Janadesh 2007
Encyclopedia
Janadesh is the name of a national campaign on land rights in India
launched by the movement Ekta Parishad
. The word
"Janadesh" means "The Verdict of the People" in Hindi
. The campaign was launched in 2005 and will culminate in October 2007, in the form of a 350 km foot march involving 25,000 people, the majority of whom will be landless Adivasi
and Dalit
.
According to Ekta Parishad the lack of secure land rights is a major contributor to rural poverty in India, and the government of India needs to undertake major land reform
s to address this issue. The aim of the Janadesh campaign is to put pressure on the Indian government to undertake specific land reforms aimed at securing land rights for the poorest groups in India.
report poverty
remains a significant problem in India, with India’s progress in reducing poverty compared with some of its Asian neighbors described as ‘modest’. According to the same report, poverty in India is most widespread in rural
areas (where almost three out of four Indians live), and the highest incidence of poverty of all is found among the rural landless, 68% of whom are classed as living below the poverty line.
These findings are echoed in other reports on the subject. For example, Sundaram and Tendulkar found in a 2003 study of poverty in India that the highest levels of poverty were found among assetless (i.e. landless) rural households dependent on agricultural wage labor. Levels of poverty were found to be even higher among members of this group if they also belonged to either a Scheduled Tribe or Scheduled Caste.
Furthermore, although at an overall percentage level rural poverty is decreasing in India, due to population growth the absolute number of people in rural areas below the poverty line is not decreasing.
Obviously there are differing viewpoints on what measures would be most effective to alleviate poverty among these groups. According to Ekta Parishad, the single most important measure that could be taken to reduce these levels of poverty would be to grant secure land rights to small pieces of land to landless peasants, reducing their dependence on casual wage labor and providing a measure of food security
.
These views are supported by research in the area. For example, Hanstad, Brown, and Prosterman suggest based on research in Karnataka
and West Bengal
that providing amply-sized plots of land (these can be as small as 0.05-0.15 acres in size) gives substantial benefits to landless families at relatively low costs. These benefits include increased income, increased access to credit, and increased social status. They also note that based on the land costs in their Karnataka study, the cost of a program to distribute packages of land like this to the ten million poorest families in India would be approximately 3,330 million rupees spread over ten years. By contrast, the central government’s rural housing scheme has cost 15,360 million rupees per year over the past five years, whilst producing housing viewed as being of very low quality by the participants in this study. Hanstad, Brown and Prosterman also cite numerous other studies from around the world which have shown results similar to their own.
There are a number factors involved in creating this situation.
Firstly, land records, which provide the basis for land ownership, are out of date in India. The Indian government is currently working to computerize land records to improve efficiency. However, a recent report by the Asian Development Bank
pointed out that, more than computerizing records, correcting them should be the priority. They note that: “It is a common observation in villages that the person in whose name land is recorded is either deceased or does not possess the land”.
Secondly, according to a recent discussion paper produced by PACS, even if land records are up to date, they do not ensure security of possession. If the poor are dispossessed of their land the record of their possession itself is of little use – instead they have to go to court to establish their title. The process for establishing title is such that a wealthy opponent is able to prolong the process for years through higher courts of appeal, which the poor can ill afford. Thus the land record system is fundamentally anti-poor, and provides little protection against land grabs by wealthier land-owners. These land grabs take a variety of forms, from simple violent expulsion through to bribery of government or bank officials. It is often more than a simple question of the economic value of the land. R Srivastava argues that the landed are often not in favor of giving land to the landless since it increases their autonomy and ability to demand better wages. He also notes the wealthy landed often have substantial influence over politician and administrators at the state level.
Finally, the national government has reserved for itself substantial powers of land acquisition through the ‘Land Acquisition Act’ of 1984. This permits the central government to acquire any area of land that it chooses if is in the ‘public interest’ to do so. However, the term ‘public interest’ is left undefined in this legislation, giving the government exceptionally broad powers to acquire land as and when it chooses.
