Thailand's Prayuth Chan-ocha fights economy, Thaksin's popularity

Ruling coalition frays ahead of no-confidence motion and eventual elections

Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha walks past an honour guard in Bangkok in May. 

YOHEI MURAMATSU,

 Nikkei staff writer

July 18, 2022 

BANGKOK -- Eager to keep his job once his term expires in March, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha this month has been trying to quash rumors that he will be replaced due to the country's suffering economy, taking to the internet and visiting his supporters.

But his campaign comes with his ruling coalition on the verge of suffering a defection and on the eve of a no-confidence showdown in the lower house.

"If I can continue [as the leader,]" the prime minister told supporters in a rural part of northern Thailand, "the projects will proceed faster."

It was the first time Prayuth made it clear in public that he intends to remain in office for a second term. Previously statements had expressed an intention to serve a full term.

The following day, Prayuth posted a video of himself on his government's website, pledging to rebuild the economy by building infrastructure and promoting the electric vehicle industry. He promised his measures would start showing results within two years, asking the public to keep supporting him so he can complete long-term programs.

With a lower house election to take place by next May at the latest, Prayuth's recent remarks seem to indicate a determination to continue heading the government beyond that period.

Prayuth has led Thailand since May 2014, when as army chief he pulled a military coup, then remained as junta chief until elections were staged for one house of parliament in March 2019. With the upper house hand-picked by the military and holding great power to put a prime minister in place, Prayuth was able to officially assume the prime ministership under a quasi-civilian government.

In a policy speech in July 2019, when the ruling coalition was formed, the pro-military leader vowed to pull Thailand out of its middle-income trap, one many developing countries fall into when they gain a certain amount of economic strength. Then the pandemic struck.

In 2021, Thailand's economy grew 1.5%, the worst performance among major Southeast Asian nations. It is expected to plug along at a relatively low 3% or so this year.

Prayuth can do little about the biggest drag on Thailand's economy, tourism, which in normal times accounts for more than 10% of the country's gross domestic product. Although Thailand is now allowing international arrivals, a big tourism rebound is unlikely due to the relentlessness of COVID-19 and repercussions, especially those pertaining to energy costs, from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

But Thailand, whose economic recovery has been slower than those in neighboring countries, has other concerns.

"The population has peaked out, and foreign companies' investment appetite has diminished," said Seiya Sukegawa, a visiting professor at the Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology in Bangkok.

At the household level, Thais keep having to borrow to make ends meet. According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Thailand's household debt in 2021 reached 91% of GDP, up 10.8 percentage points from 2019, before the pandemic, and much worse than the emerging economy average of 51%.

Their harsh economic reality has many Thais yearning for a return of the Shinawatra family. Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister who led the country to high economic growth, is now living in self-imposed exile, having been convicted of abuse of power. His sister Yingluck, another former prime minister, is also a fugitive.

Thaksin has continued to influence Thai politics from abroad, which shows in an opinion poll conducted by the National Institute of Development Administration in June. In the survey, 25% of respondents favored Thaksin daughter Paetongtarn as the next prime minister. Prayuth came in No. 3 at 12%, outdone even by Pita Limjaroenrat, the leader of Move Forward Party, at 13%.

Thailand's opposition parties have filed a no-confidence motion against Prayuth, with parliamentary debate beginning Tuesday. The motion comes with the 19-party ruling coalition beginning to fray. The Thai Economic Party, a medium-size coalition member, on Wednesday stated it will vote for the no-confidence motion.

Even without the Thai Economic Party, the ruling coalition enjoys about a 15-seat majority in the 484-member lower house. But if more defections follow, they could end the Prayuth era.

Pegasus was used to spy on protesters, a popular actress, and dozens more in Thailand, report shows

Forensic analysis by CitizenLab says government is the likeliest perpetrator.

Varuth Pongsapipatt/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

By ANTONIA TIMMERMAN
17 JULY 2022 • JAKARTA

At least 30 Thai citizens were targeted by the Pegasus phone-hacking software between October 2020 and November 2021, according to a forensic report by the Canadian digital rights organization CitizenLab and Thai NGOs iLaw and DigitalReach. The victims included prominent pro-democracy protesters and their lawyers and supporters. The hack is the latest in a string of documented uses of Pegasus against civil society figures.

NSO Group says that it sells its technology only to governments and law enforcement agencies — meaning that the most likely perpetrator of the hacks is the democratically elected Thai government, CitizenLab said.

Some of the victims were first alerted to the possible hacks of their devices in November 2021, when Apple pinged their phones, warning that they may have been the target of state-sponsored attacks. In the report, corroborated by Amnesty International’s tech initiative, Amnesty Tech, CitizenLab performed forensic analysis of the devices to confirm the hacks were perpetrated using Pegasus, a sophisticated tool developed by the cyberarms-maker NSO Group, an Israeli company that was blacklisted by the U.S. government last year.

CitizenLab’s report noted that many targets were, predictably, leaders of civil society groups. But even individuals with supporting roles were targeted.

Those targeted by Pegasus included prominent pro-democracy activists from FreeYouth, United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration (UFTD), and We Volunteer (WeVo) as well as their lawyers and supporters, who were targeted during a period of widespread pro-democracy protests. An anti-government rapper, Dechathorn “Hockhacker” Bamrungmuang; a famous Thai actress, Intira Charoenpura; and a political science professor, Prajak Kongkirati, were also among those attacked.

Thailand’s current administration took power through democratic elections in 2019, but many of its members — including the prime minister — are drawn from the military junta that displaced the previous elected government in 2014. Thousands of Thai people took to the streets in waves of protest, and dissent has blossomed online in the form of taboo-breaking mockery of the royal family. The authorities have arrested dozens of protesters on charges of sedition, insulting the monarchy (lèse-majesté), and under a loosely worded “computer-related crimes” law.

CitizenLab’s report noted that many targets were, predictably, leaders of civil society groups. But even individuals with supporting roles were targeted. Lawyers for civil society groups were caught in the net, too, along with fundraisers. Niraphorn Onnkhaow, a donation manager for the UFTD and the group’s Facebook page admin, was infected with Pegasus at least 12 times between February and June 2021.

The report speculates that the attack against Niraphorn may show that the perpetrator had attempted to gather information about how the movement was funded and organized. It could have been triggered by specific transactions that would have been known to financial institutions and the Thai government but not the public, the report said.

“This … shows that there is nonpublic knowledge going into the targeting, further reinforcing that this would have been part of a larger intelligence operation,” John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at CitizenLab who co-wrote the report, told Rest of World.

“I can’t think of cases with rappers or actresses targeted with Pegasus,” Scott-Railton added.

Pegasus is uniquely able to infect an iOS or Android device even if the user doesn’t click on a compromised link. The user needs to only open a text or email link to unwittingly allow the software to download, which then gives the attacker unrestricted access to the target device, letting them see messages, emails, contacts, and photographs. CitizenLab found that Pegasus’ developers used zero-day exploits — previously unreported system vulnerabilities — including weaknesses in the iOS system dubbed Kismet and ForcedEntry, to infect phones in Thailand.

