Features
Could ‘greenwashing’ Adani wind project help save Mannar?
By Hemantha Withanage
Senior Advisor, Centre for Environmental Justice
There is no gainsaying that we have to look for green energy to combat climate change. However, the world now seeks a “just energy transition”, meaning the development of energy sources that do not harm local communities and nature while doing justice for workers. Mannar, the location for the Adani wind power project, is undoubtedly a very sensitive location for different reasons. This island has been identified as highly vulnerable to climate change. Mannar is expected to lose over 8000 ha of land to sea level rise in the next 25 years.
The proposed wind power project in Mannar has become controversial due to its impact on the birds, the cost of its electricity, and the unsolicited bidding process. The project is unusual as it is an agreement with political regimes in India and Sri Lanka and not an ordinary investment project. It is also linked to the proposed transmission line between India and Sri Lanka. This is not included in the approved Long-Term Energy Generation Plan-2023-2042(LTEGP) or the Renewable Energy Development Master Action Plan (REDMAP) developed by the CEB.
This Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is highly inadequate due to its weak components, including the identification of alternatives, lack of cumulative impacts assessment and an attempt to greenwash a destructive project.
Why is cumulative impact important?
The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) manages a 100 MW “Thambapawani” wind power project in Mannar. A feasibility study for a second project has also been conducted. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Adani project is the third project set to be built on Mannar Island.
On another note, both coasts of the island have been given to Mars Minerals and Metals, an Indian mining company, to explore ilmenite. Furthermore, an Australian mining company is in the process of purchasing land for ilmenite mining. However, we have noticed that the TOR has not specifically requested a cumulative impact assessment, which is a significant weakness.
The Adani wind power project will install 52 turbines on the entire island and construct several kilometres of access roads across sensitive habitats. The EIA states, “The key result of the cumulative assessment is that the Mannar II wind park would not make any material change to the cumulative impacts for Mannar I and the transmission line, as it would contribute only a small additional risk. I disagree with this statement as the existing project located only one line of turbines on the southern coast of the island; in contrast, the new 250 MW Adani wind power project will lay 52 turbines on the entire island.
The Sustainable Energy Authority should be held responsible for declaring this region a renewable energy generation site without first assessing its social and environmental impact. Ideally, they should have conducted a Strategic Environmental Assessment before inviting investors. However, the MANNAR DEVELOPMENT PLAN 2018-2030 prepared by the Urban Development Authority has identified only the southern coast for renewable energy generation and the northern coast for fishery development. Yet, they compromised this plan when it gave a no-objection letter to the Adani wind power project, perhaps due to political pressure.
Effectiveness of emergency radar shutdown system
The Centre for Environmental Justice pushed the CEB and the Asian Development Bank regarding the ADB-funded 100 MW wind power plant due to the project’s location in the central Asian Flyway. This intervention resulted in installing an emergency radar shutdown system at an extra cost of about 1 million USD. As we know, Mannar is the most important wintering wetlands for migratory birds in Sri Lanka. In my opinion, this radar system is somewhat effective due to the size and location of the CEB project. However, we questioned the effectiveness of a radar system when the Adani Wind power project was built across the entire island.
According to The Island newspaper on 1st April 2024, Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera has stated, “According to the EIA Report, meticulous planning has been undertaken to mitigate potential risks to migratory birds. Contrary to assertions, the EIA report explicitly states that turbines will not be within the migratory birds’ flight corridor”. Interestingly, he believes that birds tend to fly within a corridor that spans 2 kilometres in width. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the proposal to create a so-called bird migration corridor is just a greenwashing idea. When we already know that elephant corridors in Sri Lanka are not functioning, how can they expect the birds to follow these human rules?
According to the data reported in Thambapawani solar park, the most affected birds due to turbines were raptors such as Brahminy kites. However, water birds have been adversely affected by the transmission lines. The EIA report endorses the feasibility of the wind park, claiming that the period with high wind does not coincide with the bird migration period. However, the Environment Monitoring Report- Thambapawani Wind Project shows 93 birds from 21 species have been killed during a 4-month period due to both transmission lines and the wind turbines. In the case of Thambapawani Wind Power Project, higher bird collision risks than predicted have occurred, as there are reported bird collisions in the transmission lines. I believe bird collisions will highly increase once the whole island is covered with wind turbines installed under the Adani wind power project.
