Doodling At Jo'Burg

India's presence at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (wssd) at Johannesburg was virtually invisible. This is in sharp contrast with the event's precursor—the 1992 Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro—where India was in effect the spokesperson of the G-77 developing countries and took a strong stand on global environmental issues. Kamal Nath, Union environment minister at the time, revelled in the cut and thrust of the global environment debate.

This failure was at least in part due to the lacklustre performance of Union environment minister T.R. Baalu, who appeared out of his depth on issues and ignorant of some basics. In response to a question about gmos at an official press conference, an aide had to whisper that these referred to genetically-modified organisms. Considering the raging controversy over the introduction of such crops in India, his unfamiliarity was inexcusable.

Yashwant Sinha had done his homework on aid and trade issues to a much greater extent, but since India does not any longer speak for the G-77 countries, he addressed himself largely to his compatriots. This reveals how the government has relegated environment to the backburner and rendered it politically unimportant. Moreover, the country itself has lost its moral and political voice as the representative of developing countries in the discourse on environment and development.

The one positive intervention that the government made was its criticism of the so-called "Asian brown haze" hypothesis which the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (unep) released on the eve of the summit. unep chief Dr Klaus Toepfer says the threat was real: "The haze is the result of forest fires, the burning of agricultural wastes, dramatic increases in the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, industries and power stations, and emissions from millions of inefficient cookers burning wood, cow dung and other bio-fuels."

The fact that two of the three main authors of the preliminary study were Indians or of Indian origin clouded the issue. Scientists working for unep have based their work on data gathered by Indoex or the Indian Ocean Experiment, supplemented by satellite readings and computer modelling. In a counter-statement, the government replied: "Such a haze in the troposphere is not only characteristic of the Asian region but is also observed over other regions like Europe, North America and East Asia." It pointed out that this was the result of a four-month study when the haze is at its peak. It could not "be applied to other seasons and drastic conclusions about the disruption of weather patterns or mighty monsoons, floods and droughts being caused by haze are unfounded".

This strikes at the very heart of the environmental debate. By holding the wood fires of Asia's poor and industrial emissions in their cities responsible for climate change, unep, the most authoritative global source on environmental problems, was diverting attention from the much bigger greenhouse gas emissions by the West. There is certainly deja vu: a year before the Earth Summit, Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (cse) corrected the figures put out by the World Resources Institute in Washington, which showed that China and India were the fourth and fifth biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.

At Johannesburg, even Indian ngos were somewhat muted. One reason was the isolation of their venue, the Sandton Convention Centre, some 45 minutes away by bus, whereas the Global Forum was situated in the heart of Rio. But it may also have to do with the marginalisation of many groups, who might be more effective in acting locally than acting globally, in the global environmental debate.

One Indian who made her presence felt was Vandana Shiva, who heads Navdanya and is the author of such books as The Violence of the Green Revolution.She was prominently positioned behind UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the opening of the summit. She again featured in a TV debate at the closing of the Water Dome, where all water-related events were held.

At one session, Shiva cited how in Rio, environmental movements had been led by people, while at Johannesburg, they had been hijacked by corporations and other vested interests. The wto had initiated a parallel process, in which many of the issues relating to trade, food, biotechnology and the like were debated. "After September 11, we see government through militarism and the containment of dissent," she added. She also talked about authors like Bjorn Lomberg (writer of The Sceptical Environmentalist), who argue that there is no serious ecological crisis. However, India had more than its fair share of these crises. She cited how 630 million gallons of water was being diverted every day to meet the needs of Delhi with the Tehri dam. The French water-and-media conglomerate Vivendi was to take over the provision of water in Jamshedpur. Sharad Joshi had brought a group of 14 farmers to champion the "freedom to farm" with GM crops. "Poverty has sidelined the environment debate at the summit," Shiva alleged.

The one successful Indian intervention was on Bhopal. On the day the Bhopal court heard the cbi seeking to dilute the charges against former Union Carbide ceo Warren Anderson from culpable homicide to a rash and negligent act, Bhopal activists highlighted the plight of the survivors. Rasheeda Bi, who lost seven members of her family in the accident, alleged: "The blood of Bhopal's people is now on Dow's hands," referring to Dow Chemical's acquisition of Union Carbide last year.

Greenpeace staged a display of haunting photographs of Bhopal—from the day after the accident to the present predicament—by Raghu Rai. Friends of the Earth International launched the "Bhopal principles", calling for corporate accountability. The activists were emboldened by the Bhopal court's decision to ask for Anderson's speedy extradition to India to stand trial on criminal charges.

Notable environmental activists like Fr Thomas Kocherry, who leads fishworkers' struggles along the coast, and Magsaysay award-winner Rajendra Singh of Tarun Bharat Sangh were at the summit but the distances between venues enforced an isolation. At Rio, by contrast, Kamal Nath was able to channel the energies of Indian ngos to enforce India's position on global environmental disputes. Here, the Indian delegation was indifferent, if not outright hostile, to more radical environmentalists.

Perhaps the crowning success of the summit was the recognition of sanitation as a major development goal. The Sulabh International Service Organisation was very much in evidence. Sir Richard Jolly, who heads the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, praised founder Bindeshwar Pathak's achievements in dealing with this unmentionable over three decades. Sulabh has set up 1 million household toilets, 4,000 community blocks and freed 240 towns from the scourge of scavenging.

Johannesburg also marked the entry of business into the development arena. Indian business wasn't officially represented, following the government's decision not to include the cii's representative on the official delegation. Uri Jain, the Mumbai-based general manager of Hindustan Lever, was a solitary presence, participating in a global public-private partnership to promote 'washing hands'. On Gandhi Jayanti, it will be launched throughout Kerala, and simultaneously in Ghana, with the involvement of governments, UN agencies and the soap companies, which include Unilever, Colgate Palmolive and Procter & Gamble. "It's about increasing the market," Jain told this correspondent, making no secret that the corporates see this as a win-win situation.

Water companies made a big splash at the summit, with Suez—which alternates with its French competitor Vivendi as the biggest such vendor in the world—citing its contract to build the world's biggest drinking water plant in Delhi, which it will operate for 10 years. Bill Alexander, ceo of Thames Water, which has controversially been running London's privatised water supply and is now making inroads into the US itself, asked this correspondent whether Bangalore was ready for private sector participation. Suez's water company Ondeo is already there.

Curiously, the one Indian who was most in the limelight, though not for his nationality, was Nitin Desai, the UN secretary-general for the summit, who had to fend questions on countless controversies surrounding this biggest-ever world meeting with over 100 heads of state. Desai is a veteran of the environment and development discourse since Rio and has been cited as someone to head a possible World Environmental Organisation, on the lines of the wto, along with Klaus Toepfer. This is unlikely to come about, with the US opposing the move. But hope, it persists.