A yawning gap between intent and application has been one of the enduring features of India’s policies on the environment. The Narendra Modi-led dispensation is not immune from such mischief. Consider the forest (conservation) amendment bill, 2023, which was recently passed in Parliament with the objective of amending the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980 under the guise that the realities on the ground have changed and affirmative steps are needed to address them. The Centre has justified the legislative reform as being part of its commitment to mitigate climate change and argued that the bill — scientists and environmentalists have raised concerns about it — includes provisions that would make India ‘atmanirbhar’ in agroforestry while increasing the forest cover. The intentions are made to sound noble. But what is unfathomable is the government’s vigour for recalibrating the FCA that was watertight as well as effective in achieving the aforementioned objective. Could it be that the FCA’s success in reducing non-forest activities on forest lands led to the clipping of its wings? Other ironies abound in the amended bill. It dilutes the broad-based definition of ‘forest’ to include only those lands that are recorded as such, thereby leaving vast tracts of ecologically critical spaces, including the Aravallis and the Western Ghats, unprotected. Further, it makes a mockery of the community rights over forests envisaged in the Forest Rights Act of 2006 and diminishes the role of gram sabhas. It must also be pointed out that the overarching powers retained by the Centre regarding the classification of forest activities illustrate its continued efforts to undermine the federal spirit. Alarmingly, the prioritisation of private forestry — plantations — would lead to deforestation at a time when the country has been experiencing extreme weather events on account of the stripping of forests. The provision of compensatory afforestation — the usual fig leaf — has also been found to do little to correct the ecological imbalance caused by disruptive undertakings. Moreover, the bill exempts forest lands within 100 kilometres of the international borders, paving the way for ‘strategic’ projects to come up on ecologically sensitive turf. Prioritising the rhetoric of security at the cost of environmental protection is the new devil in the details.

What underpins such lopsided policy — it is a global contagion — is the faulty idea of envisioning the environment as a resource to be exploited ceaselessly. A paradigm shift from the resource-based approach towards greater accountability for governance on ecological protection will not happen unless the electorate demands such a transition in politics.