In the midst of India’s general election, observers have been flummoxed by a recent attack by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on key opposition figure Rahul Gandhi. Modi accused Gandhi of accepting vanloads of cash from India’s two richest men, Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani, supposedly in return for going easy on them. No evidence for this bizarre slur was proffered. The claims were perplexing because Gandhi has been far from silent regarding the alleged nexus between Modi, Adani and Ambani. It is Narendra Modi himself who is seen by many commentators, not just Gandhi, as having favoured the Adani and Ambani corporate conglomerates with friendly government policies.

Half-way through the heat and dust of India’s general elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sprung a surprise on the country, including his most ardent supporters. He suggested during a public speech on 8 May 2024 in Karimnagar, Telangana, in southern India, that the country’s two richest men Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani were sending carloads of cash to the largest opposition party, the Indian National Congress.

The Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi, retaliated by asking Modi why his government’s law-enforcing agencies were not acting against the two oligarchs. In recent years, Gandhi has been relentlessly attacking Modi, who heads the right-wing Hindu nationalist government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in New Delhi, for shaping policies and bending rules to favour the corporate conglomerates led by Adani and Ambani, both of whom are from Gujarat, Modi’s home state. Modi is attempting to win a third consecutive term as prime minister,

Narendra Modi to Rahul Gandhi: why have you stopped abusing Adani-Ambani?

Here is a translation from Hindi to English of what the Prime Minister said 25 minutes into his speech in Karimnagar:

‘You may have noticed, for the last five years, the shehzada (or prince) of the Congress (meaning Rahul Gandhi) has been harping on the same string every morning as soon as he gets up. Ever since the Rafale (aircraft) case (in which it was alleged that Modi had favoured a French firm) was grounded, he started harping on it. For five years, he has been harping on it. Five industrialists, five industrialists, five industrialists…

‘Then slowly, he started saying Ambani-Adani, Ambani-Adani, Ambani-Adani, for five years. But ever since the elections were declared, he stopped abusing Ambani-Adani. Today, from Telangana, I want to ask him… the shehzada should announce how much money (maal) he has taken from Ambani-Adani. How many sacks of black money have gone to him? Have they sent tempos (vans) filled with notes to Congress? What deal have they struck? You have stopped abusing Ambani-Adani overnight. There must be something fishy. For five years, he abused Ambani-Adani, and overnight the abuses stopped! That means you have received looted amounts (chori ka maal) filled in trucks. You have to answer the nation.’

A part of the statement was also highlighted on Prime Minister Modi’s official website.

On 9 May, the Congress dared the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take the ‘logical step’ of ordering a thorough investigation against Adani and Ambani, whom Modi described as ‘hoarders of black money’. Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said that Modi mustered courage to ‘expose the corruption of Adani and Ambani’ after Rahul Gandhi had highlighted the ‘corporate loot’ that had allegedly been acquired by these two super-rich industrialists.

She taunted the Prime Minister: ‘He said they fill tempos (vans) with bags of cash and distribute them…Modi must now send the Enforcement Directorate, the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) and the Income Tax (Department) to investigate how so much black money was amassed. What’s the point in getting scared now and retracing the step? Don’t be afraid now, unleash your agencies. Let the raids start.’

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The Dharavi settlement in Mumbai is internationally famous. Adani has won the right to redevelop it by demolishing this huge shantytown and then re-housing its inhabitants. In this video interview, an advocate for workers in Dharavi’s thousands of enterprises expresses fears for those people’s economic future:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eogabVUdEb8

Vinod Shetty points out that lots of well-off people in the city of Mumbai, including parties, politicians and agencies, live off the labour of workers in Dharavi, which is home to thousands of enterprises and hundreds of thousands of consumers. He says that Dharavi and its businesses have become a massive 'cash cow' for those who make money from the poor.

‘A large number of people get displaced by whatever redevelopment is planned, including the current one,’ says Shetty. ‘Every chief minister regards Dharavi as a hot potato.’

‘What we will be creating is one of the largest displacements of people, because nearly 50% of the people are not even included in the survey of the residents of Dharavi, so these people are out from Day One.’

‘People are nervous that they will be displaced … and taken to a transit camp… and they don’t know their fate. They don’t know when they will come back.’

‘No chief minister wants to end his career with this visual of hundreds of thousands of people packing their belongings and trudging out of Dharavi.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eogabVUdEb8

Dharavi in Mumbai is Asia’s largest slum. Adani has won the right to redevelop it by demolishing this huge shantytown and then re-housing its inhabitants. But many people fear they will be made homeless and jobless. Here, an urban-planning expert articulates those concerns to veteran journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRKvs2OEZBs

OBITUARY

On 28 December 2023, Dr Sreedhar Ramamurthi died in the Indian city of Mumbai. He was 67. Sreedhar was the founder of the Environics Trust, an organisation dedicated to tackling the unsustainability of mining and other resource-extractive activities in India. In recent years, instruments of the Modi government had hounded both Sreedhar and the Environics Trust, causing them stress and hardship. Sreedhar was a learned and gentle man, but possessed of deep conviction in his efforts to protect the environment of his beloved India from plundering corporations.

Sreedhar Ramamurthi was a scientist as well as an activist who worked to ameliorate the condition of those impacted by reckless mining all over India. He worked with many others who shared his ideals about the need to conserve the planet with care. He was no starry-eyed social worker who believed he could change the world overnight. He was down to earth and practical about what could be achieved and what could not, and the extent to which the government could be convinced to support the under-privileged when their interests were pitted against those of the rich and the powerful.

He was a grassroots person. He travelled the length and breadth of the country. The vested interests who made big bucks by damaging the ecology of India – its jal (water), jangal (forests), jameen (land) – feared him. For he always knew what he was talking about.

Towards the end of his life, he, and the organisation he founded, Environics Trust, were hounded by the Income Tax Department and the Ministry of Home Affairs that administers the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. In a letter, the department alleged that the trust had collaborated with the Mineral Inheritors Rights Association for supporting those who were protesting against the coal-mining projects being operated by the Adani Group in Odisha in eastern India, among other such projects. The tax authorities claimed that funds were spent ‘not as per the objects of the Trust’. The cases against the Environics Trust continue but the man who was the driving force behind the organisation is no more.

Dr Sreedhar Ramamurthi was only 67 when he passed away in Mumbai where he was on vacation with his family.

In 1977, Sreedhar completed a bachelor’s degree in science from Osmania University, Hyderabad, with an unusual (by Indian standards) combination of subjects: mathematics, physics and geology. He spent the next two years at the prestigious University of Roorkee (now an Indian Institute of Technology) in Uttarakhand studying applied geology. He later did a short course on environmental risk management at Salzburg, Austria. He worked with the public sector Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and in the Atomic Minerals Directorate of the Indian government’s Ministry of Atomic Energy, in Hyderabad.

However, a secure government job was clearly not what Sreedhar wanted. He chose to live and work with ordinary people. He was instrumental in setting up the Environics Trust as its managing trustee and became closely associated with several non-government organisations, including, notably, Mines, Minerals and People, the Indian Network on Ethics and Climate Change (INECC), and the Mineral Inheritors Rights Association. He became deeply interested in the environment of the Himalayas and studied the seismological impacts of hydro-electric projects in the mountainous terrain of India and Nepal. He was a visiting professor at reputed educational institutions in India and outside the country, wrote dozens of scholarly papers, and established close contacts with many others in different countries who had interests and concerns that were similar to his.

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