No Atma, Lots of Nirbharta: The Socio-Ecological Bankruptcy of Modi’s Self-Reliance Stimulus -Ashish Kothari

-TheWire.in

The most blatant example of ecological illiteracy in the name of ‘self-reliance’ is that of coal mining – a sector which is being opened up in parts of central India which were hitherto off-limits.

For a government that is tom-tomming its environmental record across the globe, it is interesting that nature, ecology and environment are almost totally absent from the Indian government’s COVID-19 recovery or stimulus package labelled ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India).

This package was announced in mid-May this year along with a national address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In these, he waxed eloquent about how the pandemic teaches us to move towards being self-reliant, from the village upwards to the country as a whole. He also extolled India’s civilisational ethos, regarding the earth as ‘mother’, and valuing nature.

But this was clearly just greenwash or doublespeak. The Atmanirbhar Bharat stimulus package not only has no place for environmental safeguards, but is in fact ecologically regressive.

Firstly, one would have thought that the increasing scientific evidence linking this and previous disease outbreaks to ecological devastation, would prompt a government that proclaims itself to be ‘sustainable’ to put in place measures for conservation of natural ecosystems and wildlife. This is totally missing. There is no mention of any increase in the budget of the environment ministry or other relevant bodies; in fact, over the last few years this sector has received far less than 1% of the central budgetary outlay, and COVID-19 has not changed this.

But if not increased attention, we could have expected someone named the ‘Champion of the Earth’ by the UN to include environmental safeguards in whatever economic measures are contained in the package. And if not this, at the very least, he could have ensured that things did not get worse.

Please click here to read more.