I doubt whether the new wind power proposal has real interest in installing an effective radar system. The reason is that the Adani project, which has spread all over Mannar island, has allocated only 253,968 USD for the Emergency Radar Shutdown system. In comparison, the CEB wind project has spent about 1 million USD to install one horizontal and 2 vertical radar systems. Considering the area spread of the Adani project It might require more systems to install. Since there is no design available, this proposal is just a greenwashing.
Flooding may cause severe social impacts
Besides the impact on birds, the project will increase the flooding in the area. Thambapawani wind power project is responsible for the increase in floods on Mannar Island during the last few years, though it was not identified during the EIA stage. We believe that this project will further aggravate the flooding in Mannar. Figure 3-10 on page 109 of the EIA shows high flooding areas encompassing several turbine sites, access roads, and a substantial part of the main road bisecting the island. The risk assessment on page 181 indicates the project is in a flood hazard area, with flood risk for turbine foundations on an annual basis.
Out of 72,000 people living in Mannar island, at least 40,000 people were affected by floods in the past. This project will undoubtedly increase flooding. However, no funds have been allocated for offsetting flood related impacts at the operation stage. The company will not be responsible for future flood mitigation work, and the government of Sri Lanka will have to spend public money on this.
Impacts on freshwater
According to the UDA Mannar Development Plan, water scarcity has been identified as a prominent element. The report states, “Historically, Mannar town has been facing many problems in accessing drinking water. Because Mannar is an only Island, people depend on groundwater for their day-to-day needs, but that is too salty and not suitable for drinking”. Due to ill development in the island including proposed mining, piling work for windmills, the proposed road network and the drainage and flooding will have serious negative impacts on the freshwater availability for human consumption. Who is going to pay for the future water projects?
Energy sovereignty at stake
Energy sovereignty is a prerequisite for the independence of a country. This project will have impacts beyond the environment and society. Although the Sustainable Energy Authority has been the project developer, it is only a proxy proponent. It is taking environmental clearance on behalf of the Adani company, owned by an Indian tycoon, to enter the Sri Lankan energy generation sector. They will have 6% of the control in the energy sector, and with Adani’s second power plant in Poonaryn, they will have 12% control of the energy generation in Sri Lanka. We also know there is ongoing negotiation to connect India and Sri Lanka through a transmission cable. This will seriously compromise the energy sovereignty of Sri Lanka.
Lack of alternative identification
The EIA’s alternative analysis is crucial. It should have also explored the possibility of having offshore turbines, alternative sites, and downscaling the project. High wind energy potential sites in mainland Sri Lanka could also generate 250 MW wind farms without significant ecological damage. Solar power is also a viable alternative. However, these technology alternatives have not been adequately considered in the EIA.
Although we agree that the LTGEP plan 2022-2041 includes multiple renewable energy sources and low-carbon technologies to provide green energy to the country for the next two decades, we have pointed out that this plan has not undergone a Strategic Environmental Assessment. As a result, it fails to identify the negative impacts of wind energy compared to solar power in other locations. Therefore, we would like to reiterate that the alternative site and technology analysis is highly inadequate in this EIA.
Destroying palmyra trees and reforestation
The EIA states that the proposed project will not have major adverse impacts on species of flora in the overall landscape. However, according to the EIA, a total of 4,256 Palmyra palms could be affected due to the installation of the wind turbines in the Hard-Standing Area (95mx90m). Additionally, 4,981 Palmyra palms will be cleared to establish the access roads and internal power cables. The number of palmyra palms in the soft standing area is 8822. We consider this as a major change in the tree cover on the island and will have a severe impact on the bird population as many birds use them for roosting and nesting. This aspect has not been studied adequately in the EIA.
The Mannar residents think that the number of palmyra palms to be removed is much higher as there are many saplings under each mature tree. EIA also states It is difficult to predict the exact number of palmyra palms to be felled site-specifically as action will be taken to minimize the palmyra palms to be cut in the Hard and Soft Standing Areas during the construction stage. Furthermore, a total of 260 coconut palms will be affected by turbine construction.
EIA has proposed an allocation of USD 707,491 for 62 ha of reforestation. However, it has not identified the areas where reforestation will happen. This is very important to negate the impacts of loss of habitats for species. However, such tree plantation will not immediately benefit the birds and other animals which use those trees as habitats and for nesting. The EIA does not provide which species will have significant negative impacts due to the loss of over 8000 trees.
