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I hope girls of the future generations will not have to terminate their pregnancies for fear of giving birth to babies with deformities and diseases,” was how 25-year-old Sarala (name changed) of Bovikkanam in Kasaragod district responded to the news of Friday’s Supreme Court ratification of its own September 13 order banning killer pesticide Endosulfan nationally.
Sarala had got her second pregnancy terminated in 2007 at a Mangalore clinic, afraid that the baby would have the same horrifying deformities her first child had had as a result of Endosulfan poisoning. “There are scores of such women in Kasaragod, the worst victim of the killer pesticide anywhere in the world,” said Pradeep, an anti-Endosulfan crusader.
Sarala’s Bovikkanam is one of the 11 panchayats in Kasaragod where aerial spraying of Endosulfan for over two decades in the cashew estates of the State-owned Plantations Corporation of Kerala, polluting the entire environment and the organisms in it and causing death of over 500 persons and unimaginable diseases and deformities to about 10,000.
“The court order promises a safer world for the future generations and they will be indebted to all those who lost their lives due to the poison and its living victims,” according to Madhu Raj, the Press lensman who took perhaps the most telling but pain-inducing photographs of the Endosulfan victims of Kasaragod. “I feel relieved that it is banned now,” he said.
The people of Kasaragod were active participants in the worldwide crusade against the killer pesticide. Reports, pictures and videos of victims of the pesticide and the environmental hazards it had caused in Kasaragod had worked as a great inspiration for those who had successfully campaigned for its ban at the Geneva meet on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in April last.
Kerala Assembly’s Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan said the Supreme Court order was a blow to the arrogance of the Central Government which had argued for the pesticide manufacturers’ lobby. His fast on April 29 in support of the efforts at the Geneva meet on POPs for a worldwide ban on Endosulfan had served as an inspiration to the campaigners.
However, people like Leelakumari Amma of Kasaragod, one of the pioneers in the campaign against Endosulfan, regretted the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the export of 17 lakh kilos of the pesticide accumulated in India to other countries.
“Isn’t it equivalent to exporting death to other countries?” she asked.
All the victims in Kasaragod shared the sentiment. “Our Supreme Court has banned it understanding its ability to kill. Do we have the right to export death to other societies?” asked a victim from the Chaklia colony in Chokamala estate. Senior Congress leader VM Sudheeran said India should not export the accumulated Endosulfan.
“Indeed I feel relieved at the Supreme Court decision but I will not call it a total ban as it has allowed export of 17 lakh kilos of the pesticide,” said Muhammad Asheel, a Keralite who had campaigned against the Indian Government’s pro-pesticide position at the POP Review Committee’s five-day meet in Geneva.
Kerala, which had a decade ago imposed a ban on the use of Endosulfan in the context of the tragic experience in Kasaragod, had demanded in unison a nation-wide ban on it as it was still being used in several plantations after being smuggled into the State from neighbouring States like Tamil Nadu.
The illegal and ill-advised aerial spraying of Endosulfan by the Plantation Corporation in its cashew estates for eradicating the bug, tea mosquito, over two decades starting 1978 had polluted the soil, water, flora and fauna and even the internal systems of all organisms including human beings.
As a result, babies are still being born with oversized heads and under-sized bodies. It also caused several mysterious diseases, cancers, infertility, early maturing in girls, late or no maturing in males and frequent deaths. Reports still come out that women are undergoing abortion fearing to bear a child with congenital deformities.
A minimum of 10,000 people in Kasaragod are living victims of the pesticide but scientists of the Indian Council of Medical Research and officials of the Union Agriculture Department are still unwilling to identify the pesticide as a killer and are arguing that the tragedy in Kasaragod was caused not by Endosulfan per se but due to its unauthorised aerial spraying.
Sarala had got her second pregnancy terminated in 2007 at a Mangalore clinic, afraid that the baby would have the same horrifying deformities her first child had had as a result of Endosulfan poisoning. “There are scores of such women in Kasaragod, the worst victim of the killer pesticide anywhere in the world,” said Pradeep, an anti-Endosulfan crusader.
Sarala’s Bovikkanam is one of the 11 panchayats in Kasaragod where aerial spraying of Endosulfan for over two decades in the cashew estates of the State-owned Plantations Corporation of Kerala, polluting the entire environment and the organisms in it and causing death of over 500 persons and unimaginable diseases and deformities to about 10,000.
“The court order promises a safer world for the future generations and they will be indebted to all those who lost their lives due to the poison and its living victims,” according to Madhu Raj, the Press lensman who took perhaps the most telling but pain-inducing photographs of the Endosulfan victims of Kasaragod. “I feel relieved that it is banned now,” he said.
The people of Kasaragod were active participants in the worldwide crusade against the killer pesticide. Reports, pictures and videos of victims of the pesticide and the environmental hazards it had caused in Kasaragod had worked as a great inspiration for those who had successfully campaigned for its ban at the Geneva meet on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in April last.
Kerala Assembly’s Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan said the Supreme Court order was a blow to the arrogance of the Central Government which had argued for the pesticide manufacturers’ lobby. His fast on April 29 in support of the efforts at the Geneva meet on POPs for a worldwide ban on Endosulfan had served as an inspiration to the campaigners.
However, people like Leelakumari Amma of Kasaragod, one of the pioneers in the campaign against Endosulfan, regretted the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the export of 17 lakh kilos of the pesticide accumulated in India to other countries.
“Isn’t it equivalent to exporting death to other countries?” she asked.
All the victims in Kasaragod shared the sentiment. “Our Supreme Court has banned it understanding its ability to kill. Do we have the right to export death to other societies?” asked a victim from the Chaklia colony in Chokamala estate. Senior Congress leader VM Sudheeran said India should not export the accumulated Endosulfan.
“Indeed I feel relieved at the Supreme Court decision but I will not call it a total ban as it has allowed export of 17 lakh kilos of the pesticide,” said Muhammad Asheel, a Keralite who had campaigned against the Indian Government’s pro-pesticide position at the POP Review Committee’s five-day meet in Geneva.
Kerala, which had a decade ago imposed a ban on the use of Endosulfan in the context of the tragic experience in Kasaragod, had demanded in unison a nation-wide ban on it as it was still being used in several plantations after being smuggled into the State from neighbouring States like Tamil Nadu.
The illegal and ill-advised aerial spraying of Endosulfan by the Plantation Corporation in its cashew estates for eradicating the bug, tea mosquito, over two decades starting 1978 had polluted the soil, water, flora and fauna and even the internal systems of all organisms including human beings.
As a result, babies are still being born with oversized heads and under-sized bodies. It also caused several mysterious diseases, cancers, infertility, early maturing in girls, late or no maturing in males and frequent deaths. Reports still come out that women are undergoing abortion fearing to bear a child with congenital deformities.
A minimum of 10,000 people in Kasaragod are living victims of the pesticide but scientists of the Indian Council of Medical Research and officials of the Union Agriculture Department are still unwilling to identify the pesticide as a killer and are arguing that the tragedy in Kasaragod was caused not by Endosulfan per se but due to its unauthorised aerial spraying.
