Other Terrorisms

18th September was the day forsolidarity with victims of the September 11th terrorist attack on the U.S.

I joined the millions to observetwo minutes silence at 10:30 a.m. for those who lost their lives in the assaulton the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

But I also thought of themillions who are victims of other terrorist actions and other forms of violence.And I renewed my commitment to resist violence in all its forms.

At 10:30 a.m. on 18th September,I was with Laxmi, Raibari, Suranam in Jhodia Sahi village in Kashipur districtin Orissa. Laxmi's husband Ghabi Jhodia was among the 20 tribals who haverecently died of starvation.

In the same village SubarnaJhodia had also died. Later we met Singari in Bilamal village who has lost herhusband Sadha, elder son Surat, younger son Paila and daughter- in-law Sulami.

The deliberate denial of food tothe hungry is at the core of the World Bank Structural Adjustment programmes.Dismantling the Public Distribution System (PDS) was a World Bankconditionality. It was justified on grounds of reducing expenditure. But thefood subsidy budget has exploded from Rs. 2,800 crore in 1991 to Rs. 14,000crore in 2001. More money is being spent to store grain because the Bankrequired that food subsidies be withdrawn. This led to increase in food prices,lowering of purchase from PDS and hence build up of stocks. The food security ofthe nation is collapsing.

While observing 2 minutes silencein the midst of tribal families who are victims of starvation even while 60million tonnes are rotting in the godowns, I could not help but think ofeconomic policies which push people into poverty and starvation as a form ofterrorism.

Starvation deaths in Maharashtra,Rajasthan, Orissa are a symptom of the breakdown of our food systems. Kashipurwas gifted with abundance of nature. Starvation does not belong here. It is theresult of waves of violence against nature and the tribal communities. It is aresult of a brutal state ever present to snatch the resources of the tribals forindustry and private corporations, but totally absent in providing welfare andsecurity to the dispossessed tribals.

The starvation deaths in Kashipurand other regions are a result of the ecological plunder of the resources of theregion, the dismantling of the food, security system under economic reformpolicies and the impact of climate change which caused two years of crop failuredue to drought and this year's crop failure due to excessive and unseasonalrain.

Twenty years ago, the pulp andpaper industry raped the forests of Kashipur. Today the herbs stand naked, andthe paper mills are bringing Eucalyptus from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

The terrorism of the pulpindustry has already left the region devastated. Now the giant mining companies- Hydro of Norway, Alcan of Canada, Indico, Balco/Sterlite of India haveunleashed a new wave terror. They are eyeing the bauxite in the majestic hillsof Kashipur. Bauxite is used for aluminium - aluminium that will go to make CocaCola cans and fighter planes.

Imagine each mountain to be aWorld Trade Centre built by nature over millennia. Think of how many tragediesbigger than what the world experienced on Sep 11th are taking place to provideraw material for insatiable industry and markets. We stopped the ecologicalterrorism of the mining industry in my home - the Doon Valley - in 1983. TheSupreme Court closed the mines, and ruled that commerce that threatens life mustbe stopped. But our ecological victories of the 1980s were undone with theenvironmental deregulation accompanying globalisation policies.

Mining has been "liberalised"and corporations are rushing to find minerals wherever they can. The Aluminiumcompanies want the homelands of the Kashipur tribals.

But triabls of Kashipur refuse toleave their homes. They are defending the land and earth - through a non-violentresistance movement -- the movement for the Protection of Nature andPeople". As Mukta Jhodia, an elderly woman leader of the movement said at arally on 18th in Kashipur,

The earth is our mother. We areborn of her. We are her children. The mining companies cannot force us to leaveour land. This land was given to us by God and creation, not by the government.The government has no right to snatch our land from us.

This forced apportion ofresources from people too is a form of terrorism - corporate terrorism.

I had gone to offer solidarity tovictims of this corporate terrorism which was not only threatening to rob 200villages of their survival base but had already robbed off their lives when theywere shot and killed on 16th December 2000 by the police.

Abhilash was one of the victimskilled in the police firing. His wife Subarna Jhodia was expecting a baby whenhe was shot. When I went to meet her in her village Maikanch, she was sitting onthe doorstep of her hut with the baby girl who was born after the father wasbrutally killed. I asked her what she had named her child, she asked me to giveher daughter a name. I named her Shakti - to embody power in peaceful form - tocarry in her the `Shakti' her father and his tribal colleagues have displayedover a decade of resistance against the terrorism of mining companies and apolice state and one combined shakti to fight all forms of terrorism.

50 million triabls who have beenflooded out of their homes by dams over the past 4 decades were also victims ofterrorism - they have faced the terror of technology and destructivedevelopment.

For the 30,000 thousand peoplewho died in the Orissa Supercyclone, and the millions who will die when floodand drought and cyclones become more severe because of climate change and fossilfuel pollution, President Bush is an ecological terrorist because he refuses tosign the Kyoto protocol.

And the WTO was named the WorldTerrirost Organisation by citizens in Seattle because its rules are denyingmillions the right to life and livelihood.

The tragedy of September 11provides us with an opportunity to stop all forms of terrorism -- militaristic,technological, economic, political. Terrorism will not be stopped by militarisedminds which create insecurity and fear and hence breed terrorism. The present"war against terrorism" will create a vicious cycle of violence. Itwill not create peace and security. We are already witnessing a xenophobic wavesweeping across the U.S., with Indians, Asians and Arabs being attacked andkilled. We are seeing fundamentalists of every hue emboldened by the mood for`revenge'.

Terrorism can only be stopped bycultures of peace, democracy, and people's security. It is wrong to define thepost September 11th world as a war between "civilisation andbarbarianism" or "democracy and terrorism". It is a war betweentwo forms of terrorism which are mirror images of each other's mindsets -mindsets based on this that can only conceive of monocultures and must erasediversity, the very pre-condition for peace. They share the dominant culture ofviolence. They used the same weapons and the same technologies. In terms of thepreference for violence and use of terror, both sides are clones of each other.And their victims are innocent people everywhere.

The real conflict is betweencitizens across the world longing to live in peace and security and forces ofviolence and terror - denying them peace and security.

The tribals in Jhodia Sahi hadlit a lamp for me at the village shrine - a small stone. These tribal shrinesare insignificant when one measures them in physical terms against the twintowers of the World Trade Centre. But they are spiritually deeply significantbecause they embody a generous cosmology of peace - peace with the earth, peacebetween people, peace within people. This is the culture of peace we need toreclaim, and spread.

The whole world repeatedlywatched the destruction of the World Trade Centre towers, but the destruction ofmillions of sacred shrines and homes and farms by forces of injustice, greed andglobalisation go unnoticed.

As we remember the victims ofBlack Tuesday, let us also strengthen our solidarity with the millions ofinvisible victims of other forms of terrorism and violence which are threateningthe very possibility of our future on this planet. We can turn this tragicbrutal historical moment into building cultures of peace.