সাউথ এশিয়ান গ্রাসরুট ডেভেলাপমেন্ট ফোরামএর নেপাল ভূমিকম্পএ পাশে দাঁড়ানর বিবৃতি

নেপালে প্রাকৃতিক দুর্যোগের যে সব খবরাখবর পাওয়া যাচ্ছে, তা ভয়ংকর বললেও কম বলা হয়। সেখানে যে কয়েকটি এলাকায় যে নজিরবিহীন বিপর্যয় হয়েছে, তাতে সারা বিশ্বের মানুষের সঙ্গে দক্ষিণ এশিয়ার সাধারণ মানুষের সংগঠন, সাউথ এশিয়ান গ্রাসরুট ডেভেলাপমেন্ট ফোরামও ব্যথিত হয়ে তাদের পাশে দাঁড়াবার অঙ্গীকার করছে। খবর পাওয়া গিয়েছে নেপালের যে কয়েকটি গ্রামে সংগঠন জোরদার ছিল, বেশ কয়েকটি গ্রাম ধ্বংস হয়েগিয়েছে। এই মমর্বেদনা প্রকাশের ভাষা নেই।
নেপাল ছাড়াও বাংলাদেশ এবং ভারতের বিভিন্ন এলাকায় যে সব মানুষ মারা গিয়েছেন, আহত হয়েছেন তাদের পরিবারের প্রতি সাউথ এশিয়ান গ্রাসরুট ডেভেলাপমেন্ট ফোরামএর সদস্যরা গভীর সমবেদনা প্রকাশ করছে।
ফোরামএর এই উপমহাদেশের নেতৃত্ব যৌথভাবে সিদ্ধান্ত নিয়েছে, তাদের বিভিন্ন দেশের শাখা সংগঠনের যা কিছু সঙ্গতি রয়েছে, তারা সেই সঙ্গতি নিয়ে নেপালের মানুষের পাশে দাঁড়াবে এবং চেষ্টা করবে তাদের সহযোগীরা যাতে এই সম্পদ সংগ্রহের কাজে এগিয়ে আসেন।
প্রাথমিকভাবে উপমহাদেশের , বাংলাদেশ, ভারত, পাকিস্তান এই তিন দেশের সংগঠনের নেতৃত্ব একযোগে সিদ্ধান্ত নিয়েছে, তারা তাদের দেশের প্রধানমন্ত্রীর/রাষ্ট্রপতির ত্রাণ তহবিলে নেপালের দুর্গত পিড়ীত মানুষের জন্য যতটুকুপারে দান করবে, এবং বন্ধুদের এই কাজে প্রণদিত করবে।
এ ছাড়াও কলকাতার গড়িয়াহাটে আগামী ১০ থেকে ১৭ মে, যে ভারত বাংলাদেশ বস্ত্র ও কারু প্রদর্শনী হতে যাচ্ছে, সেই বেচাকেনার মোট পাঁচ শতাংশ অর্থ এই দুর্যোগ মোকাবিলায় দান করে নেপালের মানুষের পাশে দাঁড়াবে।

সাউথ এশিয়ান গ্রাসরুট ডেভেলাপমেন্ট ফোরামএর পক্ষে
হিমাংশু মিত্র, আন্তর্জাতিক সময়ন্বয়কারী
আবুল হসেন, জেসমিন খান, জাতীয় সমন্বয়কারী, বাংলাদেশ
বিশ্বেন্দু নন্দ, রক্তিম দাস, জাতীয় সমন্বয়কারী, ভারত
বিষ্ণু পারিয়ার, জাতীয় সমন্বয়কারী, ভুটান
এবং পাকিস্তানের সদস্যরা

Multilingual culture is under attack because of the way English became more a class than a language.’ In which eminent Kannada writer H.S. Shivaprakash puts English in its place

Devapriya Roy

Professor H S Shivaprakash is one of the most noted writers working in Kannada today. A distinguished playwright, he won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1997, a couple of years after a horrid controversy clouded the withdrawal of his award-winning playMahachaitra, based on the life of the Kannada saint Basava, from the university syllabus, on the vague grounds that it portrayed the saint in unflattering light.

