The
decision by the state and central governments to expand the coal handling
capacity of the Mormugao port is cause for alarm. From very real and obvious
dangers of environment and health to the equally real threat to the livelihoods
of traditional fishermen, the government seems least bothered about the
citizens. On the contrary they are making haste to promote the interests of the
big corporations. Indeed, plans to build the National Highway 17-B and the
dredging of the Mormugao port are geared to facilitate the transport of large
volumes of coal to industries in neighboring Karnataka.
According
to news reports, the plans to dredge the port and build a new highway will
benefit Indian companies like Adani, JSW, and Vedanta. Nihar Gokhale, a
journalist who reports on environmental and policy issues, wrote
some time back that clearances for the Mormugao expansion flagrantly violated
rules and due procedure. If the plans materialize as per the wishes of the
corporations and the government, Mormugao’s coal handling will rise to 26
million tonnes per annum from the current five million tonnes; the port town of
Vasco and surrounding areas, therefore, are poised to choke
on coal dust.
That
the government is riding roughshod over the lives and livelihoods of the people
is not surprising. In Goa, we have the instance of the Investment Promotion
Board that circumvents all checks and balances to bring in the ‘mega-project
development’. Case in point was the sale of a village in Tiracol to construct a
golf course for the rich, while the villagers engaged in traditional
occupations were manhandled to vacate the land. Through the partnership of
corporations and government we see a process of ‘colonization’ wherein local resources are senselessly extracted
or destroyed while the local people either get peanuts in return or nothing at
all.
Thinking
of large-scale processes of development as ‘process of colonialism’ – wherein
shifts in political power does not necessarily alter oppressive relations –
allows us to see that the nation-state of today operates in similar ways as the
colonial-state of the past. As many scholars have pointed out,
the neo-liberal development shares a link with past colonialism and imperialism
in places likes Asia and Africa in the manner in which it extracts resources
and mounts wars against indigenous peoples.There is, however, a difference
between the neo-liberal development of today and the colonial development of
the past, chiefly in terms of the volume of resources extracted or exploited. Activists
and lay citizens need to consider this history in order to mount strong
resistance against the destructions of lives and livelihoods.
Mormugao
port provides us an excellent opportunity to reflect on such processes and
their long history. The port, in fact, can be considered to be at the centre of
colonial and neo-liberal development. There is the curious case of British
India investing in the construction of the West of India Portuguese Guaranteed Railway
(WIP) that had linked Mormugao to
the Southern Mahratta Railway (SMR) at Londa, via Castle Rock towards the end
of the nineteenth century. Looking for a cheaper and convenient point for
exporting the products from the hinterlands of British India, the British Raj
entered into a treaty – the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1878 – with Portuguese
India. The cost of building the railway line, in true colonial fashion, was borne
by the Goan exchequer.
The
Portuguese were looking for investments that would revitalize the weakened
economic situation, create jobs, and boost the almost non-existent industry in
Goa. The Portuguese government hoped that collaboration with the economically
and politically powerful British empire would modernize Portuguese India. That
it did not work was due to many factors and there is no space here to elaborate
why these plans failed. However, what needs to be highlighted is that many in
Goa at that time felt that the Portuguese had effectively given the control of
the economy into British hands. The British too wanted political and economic
control over Portuguese India. They did achieve this goal to a certain extent
with the control of the port and railways, and taxes on the production of salt,
amongst other things.
In
a sense, the developmental politics around Mormugao port in contemporary times
follows this old pattern; of massive investments coming with a promise of jobs
and growth of the economy. It also necessitates the investment of public money
without substantial returns to the same public. Whereas in the past the flow of
goods was from the hinterlands of India to other places of the world, in the
present times the government-corporate nexus wants to use Mormugao as a importing
and exporting node for goods (like coal and iron ore) to feed the industries in
various parts of the country and abroad. The case is curious not just because
of the reverse flow of goods, but also because Indian companies are extracting
natural resources like coal from distant Australia (and also in places like
Mozambique in Africa) and transporting it in India. Many in Australia,
including indigenous leaders, and cricketers like Ian and Greg Chappell, have
supported campaigns against
Indian companies like Adani to halt coal extraction. These Australian activists
have argued that the proposed mine in
Carmichael, Australia – said
to be the largest in the world which can produce 60 million tonnes of coal
every year for the next 60 years – would threaten not just the indigenous communities there but also the eco-sensitive Great
Barrier Reef.
From
facts available on the ground, this present neo-liberal
expansion – following roughly patterns of past colonial interventions in the
economy and politics – appears eventually to benefit only giant corporations.
Colonial relations thrive amidst us, destroying the environment and the lives
of people. And it is not just the white men who are propagating such
exploitative business practices.
(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 12 April, 2017)
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