Preamble + 1000 Characters Only

Recently, the new Modi administration has taken to taken to conjuring tricks and spinning illusions. With a magician's hat, a waving wand, and a beaming smile, the public are kept entranced, engrossed and constantly applauding with flight to Mars, furor of 'Make in India', and a shiny, squeaky, benevolent India saving its Kashmiri brethren from the very wrath of heavens!!

 Meanwhile, behind the scenes, there is a rampage of real action - with stage hands running, sets changing, pulleys cranking; nuclear deals are secretly signed, forests are marked, tribals trivialized, and the entire natural environment under direct threat to the newly energized mantra of growth and development, in which the rich are always promised a continued supply of many golden eggs. An already centralized democracy is being silently squeezed by an executive autocratic authority - while we grin, bemused, ear-to-ear.

Three days back, accidentally, I learnt that the administration, no longer needy of parliamentary approval or sanction,  had set up on 29th Aug 2014, a high level committee to review five key environmental laws of the nation -  including the Environment Protection Act, Air Act, Water Act, Forest Conservation Act and the Wildlife Protection Act.  The purposes of this committee is to recommend amendments in each of these acts to ' bring these Acts in line with the current requirements (of who, by who, for who??) to meet (what, and whose??) objectives'.

The public had till Sept  29th, 2014 -i.e. a month, to contribute to this 'democratic' process - online, on the MoEF site - using less than 1000 characters; commendable in India characterized by a majority of educated, alert and internet accessed citizenship.

In Bangalore, a public notice was issued on 20th Sept 2014, for a consultation meeting on 27th Sept 2014, between noon and 1:30pm to 'offer views, comments, opinions,...hand over memorandum or have dialogue'  with the high level committee, amply demonstrating the seriousness of intent in a comprehensive public dialogue and feedback.

I have decided to contribute my 1000 characters concisely and publicly:

The high level committee set up to review India's five primary environmental Acts appears to be adhoc with vagueness of purpose and ill-defined ToR. The committee members are ill qualified to review or amend these environmental  acts. The public feedback sought is minimal and prejudiced towards opinions of the comfortable, least-to-lose class; large vulnerable population dependent on natural environment are excluded entirely from the process. The mandate of MoEF is the protection of India's natural environment and social justice for those indigenous/rural communities, dependent on it. MoEF therefore needs to clearly specify the lacunas and failures of the current acts that necessitate the simultaneous review of all five acts together. This process cannot be hurried and public participation cannot be reduced to mere tokenism, but must be decentralized, consultative, and rigorously participatory, especially of the effected communities, so as to inspire public confidence and trust in the democratic process.

Hunger

I have been involved with issues related to human rights, for sometime now. I am aware that the world is a hungry place.  A few years back I had been invited to Taj for  conference on abolishing world hunger. Needless to say I did not go.

Today my sister alerted me on the news of adivasi elders dying of hunger in Thane.  I also read about it here, here and here.  I also forced myself to stare at the horrific, violent google images of the 'starving' and face the world that also is - a world of primarily human making. Apparently only 8% of starvation deaths are a result of some natural calamity - we, the human race, can take a collective responsibility for causing the rest.

The point is not - did I personally create this inhuman hunger,  terrible misery? will anything happen if I eat less? I do believe that by eating less, less than I need, I will microscopically experience what it feels like - the gnawing pains of hunger pangs, and this might sensitize me to imagine, how this must be like, if this were not by choice, if eating was not just less, but just not possible at all, for days on end, till one lay ones self down and dies - quietly, without a choice.

 The point is, can I do something, even a tiny bit about it? Can I, as a grown up responsible person, make this a part of my choice? to not avert my eyes - have their starvation penetrate the consciousness of my future actions? Can I cling on to a hope that change is possible, but only with a determined will and lots of hard work? Can I? Will I?

Will You?

Individual Interests and Mass Uprising

Last week a bizarre and an unexpected drama played out on our national stage. Anna Hazare, a Gandhian of some repute and a definitive following, started a fast-unto-death to push the government into drafting a rigorous anti-corruption bill - a Jan Lokpal bill had already been drafted as a guideline. Both the tactic and timing were shrewd; the many middle-east uprisings had stirred hope in people's power and the recent spate of wiki leaks had exposed the gigantic and corrupt collusion of corporate and political nexus, funded by the national tax payer.  People, primarily the middle class, and especially the youth, reacted on an unprecedented scale, pouring into open street, parks, open grounds around the nation in thousands, and tens of thousands in support of Anna Hazare and his call for anti-corruption. A simultaneous fury of protests in support, rose across the nation, and lasted but four days; then the government capitulated accepting most demands.

