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Seechewal’s Moment of Truth
The holy
man is now an officer of the government. How will that change him?
Sach Kanwal
Singh
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Baba Seechewal will have to understand and engage with the
larger notions of the debate about environment. It isn’t about
cleanliness as much of the debate marking the Kali Bein project
came to be
seen as. It
is about who owns the resources, about corporatisation of
agriculture, about the entire model of economy. |
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 The
moment of truth may soon arrive for Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal. The
austere man who hesitates to call himself a sant and speaks a
language simple enough for rustic villagers to understand his
mission has been made a member of the Punjab Pollution Control
Board, an agency of the state government which has not only
singularly failed to make a meaningful intervention in the domain it
was meant to keep a watch over but has also become a den of
corruption.
In a move many
think is aimed at co-opting a rather lone but effective voice of
dissent and to bring him into the establishment fold, the Prakash
Singh Badal government has made Seechewal a PPCB member. Seechwal
has accepted, though it is clear that more often than not, his
efforts at working with the government on any venture have met with
frustrating results and he has little faith in the honest will of
the government to make a difference.
To those around
him, Seechewal has said that he will neither change his stance nor
his working style. But the state's powers at spreading the net wide
and providing justifications for status quo are immense, and the
religious baba famous for cleaning up the Kali Bein will be watched
closely. It is to be seen whether he too soon sees the great merits
of schemes like Nanhi Chhanv and is used to further the agenda of
the House of Badals or whether he retains his capacity of not
mincing words.
 Incidentally,
Seechewal's induction into the PPCB almost coincided with the
passage of the SEZ bill that ensures that the pollution control
authorities will have no role to play in the industrial units'
functioning inside the special zones.
How the debate
about environment is twisted and pulled out of context was clear
from the very first statement that S P Oswal, a prominent
industrialist also made a member of the PPCB as industry
representative, made to the media. Taking the cliched line of
environment versus development, Oswal said there was no conflict of
interest as the "society has to progress and also safeguard its
environment.” What such statements obfuscate is the reality that the
debate is between development and development, not environment and
development. The real debate is about whose development? Of those
who consider the natural resources as a thing to be devoured or
those who have learnt to live with the planet?
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* High
levels of ground water contamination in the north Indian state
of Punjab are causing DNA to mutate in people, according to a
study.
* Poisonous
pesticides and heavy metals have entered the food chain. Result:
congenital deformities, cancer and kidney damage
* All
vehicles of Punjab Vidhan Sabha are without any mandatory
pollution certificates.
* All Punjab
Roadways buses are without any 'pollution in control'
certificates.
* Punjab
State Council for Science and Technology report says rapid
industrialization and agricultural practices have heavily
polluted the fresh water resources of Punjab, both in
physio-chemical and biological terms.
* The use of
chemical pesticides in the country has increased by more than
seventeen times since 1955. The state of Punjab is one of the
highest user of these pesticides especially after the ushering
in of green revolution. Though the state has only 1.5% landmass
of the country, it consumes about 17% of pesticides used in
India.
* The Sutlej
river stretch from Ludhiana to Harike is the most polluted. Two
municipal corporations (Ludhiana
and Jalandhar) and 27 municipal councils and notified area
committees are discharging municipal wastes into the river. |
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The PPCB is
singularly failed to even put a semblance of regulation of sewage.
About 70 per cent of the water pollution in Punjab is caused by
sewage which not only pollutes drains and river water but also
affects the ground water in towns and cities. Municipal authorities
have completely failed and there is no proper disposal system for
treating municipal sewage.
Many sewage
treatment plants are hanging fire for want of funds, including the
ones that Prakash Singh Badal promised Seechewal in Doaba.
The Pollution
Control Board is often a bribe extracting agency for any industry,
and with the industry responsible for much pollution, the bribe
money runs into hundreds of crores. With the PPCB having identified
more than 6,200 water-polluting and 3,500 air-polluting industries
as polluting, the signals are too mixed to make any sense for the
industry to put the house in order.
In what kind of
a situation can a government allow thousands of polluting units to
continue to run even as it knows they are causing immense and often
irreversible harm? There are arguments aplenty to keep the status
quo. The government cannot suddenly shut down the polluting units as
it would lead to unemployment, heavy losses to state, even social
unrest. The industry needs time to fix the problem. And when all
else fails, the standard "We need monitoring stations for all kinds
of pollutions" is bandied about.
Baba Seechewal
has so far continued to make a simple argument about the dirty
brackish water of Sutlej and the much clearer water of Beas. He
places two bottles on the table and asks the simple question, "Which
way do we want to choose for our future generations?" Most know the
answer. The sad part is that the industry knows the answer too, and
perhaps better than most. One way will keep the resources safe for
future generations. The other will make some people richer and the
future poor.
 It
chooses the latter. The profit motive succeeds. It is here that Baba
Seechewal will have to understand and engage with the larger notions
of the debate about environment. It isn't about cleanliness as much
of the debate marking the kali Bein project came to be seen as. It
is about who owns the resources.
It is about what
kind of agriculture we want to carry on. It is about corporatisation
of the resources. It is about corporatisation of the agriculture. It
is about why Punjab is being pushed into paddy. It is about why GM
foods are finding acceptability with the government. It is about the
entire model of economy. It is about neo-liberal notions of
development. It is about the linear short sighted path that the
successive governments are putting Punjab on to.
It is this
government that has made Seechewal a part of the plans to control
pollution. It does the government a lot of credit. What it will do
for Baba Seechewal and those who have so far admired his spirit,
will, functioning style, wit, and honesty of purpose, is still to be
seen.
22
July 2009
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