An independent think tank. A law firm. An environmental group.
On Sept. 7, Indian tax authorities simultaneously raided three seemingly unrelated nonprofit organizations without issuing a public statement, confounding many in Indian academia and politics. But one little-known thread connected the three groups: Each was seen by the government to be a critic of Gautam Adani, one of India’s richest men and a political ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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And each was seen to be standing in the way of a particularly contentious project: an Adani-operated coal mine in a lush forest in central India called Hasdeo Arand.
The story of the Hasdeo mine and the crackdown on its critics, which was pieced together by The Washington Post through interviews and public and confidential government documents, is a case study in how the Modi government uses state power to push through its economic policies and to aid Adani, a major operator of coal power plants and mines.
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At a time when the Biden administration embraces Modi as a key partner in its geopolitical struggle against China, the saga also offers a glimpse into the Modi government’s distrust of Western nongovernmental organizations and governments.
Indian officials have never publicly commented on the September tax raids. But a Post review of six documents — including confidential follow-up notices sent by tax investigators to each nonprofit and detailed reports of their findings forwarded to the Central Bureau of Investigation — reveals the government’s anger that the nonprofits had opposed the Hasdeo coal mine by allegedly mobilizing protesters, filing lawsuits and voicing public criticism.
Officials were particularly incensed by ties between Indian activists and the West, the documents showed. In one inquiry sent to an Indian environmentalist, investigators cited emails he had sent to British and Australian researchers about Adani’s coal mining and coal power projects, and accused him of divulging “internal information of India” and “conspiring” against Adani. Investigators had obtained the emails when they seized computers during the raids. In a report on their findings, officials listed an Indian lawyer’s criticism in the press of the Modi government policies and his contacts with U.S. environmental lawyers among the reasons his license to receive foreign funding should be revoked.
Oxfam India, a humanitarian group that had funded Indian anti-coal activists, was accused of serving as “a probable instrument of foreign policy” that sought backing from the Irish government and the European Union, according to a government filing. Oxfam said it “has always been compliant with Indian laws” and cooperates with Indian authorities.
Government hostility has cast a chill over India’s climate campaigners, who fear that criticism of continued coal reliance — the country is the world’s second-largest consumer of the fossil fuel and third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases — has become too politically sensitive to voice and may even invite official reprisal.
“Everything is being lumped as an ‘anti-India’ campaign whenever it is a discussion about energy,” said the head of one Delhi-based climate advocacy organization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation. “The government has a general fear that anything which comes with the tag ‘climate’ is very ‘Western-pushed.’”
Last year, a Post investigation found that the Modi government has for years granted tax breaks and preferential treatment to Adani’s coal business, raising questions about India’s commitment to transitioning away from the fossil fuel. At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021, Indian officials, along with their Chinese counterparts, frustrated Western leaders by blocking a joint statement calling for a “phase-out” of coal, arguing that it would unfairly burden poorer nations.
Indian officials maintain that coal is crucial for a fast-growing country with the world’s third-largest coal reserves but little oil, and some of them paint anti-coal activists as foreign-supported troublemakers.
“Foreign influence on energy security we will not accept. We want Hasdeo to be operational as quickly as possible,” M. Nagaraju, a senior Coal Ministry official, said in an interview. “We are very clear that all these projects are important for our energy security. … If somebody is trying to derail this process, that is unacceptable.”
For decades, Indian governments, including those led by other political parties, have viewed environmental campaigners as impediments to economic growth. But today’s administration under Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is stifling dissent in a way that has alarmed even those who generally agree with its coal-friendly policies.
A.N. Sahay, a former senior official at Coal India, the state mining giant, rebuked anti-coal activists for believing that India could realistically abandon coal power in the next 30 years.
“But if someone is doing anti-coal campaigns and [the government] is using the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation against the outfits — that should not be done,” he said, referring to India’s powerful law enforcement agencies. “People have to have their own views.”
Raj Kumar, a spokesman for India’s Home Ministry, which oversees internal security, did not respond to detailed questions seeking comment, nor did the country’s income tax department. In response to questions about the government’s actions in recent months, an Adani spokesperson declined to comment.
