{"id":19070,"date":"2012-05-14T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=19070"},"modified":"2012-11-03T14:33:02","modified_gmt":"2012-11-03T14:33:02","slug":"respect-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/05\/respect-india\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cRespect India\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u2018Respect India\u2019 is a call similar to \u2018Quit India\u2019 fervently made by the ordinary citizens of India here at Idinthakarai on May 8, 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u2018Quit India\u2019 was a civil disobedience movement launched in response to Mahatma Gandhi\u2019s \u2018Quit India\u2019 speech delivered on August 8, 1942 at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay. Gandhiji\u2019s call for determined, but passive resistance appeared in his appeal to \u201cDo or Die.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>India is facing a similar \u201cDo or Die\u201d situation today as our sovereignty, independence, freedom, natural resources, livelihood of the poor, their right to life, and the very future of the country are at imminent peril. The ruling class and their establishment care for the rich and powerful at the cost of the poor and powerless. There is no respect for ordinary Indian citizens\u2019 life or dignity.<\/p>\n<p>Just as the freedom fighters asked the colonial rulers to \u2018Quit India,\u2019 we, the People\u2019s Movement Against Nuclear Energy fighters, request the corrupt and communal ruling class in India to \u2018Respect India,\u2019 respect the Indian citizens\u2019 lives, rights and entitlements.<\/p>\n<p>The Indian society is in a desperate need for something like Albert Schweitzer&#8217;s personal philosophy of \u201cReverence for Life\u201d (&#8220;<em>Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben<\/em>&#8220;). He rightly argued that the Western civilization (which Gandhiji called \u201ca good idea\u201d) was decaying because it had abandoned affirmation of and respect for life as its ethical foundation. When many Westerners are challenging their own establishments and value systems, Indian rulers are mindlessly imitating the same consumerist, hedonistic and globalization values and pushing our country to the brink of death and decay.<\/p>\n<p>To give an example, most countries around the world such as Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan are phasing out and closing down their nuclear power plants. But the Indian rulers are planning to open mega nuclear power parks at the following coastal sites without giving all the information to the local people or getting their consent:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Koodankulam, Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu (Russian);<\/li>\n<li>Kalpakkam, Kanchipuram District, Tamil Nadu (Indian);<\/li>\n<li>Kovvada, Srikakulam District, Andhra Pradesh (American);<\/li>\n<li>Haripur, Purba Medinipur District, West Bengal (Russian);<\/li>\n<li>Jaitapur, Ratnagiri District, Maharashtra (French); and<\/li>\n<li>Mithi Virdi, Bhavnagar District, Gujarat (American).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>More nuclear power plants are planned in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and elsewhere. As a result of our ruling class\u2019s nuclear madness, our land, water, air, sea, sea life, sea food and food security will all become spoiled and poisoned.<\/p>\n<p>In India today, power and arrogance has become the pinnacle of political life; materialism and exploitation has become the foundation of economic life; and discrimination and hatred has become the hallmarks of social life. Success has come to mean to be rich and selfish. If you are small, soft and slow (and not super-sized, strong and swift), you are a loser. And you deserve your fate of poverty and misery, and marginalization and exploitation.<\/p>\n<p>The political class\u2019s heartless plundering of the national resources, the capitalist class\u2019s obsessive exploitation of the natural resources, the upper castes\u2019 ruthless exploitation of the poor and downtrodden and the overall immorality have driven most Indians to desperation. Hence, our<\/p>\n<p>farmers are committing suicide all over the country; our <em>adivasis<\/em> are fleeing their forest land; our youth are joining the ranks of extremist groups; our men are taking to drugs and alcohol; our women are resigned to their fate; and our children are unhealthy and hopeless.<\/p>\n<p>There are two Indias today: the rich and powerful India whose life is deemed to be important and valuable; and the poor and powerless India whose life is condemned as unimportant and dispensable. The dirty ordinary Indians are forced to sacrifice their lives for the holy extraordinary Indians.<\/p>\n<p>If we believe in <em>Satya<\/em>, <em>Swaraj<\/em> and <em>Sarvodaya<\/em>, we must challenge and change our national situation. Indian life must be made valuable and indispensable, no matter who they are and where they stand on the national socioeconomic-political pyramid. To \u2018Respect India\u2019 is to respect every Indian life. To respect Indian life means putting Indian life above and beyond everything else, such as elections, energy security, GDP, MNCs, FDI, Forbes list and so forth.<\/p>\n<p>The Program of Action to \u2018Respect India\u2019 must include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Provide basic necessities to all Indians here and now;<\/li>\n<li>Provide safe drinking water to all Indians everywhere;<\/li>\n<li>Provide proper nutrition to all mothers and children all over India;<\/li>\n<li>Bring dignity to all Indians with toilets, public amenities, health care and insurance;<\/li>\n<li>Implement land reform all over India and protect the farmers and farming;<\/li>\n<li>Safeguard the interests of <em>adivasis<\/em>, fisher folks, Dalits and other minorities;<\/li>\n<li>Avoid \u2018development\u2019 projects that destroy people\u2019s resources and livelihood.<\/li>\n<li>Implement pro-people, pro-Nature and pro-Future decentralized sustainable projects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When the central and state governments respect Indian life and do the above things, our own people will begin to respect Indian life, and the rest of the world will do the same also. So, \u2018Respect India.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><em>The Struggle Committee<\/em><br \/>\n<em> People\u2019s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018Respect India\u2019 is a call similar to \u2018Quit India\u2019 fervently made by the ordinary citizens of India here at Idinthakarai on May 8, 2012. \u2018Quit India\u2019 was a civil disobedience movement launched in response to Mahatma Gandhi\u2019s \u2018Quit India\u2019 speech delivered on August 8, 1942 at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay. Gandhiji\u2019s call for determined, but passive resistance appeared in his appeal to \u201cDo or Die.\u201d India is facing a similar \u201cDo or Die\u201d situation today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kudankulam-anti-nuclear-satyagraha-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}