Interview with Rajagopal PV

8/6/2019 Interview with Rajagopal PV.

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First Interview with Rajagopal P.V. Conducted at Cesci, Madurai, Feb. 16th, 2009

P.S. What keeps you going? You have been doing this work for over 40 years, often in

an atmosphere of hostility. In the last few days, I have seen you working from early

morning to late at night, day after day. What motivates you?

Rajagopal: The real drive is the problems. It is your desire to see that things are

changing in the society. I think that is the motivation, that you would like to see justicebeing done, see poverty being removed. This is a kind of non-acceptance of reality as it is

today. And nothing is going to change unless people themselves are organized, peoplethemselves are trying for it. So this has to be a peoples effort. This cannot happen in a

society like India unless you reach out to them, talk to them, motivate them, rally them,get them to fight against the system.

So what is driving me is the desire to see change and the very understanding thatunless you move very fastwell, lets say, that there are others with different motives

moving faster than you move. It is almost like in a fast-flowing river. If you put onehandful of earth it is not going to stop. Many handfuls are needed. So the speed at which

you have to work is very high, if you really want to prevent the process that is happening.Even then there is no guarantee that you are going to prevent it, but at least there is the

satisfaction that you didnt sit down watching things fail. That is one motivation.The other motivation is the very fact that I do not like to see suffering. I dont like to

see anybody suffering. I have seen a lot of suffering as I have traveled around India and itis a very undignified way of life when a person has to spread their hand in front of

everybody. Then you ask yourself this question, if your mother had to spread her hands infront of othersthen, how would you feel? That is the question you have to ask yourself,

will you let that happen? That should be the level of reaction you should feel foreverybody. So try to reach out to as many people as possible, try to see as many young

people motivated as possibleknowing very well that it might not be making enoughchange but it is good that you keep doing it.

PS: You have many people looking to you now, so I imagine you feel a lot of

responsibility. How do you cope with that?

Rajagopal: Sometimes I feel it is too much. When you are not really able to cope withthe number of places you need to reach, the number of people you need to meet and

interact with and the never-ending telephone calls and demands. Then you feel it is toomuch.

But then too you realize that it is your own creation. You have options in life. You canbe an individual and take the responsibility of the family. You can be a social person but

take only the responsibility of an institution. You also have the option to create a networkof organizations and coordinate it. But you also have the option to get to the masses. It is

almost like putting your hands into a beehive--you let them come with all theirexpectations and desires to do things, you know. Then you will face the music and I

think I opted for that very demanding format of training many young people leading themto defend villages, leading them into areas where they have to work in a very hostile


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environment. As a result there has been hostility and misunderstanding; you get accusedand abused by the system. And so it has been necessary for me to talk to the state and

convince them that we are trying to do good and also to work with the media and theinternational community.

I am working on a large canvas, and when you do that you are also hoping that there

are people who will come and help you. And I do get a lot of help, so many people doingthings for each other. This Centre (Cesci) is a good example.At the same time, the convenor of Ekta Parishad, Ran Singh, must be doing as much

work as I do and Ramesh Sharma must also be doing as much work as I do. There arehundreds of people doing that. Dr. Jeypragasam for example, doesnt draw a salary from

us, he is a volunteer but he does much more work than I do. So I was very lucky. EvenEkta Europeall of those people fundraising for us, is remarkable. I was lucky to have a

lot of friends who do a lot of work to support us.But that doesnt reduce your work because you continue to create, you have the

capacity to do more. Help is very interesting but as you get help you also feel likeexpanding. Even in India, we are only in 11 states out of 24 so your desire to reach out

expands. And I have got this larger canvas called south Asia900 districtsand wewant to train 10 young people in each district. So there are going to be 10,000 young

people across south Asia working for peace and justice. And then you have the desire tohave an Ekta Europe, an Ekta Canada, an Ekta Africa

I strongly believe that in a globalizing world, a small mobilization is not going tocreate the impact. If I am in charge of an organization, the impact that I can create will be

at the block level not at the state level. If you work in one district in India you cantcreate any impact at the national level. You can write to the Prime Minister but he is not

forced to listen to your voice. So, through experience I have come to understand that it isonly size that will help. If the government of India knows that you have a mass base in

about eleven states and you can impact the process of the elections, then they will listento you.

PS: Janadesh has made a difference then?

Rajagopal: Janadesh has made a big difference. 25,000 people walking for a month

makes a difference. Ten people walking for a month makes little differenceeven tenpeople walking for a year will make little difference. So if you calculate then what you

are saying is 25 million people are poor, are desperately poor, so 25,000 people willrepresent those 25 million. Next time, what I am saying is that we have a hundred million

people in this country so, next time, they should be represented by 100,000 people. It iswhat you call the critical mass--unless you have the critical mass nothing is going to

change. You are not heard because your intentions are good or because you have goodideas, you are heard because you have a mass base, that is how it works in democracy.

PS: And Gandhi understood that?

Rajagopal: Gandhi understood that. He knew how to mobilize people to have his voice

heard by the British. I think we need to use that technique of mobilizing people. Youhave to have the capacity to reach people. Unless you can, the state wont listen. It took


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twenty-five years of work before I could get twenty-five thousand people on the road. Somobilizing people, getting their confidence to increase,making them believe that you

mean what you say through your life and your actions. All of this takes years and years ofwork.

You know in order to boil water you need to create 100 degrees of heat. If you create

25 degrees of heat in four places, the water is not going to boil. You need to concentrateit in one place. So that is what I contemplate, what is the boiling point at which things canchange? So creating that non-violent heat is how I understand what I do. I do all these

things in order to create that heat. When I train young people, I know that through theseyoung people I can reach all these villages. When there is mobilization, I know that one

day this mobilization can be brought into a larger action that will create that heat. Socreate small heat and change small things but create a bigger heat and at some point in

time you will be able to change a bigger thing. You cant do it everyday because it costsyou too much, it costs time.

