2026 Essays

Kerala’s Climate Plan Speaks the Language of Justice — But Erases Caste

Sathuluri, David

This article examines the limitations of Kerala’s State Action Plan on Climate Change 2023–2030 (SAPCC 2.0) through the lens of caste-based environmental vulnerability. Drawing on the July 2024 Wayanad landslides and their uneven aftermath, it argues that Dalit and Adivasi communities’ exposure to climate hazards is not incidental but historically produced through land dispossession, plantation labour regimes, insecure tenure, and settlement in ecologically fragile areas. Although SAPCC 2.0 employs the language of climate justice, gender responsiveness, and intersectionality, it omits caste as a category of analysis, thereby obscuring a central mechanism through which climate risk is distributed in India. The article further critiques post-disaster rehabilitation approaches that privilege standardized township construction over forest rights, livelihood access, and culturally grounded relationships to land. It proposes a caste-conscious climate governance framework centered on disaggregated risk data, recognition of Dalit and Adivasi communities as rights-bearing subjects, and explicit integration of forest-rights and SC/ST protection mechanisms into adaptation and rehabilitation policy.