Shivaparakash won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his poetry in 2012. While his academic work has covered a breathtaking array of themes, from performance theory to Sanskrit drama and folk poetics, his influences have been drawn from philosophies as diverse as Kashmir Shaivism and Marxism. But it is difficult to pigeon-hole Shivaprakash into any one category.

His most recent book in English is his spiritual autobiography Everyday Yogi, which talks of his encounters with different gurus. I caught up with him at JNU, where he teaches, and here’s what he had to say about the hunt for the Rashtra Kavi from Karnataka, the recent controversy over Kannada, globalisation, nativism and his ideal linguistic policy for India:

Since December 2014, a high-powered committee formed by the Karnataka government is considering several poets for the title of ‘Rashtra Kavi’. Do you want to tell us something about the idea behind having a ‘Rashtra Kavi’?

It is a kind of recognition for poets. It was first accorded to Kuvempu, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Kuvempu was the counterpart of Tagore; he was a colossal literary figure. So he was the first Rashtra Kavi.

He was given the title in 1958, wasn’t he?

Yes. After he passed away, this title was not given to anybody to for a long time. Then, in 2006, the poet G.S. Shivarudrappa was given the title. Incidentally, he had been Kuvempu’s student; in fact Kuvempu had supervised his PhD degree. And now I learn it is going to be given to another senior poet. In my opinion, Chandrashekhar Kambar is the most important senior poet and he should definitely be considered. But the government has its own proclivities, choices. As for myself, I’m completely indifferent to these things.

So, which poets are in consideration?

I don’t know. It’s a political decision.

You know, when you say ‘rashtra kavi’ – or maybe I’m misunderstanding this – you mean national rather than ‘rajya kavi’?

But it is a deliberate usage. They are national poets, respected across India, not just in Karnataka. Kuvempu, for example, was never not a naive regionalist. He wrote a patriotic song on Karnataka, where he likens the state to the elder daughter, and Bharata is the mother. He talks about the contributions of ‘Shankara-Ramanuja-Basaveshwara-Vidyaranya…’ Shankara and Ramanuja are not from Karnataka. To their names, he adds Basaveshwara, who was very much from Karnataka, and Vidyaranya, who was also from Karnataka.

So what I’m saying is that many great literary figures of that period of the Indian Renaissance believed in the fact that each linguistic region had its own speciality. It was only later, due to consequences of uneven development, that this region-nation conflict arose. The later clamour for nativism was part of the same problem.

This is a very important point you’re making. This is also a time when we’re witnessing the danger of regions creating narrow linguistic categories for themselves, and discriminating against “outsiders”. We’ve seen this in the politics of Maharashtra. There is the whole controversy that erupted recently when Kannada was made compulsory in all schools across Karnataka. So that everyone who comes to Karnataka from elsewhere – because of Bangalore, Karnataka has probably become one of the most cosmopolitan states in India – effectively everyone would have to study Kannada. Though the Supreme Court struck down this petition – there is still a lot of debate going on around this subject. 

I think it’s quite reasonable. Again, let’s take the case of Kuvempu. Though his master’s degree was in Kannada, he used to write very powerfully in English. His Professor, a Britisher, who taught him in Mysore University, told him to write in his own language. According to Kuvempu, in Karnataka, Kannada should be given pride of place. He was not against Sanskrit. This is important – because Kuvempu was the first great Kannada writer to come from a non-Brahmin caste.

He was not against English either. He said, “If I didn’t learn English, I would still be working as a coolie in the field of some Brahmin village accountant.” But he held the view that English is only a passport to the rest of the world. In Karnataka, Kannada should be most important. Because Kannada is a very rich language – it is at least 500 years older that English. When England had no “English » writers, we already had a great literary tradition.

Do you want to give us a brief timeline of this?