But then in a country like India where things have gone really wrong, when you wantto have a non-violent, democratic action this is the only way to do it. This is the only

thing I can think of, the ordinary persons tool is to walk, the ordinary person, ordinarypoor persons tool, that is, to fast. Walk and fast, fast and walk. Because you dont have

food anyway, so you know how to fast and you have to walk everyday, so it is easy towalk. So use ordinary peoples tools in a way that it is difficult for the state to find a way

to contain. The tools are so ordinary and yet so powerful that the state cannot find a wayto contain them because it is too ordinary and too powerful. And nobody can say this tool

is bad.I am still searching and learning. Gandhi was innovating and he had innovative ideas

to get at his opponent. To some extent it was easier in that the opponent was an outsiderand people could understand that getting the opponent out was important, so the freedom

struggle had that emotional backing. So that the we and them was very clear. Now wehave our own people, the black leaders, and there are no more the whites so you cant

accuse them of coming to occupy our space. They are all our relatives, our friends, so it isvery difficult to fight because they are all our own people. And that is a dilemma now so

we need a second freedom struggle, the freedom struggle that is geared to your ownpeople at the national level.

PS: Lets expand this a bit. If you look in the broader context of the world it seems

that violence is still the first choice, even for a new President like Obama who has

decided to bomb the Taliban in Pakistan. For ordinary people, violence seems like the

first choice. What would you say about non-violence as an option? Why is it a good or

better choice?

Rajagopal: Well our ancestors, who weren't considered civilized, behaved differently.

We call ourselves civilized, but to my mind civilized means being able to talk rather thanusing force. Muscle power will be more and more used in an uncivilized world and the

power of argument will be used in a civilized world. What is happening now is thatthough we want to claim we are civilized we havent yet understood that civilization

means shunning muscle power and using the power of argument. I think civilization isalso about using new tools of reason. This is a difficult notion--that civilization is not just


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about using modern tools but about using new ways of dealing with problems. This has tobe a grassroots change, it has to begin with the educational system.

When I look at the world I find that uneducated people are more civilized in terms ofnot using violence. Modern man, educated modern man, is very violent, very very

violent. They are violent in terms of their consumption and they really dont care. They

are violent in terms of how they argue for their positions, violent in terms of cutthroatcompetition and violent in terms of grabbing what they want to grab. Its violence that isbuilt into a system where theyre too arrogant, too competitive, too much consumeristic.

Everything is so violent, its not just the use of the gun but the whole life is violent.Compared to the poor people, who are hardworking less greedy, less grabbing, and less

prone to using force because they dont have the capacity to use force. The problem is notwith the ordinary people the problem is with the so-called educated people.

So I think if you really want to bring a change in the world you need to begin with theeducational system. It can begin in the classroom the moment a child understands that

there is nothing wrong with being second or third. I dont have to be first. The parentsand children theyre all into this game that my child should be first. And in order to

make your child first you need to make others second and third and fourth. No home isteaching children that when you become fourth or fifth in the classroom you should enjoy

it because there were many other people who could become second or first. Even thismental capacity to understand that others can go ahead of me and I dont have to be

firstthat is hard to grasp.

PS: Is that what Gandhi meant by Sarvodaya (the well-being of all)?

Rajagopal: To some extent, yes, because if you want to care for everybodys well-being you will have to compromise with your own want. Because want has no end and

you really dont know where need will end and greed will begin. There is a very fine linetherefor example when you have three sets of clothes and then buy the fourth one, is

that need or greed? How do you decide? Unless you have a control over what you need,sarvodaya cannot be brought about.

PS: Is the control to greed really seeing other peoples needs?

Rajagopal: Also that yes, also. You need to look around. If you are so self-centred you

will only see your need. You will look around and justify why you are fulfilling all yourneeds, by saying you are a responsible father or a responsible mother. Because then you

have an argument of being responsible for your family. But that is why this questioncomes of being a responsible citizen of the world, how will you behave? I would say, 'be

responsible not just for yourself but for the world, care for the world and for society'. SoSarvodaya is an ability to look around and see in comparison to the world, what do we

have? And do we have the right to enjoy all that we are enjoying when many others aredeprived and are suffering?

So this is where awareness needs to develop. Awareness is not just about fighting foryour own rights only but also understanding society and behaving in a way that your

rights dont impinge on the lives and rights of others. When you are conscious of yourrights you also need to be highly responsible about protecting the rights and lifes of


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others. I think when we speak of rights today we mean it in a highly individualistic way, Ispeak about my rights. I dont speak about the rights of anybody else. A good mix of

responsibility and rights is what can lead to a sarvodaya society because it is a society ofsharing. And we also have this wordantodaya, it is the well-being of the last person, the

least person. Really sarvodaya cannot come until you care for the well-being of the least

person. That will lead to the well-being of all. Otherwise it is just a theory.I think sarvodaya is a very radical theory and people havent understood it yet--especially if you look at it as a political theory. We used to say dictatorship was the well

being of one. From that we move on to socialism--the well being of the minority. Andthen democracy that is the well-being of the majority. From that political positioning

when you say 'the well-being of all' you are identifying a very radical position. Peoplesay, oh, that is a very old idea. But I ask, what more can you say? What is more radical

than that? Well-being of all shall be the conceptual agreement and clarity of all.Resources have to be equally redistributed. I find it is a very radical position and

unfortunately it hasnt become a popular position.Thinking about others is hard for us. Insecurity is a big problem for people: I need a lot

and I need all this money in my bank and if cant keep it here I have to send toSwitzerland to keep it safe and then I convert it into a credit card and put it in my pocket

so when I travel I take it with me. Many years back, people would say a tree is a tree, soif you want to transport a tree you need to take it to the market and sell it. But now you

can convert the whole forest to a credit card. So today, you can say all this forest is mineand I am mortgaging it to the bank and converting it all to a credit card. In todays world

people have found ways to convert resources into money and put it into their pocket.Once you have it you have all the freedom to spend it and you dont care about people

who have to spend eight hours toiling to fill their stomach.So we are faced with a world where millions of people are just thinking about filling

their stomachs and a handful of people are spending money and wasting resources.That iswhere Sarvodaya needs to be articulated and articulated as a challenge.

