Posts Tagged ‘forest’
To discipline a rogue ministry
On 23 March, Ministry of Environment, Government of India, issued a draft notification, called the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, under the Environment Protection Act of 1986. This draft notification brought in proposed changes to the way environmental clearance for projects (industrial, infrastructure, commercial) would be given and changes to violations and transgressions of rules and regulations.
Whether the ministry, as ministries usually are, was partly or not at all in possession of its wits at the time is not known, because it gave Indian citizens 60 days to read the draft notification (83 pages) and reply with objections and suggestions, and when the national ‘lock down’ was announced the next evening, remained silent about the 60 days, until 11 April, when the draft was published in the official gazette.
How were people expected to read, analyse, discuss and respond to the notification when they were locked down and fearful? The ministry wasn’t bothered. How were people already affected by the many projects all over India that have degraded their natural habitats to take stock of the new measures? Not our problem, was the ministry’s attitude.
On 7 May, two weeks before the expiry of the deadline for citizens to write in with their objections and suggestions, the ministry relented, and then only because of the outcry over issuing an important draft notification during a ‘lock down’. The deadline was pushed back to 30 June, with the usual ‘cover my backside’ language that bureaucrats use because they know no other: “The Ministry is in receipt of several representations for extending the notice period expressing concern that the draft EIA Notification 2020 was published during the lockdown imposed due to the Corona Virus (COVID-19) pandemic. Therefore, the Ministry after due consideration, deems it fit to extend the notice period …”
I have sent in my objections, and there are many. The only suggestion I have is that they all be sacked and have their pensions and gratuity cancelled, but I have not included that in my reply because it is off topic. Here’s the opening section:
“There have been more than 39 amendments and 250 office memorandums diluting the EIA 2006 Notification. The primary work of a ministry of environment is protection of our natural habitat in all its forms and for all the benefits it gives us. The responsibilities given to the ministry devolve from the citizens, from the many living beings that inhabit our natural habitats and especially from the spiritual and philosophical guidance given to us by previous generations about our prakruti, that is, nature in all its forms as it exists and in all the forms it must reach unhindered by our activities. I remind the MoEF&CC is reminded of this responsibility.
“Any change to existing law or regulation under the purview of the ministry, and amendment or addition, has perforce to continue to adhere to the principle and the scope of the responsibility, considered in its widest sense, that the ministry bears.
“At the same time, I remind the ministry that its responsibilities are defined administratively, as part of the institutions of governance of the state, and in accordance with the inalienable rights of the citizens of India, present and future, to enjoy our natural habitats and derive from it benefits, that in no way diminish the natural habitats, that relate to their health and bodily well-being, their spiritual and psychological well-being, their livelihood and household economic activities which are conducted by responsible dependence on the natural habitat.
“Therefore, the full scope of environmental responsibility includes all citizens of India, a pool of knowledge and practice that, under the principles just outlined, is manifold greater than that which can be commanded by the ministry. I remind the ministry that it is fundamental to understand and explicitly recognise this difference in scope of responsibilities.”
Eating out, or India’s exorbitant world food bill
(This article was published by Vijayvaani in June 2017.)
In the Konkan, small electrically operated oil presses that ingest limited amounts of dried copra to expel oil for households to cook with are common. These can press enough in a day (electricity supply permitting) to fill several dozen glass bottles with coconut oil. As such a filled bottle of freshly pressed coconut oil usually sells for Rs 130 to Rs 160, the price per litre may be estimated at about Rs 180. This price compares quite well with the price range of Rs 190 to Rs 220 that is paid by the household buyer for a litre of branded coconut oil.
But it compares not at all with the trade price of an imported shipment of sunflower-seed or safflower oil which in 2016 was imported into India at an average price of just under Rs 60 per kilogram. India imported 1.53 million tons of sunflower-seed or safflower oil last year, and the Rs 9,080 crore spent on it pushed the total amount spent on imported ‘edible’ oils to beyond the Rs 70,000 crore mark. [The cultivation of oilseeds, like the cultivation of all ‘commercial’ crops that are not food staples, is a matter of crop choice, for which see ‘Why our kisans must make sustainable crop choices’.]
Palm oil
Both by weight and by the total amount paid for it, palm oil is the most visible imported food commodity in India today, and has been for the last five years. In 2016 India imported 8.25 million tons of palm oil (the supplying countries being Malaysia and Indonesia) for which the importing agencies paid Rs 38,900 crore. This immense annual flood of a sort of oil that ought never to have touched our shores let alone ooze into our home kitchens and canteens came at less than Rs 48 per kilogram last year. For this reason – the absurdly low price per landed ton of Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil, a low price that hides from the Indian consumer the deforestation devastation and species extinction in those countries, new cooking oil blends are being shoved into the foods market every other month by the edible oils industry.
Biomedical research which is independent and not either funded by or influenced by the oil palm industry and edible oil traders (which means the world’s largest commodity trading firms) indicates that palm oil, which is high in saturated fat and low in polyunsaturated fat, leads to heart disease. It is considered less harmful than partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, but that is no redemption, for palm oil can under no circumstance be compared to our traditional cooking oils, coconut included.
The colonisation of the Indian kitchen and of the processed foods industry by palm oil has taken place only on the basis of landed price per ton, and that is why this oleaginous menace is now found in many everyday products such as biscuits and crackers and cookies (which school children develop addictions for), snack chips, shampoos, skin care and beauty products, and even pet food. [For a longer discussion on this problem see ‘Let them eat biscuits’ and ‘Cornflakes and oats invasion, 10 rupees at a time’.]
Soya oil
The next largest oily invasion is that of soyabean oil, of which 3.89 million tons (mt) was imported by India in 2016 (3.5 mt in 2015, 2.1 mt in 2014). Most of this was of Argentinian origin, just over 3 mt, and because more than 98% of the soya that is grown in Argentina is genetically modified (GM) the millions of tons of soyabean oil India has imported from that country has been used, blended, fractionated, caked and consumed by humans and animals with no indication about its GM origin and with no tests whatsoever for its effects on human and animal health. In terms of rupees per landed kilogram of soyabean oil, at about Rs 53 it is between palm oil and sunflower-seed or safflower oil. These landed prices show dramatically the effect exporting countries’ subsidies for a commodity category have on the related industry (edible oils) in an importing country.
