Jun 12 2014 : The Economic Times (Mumbai)
Why India Shouldn't Fear Greenpeace
They also serve, the green fundamentalists
An Intelligence Bureau report has labelled Greenpeace a threat to India's economic security . It would be surprising if a report does not surface that claims that Amnesty International or India's own human rights organisations are a threat to internal security , concerned as they tend to be about the human rights of tribal people, convicts, putative terrorists and so on. Such assessments are one-sided, just as the reports of Greenpeace and human rights outfits tend to be. It is the job of the politician and public opinion to put things in balance, taking into account the skewed vision of these advocacy groups along with other concerns germane to society .Environmentalism, feminism and international concern for human rights and poverty removal are all things that started in the 1970s and have since gathered strength. Several organisations have sprung up to champion these causes. They influence politics and the public discourse and impact policy . In Germany , environmen talists have even formed a political party of their own. Greenpeace, Ac tion Aid, Amnesty International and the like are voluntary organisations that work across the world, draw their funding mostly from the rich countri es and draw volunteers in countries like India committed to the cause they represent. They serve an entirely legitimate purpose.
Their one-sided skew serves to compensate for another kind of one-sided skew that otherwise would drag social development away from the path that is desirable.
The point is not to demonise agencies like Greenpeace, but to appreciate and act on the sense in what they say .
Their huge grievance against coal should serve to mount pressure to adopt clean coal technologies, rather than to stop coal mining. Greenpeace had been among those agitating against the hazardous ship-breaking outsourced to India. This has helped bring in better regulation. The point is, in the absence of green fundamentalists, India would be a little too brown, grey and unhealthy than it ought to be and society would like it to be. Dissent and diversity of opinion work to the collective good, in short.
Their one-sided skew serves to compensate for another kind of one-sided skew that otherwise would drag social development away from the path that is desirable.
The point is not to demonise agencies like Greenpeace, but to appreciate and act on the sense in what they say .
Their huge grievance against coal should serve to mount pressure to adopt clean coal technologies, rather than to stop coal mining. Greenpeace had been among those agitating against the hazardous ship-breaking outsourced to India. This has helped bring in better regulation. The point is, in the absence of green fundamentalists, India would be a little too brown, grey and unhealthy than it ought to be and society would like it to be. Dissent and diversity of opinion work to the collective good, in short.
