NBA: National Action Day Call
From: baroda
narmada.org | 15 May 2006
Dear friend,
You have been with us during this critical stage of our struggle to save the Narmada Valley from devastation. We greatly appreciate your concern for and solidarity with the Sardar Sarovar dam affected adivasis and farmers during their dharna and indefinite fast in Delhi. Your support - ideological, strategic and political - has been invaluable for us. During the last 20 years of our struggle, your participation at various points, including in the last year has greatly strengthened the movement. What has been especially significant is how you have worked together with us to make this your movement as well.
This is indeed a time for us to form one movement against the forces that promote centralisation and globalisation, that work against democracy, that favour unjust and inhuman development paradigms while displacing people from their homes, lands, and livelihoods, and that spell destruction. These forces have set forth a great challenge before us. In this struggle, it is critical for us to stay together and combine our energies to fight against every form of injustice.
The Narmada struggle is a prime example of this, and your participation in the movement has been very significant. From diverse programmes and events in Delhi to local events around the country, such as relay fasts, protests, artistic expressions, writings, and films, every action has been important. From adivasis, dalits, slum dwellers, and farmers, to eminent persons, students, teachers, and politicians, people from across the country have raised their voices against this dominant paradigm of unjust development and begun a historic mission to fight for the truth.
Despite a tough month-long struggle and despite enough substantial field evidence (including from the ìpol khol yatraî) in support of our claims, we still cannot rest nor can we celebrate. The construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam still continues unabated. The killer dam, which will destroy and drown thousands of families, hundreds of villages, especially adivasi villages, is not just illegal but inhuman. Several agencies, including state and central government bodies have visited the Valley, and the group of three ministers, including the Prime Minister, know that the construction of the dam is against the orders of the Supreme Court, yet neither the Prime Minister (PM) nor the Central government has intervened or taken a firm stand against it.
The new committee constituted by the PM with Mr. V.K. Shunglu and two other government bureaucrats has been asked to conduct a survey through the NSSO from 19 May to 19 June. The committee has been assigned the task of surveying the number of displaced people, the land available, and the area to be submerged through a sample survey, and has been asked to aim to complete rehabilitation within 3 months. Can the rehabilitation of 35,000 families be completed in 3 months? When the law and policies clearly call for allocation of land and house plots one year before submergence and for rehabilitation to be completed 6 months before submergence, why is a central government committee that violates these legal provisions being set up?
You must understand the political games involved in this, where the BJP government has joined hands with the Congress in Gujarat, and the Central government continues to evade all responsibility.
The Supreme Court, after asking for affidavits from all affected parties was to make a decision on the dam in February, which it delayed. Even after the 8 March decision of the Narmada Control Authority to raise the dam height to 121.92 metres, 2 months have lapsed without any order to halt the illegal construction of the dam. At the 1st May hearing, the Court postponed its judgement to 8 May, when again despite glaring evidence of failed rehabilitation, it refused to halt construction on the dam and decided to hear the matter on 7 July after the report of the Shunglu Committee is submitted to the Prime Minister on June 30. This decision reflects a complete denial of justice by the countryís highest judicial institution. Despite evidence that the Court is violating its own orders, the construction on the dam continues incessantly. This will result in the evident submergence of adivasi villages, houses and fields, especially with the monsoons approaching soon. Given the circumstances, the report of the Shunglu Committee seems to have little purpose than to conduct a post-mortem on the matter.
Across the country, the tide is against the rural and urban poor, farmers, and labourers. With large-scale infrastructure, development and city beautification projects displacing more and more people, the challenge before us is enormous. The struggle against the Sardar Sarovar dam is one example of this. Neither you nor us can therefore sit quiet nor bear silent witness to this injustice.
Please write to, speak with, lobby, the PM, Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Party, your local political representatives and others about the urgent need to immediately stop this murderous and violent development paradigm that is prevalent across the country. Please put pressure wherever you can to ensure that the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam stops immediately.
We have decided to declare 26 May as a DAY OF NATIONAL ACTION against violence, injustice, displacement and forced evictions in the name of development. Wherever you are, please mobilise, strategise, and organise a local action - either outside the court, the Mantralaya, local government offices - wherever you feel that pressure is needed. Suggested actions include signature campaigns against the Supreme Court decision outside local courts, demonstrations outside Congress party offices, rallies calling for immediate halt of construction of the dam and an end to displacement and forced eviction around the country. We have to speak up against the persistent injustice and question the responsible authorities for inflicting destruction on the people. Let us unite and rally together to raise a strong voice on May 26! NO MORE VIOLENCE AGAINST THE POOR! NO MORE DISPLACEMENT! NO MORE FORCED EVICTION! NO MORE STATE-SPONSORED MURDER!
We would also like to take this opportunity to invite you for the Convention of the National Alliance of Peopleís Movements (NAPM) that will be held in Bangalore from 30 May to 1 June, 2006. Please attend this meeting to discuss the critical issues facing us all across the country, to build greater solidarity across movements, and to develop more focused and long-term strategies. The need of the hour is for us to unite and take our movement to a stronger yet different level. For more details on the NAPM Convention, please write to: muktariseup.net or call 98694 00508 and 98206 36335.
We look forward to working together and uniting our struggles.
In gratitude, and in solidarity,
Medha Patkar, Dipti Bhatnagar, Kamala Yadav, Pinjaribai, Om Prakash, Jankibai, Clifton Rozario, Ashish Mandloi, Yogini Khanolkar, Kailash Awasya, Noorjibhai, Banabhai, Chetan, Mohanbhai
for more information visit http//www.narmada.org
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