Do not mix-up CSR and benefits to local communities
We have learned that the project proponent has already reached out to fishermen groups to convince them on the project. However, except the improved road network, the community will receive no benefits from the project. Mannar is a tourist destination popular among the bird watchers. The EIA report expects tourism potential will develop further as they might be attractive for tourists to watch those turbines. We believe this is not really the case. In fact, tourism potential may be reduced due to a lack of incoming birds. A steep drop in bird visits, a reduction in wildlife and the depletion of the tree cover in Mannare will severely impact Mannar’s economy and the potential for wildlife-based tourism planned by the Tourism Development Authority and Northern Development framework.
Meanwhile, the EIA has included CSR activities as part of the benefits. They cannot be considered the benefit sharing of the project. Adani as an Indian company and mandatory for companies to spend at least 2% of average net profits made during the three immediately preceding fiscal years (the “Minimum CSR Amount”) on CSR initiatives in accordance with the company’s CSR Policy.
We have learnt that non-title holders of lands will not get compensation for their losses. They will only get land development costs and a one-time payment of 100,000 rupees. Information on the land entitlement in the project area is not available. Around 4500 people live in the GN divisions where these wind turbines are planned.
Does the project conform to just energy transition principles?
The climate solution may harm the people and nature who are not even responsible for climate change. While the contribution of people in Mannar is negligible to climate change, the migratory birds are not responsible for the climate crisis. This is where just energy transition principles are important.
‘Just Energy’ transition is about defunding fossil fuels in a way that reduces inequality, shifting the costs of climate action onto wealthy polluters while prioritizing economic, racial, and gender justice. It requires stopping the use of fossil fuels and utilising renewable energy sources, while ensuring that efforts to scale up renewable energy production do not replicate the harms of fossil fuel, like taking land from people without consent and unjust compensation. It also requires working with indigenous community leaders to seek their free, prior, and informed consent when rolling out renewable projects on their land. The Adani project must respect the Just Energy Transition principles. However, this project neglects the community’s voices and participation.
The project could cause more negative impacts than positive ones on the country, posing significant threats to the environment and communities. The EIA has not considered the combined effects of this and future projects. The area has unique natural resources and ecosystems that could be adversely affected. The extended cost-benefit analysis has not considered the loss of fishery, long-term impacts on birds, bird migration, and other ecological impacts. If the project is to continue, it should explore better alternatives. The project-approving agency should advise the proponent to produce an addendum to study such alternatives for this wind power project. Greenwashing, such as the so-called bird migration route, cannot save Mannar Island or the bird life.
In one of India’s coldest and most remote regions, a group of women have taken on an unlikely role: protecting one of Asia’s most elusive predators, the snow leopard.
Snow leopards are found in just 12 countries across Central and South Asia. India is home to one of the world’s largest populations, with a nationwide survey in 2023 – the first comprehensive count ever carried out in the country – estimating more than 700 animals, .
One of the places they roam is around Kibber village in Himachal Pradesh state’s Spiti Valley, a stark, high-altitude cold desert along the Himalayan belt. Here, snow leopards are often called the “ghosts of the mountains”, slipping silently across rocky slopes and rarely revealing themselves.
For generations, the animals were seen largely as a threat, for attacking livestock. But attitudes in Kibber and neighbouring villages are beginning to shift, as people increasingly recognise the snow leopard’s role as a top predator in the food chain and its importance in maintaining the region’s fragile mountain ecosystem.
Nearly a dozen local women are now working alongside the Himachal Pradesh forest department and conservationists to track and protect the species, playing a growing role in conservation efforts.
Locally, the snow leopard is known as Shen and the women call their group “Shenmo”. Trained to install and monitor camera traps, they handle devices fitted with unique IDs and memory cards that automatically photograph snow leopards as they pass.
“Earlier, men used to go and install the cameras and we kept wondering why couldn’t we do it too,” says Lobzang Yangchen, a local coordinator working with a small group supported by the non-profit Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) in collaboration with the forest department.
Yangchen was among the women who helped collect data for Himachal Pradesh’s snow leopard survey in 2024, which found that the state was home to 83 snow leopards – up from 51 in 2021.
The survey documented snow leopards and 43 other species using camera traps spread across an area of nearly 26,000sq km (10,000sq miles). Individual leopards were identified by the unique rosette patterns on their fur, a standard technique used for spotted big cats. The findings are now feeding into wider conservation and habitat-management plans.
“Their contribution was critical to identifying individual animals,” says Goldy Chhabra, deputy conservator of forests with the Spiti Wildlife Division.
Collecting the data is demanding work. Most of it takes place in winter, when heavy snowfall pushes snow leopards and their prey to lower altitudes, making their routes easier to track.
