Listed

It was two days after the IB secret document was leaked that a friend alerted me that I was Listed. This was unexpected, but not unduly surprising in view of my open position against India's entire nuclear program, particularly that at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP). I believed then, as I do now, that survival of any democracy depends on availability of public space for divergent and dissenting viewpoints and scope to express these openly, to persuade public opinion and thus to collectively influence decisions serving our combined destiny.

Far worse has already happened at KKNPP, way before this IB report. At the height of the anti-Kudankulam agitation, peaceful protesters were harassed, beaten, jailed for opposing an energy project that could endanger their lives  and that of their progeny; would jeopardise health, and seriously damage local livelihoods and ecology. Thousands of FIRs were lodged against protesters, young and old, women and children, on grave charges of being seditious and for waging war against the state.  Yet, protests continued and spread far beyond the KKNPP zone, to other states and metros.

Bogey and myths of foreign funded(FF) NGOs were conjured by the state way back in 2012, by our PM himself (see here)to derail  increasingly serious public discussions that protesters against the KKNPP had succeeded in bringing to media's attention and in open forums. The debate was not merely about running KKNPP from within a thriving and independent community of fisher folks and subjugating them, but increasingly on the topic of rights. For the first time the image of the protester radicalized - from voiceless, downtrodden destitute, to strident communities with women alongside men, young children and very old, who were fully informed on the project and also their rights; they had the temerity to challenge the establishment; they were loud, articulate, engaging, debating and very determined. The State, refusing to engage on either the necessity of KKNPP, or the issue of people's democratic rights, had no option but to attack the questioners with an elaborate fiction. The leaked IB report just substantiates and perpetuates an old lie - with many more lies, more names, and utterly ridiculous figures, without any supporting arithmetic, for the net national fiscal loss due to these anti-national FF NGOs.

KKNPP 1 is commissioned and is now producing at full capacity. Yet, the orgy of repression is not stemmed; there continue to be those who are inconvenient, who think and dare question, the dangerous ones - these have been identified and blacklisted because thinking, speaking, having a different viewpoint hurts our democratic nation. Others, like me have been listed, as merely supporting these anti-nationals.

One thing that leaking this secret report does: it has made state's position very clear; dissent is anti-national and unpatriotic. Right to complain, legitimately, has expired. Those wronged must accept in grace that their sacrifice is mandatory for a larger national good - forget that the rich always benefit  and never get to make sacrifices or be patriots. New lows in democratic standards have been set in this largest democracy where might is not just right, but also rich and corporatized.

But India's public, its civil society, will not stomach this. We will continue to challenge set notions, ideologies, and politics of globalized development. We recognize that to convert legitimate, peoples movements into an elaborate web of ill-conceived lies is just that - a huge charade - and we laugh. People are waking and the state is nervous!

A Tear Drop in the Ocean

Sri Lanka sits like a giant tear drop on the expanse of Indian Ocean. Over the last three decades, the country has been terrorized, ravaged, and destroyed by a brutal and horrific civil war where neither side has spared the other. Large areas of the country have seen unimaginable horrors with rapes, tortures and exterminations. The war culminated with state sponsored and large scale ethnic cleansing of its Tamil minorities. Crimes against the minorities continue, but under the radar, unseen and mostly ignored by the world outside. To the outside world, Sri Lanka has reverted to its original identity as a lush tropical island - a drop of paradise, beckoning the lost and the seeking " Buddham Sharanam Gacchami".

I recently went to Sri Lanka. I went as a mind less tourist, shoving aside all that I knew and all that I believed in - to wander over the contours of its cool hills, to plunge into aquamarine depths of its beautiful ocean, to explore the dark emerald cacophony of its still virgin forests; I ignored the human calamity, loss and despair and roamed the country in silence, being just an observer, a traveler. And, there was plenty here to please - from fire eaters and dancers of Kandy, to ancient abandoned cities of Polanaruwa, the rock fortress of Sigiriya to a vibrant cosmopolitan Colombo. I spent most time on the unspoilt, quiet beaches of Mirissa and Hikkaduwa - swimming in silken waters, and walking barefoot, miles along the soft sandy beaches.

What struck me most was the people - and how gentle and pleasant they seemed. No one seemed to be in a mad rush; the country was very clean, with no obvious signs of garbage, dumps, or  plastics; I saw no slums, and the rivers ran clean, dense and tropical brown. There was no honking on the roads, or rarely if ever; the public transport was cheap and frequent, out numbering private cars and autos. People looked at you and smiled, not having yet learnt to avoid gaze while saying " how are you" - in passing. People paused for long chats...the whole mood was unhurried and relaxed.

While I spoke, engaged and listened, and wandered  through the country, I also pondered 'what makes hate?'. I avoided speaking in Tamil, for fear of entering its domain of suspicion, fear and hate and managed to mostly avoid the whole genocide issue. Everything changed at the mention of Tamils, the separatist movement, or the killings, including the state sponsored genocide. I brought up the subject only twice. Once with a young and devout Sinhalese and the next time with a Tamil hotel owner.

The young buddhist, while espousing vegetarianism and non-violence towards animals felt that the killing of tamils was justified for the murders that had been committed - especially of monks, women, and children by the LTTE. He was enraged at the concept of a separate Tamil nation and felt that Sri Lanka belonged to the Sinhalese - and not the hindu tamils or the muslims.

I spoke to the Tamilian at the end of a long day. He must be about forty, thin with a belly, balding, hard working and with an easy laugh. I was dining on a simple fare of masala dosa and filter coffee; the restaurant was empty except for the owner and staff - all of whom spoke to each other in Tamil. The man came and sat down with us for a chat, about his relatives in Tamil Nadu, the cost of things and all the general stuff. He was happy to speak to an Indian in Tamil. And then I asked " what about the killings in the north?" The man went completely silent and then quickly looking around to make sure there were no Sinhalese around said " They are all gone.... killed..everyone, about four lakh people died in a few days..the army went in...killed and burnt everything down. Whatever was left was dumped in the ocean...no one knows how many missing were killed ...our people know, but no one talks about it". He seemed to have great deal to say about India's role in the war including, "She (Sonia Gandhi) did not help..why should she help anyone who killed her husband..?"
The conversation ended abruptly with a late comer walking in for a delayed dinner. The Tamil did not approach our table again.

I left Sri Lanka, as I had entered it, with a heavy heart, and a burden of conscience - denied. I knew of the evil that lurked even in this paradise - of evil in man's heart - which flourished and fractured even while the sun shone, the winds played with waves and forests chanted their evening songs.

BBMP's Large Donation to Maverick

Over the last few days, BBMP and its bulldozers, under the protection of a large and armed police force, have razed about 2000 shelters of the Economically Weaker Section in Ejipura. These actions have been carried out using terrible brute force and in arrogant impunity on the basis of a high court order of Aug. 2012. The Ejipura story is a larger than life greek tragedy unfolding from within realms of India's push for fiscal growth, and its horrific need to hide its all pervasive poverty behind glittering malls - like the one which will arise from the rubble of destroyed homes and lost lives. The photos below are taken by MirnoPasquali

Big Questions that remain: Why a PPP between BBMP and Maverick Pvt Ltd.? Why the diversion of public property, earmarked for our Economically Weak Sections (EWS), to private companies for profiteering? Why the sacrifice of shelters of our poorest, to build Malls of the rich?

