| now, what is this? and what magazine
| is Hardnews? another Down to (whatshisname) Earth
| or Civil (dunnu) Society? apparently it is full
| of the vpissing it seems, so will we have one mag
| per major NGO sent to us? thought it was a movement
| and now it looks like an increasingly fractionated
| movement....
Power grows from the dust of the land
The acquisition of 2,500 acre of agricultural land by the UP government
for the Reliance power project at Dadri, massive protests by farmers and
police atrocities might lead to a volatile build-up which can turn
cowbelt politics upside down
Sandeep Yadav Bajhera Khurd, Ghaziabad
Septuagenarian Babu Ram Rana is angry and he doesn’t want to hide it
anymore. The veins of his neck and forehead flare up as the veteran
gives a clarion call to a group of 30-odd villagers sitting around him:
“Agar pitrbhumi ke liyo jaan bhi deni pare to peeche nahi hatna hai.”
(If necessary, give your life for your fatherland, but never retreat.)
Bajhera Khurd, Ghaziabad, 60 km from New Delhi on National Highway 24,
is a typically listless and arid western Uttar Pradesh (UP) village with
unilinear pucca brick houses defying all rules of aesthetics or
architecture, surrounded by lush green paddy fields in the distance.
Under the shade of a blue tarpaulin on a ploughed patch of land outside
the village, Babu Ram Rana and his fellow villagers are tense and angry,
they speak animatedly, dissecting their uncertain future, getting
angrier as their own reality unfolds. Clearly, this new epicentre of
struggle is rapidly becoming volatile and tense. The place is in turmoil.
cont'd....
http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/portal/2006/09/581