Ten Thousand Things
Multicultural Webfinds

"Ten Thousand Things" is a Buddhist expression representing the dynamic interconnection and simultaneous unity and diversity of everything in the universe.

Transnational Land Rights Movement: JANADESH – March of 25,000 Indian Farmers Represent Millions

Recently, some of the images of 25,000 farmers, landless workers, and indigenous people who protest marched for a month and converged in New Delhi on the anniversary of Gandhi's birthday, October 2, 2007, made global news, showing the marginalized human faces of two thirds of India's population of 1.1 billion – small farmers who work miniscule plots of land, tenant farmers, and unorganized laborers. There are great photographs of the march at the LandforLife website.

In the past few decades, rapid industrial development has edged an already impoverished 20 million off their tiny bits of property, rendering them "internally displaced" people with no way to make a living. The widespread suicides of hundreds of these farmers, who have no way out of debt, have made global headlines.
Bharat Dogra's article, "The poor march for a better deal," in the Asia Times describes the march and its background:

"On Sunday, the protestors, numbering about 25,000, assembled peacefully amid glass-sheathed malls and skyscrapers to say that they had marched 300 kilometers from the central city of Gwalior to ask for the very basic - small plots of land on which to farm - and not "luxuries" like electricity.

"Police hastily shepherded the marchers into large, open fairgrounds where they are hunkered down, saying they have nothing to go home for and that they are ready to wait, as long as it takes, for a satisfactory response from the government.

"By Monday, the government was shaken enough to make a motion of conceding to their demands. It agreed to appoint a committee of experts, chaired by Manmohan Singh, to consider ways of speeding up land reforms, one of independent India's long-forgotten goals...

"P V Rajagopal, the main organizer of the march and chairman of the Ekta Parishad movement, said, 'In the recent years of economic liberalization, the program of land distribution among the landless has been badly neglected, while hundreds of thousands of acres that belonged to small peasants have been taken away for industries, mining, dams and others projects. Their already meagre share of the land is diminishing. Non-violent struggle for protecting the land rights of the poor cannot be delayed any further.'

"Although Manmohan's Congress party-led government came to power in 2004 on a promise to give a "human face to liberalization", its policy of giving quick approval to special economic zones across the country has exacerbated a land grab process by the rich and influential.

"As a result, conflicts between farmers and corporate interests have sprung up across India. After 14 farmers were shot dead by police in West Bengal state, a plan to acquire 8,900 hectares of land for a petrochemical complex had to be shelved this year.

"Jagdish and Srilal, two Sahariya tribals from the Morena district of central Madhya Pradesh state, told Inter Press Service: 'Rich, influential persons have occupied the land which was to be allocated to us. We have been to the state capital of Bhopal to get justice, but failed. Now we've come to the biggest seat of power in Delhi to demand justice. We joined the march to demand our traditional right over jal, jangal, jameen [water, forest, land].'

"Usha Devi and Sonakali have come from Arrah district of eastern Bihar state. They traveled to Gwalior by train to be able to join the march from Gwalior on October 2. "We are dalits [so-called untouchables]. We work as farm laborers from dawn to dusk for about Rs25 [five US cents]. Our men get slightly more, but our families can't survive on this. We have come here to demand farm land, the houses and the wages the government has been promising us for many years."

"Briton Tony Mortlock, from the non-governmental organization Action Village India, said: "The march was brilliantly organized. India is called the world's largest democracy, but to live up to that reputation the government must accept the demands of these marchers..."

Development experts are generally agreed that strong land reforms are the best approach to reducing poverty, increasing productivity and ensuring food security, as well as bringing peace and justice to Indian villages. Such a program can also create an enthusiastic mass base for a program of ecological regeneration, they say..."

The march was organized by a coalition of local grassroots organization called JANADESH (People's Verdict) that seeks to bring the unfinished business of land reform back into India's rural development policies. Janadesh directly stems from Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent direct mass action that includes women and tribal communities in its leadership.

The main organizing organization, EKTA PARISHAD, is part of a transnational land rights coalition, "Land First International," which includes land rights movements from around the world. In Europe, partners of Ekta Parishad created a support group, Ekta Parishad Europe Coordination. So the transnational supporters of Janadesh include citizens of Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Brazil, Canada, the United States, Kenya, and perhaps more than a few informal supporters in Japan and other Asian nations.

The New Delhi government responded, saying it will set up a "National Land Rights Committee." Sammy Loren covered this latest chapter, with voices and images from the march, in "Janadesh: India's Landless Farmer Movement Gains Momentum, at Towardfreedom.com, an American progressive news site:

"...According to Ekta Parishad, a ‘National Land Reform Committee’ will be set up within one month. Ekta Prashad will then draft a land reform policy which the new committee will have the mandate to implement. Also, the government has promised to create a quick court system and one window policy to slash the bloated bureaucracy the people must struggle with just to have their land disputes heard and solved. Lastly, half of the committee members will be from social and civil organizations that Ekta Parishad will select.

"Still, in India, a country where promises of these sorts float from the lips of bureaucrats like smoke from a tobacco bidi, the future remains uncertain. The creation of the National Land Reform Committee, though a powerful step in the right direction, will not be the panacea for the landless people of the subcontinent. To finally end structural rural poverty, the government must enact pro-poor legislation, and actually redistribute land. Without their own plots, farmers and tribal people will always smolder at the bottom of the social ladder, lacking even the most basic needs like food and dignity."

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