MeraPahad Community Of Uttarakhand Lovers

Uttarakhand: Problems and possibilities
From People's Voice: October 1-15, 2000

According to news reports, tens of thousands of women, men and children of Uttarakhand carried out vigorous protest actions in the town of Gairsen recently. Apart from demanding that Gairsen be made the capital of the new state as per the peoples wishes, they were protesting against the attempts of the ruling class politicians of the BJP and Congress to hijack the struggle and impose the narrow agenda of the ruling class on the new state of Uttarakhand.

After years of struggle, the demand of the people of Uttarakhand for a separate state of their own has been fulfilled. The people of Uttarakhand now have entered a new phase of the struggle. They have to ensure that the aspirations which inspired them to take up the struggle for a separate state are actually realised. This is a many times more difficult struggle.

Enormous problems confront the hill peoples. In a land that has abundance of water resources and supplies electric power to vast regions of India, the majority of people living in the villages have to trudge for miles through difficult terrain for a pot of drinking water. Most of the villages lack electricity. Most villages lack proper roads or communication with the towns and people, including children, the infirm and the old, have to walk for hours and even days to reach the nearest hospital. The rich forests have been plundered by the timber mafia and in most parts of the state there is no source of livelihood. Therefore, entire villages are devoid of young men, as they seek livelihood in the armed forces or in the hotel industry in Delhi and other parts of India. Uttarakhand has been ruined by capitalist development, its water and rich natural resources plundered and pillaged, selected areas converted into pleasure and pilgrimage spots for tourists, with vast areas neglected and deprived.

It is clear that to address these enormous problems, people need political power in their hands. Will the creation of an Uttarakhand Assembly ensure power in the hands of the people? Obviously not. In fact the very forces who for decades were responsible for the neglect of Uttarakhand are going to constitute the Uttarakhand Assembly and decide on the future of Uttarakhand. This means the people of Uttarakhand have to be prepared to face numerous attacks and diversions from these forces.

Already, the issue of which place should be the capital of the new state is being used to divide the people of Garhwal and Kumaon regions and set them at logger heads with each other. All kinds of considerations are being put forward to decide this question, without addressing the fundamental question of how the new government of the new state proposes to address the burning problems of the people. This issue is being used by the bourgeois politicians for creating vote banks. Far from presenting a lofty and farsighted vision for the democratic renewal of Uttarakhand within the framework of the democratic renewal of India, what the people of Uttarakhand are witnessing is the sordid spectacle of the chieftains of the Congress and BJP fighting for loaves of office and spreading narrow parochial views to divide and paralyse the people.

What is happening to the people of Uttarakhand today is a replay of what happened with the people of India 53 years ago at the time of formal independence from colonial rule. The peoples shed their blood. However, they were not allowed to enjoy the fruits of victory, they were not allowed to create the new political power that would vest sovereignty with the people of India. Instead, the old forces, the very forces that had compromised with the colonialists and were sharing power with them in the earlier period, came to power. The India they fashioned after 1947 was not the India the fighters for freedom envisaged. The problems that colonialism had created remained unaddressed. Capitalism and the colonial legacy have continued to flourish, devastating the Indian people.

A similar thing is taking place with the people of Uttarakhand. They have won a victory in the creation of Uttarakhand, a victory that is formal. To give it the content they have all along desired, they must continue to wage the struggle with clear aims.

The Indian working class is fighting for an immediate program of thoroughgoing democratic renewal of India. The aim of democratic renewal is ensuring that the economy does provide for all the people. For this aim to be realised, political power must necessarily vest with the vast masses of workers, peasants, women and youth of all nations, nationalities and tribal peoples, who have hitherto been deprived of power. The program of democratic renewal will ensure that the Indian Union is reorganised as a voluntary union of consenting peoples. Such a new union will be for mutual benefit as well as act as a powerful block against any imperialist marauders. A clean break with capitalism and the colonial legacy is the condition for the forward march of the working class and people of India.

As a start, the working masses of Uttarakhand must ensure today that the agenda is set by them, not by the ruling classes. They must organise themselves into non-partisan committees in the villages, schools and other economic institutions and put forth proposals for solutions to all economic and political problems, including the problem of guaranteed livelihood, food security, health care, water, electricity and so on. They must select and put forth from amongst their peers, those candidates who would be sincere fighters for the interests of the people and fight for the victory of only such candidates to the next assembly—and not the candidates selected by bourgeois political parties like the Congress and the BJP.

The people of Uttarakhand have a wealth of positive experience in unitedly fighting for their goals. In the course of this protracted struggle, they know who are the true fighters and who are the chameleons and toadies. They have also a wealth of negative experience of the disruptive role of the reactionary politicians of the BJP and the Congress, as well as others. They must deploy all their experience gained through the struggle in the bigger battles that lie ahead.