Just as the vast palm oil plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia have waxed luxuriant in place of the old growth tropical rainforests that were cut down, turning the wildlife of these forests into hapless refugees, swelling the lucrative and thoroughly illegal forest timber trade, so too have the vast soya plantations in Argentina immiserated that country’s rural population and caused hunger because of the soya monocrop that has replaced their food biodiversity and whose need for fertiliser grew (as it did with Bt cotton in India) instead of shrinking. Both these long-drawn out eco-social catastrophes have been prolonged because of the inability or unwillingness of Indian consumers and regulatory agencies to acknowledge the faraway effects of our considerable ‘demand’ for palm oil and soyabean oil.
Pulses
Second to palm oil by weight amongst food commodities imported by India is pulses, of which 6.18 mt were imported in 2016 for a price of Rs 27,700 crore. The annual import pattern of a decade of 4 mt to more than 6 mt of imported pulses last year are a large fraction again of the average 18.7 mt of pulses a year grown in India for the last five years (until 2016-17).
Between 2003-04 and 2009-10 the quantity of pulses (tur or arhar, gram, moong, urad, other kharif and rabi pulses) harvested scarcely changed, averaging 14.2 mt over this period. There was a jump in 2010-11 to 18.2 mt and then another plateau followed until 2015-16, with the average for those six years being 17.7 mt. With the 22.7 mt estimated total pulses harvest in 2016-17, we can hope that another plateau is being scaled, and indeed this pattern of a plateau of several years followed by a modest increase does tend to indicate the following of a more agro-ecological cultivation of pulses (these being in rainfed farms) than intensive cultivation dependent on fertiliser, pesticide and commercial seed. [This does have much to do with cultivation practices in different regions, for which read ‘Seeing the growers of our food and where they are’.]
Sugar
What is a new concern is an item that by weight is fourth on the list of food commodity items imported, and that is sucrose: India imported 2.11 mt in 2016, in 2015 it was 1.6 mt, in 2014 it was 1.37 mt. The country with the greatest consumption of sugar, estimated by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of Food and Public Distribution to be around 25 mt per year and growing disproportionately above the natural growth in the number of households, the processed and packaged food sector is the destination for the 2.11 mt of sucrose imported in 2016. A ready consumer for the sucrose is the commercial fruit juice sector, which bases its produce on a small amount of fruit pulp (vegetable extract is often added for bulk), water, chemical preservatives, food-like colours, artificial flavours and sweeteners.
The giant bulk of our sugarcane harvests distract from the ratios calculated – that a ton of raw sugar is obtained from 13 or 14 tons of cane. (This is usually net of jaggery / gur / khandsari and also net of molasses, which is used by distilleries and animal feed.) The mountains of bagasse – the crushed residue from which the sugar has been extracted – which remain are used in the paper and pulp industry, are an ingredient in cattle feed, and are used as biofuel. [Commercial crop or food crop is the question every cultivating household faces. See one district’s example in ‘Masses of cotton but mere scraps of vegetables’.]
Nuts
At 730,000 tons imported in 2016 and under the international trade category of ‘edible fruit and nuts’ is cashew nuts and Brazil nuts, on which Rs 8,345 crore was spent. A second important sub-category is ‘dates, figs, pineapples, avocados, guavas, mangoes and mangosteens, fresh or dried’ and 350,000 tons were imported in 2016 (for Rs 6,204 crore), while 280,000 tons of apples, pears and quinces, 182,000 tons of ‘other nuts, fresh or dried’ were also imported.
Under 23 main categories food commodities, which include 167 sub-categories and more than 400 subsidiary categories, the bill for imported foods (including dairy and beverages) and food products that we purchased from all over the world in 2016 was USD 22,041 million (USD 22.04 billion), or at the average rupee-dollar exchange rate for 2016, Rs 152,088 crore! In 2015 this bill was USD 20,877 million which at the average annual rupee-dollar exchange rate for 2015 was Rs 137,794 crore. In 2014 this bill was USD 19,372 million which at the average annual rupee-dollar exchange rate for 2014 was Rs 123,015 crore.
Globalisation
These amounts are astronomical and underline the strength of globalisation’s thrall by which we are gripped, exerted upon us not only by the World Trade Organisation but also by the agreements that India has signed (or intends to, and demonstrates intent by importing) with regional trade blocs of the European Union, the OECD and ASEAN. The financial allocations to some of the largest central government programmes, and the budgetary sums of some of the biggest successes in the last three years shrink in comparison to the size of these purchases: the spectrum auction in 2015 brought in Rs 110,000 crore, the 2016-17 central government pensions budget of Rs 128,166 crore, the Rs 47,410 crore transferred so far as subsidy directly into accounts under the Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG consumer scheme, the expenditure of Rs 51,902 crore in 2016-17 on MGNREGA (the highest since its inception).
Bringing about stability in farmers’ incomes (let alone an increase), encouraging rural and peri-urban entrepreneurship based on traditional foods cultivated by agro-ecological methods, ensuring that consumers can find [read about the link with inflation in ‘The relative speeds of urban inflation’] and are assured by the quality of food staples which are free of GM ingredients, chemicals and additives, and the saving of enormous sums of money can all be had if we but reduce and then cut out entirely the wanton import of food and beverages, and processed and packaged food products.
Environmental law and the dharmic principle
The recent history of “global” approaches to the environment has shown that they began full of contradictions and misunderstandings, which have continued to proliferate under a veneer of internationalisation. To provide but a very brief roster, there was in the 1970s the “Club of Rome” reports, as well as the United Nations Conference on Human Environment in 1972 (which produced the so-called Stockholm Declaration). In 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro) was held and was pompously called the “Earth Summit,” where something called a “global community” adopted an “Agenda 21.” With very much less fanfare also in 1992 came the Convention on Biological Diversity, and signing countries were obliged to “conserve and sustainably manage their biological resources through global agreement,” an operational conundrum when said resources are national and not international.
