COMPENSATION

Over the weekend, advocates and activists, came to Goa for a HRLN organised National consultation on ‘Litigating against Corporations for Human Rights!’ It was indeed a ‘festival of facts’ of the struggle to reclaim democracy from the grip of unscrupulous corporates patronised by corrupt governance and aided by an often hostile judicial process.

Vaishali Patil who leads the fierce resistance to the Nuclear Power Project at Jaitapur, Maharashtra, told how an overwhelming majority of the villagers refused the compensation cheques in lieu of the forceful land acquisition. Their resolve stood up to the aggressive Government that violates human rights to back a hazardous project that spells doom for livelihoods but also endangers lives much beyond the area.

Once, a Government Secretary explained his estimate of how compared to the poor returns for the farmers’ back breaking work, they would earn better from the interest accrued from the compensation, without doing any work! An 80 year old woman immediately made a counter compensation offer to the Secretary, of a voluntary retirement package to be raised from contributions from over 2000 humble households! Needless, to say, the Secretary was furiously offended.

Compensation changes meaning when it concerns our lives and our rights. In the combined lexicon of Government and Corporation, the word compensation is muddled in language-pollution. And this is more so due to the growing disconnect of us consumerists from the attacks on the lands, lives and livelihoods of the people whose work sustains our lives as well as the world we live in.

We crib about growing food prices, yet we are puzzled by the resistance of the farmer against the annexing of his land. We wax eloquent about the environment, yet we believe that development happens when a forest is mined. We complain about traffic jams, yet we buy bigger vehicles for ourselves. We fight for our own rights, yet we insist that others surrender their claims for an unfair and forceful compensation.

Indeed, the world will be better only if all of us connect to true empathy by putting ourselves in the shoes of the aggrieved. Too often, we are disconnected from reality. When we know, we understand. When we understand, we must do what we know needs to be done. After all, the stakeholder’s struggle requires both, empathy and ‘real solid’ solidarity!

Indeed it is inhuman to barter rights for compensation...

Let’s BE BETTER at connecting to empathetic action!

- Pravin K. Sabnis