You must have read by now about the terrible incident that took place in Sompeta near Srikakulam. Police, firing against a group of unarmed villagers and ending up killing 2 of them and injuring many more.
It is important not to blame the police for what happened at the incident. 2000 police against a crowd of 10,000 will eventually end up with them firing for self defense, but why they did not fire in the air first to warn the crowd is questionable. But to get to the actual perpetrators, we must dig deeper and get to the root cause of the why the incident took place at all.
One of the main differences between "developed" nations and "developing" nations like India is the strong will of the people to come and protest against something that's not right. Especially when its directly effecting their livelihood. Lets take the BP Oil crisis for example, what would happen if all the fisherman and others who depended on the sea for their livelihood marched on BP demanding an answer for what happened and more importantly what they are going to do about it. Would the police there fire on them? If they did, would the country raise up against the government? It is exactly because people cannot afford to protest publicly against the government that the high level corruption in the country is rampant perhaps even more than "third world countries".
Getting back to the matter at hand, I do not want to sound like encouraging violence, but Sompeta reminds us the kind of sacrifice people have to make to combat the corruption in the Indian government. Hundreds injured and 2 dead is the level of attention someone needs to expose the deep rooted carelessness and greed in the political system in India.
Not 2 days after the incident, the NEAA canceled the environmental clearance needed to build the power plant. The amount of conflicting data that was submitted to the government committees is just astronomical. How can anyone mistake a marshy wetland for barren waste land too far away from the sea and incapable of farming. This, coming from two independent studies by two prestigious universities in India, University of Hyderabad and The National Institute of Oceanography in Goa. Even after the team from the ministry was sent to the site, they cam back with the same findings as the fore mentioned Universities.
The gist of the matter is the allotment of the site for any industrial purposes was illegal and all the parties involved were bought by private interests.
The heroes who sacrificed their lives so that their families and villages could keep their livelihood exposed this and woke up the country to the treachery of those we elected to rule us and keep us safe.
Lets hope such incidents are few and far between. As always, we welcome your throughts on the matter and encourage to comment on our articles or post a note on our forums.
