My Journey
‘वो पूछता है कि गालिब कौन था? कोई बतलाओ कि हम बतलाएं क्या?’
Whenever someone asks about my introduction, it is challenging (sometimes awkward) to introduce myself. My most straightforward answer is usually “I am a conservationist”, and depending on the circumstances I might add “environmental activist“, “doing scientific research“, “I work on mainly legal and policy issues around conservation”, “natural history photography”, “produced some documentaries”, “write on environmental conflicts”… But there is so much more to that only my journey define who I am. So here I go- summarizing my educational qualification, my professional journey, and a little bit about my personal life.
Summary of my educational qualification
Born in a Bengali family from Kolkata, I was soon brought to Delhi somewhere around 1995. Most of the schooling (standard IV onwards) was from Raisina Bengali Senior Secondary School, Chittaranjan Park. I passed my higher secondary in science with physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology in 2006. Thereafter I completed my B.Sc. (Honors) in Zoology at Acharya Narendra Dev College (ANDC), a premier science institute at the University of Delhi. Determined to pursue my career in conservation, I completed a 3-year M.Sc. (Tech.) program in Environmental Science at Banaras Hindu University.
Leadership Experiences in Early Student Life
Rational thinking and knowledge are the foundation for transforming society and that made me take active participation in eco-club programs in my school since I was in standard VIII. My initial contributions were more through writing essays, poems, plays, and paintings to raise awareness of school events. However, the environmentalist in me took flight at the Zoology Department of ANDC. During my 3 years course at ANDC, I was fortunate to be taught by some of the greatest mentors and be given an opportunity to not just contribute to scientific research but also explore my deeply buried social skills.
In my second year of undergraduate, I was elected as ‘Secretary’ of the Zoological Society of the college. I was also determined to revive the college’s ‘Ecology Society- Paritantra’ and became a volunteer with the club. I was also elected as ‘President’ of the ecology society in my second year. It was during this stint, I got the opportunity to explore my leadership skills, and the scale of impact one can bring being in important positions. I wanted to use those opportunities to the maximum, and it was when the Paritantra as a society could reach out to people outside the college campus for the first time. Two of the initiatives I remember were of great significance. One was reaching out and mobilizing the housing settlements adjacent to our college ground to stop throwing rubbish on college fields (a practice that the college was worried about but was helpless). The second initiative was to protect a wetland in Badarpur from being dried up. I was also supported immensely by Dr. Savithri Singh, Principal of ANDC who helped me transform from a shy, introverted, and under-confident boy to realize my true potential. I was also fortunate enough to be nurtured by two great scientists Dr. Ram Kumar and Dr. Sarita Kumar at the Zoology Department during my college life and beyond that.
In 2008-09, during the final year of my college, I also nominated myself for the college student’s election for the position of Mayor (equivalent to ‘President’, as ANDC had a student council instead of a union). I was declared the winner unopposed when two of the other contestants (Bhavna Joshi and Anmol Bagga) lent me unconditional support for the ‘Mayor’.
The transformation from a Student Leader to an Activist
I got selected for M.Sc. (Tech) Environmental Science and Technology at Banaras Hindu University. It was a three-year-long course and was based out of the University’s South Campus in the Mirzapur district. I must say my stay in Mirzapur between 2009-2012 proved to be a turning point in my life and provided me with the required skill and training as an activist. In 2009, I started an initiative called The Green Militia (TGM), which became a momentous success but did not go well with my course coordinator and the University administration- as such student-led initiatives were unprecedented. I was forced to stop TGM completely in the next semester in 2010 and several controversies followed thereafter. With no internet (the era when 3G services were rolling out and my campus had a terrible mobile network) and limited electricity availability, the only option to keep myself busy was to explore the forests and villages around. I purchased a small digital camera (Fujifilm s1500) and devoted myself completely to exploring the woods and hills in Mirzapur. For two semesters, every day after my classes I used to carry my tripod and camera and explore the forests, and wildlife and interact with people- all by myself. That experience brought me closer to nature and helped me understand how ecosystems function. It was the time when I rediscovered myself and helped motivate me to do something to change the situation on the ground.
My fifth and sixth semesters in 2011-2012 had minimal physical classes and we were supposed to do internships and research projects. I came back to Delhi and interned at Toxics Link for five months. During this time, I also produced a film ‘Vindhyan Scourge’, a thirty-minute-long documentary film on Mirzapur’s environmental and socio-economic challenges. It was completely a home production, edited on a PC, using my own voiceover, and using the video evidence I gathered in my last semesters in Mirzapur. The documentary was liked by several academics and was screened by several institutions. My interests in environmental filmmaking also forced me to intern with CMS-Vatavaran International Film Festival- in 2011.
In the meantime, the Vice-Chancellor of the University changed and Padmashri Dr. Lalji Singh replaced Dr. D.P. Singh. A scientist of great international repute, Dr Lalji was surprisingly a great administrator and had a nuanced understanding of university politics. I also applied for a fellowship titled Environment Equity and Justice Partnership (EEJP) that year with a proposal to make the BHU South Campus in Mirzapur a zero-waste campus and phase out polythene. This was going to be part of my research project for my final semester. I got the fellowship in December 2011 and returned to the RGSC in January 2012.
