The following article was published in Radical Notes (radicalnotes.com) on 28 August 2009. I have included an excerpt, and a link to the entire article at the end of this message. My motivation in sending this article is to provide the comrades with political context to supplement the petition that I sent yesterday.
***** Gautam Navlakha and Asish Gupta After two months of persistence Bastar Sambhag Kisan Sangharsh Samiti (BSKSS) could hold its first rally cum public meeting on June 1, 2009 in Jagdalpur to protest displacement of adivasi peasants from their land and forest as well as construction of Bodh Ghat Dam, privatization of mines and river water resources. As the only two 'outsiders' we looked on as streams of people at the height of summer month walked raising slogans and their fist. They gathered at College Campus and then from Dharampura the rally made its way to Indira Priyadarshini Stadium. Their short but wiry bodies in terms of age and gender may have been different but the steps they took, many barefoot, were determined and firm. After the rally as people made their way into the Stadium some were seen leaving in a different direction. These were people who had arrived the night before had to travel long distances to return home and anxious to do so before dusk fell. But those who remained behind for the public meeting sat under the shade provided by canopies rented by the organizers. They sat down to listen. Slogans had been shouted now was the time to hear what their own people had to say. Organisers claimed 20-25 thousand adivasi peasants came for the rally at Jagdalpur on June 1. There were certainly more than 15 thousand people in the rally, local scribes affirmed, maybe even more. But no one was doing a headcount so it remains a guesstimate. Numbers apart the turnout was nevertheless impressive given that the administration had given the permission just the day before, after more than two months of prevarication, on morning of Sunday 31st May. For so many to come at such short notice from four of the five districts (Narayanpur, Bastar, Dantewada, and Bijapur), which comprise Bastar division, was no mean achievement. Lohandiguda peasants walked all the way as did those who came from Abuj Madh across the river Indrawati. Others walked and then took bus to reach Jagdalpur. They came because their very existence is under threat. Many could not make it, especially those from Kanker district, which boasts of the infamous Jungle Warfare School, which trains soldiers to become more proficient at fighting their own people. According to the organizers transporters were told by people in the administration in Kanker not to provide buses. There was no way to cross check this claim but there were people from four districts. Those who came did not come to listen to some potentate or leader from Raipur or Delhi. The BSKSS did not pay them money to entice them there. They came to lodge their protest and listen to their own who addressed the gathering in their individual capacity, keeping their party and other affiliations aside. Many had been until the other day at loggerhead. Thus entire spectrum of politics belonging to the right and left including sadhus/mendicants addressed the gathering. Some spoke in Gondi and others in Hindi. But the message was more or less the same. All voiced their opposition to government's development policy, and were determined to fight in the common cause of saving Bastar from an administration which was backing the capitalist profiteers and marauders, not our words but this is how the speakers described them. The supposedly 'national' media was of course unaware of the rally and meeting since their "sources" either did not inform them nor was this a sensational incident (euphemism for landmine blast/jail break...) to vent their outrage where Bastar is concerned. The local media of Bastar alone reported the event. And they covered it truthfully. But, the administration remained alert, which is to say fearful, till the very end with huge deployment of security forces. Jagdalpur edition of Navbharat newspaper (2 June, 2009) reported that the administration and local industrialists were taken aback by the large turnout because permission had given just the day before the rally and yet people were mobilized in such large number. They also pointedly referred to the fact that this was the first time ever that such a large rally cum meeting was organized entirely by local people. Haribhumi, another local newspaper, wrote the next day that peasants who came paid for their own travel and that the administration was caught unaware by the rather well organized event. Local edition of Dainik Bhaskar (June 2, 2009) added that throughout the rally and public meeting the officials remained busy monitoring what was happening. Be that as it may. In their memorandum, addressed to the Governor of Chhattisgarh, the organizers list various proposed projects, including that of Tata, Jindal, Essar and Mittal for which MoUs have been signed. They point out how the Tata Steel project (for which, coincidentally, the MoU was signed a day before the formal launch of Salwa Judum in June 2005) has through 'stealth and use of force' got peasants to part with their land and then forged compensation paid to the peasants. They wrote that they were in possession of at least 100 such cases of forged compensation. The memorandum mentions that Bodh Ghat Dam not only 'poses environmental threat but submergence of thousands acres of forest land', which in turn also means loss of minor forest produce for the adivasis. They go on to refer to privatization of mines in Chargaon, Ravghat, Kuvve, Budhiari, Madh, Amdai, Metta among others, which will 'benefit private companies not the people of Bastar'. Finally they refer to the fall in water level in parts of Bastar region due to the Essar pipeline meant to transport fragmented iron ore from Dantewada to Vishkhapatnam.(1) All this means, according to them, loss of livelihood and destitution for an already impoverished peasantry. They instead asked administration to help promote agriculture, provide power, construct ponds, check dams, small dams, lift irrigation, build anicuts, promote forest based cottage industry and small industries as an alternate model of development. [...] ***** The full article is available at http://bit.ly/1lZOIh. ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
