Publication Laka-library:
Caterpillar and the Mahua Flower. Tremors in India’s mining fields (2007)
| Author | Rakesh Kalshian, PANOS |
 | - |
| Date | June 2007 |
| Classification | 4.03.5.10/03 (INDIA - URANIUM MINING) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
CATERPILLAR AND THE MAHUA FLOWER Preface BY RAKESH KALSHIAN Economic globalisation has whetted an insatiable appetite for energy and raw materials across the world. The gradual easing of national barriers to passage of finance capital and goods means nation states and corporations are much freer now to quarry the last remaining jewels from the earth’s bowels. Unfortunately, the sites of these mineral treasure troves also happen to be the homelands of indigenous peoples, or Adivasis, as we call them in India. With nations claiming sovereign rights over resources that lie under their territories, these communities, already pushed to the margins by colonialism, nation-building, cultural discrimination, and environmental racism, are fighting a grim battle for justice and survival against voracious markets backed by growth-hungry states. The recent Hollywood movie Blood Diamond, a horrific tale of poor, ordinary people slaving in mines for diamonds used to fund a protracted civil war between the rebels and the government in Sierra Leone, tellingly exposes how the nexus between amoral capital and apathetic state can wreck innocent ordinary lives and ruin vibrant ecosystems. At another level, the film also points us to the almost inevitable, often macabre, clash of opposing worldviews that’s played out everyday in the Grand Guignols of the world’s mining fields
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