Exposing Adani’s environmental and labour abuses

by Vaishali Patil

For more than 20 years, I have worked with India’s poorest and most marginalised people, helping women access basic education and defend their rights to land. In that time, I have also provided legal support for communities and biodiversity hotspots threatened by coal.

'IS AUSTRALIA PREPARED TO LET A COMPANY RESPONSIBLE FOR SUCH BLATANT HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES BUILD ONE OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST COALMINES ON YOUR SHORES?'

The strongest lesson I have learnt in my work is that social and economic justice are unattainable without environmental justice, and that one of the biggest barriers to social equality here in India is the coal industry. 

In rural India, we are challenged daily by coal. When people think about coal power stations causing pollution, most think immediately of China. But here in India, pollution causes more than 3000 premature deaths every day – with the pollution spewed out from coal power stations one of the leading causes.

Swaths of premature deaths are just the most obvious symptom of a cancer that is destroying my homeland. From degraded lands to corruption and inequality, the coal industry is squeezing our people dry and reaping all the profits, accentuating inequalities and locking communities into a tragic cycle of poverty.

I’ve come face to face with some of the world’s worst companies, but at the top of that list is mining giant Adani, which wants to develop one of the world’s largest coalmines in Australia. The company says it is to meet a demand from India, but the communities I work with patently do not want Adani and they do not want its coal.

Read The Saturday Paper story - “Exposing Adani’s environmental and labour abuses.”