Janvadi Vichar Andolan, Bharat (JAVAB) A National Campaign for Secularism Announced

Today at a press conference addressed by : Lalji Desai (Jameen Adhikar Andolan – Gujarat (JAAG)), Indu Kumar Jani (Editor Naya Marg), Rajnibhai Dave (Editor Bhoomiputra), Gagan Sethi (Janvikas), Manan Trivedi (Anhad) and Shabnam Hashmi JANVADI VICHAR ANDOLAN, BHARAT (JAVAB) was announced.
ANNOUNCING

JANVADI VICHAR ANDOLAN, BHARAT (JAVAB)
A National Campaign for Secularism

Defeat Communal Forces in 2014 General Elections

The general elections are but a few months away. Many of us have been working for years in the field of human rights, health, water rights, land rights, Dalit/Adivasi rights, women’s issues, civil rights. Many of us are writers, academics, teachers, students, activists. While we may think of our work as deeply political, we have not been engaged directly in politics, or at least electoral politics. 2014, however is different. The danger of communalism is imminent. The portends are dark already. As we inch closer to the elections, the façade of development talk is forgotten and an unabashed Hindutva agenda begins to unfold. Uttar Pradesh is the best illustration of this.

As has been said by election watchers, political analysts and commentators, the fate of the avowedly communal political force, the Bharatiya Janata Party, is tied to its electoral fortunes in the state of UP. The arrival of Amit Shah last year as the BJP’s UP in charge coincided with the heralding of the old style communal propaganda. These are again – as earlier – matched by their real ability to foment violence, engineer riots, and drive vulnerable minority groups out of their homes and villages. Muzafarnagar burnt. But the entire belt of Western Uttar Pradesh remains on edge, the traditional unity between Jats and Muslims fractured because of cynical political calculations.

The success in Muzafarnagar may be attempted to be replicated elsewhere. As communal polarization becomes the sole guarantee of electoral success, tensions will be deliberately infused in places, which have witnessed communal peace and harmony in the past. In such a scenario, we are experiencing a restlessness and anxiety. We feel that we need to intervene urgently to the best of our ability to ensure the defeat of communal forces. Indeed, the danger is far greater than simply the threat of communal takeover. The manner in which activists have been targeted by registration of vindictive FIRs for pursuing the legal process in the case of 2002 pogrom; the muzzling of all dissent, provides a glimpse into the authoritarian vision of this communal force. Indeed, the very existence of liberal, democratic and secular consciousness seems to be under assault.

Activists, academics, artists, writers and social workers are coming together to form a National Platform for Secularism called JANVADI VICHAR ANDOLAN, BHARAT ( JAVAB) with the twin agendas of countering communal forces in the forthcoming elections and advocating for a truly inclusive society, politics and economics. This Platform will be guided by the sensibilities forged in our collective struggles for dignity of dalits, the rights of Adivasis and other marginalised communities (pastoralists, fisherfolk, landless wage labour, informal and casual labourers), gender justice, the battles of the working class, increasingly fissured and invisibilized; mobilizations for a more equitable and sustainable development, environmental movements, as well as the democratic aspirations of peoples everywhere in the country.

While we are not aligning with any particular party, it will be our effort to appeal to all secular forces to ensure that the anti-communal vote does not splinter. But more than that this, the platform will work in some select constituencies to repel any communal polarization through its grass roots campaigns and meetings right up till the elections.

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