Media’s credibility rests on journalists, not the owners

Media owners are bound to device unorthodox options. But journalism is defined by the choices journalists make.

FirstPost, 28 April, 2013

While it took the collapse of the Sharadha group to bring the plight of journalism under focus, tainted money and dubious motive have been running scores of news organisations. Such owners and investors make unethical demands of journalists and find enough takers among the greedy, the gullible and the desperate in the profession. While this flourishing trend is the latest blow to media’s credibility, her-master’s-voice brand of journalism existed long before Ponzi scheme operators started eyeing the industry.

Remember that New Yorker article on the business methods of The Times of India group that hit the stands last October?  In an industry where everyone claims to be holier than the rest, it inspired snorts and whispers of vindication: Didn’t we know!

Though the so-called Times methods have already been tried by many other groups with varying success, many love to believe that a single media management desecrated the sanctity of the editorial by making it subservient to the marketing and circulation before unabashedly redefining newspaper publishing as an advertisement business.  Of course, the group’s business philosophy was unorthodox. But then the choices made by so many in its acceptance were no less so.

When we criticise doctors for prescribing needless and expensive drugs and tests, do we give them the benefit of doubt that they might be under pressure from the private hospitals they work for or are attached to? Do we exonerate lawyers when they take clients for a ride, and target their firms instead? Is a corrupt or disgraced politician forgiven because he could not step outside the party line?

If not, why should we sympathise with journalists as victims of big money that makes corporate or political advertorial of news? Every journalist, from an inconsequential trainee to a mighty editor, has the option to say NO when asked to run marketing errands or to go soft on big advertisers or to toe a political line. Some stay silent to hang on to their jobs. Others join the game to chase ambitions that are not really journalistic.

In most news organisations, extra-editorial control over content is commonplace. Elsewhere, editors became de facto owners and their new identity subsumed much of the old. While TOI, HT or Zee are examples of the first scenario, The Indian Express, Hindu or NDTV represent the second lot. Understandably, the wall between the editorial and the management is mostly of archaeological interest today.

The owners of the Times group is also blamed for introducing the concept of paid news in India. But glitzy city supplements were up for sale long before Medianet came into being. Each slot had fixed prices and everyone – from department heads to page-makers – was entitled to his or her designated share in the spoils. All the Times group has done is to deny its staff these illegal perks and organise the trade to generate more revenue than the most money-minded journalists could ever make.

Besides, almost every bit of paid news that appears on the Times group’s film-fashion-lifestyle sections is also carried by other newspapers on similar pages. Unlike the Times group, others seldom, if ever, mark these pages as advertorial. So is the Times group pulling off a marketing coup by charging clients for items that others carry for bona fide news (or entertainment) value? Or do other organisations or their staff also levy a fee, quietly, for creating space for such items while cribbing about the Times group’s brazenness?

The truth, however, is that more than paid news, what fuels this pyre is the paid silence. There is no worse misinformation than absence of information. It breaks the fundamental promise of journalism. Yet, deeply entrenched corporate interests and a desperate dependence on ad revenue frequently and easily gags our media.

For example, there is very little in the mainstream media on people’s protests against land acquisition. Vedanta, for example, makes more headlines for winning corporate awards than for breaking the laws of the land. No mainstream media risks scrutinising the infrastructure giants such as the DLF or the JP group. Even far lesser companies, who together form a formidable advertising base, remain untouchable. And yet we flog the now-fallen Sharadha group for pandering to the Trinamool Congress.

Much of these compromises are perhaps inevitable. But does it make sense for, say, the cream of our English press to be bullied into silence by, say, high-end builders who must anyway advertise in those publications and channels to reach potential buyers? With all its command over the grassroots that decide elections, should the vernacular press be wary of political intimidation? The megalith of business and politics cannot survive without an outreach system but can it create a credible substitute overnight if the media puts its foot down?

No, and yes. No, if the majority of media houses together defend a few core positions. But since most of them have voluntarily conceded those grounds, a huge media platform that does not fuss about meeting journalistic standards is already in place. That makes the stands of less-compromising media outfits important but almost inconsequential.

An industry can make such broad shifts only when the majority of professionals undergo a similar transformation individually. No media house could have slid to a conveniently compromised position had the majority of its journalists refused to play ball. Since most of them did not, the rest were easily done away with. The result is an advertisement-driven media run by corporate and political PROs posing as journalists.

No doubt a lot of good journalism still happens in India -- both in the mainstream media and in its margins. As the socio-economic churnings intensify across the country, the tradition will only flourish. There is talent and it is easier than ever to become a journalist (get a media job) in India. Unfortunately, it is also getting easier by the day to cease to be a journalist while being on the job. The real danger facing journalism is our readiness to appear more loyal than the (pay)master.

