Farmers send out a message to industry

It is the biggest chink in the armour of Vibrant Gujarat. Recently, while a BJP legislator, Dr Kanu Kalsariya, led a march of farmers and inched close to Gandhinagar, industry barons and political bigwigs were visibly disturbed.

The tension was palpable. Frantic calls were made to stay abreast of the march’s movements. Some even cancelled their foreign trips to stay back. Such a struggle — people vs industry — doesn’t exactly bode well for a state that has held five successive and successful Vibrant Gujarat Investors’ Summits, eagerly beckoning industry to set up shop in the state. After drawing the who’s who of business and industry to praise Gujarat, the state has pitched itself as a heaven for industries, investors and
entrepreneurs.

Seeing the farmers’ march, most of the barons made the remark: “The issue is not of one industry. If this struggle inspires other people in the state to take on industry, the whole industry-friendly environment will be vitiated.”

So what drove the otherwise industry-friendly farmers of Gujarat to rally against the government and the industry?

Lakhs of farmers in the coastal belt of Mahuva taluka in Bhavanagar have benefited in the last decade from the bunds built by the state government to store fresh water and prevent seawater from seeping into the fertile land (locally called ‘bandharo’). Once considered Gujarat’s most-respected industry house, detergent giant Nirma wants to build a cement factory on this land where the reservoir stands. What’s more, they want to mine the limestone that acted as a filter and prevented the seawater from rushing inland.

The Mahuva belt is agriculturally so sound that it has India’s second largest marketing yard for agro products and exports tones of processed and dried onions. Limestone mining and cement industry in such a fertile region will turn it into a barren expanse in no time.

Interestingly, for three years, the state government, which was on an overdrive to attract business, chose to ignore the issue and the people’s demands. No one took Kalsariya, who hails from the ruling BJP, seriously. Even when he took up the struggle and led the farmers, most thought it would fizzle out.

The success of the summits and increasing political popularity of the government seems to have resulted in overconfidence, and perhaps even arrogance, making them and industry insensitive towards the needs of farmers. When the locals protested against the cement plant, they were regularly attacked by goons and cops. The industry thought a little ‘advice’ by powers-that-be would silence him. But it did not.

What the powerful forgot was the simple fact that a people’s mandate to rule them is not the same as a licence to snatch their livelihood and land. If the people vote someone to power, it doesn’t mean they have forfeited their fundamental rights. And industry and the state government have to be more sensitive to the people.

Before setting up industries, environmental public hearings and environmental impact assessments are carried out. But these are often just a formality. They need to be taken seriously. None of the giant industries accommodate the requirements of local communities and environment.

Gujarat’s squeaky record of no-people’s struggle against industries in recent times was marketed as its USP amongst all Indian states. The summits sold Gujarat as a destination where there is industrial peace, zero loss of man-hours due to workers’ strife, extremely good power supply, decent infrastructure and, above all, a government that proactively helps industry. And these claims are correct.

But things changed after the Mahuva padyatra (march). The first such struggle was witnessed in Gujarat over a decade ago for the Umbergaon-Maroli port struggle which provoked a major public movement against the Unocal-Natelco port project. And this is now the second such struggle. Of course there seem to be many on horizon that Kalsariya has promised to take up.

Essentially a Gandhian politician, Kalsariya thundered, “Come what may we will not let this happen…” Industry and the government should have realised the agony of lakhs of people in Mahuva and respected their feelings.

Any other tract of land which did not damage the local economy would have done the trick. The industry-friendly government and the industry ought to listen to the people too. The way to development can’t pass through people’s homes, hearts and livelihoods.