Maverick Constructions, via its PPP will get 8 acres of prime property in the heart of Kormangala - one of the poshest localities in the city. According to reports this is valued at anywhere from 200 to 300 crores.
If we take the property cost in Koramangala at Rs.10000/sq.ft (market rate) then 8 acres = 8x40000 sq.ft = 320000sq.ft will cost 320 crores - consistent with the above values.

In exchange Maverick will build 1640 homes of 312 sq.ft each. Even if we adopt a construction cost of Rs.1000/sq.ft (for an average middle class type home) - the entire cost of construction to Maverick is 312x1640x1000=51 crores. So, Maverick Constructions will profit anywhere between Rs. 150 - 250 crores - just by entering into this agreement.

The Govt. claims that it has no money to construct EWS homes, although BBMP's annual budget is more than 4000 crores. Also Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), city's other civic body,  has failed to collect similar sums in rents from its malls, even while earmarking  additional Rs.500 crores more for building new malls.

So..Whose interests does the State really serve? And, how are the EWS displaced families in Ejipura, now on streets, benefited?

Bloody Power!

I have been away. For eight weeks. Really Away - no phone, internet, connection to my regular life or loved ones - to retreat into myself and find connections within and without - in a natural, mostly non-peopled world of things wild, wide and beautiful.

I return to find many things drastically changed in a world that dominates my life i.e. my intense and sometimes obsessive preoccupation with the civil liberties and humans rights challenges and horrors of this country. Foremost among these obsessions , for the last year, has been with the intense, prolonged, passionate and peaceful opposition to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant mounted by the local communities fighting to preserve their life, health, environment and livelihood in a post-Fukushima, and more enlightened world - at least more aware about real dangers in presuming safety of nuclear technologies.

I left during an impasse between the state and the protesters, the latter having found support from heavy weights like Aruna Roy. I returned and found time to catch up with mails only to find that a repressive state that could charge thousands as seditious had crossed the final line, of reasonable and restrained, to squash protests using brutal violence, with guns and batons. No one was spared, not children, aged, women. Two were killed - and I did not know. All this bloodshed - for electric power? for personal and political power?for national development? with Nuclear Power?

Bloody Power used to shed Blood of the Poor to serve hidden agendas with Nuclear Power - Bloodied Power!

Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant, Democracy and Sedition

The protest over a Nuclear Power Plant at Koodankulam (KKNPP) started soon after India and Russia signed an agreement on the project, way back on November 20, 1988. In May 1989, ten thousand people gathered to oppose the project. Police disconnected mikes and opened fire.

A lull followed due to the collapse of the Soviet bloc and also the assassination of India's PM, Rajiv Gandhi. The project was revived in 1997 and linked to the purchase of T-90 tanks, SU-30 planes and the Admiral Gorshkov submarine from Russia. It took ten years to hold a public hearing on the project - seven thousand people attended. This meeting was abruptly discontinued when people protested that the proceedings were not conducted in the local language.

The protest movement around the nuclear plant, People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), gained enormously in strength and support, following the Japanese nuclear disaster at Fukushima, leaping into national visibility and much wider public prominence. The protesters set up an independent, technically savvy expert committee of PMANE to challenge the State and India's nuclear establishment with tough questions.  Their opposition to the project revolved around some very simple and basic positions:

Nuclear industry is associated with well documented hazards - even in normal operations -. which are harmful to the health of humans and environment. People living in the vicinity of the KKNPP had a right to protect their own lives, and the lives of their future generations, and rejected this hazardous technology from operating in their backyards - they also opted not to need its benefits.

The heat dump from the nuclear power plant would significantly increase the temperature along their shoreline - where they fished, and endanger the traditional livelihood - on which they were dependent. They intended to protect their livelihood mechanisms, which could not be guaranteed once the reactor became operational.

Safety of any nuclear plant against a serious accident cannot ever be guaranteed. While suppliers of India's planned, imported nuclear plants scuttled behind and demanded further dilution of India's liability clause, Russians were fully exempt from shouldering any liability in case of a future accident at KKNPP - even if due to their own faulty technology. People around KKNPP  realised that they were being required to risk their lives, while the providers of the technology risked nothing - not even a financial loss.

PMANE demanded scrapping the entire project, arguing on the basis of geologic unsuitability of the site, technical issues related water availability - crucial to the running of any nuclear plant,  large and adverse impact on livelihoods of local fishing communities, and the high population density around the plant - making evacuation a virtual impossibility - in case of a catastrophic accident.

PMANE opposed the Koodankulam nuclear power plant with an ever increasing strength and following of women, men, young and old, across religious, caste, class, and state boundaries. It drew observers, and enlisted solidarity and support from students, professionals, scientists, journalists, as also from people's movements and activists spanning  political ideologies, and developmental paradigms. The movement aroused curiosity, interest and sympathies from the thinking and the comfortable, educated class, and thereby initiated a process of inquiry into India's development, and questions of who sacrifices and who gains. It soon became one of the two largest people's movements in India's current history - the other being Anna's movement against corruption. However, unlike the latter, which was fragmentary in nature and confused in goals, the PMANE movement stood out for its singularly clear demand of a Nuclear Free Koodankulam, Nuclear Free India and Nuclear Free World. The movement belonged to those people who were the chosen victims for India's irrational nuclear ambitions; and they had no option, but to fight - to live.

The protesters sat in peaceful dharnas and observed long periods of fasts - en mass - drawing public and state's attention to their plight. Each day drew crowds of thousands, all fasting, to a village center.  All shops were closed - small fraction made it under the shades of plastic awnings - volunteers carried around buckets with water sachets for free distribution. Women with children sat, under scorching sun or pouring rain, sometimes with a sagging umbrella, listening to their leaders talk, and they spoke themselves - on mikes - with a rare confidence in clarity of purpose - to save themselves, their families and their communities from the immediate danger of a monstrous nuclear reactor. It was uplifting to see their faces - alive, alert, listening - after all what was being spoken about dealt with their future, their combined fates.This group of mostly women, young and old,  succeeded in blockading the entry to the KKNPP in Oct. 2011, till the Tamil Nadu state finally agreed to not allow any further work to proceed on the plant - till all their doubts and fears were allayed.

On March 20, 2012, Jayalalitha - the chief minister of the state ofTamil Nadu, in a clearly political bartering with the center, approved the KKNPP for operations. About 6000 heavily armed police force guarded the the entrance to the reactor site and immediately arrested several hundreds, including key leaders of the people's movement PMANE. Overnight, people who were in active dialogue with the state officials and leadership, became criminals with a large number of cases foisted on them. Today, more than 55,000 people have FIRs filed against them, and more than 6800 are charged with waging war against the state and on grounds sedition - more than filed ever before, in a single police station, in such a short period of time. Udaykumar, the coordinator of PMANE is charged with murder, along with many other serious charges and remains in Idinthakerai - the crucible of the protest movement.

