|
By Aditya Malaviya Krishnammal and Sankaralingam Jagannathan's years of working for land and livelihood rights for the poor in Tamil Nadu has won them the 2008 Right Livelihood Prize, also known the Alternative Nobel. The Stockholm-based Foundation says the award is recognition "for two long lifetimes of work dedicated to realising in practice the Gandhian vision of social justice and sustainable human development"
For Sarvodaya activist Krishnammal Jagannathan land represents freedom. A lifelong Gandhian committed to the philosophy of self-reliance, 85-year-old Krishnammal and her 95-year-old husband S Jagannathan began a movement in 1968 called LAFTI-Land for the tillers’ freedom.
LAFTI started in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu as a non-violent movement to get land from landlords and distribute it to landless peasants. In two decades it has succeeded in redistributing thousands of acres of land to poor and low-caste families.
Krishnammal first thought of the idea in 1968 (the organisation was registered in 1991), when a Muslim trust in Kula Manickam village wanted to sell large tracts of land -- but only to Krishnammal, not to any landlord. Since she didn’t have the money then to buy the land (though she did have access to funds from abroad she could have used), Krishnammal decided it would be best to approach the matter professionally and set up an organisation to access funds.
“The model is actually very simple,” smiles Ariavelam of Ekta Parishad. “The villagers tell Krishnammal how much land is available and where, and who the owner is. Then LAFTI, along with members of the local community, negotiate with the landlord, usually demanding a rate that’s less than the market price.”
An agreement is then signed between the landlord and LAFTI, after which beneficiaries are selected. They have to be poor and landless. The gram sabha sets up a committee to select the beneficiaries. After the selection process, the community collects caste and income certificates, photographs and family card photocopies from the beneficiaries. These are submitted to the local LAFTI office.
On another level, the management at LAFTI begins looking for funds from banks, the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravida Housing and Development Corporation (TAHDCO) and the National SC and ST Financial Housing Development Corporation (NFHDC) that offer subsidies for this purpose (NFHDC offers a loan, while TAHDCO gives a subsidy through the bank). Meanwhile, the landlord submits a photograph, caste certificate, ownership title, encumbrance certificate (EC) and power of attorney to Krishnammal.
NHFDC transfers funds to TAHDCO, which transfers the same to LAFTI. Currently, NFHDC does not give funds to LAFTI but to landowners. It sends a sanction letter to LAFTI and LAFTI, using this letter, applies to the government of Tamil Nadu for exemption from stamp duty. The application has first to be submitted to the tehsildar who forwards it to the secretary of registration, who in turn passes an order exempting LAFTI from stamp duty. TAHDCO then interviews the beneficiary who has to have a photograph of himself/herself, a certificate saying he/she is landless, an income certificate and a caste certificate (his/her income should not be more than Rs 12,000 a year, and he/she has to belong to a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe). The beneficiary must not be more than 50 years old, so an age certificate has to be included. The beneficiary must also be a Hindu dalit.
Then the registration process starts. The registrar of land gives two copies of the registration certificate -- one for TAHDCO and one for LAFTI. The land is then surveyed, marked and handed over to the beneficiary.
When distribution of the land starts, the beneficiary has to pay Rs 5,000 as a first instalment; the rest is paid within five years at the rate of 6% interest per annum. There is no penalty. Before registration there is an agreement between the beneficiary and LAFTI that the land cannot be pledged or sold. When final payment has been made, the original documents relating to the land are handed over to the beneficiary. After registration, each beneficiary gets an individual passbook (he/she repays LAFTI, which then repays TAHDCO).
Till September 2007, around 12,000 people had received 11,066 acres of land. The land is also registered in the names of women in the family. At a recent meeting of the Tamil Nadu Cabinet it was decided to waive stamp duty and registration charges to enable LAFTI to buy 1,061 acres in Nagapattiam to give to landless farmers at the rate of one acre per farmer.
But there’s more to the story than meets the eye…
Meet seventy-five-year-old G Subramanian whose family has lived in Kilavenmani village, Nagapattiam district, Tamil Nadu, for generations. Subramanian lives with four brothers and two sisters. Like his father, he has always been a landless agricultural labourer.
“There were two sets of schools in our village -- one with a pucca building for the upper castes and one with only a thatched hut, for the dalits. But the dilapidated state of my school did not deter me from studying till Class VIII; in fact, my landlord’s son and I studied together, though of course in separate schools,” he says.
“I had only a loincloth to wear at home. When I began school my father was desperate to make me look presentable. But because he had so little he gave me his own used clothes. For me, it was a very emotional moment because I had never had any clothes of my own before.
