ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to understand Gandhian environmentalism by reading C.K. Janu’s political struggle and life narrative Mother Forest (2004). Through a comparative analysis of resistance in Gandhi, “Gandhian” environmental discourses, and in Janu, this paper probes the relevance and limits of Gandhian modes of struggle in postindependent India, from a subaltern perspective. The analysis reveals a politics of cultural capital, caste, class and power in the postindependent context because of which many grass-root struggles fail to find a space in mainstream discourses. However, Janu’s struggle is an exception because, despite the lack of a conducive atmosphere, Janu has emerged as an organic leader and brought out concerns of environment and livelihood that culturally elite environmental discourses are reluctant to take up.
