 | Martin Heinrich
Klaproth
(1743-1817) |
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A resolution was passed by Arasur Village Panchayat in Sathankulam Panchayat Union on 27 July, 2007 requesting the Government to cancel the permission given to the Tata Group to purchase lands in the area for the Titanium Project. In this resolution, it has been clearly indicated that the members of this Village Panchayat fear that the entire agricultural economy of this region would get disrupted if this project goes through as proposed. This resolution was passed under the leadership of a Lady President Smt J Balambikai. It is reliably understood that illegal police action, using the influence of a Lady Cabinet Minister in the area, has been initiated against this Lady President of Arasur Panchayat. The people are in an agitated state and complaining that a reign of terror has been let loose in Sathankulam by Revenue Department Officials acting in close league with the local police?all of them too ready to oblige the unscrupulous political demands of petty and corrupt politicians of the area. This fact has been confirmed by Sri Ananda Raju, Chairman of Sathankulam Panchayat Union. When I spoke to the small farmers of the area, they expressed their deep concern about losing their sources of daily livelihood on their small farms. They seem to be united in their determination to hold back the lands with some kind of spiritual fervour. Seeing their soaring idealism, I was reminded of the following beautiful observations of
Pearl S. Buck in her world famous novel ‘
The Good Earth’, published in 1931:
‘They cannot take the land away from me. the labour of my body and the fruit of the fields. I have put into that which cannot be taken away. If I had the silver, they would have taken it. If I had bought silver to store along with it, they would have taken it all. I have the land still, and it is mine. I shall never sell the land! Bit by bit, I will dig up the fields and feed the earth itself to the children and when they die, I will bury them in the land, and I and my wife and my old father, even he, we will die on the land that has given us birth’.
The people of the area are shocked that even the Communist Parties are keeping silent over the whole issue. I spoke to an old Tamil Teacher living in Sathankulam and who in his younger days had been active in the Communist Movement in the 1940s. With great fervour he recalled the following words of celestial fire from the immortal ‘Jeeva’ whose centenary is now being celebrated by the Government of Taminadu
(in the manner of a carcass without spirit or flesh!):
If Tatas are able to purchase more than 10,000 acres of land and thus unsettle nearly 100,000 poor people from their ancestral homes and lands, the total impact is going to be disastrous. In this context, the recent study of Bhabani Shankar Nayak, a Tutor in Development Studies in the University’s Centre for the Comparative Study of Culture, Development and the Environment at the University of Sussex, UK becomes very relevant. In his brilliant study, he has questioned the process of industrialization and its negative impact on the economic and social development of the people in Orissa, India. While preparing the balance sheet of industrialization, he has taken into account the resistance movement as well. A comparative analysis of this transitional process shows how lives and human conditions of the population are affected. It explodes the myth that industrialization would bring development and modernization in the State of Orissa.
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WARNING AND ALARMING
POSTERS IN TAMIL IN
SATHANKULAM |
Likewise, Jayanta Sarkar’s study relating to the poor victims of land acquisition for the Bokaro Steel Plant 40 years ago, who were rendered landless and homeless, shows that large number of women from those families finally ended up as helpless prostitutes in Sonagachi in Kolkatta City
(ironically this translates as ‘Golden Tree’ after land acquisition and forced displacement). Having clearly noticed how the lives of the common people in Sathankulam would get totally uprooted, betrayed and destroyed by the proposed Titanium Project, let us now turn to the facts of bare economics in outline. Truly it has been said that to a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the
INFINITE may be seen. As the great Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes rightly said:
?If Justice requires the fact to be ascertained, the difficulty of doing so is no ground for refusing to try. ?State the facts and let the characterizations suggest themselves. ? The main part of intellectual education is not the lifeless acquisition of inert facts but learning how to make ordinary facts live? Finally, no picture of real life can have any veracity that does not admit the odious facts. ? What is Titanium? Titanium is a chemical element; in the periodic table it has the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It is a light, strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant (including resistance to sea water and chlorine) transition metal with a white-silvery-metallic color. Titanium can be alloyed with other elements such as iron, aluminium, vanadium, molybdenum and others, to produce strong lightweight alloys for aerospace (jet engines, missiles, and spacecraft), military, industrial process (chemicals and petro-chemicals, desalination plants, pulp and paper), automotive, agri-food, medical (prostheses, orthopaedic implants, dental implants), sporting goods, and other applications. Titanium was discovered in England by William Gregor in 1791.The name of Titanium was given to this mineral by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, a German Chemist, with reference to the Titans of Greek mythology.
The Theri Soil (Red Sand Dunes) in Sathankulam contains very valuable heavy minerals like Ilmenite, Rutile, Zircon and Silmanite. Titanium, a snow-white magic mineral is the precious mineral which is driving several avaricious businessmen and corporate giants towards Sathankulam area. Titanium weighs less than other minerals but is supposed to be stronger than steel and is capable of assimilation with other minerals easily. Its amazing properties attracted the Soviet and U.S. Scientists in the 1950s and they started using Titanium in the manufacture of submarines, war planes, etc. Therefore after 1955, the international commercial value of Titanium went up manifold. After that, the multiple and multifarious uses of Titanium became known throughout the world. Today, it is also increasingly used in the manufacture of white cloth, paint, paper, tooth paste, washing powder, etc.
The physical and financial details of the value of mineral output in one acre and similar details relating to the value of the total mineral output to be extracted from 9,828.78 acres by the Tata Group under the proposed project can be seen in the Statement below:
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It will be clear from the above table that the value of mineral production per acre that the Tata Group will realize with the full political benediction of transitory Tamilnadu Government will be Rs. 4,05,08,587. In short, they will realize a total of more than Rs. 330,000 crores by way of organized exploitation of the poor people of the area. The question of questions is: ?How are we going to compensate the poor people of the area on a continuing basis? Should they not be given a share in the ever accelerating and ever multiplying profits to be made by the Tata Group? Should poor ignorant people be used as disposable fodder all the time? Robert Burns, the great English poet, rightly lamented ?Man’s inhumanity to Man makes countless thousands mourn?.
(to be continued)
(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com
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