[Reader-list] Fwd: Observe Sangharsh Diwas March from Shaheed Park June 26th 12 noon onwards

[sah bittu]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Madhuresh <madhuresh at cacim.net>
Date: Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 3:16 PM
Subject: Observe Sangharsh Diwas March from Shaheed Park June 26th 12 noon
onwards
To: Action 2007 <action2007 at gmail.com>


[*Join us in a Silent protest march from Shaheed Park, near Delhi Gate on
June 26^th from 12 noon onwards. Pass it on ... ]*

New Delhi, June 22 2008

Dear Friends,

Remembering the Black Day of June 25/6^th 1975 when a State of Emergency was
imposed by the Indira Gandhi Government suspending all civil liberties,
curtailing freedom of press, powers of judiciary and incarcerating any
opposition to her rule, we the concerned citizens of Delhi in pursuant to
the call given by the social-movements across the country call upon you to
declare that the /moment of siege has not ended and India is in a state of
emergency. /Apart from the prevailing repressive conditions elsewhere in the
country, in Delhi, we are witness to demolitions of slums, increasing
difficulties for common people, informalisation of labour and worst of all
protests by victims of Bhopal on the streets entering now the fifth month
along with an indefinite hunger strike for 15 days.

Democracy in India is alive not because of the parliament and judiciary but
because common struggling masses who in their quest for justice have time
and again shown their faith in the democratic values best epitomized in the
Constitution. In the troubled times when we are witnessing this siege, its
upon us to work towards reclaiming our right to live in harmony, enjoy the
freedoms, dissent and debate without fear and voice our protests at every
nook and corner in the city. We stand opposed to restrictions put on our
right to protest confined within the streets of Jantar Mantar and declare
that its time we reclaimed the streets and spaces for celebration and
resistance.

*To mark this event we call upon you all to join us in a Silent protest
march from Shaheed Park, near Delhi Gate on June 26^th from 12 noon onwards.
The march will converge at Lal Quila Maidan where a public meeting will be
held. *

Join us with your banners, songs, dances, slogans, and silences …

Zindabaad

National Alliance for Peoples Movement (Delhi), Delhi Solidarity Group and
others …

Contact : Rajendra Ravi (9868200316) and Madhuresh (9818905316)

***************************

CALL TO ACTION **

*'Emergency' Day - June 26, 2008 *

*People's Declaration of Emergency and Pledge to reclaim democracy*

India, today is at the crossroads, for a multitude of reasons. While on the
one hand the city lines are gleaming with glossy malls, plush high rises,
immaculate roads, flyovers and other 'structures of growth', a vast majority
of the rest of the nation, presents a grim reality, which the State planners
and policymakers would love to brush under the carpet. From the continuing
spate of rather frequently reported suicides of farmers and weavers, and
equally poignant /albeit /less reported suicides of thousands of others
practicing traditional livelihoods, to persistent starvation and
malnourishment in urban and rural pockets, continuing atrocities against
women, dalits, adivasis, fisher folk, hawkers, and other marginalized groups
in the name of SEZs, large dams, and other infrastructure projects (read
'development'), continued deprivation and neglect of 93% of the country's
toiling work force to the plummeting state expenditure on crucial human
rights concerns like education, health, agriculture and food security, among
others on the one hand and the rocketing inflation, which is hitting the
poor hardest, the State in every which way seems to be disowning its most
fundamental constitutional mandate and instead paving way for
corporatization and privatization of all essential services. The State is
infact actively abetting, now even blatantly through the legal framework,
the plunder of natural and human resources, stamping away the rights of
communities, coupled with scheming exploitation of already limited state
investments in irrigation, water and allied sectors, not to mention the
countless incentives doled out to big business houses and branding anyone
who questions this unconstitutional paradigm of 'development' in a
confrontationist way as 'maoists, naxalites and so on....

We, the people, are particularly concerned about the increasing
legitimization of this skewed and distorted form of technocratic and
capitalist development from all quarters of the State, which is further
passed off as India – Shining, glowing, glittering by political manipulators
the media megaphones.

We are living in a 'police state' today where human rights defenders,
artists, and those fighting for the justice have to bear the brunt of
state's oppression. The laws like AFSPA, CSPSA, NSA etc. continue to harass
and terrorise its own citizens all across India including J&K and North
East.

*/The Legislature/** *enacts nothing short of draconian legislations like
the SEZ Act, proposes blatant changes in the CMZ Rules, introduces the Land
Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, which distorts the definition of public
purpose, excelling even the British lawmakers and anti-people policies like
JNNURM and scores of other policy and legal initiatives in various states to
please corporates at the cost of the people./ /Submissive to the global
powers and allowing the vision to investment, the self-reliance to
sovereignty is compromised and loot is permitted.

*/The Executive/*/,/ as always is over-zealous in the execution of these
policies and further indulges in non-transparent exercises of bringing in
questionable Government Orders, Policies, Rules and Regulations and special
amendments in the garb of 'delegated legislation'. Failure of global markets
and paradigm in providing employment, of protecting masses from terrorism,
preventing price rise stands exposed.

