PaRCha - JNU - AISA - 2006 ID-2930
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AI SA .
AISA condemns the barbaric killing of the telecom engineer K. Suryanarayana130.4.06 .
'.
from Andhra Pradesh by· the terrorist Taliban, and expresses grief and solidarity with the victim's family. .
The Lie of Rehabilitation: A Pol Khol Yatra on the Banks of the Narmada .
Alarge team of students, filmmakers, social activists and concerned citizens visfied the Narmada Valley between 25-28 April, to participate .
Pol KhoJ Yatra' to expose the truth about the Govemmenfs claims ofhaving fully rehabilttated the people displaced by the Sardar.
.
in the NSA's'·'·.
Sarovar Dam. The team included Awadhesh Tripathl from JNU AISA, Dr. Sunilam, MLA in the MP Assembly, Sandeep Panda, Swami .
Agnivesh, AISA National President Kavita Krishnan, students from Jamla and DU, as well as several others from Jharkhand,MP, Chhattisgarh, .
.
Mumbai,Bhopal and Indore. · ·.·. .
What did the visttors see? .
Inaccurate Surveys, Bribes, Cash Instead of Land... ... At Khalghat,alarge mass meeting took place,where villager after villager came forward to complain that theirfamily members-adult sons and daughters, husbands, widows-had notbeen listed among the dam-displaced. Some women whose husbands were sick or dead. 'cut' from compensation money;tales ofpeople being coerced into.
said with tears in their eyes abo~tofficials demanding huge bribes as a .
accepting oompensatJon money instead ofthe land they 'Nere demanding,were most common.This, desp~ethe fact that cash compen-.
.
sation is completely illegal under the NWDT award and the Supreme Courfs verdict. Further, the land of the rehabilitation site had black topsoil .
-that was most unsuitable as abase for building homes. ,,.
j, .
At Dhannapurt,the residents ofthe town took the team for awalk in the town.At severalplaces,one could see ahome orahotel that was .
marked for submergence this monsoon, while the adjoining building was not listed as coming under submergence! People showed .
how the stone markrng the backwater level used to read 138 metres,but had been changed to read'148 metres'just one night before the Group .
of Ministers' visit! Such manipulations were aimed to falselyminimise the area that would some undersubmergence. .
.
In mostplaces,irrigated agricultural land is not aflotted to people.Where ~is, the land aJiottecl is often 100-200 knometres away from the '· resettlement site! Further,such land often fa[ls in the submergence area of other dams,or has been marked for afforestation,or has been .
·~ . ·.
'till ·,:. .
declared as barren land! I .
'Ghosts' and Non-People? .
At Chhota Bardavillage inthe Nimad region of MP,abanner had been put up saying, "This entire village has been rehabilitated-so .
are the people you see ghosts?!tn village after village,one could see thousands ofpeople-who hadobviously notbeen rehabilitated. .
.
' ..-. Worst was the condition ofthose who did not own land:the kevats (boatmen) who transport people from one ghat to anotner,as'Nelf -.
as the fisherfolk and the potters-aD these depend on the river orriver soil fortheir liveflheod-and there are absolutely left out of anyrehabilitation .
plans.Newspapers carried stories ofhow melon cultivators had been ruined becauseofthe flooding of the river beds where the frutt was usually .
grown.In order to avoid having to compensate them,the Government had cancelled the auctions ofriverbed land. 5 ~ .
.
0 '~~-..-·.·1 ....~.
Adivasis-Already Drowned, Cheated Dally 5, In the adivasi villages of the Alirajpurtehsll of Dhar and the Dhadgon tehsil of Maharashtra, the situation was the worst. There are n-.
i ..
26 tribaJ vmages in Jhabua District which came under submergence when the Sardar Sarovarwas at amere 69 metres-yet, there wasn't rn ·.-_ even discovered the pretethat nce due of to a the rehabilitation Dam,the siteland .Tribal became villagers waterlogged narrated in how the monsoon-some ofthem and were cultivation given land was in impossible Gujarat.But in the when waist they deep shifted water! thereSo ,they they en h--t~ ~=· ::J:..-. 1"1 ' ~.
-. ' ,: . .
~'::1~:.· .
had returned home-and were surviving in dire straits because their lands had been submerged.Others had been shown ulrrigated lands" with ·-··.
ing pipelines and water pumps in Nimad and persuaded to buy them; only to find later that the fine prtnt In the land papers stated that "irrigation ia's '\.·'.
t , ... .
and pipeline rights were notsold along with the land,. So, afterpurchase, the pipes and pumps were taken away,leaving the land useless.Any lner .
