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BOOK REVIEW 

The Crisis of Sustainability in India 

Pranab Mukhopadhyay 

Fujita, Koichi, and Tsukasa Mizushima, eds. 2020. Sustainable Development in 
India: Groundwater Irrigation, Energy Use, and Food Production. Abingdon and 
New York: Routledge, 270 pages, ISBN 9780367460976 (Hardcover)  

There has been a long-standing 
debate on the role of public 
policy and markets in enabling 
efficient and equitable allocation. 
Advocates of laissez faire argue 
that greater state intervention 
distorts markets, leading to 
inefficient allocation. Unfettered 
markets, on the other hand, are 
known to have equity concerns. 
This problem is especially 
pronounced in the case of 
intergenerational allocation as 
future generations are not at the 
bargaining table. This challenge 
is at the heart of the debate on 
sustainable development. India is 
a prominent entity in the global 
sustainability debate for a 
combination of reasons—its 
growing economic position, its 
demographic structure with a 
population of more than a 

 
 Professor of Economics, Goa Business School, Goa University, Taleigao Plateau, Goa, 

403206, India; email: pm@unigoa.ac.in. 

Copyright © Mukhopadhyay 2022. Released under Creative Commons Attribution  
© NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web).  

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v5i1.607   

mailto:pm@unigoa.ac.in


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [232] 

 

billion, and a growing aggregate carbon footprint. A persistent challenge for 
India has been keeping its population out of poverty while ensuring 
citizens’ sustained food security. 

In the first couple of decades after Independence, the government had to 
increase food production and ensure self-sufficiency. The Green 
Revolution, with introduced irrigated agriculture and new seed technologies, 
replaced traditional modes of farming in India. While India did achieve 
rapid agricultural growth, the revolution left in its wake a number of 
questions about its sustainability.  

A new set of problems evolved around what is termed the “food–water–
energy” nexus, and this crisis has been deepening over the years. The roots 
of today’s agrarian problems are embedded in India’s historically 
interwoven social, ecological, and economic structures. In response to this 
crisis, Koichi Fujita and Tsukasa Mizushima have brought together a set of 
studies in this edited volume. 

The volume is divided into two parts. The first is titled “Land, Water, and 
Population in the Past and Future” and the second is titled “Regional Path 
Dependencies and Policy Orientations for Sustainability”. The editors, in 
contrast to many other contributions in this area, have rightly taken a long-
term view of agrarian change in the country. Going back to the eighteenth 
century, the contributors examine land issues in Tamil Nadu (Tsukasa 
Mizushima), Odisha (Akio Tanabe), and Bengal (Shinkichi Taniguchi). 
There are also reflections on traditional irrigation technologies like the tank 
irrigation system that evolved in South India (Kuppanan Palanisami and 
Mohanasundari Thangavel) and the ahars (water reservoirs) based on gravity 
flow in southern Bihar (Tetsuo Satoh). These traditional technologies that 
have stood the test of time are suitable candidates to become part of the 
adaptation toolkit for climate-proofing agriculture in South Asia. 

The contemporary crisis is discussed in the five chapters of Part II of this 
volume. The reasons for, and the consequences of, the rapid decline in 
groundwater in Punjab (Kamal Vatta and Parisha Budhiraja), Tamil Nadu 
(Takahiro Sato), Gujarat, and West Bengal (Tushaar Shah and Sujata Das 
Chowdhury) are discussed in detail in this section. The contemporary policy 
of governments in India providing subsidies for various inputs is sometimes 
considered a critical driver for the unsustainable use of resources. On the 
energy front, subsidised electricity and use of fossil fuels are regarded as 
primary causes for the rapid depletion of groundwater in many parts of the 
country with inadequate recharge (Koichi Fujita and Atsushi Fukumi). This 
has also led to the distortion of water markets. In the context of public 
finances, the growing gap (due to low tariffs) between the revenues and 



[233] Pranab Mukhopadhyay 

costs of state electricity boards have made them financially unviable. This is 
also increasing the pressure on states’ finances. 

In parallel, the subsidy-based fertiliser–insecticide policy has led to their 
excessive use (Ippei Sekido). This has resulted in the unhealthy 
accumulation of chemical residues in produce (thus affecting human health, 
groundwater, and water bodies). It is also seen as the primary cause for soil 
contamination and exhaustion as well as water pollution. 

An associated issue with new farm technologies is their impact on 
biodiversity. Current farm technologies encourage monoculture, leading to 
a loss of crop and seed varieties. This may have long-term consequences for 
how we adapt to climate change—it is a fact that some traditional, climate-
resistant varieties of crops have gone extinct because of low productivity or 
low market uptake. Further, the entry of large seed companies has stripped 
the farmer of control over seeds as well as the production process. This will 
adversely affect long-term risk reduction strategies in agriculture.  

Geographically, the book focuses on a limited number of states—Tamil 
Nadu (Chapters 2 and 5), West Bengal (Chapters 4 and 11), Odisha 
(Chapter 3), Bihar (Chapter 6), Punjab (Chapters 8 and 10), and Gujarat 
(Chapter 11). Chapter 7 takes a larger view of the country as a whole, and 
Chapter 9 provides reflections on other parts of South Asia.  

The book offers a comprehensive view of sustainability challenges in the 
agricultural sector. It highlights the heterogeneity of outcomes, based on the 
role of institutions and their evolution, and the diversity of agro-ecological 
landscapes in India. This will provide good reference material for 
researchers dealing with questions relating to agricultural production, water 
and electricity prices, and their combined impact on ecology on the one 
hand and state finances on the other. 

A couple of areas that the book does not touch upon are sustainability 
issues in the industrial sector and urban landscape. Considering that almost 
half the population now lives in urban areas, and considering the significant 
contribution of industry to India’s economy and industry–agriculture 
linkages, there is a need for similar comprehensive assessments of 
sustainability in these domains. 


