Volume 3, No. 3-4, March-April 2002

Few years back in the "Earth Summit" at Rio de Genero, Brazil – Abdul Gaum, the then President of Maldives said –"You (the Industrialized Countries) are molesting the Earth and we (the developing nations) are paying the price with our lives."

He actually referred to the danger of Global Warming mostly contributed by the pollutants emitted from the industrial chimneys of the west and the consequent rise in the sea water level which threatens to submerge a major portion of the Costal line of the Maldives and other low lying countries.

It is the rule of the modern times that any sort of ghastly crime against humanity and human lives can be committed in the name of ‘Progress’, ‘Development’ and ‘Prosperity’. The rich nations force the poor countries to bear the burden of toxic and waste products generated by the extravagant, luxurious life style of their people. To quench the thirst of profit, imperialism destroyed lakhs of hectares of forest and cultivable land, spoil hundreds of rare species of flora and fauna and perishes crores of human lives in their colonies and sub colonies. Even in countries like India the rich farmers, the comprador bourgeoisie, politicians, bureaucrats and a major portion of the intelligentsia act as the lackeys of imperialism to dismiss and destroy the already endangered environment for their everlasting hunger for money and consumer goods.

At the receiving end of the whole affair are the poor and marginalized people, the landless peasantry, small artisans, uprooted industrial labourers, the dalits, schedule castes and other backward castes communities – who reel under barbaric exploitation, unprecedented in the history of human civilization. Do they enjoy any of the benefits of such development? Does anything trickle down form the creamy layer of society to the nadir where they struggle every day to maintain their hand to mouth existence? Tens of thousands of small farmers and agricultural labourers are uprooted from their ancestral lands for the big dams and mega hydroelectric projects, but not even a single electric bulb is seen to glow in their shanties. Helpless people are thrown away lock, stock and barrel from their humble huts to pave the path of extension of metro railways but they themselves never enjoy a ride. Thousands of villagers are forced to handover their habitat and agricultural land for a song for construction of the Rajashat township which offers shelter to none of them.

Deep rain forests of the tropics are wiped out by multinational companies and their stooges, flora and fauna are destroyed for business, wetlands fall prey to urbanization and industrialization, rivers are choked by big dams and hydel projects, rampant lifting of ground water for quick profit in the name of ‘Green Revolution’ turns fertile paddy fields salty and barren, permanent water logging and perinea floods become a rule of the river valley projects. At the center-stage of all such man made calamities remains a key word – ‘Profit’, the god of capitalism that transcends all barriers of country, language, race or nationality.

The interaction of man and environment is as old as the history of human civilization. But particularly the last two centuries have witnessed a devastating assault on the nature, which was not known even in the era of feudal kings, nawabs and emperors. This is the sole contribution of modern day capitalism and its highest developed form that is imperialism.

The destruction of the planet in the sense of making it unsuitable for human habitat has grown to such an extent that it now threatens the continuation of much of nature vis-à-vis survival and development of the society itself. The litany of ecological complaints plaguing the world today encompasses a long list of urgent problems. These include: overpopulation (also indirectly contributed by imperialism in colonies and semi colonies - to be elaborated later), destruction of the ozone layer by chlorofluorocarbon and allied pollutants emitted by the refrigeration industry, consequent global warming and ‘green house effect’, extinction of species, loss of genetic diversity (more precipitated by the new patent act), acid rain, nuclear contamination and fall out, tropical deforestation, elimination of climatic forests and biological hotspots worldwide, wetland destruction by urbanization and industrialization, soil erosion, desertification, perpetual floods, famines (including the low grade perennial famines, of the Keshpur/Kalahandi/Bolangir type), the despoliation of lakes, streams and rivers, the alarming fall in ground water level for excessive lifting from the nonrenewable layers, contamination of ground water with Arsenic, Fluorine, lead and microbes, pollution of costal waters and estuaries, destruction of coral reefs, oil spillage, over-fishing, destruction of natural fishing style for export oriented prawn culture, change in age old nature savvy agricultural practice for production of cash crop (tea, coffee, soyabean, cotton), the poisonous effect of pesticides and herbicides, toxic wastes (PVC, Plastic and metallic wastes), urban congestion, malnutrition and consequent break out of contagious diseases, depletion of non renewable energy sources (fossil fuels like coal & petroleum) and so on. Thus the world watch institute correctly observed – "we have only four decades left in which to gain control over our major environmental problem if we want to avoid irreversible ecological decline." But this warning is like weeping in the wilderness, as capitalism is not ready to forgo its pound of flesh at the cost of nature, animal and human lives. It is apparent from the shameless statement of the U.S. President in the Earth Summit at Brazil "The life style of our (U.S.) citizens is not a matter for negotiation. We are ready to save nature but not at the cost of our habits and day to day practice." He also refused to sign the declaration on preservation of biodiversity of different countries. In a great mockery of democratic process he offered a few million dollars as compensation.