The same day that it notified victims of the hacks, Apple moved to sue NSO Group — the second company to do so after WhatsApp launched a suit in October 2019 alleging that the group hacked its server.

One of those startled awake by the ping was Yingcheep Atchanont, executive director of iLaw, a human rights NGO in Bangkok, and a defender in protest-related cases. CitizenLab researchers showed he was targeted by Pegasus six times in 2021.

Atchanont told Rest of World he hadn’t suspected a thing and isn’t entirely sure what the attackers were looking for — though he suspects it could be linked to rumors that his organization was funneling money from foreign donors to the protest groups.

“Maybe the police or military are stupid enough to believe that conspiracy theory; maybe they want to look for more information on the budgeting issue, so they try to attack me,” he said. Atchanont thinks there could be many more infected who are using non-Apple devices and would never have received a warning.

Charoenpura, the outspoken actress known for her public support for the protests and a role in fundraising, never received a notification. She told Rest of World she had thought she was being watched, with plain-clothed authorities visiting her family’s coffee shop, so she moved away temporarily.

Months later, after hearing about other activists receiving notifications from Apple, Charoenpura suspected she might have been a victim. The investigation eventually showed that Charoenpura’s phone was repeatedly infected with Pegasus throughout April and June 2021.

“Can you imagine? One time I encountered a stranger wandering and looking at my house, around 10 or 11 p.m. … With my phone infected, that [has] just raised my concern to the next level,” Charoenpura told Rest of World.

CitizenLab first observed a Pegasus operator in Thailand in May 2014, then in 2016, followed by 2018. From six years of tracking Pegasus spyware infections, including samples of Pegasus code collected from infected devices, and NSO Group’s infection and monitoring infrastructure, CitizenLab was able to identify Pegasus fingerprints associated with the installation of the spyware on the activists’ iPhones, the report showed.

Civil society groups and global institutions have stepped up efforts to hold spyware companies like NSO Group accountable. In April, the European Parliament launched a committee to investigate the use of Pegasus in EU member states. In the U.S.,NSO Group has been put on the Department of Commerce’s blacklist, and major U.S. defense firm L3Harris just dropped its bid to acquire the company’s spyware.

NSO Group’s debt valuation continued to drop in response to the souring public opinion and particularly to government action, like that of the U.S., Scott-Railton noted.

“What really counts is things that make investors realize that they stand to lose everything on investing in spyware and governmental action,” he said. “These things have meaningful impacts on the bottom line of spyware companies. And I think it is probably through that mechanism that we try to slow the global proliferation of this technology.”

Sudan police fires tear gas against pro-democracy protests

Sudanese police fired tear gas in the capital Khartoum in an attempt to disperse hundreds of pro-democracy protesters

A crackdown by Sudan's security forces has left at least 114 protesters and other civilians killed [Getty]

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
17 July, 2022
Sudanese police fired tear gas in the capital Khartoum on Sunday in an attempt to disperse hundreds of pro-democracy protesters demonstrating against coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, AFP correspondents reported.

Security forces had erected road blocks on bridges crossing the Nile river linking Khartoum to its suburbs, AFP reporters said, to deter protesters who had vowed to take to the streets in large numbers.

The demonstrators oppose Burhan's October power-grab and are also highlighting heavy fighting in Sudan's southern Blue Nile state, about 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of Khartoum.

They accuse the military leadership and the ex-rebel leaders who signed a 2020 peace deal of exacerbating ethnic tensions there for personal gain.

Sudan's latest coup derailed a transition to civilian rule, sparking near-weekly protests and a crackdown by security forces that has left at least 114 killed, according to pro-democracy medics.

Nine were killed on June 30, the medics said, when tens of thousands had gathered and their deaths reinvigorated the movement.

On July 4, Burhan vowed in a surprise move to make way for a civilian government.

But the country's main civilian umbrella group rejected the move as a "ruse". Protesters have continued to press the army chief to resign.

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Jihad Mashamoun

The rallies on Sunday follow a period of relative calm over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which ended last week.

Protesters in Khartoum held signs noting the recent bloodshed in ethnic clashes in the south of the country.

"Al-Damazin is bleeding," one Khartoum protester's sign read on Sunday, referring to the state capital of Blue Nile.

Troops were deployed in the Blue Nile town of Al-Roseires Sunday, after at least 33 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in the state, according to the health ministry.

Guerrillas in Blue Nile battled former strongman president Omar al-Bashir during Sudan's 1983-2005 civil war, picking up weapons again in 2011.

Bashir was ousted in 2019. The following year, the transitional administration reached a peace deal with key rebel groups, including from Blue Nile as well as the war-ravaged western Darfur region.

But the areas remain awash with weapons and local grievances over land, water and livestock regularly erupt into deadly clashes.

The current violence in Blue Nile is between two local ethnic groups, the Berti and the Hausa.

Palestinian detainees Raed Rayan, Khalil Awawdeh in 'critical condition' amid ongoing hunger strike in Israeli jails

The New Arab Staff
17 July, 2022

Both Raed Rayan and Khalil Awawdeh are continuing their hunger strikes in protest of their administrative detention amid a deterioration in their health conditions.

An estimated 680 Palestinians are currently held in administrative detention in Israeli prisons 

Two Palestinian prisoners remain in critical condition in Israeli prisons as they continue their open-ended hunger strikes in protest over their conditions and detention without trial, said the Detainees Affairs Commission.

Both Raed Rayan and Khalil Awawdeh have been on hunger strike for 102 days and 16 days respectively, and are reportedly said to be suffering from serious health complications, according to the Palestinian Wafa Agency.




27-year-old Rayan, from the Beit Duqqu village, northwest Jerusalem, has been held at Israel’s infamous Ramla Prison clinic, where he has been detained since November 2021. He was given an administrative detention order for a period of six month upon his arrest, and his detention was subsequently renewed in April for an additional six month, prompting him to begin his hunger strike.

Meanwhile, 40-year-old Awawdeh from Ida, Hebron district, has been on hunger strike for 16 days. Last month, he broke a 111-day hunger strike following Israeli authorities’ verbal promise to release him from his administrative detention.

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450 Palestinian children detained by Israel so far this year

The New Arab Staff

However, the father of four is reportedly back on hunger strike as Israeli authorities reportedly reversed their decision, according to Wafa. He remains in Shamir Hospital, formerly known as Assaf Harofeh, southeast of Tel Aviv.

Awawdeh was previously held in Ramleh Prison before his condition rapidly deteriorated last month, leading to rapid weight loss, severe headaches and joint pain.

He has been arrested five times in the past, three of which were under the administrative detention system, which keeps the detainee held without charge or imminent release.

Israel continues to implement its administrative detention policy, which allows for the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for periods up to six months, and can be renewed indefinitely.

Israelis often detain Palestinians based on "undisclosed evidence" which even a detainee’s lawyer can be prohibited from viewing.

