Environmental Governance at Crossroads: Civil Society’s Fight Against Industrial Pollution in Kathua Industrial Area, Jammu and Kashmir

Abstract

As a key stakeholder within the domain of environmental governance, the civil society influences the actions and outcomes of regulatory processes, mechanisms and organisations in addition to state, market and communities. The research article attempts to understand the influence the civil society exerts in addressing the environmental concerns of three village panchayats of Kathua district, Jammu and Kashmir, by studying the case of industrial pollution caused by Kathua Industrial Area. Issues like severity and impact of pollution on affected population, awareness, participation and role of the civil society and the ways in which the affected population negotiate with the problem of industrial pollution are analysed. It is found that the civil society is unable to exert bottom-up pressure in influencing the policy actions and outcomes in the study area. The reasons behind such inability and the measures required to make civil society a reckoning force in environmental governance are also discussed in the article.