"India is going through a very challenging period. One can see clearly that there are two streams of people influencing (or trying to influence) the country. I identify them as a stream of violence and a stream of non-violence. Only the future will tell us who is going to succeed”. Those are the words of Rajagopal PV, Gandhian leader and President of Ekta Parishad, a people’s movement in India. He also says that “between violence and silence, there is active non-violence”, following the path opened by Mahatma Gandhi in the 1930’s with the Salt March and other non-violent, mass actions.
In India, Ekta Parishad tackles the issue on behalf of the bottom 30% of the population who are landless, homeless and are therefore marginalized, by undertaking large-scale non-violent actions to advocate for pro-poor comprehensive land reforms and respect of basic rights for the most vulnerable, especially women. Ekta Parishad has planned two national actions. In October 2011, Rajagopal PV and a team of activists started the “Jan Samwad Yatra”, a travel of one year through 350 districts of India. Meeting villagers and officials every day, the Jan Samwad Yatra has gathered 1000s of grievances related to land rights and poverty, has gained the support of around 2000 voluntary organizations and people’s organizations, and mobilized thousands of people for a large-scale non-violent action, the March “Jan Satyagraha”. Jan Satyagraha – ‘the March for Justice’ - will happen in October 2012 bringing together 100 000 poor villagers, adivasis1, dalits2 and other landless peasants from many states of India in what will be the largest ever non-violent action for land, water and forest rights. The marchers will walk the 350 km distance from Gwalior to Delhi to present their demands to the government.
We strongly believe that non-violence is the only way to struggle for policy changes, because it allows the poor, the vulnerable, the women, the marginalised, the “weak” to be part of a strong struggle; it raises their voices and reasserts their dignity. But it is also true that non-violence is a difficult path and there is no guarantee that people’s voices will be heard or the objectives of the struggles will be achieved . Hence, it is sometimes easier to believe that only armed-struggle can bring the change, only violence can oblige governments to accept changes, especially when the whole governance system is corrupt.
In the end of September 2012, a workshop will take place in Delhi to discuss non-violent dialogue at global level, with partners coming from all over the world. We would be honoured to share a report of key points, stories and questions emerging from this online discussion during this meeting, and in our work to come at global level and in India and bring back to you a report of the workshop.
Some questions to frame the discussion:
Recently India and the world witnessed a non-violent action in which 130 people stayed in neck-deep water for 2 weeks to protest the raising of the height of a dam (Omakreshwar dam) before the government agreed to their demands. What innovative, interesting applications of non-violence in a campaign context related to struggles over land, water, forests, mining, human rights, rights of marginalized communities etc have you experienced or witnessed? What new innovative ways to put pressure on the government have you witnessed or come across?
What challenges do you encounter in your country as you carry out your struggle non-violently, as an activist?
How has non-violence contributed or not contributed to bring about equality within the struggles, especially at gender level?"
What questions would you like to post to the participants at the workshop?
This discussion will last from September 10th to October 1st. The language is mainly english, but feel free to post inputs in french or spanish, and we will make sure to include the content of your posts in the final report.
1Indigenous people
2« Untouchables »
Comments
Here is more
Jal Satyagraha
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Here is more information about the example of the people standing in neck-deep water to protest the raising of a dam mentioned in one of the questions:
The water level in Omkareshwar and Indira Sagar dams in the Narmada Valley has been illegally raised by the government causing submergence of large areas of land. Although the Supreme Court has clearly ordered that these oustees have to be rehabilitated 6 months before submergence, thousands of families who are yet to be rehabilitated are now being submerged in complete violation of Supreme Court and High Court orders. For over two weeks, those people effected of the Omkareshwar project (Khandwa) and of the Indira Sagar project (Harda) had been offering jal satyagraha by standing in neck deep water, demanding proper rehabilitation, compensation and a reduction in the level of dam waters.
The protesters in Khandwa said they are determined to continue with their protest till their demands are met. "Till the time water level comes down to 189 metres and as per court orders we get our five acre land, and labourers get Rs. 2.5 lakh, we will die but we will sit here," said one of them. Finally, the state government had agreed to give land for land to the displaced villagers in Khandwa and reduce the dam height to 189 metres. Both were key demands of protesters.
After relenting to the compensation demands of the villagers in Khandwa for flooding their lands, the Madhya Pradesh government decided to end a similar protest at the Harda district with police forcibly removing villagers who had been sitting in water. Those villagers had been sitting in the river water for over a fortnight demanding the levels of the Indira Sagar dam be lowered, and are also asking for compensation for the lands they have lost due to flooding.
