Coming of Age : 1976 and the Road to Anti-Racism

nalism in India by the Sangh Parivar - the family of organisations for students, women, tribals
etc, - led by the RSS. In 1992 the Alliance Against Communalism and for Democracy in India
was formed in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, in India’s
Uttar Pradesh state, which led to communal carnage in every district of India. It brought
together not only left wing organisations but progressive organisations and individuals of all
faiths and political colour to counter the propaganda being put out in Britain in the name of
all Hindus by the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh - HSS. In 2002, Awaaz South Asia Watch was
launched in the wake of the massacre of 2000 plus Muslims in Gujarat in March 2002 for
which it is said that Narendra Modi, the current Prime Minister of India was culpable. On two
occasions Awaaz was able to stop Modi visiting London to address HSS organised meetings
while he was the chief minister of Gujarat. The editors of this book assure me that as the
SMG and TMG were an important part of the founding and running of these two organisations,
their work will be covered in the next book in the series.
Anti-racist work
o Newham 8 Defence Campaign and Newham Monitoring Project
The 1980’s saw a spate of attacks on Asians in the East End of London by violent racists.
(12) A high profile instance at the time was what came to be known as the Newham 8 case.
Eight Asian youths were arrested on 24th September 1982 and faced charges of Threatening
Behaviour and Actual Bodily Harm. All they had done was to defend themselves after
repeated attacks on Asians at the Little Ilford School and East Ham and Manor Park underground
tube stations. The Newham 8 Defence Campaign was launched by the Newham
Monitoring Project (NMP) with the slogan “Self-Defence is no Offence”. The NMP was also
active in other anti-racist campaigns which I participated in while I lived in East London.
Pro-poor work
o Mega-dam project on the river Narmada
In 1991 the World Bank was forced to appoint a team to conduct an independent review
of the human and environmental impact of a mega-dam and water distribution project on
the river Narmada in India. I had been working with Medha Patkar, the dynamic Gandhian
leader of Narmada Bachao Andolan - Save the Narmada Movement – (NBA) set up to fight
for the rights of tribal people whose land was going to be submerged by the dam. The
review team led by Bradford Morse asked me to help assess the problems caused to the
people whose land was going to be submerged by the 75,000-km canal network being
built for the project. The assessment was done jointly with my academic colleague Sridharan.
Our report was a part of the so-called Morse Report which led to acrimonious debates
(13) between the World Bank’s managers and its board of directors, ultimately leading the
World Bank to withdraw from the project, annulling the large loan offered to the Indian state
to carry it out. In its turn, the World Bank’s withdrawal was an important factor in the Indian
Supreme Court’s decision in 1994 to stop further construction (14) pending a proper judicial
Coming of Age | 157
Coming of Age Final version 16.10.indd 157 17/10/2017 12:08