APWLD condemns killing of Nandigram villagers by the West Bengal government, India

To  
Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister, Government of India
Shri. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, President of India
Shri. Buddhadev Bhattacharya, Chief Minister of West Bengal
 

This is a plea for urgent government action to protect the lives and livelihoods of approximately 300,000 villagers in Nandigram and give effect to their constitutionally protected rights.

The APWLD is a regional women’s human rights organisation with its membership of more than 150 human rights organisations located in the Asia Pacific region, including the Society for Rural, Education and Development based in Tamil Nadu. APLWD is raising these concerns with and on behalf of its members through out the Asia Pacific region.

The APWLD calls upon India - the world’s largest democracy with its most progressive constitution to recognise and protect basic human rights and put an end to the killings, destruction and threat to human lives, and to property in the Nandigram. The violent government-led reaction to repress protest and local movement by the Nandigram peasants with such force and intent to end lives is uncalled for. It is beyond humanity and reason that the forceful expropriation of lands will only further impoverish these peasants whilst enriching a foreign multinational commercial institution with profits.

India must uphold the pillars of democracy and basic principles of humanity as stipulated in the Indian Constitution.

The land that is about to be expropriated by the CPM government is a fertile land on which many peasants depend their lives on. The peasants and villagers are protesting against the government’s plans to expropriate the farmland for the development and construction of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ). It is their fundamental constitutional right to protest against the expropriation. The forceful taking away of life of the protestors is an outright crime. Likewise, the freedom of speech and expression, a fundamental right, guaranteed in the constitution is being violated.

Reporters from various media are forced to tone down with their coverage of the reality of the incidence by the CPM government. Furthermore, two reporters, as of now, have gone missing. This is an epitomized case of state violence against its people, particularly the marginalized ones, violating their human rights proclaimed in the following articles of the constitution: Art 21- protection of life and personal liberty, Art 43- on living wage, and Art. 19- on the freedom of speech and expression.

What has happened in the Nadigram is outright disgraceful and appalling. It is also a blatant disregard of the government’s own undertaking that it would not acquire land from the people of Nandigram if they were not willing to acquiesce their rights and concede to government demands. These are poor peasants, unskilled and totally dependant upon the land which they toil for their sustenance. Seemingly, the government would rather promote the interest of a commercial conglomerate- an Indonesian based Salim Group, to establish its US$ 4,2 billion worth Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in West Bengal than the livelihoods of the Nandigram peasants.

What is more ironic is that the state machinery of CPM and government representatives ordered the massacre of the poor peasants and villagers who were in defence of their farm lands, and that the West Bengal’s Communist government, in contrary to its party principles and agenda, murdered its own people for the implementation of the government policies on the development of SEZ.

In solidarity with the farmers who are in defence of their rights, women who faced sexual violence in their resistance, and whose husbands were killed on the 14th March, the Women and Environment and Rural and Indigenous Women Task Forces of APWLD condemn the West Bengal government.  The two task forces call on the Indian government the following: 

Women and Environment Task Force
Rural and Indigenous Task Force
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development