Asinine Politics

Why do the government and the opposition insist on making perfect asses of themselves? That is what the government has done in the case of Priya Pillai and the opposition by raking up a controversy over the sinking of Pakistani boat by coast guard.

Issuing a Look Out Circular (LOC ) against Priya, a Greenpeace activist as if she were some kind of a terrorist or criminal and preventing her from boarding a flight to London is really a nice way of joining the asinine club.

Priya , who has been campaigning against unsustainable coal mining in the Mahaan area of Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh, was to leave for London to talk to some British parliamentarians about the issue (and not to testify before a parliamentary committee as the government of Mera Bharat Mahaan would have us believe). If the government had nothing to hide in this matter why is it pressing panic buttons?.

The matter went to the Delhi High Court where the government oh so generously offered to let Priya go to London provided she gives an undertaking that she wouldn’t be naughty enough to rise the issue of environmental degradation in the Mahaan region. Oh sure, then why should she go to London? To see the queen may be? And she correctly refused to give any such undertaking.

The Mahaan area is home to some rich Sal forests that provide a livelihood to the tribal communities living there. It is also a tiger habitat. Greenpeace India and other green groups have been campaigning against the unsustainable maining that could irreparably damage the ecosystems of the area and deprive the local communities of their sustenance.

The matter is already before courts and various governmental authorities. There is a need to awaken the conscience of the world towards environment-unfriendly exploitation of non-renewable natural resources and threats to habitats of endangered species. So an attempt in this direction is neither an anti-national or terrorist act that needs the issuance of LOC.

And it is also a pointless act. After all we are living in the age of Intenet and global telecom revolution that has shrunk the world. Nothing prevents Priya Pillai from testifying before any international committee or talking to anyone abroad through teleconferencing. or through simply using her mobile. So how does LOC help except to make the government look like the fool it is?

Granted the BJP has come to power on a plank of development. But development has to be environment friendly and for people. People cannot be fodder for the wheels of the development juggernaut that rolls forward for the benefit of handful of rich and powerful..

Actually development in Modi’s home state Gujarat has ridden roughshod over environmental concerns. No point in blaming him alone. That is the way it has been since the days the Congress Party ruled the state. Vapi in the state is notorious as one of the top 10 most polluted places in the world and in the Daman Ganga river there no water life forms can survive because it is so toxic. There is lot of talk of cleaning Ganga. Modi should hegin this charity at home cleaning Daman Ganga first.

Compared to what Greenpeace has been through elsewhere what Indian government has done is just plain silly, behaving like the villain’s comic sidekick in a Bollywood movie. Its ship Rainbow Warrior was targeted by French Intelligence which made an abortive bid to sink it.n south Pacific when the environmental watchdog’s activists took the ship to the area where France was conducting nuclear tests. But finally it was Greenpeace that won. Now France has replaced real nuke tests with virtual ones.

Well that was the government for you and what does the opposition in this country do? With the desperation of a sinking man clutching a blade of grass it is clutching non-issues to score brownie points over the government.

Take the case of sinking of a Pakistani boat in Indian waters on New Year’s Eve. The official stand was that when challenged, the occupants of the boat set off explosives and it imploded. Now a Coast Guard top honcho reportedly said it was sunk by the Coast Guard. And all hell broke lose with the opposition going for government’s throats over the issue or non-issue.

Now no one denies that it was a Pakistani boat illegally in Indian waters. Does it really matter whether it sank due to an implosion or was sunk by the Coast Guard? After all even if the coast guard has sunk it, it was doing nothing wrong. The boat was illegally in Indian waters and the Coast .Guard was well within its right in sinking it when it refused to surrender tried to change direction., After all 24/11 occurred only a few years ago due to lax coastal security,

What happened to the unwritten rule that matters of national security are above party politics and were not issues for scoring brownie points?

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Asinine Politics