Yash Marwah: Holding Governments Accountable 🇮🇳

Chatting during Covid-19 times can be rough, especially when you're speaking from a country with millions of cases in lockdown. But when we spoke with Yash Marwah, a Mumbai-based writer and the founder of Let India Breathe (an environmental communications collective that mobilizes support to preserve India's natural beauty), his optimism shone through. Today we're diving into Yash’s story and his lessons from environmental activism.

First Experiences with Activism

His first big step into the environmental scene occurred two and half years ago, when a mangrove park in his hometown of Mumbai - the Maharashtra Nature Park (MNP) - was about to be encroached upon by slum rehabilitation authorities. Given that the park was an important community area, and that Bombay had very few green spaces to begin with, he and his co-campaigners (Stalin Dayanand, Anand Pendharkar, Aditya Paul, Ruben Mascerenhas) built a campaign (“Save MNP”) and founded the group Let Mumbai Breathe to make sure their voices reached the government. "We started sending them mails, right from the forest department authorities, to the local, state, and central government."

Maharashtra Nature Park

Within two or three days, they were pleasantly surprised to receive a response from the authorities saying that they wouldn't touch the area. And although the real process of protecting Maharashtra Park would be more complicated (and much longer) than that, Yash recognized that this strategy worked. According to him, there are two major gaps when it comes to government decisions on what's done with public spaces. The first gap is from the government to the people: authorities are bad at communicating how laws will be changing. This issue leads to the second gap, where the public ends up not communicating their demands to the government.

Creating a Ripple

Their strategy of mobilizing large groups of people to speak up to the government clearly worked and partnership requests started pouring in from Delhi, Bangalore, Assam, Suburban Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and so on. The then called Let Mumbai Breathe, while working to protect the natural spaces of Mumbai, quickly evolved into the current Let India Breathe. It enabled the growing team to come together with people from across the country and work against disastrous projects. Currently, Let India Breathe is working with several other movements and collectives on withdrawing the Indian government's detrimental Environmental Impact Assessment Notification (EIA), on top of running many other campaigns like Save Vedanthangal Sanctuary, Save Dibang Valley, Dehing Patkai, etc.

Fridays for Future Mumbai Protest (2019)

During a project to save Aarey's forest from a metro development, Yash experienced something that stuck with him. "At one point we got a letter, just half a page, something scribbled. And that basically was a letter from a 10-year-old — and it was written with a pencil — to the authorities, saying 'please don't cut these trees.' That's when we realized, oh goodness, we have been mobilizing people from across the country to talk about this! It was also around that time that Fridays for Future had started [their] Indian chapter. And it dawned on us: there is this huge chunk [of youth] that care about the environment!"

As the collective became more and more involved in raising awareness about environmental justice issues, at one point, while talking to young kids about the water cycle, an eight-year-old student pointed out that trees also help the water cycle. "In our particular diagram," Yash said, "trees were there, but the action of how trees helped [the water cycle] was not shown. And the kid just said, 'This is a wrong diagram, trees are a very important part of the water cycle.' And we were blown away. We thought: if this kid can understand such basic things, why can't the government!?"

If this kid can understand such basic things, why can't the government!?

Inclusivity and Solidarity

Throughout their journey, Let India Breathe has realized that solidarity and inclusivity are the threads holding all environmental justice and action together. “We are all so diverse; our problems are so diverse, but they are all interlinked. Instead of understanding our nuances, we try to see everything from the same lens. The environmental justice movement needs constant revaluation of strategies.” Yash added that the "Not in My Backyard" (NIMBY) syndrome runs throughout the country — "and if everyone starts saying 'not in my backyard,' some backyards will definitely be affected and then it will just happen again and again. It will be a domino effect. We need to stand up for each other."

But he's seen great things happen when groups get together across regions and sectors. For example, the power of collective action was clearly demonstrated when the government imposed restrictions on certain forms of activism, which led to a shutdown of Let India Breathe's website for 26 days. Various digital rights and human rights groups had a huge role in raising their voices around their freedom of speech and, ultimately, the site was restored. "If the digital privacy forum did not show solidarity with Let India Breathe and Fridays for Future India... we would have been in a very tricky space," Yash said.

Multilingual Approach

The reason environment collectives focus more on multilingual posts is because, in a diverse country like India, with more than 400 languages, and so many unique behaviors across the country, activists also need to make sure that they not only speak in English or Hindi, but are open to all Indian languages. In fact, Let India Breathe's content includes email campaigns that have been translated into several languages, which is an incredible feat in itself. "You need to understand that there could be a different perspective than yours," Yash said. "You really need to talk to more people; it always helps."

We need to understand that there could be a different perspective than yours... you really need to talk to more people; it always helps.

Privilege in Activism

The last hurdle Yash described was how privilege plays a role in activism. He acknowledged that, "a lot of times there is a lot of privilege involved... I have a house, I have a roof. I can eat three times a day. These privileges not everyone has... [And] on a hungry stomach, you can't protest!" He explained that for many Indians, unless they are directly affected by certain issues, they don't have the time or resources to properly care for the environment. On top of that, if they act in defense, they may be targeted by other groups; Yash gave the example of murdered sand mining activists in Uttar Pradesh. So, it's understandable that the environment is lower on the list of priorities for both the people and the government. "Not everyone can take certain actions," Yash stated. "But a lot of us can do a lot of things that can ultimately culminate into a movement."

Not everyone can take certain actions. But a lot of us can do a lot of things that can ultimately culminate into a movement.

The Let India Breathe team

The Way Forward

Yash is eager to keep up the good fight and continue to connect with people across the country. He believes that corporate and government accountability will be a key part of the movement going forward. "There are several things that are blamed on you — like, hey, you are a citizen, you must carry your own water bottle, you must car-pool, or things like that. But there are other things apart from individual actions that matter. And we firmly believe that corporations and governments really need to be spoken to."

He also mentioned that the government isn't necessarily a dead-end when it comes to environmental progress; he listed several examples in Kerala, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand where local politicians and governments are pushing for stronger standards. His ultimate dream is simply for good governance, where "citizens don't have to always worry about so many things." Although he calls it idealistic, that's really what all of us are fighting for.

There are several things that are blamed on you — like, hey, you are a citizen, you must carry your own water bottle, you must car-pool, or things like that. But there are other things apart from individual actions that matter. And we firmly believe that corporations and governments really need to be spoken to.

After seeing Let India Breathe's progress, when Yash acknowledged that the group was "in a way — and I don't want to say it — but yeah, being pioneers of getting the government to speak up every time," all we could do was agree. We're excited to see where else Yash’s passion and activism takes him!

Written by Ariane Desrosiers