Kaviraja Marga, the first extant literary work in Kannada, is a work on poetics. It is a kind of free translation of Dandin and Bhamaha’s works on poetics, Kavyadarsha andKavyalankara respectively. In poetics, Dandin exemplifies the southern style, and Bhamaha, the northern style. Sanskrit, by the end of the first millennium, had become the most widely used trans-regional language. And according to Sheldon Pollock, Kaviraja Marga exemplifies how a regional culture should receive a trans-regional culture. On an equal footing.

Now, in the age of globalisation and its challenges, how should regions respond to global culture? They should do it without an inferiority complex, and not by shutting themselves away from the wider world. Kaviraja Marga establishes this balance between nativism and transregional influences in a creative manner.

So you are saying, in a deeper sense, that Kaviraja Marga embodies the spirit of balance that even modern Indians should stand for? 

Yes, exactly. The harmony between marga and desi, between the trans-regional language and the regional language. Up to the 5th century CE, in the south, chen-Damil was the trans-regional language. The poets from Goa, from present-day Kasergod, from Mysore, used to write in Tamil. It was not the regional Tamil, mind you. chen-Damil – the best of Tamil. A new literary language was evolved for trans-regional communication.

In North India, some people say Sanskrit was a spoken language; some say, Sanskrit was a regional language. The fact is something else. Sanskrit was created for trans-regional communication across the Indo-Aryan region, from the regional Prakrit.

There was one kind of Prakrit spoken in what is roughly the north-eastern part of Bharatvarsha. It is the language of the Buddhist texts: Pali. Pali is not the name of the language, mind you, it is the name of the texts, the scriptures. The Buddha spoke the Prakrit that was prevalent in what is now Bihar and the eastern part of UP. That became Pali. The Jain scriptures are written in another dialect of Prakrit. Maharashtra had a different kind of Prakrit. In Kalidasa, in Vikramorvashiyam, the entire fifth act is written in this Maharashtri Prakrit. So different regions had different Prakrits.

And they co-existed.

Yes. Sanskrit was evolved as a common language, a link language, yes, but not just a link language. It was the language of intellect, of creativity, a trans-regional purveyor of ideas.

It is interesting how now there are so many arguments that swirl around the linguistic issue. What is so spectacular about India is that we have not, at some point, privileged one language over the others. As has happened in every other largely mono-lingual nation-state, whether China or France – or even America. All the Prakrits had co-existed, along with Sanskrit. So, as it were, plurality…

I hate this word plurality. Plurality and pluralism, to my mind, are buzzwords of the hegemonic globalising powers. Plurality means different languages and cultures can exist alongside each other, but the Indian example has been different. These languages which have different identities can mingle, coalesce, and become a language that reconciles all of them. For example, the language of the Chariyageetas is the basis of three NE languages – Oriya, Bengali, Assamese. This is a kind of apabhramsha.

Later, these developed into independent languages. One language blossoms into several languages. Or several languages evolve something more inclusive – like Hindi. Or Urdu. Hindustani. In Nagaland, because each dialect is different they have evolved Nagamese – a mixture of local Naga dialects and Assamese. Now, this is our tradition. Though it is a cliché, I would like to use this Nehruvian phrase for us: unity in diversity. Much better than pluralism to explain the Indian situation.

In fact, even the Marxist historian D D Kosambi uses this phrase in the context of Indian culture. Arnold Toynbee in his lecture India’s Contribution to World Peace, and Octavio Paz in his Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial lecture also talk about the uniqueness of the example that India has set for the rest of the world. “Unity in Diversity”.

But let’s talk a little about the other debate which seems to be subsuming everything now. Writing in English as opposed to writing in the mother tongue. And here I mean Indian English, written by authors living and working in India. There are two poles –one which seems to emphasise the glamour and supremacy of English. The other, which is about a linguistic pride, a sort of moral high ground of the mother tongue. What is the position you would take on this? You have written poetry and drama in Kannada; your critical writing has been in English. And now you’ve publishedEveryday Yogi in English, a transcreation of your spiritual autobiography, originally written in Kannada. But you did not translate it, you re-wrote it. You’ve translated Kannada vacanas into English. You have translated from Tamil and Urdu too. In addition to English, you speak many Indian languages – Bengali, Malayalam, Telugu, Hindi, in addition to Kannada and Tamil. So as an artist, my question to you is: what would your ideal linguistic policy in India be?