Police evict Jal Satyagraha protesters from the water in Harda: http://www.firstpost.com/india/police-forcibly-end-second-mp-jal-satyagraha-protest-452309.html
Video from the protesters in Khandwa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoPbdXRe1ic
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Resistance works in reflection to oppression
Thank you for your comments. It seems pretty impressive how people with their very life threatened, like it is the case in the described Jal Satyagraha, are indeed able to expose their life to an even more direct threat as a way to resist the oppression. Anger is of course the ferment of this attitude,as it is normal that unjustice causes anger and sometimes despair, but here it is combined to unity and hope for change, and channelised into action. The nature of resistance is historically most of the time linked to the nature of oppression : in the case of land rights and access to natural resources, resistance ought to be non-violent to be efficient, as the violence of the oppression is structural, political, economical. "Shining" India, claiming itself a the largest democracy in the world, can't ignore non-violent protest any longer, as it is the roots of its own creation. Democracy, even if doubtful in its implementation, allows non-violent protest. What about the countries which are not democracies? Does non-violent struggle around land rights, or any human rights, have a space there? We welcome your inputs...
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Dear Harshal Lonare,
I understand your sceptiscism, having seen the same indian reality of immense poverty, and the emergency of the situation. It is also true that non-violent struggle needs time and determination, it is a long term process, where much people's life are threatened everyday. But non-violence is the only possible way in a democratic frame to keep dialogue going on, and that is what Ekta Parishad seems to achieve a little, with a meeting from Rajagopal with the Indian Governement today to call for land reforms... This dialogue is fragile and we are far from tangible results for now but at least there is a way out possible... And it is because of the pressure and unity of the people, because non-violent action allows them to unite in a common voice, being women, landless, tribals, dalits, or marginalised in any way. Strenght is in their unity and dignity rather than in some of them taking arms, don't you think?
Talking about social media, we are already present in some of them (facebook, twitter, some exchange platforms and networks), but if you can suggest more we are interested. What do you think makes the difference about advocating for rights in social media?
As you can see the
Dear all,
As you can see the discussion was extended until October 1st, to be a kind of "forum" for the "Ahimsa" dialogue taking place in Delhi at the moment, as a virtual tool to be linked with a concrete exchange between activists here, gathered around non-violence and land rights. Please do take advantage of this event to express yourself and exchange around these experiences: the more we can learn from each other, the more we will progress on the path of change. A report will be done at the end of the discussion to make a summary of it and create further dialogue. Thank you in advance for your contributions!
Please also have a look at an inspiring document published by Matt Meyer around land rights and struggle in Africa: Liberation and the Looting of African Land
Comment on behalf of Stéphanie Feugère, currently in Philippines and unable to post this comment herself:
Hi everyone,
to answer Harshal saying "Non-violence surely is a good way to broadcast your point of view among the powerful people. But it seems very lazy for me.", I don't think non-violence is a lazy thing... Having traveled many times to the most remote Indian villages where Ekta Parishad is working, I can confirm that these people are anything but lazy. They are ready to stand up and to work hard to struggle for their rights... And is it lazyness to leave their village for a month to walk on a road in order to make their rights respected? I don't think so! As Rajagopal says "between silence and violence, there is ACTIVE non violence" ! I believe in this...
Non violence is a more and more urgent matter to put in mind of everyone on this Earth, as well as solidarity. This is the way we could together continue to live in harmony!
I fully agree with Marie when she says non violence takes time but we have to keep faith in non violence! It is how it works! Many people are here to discourage those who promote non violence, but these people did not yet understand that non violence is a strength in itself that give you a lot of patience and that non violent people don't get discouraged so easily!
I'm very glad to hear that the lattest development regarding the demands of Jansatyagraha have already shown the start of a success of this non violent struggle, even before the biggest non violent action of the history starts!
Jai Jagat!
StéphanieStéphanie FEUGERE
5953D FerminaStreet Barangay Poblacion Makati City PHILIPPINES
Dear all, things are moving well in Delhi as we speak, and it seems that non-violent action can sometimes be greeted with negotiations with the governement.... That is happening right now with Ekta Parishad. Have a look at the latest video interview of Rajagopal PV: Interview PV Rajagopal before Jan Satyagraha - March for Justice
i appreciate this dialogue and consider the practice (even praxis) and
promotion of nonviolence as one of the most important aspects of our
global struggles for social, economic and political justice. And, given
the examples in which i have participated (extremely modest
participation at best) and the numerous examples i have studied in text
and image and/or learned about from others, i do believe that the
strategic/tactical use of active nonviolence to be the most important
praxis to grow and apply in the world. I write "praxis" because it names
a complex relationship of individual and social change, ethical and
pedagogical action - i.e. much more than is meant by the word practice.
For to understand the profound power of active nonviolence i believe we
must understand both how it works to change our shared world and how it
works to change those of us who participate in it.
I want to focus for a moment on one aspect of this. And i will begin with, perhaps, an odd choice of person to quote: Che Guevara said: “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, the true
revolutionary is motivated by great feelings of love.” Which i take as a powerful reminder of our connection with each other and all creation. I am always struck by how many ways the various
cultures of our world have named this connection. Most recently I have learned of the
notion from my wife’s culture of hishook ish tsawalk which translates as
"everything is one and all is interconnected." I have learned this
from the indigenous people of the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada - the Nuu-chah-nulth. Some of you may be familiar with the word ubuntu - a Zulu/Nguni word from southern Africa that I
have seen variously translated to mean "I exist because you exist",
"I am because you are", or, simply, "fellow feeling."
