Nandigram
What Really Happened? : Based on the Report of the People's Tribunal on Nandigram, 26-28 May, 2007
Description:... On 14 March 2007 the peasants of Nandigram, a coastal area in West Bengal s East Medinipur district, were punished by their own State government for daring to oppose the government's plans to acquire 10,000 acres of farm land to set up a Special Economic Zone.
As thousands of women and children gathered to peacefully prevent government forces from entering their villages the police along with armed cadre of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) unleashed a brutal assault that left 14 dead, several missing and hundreds of people injured. Particularly horrific were the tales of systematic sexual violence.
In the face of claims and counterclaims about the violence of 14 March, a group of concerned citizens across India decided to organize a People s Tribunal on Nandigram to investigate the sequence of events that led to the carnage. The villagers of Nandigram, braving possible retribution for speaking out in public, deposed before the Tribunal's jury from 26 28 May 2007 helping reconstruct what exactly happened on that fateful morning.
Nandigram: What Really Happened? is based on the Tribunal s report that unequivocally dubs the incident of 14 March a state sponsored massacre and calls for stringent punishment for those responsible and adequate compensation for those who suffered its consequences.
However, the impunity accorded by the State government to the perpetrators of the violence of 14 March led to a repeat of violence in Nandigram during 6 14 November 2007, when the CPI(M) cadre recaptured the area with fresh atrocities that are still being unearthed.
Nandigram: What Really Happened? is an important read to understand the gradually emerging police-state in India with corporations, political parties, state institutions and criminal elements joining hands to put down all forms of resistance by citizens to their agenda of loot and grab development.
The details of what happened in Nandigram are a grim pointer to what is in store in the coming years and the urgent need to fight for restoration of basic democratic rights, enshrined in the Indian Constitution but violated with contempt by the very people appointed to defend them.
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