I think we should do everything to preserve our pluri-lingualism. Before the British, our linguistic traditions were also in dialogue with Persian and Arabic. Now the problem is that this multi-lingual culture is under attack. Not because of English, but because of the way English became more a class than a language. This is because of the vestiges of colonialism.

When I look at these TV channels, when I listen to the new generation of politicians, sports stars, movie stars, scientists, speak… they have become completely anglicized. And most of the people in urban areas are unable to have complete conversations in their own languages. So the area of the mother tongue is shrinking. In fact, C.P. Snow, in the context of England, spoke about this.

The Two Cultures?

The Culture of Humanities and the Culture of Sciences. We now see a similar thing in India, not humanities versus sciences but English in opposition to the other languages. In any case, the kind of English that is dominating mass media and urban cultures is not one of those creative Englishes anyway, which were being conceived by people like Raja Rao or R K Narayanan. Or even Arundhati Roy.

It is a kind of globalised English. It has no nuances. As a link language it is okay. But it has become the major means of communication for the younger generation. As though English has become the only window to the vast expanses of knowledge. But this can’t be right. Consider Japan. It is very advanced in science and technology, and very few people know English. In India we have created a situation where English is eating up the space of the other languages. At the same time, the heroes of nativism who want to keep English out, they are also…

Extremists?

Not realists. We need to bridge the divide between Indo-Aryan languages and Dravidian languages and Sino-Burmese languages, the tribal languages (like Santhali, Bhil etc.) So we may have to continue using English as a convenient link language – and that’s it. If a few people want to use English as a language of creative expression – that’s also okay.  But I would prefer to keep writing in my language, it has a longer history.

But what I am apprehensive about is that English has become the agent of hegemonic powers of globalisation. Are we going to lose our specific ways of thinking, of feeling? This is something to think about.

I agree with you. But it is important to consider the example of South Korea. They have made all their great strides in technology using Korean, all right, but they have completely adopted the late capitalism of the West, lock, stock and barrel. So it does not mean that by holding onto the mother tongue, one can necessarily resist globalisation. So we need to be conscious of forces shaping language too…

Yes, but language shapes content too. English, for example, is an I-centric language, a subject-centric language. Indian languages are, on the other hand, object-centric. If you look at literary criticism written in Germany in the inter-war years, if you take someone like Walter Benjamin, and his counterparts in England – the ways of the thinking are totally different. Even when Benjamin is translated into English, you can see he is not thinking like an English literary scholar.

Similarly, if you read George Lukacs, the Hungarian scholar, you can’t help but observe his completely different take. So language defines sensibility. In India, we had established these traditions over a long period of time. So they fought back too, against the coloniser’s language.

In Africa, there are different challenges. Most of the languages were oral. So they were catapulted into the writing of the coloniser’s language. It was a great tragedy. But what they did was also exceptional – they remapped the coloniser’s language. In Latin America, each country has a different kind of Spanish. We have not done that kind of restructuring of English. We have been shamelessly imitating the white man. Some individual writers may have done well, written experimentally. But this does not absolve the hegemonic imposition of English on different languages on India.

http://scroll.in/article/721619/%E2%80%98Multilingual-culture-is-under-attack-because-of-the-way-English-became-more-a-class-than-a-language.%E2%80%99

An Open Letter to All State Governments, State Forest and Environment Departments and State Pollution Control Boards to reject Environmental Reforms Proposed by Indian Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change on the basis of recommendations of the TSR Subramanian Committee

Reg.: Request that you reject regressive Environmental Reforms promoted by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change based on recommendations of the TSR Subramanian Committee Report

Respected Chief Ministers, Environment Ministers, Environment Secretaries and Chairpersons and Member Secretaries of Pollution Control Boards in various States of India:

We write seeking your immediate attention to certain proposals of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change to reform environmental decision making in India. We consider these “reforms” to be highly regressive and would cause irreversible damage to environment and human rights.

