Regulating Industrialization Through Public Action and Legal Intervention: Interpreting an Ongoing Experiment in Tamil Nadu

Taking up the disturbing fallouts in the much-discussed Tiruppur cotton knitting cluster, this chapter focuses on the legal tangle concerning the destruction of local bio-environment that practically stymied local farming, polluted the lifeline river Noyyal and caused livelihood crisis in the region. Through detailed enquiries into the legal process, which involved the Madras High Court setting up an expert committee, the chapter bares open serious loopholes in the arena of environmental standards. The process of industrialization,often likened to transnationalization, of a region giving rise tounfettered activities in environmental injustice exhibits not onlyramifications of informality but also the role of vested interests inperpetuating an irresponsible economic activity that buoys profits forsome, certainly not in the foreseeable future. The absence of concerns of the consumers (as to how the garments are produced) of the global North and the state’s (both provincial and national) apathy in enforcing sustainable environmental standards in the so-called global production enclaves are serious issues of concern.