People's opposition to the KKNPP and the excessive, repressive reaction by the state against the protesters, requires that we, the citizens of this nation, ask ourselves some tough questions - on rights of the state versus the sovereignty of people - in a constitutional democracy. It demands that we understand and appropriate our constitutional rights which include right to life, right to livelihood, and right to protest - peacefully. This is what the protesters against KKNPP have been doing. Peaceful protests, like the ones conducted in Idinthakerai and other villages around KKNPP are touchstones of any vibrant, active, healthy democracy. These are processes for creating truly representative governments which act in trusteeship of  people and their interests. To demean a movement like PMANE as being either vested, or anti-national, or anti-development, is to deliberately mislead the people of this nation from the real issues that drive these protests. To further criminalize a peaceful, democratic, opposition movement as waging war against the state or as Seditious (i.e. dis-affectionate or dis-loyal to the State) goes  completely against the democratic principles on which this country is founded. One must remember that issues of democracy, do not require and cannot operate on the basis of either affection or loyalty towards state - it is precisely this act of disaffection or lack of loyalty that enables each of us, as individuals to remove, via the electoral process,  persons or party who no longer represent our interests. To charge peaceful protesters in a free and democratic India, with an act expressly constructed and applied by the British to repress India's freedom movement - is indicative of the harsh reality and repressive culture of India's political climate today. If protesters seeking to safeguard personal and community safety are now criminals waging war against the state, then it is time we, we all, really woke up to the reality of the State we live in - a State of Fear!

Why Koodankulam Nuclear Plant Cannot be Allowed to Happen: Voices of Women from the Area

To:

Hon’rable Chief Minister,

Tamil Nadu                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            16/3/12

Re: Why Koodankulam Nuclear Plant Cannot be Allowed to Happen: Voices of Women from the Area

Dear Madam,

We write to you as women against KKNPP and also as emissaries on behalf of mothers, sisters, daughters who have been in staunch and steadfast opposition to the project., KKNPP will irrevocably ruin lives and livelihood of many future generations, if allowed to  operate. We do want energy and electricity for our homes, villages and communities. Yet, as women, we resolutely oppose KKNPP because

1. We will not be mute observers to a real threat of a nuclear accident which depends on occurrence of natural disaster, guarantee of technical safeguards, and also, very importantly, human error and terrorist attack. To claim any nuclear plant is 100% safe is a deliberate falsehood.

2. The impact of radiation on biological and reproductive health of women and girls in particular has been well documented around nuclear power plants. We cannot endanger lives and health, current and future, of our families, our people, our communities, our land, our air , our water, our sea , and our seafood  because the GoI deems us expendable. We urge you to please put the welfare of the people of your state before the irrational nuclear ambitions of GoI.

3. Nuclear Energy is unnecessary. There are sufficient alternate and renewable options for Tamil Nadu. Immediate solutions include enormous gains via conservation (example switching to CFL bulbs, solar thermal water heaters) and reduction in transmission losses which eliminates the need for such large, complex, unsafe technologies.

4. Many countries are moving away from a nuclear option to meet their energy needs. Current generation nuclear technologies with a high cost of insurance undermine nuclear power being the 'cheapest' energy option - as promoted by the industry. Post Fukushima, and with China entering the photo-voltaic market, solar energy will soon be competitive in providing a viable safe and renewable power alternative.

5. KKNPP has unanswered and unresolved technical issues like the known seismic activity of the region; it is also the only nuclear plant in the world that depends entirely on the desalination plant for its entire fresh water supply. 

We write to you from Idinthakarai, the seat of people's opposition movement. What we saw here, inspired us and moved our hearts. Womenfar outweighed men in sheer numbers, their intensity, their loud and vocal opposition, and their complete commitment to the cause. We saw women sit for eight hours without food, water, carrying babies in their arms, and transfixed in attention to what was been spoken on the strage. They had taken to streets, under sun, rain and the elements, to protect their children and their future generations. Their faces showed that they had already crossed a threshold of no-return. They would protect their children and their lives at all cost. They have been at the forefront of a battle for life itself. We urge you, please, to take their side; please take our side, and call an immediate halt to this mindless project.

Arati Chokshi (People’s Union for Civil Liberties - PUCL)

Lalita Ramdas (Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament & Peace –CNDP)

Gowru Chinnapa (People’s Union for Civil Liberties - PUCL)

Raminder Kaur (Anthropologist)

Dipti Desai (JANASTU) &

Thousands of Women from the KKNPP Struggle Area 

Seditious on Wheels

It was around 9am in the morning. I was in a second class compartment on Jaipur express, headed back towards home i.e. Bangalore. The train hurtled at a heady speed with loud clangs over rhythmic roar; kaleidoscopic greens and browns rushed past the open windows. It was monsoon time. And, I was full of excitement and hidden laughter at what I was about to do.

Gowru and I were returning from a national meet of People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL), held in Jaipur. Recently PUCL had launched a nationwide campaign of collecting a million signatures from across the country to support of its petition of repealing the Sedition Law to be presented in the winter session of the Parliament. Gowru and I had decided to inform, educate and seek support for this signature campaign on this train.  We had some empty sheets of paper, a long lined notebook, a couple of pamphlets with additional information,a few copies of the petition itself, a few pens etc. We intended to be seditious - that is, proclaim disaffection towards a law of this land, which criminalizes verbal or vocal expression of disaffection towards the State. Our stand was simple - we were free and would not allow ourselves to be subjugated by a defunct old relic of the British Raj - the law of Sedition, IPC 124(a).

The results first - we had an incredible success! Over the next day and a half, we collected more than a thousand signatures - from a variety of people, rich, poor, young, old, men, women, educated to those with absolutely no skills in reading or writings, from migratory labor to IT professionals. We roamed the entire length of the train and got signatures from ticket collectors (TTs), staff of the pantry car, security officials. With each and every adult on this train we sat down, made eye contact, smiled, spoke in great earnestness and sincerity on issues of freedom, right to expression, issues of democracy and its challenges, and the ideals of a truly free society. We spoke up against fears, collective good, the struggle and satisfaction of a righteous act. We touched on subjects of development, and its sacrifices - and those who bear the burden of this development. We spoke and people listened, interacted, expressed, communicated - showed anger, laughed, pondered and invariably signed. Many wanted to support the campaign on internet (http://repealseditionlaw.in/), some others also wanted to become PUCL members or start their own new PUCL chapters.

The exercise had turned out to be far more than just an act of collecting signatures. It was a lesson for me in the high value of human relations, and in the power of expressing rational free thought. We were uniformly received with courtesy, openness and warmth. Many thanked us well for our efforts, some even insisted on feeding us. I learnt that I would never again write off the people of this nation as less intelligent, apathetic, subservient, self-serving or lacking imagination. I glimpsed the enormous possibility for change and saw first hand the scope of hope. In open engagement with hundreds of people, I found myself lacking to not have known them better before - to have not bothered to really know Us.

Karnataka State Human Rights Commission

A couple of days back, on our regular visit to the Karnataka State Human Rights Commission(KSHRC), Gowru and I picked up our copies of their 2009-2010 annual report. The day was very unusual. We had a long and sympathetic audience with SHRC chairperson Justice Nayak - I mean, the meeting was long and we were sympathetic to the plight of this man, who shouldered this august commission. It was apparent that with a modest staff and only recommending authority, his task was not easy.  We sat listening to him talk about the more than 5000 suo-moto cases that he had  filed, his fond association with PUCL stalwart like Kannabiran, his values on individual rights, his hopes with the nation's youth, his despair at the state of disrepair of the entire nationhood and its fast crumbling edifice. He spoke, intensely, passionately, in recognition of our kindred spirit; we had once again turned up to appeal to him, this time on behalf of beggars and destitutes, the most impoverished members of the society.

