December 3, 2014
by JNU Forum against War on People
Unite to stop the state-backed
corporate-sponsored war on people
As is obvious today, the Modi-Rajnath combine is
desperate to carry forward the Manmohan-Chidambaram model of
‘development’ albeit with much more ferocity and
single-mindedness. As the new “iron man”, Modi is expected to
deliver to the expectations of the MNCs & big business by way of
ironing out all possible dissent or “road blocks” in the
path of ‘development’. This of course entails more death,
destruction & displacement for the people and irreversible
devastation for the environment. Taking it on from where the UPA left
it, the present government has already embarked upon the vicious
design to bypass, flout, dilute or do away with all safeguards
pertaining to the grant of forest/environment/wildlife clearances and
the acquisition of land for mining/industrial/SEZ projects. And to
ensure that all possible resistance to this profit/loot-oriented
anti-people and environmentally unsustainable model of ‘development’
can be quelled by force, the present government is not just willing
to add more teeth to the ongoing Operation Green Hunt in the central
& eastern parts of the country, but also expand this fascist
corporate-sponsored war on people to newer areas.
One such area upon which the
corporate vultures and the Indian statehas its eyes fixed today are
the Western Ghats.
Right before the Maharashtra assembly polls, Modi
“assured” the investors that his government will remove all tax
related obstacles in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) policy
considering that Maharashtra has the highest number of proposed SEZs
– many being in the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats. “I have
asked my Ministry to find out the problems in implementing the policy
and we will sort those in few days,” Modi boasted after laying the
foundation stone for a Rs 6,000 crore port based SEZ. He further
assured the India Inc. that his government is committed to ease out
the process for obtaining various licenses along the Western Ghats.
When the then Maharashtra CM asked for clarification from the
centre on the extent of implementation of Dr. Madhav Gadgil committee
report on the Western Ghats, Modi responded “Few old diseases
are solved only by new doctors”. We need to comprehend what is
being referred to as “diseases” and what “solution” is in the
offing from the “new doctor”. For this, we ought to take a brief
look at the Western Ghats and the cautionary warnings issued by the
Gadgil committee as to the threats that the Indian state’s
‘development paradigm’ poses to this ecologically fragile
region.
The Western Ghats – What is at stake?
Arrayed along India’s southwest coast is a
1,600-kilometer-long mountain chain with forests older than the
Himalayas: the Western Ghats. The mountains one of the world’s ten
“Hottest biodiversity
hotspots“, and the UNESCO
recently recognized the region as a World Heritage site.
These hills cover 160,000 km2 and form the
catchment area for complex riverine drainage
systems that drain almost 40% of India. The Gadgil report
thereby refers to it as the “water tower of Peninsular India”.
The area has over 7,400 species of flowering plants, 139 mammal
species, 508 bird species, 179 amphibian species and 288 freshwater
fish species; it is likely that many undiscovered species live in the
Western Ghats. If there is one single reason to protect the whole of
the Western Ghats, it is the phenomenon of endemism.. Though this
area covers barely five percent of India’s land, 27% of all species
of higher plants in India are found here. The range is home to at
least 84 amphibian species, 16 bird species, 7 mammals, and 1,600
flowering plants which are not found anywhere else in the world!
Historically the Western Ghats were largely inaccessible and
well-covered in dense forests that provided food and natural habitat
for lakhs of native adivasi
people. They include the Kotas, Badagas, Kurumbas and Todas of
the Nilgiris; the Soligas, Halakki Vokkals and Siddis of Karnataka;
the Paniyas, Adiyas, Kuruchiyas, Kathinayakas and Kurumas of Wayanad;
the Gaudes, Velips, Dhangars and Kunbis of Goa; and the Bhils and
Warlis in the central & northern reaches of the western ghats.
These are people who have coexisted with the natural environ of the
ghats for centuries in quiet harmony with rich traditional knowledge
and cultural life. In fact, it is striking that the ghats represent
an extraordinary sliver of diverse life and have in fact survived on
the basis of community support.
