Guys there is news that the government is trying to ban Bitchat. Bitchat is an app that uses Bluetooth to connect people across large distances... I'm not tech genius but from what I understand, it uses Bluetooth to connect you locally and then as the number of people connected grows, so does the radius of reach. Apart from that it also has some internet capabilities.
Given that the government keeps shutting off the internet, it has become a useful app. I'd say download it before it is removed so you can know what is going on even if internet is shut down
tw // forced displacement, state violence, destruction of indigenous land
there is something happening in madhya pradesh (india) right now that not many people are talking about.
it's called the ken-betwa river linking project. ₹44,605 crore (40 million USD). india's first ever river interlinking project.
the project is being built inside the panna tiger reserve. to make way for the daudhan dam, over 6,000 hectares of protected forest land will be submerged. 12,000 trees have already been felled inside the reserve. estimates for the total number of trees that will be destroyed across the project range from 2.3 million to 6 million. the supreme court's own central empowered committee flagged this. the panna tiger reserve had tigers declared locally extinct in 2005. it took years of work to bring them back. the project will now drown the habitat that recovery was built on. it also threatens the ken gharial (crocodile) sanctuary and critical vulture nesting sites downstream.
22 villages are directly affected in the first phase alone. over 7,000 families. gond and kol adivasi (tribal) communities who have lived on this land for generations, whose entire existence — food, income, culture, identity — is tied to jal, jangal, zameen — water, forest, land. they are being told to leave.
most families have rejected the rehabilitation package. the compensation is below market rate, surveys have discrepancies, and many families have received nothing at all. homes have been demolished during the monsoon season. people are living in the open, in the rain. there are videos of a tribal family sitting among the rubble of their home circulating on social media. the administration says precautions were take but families say they were inside when the walls came down.
when they protested, the government of india filed false criminal cases against them. cut off electricity to villages. demolished schools. and then, on july 19 at 5am, police moved in and forcibly broke up a 17-day sit-in on the banks of the barana river. the protest leader amit bhatnagar, who had been on hunger strike for 11 days, was taken away. the police say he was hospitalised because his health "worsened." (exactly what happened with sonam wangchuk) the protesters say he was detained before he could speak to the media about alleged corruption of ₹400 crore (4 million USD) in the project. the protesters' slogan was: nyay do, ya maar do — give us justice, or kill us.
this is being done in the name of providing water to bundelkhand, a drought-prone region. that's a real problem that deserves a real solution. but the people being displaced are asking something reasonable: show us the surveys. pay us fair rates. give us land for land, not just cash. consult our gram sabhas the way the law requires.
india has some of the most biodiverse forests on earth. the adivasi communities who have protected that land for centuries are not obstacles to development. they are the reason any of it still exists. and they are being evicted, intimidated and arrested so a dam can be built inside a tiger reserve that the government's own courts said should not be touched.
Mind boggling how some (or most idk) people really believe there's only two political sides for a person to choose and stick to ardently. Which rn is categorised as anti protest BJP bootlickers or pro protest CJP bootlickers (the left and right basically).
Yeah bro that's why the protest is happening cuz clearly y'all neve got the chance to be literate enough to know terms like nuance or variety exists, and that's a total failure of the education system.
A not so brief account of my experience at the Delhi protest on the 20th of July:
CW: violence, police brutality
3 of my friends and I, all of us resident doctors in various disciplines, had made extremely last minute plans to get to the walk that was organised for the 20th. I thankfully have a friend who lives fairly close to Jantar Mantar, and we were able to leave our things at their place while we were at the protest. We had decided to leave our phones at their house-since all of us had been extremely critical of the current government online, as well as in correspondences to our friends and family-and one of my friends carried a burner phone, in order to record the protest.
