On May 22, state police gunned down and killed 13 unarmed civilians and injuring tens of others who were participating in mass protests against a smelter plant owned by the Sterlite Copper corporation in Thoothukudi district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The incident sparked protests across the country denouncing police violence. The next day, another civilian was killed by police after being hit by a rubber bullet in the spine at another protest.
Earlier in February, around 250 residents of the villages near the smelter plant took part in an indefinite hunger strike in an attempt to halt the plant’s proposed expansion, which was polluting their ground water and air leading to health hazards. After three months of tirelessly protesting Sterlite, organizers planned a peaceful mass rally to the District Collector’s office on May 22 to submit a petition demanding the closure of the plant, and to mark the 100th day of the struggle.
On May 22, over 100,000 people took part in what was meant by the organizers to be a peaceful rally and sit-in. Instead they unknowingly walked into a trap set by the plant hitmen and the government officials who colluded against the protesters. Protesters had let local government officials know ahead of time that a mass rally had been planned for May 22.
Traditionally, Tamil Nadu police would use microphones to communicate, and water cannons to disperse protesters. This time police fired tear gas — and their guns. Protesters reported police beating men, women and children indiscriminately. Protesters were given no warnings before the police guns went off.
Contradicting the police’s version of the shootings being a response to the violence of the protesters (“throwing stones and setting vehicles on fire”), the emergence of a photo showing a sniper, not in uniform, shooting from atop a vehicle near the police confirms that the shootings were pre-planned. It also cannot be a coincidence that of the 13 people that were killed, 8 were leaders of the anti-Sterlite movement. One of the protesters also reported seeing a van already set on fire when the protesters reached their destination, which was being guarded by the police.
From Thoothukudi to Standing Rock, police violence against people who organize themselves to protect their land, air and water, must be understood for what it is: state-sponsored violence in the service of protecting the interests and properties of the capitalist corporations.
“Cancer or bullets”
The anti-Sterlite movement did not begin in 2018, locals have been struggling against the plant since even before it was established. Sterlite Copper, a copper-producing unit of Vedanta Resources, one of the world’s largest metals and mining companies based in UK, has been operating in Melavittan, Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu since 1997. Copper production, which includes mining, smelting and refining, produces toxic by-products like lead, arsenic and sulfur oxides which impact the quality of water, soil and air adversely.
As early as 1998, 1999, then in 2003 and 2005, the National Environmental Engineering Research institute’s reports on Sterlite Copper showed that the plant was polluting the environment through emissions that did not conform to the standards set by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) under the Air Act and Water Act. In 2017, this was again confirmed by Geological Society of India.
On March 23, 2013, Thoothukudi experienced a massive gas leak from the Sterlite plant, with residents reporting a range of chemical exposure symptoms. Even though the Supreme Court of India agreed with all the allegations made by the people of Thoothukudi it refused to permanently shut down the plant, arguing that the plant contributes substantially to copper production in India as well as to the employment of the locals. Choosing economic factors over the lives of working-class people, the Court issued a Rs.100 crores fine (approximately $15 million), and allowed the plant to continue to operate.
By official figures, Thoothukudi is now the cancer capital of Tamil Nadu. Every family in Thoothukudi has at least one or two cancer victims, this is especially the case for a village named Pattaramapetti. A 2006 study conducted by Tirunelveli Medical College found a high prevalence of respiratory tract infections, correlated with the presence of harmful gases and irritants in the air, as well as a high incidence of menstrual disorders among women living in the area.
The most recent protests were sparked by Vedanta’s move to build another copper smelter in Theruveerapandiyapuram village to double the company’s production from 400,000 tonnes to 800,000 tonnes a year, disregarding the horrendous impacts this would further have on the health of the people and ecosystems of Thoothukudi.
As protest organizer Krishnamoorthi Kittu said, “Both choices meant death for us, either by cancer or by bullets. Pushed to the wall, we chose the bullets.”
People force government to give in to demand of mass movement
While working-class Tamilians, as well as Indians across the nation were outraged by the actions of the police on May 22, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edapaddi K Palaniswami justified the police firing on unarmed protesters by claiming the actions of the police were a “natural reaction to police being attacked,” and that, “it [the May 22 incident] wasn’t pre-planned.” He also labelled the people of Thoothukudi fighting for the basic human right to clean water, unpolluted air and land as “anti-social elements.”
State-violence is being justified in the name of “development” and capitalist investment, both at the expense of the health of the poor and the planet.
Prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, of the neoliberal right-wing BJP Party has kept silent about the death of the 13 unarmed protestors at the hands of the TN police, which is well in line his record of not condemning Hindu-supremacist’s mob lynchings, violence against Muslims and lower-caste people. His complacency should be understood as his approval of the police violence, and as state-sponsored violence.
On May 29, to quell the post-May 22 public unrest, and to keep the working-class movement from getting more militant, the Tamil Nadu government not only cancelled the land allotment for the expansion of the Sterlite Copper plant in Thoothukudi, but it also ordered the state pollution control board to seal and permanently close the existing copper smelter plant in Melavittan.
This is a victory for the people of Toothukudi who have heroically struggled to shut down the plant for the past two decades. The 13 people who have been murdered by the state and the hired guns of the Vedanta corporation have not lost their lives in vain, but have martyred their lives to end the suffering of their people.
The lesson for us all is that when the oppressed people organize themselves and fight back, there is no corporation so rich or government so brutal that they can not be brought to their knees by the organization and heroism of the masses.
