Drawing inspiration from India’s landless

29 July 2010

Rajagopal is following in Gandhi’s footsteps. He is planning to lead a peaceful non-violent march, called Jansatyagraha 2012, through a thousand Indian villages to persuade the government to give land rights to India’s poorest people. While India makes huge strides towards industrialisation, competition for vital resources grows. More than half the population still depend for their living on agriculture and they are being squeezed off the land. Next week Rajagopal will be in London, hosted by the Quakers, gathering international support.

The slogan of the march in 2012 will be Gaon me Jeena durbar he…Chalo ab shahar Ki or (Life in the village is impossible…now let us walk to the cities.) Gaon do ya shahar do….Hame bhi to jeene do (Give us village or city…allow us to survive.)

Three years ago Rajagopal led Janadesh (means “people’s verdict”) 2007. Walking for nearly a month, 25,000 people covered 340kms, each carrying a sack containing a few clothes, a plate and cup and a thin quilt. Extreme exhaustion overcame eight marchers who died and three more were killed by a lorry accident. When the orderly three- mile long procession arrived in Delhi a government minister met them and promised a new panel would create policies, guide states and monitor land distribution. The government listened and policies were changed.

Rajagopal is president of Ekta Parishad, (a movement of around 11,000 community based organisations), which interprets nonviolence in the same way as Gandhi, as an active force in bringing about social change. “Poor people asserting themselves in a nonviolent way, was the key to success of Janadesh,” he says. Now he wants to find nonviolent ways of mobilising ordinary people marginalised in failing economies and offer the movement as a global model.

Quakers in Britain have supported Ekta Parishad for a number of years and have delivered training on nonviolence with them through Turning the Tide, a programme of Quaker Peace and Social Witness.

Rajagopal will be speaking in London and Manchester:

• Monday 2 August, 4pm till 5.15pm Friends House, (opposite Euston Station. Registration is free but essential at www.quaker.org.uk/peoplepower
• Sunday 8 August, 1.30pm till 3pm, at Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount Street, Manchester M2 5NS.

He will be the key speaker at a Quaker conference, “What do we mean by peace?” and also meet representatives from development agencies.

Ends

Notes to editor:

• To interview Rajagopal please contact Anne van Staveren on 020 7663 1048 or 07958 009703.
• Approximately 23,000 people attend Quaker Meetings for Worship in Great Britain, and there are around 475 Meetings.
• Quakers are known formally as the Religious Society of Friends.
• Satyagraha is a philosophy and practice of nonviolent resistance developed by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (known as Mahatma Gandhi).

Media Information

Anne van Staveren
0207 663 1048
07958 009703
annev@quaker.org.uk
www.quaker.org.uk