Gujarat govt plan to 'banish' Gandhian activist anti-democratic, unconstitutional

Lakhan Musafir addressing tribals

By Rohit Prajapati*
The current Central and Gujarat governments, and their bureaucracy, have been and are still unable to answer and address the concerns raised, with facts, figures, and constitutional provisions, regarding the terror of tourism in the name of the Statue of Unity and tourism projects surrounding it.
Their inability to address such long-pending, on-going piling up of the issues regarding right to life, livelihood and survival of the tribal population of the area, are reflected in the form of Section 144, house arrests, detentions, intimidations, undeclared curfews, and beyond.
To top all this, the unconstitutional Statue of Unity Area Development and Tourism Governance Act, 2019, is being implemented with full force.
In spite of all the stated actions by the local people and concerned members of civil society, the Central and state governments of the day, and their bureaucracy, are unable to address the long-pending livelihood, constitutional issues and have now decided to banish activist Lakhan Musafir for two years from Narmada, Bharuch, Vadodara, Chhota Udepur and Tapi districts.
On March 2, 2020, KD Bhagat, sub-divisional magistrate, Rajpipla, Gujarat, issued a notice under section 56(A), Gujarat Police Act 1951, through the police sub-inspector, Kevadia, on March 8, 2020, when Lakhan Musafir was standing near the road at Kevadia, waiting for public transport.
The notice mentioned some documents as annexures, but he was not served with copies of those documents along with the notice. Alarmingly, the notice has false accusations and untruthful statements.

A land rights activist, Lakhan Musafir works for empowerment of tribals, even as promoting organic farming and bio-gas plants

Banishment is an action of the state, which clearly indicates the defenceless and repressive state of the governments of the day that do not have any answers to the fundamental Constitutional questions raised by the tribal population of the area.
It is a clear indication that the governments of the day are not able to defend their unconstitutional actions before the people of India and its world tourists in any legitimate way. It exposes the complete inability to defend its on-going illegal and boldly unconstitutional actions. The chosen action by the governments reflects their frustration and desperation to prevent people from raising their issues in legitimate ways permitted under the law of the land.

Lakhan Musafir (extreme left) with his supporters

It is an open secret that the governments have either deliberately chosen to not accept people’s legitimate concerns or have failed to do so. Instead of lamenting the fact that no local people are willing to file a complaint against Lakhan Musafir or blaming him for his actions, the governments should introspect and realise that local people don’t consider him as anti-social or a menace to society, as government machinery so conveniently believes and asserts.
Lakhan Musafir is an activist who has dedicated his life for the empowerment of the downtrodden people by helping them with organic farming, bio-gas plants, education, and particularly for the rights of the tribal families affected by Garudeshwar Weir and tourism projects in the name of the Statue of Unity.
Practicing Gandhian philosophy in day-to-day life and living a very simple life with tribals for the last many years, instead of accepting the unbelievable accusations against Lakhan Musafir, people and media need to engage with collective questioning, sustained resistance, and demand for the application of Constitutional rights and rule of the law in letter and spirit.
It is time to for people to wake up and take concerted and legitimate actions to stop this flimsily built case against a self-less person that Lakhan Musafir is. He a resident of Gujarat and citizen of India.
---
*Activist, researcher and writer. Also see Law 'governing' world's tallest Statue of Unity refers to local tribals as occupiers

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Bihar’s land at ₹1 per acre for Adani sparks outrage, NAPM calls it crony capitalism

By A Representative The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has strongly condemned the Bihar government’s decision to lease 1,050 acres of land in Pirpainti, Bhagalpur district, to Adani Power for a 2,400 MW coal-based thermal power project.

Sardar Patel was on Nathuram Godse's hit list: Noted Marathi writer Sadanand More

Sadanand More (right) By A Representative In a surprise revelation, well-known Gujarati journalist Hari Desai has claimed that Nathuram Godse did not just kill Mahatma Gandhi, but also intended to kill Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Citing a voluminous book authored by Sadanand More, “Lokmanya to Mahatma”, Volume II, translated from Marathi into English last year, Desai says, nowadays, there is a lot of talk about conspiracy to kill Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, but little is known about how the Sardar was also targeted.

Counterview

Search This Blog