Good Bye, Gandhi!

October 13, 2018

Writing on Gandhi in an India stricken by faux patriotism and jingoism causes gloom. A poem in Indian English provides an antidote.

It was the best day for Gandhi, it was the worst day for Gandhi. The President, Prime Minister, Governors and Chief Ministers paid tributes to Gandhi’s memory, some Hindu nationalists took to social media to pay tributes to Gandhi’s killer, thousands garlanded Gandhi’s statues, a few saffron-clad Hindus garlanded his killer’s statue, the world celebrated Gandhi’s birth anniversary on October 2 as Nonviolence Day, some countries marking the day by violent thoughts and deeds. In India, the day saw police action against poor farmers trying to enter Delhi to highlight their plight. Indian political leaders read out homilies, they sucked morality out of politics, they called on the nation to follow the Gandhian path, while their governments promoted economic policies that went against Gandhi’s vision.

In seminars and TV studios, some said Gandhi was more relevant today, some others said Gandhi was outdated in the modern age. Gandhi placed the poorest of the poor in the company of God by calling him Daridra Narayan. Politicians talk about the poor during the election campaigns, but once in power help the rich accumulate more wealth.

Gandhi is ignored by those who oppress the lower castes and women, deliver hate speeches against a minority and indulge in violence. Such incidents have increased and what is more vicious, the admirers of Gandhi’s killer have found a new voice through social media. They have “come out”. Their outpouring is linked to the Hindu-Muslim issue that features prominently in the mainstream TV channels and in the First Information Reports filed at the police stations in violence-hit towns and villages.

Godse-admirers come out

To mark this birth anniversary, scholar Vinay Lal had to write on “the killers of Gandhi in modern India”. The newly introduced “muscular” politics is on his mind as he refers to Gandhi’s killer, Nathuram Godse, angered by the Mahatma for effeminising Indian politics:
“The so-called toxic masculinity that is on witness in the streets of every town and city in India is not only a manifestation of Hindu rage and a will to shape a decisive understanding of the past, but also a reaction to the androgynous values that Gandhi embodied and which the Hindu nationalist tacitly knows are enshrined in Indian culture.

“What is different about the killers of Gandhi today is that they act with total impunity. They are aware of the fact the present political dispensation is favourable to them, and that much of the ‘ruling class’ despises Gandhi. The official pieties surrounding Gandhi Jayanti may be nauseating to behold, but October 2 is a necessary provocation.”

Vinay Lal says the display of respect is just to cover up the complete contempt and hatred for the “Mahatma”. He refers to a poem circulating on WhatsApp calling Gandhi a fool and traitor to the nation and to the fact that Gandhi’s assassin can be installed as a deity in a temple! Lal promises to write about this poem.

Avijit Pathak, who teaches sociology at the famous Jawaharlal Nehru University, writes: “Every year on October 2, I feel somewhat uneasy. From Rajghat (Gandhi Memorial) to Parliament, from the declaration of “pro-people” policies to the empty slogan initiated by the political class, I experience the death of Gandhi.”

He refers to the normalisation of the brute practice of stigmatising the “other” through lynching and cow-vigilantism. “From Gandhi’s time of colonialism, religious reform and the nationalist movement, we seemed to have moved towards a new reality characterised by what I would regard as a mix of neoliberal capitalism and militant cultural nationalism, and market driven consumerism and technocratic developmentalism.”

Attenborough’s Gandhi

India’s public broadcaster dutifully screened Richard Attenborough’s famous film Gandhi. It shows the Mahatma stopping communal violence in Calcutta by going there and fasting. It shows Gandhi failing to prevent India’s Partition on the basis of religion. The film moves the secular Hindus to tears with Gandhi calling Hindus and Muslims as the two eyes of mother India. It angers the Hindu nationalists when Gandhi is shown pleading with Jinnah to give up his demand for Partition and to be the Prime Minister of an undivided India!

Those committed to social and economic equality feel enthused by Gandhi’s advocacy of the untouchables and women. But the extremist patriarchs and the high-caste goons perhaps switch off the TV! The pacifists thank the film-maker for reminding the nation of Gandhi’s warning that an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. Some others see it as a conspiracy to weaken Hindus.

Fortunately, the screening of the Richard Attenborough film passed off peacefully! He made the film just in time. He shot it in India when ultra-nationalism was not in vogue and sectarian elements used to express their views in private. Political marginalisation of Muslims was unheard of. A civilizational state was yet to aspire to be a nation-state.

Attenborough’s film introduces Gandhi’s key principles even to those who only know that Gandhi was born on October 2 because on this day the schools and offices are closed. Through simple dialogue, the film highlights the foolishness of India imitating the western consumption model, and not building self-reliant village communities, ignoring the value of handicrafts and local resources and indigenous skills. Gandhi’s critics have considered these views quaint, anti-modernity and anti-industrialisation, while even some scientists have admired Gandhi as an “innovator”. R. A. Mashelkar coined the term “Gandhian engineering” to popularise his concept of frugal techniques for “doing more for less for more”.

Ironically, it was Gandhi’s call for Swadeshi, (spirit of self-reliance) that fired the Indian scientists to develop high technology when India was denied it in fields ranging from super-computers to atomic energy and from space to military hardware. While roads in India named after Gandhi have shopping malls stuffed with imported underwear and toys, the leaders of America and Europe have become firm believers in Swadeshi by campaigning against imported goods and people!

But now, since some western economists and activists have started admiring the Gandhian vision of sustainable development, the TV debates are not dominated by the sceptic experts. It was Gandhi who relentlessly tried to impress on the world leaders that the earth has enough for human needs but not for human greed!

Gandhi would have been quite amused to observe all this. One wishes to hear his typical humorous comments. He would have quipped on seeing a photo of his statue being vandalised or on reading a news report that the tallest statue in India will not be of the Father of the Nation but of his follower Sardar Patel!

Globalising Gandhi

Gandhi’s birth anniversary yields a rich harvest of cartoons exposing the political elite’s hypocrisy and its use of the ceremonies held on this national holiday. The expected editorials appear on the lip service being paid to the Gandhian principles. The visual media displays the images and symbols associated with Gandhi.

Gandhi remains relevant for publishers and for collectors of images and sketches. He remains invaluable for the brand mangers hired by politicians seeking votes and the commercial organisations seeking customers.

With his global appeal, Gandhi enhanced India’s brand image. Gandhi even figured on an Apple hoarding in Silicon Valley! On this 149th birth anniversary, the Government took a rare public diplomacy initiative by producing a video with collected clips of artists from 124 countries singing a line of Gandhi’s favourite song that says that only the one who feels the pain of others can be said to be a good person. “Vaishnava jan to tene kahiye, je peed parayi jaane hai…”, the 15th century devotional song in Gujarati, was in the set of hymns sung every day in Gandhi’s Ashram. It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea to present this song to a global audience.

A unique product popularised by Gandhi during the freedom struggle has got noticed internationally, thanks to some well-known fashion houses in France and other countries. Khadi, hand-woven cloth made from hand-spun yarn, attracted experts by the feel and look of its texture. For the same reason and not for the underlying Gandhian principle, many affluent Indians too started buying superfine khadi. On Gandhi’s birth anniversary when khadi is subsidised by the Government, New Delhi’s flagship khadi store did a record sale exceeding 100,000 pounds sterling. It had to extend its business hours to handle increased footfall. So, in this case the ideological past profitably fused with the materialistic present.