Share lions, forget cheetahs: layers of hurt Gujarati pride

The SC verdict not only robbed the state of its monopoly over Asiatic lions but also scuttled the royal Gujarati dream of importing African cheetahs to India

FirstPost, 21 April, 2013

This is not about Narendra Modi. Well, mostly. There are other Gujaratis worth mention too. One is Dr MK Ranjitsingh, a former secretary of the government of India who drafted the Wildlife (Protection) Act in the early 1970s. Then there is Dr Divyabhanusinh Chavda, former president of WWF-India and renowned wildlife author. And of course, Dr Yadvendradev Jhala, possibly the most published scientist at Dehradun’s Wildlife Institute of India. 

All three are erstwhile royals, love big cats and share a romantic dream: to see the cheetah sprint across Indian grassland again. The dream generated the idea of importing the charismatic spotted cat and releasing it in the Indian wild. It was a fascinating thought and the masses loved it. So did then Environment minister Jairam Ramesh, and it became Project Cheetah by 2010.

The plan, however, made no sense to most experts who voiced their reservations. But the project proponents, backed by Ramesh, went ahead to complete the site selection for this Rs 300-crore indulgence without even bothering to get the proposal cleared by the National Board of Wildlife. The agenda changed almost overnight at Palpur-Kuno sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh. It had been waiting for Gir lions since 1993. Now it was told to dress up all over again to welcome African cheetahs.

AFP.

It was not only MP, the state most Gujaratis now hate for stealing their lions, that was gung-ho about the cheetah project floated by the three Gujarati heavyweights. Chief Minister Narendra Modi promptly sensed the irony of it all and his government announced that Gujarat too would make room for a few exotic cheetahs.

The plan lost some steam after Ramesh was transferred from the Environment ministry. Then, the Supreme Court put it on hold last year, asking the government to give priority to “our own species”. Yet, arrogance remained the hallmark of this project.

This winter, I spent a couple of days in Dehradun’s Wildlife Institute of India where students and teachers of ecology from across the country congregated for a conference. At one of the unwinding sessions late in the evening, I met a former WII student who was working for the cheetah project. He began by quizzing me on my assessment of the project’s viability and I expressed myself rather frankly. Unable to convert me over the next half hour, he eventually started wagging his finger: “Dr Jhala is confident and it (the project) will go on. Once the first lot of cheetahs is released, I’ll remind you of all that you just said. I’ll quote you everywhere.”

I regret I may never hear from him again. And for good reason. The SC threw away the cheetah project because it was both illegal and immoral. After Iran refused to part with any of its few surviving Asiatic cheetahs, the plan shifted to flying in African animals. But the IUCN prohibits introduction of alien species. The singular focus on tigers and the resource crunch at the Environment ministry results in an annual allocation of just Rs 800 crore to save 15 key non-tiger species and around 650 protected forests. Had it rolled, Project Cheetah would have cost at least Rs 300 crore.

Splurging on introducing an alien species is outright vulgar when there is no money to help indigenous species — the wild buffalo, great Indian bustard, Jerdon’s courser, gharial, hangul, Nilgiri tahr, river dolphin, dugong and numerous amphibians — fight imminent extinction. Those who backed the cheetah project, claiming it would help save the animal’s grassland habitat, watch the same grasslands disappear along with its prime resident and the country’s stateliest bird species, the great Indian bustard.

Besides, cheetahs would have fuelled conflict as the smaller cat prey on smaller livestock found close to villages. The docile cats would have been be easy meat too for poachers and vulnerable to even packs of village dogs. Introduced cheetahs, by the project’s own admission, would also prey on the great Indian bustard and reduce the chance of any species recovery.

But what makes shifting a few lions from Gir to Kuno a better idea?

First, these are our own (Asiatic) lions and creating a new population will guard the species against summary extinction should an epidemic or natural calamity strike at Gir. Unlike cheetahs, lions will not be easily undermined by the two big cats found in Kuno: they will not be mind leopards and stand a better chance against tigers. Lions can prey on larger animals and are likely to feed on Kuno’s large stock of feral cattle rather than raid villages. Of course, setting up a new population involves many uncertainties but the lion project is worth the risk because the future of an endangered species depends on its success.

Yet, pride stumbled the lion project. It has waited since 1993 because Gujarat hung on to its asmita and monopoly of lion tourism revenue. The delay probably frustrated Dr Ravi Chellam, India’s foremost lion expert who earned the SC’s gratitude for assisting it throughout the case, so much that he eventually left the Gir prides to work with other cats and, eventually, lowly reptiles. Coincidentally, the day the SC pronounced its judgment and named Dr Chellam a member of the expert panel in charge of the lion relocation, he was at Gir with a foreign delegation. A violent agitation at Sasan forced him to leave.

