Protest in Mumbai on Narmada - Singh V/s Singh
From: "Initiative India" <initiativeindia
gmail.com>
Doosra Aamir stuns PM, cops
Ex TISS student Simprit Singh sneaks into convocation, raises protest against the dam
Manoj R Nair
ATata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) graduate sneaked into the high security convocation hall on Saturday at the TISS campus at Deonar and raised a banner of protest, stunning Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, security staff and other dignitaries present, like Ratan Tata.
According to members of the audience, just as Manmohan Singh wound up his address, Simprit Singh, who graduated from TISS last year, stood up all of a sudden and unfurled a banner that read: "Development of destruction? A question from Narmada, Mumbai Slums, Kalinga Nagar, Bhopal, Plachmada,Kashmir."
Clearly this protest was so unexpected that even as the PM's security grew alert nobody uttered a word. Simprit Singh just stood on his seat, banner unfurled while the function continued. "He did not shout slogans or anything. He just stood up alone," said a faculty member of TISS who was present at the function. But when some members of the audience started cheering Simprit, the plainclothes policement got into action and escorted him out of the convocation hall.
According to his friends, Simprit, 23, is "passionate" about Narmada. For the last two years he has been working with the National Alliance of People's Movement (NAPM), an alliance of organisations like NBA and lives out of the NAPM office at Chembur. "He is sweet and gentle soul but an ardent opponent of the Narmada dam project," said Shashi Mehta of the NBA.
While Simprit himself remained unavailable for comment--even when journalists were clamouring for a quote as he was being escorted out-- Simprit chose to remain mum.
"He has been training teachers to work in slums and he's been involved in various protest movements," disclosed Sanjay M G, co-cordinator of NAPM. Simprit apparently also endorsed Aamir Khan's recent protest. "We discussed Aamir's protest in detail and we approved because it was him (Aamir) - he's known to be a sensitive, aware person," he added.
Simprit has visited Narmada valley on several occasions and had often stayed in the villages that were flooded as Sardar Sarovar, the main dam had gone up. In Mumbai, he has been involved in protests against demolition of slums, particularly at Mandala village in Trombay.
According to Vijay Joshi, senior inspector of Trombay police station, Simprit was not detained and nor will any case be made against him. Simprit gained entry as a representative of NAPM which had been invited to the function. TISS had sent invitations to all the field work agencies and companies where its students undergo training during their course.
However, TISS director S Parasuraman, was miffed with his former pupil's action. "There is nothing wrong if someone wants to raise the issue (Narmada Dam). But a convocation ceremony is not an appropriate forum for such protest. We are an institution that teach, research and do policy advocacy. Field work agencies should do what they have to do and we want to do what we have to," he said.
Around 180 graduates passed out in the convocation ceremony on Saturday. The prime minister also inaugurated an institute for disaster management at TISS. However, his reaction to Simprit's protest is not known. Parasuraman who was with the PM said, "We did not discuss the incident. As prime minister, he looks at issues in a broader way."
PM reads writing on banner - SUMMER OF DISCONTENT: Dissent in Mumbai, class struggle in plane OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Mumbai, May 6: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had just finished speaking when Simpreet Singh rose from his seat among the audience at the annual convocation of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences holding up a black banner.
The small-built youth in his 20s stood in silence for five minutes - his banner, "Development or Destruction" written on it, doing the talking - before he was led away by securitymen.
His quiet protest echoed another, one more vocal and aggressive, thousands of miles away in Atlanta on Thursday when US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was heckled and called a "liar" by an anti-war former CIA analyst at a gathering of civic and business groups.
Before Simpreet stood up, Singh too had been talking about development and equity. "I sincerely believe that we must strike a fair balance between doing good and doing well, between ensuring equity and pursuing excellence. To focus on one and lose sight of the other cannot serve the interests of either the organisation for which you work or society at large," the Prime Minister said, in the backdrop of the row over reservation for backward classes that his government is caught in.
The chairman of the TISS governing board R.K. Krishnakumar had opened the event by commenting on the growing income disparity in the country.
Singh agreed with him and said: "It is imperative that wealth creation be done through honest means and we have to make sure that the process of wealth creation does not neglect poor, marginalised and neglected sections of the society."
He called upon the leaders of Indian industry to "invest in the long term development of human resources, just as they invest in making their firms more globally competitive".
While the lone man standing in the audience could not have faulted the Prime Minister on these statements, the one that followed would have sounded to him like censure. "A holistic perspective is important because interest groups, by definition, espouse sectional cause interest groups must also learn to take a wider view of the imperatives of development."
Simpreet's banner had highlighted the cause of the Narmada oustees, whose leader Medha Patkar has had a go at Singh, the Bhopal gas victims and other controversial issues of development and displacement.
The TISS volunteer, who had obtained an invitation through an associate for the convocation where social activist Baba Amte and industrialist Ratan Tata were conferred honorary doctorates, was taken to the local police station and let off after interrogation.
The right to live is all we ask.
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