In Feb 2004 a group of European social activists joined the Indian campaigning group Ekta Parishad in a month long padyatra (foot-march) for land rights in the state of Orissa. What follows is a short account of what happened on the march and the successes that were achieved
Ekta Parishad is a grass-roots organisation that campaigns for the rights
of landless people in several states
throughout India. It employs Ghandian methods of political pressure and
non-violent civil disobedience to press
for land reform.
In early 2004, Ekta Parishad launched a month long padyatra (foot-march)
through the state of Orissa. The aim
of the march was to raise awareness of the problem of landlessness and
to pressure the state government into
distributing land to the landless.
Although some land reform was carried out post-Independence, which should
have led to land being distributed
to the landless, the reality is radically different. Poor people, particularly
dalits (un-touchables) and tribals
(adivasis) are particularly vulnerable. Despite forming nearly 40% of the
population of Orissa, dalits and adivasis
are politically marginalised, only appearing on the government's agenda
at election time. Many have no land and
live at starvation level. Others face the constant threat of eviction from
the land they are occupying, either
with or without land title. They face pressure at every level-from government
bureaucracy that does not
recognise their land rights and government policies that causes them to
be evicted or persecuted in order to
make way for multinational corporations or wildlife sanctuaries and forest
reserves. At a local level, villagers
face threats of violence and bribery from local mafias and corrupt officials.
The padyatra visited over 100 villages throughout seven districts of Orissa.
At each village a public hearing was
held, where the villagers were given the opportunity to air their grievances
and hand over petitions for Ekta
Parishad to present to the government. Many villagers walked distances
of up to 30km to attend these hearings.
The hearings highlighted the sense of insecurity felt by many villagers.
Without land the poor are marginalised.
Land title (potta) give them access to welfare and education. It means
that they are not forced into looking for
migratory labour and they don't have to pay bribes to officials in order
to stay on their land. Many are so
restricted in what they can do, that they can be arrested for cutting down
small amounts of fire wood from
government forestry land and in certain areas need permission from government
officials to travel through the
very forest that they have lived in for generations.
In Lanjigarh district, tribals told of how they were being evicted from
their ancestral land to make way for a
multinational mining operation. Tensions were running so high that the
public hearing had to be cancelled
because of intimidation from locally hired thugs.
During the course of the padyatra, national elections were declared. This,
coupled with a general lack of
response from the state government of Orissa, led to a change of tactics
on Ekta Parishad's part. An ultimatum
was issued to the state government, stating that if they did not agree
to adopt Ekta's ten point plan for land
reform within ten days, then 5,000 people would close down the national
highway for 3 days and march on the
state capital, Bhubaneshwar.
Ten days passed without a response from the government, so the march commenced.
No doubt influenced by
the effect of the march and the new Ekta Parishad slogan, "Give us
land, then we will vote", the chief minister
of Orissa, Navain Patnaik, was in contact with senior Ekta Parishad officials
within the day and a meeting was
set up in the evening to negotiate. Patnaik agreed to the ten point plan,
the corner stone of which was the
setting up of a joint task force which will oversee land reform and distribution.
This decision was publicly
confirmed by Patnaik as he addressed the final rally of 3,000 people in
Bhubaneshwar. Now that the national
election results have been declared, Patnaik has been re-elected. The question
now remains as to whether Ekta
Parishad can maintain the pressure on him to make sure that his election
promises are kept and that the task
force effectively delivers land reform for Orissa’s tribal and dalit communities.
For further information on the work of Ekta Parishad:
www.ekta-parishad.org
www.actionvillageindia.org.uk
