FREEDOM WALK 2012

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Land-movements and Nonviolence in India

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13 Abr 2012 — javier By Rajagopal PV
In India, the most publicized land-movement was the Bhoodhan movement. In the 1950s and 60s, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, Vinobha Bhave walked across the country asking for land as gift. His strategy was to ask land-owning families to treat him as one of their own and give him one share of the land which can then be redistributed to the landless people. It took 14 years for him to walk across the country and collect a little more than 4 million acres of land. This was a very radical approach based on his philosophy of 'change of heart'.
This approach was often criticized by the left-political parties because they thought that Vinobha Bhave was trying to protect the land-owners and prevent a forceful law that will enable the state to take way the land of the farmers. I will not use this opportunity to analyze the success or the failure of this movement as there is already a lot written about it. But it is very interesting to see how an individual can use a particular strategy to redistribute land from the powerful to the powerless. Even though the socialist and the left were all building their movement around the agenda of land-distribution, land is no longer on their agenda. With the arrival of globalization, there is a drastic shift in the thinking of those who believed in socialistic or leftist ideologies. They are also slowly submitting themselves to the idea that globalization is inevitable and nothing much can be done to protect land and livelihood resources of the people. At this stage let me also recognize the role of radical groups who believed in violence as a method to redistribute land. Though there were not able to distribute land in the real sense, at least in the areas were they have their presence, people still hold on to land and livelihood resources or successful to some extent in preventing the onslaught of globalization. Janadesh and Jansatyagraha are proposing the middle path in land redistribution. We believe that it is difficult to have the scale of moral power of Vinobha Bhave to solve the problem by using this element of compassion. It is also not worth to shed blood and creating permanent animosity between groups in our efforts towards land -distribution. The approach we have taken is to use nonviolent mass action to pressurize the government to solve this problem through a legal framework. Within the legal framework the government can do a lot in terms of implementing the laws that are already there but these laws can be implemented only if the government is willing to take a position in support of the marginalized communities. Because the ruling class is drawn from the communities with land and resources, it is not easy for the ruling class to take a radical position in support of the weak and marginalized. For the international readers let me give some examples.
In India we have a ceiling act. This act provides that every farmer can have up to 20 acres of irrigated land and about 40 acres of un-irrigated land (These numbers vary from state to state). If this act is implemented in letter and spirit there will be a lot of surplus lad available for re-distribution to the landless. A lot of manipulation took place with the awareness of government officials and as a result the amount of surplus land available for re-distribution is limited. Another example is the recently enacted Forest Rights Act of 2006. This was the result of many years of struggle by several groups. Through this law, the claims by adivasis for the land they have been cultivating can be settled in their favour. You will be surprised that in a country were 80 million people are adivasis only 1 million people got land in the last 5 years (With 8 members per family, this comes to 12.5% distribution rate) which in itself is an indication of our level of performance in support of poor people. Because of pressure from civil society groups, the government has constituted several committees to look into this problem of land-holding pattern and land-distribution in the country and come up with recommendations. In the last 10 years there were many committees and there were many interesting recommendations on the table. Different committees have repeatedly said that if the livelihood resources are not distributed it will lead to mass scale migration to cities and may also lead to increased level of violence in rural India. Unfortunately these recommendations are not translated into meaning policies and laws. Like many other countries, India is also divided into two parts. On one side poor people are demanding land and livelihood resources and on the other side national and multinational companies are asking for land and resources. In a globalizing world where the decisions are mainly tilting in favour of global forces it is important to have nonviolent social movements like Janadesh and Jansatyagraha to remind the state that they cannot be one-sided. The decisions need to be all-inclusive.
Though India has a history of nonviolent struggles under the leadership of Gandhi and many others, we tend to ignore the power of nonviolence in dealing with our problems today. While we constantly discuss about our history and our proud of our nonviolent struggle government tends to use force to put down the voice of those who are raising issues in support of the marginalized. Governance through a process of consultation and dialog hasn't become a culture even in most advanced democracies. The natural tendency is to say that the elected government should have the freedom to decide for everyone. They know what is in the interest of the county. And in this analysis the voices of the marginalized gets further marginalized. Through Janadesh and Jansatyagraha we are trying to bring their voice on the central stage. How long can a state be oppressive and how long can a state ignore the voices of the oppressed. While at the level of India there are many efforts that are being made, we feel the need for international solidarity in making nonviolence work and work in the interest of powerless and marginalized.
Let me use this opportunity to inform you the kind of nonviolent strategies that we have put together in our ongoing struggle that began from 2 October 2011. The first strategy was to choose the international day of nonviolence for launching this action. We began a yatra (a road-trip) from Kanyakumari, the Southern tip of India on 2 October. We will begin our historical march from Gwalior on 2 October. The second strategy was to involve large number of organizations cutting across political ideologies. We are trying to bring about 2000 organizations on board for our action in 2012. The third strategy was to travel across the country through the yatra and visit most of the nonviolent struggles where people are trying to organize themselves against the transfer of resources to powerful lobbies and from each one of the struggle, we are taking soil samples to create an exhibition in Delhi to educate people about the history of each one of these struggles. Another important strategy is to train 12,223 activists to lead the historical march of 1 lakh people. Each one of them needs to know how a long march can be organized with deep commitment to nonviolence. Another strategy put in place is to get the old generation freedom struggle groups who worked under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi to sit in Delhi while the marginalized communities are on the road. There are many other strategies that are being used to make the entire process not only nonviolent but also highly participatory. So the entire struggle is designed by keeping land and livelihood resources as the core agenda without compromising on the philosophy of nonviolence. Through this process we hope that the land agenda will come back on the table and the government will be forced to act in a way that a powerful structural remedy can be found to enable land-distribution, sustainable agriculture and poverty eradication.