Now, here's the thing: many people have fasted longer, protested more passionately, for rights even more fundamental than corruption..for example, say, right to life, right to not be raped, repressed, displaced; fundamental right to own property and a share in national's natural resources; right not be caught in chemical or nuclear disasters, right to seek one's own freedom, of different forms. I agree, corruption is a vile, pervasive evil that permeates the very pores of our nationhood and it should be eradicated...but what about one's right to life, livelihood, land and freedom? Surely, these are staggeringly more important to human life and society than a 2G scandal. So...what caused our middle class, besotted with malls, TV and cricket to suddenly pour into streets? Which Pied Piper's call were they answering?

Only one answer stands out, above every other possibility. Self interest, or more simply, pure selfishness. I have been struggling with what causes revolutions or rather who causes revolutions. It seems increasingly clear that battles for changes arise from the losing side, by those who have suffered, joining arms to fight against tyranny - together. In cases of the ten year and longer fast of Irom Sharmila for ending the draconian and unbearably repressive AFSPA, or Himanshu Kumar's fast for the causes of tribals in Chattisgarh, or the huge and decades long Narmada Bachao Andolan, for a right of people to not be forcibly displaced, or the killings of children and youth in Kashmir, last year, the same middle class sat and watched all this and more, on TV, as they would a sitcom in comforts of their own homes and their own apathies. These were battles of the 'others', in which the Indian middle class was a winning beneficiary. As Bush once said " we fight wars for preserving a way-of-life" - of constant avarice and greed or 'development'. We fight these wars by our government, in our name, against our fellow nationals, not ready to face the wrong of it, since we benefit by it.

I want to know, when will we ALL, enter the battlefield, at the sacrifice of our own comfort, greed, and capital, because it is the right thing to do? When will we fight for the right and the righteous, because we cannot bear so much wrong? When we will ALL do this and thereby win?over wrong?

Equity for Tribals?

I have just read the latest inspired offering from GoI to the tribals sitting on the mineral rich belt which the state cannot wait to get its hands on. In the usual manner of dealing with those whom force, violence, rape cannot dispose, the latest strategy is to just buy-em-out! The GoM met recently in Delhi to discuss the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act which proposed a 26% equity for tribals of the region. The general 'public' response to this bill seems to be 'positive' - i.e. people who care about tribal rights feel that it is high time that they - the tribals - got a piece of their own pie, worth upto 2 lakh per year income for the tribals. And...I would agree, that the tribals should at least get a piece of their own pie.

However, I object to this way of operating on several grounds...primarily the bill seems far from fulfilling a necessary condition which the GoM does not even address - that of prior sanction for mining rights in tribal territories. Only in case of 'minor' minerals does the bill propose a consultation with those effected. Secondly, the present government seems to be in unacceptable hurry to exploit the nation's major and non-renewable mineral reserves within the present generation - or in its present term in office. This pace of exploitation will leave no scope for either the environment or the cultures residing within to adjust or attempt equilibrium with their changing situations. Thirdly, I am deeply concerned about the role that large financial compensations will play in largely non-cash based cultures...in case the promised equity actually reaches all those effected - a scenario that can hardly be taken for granted in India!
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.....I wrote this a while back and do not remember why did not post it. I reread it now and find what I've written somewhat incomplete, although still 'perfectly reasonable' :)

So I am posting it!

Shame, Shame...

In April, a 17 year old tribal girl was stripped, paraded naked and made to walk 8 km to beating of drums, while she got groped, molested, violated along the way, which was all video recorded on mobile phones and broadcast as MMS and recently reported by press; more here. The crime - for allegedly having an affair with a boy of a different community!!

I have no words to express the horror, rage, anguish, deep and un-weeping sorrow at the lowly depths that we as a society, nation, humans have sunk to...no boundaries of moral codes, no strength of ethics, no value, no care, no compassion; we co-exist in apathetical stupor with horrific creatures that pass off as men - of a free and independent democracy...with no security, no justice, no recourse but to cry Shame, Shame!