Paper short abstract:

This paper looks into the recent publications produced by researchers in the field of epigenetics in India and its significance to the country's existing environmental movements.

Paper long abstract:

As a discourse which challenged the central dogma of molecular biology and its narrow understanding of gene expression as a unidirectional flow of information from the DNA to proteins, epigenetics in recent years has emerged as a system of knowledge production which incorporated environmental factors, lifestyle choices, and social conditions in understanding human beings at a molecular level.

India has become a significant contributor to epigenetics research, with numerous research institutions and scientists actively studying epigenetic mechanisms. These studies have shed light on various aspects, including the impact of pollution on human health, climate change, conservation biology, sustainable agriculture, and urbanisation, and the knowledge produced had a crucial role in understanding the complex interactions between the environment and human health.

The paper argues that the understanding of the human genome as a vast reactive system which is in constant communication with the environment and susceptible to heritable epigenetic mutations depending on the quality of the air, water, food and other environmental factors, the protection of the environment has become central to the survival of human beings as species in a molecular sense.

Scholars who work in science and technology studies and medical anthropology around the globe have extensively looked into the potential of this emerging field of study and its social implications. This paper attempts to contextualise these global debates based on the scientific literature produced in India in the field of environmental epigenetics over the last ten years.