Landless farmers in India demand a piece of the action
Thursday, 1 November 2007
Bharat Dogra
As India revelled over the emergence of homegrown businessman Mukesh Ambani as the world's richest person, following a stock market spike this week, landless labourers and socially marginalised groups marched into the capital by the thousand demanding a piece of the country's newfound prosperity.
Ambani's riches, now topping 63.2 billion US dollars, are a product of India's economic miracle presided over by the business-friendly government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a former economist with the World Bank. But it is a miracle that has not touched an estimated 70 percent of India's 1.1 billion people who eke a living out of farming and hard, unorganised labour.
According to Bank estimates, more than 450 million Indians live on less than a dollar a day. India has also been witness, in recent years, to hundreds of impoverished farmers committing suicide after being caught in debt traps.
On Sunday, the protestors numbering 25,000, assembled peacefully amidst glass-sheathed malls and skyscrapers to say that they had marched 300 km from the central city of Gwalior to ask for the very basics -- small plots of land on which to farm, and not 'luxuries' like electricity.
Police hastily shepherded the marchers into a large, open fair grounds where they are hunkered down, saying they have nothing to go back to home for and that they were ready to wait, as long as it takes, for a staifactory response form the government. By Monday the government was shaken enough to make the motion of conceding to their demands. It agreed to appoint a committee of experts, chaired by Singh himself, to consider ways of speeding up land reforms, one of independent India's long-forgotten goals.
In fact, the past few decades have seen farmers and tribals being edged out of whatever little land they held by relentless development projects. Estimates say that post-independence over 20 million have become classified as 'internally displaced' people.
''In the recent years of economic liberalization, the programme 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,'' said P.V. Rajagopal, the main organiser of the march and chairman of the internationally-known Ekta Parishad movement.
Although Singh's Congress party-led government came to power in 2004 on a promise to give a 'human face to liberalisation,' 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 earlier this year.
Jagdish and Srilal, Sahariya tribals from Morena district of central Madhya Pradesh, told IPS: "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 now 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. They travelled to Gwalior by train in order to be able to join the march from Gwalior on Oct. 2. '' We are Dalits (so-called untouchables). We work as farm labourers from dawn to dusk for about Rs. 25 (five US cents). Our men get slightly more, but our families can't survive on this. We have come here to demand farmland, the houses and the wages the government has been promising us for many years.''
Among the marchers was Darryl Cawley who came all the way from Britain to join in. "I was very impressed by the commitment and cooperation of the people who joined this march despite many hardships. I hope that the government will respond suitably by agreeing to provide adequate land rights,'' Cawley said.
Another Briton, Tony Mortlock, from the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Action Village India said: "The march was brilliantly organised. India is called the world's largest democracy, but to live up to that reputation the government must accept the demands of these marchers."
The march was part of a wider initiative called Janadesh (people's verdict) for bringing land reforms to the centre-stage of India's rural development policies. Janadesh is described by its activists as "a non-violent direct people's action to press the government to resolve the land and agrarian issues raised by the poor deprived communities.''
Although Janadesh was initiated by Rajagopal's Ekta Parishad, it has been joined on the way by several other grassroots organisations working for the rights of rural poor and landless people as they feel that this movement reflects the needs and aspirations of the people of their area as well.
Aruna Roy, an activist of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana (MKSS) and participant, says: "We at the MKSS have become increasingly involved in the struggles to protect land rights of peasants in western Rajasthan. Due to the creation of Special Economic Zones, the promotion of bio-fuels and changes in land laws for vulnerable communities, thousands of peasants face the prospects of losing their land in Rajasthan state. There are similar reports from several other states.''
The movement has international support due to the fact that Ekta Parishad is affiliated to an international network called 'Land First International' which includes many land rights movements in the world. In Europe the partners of Ekta Parishad have created a support group called 'Ekta Europe'. Thus Janadesh has supporters in such countries as Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Brazil, Canada, the United States and Kenya.
K. B. Saxena, a former senior official with the Planning Commission and India's Rural Development Ministry (which oversees land reforms), says: "There are several legal and political constraints which stand in the way of radical land reforms in India. People's mobilisation like in Janadesh is essential for the progress of land reforms as these have been neglected badly in the recent times of economic liberalisation."
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 programme can also create an enthusiastic mass base for a programme of ecological regeneration, they say.
Millions of beneficiaries of land reforms can be mobilised to repair traditional irrigation sources, take up various soil and water conservation works, protect and regenerate forests and take up new afforestation work. A massive environment protection and regeneration work with the enthusiastic support of land reform beneficiaries will achieve more for sustainable livelihoods and food security in India (as well as many similarly placed developing countries) than anything else, these experts have argued.
In a widely quoted publication titled 'Agriculture Towards 2000,' the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has stressed that more equal land distribution is likely to increase productivity of land. "It is important to stress here that yields per hectare are as high on small as on large farms or, under traditional agriculture, even higher. With a few notable exceptions, total output per ha is higher on small farms, chiefly because their intensity of land use is higher. A more equal distribution of production inputs, including services, can only help to strengthen the role of the small farm in expanding production.''
In the specific context of India, the FAO report said: "Redistribution of only five percent of farmland in India, coupled with improved access to water, could reduce rural poverty levels by 30 percent under what they would be, so that in Indian conditions land and water reform would be a key approach."
Rajagopal said the importance of the Janadesh movement lay in its potential to defuse growing armed Maoist rebellions in the interior of India. ''It's either violence or silence,'' he said.
