Resources, Insensitivities and Politics Mahadevan Subramanian India seems to be facing a very hard question of the balance in sharing

the natural resources, utilizing them for development processes. The question gets more complicated and awkward given the penchant of our ruling class (including officials and politicians), elite, and business czars to hoodwink the public and rob them out of their natural rights towards resources. The nexus is so strong such that, the socalled three pillars of democracy are competing with each other to ruin the state from all blessed nature.

When India's first prime minister Nehru remarked dams are modern temples of India, the least would he have thought about the temples being used for the convenience of the upper riparian states over lower riparian states. The hypocrisy is such blatant that various government bodies ignore or deliberately trash court judgments. The courts and the learned justices, in their wisdom who see contempt in remarks indicating purchased orders, fail to pull up the various bodies of the government which seldom implement the judicial orders. This was the country which nearly was about to impeach a justice for malpractices and misappropriation of public fund. This is the country where a sitting judge gets arrested for accepting bribe to grant bail.

We had enough stories about unfair advantage being given to companies which had the ears and pockets of the ministers and bureaucrats in proximity, during allocation to natural resources. Cases of quid pro quo benefits aren't new to us. Starting from spectrum to granite quarries, nothing has been spared. Over the past few years, Tamizhnadu has attained the historical "fame" of politicians, business men hailing from the state, involved in such scams of gargantuan proportions. Let it either be the mountain sized 2G spectrum scam or the mountain swallowing granite scam, the "reputation" that Tamizhnadu has gained in the recent years makes one so "proud".

It seems that the nation which prides itself for anthropomorphizing its rivers and other natural resources with motherhood has become so insensitive to rob from Mother Nature herself. The pathetic condition of rivers in Tamizhnadu is a perfect example of this malaise. Illegal sand mining has turned rivers to death mines. Rivers and mountains which were glorified in our epics and myths have been swallowed because of our insensitivity.

Life seems to end with the current generation for men of our times. No stone unturned towards ensuring no resources are left behind for the future generations. Be it air, water or land, we imagine to be born with the divine right to exhaust and leave nothing. The continuous support received by fringe groups practicing violence is an indication that it is not so.

1|Page

Resources, Insensitivities and Politics Mahadevan Subramanian We have got political organizations which are just indication of the problem. We criticize the parties for double speech yet the least we do recognize that we are also part of the problem. When it comes to building our own home, we are neither bothered about using the stones that have been cut out of our precious mountains or sand mined from our sacred rivers. We never care about the sewage being diverted into water bodies until we get muddied water in our taps. We neither do care if the business establishments where we work was built on the land of a poor farmer or an unfortunate hut dweller. The responsibilities of a democracy do not end in voting/questioning the establishment. What is the change that we bring in ourselves would script the answer to this issue.

2|Page