Ulka Mahajan: The Nanar Refinery Will Be Moved, but Larger Questions Remain

By Dilip -
The Land Requisition Act came into force in 2013. Under its provisions, requisition could not be done under the Maharastra Industrial Development Corporation’s (MIDC) rules, yet the government started illegal requisitioning from May 2017. The required permission came into law in April 2018. This act was quietly passed, without any announcement. Meanwhile, the government indulged in mendacious activities for one whole year. 

Changes in the law have removed national projects from its purview. For such projects, the permission of 70% of the farmers and local residents is not required anymore; social and environmental impact clearances are no longer required. Investors, both Indian and foreign, have reaped the benefits of these changes. The BJP professes national pride, yet encourages foreign investors at the cost of the local population in the name of ease of doing business.

 The Fadnavis government has struck off coastal regulations and opened the floodgates of 'development' to various industries. This will turn the pristine rivers of the Konkan region into cesspools. On the one hand, it propagates the Clean Ganga mission and the Narmada project. This double standard is visible elsewhere. On international forums, our ministers formulate plans to reduce global warming. But in our own country, they crush those plans. 

 When in the opposition, they shout from the rooftops about farmers’ rights and land takeover. Quick as they come into power, forget farmers and make laws in favour of financial conglomerates. One last question. The Shiva Sena helped move the Nanar refinery. But now, the project is going to be established in the Raigad area, to which the party has given its nod.

The Nanar refinery in Ratnagiri district was to be the biggest for crude oil. An “ultra” project  around 16,000 acres of land were to be acquired – it inevitably faced opposition. The project was called a “green refinery” - of course in name only. It was clear that the BJP was trying to hoodwink the people. To see how this became possible, we need to go back to 2007. That year, under the aegis of Petrochemical Investment Region, the government created a corridor from Gujarat to West Bengal. Coastal regulations were removed and the refinery project was the first step after the deregulation.
In 2017, local farmers began receiving notices under the Land Acquisition Act. There was stiff opposition. The Refinery Sangharsh Samiti was formed and under its banner, protests strengthened. It found support among many environmentalists, as well as locals who had migrated to Mumbai for employment. This came to the attention of various political parties, including the Shiv Sena, who joined the fray. Eventually, in February this year, the project was moved from Nanar.

Larger questions: But larger questions still remain. Multi-crore projects that involve land acquisition are like a windfall for political leaders, irrespective of their party lineage. Take, for example, the Mumbai-Goa national highway and the Delhi-Mumbai business corridor near Mandgao. For these projects, land acquisition has been completed. For political agents, cash has been flowing and even payments by cheque have not stopped illegal diversion of funds.

People from the Konkan region have repeatedly been subjected to the manoeuverings of the government and the private sector. I have seen the destruction of rivers, bays and coastal areas. Those relying on these resources for livelihood have been marginalised. In addition, they received neither jobs, rehabilitation packages nor a fair value for their land.

Over the years, people have become wiser to the government’s backtracking and lies. After the Dabhol Power Company drowned in the Enron fiasco, people have realised that the government doesn’t take into view their concerns before making decisions. If the government doesn’t have the moral courage to face the people, how can we believe that it has the people’s welfare at heart? Now, under the name of “infrastructure”, there is an influx of expressways, bullet trains and economic corridors that are ostensibly proposed for the welfare of the people. But they line the pockets of entrepreneurs... read more:
https://thewire.in/rights/nanar-refinery-maharashtra-displacement-foreign-investors

see also




Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

By Dilip -
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights on Tuesday alleged that third degree torture methods were used by the Gurgaon Criminal Investigation Agency while interrogating workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited’s Manesar plant who are accused of involvement in the killing of an HR manager and the violent attack at the plant on July 18. The PUDR alleged that the Gurgaon CIA investigation “did not seem” to be directed at solving the crime or probing the involvement of the arrested workers in the incidents and crimes recorded in the FIR but instead was based on their involvement in trade union activities. Grave doubts  “The use of third degree torture in police custody, and the securing of arrestees’ signatures on blank papers by the police, gives rise to grave doubts regarding the ability of such an investigation in effectively identifying or arresting those guilty. The police and the State seem keener to reassure Maruti Suzuki Ltd. and ensure that production continues,” the ...
Read more