As you are aware the Environment Ministry accepted the recommendations of the highly controversial “Report of High Level Committee to review Acts administered by Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change” (also known as the T S R Subramanian Committee report). The Committee's recommendations are oriented towards promoting unprecedented access to land, water and other natural resources to large corporate bodies and to pave the way for mega infrastructure, industrial and urban projects. Keen on ensuring that all State Governments support the Ministry's “reforms” agenda, the Union Environment Minister Mr. Prakash Javadekar has called for a conclave of State Environment Ministers, Environment Secretaries and Chairpersons of Pollution Control Boards in Delhi, 6-8 April, 2015, which will be addressed by Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi.

The Subramanian Committee was one of the first major policy initiatives of the National Democratic Alliance government headed by Prime Minister Modi. The purpose of the Committee was to draft “specific amendments needed in each of these Acts so as to bring them in line with current requirements to meet objectives”. Neither the Government nor the Committee cared to explain or clarify what this phrase meant. While preparing its report, the Committee held secretive consultations with corporate bodies and lobby groups, some state governments (not all), and held public consultations in a few cities which can best be described as tokenistic. The Committee submitted its report to the Prime Minister on 27th November 2014, barely 3 months after it had been constituted.

The Committee proposes sweeping changes to environmental, forest and biodiversity protection laws of India, proposes new laws to manage old laws, and promotes the establishment of a slew of new bureaucracies and the dismantling of decades-old regulatory institutions such as the Pollution Control Boards. The Committee shockingly proposes that industries must be allowed to self-regulate on a self-certification model based on “utmost good faith”, completely ignoring the disastrous experience India has had, most painfully being experienced by the people of Bhopal. The Subramanian Committee recommendations are not supported by any empirical evidence and appear to have been largely an outcome of opinions held by the Committee members and those they met with. And in stark contrast with well established norms for functioning of such High Level Committees, the Subramanian Committee has, admittedly, not kept any documentation of its process, who it met with, or even minuted its proceedings and the costs incurred.

Implications of the Subramanian Committee Report:

If the Subramanian Committee recommendations are accepted by the Centre and the States, prevailing environmental decision making norms and regulations will be grossly diluted, made extremely undemocratic, in-transparent and highly centralised. The very pillars on which India's environmental jurisprudence stands today will be shaken as is evident from Section 3 of the new Environmental Laws Management Act proposed which seeks to make redundant various progressive judgments of the Supreme Court, High Court and National Green Tribunal advancing environmental and social justice.

The Committee also proposes that critical safeguards now available to natural resource dependent and forest dwelling communities and other vulnerable project impacted communities, such as the statutory requirement to involve them and seek their consent in environmental decision making and diversion of forest land, would be sidestepped so that investors could secure “speedy” environmental and forest clearances. In effect, the Committee's focus has been to make environmental and social justice considerations subsidiary to business and investment priorities.

Such “reforms” would result in colossal and irreplaceable loss of biodiversity and associated traditional knowledge, destruction of sensitive ecosystems (with an emphasis on protecting only forests with over 70% canopy cover), increase the rate of species extinction, and threaten, disrupt, dislocate and displace pastoral, farming, coastal and other natural resource dependent communities. Floodgates for reckless exploitation of natural resources would be opened as clearances to projects would be accorded largely based on investment criteria. Extensive violation of human rights are thus likely to become the norm.

Centre-State relationships will also be adversely affected as the Union Environment Minister has accepted the Subramanian Committee proposals to establish National and State Environmental Management Agencies the configuration and management of which will be decided by the Centre. The critical role of Local Governments in environmental management and conservation has been comprehensively ignored, disregarding Constitutional mandates (in particular Articles 243 ZD, ZE and the 11th and 12th Schedules of the Constitution) which require the tier of governance closest to the people must be integrally involved in decisions about environment and natural resources.