In 2000 came the “Millennium Summit,” at which were unveiled the Millennium Development Goals, which successfully incubated the industry of international development but had almost nothing to do with the mundane practice of local development. In 2015 came the UN Sustainable Development Summit, which released a shinier, heftier, more thrillingly complex list of sustainable development goals. During the years in between, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its associated satellite meetings (three or four a year) spun through every calendar year like a merry-go-round (it is 22 years old, and the very global CO2 measure for PPM, or parts per million, has crossed 400).
The visarjan (immersion) of Shri Ganesh. The idol is accompanied by huge crowds in Mumbai. Photo: All India Radio
Looking back at some five decades of internationalisation as a means to some sort of sensible stock-taking of the connection between the behaviors of societies (ever more homogenous) and the effects of those behaviors upon nature and environment, I think it has been an expensive, verbose, distracting, and inconclusive engagement (but not for the bureaucratic class it sustains, and the “global development” financiers, of course). That is why I find seeking some consensus between countries and between cultures on “ecocide” is rather a nonstarter. There are many differences about meaning, as there should be if there are living cultures left amongst us.
Even before you approach such an idea (not that it should be approached as an idea that distinguishes a more “advanced” society from one apparently less so), there are other ideas, which from some points of view are more deserving of our attention, which have remained inconclusive internationally and even nationally for fifty years and more. Some of these ideas are, what is poverty, and how do we say a family is poor or not? What is economy and how can our community distinguish economic activity from other kinds of activity (and why should we in the first place)? What is “education,” and what is “progress”-and whose ideas about these things matter other than our own?
That is why even though it may be academically appealing to consider what ecocide may entail and how to deal with it, I think it will continue to be subservient to several other very pressing concerns, for very good reasons. Nonetheless, there have in the very recent past been some efforts, and some signal successes too, in the area of finding evidence and intent about a crime against nature or, from a standpoint that has nothing whatsoever to do with law and jurisprudence, against the natural order (which we ought to observe but for shabby reasons of economics, career, standard of living, etc., do not).
Clay cooking pots and decorative terracotta. A craftsman and his wares at a weekly market in Kerala.
These efforts include Bolivia’s Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, whose elaborate elucidation in 2010 gave environmentalists much to cheer about. They also include the recognition by the UN Environment Programme, in incremental doses and as a carefully measured response to literally mountainous evidence, of environmental crime. This is what the UNEP now says, “A broad understanding of environmental crime includes threat finance from exploitation of natural resources such as minerals, oil, timber, charcoal, marine resources, financial crimes in natural resources, laundering, tax fraud and illegal trade in hazardous waste and chemicals, as well as the environmental impacts of illegal exploitation and extraction of natural resources.” Quite frank, I would say, and unusually so for a UN agency.
Moreover, there is the Monsanto Tribunal, which is described as an international civil society initiative to hold Monsanto-the producer of genetically modified (GM) seed, and in many eyes the most despised corporation ever-“accountable for human rights violations, for crimes against humanity, and for ecocide.” In the tribunal’s description of its rationale, ecocide is explicitly mentioned, and the tribunal intends to follow procedures of the International Court of Justice. It is no surprise that Monsanto (together with corporations like Syngenta, Dow, Bayer, and DuPont) is the symbol of industrial agriculture whose object and methods advance any definition of ecocide, country by country.
This ecocidal corporation (whose stock is traded on all major stock markets, which couldn’t care less about the tribunal) is responsible for extinguishing entire species and causing the decline of biodiversity wherever its products are used, for the depletion of soil fertility and of water resources, and for causing an unknown (but certainly very large) number of smallholder farming families to exit farming and usually their land, therefore also exiting the locale in which bodies of traditional knowledge found expression. Likewise, there is the group of Filipino investigators, a Commission on Human Rights, who want forty-seven corporate polluters to answer allegations of human rights abuses, with the polluters being fossil fuel and cement companies, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and BP, and the allegations include the roles of these corporations’ products in causing both “global warming and the harm that follows.”
A ‘gudi’ and ‘bhagwa dhvaj’ hoisted by a home in Goa for Gudi Padwa, the festival which marks the beginning of the new year.
Such examples show that there is a fairly strong and active manifestation of the movement to recognise ecocide as a crime under international law. However, to find such manifestations, one has to look at the local level. There, the questions pertain more tangibly to the who, what, and how of the ecological or environmental transgression, and the how much of punishment becomes more readily quantifiable (we must see what forms of punishment or reparation are contained in the judgments of the Monsanto Tribunal and the Philippines Commission).
Considering such views, the problem becomes more immediate but also more of a problem-the products of industrialised, mechanised agriculture that is decontextualised from culture and community exists and are sold and bought because of the manner in which societies sustain themselves, consciously or not. It is easier to find evidence for, and easier to frame a prosecution or, the illegality of a corporation, or of an industry, than for the negligence of a community which consumes their products. So the internationalisation (or globalisation) of the idea of ecocide may take shape in a bubble of case law prose and citations from intergovernmental treaties but will be unintelligible to district administrators and councils of village elders.
My view is that searching for the concept which for the sake of semantic convenience we have called ecocide as an outcome of an “internationally agreed” idea of crime and punishment will ultimately not help us. I have such a view because of a cultural upbringing in a Hindu civilisation, of which I am a part, and in which there exists an all-embracing concept, “dharma,” that occupies the whole spectrum of moral, religious, customary, and legal rules. In this view, right conduct is required at every level (and dominates its judicial process too), with our literature on the subject being truly voluminous (including sacred texts themselves, the upanishads, various puranas, and works on dharma).
