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Journalism of Courage
Medha Patkar appears to be not just, as earlier, against callous treatment of project oustees. Patkar-led protests these days seem to question economic modernisation in as much as the latter involves industrialisation and therefore arrival of capital and technology in non-urban areas. She8217;s now poised to become the face of the anti-Posco project agitation in Orissa. Protesters against SEZs in states like Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh can count on her to value-add to their efforts. There may be a positive fallout nevertheless in Ms Patkar8217;s protest thesis undergoing a paradigm shift as a fast growing economy starts recognising the imperative to urbanise and industrialise.
If all major projects that need land attract high-profile agitators who would not be satisfied unless the economic policy clock is turned back, it would be easier for all rational and realist champions of India8217;s future to make their case. No country anywhere and at any time in history has modernised without industrialisation and urbanisation. It is no one8217;s case that as India undertakes this long-delayed transformation it should take the same approach as, say, 19th-century England or 21st-century China. But the way to empower the poor is not to tell them that industry and capital are conspiracies. As these columns and many of our columnists have argued, since the poor own much of the land that will be needed, they should benefit from this demand. Civil society groups can work with such beneficiaries to make them use their gains productively. It would be wonderful if they demand more industry 8212; since factory employment is one of the major solutions in absorbing underemployed or unemployed rural labour 8212; and then monitor industry for working conditions.