Gandhi used his spinning wheel every day for meeting his own requirement. He spun yarn for a piece of lace that he gave as a wedding gift to Queen Elizabeth. (The Queen gave this piece of lace to Prime Minister Modi whose minister promptly claimed that the gesture showed the esteem in which Modi is held! The Queen’s magnanimity silenced those who want Britain to return the Kohinoor.)

Gandhi popularised khadi as a substitute for the British cloth. He propagated khadi as an instrument of uplifting the rural poor and making communities self-reliant. Khadi provided livelihood to countless village artisans. In the post-liberalisation India, the khadi movement suffered, and the impressive turnover of a few glamorous metropolitan outlets does not tell the entire story. Many khadi centres remain in a bad shape and heavily dependent on the state subsidy. Take just one example of a khadi centre opened by Gandhi in 1925 which is “dying, much like his legacy”. The news report says the trust running the first-ever All India Spinners Association in a Punjab village was once famous for its khadi but is now dying of neglect. Today 20 of the state’s 28 khadi trusts are running into losses. As a result, the artisans have either migrated or changed their profession.

The famous fashion houses have given a “modern” touch to khadi. This year the simple but elegant Gandhi memorial in the national capital has been equipped with digital displays! The memorial was spruced up after a court criticised its poor maintenance.

Displaying devotion to the museumised Father of the Nation and ignoring his principles have gone hand in hand for years. “Gandhi and iconography” has been studied by scholars. The image of his reading glasses came in handy for publicising a public sanitation campaign launched by Prime Minister Modi. All see the spectacles Gandhi used to wear and read the reports of sanitation workers killed by lethal gas while cleaning the sewage lines. The contractors do not give them the gas masks and the same tragedy is repeated over and over.
Incidents of the Dalits and Muslims being lynched are not rare. Gandhi would have launched a movement against the atrocities being committed against them. He would not have remained silent about the criminalisation of politics. Some 30 per cent of the legislators have criminal cases registered against them. The Supreme Court says it cannot bar them from fighting elections unless they are proven guilty.

India’s youth today does not feel inspired by Gandhi who faces worse than neglect from the Hindu nationalists, capitalists and the middle classes of the new India. The trusteeship principle has been abandoned by the capitalists many of whom had once responded to Gandhi’s call. Moderation has been marginalised. The money-mad Indians indulging in conspicuous consumption wear their contempt for Gandhi on their sleeves. Sustainable development has never been taken seriously by the governments.

Gandhi magic

Do many new Indians read Albert Einstein’s words that generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon the earth?

Or Nelson Mandela’s words that Gandhi was the first person to show us the method of organised, disciplined, mass protest. Gopal Gandhi, the Mahatma’s grandson, asks: What does one say of the ‘mass’ politics and the ‘causes’ of today’s India? “On its thoroughfares, streets, by-lanes, village tracks and a hundred different hideouts, it damages, disfigures, destroys.”

Richard Attenborough’s film picturises Gandhi’s fast in Calcutta as he extinguishes the fire of communal violence and restores sanity. Viceroy Lord Mountbatten writes to Gandhi: “In the Punjab we have 55,000 soldiers and large-scale rioting on our hands, In Bengal our forces consist of one man, and there is no rioting. As a serving officer, as well as administration, may I be allowed to pay my tribute to the One-Man Boundary Force…”

What Mountbatten saw as a heroic feat is viewed differently by those promoting communal strife to use it as a political tool for consolidating Hindu votes through religious polarisation! For them Gandhi’s fast made the evisceration of secularism a bit more difficult.
It is said that Gandhi could work his magic on Britain, but he would have found it difficult to deal with Hitler’s Germany. “One of Gandhi’s achievements was to show Britons the reality of their own consciences, to reveal to them the gulf between their religious pretensions and political ideals, and their actual practice as imperialists”, writes author George Woodcock.

Gandhi worked his magic on Indians of his time. Years later in mid-seventies, some Indians told V. S. Naipaul that since the death of Gandhi truth has fled from India and the world! Naipaul saw an inversion of Gandhianism in the emergence of a violent Hindu cult like the Anand Marg and wrote about the “ease with which Hinduism can decline into barbarism”. Now in 2018 there is no Anand Marg, but many Indians share Naipaul’s fear.

Gandhi redivivus

The 149th birth anniversary provokes one to fantasise about Gandhi’s appearance in today’s India. Suppose in his prayer meeting he talks about the Gita and the Sermon on the Mount in the same breath and says that the latter “went straight to my heart”. Suppose he eulogises India’s syncretic tradition and calls for freedom from fear and from cultural insecurity that have been inflicted on the people. Suppose he repeats his words that “religion is outraged when outrage is perpetrated in its name” and that “truth is God”. Suppose he asks politicians not to tell lies. Suppose he tells them to stop abusing their opponents and start loving them.

If that happens, Gandhi will have to abruptly end his prayer meeting and go on a fast! Will Indians ever again march on the street singing Gandhi’s favourite song about the Supreme Being named Ishwar as well as Allah and praying to Him to bestow sanity on all human beings?
Writing on Gandhi in an India stricken by faux patriotism and jingoism causes gloom. A poem in Indian English written in the seventies by Nissim Ezekiel provides an antidote.

The Patriot begins:
I am standing for peace and nonviolence.
Why world is fighting and fighting
Why all people of world
Are not following Mahatma Gandhi,
I am simply not understanding….

L K Sharma has followed no profession other than journalism for more than four decades, covering criminals and prime ministers. Was the European Correspondent of The Times of India based in London for a decade. Reported for five years from Washington as the Foreign Editor of the Deccan Herald. Edited three volumes on innovations in India. He has completed a work of creative nonfiction on V. S. Naipaul His two e-books The Twain and A Parliamentary Affair form part of The Englandia Quartet.

Courtesy: https://www.opendemocracy.net/

Kavanaugh confirmation could spark a reckoning with system that often fails survivors of sexual abuse and assault

October 13, 2018

After voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Sen. Joe Manchin said that he made his choice even though he supported survivors of sexual abuse and believed that “we have to do something as a country” about sexual violence.

Christine Blasey Ford is sworn in by Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh. AP/Tom Williams/Pool Photo

“I’m very much concerned… with the sexual abuse that people had to endure,” he said. “But I had to deal with the facts I had in front of me.”

The testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, and Kavanaugh’s confirmation despite that testimony, is a prominent example of what happens when abuse survivors engage with systems that were never designed to respond to their words or meet their needs.

Although few survivors testify in front of the Senate, the process by which Ford was forced to tell her story, and the reaction of senators to that story, is strikingly similar to what abuse survivors undergo every day in civil and criminal courts.

I am a scholar of domestic violence, and my work has focused on analyzing the stories survivors share when they seek safety.

I’ve also studied what happens when the legal system processes these stories.

What I’ve found is a fundamental mismatch between what survivors disclose and what legal systems need to hear to take action.

Victims and systems unaligned

Legal institutions ask survivors to explain why they need legal protection, to tell their story of abuse. But, as noted by scholars Shonna Trinch and Susan Berk-Seligson, “What is needed by those whose job is to listen to them is a report, not a story.”