The Gadgil Committee Report: An effort in
vain – The threat to the environment and people of the
western ghats dates back to the British colonization with its
extensive clearing of forests for plantations and timber. While this
continued unabated even after 1947, the threat has been multiplied
manifold under the present ‘development’ regime of indiscriminate
loot garbed in the rhetoric of ‘economic growth’. It is with
these concerns that the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel headed by
noted ecologist Madhav Gadgil presented a thorough impact analysis of
the host of ‘development projects’ mushrooming therein. The
Gadgil report elaborates upon the adverse effects of the various
hydel power projects, for instance, the Athirappilly & Gundia
projects; the mining, power production, nuclear power plants and
polluting industries, for instance, in the Ratnagiri & Sindhudurg
districts of Maharashtra; and the notorious mining-mafias of Goa. It
shows an increase from 12.1 million metric tonnes in 1992 to 41.1
million metric tonnes in 2009 in the production of iron ore in Goa
with a 20 million metric tonnes increase in the last 5 years alone!
Around 10 million metric tones of ore comes from illegal mining. It
further exposes the nature of this ‘development’ paradigm by
showing that 100% of Goa’s ore is exported outside out of which
about 89% is exported to China and about 8% to Japan. The Gadgil
committee takes pain to demonstrate how the “on-going and proposed
mining, industrial and power project activities are in serious
conflict with the traditional economic sectors of agriculture,
horticulture and fisheries”. It explores in minutest details the
damage caused to the ecology, drinking water, agriculture, adivasi
population, bio-diversity, land-use, even raising questions about the
technical feasibility of the projects. Just as few examples, it notes
how force and deceit has been employed with complete disregard for
people to acquire lands for the above projects. Land was acquired
from farmers of Jaitapur area by invoking emergency provisions
leading to mass anguish. In Ratnagiri district PTIANA plans to set up
a coal-based power plant on land people sold on the understanding
that it was being purchased to set up an ecotourism resort. Finolex
is forcibly closing fishermen’s traditional access to fishing
areas. Residents of Tamboli village in Sindhudurg district narrate
that they suddenly discovered in 2006 that mining had been entered as
‘other rights’ on their land records without so much as informing
them. He also expresses his anguish that “while the Govt. takes
absolutely no action against illegal pollution of Lote, it had
invoked police powers to suppress perfectly legitimate and peaceful
protests against pollution.” Gadgil gave concrete recommendations
for a bottom-up approach for conservation and sustainable development
wherein the participation and consent of the people in envisaging
their development would be paramount. The report finally called for
declaring the entire Western Ghats an “ecologically sensitive
area,” much to the chagrin of ‘pro-development’ lobbies. It
recommended the division of the Western Ghats into three categories:
Ecologically Sensitive Zones (ESZ) I, II, and III. It recommended no
new mining, power projects, dams, industries, rail/roads or
eco-tourism projects in ESZ I and phasing out of existing mines by
2016. It recommended the same for new mining projects, polluting
industries and dams for ESZ II with strict regulation of the rest of
the activities. It recommended that no monoculture or plantations or
use of pesticides, etc be allowed. It is only in ESZ III that it
allowed such activites/projects that too under strict regulation.
Rejection of the Gadgil Report &
adoption of the Kasturirangan Report: ‘Growth’ &
‘Development’ prevails over life & sustainability –
It is the above concerns for the well being of the biodiversity of
this region and its people that was virulently opposed by the
profit-hungry big corporate & the mining mafias. And it is
precisely these concerns, which boldly proclaimed 70% of the Western
Ghats out of bound for ‘development projects’, that Modi calls
“old diseases”. All the Govt. of Kerala, TN, Karnataka, Goa,
Maharashtra and Gujarat were united in demanding the rejection of the
Report. The Kerala assembly even passed a resolution unanimously for
scrapping it. The then UPA govt., to begin with, even refused to make
the report public for a long time. Making a mockery of the report,
the UPA govt. finally appointed a so-called “High Level Working
Group” headed by a space scientist (former ISRO Chairman
K. Kasturirangan), to “review” the Gadgil report! Expectedly,
Kasturirangan rejected Gadgil’s suggestion of a democratic
devolution of decision-making powers, remarking that local
communities can have no role in economic decisions! He also
rejected the earlier recommendations and identified only 37% of
the Ghats as ecologically sensitive throwing open the rest to
corporate sharks. The National Green Tribunal clarified that with the
Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) accepting the
recommendations of K. Kasturirangan, it was no longer mandatory to
follow the Gadgil report while deciding on project clearances. Today,
of course, Modi with his “new doctors”, is advocating the way for
furthermore clearances & even lesser regulations as the
“solution”.
