----- Original Message -----
From: Niloufer Bhagwat
To: Admiral Bhagwat
Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2010 3:07 PM
Subject: Re: Official Report of Ministry of Rural Development
GovernmentofIndia extracts in Outlook 16th November 2009
Forwarding extracts from the official report of the Ministry of Rural
Development Government of India from Outlook 16th November 2009 given below .
This report among others establishes that there are still honest officials who
despite all odds write the truth . The problem is that the obstruction arises
in the area of implementation and GOVERNANCE . In the Paul Volcker interview to
Fareed Zakaria ,Volcker stated that the main problem in the USA was of
GOVERNANCE ..........we could saythe same for India too in respect of both
alliances and their allies , which have been taken over by Wall street and
London city and their representatives in India in the corporate and financial
world controlling Central and State governments .
But as all reports indicate geopolitically the existing financial and
political order globally is coming apart , the real question is what will
replace it . Will we make policies from the point of view of the people of
India, with priority for those who perform back breaking labour and are still
below the poverty line , that is when disbursals have to be made from the
national budget , the infrastructure of livelihood, food security , shelter ,
health and education should be the first charge as Mahatma Gandhi would have
opined, thereafter we can debate what the other allocations should be and in
what proportion .........
What we urgently need is a perspective which looks at the challenge to our
society from an Indian viewpoint, as of now the Washington and London view
dominate all policy , though both are teetering and cannot sustain themselves
leave alone Indian policy .
There is so much talk about violence , there should be a debate on the
source of violence as Romain Rolland the famous writer urged Gandhiji to
initiate , Justice Bilal Nazki from the Kashmir valley at a lecture at the Tata
Institute of Social Sciences said that there were more encounters and
violence in Maharashtra than he had seen in the Valley as a law officer , that
the criminal justice system was in a state of collapse .Thousands have died in
Western India in pogroms and covert bomb blasts by right wing fascist
organizations without any alarm and without the para military being deployed .
With the spread of the Hi-Tech sector and the industrialization of Karnataka
and foreign direct investment in that region , violence has spread to Karnataka
with the creation of organizations similar to the ones in Mumbai and Ahmedabad
. Strange developments ,one would hardly associate these developments with
obscurantist organizations being funded to operate in the name of some religion
or ritual what happened to the scientific temper which was supposed to
accompany higher technology and globalization ???????
The Supreme Court has finally observed 'that we cannot be at war with our
own people', of course this was followed immediately by violent provocative
incidents !!!!!!!! The funding and arming of Salwa Judums were non -violent
acts as observed in the official report of the Ministry of Rural Development of
the Government of India ??? The Supreme Court thought otherwise ordering their
disbandment ,hence some other alternative strategies had to be found for land
seizures( referred to in the Government of India report ) . I thought only
communists and Maoists take away the property and land of others , what this
report of the Government of India refers to is the confiscation of property by
MNCs, the corporations resorting to strip mining among other activities .
It is necessary the debate on the source of violence in our society which
is reaching serious proportions .
Nilu
----- Original Message -----
From: Rights Support Centre
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 3:45 PM
Subject: [humanrights-movement:2104] Fwd: Tata and Essar funded Salwa
Judum
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Madhusree Mukerjee
It's official.... Tata and Essar funded a program of ethnic cleansing
to take over the land. From Outlook magazine.
Govt report: land reforms
Mind The Drill
A scathing report on the pro-business land takeover policy ...and it’s
official too
Smita Gupta
The Daisy Cutters
a.. A government report critical of the land acquisition policies in
rural India
b.. Says cycle of growing lawlessness, poverty, violence is a natural
outcome of state’s neo-liberal economic agenda
c.. Amendments altering protective laws to attract private investment
has further marginalised the poor
d.. Report slams state patronage of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh
***
Once upon a time “the temples of modern India reduced millions of
tribal people to ecological refugees”; now “the minerals seen as the building
blocks of modern India” are putting them “at risk of losing their land through
acquisition and further disruption of their societies and economies”. No,
that’s no dire warning from some rights activist but, significantly, a part of
a government report, ‘State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land
Reforms’, by a 15-member committee of the Union rural development ministry in
January 2008. Headed by minister C.P. Joshi himself, it includes the
secretary, land resources, four other civil servants (two of whom are retired),
three economists and six representatives from the NGO sector. Curiously, the
chief author of the report is B.K. Sinha, a retired IAS officer who now heads
the National Institute of Rural Development in Hyderabad.