Desmond Tutu writes:
A
person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does
not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper
self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater
whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others
are tortured or oppressed. (No Future Without
Forgiveness,
1999)
A similar Zulu saying, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, translates into English as "a person is a
person through other persons."
The Jewish philospher Martin Buber offers
us an important bridge with which to connect human rights and environmental
advocacy. He famously wrote about a notion of I/Thou which describes the
irreducibility of being in the world with others, including all the living
beings of the world.
I contemplate a tree.
I can accept it as a picture:
a rigid pillar in a flood of light, or splashes of green traversed by the
gentleness of the blue silver ground.
I can feel it as movement: the
flowing veins around the sturdy, striving core, the sucking of the roots, the
breathing of the leaves, the infinite commerce with earth and air--and the
growing itself in its darkness.
I can assign it to a species
and observe it as an instance, with an eye to its construction and its way of
life.
I can overcome its uniqueness
and form so rigorously that I recognize it only as an expression of the
law--those laws according to which a constant opposition of forces is
continually adjusted, or those laws according to which the elements mix and
separate.
I can dissolve it into a
number, into a pure relation between numbers, and eternalize it.
Throughout all of this the
tree remains my object and has its place and its time span, its kind and
condition.
But it can also happen, if
will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a
relation, and the tree ceases to be an It. The power of exclusiveness has
seized me.
This does not require me to
forego any of the modes of contemplation. There is nothing that I must not see
in order to see, and there is no knowledge that I must forget. Rather is
everything, picture and movement, species and instance, law and number included
and inseparably fused.
Whatever belongs to the tree
is included: its form and its mechanics, its colors and its chemistry, its
conversation with the elements and its conversation with the stars--all this in
its entirety.
The tree is no impression, no
play of my imagination, no aspect of a mood; it confronts me bodily and has to
deal with me as I must deal with it--only differently.
One should not try to dilute
the meaning of the relation: relation is reciprocity.
Does the tree then have
consciousness, similar to our own? I have no experience of that. But thinking
that you have brought this off in your own case, must you again divide the
indivisible? What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but
the tree itself. (Martin Buber, I and Thou, tr. Walter Kaufmann, 1923)
This description of interconnection with a
tree is one that I believe accords well with many aboriginal world views.
I
don't think i need say much in this context of a non-violent struggle
in India about the Bhagavad Gita. I would just like to cite it as yet
another profound expression of the interconnection of all beings. (The
Gita is, of course, abundant with wisdom and advice in addition to my
modest emphasis.)
Finally one of my favourite images of
interconnection: The Jewel Net of Indra, described in an ancient Buddhist text
called the Avatamsaka Sutra:
Far
away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net
that has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches
out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of
deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each
"eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in all
dimensions, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels,
glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If
we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely
at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all
the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the
jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so
that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring. (Francis H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of
Indra,
University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977, p. 2.)
Imagine our work seen this way. Our lives, our practices, our choices,
all connected – infinitely reflecting each other.
Thus i think of nonviolence
and how it allows us to act on this connection. I suggest that violence
and oppression emerges precisely when we forget this interconnection.
And in this age of global warming and climate crises none of us can act
without affecting everything around us. I worry that our strategy and
tactics will not be enough to turn us away from what seems a path to an
inevitable increase in loss and suffering of human and animal life and,
of course, irrevocable damage to our entire planet. But i believe that
as we change ourselves we also change our world and as we change our
world we change ourselves. This is the praxis that i referred to
earlier. As someone who practices popular education i see learning
(simultaneously individual and collective) as a fundamental aspect of
change. And i think we have more to learn from nonviolent action than
violent action. Nonviolence connects us, violence sunders us apart. Is
this not what ahimsa means in part? That we are connected?
A last
thought about land. Living in an urban centre like Toronto i am mindful
of the percentage of our 7 billion fellow humans who live in cites (one
stat i've seen is that 95% of the world's population lives on 10% of
the land). This strikes me as profound disconnection. For despite this
rather fearsome statistic we are part of the land. But made to forget
this, as happens so easily in urban populations, we collectively effect
tremendous violence on our planet (for which global warming is perhaps
the most infamous consequence). How can we continue this way and not
believe that we will increase suffering exponentially? I've learned that
China is buying land around the world (including here in rural Ontario)
and that it is likely they are doing so in order to use that land to
feed themselves. When a nation of 1.344 billion people starts to buy
land elsewhere in the world in order to feed itself - well... that can't
end well.
About this, one final note of connection:
Thank you very much
Dear all,
Thank you very much for your contributions. The discussion is closed since October 1st, and a report should be online in the coming days.
We hope that this exchanges have been as helpful to you ad they were to us, and hope to meet you online again very soon.
Thank you again, in solidarity!