Between Mines & Roads

Between Mines & Roads

Apropos cover story & editorial (Down To Earth, April 30, 2007) it is
evident that the mineral production in India valued at more than Rs
84,000 crore does not recognize the cost of environmental damage,
economic marginalisation, massive multiple displacement and social
unrest. Not surprisingly, even the coercive recommendations of Anwarul
Hoda and A K D Jahdav Committee on mining policy do not deal with it.
One gets to know of it and one will know of it each time police firing
and custodial murders of protesters is in news.

In such a monstrous developmental context the narrative, "The pain
suffered by pregnant women on these bumpy roads when they come for
delivery is worse than the pain of delivery…" underlines the
outstanding failure of Hoda & Jahdav Committee to diagnose the
ailments let alone treat it. Not only that anyone who seeks attention
towards human development indicators like health runs the danger of
being branded anti-development and an extremist or is prevailed upon
by the brute might of the state to rewrite the recommendations to suit
government and corporate needs of The Orissa Mining Corporation Ltd
and Vedanta Alumina Ltd as has been witnessed in the shocking U-turn
by a prestigious institute on the adverse impact of proposed bauxite
mining in Lanjigarh, Orissa because ministry of environment and
forests funds it.

Committee recommendations says, In line with the current economic
policy, in future the core functions of the State in mining will be
facilitation of exploration and mining activities of investors and
entrepreneurs, regulation and tax collection and there shall be arm's
length between State agencies that explore and mine and those that
regulate.

Be it Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh or Goa it is indeed true that
"the local politician has been reduced to nothing more than a
middleman—a pimp..." and in fact every politician is a local of some
constituency. In such a backdrop when chief ministers like Naveen
Patnaik say, "No one, I repeat no one will be allowed to stand in the
way of Orissa's industrialisation and the people's progress," it
compels likes of V P Singh, former prime minister to react saying,
"Yes. I want to become a Maoist if this is the model of development.
But I can't at this age."

It is consistently emerging that in our parliamentary democracy human
trafficking and 'corporate' development is a norm not an exception.
Most elected representatives and civil servants seem to be just tools
used by corporate houses, which fund them and their political parties.
Given the consensus amongst geologists that India being a part of
Gondwanaland has a similar mineral resource potential as Australia,
Africa and South America, the nexus of those who wish to share the
booty of massive mineral resource is hardly surprising. The proposed
new mining policy cannot be expected to travel a road that is
sensitive to environmental damage, economic marginalisation, massive
multiple displacement, social unrest and even pregnant women.

Ban Cricket

Cricket is the opium of the masses. I am in agreement with the Point of View of T J S George who says, "The time has come to ban cricket" in the New Indian Express.

George argues that any game that rakes in money in such gargantuan proportions ceases to be a game besides cricket is an unashamedly colonial game. Indigenous to England from the 17th Century, cricket was exported to the colonies as a means to dazzle the natives into admiration and submission. The only colony that refused to take to cricket was America and today it is a superpower. His reason for a banning cricket is not waste of national resources and national energy because there are other activities that waste more national resources and national energy-like Parliament.

When Sharad Pawar, the Agriculture Minister who was confronting droughts and mass suicides by farmers became the President of Board of Cricket Club of India (BCCI), there were doubts expressed over the time he might be able to devote to the BCCI. But he did the unthinkable, he dedicated himself to the service of Cricket let the farmers commit suicide. Obviously, his priorities as a minister are clear to him.

Cricket has made the collective national consciousness so insensitive to the massive framers suicides underway that it is not even outraged enough to break the frozen passivity of the government. The obsession of media with it has insulated even the human response towards the farmers suicides.

Hume's Congress, 1857 & UP Politics

Between 1857 and 2007 countless events have crossed river Yamuna. It is inconvenient to look back from 21st century to fathom the flow of its past. Sumit Pande's piece (http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/sumitpande/510/38344/the-hume-in-mulayamland.html#) on the association of A O Hume with Etawah is quite useful in subtly suggesting that treating 1857 as the reference point in our political engagements would more valuable than 1947. Surely, as a district collector, Hume must have read the documentations of the 1857 War of Independence and British repression.

The Torture Commission in its first report that was presented to the British House of Commons in 1856, admitted the practice of torture. Lord Dalhousie confirmed to the Court of Directors of the East India Company in September, 1855 that the practice of torture was in use in every British province.

Armed revolts broke out only to be brutally suppressed by the British. Three sons of Bahadur Shah Zafar were publicly executed at "Khooni Darwaaza" in Delhi and Bahadur Shah himself was blinded and exiled to Rangoon where he died in 1862.

After the defeat of the 1857 national revolt due to Britishers ability to have fresh Indian recruits- the British embarked on a furious policy of "Divide and Rule". Even in the moment of crisis although a broad unity among Hindus and Muslims emerged during 1857 but the unity did not extend to the "unclean" or "impure" castes.

The National Planning Committee (NPC) that was constituted by the Congress President, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in 1938 under the chairmanship of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The 15 members of NPC included: five scientists, four leading merchants and industrialists, three economists and three with political credentials: Gandhian, labour leader and Nehru himself.

Even this committee referred to the untouchables as "wrong sorts" in the report it submitted in 1940. It is these wrongs rooted in the acts of Congress that provided the fertile ground for likes of Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Jan Morcha to reap the electoral harvest.

JNU Minimum Wage Struggle

All sane individuals and institutions should support enforcement of the Minimum Wages Act,1948 that gives government the power to fix wages and working conditions.

The Report on the Working of the Minimum Wages Act says, In a labour surplus economy like India wages couldn’t be left to be determined entirely by forces of demand and supply as it would lead to the fixation of wages at a very low level resulting in exploitation of less privileged class.

Keeping this in view, the Government of India enacted the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. The purpose of the Act is to provide that no employer shall pay to workers in certain categories of employments wages at a rate less than the minimum wage prescribed by notification under the Act.

The Act provides for fixation/ periodic revision of minimum wages in employments where the labour is vulnerable to exploitation. Under the Act, the appropriate Government, both Central and State can fix/revise the minimum wages in such scheduled employments falling in their respective jurisdiction.

The term ‘Minimum Wage Fixation’ implies the fixation of the rate or rates of minimum wages by a process or by invoking the authority of the State. Minimum wage consists of a basic wage and an allowance linked to the cost of living index and is to be paid in cash, though payment of wages fully in kind or partly in kind may be allowed in certain cases.

The statutory minimum wages has the force of law and it becomes obligatory on the part of the employers not to pay below the prescribed minimum wage to its employees. The obligation of the employer to pay the said wage is absolute.

As recently as March 7, 2005, Delhi High Court has held that Minimum Wages Act was applicable to the University of Delhi and its colleges. It said, There is no reason why at least the minimum wages which is the bare minimum requirement for sustenance and subsistence of an employee should not be paid.

According to a release dated 19 April, 2006 of Press Information Bureau, Government of India "The rates of minimum wages for unskilled agricultural workers in the Central spheres is from Rs. 102.00 to Rs. 114.00 with effect from June 16, 2005. In case of States/UTs it varies from Rs. 110.10 (Delhi) to Rs. 39.87 (Arunachal Pradesh Area I)."

The implementation of the Act in Jawharlal Nehru University, New Delhi would set a positive precedent for the whole country.