Protests

Vishakhapatnam Rally & Public Meeting on February 29, 2016

Resist and Defeat Destruction in the name of Development!

Fight for People centric Development!

Fellow people of the country,

The policies being pursued by Central and State Govts. are destroying lives and livelihoods of the people of the country. They are unleashing death, devastation and destruction on the vast masses. Their policies are destroying crop lands, green forests, sea coast and river banks and are poisoning land and water. They are destroying agriculture, fishing and other livelihoods of the people. Their policies are an unmitigated disaster for the people of the country, including broad sections of the peasantry including tribals, workers, fisherfolk, slum dwellers and other toiling sections. Their neoliberal model of ‘development’ is only meant to benefit foreign and domestic corporate and their lackeys while it is a model of devastation and destruction for the common people inhabiting the length and breadth of the country. Their policies are endangering food security, environment and conditions of lives for the vast multitude.

Modi led RSS-BJP Central Govt. and State Govts. including Naidu led TDP Govt. of AP, Naveen Patnaik led BJD Govt. of Odisha and KCR led TRS Govt. in Telengana are all following a development model based on displacing large sections of peasantry and landless people including tribals from villages, from the countryside, fisherfolk from the sea coast and basti dwellers from urban areas. These govts. are working for handing over vast mineral resources of the country to the foreign and domestic corporate, are working to help landgrabbers and construction Mafia. They wish to deepen the exploitation of the country and its people, its natural resources and cheap labour power.

Their imperialist dependent model of development has brought untold miseries and suffering on the people. People are losing their old world without gaining a new, they are being deprived of their means of life without being offered anything better, they are being robbed and plundered. Conditions of life of the vast majority are miserable and are further declining.

Ruling classes, for their so-called development, have displaced nearly 60 million people of the country. Over 40% of them are tribals i.e. nearly 2 crore and 40 lakhs, 20% of them dalits i.e. 1 crore and 20 lakhs and 20% of them fisherfolk i.e. nearly 1 crore and 20 lakhs. Such a vast number of oppressed sections have been deprived of their means of livelihood, forced to migrate for mere survival working as most exploited casual or contract labour, their women and girls as housemaids, or simply as homeless vagrants in mega cities. In urban areas, poor basti dwellers are being driven away from their shelter for beautification and green cities. In forest areas, tribals are being driven away from their podu lands in the name of increasing green cover and their lands usurped for open cast mining.

Corporate vultures are eying the vast mineral resources of the country-bauxite, zinc, magnese, iron, beach sand mining etc. For this, the Govt. is signing MoUs with foreign companies and conspiring to displace even more people, predominantly tribals.

Modi Govt.’s “Make in India” is an invitation to MNCs to take advantage of our natural resources and cheap labour. Central Govt., in the last year’s budget, announced five industrial corridors in the country- Mumbai-Delhi Industrial Corridor, Mumbai-Bengalaru Economic Corridor, Chennai-Bengalaru Industrial Corridor, Vizag-Chennai Industrial Corridor and Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor. These are in addition to the Coastal Corridor on the Eastern Coast. As a part of these a number of ports are to be developed, power plants are to be set up both coal based and atomic, chemical plants and gas storage depots are being built, mining and urbanization are to be taken up. These will devastate not only the vast countryside and tribal inhabitations, but also the vast sea coast (India has 7517 km. sea coast). These will prove to be environmental disasters, pollute the atmosphere and poison the soil and water. There have already been accidents involving gas leaks from the storage depots. With western markets in depression and domestic market not being developed, these enterprises would only mean increasing mineral extractions and real estate expansion. These would bring no advantage to the Indian people. In fact the ruling classes are selling not only the present but even the future of the country and its people.

To facilitate these projects on the eastern coast, Polavarum project is being built to supply water to MNCs and Indian corporate. This project would displace more than three lakh people, half of them tribals, from Telengana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Chhatisgarh. To facilitate this project, Central Govt. has transferred areas of submergence from Telengana. They are building this in earthquake prone area endangering lives of large number of people.

