Everybody knows the purpose to which Gadgil Report is aimed at: prevent further man-made transformations to the natural landscape of Western Ghats. But, certainly, this purpose just sits within a larger context of political framework. My intention here is to try to unearth that political context and position it with respect to the key political ideologies in India and ,especially, Kerala.
Environmentalism as an ideology draws its lifeblood from the progressive ideals of the Western World. Eventhough man's affection to nature and his dependency on it has been a consistent theme all across the world in various civilizations, that disposition has not challenged his attempts to alter his landscape in any serious measure till very recently. The wide acceptance of the concept of Anthropogenic Global Climate Change can be considered as the fundamental cause of such a shift in the thought process of leadership across the globe.
But, why is it such a favorite political position of the progressives, and not the conservatives in the West? One can deduce two specific reasons. One, Conservatives generally tended to favor Industrialization, Privatization and Wealth Expansion. All of these are bound to the exploitation of available natural resources, which, in turn, will lead to various changes within the environmental landscape. Automatically, the progressive Socialists in the West who favor State control of Industry and Wealth distribution end up as the supporting pillar of environmentalism.
Of course, everybody from both camps argue for development with preservation. But, this is never an ideological position, but merely a compromising position so that they do not look extremists or fundamentalists politically. Given a single point of contention, conservatives are happy to compromise on environment, whereas progressives are happy to compromise on development.
It is, then, no wonder that similar attitudes prevail in India with respect to environmentalism. But, unlike the West where there are clear ideological camps, Indian situation is more much more cluttered with the presence of a number of other factors, like historical condition of a class of people, development needs of various sections of society and participation of people in multiple organizations with conflicting ideological positions and so on. Let me get into these various factors from the eyes of a number of actors considering the case of Gadgil report.
Communist Parties of India
While a simple analogy to the West would make us think that the Communists should have been Pro-Gadgil rather than Anti-Gadgil (because of their Socialistic and Distributive philosophies), that remains just that: simplistic. Perhaps, that explains why a leader like V.S.Achuthanandan pronounced that he supports Gadgil implementation. Let us try to understand the communist position a bit more.
For Marxists/Communists, the human civilization progresses through historical dialectical materialism and the world is dictated by a class conflict that pits the owners of the means of production against the working class. In the context of Gadgil report, VS Achuthanandan considered the quarry/mining owners to be the bourgeoisie and assumed Gadgil report to be a tool in the fight against them. But, a question remains unanswered: who is the Proletariat here? The answer to that question is what led to the other party leaders and the Communist Parties to revisit this equation. The cries of protests from the farmers in high ranges brought forth a simple fact: they are also victims and oppressed, and they are very large in numbers.
There is another paradigm that can be applied in this situation from a Marxian angle. All the attempts to transfer the cost of the carbon print of the developed countries to the developed countries, and denying the development needs of people in the developing third-world countries like India is a continuation of the oppression by Capitalist forces of the developed world of the Working class of the developing world. This paradigm is a closer reflection of reality and is more global in scope. By siding with the farmers in the high ranges, the Communists Parties seem to have endorsed this paradigm.
Thus, by taking an Anti-Gadgil stance, the Indian Communist Parties are not going against any fundamental Marxian ideology. They are well-justified within their ideological framework in their stance. Followers of the party, who are confused at the party line, should understand this paradigm and be empathetic to the millions who are at the mercy of a set of elites.
Congress Party
Unlike the Communists, it is very hard to dissect the position of the Congress party from the point of view of any defined ideology, mostly because they lack one such ideology. Nevertheless, "Sarvodaya" and its modern equivalent "Inclusive Growth" can be considered as a fundamental Congress's approach towards its politics. From this stand point, certainly the support extended to the anti-Gadgil protestors is well within its own framework of thought process.
But, what about the stance of P.T. Thomas (Ex Idukki MP)? Or what about the stance of UPA government in trying to push through through these reports? What about the stance of the so-called "Harita" MLAs?
