Lillian’s Eden

by Cheryl Adam

  Adani and Modi have been friends for a decade dating back to when Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat; they have leveraged all kinds of benefits from each other. During Modi’s China visit, the year after he was elected Prime Minister, Adani and Bharti, a company whose services include telecommunications networks, got the bulk of deals with China Inc. worth US$22 billion according to an article published in the Hindustan Times in March 2015. It was Bharti Airtel Ltd back in 2006 that announced it was developing a telecommunications network for the Special Economic Zones in Adani’s Mundra port, which included video surveillance.

  Charting the relationship between Modi and Adani, PagalParrot (billed as the online news service which “gives you everything you want to know about India on the internet”) alleged that the “net worth of Gautam Adani multiplied four times in just one year of the Modi Government.”

  One key reason for Gautam Adani’s success was that Gujarat was the first Indian state to pass legislation to create Special Economic Zones (SEZ). Passed in 2004 when Narendra Modi was Chief Minister, even before the Indian SEZ Act in 2005, the SEZ was designed as ‘an engine for economic growth’ to streamline controls authorising foreign companies to acquire land for industry. It proved critical for the Adani Group to build the company’s power plant and port in Mundra, which later developed over a 100 square kilometre area and became the largest port-led SEZ in India as a privately operated multi-project SEZ. According to The Adani Brief,85 citing Indian news articles, the Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone Limited is the previous name of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited, which Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) filings indicate is “the ultimate owner of Terminal 1 at Abbot Point Port in Australia.”

  Land inside an SEZ is exempt from all taxes, levies and trade duties for a decade of operation. An SEZ is also subject to different legal rules. The idea behind an SEZ is to attract foreign investment offering tax incentives (including customs duties) to international companies. SEZs are a law unto themselves. Rapid industrialisation, which followed the proclamation of SEZs, was to have a disastrous effect on the ecologically sensitive Gujarat coastline, just as the priority port expansion had on the Queensland coast abutting the Great Barrier Reef during a similar timeframe.

  Hazira, our first port of call, boasts the entirely contradictory offerings of being a Centre for Health Tourism due to its natural springs, as well as being a deep water liquefied natural gas terminal and multi-cargo port. It is home to major polluting companies including Shell and Reliance. Its shipments include petroleum and bulk liquid chemicals.

  In May 2013, Adani was granted Environmental Clearance by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests to build 12 berths including two coal berths to further develop its facility at Hazira port. The port was supposed to be developed in stages to include a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal and included a condition of compensatory afforestation of mangroves that was later reduced to 200 hectares.

  In January 2016, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which has the powers of a civil court and can order compensation for damages to person or property, found that the environmental clearance issued to Adani by the Ministry of Environment and Forest was “illegal and must be set aside.” This followed a petition filed by the Hazira Fishermen Committee that challenged the project on the grounds of damaging the environment as well as displacing more than 300 fishing families.

  According to The Hindu newspaper in January 2016,86 the NGT imposed a heavy penalty of Rs. 25 crore (AU$4.8m) on Adani Hazira Port P/L (AHPPL) and its associate Hazira Infrastructure P/L for restoration of degraded environment: “What we find from the record is that instead of expanding port work in phase-out manner, expansion was already practically done almost without obtaining environmental clearance and coastal regulation zone (CEZ) clearance.”

  The article continued that the NGT also claimed: “It is evident from the affidavit of the forest department that this area, which once had abundance of mangrove stretches, presently don’t [sic] have any mangrove vegetation.”

  India’s Supreme Court refused to put a stay on the revocation of Hazira’s environmental clearance noting that “cancellation of environmental clearance does not affect the shipping and port operations,” according to The Centre of Media and Democracy (CMD) site Source Watch.87 They noted that the Supreme Court directed Adani to deposit the AU$4.8 million penalty it had received. Adani Hazira Port Pvt Ltd (AHPPL) appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of India but was unsuccessful.

  We are visiting the fishermen who took on the multi-millionaire’s company and won against its expansion. Beside a dusty road bordering the port, we stop the car at one of a number of shanty villages that sprawl along the roadside housing around 80 families. They claim Adani’s SEZ has effectively cut off their fishing grounds in the inter-tidal zone and narrowed the creek that they used to access the ocean. The environmental clearance granted earlier by the Environment Minister was declared illegal. This included 25 hectares around the creek being reclaimed.

  The fishermen had alleged that AHPPL developed two additional container jetties and three multipurpose jetties in the non-LNG port area, even before receiving the environmental and coastal zone regulation clearance. They also alleged that clearing the area to build port berths and two container jetties as well as three multi-purpose jetties had led to large-scale destruction of mangroves. The NGT had also found that Adani’s Environmental Impact Assessment overlooked the presence of two vulture species and did not consider their conservation. They were identified as White-backed and Long-billed vultures and were critically endangered.

  Adani, in its defence, denied it had damaged the environment, nor had it restricted the fishermen’s fishing grounds, and denied there were any vultures recorded as living in the area. It stated that the clearing would not destroy flora or fauna or mudflats. It argued, instead, that the changes were ‘minor’ and did not constitute illegal activities.