A simple perusal of their annual report showed more than a doubling in the annual  number of petitions received by the Commission from all districts of Karnataka, including Bangalore Urban/Rural. In fact in the March 2009-2010 period more than 8,800 complaints had been received by KSHRC.It seemed that an increasing number of people, organisations and communities were turning to our Human Rights' Commissions for directives, recommendations and solutions, to problems inflicted on them by the State, its police force and a burdened/ politicized judiciary.

When systems set up to uphold and enforce provisions of individual rights and civil liberties, enshrined in our constitution, fail and instead turn against the citizens whose interests they are established to serve, then the human rights' commissions become people's last frontier for hope or justice. While doing so, we fail to consider the strengths or weaknesses, intrinsic or deliberate, of such organisations. We also fail to grasp the enormity of our expectations - that we expect a small independent body functioning out of a office to redress the ills inflicted by a repressive state on human rights of any of its subjects. The investigative team at SHRC comprises a IGP and a DSP. That is the extent of its army - its strength. This and and an understanding of justice of its chairperson.

Today, I sat with a yellow highlighter and went through their annual report, page by page. All rulings (with an exception of a couple) with KSHRC recommendations end with 'awaiting complaince' or 'complaince report not received'...from the IGP, from Principal Secretary (Home Dept.), from Law and Commerce etc. etc. The annual report is one long compendium of justice served, but not implemented, from a castrated system established as a convenient cover by the State - to be ignored, deliberately and with impunity. How and who takes a state to task when it commits a continued series of wrongs against its citizens, improvises an impotent commission to verify the veracity of these wrongs, empowers it to rule on these wrongs  but finally ignores all its orders? What is one to do in a case like this?

In a recent misguided instance in Bangalore, a bunch of human rights organisations got together to vilify the HRC in general, and KSHRC in particular. Several examples were cited as to the ineffectiveness of this organisation. Some even went as far as to recommend abolishing the commission which served little purpose.
While one can understand and sympathize with frustrations and failures of dealing with SHRC, this is playing directly into the hands of a State which would have us redirect our angst against such a puny organisation; have it become the scapegoat of State's giant failures, malpractices and repressive actions.

The correct question to ask is why are so many cases being filed with SHRC? As Prabhakar Sinha, PUCL national President says "for wrongs committed within a state, we do have a giant complex machinery in place to approach and expect resolutions".  However, for wrongs committed by the State, we have limited recourse for seeking redemption or justice. National and State Human Rights Commission, despite their limited powers, were established to address and check misuse of powers, especially by the state. So a more appropriate question would be on how to empower HRCs to carry out their duties more effectively? How can SHRC's ruling be ensured of implementation? We need our commissions for precisely the roles that they were created for i.e. to provide independent checks on misuse of powers by State; for this, these commissions have to be strengthened, and empowered first, because who else will work in the interest of the citizens and at a minimum  say " A Wrong was Committed?"

Open Letter to PM, EM,CM

Re: Police Destruction for Forced Land Aquistion in POSCO Affected Communities

Dear Mr. Minister,
It is a matter of utter shame that I write to you as a citizen of this nation. I am referring to the large scale destruction of beetle vines by police in Polang village under supervision by district administration of Jagatsingpur. This after State's assurance to media that there would be no land acquisition on 18th May.

Are we reduced to this, that those we elect to govern us, trample individual rights in favor of a profiteering, corporatised development? What and who determines the right to life and livelihood of our poor and or its sacrifice? and can lives lost and communities destroyed be compensated by any national, financial aspirations like increasing our GDP?

As a citizen, I only require this of you: that you uphold the constitution and respect the individual human rights written into it, as your primary sacred duty. That you solemnly consider , in brotherhood, that the poor also have a right to life and choice; our national needs of development can then be tackled collectively, without demanding too large a sacrifice from a few. With urgency I demand that you remove all police force from the Balithutha area, and revoke the section 144  imposed on the area, immediately. Forceful land acquisition, without the approval of palli sabha, constitutes a violations of FRA 2006 and is condemned.

You have the authority to set right, the series of ills set into motion by you personally. I request you to urgently do so.

Sincerely,

Arati Chokshi

Dr. Arati Chokshi

Bangalore

080-2360-2466

Yellow Yellow Dirty Fellow

Gugi, or Gogi as it is usually referred, in Gulbarga district of Karnataka, lies in the Bhima river basin, surrounded by hillocks on three sides. 75% of the district's area is used for agriculture with Krishna and Bhima rivers draining this district. The main agricltural products of the district are Jowar, Bajra, Tur, Gram, Sunflower, Groundnut,and Sugarcane. The above 'clickable' image is created using Google Earth; red line is 1km scale.

In this verdant food bowl, around Gogi, man has found Uranium. Aerial surveys and follow up mining explorations have revealed a deposit of 4000 tonnes of high grade Uranium ore. Of this, every year, 1.5 lakh tonnes of the ore will be trucked to Hyderabad 250 km away to yield 150 tonnes of uranium from the region. 

Two things are to be noted - that even in case of a rich deposit, every kilogram of ore gives you just 1 gram of uranium; which means that 4 million tonnes, or 4 billion kilos, over the lifetime of 15 years of this reserve will be trucked through the fields, across rivers and basins, forests, hills and living, thriving agricultural communities for processing. In its wake will follow ground water contamination, radiation pollutions, exposures, deformities, cancers and deaths..all well documented side-effects of uranium mining.

Local residents in Gogi are fearful and oppose the plant, as they should, given the poor safety directives and implementation record of UCIL( Uranium Corporation of India Ltd.) Future plans include exploiting Uranium from the entire Bhima belt between Sedam to Muddebihal, about 200 km apart. Yet, these reserves are likely to remain but drops in our nuclear energy bucket. Currently India produces 450 tonnes of Uranium per year.

It needs 7000 tonnes per year for its nuclear rollout. While India claims uranium reserves of 115,000 tonnes, a realistic estimate is more like 73,000 tonnes. That is, if we were to exploit ALL of India's uranium reserves, it might keep us going for about 10 years..only 10 years. So we are looking towards going from oil dependency to nuclear fuel dependency over the coming decades. Yet, none of this is preventing our government from its grandoise predictions, plannings and active implementations towards a very bright nuclear future to cover up the vast environmental destruction, human havoc, irreversible wreckage that it promises to leave in its wake.

I have now taken to singing a ditty from my childhood " Yellow, Yellow, Dirty fellow.." for the yellow uranium cakes, yellow cesspools, yellow jaundiced greed..dead yellow, dirty yellow, to cover green fields, clear rivers, forested hills, blue skies..I sing this ditty and I fight!

God Save My Country.

Who Needs more POWER

Here is my basic premise. India's energy consumption, like most of its other resource utilisation, is to a very large extent decoupled from meeting the needs of its masses. In India, as many as 400 million people have no access to electricity. And while the 8.8% growth in our GDP is celebrated and closely linked to a correlated growth in energy demands, it derives from active 'consumption' by the rich and the middle class,leaving the masses mostly outside its reach. Yet it is the poor who most often are forced to sacrifice for the country's inflated development needs and aspirations.