Taken all together, these factors combine to create a system of land ownership which provides little security for the rural poor.
The Janadesh campaign is seen as a means of connecting the numerous local campaigns which they are involved in into a single national campaign large enough to pressure the government into taking action.
The Janadesh 2007 campaign will culminate with a foot march by 25,000 people, mainly landless Adivasis and Dalits. The route of the march will be from Gwalior to Delhi
in northern India, following the main highway (a distance of approximately 350 km). The march will set out from Gwalior on the 2nd October 2007 and will arrive in Delhi on the 28th October 2007. This will be an act of mass non-violent civil disobedience in the tradition of Gandhi. According to Ekta Parishad, it will be the largest such action since the struggle for Indian independence.
The campaign has three specific demands around land reform. These are:
, Ekta Parishad is not an NGO or a political party. It is instead a people’s movement, which works at the grass-roots level to mobilize people to challenge corruption and exploitation.
Quoted in the book “Truth Force” Rajagopal states this aim: “What I am trying to do, through Ekta Parishad, is to help people to understand that they can be leaders of the country”. Ekta Parishad are particularly focused on land and livelihood issues amongst marginalized communities (such as Dalits and Adivasis) in rural India and are active in eight Indian states (Madhya Pradesh
, Chattisgarh, Orissa
, Bihar
, Jharkhand
, Uttar Pradesh
, Tamil Nadu
and Kerala
), and in direct contact with around 4000 villages.
There are two main components to Ekta Parishad’s work – the struggle component and constructive work.
The struggle component involves mobilizing people to take part in various forms of non-violent resistance such as Padyatras (foot marches), Dharnas (sit-ins), Gheraos (preventing unjust incidents from taking place by encircling people who wield power), and Chakka jam (road blockades) to press for their land rights. This is based on the Gandhian tradition of non-violent resistance.
The constructive work focuses on running economic and development activities alongside the land rights struggle, with the intention of allowing villages that have gained land to become economically self-sufficient. These activities include:
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
launched by the movement Ekta Parishad
Ekta Parishad
Ekta Parishad is an Indian activist movement founded in 1991 by Rajagopal P. V. Ekta Parishad is a federation of approximately 11,000 community based organizations and has thousands of individual members...
. The word
Word
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
"Janadesh" means "The Verdict of the People" in Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
. The campaign was launched in 2005 and will culminate in October 2007, in the form of a 350 km foot march involving 25,000 people, the majority of whom will be landless Adivasi
Adivasi
Adivasi is an umbrella term for a heterogeneous set of ethnic and tribal groups claimed to be the aboriginal population of India. They comprise a substantial indigenous minority of the population of India...
and Dalit
Dalit
Dalit is a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as Untouchable. Dalits are a mixed population, consisting of numerous castes from all over South Asia; they speak a variety of languages and practice a multitude of religions...
.
According to Ekta Parishad the lack of secure land rights is a major contributor to rural poverty in India, and the government of India needs to undertake major land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
s to address this issue. The aim of the Janadesh campaign is to put pressure on the Indian government to undertake specific land reforms aimed at securing land rights for the poorest groups in India.
Rural Poverty in India
According to a recent World BankWorld Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
report poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
remains a significant problem in India, with India’s progress in reducing poverty compared with some of its Asian neighbors described as ‘modest’. According to the same report, poverty in India is most widespread in rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
areas (where almost three out of four Indians live), and the highest incidence of poverty of all is found among the rural landless, 68% of whom are classed as living below the poverty line.
These findings are echoed in other reports on the subject. For example, Sundaram and Tendulkar found in a 2003 study of poverty in India that the highest levels of poverty were found among assetless (i.e. landless) rural households dependent on agricultural wage labor. Levels of poverty were found to be even higher among members of this group if they also belonged to either a Scheduled Tribe or Scheduled Caste.
