Chunibhai Vaidya, veteran Sarvodaya leader and a known critic of Modi-style governance, passes away

By Our Representative
Gujarat’s most well-known Gandhian Chunibhai Vaidya passed away on Friday at his residence in Gandhi Ashram premises in Ahmedabad. Born on September 2, 1918 in a small village in Patan district of North Gujarat, Sander, he lived in Gandhi Ashram during the later days of his life. A freedom fighter and variously described as an "old-style" Sarvodaya activist, who participated in Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan movement asking landlords to “selflessly” give away land to the tiller, Vaidya was one of the foremost supporters of Jay Prakash Narayan’s total revolution and was opposed the Emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi government.
During the Emergency (1975-77), Vaidya went to the Gujarat High Court challenging the government’s decision to seal the office of Bhoomiputra journal, which he edited from Vadodara. Though he won the legal battle, he was detained for seven months for taking part in “anti-government” activities. Vaidya is known among Gujarat activists as synonymous for his concept of “resistance for justice” while working for social development.
Vaidya formed Gujarat Lok Samiti, a voluntary organization, in 1980, and among his first successful movements was to force the Rajasthan government to close down liquor shops across Gujarat’s border in Rajasthan at Ratanpur. Other mobilisations he launched included cancelling MLAs’ pension law and pressing the administration to provide drinking water to 350 villages of North Gujarat. His “constructive activities” included insistence on desilting canals. He was instrumental in constructing underground check dams in order to irrigate more than 8,000 acres.

Chunibhai Vaidya leading protest march against Nirma cement plant

While Vaidya supported the Narmada dam, a mega project, and called Narmada Bachao Andolan’s anti-dam campaign as “destructive” and “agitative”, he agitated against the multinational corporation Cargill's proposed project in Gujarat and supported fishermen’s opposition to a mega port project at Umbergaon in South Gujarat. Two years ago, the Gujarat government chose a nearby site, Nargol, to implement the port project, with a consortium of Cargo Motors Limited and Israel Ports Company (IPC) being awarded the Rs 4,000 crore project.
An active campaigner to support Kutch earthquake victims of 2001, more recently, despite his old age, Vaidya supported farmers’ organizations – such as the Jameen Adhikar Andolan Gujarat (JAAG) and Gujarat Khedut Samaj – opposing dozen-odd special investment regions (SIRs) being formed across Gujarat. He also opposed "indiscriminate transfer" of grazing land to industries in the name of development. He lent his support to the movement against the Nirma Cement Plant proposed in an alleged wetland in Mahua region of Bhavnagar district of Saurashtra, leading a march against the industrial project from Mahua to Gandhinagar. Right now, the plant awaits nod from the National Green Tribunal nod.
One of the known opponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vaidya asked has Modi, on several occasions, to come clean on 2002 riots. Commenting on Modi’s September 2011 “sadbhavna” fast, he said, "Modi's fast is an example of the popular Hindi proverb, the cat goes for pilgrimage after killing 100 mice.” He termed Modi’s widely-publicized sadbhavna fast as “a clear example of this adage”, adding, “When Mahatma Gandhi used to sit on a hunger strike, his heart was clean, conscience clear and his life was based on principles of truth.”

Chunibhai Vaidya interacting with a farmer

On another occasion, the veteran Gandhian wrote to Anna Hazare asking the latter to take back his remarks on “exemplary” rural development under Modi. Calling Hazere’s claim “false”, he said, "Your statement regarding development in rural area requires a thorough correction. The development crazy Modi has done a great harm to the rural area. Modi is responsible for the desertion of the villages by more than 10 per cent of the population which includes mainly youth. As for the corruption problem, crores of square meters of land have been allotted to the industries at throwaway prices.”

Comments

Anonymous said…

A rare leader in these times, having fought against the whole range -- from Indira to Modi. Thanks for such an early posting.