Israeli is currently holding an estimated 680 Palestinians in administrative detention, considered illegal under international law and has drawn strong condemnation from rights groups, such as Amnesty International, who describe the detention policy as a "cruel, unjust practice which helps maintain Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians".

REST IN POWER 
Jessie Duarte: Leading official in South Africa's ruling ANC party dies aged 68

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa praised Jessie Duarte for fighting for women's rights during and after South Africa's struggle against white minority rule and apartheid, which ended in 1994.

Jessie Duarte was an ANC national executive committee member for more than 25 years 

[WIKUS DE WET/AFP via Getty Images]

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
17 July, 2022

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to the long-serving deputy secretary-general of his ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, Jessie Duarte, who died on Sunday after a long battle with cancer.

Duarte, 68, was elected to the leading position in the ANC in 2012 and had been serving until she went on medical leave in November last year.

"Although our beloved comrade Jessie has been gravely ill for several months, it is difficult to comprehend that someone with such vitality and such spirit has departed this earth," Ramaphosa told mourners on Sunday.

"Comrade Jessie was a faithful, dedicated and fiercely loyal leader of the African National Congress," said Ramaphosa.

He praised her for fighting for women's rights during and after South Africa's struggle against white minority rule and the system of racial oppression known as apartheid, which ended in 1994.

"Jessie was relentless in advancing the position of women in all areas of public and private life," said Ramaphosa.

"She confronted the patriarchal attitudes and practices that sought to diminish the role and contribution of women in Parliament, in government and across society," he said.

Some of the influential roles Duarte played include being a spokeswoman for the ANC and a personal assistant to Nelson Mandela after he was released from prison in 1990.

She was a leading member of the ANC Women’s League and also served as South Africa's ambassador to Mozambique.

Duarte, a member of the ANC's national executive committee for more than 25 years, attracted support from rival factions within the party, which led many to describe her as a unifier.

She has often faced criticism for her spirited public defence of the ANC, despite growing evidence that many of its officials are corrupt and ineffective.

A recent judicial investigation into graft allegations during the rule of former President Jacob Zuma from 2009 to 2018 found substantial wrongdoing on the part of the ANC party and some of its top officials.

In recent years Duarte has also been criticised for her attitude toward the media as she often publicly criticised journalists that she viewed as anti-ANC.

Some opposition political parties have praised Duarte for her role in the struggle against apartheid and sent messages of condolences to her family and the ANC.

An official funeral according to Islamic rites was held for Duarte at the Westpark Cemetery in Johannesburg where she was buried on Sunday.

An official memorial service will be held later this week.

Anti-apartheid activist, African National Congress veteran Yasmin Jessie Duarte dies at 68

Yasmin “Jessie” Duarte was the longest serving member of the ruling party’s national executive council, after first being elected to the body in 1999 under the leadership of then president Thabo Mbeki.

Press Trust of India 

Johannesburg

July 17, 2022

Yasmin “Jessie” Duarte was the longest serving member of the ruling party’s national executive council (AFP)

South Africa's veteran freedom fighter and Deputy Secretary General of the African National Congress (ANC), Yasmin “Jessie” Duarte, passed away on Sunday after a long battle with cancer. She was 68.

The ANC confirmed that Duarte passed away in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Duarte had been on medical leave since November last year as she underwent treatment for cancer.

She was the longest serving member of the ruling party’s national executive council (NEC), after first being elected to the body in 1999 under the leadership of then president Thabo Mbeki.

Sharing its condolences, the ANC said Duarte had been “a tower of strength to the organisation as well as a matriarch and pillar of her family. “

“The passing of Comrade Jessie is a great loss, not only to the family but to the democratic movement and the country as a whole,” ANC national spokesperson Pule Mabe said in a statement.

“She dedicated her entire life to the struggle for a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, prosperous, and just South Africa. A committed gender activist, she relentlessly championed the emancipation and empowerment of women. Her life and work reflected a consistent commitment to advancing the rights of the poor and marginalised,” Mabe added.

“As a committed internationalist and former diplomat, not only will she be mourned by South Africa, but by colleagues and comrades on the African continent and the international progressive movement,” he said.

A management accountant by profession, Duarte joined the freedom struggle at an early age and was involved in setting up women’s structures throughout South Africa while the ANC remained banned in the country under the white minority government.

Duarte served as the personal assistant to Nelson Mandela, who was released after 27 years of imprisonment as a political prisoner to become South Africa’s first democratically elected president.

She was also the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Safety and Security in Gauteng province and South Africa’s ambassador to neighbouring Mozambique for a period.

In April this year, Duarte spoke out after widespread rumours on social media that she had died of cancer. She had earlier indicated that she would step down from her position at the next elective conference of the ANC, scheduled for the end of this year.

Duarte’s funeral by Muslim rites was scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

She was married to John Duarte, with whom she had two children. The couple were divorced in 2001.

The dream is over for China’s tech workers

A government crackdown and economic downturn have led to massive layoffs, but some are relieved to exit the grueling ‘996’ work life.

Ran Zheng for Rest of World

By VIOLA ZHOU
12 JULY 2022

LONG READ

When Aaron Wang joined Chinese social media company ByteDance at the age of 25, she thought she had found her dream job. In a city in eastern China, Wang ran projects that gathered hundreds of millions of views on ByteDance’s Douyin platform, China’s version of TikTok. She said clients respected her and friends asked for job referrals. In addition to a good salary, she enjoyed office perks, such as free snacks and company souvenirs, like mugs, tote bags, and battery banks. She described her colleagues as energetic young people who worked as dance teachers or fashion models on the side. Same-sex couples posted about their relationships on the internal forum. The company had an inclusive culture — a rarity at Chinese workplaces.

For two years, Wang said things were going perfectly. Then, at the end of 2021, ByteDance abruptly cut the business she was working on, telling her team to choose between relocation and layoff. Wang had to quit, in order to stay with her family.

Wang landed a new job at e-commerce firm JD.com in March this year. During the interview process, her manager, who had been there for eight years, assured her that the company did not take layoffs lightly.

Two weeks later, Wang was let go on a video call, along with more than 100 other employees, including the manager. She was struck by anxiety. “It’s so hard to find a job,” Wang told Rest of World. “I couldn’t even tell my parents about this.”

For more than a decade, many of China’s young, well-educated workers have made it their goal to join one of the country’s internet giants — companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, JD.com, and, more recently, ByteDance. Tech jobs came with all the perks: high salaries, large bonuses, social prestige, and stock options that could potentially turn employees into millionaires at the next initial public offering.

The workplace culture at these companies was appealing: On team-building days, tech workers at some companies might get free trips to Universal Studios or ski resorts. At annual company galas, employees enjoyed live performances by pop stars, or, in the case of Alibaba, a Michael Jackson dance by tech mogul Jack Ma himself. “Their technologies and benefits are all top-notch,” a 23-year-old former ByteDance intern told Rest of World. “Even the chair I used at ByteDance cost 5,000 yuan [$740].”

