---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Shalini Gera <[email protected]> Date: Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 2:15 PM
[Nice coverage of Raipur's rally on the 28th... even though Janki Sidar became Jayanthi Sidar] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Chhattisgarhs-workers-keep-the-idea-of-resistance-alive/articleshow/10200172.cms Printed from <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/> Chhattisgarh's workers keep the idea of resistance aliveSupriya Sharma<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toireporter/author-Supriya-Sharma.cms>Supriya Sharma, TNN | Oct 1, 2011, 11.30PM IST RAIPUR :A wave of workers walked Raipur's streets under the hot afternoon sun, before coming to rest under the shadow of a Gandhi statue this Wednesday, to mark twenty years of the death of legendary unionist Shankar Guha Niyogi <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Shankar-Guha-Niyogi>as well as the continuing life of his ideas. A firebrand left activist, Niyogi forged the region's most breathtaking alliance of workers and peasants under the aegis of Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM), only to be murdered in 1991 at the behest of the powerful industrial lobby he challenged. Twenty years since his death, in a state that has become the main staging ground of the violent insurgency of the ultra left Maoists, the non violent collective movements inspired by Niyogi strike an interesting counterpoint. Dwarfed by the Maoists <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Maoists> in the state's south, these resistance movements are lesser known, but in their own slow and grinding way, they are changing lives of the poor in the northern districts of Durg, Raipur, Raigarh, Korba, impacted by one of the most intense concentration of mining and industry in India. At least, Mangtu Ram feels so. A long time contract worker at a cement factory in Bhilai, the old man sat clutching the red and green flag of CMM. "We were among the first to walk with Niyogi," he says, with a hint of quiet pride. "I earned just 9 rupees for a day's labour when I joined it 27 years ago," he recalls. "Today, I earn 159 rupees, the statutory minimum wage that our movement has forced the company to pay". Much else had been achieved, he is quick to add. "Bonus, leave, safety measures. The only thing we have not got so far is a permanent job, even though the High Court has ruled in our favour". This March, Chhattisgarh High Court asked the company, ACC-Holcim, to regularise workers of a union that Mangtu is part of, but the company is yet to comply with the order. And so, every morning, before reporting to work, Mangtu and fellow workers gather outside the factory gates, to raise slogans and register their protest. "We are confident one day we will wrest victory". Most people in the gathering shared this optimism, extraordinary in the light of the magnitude of their problems. Ten years ago, Jayanti Sidar discovered her land had been transferred to Jindal Power, a company digging for coal in her village in Raigarh. "It was a fake registry. I had not signed the papers. I did not get a paisa," says the tribal woman. A local activist introduced her to a leading member of CMM, Sudha Bharadwaj, also a lawyer. While the legal battle has not brought her justice and compensation, Jayanti says she has not lost hope. "Tired but not defeated," is how she describes herself, before gesturing at the crowds, "and it is good to come here and meet so many others who are still struggling". The latest to join the struggle is a group of women, who sat huddled, with miniature red and green flags pinned to their blouses. They joined CMM<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/CMM>on June 10, the day their homes in a slum in Raipur's Amlidih area came under the bulldozer. "We lived there for six years. No one bothered us. And now they come and say it is government land. But tell me, what else is government land for, if not for people?," says Bhumika Vishwakarma, who works as domestic help in a colony of middle class government employees. "They are living on government land. The entire city is built on government land. So why oust us?" Another young woman, Kumari Yadav, has even greater cause for anger. She would never have left the safety of her village, she says, but she was forced to migrate, since an industrial project took away her farmland. -- Adv Kamayani Bali Mahabal +919820749204 skype-lawyercumactivist * * *The UID project i**s going to do almost exactly the same thing which the predecessors of Hitler did, else how is it that Germany always had the lists of Jewish names even prior to the arrival of the Nazis? The Nazis got these lists with the help of IBM which was in the 'census' business that included racial census that entailed not only count the Jews but also identifying them. At the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, there is an exhibit of an IBM Hollerith D-11 card sorting machine that was responsible for organising the census of 1933 that first identified the Jews.* * * *http://saynotoaadhaar.blogspot.com/* *http://aadhararticles.blogspot.com/* *http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_162987527061902&ap=1*< http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_162987527061902&ap=1> -- 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.