Answer to these questions require us to look at this issue from a different perspective - that of the emergence of environmentalism as the default position within our polity.
The Default Position
I was going through the Handbook of my son (doing 2nd standard) recently. I counted 7 days in the school calendar marked as a special day to remember something that is closely related to the Western Progressive ideals of environmentalism and control of human progress in this world. 7 days to celebrate nature. May be as much as the celebration of our own country. Or any particular religion.
That is how the world has turned. Anybody who is living in this world has the following default position: 1) We are at an inflection point in human progress. 2) We should preserve nature at any cost. 3) Our future generation will be really living in a worse earth if we don't do this today.
This, I call, a new religion. The religion of nature. Nature is God. We need to worship her.
Without going into any further discussion on the merits and demerits of such a position (that is a big topic in itself, I hope cover that sometime later) and what philosophies played their part in this change of disposition, let me just say this: that's what we are today.
Harita MLA's and UPA
So, the picture emerges. By default, we, and our institutions, are programmed to protect the nature (for good or bad, I am not making that judgement here). We are afraid to touch the nature unless it is absolutely required. We want to look good in the mirror and in front of the world in environmental matters. We want to align to the current global morality. That explains the position of Harita MLAs, the inaction of the Environment ministry to clear many projects during UPA regime and the keenness to act of the Western Ghats.
If the discussions were around just protecting the existing forests and prevent further degradation of the same, or to prevent those actions that involve major structural changes to the geology of the area, this position would have been vindicated. But, ignoring the fact that there are millions of people, whose aspirations should not be considered lesser than the aspirations of the non-Ghats section of the country, we can easily say that these Harita MLAs & the earlier UPA regime had indeed failed to follow the "Inclusive Growth" philosophy of its mother party. Those within the Congress party who are yet to understand this deeper truth of the matter should correct themselves to align with its own political philosophy.
National BJP
BJP's case is a little curious. In the Indian context, BJP is the Conservative party or Right-wing party. Their leader, Narendra Modi, is one of the most Pro-Industry leader in the country . Naturally, their alignment should be with the anti-Gadgil protests. Then, why not so?
Er. Wrong. Goa Chief Minister Mr.Parrikar, another leading figure in the BJP, has openly asked for amendments of the Gadgil report to allow the mining industry in Goa to thrive. Ditto was the position of BJP in Karnataka. So, there we are- state leaderships in BJP aligning to its natural philosophy.
Then, what happened with the BJP with Modi in the leadership? My theory is this: Modi is very much pro-Industry. He knows that he needs to turn Indian geology inside out to get the momentum going for Industrialization (hence, the environment minister's position to clear many pending projects as early as possible). But, he equally knows that he is going against the default psyche of the nation. He will want to soothe the guilty conscience. He will need to demonstrate that he cares for the nature equally. Hence, he needs a scapegoat.
Who else is suitable for that, other than the hapless people of Western Ghats (who did not vote for him anyway)?
So, under the Modi regime, the Western Ghats is earmarked for his demonstration of the love of nature. The other mountains in India are going to be drilled and excavated to flatness. But, never mind, the Western Ghats are protected.
Kerala BJP
In all this, Kerala's BJP faction is totally behind Gadgil. It is indeed a rather funny-looking combination in every other political position. But, then, that's their game plan. In the state where both the Congress and the Communists are against Gadgil, they could actually win some supporters and votes by taking a stand for environmentalism. It is always helpful to be aligned with the default position of the society. Especially when you know for a fact that you are never going to win from the Ghats section of Kerala in the near future.
My humble submission to them is this: your political plan might be ingenious. But, there is another side to this. When Gadgil gets implemented, and when the people in the non-Ghat section also figure out that it was not a good move for anybody, you are bound to face a backlash. Especially when Modi- powered industrial development gain traction in other states, you are going to struggle to answer to the pointed questions raised against you. So, be responsible to the entire state of Kerala as a political party and do not ignore any section of the society and be consistent with your own economic model.
