The water supply in the village of Bichhri, Rajasthan, was so polluted that the vile, dark liquid laden with sulphuric acid came up from wells as deep as 40 meters. Villagers believed that the five factories, which regularly dumped chemicals into the ground, were to blame. The factory owners insisted they weren't. The result was a legal stalemate. When advocate M.C.Mehta produced a chemical analysis tying the pollutants directly to the factories, lawyers for the owners still resisted.

Mehta listened to them argue at length before the Supreme Court, biding his time. Then he struck. Shuffling a small stack of papers on the table in front of him, he picked up a bottle filled with amber liquid and silently raised it with his left hand for everyone in the courtroom to see.
   "What is that Mr. Mehta?" asked the presiding judge, apparently annoyed. "Is it rum ?"
   "No, your lordship," Mehta said, ignoring the titter of laughter from his colleagues . "This is the water thousands of people are drinking."

   Mehta pressed on. "Your lordship," he said," I will drop the case if my friend who is arguing will drink only one drop of this water."
   Stunned, the lawyer refused, and Mehta, at last, allowed himself a smile: "Well, if you cannot drink it, then how can you ask the people to drink it?"
   That moment of courtroom theatrics a decade ago led to a far-reaching victory for a cleaner environment. The Supreme Court ordered the factories to be shut down. And, for the first time in India's history, polluters were required to clean up the water they had fouled and restore the ecology of the affected region.
   That victory, and the straightforward way he won it, is typical of Mahesh Chander Mehta.
   For 15 years, Mehta has showed how courts can preserve and restore clean air and water for millions of people who have long suffered from uncontrolled pollution that threatened health and even lives. He has challenged the government and thousands of industries in court.
   Mehta has been called a  "green messiah"  by some, and a meddling devil by others. But no one doubts the man's impact. "He has changed the country," says Menaka Gandhi, Former Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests. "Before M. C. Mehta , not many people believed that the system worked."
   Born in the Pir Panjal mountains of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehta was the second eldest of eight children of a landowning farmer. To attend school , he walked eight kilometers each day, fording two rivers and ambling through lush woods. Those solitary walks in the shadows of the Pir Panjal early on taught the boy a love of the environment.
   He dreamed of becoming a doctor, but his hopes gave way to practical concerns. "It was easier to get admitted into Law College," Mehta said. So he got his law degree at Jammu University, where he established a reputation as a social activist. After moving to New Delhi in 1983, Mehta won freedom for almost 200 children who had been imprisoned illegally in Orissa and were being abused by adult inmates .
   Around that time, Mehta was accosted at a party by a stranger who complained about greedy lawyers , then mentioned the fate of the Taj Mahal. "It is dying and no one cares ," the stranger said, launching into a finger-pointing lecture about how pollution was eating away at the precious white marble of the 17th century monument.
   Mehta was taken aback, but took the criticism to heart. He had never visited the Taj but now he travelled to Agra to see for himself if what the angry stranger said was true .
   When he walked through the red sandstone gateway ,Mehta was awestruck by the ancient marble structure. But it was clear that the stone was badly discolored.
    Spent next few weeks looking at more than 2000 nearby factories, foundries and other businesses. Almost none had any pollution control equipment . Mehta prepared an unprecedented legal case accusing these companies of pollution that were damaging India's priceless treasure. In 1984, petitioned the Supreme Court to take action.
   Twice the judges put aside Mehta's petition , saying it had no substance . But Mehta persisted convincing tm the facts until , finally, his petition was admitted.
   His eyes opened by that chance meeting with a stranger, Mehta became acutely interested in India's troubling environmental problems. He had read about an incident where dozens of children fell ill and some even fainted while walking along a drainage canal near the New Delhi factory of Shriram Foods & Fertilizer Industries. Mehta went to the scene to investigate and discovered evidence that the factory was dumping toxic wastes into the canal. "There could be a Bhopal-like tragedy in this plant," he told justices of the Supreme Court in1985.
   Mehta's words proved prophetic : A month later a cloud of poisonous oleum gas leaked. Hundreds were hospitalized and more than 4700 suffered ill effects. The Supreme Court ordered a panel of independent experts to inspect conditions at the plant. They declared it safe. The owners had repaired the hazards, they told the justices.
   As they were delivering their report, a dozen grimy, sleep-deprived workers from the plant fidgeted nervously in the visitors' gallery. Mehta let the experts finish , then rose and pointed to the workers. He picked up a sheaf of legal documents.
   "I'm holding depositions from workers who were forced to scramble all night to build a retaining wall to hide safety violations," Mehta explained.

   He also revealed that during the night more than 100 cylinders of chlorine gas had been removed from the factory. Mehta turned and pointed to the anxious workers .If the court wished, the workers could verify everything.
   After the hearings, the court ordered the plant closed and directed the company to compensate those affected by the gas leak. But it also went on to rule that, hereafter no industry-no matter how vital to the state or economy-could escape responsibility for harming the environment and endangering workers and the public. Shriram Foods and Fertilizer Industries was ordered to reimburse Mehta for costs he incurred in his unsolicited freelance investigation.
   WHILE INDIA LONG has had laws protecting the environment, they weren't being enforced satisfactorily. Mehta's law suites, on the other hand, are based on the article in the Constitution, which guarantees the right to life. The Supreme Court has broadened the clause to include the right to a healthy environment , one that doesn't threaten life.
   On the other hand, environmental cases cannot be brought casually. The court demands substantial documentation, which can take months or even years to compile. And those accused of polluting can defend themselves every step of the legal way. It took seven years , for example, before Mehta's complaint against stone-crushing companies was ruled on. Meanwhile, their plants in and around Delhi spewed clouds of choking dust, which caused lung ailments in scores of workers and , their families and residents who lived nearby.
   Mehta's victories have been impressive. He has initiated action to force 250 towns and cities to construct sewage plants and to stop dumping solid waste in the Ganga. And he has persuaded authorities to order the lead out of petrol sold in Delhi, Mumbai , Calcutta and Chennai. He argues these cases alone, and supports his family by taking on a small number of non-environmental cases.
   Nine years after he filed the Taj Mahal case, the Supreme Court banned all coal-based factories in the Taj Trapezium, a 10,000-square-kilometer environmental sanctuary created around the mausoleum. It ordered another 212 plants to close and required 299 industries to install pollution-control equipment. Officials in Agra were also instructed to create a traffic bypass and plant a greenbelt of trees around the Taj.

   While the decision was hailed by many , it and other cases have also evoked criticism. Mehta has been branded a meddler, and a man opposed to progress. And indeed his own nostalgic , even reactionary, views on economic development are not likely to have mass appeal for the millions of poor Indians aspiring to the middle class.
   "We don't need big industries to come and use sophisticated technology," he said in an interview a few years ago. Rather he wished that the Government of India had encouraged a "village republic, with handicrafts and cottage industries." Adds Mehta, echoing Gandhiji: "Our development strategy should be need based, not greed based."

   This quirky economic view is at odds with the country's need to attract the international investment necessary for economic development. Asked to clarify, Mehta told Reader's Digest, "I'm not really against multinationals. I only want them to be very strict in recognizing the environment. My concern is against polluters, whether they are Indian or multinationals."