Neeraj Jain is the Coordinator, National Alliance of Anti-Nuclear Movements
Dear All,
I was on a short tour of Tamil Nadu, giving lectures whereever possible and addressing press conferences. The trip has been organised mainly with the help of Professor Samuel Asir Raj, who is a professor of Sociology in Tirunelveli University and active supporter of the Kudankulam struggle. I had met him at a seminar on FDI In Retail in Delhi, and there we discussed the possibility of this trip, and he took the initiative to organise it.
I started with a press conference in Chennai organised by Sundar of Friends of Earth, an environmental activist group in Chennai, on the 17th of April. It was a great press meet, with lots of TV channels and some print media. It seems some of the channels carried some news from the Press Conference, that is what some friends rang up to say.
That night, i travelled to Tirunelveli, and drove down to Idinthikarai to meet Uday and Pushparayan, and spent a great day with them. They were in high spirits, and making plans to advance the struggle to the next stage. It was heartening to meet them and see them in such a wonderful mood, with no sign of worry about the hundreds of cases filed against them and the other fantastic people of Idinthikarai fighting every inch of the way against the monstrous KNPP. You would be aware that during the period Sept to Dec 2011, the TN police has filed cases against 56,000 people. These include 3600 people against whom Section 121 of the IPC (waging war against the Govt of India) has been used and 3200 people against whom Section 124 A (Sedition) has been invoked. The Koodankulam Police Station has the dubious distinction of being the station where the largest number of sedition and 'waging war' cases have been filed in the shortest time in colonial and post-colonial India.
I met a group of students from Andhra in Idinthikarai, who had come to see the movement first hand and then plan to goto Kovvada and campaign there. I gave them a 3 hour talk on nuclear energy, and they were extremely enthused after the talk. I have invited them to Pune to learn campaigning from our group, and volunteered to look after them while they are there, and promised that i will send activists to help them in their campaign in Kovvada. Let's see, they seemed extremely promising, with many including some girls rebelling against their parents to come down to Idinthikarai.
Then on the 19th, we addressed a press meet in Tirunelveli, which has been covered surprisingly well in the media. I am attaching scanned copies of the press reports. At least 6 papers carried reports, and all gave 3 column reports. The Hindu has for once given us a decent coverage. The Indian Express gave us a fantastic coverage.
The NPCIL had organised a parallel press conference on the same day, in the afternoon,so the IE reporter gave me and SK Jain equal coverage, side by side, as you can see in the attached note. It seems that SK Jain rang up to complain to the reporter as to why did he give a non-entity like me equal coverage, and the reporter replied he is one of the coordinators of NAAM. He also asked Jain to refute my statement, and he said he would then ask me for my comments on SK Jain's rebuttal, and again publish both. SK Jain has yet to send his rebuttal to my statement.
In the afternoon, I addressed students of Tirunelveli University, and in the evening I addressed a hall meeting in Tirunelveli. The hall meeting venue was only decided at the last minute, as no hall owner was willing to give the hall out of fear of the police. Even this hall where we had the meeting was threatened by the police. Such is the kind of democracy we are living in, that you can't even organise private meetings in a hall. The audience was small but very keenly interested, and were very enthused by the talk. We discussed plans to take up a village campaign after the meeting, and the organisers and several people who had come were very interested in doing all they can to support the Kudankulam struggle.
That night i travelled to Salem, arriving at 4 am at Piyush's place. Piyush is a fantastic activist, doing great and exciting work on a number of fronts in Salem. He has also done wonderful work on biogas plants, including developing further on what Priyadarshini Karve has done in Pune. He organised a small meeting in Salem, and though the audience was small in number, they were sufficiently enthused and realised that the issue was very important and immediately began making plans to orgnanise a bigger seminar in which a few hundred people participate, which they plan to host in a month's time.
Tomorrow I go to Coimbatore, for 2 days, and then travel back to Pune.
In solidarity,
Neeraj Jain
Lokayat
"Mrudanga",
Bldg No. 3A, Flat No. 6,
Naad Brahma Society, Warje,
Pune - 411 058
Ph. Mobile 094222 20311
Landline: 020-25231251
Our website http://www.lokayat.org.in
Our blog http://lokayatpune.wordpress.com/
