'Emergency' Day - June 26, 2008

People's Declaration of Emergency and Pledge to Counter

We on behalf of Sanghrash, NAPM and other organisations invite you to join
people's declaration of Emergency in Mumbai,

on 26th June between 12 p.m to 5.30 p.m at August Kranti Maidan ( near Grant Road station).

Special Guests & Speakers: Mrinal Gore, G.G. Pareikh, Tushar Gandhi, Prabhash Joshi, Justice (Retd.) Suresh H., Surekha Dalvi, Jhelam Paranjpe, Medha Patkar and others.

Dear friends

India, today is at the crossroads, for a multitude of reasons. While on the one hand the city lines are gleaming with glossy malls, plush high rises, immaculate roads, flyovers and other 'structures of growth', a vast majority of the rest of the nation, presents a grim reality, which the State planners and policymakers would love to brush under the carpet. From the continuing spate of rather frequently reported suicides of farmers and weavers, and equally poignant albeit less reported suicides of thousands of others practicing traditional livelihoods, to persistent starvation and malnourishment in urban and rural pockets, continuing atrocities against women, dalits, adivasis, fisher folk, hawkers, and other marginalized groups in the name of SEZs, large dams, and other infrastructure projects (read 'development'), continued deprivation and neglect of 93% of the country's toiling work force to the plummeting state expenditure on crucial human rights concerns like education, health, agriculture and food security, among others on the one hand and the rocketing inflation, which is hitting the poor hardest, the State in every which way seems to be disowning its most fundamental constitutional mandate and instead paving way for corporatization and privatization of all essential services. The State is infact actively abetting, now even blatantly through the legal framework, the plunder of natural and human resources, stamping away the rights of communities, coupled with scheming exploitation of already limited state investments in irrigation, water and allied sectors, not to mention the countless incentives doled out to big business houses and branding anyone who questions this unconstitutional paradigm of 'development' in a confrontationist way as 'maoists, naxalites and so on....

We, the people, are particularly concerned about the increasing legitimization of this skewed and distorted form of technocratic and capitalist development from all quarters of the State, which is further passed off as India – Shining, glowing, glittering by political manipulators the media megaphones.

We are living in a 'police state' today where human rights defenders, artists, and those fighting for the justice have to bear the brunt of state's oppression. The laws like AFSPA, CSPSA, NSA etc. continue to harass and terrorise its own citizens all across India including J&K and North East.

The Legislature enacts nothing short of draconian legislations like the SEZ Act, proposes blatant changes in the CMZ Rules, introduces the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, which distorts the definition of public purpose, excelling even the British lawmakers and anti-people policies like JNNURM and scores of other policy and legal initiatives in various states to please corporates at the cost of the people. Submissive to the global powers and allowing the vision to investment, the self-reliance to sovereignty is compromised and loot is permitted.

The Executive, as always is over-zealous in the execution of these policies and further indulges in non-transparent exercises of bringing in questionable Government Orders, Policies, Rules and Regulations and special amendments in the garb of 'delegated legislation'. Failure of global markets and paradigm in providing employment, of protecting masses from terrorism, preventing price rise stands exposed.

The Judiciary has also, in many cases, chosen to be blinded by the vision of 'development', be it in the Narmada case, or in the recent order in the Vedanta Case, or many other cases. The lives and cultures of dalit, adivasis and other marginalised communities have and are being staked in the process of monolithic vision of technocratic development. It has also failed to defend the fundamental rights of its citizens when the State is impinging on them with impunity in name of fighting terrorism and naxalism and continues to use draconian laws in the name of security.

Key to be noted also is the manner in which one set of legislations are sought to be brought in and favoured by bypassing, neglecting, and violating another set of legislations and constitutional guarantees. In the latter line fall the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, the Forest Rights Act, the V Schedule to the Constitution the CRZ and EIA Notifications, the Environment Protection Act, related legislations and most important of all, the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments. Central to all of these is probably the willful slackness of India Private Limited in that. Despite decades of these historical parliamentary interventions to further democratise governance, the State has chosen not to enact a law that would actualise the constitutional-democratic-decentralised governance by people themselves whether in urban or rural areas.

Nandigram to Narmada to Nandgudi, Kakinada to Kevadia to Kushinagar, Polepally to Plachimada to Posco, the struggle, issues and repression is the same, in a strange way bringing together and binding the victims of development in a common voice against this unconstitutional, undemocratic and inhuman process of limited growth just as the pre-independence era saw the unison of varied forces with the common agenda of deliverance. But the movement's politics, beyond electoral politics needs to be asserted towards the goal of 'people's power' that can bring in true democracy and development, both. It is this demand for a comprehensive Development Planning Act that we, the people's movements, put forth as the real pro-people alternative to the current pro-rich, pro-corporate paradigm of development and it is the passion for the realisation of this which brings us together in solidarity to continue our struggle for a just, sustainable and humane society and development.

DATE: 26th June

Time : 12 p.m. to 5.30p.m,

Venue: August Kranti Maidan near Grant Road

Contact: 9969530060, 9969363065

We cordially invite you to join the action and share your experiences of fight during emergency and to call upon people to collectivelly fight the new kind of emergency today.

Yours sincerely,

Medha Patkar, Mukta Srivastava, Chandershekar, Simpreet Singh , Mohan Chauhan , Feroze Mithibolwala, Suniti S.R

On behalf of National Alliance of People's Movements, Sang harsh, Awami Bharat , Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, Shahar Vikas Manch , Tata Dharan Grast Sangharsh Samiti (Pune), Sahaydri Bachao Andolan, Ekveera Jamin Bachao Andolan , Dharavi Bet Bachao Andolan, and others