That heyday appears to be coming to an end. The Chinese tech industry is now battling regulatory crackdowns, harsh Covid-19 lockdowns, and a general slowdown in investment and consumer spending. China’s biggest tech companies, including Alibaba and Tencent, are posting their slowest revenue growth in years and laying people off at an unprecedented rate. The two tech giants are reportedly planning to lay off tens of thousands of workers this year. Meanwhile, ByteDance has fired hundreds of people working on gaming and edtech. Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, caught in a cybersecurity investigation, has conducted companywide layoffs. Xiaohongshu, an Instagram-like social media platform, has cut at least 9% of its workers, and game streaming sites Huya and DouYu have collectively let go of hundreds of people. Zhihu, a platform similar to Quora, is estimated to have laid off 20% of its workforce, triggering disputes over severance pay.


“It seems to be the first time since the 2008 financial crisis something this big is happening.”

Rest of World spoke with more than a dozen workers at Chinese internet companies who have recently been laid off, had their job offers rescinded, or have witnessed the dismissal of their colleagues. Having fought hard to join Chinese tech during its boom days, they say the work now means long hours, tremendous stress, and instability.

Some firms have fired veteran coders and rescinded offers that took students years of preparation and multiple rounds of interviews and internships to get. Recruiters and workers say that finding a new tech job has never been so hard, with companies freezing or reducing headcount. “It seems to be the first time since the 2008 financial crisis something this big is happening,” Xu Dandan, chief executive of tech recruitment site Lagou, said in a recent podcast interview. “The size and scope of these layoffs are both rarely seen.”

The so-called “internet winter” is threatening the industry’s dominance over China’s talent market. Young workers are questioning whether it’s worth putting up with the long hours and stress of a tech company role — when these same jobs seem to be vanishing.

Employees walk outside the headquarters of Tencent in Shenzhen, China on August 4, 2020. Tencent and Alibaba are reportedly planning to cut tens of thousands of jobs this year. 

Chen Yihang/VCG/Getty Images

Only a few years ago, Chinese internet companies and their investors were pumping cash into experimental, unprofitable businesses, all trying to build ecosystems that encompassed everything from e-commerce to social media, gaming, health, education, and filmmaking. This expansion was accompanied by aggressive hiring. Alibaba had about 13,000 employees in 2011. By March 2022, it had more than 250,000. Tencent’s staff grew from about 12,000 in 2011 to more than 112,000 over the past decade. ByteDance, which was founded in only 2012, employs more than 100,000 people today.

But this kind of explosive growth in the tech sector brought with it scrutiny from the Chinese government. The Communist Party has a growing aversion to the massive influence these private companies exert over the Chinese economy, society, and politics. Since late 2020, the government under Xi Jinping has waged a fierce crackdown against the consumer tech giants, targeting what it deems to be antitrust behaviors, data privacy infringements, and vulgar digital content. A ban on after-school tutoring has specifically affected edtech companies, while restrictions on video games have impacted the gaming sector.

The series of crackdowns has wiped billions of dollars of value from tech companies and forced Ant Group and ByteDance to shelve their mega IPO plans. Instead of pursuing profits and expansion, managing political risks has become a new priority. “It is natural for tech firms to cut many lines of business that have previously operated in areas without regulatory clarity or could raise political concerns with the party,” Xin Sun, a political economy researcher at King’s College London, told Rest of World. “The tech giants are intending to signal that they are not building empires or amassing undue influence that could threaten either the single-party rule or Xi’s leadership.”

A faltering economy, made worse by ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, is contributing to the panic. Since the start of the pandemic, the government has put major cities, including Shanghai and Shenzhen, under periodic zero-Covid lockdowns, sometimes forcing shops and factories to shut for months at a time. Industrial production, retail sales, and property sales have been falling in recent months. “Everything happens to be hitting on it at the same time,” Kido Huang, a senior manager at recruitment firm Randstad China, told Rest of World. “If it were not for the Covid [lockdown], plus the war in Ukraine, plus the global stock market crash, plus the U.S.-inflation, there would not be such a big impact on the internet industry.” According to executives and recruiters, cost control is the tech industry’s new mantra.

Xi Jinping’s government has cracked down on consumer tech giants, focusing on antitrust behaviors, data privacy infringements, and what it deems as vulgar digital content. Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images

While layoffs have become commonplace, most firms are unwilling to disclose detailed plans to reduce their headcount. Instead, they refer to staff cuts by euphemisms such as “graduation,” “optimization,” “structural adjustments,” or “normal business.”

When asked by Rest of World about the layoffs, search engine giant Baidu said that “a small number” of staff were affected when it made “optimization” to its education, property, and gaming businesses late last year. A Tencent spokesperson referred Rest of World to an earnings call where executives said they expected a slower growth in headcount. ByteDance, Alibaba, and JD.com did not respond to requests for comment.

Ten tech workers who lost their jobs over the last eight months told Rest of World they experienced a mix of shock, anger, betrayal, and, in some cases, relief. Some have fought for compensation, and others said goodbye in tears.

During the JD.com meeting where Wang was fired, she recalled that a manager in his 40s cried as he thanked the staff for the work they had done. Wang said her colleagues often worked until 10 p.m. without getting overtime pay, out of devotion to the company. The meeting ended with everyone wishing one another the best in their upcoming job searches.

Rachel Chen, who attended a university in the U.S., lost her job as a product manager at search engine giant Baidu last year. In November, the 29-year-old was called into a meeting with hundreds of others who were being let go. She still hasn’t told her mother she was laid off, pretending instead that she is working from home. Weeks before she was let go, Chen’s father died in a car accident. Chen doesn’t want her mother, who was also in the accident, to worry.

“It was a cruel job. I felt like an executioner carrying out death sentences.”

For many, the layoffs couldn’t have come at a worse time. Xiaohongshu and podcast app Ximalaya fired staff in Shanghai while they were confined at home by a weeks-long zero-Covid lockdown. “The lockdown was stressful enough, and then I was fired,” said one Ximalaya worker in their 30s, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “Ximalaya always talks about climbing high. I had naïvely believed it would stand by its values.”

Many small firms are also making cuts, as they expect drops in sales and a dearth of new investments. One manager at a tech startup in Hangzhou told Rest of World he was asked to lay off one-third of his team members as part of a cost-cutting program. During a special training session, he was told to avoid the term “fire” by announcing, “You will now be leaving the company.” The people he let go included a father with a primary-school-age child and a fresh graduate who had recently rented an apartment near the office. The night before, the manager said he could not sleep. “It was a cruel job,” he recalled. “I felt like an executioner carrying out death sentences.”

For those who still have jobs, witnessing colleagues leave has been a stressful experience. Some workers told Rest of World that their fellow employees had been less productive than usual, expecting that their projects might be scrapped. A 24-year-old coder at Alibaba, who gave only his surname, Wang, compared a wave of layoffs in May to the parlor game Mafia, in which players are discreetly eliminated.

“Every now and then, some colleagues just suddenly disappear,” he said. Wang has attended several farewell dinners recently, where outgoing employees were gifted Alibaba mascots. Though he’s been with the company for only six months, Wang is now applying for jobs in North America and Europe.

