A Welcome Move
By Dr Arvind Kumar
The recent decision of the Central Government to deny forest clearance to the Vedanta mining project at Niyamgiri is a welcome move. Though much delayed, this decision is a just move, and perhaps for the first time in the history of the country the government has said ‘no’ to a large and powerful corporation on social and environmental grounds.
It is also important to keep in mind that one denial and one piece of justice will not undo years of governmental kowtowing to corporate greed and innumerable narratives of injustice and illegalities unfolding everywhere in India. From Arunachal Pradesh to Jammu and Kashmir to Himachal Pradesh, and from Orissa to Maharashtra and Goa, forest communities, farmers, and fish-workers are still locked in grim battles against the corporate—State nexus in order to defend their social, economic, cultural, and ecological existence—in essence, their identity.
In the wake of the government decision to scrap Vedanta’s mining project on Niyamgiri, the issue of Forest Rights Act 2006 – and thereby the issue of respecting the legitimate rights of forest communities – has now assumed centre stage in public discourses on such ‘development’ projects. Keeping the democratic spirit of this particular ‘decision’, the government should hereafter stop considering corporate interests blindly on priority and place the ‘rights of the people’ above anything else.
The recent decision of the Central Government to deny forest clearance to the Vedanta mining project at Niyamgiri is a welcome move. Though much delayed, this decision is a just move, and perhaps for the first time in the history of the country the government has said ‘no’ to a large and powerful corporation on social and environmental grounds.
It is also important to keep in mind that one denial and one piece of justice will not undo years of governmental kowtowing to corporate greed and innumerable narratives of injustice and illegalities unfolding everywhere in India. From Arunachal Pradesh to Jammu and Kashmir to Himachal Pradesh, and from Orissa to Maharashtra and Goa, forest communities, farmers, and fish-workers are still locked in grim battles against the corporate—State nexus in order to defend their social, economic, cultural, and ecological existence—in essence, their identity.
In the wake of the government decision to scrap Vedanta’s mining project on Niyamgiri, the issue of Forest Rights Act 2006 – and thereby the issue of respecting the legitimate rights of forest communities – has now assumed centre stage in public discourses on such ‘development’ projects. Keeping the democratic spirit of this particular ‘decision’, the government should hereafter stop considering corporate interests blindly on priority and place the ‘rights of the people’ above anything else.
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