Date: 15th October, 2009

Friends,

We had a successful dharna in Delhi on 23-24th July by NAPM, NFFPFW and many other people’s movements opposing the sinister designs of the UPA government to ignore the voices of the people and bring in the LAA (Amendment) and R&R Bill in last session of the Parliament.

The Bills could not be tabled because of the differences within the UPA and strong objections from the Trinamool Congress, even though their objections didn’t reflect our all the core concerns we still welcome their role as a responsible political party. Our struggles since then have not stopped and we have been raising our voices against these two Bills at various forums and also resisting any attempt at forcible land grab.

The recent news reports suggest that the UPA Government is going to be bringing in the legislations in their current form in the Winter Session and that is completely unacceptable to us. We have resisted this design for long and will continue to push for our demands even now which includes :

Bring back the NAC Draft in public debate and let that be the basis for a comprehensive Act and repeal the Land Acquisition Act.
Demand establishment of a Joint parliamentary Committee (JPC) Committee since matters in these two Bills deal with various Ministries (Rural Development, Urban Development, Environment and Forest, Industry and Commerce, Tribal Affairs, Social Justice and Empowerment, Panchayati Raj and Agriculture Ministries).
The Budget Session is likely to start in third week of November but meanwhile it is important that we keep the pressure on our MPs, reach out the information to media and continue to struggle and resist any attempt at land, water and forest grabs by the government and private corporations in the name of ‘public’ interest. In this context it is urged that we all in coming days try and do the following in our areas :
BURN or DROWN the copies of the Bills in public, either in front of the Collectorate, Vidhan Sabha or prominent locations in your locality between October 27-30 and submit memorandums to State authorities, area MPs (Member of Parliaments) and important leaders of political parties in the state and region.
Organise public protests, demonstrations, meetings, cycle rallies, strike work or any other form of public programme to draw attention to the problem of displacement and the weak nature of these two legislations which UPA is claiming it’s to be flagship legislation and rehabilitating millions of displaced. Let us reject any such myth being propagated by the government through advertisements in Radio Newspapers.
Reach out to Media and inform them of the problems with the proposed Bills and our demands.
Send letters to Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, C P Joshi, L K Advani and Mamata Banerjee, Prakash Karat, D Raja and other party leaders raising our objections on these two Bills.
As decided during the Delhi dharna we would like to inform that two days prior to beginning of the Winter Session we will have a big gathering in Kanjhawala, one of the remaining villages in Delhi and site of farmers struggle against displacement. On the day two, we will MARCH to the central Delhi and have a hall meeting and on third day have a large dharna on the opening day of the Parliament at Jantar Mantar. The exact dates for the action is yet to be confirmed but do start preparing and mobilising we will reach out the information the moment we get the dates of Parliament winter session, most likely in the third week of November.

Please do inform us of the actions in your regions, in Delhi we will start meeting MPs, Ministers, media and also publish the critiques of the 2009 draft of the Bills for wider circulation and dissemination. We have sent you before various related documents but do let us know if you want us to send it again.

Zindabad

Medha Patkar, Ashok Chowdhury, Anand Mazgaonkar, Rajendra Ravi, Gautam Bandopadhyay, Bhupinder Rawat and Madhuresh Kumar