THE KILLING DYEING INDUSTRY
Natural Dye Production
From dyeing clothes that drape us, to paints that drape the walls and a whole spectrum of colouring needs in between, that one can imagine, India’s Dye industry had produced and exported natural dyes from varied plant sources.
Plants had to be cultivated and processed using manual labour to extract the natural dye, which when used did not harm the environment.
It was a village industry, spread all across India. Families were not separated. Social fabric was not destroyed.
Health was not compromised – neither of the producer nor of the consumer.
Nor of the soil, waters or air!
Chemical Dye Production
Consider chemical dyes which are produced centrally in huge chemical plants, bordering cities, for want of labour and other infrastructure.
They use intermittents / chemicals as raw materials to produce yet another chemical as dye for clothes, for paints and even uses such as food colours.
This dye when produced, contaminates the water and environs around the chemical plant and when used further down the consumer chain, contaminates the water and environs around those users too.
They also harm the health of the workers in the chemical plant and of those who come in contact with it or consume it one way or the other. Micro organisms living in the soil too are not spared either. The chemicals in paints that run off the building walls during rains, have now been shown to contaminate the soil, ground water as well as the water bodies that these rain waters run off to, where they collect along with lead and other contaminants that they carry along.
Not only do the chemical dyes leave behind a stain on ecology, they also strain the social fabric of the nation, the civilization itself. Due to such large scale industrial practices families are either displaced split, having to relocate themselves near such factories in search of labour and livelihood.
More Than Pests Dying From Pestilent Pesticides
An extension of the chemical dyes / paint industry is the chemical fertilizers and pesticide industry.
If we take the case of chemical pesticides, for example, statistics reveal that close to 55% of chemical pesticides used in India today, are used up, in just cotton farming itself, which constitutes only 5% of the land under cultivation in India.
So much chemicals going into so little proportion of land! What a lopsided picture?
Imagine the concentration of chemicals going into one industry, being sprayed in one small fraction of the entire land in the country and on just one product alone!
Imagine the number of people suffering from allergies and reactions due to constant contact with fabric, woven with such chemically treated cotton!
The manufacture and use of chemical and petrochemicals seem to be paving the ground for a grave future.
IRONING OUT DIFFERENCES IN IRON AND STEEL MAKING
Modern Steel Making
A modern steel plant spewing out dust, polluting smoke and gases
The ecosystem of a steel plant today typically comprises of a large plant and a township that develops around the plant. The plant and the township is located close to a coal mine and employs a large workforce of miners and labourers.
But the environs in this township is one dominated by coal and sinter dust. The air is heaviest, laden with pollutants released by the flue gas emanating from the plant’s chimney stacks which contain Carbon di oxide, sulphur di oxide, nitrogen oxides and some minute particulate matter.
There is also a huge quantity of waste water due to the continuous casting and rolling of the steel.
Age Old Steel Making
Contrast this with the small foundries in many villages of India. There were lakhs and millions of such foundries spread all over the land which cumulatively met the demand of locals and the world market then.
Each furnace was capable of turning out 1 ton of bar iron per week.
A survey in 1700s, records that a sampling of about 10000 such Iron and Steel furnaces from all over India showed that each furnace was producing about 20 tons of steel annually which means a cumulative production of 200,000 tons i.e. 2 Million Tons (MT).
In 1850 CE, 192,000 tons i.e. 1.9 Million Tons of Wootz steel was exported from a single port of India itself – the Machilipattinam port in the Coromandel Coast. Imagine the total amount of steel produced and exported in India those days.
No wonder India had been the largest exporter of steel the world over then.
In comparison, India’s annual production of steel in 2013 was just 79 MT. India today stands 4th in the world pecking order for the amount of steel produced. China tops the list with production in the orderd 700 MT, Japan comes second with about 120 MTs while US come 3rd. Korea is close behind with about 69MT.
Why this slide?
Steel or Ore?
For, instead of exporting Indian made steel and giving furtha opportunities of employment to the Indian populace, India expor its iron ore instead, with which others make their steel.
India is the fifth largest exporter of iron ore in the world exporting about 50 to 60% of its total iron ore production to countries like japan, Korea, Europee and Middle East with Japan as the biggest buyer, accounting for about 3/4th of total exports.
Ironically, Japan ranks 2nd in Steel production and export globally,while India ranks only 4th.
The Irony in Steel Manufacturing
Another irony is the way this topsy turvy imbalance is perceived. The increasing demand for iron-ore in the domestic market for producing and exporting more steel from India is seen as having an adverse impact on iron-ore exports.
Look at it this way.
India, from being a brand of exporter of highest quality Wootz steel, instead finds itself branded as an exporter of iron-ore today.There have even been periods in recent Indian history when India has imported iron-ore instead.
India’s monopoly and reign over the world with its high grade Wootz steel is now, not even a memory.
What a slide!
Traditional Iron Smelting Units
Steel manufacture and Coal/coke go hand in hand. Infact, lot more coal is needed than iron ore to produce steel. So more often, we find large scale Iron and Steel plants located closer to coal mines than iron mines as the needed iron ore can be transported.
In the traditional Indian Steel making model, the small scale iron smelting units sprung up around places which were rich in iron ore such as Warangal, Gulbarga, Karimnagar in Andhra Pradesh, Bastar, Dhar and other regions in Central India, Kodumanal near Salem in Tamil Nadu, parts of Karnataka, Bengal, Orissa, Rajasthan and so on.
Standing Tall As Mute Witnesses to India’s Iron Trade
Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Goa account for over 95 per cent of the total reserves of iron ore in India and are the chief exporters of iron ore from India today instead of being primary centres of the world for steel production like before. For example, the Chitradurga belt of Karnataka was renowned for its steel industry in yester years.
Most of these rust proof pillars stand tall even today as mute witnesses and proof of the fact that ancient India had honed its iron and steel making industry where there was iron ore.
Nothing can be a better evidence for the sanity, superiority, sustainability and sagacity in the Steel making industrial practice of indigenous India.
But unfortunately, these pillars have stopped speaking as we have stopped listening.
LINGARAJ PANDA,BARIPADA