While reforms are indeed required for environmental decision making in India, the objective has to be to safeguard public interest and the quality of our environment, and not, as is now proposed, to promote economic growth causing irreversible damage to ecological security of present and future generations. In the forthcoming Conclave, we urge you to impress upon the Government of India that environmental reforms must be an outcome of deeply democratic nation-wide debates and discussions, in which all agencies of Local, State and Central governments can meaningfully participate, and where the voices of peoples from all over the country, especially those who live in environmentally sensitive and stressful areas, and from all sectors, are heard, documented and rationally considered.

With that in mind, we urge you to reject the “reforms” proposed by the Union Government on the basis of the recommendations of the Subramanian Committee.

More detailed reasons why your Government must reject these reform proposals are provided in a comprehensive critique of the Subramanian Committee report by ESG, entitled “A Non-trivial Threat to India's Ecological and Economic Security” accessible at:http://tinyurl.com/pkbfpmw, and an article entitled “A hasty, half-baked report on environment” by former Union Water Resources Secretary Ramaswamy Iyer, accessible at: http://tinyurl.com/mqpx4av.

Thank you for your cooperation and support.

আগামী শণিবারের নিশিরাতে এরা আসবে শিবের গাজনতলায়

আগামী শণিবারের নিশিরাতে এরা আসবে শিবের গাজনতলায়।মাটির সোঁদা গন্ধ মাখা কালো কালো লড়াকু মানুষ।ভয়াল করে মুখ আঁকা।পরনে লাল-কালো ঘাগড়া।কোমরে ঘণ্টা নেউর।হাতে ধারালো রাম-দা।কাঁচি মদ খেয়ে তারা বিভোর।ঢাকিরা ছুটে যাবে তাদেরকে বরণ করে নিতে।কারু হাতে এক দঙ্গল নরকরোটি।তাতে টকটকে সিঁদূর মাখানো ।ধূপের রহস্যময় গন্ধ।বাজনার তালে তালে আসরে এসে গোল হয়ে বসে।শুরু করে বিলম্বিত লয়ে করুণ রসাত্মক সঙ্গীত।যেমন পালার নাম হরিশচন্দ্র বা শ্মশান মিলন।
দারুণ বিধিরে ওরে ও বিধি
বড় বাদ সাদিলি,ওরে বড় বাদ সাধিলি
আজ কোল ভরাধন কোলের মাণিক 
কেন হরে নিলি।।ধুয়ো
গানের শেষে শুরু হবে শকুন নাচ।নরমুন্ডগুলি এক জায়গায় রেখে সকলেই গোলাকারে দাঁড়াবে। এরা সব শকুন।বৃত্তের বাইরে থাকবে দু জন শিয়াল রূপে।নাচের আসর হয়ে উঠবে শ্মশা্নক্ষেত্র।ঢাকিদার প্রথমে দ্রুতলয়ে ছক্কা দেবে।শিল্পীরা দু-হাত প্রসারিত করে কোমর ঝুঁকিয়ে ঘু্রবে।বাজনার লয় অনুসারে ধীর থেকে দ্রুতলয়ে।নাচের প্রথম পর্ব শুরু।যেন শকুনগুলো আকাশে উড়ছে।নরমাংস খাওয়ার জন্য শ্মশানে এসে বসবে।ঢাকিদার কাহারবা লয়ে৪/৪ ছন্দে বাজাবে।সঙ্গে কাঁসির ঠেকা।ধীর থেকে দ্রুত লয়ে।তালটি হলোঃধিনাক নাতিন তিনাক তা/নাক তিন তিন তিনাক তা ।মাতানের তেহায় এর শেষে একটা করে শকুন বসবে।সব বসার পর নাচের দ্বিতীয় পর্ব শুরু।প্রতিটি শকুন মাটি ঘেঁসে এবার এগিয়ে যেতে থাকে নরমুন্ডএর দিকে।কাহারবার দ্রুত লয়ে ঠেকাঃধিধি নাকতিনা/তিতি নাকধিনা।শিয়াল ও দ্রুত ছুটে আসে নরমুন্ডের দিকে।ঢাকিদার ঠেকা দেনঃধাক ধিনা ধিন/ ধাক ধিনা ধিন/ ধাক ধিনা ধিন ধা//শিয়াল আর শকুনের লড়াই এ জমে ওঠে এই অতি প্রাচীন লৌকিক নৃত্যনাট্যটি।শেষে একসময় শিয়ালের বাধা অতিক্রম করে শকুনরা দখল করে নরমুন্ডগুলি।পদ্মফুলের পাপড়ি মেলার মতো সবাই ছড়িয়ে পড়ে বৃত্তের মধ্যে।ঢাকিদার তখন বাজাতে থাকেনঃধাধিন না তিন ধাধিন ধিনা/ধাগধিনা ধিন নাতিন তিনা//
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Appeal to Endorse Letter to State Governments not to support environmental “reforms” of the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change based on the TSR Subramanian Committee Report

