ANTI – DISPLACEMENT DHARNA CONCLUDES IN DELHI - NATIONAL ACTION ANNOUNCED FOR 26TH JUNE

A three day agitation and dharna in front of the Indian Parliament in New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar was started on 28th April 2008. People’s representatives from 14 states and from more than 83 different organisations
across the country converged under the banner of Sangharsh. Populations that have been uprooted by dams, power projects, creation of protected forest areas, road projects, SEZ, real estate projects, tourism projects, industrial displacement, etc. from coastal areas, hills, and plains shared their experiences. The dharna ended with a call to local action across the country and a threat to re-converge if the demands are not met.

We launched a joint protest against the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, the Resettlement & Rehabilitation Bill, the SEZ Act 2005, the CZM Act, and other draconian anti-people and anti-environmental laws are being built up. The LAA and the R&R Bills will have far reaching impact if enacted. In effect, these
Bills provide an official channel to displace and plunder land and other natural resources from the people for the profit of corporations and private investors. The LAA Bill allows land to be forcefully acquired in favour of private companies sneaking private purpose into the definition of “public purpose”. It is more regressive and anti-people than even the original colonial Act! The government pays mere lip service to protecting the rights of those whose lands are acquired. The R&R Bill does not even guarantee basics like land for land and alternative livelihood based rehabilitation. The issue of urban displacement has been completely sidestepped yet again.

Representatives from Adivasis, Dalits, urban poor, and other communities expressed that these laws threaten their identity, sovereignty & food security. The need to bring all struggles under one banner – Trade unions, Student unions, Tribal mass movements, Dalit movements, Women’s rights movements, Peasants’ struggles to attain food security, Human rights and Democracy was stressed and each organization pledged to continue work in this direction.

We have had consultations in the past two days with Mani Shankar Aiyar, Minister of Panchayati Raj Affairs. He has promised that his Ministry will look at the demands of the movements for greater primacy to the local self government bodies in this policy as well as in all development planning. We also had a meeting with Meira Kumar, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment who expressed sympathy with the displaced people - a sizeable number of which are Dalits and Adivasis and she will do whatever she can. Sandeep Dixit who came to the dharna site pledged his support to our demands and said that he will take our demands to the Parliamentary Standing committee on Rural Development which is looking after the two Bills. He also invited the social movements’ representatives to make presentations before the Committee. Today 100 organizations are sending individual letters to Shri Kalyan Singh, Chairman, Standing Committee, informing him of the various kinds of displacement and the existing situation on the ground.

Several Dam affected groups from Sikkim, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra are meeting the Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources and apprise him of the situations prevailing there. Parliamentarians Ali Anwar and Abani Roy, who also visited the dharna site, pledged support to the
struggles and challenged the Central Government to bring the legislation in the current form in the Parliament. Jst. Rajendra Sachar, Swami Agnivesh, Miloon Kothari, Adv. Prashant Bhushan, Adv. Sanjay Parikh, S.C. Behar, Vinod Raina, Smithu Kothari, and others joined in solidarity and addressed the gathering and the media.

We the struggling masses have resolved and made it abundantly clear that we will not allow either the central or the state governments to go ahead with the anti-people projects that uproot and displace people in the name of development. We resolve to keep the heat on. We are going back today with the resolve that we will hold simultaneous protests in our respective villages & cities on 26th June to be marked as ‘Sangharsh Diwas’. We resolve to let it be known to our MPs that they will have to listen to us or the parties will have to face the people’s wrath in the coming general elections.

One demand has emerged from the people’s struggles across the country - a decentralized development planning process which ensures ‘development’ that is truly people centric and bases itself firmly on the principles of democracy, social justice and equity. Concerns regarding development planning, land
acquisition and resettlement and rehabilitation are intrinsically linked with one another and cannot be addressed in isolation. In fact a draft of a ‘Comprehensive Legislation on Development Planning, No Forced Displacement, and Just Rehabilitation’ has been prepared based on Article 243, and the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments. In the true spirit of democracy, gram sabhas and municipalities are proposed to be empowered with the right to formulate district and metropolitan level development plans.

If our demands are not heeded to by the Government, Standing Committee and the Parliament, we will converge again in greater numbers during the Monsoon session.