Perhaps the best known to the West from amongst this corpus is the Arthashastra of Kautilya, a remarkable legal treatise dealing with royal duties which contains a fine degree of detail about the duties of kings (which may today be read as “governance”). This treatise includes the protection of canals, lakes, and rivers; the regulation of mines (the BCE analogue of the extractive industries that plague us today); and the conservation of forests. My preference is for the subject of ecocide and its treatment to be subsumed into the cultural foundation where it is to be considered for, when compared with how my culture and others have treated the nature-human question, it becomes evident that we today are not the most competent arbiters, when considering time frames over many generations, about how to define or address such matters. The insistence on “globalising” views in fact shows why not.
(This comment has been posted at the Great Transition Initiative in reply to an essay titled ‘Against Ecocide: Legal Protection for Earth’.)
You made the fish disappear, you rob the bones of our ancestors
About 200 indigenous people on the Xingu, Tapajós and Teles Pires rivers began an occupation of the largest construction site of the Belo Monte Dam, demanding the withdrawal of troops from their land and the suspension of dam construction. Photo: Ruy Sposati / Agência Raízes
Powerful and searing, this statement from a people pushed to the brink by their own state, Brazil, and who have begun an indefinite protest at the main construction site of the Belo Monte Dam, which is in the Xingu and Tapajós river basins:
“We are the people who live in the rivers where you want to build dams. We are the Munduruku, Juruna, Kayapó, Xipaya, Kuruaya, Asurini, Parakanã, Arara, fishermen and peoples who live in riverine communities. We are Amazonian peoples and we want the forest to stand. We are Brazilians. The river and the forest are our supermarket. Our ancestors are older than Jesus Christ.
“You are pointing guns at our heads. You raid our territories with war trucks and soldiers. You have made the fish disappear and you are robbing the bones of our ancestors who are buried on our lands.
“You do this because you are afraid to listen to us. You are afraid to hear that we don’t want dams on our rivers, and afraid to understand why we don’t want them.
“You invent stories that we are violent and that we want war. Who are the ones killing our relatives? How many white people have died in comparison to how many Indigenous people have died? You are the ones killing us, quickly or slowly. We’re dying and with each dam that is built, more of us will die. When we try to talk with you, you bring tanks, helicopters, soldiers, machine guns and stun weapons.
“What we want is simple: You need to uphold the law and promote enacting legislation on free, prior and informed consent for indigenous peoples. Until that happens you need to stop all construction, studies, and police operations in the Xingu, Tapajós and Teles Pires rivers. And then you need to consult us.
“We want dialogue, but you are not letting us speak. This is why we are occupying your dam-building site. You need to stop everything and simply listen to us.
A forest poem to the Amazon
A new book from FAO (the UN Food and Agriculture Organization) with CIFOR (Center for International Forestry Research) and People and Plants International, features the uncommon quality of bringing together original scientific knowledge on fruits and useful plants of the Amazon forest and the sensibility to detect the deep interaction between life, traditional knowledge of our forests and folk culture. With its simple language making its contents accessible and practical, this book discusses aspects fundamental to the future of the Amazon and presents a development model that is economically and socially fair, and which respects the environment.
The first aspect is related to collective health, by strengthening the use of plants capable of substantially improving the nutritional value of our diet and, consequently, preventing the so called “illnesses of the poor”. The studies developed by the authors correlated the seasonal availability of fruits in the forest with the incidence of diseases, showing that during periods of scarcity the number of cases of some diseases is highest.
The second aspect is related to a powerful characteristic of the Amazon, still underexplored and poorly documented: the role of women in the knowledge and use of the non-timber forest patrimony. The advancement of sustainable experiences in the Amazon has witnessed a strong contribution of women – especially in the reinforcement of community actions and creativity to guarantee the social and material survival of the family. Women may be the strategic leverage to provide both the cement and scale needed to create a new paradigm in the region.
The third aspect is the ability to associate forests and development – which instead of “throwing us into the vortex of limitless competitiveness and selfishness, leads us to community, to solidarity, and to human and spiritual values as mediators of each one’s goals”, said Marina Silva, former Minister of the Environment of Brazil, who wrote the preface.
The reader will also find studies on the Articulated Movement of the Amazon Women (MAMA) from Acre, community management (Center of Amazonian Workers, CTA, project, Acre), environmental education (Health and Happiness Project, Santarém – Pará State; and SOS Amazon, Acre) and other tracks that lead to integral sustainability, in which it makes sense to take care of the environment since this is the way to take care of life itself, of children and our future. Marina Silva has called the book “An extraordinary poem to Amazonia”.
Written in easy-to-grasp, accessible language, the book seeks to take science out of the ivory tower and put it to work on the ground, in the hands of people. The release of ‘Fruit Trees and Useful Plants in Amazonian Life’ marked the close of the International Year of Forests.
Some 80% of people living in the developing world rely on non-wood forest products such as fruits and medicinal plants for their nutritional and health needs. This book provides information on Amazon fruits and plants, and is an example of how to make our knowledge accessible for poor people to help them maximize the benefits from forest products and services and improve their livelihoods. The layout of the book aims at allowing readers lacking in formal education to extract knowledge using pictures and numbers. Twenty five percent of people in developing countries are functionally illiterate — in rural areas this figure can reach close to 40%.
“Some 90 Brazilian and international researchers who were willing to present their research to rural villagers in alternative formats — including jokes, recipes and pictures — collaborated in the production of this book,” said Tina Etherington, who managed the publication project for FAO’s Forestry Department. “And a number of farmers, midwives, hunters and musicians contributed valuable insights and experience as well. The book is of interest to a worldwide audience because of its truly innovative way of presenting science and how those techniques can be transferred to other areas in the world.”
Patricia Shanley, Senior Research Associate at CIFOR and lead editor of the publication, said: “This is an unusual book. Written by and for semi-literate rural villagers, it weaves together a tapestry of voices about the myriad values forests contain. The book enables nutritional data and ecology to coexist alongside music and folklore making the forest and its inhabitants come alive.”
The Amazon is the largest contiguous tropical forest remaining in the world, with 25 million people living in the Brazilian Amazon alone. However, deforestation, fire and climate change could destabilize the region and result in the forest shrinking to one third of its size in 65 years, according to today’s publication. In addition to the environmental services they provide, forests like the Amazon are also a rich nutritional storehouse.