“The reality of our everyday lives could not be ignored. If we had to survive, we had to go to work in the landlord’s fields every day. Otherwise we would starve. As adults, my parents received two padi (kilograms) of grain as ‘wages’ for their manual work; the children got one padi. But even this was ‘paid’ to us only on a weekly basis -- we could not demand anything from the landlord. If we did not show up for work for any reason, we received no grain that day. Any surplus grain we had was bartered for other necessities like cooking oil or sugar from the grocer,” he says.
There were many strictures on tenants living in the village as well. Breaking the rules meant a swift and ruthless beating by the landlord. For example, if tenants used a path that passed in front of the landlord’s house they were not allowed to walk with their chappals or sandals on, carry a cloth over their shoulder, or ride a cycle.
Subramanian adds: “Every week, when we went to pick up our quota of grain from the landlord it was given to us in the backyard, not in front of the house. The grain was measured in a marraka (vessel used as a measure) and poured into the cloth we carried. Under no circumstances were we to touch the marraka; we just held out our arms and received the grain. During Pongal and Deepawali, we were given money to buy clothes. However, whether it was handing out grain or clothes, everything was done by the servants. The landlord hardly ever showed up.”
On December 25, 1968, a conflict broke out between landowners and tenants when the tenants asked for a hike in wages. Things spiralled out of control and very soon the entire village was caught up in the maelstrom. At night the landlords began firing, leading to a scramble by the villagers who took refuge in a nearby hut. In their anger, the landlords set fire to the hut -- 44 people died a fiery death. Palanivel, 58, was 18 years old when the 1968 incident happened. “The atrocities of the landlords never really abated. We had to go to the fields before sunrise and return after sunset. In case a mother had to breastfeed her child, she had to take the permission of the owner who was always called andai. We were not allowed to take the landlord’s name, only refer to him as andai. Lunch had to be eaten near the paddy field, not at home. If anyone objected he was tied to a tree, whipped and made to drink cowdung water. In the four villages of Irunjur, Perunthalaikudi, Irukai and Alankudi, agricultural labourers were tortured and enslaved,” says Palanivel.  Palanivel recalls how, during that horrific incident, women inside the hut tried to hide while the men fought outside. “When the sickle-wielding landlord’s men set the hut on fire, I came running out and was almost killed by Naidu’s men. Injured, I hid in a bamboo bush. The next morning I was rescued and sent to a hospital in Nagapattiam.” This was when Krishnammal Jagannathan visited the village. Subramanian says: “When we first saw her we thought they were Brahmins. But in the evening they sent a truck of paddy for the victims. Their visits to the village became more frequent and they helped us selflessly.” One day, Krishnammal asked Palanivel to look for land that was for sale in his village. They found out that Sanmukha Sundara Mudaliar of Manchakollai village was selling his land (144 kuli, or feet) and was asking for Rs 20 per kuli. They finally settled on Rs 18 per kuli. In 1972, an acre of land went for Rs 6,000. Krishnammal ultimately bought 50 acres at Rs 6,000 per acre. Krishnammal is modest about her work. “I wanted to study the problem of land and landlessness in Tamil Nadu, especially since almost three-fourths of the land in and around Nagapattiam belongs to a temple math (monastery) or religious trust. I studied the problem for six months and then the seeds of an idea began to form in my mind. When I shared it with others, political parties, landlords and other political bigwigs tried to talk me out of it. But the dalits were being severely exploited -- while the landlords carried green towels on their shoulders, dalits could only carry a red towel! The dalits were being given four kilos of rice for their manual labour everyday; they had demanded 4.50 kilos of rice instead. This is what sparked off the violence.” Against all odds, Krishnammal began by offering to take care of the labourers’ children when they worked in the fields. “We would speak to the women alone in the fields,” she says. In Valivalum, Krishnammal began her struggle to release 309 acres of temple land, with support from the government. “But the one thing that kept haunting me was ‘why don’t we give land directly to the poor?’. Especially since the government began to withdraw its support to our cause because of vested interests.” So Krishnammal visited the banks, though not surprisingly, she drew a blank there. It was then that they got the news that a Muslim orphanage in Kula Manickam village was interested in selling Krishnammal 82 acres of land. The rest, as they say, is history. “Till date, 125 landless women have repaid their loans. Poor people have the honesty to repay all their loans. The biggest stumbling block I face is political interference. No one wants the people to start wielding power and lead self-reliant and dignified lives,” Krishnammal says. She concludes: “I tell the people I am like the wind…make use of me while I am around. Now, education for the children of the landless, and building pucca houses for them is my priority. Who says my work is over?!” (Aditya Malaviya is a Bhopal-based journalist and researcher) InfoChange News & Features, July 2008 |