Furthermore, although at an overall percentage level rural poverty is decreasing in India, due to population growth the absolute number of people in rural areas below the poverty line is not decreasing.
Obviously there are differing viewpoints on what measures would be most effective to alleviate poverty among these groups. According to Ekta Parishad, the single most important measure that could be taken to reduce these levels of poverty would be to grant secure land rights to small pieces of land to landless peasants, reducing their dependence on casual wage labor and providing a measure of food security
Food security
Food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food-secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. According to the World Resources Institute, global per capita food production has been increasing substantially for the past...
.
These views are supported by research in the area. For example, Hanstad, Brown, and Prosterman suggest based on research in Karnataka
Karnataka
Karnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...
and West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
that providing amply-sized plots of land (these can be as small as 0.05-0.15 acres in size) gives substantial benefits to landless families at relatively low costs. These benefits include increased income, increased access to credit, and increased social status. They also note that based on the land costs in their Karnataka study, the cost of a program to distribute packages of land like this to the ten million poorest families in India would be approximately 3,330 million rupees spread over ten years. By contrast, the central government’s rural housing scheme has cost 15,360 million rupees per year over the past five years, whilst producing housing viewed as being of very low quality by the participants in this study. Hanstad, Brown and Prosterman also cite numerous other studies from around the world which have shown results similar to their own.
Current State of Land Reform in India
In Ekta Parishad's experience of campaigning across eight states in India they found that even having a land entitlement did not necessarily equate to possessing land. In fact they found that in around 50% of cases having a land entitlement had not led to possession of the land itself.There are a number factors involved in creating this situation.
Firstly, land records, which provide the basis for land ownership, are out of date in India. The Indian government is currently working to computerize land records to improve efficiency. However, a recent report by the Asian Development Bank
Asian Development Bank
The Asian Development Bank is a regional development bank established on 22 August 1966 to facilitate economic development of countries in Asia...
pointed out that, more than computerizing records, correcting them should be the priority. They note that: “It is a common observation in villages that the person in whose name land is recorded is either deceased or does not possess the land”.
Secondly, according to a recent discussion paper produced by PACS, even if land records are up to date, they do not ensure security of possession. If the poor are dispossessed of their land the record of their possession itself is of little use – instead they have to go to court to establish their title. The process for establishing title is such that a wealthy opponent is able to prolong the process for years through higher courts of appeal, which the poor can ill afford. Thus the land record system is fundamentally anti-poor, and provides little protection against land grabs by wealthier land-owners. These land grabs take a variety of forms, from simple violent expulsion through to bribery of government or bank officials. It is often more than a simple question of the economic value of the land. R Srivastava argues that the landed are often not in favor of giving land to the landless since it increases their autonomy and ability to demand better wages. He also notes the wealthy landed often have substantial influence over politician and administrators at the state level.
Finally, the national government has reserved for itself substantial powers of land acquisition through the ‘Land Acquisition Act’ of 1984. This permits the central government to acquire any area of land that it chooses if is in the ‘public interest’ to do so. However, the term ‘public interest’ is left undefined in this legislation, giving the government exceptionally broad powers to acquire land as and when it chooses.
Taken all together, these factors combine to create a system of land ownership which provides little security for the rural poor.
Objectives of Janadesh 2007
Based on this view of current land legislation Ekta Parishad argue that it is only through legislative action at a national level that lasting change can be achieved. Although campaigns at state level have resulted in a number of successes in terms of distributing land to the landless, there need to be major changes at the national level to create a system of land rights that protects the rights of the poor and ensures that they can actually benefit from their land.The Janadesh campaign is seen as a means of connecting the numerous local campaigns which they are involved in into a single national campaign large enough to pressure the government into taking action.
