However, all of Devendra Ram’s dream were shattered when one day his son Hare Krishna Ram came home from school and informed him that asbestos was not only harmful but also “causes deadly disease like asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma” which will not only kill them all but also gradually eliminate the future generation.
Hare Krishna Ram, a government school student of class X had read about the harmful effects of asbestos in his Biology course book and his science teacher Chandeshwar Gupta had explained the chapter in detail during class that day.
Similarly, Rahul Kumar who is studying Intermediate Science explained to his farmer father Vinod Singh about the deadly effects of asbestos written in his course book of chemistry. Not only this, his friend Sashi Ranjan and Ravi Ranjan had also read about the hazardous effects of asbestos in their environmental chemistry book which they consult in their preparation for competitive examinations.
The villagers of Chainpur-Vishunpur under Marwan block of Muzaffarpur thus came to know about the deadly effects of asbestos dust emitted by the factory. The school students of the village even started organising processions with placards everyday in the village alleys and convincing villagers to oppose the construction of the asbestos factory.
Soon, their protest spread out to other nearby villages under Raksa, Jeeyaan, Barkagaon, Karja, Mohammadpur Sube, Akhtiyarpur Ghamsra Panchayats of the block. In no time the flames of protest engulfed about 100 villages in the total eight Panchayat of the block under a 10 kilometer radius. The villagers later formed a 51 member ‘Khet Bachhao-Jeevan Bacchao Sangharsha Committee’ to oppose the ‘killer factory’ set up in the village.
“Our children opened our eyes and we came to know about the hazardous effects of asbestos. Otherwise we’d have died in ignorance,” said villager Ram Chandra Rai who is also the convener of the committee.
The villagers for the last four months now have been on a dharna outside the factory site and organising protest processions in the area. Their strength has been increasing daily.
The Kolkata based Balmukund Cement and Roofing Ltd (BCRL) had proposed to set up a ` 31 crore white asbestos site on about 17 acre of fertile land. The company general manager B K Tiwari told Eastern Panorama that the villagers have been thoroughly misled by some vested interest that production of white asbestos was dangerous to health.
“There are altogether 54 asbestos factories in India and most of them are located in West Bengal in densely populated areas. There is no harm and protest there. White asbestos is not dangerous to health,” Tiwari said.
However, a Bill pending in the upper house of Parliament categorically said that white asbestos is highly carcinogenic. Even the reports of WHO, UNEP, ILO and Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) have clearly written that “exposure to chrysotile asbestos (white asbestos) poses increased risks for asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma in dose dependent manners”.
Recently, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh, noted environmentalist Barry Castleman, Medha Patkar and Gopal Krishna had written a letter to the Bihar Chief Minister with the relevant reports detailing how asbestos dust causes serious deadly diseases to human beings.
Noted social activist and Magsaysay awardee Sandeep Pandey had also recently visited the site and expressed his concern over the factory set up in the village.
The experts also informed the villagers and the state government that asbestos is banned in 52 countries of the world, including the Indian state of Kerala.
“If the proposed 3,00,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) proposed project of the asbestos factory comes up, the area could very well have its own version of a ‘Turner & Newall’ epidemic,” said environmentalist Gopal Krishna. “Once the world’s largest asbestos conglomerate T&N had exposed millions to a lethal carcinogen in the UK,” he said.
The state government initially, though, tried to crush the protestors by firing at them and ordering lathi charges in which some of the villagers got seriously injured. Many protesters were arrested but this did not deter the villagers who continued to show opposition to the factory.
Later, the villagers on 22 January attacked the factory and partially damaged its imposing iron gate and boundary wall which led to police firing in which buttet wounds were inflicted on three villagers while several others were injured. Later, the district administration imposed section 144 of the IPC and asked both the protestors and the factory authorities to maintain status quo till the crisis is defused.  
Interestingly, the state government has given permission to five other asbestos factories to be set up in different areas of Bihar. “When production of asbestos is allowed in over 50 places in the country why are there no protests in those areas?” asked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. He further added that “However, every aspect of asbestos production should be looked into and then the government will take any final decision on it.”
The school children, meanwhile, have been taking out protest processions every day in the area and raising awareness about the hazardous effects of ‘killer asbestos dust.’ Even the girl students like Sonam Kumari read books which are out of their school curriculum to their mothers and compel them to protest against the asbestos factory as “Not only they but the future generation too would suffer.”
“Every day we take out processions from each of the government village schools and make a round of the area with placards while shouting out slogans to keep the protest movement alive,” said student leader Ashutosh Kumar.
The village government schools have become the meeting grounds for villagers also who regularly congregate there to chalk out their next course of action.
The villagers also rued that the land where the factory is being set up is not barren as was declared by the company in its proposal to the government. “It is agricultural land with over a hundred villages surrounding it within a 10 kilometer radius,” said retired school teacher and villager Sikander Singh.
The agitated villagers are now thankful to the school students who first enlightened them about the killing affects of asbestos dust. “We do not want employment at the cost of our and our children’s lives,” said Ram Narayan Prasad Singh, former head of Karja village.

Devayani