Dear Friends, Greetings from Xavier Jeyaraj !
Indian Social Institute, New Delhi and South Asian Peoples' Initiatives (SAPI) together organized a workshop to Prepare Peoples' Manifesto in view of the coming general election. Around 110 people from various peoples' organizations and movements joined and prepared a manifesto that reflects the concerns and demands of the civil society. Here is the letter and I am attaching the Manifesto as well. As mandated by the participants at the workshop, I am sending you the final text of the Peoples' Manifesto 2009 that we have owned as our Manifesto. We have tried to keep the manifesto as sharp and focussed as possible without diluting the essential objectives and demands that were articulated at the workshop. This People’s Manifesto mentions only the urgent and the most important non-negotiable national level demands and they are not exhaustive. These demands will be better articulated and concretized according to the local needs and conditions of people in different parts of the country. To make it really the manifesto of the common citizen it is important that you take the process forward by reaching these demands in your own creative ways to people with whom you work, candidates who will be contesting in your constituency and to national and state political parties in your area and the state. At the national level SAPI will reach these demands to all the political parties, academicians, activists, NGOs, people’s organisations and movement in Delhi. Let us as members of civil society begin to expand the space of the ordinary common citizen to demand what is due to them. tasks: Explain the context and how this manifesto was evolved. Remember that this manifesto is evolved from the perspective of the dalits, adivasis, women, unorganised workers, minorities who are the major constituents of SAPI. All those names of organisations who are ready to own this document and endorse it will be added at the end of the manifesto. Kindly get their explicit approval so that we do not have a problem later. A good way of doing this would be each organisation can write in their letter head their support and asking us to include their organisation name. You can keep a copy of this letter and send me a Xerox copy. Try to avoid oral support, unless you are very sure of. Send me the list of organizations that have endorsed the People’s Manifesto. In the process if someone brings to your attentions anything important which has not been addressed in the demands, please send it to me latest by 14th March, not later than that. This is done to expand the ownership. We will not consider the local demands. I will send you the final version by 16th March, with all those organisations endorsing the manifesto. Without much delay translate the text into vernaculars and spread the good news. What will SAPI do? As promised at the workshop, SAPI will publish the People’s Manifesto both in English and Hindi and send it to you as soon as possible, latest by 20th March. Please inform me, how many printed copies of the Peoples' Manifesto would you like to have for your State (English and Hindi separately) What else can you do? Get to know the candidates standing for the election (the person, his/her credentials, on which party ticket he/she is standing what are the policies of the party, any past criminal record of the candidate, his/her social involvement and his/her role in peoples' struggles in the last few years) and inform the people about them. Invite the candidates for a debate on Peoples' issues and get them to know their opinion. Let us disseminate the information to as many people as possible and help the people to make discerned decision. With regards, Xavier Jeyaraj SAPI Coordinator -- www.jesaonline.org Xavier Jeyaraj SJ, JESA Secretary Indian Social Institute, 10 Institutional Area Lodi Road, New Delhi - 110003 Ph: +91-11-2462 2379 / 2462 5015 / 2461 1745; Fax: +91-11-2469 0660 Tags: (sapi), and, asian, coming, delhi, election, general, in, indian, initiatives Share Attachments: People_Manifesto_final.pdf, 130 KB
