4. Tsunami Related Campaigns

In our usual development work – whether it is education, health, livelihood or women’s empowerment – we have found that we often start with simple constructive programs that help the poor.  But soon we come to a stage where we find vested interests aligned against us - where to really help the poor we must take up struggles and campaigns on their behalf.   Every sincere group working with the poorest will come across this. Where there is inequality, there are vested interests trying to maintain the inequality and without struggling against these forces, one cannot hope to really help the poor.  The question is whether when faced with such struggles we have the courage to press ahead or we withdraw. 

In AID we recognize that struggle and development – ‘sangarsh’ and ‘nirman’ – are two sides of the same coin.  You cannot have one without the other.  This is true not only in ‘regular’ development work – it is equally true in disaster relief and rehabilitation work.

Anti-eviction and CRZ Campaign

The first few days everyone worked together to provide relief to the people affected by the Tsunami – we worked closely with the government machinery to help clear debris, organize health camps, distribute relief materials, etc.  But soon we began to realize that government officials were making moves to use the Tsunami to permanently evict these people from the coastline. 

Even earlier (before the Tsunami) there had been a lot of moves to evict many of these people from the coast – particularly from scenic spots – so that the coastal areas could be used for tourist resorts and hotels.

In 1991 the Government of India passed a notification called the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification to regulate new constructions within 500 m of the coastline. This notification specifically allows traditional communities to continue living there (including rebuilding broken homes) and prevents outsiders from coming in to construct new buildings in the area without special clearances.   The spirit behind the CRZ is to really protect the local communities.  Unfortunately the government under pressure from several vested interests has been itself violating this spirit of the CRZ and has over the years allowed several groups to construct along the coast – you can see the result when you drive down from Chennai towards Mahabalipuram.

One major blockade in the further expansion of these tourist resorts and industries are the fishing communities living along the coast.  And that’s why there has been so many attempts at evicting them. Obviously the people have been protesting and refusing to move away – they know that if they move away, they are finished. 

The Tsunami became a good excuse to evict these people.    In several places in Chennai the people were forcibly evicted from the coast and moved out 12-15 km outside!  In many villages, officials began to frighten people about another Tsunami and coax the already frightened victims to agree to move out.  In several places these officials got people to sign papers agreeing to shift.  This was all done within 10 days of the Tsunami, even as the rest of the world was trying to ensure basic relief reaches the poor victims! Why this hurry to get them to shift?  Was it fair to use people’s fears to con them like this?  Then on Jan 19^th, a letter from the government directed the collectors to compulsorily shift people at least 500 m from the coast and if land was not available, to shift them out even further.  And this letter in addition stated that the older land that the fishing communities owned must be handed over to the government.  And the excuse used was the CRZ! They said “the CRZ prevents us from constructing new houses on the coast – so we can only rebuild beyond the 500m line.”  Such sudden concern about the CRZ was very suspicious given the government has itself violated it for so long!  But at any rate this argument was nonsense as the CRZ clearly allowed fishing communities to rebuild their houses.