Why is it wrong to kill protesting people?

In Tamil Nadu, at least 12 people died after the police (and some sources claim that sharpshooters) opened fire on the protesters for closing the smelting plant of Sterlite copper managed by a London based, but owned by Indian, company called Vedanta.

Vedanta is perhaps the topmost company in the mining field in India at the moment. The company saw upward rise in the regime of NDA(I) when during the process of so-called disinvestment many PSUs were sold at the throwaway prices to the likes of Vedanta through an intricate chain of power brokers in the government as well as private sectors.

The right to protest against wrongs is the fundamental right of the citizens. In this case, the citizens questioned that the unit of Sterlite is polluting and it is not in accordance with the norms of the government. The state government stopped the smelting accordingly.

It is wrong on the part of the government or any agency to open fire on the protesting masses. In the past, the citizens were killed by the non-state agencies, but it seems that the state is increasingly becoming violent. In the worst of its kind of violence by the state, the state set up one citizen against another in what was called Salwa Judum in Bastar. The state does not need to be violent as the core of the state should be welfare, but judging by what is happening in this country, the state is becoming violent day by day.

The violence of the state is the antithesis of democracy.

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist

Editor – The state that kills its own citizen isn’t worth protecting. Such state should better be dismantled. For the sake of money, BJP government has sold the nation in the hands of private companies, which exploit and kill innocents. Such companies that play with the lives of people and for those profit matter more than the lives of people should be banned from operating in India.

[irp]