Dear All,

The Indian Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has organised a Conclave of Environment Ministers, Environment Secretaries, Chairpersons of Pollution Control Boards/Committees of all States and Union Territories, 6-8 April 2015 at Delhi. This Conclave will be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the key purpose is to urge State Governments to support environmental “reforms” proposed by the Union Environment Ministry based on the highly controversial recommendations of “Report of High Level Committee to review Acts administered by Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change” (also known as the T S R Subramanian Committee report).

We consider the proposed “reforms” are highly regressive and would result in irreversible damage to environment and human rights, and compromise ecological security of present and future generations. Very strong reasons why the Government must be discouraged from moving forward with these reform proposals are provided in a comprehensive critique of the Subramanian Committee report by ESG, entitled “A Non-trivial Threat to India's Ecological and Economic Security” accessible at:http://tinyurl.com/pkbfpmw, and an article entitled “A hasty, half-baked report on environment” by former Union Water Resources Secretary Ramaswamy Iyer, accessible at: http://tinyurl.com/mqpx4av.

Enclosed is a Representation to Chief Ministers and Environment Ministers of all States, Secretaries and Chairpersons of Pollution Control Boards, urging them to impress upon the Prime Minister that environmental reforms in India must only be undertaken after due and legitimate nation-wide consultations and based on a deeply democratic processes, and not, as is the case now, an outcome of the highly in-transparent and undemocratic recommendations of the Subramanian Committee subordinating environmental considerations to economic growth.

State Governments and the Indian Government must be pressurised to back down from moving forward with these proposed ecologically disastrous “reforms”. We invite you to endorse the enclosed Petition by providing us your full name, affiliation, mailing and email addresses (all details are necessary) by 10 am Monday, 6^th April 2015 so that we may present it to all State Governments the same day.

Please email your endorsement to esg@esgindia.org.

Thank you for your cooperation and support despite this short notice.

Yours sincerely,

Bhargavi S. Rao and Leo F. Saldanha

Environment Support Group
[Environmental, Social Justice and Governance Initiatives]
1572, Intermediate Ring Road
Banashankari II Stage
Bangalore 560070. India
Tel: +91-80-26713559~61
Voice/Fax: +91-80-26713316
Email: esg@esgindia.org
Web: www.esgindia.org 

Letter for endorsement:

Respected Chief Ministers, Environment Ministers and Secretaries of States of India and Chairpersons of Pollution Control Boards:

We write seeking your immediate attention to certain proposals of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change to reform environmental decision making in India. We consider these “reforms” to be highly regressive and would cause irreversible damage to environment and human rights.

As you are aware the Environment Ministry accepted the recommendations of the highly controversial “Report of High Level Committee to review Acts administered by Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change” (also known as the T S R Subramanian Committee report). The Committee's recommendations are oriented towards promoting unprecedented access to land, water and other natural resources to large corporate bodies and to pave the way for mega infrastructure, industrial and urban projects. Keen on ensuring that all State Governments support the Ministry's “reforms” agenda, the Union Environment Minister Mr. Prakash Javadekar has called for a conclave of State Environment Ministers, Environment Secretaries and Chairpersons of Pollution Control Boards in Delhi, 6-8 April, 2015, which will be addressed by Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi.