The question of environment cannot be dissociated from the misery of the local people who are generally poor and depend heavily on the ponds, rivers, forests and hillocks to make both ends meet. It is a common experience that any onslaught on the environment causes widespread uprooting, forced migration, hunger, epidemics, flesh trading, cultural ruin and death of marginalized people – more so for the children, women and frail aged persons. The ‘Narmada Dam and Sardar Sarovar’ project is one of the glaring examples. Other examples are the Bargi Dam (Madhya Pradesh), Subarnarekha and DVC Projects (West Bengal), Koel Karo Project (Jharkhand) Puiamkutty Project (Kerala), Tehri Dam (Uttarakhand), Bishalpur Dam (Rajasthan) etc. Since 1947, big dams and rivers valley projects have forced more than 2 crore people to leave their land without any rehabilitation. The major part of these destabilized folks is from tribal communities, schedule castes and other backward castes. Even the population living in the catchment’s area of these river valley projects is always threatened by the possibility – the main two excuses for such mega projects (sponsored by the world bank or such financial institutes floated by the imperialists) remain mostly unattainable. Inaugurating the DVC project, Jawaharlal Nehru said, "These are the temples of modern India". In reality the so-called temples have turned to be the graveyard of the poor people of our motherland.

In the name of industrialization and prosperity each and every day nature is being raped and its people evicted form home, land, occupation and life. The humble Rajbanshi farmers of North Bengal are forced to hand over their lands for a song for tea gardens and become rickshaw-pullers at Siliguri. The adivasi people of Jharkhand are downtrodden people, who for generations depend on the forests for their food, fuel and medicines – are robbed of their century old rights, by deforestation on the one hand and conversion of natural forests to reserved forests and sanctuaries on the other hand. By legislation, these sanctuaries are made free of human habitation by evicting the villagers from their age-old small hamlets. But the same law enforcing authorities cannot prevent the timber merchants (many of them are the local agents of MNCs and TNCs) from rampant loot of the expensive trees and other forest products. The chariot of "development" spoils nature under its one wheel and crushes the ribs of the poor people under the other from its very beginnings in the late fifteen and early sixteen centuries, capitalism has always been a world system, dividing the globe into center and periphery. The existence of such a hierarchy has meant that the people and the echo-system of periphery have been treated as appendages to the growth requirement of the advanced capitalist center. Each stage of capitalist development – mercantilism, early industrial capitalism and monopoly capitalism – has seen the expansion of the imperialist relation to the planet.

Initially colonialism and later imperialism did not hesitate to give deadly blows on the ecosystem of the countries under either influence. The Europe and later on USA utilized the ecology of Asia, Africa and Latin America as a source of raw material, mostly agricultural, forests and mineral products. These countries also served as the sources of slaves for centuries and on their blood, toil, sweat and tears the superstructure of industrialized, sophisticated and modern western society has been founded. Side by side these peripheral countries have been treated as markets of finished goods, investment of surplus capital and dumping ground of all poisonous and waste products.

