'Those against whom I am fighting are very strong, they have money and political backing'

Mahesh Chandra Mehta, the environmental crusader who won this year's Ramon Magsaysay Award for public service, says the honour has given him renewed strength to carry on his ''isolated'' battle.

''Those against whom I am fighting are very strong, they have money and political backing,'' he said, adding ''I feel very isolated.''

Awards, the green lawyer told United News of India, are a ''ray of light'' and a source of encouragement which helped him to carry on his work with renewed vigour in hostile circumstances.

He described his winning the the Magsaysay Award as a victory for all those working tirelessly for the cause of the environment in India. ''It is a collective victory,'' he declared.

Mehta said the government was insensitive to the grave environmental crisis confronting the country. He demanded the setting up of a national environment commission to check India's deteriorating environmental condition. Such an autonomous body, headed by distinguished Indians, he felt, should be entrusted with the task of publishing a white paper on each year's environmental condition. It should also inform the people what went wrong that year and what needed to be done. The commission, he asserted, should become a link between the people and the government.

There was no conflict, he added, between the environment and development, as long as development was sustainable and there were no vested interests behind it. ''But if development is without thought and planning, or without proper safeguards, it could be disastrous,'' he warned.

Development could not be at the cost of the environment, he indicated, asking ''Can we produce water or import it?''

India, he predicted, was heading towards a food and water crisis, saying ''our rivers are already polluted, the groundwater level has gone down and there is a major deforestation, pesticide and plastic problem looming ahead.''

''If we have to improve the situation there has to be transparency and accountability in the system and a combined grassroot action plan,'' he said. ''All this will have to be done on a war footing as the environment is being degraded at a faster rate than once imagined.''