The Modi government has been using its majority in the Lok Sabha to bulldoze rights of people in the country. Food security, farmers’ rights and rights of workers and Adivasis were snatched away by the Centre in a blatant and shameful way, said CPI (M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat on Wednesday.
Delivering the Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer endowment lecture at Gandhigram Rural Institute near here, she said that ‘development for whom’ was the big question now.
Stating that trickle down theory of development was a broken promise, she said that present development module had made the rich richer and the poor poorer, increasing inequality. Income of 80 per cent of rural households was less than Rs.50. Displacement of tribal people from their habitats, giving away natural resources at cheap price to private companies and exploitation of labour were the outcome of this development.
Youth should analyse and investigate such development policies and join together to launch a struggle to change the present hostile scenario to find sustainable development.
Reacting to the visit of US President Barack Obama, she said that Mr. Obama came here to take and not to give. He wanted to sell US machinery, plants and solar energy systems to India and the Modi government had given up the country’s sovereignty by agreeing to act as a subordinate ally of the US.
When planners in New Delhi talked of infrastructure development and ‘Bullet Train,’ rural people had to trek 14 km to reach the nearest bus stop. A minor girl, who was gang raped, struggled for several hours to get treatment, owing to lack of transport facility.
Her father lifted her on his shoulder and trekked 14 km to board a bus to go to hospital. A rape case was not registered as the powerful accused, in connivance with police, suppressed all evidence. Women in villages were vulnerable to sexual assault but criminals, looters and persons involving in scams were protected and defended by law-enforcing agencies.
Twenty to 30 per cent of fruit and vegetables produced in Himachal Pradesh were destroyed by wild animals and no effort was taken to protect them. But the government was spending crores of rupees to protect VIP houses from monkey menace in New Delhi, she said.