The Progressives
That leaves us with a last section: the progressives of the country (You may question why am I not talking about the influential regional parties like Congress-M or organizations like the Church. Short an answer: Either they align to one of the previously discussed entities, like in case of Congress-M, Or discussion about their presence is just a strawman, Gadgil issue has never been a Church issue, it was the media full of progressives made it to be like that. I don't want to fall prey to the same game).
Who are these people? They are the clergy of the religion that I described above, the religion of nature. They are elites who believe that their position in every issue is the ultimate word. They are the true followers of the Western Progressive ideology in India. They blindly follow the position of the New York Times, the Guardian and Hollywood in every single social and economical issue. It is irrelevant whether that position is currently applicable in the Indian context. When Al Gore make a speech from a fully centralized-AC suite in Florida about the effects of Air-conditioning in the Ozone layer , they swallow it down their throats and regurgitate it back to the thousands who throng the Chennai Central railway station in the hot summer. When a Hollywood star preaches the virtue of cycling while booking his 10th BMW, they ask the monsoon-drenched Kerala family of four, riding in a scooter, to start walking.
These people want to implement what the Western Progressives want. And what do they want? They want to see pure nature. Virgin landscapes. Exotic species running around. Funny-looking tribals. A man traveling in car in a Western Ghat highway does not appeal to them. They have seen it all. They are living in the luxury that appear boring to them.
And just like any set of progressives, they are elites. They are aristocratic. They want their will to win. They need it to feel good. If democracy does not allow you to do your will, they will find work around. If an entire district is against your opinion, they label them as mafia. They start accusing them of things that are not even related to the issue at hand. They bully the people through media and through various power structures and government officials. Genuine concerns are to be muted in the cacophony of slogans. Livelihood issues are to be massacred at the altar of ideology. There is a word for this - fascism.
My humble request to those who have leased their brain to the Western Progressives: please take it back. Look at the plight of the people living around you. Figure it out for yourselves what do they need so that they can bring up a future generation that is capable of solving its own problem. Honestly.
Environmentalism as an ideology draws its lifeblood from the progressive ideals of the Western World. Eventhough man's affection to nature and his dependency on it has been a consistent theme all across the world in various civilizations, that disposition has not challenged his attempts to alter his landscape in any serious measure till very recently. The wide acceptance of the concept of Anthropogenic Global Climate Change can be considered as the fundamental cause of such a shift in the thought process of leadership across the globe.
But, why is it such a favorite political position of the progressives, and not the conservatives in the West? One can deduce two specific reasons. One, Conservatives generally tended to favor Industrialization, Privatization and Wealth Expansion. All of these are bound to the exploitation of available natural resources, which, in turn, will lead to various changes within the environmental landscape. Automatically, the progressive Socialists in the West who favor State control of Industry and Wealth distribution end up as the supporting pillar of environmentalism.
Of course, everybody from both camps argue for development with preservation. But, this is never an ideological position, but merely a compromising position so that they do not look extremists or fundamentalists politically. Given a single point of contention, conservatives are happy to compromise on environment, whereas progressives are happy to compromise on development.
It is, then, no wonder that similar attitudes prevail in India with respect to environmentalism. But, unlike the West where there are clear ideological camps, Indian situation is more much more cluttered with the presence of a number of other factors, like historical condition of a class of people, development needs of various sections of society and participation of people in multiple organizations with conflicting ideological positions and so on. Let me get into these various factors from the eyes of a number of actors considering the case of Gadgil report.
Communist Parties of India
While a simple analogy to the West would make us think that the Communists should have been Pro-Gadgil rather than Anti-Gadgil (because of their Socialistic and Distributive philosophies), that remains just that: simplistic. Perhaps, that explains why a leader like V.S.Achuthanandan pronounced that he supports Gadgil implementation. Let us try to understand the communist position a bit more.