Fruits provide essential nutrients, minerals and anti-oxidants that keep the body strong and resistant to disease. Buriti palm fruit, for example, contains the highest known levels of vitamin A of any plant in the world. And açaí fruit is being hailed as a “superfood” for its high antioxidant and omega fatty acid content. Brazil nuts are rich in a complete protein similar to the protein content of cow’s milk, which is why they are known as the “meat” of the plant kingdom, said the publication.
In Orissa, women make the ‘panchayat’ difference
Premlata is one of several successful women PRI (panchayati raj institution) representatives Orissa has produced. The 73rd amendment of 1993, providing reservation for women at the grassroots level, has gone a long way in the empowerment of Indian women. A report on Infochange India, “Orissa’s wonder women’, explains more about this social transformation and the difference it has made in rural Orissa.
Observations from Orissa suggest that the journey involved several phases, starting with awe and fear at the inclusion of women in party politics, characterised by ‘proxy rule’ by male relatives of the female representatives and dominance of male members and senior officials in decision-making, etc. Litali Das, a social activist who works with women’s issues, cites some instances. “In 2009, in Nuapada district, some women sarpanchs in Boden block wanted to convene a gram sabha. But the BDO was not convinced. The ladies then showed him the Orissa panchayati raj manual that stipulates the mandatory holding of gram sabhas at least four times a year. The BDO capitulated.”
In another instance, Sangeeta Nayak, sarpanch of Borda gram panchayat in Kalahandi district, mobilised around 3,000 people to block the collector’s path. They got a doctor appointed in the village primary health centre that had not seen a doctor for years. Similarly, Nayana Patra, a lady ward officer in Baruan gram panchayat in Dhenkanal district, has set an example in improving the education system in her village (the school dropout rate has since declined considerably), and in protecting local forests.
A victory for the Dongria Kondh
Seven square kilometres of the Niyamgiri hilltop would suffer deforestation. This would change the water supply and severely affect ecolgical systems and human communities. Photo: The Hindu/Ashoke Chakrabarty
Vedanta has been stopped. The mining conglomerate has been refused permission to work in Orissa by India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests. A high-level committee was commissioned by the ministry earlier this year to deliver judgment on the country’s most controversy-ridden mining proposal. Vedanta Resources plc and the Orissa Mining Corporation planned to extract bauxite from the top of part of the Niyamgiri mountain range in Orissa. On August 16th the committee, headed by N C Saxena, delivered its conclusions to the Ministry and unequivocally condemned the project.
Business Standard reports that the Saxena panel was commissioned by the Environment Ministry which had set up a four-member team headed by Saxena, member of the National Advisory Council, to probe into the alleged violations of tribal and forest laws. The Saxena report has also accused the company of illegally occupying forest land for its US$1.7 billion mining project. The allegations have been, however, strongly refuted by the Orissa state government, which claimed that the Saxena report has cast aspersions on the state over grant of mining licenses, even though the Supreme Court has already given its ruling on the matter.
“No Ministry can abdicate its responsibility of enforcing the laws passed by Parliament,” said Jairam Ramesh, India’s minister for environment, citing the Attorney General’s opinion that he was free to decide on final clearance despite the Supreme Court ruling. “My Ministry cannot function on the basis of fait accomplis:Since August 2008, a lot of new information has come to light. It is on the basis of this incriminating new evidence that the decision has been taken.”
[Earlier posts on the Dongria Kondh and their struggle are here, here and here.]
Odisha Lok Dal activists holding a cut-out of Chairman of Vedanta Resources plc, Anil Agarwal, during a protest rally in Bhubaneswar on 23 Aug 2010. The FAC report also established that the area proposed for mining and the surrounding forests are a cultural, religious and economic habitat of the Kondh tribal groups. Photo: PTI
The Saxena team discovered numerous instances of negligence – to the point of criminality – on the part of local government officials and the state government itself. It highlighted egregious violations of existing legislation to protect Indigenous Peoples rights (specifically as Forest Peoples). Not least, it roundly condemned the manoeuvres and activities of UK-listed Vedanta – both in regard to the mine and the construction of its adjacent alumina refinery.
In its introduction, the Saxena Report on Vedanta and the mining of Nyamgiri stated:
“In the committee’s view the mining of Nyamgiri would:
* Destroy one of the most sacred sites of the Kondh Primitive Tribal Groups
* Destroy more than seven square kilometers of sacred, undisturbed forest land on top of the mountain that has been protected by the Dongaria Kondh for centuries as sacred to Niyam Raja and as essential to preserving the region’s fertility.
* Endanger the self-sufficient forest-based livelihoods of these Primitive Tribal Groups
* Seriously harm the livelihood of hundreds of Dalit families who isndirectly depend upon these lands through their economic relationship with these Primitive Tribe Groups,
* Build roads through the Dongaria Kondh’s territories, making the area easily accessible to poachers of wildlife and timber smugglers threatening the rich biodiversity of the hills”
The Saxena report also noted violations by Vedanta of:
The Forest Conservation Act – (1) The company is in illegal occupation of 26.123 ha of village forest lands enclosed within the factory premises. The claim by the company that they have only followed the state government orders and enclosed the forest lands within their factory premises to protect these lands and that they provide access to the tribal and other villagers to their village forest lands is completely false. This is an act of total contempt for the law on the part of the company and an apalling degree of collusion on the part of the concerned officials. (2) For the construction of a road running parallel to the conveyor corridor, the company has illegally occupied plot number 157(P) measuring 1.0 acre and plot number 133 measuring 0.11 acres of village forest lands. This act is also similar to the above although the land involved is much smaller in extent.
The Environment Protection Act (EPA) – (1) The company M/s Vedanta Alumina Limited has already proceeded with construction activity for its enormous expansion project that would increase its capacity six fold from 1 Mtpa to 6 Mtpa without obtaining environmental clearance as per provisions of EIA Notification, 2006 under the EPA. This amounts to a serious violation of the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act. This expansion, its extensive scale and advanced nature, is in complete violation of the EPA and is an expression of the contempt with which this company treats the laws of the land.