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

By Dilip -
According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories,   which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I just made it long.” One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl. Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert..." read the story: http://www.youmightfindyourself.com/post/22131227...
Read more

Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

By Dilip -
The morning after a great historical crisis, you feel as sad and sick as after a heavy night. But there is no aspirin for historical hangovers .. The world is no longer divided into the just or unjust, but into masters and slaves. He who is right is he who enslaves.  Albert Camus     La crise de l'homme : THE HUMAN CRISIS   (Text read by Viggo Mortensen on March 28 2016)   Ladies and Gentlemen: when I was invited to give a series of lectures in the United States of America, I felt some doubt and hesitation. I am really not old enough to give lectures, and I am more at ease with the process of thinking than I am making categorical statements... since I don't feel I have any claim on what is generally called the truth. I shared this reservation and was very politely told that my personal opinion didn't matter. What mattered was that I'd be able to offer some facts about France so that my listeners could form their own opinions. It was then suggested...
Read more

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

By Dilip -
Image
'Do you know', Napoleon once said to Fontanes, 'what astounds me most about the world?  The impotence of force to establish anything.  There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind.  In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind' Conquerors, you see, are sometimes melancholy.  They have to pay some price for so much vainglory. But what a hundred years ago was true of the sword is no longer true today of the tank. Conquerors have made progress, and the dismal silence of places without intelligence has been established for years at a time in a lacerated Europe. At the time of the hideous wars of Flanders, Dutch painters could still perhaps paint the cockerels in their farmyards. The Hundred Years War has likewise been forgotten, and yet the prayers of Silesian mystics still linger in some hearts. But today, things have changed; the painter and the monk have been drafted - we are one with the world.  The mind has lost that regal certai...
Read more

Etel Adnan - To Be In A Time Of War

By Dilip -
NB: Etel Adnan, writer, poet, artist and musician was born in 1925 and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Her mother was a Greek from Smyrna, her father, a high ranking Ottoman officer born in Damascus. This prose poem is the final chapter of her book  In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country .  Read more about her here  - DS To Be In A Time Of War To say nothing, do nothing, mark time, to bend, to straighten up, to blame oneself, to stand, to go toward the window, to change one’s mind in the process, to return to one’s chair, to stand again, to go to the bathroom, to close the door, to then open the door, to go to the kitchen, to not eat nor drink, to return to the table, to be bored, to take a few steps on the rug, to come close to the chimney, to look at it, to find it dull, to turn left until the main door, to come back to the room, to hesitate, to go on, just a bit, a trifle, to stop, to pull the right side of the curtain, then the other side, ...
Read more

After the Truth Shower

By Dilip -
Dear Readers Thank you for reading my blog for the past eleven years. (This is a link to the new one) During this time it has had nearly 1.7 million hits; and I have posted over 9500 posts covering a variety of themes. From July 11 to 19, 2022, my blog was withdrawn by the Blogger administration on account of what its machinery suspected to be 'Impersonation'. It took over a week and the efforts of several well-wishers to get it back online I thank them all for their kindness and goodwill  My blog has always been - and remains - non-commercial. I have used it for academic purposes; and to foster a culture of debate and informed commentary in civil society. Because it contains a large amount of material gathered and collated for over a decade, I cannot afford to lose its contents. I hope it will remain undisturbed now and function as an archive. However, I have decided to use a new blog on WordPress as a platform for my newest comments and posts The new blog is titled After the...
Read more

James Gilligan on Shame, Guilt and Violence

By Dilip -
Shame, Guilt, and Violence / James Gilligan During the past 35 years I have used prisons and prison mental hospitals as "laboratories" in which to investigate the causes and prevention of the various forms of violence and the relationships between these forms and to what I will call (with a nod to William James) "the varieties of moral experience." In the course of that work, I have been struck by the frequency with which I received the same answer when I asked prisoners, or mental patients, why they assaulted or even killed someone. Time after time, they would reply "because he disrespected me" or "he disrespected my visitor [or wife, mother, sister, girl-friend, daughter, etc.]." In fact, they used that phrase so often that they abbreviated it into the slang phrase, "He dis'ed me." Whenever people use a word so often that they abbreviate it, it is clearly central to their moral and emotional vocabulary. But even when they did n...
Read more