Ever Green

Agarwal was both of his times and beyond them. A difficult, demanding, irascible personality without doubt, but also a generous teacher-communicator. He believed in taking on the opposition with passion, even anger, but he tried to do this honestly and by marshalling relevant facts in accessible language. The campaign against vehicular pollution, that pushed Delhi into adopting CNG for its buses, saw him take on powerful political interests, the automobile industry and those who genuinely believed he was on the wrong track. But when convinced about the efficacy of a particular model, Agarwal would demonstrate an almost childlike faith in it. The work of soil conservationist P.R. Mishra, who changed through micro-watershed development the arid face of a village called Sukhomajri, near Chandigarh, was an example. Mishra became Agarwal8217;s pole-star, as indeed other giants-on-the-margins like Anna Hazare of Ralegan Siddhi, and Akhtar Hameed Khan of Karachi8217;s Orangi Pilot Project.

Agarwal talked of carbon trading long before Al Gore. In a 1991 article, he noted: 8220;This system of emissions trading will, therefore, create a real financial incentive to push towards non-polluting renewable energy sources and also prove a real financial value to the environmental services of the existing forest stocks8230; Today, a forest has no value unless it is chopped down and converted into logs.8221; Now you may not believe in carbon trading, but here was an audaciously futuristic mind, one that was constantly looking for rational solutions to ecological conundrums. Would mud make the perfect building material of the future? How does one prevent flooding in cities? Why can8217;t the finance minister tax vehicles according to their levels of pollution? Is it deforestation that causes flooding? How can raindrops be harvested?

These questions were to engage Agarwal until his death at 55 in 2002. Particularly poignant is CSE director Sunita Narain8217;s recollection in these pages that minutes before he died he had corrected something she was saying to a journalist on the phone about an auto fuel policy report. But then to Agarwal even his ocular lymphoma was a subject of dispassionate scrutiny. In one of his later pieces he termed himself 8220;an environmental victim8221; and pointed to studies that linked lymphomas to certain herbicides.

This collection is a tribute to an argumentative Indian. It does not capture many facets: his strong sense of visuals, unrelenting blue pencil, astonishing felicity with data. It does not capture his ironic sense of humour or indeed his powerful, high-pitched voice that bounced off the walls of his office. But it does capture some of the ideas he indefatigably poured into the public space in an attempt to understand 8212; in a completely down-to-earth fashion 8212; the ground on which he stood.