Idinthakarai Update, March 27, 2012
Greetings! Ayya Pazha. Nedumaran, Vaiko, Thirumavalavan, Seeman, journalist Gnani and many many more good hearts have been asking us to stop the fast unto death immediately. Pushparayan, 13 of our comrades and I have been very very tired; three women fainted and were hospitalized yesterday.  Rayan and I have some pain on our stomachs; and I have been feeling a bit dizzy. The government medical team checked on our health and found out that my pulse rate had come down. They wanted me to go to a nearby town for tertiary medical care but I refused to do that.
We have been asking the government to talk to us and this has taken 9 days for them to depute the District Collector for talks. People have chosen ten representatives from ten coastal and interior villages to go and talk to the Collector.
In the meantime, the police have charged all the 178 people from Koottapuli village with more serious case such as ‘waging war against the State’ and denied us the opportunity to take them out on bail.  Similarly, the other friends who are locked up in Cuddalur prison have also been re-arrested in more serious cases. The Indian State is hell bent on destroying us and sending a lesson to all the anti-nuclear, anti-globalization and other anti-government protestors around the country. The governments would pass all kinds of pro-foreigner and anti-Indian bills on crucial issues such as Food Security, Water, FDI on retail business and undertake dangerous anti-Nature and anti-Future projects and we all should keep quiet and fall in line.
The simple question we want to ask all our Indian brothers and sisters is this: do we, Indian citizens, still have the right to oppose the government’s policies, programs and projects peacefully and democratically? If so, why does the Indian State want to destroy us all with cases of sedition, waging war against the State and so forth?
We have been fighting nonviolently without even a single case of violence or terror. We have not harmed or hurt or killed anybody; we have not damaged any private or public property. Then why are we being treated like this by the Indian State? Is it because our people are poor, lower caste, or most of them belong to minority communities such as Christians and Muslims? Please think of this.
What kind of message is this brutal behavior of the State sending to our youth? They cannot use either violence or nonviolence to demand their rights and entitlements; they should not complain about anything and simply help the rich become richer.
Some 70 percent of our people are poor; more than 50 percent of our people do not have toilets and basic human dignity; and some 46 percent of our infants are born malnourished and under-weight. Most of the political leaders, bureaucrats, scientists, military leaders and businessmen are robbing the people mercilessly. They are hoarding their ill-gotten wealth in Swiss banks; and they steal not just in lakhs or crores but in lakhs of crores. The poor people of India do not have even two square meals, and safe drinking water.
It is high time we, the people of India, stood up and took our country back! Cooperatively, peacefully, nonviolently and democratically! Before it is too late and we are re-colonized by Russians, Americans, the French and others.
Please save us from the cruel grip of the Indian State. We thank all our brothers and sisters who are already doing this all over the country. We need more people and more actions.
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