Alibaba Xixi Park, also known as Taobao City, is the headquarters of the e-commerce giant Alibaba Group and where more than 20,000 employees work. 

Wang He/Getty Images

Not everyone has been devastated by being laid off. Among China’s white-collar tech workers, discontent had been on the rise for years.

In 2019, some tech workers joined an online outcry against the prevalent “996” work schedule — 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — quoting Karl Marx and Chairman Mao, to protest what they called capitalist exploitation. Sudden deaths of young employees regularly ignited public outrage. Several former tech workers told Rest of World they had been bullied by their managers. Young women said they had been made to promise during job interviews that they would avoid getting pregnant. Almost everyone Rest of World spoke with described their tech job using the buzzword “involution,” a term that refers to a sense of burnout owing to intense competition with colleagues.

For some employees, losing their job was the push they needed to finally leave the tech sector altogether. An e-commerce operation specialist in her late 20s, who requested anonymity for fear of being identified by her former employer, said she sometimes worked overnight when she was at a leading internet firm. “I felt so great the second day of being fired,” she told Rest of World, adding that she lost five kilograms in a month, thanks to a healthier lifestyle. “My entire body and mind were at ease,” she said.

Over the past decade, some millennial workers in China have gone through the grueling education system with hopes of joining tech companies. Wealthier families paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to send their children to Ivy League schools, so they could fulfill the so-called “big firm dream” at an internet giant.

Employees of an e-commerce company working overnight during the “Singles Day” shopping festival, in Yangzhou, China on November 11, 2017.

 STR/AFP/Getty Images

Now, the layoffs have hit hard for those who have built their lives around a tech worker’s robust income. For years, employees who followed the billionaire tech tycoons’ call for hard work and competed fiercely for promotions and pay raises could afford to buy properties in major cities and send their children to expensive tutoring classes that paved the way to prestigious universities — symbols of middle-class success in China. Now, those workers have to make new life plans that don’t depend on a tech salary.

Like many spouses of highly paid internet workers, Anna, who asked to be identified by only her first name, due to privacy concerns, quit her job to become a stay-at-home mother. The couple also took out a mortgage to get an apartment in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou.

“Now, every company is talking about cutting costs and increasing efficiency.”

In April, Anna’s husband, now in his late 30s, was let go by the company he spent more than a decade working for. On her Xiaohongshu page, Anna listed the household’s monthly expenses: 7,220 yuan ($1,099) for the mortgage, 3,802 yuan in groceries, and 1,280 yuan in childcare. “I felt the sky was falling down,” Anna wrote on her page, adding that she was worried about whether they would have enough money for their child’s education.

Berry Liu, head of a recruitment startup in the tech hub of Shenzhen, said that, until 2020, a senior software engineer looking to change jobs could get 10 to 20 offers. Asking for a 50% to 100% salary increase was common, as cash-rich companies hired as much talent as possible, to staff budding projects. But recently, Liu said, most leading firms have stopped hiring through headhunting agencies. “In the past few years, internet companies had a lot of money. … Not a single firm wanted to be left out on the next hotspot,” said Liu, who has worked as a tech headhunter for a decade. “Now, every company is talking about cutting costs and increasing efficiency.”

Analysts say that the layoffs do not necessarily signal a long-term downturn for the tech industry. Hong Hao, a Hong Kong–based economist, said that China’s internet giants still have great growth potential, and the current wave of layoffs reflected the fact that companies were pulling back from unprofitable businesses amid a bad economy. “Before, the entire structure was too bloated,” he said, adding that the tech industry would still play an important role in providing employment in the long run.

But for young workers who once viewed job offers from tech giants as tickets to success, and who have worked late nights trying to help the founders overtake their rivals, getting let go is a painful reminder that the internet whirlwind does not last forever.

Li Xiaotian, a University of Hong Kong researcher who studies China’s internet economy, said that by joining the internet industry, elite workers had given up the lifetime employment offered in the state sector for higher income and personal development. But as the industry enters a period of monopoly dominance, slowing growth, and fierce competition, more people are starting to view themselves simply as laborers prone to the exploitation of tech tycoons. “If you get fired by Jack Ma now, you would find it difficult to find a job that pays the same,” Li said.

Employees sit behind plastic dividers at a canteen during lunch hour at the Baidu Inc. headquarters in Beijing, China on March 4, 2021. Search engine giant Baidu said that “a small number” of staff were affected when it made “optimization” to some of its businesses last year. Qilai Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Despite the recent challenges, the tech industry remains a top career choice for many Chinese workers. The recent economic downturn has resulted in layoffs in other sectors, too, and, according to some tech workers Rest of World spoke with, they at least generally received better severance pay than those in other industries and had more personal savings to fall back on. But with mounting uncertainty in the private sector and high youth unemployment, many young workers are considering government jobs instead.

That’s a stark departure from the ’90s and early 2000s, when droves of civil servants quit their jobs to become entrepreneurs –– dubbed xiahai, or “jumping into the sea.” Today’s Gen Z college graduates are dropping the get-rich dream for the lower-paid but stable option of a state job. In 2021, a record 2.12 million applicants registered for the national civil service exam, competing for 31,200 positions. Getting one of these jobs is dubbed shang’an, or “landing ashore” –– it’s a secure position.

“If you get fired by Jack Ma now, you would find it difficult to find a job that pays the same.”

As a pop culture fan, college graduate Philom Yang interned at the entertainment arm of social media firm Weibo and a company that worked on projects with Tencent. Although Yang loved the free afternoon teas and youthful culture at the internet firms, the stress, overtime work, and instability of working in tech put her off. This year, the 22-year-old decided to pursue a civil service job back in her hometown in Hebei province, which offers 50% less pay than the average entry-level tech role. “You can feel the economy is not doing well,” she said. “[Becoming a civil servant] is the best option for now.”

In April, Wang, the former ByteDance and JD.com employee, got a social media job at a pharmaceutical company after being laid off for the second time. In addition to taking a nearly 40% pay cut, she had to adapt to a drastically different workplace culture: projects needed to go through rounds of approvals by upper management; unlike in tech, her colleagues, many of whom are near retirement age, would never work through holidays. Women are required to wear below-the-knee pants or dresses. No one is out as gay.

The lack of stress, however, is giving her a new sort of anxiety. After experiencing the ups and downs of the internet industry, she has trouble sitting around waiting for the next paycheck. She thinks about how fellow tech workers worked until 3 a.m. to stay competitive, missed mortgage payments after getting laid off, or have died on their jobs. “What if this company also falls?” she said. “I don’t want to get crushed when something else happens.”

Wang is making as many back-up plans as possible: she is perfecting her illustration skills, registering for the next civil service exam, and studying for architecture safety as well as teaching certifications. If nothing works out career-wise, she plans to have a child during the economic downturn.

