The Vibrant Gujarat jamboree held recently was attended by US Secretary of State John Kerry as well as a range of US corporations and other MNCs, as well as Indian CEOs like Mukesh Ambani and Kumar Mangalam Birla. Addressing this gathering, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited them to Make in India, promising them low-cost manufacturing thanks to Indias low-cost and high quality manpower; and highlighted his Governments initiative in ensuring FDI in construction, railways, defence, and insurance as well as labour law reforms.
Low cost manpower is nothing but a euphemism for under-paid and over-worked workers, and lax safety norms at the workplace. In Indias factories, labour laws especially those ensuring payment of minimum wages, equal pay for equal work, and the right to form unions are already being widely violated. Modis contribution has been to declare that manufacturers can now self-certify their compliance with labour laws effectively telling them that the Government has shrugged off any responsibility to enforce labour laws. Recent revelations of women being made to clean spit as punishment for being found with a mobile phone on textile factory premises, and 45 women being strip searched in an SEZ to check for sanitary napkins, are just a small indicator of workers Make in India in conditions of virtual bondage. Deaths on construction sites, in factories, mines and in sanitation work thanks to lax safety regulations, are extremely common. The Bhopal disaster, as well as countless farmers and adivasis killed in police firing on protests against land grab, are a reminder that not only is labour low cost, lives in India are also kept low cost in order to attract and appease Indian and foreign corporations. Kerry has stated that what Obama would like to achieve in the course of his Republic Day visit, is to further dilute the Civil Nuclear Liability law, in order to make India foot the bills for any Bhopal- or Fukushima-style disasters by US nuclear corporations on Indian soil.
Strangely, while foreign corporations are being given a red carpet welcome and carte blanche to grab land, pollute the environment, poison people, violate labour laws and exploit labourers, it is protesting farmers and activists who are being branded as threats to Indias development and internal security!
During the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, Gujarats farmers were detained to prevent them from protesting against the land acquisition ordinance. A Greenpeace activist was prevented from boarding a plane on the pretext that the Intelligence Bureau had recommended a ban on her travel. The Government itself has as yet been unable to provide any reason for a ban on the activists travel, except some shadowy IB recommendation.
BJP representatives have been defending the ban on the activists travel, citing her role in protests against violations of the Forest Rights Act by the corporation Essar. Essar being a UK-listed company, the activist was planning to apprise lawmakers in the UK about the companys role in violating Indian laws protecting indigenous peoples rights to forests.
The ban on the Greenpeace activists travel can be traced back to the IB report submitted to the PM on June 2014, that had claimed a threat from foreign funded NGOs to Indias national economic security.
The ironic part is that the same Government is promoting foreign funding in every aspect of Indias economy at a considerable cost to Indias workers, peasants, and environment. The Chief Economic Advisor to the PM like the Planning Commission Chief and the PM himself in the previous Government are associated with the IMF. Thanks to these ideologically motivated persons, Indias economic policy is being tailored to suit the interests of global capital rather than the priorities of Indias people.
The sheer hypocrisy of the Government is apparent from the fact that even a Modi Cabinet Minister the Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu, heads a foreign-funded environmental NGO. Many global corporations also float NGOs to greenwash their assaults on the worlds environment. Clearly, these NGOs escape the IB radar because they tend to toe the Government and corporate line in terms of policies! Only those that are voices of dissent are branded as a threat and face curbs on their freedom of speech, travel, and protest.
It has been rightly pointed out that Modi, when he was Gujarat CM, had signed an MOU with an NGO The Climate Group, that is linked with the former UK PM Tony Blair. Modis book on climate change has a foreword by the head of this same foreign-funded NGO! In 2009, a cabal of senior Indian ministers, bureaucrats, diplomats and corporate CEOs were exposed having secret conversations with MNCs and US Government officials about how to save Dow Chemicals from its liabilities of clean up and compensation after in the matter of the Bhopal Gas Disaster. Clearly, Indian Governments allow their own leaders to have secret conversations and deals with foreign corporations and foreign governments to protect MNCs that have the blood of Indian citizens on their hands! Yet they deplane an environmental activist on the pretext that she has no right to brief UK lawmakers about crimes committed by the UK-listed corporation!
As we approach Republic Day, let Indian citizens rise up against the company Raj regime of the Modi Sarkar and tell Modi and Obama alike that it is their policies that endanger the security of India and the globe!