PS: I want to ask you now about why land and land rights are so important in India?

This is something that is sometimes difficult for us in North America or Europe to

understand.

Rajagopal: Well first of all, in India, land is called 'mother earth' and so people have an

emotional attachment to the land which is very real. Then, there is an old proverb whichsays that the best thing is to be a farmer, the worst thing is to be someone else's servant.

And now that is reversed, everyone is trying to get a job (and that means to be the servantof someone else) and the worst thing is to cultivate your own land. So there is a shift in

terms of values. Previously, agriculture had very high credibility. But times havechanged.

Then you see land as a possession, like the credit card you were talking about, rather

than as something to sustain yourself.

Yes. The moment you feel that land is not going to sustain me, then you move on.What we are saying is that people who don't have any other opportunity who are really


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working on the land and who respect the land--they should have the land. That is wherethe value shift is: for some people land is a commodity for selling and buying, for others

it is mother earth, they respect it.So we say we have two Indias. One is Bharat, the other is India. India is the word in

English, Bharat is the word for India in Hindi. So the country is divided in two; India, the

country of the English educated people, their notion, their understanding and Bharat, thecountry of the people who speak a local language and live on the land. So we are againstthe commercialization of land because seventy per cent of Indians are living on the land

either as farmers or as farm labourers. And in India, however great the government maybe, they will never employ more than 1 or 2 per cent of people. That is the maximum

capacity. Maybe the private sector will come and they will employ 2 or 3 per cent ofpeople. At no time will you find more than 5 per cent of jobs in the service market and

government employment. So how are these 95 % of people living? They don't livebecause of any government. No government is giving them any job, no government is

giving them any pension or security So they are all making a living somewhere else. 70percent of people are living on the land. 8 to 10% of people are tribals, so they depend on

the forest. And about 5 % of people are setting up small shops and selling things on theroad. So 95% of people live on their own. This is a self-employed way of living.

Of late, the government is trying to say, okay, 'No small shops, we'll have malls'. So

you take away the jobs of 5 % of people. Then you say 'the forests are for tigers, you getout'. So another 10% of people are out. Then they say 'the land is for special economic

zones, construction of dams and six lane highways', then that's all gone too. So agovernment which has no ability to create jobs is using its force to evict people from the

land and the forest and their livelihoods. Its only adding to the size of slums in thiscountry.

A good example of this is Brazil, a country three times bigger than India with apopulation of one hundred and seventy million. Eighty per cent of people are living in

cities and slums and only twenty per cent of people living on the land and in the villagesbecause a large area of land--40-50 thousand acres--is occupied by multi-nationals.

So we all learned as children that India is a country of villages and Gandhi also saidthat he wanted to see self-governed, self-sufficient villages uniting into a country called

India. He didn't say 'Delhi will be powerful and they will decide everything for all the500,000 villages'. Every village should be an independent republic, he thought and they

will unite into a country called India. So when you have such a wonderful concept ofself-sufficient, self-governed villages, why destroy their empowerment by taking their

water, their land, their forest? Why don't you invest into developing their agriculture?Because growing food is not a crime. Why destroy people who grow food? Why invest

more into industry and take water and other resources only to promote industry? Why somuch subsidy to industries? Why give such great support to industrialists and not to the

farmers?So we are basically saying if you want to create a self-sufficient nation you need to

depend on agriculture and if you want to depend on agriculture you need to invest in ruralpeople and respect what they are doing. So it is altogether a way of looking at how you

can make this country a happier place.So land is not just land. Land is related to food, It is related to agriculture. it is related


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relationship to nature. We are working with a very rich community who do not have themoney component. It is not pity as much as recognizing that here is a strand that can be

used and each strand can be multiplied and if they can understand their strength, thenamazing things can happen.

But I thought it is important to work with indigenous people to strengthen them and to

use their strength in organizing programs that will force the government to changepolicies. And what little amount of success we have had is because of that, becauseAdivasis are very powerful in terms of taking suffering and then fighting for what they

believe in.

Its a bit like an alternative society within society...

It is, yes. One interesting thing about them is that they are not the accumulating type.They don't have this notion of accumulating wealth. Though we tell them about saving

and bank balances. And they look at you like 'whatever you say', you know. Its like aslong as I have enough for today I don't have the reason to accumulate for tomorrow. Like

Gandhi said, that is the most modern way of thinking. Adivasis have that modern way ofthinking--'if I have enough for today, why should I grab it for tomorrow?'. People who

will be born tomorrow will also have hands and legs. I don't have to accumulate for them.Educated people seem to believe that all the future generations will be handicapped and

they have to accumulate for them. Accumulation is our problem and Adivasis don't sufferfor that.

My argument is that once you come to a dead-end, once all the resources are used up,all the oil is used up, all the water is polluted, then you may want to go back to a guru to

learn how to live a simple life. Then you may need the indigenous people to learn how tolive without accumulating, how to live simply. So it is not just a group to work with, but

also a group from whom you can learn values about how to approach life.I also found that they are victimized: mining companies come and they are evicted;

dams come, they are evicted; tiger reserves come, they are evicted; factories come andthey are evicted. So I found a community that is innocent at every level and they don't

fight back and they sacrifice themselves. But in the face of what is happening it is not sobad to help them resist and fight back. So they can say 'you can have your development

model, but you can't destroy us for it.' That is where the whole fight began.Its like the Mahabharata--in Indian mythology--the battle between the good and the

bad forces and today they are the good people, the innocent ones and they are faced byanother people--the educated people--whose greed is very high, they behave like

crocodiles and they are backed by international companies and governments in this game.'You take half and give us half'. So I think this is the time to help the Adivasis fight back,

to say 'look only so far and not farther'. Its not easy because the forces against which youare fighting are very powerful forces.

