Paper short abstract:

Contemporary online environmental movements in India have led to unequal representation of minorities in the recent environmental discourse. This leads to privileged activist voices representing, sometimes inaccurately, the minority - risking their further marginalisation.

Paper long abstract:

India’s historical grassroots environmental movements, like the Chipko, have been seen as leading examples of inclusive people's movements which have transcended class, caste and gender boundaries to unite actors against environmental destruction. However, with the rise of online environmental movements in India, there is a risk of further marginalising minority and indigenous people due to unequal access to internet and social media essentially making contemporary environmental movements more institutionalised and making marginal groups depend on activists with internet privileges to represent them. Some scholars believe that in cases where environmental crises are urgent, we need not prioritise environmental movements being optimally democratic if their end goal is being met. My paper uses the examples of recent environmental movements in India to illustrate the need for equitable representation in the online environmental discourse. Whilst the motivation of both indigenous community members and urban activists might be to save the environment in question, it is very easy for one opinion to overshadow the other when one group has limited access to the internet. The internet has made the mobilisation of people and the spread of information across large distances easier, however in developing countries the popular environmental discourse has been only urban centric. So even if the goal of the environmental movement is reached, it results in suppression of minority narratives which are often pro-resource-utilisation whereas the majority internet narratives may be pro-preservation.