As all of you are aware agricultural lands has become the main target for corporate sector in South Asia. The state has become the broker to grab the land from peasants at the cost of denying their basic right to livelihood. The worst victims of this process are the communities depending on agriculture as farmers, as farm workers, tenant farmers / sharecroppers. These are the groups who have been consistently engaged in struggles for land while the state (political state) has not been in favour of the implementation of genuine land reforms. Therefore a common myth has been built up by the state that there is no land for distribution. The economic reforms to free flow of global capital has suddenly opened the states’ eyes to allot large chunks of lands to the corporate sector with all the concessions denying the long time demands of the communities for land. There is a great need to respond to this context, consolidating the struggles of People for Land. Therefore, a two days workshop is planned on “The Role of Social Movements for Genuine Land reforms” in South Asia on March 15-16, 2008 at Indian Social Institute, Bangalore, India. This workshop is jointly facilitated by Andhra Pradesh Vyavasaya Vrudhidarula Union (APVVU), Ekta Parishad and IBON South Asia.
Issue:
South Asia is the home for the largest number of poor in the world and majority of them live in rural areas deprived of access to livelihood resources. The fundamental problem for the rural deprived communities in South Asian countries is how to maintain or improve their meager livelihoods. In many South Asian Countries a large proportion of rural poor are victims of the massive livelihood crisis that has accompanied the commercialization of agriculture and associated pro-globalization economic activities. The globalization of agriculture has geared up the plunder the profits for MNCs / TNCs at the cost of mercilessly displacing the farming communities from their means of livelihood. For instance, India has witnessed 125,000 farmers’ suicidal deaths in the last one decade and much more number of unaccounted hunger deaths among the rural poor.
South Asia is still facing the problems of feudalism where the large tracks of land in the hands of few rich absentee landlords and their hands became much more strong when the state (political state) has opened the economy for global market. Processes of land alienation, commercialization and modernization of agriculture have been accompanied by the displacement of large sections of rural poor by big dams and other so called developmental programmes in most of the South Asian countries. Drawing the experiences from India, the introduction of Special Economic Zones is inviting new form of re-colonization of rural India grabbing the large chunks of agricultural lands without properly developing alternative source of livelihoods and employment opportunities for the displaced. As the result, today India has two realities - while large number of rural people by over night become impoverished, few sections of rich community are becoming richest even standing in the list as richest persons of the world. Similar such contexts are prevailing in other developing countries in South Asia.
Further, the state (means political state) has become a tool for corporate sector to capture the land related natural resources from the dependent community by using all forceful coercive methods. Neither elected leaders nor political parties are seriously concerned over these issues. This indicates that the state do not have any political will for addressing the problems of rural poverty in perpetual manner.
The role of welfare state has been withering away replacing as the state to maintain the law and order to strengthen the infrastructures for the corporate sector and exploitative forces.
The context is quite relevant to demand for the genuine land reforms with every developing country in sub continent as the states have failed to provide alternative economic systems to accommodate the newly displaced people swelling the ranks of poverty with the economic reforms. On the other hand, every developing country in South Asia has signed several international covenants to address the problems of poverty. One such example is: Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948, established that "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself [herself] and of his [her] family, including food, clothing, housing….." This has been legally codified in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and can be interpreted as meaning that all people have the inalienable human right to be able to feed themselves, through work with dignity and a living wage, or through access to the land.
When faced with unequal and unjust distribution of agriculture land, the call for redistribution through genuine agrarian reform is a call for the human right to feed oneself. It is not a call for charity or for benevolence from people in power, but rather a demand that all governments respect and uphold their obligations as spelt-out in international treaties and the universal rights of humankind. This call challenges the arbitrary and artificial division between economic/social and political/civil rights, because almost every absentee landlord has been keeping the lands vacant while the landless go to bed hungry everyday as they don’t get adequate resource either as cultivator or as wage earner.
The Need Of The Hour:
Despite of enormous growth of urbanization, even today 60% of people live in rural areas depending on agriculture. The only available source to meet the basic needs of large sections of hungry people in the society is to depend on land related resources. Therefore the need of the hour is to see that how the land can be made available for those dependants to produce their food. Though the several South Asian countries has floated with land reform legislations, no one developing country has distributed the land to the genuine poor.
In the context of shrinking democratic spaces for the majority population in South Asian countries, the best viable option before the people is to build collective mass movements to restore their denied socio-economic and political rights. This is not so easy task to carry forward without the collaboration of the concerned CSOs and peoples’ movements within the country and across the borders.
There are sporadic events of resistance against the land grabbing by the state for vested interests. There is a great need to bundle such struggles and campaigns to restore the land rights. In the given situation, the hope before the people is to come together within the country and also across the borders to voice collectively against the all the undemocratic processes, so that the voices can be heard both locally and globally which will pave the way to address the problems.
To actualise this aspiration into concrete action, there is a great need to call the progressive social movements, concerned intellectuals together to discuss. This will create an opportunity for exchange the views and ideas and experiences to make further plan of action in the region – South Asia.
Contact person:
P. Chennaiah
Secretary National Coordination, APVVU
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