But I think that the final defeat of the Adivasi community will be a defeat forhumankind. Because they have a different value to offer. In Thailand, the Adivasis will

ask me, 'why are you destroying our supermarket to promote your supermarket'- theforest is their supermarket. Across the world indigenous people are in difficulty. In

Canada and in America and other parts of the world they are in difficulty because theyare the minority and as a minority they don't have the capacity to resist the majority who


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are oppressive and repressive. That is why I am with the Adivasis and I think we will findan answer to many of our problems by respecting the way they live. The moment you

look at them with respect, they whole situation will change.

So there is something we need to learn from them?

Oh yes absolutely. We need to change our attitude. Rather than condemning and lookingat them as backward, we need to respect their values.

Iwas going to ask what the rest of the world can learn from India--is that related to this

question of the Adivasis?

Yes I think it is. I think it is mutual. I often ask myself, why is that India is onlylearning bad things and not good things for the rest of the world. On the other hand, there

is a lot that India can offer. When I travel through the west I always feel, oh good, Indiastill has a strong community life, a strong family life. That means that the state was not

able to get into the life of every individual. Between the state and the individual you stillhave the family and the community so you don't feel so helpless--even if the government

is irresponsible. You don't feel helpless because you have a lot of social systems to carryyou, if you are in trouble there is a strong community life which you will miss in the

West where every individual is face to face with the state and the state is too powerfuland the individual too powerless.

That way I think many people look to us to see how society can be more vibrant intheir own countries and how society can make the state accountable. They would like to

recover lost ground by learning from this side.And I think that India also has a very interesting tradition and history of non-violent

action. The world is looking to learn more from India in that regard. Not only fromhistory but also from present actions--how do you motivate and mobilize society to be

non-violent actors? In that way I think we have a lot to offer for finding a solution to theworld's problems especially in a democratic world where we need to be more vibrant.

I also think why shouldn't India learn from others . If women are not oppressed in othercountries why don't we learn that? Why can people live without the dowry system or the

caste system? Why is corruption so high here when you can see that in the day to day lifein the West there is no corruption? I mean you don't have to pay a bribe to get a telephone

connection. There are hundreds of things we can learn. Even a bit of the welfare systemwould help us. Why are we so lacking in organizing our own systems? Why are the

hospitals not working? Why is the education system not working? Why is the distributionsystem not working?

On the other hand, why do we refuse to be proud of what we have that others can learnfrom? Non-violence is something we can be proud of, and so it is something we should

practice. But the world is wanting to learn non-violence from us but don't practice it, westill treat our people violently. When we see poor people in the street, we don't care. We

have so many landless people and we have a law about land redistribution but we don'timplement it and we are very violent toward them and our police are very violent with the

poor people.So there are items where we have a 'market' in the world but we are not developing it.


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We have a beautiful concept of village industries from Mahatma Gandhi, but we don'tpractice it. If we practiced it, the countries of Africa and Latin America that are looking

for an alternative to capitalism could have learned it from us. India could have been areally good model for the poor countries across the world. Rather than saying there is

only one way of development, we could have said 'no, there is another way of

development which is more people-centred'.We have lost a great opportunity to be a real world leader but instead we are also beinga pygmy leader by imitating the west, by building nuclear bombs and spending money on

that. Its a lack of imagination in leadership in learning good things from others and beingproud of what is good in you and teaching it to others. That would be a real mutual

relationship. Instead, we are destroying everything that is good in the country and we areimporting everything that is bad in the West. It is not a good game.

India can be different. And to be different you don't need all these corrupt systems,caste politics and communal forces and corrupt leaders. You need people with

imagination and commitment for India and the world. It comes back to what VinobaBhave said, 'Jai Jagat. Victory to the World.' The time is over when you can just speak of

the victory of your own country whether it is India or the United States. victory of theworld is based on the fact that you learn good things from each other and how you great a

society of sarvodaya by redistributing resources.The major crisis in the world is the crisis of leadership. Rarely can you find a Nelson

Mandela but instead you find a Robert Mugabe or in the Philippines too you see a wholesseries of leaders who have failed and the country is in turmoil. Even in South Africa they

looked and looked for a good leader and eventually they settled on a corrupt one. Italy isa good example of how this happens. In Canada too, you also brought a rightist

government back. Obama might be an exception. We will see. In general, we don't haveworld class leaders who can set an agenda and inspire people. We have regional leaders

and that leads to regional conflicts and fights.It is all linked. The most important thing is finding more people who believe in the

possibility of creating another worldThe big challenge for me is how to inspire young people. I spend much of my time

with young people training and encouraging them to believe that another kind of societyis possible. A more just society can be created by thinking and acting differently. We can

only do it at a small level but the influence of the larger social and economic system isalso affecting what we do--the climate to be good is missing and that makes it difficult to

encourage young people to live that way.

Last question. You have been doing this work for over forty years. Iwonder what hassurprised you in what you have learned over that time?

There have been many, many surprises. I am humbled by what I have learned from

people. Everyday there is something new that I learned and sometimes is very funny. Onestory was when we were introducing a smokeless cooking furnace and talking to people

in a village about it. And one old lady stood up and said to me, 'I already have asmokeless furnace'. And I said, 'No that cannot be because this is a new technology and

we are bringing it to you for the first time'. And she asked me, 'Young boy do youunderstand what smoke comes from?' And I said, 'Yes, smoke comes when you cook


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your food'. 'Well', she said, 'I have nothing to cook so I have a smokeless furnacealready'. So people slap you in the face and tell you, don't be so smart and educated when

you don't understand how my life works.I was traveling through another village and people told me that here the leader of the

village was elected unanimously. I said, 'That's fantastic! That's the highest understanding

of democracy' and then later they came and told me privately that it was unanimousbecause the rich man told them if anyone voted against his candidate he would breaktheir heads. Then you see, this is what you unanimous means here. How brutal it can be

that a man cannot even stand for election in this country and we call it democracy.