1 J.
complaint to the Government or the Court was simply passed on to the Grievance Redressal Authority (GRA)-whose officials never visited 5 of .
these regions. .
The Pol Khol Yatra was an eye opener-for anyone who believed that aGovernment could not possibly be callous enough to allow )lOg .
thousands of lives and livelihoods to be drowned out without rehabilitation. Manmohan Singh, (from Berlin!) has declared aCommittee to rs wiof th.
oversee the rehabilitation efforts-and the Committee includes fonner JNU VC GKChaddha.Itseems unlikely that Manmohan Singh will act .
to prevent this gross injustice-despite the fact that his own Ministers had been forced to admit the joke in the name ofrehabilitation in MP. :iona\ .
.
' and a.
Tomorrow,on May Dayjthe Supreme Court is supposed to hearout the Narmada case again.Will it nail the Governments'lies,and order .
r: act thatdam construction be stopped? We will know by tomorrow. Butcan we expect too much justice from the Supreme Court-when we see that g,cn(l! it is the same Supreme Court that ordered the demolition of5000Jhuggls fn Yamuna Pushta.Those thousands ofhomes were buUdozed ead of to the ground 6 mJnths before time, without any prior notice,leavingthe hapless families with no rehabilitation or alternative homes.They are on -. India the ITO bridge now in the hot sun-and the police is chasing them away.Each day,we hear the news of aconvenient 'fire' in one or the other \ia lnc. .
slum in Delhi-an easy 'accident' to raze the homes of living people. 'a\\ N\r Whatever the attitude ofthe Courttomo"ow, the struggle against displacementIn the nameofdevelopment mustgo on-and March .
the callous sacrifice ofthe poorat the altarofthe rich In the name ofdevelopment mustbe challengedandstopped. · ol t)Ur .
sd/-Sandeep Singh, Vice-President, AISA. JNU sd/-Awadhesh, Gen. Secy., AISA, JNU .
,. .
'.
''I .,..
,J.-~·-...1..
i .
·.
__..__.._~...-----~--....."" ---.,.-~--~.
l . '· .
L~ \ .
1,!.. 'II .
.
PaRCha - JNU - AISA - 2006 ID-2930
.
'· J', ·.
:~n· .., :, II·' H .,.
J-t<"~ ! ~: ; .
I o ·n Ul..
,· l: --.! -., ! . ;.::1 ·,:,' -;~ .:-· '.
··;:. vr .
.
.ll . ·r.l~· l' 'h .~....., .
Y~--[' -.
AI SA .
AISA condemns the barbaric killing of the telecom engineer K. Suryanarayana130.4.06 .
'.
from Andhra Pradesh by· the terrorist Taliban, and expresses grief and solidarity with the victim's family. .
The Lie of Rehabilitation: A Pol Khol Yatra on the Banks of the Narmada .
Alarge team of students, filmmakers, social activists and concerned citizens visfied the Narmada Valley between 25-28 April, to participate .
Pol KhoJ Yatra' to expose the truth about the Govemmenfs claims ofhaving fully rehabilttated the people displaced by the Sardar.
.
in the NSA's'·'·.
Sarovar Dam. The team included Awadhesh Tripathl from JNU AISA, Dr. Sunilam, MLA in the MP Assembly, Sandeep Panda, Swami .
Agnivesh, AISA National President Kavita Krishnan, students from Jamla and DU, as well as several others from Jharkhand,MP, Chhattisgarh, .
.
Mumbai,Bhopal and Indore. · ·.·. .
What did the visttors see? .
Inaccurate Surveys, Bribes, Cash Instead of Land... ... At Khalghat,alarge mass meeting took place,where villager after villager came forward to complain that theirfamily members-adult sons and daughters, husbands, widows-had notbeen listed among the dam-displaced. Some women whose husbands were sick or dead. 'cut' from compensation money;tales ofpeople being coerced into.
said with tears in their eyes abo~tofficials demanding huge bribes as a .
accepting oompensatJon money instead ofthe land they 'Nere demanding,were most common.This, desp~ethe fact that cash compen-.
.
sation is completely illegal under the NWDT award and the Supreme Courfs verdict. Further, the land of the rehabilitation site had black topsoil .
-that was most unsuitable as abase for building homes. ,,.
j, .
At Dhannapurt,the residents ofthe town took the team for awalk in the town.At severalplaces,one could see ahome orahotel that was .
marked for submergence this monsoon, while the adjoining building was not listed as coming under submergence! People showed .
how the stone markrng the backwater level used to read 138 metres,but had been changed to read'148 metres'just one night before the Group .
of Ministers' visit! Such manipulations were aimed to falselyminimise the area that would some undersubmergence. .