On survey days, the women wake up early, finish household chores and gather at a base camp before travelling by vehicle as far as the terrain allows. From there, they trek several kilometres to reach camera sites, often at altitudes above 14,000ft (4,300m), where the thin air makes even simple movement exhausting.
The BBC accompanied the group on one such trek in December. After hours of walking in biting cold, the women suddenly stopped on a narrow trail.
Yangchen points to pugmarks in the dust: “This shows the snow leopard has been here recently. These pugmarks are fresh.”
Along with pugmarks, the team looks for other signs, including scrapes and scent‑marking spots, before carefully fixing a camera to a rock along the trail.
One woman then carries out a “walk test”, crawling along the path to check whether the camera’s height and angle will capture a clear image.
The group then moves on to older sites, retrieving memory cards and replacing batteries installed weeks earlier.
By mid-afternoon, they return to camp to log and analyse the images using specialised software – tools many had never encountered before.
“I studied only until grade five,” says Chhering Lanzom. “At first, I was scared to use the computer. But slowly, we learned how to use the keyboard and mouse.”
The women joined the camera-trapping programme in 2023. Initially, conservation was not their motivation. But winters in the Spiti Valley are long and quiet, with little agricultural work to fall back on.
“At first, this work on snow leopards didn’t interest us,” Lobzang says. “We joined because we were curious and we could earn a small income.”
The women earn between 500 ($5.46; £4) and 700 rupees a day.
But beyond the money, the work has helped transform how the community views the animal.
“Earlier, we thought the snow leopard was our enemy,” says Dolma Zangmo, a local resident. “Now we think their conservation is important.”
Alongside survey work, the women help villagers access government insurance schemes for their livestock and promote the use of predator‑proof corrals – stone or mesh enclosures that protect animals at night.
Their efforts come at a time of growing recognition for the region. Spiti Valley has recently been included in the Cold Desert Biosphere Reserve, a Unesco-recognised network aimed at conserving fragile ecosystems while supporting local livelihoods.
As climate change reshapes the fragile trans-Himalayan landscape, conservationists say such community participation will be crucial to safeguarding species like the snow leopard.
“Once communities are involved, conservation becomes more sustainable,” says Deepshikha Sharma, programme manager with NCF’s High Altitudes initiative.
“These women are not just assisting, they are becoming practitioners of wildlife conservation and monitoring,” she adds.
As for the women, their work makes them feel closer to their home, the village and the mountains that raised them, they say.
“We were born here, this is all we know,” Lobzang says. “Sometimes we feel afraid because these snow leopards are after all predatory animals, but this is where we belong.”
[BBC]
If elephants are truly to be given “freedom” in Udawalawe, the solution is not simply to open gates or redraw park boundaries. The map itself tells the real story — a story of shrinking habitats, broken corridors, and more than a decade of silent but relentless ecological destruction.
“Look at Udawalawe today and compare it with satellite maps from ten years ago,” says Sameera Weerathunga, one of Sri Lanka’s most consistent and vocal elephant conservation activists. “You don’t need complicated science. You can literally see what we have done to them.”
What we commonly describe as the human–elephant conflict (HEC) is, in reality, a land-use conflict driven by development policies that ignore ecological realities. Elephants are not invading villages; villages, farms, highways and megaprojects have steadily invaded elephant landscapes.
Udawalawe: From Landscape to Island
Udawalawe National Park was once part of a vast ecological network connecting the southern dry zone to the central highlands and eastern forests. Elephants moved freely between Udawalawe, Lunugamvehera, Bundala, Gal Oya and even parts of the Walawe river basin, following seasonal water and food availability.
Today, Udawalawe appears on the map as a shrinking green island surrounded by human settlements, monoculture plantations, reservoirs, electric fences and asphalt.
“For elephants, Udawalawe is like a prison surrounded by invisible walls,” Sameera explains. “We expect animals that evolved to roam hundreds of square nationakilometres to survive inside a box created by humans.”
Elephants are ecosystem engineers. They shape forests by dispersing seeds, opening pathways, and regulating vegetation. Their survival depends on movement — not containment. But in Udawalawa, movement is precisely what has been taken away.
Over the past decade, ancient elephant corridors have been blocked or erased by:
Irrigation and agricultural expansion
Tourism resorts and safari infrastructure
New roads, highways and power lines
Human settlements inside former forest reserves
Sameera
“The destruction didn’t happen overnight,” Sameera says. “It happened project by project, fence by fence, without anyone looking at the cumulative impact.”
