Saba Naqvi, Outlook Magazine, May 27, 2013

Courtesy: 
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?285466

On April 30, 2013, the Union ministry of home froze the bank account of a coalition known as INSAF (Indian Social Action Forum) and suspended its registration under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act or FCRA. INSAF is a network of 700 NGOs, people’s movements against acquisition of lands and forests and other resistances from Koodankulam to Kashmir. It has been a sort of facilitator, a clearing house for donations and support to various struggles. The home ministry believes its actions to “be prejudicial to public interest”.

On May 13, less than two weeks after the attempt to stifle INSAF, news agency Reuters filed this report: “Foreign institutional investors’ (FIIs) ownership of the BSE Sensex stocks touched its highest in eight years as of the January-March quarter, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a research report. During the Jan-March quarter, FIIs were net buyers of Indian equities, while domestic mutual fund companies and state-owned insurer lic were sellers, it said. According to regulatory data, FIIs have been net buyers for 15 consecutive sessions, bringing their total investment for the year to $12.70 billion.”

The contrast is quite remarkable. We celeb­rate those who come to set up business, invest in the stock market, mine our natural resources, build nuclear plants and run them. These investors in smart suits and sharp shoes are to be feted and waited upon. They are the good people with the big bucks who fit into the idea of India as an economic powerhouse, the winners in this game of globalisation.

Then there are the wretched of the earth who stand in the way of this wonderful progress. These little people inconvenience the big plans, be it the POSCO project in Orissa, SEZs across the country or the nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu. There seems to be no ambiguity on the issue for those who run the country, frame its laws and implement them: those who resist are a danger to public order.

Given the recent action on INSAF, one can only presume this is the Orwellian standard that will now be applied in a future India. Without getting into the complexity of FCRA, there is something seriously wrong with the spirit of the law. Basically, it can be countered not by legalese but by a very simple argument: if a government can get billions of dollars worth of foreign investment for a specific project that is cleared on paper, why can’t a meagre amount of foreign funds reach activists who wish to help those who actually live on the land where these projects are planned? And we are talking small change here, a few thousands to a few lakhs compared to the billions on the other side.

How did we end up creating a world where those who make the blueprints are celebrated while those who sweat it out with people are seen as dangerous?

The attempt to crack down on INSAF has been made possible because of the amendments to FCRA in 2010. Rule 3 of the law now says that the activity of any organisation that “employs common methods like bandh or hartal, rasta roko or jail bharo” will be deemed political in nature although it is not a political party. The government, of course, has the right to define such organisations.

The point here is not to argue against a scrutiny of funds that come for political activity. The rules, in fact, began to be tightened in 1984 when several Sikh organisations using violent methods were getting funds from abroad. The VHP likewise raises money outside India for activities that are certainly political. But how can legitimate struggles against specific policies, the leitmotif of a healthy democracy, be seen in the same light as advocacy of separatism, violence or communal hatred? The UN Human Rights Cou­ncil resolution adopted on March 21 this year actually called upon states to ensure that “restrictions are not discriminatorily imposed on potential sources of funding aimed at supporting the work of human rights defenders”.

And if we are so suspicious of foreign funds coming for those who influence public opinion, why leave out the media? According to a FICCI report, FDI inflows to the information & broadcasting sector, including the print media, was $2.17 billion in India in Apr 2010-Mar 2011. The same report says that “India has one of the most liberal investment regimes and the media and entertainment industry has significantly benefited from this.” But we see no grand conspiracy about the “foreign hand” if the news channel we watch or the newspaper we read is partly owned by foreign groups when in fact there is evidence that the media now accepts certain agendas unquestioningly.

The INSAF story is at its core an action against the idea of legitimate protest on which this country was built. In an age of corruption at every level, it’s an obvious attempt to intimidate those who challenge certain notions of “progress” and care about things other than profit margins.