Courts want a report that is linear, providing an almost external accounting of abuse with specific names, dates and “facts.” Survivors expect to be able to share what they have experienced in a way that reflects how they have made sense of the event and its aftermath.
The end result is that we have systems that are supposed to help, but in general are unable to adequately assess and respond to survivors’ stories.

Activists demonstrate as the Senate Judiciary Committee hears from both Ford and Kavanaugh. AP//J. Scott Applewhite

My research shows that survivors who disclose their abuse often hear initial statements of support and belief. Those statements are quickly negated by a “but” and an explanation of why someone will continue to act as if that story had never been told.

How did we end up with this system?

Many scholars, including Kimberlé Crenshaw, argue that institutions, including the legal system, design policies based on stereotypes about survivors that rarely reflect their actual circumstances. That’s especially true with survivors who are not “good victims” or who are not white, middle-class women who have external documentation of physical abuse.

This explains how what appears to be neutral system can produce different outcomes for people based on the intersections of gender, race, sexuality, age, citizenship status and other aspects of social identities.

For example, using victim advocates from a prosecutor’s office or police department to assist survivors filing for protection orders that would keep them safe from their abusers appears to be an effective use of resources.

But many abuse survivors have legal problems themselves or mistrust the legal system. They may not want to report the violence they’ve experienced because they could become the target of immigration enforcement or child protective services.

For many survivors, it’s easier and safer to not report the abuse and pretend that the resulting trauma never happened.

Puzzles in the aftermath

To an outsider, the choice not to report in the moment, or even years later, does not make sense.

They do not understand how survivors compartmentalize in order to survive or even thrive. They do not see that survivors evolve complex ways of coping, such as Ford’s insistence on constructing double front doors at her home so she’d be able to escape through one if the other was blocked.

The legal system’s rules of evidence, evidentiary requirements and statutes of limitations all reflect this.

What I’ve found in my research is that the legal system wants short, brief reports that focus on legally relevant acts of abuse, contain specific information and include supplemental documentation.

Few survivors can craft those types of narratives unassisted.

And many survivors – especially those who are of color, are poor or do not have U.S. citizenship, and who are not heterosexual – do not see institutions like the legal system as a resource.

Those institutions aren’t designed with their goals, needs and motivations in mind. When they witness events like the confirmation hearing, where a woman with education and privilege discloses sexual violence and nothing happens, how can they be expected to entrust their own narratives of abuse to others?

Many survivors of assault are afraid to make reports to the police. Jacek Wojnarowski/Shutterstock

Speaking up

Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that “I’m dejected, but only momentarily, when I can’t get the fifth vote for something I think is very important. But then you go on to the next challenge and you give it your all. You know that these important issues are not going to go away. They are going to come back again and again. There’ll be another time, another day.”

For some survivors, today, in the aftermath of Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony, is finally that day. They are filling out protection order petitions, calling the police, reaching out for help.

But in some cases, they will be denied an order, the abuser will not be sanctioned or they themselves will be mistakenly arrested instead of, or along with, their abuser. In the toughest cases, like that of Melanie Edwards in Washington state, they will be killed by their abusers.
The United States should rethink how to help survivors of violence and how to sanction perpetrators.

Helping or hurting?

In the right environment and with the right support, survivors will want to tell their stories and will be empowered and validated by that retelling.

However, the legal system is an adversarial system with confusing and complex bureaucratic procedures and often untrained staff. As trauma scholar Dr. Judith Herman explains, “If one set out intentionally to design a system for provoking symptoms of traumatic stress, it might look very much like a court of law.”

Survivors are asked to recall specific details about their victimization that they have repressed in order to survive. As one advocate said to me in an interview, “They’re trying to forget what happened and here I am, asking them to write down, with as many details as they can, what they went through.”

How might we create a more responsive system?

First: Stop requiring survivors to narrate their abuse. It’s more detrimental than helpful, especially if we simply discount it as a “story” afterward.

If there is some form of external documentation, survivors should be able to provide that instead. If there is no external documentation, then the narrative should be elicited in a supportive environment of the survivor’s choosing, with trained staff available to help them better understand the kinds of information judges and law enforcement need.

Second: People charged with listening and responding to survivors need to be educated about the dynamics of domestic and sexual violence. While some are, many do not fully understand the ways in which domestic and sexual violence impact survivors. It is impossible for them to hear and respond appropriately unless they understand those dynamics.

The confirmation hearings, and the responses to Ford’s testimony, underscored this idea. While the remarks of some senators after her testimony reflected that they understand that they should “support” and “believe” survivors of violence, they also showed they were not informed about how survivors act in response to and process sexual trauma.

It’s as if they were saying: I believe, but I don’t understand, so your story does not exist for me in that it does not force me to act or impact my vote.
Finally: Explore what believing and supporting a survivor means.

While the words “I believe” and “I support” are critically important, they should not become buzzwords that replace actions. When you believe a survivor and decide to support that survivor, you must act. You must make hard, even unpopular, decisions.
You must work to adapt the system in order to uphold justice.

I believe. Period. I believe.

Alesha Durfee, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How A Poor Women’s Collective Is Helping Rebuild Flood-Wrecked Kerala

October 13, 2018

Thiruvananthapuram, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Ernakulam (Kerala): Grey dust had settled into the narrow alleyway leading to the home of 70-year-old retiree George Thomas and his wife Mariamma in Mallapuzhassery panchayat of Pathanamthitta district in southeastern Kerala. Other than this and the ruined boundary walls around the house, there was little evidence of the floods that devastated 12 of the state’s 14 districts in August 2018.

Nearly 405,000 women volunteers of Kudumbashree helped clean around 200,000 homes and cleared more than 12,000 public roads and offices across 10 flood-affected districts of Kerala

“The water nearly reached the ceiling, and left behind nearly two feet of clayey mud and dirty water,” Thomas told IndiaSpend. “But I had help.” A team of eight to 10 women volunteers arrived at the couple’s home after the flood waters receded and within 48 hours cleaned out the mud and filth so the couple could return home.

The volunteers belonged to Kudumbashree, Kerala’s women-centric poverty eradication mission set up in 1998. Its 4.4 million women members are from poor families–their average monthly income in 2015-16 was Rs 3,064, according to a 2017 report. At Kudumbashree, women members run income-generating activities, including micro enterprises, horticulture, animal husbandry, handloom and handicrafts.

They were among the first to join the mission to help flood victims. In Pathanamthitta district, the mission has more than 28,000 women volunteers. Many of these poor Samaritans were themselves flood victims, their homes destroyed and their families in distress.

Nearly 405,000 women volunteers of Kudumbashree helped clean around 200,000 homes and cleared more than 12,000 public roads and offices across 10 flood-affected districts of Kerala, the mission’s data showed. Around 40,000 flood victims with psychosocial problems were helped by its counsellors. The women also contributed Rs 9.7 crore–roughly 1% of the funds received by the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF)–according to the mission’s reports.

IndiaSpend traversed four southern and south-central districts to explore how the people and government of Kerala are now rebuilding the state. We report our findings from Thiruvananthapuram, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Ernakulam district in a three-part series.