Publicado en The Broken Rifle, April 2012, No. 91

A Letter From Rajagopal.P.V

23^rd April 2015

Dear Friends

First of all I want to send you my greetings for the year 2015. Going through my file I could notice many of my old contacts in India as well as other part of the world.  With many of you I am still in touch with but with some of you, my contact is disconnected for various reasons. I would like to reconnect with all of you as I am now working on a large International campaign called Jai Jagat2020. http://jaijagat2020.org

The idea behind this campaign is to organize one million people to stand up and walk for justice to the marginalized communities. The campaign will also address large Global organizations that are committed to a development model free of ethics and justice. I would very much like to get your support to take this campaign ahead. I am sure many of you must have changed your email ID and address in the mean time may I kindly request you to provide me your new contacts. So that I can continue to send you information’s about various activities that are connected to Jai jagat2020.

There is a big campaign building up in India against the Land Acquisition Ordinance in-order to support industrialization. I am going to undertake fast for four days with five hundred members of marginalized communities against this particular move by the Govt. This fast will be organized in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh during 26^th to 29^th of April 2015. A word of solidarity from your side will be highly appreciated.

Hope this mail will find you in good spirit and I look forward to hear from you as early as possible.

With warm regards

Rajagopal.P.V

INVITATION for Trainers Training Program for Jai Jagat2020.

 

Sub: INVITATION for Trainers Training Program for Jai Jagat2020.

Dear Friends

As you know that preparations for Jai Jagat2020 are progressing well. Jai Jagat2020 is aiming to train large number of young men and women in-order to take responsibility to change the life situation of marginalized communities in the world. The participants can be the youth from urban as well as rural areas. They can be school educated or life educated. They should come from all regions and languages. Building a world order based on ethics and justice will be the focus of the training. The training will also introduce young people to nonviolent theory and action that can be used for changing the situation of marginalized people.

Jai Jagat2020 will have both national and international dimensions that will ultimately promote a global action to address global issues. In this connection we are planning to organize Trainers Training Program in different states of India. We need two serious participants (male and Female) from each district who can spent 5 days in the program to learn about Jai Jagat2020 and about gain skills and capacities to train other as volunteers of Jaijagat2020. Needless to say that, we are looking for individuals with some field experience and commitment.

I hope you will encourage committed young men and women to participate in this program. Jai Jagat2020 committee will provide the participants with 2^nd class train fare/bus fare and simple accommodation and food in the camp.

Please do not send non serious participants as we want to use the resources with great care.

Yours sincerely

Rajagopal.P.V

Mother Earth- Movie UPLIFT

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Call to unite for total prohibition in Tamil Nadu

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State must provide rehabilitation for families of addicts: activists

C. Periyasamy (67) is a member of the ‘Youth Walk for Liquor-free Society’ organised from Kanyakumari to Chennai by the People’s Movement Against Liquor and Drugs (PMALD).

