Editorial

The more, The Merrier

Congress without corruption is unthinkable. It is as dirty as coal. But the whistleblowers too are no saints. The shadow-boxing over coal-blocks allocation—or what is called coalgate a la watergate—is basically aimed at forcing the government at the centre to advance the date of parliamentary poll otherwise due in 2014. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition in parliament has been routinely agitating over this scam or that without showing any desire to mobilise masses in their millions in the streets. After all they cannot dig their own graves by arousing mass consciousness against the level of corruption that touches everyone from top to bottom in the administrative hierarcy. In the yester years they stalled parliamentary proceedings on more than one occasion and finally bargained with the Congress behind the veil of dynamism of Indian democracy. Interestingly some of the allies of BJP are not that enthusiastic about the coalgate drama where the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh emerges as the principal villain. Targeting prime minister may not be that innocuous as many see wheels within wheels. A section of Congress is allegedly working overtime to install Rahul Gandhi on the hot seat even without waiting for 2014. ‘They may be in league with the BJP to create a parliamentary paralysis’. So said Mulayam Singh Yadav, otherwise a staunch ally of Congress. Nobody is concerned about huge wastage of public money due to non-functioning of parliament. After all it is part of the game called parliamentary culture. Luckily for the people of India the saffron brigade this time is not fomenting communal and religious tensions to grab power. It is becoming increasingly clear that they had their men in Anna Club and a division in the Anna family further strengthens the allegation.

True, coal scam is the biggest scam the country has ever seen, it is larger than the much publicised and yet less understood 2G scam. That Congress is in a bind is a fact of life. It has no option but to question the ‘disputable method’ adopted by the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in preparing its report that identifies serious lapses in allocation of coal-blocks without auction. Maybe, the architects of 2G-scam who were in jail for sometime, are heaving a sigh of relief. They are not alone in the process of loot called privatisation and modernisation. But much to the discomfort of Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, CAG has the mandate to scrutinise and examine public policies. Maybe the Singhs hoped that CAG’s audit findings won’t cast any shadow on the coal policy. They may reject CAG report disputing its current and predictable facts. But rejection doesn’t alter the ground reality. It only strengthens the notion that there are many a skeleton in the cupboard.

Coal Ministry headed by the then prime minister allocated 57 coal blocks without auction, resulting in a staggering loss of 1.86 lakh crore to the exchequer. Interestingly dismissing CAG exercise as beyond its jurisdiction one lawyer spokesperson of Congress provided some legal niceties by way of sticking to the argument that coal was not sold by the ministry. Under the nationalisation policy, coal cannot be sold. The coal was meant for end users as input for power and steel industries. But they are in a hurry to de-nationalise every section of the economy from banking to mining. These allocations are just gifts to private players, big and small and just thefts from the people of India.

They have long been trying to make India a safe destination for global mining giants who are coming in hordes not to strengthen India’s nationalisation policy. ‘Operation Green Hunt’ was launched to clear forests and forest-dwellers as well, only to prepare ground for large-scale mining of minerals and over in Central India.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace India has started a campaign against the government plan of large-scale coal-mining in the forests of Central India where 35 percent of the country’s wild animals including tigers, elephants and leopards find their natural habitat. But these forests provide livelihood to thousands of tribal communities. And coal-mining in such a big way is going to endanger all of them—their very survival is in jeopardy. Also, it means the end of ‘jungle war’ of the maoists. Ludicrously enough, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is all set to host a UN convention on bio-diversity in October though he is himself no less responsible for clearing the way for massive destruction of bio-diversity in his own country.

BJP that is now running the anti-corruption show business, is not against large scale mining of coal. Nor are they opposed to the idea of inviting big investors, including foreign investors, to destroy the country’s fragile bio-diversity. They are equally interested like the Congress to hand over mineral wealth to private players at throw away prices.

Coal has been one of the earliest mining activities in the country since the days of John Company. Plundering of virgin soil originally started by the British companies and later by their Indian successors, displacing thousands of people has left too many death pits in eastern India where underground fire that rages still beneath the surface of prime coal-belts of eastern India has rendered thousands homeless and jobless. If today eastern coal-fields present a semi-desert landscape it is because of reckless mining with scant regard of mining laws. Forest apart, huge tracts of agricultural land will be brought under coal-mining as it will be the case in Bengal and Jharkhand.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No.9, Sep 9-15 2012