.
In mostplaces,irrigated agricultural land is not aflotted to people.Where ~is, the land aJiottecl is often 100-200 knometres away from the '· resettlement site! Further,such land often fa[ls in the submergence area of other dams,or has been marked for afforestation,or has been .
·~ . ·.
'till ·,:. .
declared as barren land! I .
'Ghosts' and Non-People? .
At Chhota Bardavillage inthe Nimad region of MP,abanner had been put up saying, "This entire village has been rehabilitated-so .
are the people you see ghosts?!tn village after village,one could see thousands ofpeople-who hadobviously notbeen rehabilitated. .
.
' ..-. Worst was the condition ofthose who did not own land:the kevats (boatmen) who transport people from one ghat to anotner,as'Nelf -.
as the fisherfolk and the potters-aD these depend on the river orriver soil fortheir liveflheod-and there are absolutely left out of anyrehabilitation .
plans.Newspapers carried stories ofhow melon cultivators had been ruined becauseofthe flooding of the river beds where the frutt was usually .
grown.In order to avoid having to compensate them,the Government had cancelled the auctions ofriverbed land. 5 ~ .
.
0 '~~-..-·.·1 ....~.
Adivasis-Already Drowned, Cheated Dally 5, In the adivasi villages of the Alirajpurtehsll of Dhar and the Dhadgon tehsil of Maharashtra, the situation was the worst. There are n-.
i ..
26 tribaJ vmages in Jhabua District which came under submergence when the Sardar Sarovarwas at amere 69 metres-yet, there wasn't rn ·.-_ even discovered the pretethat nce due of to a the rehabilitation Dam,the siteland .Tribal became villagers waterlogged narrated in how the monsoon-some ofthem and were cultivation given land was in impossible Gujarat.But in the when waist they deep shifted water! thereSo ,they they en h--t~ ~=· ::J:..-. 1"1 ' ~.
-. ' ,: . .
~'::1~:.· .
had returned home-and were surviving in dire straits because their lands had been submerged.Others had been shown ulrrigated lands" with ·-··.
ing pipelines and water pumps in Nimad and persuaded to buy them; only to find later that the fine prtnt In the land papers stated that "irrigation ia's '\.·'.
t , ... .
and pipeline rights were notsold along with the land,. So, afterpurchase, the pipes and pumps were taken away,leaving the land useless.Any lner .
1 J.
complaint to the Government or the Court was simply passed on to the Grievance Redressal Authority (GRA)-whose officials never visited 5 of .
these regions. .
The Pol Khol Yatra was an eye opener-for anyone who believed that aGovernment could not possibly be callous enough to allow )lOg .
thousands of lives and livelihoods to be drowned out without rehabilitation. Manmohan Singh, (from Berlin!) has declared aCommittee to rs wiof th.
oversee the rehabilitation efforts-and the Committee includes fonner JNU VC GKChaddha.Itseems unlikely that Manmohan Singh will act .
to prevent this gross injustice-despite the fact that his own Ministers had been forced to admit the joke in the name ofrehabilitation in MP. :iona\ .
.
' and a.
Tomorrow,on May Dayjthe Supreme Court is supposed to hearout the Narmada case again.Will it nail the Governments'lies,and order .
r: act thatdam construction be stopped? We will know by tomorrow. Butcan we expect too much justice from the Supreme Court-when we see that g,cn(l! it is the same Supreme Court that ordered the demolition of5000Jhuggls fn Yamuna Pushta.Those thousands ofhomes were buUdozed ead of to the ground 6 mJnths before time, without any prior notice,leavingthe hapless families with no rehabilitation or alternative homes.They are on -. India the ITO bridge now in the hot sun-and the police is chasing them away.Each day,we hear the news of aconvenient 'fire' in one or the other \ia lnc. .
slum in Delhi-an easy 'accident' to raze the homes of living people. 'a\\ N\r Whatever the attitude ofthe Courttomo"ow, the struggle against displacementIn the nameofdevelopment mustgo on-and March .
the callous sacrifice ofthe poorat the altarofthe rich In the name ofdevelopment mustbe challengedandstopped. · ol t)Ur .
sd/-Sandeep Singh, Vice-President, AISA. JNU sd/-Awadhesh, Gen. Secy., AISA, JNU .
,. .
'.
''I .,..
,J.-~·-...1..
i .
·.
__..__.._~...-----~--....."" ---.,.-~--~.
l . '· .
L~ \ .
1,!.. 'II .
.