Shine India Shine

Let Delhi be Paris and Mumbai be Shanghai and all the slums be swept under the carpet of India’s historical existence. Firangis will tour the Great Indian Slums with signs hanging on their cages, “Please don’t feed the animals. Please don’t pluck the muck.” Here all the poor of our super-rich country will be clustered into a heap; as the spit that makes a shoe shine; relocated from all over the country; from the Narmadas, the Tehris, the Kalahandis; take them away and group them such that we can make profit from their suffering.

On April 29, 2006, the ‘Pol Khol Yatra’, or Reveal the Truth campaign, returned from their 4-day fact-finding mission of the real state of affairs of promised rehabilitation by the government in the areas affected by the Sardar Sarovar Dam project. This is a continuation of their ‘rally against displacement and anti-people policies of the Government of India organised by the Narmada Bachao Andolan. “The aim of the visit was for people to see for themselves the ground reality and real conditions regarding resettlement of adivasis, non-adivasis, farmers, fishermen, and lakhs of people in the dam-affected areas,” says Sagari Chhabra, a film-maker who went of the mission and make a documentary of their findings.

Read my article in Tehelka to know what they are.

How many Narmadas will it take for the government to finally complete their laborious task of herding this poor of our shining nation in a heap of smelly discard. The people are still fighting, the media is still shouting, but is our Sarkar listening?