Chapter 10 - Struggles for Equality Notes
1. The Indian constitution recognizes all Indians as equal before the law and states. No person can be discriminated on any ground.
2. All adults in India have the equal right to vote during elections and this power has been used by people to elect or replace their representatives.
3. Poverty and the lack of resources are the key reasons for inequality in India.
4. Discrimination on the basis of a person’s religion, caste and sex is another significant factor for why people are treated unequally in India.
5. Dalit, Adivasi and Muslim girls drop out of school in large numbers. This is a combined outcome of poverty, social discrimination and the lack of good quality school facilities for these communities.
6. There are many such struggles such as those among beedi workers, fisher-folks, agricultural labourers, slum-dwellers and each group is struggling for justice in its own way.
7. In the villages adjoining to the forest areas, when sanctuaries for animals are constructed, many poor people are displaced and people are forced to go and build new homes and new lives.
8. In urban areas, bastis in which poor people live are often displaced to the areas located outside of the city. Displaced poor people are severely disrupted.
9. Tawa Matsya Sangh - a federation of Fisherworker’s cooperatives-an organization fighting for the rights of the displaced forest-dwellers of the Satpura forest in Madhya Pradesh.
10. The Tawa, originating in the Mahadeo hills of Chindwara district, flows through Betul, before joining the Narmada in Hoshangabad.
11. The Tawa dam began to be built in 1958 and was completed in 1978. It submerged large areas of forest and agricultural land. People of 33 villages were displaced. Some of the displaced people settled around the reservoir and apart from their meager farms, found a livelihood in fishing.
12. In 1994, the government gave the rights for fishing in the Tawa reservoir to private contractors. These contractors got cheap labour from outside. The villagers stood united and decided to set up an organization to protect their livelihood rights. Thus, they formed Tawa Matsya Sangh (TMS). And after long struggles they were granted right to fishing for their livelihood by the Madhya Pradesh government in 1996.
13. For the upliftment of the needs of fishermen, Tawa Matsya Sangh played a great role to make them able to increase their earning substantially. The Sangh arranges for fair price, transport, selling in a market where they get a good price, loans to fishermen for repair and the buying of new nets etc. Thus, the fisher-men have started to earn three times more than they earned earlier.
14. A dam is built across a river at sites where it can collect a lot of water. Dam submerges vast areas of land. The Tehri dam, Uttarakhand submerged old Tehri town and 100 villages. Nearly one lakh people were displaced from the construction of Tehri dam.
15. The Indian Constitution provides equality of all persons. Issues of equality are central to a democracy.
16. The privatization of health services in the country, the increasing control that business houses exert on the media, the low value given to women and their work, and the low earning made by small farmers who grow cotton are the issues that substantially affect poor and marginalized communities, and therefore, concern economic and social equality in the country.
17. The dignity and self-respect of each person and their community can only be realized if they have adequate resources to support and nurture their families and if they are not discriminated against.
No comments:
Post a Comment