In 2007, a joint venture led by Adani received the rights to operate a coal mine in the Hasdeo Arand forest of Chhattisgarh state. Several government committees declared the forest, which held more than 5 billion tons of estimated coal reserves, too ecologically sensitive for mining because of its density of lush trees and rich wildlife. But Adani obtained approval from mining officials for the first phase of his mine. He began digging in 2013, carving vast pits across 1,882 acres where trees once stood.
Indigenous tribes that believed mining would threaten the forest’s biodiversity and their livelihoods launched a protest to block the mine. As the movement gained steam, villagers began to recruit help from a cast of sympathetic activists in New Delhi.
Lawyers associated with the Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment, a nonprofit known as LIFE, went to court to challenge the expansion of mining in Hasdeo. A local anti-mining activist named Alok Shukla, a former government bureaucrat, helped organize villagers on the ground. Shukla, the government would later allege, was funded by another key player: the Center for Policy Research, or CPR, widely considered India’s top independent think tank.
Meanwhile, R. Sreedhar, a former geologist and veteran environmental campaigner who runs the nonprofit Environics Trust, emailed environmentalists in Britain and Australia to spread the word about the villagers’ plight.
In June 2019, Sreedhar said, he received an offer from an intermediary to enter mediation with the Adani Group regarding a lawsuit he had filed against another project, a controversial power plant in the eastern Indian town of Godda.
Sreedhar declined, and within days, he experienced what he described as official harassment.
“When we refused, a week later we had the income tax authorities asking questions,” Sreedhar recalled.
The Adani Group called Sreedhar’s recollection of the 2019 mediation attempt and tax inquiry “totally false and misleading.” Sreedhar’s lawsuit against the power plant was eventually dismissed.
By 2021, there were further signs that the government was escalating its scrutiny of environmentalists. That year, The Post found as part of a joint investigation with the Forbidden Stories journalism nonprofit that a phone number belonging to Shukla, the local anti-mining activist, was on a list of potential targets for surveillance using the military-grade Pegasus spyware, sold by Israel’s NSO Group exclusively to governmental buyers.
The Indian government has never confirmed or denied its use of Pegasus.
On Sept. 7, Indian tax authorities simultaneously raided three seemingly unrelated nonprofit organizations without issuing a public statement, confounding many in Indian academia and politics. But one little-known thread connected the three groups: Each was seen by the government to be a critic of Gautam Adani, one of India’s richest men and a political ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
And each was seen to be standing in the way of a particularly contentious project: an Adani-operated coal mine in a lush forest in central India called Hasdeo Arand.
The story of the Hasdeo mine and the crackdown on its critics, which was pieced together by The Washington Post through interviews and public and confidential government documents, is a case study in how the Modi government uses state power to push through its economic policies and to aid Adani, a major operator of coal power plants and mines.
ADVERTISING
At a time when the Biden administration embraces Modi as a key partner in its geopolitical struggle against China, the saga also offers a glimpse into the Modi government’s distrust of Western nongovernmental organizations and governments.
Indian officials have never publicly commented on the September tax raids. But a Post review of six documents — including confidential follow-up notices sent by tax investigators to each nonprofit and detailed reports of their findings forwarded to the Central Bureau of Investigation — reveals the government’s anger that the nonprofits had opposed the Hasdeo coal mine by allegedly mobilizing protesters, filing lawsuits and voicing public criticism.
Officials were particularly incensed by ties between Indian activists and the West, the documents showed. In one inquiry sent to an Indian environmentalist, investigators cited emails he had sent to British and Australian researchers about Adani’s coal mining and coal power projects, and accused him of divulging “internal information of India” and “conspiring” against Adani. Investigators had obtained the emails when they seized computers during the raids. In a report on their findings, officials listed an Indian lawyer’s criticism in the press of the Modi government policies and his contacts with U.S. environmental lawyers among the reasons his license to receive foreign funding should be revoked.
Oxfam India, a humanitarian group that had funded Indian anti-coal activists, was accused of serving as “a probable instrument of foreign policy” that sought backing from the Irish government and the European Union, according to a government filing. Oxfam said it “has always been compliant with Indian laws” and cooperates with Indian authorities.
