The right to clean air and wa­ter for the com­mon man is un­der threat -in Tamil Nadu and in Pun­jab. In other re­gions as well. Much of this threat is en­gi­neered by pri­vate mills, like Ster­lite.  As the state turns a blind eye, peo­ple protest and get sniper-bul­lets in re­turn. World Sikh News takes stock of the sit­u­a­tion and ex­presses full sym­pa­thy with the Tamils, seek­ing com­plete clo­sure of the plant and ar­rest of Vedanta MD Anil Ag­gar­wal, even if that means get­ting a red cor­ner no­tice of In­ter­pol.

100 days of protests at Thoothukudi did not be­stir the po­lice, the ad­min­is­tra­tion and the gov­ern­ment of Tamil Nadu. Then sud­denly when the pa­tience of the pro­tes­tors ran out, Tamil Nadu po­lice with sniper as­sault ri­fles shot dead pro­test­ers on the streets, chased them like cat­tle and af­ter shoot­ing them dead, lifted their bod­ies to stay, “stop act­ing.”

Only in these days of hate and heart­less­ness one can see such sce­nar­ios. The sight of the po­lice with guns chas­ing women into their ham­lets in There­spu­ram was rem­i­nis­cent of the po­lice vi­o­lence against the Jal­likattu pro­test­ers. 

13 dead and more than a 100 wounded and Chief Min­is­ter Palaniswami talks of self-de­fence. The pho­tos of sniper-borne po­lice­men in mufti atop ve­hi­cles re­minds one of some mafia war in down­town Italy.

Trans­la­tion of the Voice of the child protest­ing Ster­lite in the above video

Protest! protest! Protest for our peo­ple!
Protest! protest! Protest for our land!
Protest! protest! Protest Tu­ti­corin!
Can’t you hear you, can’t hear hear! Can’t you hear our voices!
We are school go­ing chil­dren! What sin have we com­mit­ted!
We are tiny tod­dlers! Can we sleep in the grave­yard!
State Gov­ern­ment, Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment! Can’t you hear? Can’t you hear?
Can’t you hear our voices?
De­struc­tive Ster­lite, De­struc­tive Ster­lite, Close down, close down! De­struc­tive Ster­lite, De­struc­tive Ster­lite, Close down, per­ma­nently close down!
We won’t take rest!

The ut­terly in­hu­mane Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of the com­pany, Anil Ag­gar­wal, from for­eign shores only has to say, “we will abide by law.” Britain’s Shadow Chan­cel­lor, the il­lus­tri­ous and friendly John Mc­Don­nell of the Labour party has said, “the cloak of re­spectabil­ity must be re­moved” and the Ster­lite hold­ing com­pany Vedanta Re­sources should be held re­spon­si­ble for the killing of in­no­cent pro­test­ers and the “com­pany must be delisted from the Lon­don Stock Ex­change.” British au­thor­i­ties must be made aware of the vi­o­la­tions and pro­ceed­ings must be­gin against the er­rant MD in Eng­land too. No­body can be al­lowed to move around scot free if he is re­spon­si­ble for pol­lut­ing en­vi­ron­ment re­sult­ing in deaths. Re­mem­ber Union Car­bide in Bhopal?

“Now, Ster­lite should never be al­lowed to open op­er­a­tions again, even if there is a dire need for cop­per in the coun­try. We need peo­ple’s lives, not cop­per.”

The lo­cal di­rec­tor of the com­pany has the temer­ity to say “hope that we will restart the com­pany soon.” Ear­lier on, the com­pany had said that the pro­test­ers were ne­far­i­ous anti-so­cial el­e­ments. All 20 thou­sand of them?

 

What hap­pened to those who met the in­jured in hos­pi­tals? Cases of vi­o­la­tion of Sec­tion 144 have been im­posed on See­man and other lead­ers who vis­ited the in­jured. 

The Ster­lite plant nearly 580 kms to the south of Chen­nai is cur­rently shut, while the com­pany boasts that it will restart soon. Right from day one, in ca­hoots with all gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies, the com­pany has vi­o­lated all rules and reg­u­la­tions. 

Data col­lected by so­cial ac­tivist Ja­yara­man shows that since March 2018, 15 ground-wa­ter sam­ples were taken by Tamil Nadu Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Board and all were found pol­luted and not fit for drink­ing pur­poses; all sam­ples vi­o­lated the BIS -Bu­reau of In­dian Stan­dards norms for drink­ing wa­ter. 

Let us not for­get that for the sec­ond time in two months more than a lakh res­i­dents of this coastal town have taken to the streets with one clear de­mand: Im­me­di­ate and Com­plete Shut­down of Ster­lite. The state gov­ern­ment and the dis­trict ad­min­is­tra­tion should also be blamed for fail­ing to ap­pre­ci­ate the depth of re­sent­ment among the peo­ple of Thoothukudi to Ster­lite’s il­le­gal and pol­lut­ing op­er­a­tions and the be­trayal by the State of its peo­ple.

The Gov­ern­ment of Tamil Nadu has lost its moral right to gov­ern, and should at the very least en­sure that the se­nior min­is­ters who failed to read the signs prop­erly and take pre­ven­tive ac­tion, re­sign forth­with. Be­fore any­thing else, the Gov­ern­ment of Tamil Nadu should have the de­cency to de­clare an end to the toxic ter­ror­ism un­leashed by Ster­lite and per­ma­nently close down the pol­lut­ing unit.

The killing of in­no­cent pro­test­ers with sniper ri­fles is noth­ing but mur­der. All the po­lice per­son­nel atop po­lice vans must be iden­ti­fied and tried un­der Sec­tion 302 and 307 IPC. Apart from sus­pen­sion of a few po­lice per­son­nel and trans­fer or dis­trict of­fi­cers, no sub­stan­tial ac­tion has been taken.