When the State uses force and fires on its own citizens to enforce compliance of the proposed national goals, it is time to review what drives these goals, who benefits and who pays. It is still with me, that within India's democratic framework, police - under state's authority - have a right to fire, on people protesting against an upcoming nuclear facility in their region; I am speaking of Jaitapur - although this holds for POSCOs, Green Hunts, and other developments, MoUs and projects that mandates a democratic state to eliminate democracy and shoot down its own citizens who are not willing to sacrifice quite-so-much for national good.

So...lets look at some numbers and figures.

The figure below shows the sector wise usage of electricity in India, with a largest consumption by industrial, followed by the domestic sector.

The source of this figure is given here. Lets bear in mind, to a large extent India's industry, and the 'questionable' fruits of this industry, remain outside the scope of rural India and its masses.The next set of figures show the predicted growth in each sector, and the total projected increase in the demand for electricity. It is seen that industrial growth far exceeds in total consumption and growth the total electricity demand made by any other sector. The figure is taken from here.

The above figures further show that due to the steeper rate of the industrial growth, this sector will form an increasing component of our energy requirements versus the domestic or the agricultural sectors. Thus the large power projects, nuclear, hydro, thermal or otherwise seem to be largely and a growing requirement of the industrial sector in India. Another way of seeing this effect is that the projected increase in total electricity (by just under a factor of 4) over a 40 year period is dominated by the projected growth in the industrial sector by a factor of 4.

The MoEF document (Fig 6) shows that while the ratio of urban to total population in the country for 2011 is about 30%, the GWh/year usage of electricity in rural sector is at least 2.5 lower compared to the urban consumption. The same document gives a breakup of the urban usages where the largest growth in the domestic electricity consumption is projected to be from air conditioners and heaters, compared to lighting, microwaves, televisions.Thus all our key markers, the GDP, its growth, electricity consumption, are preferentially stacked to benefitting the industrialised, urban and upper class, consuming communities.

Now the question is 'Why should those least benefited by development pay for the most benefited class?' , especially when this payment required, in the name of the larger common good, is with individual and community life, livelihood, land, water, health? Just so that the  rich and needy-others may have more cars, air conditioners, glitzy malls, wider roads, airports...to name but a few? By whose rule is this right or fair? And when will the benefits to our larger, democratic numbers dictate the path of development chosen by the those 'elected' to govern - on all our behalf?

Reminiscing about "Nero's Guests" and What Sainath Said

Its been a few days since the screening, at IISc, of the documentary 'Nero's Guests' by Deepa Bhatia, on P. Sainath and his coverage of farmer suicides in Vidharbha - the cotton belt of India. The film was followed by a discussion session with Sainath. In movie and also the discussions later, Sainath was passionately and brutally honest, unforgiving, hard hitting, persistent in comparisons between our lives and those of Nero's guests who were entertained in the light of people torched to death to illuminate a party.

As usual, in a topic of this nature, I am unable to say "I liked the program". Yet there are key points that hit home and have stayed. Sainath started the discussion with the recent budget announcement. He said that the government's basic philosophy towards the poor, in general, and specifically on food security, was to load the tables of the rich sufficiently that a few crumbs fall off for the hungry masses.

He questioned the focus on a 9% growth in GDP in face of India's 163rd position on the Human Development index. Primarily he focussed on hunger and food and death. He pointed out that the per capita food availability had dropped since 1955 by 100gm per day and despite numerous efforts/reports to re-counting poverty, most conservative Tendulkar report estimates still placed 37% of Indians below poverty line. He strongly argued for an universal food security bill and also minimum assured returns for farmers to stem the growing suicide rates in the cotton belt. He clearly saw the corporatization of the farming sector in a globalised economy as a doomsday for small private farmers.

Sainath said these and many other things - all necessary and true. We all heard him, and heard him well. Now the change will depend on how much we all retain and respond. Listening, thinking, talking and writing are but preliminary steps towards a revolution.

Five Points about Change

Contemplation has clarified the following:

1)Change happens when needed and from within where it is needed.

2)Suffering is a necessary condition to seed change.

3)A societal, or political change cannot be propelled by a minority of bourgeois intellectuals or leftist rebellions. The latter may ONLY help structure people's movements and give it direction.

4)Information and communication are key elements of effecting change. Thus, suppressing information is a tool of repression by the ruling class, and media plays a crucial role in evolution of a revolution.

5)Change has to be wrenched by a majority, needy weaker class from a minority, powerful, upper class who are beneficiaries of staus quo. NON VIOLENT METHODS ARE BEST STRATEGIES TO WORK TOWARDS CHANGE.

POSCO VIRUDDH -2

They stood there
a dozen plus one in all
half-clad, determined
old, young and small;
to protect their land
with a bamboo gate
from government, corporates,
and a police state;
they stood there else
everything would be lost;
life, liberty and all
they cared for most;
their right to pursue
what they thought was right
and for this, they could not,
bow to the bullying might
of a state and centre
seizing power
grabbing land, water, resources,
for a corporate takeover.
They had been shot at -
and thrown in prisons too
thrashed by political goons
whom they could not sue.
Justice to them
is so far denied
in brotherhood, very few
share their fight
if they loose
we are all lost
dreams, ideals, hopes
for a better lot,
for all those who suffer
that you and I might gain,
so pause briefly now
to say - you
share their pain!
Join hands now
take responsibility
for their plight
and don't turn away
from their urgent fight
Or let the state
do what it may -
pillage, plunder,
do many countless wrongs
for national economic growth
and for you -
a trip to the mall,
a cup of wine
and a song.

Class, Caste and Conscious Citizenship

Some of my earliest caste memories are from my childhood, when we had a separate person, a 'jamadaar', come to clean our toilets in Kolkatta. Often, in acts of charity, my folks would give this person our food discards. I remember distinctly a particular occasion when I was asked to give Rotis to our jamaadar, and instructed to make sure I did not touch this person..I had asked what would happen if I did touch this person, to be told, with great stern-ness, that I was to not do that, since we did not touch such people. I remember lingering on the hand of this grown man as I gave him the left overs and then staring my hand several times, in wonder, that nothing had happened to me, even though I had touched an 'untouchable'. Its at least four decades since that childhood experiment, awakening and empowerment of discovery that we are all one, truly. Since then, caste thoughts have found few rare pockets into my conscious thought, speech, action.

Recently, PUCL-Bangalore, organised a discussion meet on the topic of 'Human Rights, Democracy and Media : Challenges in Contemporary Times". Isaac Arul Selva, Editor, Slum Jagattu, was a featured speaker, representing a first of its kind alternative media, a monthly journal with origin, organization, and focus on slum based issues of Bangalore. Selva's talk focused harshly, severely condemning the corporatization of main stream media which predominantly represents upper caste realities, issues and interest. Now, I am comfortable with the notion that all mainstream media are run like corporate houses - this is also my personal perception. I further support that there is an extreme class bias in features of media reports. But, while caste and class are strongly linked in our country, I am still uncomfortable with a predominantly 'dalit' lens to view the world, especially issues related to human rights.

There are many responses that crop up when I review this discomfort - some emotional, some rational, all of which I have decided to confront. An immediate, albeit an easy and weak explanation is that by growing up in a privileged class, I was sheltered and distanced from lower caste repressions, battles. By accident, apathy and comfortable ignorance, my associations as an adult featured those who had more in common with me, my background, interests, and battles, than those whose lives had carried a burden of caste design. It would be easy to dismiss the caste angle by saying "no one I know thinks along caste lines - it is just not a reference point!" But I would prefer for it not to be so. I hope I am sincerely and consciously open to exploring, with a caste lens, the deep social grief and burden this has caused, and thus free myself from my ignorant, guilty and privileged bliss. Yet, I am intuitively aware that this caste lens does not carry a solution for establishing equity or equality - i.e. a new order.

