Thoothukudi firing incident has to be treated as an early warning system for the emerging threats to Indian democracy.
How did the Sterlite struggle evolve?
Sterlite stakes claim to be India’s largest copper producer and is a major presence in Tamil Nadu’s industrial mix.
But the industry has been under the scanner for environmental violations since its inception in the 1990s.
Significantly, the Supreme Court in 2013 had imposed an Rs.100-crore fine on Sterlite for pollution.
As the nearby residencies started to face health and environmental issues, they had been protesting sporadically for many years now.
But the proposal for the plant’s expansion plan intensified protests about a couple of months ago and the situation has remained heated since then.
TN government has claimed that the plant is currently not operational and that expansion has been stalled.
But there was complete official apathy to convey this message unambiguously to the protesting masses, thereby attracting suspensions.
What are the concerns arising in this issue?
One of the mains concerns in this issue is people look for democracy, while the state and Sterlite seek to subvert it.
Thoothukudi has demonstrated this through the resilience of the bar and traders’ associations which worked day and night to get arrested people released.