Who gave the per­mis­sion to use sniper ri­fles? Where are the wa­ter canons? If the pro­test­ers were armed, even with stones, how many po­lice per­sons were in­jured? It will not be in­ap­pro­pri­ate to ask, “what was the quid pro quo be­tween the com­pany of­fi­cials and the po­lice” to use such reck­less force to “dis­perse crowds.” 

The Gov­ern­ment of Tamil Nadu, Union Min­istry of En­vi­ron­ment, Forests and Cli­mate Change, the Tamil Nadu Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Board and the Thoothukudi Dis­trict Ad­min­is­tra­tion have been play­ing havoc for over two decades. The protests have been sim­mer­ing all along. Some­times through forces, at other times through law by chang­ing land use laws, still other times pro­tect­ing the high and mighty, Vedanta Ster­lite is vi­o­lat­ing all laws of the land with im­punity. 

I will not hes­i­tate to say that even the Supreme Court of In­di­a’s hands are also soaked in the blood of the in­no­cents who were killed in Tu­ti­corin. In 2013, the apex court found Ster­lite guilty of mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion, un­li­censed op­er­a­tion and vi­ola­tive of pol­lut­ing the en­vi­ron­ment, but shock­ingly, the court felt that “In­dia needs cop­per” and al­lowed the com­pany to have a free fun by pay­ing a pal­try fine. So much for jus­tice for the com­mon man. 

The de­ci­sion to close down, first the ex­pan­sion and now to tem­porar­ily close down the fac­tory is like the de­ci­sion to close down Union Car­bide af­ter sub­stan­tial loss of lives. If the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment has any love for the lives of its peo­ple, then it should de­clare Anil Ag­gar­wal per­sona non grata, reg­is­ter an FIR against him and his man­agers who are pol­lut­ing land, air and wa­ter and dam­ag­ing the lives of the peo­ple around the Thoothukudi cop­per plant. All de­part­ments, reg­u­la­tors and min­istries al­lowed Ster­lite to op­er­ate with lower-than-re­quired chim­ney stacks, thereby ex­pos­ing lakhs of res­i­dents to higher lev­els of toxic pol­lu­tants.

The find­ings of the gov­ern­men­t’s med­ical col­lege’s health study that re­ported higher in­ci­dence of cer­tain health prob­lems among the vil­lagers liv­ing around the fac­tory.

Now, Ster­lite should never be al­lowed to open op­er­a­tions again, even if there is a dire need for cop­per in the coun­try. We need peo­ple’s lives, not cop­per.  

The man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the com­pany Mr. Anil Ag­gar­wal has given out a state­ment, typ­i­cally like the chair­man of Union Car­bide af­ter the Bhopal Gas tragedy, which left hun­dreds dead and thou­sands af­fected due to the gas leak, “we will abide by the rules of the coun­try.” With the law en­force­ment agen­cies, the rul­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties and the po­lit­i­cal class on his side, he has noth­ing to worry.

“Tamil Nadu is like a lead­er­less state and a fa­ther­less house now. It is doubt­ful as to whether or not the regime is even hap­pen­ing. The gov­ern­ment ig­nored the needs of the peo­ple and did not even bother to meet with them.”

See­man, Naam Tami­lar Katchi

Two decades ago, Anil Ag­gar­wal was a scrap dealer, who has the acu­men to flout rules and laws with im­punity. To­day he “runs” the BJP gov­ern­ment though fund­ing about which he and the gov­ern­ment both main­tain a stoic si­lence. 

Or­di­nary peo­ple have died. Or­di­nary peo­ple protested against the high and mighty be­cause the whole ad­min­is­tra­tion failed to en­force rule of law on Ster­lite. It was in fact, Ster­lite which made “rules” and the com­pli­ant ad­min­is­tra­tion fol­lowed it.  

The Dis­trict Col­lec­tor, the chair­per­son and mem­ber sec­re­tary of Tamil Nadu Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Board, the Sec­re­taries hold­ing the en­vi­ron­ment port­fo­lios in the cen­tral and state gov­ern­ments, the min­is­ters of en­vi­ron­ment at the state and cen­tre, and the chief min­is­ter of Tamil Nadu need to ac­count for their in­ac­tion in the face of over­whelm­ing ev­i­dence of il­le­gal­i­ties, en­vi­ron­men­tal harm and dam­age to pub­lic health.

“Two decades ago, Anil Ag­gar­wal was a scrap dealer, who has the acu­men to flout rules and laws with im­punity. To­day he “runs” the BJP gov­ern­ment though fund­ing about which he and the gov­ern­ment both main­tain a stoic si­lence. ”

As its his­tory goes, Ster­lite is likely to con­tinue its es­capades. As the peo­ple’s’ voice, Naam Tami­lar Katchi leader See­man told the World Sikh News, “Tamil Nadu is like a lead­er­less state and a fa­ther­less house now. It is doubt­ful as to whether or not the regime is even hap­pen­ing.” He stated that “the gov­ern­ment ig­nored the needs of the peo­ple and did not even bother to meet with them.”

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Tamils be­ware. Tamils main­tain a close watch, oth­er­wise the pow­ers to be are against the  peo­ple and with such com­pa­nies. The next stop sadly is likely to be Kadi­ra­man­galam and the killer com­pany there will be state-owned  ONGC. Tamils rise be­fore an­other round of killings is let loose. By the way, where are the lead­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists and hu­man rights or­gan­i­sa­tions in the coun­try?