In this, the first part, we report on Kudumbashree and its work. In the second part, we look at how Kerala State Electricity Board, which suffered a loss of nearly Rs 850 crore and damaged offices and substations, restored power in the state through Mission Reconnect. In the final part, we investigate how the state’s health system and bureaucracy averted a post-flood health crisis.

Record rainfall and the deluge that followed in Kerala caused 493 deaths and a loss of Rs 25,050 crore, the Indian Express reported on September 28, 2018. All 14 districts of the state were on red alert for flooding on August 15, 2018.

‘Those who have suffered understand the suffering of others’

The mission has a three-tier federated community structure: Neighbourhood groups with 10 to 20 women, area development societies, which include all the neighbourhood groups in a ward, and community development societies, which include all ward groups in a panchayat.

The clayey mud and dirt in the Thomases house in Pathanamthitta was removed by volunteers from Kudumbashree.

“The members are service and community-oriented,” said S Harikishore, the executive director of Kudumbashree. “A person who has suffered can understand the suffering of others.”

On the morning of August 15, 2018, Sujatha R, chairperson of the community development society in Mulakuzha panchayat of Chengannur taluk in Alappuzha district, received a frantic call for help from the vice-president of the panchayat. Chengannur, where 16 died, was among the worst-affected regions in Kerala.

Waters were rising fast in one of the low-lying wards and volunteers were needed to help those who had moved into a relief camp in a school, the panchayat official told her. “Instead of a couple, we sent 11 members within an hour despite the heavy downpour,” said Sujatha.
The team found women, children, and a 40-day old baby at the camp, most of them drenched to the bone and asking for warm water to stave off the chill. “We managed to quickly heat some water and make kanji (rice porridge) by noon using whatever provisions were available,” Sujatha recalled.

Some clothes that the team had collected earlier for those affected by floods in Kuttanad came in handy at the camp. But more areas in Chengannur were going under and more people were pouring into the relief camp.

Thanks to Kudumbashree’s wide network, Sujatha could ensure that women who were not too badly affected by the floods contributed packets of poddichor (packed curry-rice) to feed those who had sought refuge at the camp. “I requested people to provide usable old clothes and cooked food and made my way through the waters to collect these,” said Sujatha whose own home had been spared by the deluge.

By the fourth day, Sujatha had convinced people that food must be cooked in the camp where the numbers had swelled to 600. Kudumbashree staff would pitch in and help.

But the flood waters did not spare the home of community development society head Usha Sasi in Pandanad panchayat, around 10 km away. All 13 of the wards she administered were affected. “Water still seeps through the floor of my house, and the stench still hangs in the air,” said Usha.

Wading through neck-deep water, they kept the old and infirm safe
The home of Shippi Sebastian, who headed the Chendamangalam panchayat’s community development society, nearly 130 km north of Pandanad, was among the first to be flooded. Her house is in Gothuruth, just 50 metres from the backwaters.

“My son and I managed to put the TV and refrigerator on top of a cot but the water still damaged it,” she said. It took five days for the water to recede. “Although many of us were victims of the flood, Kudumbashree members like Rukhiya itah (as the elder sister is addressed in Muslim families) provided great service.”

A couple of kilometers from the Kudumbashree office, 57-year-old Rukhiya Siddique gave Sebastian a hug and smile as she adjusted her headscarf. Her spacious double-storied home, laid with marble flooring, sparkled but the sofa cushions and mattresses are all stacked up in the living room. “I’m sorry but the flood has completely damaged the furniture and we’re still cleaning up. I wish I could offer you a proper seat,” she said as she pulled out a metal chair.

Siddique had volunteered at the government higher secondary school where nearly 250 people were camped on August 15, 2018. As the flood waters rose over 10 feet, she and a few others had to move everyone to higher floors.

“It was painful to see the disabled, especially the elderly, in such discomfort,” she said. “We made the best use of the available material to cook. Luckily I had requested some people around in the area to store water from the well.”

Over the next five days, Siddique and others worked through the day, wearing the same set of clothes, often drenched, wading through neck-deep water. They were among the last to be evacuated from the school.

Festive season of high sales washed out
In Ernakulam, nearly 95% of community development societies in 96 panchayats of the district were flooded, according to an interim report accessed by IndiaSpend at the district mission office. But members in the unaffected regions of the district, including Ernakulam city, chipped in: In the four days till September 27, 2018, they packed and despatched 27,500 vegetable kits and 8,500 of 5-kg rice kits.

The community development society in Mallapuzhassery even managed to provide more than 1,000 packets of meals with payasam (pudding) on Onam. “We are glad that we managed that at a time of such distress,” said Unnikrishnan, district programme manager, Pathanamthitta.
“We distributed 38,000 food packets in the affected regions of the district,” said Sabir Hussain, district mission coordinator in Pathanamthitta.

Onam is normally an important period for Kudumbashree when there is a huge demand for its products such as handicrafts, organic food and soaps. This year’s rain crisis came as a huge blow to the collective’s finances. “Last year, we had sales of nearly Rs 30 crore. We now need to restructure our plan and prioritise livelihoods for members,” said Harikishore.

After the deluge, the cleanup
In Pathanamthitta, Ernakulam, and Alappuzha districts, 185,000 volunteers–46% of volunteers–cleaned over 75,000 homes and 7,500 public roads. The collective used whatever resources it could find in this task. The heavy mud that seeped into homes was removed by the male relatives of Kudumbashree members or other male volunteers; the women did the scrubbing and cleaning.

In addition to the cleaning, Kudumbashree members also cooked and packed food for victims of the flood in relief camps.

In Pathanamthitta, 28,000 volunteers from Kudumbashree cleaned nearly 12,000 homes and public roads. The priority was to clean public roads and homes of the poor and the elderly who were living alone, said Hussain.

It was hard work that left many volunteers exhausted and ill, unable to return the next day. “We had to arrange another group to clean the next day,” said Sheeja of Mallapuzhassery. “The stench of the water was nauseating and some of us developed allergies.” While cleaning a school in Chendamangalam, volunteers had to deal with eight snakes that had crept in.

When small savings became a big help
Neighbourhood household groups of Kudumbashree gave money to the CMDRF from their thrift fund. These are small regular savings of these groups that are normally pooled and given out as internal loans to most deserving members. The amount is decided by the group on the basis of its income.

Five of the 14 districts transferred more than Rs 1 crore to the state mission which was transferred to the CMDRF. Kannur in north Kerala contributed the most–nearly Rs 1.28 crore.
But the distress caused by the devastation affected people as much as material loss. In three districts, community counsellors from Kudumbashree counselled more than one-third of the nearly 40,000 persons.

Rebuilding through counselling
During a routine house visit after the flood, Srija Mahesh, a community counsellor in Mallapuzhassery, found a woman there hostile and angry. When Mahesh sat her down and patiently convinced her to talk, she opened up.

[Counselors in Alappuzha] Nearly 40,000 persons who are battling the psychosocial trauma of the flood have received counselling from Kudumbashree’s community counselors.

“All the the money that she had saved to repay a loan slipped from her hand while she was trying to save her son’s speaker which he had bought after a long wait,” said Mahesh. “The shock of it and not knowing how she was going to repay the loan was unbearable for her.”

