THE CPIML has for long demanded the protect of traditional water-bodies in Bihar. Needless to say these water bodies are threatened, not by the poor living by the side of and using those water bodies, but by the wealthy and powerful people of dominant communities who have captured these water bodies and lands around them. The Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali (water-life-greenery) scheme launched by the Bihar CM Nitish Kumar is nothing but a hypocritical pretense of environment protection and protection of the water bodies. In reality it is a conspiracy to evict the poor from lands they have long been settled on, while no action is being taken against wealthy dominant sections that have captured the lands and the water bodies. The scheme is a conspiracy to evict the poor settled for many years on pokhar-aahar-chaur lands (lands adjoining traditional water bodies) across Bihar without alternative arrangements. Eviction notices have already been issued to dalits and the poor in Eastern Champaran, Bhojpur and other districts. It is a known fact that the entire Bihar is in the clutches of dominant sections and the government is afraid to touch them in any way. For example, dominant sections have captured a large part of Kanwar Lake in Beguserai but instead of evicting them the Nitish government is targeting the poor.
Everyone wants environment conservation and clean drinking water in Bihar but this will be possible only if the government takes steps to revive and maintain water bodies like rivers, ponds and lakes. However, the government is not doing this but only making a hypocritical show by organizing a human chain. The Aurangabad cement factory and other factories in Bihar, for instance, have been given free license to guzzle ground water and emit huge pollution. The need of the hour is to revive the dying Ganga and other rivers and solve the problem of siltation. Nitish used to say this problem is because of Farakka but today when his government rules in both Delhi and Bihar, he is silent on this issue. The rivers of North Bihar are being destroyed by building embankments on them.
Moreover, Nitish Kumar, while claiming to oppose the NRC, had voted for the CAA and was implementing the draconian and anti-democratic NPR. The CPIML called upon people to expose the anti-poor and anti-democratic intent of the human chain, the Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali scheme, and the NPR-NRC-CAA package.
At many places in Bihar, young people joined the human chain with placards opposing the NPR, NRC, and CAA and calling out Nitish Kumar’s and the Bihar Government’s doublespeak on the issue.
More than 30 landless families settled for over 200 years on land in Tilath village, Piro Thana, Bhojpur have been issued eviction notices under the Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali scheme. It should be noted that these families are landless and have settled on this land for want of any other place to live. Instead of giving them parchas for the land they have been living on for so many years, the Nitish government has issued them eviction notices.
The people of the village held a protest march coinciding with the human chain under the Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali scheme that is razing down the homes of the poorest of the poor and riding rough-shod over their homes.
