The fact file-
Fooling Everybody 14
April 2014
Modinomics is
the stuff of nightmares
For those who are worried about the environment, Modi’s ascendance to
the post is a cause for worry
Narendra modi as India’s prime minister will be a development disaster.
In Gujarat, his tenure as chief minister has seen worsening or stagnation of
the health and livelihood prospects of the poor, and widespread ecological
damage.
In a recent report, labour and environmental activists Rohit prajapati
and Trupti Shah laid bare the Modi government’s deliberate dispossession of
farmers to create cheap labour for industries, and the dubious distinction of
having 30% of India’s major accident hazard’ industries as also its most
‘critical polluted areas’. Other analysts have brought out the abysmal state of
health and education, especially among the state’s adivasis and Delits.
Modi’s ‘developmentalism’ includes sidestepping all norms to make land
and water available to corporate houses. It means taking over the land and
water of 70 villages to promote the patel statue as a tourism zone. It involves
Project kalpasar, a 30 km dam across the Gulf of Khambhat, ignoring potentially
colossal social and ecological costs, ignoring also the much chaper, more
sustainable, and more democratic alternatives to water security such as those
demonstrated by civil society groups in kachchh and Saurasdhtra. Given all
this, it will not be a surprise if, as PM, he instructs the Union ministry of
environment and forests to dilute or sidestep environmental, laws to enable
corporate take-overs.
The UPA at least brought in some progressive legislation and schemes,
under the influence of civil society. Will Modi be open to such in influence?
Activists in Gujarat report an atmosphere of intolerance and authoritarianism
that discourages dissent. Activists peacefully protesting against the Patel
statue, or a proposed nuclear power station in Bhavnagar district, or
industrial expansion into ecosystems that fisher folk, farmers, adivasis are dependent
on, have been dealt with by heavy police bandobast are repression. The largest
number of RTI activists killed or injured in India belong to Gujarat.
Those who will cheer most if Modi becomes PM are the corporate sector
and a part of the upwardly mobile middle classes. To them, people’s struggles
for justice, movements by the poor to resist displacement and land acquisition,
and environmental activism, are all ‘hurdles’ to profits and further
enrichment. Unfortunately a large section of the population may also vote for
him dreaming of joining the 10% of India that own 53% of its wealth. But for
those who worry about the ‘jobless’ growth of today’s development model, about
half of India still deprived of basic needs, and how future generations are being
robbed of their right to a healthy environment, Modi’s ascendance to India’s to
position is a cause for nightmars.
As seen & reported by a Social Activist HT 31 March 2014
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