New Delhi: In light of Swaraj India national president Yogendra Yadav’s recent arrest, well-known Kannada writer and Dalit activist Devanur Mahadeva has said what India is experiencing today is indeed an Emergency, a ‘Cow-faced Tiger Emergency’ – and the Chennai-Salem expressway is one example of it. What makes the current situation worse, the public intellectual claims, is the fact that the current state of Emergency is not straightforward, it’s in disguise, making it harder to protest and organise against it.

Yadav was taken into custody in Tamil Nadu on Saturday while he was on his way to meet farmers protesting against a proposed Rs 10,000 crore eight-lane Salem-Chennai expressway. Yadav had alleged that the police manhandled him and stopped him from meeting farmers.

Speaking at a protest yesterday in Mysore condemning Yadav’s arrest, Mahadeva questioned why Yadav, along with his colleagues – who were not violating any laws – was not allowed to meet the protesting farmers. “Are we living in a democratic country?” he questioned. “That’s why I said that this is a ‘Cow-faced Tiger Emergency’”.

Mahadeva further questioned what really is at the heart of the Chennai-Salem expressway project, which will result in felling of thousands of trees in eleven reserved forests. “Salem and Chennai are already connected by three roads. When this is the case, is there a need for another road? We have to raise this question.”

The high court has passed a stay order and farmers – who are set to lose their land – have not given their consent for this project. Thus, Mahadeva added, “The Central government has set out to do this project tyrannically.”

In light of these circumstances, he said, the project points to an underlying conspiracy of commission deals “on the 10,000 crore budgeted road making project and the business of timber from the destroyed forests.”

“Getting loans from somewhere, making commission deals, making roads, destroying the wealth of the forests and burdening common people with this debt is what is being called development today, Mahadeva said. “It is because of such development that cloudburst tsunamis are happening. It’s because of these cloudburst tsunamis that so-called ‘developed’ roads have been washed away in Kerala and in Kodagu right in front of our very own eyes. But we have still not learned. Even now the central government should become wiser and let go of this tragic project.”