There are instances across the world where so-called underdeveloped but mineral-rich regions have fallen prey to fierce corporate plunder of natural resources at the expense of the local population. Identify such major regions around the world and in India, and critically examine how local communities are affected by this plunder.
Industrial revolution had propelled the capitalist need to increase profitability by exploiting the natural resources, and states have actively supported the corporates to expand beyond borders to extract natural resources at any expense. Majority of the third world countries have fallen prey to this plunder
1. The middle east with its vast oil resources has been centre to this economic colonialism, where the Western countries have supported dictators (ex. Iraq, Syria) and monarchies ( Saudi, Kuwait) to extract beneficial contracts to the oil companies. These authoritarian regimes have been notorious with their human rights violations and executions which has now led to civil war and unrest culminating in the Arab Spring.
2. The western african (Ivory Coast, Senegal, Ghana) and central african countries( Congo, Sudan)have been the victim of the corporate rush to secure gold,diamond mines and oil fields. This has resulted in trade of weapons, drugs to local war lords, who use this coercive methods to evacuate lands and built up child militia eroding the demographic attributes of the poeple.
3. Latin American countries have the victim of "dollar diplomacy", where manipulated credit given to countries like Argentina, Uruguay have forced the national govt. to give away their natural resources at sub prime rates. While countries like Brazil, Venezuella have profited by corporate presence, others have not.
4. In India, the mineral rich dantekaranya plateau, the chotta nagpur plateau, the karnataka plateau have been undemocratically surrendered to mining companies and barons, who have manipulated contracts (Coal Scam) to maximize profit at the cost of degrading demographics of the uneducated and non influencial tribals citizens.
While national interest is served by developing natural resources, steps needs to be taking in evolving democratic ways to extract maximum benefit. Inclusive development is possible only when people are involved in deciding their own future.