  In finding against Adani, the NGT was scathing in its judgment noting that the expansion was “already practically done almost without obtaining environmental clearance and coastal regulation zone (CEZ) clearance.” Even more damning was that the company had been “undaunted by the absence of Environmental Clearance” and proceeded with expansion after 2006 without any regard for the impact on the environment. What was once an “abundance of mangrove stretches” now had no mangrove vegetation.

  Geoff Cousins is dressed in a green cap and shirt and his ubiquitous beige slacks. Bruce Currie has a blue pinstriped shirt on and his Akubra hat. He is fussing a little, wanting to know if it’s time to bring out his heritage green cotton long-sleeved shirt which he has had especially made for the journey. On the back is emblazoned a white map of Australia with the silhouettes of a kangaroo, a boomerang and a koala. Currie has stepped into the role as our Ambassador from Down Under, the kind of Aussie the world expects. He is determined the Indians will embrace this.

  As we enter the village, Cousins is introduced to a middle-aged man who heads the Hazira Fishermen’s Committee called Dhansukhbhai Rathod. He has become the hero of the village because he is one of the petitioners who won the court action.

  We are ushered to an unofficial stage on the deck of a pink painted house with green shutters at the beginning of the village. A number of plastic chairs have been assembled. M.S.H. Sheikh, a Surat-based environmentalist who is supporting the fishermen in their legal dispute, is a youthful bespectacled man who is prematurely thinning on top. He is to be our interpreter. We are each issued with a red rose and a can of Coke. The seats are quickly filled with attentive faces. A man in a red cap and striped blue t-shirt is clearly going to be one of the most outspoken.

  After Cousins introduces himself and our delegation, telling the villagers that Adani is proposing to build the world’s largest coal mine in Australia, he gets down to business: “It doesn’t matter if you have the government licence. You must still have the social licence. The Australian people,”
he tells them, “don’t want it.”

  Imogen Zethoven explains how the Carmichael mine will have an enormous impact on the Great Barrier Reef, air pollution and global warming, and Currie talks about the issue of the proposed coal mines in the Galilee depleting groundwater on his farm. I briefly outline the effect on tourism.

  We are, therefore, interested, Zethoven says, to hear the locals’ experience with Adani. Redcap describes the coal dusting and cancer-like diseases affecting some villagers. Later, we hear that an older female doctor is concerned about the level of respiratory diseases she has found in villages near the power plant, particularly among children. Roads have been built around the village with trucks continually roaring through the community bringing further hazards to the villagers.

  “The fishing,” one villager tells us, “has now only 10% remaining from the original stocks. What’s more,” he adds, “the taste of the fish is not good … Hydro carbon kerosene-like smell.”

  Sheikh interprets, waving his palms upwards in a gesture of helplessness.

  “Not only are the fish contaminated, but they can’t get to their fishing grounds due to the SEZ and the narrowing of the creek that leads to the ocean,” he adds.

  The faces before us have an inured sense of resignation. They have lived in this area for centuries. No one can ever remember their ancestors living anywhere else. There is no option to relocate. Their livelihoods are the same as their fathers’. The sea provides. Sheikh says there are 200 people in the village who depend on the fishing and they are ‘traditionally poor’.

  At some distance from the men, dressed in purple and orange saris, the women congregate. Children peek out shyly. A few tiles on the roofs of the shanty houses are perilously close to falling down.

  “Do they get any compensation? Any money for what’s happened?” asks Cousins.

  “There is NO compensation for the restrictions from creeks to the sea or the intertidal zones,” Sheikh tells us.

  “Have they been offered jobs?” Cousins asks. “In the port?”

  Sheikh questions the group. “They only hire outsiders,” he interprets. “They don’t hire local people. At first they said they would employ the locals and the villagers were happy. But that was only a promise that never happened.”

  This is an ominous message for us considering Adani’s promises of jobs back in Australia which has won the politicians and many regional townspeople over.

  In 2016, Adani proposed an outer port expansion at Hazira which would add 19 new multi-purpose berths to the 12 already approved in 2013, bringing the total number of berths to 31.

  “They want to expand the port even further through the forest – 183 hectares of protected forest … The people are dependent on the forest land for the grazing of the goats and they are harvesting foods from this big forest and they are dependent on the fishing – they put small nets across the creek. The whole entire protected forest has been given to Adani. Adani will make an expansion of the port at this side and they will lose the entire resources of the village.”

  “Did they consult with the Indigenous people?” asks Cousins.

  Sheikh shakes his head.

  As the meeting winds up, Cousins asks Sheikh if he has told the villagers we are to present a letter signed by cricketers Ian and Greg Chappell to Adani. Sheikh nods that he has.

  “Is India going to beat Australia in the cricket?” asks Cousins. There is lots of predictable laughter.

  “We think about our children,” the village chief pulls a little girl towards him. “And our grandchildren.” Sheikh relays this to us.

  “That’s why we’ve come,” says Cousins adding, “I am a very old man. A father and grandfather and I’m very concerned.”

