This talk considers the emergence of climate emergency
and population crisis alongside a history of India’s political
emergency of 1975. The presentation compares the politics
and discourses around the 1975 political emergency and
population crisis with those of climate emergency, Hindutva
ethnonationalism and democratic backsliding in
contemporary India to argue that unless justice for the
marginalised is explicitly centred, emergency declarations
will empower oppressive politicians and train their lenses on
marginalised and poorer people through ideas like
population control. In the absence of justice, emergency
overlooks those responsible for climate change through
fossil fuel extractions and disproportionate resource
consumption as issues like ‘population’ become a
convenient focus. The talk proposes that the idea of climate
emergency reveals to us a climate justice emergency or a
climate justice crisis. Rejecting oppressive politics like
‘population reduction’ and those supporting these while
focusing on inequalities in consumption and carbon
emissions takes a step towards an urgent just response.