The Dongria tribe along with other villagers of 150 villages of Rayagada district demonstrating before the Orissa State Assembly in 2005. Photo: The Hindu/ Ashoke Chakrabarty
The welcome decision has come after months of high-pressure lobbying by Vedanta and its industry supporters, which has been countered on the ground by rallies and information campaigns mounted by many activist and citizens’ groups. The struggle of the Dongria Kondh has found support around the world. Yet the upholding of the findings of the Saxena team owes a great deal to the independence of India’s processes of law, which were underscored again on 19 July 2010 when, in another mining case, the Supreme Court temed developmental policies as “blinkered”.
The Supreme Court said that the promised rights and benefits never reached marginalised citizens fuelling extreme discontent and giving birth to naxalism and militancy, which are threatening the sovereignty of the country. Referring to the large-scale displacement of tribals from forest land in the name of mining and development, the Court said non-settlement of their rights and non-provision for timely compensation of their lost land has created the worst kind of hatred among them towards development, possibly giving birth to extremism.
“To millions of Indians, development is a dreadful and hateful word that is aimed at denying them even the source of their sustenance,” a Bench comprising Justices Aftab Alam and B S Chauhan said. “It is cynically said that on the path of `maldevelopment’ almost every step that we take seems to give rise to insurgency and political extremism which along with terrorism are supposed to be the three gravest threats to India’s integrity and sovereignty,” it said. “Why is the state’s perception and vision of development at such great odds with the people it purports to develop? And why are their rights so dispensable? Why do India’s GDP and human development index present such vastly different pictures?”
India stifles all inquiry into Maoist/Naxal movements
The Government of India has warned what it calls “sympathisers” of the Maoists / Naxalites in the country that they face action under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. The state’s warning that it can take such action simply means that the expectation of inquiry and dialogue into the causes underlying Maoist / Naxalite programmes is a misplaced one.
The statement by the Ministry of Home Affairs is titled ‘Government Asks People to Be Vigilant of CPI (Maoist) Propaganda’ (Thursday, May 06, 2010):
“It has come to the notice of the Government that some Maoist leaders have been directly contacting certain NGOs/intellectuals to propagate their ideology and persuade them to take steps as would provide support to the CPI (Maoist) ideology.
“It is brought to the notice of the general public that under Section 39 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, any person who commits the offence of supporting such a terrorist organization with inter alia intention to further the activities of such terrorist organizations would be liable to be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years or with fine or with both. General public are informed to be extremely vigilant of the propaganda of CPI (Maoist) and not unwittingly become a victim of such propaganda.”
“This is being issued in public interest so that the general public are aware that the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and all its formations and front organizations are terrorist organizations whose sole aim is armed overthrow of the Indian State and that they have no place in India’s parliamentary democracy. CPI (Maoist) continues to kill innocent civilians including tribals in cold blood and destroy crucial infrastructure like roads, culverts, school buildings, gram panchayat buildings, etc. so as to prevent development from reaching these under-developed areas.”
The Times of India: “The dire warning, which marks a significant escalation and carries the risk of confrontation with influential rights activists, also represents a rebuff to the post-Dantewada clamour for a relook at the use of force against Naxals. This comes at a time when several such activists have been named in the FIR along with Kobad Ghandy for helping the alleged Naxalite leader in waging war against the state. A senior Delhi Police officer said there was ‘growing evidence’ that a section of the intelligentsia was helping the Naxal leaders flee states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal to set up base in colonies of east and south Delhi. ‘Besides this, these individuals are also helping various frontal organizations of the Maoists to raise funds,’ said the official.”
The Telegraph: “Human rights activists immediately saw in the warning a precursor to a large-scale countrywide crackdown on civil liberties outfits, writers, lawyers, academics and journalists. The move is exceptional in that such a public warning through a media note has probably never been made even against fundamentalist outfits.”
Lawyer Prashant Bhushan saw in the warning ‘a highly unusual step that clearly shows the intention of the government to try and browbeat and terrorise human rights activists and other intellectuals who have been questioning the motives and actions of the government in dealing with tribals and dissidents in the guise of an ant-Maoist drive’.”
Hindustan Times: “Civil society representatives raising voices in favour of Naxals may find themselves in legal tangles as the Home Ministry has warned of action against them under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.”
Indian Express: “Stating that it had noticed some Maoist leaders had been directly contacting certain NGOs and intellectuals to propagate their ideology and persuade them to take steps to provide support to the CPI(Maoist) ideology, the Centre on Thursday said anybody supporting Maoists would be liable for punishment under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.”
The Hindu: “The Centre has warned civil society groups, non-governmental organisations, intellectuals and the general public to refrain from supporting the CPI(Maoist) ideology as it will attract action under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.”
Activist Gautam Navlakha of the Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) has said that the warning from the government harks back to the years of the Emergency. “In two months, it is going to be 35 years of the Emergency (imposed by Indira Gandhi from 1975-1977) and UPA-II [United Progressive Alliance] is de facto recreating the conditions of that period,” he said. “Instead of exploring more sensible and imaginative policies to deal with the Maoists and the tribals who live in the same zones where huge mining deals have been signed, the government is taking recourse to authoritarian and dictatorial measures,” he said.
Navlakha has written an account in the Economic and Political Weekly of a visit to Bastar he made with the Swedish writer Jan Myrdal.
“I am convinced that this is one rebellion which will test the resilience of the Indian state as never before. Precisely because it is a rebellion in which people are fighting to save their land, forests, water and minerals from being grabbed and they are convinced that they have an alternative vision.
“The Maoists are certainly not saints or sinners, but as mortals they show what an unflinching commitment to bringing about social transformation actually means and how far even limited resources can go to help people. Here was an alternative development model being put into practice by the Maoists in the course of which many aspects of social relations have been democratised quite significantly.” (‘Days and nights in the Maoist heartland’, April 17, 2010 vol xlv no 16, EPW.)