Green Hunt reaches the Ghats: As
the eyes of the corporates and the Indian state have fixed themselves
on this region, preparations have also began to dispossess those
adivasis who seem to come in the way way of ‘development’. While
such measures would inevitably and justifiably be resisted by those
adivasi people fighting in defense of their life, livelihood &
dignity, the state is extending its war on people into these regions.
The resolution of the above debate between sustainable
development and open loot in favour of the latter has further
hastened this process. Over the last five years (2009-2014), the
Operation Green Hunt had largely been limited to the central &
eastern adivasi heartland of India to facilitate the corporate loot
in the states of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Odisha, Bengal, Maharashtra
& Telangana. But today the same is being extended &
intensified also in the states of Kerala or Karnataka in order to
quell the resistance brewing against the state backed ‘developmental
terrorism’ pushed all along the Western Ghats. On the one hand,
massive “Anti-Naxal” combing operations in the forests of
Wayanad, Kannur, Malappuram & Kasargod districts in Kerala have
been launched by the police since last year. A special commando
force has been raised for the purpose named ‘Thunder Bolt Kerala’
which is yet another addition to the lethal Cobra, Jaguars,
Greyhound, C60 forces in different states over the course of Green
Hunt. Similar troop movements have also been intensified in the
densely forested tracts of the Western Ghats in the state of
Karnataka over the last couple of years. On the other hand, the govt.
of Kerala has declared its plans to raise its own Salwa Judum styled
force by recruiting adivasis for “counter-insurgency operations”
in the forested tracts of the north Kerala. It has laid bare its
designs to use adivasis as Home Guards and „informers‟ on a daily
wage of Rs.500 each. The stated aim, as per the Minister for Home, is
supposedly “to ensure that the Maoists do not exploit them.” In
the name of “Community policing”, the Police, Wildlife &
Forest Departments have jointly unveiled a scheme of “forest-level
vigilant committees” or Jagritha Samitis. This is modeled after the
same Salwa Judum that in connivance with the big mining giants caused
havoc in Chattisgarh displacing lakhs and by unleashing the most
brutal terror of loot, arson, killing, maiming & rapes of adivasi
villagers.
Adding further momentum to Chidambaram’s
footsteps, Modi today is desperate to serve the corporate lobby and
to that end expand and intensify Operation Green Hunt. One
can get a sense of this desperation when right after his coming to
power in about a month’s time the MoEF has cleared a record 175
projects. Or when a “streamlined” and more “investment
friendly” National Board for Wildlife cleared 133 out of the 160
waiting projects in just two days. And simultaneously to actualize
these drastic moves he is also reinforcing his death squads to
brutally crush the resistance of the people. For example, he has
added an extra 10 battalions of CRPF only in the district of Bastar
which adds up to nearly 30,000 paramilitary personnel in this one
district alone district making it one of the most militarized region
of the subcontinent. As this model of ‘developmental terrorism’
expands to bring newer areas like the Western Ghats also in its
ambit, the struggle of the people fighting for their
jal-jangal-jameen is also going to grow in strength. Those
of us amongst the progressive democratic sections, those who still
care for the preservation of our ecology against the rapacious
state-corporate nexus of loot, those of us who believe in a
pro-people participatory and sustainable form of development must
unite. We must stand by the struggles of the people and demand an end
to this war on people ravaging this country in the name of Operation
Green Hunt for last five years.
“It would appear that we are now more British
than the British and are asserting that a nature friendly approach in
the cultural landscape is merely a contrivance to prevent the rich &
powerful of the country and of the globalized world from taking over
all lands & waters to exploit & pollute as they wish while
pursuing lawless, jobless economic growth!” – an
excerpt from Madhav Gadgil’s Open Letter to K. Kasturirangan.
emailfacebooktwitter
No comments:
Post a Comment