Thousands of landless in support of MDGs
October 17, 2007, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh: A large congregation of people resumed their march from Mathura to Delhi while raising their voices in support of the Millennium Development Goals. They all stood up with posters and banners especially made to mark the occasion on October 17. Speeches were made to make people aware of the promises made by the government to work towards achieving these goals by target year 2015.
Beginning on October 2 from Gwalior, the march is expected to reach Delhi on Oct 28 and the next day, there will be a Parliament march.
For the past 16 days they have been on the roads in a five-kilometer long queue – walking, singing and dancing. They carry flags, banners and posters reflecting their woes and their aspirations. “The land and livelihood resources should be primarily used for eradicating poverty and not to protect the interests of the likes of Tatas and Birlas,” said P.V. Rajagopal of the Ekta Parishad. But the irony is that issues concerning livelihood of the poor are not in the priority list of even the Central Government. The poor of this country are completely voiceless. They are used only at the time of elections for voting the politicians to power, so feels Ransingh Parmar, National Convener of Ekta Parishad. “The question today that we have in front of us is whether the adivasis (tribals) will survive, or whether this country will prosper only by eliminating them,” Parmar rued. Badami, a 45-year old woman from Mona village of Gwalior district had this bitterness in her voice when she described the hardships that they had to face without any land of their own to till. “There is no land, no work and nothing to eat. We are starving there. But this government gives land only to the moneyed people and not to the poor. But now we want our share too.” With three sons, a daughter and a wife, Raje Lal belonging to Sahariya tribe from Ghatigaon, Gwalior district, works in a stone quarry and earns Rs 80 a day. With no land, they have to rely on the quarry work for survival or else move out to far off places in search of livelihood. In his village, which has a population of 3,000, about 75% people have absolutely no land. The remaining 25% also have small plots of land, which is not at all sufficient to survive on. “There will be 25 lakh people on the roads soon, if the government does not listen to us,” roared someone from behind. Back in Delhi at Jantar Mantar where the Ekta Parishad is simultaneously holding a dharna (sit-in) since October 3, some 350 people took out a procession in support of the MDGs from Rajghat, says Manish Rajput of Ekta Parishad.
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"The Landless and their Poverty"Author:
David Chester
Time: 20.10.2007 16:56
Comment: As long as the land is held by a small proportion of the community and its rent or non-use (with speculation in its value) are used a) to cause the production costs to be greater and b) to force the hired labour to accept starvation wages, by exploiting the opportunity the land provides for earning a living, then there will be povety and suffering by many of those, who have no possibility to survive in a human way and are without the sense to recognise how to permanently escape from their current predicament. Only an external observer can see this and is capable of giving impersonal and objective advise.
The solution that the peasants seek is to be allocated plots of land, but as long as these plots can be bought and sold and as long as the land-owners can grow rich by witholding the use of the site until its potential use (and consequently its value) grows more than the original cost of acquiring it, then the problem of land and poverty will not be solved, merely postponed. This situation has been tried before (about 1946)and is well documented by a famous traveller, see below. The nature of the poorer members of the community is not simply to hold on to their land and farm it sensibly, but to sell it back to the wealthier parts of the community, so that the poverty due to exploitation can easily return after a few years. The only way to solve this problem and to reduce the terrible suffering that goes with the resulting poverty is for all of the land (whether in use or not) to be taxed according to its value, so as to return some or all of its true rent to the local government, and for this sum to replace that otherwise taken in all other forms of taxation, particularly those which are the direct result of the process of production and distribution. This happier situation will come when dedicated geographical and legal teams are empowered to map and to introduce (or modify) suitable land-laws, so that the opportunity to share the bounty of the land (which is surely a gift of nature to all of mankind), is allowed and regulated for use by the whole population regardless of their social status or position within the community. This can then be achieved by tax reform which should be gradually introduced so as to cause the land-lords to slowly relinquish their strangle-hold over the poorer parts of the population. A sudden