The recent controversy over the blocking of environmental group Fridays For Future India’s website – thankfully resolved now after a bizarre saga involving the invocation of UAPA terror charges – has created an opportunity to examine and appreciate the environmental campaigns that have spread like wildfire across the internet in COVID-19 India.
These movements present a new and unique exercise of Indian democracy. With the pandemic rendering institutions unable to discharge their mandates in accordance with the due process of law, and conventional physical protests out of the question, young citizens have begun to engage with the powers that be, almost entirely through social media and the internet, demanding their right to a clean and healthy environment.
Largely driven and managed by young students, conservationists and artists – with the support of lawyers and other members of civil society – these movements have in a short period of time managed to generate an impressive impact.