  The villagers are planning to cook us a feast that we gently decline, touched that they would offer this when they have so little and are facing such a grim future.

  Leaving the village, we pass by the Adani port. It is our first encounter with enemy territory. Barbed wire fences surround the perimeter of the SEZ. Small seedlings growing just behind the perimeter fence forecast future privacy.

  As we near the edge of the port, we stop the car. A number of small trail bikes with Indian youths are grouped to the left of a small track.

  To our left lies an enormous mountain of slag from the industrial development of the port.

  We jump on the back of a trail bike and travel pillion style. Zethoven’s hands are clasped firmly at the rear baggage rack. Currie’s Oz heritage green shirt disappears up front. I wonder what will happen if we encounter security even though we are on a public road. We pass a truck with a wooden back. But no one stops. The track gets narrower and sandier and the earth blackens. There is no turning back now. Shanties line the road and the mudbanks. The track opens out to the beach. Beside us to our right the Adani port sprawls, all turbines and high floodlights.

  When I arrive, Cousins and Sheikh are rubbing their fingers on the mangroves growing in a ditch near the track. Their fingers come away covered in coal dust. “You cannot cut this,” Sheikh says, disapprovingly pointing to the mangroves. “What is going on is the port is expanding that way and this whole area will be gone.”

  The mudbanks ooze mud. My sandals, the only ones I have packed, are covered in black coal dust. A man on a scooter is out along the horizon scavenging for steel instead of fish. A heron flaps behind him and heads skyward. Stagnant waterways are crossed by dirt roads protected by large concrete pipes. A lone hermit crab with one claw scuttles down a hole in the mud. There is something desolate about this area that was once a thriving local habitat.

  Adani had been restrained from carrying out any construction activity back on 18 January 2016. It was a victory of sorts. But, since our visit, the future of the fisherfolk seems to have changed for the worse. Under Modi’s reign, Adani’s future seems ever brighter. In August 2017, five months after our visit, India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change approved Terms of Reference (ToR) for the outer port expansion, giving Adani three years to prepare an environmental impact assessment.

  The Gujarat Government has since allowed Adani to expand its Hazira Port. In February 2018, Adani won against another industrial Indian company, Essar, who had challenged Adani’s expansion. In February 2018, the Center for Media and Democracy’s Sourcewatch reported that Adani’s website shows six berths in operation at Hazira Port: two for dry cargo, two for liquid cargo, and two for containers.88 The port handles all types and grades of coal, including steam coal and coking coal, both imported and domestic. By 2020, should Adani successfully pass the environmental impact assessment, the company will be able to build 31 berths.

  After the jubilation of the win through the National Green Tribunal, however, the future for this fishing community is even less certain now. More than a year after our visit to India, on 2 May 2018, according to The Economic Times and various other Indian media outlets, the Supreme Court set aside the National Green Tribunal order quashing the environmental clearance (EC) granted in 2013 to Adani-Hazira Port Pvt Ltd (AHPPL) for development of port activities at Surat. The court also directed that Rs 25 crore, which the AHPPL had deposited following the NGT’s January 2016 order, be refunded to Adani. The order stated that the matter was settled between the parties and the fishermen had been paid adequate compensation.

  Chapter 5

  Confronting the God Adani

  Ahmedabad is the obvious choice for Adani’s HQ. Adani House is positioned almost halfway between Mundra, the home of Adani’s coal-fired power plant we are yet to visit, and its port at Hazira. It is 16 March 2017. Tensions are high. There has been discussion in the car about how we will approach this climax to our visit. What kind of reception will we receive? Will we all take part? What if there are arrests? Are they expecting us? We’ve been told that almost as soon as we entered the country, God Adani would know of our presence and we would almost certainly be followed.

  Six months after our visit, a Four Corners crew is deta
ined and questioned by police in their hotel room. Our local crew on the ground who have set up interviews have been particularly discrete to make sure they are never photographed, and we have to be aware of this even when we do an occasional selfie and they are inadvertently in the background. The videographer has told us he cannot cover our arrival at Adani HQ as the company has already got into trouble filming elsewhere. We can fly back to our country. They live here.

  Suddenly, as we are still discussing strategies, we drive past a building with white steel gates. The driver pulls over half a block away and we are all getting out. At the last moment, my concerns evaporate. It seems churlish to have been considering not participating. I am overwhelmed by the importance of what we are here to do.

  Geoff Cousins, whose single-mindedness has helped focus us all, leads the delegation. With racing hearts, we squeeze behind him in single file past cars, motorbikes and scooters parked erratically on the side of the road walking back to Adani HQ on what should have been a footpath. In typical Indian style, hardly any footpath exists. Then we see the Indian media contingent: about 30-strong, some with large TV cameras at the ready focusing on the entrance to Adani HQ. Noticing our arrival, the media train their cameras on us as we go through the gate, past a security guard in khaki suit. We climb the dozen concrete steps at the entrance to the building. A siren eerily echoes off the many other skyscrapers crowding the street. Several other officials stand by. Cousins counsels that at all costs, we must stay inside the building to achieve our purpose. Unbelievably, no one stops us.