Let’s hope that Dr Jhala, also named by the SC to the same expert panel, will face less resistance from fellow Gujaratis while packing off a few Gir animals. In any case, more than expressions of hurt Gujarati pride, what is likely to delay the lion project is the lack of preparedness in Kuno. If lions are rushed without setting the stage and pay the price, the project may never get a second chance. See, it is not about Modi.

Science Trumps Politics

Lions may or may not thrive in Kuno, but it is their only chance for a secure future

Tehelka, 19 April, 2013

One summer evening seven years ago at Kanha in Madhya Pradesh, an elderly naturalist signalled the end of a long discussion on the usual malaises plaguing conservation with a rhetorical “will-things-ever-change” flourish. Pat came the reply from a deadpan officer: “When lions come to Kuno.” Most of us were in splits.

Even by Indian standards, the Lion Reintroduction Project (LRP) dragged on for so long that even the brass in the Ministry of Environment and Forests gave up on it. It was far back in 1990 that the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) sought to create a second wild population of Asiatic lions to safeguard the species against potential calamities in Gujarat’s Gir National Park. A comparative analysis of potential sites was done in 1993 and Palpur-Kuno sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh was found to be the most suitable for lions.

But the plan to shift two small prides, starting with two males and three females, from Gir never took off. In 2007, Project Tiger and the Central Zoo Authority, resigned to the fate that the Narendra Modi government would never spare a single Gir lion, floated an alternative plan to take zoo animals with pure Asiatic strains to Kuno for “wilding” them over three generations.

Around the same time, a Delhi-based NGO challenged the Gujarat government’s stand at the Supreme Court. After seven long years, the apex court passed a landmark judgment this week, setting a six-month deadline for shifting the first batch of lions. It also scrapped the plan to import African cheetahs as “illegal and arbitrary”.

The judgment is historic not because it ensures a secure future for the Asiatic lions. In the past, similar attempts have failed miserably. In the beginning of the last century, the Gwalior royalty imported African lions and reared them in brick enclosures in the jungles of Sheopur near Kuno. Once released, the animals targeted cattle and people alike and had to be put down.

Then in 1957, three Asiatic lions were introduced in the Chandraprabha sanctuary near Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. Subsequently, at least six cubs were born in this pride. But by late 1960s, the Chandraprabha lions were wiped out due to hunting and retaliatory killing by local villagers.

Of course, the Kuno authorities can deter the poachers, who anyway are not too keen on lions, with better surveillance. They may incentivise and sensitise the local communities to lower the potential for conflict. But there is no guessing how the translocated lions will behave. They may settle down to focus on the abundant prey available in the sanctuary. They may walk out of the core area and target village livestock and villagers.

Despite these odds at Kuno, the Gir lions are no safer at home. Tanzania’s Serengeti lost 30 percent of its lion population to canine distemper that infected nearly 80 percent of the population in the mid-1990s. In much smaller Gir, where the Asiatic prides are jostling for space, such an epidemic can wipe out the species. Anyway, spillover animals from Gir are wandering far and wide, fuelling man-animal conflict, which is not good news in a state where lions have thrived on exceptional goodwill so far.

Be it at Kuno in Madhya Pradesh or Barda (Porbandar) in Gujarat, the process of building a second or a third wild stock will always be fraught with uncertainties. But it is still the only option for any long-term viability of the Asiatic lion. Gujarat’s refusal to send a few animals to Madhya Pradesh in the name of Gujarati asmita (pride) or maintaining the exclusivity of the Gir population has been criminally myopic. The Supreme Court judgment is historic because it uphold science over political and parochial brinkmanship.

The six-month deadline, however, seems too tight as Madhya Pradesh has to strengthen the logistics and infrastructure at Kuno before it can receive lions. Also, the expected focus on lions now at Kuno should not abandon tigers from the sanctuary that lies at the heart of the central Indian tiger landscape. Let the two big cats decide if and how they will share the forests.

Selective outrage: Of, by and for people like us

Why it took an attack on Presidency College to make us stir

DNA, 17 April, 2013

Let me begin with a few necessary disclaimers. A Bengali born and raised in Calcutta, I am not naturally given to anti-intellectualism, or even anti-elitism. I have never claimed that my crassness must enjoy as much social entitlement as somebody else’s refinement. I consider the Presidency College, where I had failed to get admission, a heritage institution worth every bit of fawning. And I have written several pieces considered critical of Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in the last two years.

Now that these facts are out of our way, let me cut to the chase: As long as our outrage remains selective, we will only keep getting outraged. Does not make sense? Let me try again.