We reached Jantar Mantar at around 2:00am, fearing that the police may stop people from entering the site later in the day (this was of course what happened), and we milled through the crowd, talking to some of the other protestors at the site. At some point, we realised that the police presence had increased significantly, and the rapid action forces, had also been deputised to "deal" with us. At this point, I honestly still wasn't feeling scared at all. We were surrounded by several like minded people, who were also opposed to the current ruling party. It genuinely felt like we could speak with ease, for the first time in 12 years. We then found out, that the cops had started welding the barricades together. I'll admit that this is when I felt genuine fear. The minute we heard about this happening, the people around me immediately started talking about Jallianwala Bagh. Jallianwala Bagh, for those who don't know about the massacre, was a peaceful site of protest, where a large group of Indians had gathered to protest, during the Indian fight for independence. General Dyer, had then ordered all exits to be sealed, and opened fire on the protestors. A lot of what India faces under this government, feels eerily familiar to what she faced under British colonial rule.
Eventually, some of the protestors were able to push over the barricades, and we were able to start trying to move towards the parliament. That's unfortunately, when the violence began. The cops and RAF, started very indiscriminately lathi charging the crowd. There was no violence from our side. The cops had even parked a truck full of massive rocks, right by the protest site, probably hoping that the protestors would make use of them. In the end, we only have videos of the police themselves, chucking the rocks to make it look like the protest had been violent. And even after getting beaten up, the only responses I saw from the protestors, were pleas to be allowed to continue the march. We saw a lot of young students, face police brutality for the first time, and have to quickly come to the understanding, that the cops were not there to help them.
My friends and I had primarily gone, because we knew the cops would attempt to attack the protestors, and we wanted to provide whatever little medical aid we could. We had reached the site with 6 bags of saline, and at least 50 rolls of gauze, among other supplies. We were completely out by the time we left at night. I saw a lot of scalp and head injuries-it seemed like the wonderful police had gone out of their way to aim at protestors heads. I also saw a concerning number of children who had been injured by them. I counted 6 cases of eardrum rupture, and more bruises and cuts than I could keep track of. It was while I was attending to one of the injured protestors, that I was hit with the lathi for the first time. They saw very clearly, that I was in my doctor's coat, stethoscope in my pocket, and was treating a patient. They still tried to physically assault me. It was my fellow protestors, who immediately came to my defense, and got in between the police and I. This was our reality at the time. The only people we could rely on, were each other. A friend of mine was almost carted off by the police, to be placed under unlawful detention. He, like all of our little group, was only treating the injuries of the protestors. It was only because of the protestors, once again, that he was able to escape from their hold, and disappear back into the crowd. My friend who carried his burner phone, had it snatched from his hand, stomped on, and was then asked who was paying him to be there. We were a fair distance away from the tear gas shells, so we didn't experience the effects of the expired canisters the cops threw at the protests who were closer to the parliament. I found out after reaching the airport, that it was the nearby gurudwara and mosque, who were sheltering the protestors, and treating the inflammation inflicted by the tear gas. The same people, the media like to call Khalistanis or Pakistanis, they were the people who stepped up to help the protestors who were getting gassed by the cops.
We did not make it to the parliament, it's true. The delhi police and the RAF, who had all conveniently "lost" their name tags, made sure of it. But honestly, I can't find any sort of disappointment in myself. For the past few years, I have felt so alone, wondering why the people simply accepted the harm this government has inflicted on our country and our communities. But I came to realise that I wasn't alone, and I never had been. There I was, surrounded by people of all ages, who wanted better for this country. And it filled me with a sense of patriotism, that I hadn't felt in so long. These were ordinary people, who had taken leave from their jobs and studies, and were here, right beside me, demanding a better India.
Today I returned to my hospital, and to the outside observer, things may seem to have not changed in the slightest. But something feels different. Maybe I'm being foolish, or overly optimistic. I returned with nothing much to show, but a slightly depleted bank account, and a large bruise on my shoulder, but yesterday felt like an awakening. The people who want to claim that the 20th was the death of democracy, are so incredibly mistaken, because this is just the beginning. Now and forever इंक़लाब ज़िन्दाबाद.
i was discussing with my boyfriend yesterday that if foreign funding for mass protests in order to create political destabilisation is held as true, how does that track with the fact that india's foreign funding laws are so strict ki koi aira gaira fund nahi kar pata. he said nahi, the bjp actually made it LAX, THEMSELVES, BUT ONLY FOR POLITICAL PARTIES, NOT NGOS. toh bhaisahab, asli anti-national kaun hai ji?
