Projects were canceled by MoEF. What about the claims that state government and bureaucrats had forged certificates and bypassed procedures in the first place?

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Jairam Ramesh, the honorable Minister of Environment and Forest has canceled permits for, or blocked further work on a number of projects. Two significant ones include Vedanta's Aluminium plant in Niyamgiri hills, Orissa, and the Maheshwar Dam project in MP. in all, more than 50 projects have been canceled in the past year alone.

Many of these projects were going ahead - driven by state governments and government institutions - despite strong opposition from local communities who were being displaced, whose land and water were being polluted, who had to bear with the externalities of the projects so that some companies could generate massive profits. Often, the opposition by people was put down by deployment of massive state (and sometimes central) forces. The governments wanted these projects to continue and were willing to kill local people for it. All kinds of clearances and permits were fast-tracked, often diluting checks and ignoring due processes.

In the case of Vedanta's Aluminium plant, the committee found that the state government had issued clearances without due process, that the permits were without ground.

Clearly, the government agencies and its officers were influenced - and that is an euphemism, perhaps bribery was what happened - to take these decisions and get around due processes so that the companies involved could get going without worrying about infrastructure or processes needed to ensure that local communities and the environmentn did not have to pay for these profits. The state and the democracy need to understand clearly the mechanisms of this breakdown in process, in undue influence so that it can be fixed.

Mr. Ratan Tata can talk about an unnamed politician who, many years ago, wanted crores of Rupees for licenses. He can claim that such corruption has been the bane of Indian society, why India is not developing faster. However, he is unwilling to talk about Tata's role in Singur, of 'fast-tracking of processes' in acquisition of land for his plant. Of use of influence to achieve this. Of similar stories in Kalinganagar in Orissa. He is unwilling to talk about subversion of democratic processes and the violence of state forces and cadres to achieve this.

Thus, it is not enough that the permits were revoked. It is necessary that government agencies, politicians and bureaucrats be investigated to understand how these checks and balances were dismantled. Why should there not be criminal charges brought against the state, or officers of the state who directed that police force be used to quell opposition from the Niyamgiri communities. Why should there not be charges against bureaucrats that the State - a representative of the people, in a democratic form of governance - was weakened so that individual politicians and bureaucrats could gain from graft and be influenced by private enterprises?

Why have those who opposed these projects - in Maheshwar Dam, in Niyamgiri, elsewhere - not been feted as heroes? Why do they still carry the hat of being anti-development, and in some cases unpatriotic? More importantly, how can the process begin to include their concerns more effectively, since these voices have often been the herald to undue influence and the political-bureaucratic-private capital nexus that is willing to sacrifice our democractic processes, the environment, rights of people for illegal profits.

It is not enough to cancel the permits. The cancellation clearly - though not articulated by the government or the media - points to graft, to corruption, to a nexus. The break down in processes that led to such undue influence needs to be identified, and fixed. Else, we are looking forward to more such stories.