The report promises to stir up a hornet’s nest, suggesting as it does
radical changes in land management, stressing that the cycle of growing
landlessness, poverty and violence is a natural outcome of the government’s
neo-liberal economic agenda. It also warns that if immediate steps are not
taken, it could be a downward spiral. The report admits that even within the
government there is a view “that distributive justice programmes have been
overtaken by the development paradigm”, and that many states had amended
protective laws to attract private investment but these have ended up further
marginalising the poor. It also makes a connection between the alienation of
tribals from their land in central India and the rapidity with which Maoist
influence in this area is growing—and also slams the government’s patronage of
the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh.
That said, the report is a “modified” version of the original document.
When the original draft was shown to the RJD’s redoubtable Raghuvansh Prasad
Singh, the current minister’s predecessor and under whom the committee was
formed (and in whose tenure most of the report was formulated), he told Outlook
he had “pointed out that it had taken an extremist line; so it was toned down”.
But the more than 250-page tome is apparently not toned down enough for
UPA-II, with its recommendations on reducing the land ceiling, a homestead
policy, tenancy registration, giving tribals the right to decide how their land
would be used, and so on. Sources in government say the report is “impractical,
too utopian” and simply “does not take into account ground realities”. The
report now awaits the approval of the National Council on Land Reforms headed
by Dr Manmohan Singh. Council members include the deputy chairperson of the
Planning Commission, central ministers from the ministries concerned
—agriculture, social welfare, tribal welfare, environment and forests—chief
ministers and a group of experts.
If the report is “too utopian” for the government, even committee
members admit that some of the report’s key recommendations may be difficult to
implement. Dr A.K. Singh, economist and director of the Giri Institute of
Development Studies in Lucknow, told Outlook, “The report suggests that tenancy
registration should be strictly enforced. In UP, it has never happened as land
has always been leased to tenants in an informal way. It is doubtful that it
can be implemented in UP, especially as land is a state subject.”
Yet other committee members point out more contradictions. Neelima
Khetan, CEO of Sewa Mandir, Rajasthan’s largest NGO, says, “The report
recommends that homestead rights be given to all poor people, by distributing
surplus land. At another place, it talks of using Common Property Resources
effectively. How will the two be reconciled?”
But P.V. Rajagopal, who heads Ekta Parishad and was the moving spirit
behind the Janadesh Yatra in ’07 (when 30,000 tribals from 18 states arrived in
the capital to press their demands), which compelled the government to set up
the committee on land reforms, is more sanguine. As a member of the PM’s
Council on Land Reforms, which will put in place a policy framework and take a
final view on how the recommendations will be implemented, he’s already gearing
up for battle. “The government is torn between a World Bank-led reforms agenda
and the one that people like me are espousing. Of course, there will be
tensions between the two groups when the council meets. The government, I am
sure, will realise that if it goes the corporate way, it will only increase
migration, poverty and violence,” says Rajagopal.
Indeed, while the report focuses on the entire country (including a
section on the Northeast), the part relating to the tribals and Dalits has
special resonance today, as government forces engage in a bloody war with the
Maoists in central India. The report is devastatingly frank about the collusion
between government and big business, even accusing the two of funding and
fuelling the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh. “This open, declared war will go down
as the biggest land grab ever.... Tata Steel and Essar Steel...wanted seven
villages or thereabouts...to mine the richest lode of iron ore available in
India. (After) initial resistance from the tribals...the state withdrew its
plans. A new approach was necessary.... (It) came about with the Salwa
Judum...headed by the Murias, some of them erstwhile (Maoist) cadres. Behind
them are traders, contractors and miners.... The first financiers of the Salwa
Judum were Tata and Essar...640 villages...were laid bare, burnt to the ground
and emptied with the force of the gun and the blessings of the state. (Some)
3,50,000 tribals, half the total population of Dantewada district, are
displaced, their womenfolk raped, their daughters killed and their youth
maimed. Those who could not escape into the jungle were herded together into
refugee camps run and managed by the Salwa Judum...640 villages are empty.
Villages sitting on tons of iron ore are effectively de-peopled and available
for the highest bidder. The latest information being circulated is that both
Essar Steel and Tata Steel are willing to take over the empty landscape and
manage the mines.”
Clearly, the government has little time to lose, as Rajagopal points
out, “There is pressure from the Maoists and growing violence on the one hand,
and there is the pressure from non-violent mass movements to take a fresh look
at the land issue.” Indeed, the report may have some virtually undoable
suggestions—and certainly some contradictions (inevitable, given it has sought
to be fair to the competing perspectives of equity, ecology, growth-efficiency,
and community and gender). The government can ignore this report only at the
cost of not just its own future but, more importantly, that of the country.
__._,_.___
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "humanrights movement" group.
To post to this group, send email to
[email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement?hl=.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"humanrights movement" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement?hl=en.
