Author: News
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 10, 2006
A day after losing the legal battle to stop
the construction work of Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), the Narmada Bachao
Andolan on Tuesday gave a call for a "fight to finish" and launched
a vicious campaign against the Supreme Court, the Union Government and the
media."
Displaying complete disregard for the judiciary,
NBA leader Medha Patkar staged a demonstration outside the Supreme Court where
her supporters raised noisy slogans against the court's verdict. The NBA leader
was also joined by other rent-a-cause activists and NGOs opposing the construction
of the SSP without addressing the issue of rehabilitation of the displaced
persons.
Incidentally, when the apex court in October
2000 had rejected the NBA's plea to stop SSP work, Ms Patkar had similarly
condemned the court. Not just that, the NBA had also buried the copy of the
Supreme Court judgement in front of the Badwani district court on October
23, 2000 and raised a plank at the site with inscription: `Grave of Justice'.
In a press release on Tuesday, the NBA expressed
"disappointment, shock and loss of faith" in the court, and also
criticised the judiciary for "a host of anti-people and anti-poor judgements
ranging from order for demolition of slums to eviction of hawkers." It
was obvious that Patkar was trying to project her anti-dam movement as the
larger cause of the poor.
An agency report quoted Patkar as also slamming
some media organisations for being "puppets in the hands of industrialists"
and publishing news reports "without verifying facts".
Taking on the court, the statement signed
by Patkar and two others said, "even though the judgement is against
truth and against us....we will continue to fight for justice, irrespective
of what the Supreme Court decided."
In a separate press release, Patkar went so
far as to attach a motive to the court's verdict saying, "Supreme Court
violates its own former orders in favour of petty politics."
"The court's verdict is against the rights
of the oustees who are protected by Article 21 of the Constitution. The verdict
shows an anti-poor perspective. Development will now have not only an inhuman
but also a brutal face and force," the NBA said.
"The Supreme Court has hidden behind
an unbelievable reason - disputed facts - to postpone the decision on the
raising of the dam height while ignoring the 'undisputed' facts presented
by all the parties including the Governments on incomplete rehabilitation.
It has also bypassed its own 'unchallenged verdicts'. When it became clear
to every committee that visited the Valley before - World Bank's, Union of
India's to that of Members of Parliament - that injustice was being imposed,
and records and reports were flawed, the Court couldn't and didn't take the
responsible task of investigation into the jumbling of not figures, but of
families in thousands, nor a timely conclusion," Patkar said.
"The UPA Government has decided and conveyed
to the country that in this globalised, liberalised era, development decisions
will be made by the multinationals to the corporate interests with political
distortion of the truth, all of which is obviously dominant in Sardar Sarovar
and not mass-rooted democracy or the scientific or rational analysis of social,
environmental and economic conditions," Ms Patkar said.
Alleging nexus between the Centre and the
Guajrat Government, the NBA said, "the UPA Government has proved to be
in alliance by favouring Modi's violent ways and means to development, and
not Gandhi's 'Antyodaya'."
