CHENNAI: Agitations are becoming a fulltime profession in Tamil Nadu, the Madras High Court observed on Friday, wondering how the State’s economy will prosper if every development project is opposed.
The oral observation was made by Justice Anand Venkatesh while hearing a plea filed by AMMK founder TTV Dhinakaran, seeking direction to police to allow him to protest in Cuddalore against extraction of hydrocarbons. The plea has been posted to July 1.
“Protests and demonstrations are becoming a full-time profession now a days in Tamil Nadu,” he said, adding opposition to any and every development project that comes to the State would have the direct effect of losing employment to other states. He also wondered what was the need for organising protests when the state government had already said “no” to such projects. People should not protest against the project but against the location chosen for it, the Judge said while refusing to accept the contention of the petitioner that Tamil Nadu would turn into a desert if the hydrocarbon project was allowed.
Justice Venkatesh in his oral observations also said most of the people who participate in such protests do so only because parties organise it.
The participants fail to go into the pros and cons of such projects. The younger generation in the State should be encouraged to seek appropriate profession or job and not to join such protests and movements, the judge observed.