Straight bat: For a new green movement

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala State Karshaka Thozhilaly Union’s infamous crop destruction stir in Alappuha and Pathanamthitta, with the blessings of Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan, in 1995-96, has acquired a new dimension this election. If the union’s principal task was to prevent job loss for farmhands, Mr Achuthanandan has lent it a new angle, saying it was meant to save the good earth for posterity.

His latest post on Facebook: “Kerala is getting roasted in sweltering conditions. Kerala used to have ambient, temperate climate but the State is turning itself into a desert, year after year. This catastrophe has been wrought by the capitalistic plunder of our forests and nature. We (karshaka thozhilaly union) were branded anti-development when we launched an agitation (20 years back) to secure our paddy-fields and wetland. Let us  ride past all obstacles and strive together in the fight to ensure a safe future for coming generations”.

Says activist Harish Vasudevan: “Mr Achuthanandan and other agitators were accused of upsetting the peace of the land through their violent campaigns. Though the stir was meant to protect farm jobs, it provoked the legislation against conversion of land. Mr Achuthanandan was even isolated in the party fraction. Now even a village officer is empowered to uproot plants if they are part of an illegal land conversion activity”.

But environmentalists are not satisfied with the “scant attention” given to the protection of infrastructure (air, water and land) in the manifestos of the LDF and the UDF and this Assembly election may witness the assertion of the State’s green movement.

Unlike the romantic rage for environment protection in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the new thrust is on keeping the elements intact. For instance, protecting the Periyar is germane to ensuring clean drinking water for Ernakulam. The focus shifts from a river to the natural water resource.

The manifestos, according to Mr Vasudevan, fail to appreciate this concern. This has prompted the Paristhiti  Aikyavedi, led by by Prof V S Vijayan and Sugathakumari, to submit a charge-sheet on omissions and commissions of the past five years and launch a poll-time greens campaign.

It’s better late than never. The State has already lost a fortune. The depletion of paddy fields, integral to the State’s upkeep, has been more pronounced with the start of the 1990s. If in 1952-53 there was 7.5 lakh hectares of paddy fields in the State, by 1990-91 it dwindled to 5.6 lakh hectares. And the paddy stretch is just about 1.7 lakh hectares today.    

“Publish the data bank as stipulated in the State paddy and wetlands conservation Act 2008 at the earliest and make it available to people for verification and finalize and put on the website within six months. Till then no transactions on these lands should be permitted”, says the demand paper.

Further, no new land for industries should be allowed till all the land allotted for industries is utilized. The agenda lists many other critical ecologically sensitive issues, including implementation of the Kerala state organic farming policy in letter and spirit. The movement should attract the righteous-minded from across the political spectrum and be a humungous relief from the nauseating sex and sleaze.