DOWN TO EARTH: Stones unto stones

Anil Agarwal & Sunita Narain (Tuesday October 03)

http://www.oneworld.org/cse/html/dte/dte20001015/dte_edit.htm

The new Uttaranchal is facing a serious environmental challenge, say Anil Agarwal & Sunita Narain

Several years ago, when the demand for a separate hill state called Uttarakhand was first raised, we had asked an eminent environmentalist of the region, why was he not actively supporting the campaign. If there was a hill state he would be in a powerful position to influence its forest management policies and, thus, see his dreams turn into reality. But his answer was simple: If you break a stone, all that you get is two stones. Today Uttarakhand or rather Uttaranchal is a reality together with Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. The question is: Will these states be any more than a few new stones?

If there is anything that marks all the three states, it is their dominant use of forests and, of course, intense poverty. Jharkhand, for instance, literally means the land of the trees. Any economic growth that aims to reach out to the people of these states will have to recognise these realities. Development plans will have to promote natural-resource based enterprises to benefit the people the most but resource exploitation is such that it is sustainable. This will call for innovative thinking and institution building from the bottom-up.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of finding green and gentle leaders instead of hard and stony ones as in other states is quite low even in these states. As in the case of Gorkhaland, these states are also likely to see contractor lobbies taking hold of the political leadership arguing that as they are economically backward and lack infrastructure – an investment that easily allows a lot of pockets to get filled. Undoubtedly, investment in infrastructure is required but only as part of a larger economic design that addresses both the poverty and the ecology of the new states. Further mismanagement of the forests could lead to alienation of the people and possibly even the domination of militant groups like Naxalites in Bastar.

Already the new Uttaranchal, a region which has given birth to India’s environmental movement, is facing a serious environmental challenge. In the early 1970s, it was the Chipko Movement which had forced the Indian civil society to recognise that environmental management is a critical issue even in poor, developing countries because poor communities depend so heavily for their daily survival on their environment. Over time, the message of the women of remote Reni village spread across the country and the entire developing world.

Finally, in 1992, all governments, from rich to poor nations, accepted sustainable development as a goal at the Rio Conference. In the early 1980s, Dehradun-based social activist Avdhesh Kaushal filed a case in the Supreme Court to protect the fragile Doon valley from the ravages of limestone mining. The judgement of the Supreme Court in this case led to a new fundamental right being created for all Indians — the Right to a Clean Environment. This judgement, delivered by the then Chief Justice P N Bhagwati, has since led to a spate of public interest litigation on environmental issues and put governments on the mat for poor environmental governance.

Having done all this for the nation in the past, will Uttaranchal now integrate environmental concerns in its own development projects? The immediate point of debate in the region is where should be the new state’s capital? Three places are vying for the honour: Dehradun on the western corner, Nainital on the eastern corner, and Gairsain, somewhere in the middle. Dehradun and Nainital are well known Himalayan towns and are already ecologically overextended.

The famous Nainital lake is today a filthy waterbody which receives all the dirt of the city. Dehradun, too, is under pressure with constant traffic jams in its city centre, which was declared by the Central Pollution Control Board in 1992 as the most polluted place in India – far from the town’s image as a clean and green place fit for the retirement of the sahibs. Choosing either of them as the new capital will mean less capital investment but heavy damage to the environment unless huge environmental and urban management investments are going to be made to improve the quality of life in these towns. Gairsain, on the other hand is still pollution-free but without any infrastructure.

The issue is becoming a contentious one but the debate still consists more of political statements than of what kind of Capital and urban development should the new state aspire for. Unless the debate moves in that direction, all that we are likely get in the form of these new states is yet a few more new stones.

राज्य स्थापना दिवस पर होंगी विविध प्रतियोगिताएंNov 04, 02:09 am

बागेश्वर। राज्य स्थापना दिवस पर जनपद में विभिन्न प्रतियोगिताएं आयोजित की जाएंगी। इस अवसर पर नुमाइश मैदान के रामलीला मंच में विभिन्न विभागों की प्रदर्शनी आयोजित की जाएगी।

