[Reader-list] Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project - Blueprint for an ecological disaster

[we wi]

Suddha,
   
        If you are a true peace keeper, then you would have raised questions against china when they 
   
  1) conducted Nucler tests
  2) deceived late Nehru under the Panchasheel
  3)Occupied Tibet
  4)Backing Pakistan to do whatever nonsense
  if not 
  5) Communists ruling West Bengal under democracy umberilla
   
   
      Since 4th B.C, India has been attacked,ransacked and deceived by Invaders.  The same way Communists can rule India under democracy.  We have no objection.  
   
             As per your mail I understood that there should not be any government that can rule India and empower it.   
   
    
  Regards,
  Dhatri.

Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:
  Dear All,

This is one of the rare occasions where I think I am in near total 
agreement with Pawan Durani. So, I thought I would break my silence. 
Thank you Pawan for the links that you have sent.

I think that the Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project is indeed a blueprint 
for the unfolding of a human tragedy and an ecological disaster. And I 
think it ranks along with the Narmada Dam Project as a plan that is 
deeply inimical to the interests and livelihoods of the people who will 
be affected by it most, namely local fisher folk (for whom the region is 
an age old natural fishing commons).

I see no reason why ancient fishing practices and the delicate natural 
ecology of the region should have to be disrupted just so that 
Capitalism (in the form of ships carrying containers) and the Indian 
Navy's ships can gain a few hours while crossing from the west to the 
east coast of India. If for all these centures, ships have had to round 
the southern tip of Sri Lanka to move from the Arabian sea to the Bay of 
Bengal, and traverse the waters of the Indian Ocean region, I do not see 
why then the livelihoods of the inhabitants of the region have to be 
suddenly sacrified for them to be able to move faster.I see absolutely 
nothing wrong in insisting that the ships take the same time that they 
have always taken?

However, I have also watched worthies from the Bharatiya Janata Party, 
especially, Shri Murli Manohar Joshi, present their 'alternative' 
project for the Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project over the last few days 
on television - which is to cut a canal through the southern tip of the 
Deccan peninsula. And I think that proposal is just as much of a 
potential human and ecological disaster as the disruption of the 
Sethusamudram region. So the new found 'greening' of the BJP, needs to 
be understood for what it is. Yet another recipe for the displacement of 
people and the violent disruption of the landscape, on the same scale as 
Sardar Sarovar project and the proposed scheme to link rivers that was 
the pet project of the esteeemed erstwhile president of the Indian republic.

I would like to point readers on the list to consider the tragic 
histories of Panama (a state, now a narco-republic, carved out in order 
to dig a canal) and the Suez canal (over which at least one major 
military conflict - the Suez crisis of 1956 erupted. I have no doubt 
that The BJP's recently found enthusiasm for cutting a canal through 
Southern India will no doubt create 'swadeshi' versions of 
narco-republicanism, and aggressive military posturing a la Panama and Suez.

Also, on a parting note, let us not forget the decision by successive 
governments, controlled by the Congress or led by the BJP, that did not 
have any qualms about violating the delicate ecology of the Thar desert 
with Nuclear explostions, or completely destroying the equally delicate 
Himalayan glacial environment of Siachen in the part of Jammu and 
Kashmir occupied by India, by stationing troops, heavy artillery and 
continuing what must be one of the most tragic, bizarre, violent and 
wasteful military engagements with landscape in the history of the 
modern world.

So, yes let us all demand that the Sethusamudram region be left alone, 
let us demand that no more nuclear explosions or tests ever take place 
in the Thar desert or anywhere in the landmass of all of South Asia, or 
in the Lop Nor plateau in Tibet, and let us demand also a unilateral 
ceasefire and troop withdrawal from Siachen, and let us demand immediate 
cessation of the Sardar Saroval Project on the river Narmada and that 
the river linking project be abandoned. I would be absolutely willing to 
assent to all these demands, and while doing so, I would also demand 
that those who took the decisions to conduct Nuclear Tests in Pokhran in 
India (in 1974 and in 1998) and in the Chagai Hills in Pakistan (in 
1998) or on the Lop Nor plateau in Tiber offer uconditional apologies to 
the people of India, Pakistan and Tibet (and to all peoples in Asia) for 
the serious damage that these tests caused to the ecology of South and 
Central Asia.

I sincerely hope that all of you will agree with me.

regards

Shuddha






Pawan Durani wrote:

> http://tamilinfoservice.com/manitham/environment/sscp/article/4.htm
> 
> http://www.tamilnation.org/diaspora/tamilnadu/050404sethu.htm
> 
> http://www.greensl.net/campaigns003.php
> 
> http://hitxp.wordpress.com/2007/07/01/a-blunder-called-sethusamudram/
> 
> 
> Where are all those who had been talking about ecological disaster during
> Narmada Dam project ? Why are they silent ? Where are the activists and
> the film makers ?
> 
> I do understand their problems and the "compulsions".
> 
> God Bless !
> _________________________________________
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