Introduction

This chapter suggests that the Mahabharata has played a central role in the forging of concepts and practices of sovereignty in modern India. I argue that while British and Indian elites deployed the Mahabharata to legitimate the construction of centralized regimes of state sovereignty – imperial sovereignty and nation-state sovereignty – more socially marginal actors, such as ‘lower-caste’ and female activists, as well as sections of the middle-class literati, used the epic to express more democratic, polycentric models of sovereignty. These debates reverberated across state legislatures and princely courts, literary gatherings and peasant assemblies, theatres and secret revolutionary meetings. As Indians journeyed abroad, the Mahabharata came alive in political ritual and deliberation, uniting Indians with other anti-colonial Asians who were carving out their own projects of national sovereignty. The Mahabharata thus helped in decolonizing and democratizing sovereignty in South Asia. In every way, it fulfils the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel's (1770–1831) definition of epics as embodying ‘the spirits of peoples’, ‘the proper foundations of a national consciousness’.

The Mahabharata and State Formation in Early Modern India

The Mahabharata was central to state formation in early modern South Asia. In the 1580s, the Mughal emperor Akbar (1542–1605) commissioned a Persian translation of the Mahabharata, called the Razmnamah (Book of War). There were earlier precedents of Indo-Muslim rulers and officials commissioning translations of the epic. The fifteenth-century ruler of Kashmir, Zayn al-Abidin, is said to have commissioned a translation into Persian, though the text has not survived. Later, Laskar Paragal Khan, governor of Chittagong in eastern Bengal, driven by intellectual curiosity (kutuhale puchhilek), asked Kavindra Parameshvar Das to author a Bengali translation in the early sixteenth century. Parameshwar, in turn, eulogized his patron as an incarnation of righteousness (dharma avatar). Translations of the Mahabharata legitimated regional state formation across South Asia.

However, the Mughal project had a wider pan-subcontinental legacy. Akbar aimed to create an Indo-Persian grammar of kingship that would enable mutual intelligibility and dialogue between Hindu and Muslim subjects across the empire. Audrey Truschke has argued that the translation occasionally abbreviated religious–philosophical discussions present in the epic, including criticisms of kingship and war, while emphasizing and expanding the discussions on just monarchy. The Mahabharata combined themes of martial heroism and ethical kingship in a manner that eminently suited the Mughal ruling classes.

Populist Discourse, Historical Narratives, and the Hazards of Essentialism

There is a growing consensus that populism should not be approached as a clearly identifiable or coherent ideology (Morgan 2022). Instead, it might be better to analyse populism as a discourse revolving around the creation of political identity (Ostiguy 2017). Like most collective identities, populism is constructed by denying other identities. Beyond the usual left–right axis, populists pit ‘the people’ against a minority blamed for monopolizing economic and institutional resources – the elite, or those at the top (Laclau 2005).

As a reaction to the destabilization of ‘ontological securities’, populism tends to be seen as either relying on or leading to essentialist conceptions of social and political identities (Steele and Homolar 2019; Bartoszewicz 2021). It is based upon Manichean friend–enemy counter-concepts (Junge 2011), which grant it a strong ontological grounding. On the other hand, it engages in a counter-hegemonic struggle vis-à-vis an oligarchy portrayed as, in essence, deeply corrupt. Its antagonistic rhetoric is prone to the naturalization of otherness, but it typically does not entail the tactic of adopting essentialist self-identification often used by subaltern groups engaged in identity politics (Panizza 2017; Bell 2021).

Still, populism remains an identity discourse that targets the emotions of an allegedly underrepresented ‘we’ (Ferrada Stoehrel 2017). Ideational approaches to populism stress that, beyond exposing the power elite, populist discourse has among its goals the mobilization of a homogeneous community of decent and rightful commoners (Hawkins and Rovira Kaltwasser 2019). This leads to a number of prevalent narratives in populist discourse, which are increasingly seen as a form of performative storytelling through which leaders provide meaning to extended injustices and offer simple alternatives that are appealing to the majority (Ungureanu and Popartan 2020; Nordensvard and Ketola 2021).