change will cause a popular revolution and even more suffering due to the inevitable military supression. Thus one should Tax Takings Not Makings. The much-travelled author Karl Eskelund describes the effort made by a band of young American and English Quakers in trying to assist some of the Indian population, millions of whom live at starvation level. The young idealists took up their task in 1946 at the village district of Pifa, which lies in the Ganges Delta. They were fully aware that their work would test their patience, for in India you can get no results 'at five minutes past twelve.' But after having outlined their plans to the peasants, the fishermen and the landowners - which met with general approval - they organised a co-operative enterprise for cultivating the land and marketing the produce. They set up day schools for the children, evening schools for adults, clinics, et cetera. After overcoming the initial difficulties, they saw signs of progress. Inspiration grew. Health conditions improved. Everyone took a greater interest in their work and their earnings increased. New ideas took shape - there was advance along the whole line - an advance, slow but sure. Only the Landowners Grew Fatter Five years after the experiment began, Karl Eskelund visited Pifa and, with one of the Quakers as his guide, went through the village to see how it was faring. The Quaker had lost more than two stone (28 lbs) and was as thin and spare as the natives. But what was worse, he had lost heart because the experiment had proved a failure. The day school still existed, but only one-quarter of the children attended it. The evening school had closed. The clinic was hardly used. Agriculture, fishing and trade were back to the old methods. Eskelund asked for an explanation of this fiasco. The young Quaker offered quite a number of reasons, none of which Eskelund could accept. Finally, he got to the root of the matter. This is what he says: "In the first year after beginning the experiment, both peasants and fishermen earned more than ever before. What was the result? The large landowners at once raised their rents and the smaller landowners followed suit. The peasants had to pay more for permission to cultivate the land. The fishermen had to pay more for permission to cast their nets on the flooded fields. In that way, practically the whole of the increased earnings passed into the landowners' pockets." "The people of Pifa were unhappy at this. Nevertheless, next year they worked hard. Crops were plentiful, there was a rich catch of fish; good prices were paid for produce. At once, the landowners raised their rents still higher." "The people then began to lose heart. What was the use if, for all their efforts, they got no benefit? Only the landowners waxed fatter. The peasants and fishermen did not become any thinner: they could not, otherwise they would die." "Indians are ignorant, but they are not stupid. They can put two and two together. They had found themselves momentarily enriched by the new methods but, in the end, all the extra money went to the landowners. If one of the new ideas would not work, what faith could they put in any other novelties? Perhaps, after all, the old methods were the best." This is the story as far as it goes. It would be difficult to find an example that more simply and clearly demonstrates the truth of what Henry George taught. It is that, as long as the private right to the rent of land obtains, so long will every advance, crystallizing in land rent, be gathered by the owner of land; while he who works, he who produces, must toil the day long without gaining more for his labour than is enough to avoid death from hunger. This story reveals the problem in all its simplicity; cleared of all that in civilized society makes it more difficult to see the importance of land. The Need to Remould the Whole System The young Quaker would not lay any blame on the landowners. There could be no objection against the landowners trying to gain as much as possible, and after all, there was nothing unlawful in owning land. The young Quaker admitted the immorality of the circumstances, but argued that it could be mended only by "remaking the law and remoulding the whole system." Eskelund himself sees clearly the part the land question plays, and proposed the subdivision of land (by creating small-holdings). Yet he is not sure that subdivision will solve the problem. For he writes: "Meanwhile, there is evidence that you don't get rid of landownership in that manner. Landownership is like the weed that always re-sprouts." "The Indian peasant has a habit of using every penny he possesses to spend on festive occasions; when a son is born or when a daughter is married. If he has no cash he goes to the moneylender, who is often the landowner, the only person in the village who has ready money. Of course that is stupid of the peasant, but he has so little in hand. Already there have been occasions where a man who had become owner of his plot got into debt and had to forfeit his land. Thus he became a day labourer again, to toil for the same landlord as before." |
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