New Delhi : Dozens of activists travelled from unknown hamlets deep inside forests all over India to the nation's capital Tuesday to press their demand for more rights over their own lives.
Brought together by the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, the forest dwellers demanded changes in the rules notified by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs after the passage of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act in 2006.
They also demanded implementation of the law after the changes they wanted - mainly formation of empowered and representative committees in every village.
The act was passed Dec 18, 2006. There was a long hiatus before the ministry published a series of draft rules June 19 to make the act operational, and gave the public 45 days to suggest changes to the rules.
The suggestions have been given, the period is over, and there is no further move from the ministry, according to Pradip Prabhu, convenor of the campaign.
The representatives of voluntary groups and community organisations who gathered at the Indian Social Institute here Tuesday accused the government of "sabotaging the act" by rejecting the recommendation of a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) and saying that the panchayat (village council) would decide who would have the right to farm land inside a forest and collect minor forest produce.
Since most villages located inside forests were very small, a panchayat took in a large number of villagers, Prabhu pointed out. In effect, this meant that most villagers would not be able to attend panchayat meetings and argue for their rights. The activists demanded that the gram sabhas - committees that would decide on the rights of individuals - be constituted at the village and even hamlet level.
The activists were also very upset because the June 19 notification takes away from the gram sabha the right to decide if a government agency or a private firm can exploit forest resources. They demanded that the "power to protect its forests" be given back to the gram sabha and that the "consent of the community be required" before there was any "interference" in a forest.
Prabhu said despite the assurances of the government, there was no sign that forest dwellers who did not belong to any scheduled tribe would get any right. On the other hand, the government had rejected the demand that "people who mainly use hired labour" should not be considered forest dwellers. He demanded that the gram sabha be involved in deciding who was a forest dweller.
The activists also demanded that the consent of the gram sabha be mandatory for resettlement and rehabilitation of any forest dweller who lost his home because a forest was declared a wildlife reserve.
According to Prabhu, forest dwellers should be allowed to take minor forest produce to a market of their choice, and not to the nearest village or collection point as envisaged by the government. He also demanded that forest dwellers and women be made members of the gram sabha.
The activists felt that in the absence of more rights for local people was a major reason why Maoists had made deep inroads into the forested parts of India and that the reaction of the state - by forming the salwa judum militia by the Chhattisgarh government, for example - had only worsened the situation. They demanded the withdrawal of the salwa judum initiative.
Prabhu was apprehensive that the government wanted to privatise forests in the guise of creating carbon sinks that would offset global warming. "This threatens the survival of both the forest and her people," he said. "Such moves are fraught with dangers - ecologically, socially and politically."
Showing posts with label Delhi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Delhi. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
Summer of '69 in St Stephen's
Summer of '69 in St Stephen's
If it were some other time, the graffiti could have passed as some Stephanian's idea of a prank. Scrawled across the main tower of St Stephen's college building was the message, "China's path is our path, China's chairman is our chairman."
But it wasn't some other time.
It was 1969-70. The idea of rebellion was infecting young 'petit bourgeois' minds everywhere. The upheaval at Paris' Sorbonne University and the anti-Vietnam war protests across US campuses were already the stuff of legend. Closer home, Naxalbari had exploded into national consciousness.
St Stephens Delhi
So when the high wall of St Stephen's College —that rarefied oasis for the nation's elite — was used as a pad for radical propaganda, it confirmed what most observers already knew: an influential section of Stephanians had fallen to Naxalism. Slogans appeared on lecture-room blackboards, writes Daniel O' Connor, a British priest who was the college pastor from 1963 to '73, in Interesting Times in India. One such work read, "Reactionary teachers, we will have your skin for shoes for the poor"!
Contemporary insiders put the number of core Naxals in the college at the height of militancy at no more than 30 — not a big figure, but by most accounts, the single largest Maoist presence in all DU institutions. In 1968, history student Arvind Narain Das had run for president of the college student's body elections on an openly Naxal platform. He won. "We were ready to storm heaven," Dilip Simeon, a leading member of the group, was to write later.
How a revered 'pillar of the establishment' fell to 'revolutionary activity' is an enigma. Certainly, the college's democratic ethos aided the process. And there were individual influences. Awadhesh Sinha, a history student who joined in 1965, was one of the first to turn radical. Says Rabindra Ray, another early convert, "Awadhesh was known as 'Commie' Sinha. Ironically, he joined the IAS in 1970 and was vilified in an ugly incident at the coffee house."
The group's ideological hangout was a barsati near the campus where a lecturer at the university's Psychology department stayed. Ajit Pal was a Marxist iconoclast who never joined any party. "Palda, as we called him, was a mesmeric motivator. He was our mentor, guide and organiser," says a member of the group.
