Panjim: The “If We Do Not Rise” campaign, Goa Chapter was launched online, on September.
The National launch took Core Team representative of the Goa Campaign, Adv Dipti Arolkar explained the objectives of the campaign noting that the campaign was a coming together of women’s groups such as the LGBTQIA communities; Dalit groups; tribal groups; disabled persons groups, human rights organisations, trade unions, fish worker groups; environmental rights groups; to protest against the targeted attacks on the Constitutional rights of the people of India.
The campaign is organising a day of resistance on September 5, 2020, to safeguard the Indian Constitution and its values.
Arolkar spoke about how several autonomous bodies or institutional mechanisms constituted to monitor the enforcement of fundamental rights or to maintain oversight, such as the Goa State Commission for Women; the Goa State Police Complaints Authority; the State Disabilities Commissioner; don’t have chairpersons appointed for extended periods of time or are not provided with appropriate assistance or infrastructure as mandated under law.
She also drew attention to the fact that big corporate companies, including multinational IT companies, are bypassing the labour laws by coercing their employees to resign on the pretext of poor profits due to COVID19; and that app-based aggregators were taking undue advantage of the pandemic to double down on the exploitation of their delivery workers and drivers.
The campaign has so far already been endorsed by 31 organisations in Goa.
Speaking at the launch, Sonia Pereira explained the exclusionary character of the Citizenship Amendment Act and exposed the double standards in the claims of the Government of India to come to the aid of the persecuted minorities, when the Muslim persecuted minorities were not being considered.