Wang figures that when she reaches 30, she might come back to a company like ByteDance, where she can work hard for a few years to save up for retirement before she hits 35 — the unofficial cutoff age set by the infamously ageist tech companies. As a former employee, she still owns stock options in ByteDance and remains hopeful about the company’s potential initial public offering, which has been reportedly in the works since 2020. “I don’t have any big ambitions,” Wang said. “I just want to have enough money to retire.”

Viola Zhou is a reporter at Rest of World.

In India, your payment data could become evidence of dissent

Alt News’ donors are rightfully alarmed about payment data being weaponized, but their outrage might be misplaced.

By NILESH CHRISTOPHER
Nilesh Christopher is a Bengaluru-based reporter at Rest of World.
12 JULY 2022

Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Indian payments firm Razorpay is under fire for seemingly breaching customer privacy. Some have gone on to call the company a “sell out” for sharing users’ payment data with authorities without their consent. But is faulting Razorpay for complying with a legal request fair?

On June 19, Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of fact-checking outlet Alt News, was arrested for hurting religious sentiments over a tweet he posted in 2018. Investigating authorities, through legal diktats, have now gained access to payment data of donors supporting Alt News from payments processor Razorpay. (Police are now probing Alt News for accepting foreign donations. Alt News has denied the charge.)

The data sharing has had a chilling effect. Civil society organization Internet Freedom Foundation, which uses Razorpay for donations, is exploring “additional payment platforms to offer choice and comfort to donors.” Many donors are worried that they might now become targets on account of their contributions.

This has created a new faultline in the discourse around weaponizing payment data by a state that has gained notoriety for cracking down on critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Faulting Razorpay for complying with a legal request is misguided. “I think Razorpay played it by the book,” said Dharmendra Chatur, partner at the law firm Poovayya & Co. “They sort of did what any reasonable person would do in this situation.”

Under Section 91 of India’s Criminal Procedure Code, police authorities have the power to seek information or documents on the apprehension that a crime has been committed during the course of an inquiry, inspection, or trial. “You either challenge it or you comply. There’s no other option available [for Razorpay]. And who would want to just unnecessarily initiate litigation?” Chatur said.

Razorpay in an email statement to me said, “We didn’t share donor-specific PII [personally identifiable information] like bank account, PAN [permanent account number], address, zip code… Only a small portion of the donor data was shared to assist in an ongoing investigation, not all of it. We also defended the right of the business [Alt News] to continue to accept payments till the investigation is complete, and once we got that clarity, we re-enabled payments for them.”

With regards to breaching user privacy, Chatur said that when users “accept” any digital service’s terms and conditions, it’s common to see companies creating exceptions to maintain user privacy and confidentiality — especially when asked by a law enforcement agency or a court to disclose information.

In this backdrop, the reform that users should be demanding is a rights-respecting data privacy policy that will help challenge overreach by the state. Not the prosecution of a payments firm playing by the book.

Paving the way for radicalised violence

LISA PELLING 18th July 2022


Not only the far-right killer in Sweden of Ing-Marie Wieselgren, Lisa Pelling writes, has blood on his hands.

Ulf Kristersson, in a televised debate with Magdalena Andersson at Almedalen, days before the attack (SVT)

On July 6th, Sweden was struck by a right-wing terror attack, carried out by a man who had been radicalised as an activist in the openly neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement, including as a regular contributor to its paper, the Nordic Front. The victim was Ing-Marie Wieselgren, a well-known advocate on healthcare issues, including mental health. She was stabbed in the throat and, despite bystanders rushing to give her first aid, bled to death.

This atrocity struck at the heart of Swedish democracy. Not only was it carried out in broad daylight but amid thousands of citizens filling the picturesque, pebbled streets of Visby to attend the annual Almedalen Week, a political festival which marks the zenith of the Swedish political year.

Celebrating democracy

During the week, democracy and dialogue are celebrated, with more than 2,000 events in tents, classrooms and gardens across the town. A tradition initiated by the former Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, who used to spend his holidays here, the Almedalen Week is now a must-attend for all party leaders.

While Palme (who was himself to be the victim of an assassination in 1986) used to give a fairly spontaneous speech from the back of a lorry, the addresses by the current party leaders are carefully scripted, down to the last word. Particularly in an election year, as this one, every sentence of their speeches, broadcast live, is analysed and scrutinised.

The perpetrator had chosen carefully the time and place. According to preliminary investigations by the police, he followed his victim from event to event, up and down Visby’s winding streets and alleyways, over several days. This is easy in Almedalen: all events and their locations are listed online and, with a few exceptions, are open; visitors do not have to register or go through an entrance check.
Decisive step

Inevitably, the attack overshadowed this year’s festival. It also, though, overshadowed a key message delivered by Ulf Kristersson, leader of the Moderates—the Swedish affiliate of the European People’s Party—from the Almedalen stage just two days previously.

Kristersson is the main competitor of the social-democrat leader and prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, in the election due on September 11th. In his speech he took another decisive step to legitimise the radical-right-wing Sweden Democrats—a party sprung from the same violence-prone, neo-Nazi scene as the attacker.

As the leader of the Swedish conservatives looked out over green sward in what was formerly the harbour of this Hanseatic city, sheltered by the remains of the medieval limestone city wall, beyond the park the Baltic Sea expanding towards the horizon, he presented his vista for a new government coalition. ‘We do not agree on everything,’ he declared, ‘but we know what needs to be prioritised.’

He thus celebrated his envisaged Christian-democrat partner, for standing up for accessible health care. And he praised the Liberals, for their focus on better schools and the rights of LGBT+ citizens.

Yet he also hailed a third party, the Sweden Democrats … for their immigration policy. ‘No other party has, like the Sweden Democrats—in strong headwinds—stood up for the fact that we cannot increase immigration, if we are to have a chance to cope with integration,’ Kristersson said.

History whitewashed

Of course the Sweden Democrats have never cared for integration: they comprise a classic ethno-nationalist party, which opposes all kinds of immigration and all kinds of integration. If anything, its demand is complete assimilation of all immigrants into a taken-for-granted and pre-given ‘Swedish nation’.

Kristersson’s declaration makes it clear that his party and, by implication, the Christian Democrats and Liberals in his putative coalition are ready to govern with the support of the Sweden Democrats—not despite their stance on immigration but because of it. In so doing, the leader of the Swedish conservatives is helping to whitewash the history of a party which, at the end of the 1980s, was founded by neo-Nazis.

The Nazi origins of the Sweden Democrats were recently confirmed in their own ‘White Book’. This describes how the founders stemmed from the fascist New Swedish Movement, the skinhead scene and the racist and often violent organisation Keep Sweden Swedish (Bevara Sverige Svenskt). These roots, and the recurrent subsequent outpourings of racist sentiments, are the reason the Sweden Democrats have faced such fierce opposition—those euphemistic ‘strong headwinds’—over the years.
Cultivating polarisation

This is how far the radicalisation of the Swedish conservatives has gone. In her best-selling recent book, Radicalised Conservatism / Radikalisierter Konservatismus, the Austrian political scientist and journalist Natascha Strobl describes how established conservative parties become radicalised as they borrow language and strategies from the far right. In the process, they normalise radical-right-wing parties and the non-parliamentary, often violent, extreme right.