The Subramanian Committee was one of the first major policy initiatives of the National Democratic Alliance government headed by Prime Minister Modi. The purpose of the Committee was to draft “specific amendments needed in each of these Acts so as to bring them in line with current requirements to meet objectives”. Neither the Government nor the Committee cared to explain or clarify what this phrase meant. While preparing its report, the Committee held secretive consultations with corporate bodies and lobby groups, some state governments (not all), and held public consultations in a few cities which can best be described as tokenistic. The Committee submitted its report to the Prime Minister on 27^th November 2014, barely 3 months after it had been constituted.

The Committee proposes sweeping changes to environmental, forest and biodiversity protection laws of India, proposes new laws to manage old laws, and promotes the establishment of a slew of new bureaucracies and the dismantling of decades-old regulatory institutions such as the Pollution Control Boards. The Committee shockingly proposes that industries must be allowed to self-regulate on a self-certification model based on “utmost good faith”, completely ignoring the disastrous experience India has had, most painfully being experienced by the people of Bhopal. The Subramanian Committee recommendations are not supported by any empirical evidence and appear to have been largely an outcome of opinions held by the Committee members and those they met with. And in stark contrast with well established norms for functioning of such High Level Committees, the Subramanian Committee has, admittedly, not kept any documentation of its process, who it met with, or even minuted its proceedings and the costs incurred.

Implications of the Subramanian Committee Report:

If the Subramanian Committee recommendations are accepted by the Centre and the States, prevailing environmental decision making norms and regulations will be grossly diluted, made extremely undemocratic, in-transparent and highly centralised. The very pillars on which India's environmental jurisprudence stands today will be shaken as is evident from Section 3 of the new Environmental Laws Management Act proposed which seeks to make redundant various progressive judgments of the Supreme Court, High Court and National Green Tribunal advancing environmental and social justice.

The Committee also proposes that critical safeguards now available to natural resource dependent and forest dwelling communities and other vulnerable project impacted communities, such as the statutory requirement to involve them and seek their consent in environmental decision making and diversion of forest land, would be sidestepped so that investors could secure “speedy” environmental and forest clearances. In effect, the Committee's focus has been to make environmental and social justice considerations subsidiary to business and investment priorities.

Such “reforms” would result in colossal and irreplaceable loss of biodiversity and associated traditional knowledge, destruction of sensitive ecosystems (with an emphasis on protecting only forests with over 70% canopy cover), increase the rate of species extinction, and threaten, disrupt, dislocate and displace pastoral, farming, coastal and other natural resource dependent communities. Floodgates for reckless exploitation of natural resources would be opened as clearances to projects would be accorded largely based on investment criteria. Extensive violation of human rights are thus likely to become the norm.

Centre-State relationships will also be adversely affected as the Union Environment Minister has accepted the Subramanian Committee proposals to establish National and State Environmental Management Agencies the configuration and management of which will be decided by the Centre. The critical role of Local Governments in environmental management and conservation has been comprehensively ignored, disregarding Constitutional mandates (in particular Articles 243 ZD, ZE and the 11^th and 12^th Schedules of the Constitution) which require the tier of governance closest to the people must be integrally involved in decisions about environment and natural resources.

While reforms are indeed required for environmental decision making in India, the objective has to be to safeguard public interest and the quality of our environment, and not, as is now proposed, to promote economic growth causing irreversible damage to ecological security of present and future generations. In the forthcoming Conclave, we urge you to impress upon the Government of India that environmental reforms must be an outcome of deeply democratic nation-wide debates and discussions, in which all agencies of Local, State and Central governments can meaningfully participate, and where the voices of peoples from all over the country, especially those who live in environmentally sensitive and stressful areas, and from all sectors, are heard, documented and rationally considered.

With that in mind, we urge you to reject the “reforms” proposed by the Union Government on the basis of the recommendations of the Subramanian Committee.