Letters

An Award
The people who gave V S Naipaul an award in Mumbai had the right to give what they pleased to whom they pleased. After all, they paid for it. Pay the piper, call the tune. They were not authorised by the people of India to give the award: they had appointed themselves. Thus by no stretch of the imagination can it be said that India gave Naipaul an award.

In the world of music, of which Girish Karnad spoke, it is routine for musicians to be honoured by associations which they themselves have formed for the purpose. Such puppets propping themselves up are only to be smiled at if not ignored completely. Similarly, I have the absolute right to declare Karnad a saint, and no one may look askance at that or at what I expect or get in return. My antics do not drain their pockets, after all.

On the other hand, Karnad - and all Indians who can think ~ can and must denounce a writer who has been honoured apparently for giving vent, in several published works, to a blind hatred for very many Indians. That hatred is to be opposed specially because it has the power to reproduce itself in the weak minds of many who will then use their muscles to act upon it. That hatred is to be opposed because it both draws upon and feeds the malign plan that the Hindu Right has for the destruction of all that is civilised about India and, thus, the destruction of India itself.
Mukul Dube, Delhi

Save Forests
Five of us were detained for five hours for trying to meet the Prime Minister at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). I wanted to give him the petition with over 250,000 signatures supporting forests. This won't stop me from pursuing him and his government till they agree to see me in person.

In three months we have set a strong base for the movement to save forests in Central India from coal mining. Among other things, hundreds of us occupied social media twice in this time. I spent a whole month in a forest threatened by coal mining!

Governments and private companies can be challenged only if we are independent of them. That is why Greenpeace does not take money from either corporations or government bodies. Long campaigns like these are sustained only by financial support from individuals like you.

Can you make a contribution to help run this campaign to save the forests in Central India from coal mining?

This is just the start. The struggle to save our forests will continue till the government announces a moratorium on all future coal mining in the forests of Central India.

Here's what all we did in the last three months:
We reached the target of 100,000 signatures by October; after adding signatures from last year we now have over 250,000 signatures supporting forests. And the signatures are still coming in.

Before I started living in the forests, I visited places and people affected by coal mining. My journey was aired on MTV which made a lot more people aware about the issue.

While I was touring the country, the CAG's report on the coal scam became public. Soon after this, hundreds of us occupied social media and added to the pressure on our government.

On the day we occupied social media, junglistan.org became the most tweeted link in India. Pressure from all quarters made the government order an investigation into the scam. Some of the coal blocks were also de-allocated. But that was not enough.

So activists occupied trees outside the Coal Ministry's office in Delhi and asked the Ministry to end its greed for coal.

Before I left the forest, the Maha-rashtra Forest Department rejected Adani group's proposed coal project in the Lohara forests, in Chandrapur. This is a victory for the local organisations fighting to save forests in Chandrapur.

Once I left the forests, I went to Hyderabad. As Jayanthi Natrajan inaugurated the CBD, activists including actor Amala Akkineni, unfurled a banner at the Charminar, asking the PM to end coal crimes. The activists were detained by the police for two hours.

On October 16, the day the PM was to address the CBD, we occupied social media again. I was detained by the police for trying to meet the PM.
Brikesh Singh, Greenpeace India

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 21, Dec 2-8, 2012

Your Comment if any