On 6 January, 2012, a group of alleged Trinamool Congress student wing members assaulted the principal and some professors inside Raiganj government college campus in Bengal’s Uttar Dinajpur district. The assailants, who carried Trinamool flags, pushed the principal down the stairs and ransacked his office. Later, his colleagues took out a procession to condemn the attack.

The same month, the principal of Rampurhat College in Bengal’s Birbhum district had to be hospitalised when he fainted after members of Trinamool and Congress student unions gheraoed him for several hours. While the Trinamool leadership suggested that the principal “fake-fainted”, Banerjee’s cabinet colleague Firhad Hakim went on record to advise college principals to behave because “respect cannot be demanded but earned”.

A few weeks on, the principal of Majdia College in Bengal’s Nadia district was manhandled by members of Student Federation of India. On 23 September, 2012, the principal of government-run Jhargram Raj College in Bengal’s Paschim Medinipur district was beaten up by students who allegedly belonged to the student wing of the Trinamool Congress. He ended up in hospital with serious eye injuries.

On face value, each of these incidents is far more damaging than the attack on Presidency College that left a few broken glass panes and fewer injured students. Yet, few, if any, outside Bengal remember these incidents because none of these made front page headlines in the national media and no national channel beamed live the teachers’ march from Raiganj.

Were these district colleges too remote for the national press? What was the media’s excuse when two Trinamool councillors led a violent mob into Jadavpur Vidyapith -- a south Calcutta school next door to the university by the same name where Professor Malabika Sarkar, vice-chancellor of Presidency College, taught Paradise Lost until recently – and beat up the headmaster following a dispute over admissions?

Evidently, none of these institutes compare with Presidency College — one of the few surviving symbols of Bengal’s intellectual pride — in history and eminence. Those broken glass panes belonged to the historic Baker laboratory where Bengali scientists broke new ground more than five decades ago.

The fact that the national media is generously represented by Bengali editors also helped the outburst of national outrage. After all, could an alumnus of one of those district colleges hog the TV cameras during the silent march and ask chief minister Banerjee how dare outsiders barge into a college where they would not qualify for a chowkidar’s job?

Not that the attack on Presidency College was unprecedented. After all, among the grey-headed CPM protesters who denounced the Trinamool vandals were those who led a similar invasion at the same hallowed venue in 1966 at the height of the Naxalite movement. The Leftist “activists” led by Biman Bose, now chairman of the Left Front, set fire to the chemistry laboratory and vandalized university property.

It is nobody’s case to undermine or ridicule the strong sentiments the latest attack on one of Calcutta’s most eminent institutions generated. Every bit of condemnation, however rhetorical, is justified. But should the identity of the victim (or the venue) and not the nature of assault determine the degree of our outrage?

Granted, that something so brazen could happen at Presidency College reflects the extent of lawlessness in lesser institutes, particularly outside Calcutta. Also, belated outrage in the national media at the growing violence in Bengal’s student politics is better than no outrage at all. If only it could as proficiently hide our real concerns.

Remember the brutal Delhi bus gangrape that outraged the nation like probably nothing else in recent years? The on-camera protests that followed in Delhi and many other cities and towns underlined the insecurity of mostly the urban middle class.

Forget lakhs of women raped and assaulted across the hinterland, did we ever bother about the underclass in our big, bad cities? The domestic helps who routinely turn up battered; the vegetable vendors who are forced to pay hafta in ways only women can; or the homeless who are picked up in the night by cops and ruffians alike?

No, it took a middle class victim in a middle class situation at a middle class hour to shake us up. We were outraged because we realised it could happen to us also.

Our reaction to the Presidency College incident is no different. We were outraged that such anarchy could touch the college where our boys and girls study. Our shock would not be any less if, say, St Xaviers College, another prominent upper middle class Calcutta institute, was similarly targeted.

But just like our callousness to invisible and unreported rapes outside our class cocoons creates a culture of rape that eventually emboldens criminals to break class barriers, ignoring lawlessness in distant district colleges where our children would never study only invites the menace closer home and eventually to the institute we consider our very best. The more indifferent we are to violations that do not directly affect us, the more frequently the criminals hit us where it hurts.

It may be too late by the time it all begins to make sense.

It’s not enough for parties to just break bread with Dalits

Six decades after the Constitution abolished untouchability, politicians can’t hope to woo Dalits by calling on them for supper. The poor and landless demand their due.

FirstPost, 14 April, 2013

The Delhi unit of the BJP sent out a routine SMS yesterday to a number of journalists in the city, requesting coverage of the party’s celebration of Ambedkar Jayanti. The city state will go to the polls in six months and wooing Dalits makes perfect political sense in an election year.

In Gujarat, for example, the party is observing Ambedkar Jayanti as Samrashtra Divas (Equality Day) and has launched its campaign for by-elections in four parliamentary and two assembly seats in the state. Likewise in Bihar, it is celebrating the occasion over three days with a series of programmes during 13-15 April to impress the 18% strong Dalit vote bank in an early build-up to the Assembly polls.

