The Fragile Himalayas: Climate, Hindutva Developmentalism, and the Collapsing Ecology of the Third Pole by DebaprasadBandyopadhyay Via Flickr: onceinabluemoon2021.in/2025/11/02/the-fragile-himalayas-c... The Himalayas—often called the “Third Pole”—are collapsing under the dual weight of climate change and a reckless developmental paradigm driven by Hindutva nationalism. This article examines how the BJP’s infrastructural expansion, exemplified by the Char Dham project and many other recent instances, embodies an extractive model that desecrates the sacred mountain ecology in the name of “spiritual connectivity” and national pride. By exposing the contradictions between ecological fragility and politico-economic hubris, it argues that the Himalayan crisis is not a natural disaster but a moral and civilizational collapse—where faith has been mechanized, rivers commodified, and glaciers sacrificed for profit and propaganda. Drawing on ecological ethics, political ecology, and environmental sociology, the piece calls for an epistemic and ethical reorientation—from GDP-centrism to earth-centric governance that recognizes the Himalayas as living systems rather than geological resources. Ultimately, saving the Himalayas demands confronting not only climate change but also the ideological machinery that normalizes ecocide under the rhetoric of development.