Kudumbashree community counsellors normally provide counselling services to the parents of elderly, adolescent students, children, women who are survivors of violence. But the floods had brought a different set of problems altogether. Not just the elderly, even children, some of who had been separated from their families during rescue efforts, were traumatised, said Sreelatha I, a counsellor in Pandanad.

Since the floods abated, Kerala’s health department has worked with the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) to train 16,671 volunteers to provide psychosocial first aid to people afflicted with disaster-related stress, Scroll.in reported on September 30, 2018.
This is the first of a three-part series.

(Paliath is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Ganga flows ….with ‘ blood’ …?

October 13, 2018

‘ Naitikta nasht hui … Manavta bhrasht hui
Nirlajya bhav se behti ho kyon …’
( Morality is destroyed … Humanity has been corrupted
Why do you flow in this shameless way?)

From ‘ Ganga behti hai kyon’ by Pundit Narendra Sharma and lyrics rendered by Bhupen Hazarika

One of the present government’s prime mission was cleaning Ganga. It boasted of a flagship program ‘ Namami Gange’ but could not care to listen to the real fighter who was on fast since June 22 demanding concrete action to cleanse Ganga by not allowing industrial waste causing pollution and health problems to people.

Environmentalist GD Agrawal suffered cardiac arrest. He was administered a potassium and heart related medicine, told a doctor at AIIMS, Rhishikesh to ANI. (Environmentalist GD Agrawal dies after fasting to save Ganga … October 11, 2018, indiatvnews.com). He was demanding steps to make ganga ‘ aviral’ (free flowing) and clean.

The 86- year old former professor of IIT Kanpur has been demanding a ban on all hydroelectric projects along the tributaries of ganga besides enactment of the Ganga Protection Management Act . ( October 11, 2018, outlookindia.com). Agrawal sent several letters to the Prime Minister who, in 2014 pledged on the banks of ganga in Varanasi that immediate steps would be taken to clean ganga. But the government paid no heed to his demands, said ‘ IIT-ians for Holy Ganga’ , a forum formed to preserve the heritage and ecology of the river.

Brief sketch
G D Agrawal, also known as swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, has earlier held the chair at Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering , Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He served on the board of the National Ganga River Basin Authority and was the first member secretary of Central Pollution Control Board. The government had also engaged him at various levels to advise them on the health of the country’s rivers. ( Oct 11, 2018, scroll.in). His demands included maintaining the environmental flow of the river to prevent pollution, removal of encroachments from the riverbank, and,a special law to deal with the pollution of the river.

In July, he was forcibly removed from his fasting venue by police and taken to undisclosed destination. Later, he filed a petition in Uttarakhand High Court stating that his peaceful fast did not pose law and order problem to State.

Condolences
Many human rights activists, environmental experts and politicians expressed their condolences. Activist Prashant Bhushan said that Agrawal passed away after his pleas to save the Ganga ‘ fell on Modi’s deaf ears’ . He also regretted ‘ this world is not for pure souls’ . Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said, “…. Rs.22,000 crore was allotted for cleaning it ( ganga) but not even 1/4 th of it has been used..” Aam Admi Party leader Sanjay Singh, Rajya Sabha MP termed government as ‘ insensitive’ opined that the bjp garnered votes on the name of Ganga but could not save the son of ganga (Agrawal). Even the ruling party members including PM and Uma bharati ( who vowed to clean ganga) expressed grief but their inaction and lack of political will is palpably visible. Despite fasting for almost 111 days, the government failed to assure Agrawal and could not stop him from fasting. He had tried his best but when he realized that the rulers are unmoved, he stopped taking even water and honey for the last few days leading to his demise.

To- day, Ganga is smeared with blood of its loving son. Will the powers that be initiate any concrete step in future?

(The writer from anywhere and everywhere is supporter of human rights. Whenever the writer ponders on the question ‘ who am I?’, He receives response from a lyric by Bhupen Hazarika, ‘ ami ekti jajabor’ ( I am a gypsy). Some of the works appeared in dissident voice, poemHunter.com, tuckmagazine.com, counterview.org, counterview.net, velivada and virasam.org, etc)

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/

How Modi Govt Exhausted ONGC’s Cash Reserves And Drove It Under Debt

October 13, 2018

Cash reserves of the oil and gas explorer fell by 92% in a single year from FY 2016-17 to FY 2017-18 as, besides high dividend payouts to the government, it was forced to bail out debt-ridden GSPC and buy govt stake in HPCL.

Not too long ago, India’s largest crude oil and natural gas exploration company — the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), owned by the Government of India — was not only debt-free, but the country’s most profitable company. It was also among one of the most cash-rich companies in the country.

This has changed. After successive governments had gradually milked ONGC, the oil & gas explorer has completely run dry after the Narendra Modi government took over.

ONGC — a central public sector enterprise developed in the late 1950s and 1960s — is key to India’s energy security.

Of course, the Congress regimes since the early 1990s began chipping away at the central public sector enterprise in favour of private businesses looking to dig into the inordinately profitable oil and gas industry.

In 1992-93, a total of 28 prime oil and gas fields that were discovered and developed by ONGC were given away to private parties for a pittance.

In fact, the Indian government in 1991 forced ONGC to take a loan of $450 million from the World Bank with attached conditions mandating that the oil fields discovered by ONGC and Oil India, another state-owned enterprise, would have to be developed as joint ventures with private and foreign capital.

But ONGC remained among the top cash-rich companies of India — contributing around 70% to India’s domestic production.

Over the past four years, however — as the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance regime under Narendra Modi has continued to suck out cash from profitable public-sector companies in ‘inventive’ ways — ONGC has not only exhausted its accumulated cash reserves, but is now under a mountain of debt, thanks to unnecessary acquisitions that it was forced to make by this government.

Last November, the Oil Ministry had been pushing to sell 60% stake in prime oil and gas producing fields of ONGC to private companies, but the attempt was unsuccessful owing to strong opposition from the state-run company.

But before we look at the various ways that the Modi government employed to drag down ONGC, let us take a brief look at the company’s financials as reflected in its yearly balance sheets (which can accessed inside its annual reports) for the past four fiscals.

The financials tell the story of ONGC’s downhill slide — engineered by the Modi government — which is not just sorry but scary for India’s energy future.

What The Financials Say
This June, Bloomberg had reported that ONGC’s cash levels in the year ended March 2018 (FY 2017-18) were at their lowest since the year ended March 2001 (FY 2000-01) — and had dropped by more than 90% in one year from FY17 to FY18.
Indeed, a look at the balance sheets corroborates this.

Below we have the cash with ONGC (counted here as Cash & Cash Equivalents + Other Bank Balances + Current Financial Investments) over the past five years — from FY2013-14 to FY2017-18.

We can see that in FY2015 — the first fiscal after Modi came to power in mid-2014 — there was a fall of around 74% in the cash levels from the year before. Cash reserves are used for capital expenditure, which is massive for oil and gas companies undertaking exploration of hydrocarbon reserves. Cash reserves are also used for paying the annual dividends — a share of the profit earned by a company paid to its shareholders.

This is the same year, 2014-2015, when ONGC was overtaken by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries as India’s most profitable company. ONGC had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 18,334 crore that year, and it slipped to the third position.

There was recovery in the cash levels in FY2016 and FY2017.

