[1152] in peace2
Re: an urgent situation in West Bengal, India
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sambit Mishra)
Mon Oct 22 18:26:58 2001
Message-ID: <20011022222613.41871.qmail@web12202.mail.yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 15:26:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: Sambit Mishra <mishra_sambit_2001@yahoo.com>
To: Susama agarwala <susama@onebox.com>, peace-list@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <20011022121451.NQCN29220.mta06.onebox.com@onebox.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Why is the CM addressed as honorable? Is he a judge??
Because of traditional indian ways of addressing
corrupt politicians as honorable, we are in this
faulty situation today! Why not address him simply as
Mr. CM??
--- Susama agarwala <susama@onebox.com> wrote:
> To all the lives that have been and will be
> destroyed by the plane crashes,
> rains of fire and biological warfare these past
> weeks, let me first offer
> my sympathies. But in a time when all our eyes are
> turned to the bombs
> being dropped on Kabul, let us not forget that on
> this planet, there
> are still millions of lives being destroyed that the
> news networks will
> not cover. Without diminishing our attentions from
> the U.S./Afghan war,
> I ask that we do not forget the invisible sectors of
> our population:
> the poor, the homeless, the hungry. And while the
> images of starving
> and cripples children in Afghanistan are powerful,
> do not forget those
> in your own hometown, who you can more directly
> help.
> It is in the man eof a group of these invisible
> people that I write you
> today. On September 22, 2001, the government of West
> Bengal, India started
> a large-scale eviction project of the slums along
> the banks of a canal
> (the Tully Nullah) off the River Ganges. To date,
> thousands of people
> have been displaced, and the project is not yet half
> over. These people
> lived in shanties and lean -to’s with tin or tarp
> roofs. The ”canal”
> at their front door is no better than an open sewer.
> They lived as hawkers,
> servants, rickshaw drivers, etc. By most standards,
> they had nothing.
> Now, even that has been taken away. The official
> reason is to build a
> branch of the Metro on top of the sewage -laden
> canal. This in and of
> itself is not a smart idea, even for the middle
> class market it is being
> built for. So in an attempt to remodel Calcutta, we
> have a poorly designed
> Metro branch, and thousands of people displaced
> without rehabilitation.
> All we are asking for is rehabilitation. If the
> government is going to
> take away the homes of people with voter and ration
> cards, and legitimate
> addresses in a country that can boast of being the
> world’s largest democracy,
> they can at least give the voters new places to
> live. It doesn’t take
> much – a few multi story flats on a much smaller
> plot of land will suffice
> to provide homes of similar size to the ones these
> people live in.
> For those of you wondering why this case is more
> important than the many
> that happen all over the world like this on a
> regular basis, I can answer
> in two ways. In terms of human loss, it is the same,
> but one must pick
> a place to start the protest. In terms of future
> implications, if this
> “eviction” succeeds, the government of West Bengal
> plans on using this
> as a model for future evictions all over Calcutta,
> basically sweeping
> the poor from one settlement to another until they
> leave the city, or
> die. Is that any way to raise a family?
> As Indian Citizens or NRI’S, I ask that you take 2
> minutes of your time
> to forward the following letter on to Buddhadeb
> Bhattacharia (prsecycm@wb.nic.in),
> the Chief Minister of West Bengal. Please send this
> entire e-mail to
> other people who may be interested, and sign and
> forward this by the
> end of November 2001. The Indian community abroad
> should know what their
> government is doing at home. Your word holds a lot
> of weight with the
> government here. As, other, concerned citizens of
> this world, your letter
> on this regard will also add pressure. This type of
> tragedy cannot go
> on if the world is watching. If you have more time,
> please, compose a
> letter or your own to send. Thank you for your time,
> and your help in
> spreading the word.
>
> Yours in peace,
> Susama Agarwala
>
> Hon. Buddhadeb Bhattacharia
> Chief Minster
> Calcutta, West Bengal
>
> Dear Sir,
> I am writing you concerning the evictions along the
> Tully Nuallah in
> Kolkata. Thousands of people have been and will be
> forcibly removed from
> their homes in the name of urban development and
> city beautification.
> This is a tragedy. The fact that they are not being
> given another place
> to resettle is an outrage. You claim that these
> people are leaving “voluntarily.”
> Why then was there a need of military and police
> presence at the time
> of evictions? And if these people could leave
> “voluntarily,” why would
> they stay for years in those wretched conditions?
> These evictees were part of your voter base. Your
> government has given
> them ration cards, has taken their taxes, has
> received their vote. And
> now you remove them and tell them to find a
> different place on their
> own? If they had the ability to find a different
> place, would they have
> chosen to stay in the filth and disease found along
> the Tully Nullah’s
> banks? And is this how you treat citizens in the
> world’s largest democracy,
> as the head of a “left wing” government?
> Give the evictees a place to resettle so they may
> send their children
> to school, so they may raise their families, so they
> may retain their
> dignity. What you are doing there is wrong. What you
> are doing there
> cannot be tolerated. What you are doing there must
> be stopped.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Sign here
>
>
>
> --
> Susama agarwala
> susama@onebox.com - email
> (630) 536-2702 x1729 - voicemail/fax
>
>
>
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=====
This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive. ---VIVEKANANDA
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