So the learning has been about coming to see the reality of people's lives?

Yes. What I have learned, I have learned from people. I have rarely learned frombooks. So I used people as my books. I watched them very closely I try to understand

them seriously. I watch their body language. My sensitivity comes from my interactionwith people. When I am organizing training programs with young people, they are

teaching me a lot, teaching me how to be a better person. And when you learn frompeople that brings you closer to people then you have no notions coming from books, no

theory coming between you and others. I have learned to be closer to people, to respectpeople. There is a poem by Kabir that says, 'the branch of the tree that has many fruits

bends, the one without fruit stands straight'. So the more knowledge you have thehumbler you should be. If you understand people, you should be humble. Then you know

that you know a little only. So you are very careful and polite.That is one reason why I was able to organize Janadesh. People trusted me and had

faith in me. It was a very personal thing. It took 40 years for me to somewhat master it.Forty years has taught me a lot. There is a lot more to learn. When we conduct training

programs now we invite ordinary people and ask them to tell others how they do whatthey do. 'How do you plow your land?' 'How do you collect this leaf from the forest?'

This gives them a great respect and we have come to understand that the greatest resourceis in the people right around us. I don't have a great constituency among the educated

class because I am very critical of them, but I do have a constituency among theuneducated, poor people.

PS: I am happy to have this opportunity to talk with you again. Most of thequestions I want to ask this time go into a little more depth about the issues.

Before I get to those, however, I want to ask about yesterday. You took me along

with your friend, Vinoth, to visit a Dalit village near Chennai and along the way

we saw the police and the bulldozers carrying out forced evictions of the homesby the highway. Later, at the meeting, a young mother presented you with a

petition expressing fears about the home in which her family had lived for sixtyyears. Can you tell me about that situation and how you feel about it?

Rajagopal:Well, whether it is Tamil Nadu or Bihar or UP, as you travel around

India, you will find that a large number of people are homeless. That is the reason

we speak again and again about land reforms. If you are going to begin land reforms,


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they have to begin by providing homestead land to millions of people in this

country.

When you are homeless, then you are subject to manipulation. If you are staying on

the land of somebody else and working, then you will get very low wages and if youask for higher wages, you will be asked to leave, your houses will be demolished. So

you are always under pressure and fear that someone will remove you from theplace you are living. The women whom we met yesterday, and who gave us

petitions, they are living on a piece of land that belongs either to the municipality or

to the Railway. Now the Indian Railway can any day demolish their homes, tellingthem, we want to expand. We want to have one more track. Or if it is the

municipality, they will say, we are going to beautify the city, so, you must leave.

In both cases, there will be no compensation because they are called illegal

encroachers on government land. So the government has all this land and they willnot give it to anyone. When people occupy it because there is no other place to

construct a small hut, that is not even regularized. In big cities, you have that chance

of getting it regularized because you have larger slums and the politicians are veryinterested in the vote bank. So they may say, let us regularize this slum or that slum

and give them land titles and then they will all vote for me. But in small places, likethe village we saw, that is not possible. They have so little meaning in terms of votes.

And so finally one day they will get a notice and they wont even be part of history

because no one will know.

The interesting part of the story is what we will see in the next action, Jansatyagraha

2012. It is a way for the poor to say, So, because you are not allowing us to even livehere, and making our life miserable, we are going to come to where you live and

make your life miserable. You see we believe you need to take a position, and

confront these people and say, Now you tell us where we can live.

You saw yesterday the mothers and the policemen demolishing the houses. Whereare they supposed to go? You saw people who were under threat of demolishing.

You also saw people getting physically removed by the policemen. So it is a very bad

situation. When we speak of land reform, we are saying there are so many thingsyou can do. Radical land reform is a long way in the future but in the meantime

there are many things you can do. But even according to the law as it now standsyou are supposed to give a piece of land to everyone for constructing a house. Every

municipality, every panchayat should work on that. Also according to the law, you

are supposed to regularize the land on which people are living, if they are living

there for more than five years. Many of them have been there up to sixty years sothey have every reason to get that plot of land. And anyone who has been occupying

a piece of agricultural land for more than five years has the right to have theirtenancy regularized. It is called the Tenancy Registration Act. Then they cannot be

removed from that landbut only if their name is registered and the governmentwill not register their names. As a result, they will always remain tenants and they

can be removed at any time.


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Just by implementing provisions that exist in the current law you could remove the

sufferings of millions of people. What you saw yesterday was not as bad as it is inmany other parts of the country. In Bihar, there are songs that say, My house is so

bad it is not even fit for a pig to live in. And many houses there are like that, barelyfit for human habitation. I think women are the worst sufferers in this situation

because they have no toilets and no privacy. They dont get drinking water orelectricity, because the moment you provide these facilities you recognize theexistence of these colonies.

PS: So its part of denying the problem?

Rajagopal: Exactly. Denying the problem.

That is why my argument is that muncipalities (the elected bodies in the cities) and

panchayats (those in the villages) should be made responsible for povertyeradication and providing justice in their districts. And panchayat officials are

notoriously corrupt because the officials are constructing roads or construction of

buildings and everybody is trying to make part of the money. So they are becomingpetty contractors instead of addressing real issues of poverty and of housing or of

reform of the government system.

So what is happening is that instead of decentralization of power you have

decentralization of corruption. They are saying, why should only the politicians inDelhi make money? Why shouldnt we too? Whereas the panchayats were supposed

to be a point of power, deciding about the life of the people living in the villages. So if

there is a good panchayat, a functional panchayat, then the problems of thosewomen who met us yesterday could be solved.