By 1970, their activities were entering a more serious phase. A distressed parent approached O' Connor asking him to persuade his son to give up his politics. "By then, they (the students) were well into the vortex and almost out of hearing," writes the pastor. The campus was tense. TOI reported a 'plot' to burn the college library and bomb the chapel. "We didn't know it then, but some students and teachers close to us were spying for the police," says Ray.
Just then, Das and Ray went 'UG' (underground). Some 12-13 Stephanians followed, leaving studies to join the revolution between 1970 and 1971. Das and a few others were arrested; the rest returned on their own — disillusioned and scared. Rajiv Kumar, an Economics student, was in third year when he left for Bihar in mid-December, 1970. For three months, he stayed with CPI-ML sympathisers, including a bricklayer in Munger. "One of the reasons for my return was the prospect of being asked to kill people," he says. "We were a bunch of romantics who just didn't know that we were being fed with lies."
Ray remained a 'revolutionary' till 1975. "It was easy to get in, very difficult to get out. I had to painfully think my way out. Marxism-Leninism Mao thought is rubbish," he says. Ray was to later write a book, Naxalites and Their Ideology.
"It's difficult to retain that kind of blind faith," says Simeon. "Yet, coming out was cathartic. It was soul-destroying to realise that the Chinese Communist Party was working in its own self-interest, and not for world revolution."
Simeon has fictionalised his 'UG' experience as an itinerant cleaner in a truck plying on the GT road. The short story, 'OK TATA, Mobiloil Change (and World Revolution)', appeared in Civil Lines 3. At one point, the cleaner's ustad, the driver of the truck, finds his world turned on its head when his lowly assistant suddenly starts singing the Internationale along with a couple of French hitchhikers!
It was that kind of a time.
PS: Awadhesh Sinha is additional chief secretary in the Maharashtra government. Das, Ray and Simeon went on to do their PhDs. Das, a journalist and sociologist, died in 2000. He was 52. Ray teaches at Delhi School of Economics. Simeon joined Ramjas College as a teacher in 1974. In the '80s, he was attacked brutally while leading an agitation. He is now a senior research fellow at Nehru Library. Rajiv Kumar did his DPhil from Oxford and is director of ICRIER. Ajit Pal retired in 1991 and lives in Delhi.
TOI
If it were some other time, the graffiti could have passed as some Stephanian's idea of a prank. Scrawled across the main tower of St Stephen's college building was the message, "China's path is our path, China's chairman is our chairman."
But it wasn't some other time.
It was 1969-70. The idea of rebellion was infecting young 'petit bourgeois' minds everywhere. The upheaval at Paris' Sorbonne University and the anti-Vietnam war protests across US campuses were already the stuff of legend. Closer home, Naxalbari had exploded into national consciousness.
St Stephens DelhiSo when the high wall of St Stephen's College —that rarefied oasis for the nation's elite — was used as a pad for radical propaganda, it confirmed what most observers already knew: an influential section of Stephanians had fallen to Naxalism. Slogans appeared on lecture-room blackboards, writes Daniel O' Connor, a British priest who was the college pastor from 1963 to '73, in Interesting Times in India. One such work read, "Reactionary teachers, we will have your skin for shoes for the poor"!
Contemporary insiders put the number of core Naxals in the college at the height of militancy at no more than 30 — not a big figure, but by most accounts, the single largest Maoist presence in all DU institutions. In 1968, history student Arvind Narain Das had run for president of the college student's body elections on an openly Naxal platform. He won. "We were ready to storm heaven," Dilip Simeon, a leading member of the group, was to write later.
How a revered 'pillar of the establishment' fell to 'revolutionary activity' is an enigma. Certainly, the college's democratic ethos aided the process. And there were individual influences. Awadhesh Sinha, a history student who joined in 1965, was one of the first to turn radical. Says Rabindra Ray, another early convert, "Awadhesh was known as 'Commie' Sinha. Ironically, he joined the IAS in 1970 and was vilified in an ugly incident at the coffee house."
The group's ideological hangout was a barsati near the campus where a lecturer at the university's Psychology department stayed. Ajit Pal was a Marxist iconoclast who never joined any party. "Palda, as we called him, was a mesmeric motivator. He was our mentor, guide and organiser," says a member of the group.
By 1970, their activities were entering a more serious phase. A distressed parent approached O' Connor asking him to persuade his son to give up his politics. "By then, they (the students) were well into the vortex and almost out of hearing," writes the pastor. The campus was tense. TOI reported a 'plot' to burn the college library and bomb the chapel. "We didn't know it then, but some students and teachers close to us were spying for the police," says Ray.