My rational side also needs to chew on the cud that Selva fed me and come to my own understanding. I argue that class now more universally separates the haves from the have-nots, the ones who may from those who may-not, and all those who shall and from many more that shall-not. The general direction of this is that, those who have, may and shall continue to pilfer wealth, power, resources at the expense of the large numbers of those who have-not, may-not and shall-not. That is the dictum of today's development and growth of all, including the media. I feel that wealth and power have replaced most other divides within society, including gender and caste, especially in an urban setting. While an ability to accumulate wealth and power was culturally a caste related proficiency, these days similar abilities if acquired by women, adivasis or dalits gives them about the same privileges originally intentioned for males of dominant societies. So while the representation of women, dalits and other marginalised groups still remain statistically small, exceptions (like the examples of many IAS officers from backward communities) are getting space, and also becoming examples to lead their communities along exact goals and aspirations of their higher caste counterparts.

On the flip side, this argues that issues of basic human rights violations do not heed the type of section victimized. The basic resources grabbed away from poor, while affecting mostly the lowest caste, are intended just to grab resources for profiteering and not necessarily for directly targeting the lowest caste-based community. Indeed the right or necessity to constantly profit or show improvement in profiteering dominates the psyche of both the corporate world and the middle class share holders that sustain it. The fact that victimized communities are caste based, and traditionally voiceless, ill equips them to take on mighty state backed corporations. However, this is an equation that is rapidly changing in some of the most ground breaking, tribal based people's movements, like in Orissa, which has wide support from national and international forums.

The caste angle becomes important in cases of a few traditionally inhuman professions, like that of manual scavenging, still practiced today. Such a profession is dominated by members of a particular caste and its practice still remains to be abolished. Such caste based professions and lifestyles are more closely linked at lower class end. Higher economic classes, linked to higher castes, seek to fervently imitate a globalized culture that is more consumer than caste based.

I prefer, therefore, to not always represent caste at the forefront of our all our pervasive ills. To do so limit us, both in understanding and scope, to battle the many grave issues that currently threaten the fabric of a democratic society. So, while affirmative action measures should be implemented in a rigorous fashion, genuine progress would have been achieved only when such measures become unnecessary and can be phased out. My basic partiality towards imagining an eventual caste free, and non fragmented society requires we do not resort to only compensatory practices, such as the quota systems, to address historical and social ills. This would only perpetuate the process of 'othering' between human beings, rather than move towards a society of 'only' citizens - all with equal rights.

Human rights activism means addressing all violations of the guaranteed fundamental rights - for all citizens. It necessarily encompasses all groups victimized on the basis of caste, gender, religion, that are covered in our constitution, but also taking on those matters that are a necessary part of individual choice, such as sexuality, that might not be covered in our constitution. By taking on issues of direst rights' violations and minimum needs of most, one will necessarily address issues of the most marginalised and victimised communities - and to phrase it this way makes more sense than a continual reminder and re-enforcement of an outdated and inhuman structuring of social strata.

Conscious citizenship is a necessary condition for a functioning democracy, and requires a social conscience that goes far beyond a mere 'one person, one vote' premise. It is based on the equality of all human beings, which include equal right over resources, access to choices, and thereby a pursuit to happiness. It demands equitable social and economic restructuring to ensure such democratic principles can be practically adopted, such that voting represents a real participation and choice, not structured along caste, class, religion, gender or other lines, but by our right to be represented by those who speak our individual voice, while demanding respect for those chosen to represent the largest democratic interests. Such citizenship demands going far beyond class, caste, gender, religion and community based accumulations of privileges, but thinking that our individual good lies in larger, common welfare - of all.

I appreciate what Selva's talk did for me - open up an entire world of lives, lived very differently than mine, and apparently valued far less than mine. Yet to set the balance straight requires less in making concessions based on caste, and a much more active involvement to demand rights' equivalence for all. To reiterate, the solution lies not in seeing the otherness of those whom we have failed, but seeing the similarity of their similar aspirations that are compromised when all is privatized, corporatized, and sucked dry - the earth, the water, the air, and all creatures big and small, in it.

Equity for Tribals?

I have just read the latest inspired offering from GoI to the tribals sitting on the mineral rich belt which the state cannot wait to get its hands on. In the usual manner of dealing with those whom force, violence, rape cannot dispose, the latest strategy is to just buy-em-out! The GoM met recently in Delhi to discuss the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act which proposed a 26% equity for tribals of the region. The general 'public' response to this bill seems to be 'positive' - i.e. people who care about tribal rights feel that it is high time that they - the tribals - got a piece of their own pie, worth upto 2 lakh per year income for the tribals. And...I would agree, that the tribals should at least get a piece of their own pie.

However, I object to this way of operating on several grounds...primarily the bill seems far from fulfilling a necessary condition which the GoM does not even address - that of prior sanction for mining rights in tribal territories. Only in case of 'minor' minerals does the bill propose a consultation with those effected. Secondly, the present government seems to be in unacceptable hurry to exploit the nation's major and non-renewable mineral reserves within the present generation - or in its present term in office. This pace of exploitation will leave no scope for either the environment or the cultures residing within to adjust or attempt equilibrium with their changing situations. Thirdly, I am deeply concerned about the role that large financial compensations will play in largely non-cash based cultures...in case the promised equity actually reaches all those effected - a scenario that can hardly be taken for granted in India!
-----------------------------------------------
.....I wrote this a while back and do not remember why did not post it. I reread it now and find what I've written somewhat incomplete, although still 'perfectly reasonable' :)

So I am posting it!

Rizwaan

I knew instinctively that it would be unbearable to watch 'Rizwaan' at night. So I went for a matinee presentation by Indian Ensemble of 'Rizwaan' a play written and directed by Abhishek Majumdar based on Agha Shahid Ali's collection of poems 'The country without a post office'. And.. I let the play sledge hammer away at my heart, breaking it into pieces of individual pain at what the collective 'I' had caused to the whole region of people in Kashmir - mothers, fathers, sons, friends - with innocence and hopes, lives and dreams. I know the Indian I have caused this - and I prefer to bury this deep inside to continue with the act of living I. Yet today, I faced my pain, guilt, suffering with an unblinking eye, unshed tears. I know that only by act of confronting my sins and seeking penance can I salve my Kashmir conscience. I now no longer talk of Kashmir 'separatists' or 'extremists' - and I understand that India occupies Kashmir, forcefully, brutally and unforgivably. I also understand that their seeking Azadi is the only unavoidable choice we left them by treating them so....

And therefore I will seek penance, by keeping Kashmir alive in my conscious conscience, speaking about Kashmir, and allowing it to lament to me...I know that I must at least hear Kashmir before I find strength to fight for its right. And do this only to absolve my sins and seek forgiveness.

Seema and Azadi

Today I have gone around with my heart in the pit of my stomach - a fervent and conscious prayer on my agnostic lips - pushing aside the limits of my faithless belief, leaving nothing to chance - not even the irrational hope that could flip at a mantra, and save her - the one I have never met.

