India’s economic growth depends on protecting its fragile environment

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The riverbed of the Bharathapuzha has turned completely dry even before the onset of summer. A view from the Mayannur bridge, near Ottappalam, Palakkad, on May 30, 2026. Sand-mining, deforestation in the catchment areas, and erratic rainfall have drastically reduced the river’s flow. | Photo Credit: K.K. Mustafah/The Hindu

The environment is what sustains all biotic and abiotic processes. The monsoon, for which India is known, and the environment together sustain India’s economy as well as its food, water, energy, health, and national security. On this World Environment Day, it is worth walking through the inseparable coexistence of India’s economy and the environment. If we ignore the environment, we do so at severe risk to India’s economic development.

It is traditional to think of economic development and sustainability as parts of the overall socioeconomic framework while environmental issues often enter the picture as an afterthought. But the environment is an integral part of sustainability, society, and economy. As the well-known American economist Herman Daly noted, it is a fallacy to treat the environment as a sphere similar to economy and society. Daly spent his life making cogent arguments about how economies and societies operate within the environment and that economic growth and societal comforts are typically accomplished by exploiting the environment.

Protecting the environment thus requires us to carefully track our impacts on the environment as a whole — including air, water, land, and ocean pollution as well as the health of all species.

India is unique among the world’s countries for its economy’s dependence on the monsoon, directly and indirectly. The monsoon’s variability and changes in its patterns are the result of the local amplification of global drivers such as climate variability, climate change, and global warming.

The local amplifiers of monsoon variability and change are all environmental factors: some are natural but more and more are now huma