Just then, Das and Ray went 'UG' (underground). Some 12-13 Stephanians followed, leaving studies to join the revolution between 1970 and 1971. Das and a few others were arrested; the rest returned on their own — disillusioned and scared. Rajiv Kumar, an Economics student, was in third year when he left for Bihar in mid-December, 1970. For three months, he stayed with CPI-ML sympathisers, including a bricklayer in Munger. "One of the reasons for my return was the prospect of being asked to kill people," he says. "We were a bunch of romantics who just didn't know that we were being fed with lies."
Ray remained a 'revolutionary' till 1975. "It was easy to get in, very difficult to get out. I had to painfully think my way out. Marxism-Leninism Mao thought is rubbish," he says. Ray was to later write a book, Naxalites and Their Ideology.
"It's difficult to retain that kind of blind faith," says Simeon. "Yet, coming out was cathartic. It was soul-destroying to realise that the Chinese Communist Party was working in its own self-interest, and not for world revolution."
Simeon has fictionalised his 'UG' experience as an itinerant cleaner in a truck plying on the GT road. The short story, 'OK TATA, Mobiloil Change (and World Revolution)', appeared in Civil Lines 3. At one point, the cleaner's ustad, the driver of the truck, finds his world turned on its head when his lowly assistant suddenly starts singing the Internationale along with a couple of French hitchhikers!
It was that kind of a time.
PS: Awadhesh Sinha is additional chief secretary in the Maharashtra government. Das, Ray and Simeon went on to do their PhDs. Das, a journalist and sociologist, died in 2000. He was 52. Ray teaches at Delhi School of Economics. Simeon joined Ramjas College as a teacher in 1974. In the '80s, he was attacked brutally while leading an agitation. He is now a senior research fellow at Nehru Library. Rajiv Kumar did his DPhil from Oxford and is director of ICRIER. Ajit Pal retired in 1991 and lives in Delhi.
TOI
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Tuesday, June 05, 2007
India's Reds gather in Delhi, talk of another Freedom movement
India's Reds gather in Delhi, talk of another Freedom movement
Written by Harjot Singh
Sunday, June 03, 2007
NEW DELHI: The Reds in India, many of whom remained silent when tens of hundreds of Sikhs were mowed down everyday by trigger-happy Punjab Police in fake encounters, during the years of militancy are now talking of one more war of Independence.
Frontal organisations of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) discussed the need and imperatives for a "Third Freedom Struggle Movement" at a national seminar in the capital.
Representatives from the Naxal-affected states took part in the deliberations for launching the "Third Freedom Struggle" in the country "to free the people from the clutches of capitalism and imperialism".
The outfits that participated in the one-day seminar include People's Democratic Front of India (PDFI), Anti-Displacement Front, Hindustan Communist Gadar Party, Yuva Bharat and Bharatiya Kisan Union of Madhya Pradesh. Other outfits included Azadi Bachao Andolan and Lokraj Sangathan and representatives of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), who took part in the deliberations.
PDFI is spearheading the Maoist cause of mobilisation of the masses with the specific objective of uniting the disparate forces against development policies of the Centre, according to the Union home ministry. Speakers at the seminar included representatives of the frontal organisations from Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Haryana. The Naxal outfits have established overground activities in Uttarakhand and Punjab, according to the latest list of the states affected by the ultraLeft ideology. The speakers exhorted the need to counter imperialism and capitalism through their so-called "Third Freedom Movement", as the First War Of Independence in 1857 and the 1947 Independence movements have not resulted in social freedom.
As per reports in the Indian media, the speakers claimed that a nexus existed between the capitalists and the government to the peril of the common people. The outfits expressed lament that credible non-governmental organisations did not exist in the country to take up the cause of the displaced farmers. The foreign-funded NGOs were espousing the cause of the capitalists, the speakers said during the deliberations. The outfits also expressed their resentment against the Foreign University Bill and claimed that the same, when enacted by the Parliament, will cripple the education system in the country.
Convenor of the "Third Freedom Struggle Movement", Gopal Rai said, "A training camp will be organised towards July-end to take the "Third Freedom Movement" forward and a National Sovereignty Day will be observed across the country on September 21, 2007."
The preparations for the seminar was made during the last six months. About 300 representatives from 22 organisations of Socialist, Communist and democratic ideological streams gathered at the city function, Mr Rai said. A revolution at the national-level will also be launched on a campaign basis "to free the society from the clutches of caste and religious divide through ideological churning," he added.
world sikh news
Written by Harjot Singh
Sunday, June 03, 2007
NEW DELHI: The Reds in India, many of whom remained silent when tens of hundreds of Sikhs were mowed down everyday by trigger-happy Punjab Police in fake encounters, during the years of militancy are now talking of one more war of Independence.