In January 2012, I registered a trust with Shiv Kumar Upadhyaya (a senior journalist from Mirzapur) and Ajai Swamee (my immediate senior at BHU) with the name ‘Vindhyan Ecology and Natural History Foundation’ and launched two campaigns- Vindhya Bachao Abhiyan (a people’s movement to protect the wilderness of Mirzapur) and Eco-1 a student’s wing focused completely on environmental issues of the BHU. Within a couple of months, both Eco-1 and Vindhya Bachao became immensely popular and received great support. Eco-1 reached four hundred volunteers and coordinated several campaigns and cleanliness drives for the waterfalls of Mirzapur, while Vindhya Bachao helped bring together a community of scientists, journalists, and lawyers to organize and work for the protection of the forests and wildlife of Mirzapur. While Vindhya Bachao continued to be managed by the VENHF trust, Eco-1 was independently managed by students of RGSC and was fully functional until the Covid lockdown in 2020.
Environmentalism since 2012
Soon after my graduation in 2012, I joined Science Express- Biodiversity Special (SEBS)- an exhibition train owned by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and managed by Vikram A Sarabhai Community Science Centre. I received formal training as a ‘Science Communicator’ at ‘Vikram Sarabhai Centre for Development Interaction’ and ‘Centre for Environment Education’ and later spent 8 months for the whole phase of the SEBS. My involvement with SEBS helped me to travel across the country and interact with people from various states. We were also fortunate to spend 2 weeks at COP Summit in Hyderabad. Near the end of our expedition on the Indian Railways network, I also made a documentary ‘What Makes Science Express Biodiversity Special’ which was screened at the valediction ceremony of the SEBS. During my engagement with SEBS, I also received mentorship from Dr Chander Mohan (Ministry of Science and Technology), a fine bureaucrat and visionary. After finishing my contract for the fifth phase of SEBS, in 2013 I went back to Mirzapur only to realize a mega thermal power plant is being proposed in the forests of Madihan. Some of the activists who were opposing the project informed me about how the project got the land illegally. Being a student of science and coming from a humble background I was always scared of the law. But I did share the situation with some of my mentors and if they can help.
In March 2013, on the recommendation of my long-time mentor Dr. Faiyaz Khudsar (Scientist-In-Charge, Yamuna Biodiversity Park), I joined ‘Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment’ (LIFE) run by two lawyers Ritwick Dutta and Rahul Chaudhary. At LIFE I learned the art of using science with the law to protect the environment. I must have critiqued at least 100 EIA reports and provided my research assistance to several environmental litigations during my 13 months stint at LIFE. I was also fortunate to travel to places like Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Bihar, and Nepal for evidence-gathering related to environmental disputes. I moved on from LIFE In April 2014 to pursue my personal commitments at Mirzapur.
I was continuously following up on the issue of the Mirzapur Thermal Power Plant and sent representations to Ministry of Environment (MoEF) and mobilizing others to do so. However, just after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, in August 2014 the project (now owned by Adani) got the final Environmental Clearance for the proposed power project. I took the help of my former colleague and friend Advocate Parul Gupta to challenge the permission in National Green Tribunal. She also argued the matter on my behalf in NGT. In December 2016, the NGT quashed the Environmental Clearance granted to the project terming the entire process ‘tainted’. Between 2014-2016 I filed several more cases such as the Kanhar Dam (Sonbhadra), Karchhana Thermal Power Plant (Allahabad), Compensation case for affecting River Ganga, etc. I was also involved in negotiating with the World Bank to stop funding the ‘National Waterways-1 Redevelopment Project on River Ganga’ under the leadership of Dr. Bharat Jhunjhunwala, a fine economist, and influential river activist from Uttarakhand. During this time, I got a chance to closely interact with some of the senior social activists like Vimal Bhai, Om Dutt Singh, Maheshanand Bhai, and Ram Dhiraj to name a few. While working with them, I learned a lot from their style of work and got the opportunity to briefly interact and learn from activists like Rajendra Singh, Sandeep Pandey, and Medha Patkar.
During all these years of activism, I was also working for wildlife conservation in Mirzapur and started writing to different authorities for the protection of the Mirzapur forests. In 2015, I received some financial support under the ‘Small Grants Program’ of WWF-India for a survey on Sloth Bears in the district. In 2016, I completed the survey and in 2017 I published the report “Sloth Bears of Mirzapur”, the first scientific research publication on any terrestrial wild animal in District Mirzapur. That report not only got Mirzapur recognition in wildlife conservation but also the work of Vindhya Bachao. I followed the report with another comprehensive survey in 2018 with the help of camera traps to document wildlife and facilitate the Forest Department to move a proposal for a ‘Conservation Reserve’ in three forest ranges of Mirzapur.