What I saw in Kerala just last week, was something different. It was people fightingto say we dont need alcohol in our panchayat. So there, the government is giving

them what they dont want and not giving them what they want. So the alcohol shopis in the interest of the liquor contractors. So a liquor permit is given to every

panchayat and they can set up a shop. But what the people are asking for is clean

drinking water, good health care system, good educational system, a plot of land foreveryone to construct a house.

So this is the contradiction: that the government is saying its people, we have thepower to decide about your life and we will decide according to what is in our

interest.

PS: You said to the crowd yesterday after that women came with her petitionand tears, that A country that makes its mothers cry for shelter for the children,

such a country has no future.


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Rajagopal: No, it doesnt have a future. You see, in Indian philosophy we believe

that if you are cursed by your own mother, then you have no future. My position isthat India is cursed by all these mothers, and therefore it has no future. The pains

and sorrows of millions of mothers who toiled, who worked very hard, who madethis countrythey are suffering. I think that their curse and their pain will tell upon

the country at some stage.

Unfortunately India has a very peculiar way of dealing with thingswe call

everything mother. For us, the cow isgo mata, mother cow and we have destroyed

the cow wealth completely in this country. We have slaughtered cows and bullocksand the cattle wealth in this country has really suffered. Terti mata, we call mother

earth and we have completely spoiled it by poisoning it. We call the Ganges and theYamuna Rivers, Ganga maia and Yamuna maia, but if you look at the condition of

these mothers they are nearly dead. They are completely silted and poisoned and

the factories are throwing their wastes in freely. We call Sarswati maia, the goddessof education and you know what the educated people are doing in this country.

Lakshmi maia is goddess of wealth and we have abused the wealth in everyway. Soeverything is maia, mother. I think that a country that has decided to abuse itsmothers. It is almost like raping your own mother

PS: It expresses a kind of closeness though doesnt it?

Rajagopal: Yes, when you say mother you are supposed to care, to love and care--because it is your mother. I mean if something were about to happen to my mother, I

would give my life. So if the cow is your mother, the soil is your mother, Ganga is

your motherthen this is a big contradiction. Philosophically we would like tohonour these things and treat them as mothers but in the modern way of life we

have decided to abuse them. Children abusing their mothers, that is the worst thing

you can imagine. So I think we are cursed by all these kinds of mothers and that willbe a problem for this country. You cannot escape this destiny, if you systemically

harm millions of women then you will pay the price. (Laughing) Read through theMahabharata, it is all about how women curse and then things really go wrong.

PS: I want to talk about Jansatyagraha 2012. First, I would like you to give me alittle background. Tell me, after Gandhi what happened to Satyagraha, what

was its history? What were its successes and failures?

Rajagopal: Gandhi of course used satyagraha as a very powerful tool in his fight

against the British. After him, many people also used it. Vinoba Bhave invented a

new form ofsatyragraha, the foot march, orpadayatra. Satyagrahaalso meanssuffering of self in the sense that it says, to people I am not just against you but I

am willing to suffer in order to make my point be heard.

Vinoba was walking for fourteen years, which was kind of a satyagraha. He wantedto address this problem of land reforms but he wanted people to address this

problem, not the government. Vinoba was always speaking of the need for people to

address the problem and not to wait for the government to do something. So he said


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land should be given to the poor. Why should you ask the government to do it? Why

cant we do it for ourselves? So he said, I will go to the people and I will ask for themto give some of their land for the landless people. So it was a real enlightenment for

him to realize that people will give. And during those days land was not soexpensive and more plentiful. So he received more than 4 million hectares walking

across the country for 14 years. He was trying to educate people that they couldsolve their own problems. He was using a term called dan giftland giftmovement (Bhoodan).

I was always impressed by the fact that he took the issue of land reform. He thoughtthe redistribution of land was important. He was also opposed to cow slaughter and

he thought that the two were related. Because you need land and you need cows andbullocks to plow your land. It was a land based economy that he had in mind and it

was a wonderful way of moving ahead after independence.

But there is a difference between that and what we are doing. You may give a piece

of land as a gift but then we are very dependent on you, on your change of heart.

And that is fine. But people also have a right to land. And why should we have agovernment if it is not going to guarantee those rights? So I have only moved from a

concept of dangift to a concept of right. If you do not want to give, then thegovernment should have the capacity to take it, because it needs to be redistributed.

What is happening now is that the government is using its power to take land butthey are giving it to the corporate sector and not to the poor people. What I want is

the government to use its power to redistribute the land to the poor people and not

to the corporate sector.

PS: So satyagraha has to be focused on the government?

Rajagopal: Yes, it has to be focused on the government.

PS: And to focus on rights and the expectations of the government to give rights.

Is there anything else that you have modified in the notion of satyagraha?

Rajagopal: Yes, I have modified in terms of peoples power. Vinobaji was walking

and he had his charismatic personality and he was a saint. He was encouraging

people to give. So it was the giver who became powerful and they could brag aboutwhat they gave. The giver became powerful. Well I have no problem with that but

the receiver became powerless. That is a feudal mindset according to my analysis. Inmy theory, the receiver should also become equally empowered in the process. As a

citizen of this country I have certain rights. The government is supposed to delivercertain things and I am asking for it. So it is not a question of someones mercy andin the process of it you should not be asking like a beggar. But with certain rights, I

should also get my land.

So one shift is about rights and people speaking about their rights and using

satyagraha to achieve them. The second thing is that through this process we make


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the person who is asking for their rights more powerful and more confident about

his own position.

PS: And how do you do that?

Rajagopal: This is through the training process. This where you get young people

together so they can begin to understand poverty and the power relationship withsociety and they also understand that poverty has nothing to do with karma. It is

man-made, so we can challenge it. With the deep understanding that the power

structure can be changed if we want, they go back to the villages and organize thepeople. Slowly, then, this organized group of people learn to fight for their rights.

They begin asking for water, for example, or an electric connection. So slowly they

learn how to ask, how to ask as an equal not as beggar. So this is a bigtransformation, because they may always have known only to ask as a beggar and

now they are learning to ask as an equal.

