MARCH OF THE LANDLESS
We
walk. For the good earth that is ours ( Tehelka )
Reported by Siddharth
Ranjan Das, Written by Amit
Chaturvedi | Updated:
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The satyagrahis (protesters) are demanding a
national land reform policy and plan to hand over a memorandum to the Centre to
highlight the problems of landless poor.
The Centre had appointed Rural Development Minister Jairam
Ramesh and junior minister in the Ministry of
Commerce and Industry, Jyotiraditya Scindia, to hold talks with activists led by Ekta Parishad chairman PV Rajagopal on the issue.
'Jan satyagraha': Silent march by 50,000 landless people enters third day
On Tuesday, Mr Ramesh
met the protesters and gave them a written assurance that he will look into
their demands and also invited them for a meeting on October 11 in
"We have assured the protesters that the government will consider all
their demands sympathetically and try to fulfil them
in totality," the minister said. He also said that the demands made by
these protesters are reasonable but the government would need at least six
months to try and materialise it.
The protesters have agreed to attend the meeting but are also determined to
walk to the national capital.
Mr Rajagopal, however,
alleged that an attempt was made by the government to weaken their agitation by
offering small concessions. He added that even though he would not be able to
attend the meeting on October 11, other representatives of the organisation would do so.
"Nearly 50,000 people will take part in the march and the number will
cross one lakh by the time the protesters reach the
national capital," Mr Rajagopal
claimed.
(With PTI inputs)
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/a-massive-march-for-land-years-in-the-planning/
Altaf Qadri/Associated Press
Tens of thousands of India’s poorest people are on a nearly monthlong march through the country’s north, waving green and white flags and chanting slogans to demand that the government provide land to India’s homeless and landless.
“I think enough land can be found for those who don’t have a house to live in or any shelter,” said P.V. Rajagopal, who heads Ekta Parishad, the nonprofit behind this month’s mass protest, which is now making its way through Madhya Pradesh. “It is a question of political will.”
Millions of Indians live on sidewalks and railway platforms, and in illegal
slums and shanties. According to the United
Nations, 17 percent of the world’s slum dwellers, or 170 million Indians,
live in slums. This section of
The protest entourage, which includes some 40,000 tribals,
dalits, nomads and other landless people, began the padyatra, or march, on
foot in
Over the last decade,
“It is time for the right to shelter,” Mr. Rajagopal said in a phone interview after the first day of the march, during which the group covered 22 kilometers.
For several years, Ekta Parishad has asked the government to give land to the poor to build a hut or house, “or at least pitch a tent,” said Mr. Rajagopal. Another solution Ekta Parishad advocates is giving slums and other spaces already occupied by the poor to the residents, so that the fear of demolition is removed.
In 2007, a similar protest march led to the formation of the National Council on Land Reforms, under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which was supposed to draw a roadmap for policy reform. The body’s recommendations, which were released in 2010, have largely been ignored, activists say.
The issue has again gained momentum in the last few months, and Mr. Rajagopal said talks with
Minister Ramesh, who has said that the issue of land falls within the purview of state governments, has called for another round of talks on Oct. 11. In a letter to Mr. Rajagopal, Mr. Ramesh said “There is a very substantial degree of consensus on what must get done.”
Mr. Rajagopal, however, said it was time to take the battle to the streets. “The state will never act unless people come out openly and do something,” he added.
When the talks collapsed, Ekta Parishad began its march, which is designed to allow everyone to participate, Mr. Rajagopal said, including the young, old, rural, urban, educated and uneducated. The group plans to walk some 15 kilometers each day, singing songs and chanting. They sleep on the streets and eat only one meal a day. “It uses the strengths of the poor,” Mr. Rajagopal said.
The process of drumming up support for these protests began several years ago. Mr. Rajagopal said he and his team traveled widely throughout the country, organizing workshops to “give people faith that change can happen” and building a base of volunteers and workers.
Indeed, this caravan protest has been a large logistical endeavor. In the last four years, Ekta Parishad’s 350 workers have trained some 12,500 people to organize and lead groups of marchers that make up the campaign. The protesters are divided into camps of 500, each headed by a trained volunteer, who is responsible for the group’s discipline, cooking and feeding, and cultural activities.
