This is a march on a breathtaking scale -- 25,000 people marching 320 km from Gwalior to Delhi, on one meal a day, sleeping in the open. These are people deprived of their land by powerful landlords, displaced by industrial projects with little or no compensation, denied access to traditional sources of livelihood. Jonathan Weedon is marching with them.
Less than 50 km from Delhi now, on the National Highway between Palwal and Faridabad, the Janadesh march has halted for another day. One side of the National Highway has been closed off by the local police, and the 25,000 Janadesh marchers are making their camp for the night here, on the road, sleeping in the open as they have done every night since October 2, when the march set out from Gwalior, which now lies around 270 km back down the road.
Spaced out along the highway, 25 makeshift kitchens which weren’t here this morning and which will be gone again tomorrow morning are preparing lunch for 25,000 people – the single meal which the marchers receive everyday. Brick-built circles house the propane-fuelled hobs which provide the heat to boil metre-wide pots full of rice, dal and vegetables. All told, around 5 tonnes of rice, 5 tonnes of flour, 2.5 tonnes of potatoes, 2.5 tonnes of pulses and over half a tonne of cooking oil are required everyday to keep the marchers on their feet.
Meanwhile, water for drinking and washing is being provided by almost 50 tankers, each one filled and refilled at least two to three times a day. The water is being provided free of charge by villages and farmers along the route who wish to show their support for Janadesh.
The march, and the logistical arrangements required to support it, have been organised by Ekta Parishad, a grassroots Gandhian organisation which has been working in many of the poorest areas of rural India for the past 30 years. With a focus on ensuring access to livelihood resources, especially land, water and forests, for the poorest sections of rural India, Ekta Parishad has already run numerous campaigns at the local and state levels. Throughout these campaigns, they have remained true to the Gandhian principle of non-violence, using methods such as foot-marches, rallies and fasting to further their cause.
Janadesh, however, marks a bold new step for Ekta Parishad – a national campaign, aimed at pressuring the government into adopting a sweeping new programme of pro-poor land reforms. The idea in itself is simple enough – to bring 25,000 marchers along the National Highway from Gwalior to Delhi as a means of raising public awareness of land and livelihood issues and bringing pressure to bear on the government – but the scale is breathtaking. The 320 km between Gwalior and Delhi takes almost a month to cover, and throughout that time all 25,000 marchers have to be supported on the road, all within the constraints of an extremely tight budget.
Most of the marchers are poor and landless farmers, mainly from the adivasi and dalit communities. The majority have come from the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Orissa, but many more states are represented, with groups coming from as far afield as Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the far south of India to be a part of the march. All of them have a story to tell.
Shiva Shankar, a young man from Tamil Nadu easily identifiable as a dalit by the large picture of Dr Ambedkar emblazoned on his T-shirt, explains the problems that dalits in Tamil Nadu face today: Most of them are landless, he says, and are forced to work as labourers on the land of others. How much land does he think people need? Only 4-5 acres per family, he replies – that would be enough for them to grow food to support themselves throughout the year. The government has in theory distributed land to the dalits in his state, but in fact this land has been grabbed, often violently, by higher-caste landlords who would prefer to see the dalits remain landless. In his village, all of the agricultural land is held by a single landlord. We are weak, he says sadly, and the government does nothing to protect us, so we have come to Janadesh to make the government listen to our problems.
Ranjit, an adivasi, still bears the scar from a bullet wound on his nose, a permanent reminder of the events three years ago which led to him joining Ekta Parishad. He comes from Shampur, a small village in the Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh. There are 22 adivasi families in the village, who hold about 70 acres of land between them, though like many adivasis they lack the legal title to these lands. In 2004, a local landlord, a retired military commander, decided that he would like to have the 70 acres for himself.
On June 25, 2004, his hired thugs, armed with guns, arrived in the village and demanded that the villagers give up their land. When the villagers refused, they started shooting -- three people, including Ranjit, were injured. The local police, influenced by the landlord, refused to help the villagers, which led to them contacting Ekta Parishad. The villagers are still in possession of the land, which is now the subject of an ongoing court case.
While the details of each individual’s story vary, there are certain common threads which unite their experiences. In particular, there is an overwhelming sense of official indifference to the problems faced by these people who represent some of the poorest sections of Indian society: their land is stolen by powerful landlords and the police do nothing; they are displaced by industrial projects with little or no compensation; they are denied access to traditional sources of livelihood, such as forest produce or fishing rights, in the name of conservation, but no alternative livelihood is provided.
It is this reason, above all others, that appears to provide the motivating force for the Janadesh marchers. Coming to Delhi in a group 25,000-strong, they hope to make their voices heard by a political class which appears to have largely forgotten about them.
At the heart of the Janadesh campaign lie three demands: First, that the government establish a National Land Commission to formulate land policies, provide direction to state governments, and monitor progress on land distribution and entitlement by state governments; second, ensure that the national land policy takes into account the needs of the poor and is used as a strategic tool for poverty reduction; and third, to set up fast-track courts to settle past and future conflicts related to land quickly and effectively.
Whether or not the government will actually respond to these demands remains to be seen, although there have been some encouraging signs. On October 15, P V Rajagopal, the President and Founder of Ekta Parishad, met with Sonia Gandhi in Delhi to discuss the demands of the Janadesh campaign. More recently, on October 24, the Rural Development Minister, Dr Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, addressed a rally held by the Janadesh march in Palwal, Haryana. While both saluted the courage and determination of the marchers, and expressed sympathy with the demands of the marchers, both stopped short of promising concrete action.
Either way, the 25,000 Janadesh marchers look set to arrive in Delhi as planned on October 29. What will happen after that is still anyone’s guess.
By Jonathan Weedon
Source : InfoChange News & Features
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
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