Statement on the Government of India’s act of reprisal against the Indian Social Action Forum

Jubilee South Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD)

In an act of outright political repression, the Government of India recently issued orders to freeze the bank account of one of the largest civil society organizations in the country, the Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), on grounds of allegedly holding activities “prejudicial to the public interest”. By its own hand, the Government of India has cast a long shadow on its claim as the largest democracy in world.

The punitive action came as INSAF and many other organizations gathered near the venue of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Annual Meeting of Governors in northern India to voice their protest to the Bank’s projects. Many of these bank projects destroyed the environment, uprooted and displaced communities, and most importantly, railroaded the Indian nation’s sovereign right to plan their development not around GDP growth but the needs and interests especially of grassroots people.

We, the Jubilee South Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD) condemn and protest this blatant attack against INSAF and the Indian people’s civil and political rights. One of JSAPMDD’s 40 member-organizations across Asia, INSAF has consistently upheld the public interest and democratic rights through its work in helping grassroots people and communities fight poverty and discrimination and exercise their basic human and democratic rights.

There is no clearer expression of INSAF’s relevance and responsiveness to the public interest than the expansion of its membership to 700 social action groups, movements and progressive individuals in over 15 states of India today. Many widely-supported actions on a range of concerns – from access to essential social services such as water, to resisting land grabbing and the violent suppression of indigenous peoples and Dalits (“untouchables”) – attest to INSAF’s unswerving defense of the public interest since its founding in 1993.

We call on the ADB to pay more than lip service to the premium it gives to people’s participation, which includes listening to all views, especially from those most affected by its policies and projects. Innumerable reports of people left worse off than before already discredits the Bank’s avowed pursuit of reducing poverty and deprivation. To look the other way when a member-country employs strong-arm tactics to shepherd in ADB, and directly suppresses its people’s experiences and views of the Bank’s policies and projects disgraces and erodes this claim even further.

We call on the Government of India to uphold democratic rights and principles. What is clearly inimical to public interest is intolerance of dissent and political reprisal, which bar governments from truly understanding their constituents because they only listen to what they want to hear. Genuinely democratic governance welcomes opposing views and healthy debate; it does not curtail criticism in the guise of public interest.

We stand in solidarity with INSAF in resisting this latest attack on the Indian people’s rights and freedoms. We support you in vigilant opposition, knowing only too well from our many experiences of politically repressive regimes in Asia that strong-arm tactics often dangerously lead to even more suppressive measures. We are with you in asserting the exercise of the most basic of democratic rights to free speech, organization and peaceful assembly, and in standing firm against allowing any act assailing our human rights and democratic freedoms to go unchallenged.¢

10 May 2013, Jubilee South Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development

JSAPMDD is regional alliance of peoples’ movements, community organizations, coalitions, NGOs and networks, aimed at developing and advancing collective actions to realize people-centered development, economic and environmental rights and justice.

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