The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: In the aftermath of the Wayanad landslides that have claimed more than 200 lives so far, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) under the Union government is possibly approaching various individuals to write articles criticising the Kerala government, providing them with information related to illegal quarrying in the state, as per a report in a newsletter produced by The News Minute and Newslaundry.
This comes just after Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav told ANI on August 5 that the Wayanad landslides were the fault of the state government and caused because local politicians permitted illegal habitation and mining to continue in the area.
Local environmental activists, however, have told The Wire that most local quarries had stopped operating after a ban in some areas in the district since 2014; the remaining quarries in the area were also shut down after the 2018 floods that impacted Wayanad district too.
Union govt reaching out to individuals to criticise Kerala governance: Report
According to the report in TNM and Newslaundry’s newsletter on August 6, the Union environment ministry was “urgently searching” for individuals “to write articles on how the Kerala government’s poor policies regarding quarrying have led to the landslide”.
The newsletter said that three individuals had confirmed to TNM that the PIB – the department that handles press and communications for the Union government – had approached them for contacts of scientists, researchers or journalists who could author such articles.
Per the media houses’ newsletter, a document containing information, including links to news stories about illegal quarrying in Kerala, was circulated; a note along with it also claimed that the state government’s failure to stop quarrying was “the main reason for the Wayanad disaster”.
Also circulated were pointers related to this, such as Kerala ignoring recommendations for a mining policy and increasing quarry permits after the 2018 floods.
One of the sources that TNM spoke to who confirmed receiving calls to share contacts of people who could write such articles said that if the Union government had “irrefutable data, they should release it instead of opting for a shadow war and planting the information”.
Another said that the fact that quarrying was the prime cause for the current landslide was unscientific and that “most scientists would likely refuse to write on the topic”.
Landslides were “state government’s fault”, claims Yadav
On August 5, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav told ANI that the landslides that occurred in Wayanad were the “state government’s fault”. He said that the loss of lives occurred due to “illegal habitation and mining” and that “local politicians” had “allowed the encroachment of this area”.
“It is an illegal protection for illegal human habitation by the local politicians. Even in the name of tourism, they are not making proper zones … It is a highly sensitive area,” ANI quoted Yadav as saying.
The minister said that the Union government had constituted a committee headed by former director general of forests Sanjay Kumar to develop an eco-sensitive zone and that the team had even corresponded with the Kerala government.
“We have made a committee for the eco-sensitive zone. For a long time, the state government has been avoiding the committee, which they should not do,” he told ANI on August 5.
“We feel it is the state government’s fault. There has been illegal human habitation and illegal mining activity in the protection of the local government,” Yadav said.
Environmental activist N. Badusha, however, had told The Wire on August 4 that most local quarries in many areas in Wayanad had stopped operating after a ban in 2014. The president of the Wayanad Paristhithi Samrakshana Samiti, who has been taking up environmental issues in the district for more than 40 years, also said that the remaining quarries in the area were shut down after the 2018 floods that impacted Wayanad.
Yadav’s comments to the ANI have, however, revived the blame-game between the Union and state governments. Earlier, on August 1, Union home minister Amit Shah claimed in parliament that his government warned the state about heavy rains as early as July 23.
However, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan rejected Shah’s claim. Analyses by news houses have also shown that Shah’s comments, while not exactly wrong, were in fact misleading: Kerala did not receive a red alert for extremely heavy rains or the possibility of massive landslides until after the incident, on July 30.