Medha Patkar @ MCC...:

Ms.Medha Patkar gave the key-note address at the Inaugural session of the National Conference on Human Rights organised by the Dept of Social Work, MCC. The grand old Anderson Hall of Madras Christian College was packed to capacity even well before Ms.Medha Patkar took to the dais. There was indeed a standing ovation when the speaker of the day arrived - to traditional trumpet-and-horn welcome - after which Prof.Mrs.Miriam Samuel, Head, Dept of Social Work, MCC, welcomed the gathering.

Our Principal Dr.Alexander Jesudasan welcomed and introduced the speaker of the session Ms.Medha Patkar. While talking about the glorious past of our country, he said that, some fifty years ago, our nation could boast of a Mahatma Gandhi, a Vallabhai Patel or a Sarojini Naidu - but today, do we have such great people? Indeed, as long as people like Ms.Medha Patkar and Thol.Thiruma(yesterday's speaker) are there, the fight is bound to continue against the various social injustices of today. He congratulated the Dept of Social Work for laying emphasis on praxis and drawing the attention of the international community. Praising Medha Patkar, he said that 'she is a person who 'listened' to the cries of the people and stood up for them - although imprisoned many times - she adopted 'satyagraha' in her fight against the oppressors - be it the corporate lords or the government policies.'

Excerpts from Ms.Medha Patkar's speech:

"Every living being has rights. Unless we talk about everyone's right to live, we cannot feel or belong to the community of human beings. Right to live is one of the very fundamental rights of a human being. Human rights, according to Patkar, are beyond constitutional rights because constitutional rights can keep changing - laws can keep changing - but human rights are the same always and at all places," she said.

Listing out the various aspects of human rights, Ms.Patkar said, "When we talk about human rights, we not only talk about sections of the society who are marginalised, but also those that are denied the right to education, right to shelter, right to services, right to live in one's own culture etc. 'Nobody has the monopoly to being called 'marginalised' any longer. Because, farmers are marginalised in the industrialised scenario, the rural population are being marginalised by the urbane populace and so on."

"Other types of marginalisation include social marginalisation, economic marginalisation, cultural marginalisation etc. Marginalisation cannot be taken care of, by reservations alone. We must also have a system wherein we recognize the rights of the marginalised. And, ironically, rights are not pattas to be distributed. They are inherent to every human being, whether or not they are recognized," she opined.

According to Patkar, we are all part of the agrarian economy. There are communities that are engaged in agriculture. For them it's a lifestyle - of living in proximity with nature - land - forests, surface and ground water etc. If you live a life of simplicity, then you can boldly say what the Mahatma once said - that every one of us has ample resources to fulfilling our needs and not our greed.

Elaborating on the same, she added that, in the whole hierarchy of our economy, it's only the priority of the main stream that dominates - and that's where exploitation comes in - even decisions at the national level, in the 'interests of the common man' are being taken by a high-level committee in Parliament without having any national debates, discussions on the same.

Remember, the lunch you are going to have after this session, is testimony to the hard work and the industrious activity of the country's poorest agricultural labourer, who might have even committed suicide due to poverty, even before you had had your meal today.

Ms.Patkar also made a scathing attack on the SEZ [Special Economic Zones] calling them as 'Special Exploitation Zones', wherein large areas of land are declared as foreign territory - (SEZ) by destroying, not just displacing communities who have been living there for generations. Killing of indegenous communities - call it neo-colonization - is the worst violation of human rights. First of all, who gives this right to trample upon their right to livelihood? Just becuase you get elected and become a governing politician, doesn't mean that you can trample upon the livelihood of indegenous peoples.

Taking a 'mineral water' bottle in her hand, she demonstrated how the mineral water symbolises the vulgar way in which we manage our resources. This water belongs to the community who live with it. We are living in the cities and drinking what is called 'mineralised water', which is a sheer exploitation of their natural resources, which is their inherent wealth.

In Kerala, thousands of people have been adversely affected by the Coca Cola plant. Being a social activist herself who is spearheading the protests, she said that apart from the fact that the soft drink is not healthy, the plant has also damaged the ground water resources. For the last six years, protests have been taking place against Coca Cola in this village. Even the company has admitted that without water it would have no business at all. Coca cola's operations rely on access to vast supplies of water as it takes almost three litres of water to make one litre of coca cola. Added to this is the irony that the company said it doesn't have to pay tax as they are not selling mineral water, but only packaged drinking water!!! Each factory extracts around five to 25 lakh litres of water per day. It's not mere extraction but sheer exploitation! The same happens to land exploitation too!

Today's 'corporatised ministers' for Social Justice, Minsiters of Poverty Alleviation, or Minister of Fisheries are not the only ones empowered to act in the 'interests' of the downtrodden, BPL, Fishing communities etc. Debates and discussions are needed with the masses who should be involved in the decision-making process, before passing any legislations to that effect in Parliament.

You cannot claim a 1 Re/- reduction in your kerosene cost, but Ambanis are getting 20,000 crores profit by exploiting the oil resources of the country, out of which 1,000 crores goes to the govt. Apart from setting up of SEZ which can take away your land and water resources, Tourism can also put a check on your land by grabbing them under the pretext of promoting tourism. Mining is another case in point. The sad fact is that, more than 21 tax concessions are being given on a platter to the SEZs with nil tax for the first five years!

Finally, Ms.Medha Patkar gave a call to the youth to stand up and fight injustice with sensitivity and sensibility for the downtrodden, marginalised etc.

Unless you fight, young friends,

Nothing will survive - not a piece of land will be saved!

Hence, the real dream is to steer the country towards equity and justice - two umbrella concepts upon which future society can be built by young India.