“The lack of political will in preventing environmental degradation is one of the major challenges that India is experiencing.” Comment. (Answer in 250 words)

- “The lack of political will in preventing environmental degradation is one of the major challenges that India is experiencing.” Comment. (Answer in 250 words)
Introduction
The charge is partly true. India's environmental will is strongest where commitments are visible and international, and weakest where regulation imposes immediate, local and concentrated costs. The deficit is less an absence of will than a misalignment of incentives.

Body
1. Evidence of dilution: post facto environmental clearance was struck down in Vanashakti (2025), and the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 narrowed what counts as forest until the Supreme Court restored the Godavarman (1996) meaning in 2024.
2. Weak enforcement architecture: state pollution control boards run with vacancies, National Green Tribunal benches are understaffed, and the Jan Vishwas Act, 2023 replaced imprisonment with penalties under the Air and Water Acts.
3. Targets without teeth: the National Clean Air Programme (2019) sets non-binding goals, and stubble burning persists because groundwater and procurement policy fix the sowing calendar.
4. Environment is not an electoral issue: no Indian election has been fought on air quality, so the political return on enforcement is close to zero.
5. But will exists where it is legible: the Panchamrit pledges at Glasgow (2021), net zero by 2070, non-fossil capacity reaching half the total ahead of the 2030 target, and the Green Hydrogen Mission.
6. The courts have supplied the missing will: Articles 48A and 51A(g) read into Article 21 since Subhash Kumar (1991), and M. K. Ranjitsinh (2024) recognising a right against the adverse effects of climate change.

Conclusion
The failure is one of design rather than intent: costs are immediate and benefits deferred, enforcement sits with under-resourced states, and courts have substituted for legislatures. An independent regulator, statutory clean air targets and ecological fiscal transfers would convert episodic will into routine capacity.