present day environmental problems in most of the developing countries like India is of relatively recent origin. Even the recent awareness and concern for environmental protection at the policy level is a donor induced one, and at the grassroots level, it is due to the efforts by individuals and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs). In the absence of ground level awareness and concern, environmental aspects have remained more or less peripheral to the contemporary social movements in India. Some of the contemporary movements, however, acquired the status of ecological or environmental movements in retrospect, as these movements have widened their focus from basic survival needs to ecological concerns.