The event will be held online over Zoom

Register to attend 

About the talk:

Indian cities face major environmental and social crises. Existing urban governance configurations and processes in India often do not lead to outcomes of environmental sustainability or justice. State pollution control boards, forest/environment government departments, and most recently, dedicated climate change units within the state/city government, are the default authorities responsible for environmental matters. Several cities have parastatal agencies tasked with water supply, sewerage, electricity supply, and urban transport, which are under the control of state governments and not subject to democratic oversight from urban citizens or urban local bodies. A dysfunctional institutional scenario at the urban environmental level is further exacerbated by the fragmented, outdated, undemocratic, incoherent, and often unjust, environmental policy and governance system at the national level in India.

The current global moment of environmental and existential anxieties provides useful points of entry for reforming and transforming the system. Three different kinds of research and writing on cities in India – survey-type generalised comparisons of cities, socio-technical urban transitions theory and its application, and situated urban political ecology studies – each provide useful insights for transforming urban environmental governance in India. We need to carefully explore possibilities of synergistic and integrative knowledge-making that adopt and combine the best of these and other varying approaches. Radical ecological democratic approaches, including urban bioregionalism and more-than-human urban governance, must be further studied and experimented with at different scales and contexts of possibility to usher in a new future for urban environmental governance in India.

Speaker:

Abhayraj Naik is an India-based activist, educator, community builder, and system change practitioner. His work focuses on decolonial climate justice, spiritual ecology, and transformative learning. Abhayraj is a Visiting Associate Professor of Practice at Krea University, coordinates strategy and research at a nonprofit development organisation – Pipal Tree, is a co-founder of the nonprofit organisation – Initiative for Climate Action, and serves as an advisor to a number of progressive social and environmental causes in India and other parts of the world. He is also the vision-holder for: an online resource space – “Climate Justice India”, an emergent educational network called the South Asia Network for Justice Education, and an upcoming centre for spiritual ecology in India. Abhayraj is a graduate of the National Law School of India University and Yale Law School. He is a member of the Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE) and the IUCN World Commission for Environmental Law.

 This is the one hundred and eighty-seventh (187) in a series of Urban Workshops planned by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi, and Centre for Policy Research (CPR). These workshops seek to provoke public discussion on the city’s development issues and address all its facets including its administration, culture, economy, society, and politics. For further information, please contact: Rama Devi at ramadevi2487@gmail.com, Champaka Rajagopal at champaka@cprindia.org or Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha@cprindia.org.