Strobl details how the US Republican Party under Donald Trump, the British Tories under Boris Johnson and the Austrian People’s Party under Sebastian Kurz followed similar strategies to remodel their parties around their purportedly potent male leaders. Cultivating an increasingly polarised political debate—where opponents are stigmatised as illegitimate enemies (‘Lock her up’) and professional media (particularly public-service media) are disdained as biased and even hostile (‘fake news’)—these figures managed to create an environment which could be presented as excusing their own calculated, strategic violations of the formal rules and informal conventions of politics.

The killing of Wieselgren, which the Swedish police are now treating as an act of terrorism, did not happen in a vacuum. Part of its context was the longstanding existence of a neo-fascist, anti-immigrant party, the Sweden Democrats—political expression of a violent, openly neo-Nazi milieu, including organisations such as the Nordic Resistance Movement which radicalised the murderer in Visby.

The other part is however the increasing legitimisation of this xenophobic party by the centre right—the most recent step being the leader of the Swedish conservatives inviting the Sweden Democrats to support in parliament a government he would lead. Not despite their history. Because of it.

This is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal


Lisa Pelling is a political scientist and head of the Stockholm-based think tank Arena Idé.
She regularly contributes to the daily digital newspaper Dagens Arena and
has a background as a political adviser and speechwriter at the Swedish foreign ministry.

Report from Jharkhand, India's coal state

The end of coal is not in sight. Neither is the end of injustice.

INGIE GORIS . 18 JULY 2022


Each new report by the IPCC shows how devastating the impact of the climate crisis is and will be, and it does so with increasing urgency, even alarm. That underscores how quickly and thoroughly the world needs to make a fundamental energy transition. But how can that be done in a country that is dependent on coal? Gie Goris travelled to Jharkhand in India for answers to that question. ‘Anyone proposing a just transition, should start by making the coal economy just.’

‘Where does Europe get the arrogance to lecture India?’ Sunita Narain vehemently objects when I tell her that I am in India to investigate how the country can make the energy transition to renewables as quickly as possible. Today, coal accounts for more than 70 per cent of electricity generation. That results in annual emissions of 1.1 gigatonnes of CO2, or 2.5% of global emissions. If the world wants to keep global warming below 2°C, coal has to end as soon as possible.


‘All fossil fuels must be phased out, not just the one the South is counting on’

Sunita Narain is the director of the Centre for Science and Environment, one of the strongholds of the Indian environmental movement. So I don’t need to tell her how urgent the climate problem is, nor how pernicious coal is. Even less do I need to tell her what India should do.

‘The West, having exhausted the planet’s carbon budget with its industrial revolution and explosive consumption, now feels entitled to tell the rest of the world how to behave responsibly. At the same time, the EU declares natural gas ‘green’ because it needs that fossil fuel. The reality is that all fossil fuels must be phased out, not just the one the South is counting on’, she concludes.
Incredible India!

I take a rattling bus to Dhanbad, the cradle of Indian coal, in the state of Jharkhand. The hills that loom left and right and front and back as we approach the city are not mountains. They are corpses. Depraved landscapes that have been stripped bare and dug up, then excavated and exhausted, stacked into bare and dead berms over a hundred metres high and kilometres long.

In between, huge craters of open mining complete the artificial hill landscape. Some are filled with water, reflecting the steel blue sky, others are filled with grey smoke billowing from cracks in the ground, still others tremble from the cranes, trucks and bulldozers.

The lifeless mounds of landscape debris are called overburden. The landscape, with its enormous biodiversity and fertile soil, its centuries-old cultures and economic potential, is reduced to waste, a nuisance, that which stands in the way of profit and growth. The French term for it, mort-terrain, comes close.

‘You can hardly argue for underground mining,’ says the now octogenarian anti-mining activist Xavier Dias in Ranchi. ‘There are far fewer accidents at work in open pit mines, far fewer deaths. But of course there are also just far fewer jobs, and that is a slow motion accident for the people who have to give up their land. The rule used to be that whoever lost 1.2 hectares of land got a permanent job in return. That is all in the past.’

For years, Dias has been closely involved in the struggle for rights and recognition of adivasis, the indigenous people who make up about a quarter of the population in Jharkhand state and often live on top of the state’s mineral wealth.

Coal in India

Last year, 777 million tonnes of coal were produced in India, an increase of 8.55 per cent over the previous year.

In 2020, India will consume 968 million tonnes of coal. 72 per cent for generating electricity.

The government estimates that consumption will rise to 1.78 billion tonnes per year by 2042.

Adivasis are seen as overburden: one of the nuisances to get rid of to reach the fuel that will propel India forward

For Incredible India-adepts and big industrialists, the adivasis are therefore literally overburden: one of the nuisances they have to get rid of before they can really get to the fuel that will propel India forward. The adivasis are not alone. In many places, low-caste villages also have to disappear. Between 1950 and 1995, 1,049,640 people had to move to make way for coal mines in Jharkhand, and since then mining has accelerated and there has been a massive switch to open pit mining.

‘We give our lives, but not our land’ — with this slogan the adivasi have long campaigned against the expropriations. But they could hardly ever really win that battle. ‘And so,’’ says doctor Mitalesh Dangi during a sit-in he held with some 20 villagers in front of the district office in Barkagaon, ‘we are now fighting for better compensation, for more and good jobs, for everyone who is affected.’

It is a never-ending battle. In the first decade of this century, at least 210 new coal mines were licensed in the state. Mining — not just coal, but also uranium, iron ore and copper ore, pyrite and graphite — is causing a spectacular decline in forest cover in Jharkhand. Dhanbad district, for example, originally had 65 per cent forest, now that is barely 0.05 per cent. Dhanbad presents itself as the coal capital of India because the city is surrounded by no less than 112 coal mines, with more being added all the time.
No country for old people

The white Suzuki rattles on all sides, especially under the driver, but he is not discouraged. Pro Street Driver, it says proudly on his door. The three-decade-old city car does on the lumpy dirt roads around the coal-mining town of Hazaribagh what the average SUV in suburban Belgium never has to do: drive where no car should be driving. Eventually, we stop at the edge of the gigantic crater of the Amrapali mine.
An informal “miner” collects abandoned coal at the Amrapali coal mine near Hazaribagh.
Gie Goris (CC BY-NC 2.0)

About fifty metres down, along the terraced excavated mine, a man is collecting coal. He is wearing a striking, bright yellow T-shirt. A canary in the coal mine, I think. He lives off the remains, which are too small to be scooped up with the mega-machines of opencast mining.

A little further on, another man fills jute sacks with scavenged coal. The colours of his clothes are barely visible under the black dust that covers him from head to toe. His bicycle is ready. On it, up to 200 kilograms of bagged coal will soon be loaded, to be sold to small brick kilns, roadside restaurants and urban households.

Three women and a child emerge from behind the edge of the mine. Each of the women carries a zinc bath, filled with coal, on her head. Their hands and faces are black with coal dust, their eyes white and questioning. What am I doing here, do I know who they are and why they do this work? They straighten their backs and walk decisively away, looking for customers or heading to their own kitchens.


