Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Medha's foreign links: Documents reveal attempt to woo judiciary

oct 10th, 2007

i have always rather liked medha patkar, although not the assorted harpies who have latched on to her such as arundhati roy, teesta setalvad, et al.

i could also never make up my mind about the sardar sarovar, partly because i respectfully listened to medha patkar's POV.

but this makes me wonder: has she been corrupted enough by her associates to get into subverting the system? after all, subverting the courts through any and all means is a specialty of teesta setalvad. if teesta does not like a ruling, she'll go back to court again and again and again until finally they give up and issue a ruling she likes. her father was a chief justice, i think, so i am sure she does put pressure on judges through informal channels as well.

i am not a big fan of big dams. nor am i a big fan of unreasonable obstructionism. this is why i have been ambivalent about the sardar sarovar.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: venkat

Probe Medha's foreign links, MPs urge PM

Navin Upadhyay | New Delhi http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=front%5Fpage&file_name=story2%2Etxt&counter_img=2


Documents reveal attempt to woo judiciary

Two Members of Parliament from Gujarat have urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to order an inquiry into the shocking evidence suggesting Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar tried to influence the Government and the judiciary to obtain a favourable verdict in a case against her NGO in the Supreme Court.

... deleted

6 comments:

karyakarta92 said...

Medha Patkar is just a more benign version of Arundhati Roy & Teesta Setalvad, although very much a professional agitator like the latter two. She blew her cover by raising extraneous issues such as
the Gujarat riots in her obstructionist agitation, accusing Narendra Modi of genocide, fascism etc. All the usual suspects were fanning her diabolical propaganda.
Some movie actor khan also used the opportunity to concoct the myth about lack of compensation for displaced people, whereas this khan had no similar concern for the 500,000 Kashmiri Hindus displaced from their ancestral land by Islamofascist genocide.

And the Narmada dam project was conceived many years ago, under a Kaangress government. The opposition from Kaangress stooges is merely to prevent the BJP from claiming any credit for it's implementation and subsequent benefits for that parched region.

Harish said...

But lets not forget that Medha Patkar also raised some very important questions on the human cost of such large projects..Sardar Sarovar is not a slam dunk case of govt being right and the opposers being wrong..(i am not including sundry politicians, and hanger on like Aamir KHan or Arundathi Roy here)

I was one of them (may be it was wrong), who kind of actually believed that Medha Patkar was one of the few remaining honest people who raised the voice of the common man who is always at receiving end of governmental and police excesses in our country(irrespective of the govt)

Gagan said...

Medha was always an obstructionist without any cause. There was nothing to be liked about her - any which way you try to like her.

Harish - Every human action has human cost - including globalization and modernization. Just the other day in Ahmadabad I had to really try very hard to find a cobbler. I found one - he was parked in his rickshaw under a shade of a tree. Ten years ago I could find them almost at every cross roads. Is Medha going to do something about such and other "humane" issues? She herself was a hanger on to Narmada Bachao movement because it had visibility on international stage.

Nothing is ever "slam dunk" right in today's complex world. The last time I came across something "slam dunk" right was when I was a student at university studying engineering and science.

That aside, Medha tried to block project that was affecting millions in a good way - and that was wrong.

habc said...

I believe one of the issues was that the govt was willing to negotiate, but Medha et al told the tribals to adopt an uncompromising all or nothing stance. They took advantage of the tribals ignorance to push their own agenda instead of looking at ways to solve the problem in a win-win situation.

I think that if they had named the Narmada Dam as Nehru Dam then it would have got built and completed decades ago!

Harish said...

I am sorry @Gagan, i do not share your unbridled optimism on huge dams like Sardar Sarovar.

I do believe that there are quite a handful of loud noisy profesaional obstructionists that revel in stopping projects for lack of anything beter to do. However to compare the effect of something like Sardar Sarovar on the environment to your inability to find some cobbler in Ahmedabad seems like an attempt to trivialize the issue. I can understand people like Medha Patkar keeping company with hypocrites lie Arundathi or teesta doesnt reflect too well upon her, but that does'nt mean a summary rejection of Medha's objections to the dam. The government has been far from clean when it comes to the SSP.

I think going by that logic, movements like Chipko movement to protect the forest etc would fall under the umbrella of "unbridled obstructionism".

As a society we need to find a balance somewhere and it's not an easy task.

Gagan said...

Harish, You are missing the point in what I said, or you have deliberately or inadvertently ignored to address the point that I raised: there is always a price that one pays for the progress and modernization. By citing the cobbler example, I was highlighting how widespread and commonly occuring issue is this, I wasn't trivializing its significance at all.

I am sure you have the idea about how much of environment was disturbed or destroyed when Gujarat state capital Gandhinagar was built. Or how much of rural area is slowly being eaten up around Ahmedabad when the local planning authority is planning ring roads after ring roads. I agree that environment is important, and that, and as you put it, striking the balance between the extremes is difficult. Medha's modus operandi was just too individualistic - she failed to see the benefit of the Narmada Dam - and equally to be blamed for her style and approach of obstructionism.

Regardless of what you and I think of Medha, we should ask someone who faced the scarcity of water, year after year. I have. May be you too.