Call to set up alternative political system

The 9th national biennial convention of the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) stressed the need for an alternative democratic political system that raises the dalits, adivasis, minority religious communities, women, and the landless to leadership and decision-making positions.

The community leaders and women, who attended the convention on Sunday, demanded to put an end to the violence-ridden current paradigm of development.

P Chennaiah of Agricultural Workers’ Union (APVUU), Andhra Pradesh, asked, “What right does this state have in ruling us? It took away our resources, our land, water and forests. The Prime Minister has been boasting about our ‘growth’ rates, while our landless peasants, dalits and adivasis are either hunted down by the state and corporations or  forced to commit suicide due to the economic burden and debt caused by inflation and growing cost of life.” The UPA government, as well as the NDA-led opposition, has lost all credibility and right to govern this country, said Chennaiah.

He stressed that the nexus between corporations and the ruling elites was restricting all possibilities of any alternatives to the destructive model of growth and development. “Land rights and agricultural reforms hold the key to successful future alternatives,” he affirmed while stating the need to immediately end absentee-landlordism.

“Today so many of our activists, who should have been with us in this convention are in different jails across the country due to the various false cases filed against them by the police and administration,” Medha Patkar, leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, said while addressing the gathering. Quoting the arrest of Dr Sunilam (Madhya Pradesh) and Dayamani Barla (Jharkhand), she said that increasing state repression is an evidence for the fact that people’s struggles against this development paradigm and land acquisition have become effective.