However — from 2016-17 to 2017-18 — the company’s cash levels dropped steeply, by 92%.

There are a number of reasons why this has happened.

Dividend Payouts
ONGC has been among the highest dividend-paying public-sector companies. But the government has been treating it as a cash cow — and has been regularly extracting extra or ‘special’ dividends from the company, just as it does from other profitable public sector companies, especially oil and gas companies.

In 2013-14, ONGC paid a total dividend of Rs 81.3 billion (Rs 81,2771.70 lakh). Again, in 2014-15, the company paid a total dividend of Rs 81.3 billion (Rs 81,2771.55 lakh).

In 2015-16, ONGC had a dividend payout of Rs 72.7 billion (Rs 72,7216.6 lakh). In 2016-17, the company paid a dividend of Rs 77.6 billion (Rs 77,6410.7 lakh).

However, in 2017-18, ONGC paid its highest dividend ever of Rs 84.7 billion (Rs 8,470 crore). All of these dividends mentioned here are without counting the dividend distribution tax paid.

Fuel Subsidy
What’s more, ONGC and other state-owned oil companies, such as Oil India Limited (OIL), have been regularly asked to share the fuel subsidy burden, with the government refusing to pay the entire subsidy. So, ONGC had to pay for fuel subsidy — selling oil to refiners at a discount — as oil prices soared. This obviously cut into the profitability of the company.

In 2014, the public sector explorer was asked to pay a record subsidy of Rs. 56,384 crore (Rs 563.84 billion), an increase of 14% from the subsidy paid the previous fiscal, so that state-owned fuel retailers could cover the losses incurred in 2013-14.

For just the quarter ended December 31, 2014, the company was asked to pay Rs 8,716 crore. In June 2015, ONGC and OIL had both made contributions of over 40% of the annual subsidy bill.

The government had again been asking ONGC to bear the fuel subsidy this time to bring down petrol prices, but the company resisted and was exempted — given its dire financial situation, with ONGC chairman Shashi Shanker admitting in June this year that the company was “already in the red.”

But how did ONGC end up “in the red”?

While the high dividend payouts and fuel subsidies can explain the fall in ONGC’s cash and profitability in the 2014-15 fiscal, what happened in FY2017-18 that the cash levels fell by 92% — from over Rs 130 billion to around Rs 10 billion?

This is where we come to the two most destructive moves by the Modi government as far as ONGC’s cash situation as well as its future is concerned — getting ONGC to bail out the debt-ridden Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) and to buy the central government’s stake in the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL).

Bailing out debt-ridden GSPC
In August 2017, ONGC was made to acquire all of the 80% stake of Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Limited (GSPCL), owned by the Gujarat government, in a gas block of the Krishna Godavarari (KG) basin — the KG-OSN-2003/1 DDU (Rajamundry off shore in Bay of Bengal) field — for nearly Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion).

For this, ONGC paid around Rs 74.8 billion in FY 2017-18, according to its website.

The field was auctioned during 2003 under the erstwhile New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), which has now been replaced by the Hyrdrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) approved in March 2016. In 2005, the GSPCL claimed that the KG-OSN-2003/1 field was the discovery of the century for India.

However, the block did not see any commercial production by late 2015 since the time it was discovered. GSPCL has debt of Rs 19,576 crore, for which they paid interest of Rs 1,804.06 crore per year.

So, buying the block from GSPCL is nothing but a losing proposition for ONGC.

Buying HPCL After Taking Debt
In January 2018, ONGC was forced to acquire the central government’s entire 51.11% equity stake in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) — only so that the Modi government could meet its fiscal deficit target.

In fact, ONGC was forced to buy the HPCL stake for Rs 36,915 crore (Rs 369 billion) — at a price that was 14% higher than the market rate, HPCL’s closing share price, on January 31, 2018.

Most devastatingly, this deal pushed ONGC into high debt — ONGC was compelled to borrow Rs 35,000 crore (Rs 350 billion).

ONGC borrowed this sum as short-term (one-year) loans from four public sector banks and three private banks — Rs 7,340 crore from State Bank of India; Rs 4,460 crore from Bank of India; Rs 10,600 crore from Punjab National Bank; Rs 1,600 crore from Export–Import Bank of India; Rs 4,000 core from HDFC Bank; Rs 4,000 crore from ICICI Bank; and Rs 3,000 crore from AXIS Bank.

As per ONGC’s balance sheet for FY 2017-18, the company has borrowings of Rs 255,922.08 million (Rs 25,592.2 crore).

Selling Stake To Pay Off Debt
Speaking to Newsclick on condition of anonymity, an ONGC official and member of the ONGC Workers’ Union said the company was planning to raise money to pay off its debt by selling its shares in the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and GAIL.

ONGC has 13.77% shares in IOC and 4.86% shares in GAIL that were purchased under the Government of India’s buyback policy earlier.

The official said ONGC was planning to sell the IOC and GAIL stakes to the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC).

“But LIC put a condition that it would only buy the stakes at a concession of 10% as compared to the market rate. But ONGC refused this and decided to sell in the market instead, even though we won’t realise the amount in one shot if we sell in the market. Currently, there are some technical problems that we are dealing with for selling in the market. So the sale is yet to happen,” he said.

He said, that in fact “the management was planning to sell off ONGC’s stake in OPAL (ONGC Petro Addition Ltd), a new joint venture in Gujarat. But the employees’ union opposed the sale and requested the management to instead sell IOC and GAIL stake.”

Given the extremely capital-intensive and high-risk nature of oil exploration activities, the current situation is extremely dangerous for ONGC’s future. In any case, cash reserves are required for capital expenditure — which is critical for oil and gas companies to invest in exploration and production.

As Bloomberg says, ONGC has started work on its largest-ever oil and gas exploration project, which will require investments of more than $5 billion over about four years.

Recently, the Modi government held the first auction of oil and gas exploration blocks in the country in eight years, under the new and ‘liberalised’ Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP), and awarded 41 blocks out of 55 to Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Resources. ONGC was given just two blocks. The ostensible reason that was reported in newspapers was that the bids made by ONGC were “conservative” and showed “extraordinary risk-aversion.”

Given the state ONGC has been reduced to by the government, is it any wonder that the country’s largest crude oil and gas company is being risk-averse?

“ONGC had been a debt-free company since 2001-02. The cash reserves can be built up again,” said the ONGC official to Newsclick, “but the company needs to become debt-free first.”

Union in Gujarat Writes to Modi
Meanwhile, in a letter dated September 4, 2018, the ONGC Employees’ Mazdoor Sabha in Gujarat wrote to PM Modi, raising the issues of the GSPC and HPCL deals, and stating that “constant interference” by the government had turned ONGC from a “cash rich company to a high debt company.” ONGC officials have also asked the government to exempt the company from the share buyback plan.

Giving a notice of three months for the Modi government to stop interfering in ONGC’s decision-making, the union in its letter has warned of “resorting to any direct action, as deemed fit, by the Confederation of Trade Unions in ONGC, without giving any further notice.”

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

Modi Govt spent Rs. 5000 crores on publicity since 2014

October 12, 2018

During ten years of UPA from 2004-2014, the Central government had spent nearly ₹2,658 crore on advertisement and publicity, half the NDA amount.