For Marxists/Communists, the human civilization progresses through historical dialectical materialism and the world is dictated by a class conflict that pits the owners of the means of production against the working class. In the context of Gadgil report, VS Achuthanandan considered the quarry/mining owners to be the bourgeoisie and assumed Gadgil report to be a tool in the fight against them. But, a question remains unanswered: who is the Proletariat here? The answer to that question is what led to the other party leaders and the Communist Parties to revisit this equation. The cries of protests from the farmers in high ranges brought forth a simple fact: they are also victims and oppressed, and they are very large in numbers.
There is another paradigm that can be applied in this situation from a Marxian angle. All the attempts to transfer the cost of the carbon print of the developed countries to the developed countries, and denying the development needs of people in the developing third-world countries like India is a continuation of the oppression by Capitalist forces of the developed world of the Working class of the developing world. This paradigm is a closer reflection of reality and is more global in scope. By siding with the farmers in the high ranges, the Communists Parties seem to have endorsed this paradigm.
Thus, by taking an Anti-Gadgil stance, the Indian Communist Parties are not going against any fundamental Marxian ideology. They are well-justified within their ideological framework in their stance. Followers of the party, who are confused at the party line, should understand this paradigm and be empathetic to the millions who are at the mercy of a set of elites.
Congress Party
Unlike the Communists, it is very hard to dissect the position of the Congress party from the point of view of any defined ideology, mostly because they lack one such ideology. Nevertheless, "Sarvodaya" and its modern equivalent "Inclusive Growth" can be considered as a fundamental Congress's approach towards its politics. From this stand point, certainly the support extended to the anti-Gadgil protestors is well within its own framework of thought process.
But, what about the stance of P.T. Thomas (Ex Idukki MP)? Or what about the stance of UPA government in trying to push through through these reports? What about the stance of the so-called "Harita" MLAs?
Answer to these questions require us to look at this issue from a different perspective - that of the emergence of environmentalism as the default position within our polity.
The Default Position
I was going through the Handbook of my son (doing 2nd standard) recently. I counted 7 days in the school calendar marked as a special day to remember something that is closely related to the Western Progressive ideals of environmentalism and control of human progress in this world. 7 days to celebrate nature. May be as much as the celebration of our own country. Or any particular religion.
That is how the world has turned. Anybody who is living in this world has the following default position: 1) We are at an inflection point in human progress. 2) We should preserve nature at any cost. 3) Our future generation will be really living in a worse earth if we don't do this today.
This, I call, a new religion. The religion of nature. Nature is God. We need to worship her.
Without going into any further discussion on the merits and demerits of such a position (that is a big topic in itself, I hope cover that sometime later) and what philosophies played their part in this change of disposition, let me just say this: that's what we are today.
Harita MLA's and UPA
So, the picture emerges. By default, we, and our institutions, are programmed to protect the nature (for good or bad, I am not making that judgement here). We are afraid to touch the nature unless it is absolutely required. We want to look good in the mirror and in front of the world in environmental matters. We want to align to the current global morality. That explains the position of Harita MLAs, the inaction of the Environment ministry to clear many projects during UPA regime and the keenness to act of the Western Ghats.
If the discussions were around just protecting the existing forests and prevent further degradation of the same, or to prevent those actions that involve major structural changes to the geology of the area, this position would have been vindicated. But, ignoring the fact that there are millions of people, whose aspirations should not be considered lesser than the aspirations of the non-Ghats section of the country, we can easily say that these Harita MLAs & the earlier UPA regime had indeed failed to follow the "Inclusive Growth" philosophy of its mother party. Those within the Congress party who are yet to understand this deeper truth of the matter should correct themselves to align with its own political philosophy.
National BJP
BJP's case is a little curious. In the Indian context, BJP is the Conservative party or Right-wing party. Their leader, Narendra Modi, is one of the most Pro-Industry leader in the country . Naturally, their alignment should be with the anti-Gadgil protests. Then, why not so?
