Aishwarya Gajendran
Ennore, a coastal town located in North Chennai, Tamil Nadu, stands as a testimony to environmental casteism and its catastrophic impact on the lives of marginalized communities.
More than 90% of Ennore’s population belongs to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes.
Environmental injustice across the world connects to the history of discriminatory industrial development policies—from the redlined Black Town in Detroit, Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” in the USA, to the Apartheid-era townships in South Africa, and to Ennore in India. Marginalized communities worldwide disproportionately bear the brunt of environmental degradation.
In the early 1970s, when the state of Tamil Nadu began industrialization, the state’s first thermal power station was set up in Ennore in 1970, the Ennore thermal power plant station (ETPS).
Over the years, 48 hazardous red-category industries have been established in the Ennore-Manali region in north Chennai, severely polluting the environment and turning the area into a hazardous global hotspot of industrial pollution.
Industries in the region for more than half a century have been discharging highly carcinogenic and corrosive pollutants such as ammonia, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide. They have been illegally dumping fly ash and petrochemical effluents into riverbeds, and encroaching on the water bodies, contaminating air, water, and soil, causing severe environmental destruction impacts on the livelihood and health of Ennore’s residents.
According to a study conducted by a climate action group on air pollution in North Chennai, it has been revealed that industries in the area violated emission norms on more than 50% of the days between 2019 and 2020.
The World Health Organization prescribes an annual average standard of 10 µg/m³ for PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) under its Air Quality Guidelines (AQG) to protect public health. However, the air quality in Ennore exceeds the permissible limits and standards recommended by the WHO.
Women and children are the most vulnerable victims of environmental degradation worldwide. Skin infections, respiratory diseases, infertility, cancer, PCOS, kidney stones, chronic wheezing, and colds are rampant among women and children in Ennore.
“Pollution is a real threat. I have buried children that I loved, that I saw being born, that were exposed to lead poisoning because of pollution. So, it’s not just about the environment; it’s about human rights,” says environmental rights defender Phyllis Omido.
Children in Ennore are exposed to highly toxic pollutants even while in their mother’s womb, as the groundwater, air, and soil are heavily contaminated with industrial pollutants.
The cancer risk for children due to exposure to these pollutants is 1,000 times higher in Ennore.
Industries like the Ennore Thermal Power Station (ETPS) are located in close proximity to schools, severely affecting the health and education of children. Students report experiencing breathlessness in class due to toxic emissions released by these companies. They describe the situation as feeling like the earth is shaking beneath them while toxic black clouds enter their classroom windows, affecting their education and health.
An elderly resident of SVM Nagar in Ennore tells us that his 12-year-old son has kidney stones and respiratory problems and is being treated in Rajiv Gandhi Hospital. He spends more than 14,000 rupees per month on treatment. He asks, “What fault has he done to suffer from these diseases?” and says that the high levels of smoke released by the company are a major reason for this. “Either we should live on our land, close these companies permanently, or kill us all and let the companies function here,” he says.
Ennore Creek is a biological hotspot; it is home to hundreds of marine species and thousands of migratory birds.
Ennore Creek and its lagoon ecosystem play a vital role in mitigating flooding during strong rainfall, high tides, and cyclones, balancing the coastal ecosystem. The discharge of fly ash and petrochemical effluents into the creek has severely contaminated Ennore Creek, severely affecting the livelihoods of the fishing communities dependent on it.
Environmental degradation stems not only from excessive resource use but also from the unequal access that social groups have to those resources.
Likewise, in Ennore, the livelihoods of fishing communities and their per capita income have drastically declined over the years due to coastal pollution.
The agency of environmental casteism deepens the social inequities hindering the upliftment of the Scheduled and Backward Castes in India.
Ennore’s story is one of environmental degradation intertwined with social injustice, where industrial growth has come at an unbearable cost to marginalized communities and the delicate ecosystems they depend on. Addressing these systemic issues requires urgent and equitable solutions to restore justice and sustainability to the region.
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Aishwarya Gajendran is an economics postgraduate from Ethiraj College for Women, is currently pursuing MSc in Economics and Finance at Edinburgh Business School in the United Kingdom.