In a more recent revelation of the unbridled expenses incurred by the Modi govt, it was found that the govt spend about Rs. 5000 crores for publicity since 2014. The figure is twice the amount of ten years of UPA regime under Manmohan Singh.

During ten years of UPA from 2004-2014, the Central government had spent a total amount of nearly ₹2,658 crore on advertisement and publicity.

An RTI reply sought by Noida based RTI activist Ramveer Tanwar revealed this information. He had written to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting related to all the expenditure incurred by the Modi government on self-promotion, advertisement and publicity in all media since 2014.

“The Modi government, according to the reply, has spent the highest amount of money–approximately ₹2208 crore–on advertisements through electronic media, followed by a massive expenditure on print media for publicity,” reported National Herald.

“The reply provided by the ministry, which is headed by Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, on the expenses incurred since June 2014 revealed that the Modi government has spent ₹2136 crore on advertisement and publicity through print media till August 2018. The RTI reply further disclosed that from April 2014 to August 2018, the government had spent ₹647 crore in outdoor promotions and publicity which includes billboards and bus benches etc. In the name of the outdoor promotion, the Ministry of Tourism (MoT) headed by Mahesh Sharma spent a massive amount of money on publicity in the last four years. As per the official records, the MoT has spent ₹11 crore on outdoor promotion in 2014-2015, ₹14 crore in 2015-2016 and ₹5 crore in 2017-2018,” the report said.

“Similarly, the Department of Consumer Affairs has alone spent ₹14 crore on outdoor promotion of the Modi government in just one year from 2014 – 2015. During 2017-2018, the department spent ₹17 crore on advertisement through outdoor promotion. Pertinently, Modi government has spent almost double the amount of money on self-promotion in less than five years when compared with the money spent by Manmohan Singh’s government. During ten years of the UPA regime from 2004-2014, Manmohan Singh government had spent a total amount of nearly ₹ 2658 crore on publicity,” the report said.

In May this year, another RTI had revealed that BJP govt spent Rs 4,343.26 crore on advertisements and publicity through different media. “Mumbai-based RTI activist Anil Galgali had sought details from the Centre’s Bureau of Outreach and Communication (BOC) on all expenditure on advertisement and publicity in all media since the present government assumed office,” a report said.

IMAGE: Source Credit IndiaSpend

The question is how did two RTI replies get two varied answers on the same question and the difference between the due was upto Rs. 700 crores?

An expenditure of Rs. 1484 crores was incurred on chartered flights, aircraft maintenance, hotline facilities and more for PM Modi’s visit to 84 countries since 2014. The details of this foreign travel expenditure were shared in the Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh as reported by ET in July.

This revelation is much higher than what was initially estimated by media houses.

“While the initial numbers had surfaced in July 2018, the latest analysis by IndiaSpend shows that there has been a 34 per cent rise in the government’s advertisement spending only in the last four years. Of this, a maximum of over Rs. 292 crore was focused on promoting four key schemes in the last three years– Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Scheme) for crop insurance, Swachh Bharat Mission (Clean India Mission) for a nationwide cleanliness campaign, Smart City Mission and Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (Ideal Village Scheme for Members of Parliament) for urban and rural development,” Newsclick reported.

With this much money, the NDA govt could’ve financed Midday meals for 45.7 million children for a year, one day’s wages for 200 million workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), about 6 million new latrines and at least 10 more Mars missions.

Maharashtra government agrees to talks with AIKS on land acquisition

October 12, 2018

In a triumphant press release issued on Sunday, October 7, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) stated that the Maharashtra government was “forced to bend before the AIKS struggle in Solapur,” explaining that the BJP state government gave October 24 as the date on which concerned Ministers and other officials will hold talks with the AIKS at Mantralaya in Mumbai to discuss issues raised by the farmers’ struggle.

This came after a major protest march by farmers in Maharashtra, against the Ratnagiri-Nagpur Highway. More than 2,000 farmers affiliated with the AIKS from Sangli and Satara began marching on Thursday, October 4, and reached Solapur on Saturday, October 6, PTI reported then, adding that, according to AIKS officials, the farmers had sent a memorandum to Solapur guardian minister Subhash Deshmukh requesting time to meet with him there, but that Deshmukh did not respond. Deshmukh is the BJP MLA from the Solapur South constituency, and currently serves as Maharashtra’s Cooperation, Marketing and Textile minister. AIKS officials said that farmers planned to stay in Solapur until Deshmukh gave “them an assurance on their demands,” PTI said.

The farmers alleged that police lathi-charged them, a charge that Solapur police denied. The AIKS, on October 6, issued a press release alleging that the farmer who were peacefully agitating and seeking a meeting with Deshmukh “were brutally lathi-charged today by the police of the BJP regime at three squares in Solapur city. Several farmers were badly injured and they include AIKS state general general secretary Dr Ajit Nawale and other main AIKS activists Dr Sudarshan Gherade and Vijay Pawar.”

AIKS explained in its press release that the state government is building a new Ratnagiri-Nagpur Highway, “for which it has forcibly acquired land from several farmers in Sangli and Solapur districts without giving them any compensation whatsoever. Worse still, the government has already started work on the highway.” In light of this, AIKS said, that thousands of farmers mounted a rally in Sangli on October 4, and travelled 180 kilometres, while also meeting with those residing in affected villages along the way. This struggle has been on for six months, AIKS said. Along with denouncing the assault on the protesting farmers, the organisation also said it “strongly condemns the conspiracy by the state government of forcibly acquiring land of the farmers without paying any compensation whatsoever,” and demanded that a date be named for detailed discussions.

Land acquisition is an issue that is plaguing farmers across India. In Gujarat, farmers are fighting against land acquisition for the proposed Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project; in September 2018, as many as 1,000 farmers moved the Gujarat High Court against land acquisition for the project.

Fasting since June to save river Ganga, Prof. G. D. Agarwal dies

October 12, 2018

Environmental Support Group claims that Dr. Agarwal died due to the callousness of the Government and not taking any action to stop the river’s pollution. He also died due to the unwillingness of the Judiciary to enforce multiple ruling tackling the river’s pollution

Rishikesh: Noted environmentalist and Ganga river crusader Prof. GD Agarwal passed away due to a heart attack at the age of 86. He was taken to AIIMS Rishikesh where he was pronounced dead. He had been on an indefinite fast since June 22 demanding action over the river clean up.

In the course of his 111 day fast, he was only consuming water mixed with honey and had stopped the intake of water on Oct 9. “GD Agarwal, also known as Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, was shifted by the police from Haridwar to AIIMS in Rishikesh yesterday after being on fast for 109 days. An AIIMS doctor said he suffered from hernia, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease and the fast worsened his condition,” reported NDTV.

“Dr. Agarwal refused to take water two days ago, as none of the state governments of the Gangetic basin, the Central Environment Ministry, the Water Resources Ministry or the Prime Minister’s Office did anything to respond to his Sathyagraha and take action to clean the Ganga and save her for posterity. Dr. Agarwal also demanded government must stop construction of hydroelectric projects along the river’s tributaries and enact the Ganga Protection Management Act to ensure the river has a chance to come back to life,” said the Environment Support Group.

Dr. Agarwal has served as a faculty member of IIT Kanpur, guided the Central Pollution Control Board as Member Secretary in taking tough action against industrial and urban polluters, and ensure our rivers flow free and healthy. He inspired thousands by his ascetic life and dedication to environmental causes.

