The use of chic causes like environment, gender, Islam as identity, or Leftist ideals gives one a glimpse into the minds of those who run shadowy, trans-world networks to influence societies, destabilise nations
A farmer burns paddy stubble in Chandigarh. PTI
The more smoke from crop stubble-burning muddies Delhi’s air, clearer becomes the hypocrisy of celebrity ‘environmental activists’ like Rihanna, Greta Thunberg, and Meena Harris. Around February, prodded by powerful lobby groups and helped by toolkits created by controversial activists like Disha Ravi, the global elites were aggressively pushing the Punjab agricultural middlemen’s agenda against India’s new, reformative farm laws.
The saviours of the global environment and poor third world farmers overlooked a crucial part of the toolkit. The so-called farmers are asking for an unfettered right to burn stubble and massacre the air of an entire region. They are also demanding a minimum support price to grow paddy in relatively dry Punjab, depleting the already thin water table, and burning free thermal-fired electricity on irrigation pumps.
This week, irony shined brighter than the bleak Delhi sun on this sham activism. An old tribal woman, who has planted more than 30,000 saplings in Karnataka, walked barefoot to President Ram Nath Kovind to receive the Padma Sri award. The likes of Greta and Disha should intern with 77-year-old Tulsi Gowda to learn some real environmental activism.
But farm protests are not the first time that the environment has been used as a pretext to hit India’s interests. At a time when China is ramping up its borders, troops and resources, an NGO named Citizens for Green Doon has moved the Supreme Court to stop the Indian Army from widening the Chardham border road. Whose bidding is this NGO doing? Delhi lawyer Colin Gonsalves, who defends Rohingya infiltrators and Delhi riot-accused, is representing this local NGO against the Indian Army.
In the past, rapid activism by shadowy NGOs have sought to sabotage many of India’s development projects. Sardar Sarovar dam was opposed for years till activists comprehensively lost the case.
Vendanta’s mining project in Odisha’s Niyamgiri saw anti-India hawks like Arundhati Roy descend and scuttle it. Then the company’s Sterlite plant in Tuticorin had to shut down after violent protests led by certain Christian NGOs and activists like Fatima Babu. The Church of England pulled out its stakes from Vedanta. It seems like a systematic hitjob to stop India from being mineral imports-dependent.
The violent agitation against India’s Kudankulam nuclear plant prompted even Manmohan Singh to break his customary silence and proclaim that shadowy foreign forces are funding activism against India’s interests. The Congress government suspended three Church-backed NGOs, while J Jayalalitha-ruled Tamil Nadu slapped sedition cases against more than 8,000 violent protesters.
Thermal plans in Madhya Pradesh have faced similar targeting. A Coca-Cola bottling plant in Kerala’s Plachimada had to shut down because of militant activism over concerns of groundwater pollution. Coca-Cola runs thousands of such bottling plants around the world without a fuss.
The use of chic causes like environment, gender, Islam as identity, or Leftist ideals gives one a glimpse into the minds of those who run shadowy, trans-world networks to influence societies, destabilise nations.
They love to bend political correctness to achieve the most politically unjust ends. They don’t blink while using the most pristine of causes, environment, as a dirty weapon against elected democracies like India.