So, it was not surprising that Delhi BJP chief Vijay Goel held a press conference last Wednesday and slammed Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit for neglecting Dalits. Nobody raised an eyebrow when he made customary promises of providing Dalits with low-cost flats and gas connections, if voted to power. An Ambedkar Jayanti gala in attendance of national leaders such as Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Anant Kumar and Ravi Shankar Prasad this afternoon is an obvious part of that campaign routine.

But what gave away the party’s upper caste snobbery was the language of its SMS media invite: “…BJP national leaders will celebrate Ambedkar Jayanti and have a meal with 10,000 Dalits…” Really? What is it about people “having a meal with” other people? If lunch or dinner is part of a celebration, normally, those who attend eat together. But when top BJP leaders bring themselves to “have a meal” with Dalits, they apparently think it is news worth covering.

Evidently, the BJP leadership believes that such insults actually please Dalits, that such a patronising gesture will politically benefit the party in, of all places, the country’s capital. This brazen insensitivity only proves that untouchability, more than six decades after the Constitution abolished it, is still very much a reality both in practice and inside our heads.

Otherwise, when outlandish poll promises and pre-poll incentives suffice for every other voter, why politicians should consider sitting down to eat with Dalits essential for impressing the community? But mind you, the BJP, and its dominantly upper caste leadership, is not the only party guilty of this anachronistic stereotyping.

The Congress enjoyed an almost undivided loyalty of the Dalit vote bank till the Mayawatis, Paswans and Nitish Kumars breached that fortress. When Rahul Gandhi embarked on a high-profile campaign to regain the party base in Uttar Pradesh, the mainstay of his strategy was to win Dalits back. How? By demanding or accepting food from Dalits and spending nights at their hutments.

At different rallies in UP, the junior Gandhi promised he would continue to visit the poor and enquire about their wellbeing while cribbing about how leaders from other parties travelled in helicopters, AC vehicles and avoided visiting Dalit homes, sharing food or drinking water. Not to be left out, Goel echoed the same symbolism by announcing that he would visit Dalit colonies ON FOOT (emphasis mine) to know their problems.

Would Dalits even bother how and where the politicians travelled, supped or slept if they themselves had better roads, enough to eat and roofs to sleep under? Unfortunately, nearly seven decades after Independence, these basics still remain aspirations for most in the community.

So while the BJP leadership seeks to score brownie points by talking down to Dalits and the Congress hopes to turn the tide in Bihar by appointing a mahadalit (the poorest Dalit communities) as the state party chief, thousands of landless Dalits are marching towards Delhi.

Demanding equitable distribution of land, they have mobilised under the National Alliance for Dalit Land Rights and Ekta Parishad. The trigger for the nationwide movement is the expiry of the six month deadline set for implementing the 10-point agreement reached between the Ekta Parishad’s Jan Satyagraha (a collective of around 2000 outfits) and Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh last October.

In the agreement, the government committed itself to come up with a National Land Reform Policy to legally identify land for the landless poor and ensure equitable distribution. According to National Sample Survey data, four out of every five SCs are either landless or own less than an acre. In Punjab, for example, Dalits constitute one-third of the rural population but only 2.3 per cent of them own any land.

Of course, Dalits themselves are also responsible for their lot. In very few pockets, they have emerged as an informed and decisive political force and their electoral choices are often criticised as opportunistic. At the same time, Dalits in positions of political power – MLAs, MPs, chief ministers or union ministers -- have not triggered any significant socio-economic growth at the community level.

Hopefully, the wheel will begin to turn at last. Tired of symbolisms, including those statues and parks, the fast snowballing Dalit movement of the landless is sending out a clear message to the political establishment. With a series of elections lined up till the end of 2014, no party eyeing Dalit votes can ignore the issue of land rights.

On the roads of Delhi this weekend, the new slogan of the landless may have already signalled the beginning of the end of socio-political stereotyping of Dalits. “Give land, take vote; No land, no vote.” I wish they had also chanted their refusal to “have meals” with politicians.

When The State Squats Inside A National Park

Seven years after an SC ban, a PSU holds on to closed mining sites inside Kudremukh

Tehelka, 11 April, 2013

2002: Bhadra river at the peak of mining in 2002

On paper, it is an open-and-shut case. Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd (KIOCL), a public sector undertaking (PSU), mined the rainforests of Kudremukh in Karnataka till 2005 when a ban on mining operations imposed by the Supreme Court came into effect. The company was ordered to remove its infrastructure and return the leased areas to the State for ecological restoration.