The Janadesh 2007 campaign will culminate with a foot march by 25,000 people, mainly landless Adivasis and Dalits. The route of the march will be from Gwalior to Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
in northern India, following the main highway (a distance of approximately 350 km). The march will set out from Gwalior on the 2nd October 2007 and will arrive in Delhi on the 28th October 2007. This will be an act of mass non-violent civil disobedience in the tradition of Gandhi. According to Ekta Parishad, it will be the largest such action since the struggle for Indian independence.
The campaign has three specific demands around land reform. These are:
- Establishment of a National Land Authority to provide a clear statement of land utilization in India, identify the lands available for redistribution and strengthen pro-poor laws
- Establishment of fast track courts to settle past and future conflicts related to land
- Establishment of a single window system so that farmers can resolve easily and freely the land issues, without wasting time, money and energy
Ekta Parishad
The Janadesh 2007 campaign is being organized by Ekta Parishad, an organization that was formally established in 1990. According to its founder, Puthan Veetil RajagopalP V Rajagopal
Rajagopal P. V., a Gandhian activist, is Vice Chairman of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi, and the president and founding member of Ekta Parishad, a grassroots right-based organization which organized the massive non-violent landless march Janadesh 2007....
, Ekta Parishad is not an NGO or a political party. It is instead a people’s movement, which works at the grass-roots level to mobilize people to challenge corruption and exploitation.
Quoted in the book “Truth Force” Rajagopal states this aim: “What I am trying to do, through Ekta Parishad, is to help people to understand that they can be leaders of the country”. Ekta Parishad are particularly focused on land and livelihood issues amongst marginalized communities (such as Dalits and Adivasis) in rural India and are active in eight Indian states (Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh , often called the Heart of India, is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and Indore is the largest city....
, Chattisgarh, Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
, Bihar
Bihar
Bihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
, Jharkhand
Jharkhand
Jharkhand is a state in eastern India. It was carved out of the southern part of Bihar on 15 November 2000. Jharkhand shares its border with the states of Bihar to the north, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to the west, Orissa to the south, and West Bengal to the east...
, Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
and Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
), and in direct contact with around 4000 villages.
There are two main components to Ekta Parishad’s work – the struggle component and constructive work.
The struggle component involves mobilizing people to take part in various forms of non-violent resistance such as Padyatras (foot marches), Dharnas (sit-ins), Gheraos (preventing unjust incidents from taking place by encircling people who wield power), and Chakka jam (road blockades) to press for their land rights. This is based on the Gandhian tradition of non-violent resistance.
The constructive work focuses on running economic and development activities alongside the land rights struggle, with the intention of allowing villages that have gained land to become economically self-sufficient. These activities include:
- Providing spaces for the sale of village produce (e.g. handicrafts, khadiKhadiThe term khādī or khaddar means cotton. khādī is Indian handspun and hand-woven cloth. The raw materials may be cotton, silk, or wool, which are spun into threads on a spinning wheel called a charkha. It is a versatile fabric, cool in the summer and warm in the winter...
, honey, rice, oil) in urban centers; - Promoting agricultural development through organic farmingOrganic farmingOrganic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...
methods and cultivation of herbal plants for medicinal purposes; - Development of irrigation schemes, and small-scale economic programs like running shops, grain banks, fishery, poultry and goat rearing.
External links
- The Janadesh website (English)
- The Janadesh website (French)
- The Ekta Parishad website
- Articles by ‘Peuples Solidaires’ on Janadesh
- ‘Land for Life’ march in support of Janadesh
- The involvement of the ‘Confédération paysanne’ for Janadesh
- Trilingual Belgian march in support of Janadesh from 19 to 21 oct.
- The newsletter of Solifonds (June 2007) dedicated to Janadesh
- ‘Solidarité’, French NGO present Janadesh
- ‘Action Village India’, a UK partner of Ekta Parishad
- Detailed article about Rajagopal and related video interview of José BovéJosé BovéJoseph Bové is a French farmer and syndicalist, member of the alter-globalization movement, and spokesman for Via Campesina. He was one of the twelve official candidates in the 2007 French presidential election...
. - Creative Commons documentary project about Janadesh