Buoyed by the success of the People’s Assembly organised by the National Alliance for People’s Movements (NAPM) here, social activist Medha Patkar said the people’s movement in the State will move into action mode from next month, starting with the anniversary of the Chengara land struggle on August 4 and to include a Western Ghats Yatra demanding the implementation of the Madhav Gadgil report.
Addressing a press conference here after the assembly, Ms. Patkar said it (the assembly) saw the NAPM in Kerala, which had asserted its commitment to fight corruption, communalism, and criminalisation in politics, deciding to conduct issue-based special people’s assemblies in every district from now on.
These would include meetings of the NAPM’s supporters at Chengara on August 4 on the anniversary of the land struggle there, then moving on to support the ongoing Endosulfan struggle, and from August 9, the Plachimada struggle as well.
Agitations to protect rights of the coastal people and the fishing communities and the tribespeople in Wayanad would also be organised alongside these.
Over a hundred resolutions on various people’s struggles from across the State that were moved during the two-day Assembly, a summarised version of which would be submitted to the Chief Minister, the Leader of Opposition, Ministers, and legislators shortly. If the government failed to respond to these demands, people’s organisations in the State would come together under the NAPM State wing in Thiruvananthapuram in September and challenge the government.
Western Ghats Yatra
“That will not be just a warning action,” she said, adding that plans were on to organise a Western Ghats Yatra, demanding the implementation of the Madhav Gadgil report.
Some of the resolutions that were passed in the People’s Assembly included demands to the Legislative Assembly and the government to implement the Madhav Gadgil report; take over all plantations in Munnar on which lease-periods had expired; shut down all resorts in Munnar and protect the three rivers that flowed through the hill station; prevent projects by reclamation of paddy fields; hand over land to Adivasis and for projects intended for Adivasis to be implemented transparently by Ooru Vikasana Samithis; prevent gas pipelines from passing through inhabited areas; stop mineral sand-mining; conduct a cost-benefit analysis of projects such as Vallarpadam and Nedumbassery with focus on how many of the displaced had actually got the promised jobs; prevent takeover of the Kochi port by the Dubai Port authority; stop the Aranmula airport project; stop the Koodankulam power project; curb movement of foreign trawlers and ships on the Kerala coast; restrict the number of houseboats on the Alappuzha backwaters and prevent ‘capitalist tourism’ in Bekal; and revamp the State Pollution Control Board.