ESG claims that Dr. Agarwal died due to the callousness of the Government and not taking any action to stop the river’s pollution. He died due to the unwillingness of the Judiciary to enforce multiple rulings tackling the river’s pollution. From the high reaches of the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, this mighty river is being intensely polluted and its watershed extensively destroyed. Yet, no one has gone to jail. But the one man who gave everything he could to save the river, has now been put to death.

“We must force the Government to take immediate steps to stop destroying the Ganga, and all other rivers. The Indian Government is seriously compromising the nation’s ecological, economic and health security by promoting reckless dam building, over-extraction of water, deforestation, wanton industrial and urban pollution, sand mining, river linking, and promoting land-use changes destroying riverine watersheds. This must end,” the group said.

In the third and last letter to PM Modi, Prof Agarwal had told him that he had misled people into believing that he cared about the river when he only made a ministry to help industries and corporates.

Full text of the letter (sourced from The Wire)

In Your Service
Shri Narendra Bhai Modiji,
Respected Prime Minister, Government of India, New Delhi

Respected Prime Minister,

I have written a few letters to you in the past addressing matters related to Gangaji, but I have not received any response from you addressing them till now. I had a great confidence that after your becoming the Prime Minister you would think seriously about Gangaji because you have yourselves stated in the run up to 2014 elections in Banaras that you have come there because of the call given to you by Ma Gangaji — that very moment I came to believe that you would probably do something worthwhile for Gangaji and it is on account of that belief that I kept waiting in peace for the past four and a half years. You would probably be aware that I have undertaken several fasts in the past seeking actions in favour of Gangaji and earlier accepting the grounds for my insistence ((sic) erstwhile Prime Minister Shri) Manmohan Singh ji decided to stop as well as cancel all activities in a major project like Lohari Nagpala which was already 90% complete by then, because of which the Government had to bear the brunt of the loss of thousands of crores rupees, yet the Government under Manmohan Singh ji went ahead and did this for the sake of Gangaji. Over and above this the then Government went ahead and declared the stretch of flow of Bhagirathi ji from Gangotri to Uttarkashi as an Eco-Sensitive Zone so as to ensure that activities that may cause harm to Gangaji never occur.

It was my expectation that you would go two steps forward and make special efforts for the sake of Gangaji because you went ahead and created a separate Ministry for all works relating to Gangaji, but in the past four years all actions undertaken by your Government have not at all been gainful to Gangaji and in her place gains are to be seen only for the Corporate Sector and several business houses. Till now you have only thought on the point of earning profits from Gangaji. You do not seem to be giving anything to Gangaji, such is the impression created by all of your projects in relation to Gangaji. Even if for the sake of making a statement you may say that there is nothing to take from Gangaji but only give her from our side.

On the 03.08.2018 CE, Union Minister Sadhvi Uma Bharti ji came to meet me. She made me speak to Nitin Gadkari ji on phone, but the response is expected from you. It is therefore that I could not give any reply to Sushri Uma Bharti ji. It is my request to you that you accept the following four desired requirements which remain the same as I have listed in my previous letter written to you dated 13th of June 2018, failing which I will give up my life continuing my fast. I have no qualms about giving up my life because the issue of Gangaji is very significant to me and is of utmost priority. I was a Professor at an IIT and was member of the Central Pollution Control Board as well as that of Governmental organizations related to Gangaji. It is on the basis of my experiences gained over all these years of being part of these institutions, I can state that in the previous four years of your Government, there is not even a single action that can be said to be a fruitful one in the direction of saving Gangaji. It is my request, I repeat, that the following necessary actions be accepted and acted on. I am sending this letter through Uma Bhartiji.

Here are my four requests for necessary actions:

Bring the Draft Bill prepared by Ganga Mahasabha in 2012 [Draft of National River Gangaji (Conservation&Management) Act – 2012:

http://www.gangamahasabha.org/gm%20docs/Draft%20Proposal%20%20of%20Ganga%20Mahasabha.pdf ] for discussion in the Parliament immediately and get it passed (I, along with Advocate M.C. Mehta and Dr. Paritosh Tyagi were part of the committee in preparing this draft). In the event that this does not happen, then from the above draft bill, items from Chapter-1 (from Article-1 to Article-9) be brought into force by way of an immediate Presidential Ordinance.

As a part of the above stated exercise, cancel all the hydel power projects that are underconstruction over Alakananda , Dhauliganga, Nandakini, Pindar and Mandakini and also cancel all the proposed hydel power projects on Gangaji and all feeder streams of Gangaji.

From the draft Bill mentioned above, Article 4(D)-1 cutting/deforestation and 4 (F) slaughtering/processing of living species/matter and 4(G) all types of mining activities be completely stopped and this be enforced and this be specifically enforced in Haridwar Kumbha-Kshetra.

Constitute a Ganga Bhakta Parishad provisionally (till June 2019 CE) in which there will be 20 members nominated by you, who are to take an oath standing in the waters of Gangaji that they will act only in the interests benefitting Gangaji and only Gangaji’s favourable interests and in relation to all actions pertaining to Gangaji, the opinion of this Parishad be taken as decisive.

Since I did not receive any response or reaction from you for my letter dated 13th June 2018, I have started my fast as stated in the letter from 22nd June 2018 and in that light, this is for your appropriate action quickly as well as with due thanks for the same.

Yours,
Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand
(formerly Prof. G.D. Agrawal)

Environment Support Group had the privilege of hosting Dr. Agarwal in August 2002 in delivering lectures in a workshop on “Judicial Enforcement of Environmental Law”, co-hosted by Karnataka Judicial Academy. The two papers Dr. Agarwal presented the judiciary are attached.

1...1,6781,6791,680...2,697 Page 1,679 of 2,697

Good Bye, Gandhi!

Writing on Gandhi in an India stricken by faux patriotism and jingoism causes gloom. A poem in Indian English provides an antidote.

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Attenborough’s Gandhi

Globalising Gandhi

Gandhi magic

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Kavanaugh confirmation could spark a reckoning with system that often fails survivors of sexual abuse and assault

Victims and systems unaligned

Puzzles in the aftermath

Speaking up

Helping or hurting?

How A Poor Women’s Collective Is Helping Rebuild Flood-Wrecked Kerala

Ganga flows ….with ‘ blood’ …?

How Modi Govt Exhausted ONGC’s Cash Reserves And Drove It Under Debt

Cash reserves of the oil and gas explorer fell by 92% in a single year from FY 2016-17 to FY 2017-18 as, besides high dividend payouts to the government, it was forced to bail out debt-ridden GSPC and buy govt stake in HPCL.

Modi Govt spent Rs. 5000 crores on publicity since 2014

During ten years of UPA from 2004-2014, the Central government had spent nearly ₹2,658 crore on advertisement and publicity, half the NDA amount.

Maharashtra government agrees to talks with AIKS on land acquisition

Fasting since June to save river Ganga, Prof. G. D. Agarwal dies

Environmental Support Group claims that Dr. Agarwal died due to the callousness of the Government and not taking any action to stop the river’s pollution. He also died due to the unwillingness of the Judiciary to enforce multiple ruling tackling the river’s pollution

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