More than seven years later, KIOCL still holds on to 1,452 hectares and diverts water from deep inside the national park to its Mangalore plant. What’s more, the company now proposes to invest Rs 805 crore in this land to “develop an eco-town” with an 18-hole golf course, a helipad and facilities for adventure and water sports.

2010:  Recovery in 5  years since mining stopped in 2005

The story goes back to 1999 when KIOCL’s 25-year lease to mine a 4,605 hectare area in Kudremukh expired. The lease was not renewed, but the apex court allowed it to continue mining only in the already broken-up area of 1,452 hectares till 2005. Subsequently, the apex court rejected KIOCL’s review application and curative petition in November and December 2005, respectively.

The company exhausted its legal options in December 2006 when the Supreme Court categorically rejected its plea to continue mining under the pretext of stabilisation of slopes and directed the state to take possession of the mines and implement the mine closure plan with “no or minimal disturbance to the unbroken area”.

But KIOCL continues to occupy the land with its infrastructure intact. In fact, on 4 December 2009, Minister of State for Steel A Sai Prathap informed the Rajya Sabha that KIOCL was “incurring an expenditure of around Rs 60 crore per annum on Kudremukh site towards salary and other amenities of employees posted at Kudremukh, security of plant and machinery and for maintenance of plant and equipment at Kudremukh”.

If such expenditure of public money at a site where mining has long been banned for good appears inexplicable, the minister clarified that the government did not consider Kudremukh a closed chapter. In the same statement, he said, “Restarting of Kudremukh mining activities cannot be undertaken without specific clearance from the Hon’ble Supreme Court, hence no specific time frame can be fixed for reopening of the mine.”

Of the 4,605 hectares leased to KIOCL, 3,152 hectares are forestland and the rest belongs to the Revenue Department. Subsequently, the company illegally occupied another 550 hectares of forestland. In January 2007, Karnataka notified this 37 sq km of forestland as part of Kudremukh National Park.

Seven months on, the revenue secretary issued a note, stating that the state government, in principle, agreed to KIOCL’s request to change the purpose from mining to eco-tourism for utilising the revenue land leased to the company. He also offered to take up the eco-tourism project as a joint venture between the state and KIOCL and improve the infrastructure at, and the connectivity to, the project site.

The project did not take off immediately because KIOCL still expected to resume mining one way or the other. In August 2010, secretary to the Union steel ministry told the media at a KIOCL press meet that the government was planning to file a curative petition in the Supreme Court seeking to remove 24 million tonnes of iron ore from Kudremukh so that the monsoon run-off did not pollute the Bhadra river. Photographs of the river, taken in 2002 and 2010, show that it has recovered from the devastating impact of mining that had turned it red.

It is unclear if the law ministry discouraged the move because a curative petition had already been dismissed in 2005 and the apex court’s December 2006 judgment “noted that at various times, petitions have been filed practically with a view to undo what had been definitely held to be imperative by this court”, but the steel ministry shelved its plans.

However, the state government failed to evict KIOCL even after the then environment minister Jairam Ramesh wrote to chief minister BS Yeddyurappa in February 2011 to ensure removal of the company’s machinery and infrastructure from the terminated lease area.

With mining no more a likely option, KIOCL revived its Plan B to monetise the land. Celebrating the company’s 38th Foundation Day on 2 April, chairman and managing director Malay Chatterjee told the media about KIOCL’s plan to utilise the infrastructure created at Kudremukh in developing an eco-town. “It is necessary that the land lease be renewed for 99 years at the earliest in favour of KIOCL. We have prepared the detailed project report and got the in-principle nod from the Karnataka government. Investment of Rs 805 crore will be made in phases,” he told PTI.

The December 2006 Supreme Court order, however, had already dismissed KIOCL’s plea of conducting eco-tourism inside Kudremukh. The company’s lease expired in 1999 and, contrary to Chatterjee’s claim, cannot be renewed. Anyway, renewing the lease or issuing a fresh one for a luxury township inside the national park will violate the regulations of Ecologically Sensitive Zone laid down by the apex court.

“Due to massive devastation caused by mining over 30 years, the Kudremukh area now needs complete rest and urgent ecological restoration. This is also in the larger interest of securing river water for lakhs of farmers. It must not be subjected to any further pressure under the pretext of luxury eco-tourism and other commercial activities that violate the law and the orders of the Supreme Court,” says Praveen Bharghav of Wildlife First, the Bengaluru NGO that petitioned the Supreme Court, leading to the landmark October 2002 judgment and closure of mining in 2005.

While Dismissing the eco-city plan as legally untenable, Ullas Karanth, director, Centre for Wildlife Studies, points out the company’s dodgy track record: “Ten years ago, the Comptroller and Auditor General (and the Public Accounts Committee of the state Assembly) concluded that KIOCL caused environmental damage amounting to 139.15 crore. It is yet to pay up the fine. The company continues to illegally take water from Lakya dam (built to store iron ore tailing) to its Mangalore plant. These are not the standards a PSU sets for the industry.”