जिलाधिकारी शैलेश बगौली ने बताया कि इस वर्ष दीपावली का पर्व होने के कारण प्रत्येक घर सजाया जाएगा। इसके अलावा 9 अक्टूबर को नुमाइश मैदान में सांस्कृतिक कार्यक्रम भी आयोजित किए जाएंगे। जबकि स्वराज भवन में बेबी शो, रामलीला भवन में विभिन्न विभागों की प्रदर्शनी लगाई जाएगी। स्वराज भवन में समाज कल्याण विभाग द्वारा पात्र छात्र-छात्राओं को छात्रवृत्ति एवं पेंशन वितरण हेतु शिविर भी आयोजित किया जाएगा। स्थापना दिवस पर सरयू स्पो‌र्ट्स क्लब व बालीबाल क्लब के सहयोग से महाविद्यालय प्रांगण में बालीबाल प्रतियोगिता आयोजित की जाएगी। जिलाधिकारी श्री बगौली ने बताया कि जिला चिकित्सालय के समीप बने स्वतंत्रता संग्राम सेनानी स्मारक में माल्यार्पण के अलावा नगर में विशेष सफाई अभियान चलाया जाएगा। बताया कि इस दिन 3 से 6 वर्ष के बच्चों की बेबी शो प्रतियोगिता भी आयोजित की जाएगी व प्रात: 11 बजे नुमाइश मैदान में झंडारोहण किया जाएगा।

Friends,

Let us anyalse the progress of UK during these 7 yrs.

In my opinion, UK has done below 25 % progress during these 7 yrs.

I don't see any drastic change in any of the Sector. So far two party Govt have ruled in our state but they have been failed to bring the UK on the develomental track.

I am not denying that UK has done nothing progress. This much progress UK was already doing when it was a part of UP.

People expectations were high with the formation of new state.

मेहता जी,
विकास के क्षेत्र में हमारा प्रदेश वर्तमान से <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<५० साल पीछे है.  राज्य बनने से सिर्फ नेताओं का विकास हुआ है, पहले मात्र १७ विधायक थे और उतनी ही निधियां. वह अब बढ़्कर ७० हो गयी है और पहले एक पर्वतीय विकास मंत्री होता था अब १२ मंत्री हो गये हैं. आम आदमी वहीं का वहीं..............!
आन्दोलन के दौरान कहते थे ना हम कि "कोदा झंगोरा खायेंगे, उत्तराखण्ड बनायेंगे" तो उत्तराखण्ड तो बना दिया और अब कोदा- झंगोरा भी नसीब नहीं हो रहा है..........उपलब्ध है तो देशी शराब....!

आठ माह में रिकार्ड उपलब्धियां: रावतNov 06, 02:35 am

हल्द्वानी(नैनीताल)। भाजपा प्रदेश अध्यक्ष बची सिंह रावत का कहना है कि सरकार ने केवल आठ महीनों में रिकार्ड उपलब्धियां हासिल की हैं। बात चाहे नई योजनाएं लागू करने की हो, ग्रामीण विकास का मामला हो या फिर रोजगार का, हर क्षेत्र में सरकार उत्साहजनक ढंग से आगे बढ़ रही है। उनका कहना है कि लालबत्तियों से कार्यकर्ताओं को कोई मोह नहीं है। इसलिए लालबत्तियों को लेकर कोई उत्सुकता भी नहीं।

कुमाऊं एवं गढ़वाल का दौरा करने के बाद यहां भाजपा कार्यालय में आयोजित पत्रकार वार्ता में श्री रावत ने कहा कि सरकार ने काबिज होते ही सबसे पहले फिजूलखर्जी पर रोक लगाई। मंत्री, अधिकारियों के विदेश दौरे बंद किए गए हैं। कांग्रेस राज में कर्ज से लदे राज्य के लिए ऐसा जरूरी था। सरकार ने हजारों नई नियुक्तियां शुरू करने के साथ ही नियुक्तियों में पूरी पारदर्शिता रखी है। भ्रष्टाचार की कोई गुंजाइश न रहे इसलिए नियुक्तियों में साक्षात्कार प्रक्रिया को खत्म किया गया।

उन्होंने कहा कि नई योजनाओं के क्रियान्वयन में सरकार ने कोई कसर नहीं छोड़ी है। ग्रामीण क्षेत्रों में बीपीएल परिवारों को गैस कनैक्शन मुफ्त दिए जा रहे हैं। गौरा देवी योजना में सभी जाति की कन्याओं के इंटरमीडिएट पास करने के बाद उन्हें 25 हजार रुपये की एनएससी दी जा रही है। कर्मचारियों को बोनस दिया गया। राज्य सुरक्षा आयोग और भ्रष्टाचार के लिए आयोग का गठन सरकार भी सरकार की दूरदर्शी सोच का नतीजा है।

उन्होंने कहा कि कांग्रेस की तरह भाजपा सरकार में अंधाधुंध लालबत्तियां नहीं बटेंगी। वैसे भी कार्यकर्ता लालबत्तियों के पीछे नहीं भाग रहे हैं।