Central Govt. is also planning to transfer water from Mahanadi in Odisha to Godavari, which will devastate the whole region. Vansdhara and Nagabali rivers originating from Niyamgiri hills are also affected threatening livelihood of large number of people in South Odisha and North Andhra.

Building projects as part of coastal corridor would lead to environmental catastrophe. Indian Govt. is embarking on dangerous atomic power plants which are being shut down elsewhere in the world. Effects of coal ashes and effusions cause a lot of environmental degradation. These projects would also lead to devastation of the sea coast which increases the risks of greater destruction from natural calamities.

Dear people, all these projects are not for development which would benefit the people of the country. These are part of the offensive of the finance capital of imperialist countries to increase the exploitation of the people of countries like India; part of their imperialist globalization where entire resources of the globe are to enrich MNCs from the imperialist countries and their compradors in countries like India. These projects would increase food insecurity, destitution of the vast masses. They would seize from the people and from generations hereafter, the land they till, the purity of air and water they consume, the riches the sea offers for sustenance and give not better lives but impoverishment and displacement.

Central Govt. is bent on pursuing this disastrous course. In order to acquire the land for these projects it tried to change the 2013 Land Acquisition Act. This Act embodied changes from the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894 to provide for consent of the displaced people and social impact assessment though it too did not rule out forcible displacement. These changes were forced by the struggles of the people against displacement braving brutal repression and offering supreme sacrifices. In these struggles women stood shoulder to shoulder with men. People of Kalinganagar, Niyamgiri, Jagatsinghpur, Kashipur, Singur, Nandigram, Gangavaram, Kakrapally, Sompeta, Raigarh, Dadri, Karchana and scores of other places gave their lives to force these changes. Modi Govt. sought to undo this. But the peasant masses foiled these nefarious designs of Modi Govt. and it had to allow lapse of its Ordinance.

Central Govt. and State Govts. have launched brutal repression on the people resisting takeover of their land and livelihood. They have launched Operation Green Hunt in tribal areas to suppress the struggle of tribals and have fired upon the peasants resisting displacement, have arbitrarily arrested and foisted false cases against the activists. They have restricted people’s right to protest putting increasing obstacles in the path of their protests.

Ruling classes particularly Modi led RSS-BJP Govt. are sowing communal poison to disrupt the unity of the people and lead them astray. Ruling class parties are fanning different forms of parochialism to pit one section of people against the other to divert attention from their anti-people rule. They divert youth by wide accessibility of liquor, drugs and regressive culture.

Dear people, you have repeatedly and heroically risen against the anti-national and anti-people policies of the Govts. You have not shied away from any hardship or sacrifice to secure the present and future of the people and the country. You alone can prevent the ruling classes and Govt. from mortgaging the country and the people and their future. You alone can beat back this offensive of the Govts. and advance towards a development model for the people that would be free from exploitation by the imperialist countries and oppression by domestic reactionary classes.

Let us fight for provision of homes, food, health, education, clean surroundings, clothing and recreation for all citizens. Land should be given to the tiller, agricultural supplements and instruments should be provided at cheap rates and adequate support prices for their produce. Agribased industries like jute, textile, coconut, sugarcane and cashewnut should be revived and supported along with fisheries. Cold storages should be built for agriproducts. Fight for in situ development for slum dwellers.

To highlight the grave dangers of the policies of the Central and State Govts. and to develop people’s struggle against them, CPI(ML)-New Democracy is holding a Rally in Vishakhapatnam on February 29, 2016 (Monday) from Railway Station which will culminate in a public meeting at old Central Jail opposite Govt. Women’s College.

CPI(ML)-New Democracy appeals to the people to join the rally and public meeting in large number. We also appeal to the people to support this programme in all possible ways.

Central Committee

CPI(ML)-New Democracy