Frontal organisations of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) discussed the need and imperatives for a "Third Freedom Struggle Movement" at a national seminar in the capital.
Representatives from the Naxal-affected states took part in the deliberations for launching the "Third Freedom Struggle" in the country "to free the people from the clutches of capitalism and imperialism".
The outfits that participated in the one-day seminar include People's Democratic Front of India (PDFI), Anti-Displacement Front, Hindustan Communist Gadar Party, Yuva Bharat and Bharatiya Kisan Union of Madhya Pradesh. Other outfits included Azadi Bachao Andolan and Lokraj Sangathan and representatives of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), who took part in the deliberations.
PDFI is spearheading the Maoist cause of mobilisation of the masses with the specific objective of uniting the disparate forces against development policies of the Centre, according to the Union home ministry. Speakers at the seminar included representatives of the frontal organisations from Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Haryana. The Naxal outfits have established overground activities in Uttarakhand and Punjab, according to the latest list of the states affected by the ultraLeft ideology. The speakers exhorted the need to counter imperialism and capitalism through their so-called "Third Freedom Movement", as the First War Of Independence in 1857 and the 1947 Independence movements have not resulted in social freedom.
As per reports in the Indian media, the speakers claimed that a nexus existed between the capitalists and the government to the peril of the common people. The outfits expressed lament that credible non-governmental organisations did not exist in the country to take up the cause of the displaced farmers. The foreign-funded NGOs were espousing the cause of the capitalists, the speakers said during the deliberations. The outfits also expressed their resentment against the Foreign University Bill and claimed that the same, when enacted by the Parliament, will cripple the education system in the country.
Convenor of the "Third Freedom Struggle Movement", Gopal Rai said, "A training camp will be organised towards July-end to take the "Third Freedom Movement" forward and a National Sovereignty Day will be observed across the country on September 21, 2007."
The preparations for the seminar was made during the last six months. About 300 representatives from 22 organisations of Socialist, Communist and democratic ideological streams gathered at the city function, Mr Rai said. A revolution at the national-level will also be launched on a campaign basis "to free the society from the clutches of caste and religious divide through ideological churning," he added.
world sikh news
Tags:
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Naxalites plan October rally in Delhi
Naxalites plan October rally in Delhi
Statesman News Service
NEW DELHI, May 28: Naxalite groups are planning a massive show of strength in the Capital in October.
The decision to hold a rally in Delhi was taken in March when the top brass of various Naxalite organisations met to plan the “non-violent” campaign. Though the rally has been called to protest upcoming special economic zones on agriculture land all over the country, its basic agenda is to get media attention and to display its strength at the national level. Documents seized by security forces during various raids in Jharkhand and Chattisgah revealed the three-tier strategy of Naxalite groups. “First they will launch/ intensify their operations in areas where SEZs are coming up through their frontal organisations. These organisations will recruit locals for their violent activities,” said a senior official of a security agency which seized the incriminating documents.
“Subsequently, the Naxalite groups will set up an overground workers’ network in the Hindi belt, mainly Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Uttaranchal so that they can hit the headlines in Delhi,” the official said. Thirdly and most important, they will make their presence felt in the Capital in a big way in October.
“The preparations for the October rally have begun in a big way with Naxalite groups giving district commanders six months to plan it,” the official said.
Statesman
Statesman News Service
NEW DELHI, May 28: Naxalite groups are planning a massive show of strength in the Capital in October.
The decision to hold a rally in Delhi was taken in March when the top brass of various Naxalite organisations met to plan the “non-violent” campaign. Though the rally has been called to protest upcoming special economic zones on agriculture land all over the country, its basic agenda is to get media attention and to display its strength at the national level. Documents seized by security forces during various raids in Jharkhand and Chattisgah revealed the three-tier strategy of Naxalite groups. “First they will launch/ intensify their operations in areas where SEZs are coming up through their frontal organisations. These organisations will recruit locals for their violent activities,” said a senior official of a security agency which seized the incriminating documents.
“Subsequently, the Naxalite groups will set up an overground workers’ network in the Hindi belt, mainly Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Uttaranchal so that they can hit the headlines in Delhi,” the official said. Thirdly and most important, they will make their presence felt in the Capital in a big way in October.
“The preparations for the October rally have begun in a big way with Naxalite groups giving district commanders six months to plan it,” the official said.
Statesman
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