This is what Lena Ganesh wrote on Seema Azad.
" Seema Azad, editor of the left-wing journal DASTAK published from Allahabad, was taken into custody by the police on 6th February 2010, soon after she alighted from the train on her return from the Book Fair at Delhi. She, along with her husband and left-wing activist Vishwa Vijaya Azad, has been detained at the Khuldabad Police Station. Seema Azad just published a collection of articles criticizing the Indian government for its "Operation Greenhunt" - the ongoing massive armed operations by the government in central and eastern India. The booklet contains articles by noted authors and media-persons such as Arundhati Roy, Himanshu Kumar, Anil Chamaria, Punya Prasoon Vajpeyi, Sunita Narayan, and others. Seema is the state secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) for Uttar Pradesh"


This morning's email from Kavita Srivastava(General Secretary) PUCL Rajasthan contained the following:

Seema Azad handed over to UP police for two days by the Allahabad Magistrate - a judgement against the law

Dear Friends,

I just got a call from PUCL Vice President, Ravi Kiran Jain, who has also been Seema's lawyer in the High Court and lower court, told me that the magisterial court where Seema's matter was being heard, granted the UP police two days remand of Seema Azad exparte, without even giving Seema the right of being represented by a lawyer.

On the 7th of July, 2010 the Allahabad High Court had rejected a recall application that had been filed by Ravi Kiran ji against a sec 482 ( CrPC ) application that had been filed by the police after a magisterial court had ruled against granting remand to the police in May, 2010.

After the judgement on the 7th of July, Ravi Kiran jj was still planning the next move, including moving to the Supreme Court when the police moved an application today the 19th of July, 2010 in the magistrate's chamber, demanding the police remand of Seema. Neither was Seema called nor was she given the right of a lawyer. The scandalous part of this decision of the magistrate is that, after 90 days in Judicial Custody" police remand" is not allowed. The law says that if the police wants remand after 90 days then it must apply within 90 days. But then 90 days were up. This application of the police was not maintainable. still an illegal judgement was passed.

Ravi Kiranji will move an application tomorrow that a lawyer's presence be allowed during her two day remand. But the police will take her away at 8am tomorrow and no court judgement will come before the evening.

Seema told Ravi Kiranji when he met her in jail some time ago that the police had humiliated her when she was arrested in February. We fear the same this time.

Friends, the whole system including the judiciary, is helping the illegal ways of the Government, crushing the constitutional and legal rights of the people. If this attack on a persons life, personal liberty and democratic rights is not resisted today it may be yours and my turn tomorrow.

Incase you want to know more the please contact: 09335108309. Please ensure publication of this news.

---------------------------------------------------

This morning Seema Azad was whisked away under police custody to an undisclosed location...

Who do we turn to when judiciary makes a mockery of our laws? when police are no longer our protectors but have legal sanction to repress? to quell voices raised in protest at rampant wrong doings by State? When State becomes the oppressor - a violator of our democratic and constitutional rights? Who do we turn to? and how much will we bear? What are our Seemas (boundaries, limits, horizons) and what should we do for our Azadi (freedom)?

Why I dont Condemn Violence by Maoists

Today, on email discussions, condemning the recent Maoist attack in Dantewada, I stated that my position on the issue is firmly one of silence. I was also silent last month when 76 CRPF lost their lives - no outrage, no condemnation, no protests on violations of Human Rights - the Right to Life - LOST.

I belong to People's Union for Civil Liberties, because I am opposed to all acts of violence created, and inflicted by and between humans, and because I believe Civil Liberties of All People, a cause worth defending. And Yet...

I cannot bring myself to simple condemnation of lives lost recently in Maoist attacks. Many reasons why I should do so have surfaced - some examples being
" If you want (PUCL) to be taken seriously you must condemn violence by both parties",
"you don't want to be branded as Maoist sympathiser",
"All human lives are precious and one must oppose all violence" etc.

To varying degrees, I do agree with the above positions. And Yet...

I have no tears, no anger, no outcries..
I sit in anaesthetised sorrow, a pain that only translates to longer hours of harder work, more protests, more letters, more leaving-no-room-for-sorrow, and working toward right-actions - at least right by me.

And my position on most conflict situations in the country today is as follows:
I hold the Indian State firmly responsible for creating these situation of conflict, in Chattisgarh, Orissa, and elsewhere. I feel that the state inflicted violence is vastly in excess, continuous and largely 'collateral' in nature. I see this State as representative of me, of who and how I am. I am ashamed and impotent as actions of this State seek to benefit my class, but do not represent - at all - my personal positions, politics, or understanding.

I see me, us, all of us - cumulatively as creators of these vast wrong doings on fellow citizens, mostly not-in-garb of alternate politics - largely women, children, old - those left behind when men, the able, run away into - fields, forests, far from the State or State Sponsored attacks...and I see myself responsible for this, in not stopping those that represent me. And for this that I or mine do... I do not continuously condemn - I do not have a roster of death tolls under my name,or my country's name - for which I send out a 'condemnation' at say every 50, or every 100 lives lost. I do not keep tabs of the heavy toll taken by my country, this largest democracy, on its civilians, citizens, those that oppose the high, imposed penalty of India's development - I cry, but I do not condemn continuously. Is dying more horrific when it happens in 35, or 76, or some such large number , because it happens in single dramatic events, but other quieter wiping outs, over longer periods, genocides of people, cultures, lands, rights, less horrific? What about the 644 villages attacked by Salwa Judum (according to NHRC) and all the lives rendered meaningless because of it? of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, of approximately three lakh lives?

I also believe that for all wrong doings, wrong speaking, wrong thinking, by non-state actors, we do have a mighty state to discipline us - harshly, strongly, insistently and often brutally. After these latest attack, there are many calls for larger, militarised interventions - to stomp out the maoist threat, to work even harder in Chattisgarh to preserve the interests of national security. I will watch this not silent, not mute, but also not effective in changing the future course of events that threaten to unfold.

How do I reach out to this country of mine? To those important governors of our national fate? How do I say to a nation - look at yourself and ask what you can do to make things right, for the least empowered of us, instead of appeasing only the corporates that are vultures at our doorstep for greed? How and who do I say all this to?

I feel that the country, its middle and privileged class and our leadership have strayed far from upholding the constitutional rights of all its citizens, and are very distanced from the ideal that seeks the welfare of the most. The effort to 'develop', 'globalise' are now formulas used to indulge in rampant, accumulative greed of a particular class that I belong to, which in turn feeds the hungry, globalised, powerful corporates that seek cheap people, cheap politicians, cheap forests, water, air, minerals...that seek a stupid, cheap India. Unless I and mine take responsibility for who we are and what we have become, how can I condemn someone else, who do not even acknowledge a belonging to 'us' ?

The Tragedy at Mao and After...

My Dear Rose,

I weep as I read your words...Needless death, needless torture, misery - I cant make sense of the world these days or the minds of those that repress.

What can we/I do? Who to speak, who to write? Seems as if people in power are deaf, blind, and with impenetrable hearts. Is there a version available of the TV broadcast that can be uploaded on Youtube? I will share your report as widely as I can.