The padyatra form of protest can be
traced to
In recent years, mass antigovernment protests have erupted across the country. Anna Hazare mobilized thousands of Indians last year to join his crusade against corruption. In Karnataka, a group of farmers is protesting against the sharing of water with a neighboring state, and agitation over the building of a nuclear plant in Kundankulam in Tamil Nadu continues.
Ekta Parishad is hoping
its protest will result in some concrete measures. When the marchers reach
Published:
AP Thousands of landless
poor, Dalits and Adivasis
gather at
Efforts of Jairam and Jyotiraditya to talk them out of it fail
Dhanalakshmi, a 22-year-old from the Paliyar hill tribe of Tamil Nadu, is a long way from home. At 7 a.m. on Wednesday, she will join about 60,000 other landless poor, Adivasis and Dalits who have streamed into Gwalior from all parts of the country for a padayatra to the national capital, to present the demand that each of them deserves his/her own piece of land to call home.
On Tuesday, Rural Development Minister Jairam
Ramesh and Minister of State for Commerce Jyotiraditya Scindia flew to
“Discussion is always a better option than agitation,” Mr. Ramesh tells the endless rows of squatting people. The
multitude, which the organisers claim will swell to
one lakh by the time the people reach
“Go home … We will find the middle path,” says the Minister, enumerating the government’s existing measures to secure land and housing rights for the poor.
He had originally agreed to sign an agreement here, with time frames for initiatives such as a clear-cut policy, a land pool for the poor and fast-track land tribunals. However, two days ago, the Centre did a U-turn, refusing to sign. Since land is a state subject, Mr. Ramesh says, the Centre cannot impinge on the States’ domain and make promises that it cannot fulfil.
Dhanalakshmi won’t buy his argument.
“We have already tried to fight for our rights in Tamil Nadu.
But if we tell the Collector that we want our rights, he claims that there is
no land, even though there is plenty of land for SEZs
and industries. He says, you get an order from above.
So we are going to
“Finding land may be the States’ job. But it is the Centre that
sets policy for the States,” says Senthamizhselvi, an
activist and organic farmer from
Dhanalakshmi had never even been on a
train until she squeezed into an unreserved compartment with 200 others from
Tamil Nadu to make the long trip to
Driven into bonded labour on mango
plantations after having been evicted from their forested mountain homes as a
consequence of the Forest Conservation Act, a group of Paliyar
tribals decided to take matters into their own hands
in 2010. After two years of fruitless struggle to get title deeds as per their
due under the Forest Rights Act of 2006, twenty-eight families went ahead and
occupied a plot of land at Serakkadu at the foothills
of the Bodi Agamalai,
erecting small hutments. Despite threats by the
“Before the forest rangers came, my people have protected the forests for generations. How can they push us out now,” asks Manjanan, a 55-year-old from the Muduvar tribe who hails from a village near Valparai.
He says the benefits of Central schemes such as the FRA and the MGNREGA are denied to tribals who have been forced out of their mountain homes, on the grounds that they no longer qualify as forest dwellers and still cannot prove their identity on the plains. Without land to back him up, even banks deny him a loan to educate his son.
Ekta Parishad founder P.V. Rajagopal and his team have spent the last four years preparing for this Jan Satyagraha. In October 2011, a yatra started in Kanyakumari covering 80,000 km and 352 districts, to spark local awareness and mobilise protesters, culminating in this 350-km padayatra to the capital. A similar march of 25,000 protesters in 2007 resulted in the setting up of the National Land Reforms Council, chaired by the Prime Minister.
“In almost five years, the Council has not even met once,” said Mr. Rajagopal. “The government needs to take this seriously and give legal backing to every citizen’s ‘right to shelter’.”
For the small group from Tamil Nadu seated far at the back of the pandal, Mr. Rajagopal and the Union Ministers on the dais are mere specks, making speeches in a language that is gibberish to their ears. They are surrounded by thousands of people chattering away in a babel of other tongues.
“I may not have very much in common with people from Madhya Pradesh or the Northeast or Orissa, but I know that if one hand claps, it cannot be heard,” says Malliga, a 35-year-old Paliyar woman from Kodaikanal taluk, quoting a Tamil proverb. “But if many hands clap, if we all join together, they will have to hear us.”