The Illusion of Protection
Sri Lanka prides itself on its protected area network. Yet most national parks function as ecological islands rather than connected systems.
“We think declaring land as a ‘national park’ is enough,” Sameera argues. “But protection without connectivity is just slow extinction.”
Udawalawe currently holds far more elephants than it can sustainably support. The result is habitat degradation inside the park, increased competition for resources, and escalating conflict along the boundaries.
“When elephants cannot move naturally, they turn to crops, tanks and villages,” Sameera says. “And then we blame the elephant for being a problem.”
The Other Side of the Map: Wanni and Hambantota
Sameera often points to the irony visible on the very same map. While elephants are squeezed into overcrowded parks in the south, large landscapes remain in the Wanni, parts of Hambantota and the eastern dry zone where elephant density is naturally lower and ecological space still exists.
“We keep talking about Udawalawe as if it’s the only place elephants exist,” he says. “But the real question is why we are not restoring and reconnecting landscapes elsewhere.”
The Hambantota MER (Managed Elephant Reserve), for instance, was originally designed as a landscape-level solution. The idea was not to trap elephants inside fences, but to manage land use so that people and elephants could coexist through zoning, seasonal access, and corridor protection.
“But what happened?” Sameera asks. “Instead of managing land, we managed elephants. We translocated them, fenced them, chased them, tranquilised them. And the conflict only got worse.”
The Failure of Translocation
For decades, Sri Lanka relied heavily on elephant translocation as a conflict management tool. Hundreds of elephants were captured from conflict zones and released into national parks like Udawalawa, Yala and Wilpattu.
Elephant deaths
The logic was simple: remove the elephant, remove the problem.
The reality was tragic.
“Most translocated elephants try to return home,” Sameera explains. “They walk hundreds of kilometres, crossing highways, railway lines and villages. Many die from exhaustion, accidents or gunshots. Others become even more aggressive.”
Scientific studies now confirm what conservationists warned from the beginning: translocation increases stress, mortality, and conflict. Displaced elephants often lose social structures, familiar landscapes, and access to traditional water sources.
“You cannot solve a spatial problem with a transport solution,” Sameera says bluntly.
In many cases, the same elephant is captured and moved multiple times — a process that only deepens trauma and behavioural change.
Freedom Is Not About Removing Fences
The popular slogan “give elephants freedom” has become emotionally powerful but scientifically misleading. Elephants do not need symbolic freedom; they need functional landscapes.
Real solutions lie in:
Restoring elephant corridors
Preventing development in key migratory routes
Creating buffer zones with elephant-friendly crops
Community-based land-use planning
Landscape-level conservation instead of park-based thinking
“We must stop treating national parks like wildlife prisons and villages like war zones,” Sameera insists. “The real battlefield is land policy.”
Electric fences, for instance, are often promoted as a solution. But fences merely shift conflict from one village to another.
“A fence does not create peace,” Sameera says. “It just moves the problem down the line.”
A Crisis Created by Humans
Sri Lanka loses more than 400 elephants and nearly 100 humans every year due to HEC — one of the highest rates globally.
Yet Sameera refuses to call it a wildlife problem.
“This is a human-created crisis,” he says. “Elephants are only responding to what we’ve done to their world.”
From expressways cutting through forests to solar farms replacing scrublands, development continues without ecological memory or long-term planning.
“We plan five-year political cycles,” Sameera notes. “Elephants plan in centuries.”
The tragedy is not just ecological. It is moral.
“We are destroying a species that is central to our culture, religion, tourism and identity,” Sameera says. “And then we act surprised when they fight back.”
The Question We Avoid Asking
If Udawalawe is overcrowded, if Yala is saturated, if Wilpattu is bursting — then the real question is not where to put elephants.
The real question is: Where have we left space for wildness in Sri Lanka?
Sameera believes the future lies not in more fences or more parks, but in reimagining land itself.
“Conservation cannot survive as an island inside a development ocean,” he says. “Either we redesign Sri Lanka to include elephants, or one day we’ll only see them in logos, statues and children’s books.”
And the map will show nothing but empty green patches — places where giants once walked, and humans chose. roads instead.
By Ifham Nizam
SAARC or the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation has been declared ‘dead’ by some sections in South Asia and the idea seems to be catching on. Over the years the evidence seems to have been building that this is so, but a matter that requires thorough probing is whether the media in South Asia, given the vital part it could play in fostering regional amity, has had a role too in bringing about SAARC’s apparent demise.