So slowly these moments of transformation can be brought together. If there are

hundreds of such actions in a country, we can bring together those actions into avery large action.

PS: Its about raising peoples consciousness?

Rajagopal: Yes and helping people to understand that if they want to they canchange their whole life. And that means realizing that nobody else is going to change

my life. I mean its an old belief that someone else will come and change everything

for me. From there it is a transformation to realize that I alone can change my life.That I will have to stand up and fight for it. And also pay the price for it. There are

sacrifices. The other form ofsatyagraha is appreciated and this form is not

appreciatedby the state, by the government officials, by the feudal elements. Andwhat is disturbing to them is not that you ask but the way you ask. If you ask like a

beggar and you assume that you are the powerless and I am the powerfulif thatrelationship remains they have no problem. I may even give what you want. But the

moment you start asking as if we are equals, then you are not only challenging the

resource balance but also the power balance. The control that I have over them isbreaking now.

So this is why, the people who might have liked what Vinoba did, may not like whatRajagopal is doing. Because I believe that a democracy is strong only when people

can participate not as victims but as active participants. I believe that people arebetter off when they take responsibility for their life rather than depending on

others permanently. So that notion has brought about problems and I think that this

country has to go through that. Its a small turbulence that we need to go through.The mindset of the politicians and bureaucracy and the feudal elements is not

prepared for that so there is a lot of backlash right now. In ten or twenty years time,it will be history and there will be more and more acceptance of that kind of

approach. Maybe the next generation will benefit from what we are going through

now because we are breaking some of those notions and stagnations.


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PS: Now I want to ask about the implication of what you are saying. In the older

model of Satyagraha there was the idea of the dignity of subsistence, whatGandhi meant by life in the villages. But when you move people into the modern

political system to claim their rights dont you risk moving them out of theirtradition way of life? So talk to me about development. People who are standing

up for their rights, what will they achieve? What kind of life will they get?

Rajagopal: It would be good to look at the difference between what we do now and

what Gandhiji was doing. See in Gandhis time, he was also involving people, asking

for rights. But you were asking it from an outsider and as a result people had aninterest in thiseven the feudal elements had an interest in this. If Gandhi can

bring power from London to Delhi, then this will be our cup of tea. So using Gandhifor that transfer of power was a very interesting thing, for all the educated people

and all the feudal people in this country. They all thought, thats a good idea, if

Gandhi can bring it from there to here, then it will be our turn. We can use it andabuse any way we want. That is exactly what happened. If you look back after 62

years and see ask yourself what has happened to the freedom that Gandhi broughtback from London to Delhi? Has it really gone down to the poor people of thecountry? Or was it hijacked? I would say it was hijacked and ordinary people have

nothing to do with it. They are deprived of their dignity and their resources.

While we are all proud of what happened at that time we need to ask what did the

Indians do with that freedom? And what did they do to their own people? So thevery people who supported Mahatma Gandhi when he brought freedom from

London to Delhi are opposed to Rajagopal and others when we say that this freedom

needs to travel now from Delhi to the village where we were yesterday.

This is a bigger fight because the opposition is your own people. Politicians who say

that they are legitimately here because they were elected by the very people you saythat you represent. We are the representatives of this country and their attitude is

who are you to come ask us what we should give or not give? Unfortunately, theparliament is captured by a group of people. Mafias can capture a parliament

whether it is the Indian parliament or the Philippino parliament. Five hundred and

forty people can capture the institution and make all the policies to favour their owninterests.

So the satyagraha method had great interest and appeal among the middle class

when Gandhiji was fighting for national freedom. It had great appeal and

appreciation when Vinobaji was pursuing it because he spoke in terms of gift and he

was basically believing in converting peoples attitude. But the moment it turnedagainst our own people and when it fought for a right, not a gift, then the whole

thing has been turned upside down. Satyagraha does not mean hating youropponentand I dont hate any of these people, I am always available to talk to

them and negotiate. They have a right to their position. They have a right to be partof the circlethis is whatsarvodaya-the well being of all-- means. They do not have

a right to exploit and take the resources away from others.


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So satyagraha has become more vigilant and is faced with stiff opposition. What the

opposition is trying to do is to make a new analysis ofsatyagraha. They are sayinglook Rajagopal is using satyagraha but he is creating a climate of discontentment

and that will just breed violence. That is what they are saying. So I may cry day andnight saying that I am promoting nonviolence but they will paint me with the brush

of violence. Be careful of this man, he will be responsible for making this countryviolent because the space that is created is a space of discontent. So they are doingthis, instead of delivering what they are supposed to deliver.

People are unhappy and I am giving shape to that unhappiness but dont then justtalk about the threat of violencegive them what is their right, what they are

supposed to get.

PS: So at the same time as you are asking people to stand up for their rights you

are also trying to promote a different vision of how to live together, one thatisnt based on exploitation. What is that different vision?

Rajagopal: That is where the notion ofsarvodaya comes in. The quote we usuallyuse from Gandhi is self-sufficient, self-governed villages uniting in a nation called

India. In a country like India where you have 500,000 villages nothing is going to

work from the top. Each village has to design what kind of a life they want. If youwere to say, with the resources available to you in your village, you design a life for

yourself. The villagers would be very happy to design that life. This would be thepeoples planning, and peoples implementing. We can be here to facilitate. You

should also think of your integration with the next villages around you and where

there is a service gap we can come in to help. There is a way to go about thesethings.

PS: Would that be enough to stop people migrating into the cities?

Rajagopal: Oh, yes, I think it would. The moment people know that they will beallowed to plan there own life and given the skills and capacities, they will be eager

to do it. Ekta Parishad is practicing this in many, many villages. Two hundred and

fifty families sit together and they say, We have this land, we have this river flowingnearby. We need to have a school and a small hospital. How do we manage it? How

independent can we be in terms of food sufficiency? How much dependency will wehave on the market? What surplus will we have? This is a primary lesson in

planning. If a society is given a chance they can do a lot more in a radical way. But if

the village communal system is failing then people will be attracted to city and the

urban way of life and caught up in its ways.