Inter Press Service
As India revelled over the emergence of homegrown businessman Mukesh Ambani as the world's richest person, following a stock market spike this week, landless labourers and socially marginalised groups marched into the capital by the thousand demanding a piece of the country's newfound prosperity.
Ambani's riches, now topping 63.2 billion US dollars, are a product of India's economic miracle presided over by the business-friendly government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a former economist with the World Bank. But it is a miracle that has not touched an estimated 70 percent of India's 1.1 billion people who eke a living out of farming and hard, unorganised labour.
According to Bank estimates, more than 450 million Indians live on less than a dollar a day. India has also been witness, in recent years, to hundreds of impoverished farmers committing suicide after being caught in debt traps.
On Sunday, the protestors numbering 25,000, assembled peacefully amidst glass-sheathed malls and skyscrapers to say that they had marched 300 km from the central city of Gwalior to ask for the very basics -- small plots of land on which to farm, and not 'luxuries' like electricity.
Police hastily shepherded the marchers into a large, open fair grounds where they are hunkered down, saying they have nothing to go back to home for and that they were ready to wait, as long as it takes, for a staifactory response form the government. By Monday the government was shaken enough to make the motion of conceding to their demands. It agreed to appoint a committee of experts, chaired by Singh himself, to consider ways of speeding up land reforms, one of independent India's long-forgotten goals.
In fact, the past few decades have seen farmers and tribals being edged out of whatever little land they held by relentless development projects. Estimates say that post-independence over 20 million have become classified as 'internally displaced' people.
''In the recent years of economic liberalization, the programme 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,'' said P.V. Rajagopal, the main organiser of the march and chairman of the internationally-known Ekta Parishad movement.
Although Singh's Congress party-led government came to power in 2004 on a promise to give a 'human face to liberalisation,' 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 earlier this year.
Jagdish and Srilal, Sahariya tribals from Morena district of central Madhya Pradesh, told IPS: "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 now 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. They travelled to Gwalior by train in order to be able to join the march from Gwalior on Oct. 2. '' We are Dalits (so-called untouchables). We work as farm labourers from dawn to dusk for about Rs. 25 (five US cents). Our men get slightly more, but our families can't survive on this. We have come here to demand farmland, the houses and the wages the government has been promising us for many years.''
Among the marchers was Darryl Cawley who came all the way from Britain to join in. "I was very impressed by the commitment and cooperation of the people who joined this march despite many hardships. I hope that the government will respond suitably by agreeing to provide adequate land rights,'' Cawley said.
Another Briton, Tony Mortlock, from the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Action Village India said: "The march was brilliantly organised. India is called the world's largest democracy, but to live up to that reputation the government must accept the demands of these marchers."
The march was part of a wider initiative called Janadesh (people's verdict) for bringing land reforms to the centre-stage of India's rural development policies. Janadesh is described by its activists as "a non-violent direct people's action to press the government to resolve the land and agrarian issues raised by the poor deprived communities.''
Although Janadesh was initiated by Rajagopal's Ekta Parishad, it has been joined on the way by several other grassroots organisations working for the rights of rural poor and landless people as they feel that this movement reflects the needs and aspirations of the people of their area as well.
Aruna Roy, an activist of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana (MKSS) and participant, says: "We at the MKSS have become increasingly involved in the struggles to protect land rights of peasants in western Rajasthan. Due to the creation of Special Economic Zones, the promotion of bio-fuels and changes in land laws for vulnerable communities, thousands of peasants face the prospects of losing their land in Rajasthan state. There are similar reports from several other states.''
The movement has international support due to the fact that Ekta Parishad is affiliated to an international network called 'Land First International' which includes many land rights movements in the world. In Europe the partners of Ekta Parishad have created a support group called 'Ekta Europe'. Thus Janadesh has supporters in such countries as Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Brazil, Canada, the United States and Kenya.
K. B. Saxena, a former senior official with the Planning Commission and India's Rural Development Ministry (which oversees land reforms), says: "There are several legal and political constraints which stand in the way of radical land reforms in India. People's mobilisation like in Janadesh is essential for the progress of land reforms as these have been neglected badly in the recent times of economic liberalisation."
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 programme can also create an enthusiastic mass base for a programme of ecological regeneration, they say.
Millions of beneficiaries of land reforms can be mobilised to repair traditional irrigation sources, take up various soil and water conservation works, protect and regenerate forests and take up new afforestation work. A massive environment protection and regeneration work with the enthusiastic support of land reform beneficiaries will achieve more for sustainable livelihoods and food security in India (as well as many similarly placed developing countries) than anything else, these experts have argued.
In a widely quoted publication titled 'Agriculture Towards 2000,' the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has stressed that more equal land distribution is likely to increase productivity of land. "It is important to stress here that yields per hectare are as high on small as on large farms or, under traditional agriculture, even higher. With a few notable exceptions, total output per ha is higher on small farms, chiefly because their intensity of land use is higher. A more equal distribution of production inputs, including services, can only help to strengthen the role of the small farm in expanding production.''
In the specific context of India, the FAO report said: "Redistribution of only five percent of farmland in India, coupled with improved access to water, could reduce rural poverty levels by 30 percent under what they would be, so that in Indian conditions land and water reform would be a key approach."
Rajagopal said the importance of the Janadesh movement lay in its potential to defuse growing armed Maoist rebellions in the interior of India. ''It's either violence or silence,'' he said.
Inter Press Service