Green Hunt, red money and a forest war
If this is a war in India, then the 76 Central Reserve Police Force personnel who were killed on Tuesday, 6 April 2010, were misled by their final commanding superiors, the senior officials and planners in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Union Government of India. The terrible attack, which took place in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, is being considered the worst loss in recent times in the long and bloody history of the Indian state versus leftist guerrillas. Why is India at war with itself? And what prompts the government, less than a day after the deadly ambush, to intensify its bellicose proclamations of “we will take the offensive to the Maoists” and indications that it will call in the army and even air force?
A part of the answer lies within a published comment by a political prisoner in New Delhi’s Tihar jail. “The trouble with India’s budget and economic planning is that the funds allocated to social welfare are basically geared to the vote bank needs of the ruling parties. Instead of long-term capital development towards increasing the welfare of the people, sops are handed out on a yearly basis to garner votes. Thus, while the expenditure on infrastructure is geared primarily to meet the long-term development needs of the business community, the social welfare expenditure is not oriented towards the ultimate extrication of the masses from poverty and misery. The social welfare allocations are more in the form of a dole for immediate political gains. Besides, even by the official count, only 10% of such allocations really reach the needy while the rest are swallowed up by intermediaries – officials and politicians.”
That direct telling of the facts as they are come from Kobad Gandhy, a well-known Maoist intellectual and now prisoner. Gandhy’s short comment is only one amongst many – from academics, activists and even conscientious bureaucrats – who have understood the reasons that give rise to armed Maoism or Naxalism in India, and in particular in those states which have high poverty and are also host to natural resources (forests and minerals, particularly). The bald truth, unpalatable to the Union Government of India but a truth which is lived out every day by tens of millions in the country, is that the possible benefits of economic growth have passed them by. Denied rights, ignored by development work, marginalised by a combination of bureaucratic neglect and rank opportunism of the politician-business combine, Indian citizens in states like Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Jharkhand live miserable lives in heart-rending conditions.
[Gandhy’s article can be found in the (Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 45, No. 14, April 03-April 09, 2010]
These are also the states in which the Maoist and Naxalite groups are active. Why can the central government not make the connection when most others do? Even India’s Planning Commission, its foremost development policymaking body, has considered the special needs of “disturbed areas” with a specific economic and social development programme aimed at remving the root causes of militancy. But that has not been the approach of the state. Instead, it has piled one counter-insurgency operation upon another in a spiral that is ever more expensive in terms of lives and money. The operations mounted by the central government in these areas have led to unprecedented bloodshed, massacres of civilian populations and rampant violations of constitutional rights in the area. Unmindful of many independent commissions of inquiry over the last two decades, the central government with fanfare announced its latest campaign, named Operation Green Hunt. In this – as in many other campaigns before it – the central government insists on treating the affected areas as a “war zone”, and has shown little inclination towards tackling the huge backlog of tribal oppression that has created fertile ground for such violence.
Writing in the 10 March 2010 issue of the journal ‘Liberation‘ (published by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation), Arindam Sen warned: “The UPA government is clearly preparing the ground for a full-scale intensification of Operation Green Hunt. To begin with, the government has embarked on a massive propagation of its new found doctrine of security which singles out Maoism as the biggest threat to national security. The government is also busy cobbling a grand political consensus around this doctrine and it has already achieved a good deal of success in this regard. If Narendra Modi (Gujarat chief minister) is effusive in praising Chidambaram’s clarity and firmness, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee (West Bengal chief minister) too clearly speaks the same language as Chidambaram.”
The CPI-ML also warns that whoever is not ready to join this ‘coalition of the willing’ (a menacing throwback to former US president G W Bush’s terminology) or dares question the wisdom of this approach is being branded a Maoist sympathiser. Time and again Chidambaram has blamed intellectuals and the civil society, bracketing them all with Maoists. It is not just a case of branding; many are already being harassed, hounded out and persecuted. Himanshu Kumar, a practising Gandhian, of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram of Bastar saw his ashram in Chhattisgarh ransacked and razed to the ground; fact-finding teams trying to make an independent assessment of the actual situation have all been debarred from visiting ‘conflict zones’ whether in Chhattisgarh or West Bengal. Meanwhile, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) is being invoked on a daily basis to arrest people across the country, states Liberation.
In his analysis, ‘1000 rebels & none saw? Blood spills a home truth‘, in The Telegraph (Kolkata), Sankarshan Thakur wrote: “A senior Chhattisgarh police officer admitted as much to The Telegraph today, affirming that the site of the massacre is not remote enough for nearby tribal settlements to have been unaware. “We get very little information from tribals, and that is a fact and a huge disadvantage,” the officer said, “and what little we get is often stale or even tainted information, but those are the odds we work against. We have not been able to build networks, we are still deeply mistrusted by people, whereas Maoists have access either because of fear or genuine support.” Palpably rattled, he pleaded that today’s was an avoidable tragedy, but having said so, he added a chilling note: “Let me tell you it is neither the first nor the last, such disasters are built into the framework of Operation Green Hunt.”
While the Indian government has the tax payer as the source of its funds for such counter-insurgency operations, how do the Maoists find the money to take on armed units of the state? Ajit Kumar Singh and Sachin Bansidhar Diwan of the Institute for Conflict Management have provided some answers in their explanation of the Indian Maoists’ funds flow, entitled ‘Red Money‘. The evidence has come several seizures of documents and electronic evidence made since 2007 in the Maoist-affected states.
The Maoists target road contractors, contractors for forest products like ‘tendu’ leaves, bamboo and wood. They have reportedly made deals with poachers, smugglers and liquor and timber runners in the forests. In the areas under their control, including district towns, Maoists levy a ‘tax’ on small enterprises such as spinning mills, tobacco units, rice and flour mills, grocery, medical, cigarette and liquor shops, and private doctors. All ‘illegal’ operators, including private schools operating in villages and district towns, are also coerced to pay. The Maoists also secure large revenues from iron and coal mining companies. Apart from abductions, extortion and looting, Maoists also set up unofficial administrations to collect ‘taxes’ in rural areas, where the official government apparatus appears largely to be absent.