That South Asian governments have had a hand in the ‘SAARC debacle’ is plain to see. For example, it is beyond doubt that the India-Pakistan rivalry has invariably got in the way, particularly over the past 15 years or thereabouts, of the Indian and Pakistani governments sitting at the negotiating table and in a spirit of reconciliation resolving the vexatious issues growing out of the SAARC exercise. The inaction had a paralyzing effect on the organization.
Unfortunately the rest of South Asian governments too have not seen it to be in the collective interest of the region to explore ways of jump-starting the SAARC process and sustaining it. That is, a lack of statesmanship on the part of the SAARC Eight is clearly in evidence. Narrow national interests have been allowed to hijack and derail the cooperative process that ought to be at the heart of the SAARC initiative.
However, a dimension that has hitherto gone comparatively unaddressed is the largely negative role sections of the media in the SAARC region could play in debilitating regional cooperation and amity. We had some thought-provoking ‘takes’ on this question recently from Roman Gautam, the editor of ‘Himal Southasian’.
Gautam was delivering the third of talks on February 2nd in the RCSS Strategic Dialogue Series under the aegis of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo, at the latter’s conference hall. The forum was ably presided over by RCSS Executive Director and Ambassador (Retd.) Ravinatha Aryasinha who, among other things, ensured lively participation on the part of the attendees at the Q&A which followed the main presentation. The talk was titled, ‘Where does the media stand in connecting (or dividing) Southasia?’.
Gautam singled out those sections of the Indian media that are tamely subservient to Indian governments, including those that are professedly independent, for the glaring lack of, among other things, regionalism or collective amity within South Asia. These sections of the media, it was pointed out, pander easily to the narratives framed by the Indian centre on developments in the region and fall easy prey, as it were, to the nationalist forces that are supportive of the latter. Consequently, divisive forces within the region receive a boost which is hugely detrimental to regional cooperation.
Two cases in point, Gautam pointed out, were the recent political upheavals in Nepal and Bangladesh. In each of these cases stray opinions favorable to India voiced by a few participants in the relevant protests were clung on to by sections of the Indian media covering these trouble spots. In the case of Nepal, to consider one example, a young protester’s single comment to the effect that Nepal too needed a firm leader like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seized upon by the Indian media and fed to audiences at home in a sensational, exaggerated fashion. No effort was made by the Indian media to canvass more opinions on this matter or to extensively research the issue.
In the case of Bangladesh, widely held rumours that the Hindus in the country were being hunted and killed, pogrom fashion, and that the crisis was all about this was propagated by the relevant sections of the Indian media. This was a clear pandering to religious extremist sentiment in India. Once again, essentially hearsay stories were given prominence with hardly any effort at understanding what the crisis was really all about. There is no doubt that anti-Muslim sentiment in India would have been further fueled.
Gautam was of the view that, in the main, it is fear of victimization of the relevant sections of the media by the Indian centre and anxiety over financial reprisals and like punitive measures by the latter that prompted the media to frame their narratives in these terms. It is important to keep in mind these ‘structures’ within which the Indian media works, we were told. The issue in other words, is a question of the media completely subjugating themselves to the ruling powers.
Basically, the need for financial survival on the part of the Indian media, it was pointed out, prompted it to subscribe to the prejudices and partialities of the Indian centre. A failure to abide by the official line could spell financial ruin for the media.
A principal question that occurred to this columnist was whether the ‘Indian media’ referred to by Gautam referred to the totality of the Indian media or whether he had in mind some divisive, chauvinistic and narrow-based elements within it. If the latter is the case it would not be fair to generalize one’s comments to cover the entirety of the Indian media. Nevertheless, it is a matter for further research.
However, an overall point made by the speaker that as a result of the above referred to negative media practices South Asian regionalism has suffered badly needs to be taken. Certainly, as matters stand currently, there is a very real information gap about South Asian realities among South Asian publics and harmful media practices account considerably for such ignorance which gets in the way of South Asian cooperation and amity.
Moreover, divisive, chauvinistic media are widespread and active in South Asia. Sri Lanka has a fair share of this species of media and the latter are not doing the country any good, leave alone the region. All in all, the democratic spirit has gone well into decline all over the region.
The above is a huge problem that needs to be managed reflectively by democratic rulers and their allied publics in South Asia and the region’s more enlightened media could play a constructive role in taking up this challenge. The latter need to take the initiative to come together and deliberate on the questions at hand. To succeed in such efforts they do not need the backing of governments. What is of paramount importance is the vision and grit to go the extra mile.
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