Focus on the Global South

 

The damages are totted up based on a standardized formula, with a set amount for causing increased temperatures, evapotranspiration, reduced rainfall, reduced soil infiltration, soil erosion and loss of soil nutrients, as well as a catch-all for destruction to the particular forest type. The model is currently being adjusted by the authorities to include damages for “reduction in carbon sequestration”.

Some of these calculations appear preposterous, the damage for increased temperatures is calculated on the basis of the cost of electricity to run a hypothetical giant air-conditioning unit to reduce the temperature over 1 rai of land down to the “pre-destruction” tree tops temperature norm. The heat during the day at tree peaks has been measured in 16 research stations throughout the country over the last three years, and these are used as a proxy forest temperature “norm” in the relevant area.

However the most troubling aspect of these notorious cases, is that the 34 people in question are small-scale farmers, who claim that they are simply farming on their own land, and that their tenure rights have been unjustly denied. Now they are barred from returning to use their land, mostly their sole means of livelihood, and required to pay sums of around $12,000 average – the equivalent of adding up a 300 baht minimum wage every day for around three and a half years.

The “global warming” forest prosecutions in Thailand appear to be an extreme case of pointing the blame for global problems at the wrong people.

One of the roots of the problem is that when the Parks were declared, there was no participatory process. Today over 10 million hectares are labelled conservation forest. But RFD figures issued in 1998, showed that around half a million farming households were already settled and farming in those areas. The networks of forest communities had to mobilise strenuously to open channels of negotiation with the State and insist on their prior rights. Most were never given the chance to exempt their existing fields from the conservation zone. Decades later, there is still no resolution to the ensuing conflict.

Indeed, the arrests of people in forest communities appears to be increasing. NGOs working in the Northern region, estimate that there are on average around 20 arrests per day of villagers accused of encroachment in the protected areas.
In many cases, villagers farming in the “conservation” forest practice forms of agro-forestry. In the Bantad Ridge Mountains, for example, small-scale farmers, were arrested when they felled their 30 year old rubber trees for replanting. Felling is a normal agricultural practice – once the trees no longer produce latex, the farmers can generate an income from the sale of the wood, providing funds for reinvestment in a new crop of trees that will take 7 years to mature before they are ready to be tapped for the first time.

Looking at the maps or aerial photographs of the area from an office far away, perhaps it is not surprising if the boundary lines of the Park were drawn to include this area. The villagers follow a traditional method of farming known as a suan som rom. Under this system, the rubber trees are scattered in amongst various other species (typically including fruit and nut trees such as durian, mangosteen, sator, and betelnut, and vegetables like edible tea leaves and galangal). While they tap less latex than those who farm the uniform monocultures promoted by the State, their plots provide food, an alternative stream of income and sustain a biodiverse ecosystem.

In another country, this kind of environmentally friendly agroforestry might be vigorously encouraged. However, in Thailand the Forest Departments are now proceeding to saw down the young rubber trees and coconut trees that were replanted in the disputed fields. They do this with chainsaws and pour poison over the stumps to stop them from sprouting again, in the name of forest conservation.

It’s not as if deforestation is a major contributor to climate change in Thailand at all. In fact, the second national report to the UNFCCC shows that since the year 2000, the land use change and forestry sector are a net carbon sink. On the other hand the energy sector contributes the overwhelming majority (70%) of Thailand’s greenhouse gas emissions, around two thirds of energy use is attributed to industry and freight transport.

Thailand is not the only country to criminalise large numbers of its small-scale forest dwellers, similar charges of “encroachment on protected areas” have been well recorded in Indonesia and other parts of the world. Although Thailand might be alone in its identification of low-income, environmentally-conscious farmers as its very first climate-related criminals.

Meanwhile the major loggers, large-scale commercial plantation owners, or emitters in the industrial sectors and other parts of the country are barely brought to account for their carbon emissions or environmental destruction, let alone made to pay harsh penalties.

 

http://www.focusweb.org/content/littlest-
“climate-criminals”