How much money can they and have they collected? In November 2009, Chhattisgarh Director General of Police Vishwa Ranjan claimed that the Maoists annually extort up to 20 billion Indian rupees all over India (Rs 2,000 crore, about US$ 447 million). In the states of Bihar and Andhra Pradesh their collections ranged from 2 to 3 billion rupees a year, and this was in 2007. Other states that are important for the Maoists monetarily are Maharashtra (where they have been active since the 1960s in the eastern part of the state), Chhattisgarh itself, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka (the northern part of which contains iron ore mines).
A major source of funding for the Maoists, say Singh and Diwan in the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal, is poppy or opium cultivation. Portions of Jharkhand and Bihar are reported to be the principal pockets of poppy cultivation exploited by the Maoists. Opium fields are screened and hidden behind peripheral maize cultivation. The Union Finance Ministry in its annual report for 2009-10, released in March 2010, said that the Central Bureau of Narcotics destroyed at least 1,443 hectares in 2009 alone. How much do the Maoists make from such cultivation? The illicit crops destroyed two districts alone in the state of West Bengal were estimated to have a value of over 12 billion rupees, if diverted to drug cartels for the manufacture of heroin. In India, opium is cultivated under strict licensing in select pockets of three states – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The entire opium crop is bought by the government and processed in public sector factories for their further use in pharmaceutical industries.
That is but a small aspect of the Maoist organisation in India. What happens now, after the 6 April massacre? The reactions of the Ministry of Home Affairs, judging by the statements of its minister, P Chidambaram, are not encouraging. Chidambaram rejected one opportunity to depart from the spiral of violence in February, when the Maoists made an offer to begin talks on the condition that the central and state governments suspend their anti-naxalite operations for 72 days. At the time he said: “It was a somewhat bizarre offer. Many weeks ago, I had offered to facilitate talks with the CPI (Maoist) provided they abjured violence. There was no meaningful response to that offer. Nevertheless, on February 23, 2010 I responded that if the CPI (Maoist) made a short, simple and unconditional statement that they would abjure violence, Government would be prepared to hold talks with them. I have received no response to my statement.”
This has been seen as a mistake by several who have been following contemporary Maoism and Naxalism in India. “We welcome the announcement by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) to observe a ceasefire and enter into talks with the Government of India,” said a joint letter to the Government of India written by a number of prominent citizens including Justice Rajindar Sachar, Randhir Singh, B D Sharma, Arundhati Roy, Amit Bhaduri, Manoranjan Mohanty, Prashant Bhushan, Sumit Chakravartty and S A R Geelani. “Given the government’s expressed willingness to engage in talks, we hope that this offer will be reciprocated. This necessarily requires an immediate halt to all paramilitary armed offensive operations (commonly known as Operation Green Hunt). It is also imperative that there should be complete cessation of all hostilities by both sides during the currency of the talks.”
There was no halt and there was no reciprocation. For many, the reasons are not far to seek. Any meaningful dialogue and solution will require that compulsory acquisition of tribal lands and habitats be stopped; that tribals should not be displaced by infrastructure and industrial projects (as is happening on a large scale in the affected states). This is because the central government is bound under law to comply with the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution which safeguards manifold rights of the tribals, including their ownership over land and resources.
“There is a common pattern to the emergence of Maoist violence in many areas,” stated a joint letter written by academics and activists Aditya Nigam, Dilip Simeon, Jairus Banaji, Nivedita Menon, Rohini Hensman, Satya Sivaraman, Sumit Sarkar, and Tanika Sarkar. “First a non-violent mass organisation like the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) in West Bengal or Chasi Muliya Adivasi Sangh (CMAS) in Orissa arises in response to marginalisation, displacement or violence against tribals by the police and paramilitaries. Then the Maoists step in, attempting to take over the movement and giving it a violent turn. The state responds with even more violence, which is directed not only against the Maoists but also against unaffi liated adivasis. At this point, some adivasis join the Maoists in self-defence, their leaders like Chhatradhar Mahato, Lalmohan Tudu, Singanna are either arrested or gunned down in fake encounters and large numbers of unaffi liated adivasis are branded Maoists or Maoist sympathisers and arrested, killed or terrorised by the state.”
This is the crux of the matter, which cannot be solved by Operation Green Hunt and its tragic failures.
[My comment in the Khaleej Times is an abridged version of this posting]
Indian Climate Research Network
The Indian Climate Research Network has begun work with a two-day national conference of climate researchers held in the first week of March. Described as a community of individuals and institutions which will work to enhance capacity for climate research and action in the country, the Network brings together at this stage the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the Delhi-based research and advocacy body.
Ambuj Sagar and Krishna Achutarao of IIT-Delhi have said that the conference itself was distinctive in some respects: perhaps for the first time in India, the organisers of a conference on climate change “reached out to find new researchers working on the subject” through a call for submission of papers. The response, according to the organisers, was overwhelming. On one hand, the meet succeeded in bringing together on one platform almost all the top names working on climate research in the country. On the other, it identified and brought to the fore a lot of micro-scale work and initiatives which have been going on in the field of climate science in various parts of India.
Besides this, the conference also aimed at developing a common understanding of the key issues; identifying lacunae in science, policy, and action that need particular attention; and initiating a platform for a dialogue between researchers, NGOs, and policy-makers.
With sessions broadly categorised under ‘science and impacts’, ‘mitigation’, ‘adaptation’ and ‘policy issues’, the meet hosted a wide variety of presentations, highlighting research that has the potential to inform and influence current policy debates. These included papers on subjects ranging from energy scenarios and low-carbon pathways in India; emissions intensity and climate change; and impact of climate change on forests, to adaptive abilities of farmers in Gujarat; impact of climate change on corals in the Lakshadweep Islands; and micro-level monitoring of concentration of greenhouse gases at Cape Rama on the west coast of India.