‘Six villages have already disappeared here in the past 20 years. It has to stop once.’

At the Parej coal mine, also near Hazaribagh, I see a series of houses on the other side of the mine crater, barely twenty metres from the edge of the mine. A little later it turns out that I happen to be visiting the village of Durukeshmar on the last day of its existence. At least, tomorrow was announced as the deadline to move. Because the mine wants to expand, so the people have to go.

Villages gone. Land and animals, past and future: everything must go. ‘But we are not going,’ says Ragunat Manji, one of the inhabitants. ‘Six villages have already disappeared here in the past 20 years. It has to stop once.’

Meanwhile, like the other inhabitants of Durukeshmar, he depends on the mine for an income. There has not been enough land for farming for a long time. He loads the trucks that transport the coal to the end users: thermal power plants, steel furnaces, other industries. It is poorly paid and precarious work, but there is no alternative.

Neighbour Sergio Murmu is one of the villagers who had to move once before. With the compensation he received for his land, he built a pukka house — made of bricks and cement, instead of the mud kutcha house he was born into. This increases his chances of being compensated again now.

For now, he and the other villagers do not accept the compensation offered by Central Coalfields Limited, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, the state enterprise with a quasi monopoly in the coal sector. And he wants resettlement closer to home. He could not get a job in the mine, so like so many of his generation, Sergio became a koilawalla: a seller of scavenged coal, slaving away with an overloaded bicycle, up and down hills.

‘We leave in the afternoon and make sure we are in Charhi by eight in the evening, where we can spend the night in a roadside restaurant. Around two or three in the morning we leave for Hazaribagh. It’s a journey of at least 40 kilometres, which only people in their twenties or thirties can manage.’

Ragunat Manji refuses to leave his village because the Parej coal mine wants to expand. ‘It has to stop someday.’
Gie Goris (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Money. Lots of money.

‘Everyone becomes dependent on coal once the mine becomes operational,’ says Harishwar Dayal, director of the Centre for Fiscal Studies in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand. ‘The people who have to move will lose the opportunity to make a living from agriculture or forestry. They hope for a permanent job, but most of them have to make do with collecting and selling coal. Or they go to work in abandoned coal mines, where they are exploited and actually engage in illegal mining.

The really good jobs in the mines usually go to better-educated migrants from other states. Many small businesses, such as brick kilns, run on coal from the informal sector, while large industries are supplied by state mines. But families also rely on coal for cooking.’ In short, coal dust descends on all the lives of those who live near a mine.

‘The royalties paid by the mines on coal mining are the main source of income for the state government.’

Coal does not only turn the lives of local people upside down. It also permanently reshapes the political and economic balance of power. This explains why both the central government in Delhi and the state government in Jharkhand are fully committed to coal. Harishwar Dayal: ‘The royalties paid by the mines on coal mining are the main source of income for the state government.’

‘And what’s more, coal in Jharkhand ensures India’s energy security’, adds Arun Kumar. He is deputy director of the state’s Mining Department. Coal provides 70 per cent of the state government’s revenue and 60 per cent of its electricity. ‘You can imagine how easy it will be to discuss energy transition here,’ he says with more than a tinge of irony, after we chase two pigeons out of his office.

When I ask whether Jharkhand can survive without coal, he continues: ‘We want to double coal production in the next ten years. Does that create a conflict between mining and the environment, between economic growth and climate? Undoubtedly. But we cannot build a future without mines. One day, scenarios will be drawn up for a country without coal, but we are not ready for that yet.’

Half an hour later, when all the files have finally been gone through and signed off, Kumar pauses. ‘Man’s greed and the demands of a technological world are causing us to damage our own lives and the existence of the planet,’ he says, suddenly.

‘The greed he is talking about exists,’ Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, the pre-eminent coal expert, replies when I mention it, ‘but it is mainly found in the coal mafia.’ That term pops up everywhere: in the villages under threat, during conversations with academics, trade union leaders and activists, in literature and — inevitably — also in Bollywood, where Gangs of Wasseypur was responsible for a lot of screen blood and sold tickets ten years ago.

‘India is one of the most corrupt countries in the world anyway,’ says Lahiri-Dutt over the phone, as she works as a researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra. ‘In a region like Jharkhand, it is mainly local subcontractors and transport companies who are attracted by the huge amounts of money involved in the coal sector. They are prepared to pay a lot of bribes for this, and politicians need those bribes for their own re-election campaigns.’

Just transition, anyone?

Not only does greed exist, but the scenarios that Arun Kumar expects to be written one day, already exist, too. Not yet in the universe of government administrations or industrial conglomerates, but in the think tanks of Delhi or in research funded with international money.

Sandeep Pai of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, for example, is researching what a just energy transition would mean for Jharkhand. ‘For starters,’ he says on the phone from Montreal, ‘the real question is not when the last coal mine in Jharkhand will close, but when the last one will open. Ditto for the coal fired power plants, which are still relatively young and new ones are planned.

The production and use of coal will continue to increase, although it should really peak in around 20 years’ time. Anyone who wants to think about a just transition,’ he adds, ‘must actually start by making the current exploitation just.’

‘Anyone who wants to think about a just transition, must actually start by making the current exploitation just.’

This is also the opinion of Lahiri-Dutt. ‘Justice is an empty concept if you use it within the current coal economy,’ she says. ‘If anyone, other than the state or the corporations, is taken care of, it is for the civil servants and the minority of permanent workers. The hundreds of thousands who lost their homes and incomes, or who survive on the grey margins of the official story, deserve justice now. Because if they are forgotten now, they will count for even less when the switch to renewable energy production is made later.’

‘That forgotten group is 80 to 90 percent of the people affected by coal and therefore by transition,’ says Chandra Bhushan, of the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability & Technology in Delhi. ‘Those people don’t actually have any interest in or lover for coal,’ he adds in an interview with Sandeep Pai. ‘If they get the opportunity — through better education or through other work, they will leave coal behind immediately.’ But there is no increase in investment in education, let alone in (re)schooling adults, in Jharkhand.

When I ask Sergio Murmu in Durukeshmar what he would do if the coal mine, which threatens his home and village, were to close permanently, he does not have to think for long: ‘I would migrate to another state. I cannot go back to farming as I have no land left, and with my few years of primary education and my past as a koilawalla, I have no future here. I have two children, aged two and five. I hope their future looks less black than my present.’

‘Just transition is not a matter of climate, but of development’, underlines Chandra Bhushan. Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment does not believe that climate and development should be pitted against each other. In a country like India, real development opportunities for the majority of the population are as urgent as climate policy, she believes.

‘Neither will be achieved in the coming decades with sun and wind alone. That is why India will need natural gas to move away from polluting and suffocating coal.’

Without knowing about the recent energy discussions in Belgium, she adds: ‘But gas is not really an option for the rich North. You have long used up your CO2 budget and you have the means to invest in clean energy immediately.’