(I met Sunita Narain, the charismatic leader of the Center for Science and Environment, while on a reporting trip to Delhi about Indian science. She’s extremely press-savvy, so I was certainly being shown what she wanted me to see, but after several disheartening interviews with government officials about AIDS and other pressing issues, I couldn’t help but be impressed with her efficient and single-minded approach. Nothing is simple in India, as even this article, which began as a straightforward profile of this organization, shows. The feature appeared in Nature in February 2007. You can download a pdf of this article.)
How often does independent research change laws as well as minds? A lobby group in Delhi is forcing the Indian government into new regulations. Apoorva Mandavilli meets its leader.
A decade ago the city of Delhi was choking. Fumes from the growing traffic rendered the air thick and foul with toxic chemicals, earning India’s capital city the dubious distinction of being the fourth most polluted city in the world. Levels of fine particles in the air were nearly 17 times higher than the permissible maximum. You could almost feel them as you breathed.
Visit Delhi today, and the difference is palpable. Green-striped buses and auto rickshaws rush past powered by compressed natural gas. Levels of sulphur in diesel have been brought down from 2,500 parts per million to 500 parts per million. Concentrations of particles in the air are still three times the national standard, but more bearable — the air feels unmistakably cleaner.
The improvement is largely due to the efforts of one small non-governmental organization, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Founded by the science journalist Anil Agarwal in 1980, the Delhi-based group launched a relentless campaign in 1996 to replace diesel in Delhi’s public transport with a cleaner fuel: compressed natural gas. Its headline-grabbing tactics were what you might expect from a group founded by a science journalist: at one point it hired a booth at a Delhi car show and offered attendees lung tests. In April 2002, after years of legal battles, India’s Supreme Court forced Delhi’s public vehicles to switch to compressed natural gas. “It’s undoubtedly one of the most influential organizations in the country,” says Mahesh Rangarajan, a former Rhodes scholar and commentator on Indian politics based in Delhi.
So how did a small band of campaigning journalists evolve into a respected environmental pressure-group powerful enough to change laws and send multinational companies running for cover?