Specifically, populist narratives construct in-group identity by referring to the ‘people’ (Panizza 2017). Providing the people with a narrative inscribes an essentialist tension into populist discourse. Some advocates of populism are aware of this hazard: post-Marxists, in particular, critically tackle the potential hazard of essentialism by conceptualizing the people as an ‘empty signifier’ for populist ideologues to fill with contextual grievances and values (Laclau 2005).

Introduction

Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain published a remarkable report in 1991 in which they differentiated between ‘survival emissions’ and ‘luxury emissions’. It would not be an exaggeration to say that no other report has had a comparable impact on global debates and scholarship on climate justice. This distinction between survival and luxury emissions has been central to some of the most important pieces of scholarship and advocacy on climate justice (Shue 1993). Based on this report, common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) became the defining feature of the Indian government's position in international climate negotiations (Jasanoff 1993). Despite having such a massive influence on international climate negotiations, the distinction between survival and luxury emissions is rarely referenced in domestic climate policy debates. Even as climate disasters, including cyclones, floods, and heatwaves, become more intense, there is limited public debate on climate action and policy in India (J. Das 2020). On the other hand, while there is robust scholarship on India's climate policy and action in the international arena, engagement with questions of domestic climate justice within Indian academia is quite sparse (Fisher 2015; Chu and Michael 2019). The potential for domestic injustices was apparent even in 1991 and was duly acknowledged in the same Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) report that made CBDR foundational to India's position in international negotiations:

For a variety of reasons that require deeper inquiry, questions of domestic climate justice fell through the intertwined cracks of international climate change politics and sectoral silos that are endemic to both academic research and grassroots social movement organization (Gupta 2014). Many argued, quite appropriately, that the policy priority should be addressing issues of employment, food security, education, and primary healthcare for the poorest people in India and other countries in the Global South.

In the annals of India's legal history, the journey of environmental jurisprudence stands as a testament to the country's evolving consciousness and commitment towards preserving its natural heritage. Tracing its evolution through the decades, thus, becomes vitally important in not just understanding the pulse of India's evolving environmental paradigm but also in assessing the direction in which it is heading.

My own journey in environmental law, marked by relentless legal battles, has been driven by a deep-seated belief in the power of jurisprudence to safeguard our natural world. The establishment of environmental tribunals in India, a direct consequence of these legal battles, symbolizes a shift in the Indian judicial paradigm – a shift aimed at moving from reactive measures to proactive environmental governance. The National Green Tribunal (NGT), in particular, was established to be an embodiment of this transformation, serving as a specialized body to address the complex and urgent environmental challenges facing our nation. However, even after more than a decade of the Tribunal's establishment, the general dearth of comprehensive literature on the NGT has often hindered a deeper understanding of its functions, challenges, and impacts.

The authors, Raghuveer Nath and Armin Rosencranz, have done commendable work in filling this significant void in the literature on environmental jurisprudence in India. Their book, Evolution of Environmental Jurisprudence in India: The National Green Tribunal, provides nuanced insights into the NGT's formation, functioning, and the challenges it is yet to overcome. In a country where environmental issues are as diverse as its ecology, the need for such comprehensive academic work cannot be overstated. It offers a reservoir of knowledge for practitioners, academicians, policymakers, and students alike.

Perhaps, one of the most important aspects of this work is that it allows the reader to situate the present environmental legal trends within the larger context of India's environmental jurisprudence. For instance, the three most important environmental law principles – polluter pays, precautionary principle, and sustainable development – have undergone significant changes over the last few decades. The book highlights how these principles have been historically evolved and deployed with varying standards depending on the circumstances of different cases. In doing so, it allows the reader to navigate through internal legal contradictions and helps them to contrast the NGT's adjudication with that of the Indian Supreme Court and international environmental law.