Kerala   

Swami Agnivesh backs land struggle

KOCHI: Social activist and president of the World Council of Arya Samaj Swami Agnivesh expressed solidarity with the struggle of the landless people at Chengara.

Talking to reporters here on Friday, Swami Agnivesh said it was high time that the people of this country stood up for these people who had been denied their land rights.

He was here in connection with the seventh Dr. Alexander Mar Thoma Metropolitan memorial lecture on the subject “Parliament of religions and seven-point social revolution,” at Kottarakkara on Saturday.

Swami Agnivesh said he was pained to see that the incident had taken place under the rule of a Left government, which was being led by a leader who had in the past said that he would “take away all the land from the mafia and distribute it among the landless.” He termed it “unfortunate.”

He wondered why the Left was squandering away an opportunity to distribute the land among the landless, when it had always held a similar position on the issue of land.

He said since the land at Chengara had now been freed from the clutches of the plantation sector, it should be distributed among the landless people as soon as possible. “I will urge my friends in the government here to proceed with the land distribution and to take credit for that,” he said.

He said that it would give the entire country a great hope and send out the message that land in this country was not up for grabs by multinational companies or the land mafia.

The Chengara struggle now symbolised the fact that multinational companies were grabbing the land, water and forest resources in the name of privatisation. He alleged that some of the State governments and the Central government were colluding with multinationals by acting as their agents rather than as servants of the people.

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