DISCUSSION

Livelihood Losses and National Gains

Hiren Gohain

This rejoinder to Jairam Rameshs article, The Two Cultures Revisited: The EnvironmentDevelopment Debate in India (EPW, 16 October 2010) argues that there are three and not two cultures in opposition to each other: the corporatedriven campaign for economic development at any cost, the elitist concerns articulated by non-governmental organisations, and the desperate struggle of indigenous people who are under the threat of extinction.

Not only is the economy not about the people who live in it; according to economists, the economy actually requires human sacrice Moshe Adler, Economics for the Rest of Us (2010).

he union minister of state for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh is perhaps the only one in the union cabinet who has tried manfully to coax some rationale out of a chaos of interestdriven policies and objectives that the government is pursuing in that sphere under different pretexts (16 October). There are, indeed, laws in place to protect the environment, but not only is their implementation weak and perfunctory, but government action itself under different ministries outs these laws most casually. That tends to encourage corrupt ofcials at lower levels to bend the existing rules after their own fashion. Policies, however enlightened, make no difference to practice.

become a farce. The deliberations of the Expert Appraisal Committees have become ritualistic, only meant to clear the projects at any cost. This puts in a nutshell the experience of the common people in a thousand other cases. Ramesh seeks to nd his way out of this mess by negotiating between what he likens to two sides of the celebrated debate on two cultures stated by C P Snows Reith Lecture, to wit, sciences and humanities. He thinks he has struck a ne balance. But, in fact, he conjures three, not two culturesrst the corporate-driven all out campaign for economic development at any cost, second, the elitist concern (led by non-governmental organisations) for protecting the environment from rampant exploitation, and third, the desperate opposition of indigenous people rooted in an immemorial way of life adapted to the natural environment now under threat of extinction because of the campaign of development. Each represents not only a set of norms, but also different social groups. While the second may come to terms with the rst, the third will not and cannot.

Hegemonic Logic of Development

It can hardly be missed that in the name of negotiation, Ramesh introduces the hegemonic logic of development, as though there is prior agreement on this point. For example, he thinks that development is essential for generating employment which he equates with livelihood. But it is hardly a secret that the rate of new job creation is far below the rate of development, i e, enhancement of gross domestic product. Besides, it promises a bleak future for indigenous people who are left to the tender mercies of the capitalist job market once their traditional livelihood is irrevocably lost. There may be exceptions here and there, thanks to the efforts of some conscientious administrators, who intervene forcefully on their own. The fabled balance breaks down in the face of this inexorable logic of development so fervently espoused by policymakers. The benets of development are mostly hogged by corporate houses and their employees and collaborators. The development stimulated by the dynamic of capital is both uncertain

Thousand Other Cases

I picked up a magazine at random and came across this sentence:
The Saxena (committees) report has highlighted that the Central and the state governments have openly colluded with the (Vedanta) company to (1) violate the forest laws, (2) give the go by to the governments constitutional obligation under the Fifth Schedule to enforce the rights of the Dongaria and Kuntia tribes, (3) ignore the governments constitutional responsibility under Articles 48A, (4) ignore the symbiotic link between the tribes and the ecology and threaten to disrupt that link without remorse, and (5) marginalise two constitutional institutions, namely, the gram sabhas and the tribal advisory council. What the government did to please the company would adversely affect the future of the tribes in the hills, as well as the lives of the people in the plains, for centuries1 Hiren Gohain (hirendra.gohain@gmail.com) is a distinguished social and literary critic from Assam.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW

True, that vandalism has been curbed after the uproar. But the harm has been done. The quoted article goes on to remark: The public hearing process has
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DISCUSSION

and uneven. Tehelka quotes on page 11 (4 September 2010) the convenor of the Khalsa Action Committee from the developed state of Punjab: The state is rich but the people are very poor. So there is an extreme anger in them, which nobody is addressing. There is no employment opportunity, nothing. So much for development creating jobs.

Costs and Gains

The trade-off between the costs of development for the environment and the gains is precisely quantied by some arcane theory. But, how can there be a trade-off between loss in livelihood for communities and some national gain which they are fated not to share? This is the logic of capitalist and imperialist exploitation hiding behind economic abstractions. If the balancing advocated by Ramesh is not to be reduced to verbal jugglery, then people at the grass roots have got to be consulted on any decision affecting their lives. As have often been noted, public hearings are often rigged and fraudulent. For example, a hydropower project in Arunachal Pradesh had been cleared at public hearings keeping more than 90% of the public of the neighbourhood in the dark (report of the three-member public tribunal on hydel projects in Arunachal Pradesh,

on the grievances of the Idu-Mishmi tribe, 2008). It is, of course, another matter that politicians there have voiced full-throated support. People must have the freedom to choose not only the pace of development, but also its pattern. Is wholesale eviction of tribal people or small farmers from the sites of hydroelectricity generation or massive mineral extraction to be preferred to improvement and enrichment of forests, and better harnessing of water-sources for irrigation and natural shery? A radical alteration in the ecology must appear rational and convincing to people to be immediately affected, and as promising a better future. At this very moment Assam is in an uproar over the construction undertaken by the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) of the Lower Subansiri Hydroelectric Project at Gerukamukh at an extremely volatile seismic area that includes a run-of-the-river dam 116 metres in height, and designed to generate 2,000 MW of hydropower. The Environmental Impact Assessment Report covered an area up to only 7 km from the dam site and the public hearing organised by NHPC was alleged to have been farcical, involving only a handful of people who were not representatives of the people concerned. The dam is designed to alter drastically

the ow regime of the river, leading to abrupt diurnal uctuation of ow discharge from 6 cubic metres per second (cumec) to 2,560 cumec, and in the lean season to be reduced to only 6 cumec for 18 hours a day all of which will throw the ecosystem into a tailspin.2 It will mean loss of livelihood for lakhs of people on its banks, stupendous silting of fertile elds, destruction of rich traditional sh-sources, not to speak of deadly ash-oods and catastrophic possibility of dam-break in quakes Jairam Ramesh had attended a public hearing in Guwahati after representations movements against the dam, and is reported to have conveyed to the prime minister the extent of public anxiety and concern. But only a couple of days later, he himself came out with a statement defending the dam. Such tradeoffs will certainly deal a death blow to lakhs of people, while promising a rip-off to contractors, corporates and nanciers as well as to politicians. It will be an ultimate triumph of a certain type of monoculture.
Notes
1 2 Vedanta is the First: There Are Many More, E A S Sarma, Tehelka, 4 September 2010, p 29. Observations and Findings, Expert Committee Report, sponsored by Assam Government, All A ssam Students Union, and NHPC, 2010. Later NHPC hastily rejected the 500-page report after a cursory study for only three days.

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October 30, 2010
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Priyadarshini Vijaisri Neetha N Rukmini Sen

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