Take the example of USA at the time of Columbus’ first voyage in 1492 the Americas were the home, according to the most recent estimates, of some 100 million people – compound to a European population of about 70 million (in 1500); violence of conquest and epidemics (the germs of which were brought by the sailors) led to the rapid decimation of the indigenous Amerindian populations and to the "demographic takeover" of their land by peoples of European origin. Thus Charles Darwin observed, "Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal." By 1592, the number of indigenous people dropped down to 70 lakhs only. Side by side the indigenous nature was destroyed to pave the path of ‘Capitalistic development’ of the new found Continent of North America.

For better understanding of the erosion of nature as a result of capitalism or more precisely imperialism (in colonies and semi-colonies) we should classify the subject as follows –

a). Population

b). Water

c). Food

d). Air

e). Forest

f). Soil

g). Flora & Fauna (Biodiversity)

h). Toxic wastes

i). Energy (including Nuclear Energy)

j). The question of "Technology"

All the 10 points mentioned above are totally inter-related. We shall try to discuss them in a nutshell lest the text becomes too huge for the consumption of the readers. But it is clear, with the advent of capitalism and its highest developed form i.e. imperialism the world is not the same and it is destined to perish by the internal venom the capitalist economy has created.

In the rich countries it is common to attribute the environmental problems of the world to population and the misery of the third world countries to their population. They prescribe the remedial measures accordingly. Such obsessive Malthusian view easily place the train onus of environmental problems not to the rich countries (where population growth is close to replacement level) but on the poor countries where 95% of the projected 3.2 billion increase in population by 2025 is expected to occur.

There is a definite demographic pattern in the population growth. In agricultural and pre-industrialised society high birth rate almost equates high death rate and population grows slowly. In the phase of early industrialisation demographic transition occurs due to fall in death rate not matched with decline in birth rate and as a result "Population Explosion" occurs. With more industrialisation and fairly advanced stage of economic development birth rates – responding to higher level of affluence — variably falls producing growth rate close to replacement level or even a negative growth rate (as presently in some Scandinavian countries). It is commonly said that literacy and affluence are the best contraceptives. This demographic pattern can be evident from the example of England and Wales as stated in Table-A.

      The European Population Explosion tapered off only in 20th Century. Affluence results in lower population growth, which in turn reinforces affluence.

In contrast, the industrialization and natural process of development in the colonies of Asia, Africa and Latin America were hindered and derailed by the legacy of colonialism. For their own advanced capitalistic development Britain, France, Portugal, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and all other colonial powers blocked the economic growth in the third world countries of today. These vast, resourceful and prosperous lands were own over by control of the ocean, and firepower mixed up with highest level of treachery, cruelty, fraud and barbarism. The backward feudal system, racial discriminations and lack of scientific outlook of the local rulers also helped the invaders. As a result countries like India, Congo or Peru became the hinterland and appendages of Europe and an unbelievable amount of surplus wealth started flowing form these ‘peripheral’ countries to the ‘Core’ countries. Muslin industry was destroyed for the mill owners of Manchester, Rubber plantation of Brazil was used as a backyard for raw material for European factories. The "Industrial Revolution" of U.K. was completed by the juice extracted by crushing the bodies of the marginal farmers, small time artisans or petty businessmen of Bengal who were wiped out in the great famine of 1770.The beautiful Belgian glass Industry flourished extracting its nourishment from the bone marrow of the labourers of Congo (Zaire). Let us see an example, in nineteenth Century large railway lines were built in 7 countries - in order of magnitude – USA, Russia, Germany, British India, France, Britain and Canada. Of them only the British India failed to industrialise during railway boom. The reason was that the railway building in India was not to develop India but to develop Britain. The Cotton manufacturers of Lancashire saw the Indian Railways as a mere extension of the line form Manchester to port of Liverpool. Moreover it helped strategically the British authority to move troops and arms during the war of 1957. Railway was therefore built to serve the economic and military objectives of the British Colonialism. Only 4% of locomotives used were manufactured in India. Rest 80% was imported from Britain & 16% from Germany & USA. As a result, in spite of huge railway network, the locomotive building industry never look off.