The CAG in its 2003 audit report noted that KIOCL had illegally opened up 56.28 hectares of Kudremukh National Park after expiry of the lease between 1999 and March 2002. The company also illegally raised the height of Lakya dam, submerging 340 hectares of forestland outside the lease area. While the requirement for its Mangalore plant can be met locally by treating the town’s wastewater, KIOCL illegally diverts water from a national park through a pipeline.

While nature is bouncing back even in the heavily mined areas of Kudremukh, the presence of the Lakya dam that had developed cracks in the past remains a worry.

“Illegal diversion of water must stop. All constructions, except a range office and maybe a research station, should be demolished from that pocket of revenue land. As long as KIOCL sits there, all sorts of interests — from commando schools to temple trusts — will eye that prime land,” warns Karanth.

Bharghav is emphatic: “Rejecting KIOCL’s tourism proposal is not enough. The state must also evict the company from its illegal possession of the 1,452 hectares of the lapsed mining lease area as failure to do so amounts to gross contempt of the Supreme Court order.”

A beehive India is clearly not and Mother India she should not be

While Modi’s Mother India metaphor explains much of what is wrong with the country, India is not and should never become Rahul’s beehive.

FirstPost, 8 April, 2013

It is astonishing, wondered George Eliot, what different results one gets by changing the metaphor. More astonishing is what those results tell us about ourselves. Last week, Rahul Gandhi talked of India as a beehive bristling with enterprise. Promptly, Narendra Modi shot back that the metaphor insulted the idea of Mother India.

The Gujarat chief minister won instant approval from his followers, more so because madhumakkhi ka chattais apparently a colloquial reference to trouble mongering. Politicians have the liberty of twisting perceptions to suit their purpose. But the buzzing analogy and the street-smart spin it inspired — however off the cuff they may seem — also reveal a lot about how we perceive our entitlements and duties as Indians.

Agencies.

Mother India, as the popular perception goes, is an avatar of Mother Nature. Much like the quintessential Indian (or any) mother, she must provide unquestioningly for her billion-plus children. The prototype is common enough in Indian narratives, including those of Bollywood, where the mother will go to any extent – from routinely skipping meals at the very least to sacrificing herself to prostitution and worse – to nurture her children.

But while her needs are negotiable, her dignity is not. It must be restored in the end with the children paying back their debt to her and avenging every insult. Indeed, they must prove worthy children. That is the idea of Mother India our patriots, poets and politicians love to invoke.

In reality, things rarely come full circle. We take Mother India for granted. We mindlessly dam and drain the water from her rivers and aquifers without even considering the possibility of her ever running dry. We douse her fields with chemical pesticides assuming that the land will absorb all the poison and still yield as much. We greedily destroy her forests and still demand that her skies keep raining as much. We litter and pollute every nook and corner of the country in a way no filmi villain ever defiled any mother.

While Mother India suffers her worst fate every day at home, we are ever prompt to give call to arms to avenge insults and injuries – more imaginary and perceived than real – heaped on her by outsiders (read neighbours). That is the idea of citizenship – the liberty to wantonly plunder the nation’s resources and resort to irresponsible jingoism – the metaphor of Mother India seems to inspire in most of us.

The beehive, dripping with honey as it is, is not half as mushy. Of course, the idea of a queen bee is so central to the concept of a beehive that it has fired the imagination of many Sonia detractors. To them, the beehive metaphor implies that every Indian must serve a certain queen bee. But whether or not the junior Gandhi made that case, the life of a queen bee in a beehive is far from enviable.

Instead of enjoying any so-called regal dynastic power, the queen bee’s sole purpose in a hive is to mother bees. In fact, her very life depends on it. The day she trips, she is smothered to death by the other bees and replaced by a new queen (just another working bee on a diet of superior honey called royal jelly). Clearly, the working bees do not live in a tyranny of Regina. Besides, there is a shelf life to this office of power.

But, of course, the new Congress vice-president was comparing the country to the hive itself. That demands the unquestioning lifelong service of every bee, ergo Indian. The singularity of purpose — as opposed to the confusion and complexity Rahul sought to convey — is rather intimidating.

The queen must lay eggs to live. The workers must tend to the eggs, fetch honey and defend the hive at the cost of their lives (each bee can sting just once because it kills the bee). The drones must die mating with the queen or be expelled from the hive to die at the end of every mating season. This precise and unforgiving arrangement is reminiscent of a totalitarian system which India evidently is not.