Working at Vidhi
I realized activism alone won’t be enough unless we work towards bringing systemic change. One of my friends referred me to Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, a policy research think tank started by young passionate lawyers from Oxford University with the mission to make laws better. In March 2016, I joined the team of Dr. Dhvani Mehta, a Rhodes scholar who was pursuing her Ph.D. from Oxford on environmental laws and leading the team on ‘Public Health and Environmental Justice’ at Vidhi. Later the team was renamed ‘Vidhi Aid’ with the primary focus on Health, Education, and Environment. At Vidhi, I got to meet, work, and interact with some of the finest legal scholars which helped me understand the process of law-making as well as using evidence-based legal research for improving law and governance. In 2019, I was assigned the project titled ‘Courting the Environment’- a research project assessing the implementation of environmental judgments under which we also produced a series of five documentary films. In the year 2021, Research Director Arghya Sengupta and Dhvani Mehta encouraged me to develop a research vertical committed to working on conservation laws at Vidhi which we named ‘Climate & Ecosystems’. I also started the immensely popular talk series “The Green Mandate’ a unique platform aimed at in-depth conversation on issues affecting current conservation challenges and deeper public discourse on the law and policy aspects of it.
My Hobbies
I have loved photography since school. I used to borrow those analog cameras from my friends for any occasion and used to click family portraits. In 2004, for the first time, I realized my knack for nature photography when I visited Uttarakhand, and someone lent me a camera and I bought two negative rolls to spend time in forests. I continued my passion for photography in my college days during my field trip for research work using a Sony camera by one of my teachers and a Canon camera issued by the college. I bought my first camera in the year 2010, a Fujifilm S1500 which had 10X optical zoom and could record SD quality films. I used the camera immensely during my stay in Mirzapur and thereafter only to physically damage it a couple of times. In the year 2014, I upgraded the camera with Sony HX400V which had 50x Optical Zoom, in-built GPS, and Full HD recording with Dolby sound. It remained my companion on all research and field visits to forests. That camera also went through all the physical injuries and accidents but continued my work till 2019 when its lens motor developed some issues.
In the year 2021, I finally decided to bring out the serious wildlife photographer inside me. By this time, I managed to have enough savings to buy a full-frame Mirrorless and a telephoto lens. I purchased Sony Alpha 7C, a Sony 200-600 G lens, Sigma 24-70 mm. Later, I added a Sony A7R3A, a 1.4X teleconverter, a panning pod, and a bean bag. Although some of my photographs got published in some magazines and featured in an international photo exhibition in the US recently, I still consider myself a student of natural history photography, and most of my weekends spend time learning new photography skills. [Check my Instagram page]
There was a time when I used to be a voracious reader and would finish reading books within a day or two. However, being into legal activism, almost 99% of my readings are now confined to issue-based articles and research papers and less to novels or fiction. However, I do try to read books when highly recommended by friends. In recent times, I loved reading Sapiens, The Great Derangement, and The Nature’s Trust- books I recommend to every environmentalist to read. I also love writing when I get time from my activism routine. You can also read some of my articles in popular media here.
I also love watching films, a hobby I picked up during my school days. Although I enjoy watching films from across the globe and in different languages, I enjoy watching Indian movies the most. Satyajit Ray and Guru Dutt are my all-time favorite Indian directors. Some of my favorite films are- Pyaasa, Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam (both by Guru Dutt), Goopi Gayne Bagha Bayne series (Satyajit Ray), and Aankhon Dekhi (Rajat Kapoor), Oye Lucky Lucky Oye (Dibakar Banerjee), Hungama (Priyadarshan), Hunterr (Harshavardhan Kulkarni), Gangs of Wasseypur (Anurag Kashyap) to name a few. In recent years, I really loved watching the web series Scam 1991, Mirzapur, Asur, and Maharani. If not for a conservationist, I would have followed a career in filmmaking for sure. I have also made and produced some documentary films which can be accessed here.
I also enjoy reading about innovative technologies and learning new software. I also learned web designing (using Joomla and WordPress) in 2012 and since then have designed hundreds of websites to support my activism work. Since 2016 I have stopped taking on commercial projects and have been using my web designing skills for pro bono support to environmental campaigns.
In mid-2017 I also developed some interest in the Stock market trading and since then have been investing in mutual funds, debts, and diversity of shares. I spent a significant amount of time and resources learning and completing courses on stock market trading, analyzing charts and trends, and using professional software from famous stock market experts. However, I never pursued it professionally and use it more as a strategy to invest my savings and occasionally train my friends and family.
Awards & Recognitions
I was fortunate to get recognition for my work on a few occasions. Such recognitions are important as they keep you motivated, help understand the impact of your work, and most importantly assure you that you are working in the right direction.
One of the most precious moments of recognition was in December 2019, when I received the prestigious ‘Sanctuary Wildlife Service Award 2019’ at Tata Theatre in Mumbai. I was also interviewed for the GQ magazine’s September 2020 issue and featured as ‘Bear Keeper of Mirzapur’.
My work has been quoted in several national and international news and magazines including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Times of India, Business Standard, The Hindu, The Indian Express, Amar Ujala, Dainik Jagran, Mongabay, Scroll, The Wire to name a few. [Click here to see a complete list of media mentions]