Between 1876 to 1915, around 1/4th of land surface of globe was annexed to and distributed among half a dozen states like Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal and Spain. The industrialization of the countries was interfered with. As a result the "lag" between the decline on mortality rate and fall in fertility rate has been lengthened for these countries. They were caught in a demographic trap between an "Early Industrial Death Rate" and "Agricultural Birth Rate". Their population grown rapidly while their rates of economic growth per capita is stagnant if not declining, each of which reinforces the other. As renowned environmentalist Barry Commoner describes "Colonialism has, determined the distribution of both the worlds wealth and of its human population, accumulating most of the wealth north of equator and most of the people below it."

The main consequence of the mobility of the peripheral countries to develop economically in the era of imperialism and to complete their demographic transition is posing great ecological problem. Let us see the world population in the Table-B

Table-B

But countries like China and South Korea in Asia are experiencing drop in birth rate as in the second phase of demographic transition due to industrialization. The ability to stabilize the world population depends mostly on the economic development of the undeveloped nations. As projected by U.N., if replacement level fertility can be achieved in the 3rd world countries the world population may stabilize at 10,000 millions (10 billions) by 2100, else it will be no less than 14 billions.

But imperialist countries are not ready to part with their pound of flesh. They are not ready to stop exploiting their press. As Germaine Greer wrote "As long as famine is vivid in peoples memories, They will not jeopardize their chances of survival by limiting the number of children who can help to scavenge for food, children who may die. A child is never an encumbrance to a beggar. As our economic system pauperizes many, it also causes proliferation of the paupers". A system that places GDP and profit above all has brought to the world to the brink of ecological disaster.

Example of India

Indian population slanted exploding from 1930s with passage of demographic pattern from high stationary stage to early expanding stage. It is shown in the Table-C

Table-C

The shackles of British imperialism prevented Indian industrial development side by side the semi-feudal structure pampered by the British for their colonial interest prevented agrarian upliftment and land reform. Even after the Sham independence of 1947, the continuance of the semi colonial, semi-feudal state character dominated by the comprador bourgeoisie and feudal lords prevented true economic sovereignty of the wretched people reached a new nadir and the respective governments, the lackeys of imperialism tried to resolve the "problem" by performing tubectomy and vasectomy – sometimes living people with money and sometimes forcing them to undergo "mass sterilization" in a state sponsored terrorist fashion unprecedented in the history of human civilisation.

Side by side, China won freedom through revolution in 1949. In 1940s and 1950s India and China – two colonies were ranked almost equal in respect of growth and human indices. But from 1960s, Chinese economy took off and consequently there were impact on population, human life indices and environment. (As shown in Table-D )

Table-D

There is another aspect of the population of a country. It is not mere head count but the life style and consumption pattern of a society, which is responsible for the ecological erosion. Does a slum dweller of Mumbai or, who never ride an automobile, uses expensive furnitures or enjoys a cooler machine be charged equally to an US – netizen for destruction of fossil fluid, wood resources or causing release of Chlorofluorocarbon? It is the self centered, greedy, consumption oriented well off metropolis – dwellers o the west who should be blame for rampant – molestation of the nature.

The harmful impact on ecology is directly proportional to the product of population, Affluence and Technology. The destruction of forests, refrigeration industry, change of agricultural pattern for cash crops, rampant uplifting of fossil fluids (coal and petroleum) – none of these are needed for the 35 Crores of people of India or 250 Crores worldwide who live below the poverty line. Pollution of soil, water and air is mostly contributed by a handful of rich people and rich countries. It has been shown statistically that so far as fossil fuel, news print, meat, edible oil, steel and rubber is concerned an US born baby consumes 33 times mere than that of a baby born in India in the whole life.

Thus consumption-wise, the US population should be 24 billions as compared to Indian population or Indian population is equivalent to only 300 million as compared to US population as per shown in Table-E .

Table-E

1 US Child = 33 Indian Children = 800 Ethiopian Children

The Western brouhaha regarding population of the east, is an act of hypocrisy. On the one hand the rich countries force us to real under, extreme underdevelopment and resultant population explosion. On the other hand their luxurious life style rapes the nature at random. When Crocodile’s Tear trickles down from their eyes for the environment it must be understood that it is surely designed to dump more burden on the already endangered and marginalized people of the third world in the name of protecting the ecology.

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