Global cable giants Prysmian-Nicco JV exposes neocolonial supply chains in energy infrastructure amid India’s green transition
Original framing: “Italy's Prysmian in JV talks with Nicco of India - Reuters” — Reuters (via Google News)
The JV echoes colonial-era resource extraction, where European firms controlled India’s mineral wealth under the British Raj, only now repackaged as 'green industrialization.' Nicco’s corporate lineage traces back to the British-era industrialist B.C. Roy, whose companies were part of a system that prioritized export-oriented production over local welfare. The post-independence Indian state’s reliance on foreign capital for infrastructure mirrors Nehruvian-era policies, but now with a 'sustainable' veneer that obscures the continuity of extractive logic.
The Prysmian-Nicco JV is not merely a corporate expansion but a microcosm of global capital’s extractive logic, where neocolonial supply chains are repackaged as 'green growth.
' Prysmian’s roots in Italy’s fascist-era industrialization and Nicco’s lineage in British colonial-era resource extraction reveal a continuity of power structures that prioritize corporate accumulation over ecological and social justice. The deal’s framing by Reuters obscures how this JV aligns with EU-India green energy pacts that funnel public funds into private hands while displacing marginalized communities. Indigenous Adivasi resistance in Jharkhand and Odisha, Dalit labor organizing, and global parallels in Africa and Latin America demonstrate that this is part of a broader pattern of 'green colonialism.' The solution lies in dismantling these extractive models through worker cooperatives, FPIC laws, circular economy standards, and community-led renewable energy—transforming the JV from a profit-driven venture into a vehicle for equitable transition. The trickster’s cunning is needed to expose the absurdity of this 'green' extraction, but the real disruption will come from those who refuse to be silenced by corporate narratives.