A pessimistic vision of India’s looming environmental and economic collapse
The thing that worries me the most is lack of fresh water. I belong to the Indian state of Gujarat mentioned in the article, and the pessimism isn&#x27;t exaggerated at all. Soil erosion and fresh water coupled with rising temperatures is a real and present danger seeimingly ignored in favour of populist and industrialist projects such as GIFT (that keeps on winning elections for the incumbent). There&#x27;s no reversing desertification that plaques my home state. It is heartbreaking, to say the least. It&#x27;s taking us towards a Mad Max Fury Road esque world, and how.<p>Uttar Pradesh, the quintessential Indian state  that 200* million people call home, along with another 200 million in the Hindi-Urdu heartland, has always had abundance of natural resources but its utter mismanagement has led to an unprecedented ecological crisis that no one in the political setup seems to be bothered about; and that may be since they continue to grapple with challenges of heavy population, unemployment, casteism, and near absence of law and order in every fabric of the society. Most of its major cities are on the verge of collapse, whilst the elites along with the politicians have cornered an enormous amount of wealth for themselves at the expense of the environment and the people; unlike in 2000s China, where the distribution of wealth seemed more fair, in comparison.<p>I think, India and Pakistan (I was astonished at the very similarity of what&#x27;s happening to India&#x27;s biggest states like Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, and Punjab; and Pakistan&#x27;s Punjab and Sindh) and most other tropical countries favouring unabated development at the cost of the environment are going to end up in a very sorry state that&#x27;s going to get worse along an exponential curve for entities with larger than sustainable populations.<p>I don&#x27;t understand at all the increasing rents, property prices amidst the impending crisis. Given that, especially, only a handful hoard most of the wealth and could afford buying or renting at today&#x27;s rates.<p>India is being held hostage in a prison of corruption by greed, will promptly be taken to the altar of doom by ignorance, where civil unrest will have a final swing of the  sword culling the Virus, as Agent Smith would put it.<p>*edit