ABSTRACT
Urban environmental activism is relatively unexamined within the South Asian context until recent contributions from the field of political ecology. Baviskarian ‘bourgeoisie environmentalism’ remains the most powerful paradigm to explore heavy investment-laden, state-led urban environmental projects (river/canal restoration, beautification and housing schemes) aligned with middle-class desires, aspirations and perceptions of the urban environment at the cost of squatter clearance and eviction drives in Indian metropolises. This chapter complicates ‘bourgeoisie environmentalism’ by capturing multiple trends and trajectories of environmental activism across complex mediations among various stakeholders in situated contexts. Using the Adi Ganga case study, the chapter discerns the politics of pollution, petitions (and ‘varieties’ of) protests across economic priorities and cultural preferences among multiple actors. The final outcome of these protests is not only a pointer to power hierarchies geared towards politico-economic imperatives of statecraft but also provides strong directions to the future of urban sustainability.