“The days I spent interacting with people creating awareness of total prohibition is what I consider the most meaningful period in my life,” Mr. Periyasamy, a retired regional probation officer from Ariyalur, told The Hindu on Thursday at the Gandhi Memorial Museum.

M. Anandhi Ammal from Chennai, who advocates total prohibition in the State, says that the team came across a large number of women, who are victims of domestic abuse because of liquor. “A woman, who works for daily wages, told us that she is hesitant to return home every day after work fearing abuse by her husband,” she says.

The team also encountered a 10-year-old boy who asked if there was any medicine to cure his father’s addiction to liquor, Ms. Anandhi Ammal adds. “Such incidents gave us more determination to fight against liquor and all the people should come together for total prohibition in the State,” she further says.

They also met a few families where the children had to drop out of schools to earn the bread after their fathers became alcoholics. R. Senthamilselvi, another member of the team, rues that a large number of school and college students are becoming liquor addicts under peer pressure.

Liquor addiction is one of the major reasons for the rise in number of crimes in society, says S. Dhanaraj, coordinator of the walk. “In several families, young girls are sent to textile mills for work under Sumangali scheme and their fathers use the money to get drunk,” she claims.

In order to create awareness among youth, the team makes students take a pledge against drinking liquor in each district.

S. Thiraviam (66), a visually challenged motor mechanic, notes that most of the addicts they encountered vowed to stop drinking if the TASMAC outlets were closed down. “They said they were unable to resist drinking if the liquor is sold in every street,” he adds.

Besides implementing total prohibition, the State should provide rehabilitation for families of addicts for their better livelihood, says Inamul Hasan, organiser of PMALD. “Involvement of civil society and students is required to bring total prohibition in the State,” concludes the 26 year-old.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/call-to-unite-for-total-prohibition-in-tamil-nadu/article6550914.ece

Reflecting on Ekta Parishad --- Past, Present and Future

Reflecting on Ekta Parishad --- Past, Present and Future

July 9, 2014

Rural youth in India have never had an opportunity to look at their own lives and to analyze why they are in so much poverty and encircled by what appears to be intractable problems. Poverty did not allow them to go to school and as non-schooled children have not had opportunities to use their brain and to think broadly on issues other than surviving. They have always been engaged in manual labour for making a basic living. They have been forced to accept all kinds of humiliation as they have not had any support structures and thus they have had no courage to stand up against the oppressors. They have always  lived in fear. Fear of the oppressor, fear of Government Officials, fear of so-called educated people and so forth means that they have not been able to advance.  This fear and hunger have been the two sides of the problem with which young people have had to live.

Back in the 1970s some voluntary organizations like Prayog, Gandhi Ashram and other organizations have played a role in breaking this chain of fear by bringing young people into training camps. Young people who were only using their physical strength to survive, suddenly found a new world around them and they began to discuss their life situation. In these camps, they started acting out their suffering through theater, songs, slogans and dialogue. A new consciousness arose wherein they were more confident and courageous. A new world of friendship and solidarity emerged around them and this new reality made them different kind of people. They became fearless and decided to fight oppression and poverty nonviolently.

One hundred young people coming together in youth camps became common practice. These youth camps were held in very simple settings and the campers shared all the responsibility to run these camps. The organizations were responsible for collecting food grains, feeding the campers and accommodating the campers.

The impact of these camps was beyond our imagination. These young people went back to their villages with a different set of understanding and capacity and thus they were able to challenge oppression of various kinds that they had been facing for generations.

Bringing women into the youth camps was not an easy task. On one hand there was their reservation of mixing with male members, and on the other, there was control coming from the society making it difficult for women to attend. Therefore it was not easy initially to get an equal number of women to participate. Even if they did come their learning process was much slower than the male participants. It took years of work before women started coming in larger numbers.  With fewer outside opportunities women participants began to move much faster and took up leadership in their communities. Wherever women were leaders, the organization was stronger and adopted change. Along with this the society also began to change its attitude towards women. People are no longer critical of women for attending youth camps. For both women and men travel together on bicycles, and people have no problem in accepting women as leaders and working under them. What we see today in many villages is the result of leadership provided by women. The Government officials who refused to listen to women initially are now most willing to attend to their grievances.