In an agreement with Jan Satyagraha, Centre promises to initiate land reforms
Thousands of landless poor aborted their march to
Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh signed a 10-point agreement in
P.V. Rajagopal, founder of the march organisers Ekta Parishad, signed on behalf of the Jan Satyagrahis.
As reported by The Hindu on Tuesday, the agreement also envisions homestead land of 10 cents for all landless rural poor households by doubling funding under the Indira Awaas Yojana, fast-track settlement of land cases through dedicated tribunals and legal aid and enhanced land access for adivasis, Dalits and other vulnerable groups through better implementation of the existing laws. A task force headed by Mr. Ramesh to put the agreement into action will hold its first meeting on October 17.
Since land is constitutionally an issue for the States and not the Central government to tackle, the agreement emphasises a “dialogue process,” “proposals” and “detailed advisories” to the States, rather than making promises the Centre does not have the power to enforce.
“Ekta Parishad should continue putting pressure not only on the Centre, but also on the State governments,” Mr. Ramesh told the green flag waving crowds.
The Centre has felt the pressure over the last 10 days as about
60,000 people set out from
Not all those people are happy about the end of the march. “Did we come all this way just to get a signature on a piece of paper?” asked Ram Narayan, a satyagrahi from Madhya Pradesh. “The government has made false promises over and over again. Until we actually see something trickling down to us, we cannot believe it.”
For some activists, the agreement is a case of déjà vu, recalling Ekta Parishad's 2007 padayatra, which resulted in the setting up of the National Land Reforms Council, chaired by the Prime Minister. In the last five years, the Council has not even met once.
Malliga, a Paliyar
tribal woman from Tamil Nadu who had spoken to The
Hindu at the start of the march in
But Mr. Rajagopal says that the movement for land reform is a long and gradual process, in which each small victory is cause for celebration. “This is the first step, to get 10 cents of land for shelter. A homestead is a huge thing for poor people. It means that you can put up your own hut or even a plastic tent and feel safe, knowing that you cannot be evicted or thrown out of your home,” he pointed out. “The next step is the fight for agricultural land. We want a guarantee of one hectare of farmland for every rural household.”
Mr. Ramesh also pointed out that every key social legislation had taken time. “It took three-and-half years from the time we promised a job guarantee for all rural poor to the time [MG]NREGA [Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act] was enacted. Right to Information, Right to Education, Forest Rights Act — they all took time,” he said. “Today, I am saying we will start the process for a similar statutory backing for the provision of land. Today, we are starting the process.”
While Mr. Rajagopal originally issued a
six-month deadline before he would gather protesters for another march to
“Today, I'm going to go see the Taj Mahal before I go home,” says Dhanalakshmi, a tribal woman who spoke to The Hindu earlier about her struggles for land rights in Tamil Nadu. “But if the government does not keep its promises, we will bring more people from our villages and we will come back.”
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Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh held talks with the
protestors' representatives and announced that the reforms agenda would be
ready for implementation in six months.
Over 30,000 marchers, including tribals, landless labourers,
marginal farmers and activists belonging to NGOs, had left Gwalior
Oct 2 for New Delhi as part of the 'Jan Satyagraha Yatra'
(people's agitation for truth), demanding rights over 'jal,
zameen, jungle' (water, land and forest).
After the central government's assurance, the
protestors, who were led by Gandhian B.P. Rajgopalan of the Ekta Parishad, started returning home.
Extra bogies were provided in trains to
facilitate their return, according to railway officials at the Agra Cantonment
railway station.
Ramesh addressed a press conference later and clarified
that it was the state governments which were supposed to implement the reforms.
In the morning, the protestors expressed
their resolve that they would not return till their demands were met.
Talking to media persons, their leaders said
they would proceed to
Ramesh came to the marchers' camp around
An agenda would be ready in six months and
placed before the government for implementation, he said.
On Wednesday, the marchers camped in COD
Ground on
The marchers earlier shouted slogans, carried
banners and flags and halted every 20-25 km on their way from Gwaliar to
In
In
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati also extended
support to the demands of the marchers. The Congress and the BJP leaders,
including the