Wishes for courage, peace and hope, still-
Arati
10:00AM, responding to.....(also see Seby's entry)


On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 6:38 AM, Rose Dzuvichu wrote:

Dear All

For those of us who had been looking forward to the national meet at Imphal on 'State repression and sexual violence against women' , particularly from Nagaland, are shocked with the incidents of violence of the last fortnight,at the border town of Mao gate and its surrounding villages,which lies under the Govt. of Manipur.
For days,we tried to intervene as women from the Naga Mothers Association into the crisis that had threatened to erupt into another tragedy of violence at Mao gate.
The border town was sealed off and no Naga from nagaland was allowed to enter the Mao Gate leading to Manipur, as we heard of hundreds of women participating in peaceful dharnas against imposition of section 144 ,curfew and militarisation of the areas.On the 4th May, seven delegates of the NMA waited for two hours at the heavily fortified border, to finally get permission to meet the Inspector General of Police, Manipur in Mao.The appeal from the NMA was for restraint of forces and peace and we were witness to the strength of women's voices as we watched hundreds of women sitting in silent protest on the long road leading from Mao to Tadubi.
The tragedy of the 6th May was traumatic which has led to the senseless killing of two students by the Manipur commandos,hundreds wounded ,particularly women ,still recovering in hospitals and more than two thousand men, women and children on record, displaced and seeking shelter in Kohima, Kidima, Khuzama and Dimapur with relatives and by the villages concerned.The team of Naga mothers and public leaders who had rushed to the border of Mao watched helplessly as armed IRB of Manipur Police refused to let us or even the Red Cross go over to help the wounded and dead.After much persuasion they allowed the Red Cross doctors and nurses carrying medicines to enter Mao.The medical team were of great help as the Mao hospital had little medicine an with 3 doctors was not ready for the hundreds of wounded who thronged their hospital.The NMA suplied medicines from Kohima which was transported through some of the Red cross to Mao.Two of us as Red
cross volunteers were not allowed to enter Mao gate with the doctors, because the Police commando officer recognised the NMA officials.Two doctors, who had rushed with the Red Cross and had forgotten their ID card s were also not allowed to enter, even though the whole team claimed they were needed.The president of the Nags women union Grace shatsang was herself wounded i n the violence unleashed b y the commandos,while leading the rally at Mao
.The displaced women and children, have been helped now b y the Govt of nagaland in a tourist heritage village called Kisama, where they are bieng provided food and clothes by different Naga organisations, tribal Hohos,churches.The NMA organised a Candle service with the displaced on Mothers Day and hosted the dinner at Kisama. There are hundred of children, pre school, schoolgoing and even college students who are huddled up with their mothers in these shelters provided.When I visited them , as Rotary Club of Kohima,along with Doctor Rotarians in Khuzama village in the initial days, there were one thousand five hundred being hosted b y the small village which is adjacent to Mao on the Nagaland side..The whole community had come forward to help the women ,children and the aged who came trekking through the jungles and fields seeking shelter from the guns and violence of the Manipur Police and Manipur Rifles.There were many cases of traumatised pregnant
mothers and most of the children were suffering from shock and fever and flu, as our doctors checked patients.There was also a young mother with a one day old newborn who had escaped the violence.Most of the men had stayed behind as they were recklessly rounded up by the commandoes,beaten,kicked, hit with Rifle butts and shot in the legs, abdomen and treated like criminals o nthe run for protesting against state repression and for freedom of movement.These atrocities are captured on camera by visiting media people who were also caught in the rampage of the armed police commandoes.
Last night, video recordings of these terrifying atrocities in Mao gate carried out by forces that are kept to protect people, were shown for public viewing in all leading TV channels in Nagaland .We watched horrified, as they recklessly fired at the unarmed public, mostly women,who were beaten, kicked, shot and smashed with rifle butts,entering homes and houses bringing out men,even old men with their hands raised, to be assaulted,beaten and kicked on the streets of Mao like animals.Some of the commandos picked up stones and smashed windows of private vehicles parked along the road.Disgraceful acts of armed police caught on camera .
Two students o n the 6th May were killed, one was Loshuo, a B.A.2nd year student of sociology from St.Josephs college, Jakhama and the other Chakho, a graduate student of St.Josephs College, Bangalore.They had joined the protestors i n the peaceful rally, and were shot from behind by the commandoes.The post mortem report indicates bullet wounds through the heart and shots splitting the spinal column and lungs,when the NMA team visited the hospital at Mao.The Mao people refused to claim the bodies till their demands for withdrawal of armed forces and permission for entry of the Naga leader Muivah to visit his hometown was given by the Manipur Govt.However, on the 11th, the Naga mothers (NMA) from nagaland intervened by appealing to the United Naga Council to allow the NMA to receive the two bodies from police custody and give them an honourable burial.A team of twenty three Naga mothers from nagaland were given permission to croos the border
the nexr day into Mao, where families of the dead were waiting to receive the bodies from us.The President NMA Mrs.Abeiu Meru and I, as Advisor to the NMA were allowed by the Manipur police to receive and claim the two dead bodies of our children in the name of naga mothers.The bodies of the two students were highly decomposed,kept in two coffins in the police station.They were taken to the village square by the villagers who remained and their funeral the next day was attended by thousands of nagas from everywhere, with the Naga Stduents Federation declaring them as martyrs.Luoshuo had an aged paralysed mother, whom he used to bathe and fed every day before he rushed ot his college some kms inside the Nagaland border at Jakhama St.Joseph's college.His father had passed waway and his elder brother driving a taxi was the sole bread winner and paying for his brother's education.Chakho was a brilliant student throughout, from a family of 8 siblings and
studying in Bangalore St.Josephs.Two innocent students protesting armed state repression along with hundreds of others and killed.
The Naga Mothers organised a Peace Rally on 8th May, two days after the killings, on the border side of nagaland with hundreds of women from different tribes,including men.Jaya V, our friend from PUCL Andhra Pradesh, was on her way to the Imphal meet ,when it was cancelled and three of them were my guests in Nagaland and was witness to the tragedies.She spoke at the Peace rally in solidarity with the people.The NMA slogan of 'Shed No More Blood' of the nineties, was reiterated again that day with the appeal from women for restoration of peace, rights and justice i n the area.Armed Manipur commandos in armoured vehicles silently watched us,even in binoculars, as we held the rally on the Nagaland side of the border, on the main highway.
A Co=ordination Committee of Naga civil societies,consisting of the Naga Hoho, Naga Mothers Association, Naga Students Federation, Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights, United naga Council, Naga Women Union and All Nga Students Associaiton of Manipur, has been formed and an invitation was extended to the Manipur civil societies- the UCM and the All Manipur United Clubs Organisation by us, for a peaceful dialogue in a neutral place like Guwahati on the 14th May , which has been turned down.This invitation was extended as there is a long economic blockade imposed by Nagas from hill areas, including the Naga students federation that has banned any vehicle of Manipur from crossing Nagaland ,and essential commodities, fuel etc has been stopped and the valley is reeling from problems.The invitation for peace talks was also to avoid any further violence as the killings, violence and displacement has ended with the apex Naga body of all Tribes- the Naga
Hoho calling the actions of the Manipur government an attack on the Naga nation itself, which may have very serious repercussions.
Today we stand in this deadlock.Many Govt. offices of Manipur has been burnt down by the people of the Hill areas in protest.Nagas wanting to leave the valley Imphal are reportedly being stopped and searched,some prevented from leaving .The situation is tense in both the states.
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