December 19, 2014

Vaccine nationalism? Covaxin isn't safe either, perhaps it's worse: Experts

By Rajiv Shah I was a little awestruck: The news had already spread that Astrazeneca – whose Indian variant Covishield was delivered to nearly 80% of Indian vaccine recipients during the Covid-19 era – has been withdrawn by the manufacturers following the admission by its UK pharma giant that its Covid-19 vector-based vaccine in “rare” instances cause TTS, or “thrombocytopenia thrombosis syndrome”, which lead to the blood to clump and form clots. The vaccine reportedly led to at least 81 deaths in the UK.

'Scientifically flawed': 22 examples of the failure of vaccine passports

By Vratesh Srivastava* Vaccine passports were introduced in late 2021 in a number of places across the world, with the primary objective of curtailing community spread and inducing "vaccine hesitant" people to get vaccinated, ostensibly to ensure herd immunity. The case for vaccine passports was scientifically flawed and ethically questionable.

'Misleading' ads: Are our celebrities and public figures acting responsibly?

By Deepika* It is imperative for celebrities and public figures to act responsibly while endorsing a consumer product, the Supreme Court said as it recently clamped down on misleading advertisements.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah* The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual.

Magnetic, stunning, Protima Bedi 'exposed' malice of sexual repression in society

By Harsh Thakor* Protima Bedi was born to a baniya businessman and a Bengali mother as Protima Gupta in Delhi in 1949. Her father was a small-time trader, who was thrown out of his family for marrying a dark Bengali women. The theme of her early life was to rebel against traditional bondage. It was extraordinary how Protima underwent a metamorphosis from a conventional convent-educated girl into a freak. On October 12th was her 75th birthday; earlier this year, on August 18th it was her 25th death anniversary.

Palm oil industry deceptively using geenwashing to market products

By Athena* Corporate hypocrisy is a masterclass in manipulation that mostly remains undetected by consumers and citizens. Companies often boast about their environmental and social responsibilities. Yet their actions betray these promises, creating a chasm between their public image and the grim on-the-ground reality. This duplicity and severely erodes public trust and undermines the strong foundations of our society.

No compensation to family, reluctance to file FIR: Manual scavengers' death

By Arun Khote, Sanjeev Kumar* Recently, there have been four instances of horrifying deaths of sewer/septic tank workers in Uttar Pradesh. On 2 May, 2024, Shobran Yadav, 56, and his son Sushil Yadav, 28, died from suffocation while cleaning a sewer line in Lucknow’s Wazirganj area. In another incident on 3 May 2024, two workers Nooni Mandal, 36 and Kokan Mandal aka Tapan Mandal, 40 were killed while cleaning the septic tank in a house in Noida, Sector 26. The two workers were residents of Malda district of West Bengal and lived in the slum area of Noida Sector 9.

'Fake encounter': 12 Adivasis killed being dubbed Maoists, says FACAM

Counterview Desk The civil rights network* Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization (FACAM), even as condemn what it has called "fake encounter" of 12 Adivasi villagers in Gangaloor, has taken strong exception to they being presented by the authorities as Maoists.

India 'not keen' on legally binding global treaty to reduce plastic production

By Rajiv Shah Even as offering lip-service to the United Nations Environment Agency (UNEA) for the need to curb plastic production, the Government of India appears reluctant in reducing the production of plastic. A senior participant at the UNEP’s fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4), which took place in Ottawa in April last week, told a plastics pollution seminar that India, along with China and Russia, did not want any legally binding agreement for curbing plastic pollution.

Mired in controversy, India's polio jab programme 'led to suffering, misery'

By Vratesh Srivastava* Following the 1988 World Health Assembly declaration to eradicate polio by the year 2000, to which India was a signatory, India ran intensive pulse polio immunization campaigns since 1995. After 19 years, in 2014, polio was declared officially eradicated in India. India was formally acknowledged by WHO as being free of polio.

Counterview

Search This Blog