EARLY on June 3, eight State Reserve Police vans and three jeeps of the Guhagar taluka police arrived at the fishing village of Veldur, close to the site of the Dabhol power project. The menfolk had by then left on their fishing trips. Sadhana, three-month pregnant wife of local anti-Dabhol project leader Baba Bhalekar, was in her bath. The police broke down the bathroom door and dragged her out. Pradeep Bhalekar, her mentally-ill and polio-stricken brother-in-law, was beaten up. Two minor girls were beaten till they urinated. As Sadhanas terrified one-and-half-year-old daughter held on to her, the policemen kicked her away.
Twentysix women, including three minors, were arrested. The minors were registered as majors by the police. While one woman was released on health grounds, the other 25 were locked up in an approximately 150-sq ft room with one small window, and no lights or fan. Sadhana was kicked in the stomach as she was being thrown into the lock-up. The room stank as one end of it served as a washing area-cum-toilet. Court cases challenging the Dabhol project have been well-publicised. What is little-known is the silent grassroot war raging at Dabhol for more than a year now. Hundreds have been arrested and many held in prison without any charges being filed against them. And in recent months, the police seems to have been concentrating on terrorising soft targetswomen and childrensending a clear message to the agitators: back off or else.
The repression has been enough to rattle even international bodies. Drawing from reports by three human rights groupsthe Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR), the All-India Peoples Resistance Forum (AIPRF) and the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)an Amnesty International (AI) report details "a succession of incidents...in which protesters and activists have been subjected to harassment, arbitrary arrest, preventive detention under the ordinary criminal law, and ill-treatment.... In the name of maintaining law and order, the police used force and violence to deal with all forms of nonviolent, peaceful and democratic protests".
The reports, in fact, have implications far beyond the four villages of Veldur, Anjanvel, Ranvi and Pawarsakhari affected by the project. The report of the AIPRF committee headed by Justice S.M. Daud states that "the struggle has assumed a broader dimension as government plans for other mega projects in the Guhagar taluka (where the Dabhol site is located) requiring 20,000 acres which could affect the livelihood of nearly 75,000 people have become known. These include the Hindustan Oman Petroleum Corporations refinery, a project of the Indian Oil Corporation, steel plants by Bhushan Steel and Lloyds Steel, the Bagri groups copper smelter." "This pattern highlights the degree to which the central and state authorities in India are prepared to deploy state force...in the interest of development projects, curtailing the rights of freedom of association, expression and assembly," says the Amnesty report.
BUT why are the villagers agitating? The Daud report observes that "the role of the civil administration, as also that of their masters (read the Maharashtra state government) at all levels has been to safeguard and protect the interests of Dabhol Power Company against those of the local villagers. " The report provides the following as evidence:
Reportedly, the state government acquired the land at highly subsidised rates. It offered Rs 30,000, Rs 24,000 and Rs 20,000 per acre for paddy fields, sub-marginal and marginal land respectively. This has been leased out to Dabhol at a nominal rate over the purchase cost. Open market rates are apparently far higher.
"Enron is not a project, it is a policy," says the AIPRF report. The governments grand plan is now slowly unfolding. In February, a notification was issued to virtually the whole of Guhagar taluka banning the conversion of the land to non-agricultural use unless sanctioned by the district administration. The Daud report concludes that "this makes it clear that the administration intends to hand over the fertile lands and virgin beaches to various multinationals for developing tourism, industry, ports, trade, commerce and other reasons." A proposed 42 natural harbours which will eventually be allotted to different companies for landing their raw material are a part of the notification. The Enron story, the report states, will be repeated on a huge scale.
Currently, the government seems to be buying time. Both Bal Thackeray and deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde, who holds the home portfolio, have promised that the government will come across to explain how the project is beneficial to the locals. Chief minister Manohar Joshi promised a delegation that Munde would come and conduct an "open debate" to the satisfaction of the locals. Munde, however, wasnt aware of this promise. "It almost appeared that he was made the scapegoat by the CM," says an activist. Munde postponed the meeting from the scheduled July 5 to July 26. A letter on July 22 requests further postponement to August 11.
The AIPRF report concludes "the Indian state has abdicated its responsibility to speak on the behalf of the people." Amnesty urges the government to uphold its commitment to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The governments response will indicate what its real policies are.
