Interview With P.V. Rajagopal: “This is a Very Challenging Time for Non-Violent Struggles”

P.V. Rajagopal, co-ordinator and inspirational figure for many non-violent struggles for justice and equality, has emerged as one of the most consistent and committed campaigners for broadbased land reforms in India. The struggles of the Ekta Parishad group of organisations which he leads have placed a special emphasis on the land rights of tribal communities. Since the last 10 months P.V. Rajagopal and his colleagues have been organising foot-marches across the entire country aimed at taking the message of land reforms and socio-economic equality to remote parts of the country. This ‘Jan Satyagraha’ will culminate in a march of one lakh deprived and poor people from Gwalior to Delhi, starting October 2. Here P.V. Rajagopal speaks to Bharat Dogra about the issues closest to his heart and mind.

B.D.: In 2007 after the march of 25,000 deprived people from Gwalior to Delhi, the Union Government agreed to set up a Council and another Committee on Land Reforms. But five years later you’ve to return with a bigger mobilisation effort. What happened in between?

P.V.R.: If the initiatives announced at that time had been taken forward with consistency and commitment, and if the recommendations of the Committee appointed by the government had been implemented honestly, then there would have been no need for this bigger protest and instead we would’ve been creatively engaged in cooperating with the government for the proper implementation of land reforms. But unfortunately the government did nothing at all for a long time and even a meeting of the Council was not called despite many efforts on our part. This compelled us to start preparing for a second bigger mobilisation.

B.D.: However, very recently a meeting of this Council was called. What happened then?

P.V.R.: This belated meeting in June can only be called a mini-meeting. The Prime Minister and several Chief Ministers, who are members of this Council, were not present. However, some significant issues were nevertheless discussed. On the one hand there are issues on which the Union Government can interact with the State governments for progress. For example, directions can be given for guiding the State governments towards giving more rights to the Panchayati Raj Institutions including the Gram Sabhas for land-related matters. On the other hand there are areas where the Central Government can play a more direct role. In this context the issue of speeding up the distribution of homestead land to all villagers was discussed. In fact this task should have been completed long ago but clearly much more still remains to be done. Then in areas where a conflict with the Forest Department exists, again the Central Government hopes to do more to help the tribals and other poor households facing problems. Then again Bhoodan lands can be re-surveyed properly so that people who deserve to get the land should get this quickly and any irregularities that may have taken place can be checked. All this was discussed at the Council’s meeting and we’ll be sending in more proposals soon.

B.D.: What were the most overwhelming situations you encountered in the course of your recent yatras?

P.V.R.: What alarms and distresses me most is the ‘triangle of violence’ in which innocent tribal communities are caught due to forces and circumstances beyond their control. Firstly, some mining and industrial giants come to plunder their resources which threatens their entire life and livelihood pattern. Secondly, there is the mobilisation of violent resistance to this in the form of Naxalite and Maoist groups. Thirdly, there is the violence of the para-military forces or other agencies of the state. In the middle of this triangle of violence the sufferings of lakhs of innocent people have reached intolerable levels. Some of them, while talking to us, said: we feel like we are sitting on our funeral pyres.

On the other side, what I find extremely distressing is the degeneration on the part is even higher-level members of the bureaucracy from which the country once had high hopes of upholding the rule of law and constitutional values. Some of these high-level bureaucrats are today functioning like the clerks of big mining/ industrial giants who have their eye on minerals and other resources of the tribal areas.

B.D.: There have been reports of repression of even non-violent, peaceful resistance to all this. Is this an increasing trend?

P.V.R.: Yes, because some of those who want to plunder the resources of tribal and other areas know in their heart that it’ll be more difficult to counter the challenge posed by democratic, peaceful, transparent, constitutional struggles of people. It is these struggles which are capable of fully exposing the plunder for what it is and hence can play a bigger role in checking this. So these forces of plunder try their best to give a bad name to peaceful struggles and one of their favourite ploys is to publicise even these peaceful activists as Naxalites.

In this effort they get help from the RSS and like-minded groups which have penetrated deep into the tribal heartland and do not like the presence of groups who take up genuine issues of the people. So some communal groups enjoying a powerful position in some States too join the wild cry of ‘Naxalites’ against peaceful activists.

In this way the background of repressive action against peaceful activists is prepared carefully by vested interests who stand to gain from such repression.

B.D.: Has your organisation also suffered from such repressive measures?

P.V.R.: Our organisation as well as our friends have suffered repeatedly as a result of such repression. A recent instance is from Sagar district where many of our activists were imprisoned. After a lot of efforts they are out of jail now, but the cases are still pending. In Chhindwara our friend, Sunilam, and his co-workers faced a lot of repression.

B.D.: So what is the future ahead for non-violent struggles?

P.V.R.: In the middle of all these adversities, our commitment to non-violent struggles remains as firm as ever before. I feel strongly that while our struggles to protect natural resources and people’s livelihoods based on these resources will have to continue for a long time on several fronts, simultaneously we’ve to deepen our efforts for training of activists in true non-violent struggles.