People’s convention on energy policy in NE
DISPUR, 31 Jan: Over 15 peoples’ organisations from different states of Northeast India signed the Guwahati Declaration at a people’s convention here on energy policy in Northeast India, with the goal of protecting the rights of the people and their resources.
The people’s convention on energy policy was organised by the Joint Struggle Committee for Protection of Land Rights – an umbrella organisation representing various grassroots movements of Assam.
During the convention, representatives from Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Assam and Sikkim signed the declaration for the protection of the human rights, land, water, forests, and most importantly, indigenous life of the Northeast “which are being taken over in an illegal manner without due consent and participation of the people.”
The declaration centred around impacts of the proposed as well as existing hydropower, mining and infrastructural projects, which the representatives estimate will be the biggest displacement of the indigenous people in the present times.
The first panel of speakers included human rights lawyer Ebo Mili from Arunachal, Jewel Garlossa, an activist from Dima Hasao in Assam, Roshman Tawshik from
Anjaw district of Arunachal, Giokia Madam from Upper Subansiri district of Arunachal, Dipen Rongpi from Karbi Anglong, Sobin Rabha from South Kamrup, Assam, Sikari Rongpi from Mikir Bamuni, Assam, Anyajit Hazarika from Baghjan, Assam and John Maslai from West Karbi Anglong.
The convention will help in building a framework for the indigenous peoples to assert their rights in Northeast India. “It is a historic moment for the people of Northeast India through the Guwahati Declaration. We are democratically asserting our rights as citizens and laying a framework for the people of the region to protect their rights and grow in their own genius,” said Pranab Doley, one of the conveners of the Joint Struggle Committee for Protection of Land Rights.
According to Subrat Talukdar, one of the conveners of the Joint Struggle Committee for Protection of Land Rights, if the Centre as well as state governments continue to push anti-people projects, it will displace the indigenous people in their own land. “We are witnessing a gradual erosion of rights of the people and takeover of their resources by powerful corporations backed by the political will of the Indian state. If this goes on, Northeast India will have more than one lakh displaced indigenous people, homeless in their homelands,” added Talukdar.
Ebo Mili, the human rights lawyer from Arunachal, said that, along with loss of resources to big corporate interests, there is a steady breakdown of law and order where human rights are completely sidelined by the governments. “Arunachal Pradesh is pursuing 60 gw dream at the expense of the rights of the people and their commons on which they thrive,” said Mili.
The background
Assam’s Integrated Clean Energy Policy, 2025-2030 targets 11,700 mw of energy production, with a break up of 3,500 mw of solar power, and 2000+ mw of pump storage hydro projects as the major contributors. Along with clean energy, the state of Assam have resolved to produce 3,000-5,000 mw of thermal power during the same period, which would roughly accrue to 17,000 mw of electricity by the end of 2030. Consider the amount of land and other resources such as coal and gas and water required for this amount of energy production in a relatively smaller state such as Assam. The states of Arunachal and Sikkim, which are the abode of the fragile eastern Himalayas, are being scoped out to produce 58,000 mw and 8,000 mw of hydroelectricity, out of which almost 12,000 mw has already been sanctioned and under various stages of construction in Arunachal and the 1,200 mw mega Teesta project in Sikkim is underway. Similar policies are also adopted in the other Northeastern states of Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya.
While the aggregate energy consumption at peak hours combining all the eight states would be less than 5,000 mw, for whose consumption and purpose is this energy extraction being pushed in the Northeast? This is a grave question that has been asked by the people of the Northeast. The new model of economy, which is driven by the neoliberal economic and political extractive and exploitative policies, is mostly under the PPP model and run by private ownership model. This has already seen a huge number of resources which have been handed over to Adani, Ambani, Vedanta, Tata Groups and many other corporations. International financial institutes like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, etc, are playing a major role in this debt-driven economic model.
This shows that the role of the government has been to proactively amend the protective laws for people, environment and forests for the purpose for ease of doing business, erasing all the labour rights, etc, to weaken the workers’ welfare and the right to voice out. The highly exploitative neoliberal framework which the government is adopting would put the whole region into the hands of the corporations who would be benefiting from these while the region suffers. There is ample evidence of these experiments globally. The whole enterprise is devastating at multiple fronts as we all know energy intensive growth is directly related to environmental degradation and this agenda would be a death knell on the existence of the whole region and its diverse ethnicities. The enormous disaster in Baghjan oil blowout, mining accidents in Meghalaya and Ledo, Margherita coalfields in Assam, the Lower Subansiri mega dam constantly causing threats to the downstream populace in Assam, the Teesta dam collapse, etc, are stark evidences of the risk which this model of development carries.
A strong resistance across the region against the crony capitalist government’s ambitious and biased policies reflects the urgency with which the people of this region view this issue of ‘energy and development’. The communities of Khatkhati in Karbi Anglong, Parbatjora in BTR, Ukiam in Rabha Hashong, Siang in Arunachal, Teesta in Sikkim, Mapithel in Manipur, Mikir Bamuni in Nagaon, Assam, etc, have been valiantly resisting this move of the government to take over their ancestral lands and beloved rivers, the power workers unions are up in arms against the government’s policy to facilitate the private entities such as Adani at the cost of the public sector units. Various political formulations and civil society across the region have lent their support to these movements, the specificity of the issues faced by marginalised sections of the people in the region needs to come to the fore.
This is a call for solidarity towards a section of Northeastern states’ population which is bearing the brunt of ‘development’ that is unethical, economically devastating and wholly unsustainable in context of the Northeastern states.
The convention brought to the fore the community voices from different parts of Northeast India facing land alienation, discrimination, threats to their lives and wellbeing and state-backed theft of their resources. These resistances need to be heard and it should serve as a reminder to the greater civil society of the Northeastern region to pressurise and prevent the state governments as well as the central government to rethink policies which has proven to be anti-people and anti-Northeast India in its conception.
The representatives agreed on the following points which constitute the Guwahati Declaration:
- Complete implementation of the 6th Schedule in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, Article 371(A) for Nagaland, 371(G) for Mizoram, 371(F) for Sikkim of the Indian Constitution, the tribal belts and blocks clause in Assam.
- Repeal the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 which exempts forest land within a 100 km from the international borders from being classified as forest under the Act. This Act would make the whole of Northeast India’s forests vulnerable to exploitation without any form of environment impact assessment or environment clearance.
- Make EIA mandatory for renewable energy projects such as solar, etc, which was exempted from the EIA Rules, 2006.
- Make social impact assessment mandatory for all proposed as well as ongoing projects.
- Make regular and transparent safety audits of all oil sector infrastructure across the state, including pipelines.
- Implementation for free prior informed consent (FPIC), which is a mandatory requirement as per the United Nations Guidelines and ILO conventions before proposal of any developmental projects in indigenous and local people’s territories.
- Complete implementation of the 70 percent peoples mandate during a public hearing before land acquisition and judicious compensation and rehabilitation for agreed upon projects as per the LARR Act, 2013.
- Complete implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, granting power to the communities/gram sabhas to decide on their land and forest.
- Complete ban on all mining activities across Sixth Schedule areas where FPIC has not been obtained from the community.
- Stop false solutions in the name of green energy such as mega dams, mega solar parks, compressed biogas plants, mega pump storage projects in Northeast India.
- Stop privatisation of the energy sector.
- Strict implementation of 100 percent job reservation for project-affected peoples.
- Implement zero tolerance policy on human rights violations and attacks on human rights defenders and whistleblowers.