*/The Judiciary/** *has also, in many cases, chosen to be blinded by the
vision of 'development', be it in the Narmada case, or in the recent order
in the Vedanta Case, or many other cases. The lives and cultures of dalit,
adivasis and other marginalised communities have and are being staked in the
process of monolithic vision of technocratic development. It has also failed
to defend the fundamental rights of its citizens when the State is impinging
on them with impunity in name of fighting terrorism and naxalism and
continues to use draconian laws in the name of security.

Key to be noted also is the manner in which one set of legislations are
sought to be brought in and favoured by bypassing, neglecting, and violating
another set of legislations and constitutional guarantees. In the latter
line fall the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, the Forest
Rights Act, the V Schedule to the Constitution the CRZ and EIA
Notifications, the Environment Protection Act, related legislations and most
important of all, the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments. Central to
all of these is probably the willful slackness of /India Private Limited /in
that. Despite decades of these historical parliamentary interventions to
further democratise governance, the State has chosen not to enact a law that
would actualise the constitutional-democratic-decentralised governance by
people themselves whether in urban or rural areas.

*Nandigram to Narmada to Nandgudi, Kakinada to Kevadia to Kushinagar,
Polepally to Plachimada to Posco, Raigad to Sonbhadra to Teesta, the
struggle, issues and repression is the same, in a strange way bringing
together and binding the victims of development in a common voice against
this unconstitutional, undemocratic and inhuman process of limited growth
just as the pre-independence era saw the unison of varied forces with the
common agenda of deliverance. **But the movement's politics, beyond
electoral politics needs to be asserted towards the goal of 'people's power'
that can bring in true democracy and development, both. It is this demand
for a comprehensive Development Planning Act that we, the people's
movements, put forth as the real pro-people alternative to the current
pro-rich, pro-corporate paradigm of development and it is the passion for
the realisation of this which brings us together in solidarity to continue
our struggle for a just, sustainable and humane society and development.*

*The Why and What of 'Emergency'*

A Government declares a 'State of Emergency' when it cannot handle a
situation, either due to incompetence or because it is truly beyond its
control. Such a declaration entails the abrogation of citizens' rights,
suspension of recourse to law, press censorship and investiture of special
powers in the Executive Authority. State authorities invoke such sweeping
powers, more often than not, to suppress people's democratic rights as was
the case 33 years ago in 1975, when Mrs. Indira Gandhi declared an
unwarranted 'Emergency' to cling to power.

Quite unlike 1975, we are now in a real crisis-situation where the State has
unleashed a kind of a war on the common people of this land, be they
farmers, fisherpeople, factory workers, Adivasis, Dalits or women. That is
borne out by untold violence and atrocities perpetrated on the people of
Nandigram, Nandagudi, Kalinganagar, Raigadh and Chattisgarh, Jharkhand,
slums of Mumbai, Delhi and other cities, the farmers' suicides, displacement
and dispossession of traditional communities across the country.

*In spite of the unprecedented crisis facing the country the Government of
the day is at best mouthing platitudes and promises. The people of this
country will therefore have to take it upon themselves to declare that we
are in a 'State of Emergency' and announce a series of measures to
counteract the crisis. The citizen-announced 'Emergency' would call for the
following code of conduct to be followed (measures that would be reverse of
a Government-announced Emergency):*

*1)* Rather than a draconian censorship the Press is called upon to
disseminate the truth, facts that sensitively portray the toiling people's
struggle for survival against the State-corporate nexus and its machinations
to privatise all natural resources and public properties.

*2)* The State rather than being given sweeping powers, its right to acquire
land in the name of 'public purpose' for SEZs, for destructive industrial
and other 'development' projects etc. will be abrogated.

*3)* If Courts abdicate their responsibility of protecting peoples' rights,
all issues of public interest will be decided in 'Janata Adalats'.

*4)* The only real 'opposition' to the State-corporate-bureaucracy nexus is
not from opposition political parties but from affected people, victims,
concerned and aware citizens. The hypocrisy of the all mainstream political
parties whether in power or opposition, stands exposed in this 'state of
emergency'. People would do well to realise that all parties, of whatever
hue, are hand-in-glove with each other.

*5) *People will have to watch out against the twin threats of Communalism
and New Economic Policy, declaring NO to the new treaty with the WTO.

*6) *Declaring people's rule, 'Lok Raj', we would begin in small to large
ways, to assert our rights to resources to planning towards fuilfillment of
basic needs.

*7)* More sustainable ways of harnessing and utilizing our natural and human
capital would be facilitated and expropriative global to national powers be
challenged.

*8)* People and people's politics will take over, step by step, the Statist
and fascist controls of powers-to-be, to bring in a revolutionary change
towards a humane society.

If you agree, plan an action in your State/district/town/village, in any
form. including marching to to the Governor's house and declare it through a
pledge or a memorandum, or hold a mass programme, not only to protest, but
also to propagate our vision, our strength, and our alternatives, in the
present crisis.

The action is already planned in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Raipur and other
places.

Let us know what you think and how you plan to link and express the unity of
our biradari. Expecting a response soon.

Yours sincerely

Bhupender Rawat Gautam Bandopadhyay Mukta Srivastava

Anand Mazgaonkar Medha Patkar Sridevi Panikkar and others

/For National Alliance of Peoples Movement, Sangharsh and others /

- -- 

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