Coming from an activist-academic, the book gives an insiders’ view on the evolution of the concept of sustainability and sustainable development in the public discourse in India and the role played by the media, so to say the English language media. The author goes about collating the sub-themes such as evolution of development theory and discourse, evolution of communication discourse, elite public discourse on sustainability and framing of sustainability within Indian media in a logical way while presenting an objective assessment.

The problem of educating world’s citizenry about the significance of sustainability and creating an in-depth understanding of the path to sustainable development is critical to a sustainable future. This means advocating a development paradigm based on systems view of reality as seen in political ecology rather than one-way causality models. Therefore effective communication would aim for creation of a consensus amongst the various stakeholders. In the present scenario the spectre of climate change has emerged as an overarching theme that has strengthened the hands of sustainability educators and communicators to take forward their agenda of building public opinion, in enlisting participation and in empowerment of the diverse people for transforming public policies and development strategies.

Being aware that the Indian or rather the developing world discourse shapes as well as is shaped by the global discourse, the author seeks to point towards the shift in the global discourse since the emergence of sustainability and environment as global concerns. She writes that as reflected by the international institutions such as United Nations and successive Conferences on sustainability the global discourse has moved towards a synthesis of realist and constructivist approaches. Simply said, it is gradually dawning upon the critical community of experts that, sustainable development is more about its social construction by people rather than just the ecological consequences of reckless growth. The Global discourse that has evolved through the active participation of civil society organisations, critical communities of experts and the citizens looks at sustainability from the combined perspectives of intra-generational and inter-generational equity.

Since development theories tend to influence the media discourse, the author writes about the decline of high growth theory, rise of human development theories and the realization that there is no simple or universally applicable solution for economic development. Rather freedoms in relation to health and education and political liberties to the disregarded groups to ensure participatory and sustainable development are considered inalienable today. The book highlights that the ideological wars between classical and neo-classical schools of development is hampering the universal adoption of sustainability though it has started being accepted as a principle of law, politics and philosophy, it is still struggling as a complicated learning agenda. The solution seems to lie in the critical theory of Habermas to bring about any change in the attitude and peoples’ behaviours (in consumption patterns) supported by communication theories of interpretism, symbolic interactionism and communicative action.

In the backdrop of the realization that sustainability has not entered the consciousness or imagination of the common man, Nambiar seeks to illuminate on the role of media in forming public opinion. Does media completely control the public opinion and render the people as masses, gullible of being swayed by elite views projected in the media? Does it act as an instrument of the capitalist class to subjugate the proletariat as passive recipients of the media text as said in the Marxist view? Though masses are intelligent enough to resist or accept the media messages because of the mental frames or psycho-social barriers within the individual recipient and the success of narrowcasting, media still exerts a strong influence on the public opinion, and thereby on the national and international policies. The author cites the example of HIV/AIDS media campaigns and other informative programmes that prod the audience to think and act in certain lines, to prove her point. The media depends on framing or selectively and deliberately highlighting certain aspects of any issue over others so as to make it appear as the cause of the problem and hence shape public opinion towards policies.

The author seemingly in agreement with eminent sociologist, Ram Guha and quite rightly so, portrays the Indian environmental and sustainability discourse as belonging to several genres. It is depicted as being at the same time Gandhian, Marxist, ecofeminist, subaltern, pure ecology, conservationist, appropriate technology and many more. Sustainability discourse in India is also seen as something inherently Indian because of the deeply held spiritual values about interconnectedness of all natural systems. But it can be said with some fairness that overall, the Indian discourse tends to be opposed to colonial resource use patterns continued by the Indian elite after Independence centered on intra generational socio-economic equity rather than pure ecology, championed by no less than PM Indira Gandhi at Stockholm. Yet, Some of the defining moments of sustainability versus neoliberal development paradigms debate in India, according to the author, have been the Chipko Movement and the Silent Valley agitation post Stockholm conference, the Narmada Bachao Andolan post liberalization. Symbolic of the Gandhian Conundrum plaguing the Indian Government which also bargains for differential treatment at international summits, the Indian media, has hardly pursued the sustainability issues adequately, thematically and consistently. The author traces this media indifference to the post liberalization market imperatives. Unsurprisingly editorial content and reporting largely reflects the conflict of interest within the media sector with commercial advertisements forming the major source of revenue.

Since the elite contribute substantially to the social construction of meaning, the author presents a cross section of Indian elite opinion drawn from the Government, Media houses, NGO, Corporate, scientific expert. The Indian elite largely supports the pro intra generational equity stance though there are influential members who look at it as developed country ploy. The Indian elite thinks that even though media has the most impact on public opinion yet the Indian media largely suffers from fundamental flaws like lack of depth and expertise, sporadic instead of thematic representation of sustainability, inability to project the local relevance in environmental reporting amongst others. The interview of elites throws up the unanimous opinion that The Hindu, the English daily and its fortnightly magazine, Frontline, have covered the issues concerning environment and sustainability most effectively.

The magazine, Frontline rightly pointed out by the respondents of the interview has been a shining example of media helping the audience "construct" their own knowledge through experience. The content analysis of the magazine by the author, over a period of two years concludes that it has consistently projected sustainability in the frames such as the interest of marginalized groups, crisis, international perspectives, governmental accountability, developed world ploy, empowerment support etc. The elements used under each frame succeed in evoking emotions from the audience. For instance while framing sustainability as interest of the marginalized groups, the magazine tends to portray the cause of women, scheduled caste and scheduled tribe making use of elements such as tones, pictures, positioning as cover story or quoting experts etc.

The book is a good attempt to understand the role of media in furthering sustainable development which seems the only economic paradigm that is justifiable today. For any Indian who is concerned with the country’s fast deteriorating environment and the vulnerability of not just the people located in the vicinity of ecosystem but also those living in urban areas, media ought to play a proactive role in building public opinion. The book has done well by telling us how social construction of meaning of sustainable development is a priority for bringing about change in people’s behavior and the omnipresence of “Gandhian Conundrum” in the Indian polity. Even though the book is good in many ways, as reader I personally feel it could have done well by assessing the different elite groups separately so as to be able to give us a sense of the each elite group. Indian elite is not a single monolith and the lack of policy consistency could be owing to the influence of separate elite groups in successive governments. It could have presented some assessment of India’s largest circulation dailies alongside the Hindu, giving a comparative picture of featuring of the relevant issues. Lastly, the author could also have done well to shed some more light on the new age media in the process of meaning construction.

The Author is a PhD Scholar Centre for Law and Governance, JNU