Yet, a beehive is also far more democratic than India may ever be. Every time a hive gets overcrowded, a bunch of worker bees leave it with a queen to set up a new home. Scout bees fly out individually to look for good sites. Each reports its findings by performing a waggle dance. The better the quality of a site, the longer is the dance. Then all of them visit the best rated options and vote with another bout of dance. Once the majority of scout bees back a particular site, the rest, including the queen, accept that consensus.

It is unlikely that Gandhi was referring to that highest form of democracy, though there was quite an attempt at waggling in the Youth Congress. In fact, as Manish Tewari eagerly explained, the heir-very-apparent was talking about the “energy, diligence, cohesion, focus and unity of purpose” exhibited in a beehive. But it still makes for a lazy metaphor, for India is not an equal society. No worker bee is ever denied its equal share of honey. Otherwise, who knows, they might well object to the exclusive royal jelly diet of the designated queen.

While Modi’s emotive metaphor of Mother India is what the country should strive to grow out of, Gandhi’s beehive it is clearly not and may not aspire to become. Even in an ideal democracy, can we demand that every citizen must conform to a single idea of productivity (and much else) to qualify for her equal share of fortune and justice? What keeps India going is her generous appetite for dissent. It is also her best bet against superfluous analogies and the ones who draw those.

A Bitter IPL In Maharashtra

The call for shifting matches is as bizarre as the state's water distribution practice

Tehelka, 5 April, 2013

HOW MUCH sugarcane can grow on Wankhede Stadium? About 100 tonnes, which is 0.0001 percent of Maharashtra’s 80 million tonne harvest. How many Sahara Stadiums can come up in the state’s sugarcane fields? Three lakhs, at least. But these are rhetorical questions. On a serious note, senior BJP leader Vinod Tawde has written to Indian Premier League (IPL) Chairman Rajeev Shukla that wasting 4.32 million litres of water at Mumbai’s Wankhede and Pune’s Sahara stadia for the IPL extravaganza would be a shame in a drought-affected Maharashtra. Shukla hit back explaining that the grounds would have to be watered anyway, match or no match.

The IPL chief could have pointed out to Tawde that the 4.32 million litres in question would have served the minimum daily water requirement of merely 593 people during the 54-day tournament. Both Mumbai and Pune are part of urban India where per capita requirement of water is defined as 135 litres a day.

He could have also pointed out that the average upmarket Mumbai restaurants would be able to serve just about 800 diners daily if rationed 4.32 million litres for the length of the IPL season. Forget the collective demand of the numerous popular shrines in the state, just the Ashta Vinayak temples around Pune use up many times the volume the Sahara stadium will sprinkle.

But Shukla could not have invoked such comparisons without referring to the mother of all water figures. According to the Central Water Commission, irrigation accounts for 85 percent of India’s water consumption. In 2009-10, around 16 percent of the irrigated cropland in Maharashtra grew sugarcane but consumed 76 percent of the total irrigation water.

Conventionally, at least 1,000 litres of water is used to crush every tonne of sugarcane. Maharashtra’s 170-odd sugar mills consume an estimated 75,000 million litres of water and discharge at least half the quantity as waste water every season. Majority of these sugarcane fields and mills are owned by political bigwigs. As the IPL chairman, Shukla reports to the most prominent of them who happen to run the game of cricket.

Shukla’s predicament is as symbolic as the demand to shift IPL games in the name of water austerity is. Observing a dry Holi or promoting drip irrigation are solemn steps alright, but can never offset the criminal diversion of water for sugarcane and sugar mills.

OTHER TURF WARS

In March 2010, an adult tiger got into a fight with people and killed two of them in upper Assam’s Sivasagar district. It was rescued by a team of the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and treated at its rehabilitation centre in Kaziranga. Subsequently, the big cat was fitted with a radio collar and released in Manas national park.

After 1,095 days of its release, the tiger was recently captured by a camera-trap. Its radio collar has long fallen off but the evidence came as a relief to many who were worried if the big cat would survive and settle down in its new home.

“With less than 2,000 tigers in the country, we cannot afford to be losing individuals to captivity unnecessarily. But we cannot also afford to risk human lives by hastily releasing a ‘potential-trouble’ individual. It’s a predicament that requires careful consideration of possibilities, based on clear understanding of the animal’s behaviour,” says Vivek Menon, executive director of WTI, recalling the bold decision.

This success, the NGO claims, is proof that conflict-affected animals can be rehabilitated successfully with meticulous planning and scientific monitoring. Yet, the cost of this success is somewhat unclear.

The release site, identified as Greater Manas region, is a tiger forest and male tigers are fiercely territorial. There is no evidence to suggest that the collared tiger was not released in another male tiger’s territory. In that case, the introduced male could not have survived without vanquishing the resident male. Should we still be happy that usually the stronger male survives?