Government hostility has cast a chill over India’s climate campaigners, who fear that criticism of continued coal reliance — the country is the world’s second-largest consumer of the fossil fuel and third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases — has become too politically sensitive to voice and may even invite official reprisal.
“Everything is being lumped as an ‘anti-India’ campaign whenever it is a discussion about energy,” said the head of one Delhi-based climate advocacy organization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation. “The government has a general fear that anything which comes with the tag ‘climate’ is very ‘Western-pushed.’”
Last year, a Post investigation found that the Modi government has for years granted tax breaks and preferential treatment to Adani’s coal business, raising questions about India’s commitment to transitioning away from the fossil fuel. At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021, Indian officials, along with their Chinese counterparts, frustrated Western leaders by blocking a joint statement calling for a “phase-out” of coal, arguing that it would unfairly burden poorer nations.
Indian officials maintain that coal is crucial for a fast-growing country with the world’s third-largest coal reserves but little oil, and some of them paint anti-coal activists as foreign-supported troublemakers.
“Foreign influence on energy security we will not accept. We want Hasdeo to be operational as quickly as possible,” M. Nagaraju, a senior Coal Ministry official, said in an interview. “We are very clear that all these projects are important for our energy security. … If somebody is trying to derail this process, that is unacceptable.”
For decades, Indian governments, including those led by other political parties, have viewed environmental campaigners as impediments to economic growth. But today’s administration under Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is stifling dissent in a way that has alarmed even those who generally agree with its coal-friendly policies.
A.N. Sahay, a former senior official at Coal India, the state mining giant, rebuked anti-coal activists for believing that India could realistically abandon coal power in the next 30 years.
“But if someone is doing anti-coal campaigns and [the government] is using the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation against the outfits — that should not be done,” he said, referring to India’s powerful law enforcement agencies. “People have to have their own views.”
Raj Kumar, a spokesman for India’s Home Ministry, which oversees internal security, did not respond to detailed questions seeking comment, nor did the country’s income tax department. In response to questions about the government’s actions in recent months, an Adani spokesperson declined to comment.
In 2007, a joint venture led by Adani received the rights to operate a coal mine in the Hasdeo Arand forest of Chhattisgarh state. Several government committees declared the forest, which held more than 5 billion tons of estimated coal reserves, too ecologically sensitive for mining because of its density of lush trees and rich wildlife. But Adani obtained approval from mining officials for the first phase of his mine. He began digging in 2013, carving vast pits across 1,882 acres where trees once stood.
Indigenous tribes that believed mining would threaten the forest’s biodiversity and their livelihoods launched a protest to block the mine. As the movement gained steam, villagers began to recruit help from a cast of sympathetic activists in New Delhi.
Lawyers associated with the Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment, a nonprofit known as LIFE, went to court to challenge the expansion of mining in Hasdeo. A local anti-mining activist named Alok Shukla, a former government bureaucrat, helped organize villagers on the ground. Shukla, the government would later allege, was funded by another key player: the Center for Policy Research, or CPR, widely considered India’s top independent think tank.
Meanwhile, R. Sreedhar, a former geologist and veteran environmental campaigner who runs the nonprofit Environics Trust, emailed environmentalists in Britain and Australia to spread the word about the villagers’ plight.
In June 2019, Sreedhar said, he received an offer from an intermediary to enter mediation with the Adani Group regarding a lawsuit he had filed against another project, a controversial power plant in the eastern Indian town of Godda.
Sreedhar declined, and within days, he experienced what he described as official harassment.
“When we refused, a week later we had the income tax authorities asking questions,” Sreedhar recalled.
The Adani Group called Sreedhar’s recollection of the 2019 mediation attempt and tax inquiry “totally false and misleading.” Sreedhar’s lawsuit against the power plant was eventually dismissed.
By 2021, there were further signs that the government was escalating its scrutiny of environmentalists. That year, The Post found as part of a joint investigation with the Forbidden Stories journalism nonprofit that a phone number belonging to Shukla, the local anti-mining activist, was on a list of potential targets for surveillance using the military-grade Pegasus spyware, sold by Israel’s NSO Group exclusively to governmental buyers.
The Indian government has never confirmed or denied its use of Pegasus.
