Via NITYANAND JAYARAMAN
Koodankulam: Curb on Free Speech
Video Interviews with eminent legal scholar Dr. Usha Ramanathan and Adv. R. Vaigai, a senior lawyer from the Madras High Court.
Since March 19, 2012, when Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced that work on the controversial Koodankulam nuclear plant could be resumed, and even before that actually, the protesting villagers have been at the receiving end of a vicious state led campaign to paint their non-violent struggle as a violent one, and to crush their campaign into silence by using harsh sections of the Indian Penal Code. More than 7000 cases of “sedition” and “waging war against the Government of India” have been filed just in the Koodankulam police station just between September and December 2011. These are part of 107 cases filed against 55,795 people during the same period. That is probably more than in any other police station in India. Certain sections of the media too have played the role of a willing partner in propagating the State’s propaganda. In pursuing this counter-campaign against its own people, the State Government has placed itself above the law of the land and pursued an openly anti-democratic agenda.
See interviews in two parts at at
PRESS RELEASE
Cases against K-protestors a parody of law: Fact Finding Team
18 April, 2012. CHENNAI – A fact-finding team headed by senior journalist Sam Rajappa confirmed that the Government had indeed restricted movement of essential goods and people in the days following the Chief Minister’s March 19th declaration announcing her support to the nuclear plant. The report, which was released at a press conference in Chennai, noted that the spirit of opposition to the nuclear power plant was very high, and warned that arresting the leaders could lead to a serious law and order problem in the region.
The report, which was based on a two-day visit to Idinthakarai on March 30 and 31, Nagercoil and other villages in Radhapuram taluk, observes that the Police had filed “false cases under every conceivable section in law.” Just between 10.9.2011 and 23.12.2011, the Police had filed 107 FIRs against 55795 people and “others”. Of this, 6800 people have been charged with “sedition” and/or “waging war against the State,” perhaps the largest ever number in British or independent India for one police station. The report’s authors said the recent FIR alleging “attempt to murder” by S.P. Udayakumar, V. Pushparayan and other leaders was fabricated and designed to malign the peaceful movement and its leaders.
“This is a parody of law. The frequency and manner in which the Police has filed cases against peaceful protestors clearly exposes that the police’s intent never was to uphold the rule of law, but to crush any dissenting voices,” said Mr. Rajappa. “The Tamil Nadu CM belongs right up there with Mamata Banerjee for her vengeful use of the Indian Penal Code to suppress any contrary voices,” he said.
Rubbishing claims about mischievous outside instigators and innocent villagers, the report’s authors found that the protest was “a genuine people’s movement.” “Throughout our two-day visit, we could not find any trace of the agitation being instigated by Mr. Udayakumar or any other leader. It is a genuine people’s movement,” the team said. The report also documents a contribution of Rs. 1,25,000 by “a group of fishermen from Chinna Muttom in Kanyakumar district to express solidarity with the Koodankulam agitators. . .and to keep the agitation going.”
Loyola College lecturer Dr. Gladston Xavier, who was also part of the fact finding team, said “The Government should learn from incidents like the Arab Spring that the more the suppression of free speech, the greater the strength and explosive force with which it will eventually emerge.”
The report’s authors appealed to the State Government to revoke the cases filed against protestors, and engage in a genuine and democratic dialogue with them on the substantive issues concerning nuclear safety.
Besides Mr. Rajappa and Dr. Gladston, the fact finding team consisted of Mr. Mahadevan and Mr. Rajan of PUCL-Kanyakumari District and Adv. Porkodi who practises in the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court.
For more information, contact:
Chennai Solidarity Group for Koodankulam Struggle
Nityanand Jayaraman: 9444082401
Prabaharan: 9884068321
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
I have just been on the phone to Nityanand. I never thought I would see in my lifetime this country being sold to those who can bid the highest. Like I told Nityanand, there’s way too much shit happening all over the country for us to choose the luxury of sitting on the sidelines silently watching.
There are no sidelines anymore. So much the better.
We have to build opinion on what is happening in the name of development to younger people in schools (targetting students in grades 8,9, 10, 11 and 12) and in colleges (targetting 1st and 2nd year undergraduates). At each stage, we will invariably find those younger who are equally pissed off. The bulk of course, neutered by a pincer movement involving their parents and the entertainment and education industries, will buy the bullshit given by our corporate media, namely, that we need the nuclear disasters-in-waiting to run our washing machines or whatever.
That needn’t stop us from trying to stem the rot associated with high-growth rates, more industrialization, more wealth trickling down in dribs and drabs as the poor get even more screwed, and much more of the same.
By May end as I was just telling Nityanand, the theatre ensemble I am associated with, will have a new addition to their repertoire, a half an hour piece titled ‘The Doom of A Thousand Suns’ that explores the intimacy between nuclear energy, militarism and violence, We intend touring Tamil Nadu with this performance.
The ensemble will be willing to tour elsewhere between June and August, specifically targetting schools and colleges. Those interested in contacting the ensemble to arrange tours and performances, may feel free to contact me through the kind offices of Dr. Nivedita Menon at Kafila.
In the meanwhile I am online till the 3rd (Hartman de Souza<hartman,desouza@gmail.com), then back to Goa, out of all connectivity and face to face with our own problem there, as the newly elected BJP government in Goa, brought to power by a well engineered campaign corrdinated by sections of the media working in cahoots with the Brahmin mining families of Goa, now bends over backwards to legalize what are patently nefarious operations.
I love the way justice works in today's industry-centric India. My sister and mother and two other women who work at her farm, blocked the road of a mine owned by Dinar Tarcar and one that the world and her mother (and almost every activist and NGO) knew was patently illegal. Even the Goa Board of Pollution Control or whatever it is called knew that. Even the former Chief Minister and his his cronies, of whom, Dinar Tarcar was one, knew.
The net result is that while the women from the farm who blocked the road and spent one night in Aguada jail for doing so, have to go every few months to the District Court to answer charges of 'damaging' the mine, the operation they blocked, the patently illegal one, is now made 'legal'. They've even constructed a damn office at the entrance.
And they actually all want us to sit on the sidelines and silently watch?
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