“The threat to
environment is a threat to the humankind” is an idea which in itself can be
anthropocentric but it is the way to go about environmental issues these
days. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) draft notification 2020 has come center-stage and
is now trending on social media with protest tweets, ‘change.org’ petitions and
all. The interesting fact one should note here is that the EIA draft (2020) has now reached
the public attention in Kerala without the popular news channels’ prime time
debates. Thanks to social media activism for that part. As many are now familiar with the concerns over EIA draft (2020), I would rather stay away from that part.
Many on social
media would be proud of their part in the online petitions but the reality is
that it is absurd and stupid. You may ask ‘why?’, I say this not because I downplay the
legitimacy of online activism but due to some other reasons. One should understand that the controversial EIA
draft (2020) is yet another instance which shows the Malayalees how irresponsible our
political leadership is. Not a single statement has been issued by the Chief
Minister of Kerala against the EIA draft (2020). Many will say that the government is
busy dealing with COVID and torrential rain problems but we just can’t give Pinarayi
Vijayan the benefit of doubt. The same goes for the opposition. This should be the moment of truth for us. We should
understand that when the Congress or the Communist party declares that they are
against the BJP’s Hindutva, fascist ideas and bigotry, believe them, because
this government or the opposition hasn’t opposed any of the BJP's governmental
policies over its tenure, maybe some policies with communal color but not those
with the corporate agenda. This means that the only difference
between BJP, Congress and the Communist party, at least is regarding the Hindutva/Fascist
- RW stuff. The disturbing fact then should be the same Capitalist/Corporate
DNA they all possess.
In this case of the EIA draft notification (2020), we all should look at our neighboring states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana. Many would say Kerala is a model for everyone. I wouldn’t disagree as long as one should agree that it’s a hypocritic model. The effective way to counter the BJP governmental policies, like this particular 2020 draft of the EIA, is to stress on the strength of Federalism. Our neighboring states are already in the fight against EIA draft (2020). The farmers of TN already organized rallies and convened meetings amid the COVID situation and they are fighting the EIA draft like nothing else. Same goes for the farmers in Karnataka. Unfortunately, our farmers in Kerala with a great history of struggle, only know to fall for the stupidity of the ideologues of the churches. Well, of course no one can blame them cause the political will to make them understand the situation is missing in Kerala. As you look deep into TN’s role in this fight against EIA draft, we get to see that even their movie actors like Suriya and Karthi came forward voicing their protest against the EIA draft. Along with that we also saw how the Madras HC along with Karnataka HC entertained litigations on the EIA draft notification. The BJP’s language game was also questioned here by most of the southern states except Kerala (The EIA draft 2020 is still only translated to 3 languages which is legally not binding). Amidst all these big protests and legal recourses, our leadership’s political will to interfere is still missing and we Keralites who suffer the greater tragedies of environmental disasters are protesting – signing online petitions. What a farce!
Like I said, our
leaders should focus more on strengthening Federalism here and join together
with TN, Karnataka and Telangana. To challenge the Centre/BJP, it requires
greater political will from the part of our leaders which unfortunately is
missing in Kerala. Our leaders used to always cry hard regarding Federalism’s
fate in India. Well, here they have a great opportunity to show that they really
are here to protect Federalism. But obviously we are not going to see something
like that. This political hypocrisy is the face of Kerala. Let’s take a ‘U-turn’
and go back to the Gadgil > Kasturiranghan > Ommen V Ommen story
of Kerala. Then and there we had a faction within the ruling party (UDF), the Green
MLAs who at least had the political will to question the government’s actions
in the Ecologically Fragile Lands (EFL) but then nothing paid off. Cut to the
present, now we don’t even have a similar scenario, there is no strong opposition
to the government’s ‘anti-environmental’ stance, not by the opposition party or
even from inside the government. “The best way to work for the corporate is to
feign the identity of a communist” - this is 100% true in our government’s
case.
There is another
instance I would like to bring here to show government’s stake in the ‘anti-environment’
campaign in Kerala. There was this instance when the Kerala government ordered
to allow quarries only to function at a distance of 50 meters from the populated
areas. Remember Kerala was just rebuilding after two consecutive floods. Just
imagine the corruption here. What’s evident here is nothing but the state’s
understanding with the quarry mafia. But again, the NGT (National Green Tribunal)
interfered to increase the distance to at least 200m/100m. Again, the government’s
stand to go ahead with Athirappally Dam Project speaks for itself. The Silver Line High Speed Railway Project is yet another project widely
believed to be part of the lobbying work on the government. To cite further
examples, the Kerala government’s stand on the travel through NH 766 is
suspicious. To this day, nothing productive has been done. The national leader,
MP of Wayanad, Rahul Gandhi should also be held accountable for this.
Anyway, ‘what it is and what it isn’t’ is what
I wanted to focus here. It doesn’t matter if we choose the hard way or the easy
way to protest against the problematic EIA draft (2020). The fact remains that the protests against EIA draft only gets meaning when backed by the political ‘will’ of our leadership. Unless and until the political leadership of Kerala finds
that ‘will’ to fight against this injustice, everything that the civilians do
are just like “Words writ on water”. Again, I’m not downplaying the
citizen activism here, but one should understand that only by persuading our
leadership to take up the issue, only by protesting together by political and
other means, can we defeat something like the controversial EIA draft notification (2020).
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