The success of this grassroots leadership model attracted many organizations in India and the demand came from different states to take up similar trainings in various states. So the organizational format moved from Madhya Pradesh to Bihar, UP, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Tamilnadu Kerala, Rajasthan and so forth. In course of time this form of organizing became accepted at the national level as a mass movement, which protected the livelihood resources of marginalized people.

But all of this was not without reaction. The young leaders who returned to the villages raised many uncomfortable issues: corruption in the bureaucracy, caste and class discrimination, mafias using alcohol to control community life, bonded labor and child labor as a form of exploitation, the oppression of women, the unequal distribution of land and resources among the poor people, and so forth. All of these issues raised by poor people created ripples and this impacted the society. The reaction was beyond imagination. Officials called us anti-nationals, the media projected the organization as rabble-rousers, and the feudal landlords wanted to drive us out of their area. The activists of the organization were attacked, and some were put into prison, some got killed; it became challenging almost everyday.

This was the time when some of us came together to shape the organization under the name of Ekta Parishad. It was becoming clear that as individual groups it would be difficult to withstand constant retaliation. Only by creating a forum was the organization able to survive and this ongoing struggle began to change peoples’ lives. Over time Ekta Parishad became a well-known organization nationally and internationally. It had a lot of people whose spiritedness get the organization going, but there were others that were resisting the role being played in the society. As a Gandhian organization, the principal of transformative action was maintained in spite of all the challenges. Ekta Parishad activists were continuously trained to respect others even those that were resisting them.

Looking back on the history of EP, one can say that it achieved a lot in terms of building a “bottom up” organization and a leadership model. It was also able to follow the same process at the international level and create a international solidarity network.

Now when thousands of people are marching on the road for many days with very limited resources covering thousands of kilometers by way of footmarch to mobilize public opinion, then people know that the result of years of work to build leaders and an organization was genuinely ‘bottom-up’.

What is the future of this organization? In my opinion we have lived and worked for the last 25 years. I want to see this organization going on for another twenty-five years, that means, another generation. I want to see the organization not only growing but also changing with the times. We have addressed problem from at the local to national level. Now this is the time for us to give some attention to the international level and galvanize the forces that create more space for the marginalized communities. In a world where marginalization is becoming a major problem for millions of people, it is important to take responsibility and address the situation. Jai Jagat 2020 is a step in this direction. Moving out of national boundaries to explore partners at the global level, in order to act together for a better world, is the vision of the campaign. In a world, which is becoming more and more violent including economic violence, we have to take up the responsibility of bringing the agenda of nonviolence to as many groups and individuals as possible. In a world where profit making is the main pillar of development, we need to bring forward a new development discourse. We know that Ekta Parishad is not a big organization to take on such a huge responsibility and that only through international solidarity can headway be made. We in Ekta Parishad are open to join and collaborate with all positive processes in this direction. We want to make our humble contribution to make the world a better place for coming generations.

We don’t want to do it at the cost of our work in India. We want to use this an opportunity to deepen and expand our own work in India as well.  India has 650 districts and Ekta Parishad is only in 150 districts. Youth camps and leadership development will be taken up across the country in the next six years. Deepening and widening the engagement of the marginalized in India so that individual actions can be scaled up to the national level and work to change policies, while changing the situation locally is the challenge ahead. Creating greater space for women at the grassroots level through leadership is an essential condition of the work. While criticizing the global economy we feel the responsibility to work for strengthening the local nonviolent economy. It is also important to promote the concept of nonviolence as a theory and practice.

The above-mentioned challenges can be met only if there is also resource mobilization from urban Indians and international communities. Of course the major part of the resources come from local people and their need to solve their life related problems. Solidarity support is seen as additional. Our international friends have shown how a minimum of international support in terms of human and financial resources along with lobbying and campaigning has advanced the work hitherto. I am sure we will continue to receive the same level of support in the coming years as well. Educating the urban middle class Indians and enlisting their support in the process of changing the situation of India is also an urgent agenda.

Many of us who are giving leadership to EP may not be there in 25 years time. A new brand of leadership will emerge and they will direct the organization in a more creative and progressive way. We believe this vision and work will also continue. Resisting the destruction in today’s society means that we are compelled to create a more harmonious and just development and a culture of politics that is ethical and nonviolent.

 Rajagopal.P.V