Lack of democratic rights doesn't mean all's well in Gujarat: Farmers' local protests are being suppressed

By Sagar Rabari*

At present farmers in Gujarat are resisting issues they are facing at local level, because they are not allowed to come out and speak. Police raj prevails in Gujarat. They are being denied permission for any type of protest, and this is true for all types organizations. The only organization which is an exception to the rule is the RSS.
Ever since Sanand farmers were lathi charged for demanding irrigation facilities, it has become a norm in Gujarat to explode teargas shells and lathi charge farmers as and when they raise their voice. One wonders if they are sought to be punished for not voting for the BJP during the December 2017 assembly elections, or this type of attitude is borne out of the corporate leaning of the government, inspiring it to manage government formation in one state after another.
Already, farmers of 12 villages in Ghogha have been resisting corporate interests for the last one month, protecting their just rights given to them under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement or LARR Act, 2013. The state government is determined to protect the interests of the Gujarat Power Corporation Limited (GPCL) instead of protecting farmers’ just rights. Cases have been filed against farmers’ leaders; they have been detained many a time and arrested for organizing peaceful protest marches. Even children and women have not been spared.
Farmers on the route of the proposed bullet train are resisting efforts of the government to forcibly acquire land from Ahmedabad in Gujarat to Thane in Maharashtra. Laws are violated or amended to meet the whims of a person without caring to look into people’s requirements. Even Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) guidelines are not being followed in letter and spirit. Consultations required under the law are organized in a hurry.
Farmers are not being allowed to organize any protest rally on the bullet train route . A couple of days back, in Surat, farmers' leaders were illegally detained by police even before any consultation could begin. Ironically,they were invited for the public consultation through public notice and advertisement in newspapers.
Things are no different in other parts of Gujarat. Sitting on dharna, villagers are protesting at the deputy collector's office in Rajula, Amreli district, against illegal encroachment of village land by a company. It is a shame that, to get back the village land from the company, people should organize a sit-in protest.
It is an irony that the government is doing all this to protect investors and foreign dignitaries, taking the help of police to detain farmers’ leaders. This happened even ahead of Vibrant Gujarat Business Summits.
It is unfortunate that people in India still do not know what is going on in Gujarat. They just assume that farmers in Gujarat are unhappy. But the reality is very different. Just as the rest of India, farmers in Gujarat too are debt ridden, are not getting remunerative prices, and they are not given irrigation water. However, there is a difference: In Gujarat farmers are not allowed to speak, their right to protest is strictly banned. Sometimes farmers in Gujarat wonder if they live in a democratic setup.
---
*Secretary, Khedut Samaj (Gujarat)

Comments

Hindus to be 'sent' to Kashmir? Despite Israeli settlements, peace eludes the region

By Anand K Sahay*
Curfew, news and communications blackout, transportation shut-down... News reports from Kashmir are worrying. So are the views relayed through the media, especially television. Old-fashioned repression seems to be consorting comfortably with expressions of concern “for our Kashmiri brethren”. We are looking at Orwell’s 1984 in the making.

Dholera 'inundated': Gujarat govt tries selling low lying area as top smart city site

Counterview Desk
Even as the Dholera Special Investment Region Regional Development Authority (DSIRDA) of the Gujarat government was busy organising a junket for Gujarat-based journalists for the area sought to be sold as an ideal special investment region (SIR) for industrialists, well-known farmers' activist Sagar Rabari has wondered why no investor has so far agreed to put in money in an area situated in Ahmedabad district along the Gulf of Khambhat.

Congress' anti-democratic laws led to Modi govt's 'Constitutional' changes: Scholars

Counterview Desk
A large number of academics* said to be belonging to several Indian and international institutions, even as taking strong exception to the Narendra Modi government's alleged move to amend the Constitution through "illegitimate" means, have taken strong exception to their colleagues in academia who we have become "all too accustomed to adopting a calculated silence in the face of such indignities."

Savarkar 'opposed' Bhagat Singh's, Netaji's dream of India, supported British war efforts

By Shamsul Islam*
In a shocking development, the student wing of the RSS put the busts of martyrs Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose with Savarkar's on one pedestal at the University of Delhi late in the night on August 20, 2019. Bhagat Singh sacrificed his life for a socialist-democratic-secular republic and Netaji raised Azad Hind Fauj (INA) consisting of people of all religions and regions for armed liberation of India.

UN experts object to GoI move to 'reinforce' trend of prosecution, eviction of tribals

Counterview Desk
In a report sent to the Government of India, three United Nations (UN) special rapporteurs, expressing "concerns" over the failure to ensure "adequate" implementation of the India Forest Rights Act (FRA), have regretted that the Government of India has not cared to reply their previous communications on this.

Modi's Gujarati mind? Why govt move to 'sell-off' defence PSUs isn't in national interest

By Sandeep Pandey*
The Standing Committee on Defence, 2017-18, of the 16th Lok Sabha highlights the idea of Buy Indian-IDDM (Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured). The Committee expressed concern over the import content of equipments produced and developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Ordnance Factories (OFs) and defence Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) because of the dependence it creates for military hardware on foreign suppliers.

Can't go to court with RTI information, rule Ahmedabad authorities: Kankaria accident

By Pankti Jog*
In a shocking reply to an application filed by me, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) authorities have said that the information provided under the Right to Information (RT) Act should be used in court or in a judicial process. The Act is known to be a major tool that enables citizens to seek certified copies of documents, records from any public authority of state and Central government within 30 days, as per provisions of the Act.

RTI Act holy cow for Govt of India? Official insists, don't ask why, when, what, where

By Pankti Jog*
The Government of India appears to have begun treating the Right to Information (RTI) Act as a holy cow. Its officials seem to believe that the Act is a sacred law, under which people shouldn't be questioning its functioning. One recalls what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while addressing an RTI convention in 2015: “Why should government wait for people to ask information, we will have all information out in the domain, we have nothing to hide."

Central Gujarat effluent channel 'releasing' highly polluted industrial wastewater: PM told

Counterview Desk
Senior environmentalists of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), Vadodara, Rohit Prajapati and Krishnakant, in an open letter to the Prime Minister, the Gujarat chief minister, the Gujarat chief secretary, and senior Government of India and Gujarat government officials dealing with environment, pollution and climate change have said that the authorities’ response their pleas to take action against the leakages and flow of polluted wastewater from the effluent channels of Central Gujarat industrial areas has met with complete inertia.

As submergence stares Narmada valley, Patkar says: With powerful in throne, we're helpless

Counterview Desk
Well-known anti-dam organization, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), plans to begin its “Resist Illegal Submergence in Narmada Valley” satyagraha on August 21 at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, amidst news that the situation in the valley is “critical”, with two persons having already died in flood-related incidents in the upstream of the Sardar Sarovar dam.

Counterview

Search This Blog