Er. Wrong. Goa Chief Minister Mr.Parrikar, another leading figure in the BJP, has openly asked for amendments of the Gadgil report to allow the mining industry in Goa to thrive. Ditto was the position of BJP in Karnataka. So, there we are- state leaderships in BJP aligning to its natural philosophy.
Then, what happened with the BJP with Modi in the leadership? My theory is this: Modi is very much pro-Industry. He knows that he needs to turn Indian geology inside out to get the momentum going for Industrialization (hence, the environment minister's position to clear many pending projects as early as possible). But, he equally knows that he is going against the default psyche of the nation. He will want to soothe the guilty conscience. He will need to demonstrate that he cares for the nature equally. Hence, he needs a scapegoat.
Who else is suitable for that, other than the hapless people of Western Ghats (who did not vote for him anyway)?
So, under the Modi regime, the Western Ghats is earmarked for his demonstration of the love of nature. The other mountains in India are going to be drilled and excavated to flatness. But, never mind, the Western Ghats are protected.
Kerala BJP
In all this, Kerala's BJP faction is totally behind Gadgil. It is indeed a rather funny-looking combination in every other political position. But, then, that's their game plan. In the state where both the Congress and the Communists are against Gadgil, they could actually win some supporters and votes by taking a stand for environmentalism. It is always helpful to be aligned with the default position of the society. Especially when you know for a fact that you are never going to win from the Ghats section of Kerala in the near future.
My humble submission to them is this: your political plan might be ingenious. But, there is another side to this. When Gadgil gets implemented, and when the people in the non-Ghat section also figure out that it was not a good move for anybody, you are bound to face a backlash. Especially when Modi- powered industrial development gain traction in other states, you are going to struggle to answer to the pointed questions raised against you. So, be responsible to the entire state of Kerala as a political party and do not ignore any section of the society and be consistent with your own economic model.
The Progressives
That leaves us with a last section: the progressives of the country (You may question why am I not talking about the influential regional parties like Congress-M or organizations like the Church. Short an answer: Either they align to one of the previously discussed entities, like in case of Congress-M, Or discussion about their presence is just a strawman, Gadgil issue has never been a Church issue, it was the media full of progressives made it to be like that. I don't want to fall prey to the same game).
Who are these people? They are the clergy of the religion that I described above, the religion of nature. They are elites who believe that their position in every issue is the ultimate word. They are the true followers of the Western Progressive ideology in India. They blindly follow the position of the New York Times, the Guardian and Hollywood in every single social and economical issue. It is irrelevant whether that position is currently applicable in the Indian context. When Al Gore make a speech from a fully centralized-AC suite in Florida about the effects of Air-conditioning in the Ozone layer , they swallow it down their throats and regurgitate it back to the thousands who throng the Chennai Central railway station in the hot summer. When a Hollywood star preaches the virtue of cycling while booking his 10th BMW, they ask the monsoon-drenched Kerala family of four, riding in a scooter, to start walking.
These people want to implement what the Western Progressives want. And what do they want? They want to see pure nature. Virgin landscapes. Exotic species running around. Funny-looking tribals. A man traveling in car in a Western Ghat highway does not appeal to them. They have seen it all. They are living in the luxury that appear boring to them.
And just like any set of progressives, they are elites. They are aristocratic. They want their will to win. They need it to feel good. If democracy does not allow you to do your will, they will find work around. If an entire district is against your opinion, they label them as mafia. They start accusing them of things that are not even related to the issue at hand. They bully the people through media and through various power structures and government officials. Genuine concerns are to be muted in the cacophony of slogans. Livelihood issues are to be massacred at the altar of ideology. There is a word for this - fascism.
My humble request to those who have leased their brain to the Western Progressives: please take it back. Look at the plight of the people living around you. Figure it out for yourselves what do they need so that they can bring up a future generation that is capable of solving its own problem. Honestly.
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