Between legal and illegal mining there is just this 'ill'

Reading Sept 29 newspapers in Goa make for interesting reading, and one can easily be forgiven to think of a Samuel Beckett play, where the end beckons but never nears. There were some in Goa for instance, who felt that The Shah Commission’s report was a perfect present for this Chaturthi season. Apparently not:

As one can clicks this link , Ganesha too, is not to be protected from the mining lobby, a few upper caste, well-heeled families, who now outsource their greed and theft, to, a constituency that by design is  now referred to as ‘mining-dependent people’…Given that it was part of the same play, it was not unlikely, that yesterday too, perhaps even at the same time, the renowned Centre for Science and Environment and indeed, some 30 journalists from Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra, were given a taste of just how much is being done to make blatantly illegal mining become ‘legal’…

All these actions follow what Goa’s pro-environment lobby has been saying for some time, that the mines are illegal and they should be shut down forthwith. As can be read they have argued their case cogently – even to the extent of seeking the Supreme Court’s intervention to recognize the findings of The Shah Commission and do nothing more than implement its recommendations.

The Sept 29 edit in Herald from Panjim, given its long and trusted tradition of either sitting on the fence, or trying to run with both hares and hounds, was surprisingly forthright, saying 35,000 crore rupees was looted by X number of Goan mining operations, that the Goan people want that money back, as simple as that, and all the fat cats should stop trying tricks to wiggle out of the mess and continue the mining as if nothing happened.

The edit mentions the 80 year old woman who blocked a mine. That’s nice: her name is Dora, she’s my mother and I couldn’t be a prouder son. She blocked the mine being operated by Dinar Tarcar, a well-known politician and suave man about town. When we found out in 2008 through our sources in the Mines Department that the mine was patently illegal and operating without any licenses, it was her suggestion that the mine be blocked.

That too was interesting. There were several others arrested with her, including a Salesian priest and a well-known anti-mining activist. Mysteriously only Dora, her daughter and her family retainer had cases filed against them, and had to go several times to court to answer trumped-up charges. The case dragged on four solid years and still failed to break Dora’s resolve that the blatantly illegal mining had to stop.

In all this absurdity, lies a journalist called Sujoy Gupta, who once edited the Herald and actively assisted the BJP come to power and assert the constitutional right of some families to mine, only to dump them the next day, mission accomplished, to head The Goan, a weekend newspaper that claims to be the authentic voice of Goa. Gupta is better known in pro-environment circles, as the man who filed a 500 crore lawsuit against an anti-mining activist in Goa, a suit one may add that seems to have mysteriously disappeared. He’s also been the main front for preaching the case for ‘legal’ mining.

Dora of course insists that any industry that willfully takes away forest and water cannot be legal, and the rest of us in her family concur with that. But the old bird has a great sense of humour, I’ll give her that…

This Tarcar fellow’s mine was illegal she asks me?
Yeah, I reply.
This Gupta fellow only wants legal mining?
Yeah, I say.

And this Gupta fellow filed a suit for 500 crore against Saby because Saby was only writing about illegal mining when his own boss, that Timblo fellow, was actually doing ’legal’ mining?

Yeah, I tell her, wondering where she’s going with this crazy logic.
So this Gupta fellow is actually only against illegal mining?

You could say that I reply.

She hasn’t finished. So now you tell me he’s a big shot with a lot of clout and what not and edits this big paper that’s only speaking for Goans?

Good, she says, so you ask this Gupta fellow and his boss, that Timblo fellow, whether he’ll help me file a 500 crore suit in Goa – because I can’t travel all the way to Kolkata – against this Dinar Tarcar fellow for illegal mining, and falsely harassing us for four years. Tell him when we get the money, we’ll share it among the people of Cawrem and Maina and reforest Tarcar’s illegal mine…

Nice idea Mom I say, I’ll tell the guy…

- Hartman de Souza

An open letter to Kasturirangan & Co

Dear Dr Kasturirangan, 

Aspersions have already been cast that the Kasturirangan panel will dispose what the Gadgil panel has painstakingly proposed! Given controversial birth of your panel, it will take a leap of faith for the concerned, within and outside of the Western Ghats, to convince themselves that your panel will prove it otherwise. Such contention may be rhetorical at this stage, but has every chance of becoming a reality should the recent soundbites in the media were to come true.   

There are reasons for citizens to be skeptical. The Gadgil panel had termed Western Ghats extremely ecologically sensitive region and hence suggested restricted mining and other development activities. You have been quoted in the media: 'The Kasturirangan panel will hold meetings and consider all issues, since the Western Ghats is important to the country.' How different it is from what the Gadgil panel had said? It had held wide consultations and considered each of the issues in the Western Ghats on ecological and scientific merit. It will be a challenge for your panelists to read the findings differently!

Your panel will have a lot to prove itself. First, through your report you would need to provide 'reason' to persuade skeptical and skittish citizens that the government had enrolled the best available expertise into the task of ecological (re)assessment. Second, your panel ought to 'reason' not only theoretically, but also empirically, that it was not engaged in a political practice but in a scientific inquiry aimed at connecting a defensive state (read the Ministry) with its attentive citizens. Third, your panel must provide a modicum of certainty that the panel, conducted with taxpayer support, has fulfilled its obligation to the people and the ecosystem under reference.      

But your panel can do a world of good by avoiding to nitpick the WGEEP report and instead focus on how indeed the Western Ghats must, given its regional and global ecological significance, be governed. Should such a sense (?) prevail, the panel would have gone a step ahead in proving its worth. After all, the very idea of creating the WGEEP in the first place was to recommend the setting up a Western Ghats Ecological Authority. If the then Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had his way, he would have announced such an authority in 2010 itself. But he was advised to take-a-step-at-a-time and creation of the Gadgil panel was a step in that direction. 

Would the Kasturirangan panel be courageous enough to take the second strep?

Dr Sudhirendar Sharma