India, Feb. 14 -- India's environmental governance framework has historically been constrained by a rigid adherence to political and administrative demarcations. By privileging anthropogenic jurisdictions over the ecological continuities that sustain the subcontinent, the prevailing system departs from a foundational principle of environmental governance: development within one jurisdiction must not externalize ecological harm beyond its point of origin. Yet, in practice, the dominance of state-centric political boundaries over invisible ecological continua has almost normalised such externalisation.

The Union government often justifies centralized project approvals in the name of national growth, strategic necessity, or economic moderni...