Ecofeminism as a revolutionary framework in India
Ecofeminism is a lens for seeing the world as a series of connections between women and their surrounding environments. It argues that in areas where the environment is “liberated,” its women are as well. Vandana Shiva, an Indian anti-globalization activist and author, is a vocal thinker and political leader within this framework, originating with her involvement as a young woman in the Chipko movement (a movement wherein rural Indian women literally wrapped themselves around trees in order to protect them from exploitative logging efforts). This history focused on India, and prompted curiosity about environmental activist movements in the Global South more broadly: did they exist and, if so, were they led by women, and were they associated with economic or social empowerment and justice?
As I looked into the condition of women within these communities, I found the roots of revolution.
From the Chipko movement that originated in the Uttar Pradesh region (where a women’s revolution did take place), to the Dalit women of India, the conditions were similar: the lowest caste of women were subjugated by hyper-globalization policies that manifested both in the patriarchal structure of their communities, and in the highly gendered roles that they possessed. In both cases, the environment was often considered a waste basin for effluence from industry (a “market externality” in economics, meaning that its costs are simply ignored by calculations for economic impact). All signs pointed to a potential revolution on the part of both the women, and the way the environment within which they lived was treated.
The Intersectionality of Women, Environment and Economic Policy
There exist highly complex intersections between women in rural India, the world political economy at large, and the larger, patriarchal global institutions in power that were put there by these very same systems. By honing in on these issues in India (largely rural India), and seeing how the damage to local ecology in rural India is most strongly felt by women (both theoretically and practically), grassroots-level movements have been revealed to have the potential for large-scale, structural change. In looking closer, these cases point to more than mere anecdotes, but worldwide phenomena.
Can national ecofeminism in India combine with other Global South nations in order to affect change on a global scale?
When you look at ecofeminism as a response to globalized, patriarchal systems of oppression, it reveals that any specialized climate policy for developing countries is really just another way of justifying the Global North’s exploitation of their resources, while maintaining, if not strengthening, the patriarchal economic and social constructs that reward it. International climate policy, an inherently undemocratic form of enforcement on countries, justifies its consumption of Indian resources as “spending” the value of its women and environment.
Arguing for the international disparity between two “imaginaries” between the Global North and South could be another way to excuse that continued exploitation. It’s no secret that the Global South is going to be hit the hardest by the impacts of global climate change. The Guardian, for instance, has long argued that, “Low income countries will remain on the frontline of human-induced climate change over the next century, experiencing gradual sea-level rises, stronger cyclones, warmer days and nights, more unpredictable rains, and larger and longer heatwaves.” Specifically, in India, extremely strong cyclones are to be expected. The common mentality, coming from the Global North, is that Northern countries need to cut back on their emissions in order to allow for Southern “development.”
Is it development if it further develops one’s one destruction?
By affording it the freedom to reward and encourage its patriarchal development schema, the Global North is announcing that the South needs to emit GHG in order to justify the further exploitation of the Southern resources. Ecofeminism allows us to question this justification: Who is promoting this development and determining that its outcomes are acceptable? Who has the real power?
The lens of ecofeminism changes this equation.
When a Global North development body or individual country says that India is “allowed” to emit high amounts of carbon and GHG (even though they will be hit the hardest by climate change effects), that behavior also subjects women (particularly lower-caste, rural women) to increasingly gendered and/or invisible roles, whether it be forcing them into the wage economy, or taking away their source of subsistence through land-grabbing or excessive logging. Oppressing the environment therefore oppresses women, and challenges them to act locally, if only as a survival mechanism.
The Adivasi, and the extension of the Dalit movement (for instance) are a case study in showing us how women can speak for what matters, hold positions of power that can impact policy and, ultimately, impact the social and economic structures that once dictated how they would live.
Ecofeminism is the fuel — the unique combination of past, present, and future hopes for women in their environments and societies — and the roots for its revolutions exist in communities across India and the Global South at large.