Otherwise I think anyone with a bit of imagination must realize that you dontdestroy all the village industries, all the natural wealth, all the soil. They could ask

how do you create a decentralized self-sufficiency system where the government isnot taking everything on its shoulders but rather people are taking things on their

shoulders. After freedom we thought that is what this country would move toward.

In those days, they spoke of a two-fold approach giving equal weight to industry and


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agriculture. What we see now is that agriculture has been completely given away.

Industry has got so much prominence now.

In the approach to villages, however, there is no blueprint because each village will

look different depending on whether it is depending on sea resources or forestresources or completely on agricultural resources. And there will always be an

interdependence between someone who produces salt and someone who producesbeedies. I think the government would have been an agency to facilitate this process

rather than to destroy all that work that people had. Instead they turned them into a

labour force and didnt even provide an opportunity for them to work as labourers.In the process, skills were lost, carpentry and blacksmithing and spinning and

weaving and goldsmithing and many others.

The British were really frightened of Indian skills. They knew that this country was

full of skills and capacities and would survive. You cant destroy it, you cant destroythese people. But the Indian government was able to do that. The moment we

became free they got rid of him and then systematically we got rid of his ideas and

now what is remaining is one Rajghat (where he is resting in Delhi) and then somephotographs in the offices of government. That is why I say that the powerful people

of this country used Mahatma Gandhi as a political tool to bring freedom fromLondon to Delhi. This is where you cheat people. This was one of the highest levels

of cheating. How you manipulated and used Mahatma Gandhi to get what you

wanted and then finished him off.

PS: So what youre talking about is creating a new system of self-governance. Do

you think the current political system with its parties is broken beyond repair?

Rajagopal: It is a very complex situation in which we are operating. There are not

only the destructive political forces but there are the forces of globalization and thevillage somehow has to stand in the face of both of these. Even in my training

programs I make that clear. I draw a circle and say, thats a village. And then youdraw the lines through it to say, this is where the village is divided into caste groups

and into political groups. And then you realize that the village is completely

destroyed as a village. The political parties and the caste system have destroyed it.So what I am trying to say is go to the village, understanding that it is so badly

divided. There is nothing like a homogeneous village anymore where you are goingto organize people. Wherever you go there will be resistance. So go and carve out a

small area to start working, even with two hundred poor people in a village or one

hundred. You wont get two thousand or five thousand to begin with. But then

making your position with a hundred people, slowly you move into the hearts andminds of people. Discuss this issue, what is a village? Why are we so divided?

Working backward like that, will take a lot of time. It will need many mature social

activists who really understand the dynamics of rebuilding a village. We are caughtin a different current now because in a globalizing world the resource transfer is so

fast. We want to block this river somehow and we have been for many years, in

order to save the villages. Still many villages that we were able to build up are gone


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now, they are not even on the map anymore. The Land Acquisition and the mining

have wiped them out and there is nothing left to show for our work there. So wehave spent all this time on building models while all this time this force is taking

away all that you create. Unless we can stop that, there is no chance for us. If youwant to build villages as a model you need to stop this force of national and

multinational corporations coming and taking all your resources, water-bottlingcompanies taking your rivers, the land mafias taking all your land forindustrialization, and the government taking still more land for national highways

and tourism. So we are caught in a very, very difficult situation.

PS: Do we have enough time to prevent this?

Rajagopal: It depends on how fast we act. We also have to think and speak in bigterms. People are more afraid to do that. But Ekta Parishad language is like that, we

talk about training 6000 young people and mobilizing a hundred thousand people.Some people get excited because at least we still have the capacity to speak and

think big.

On the other hand, it is also true that people are surrendering slowly. Globalization

is a reality. Global forces will introduce the market as the ultimate reality of the

world and the market will dictate what is to be done and what is not to be done.Why spend your life fighting these forces?

Well that is the reason I keep traveling around and saying, Can we get more people

mobilized? Can we get more middle class support for this cause? Can we somehow

still get world opinion in our favour. So the struggle is to find more people to comealong.

PS: Is that what Jansatyagraha 2012 is about?Rajagopal: Jansatyagraha is all about that. Thinking big. Janadesh was a rehearsal.Janadesh has taught me it is possible. If you have faith people and you are morally

correct then you can stand.

PS: You said that in the village yesterday about the poor, that they were morally

right and that that was their strength.

Rajagopal: That is right. They know they are morally correct, and millions of poor

people like them, they know that they are morally correct. And those people in frontof you, they know they are morally wrong. You see the weak are those who are

morally wrong. The powerful are those who are morally correct. But we are makingpeople believe that those who are morally wrong are correct and those who morallycorrect are wrong. This is a game in which we have been caught, but we need to shift

that now and make people believe in the power of moral correctness again.

I am not a religious guru, so I cant get a following from that. Otherwise, I would

change the colour of my clothes (laughing). And I dont belong to a political party, soI will never get in to power and will never be able to hand out favours. Not being a


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religious leader, not being a political leader, a social leader has limited things to

offer. So I can only say come out and fight for your rights, but they know this guy isnever going to give them spiritual freedom or political freedom. He is only making

us suffer, so it is not something very appealing.

PS: But you still have a following.

Rajagopal: Still! (laughing) and knowing that this guy is not going to be the one who

delivers. This man is not going to take us to heaven, but still go with him because he

is morally correct. This is something very interesting.

PS: So that is a deep motive for people, the fact that you are speaking the truth.

Rajagopal: A very deep motive. They know that you have no other motives. They

know that you only have good intentions for them. I think that making that aphilosophy and making people believe in that takes a lot of time and energy.

And then also it is very important to raise the resources to make that possible. Youneed to train young people and send them. Not being a politician or a religious guru,

we are not controlling any resources of any kind. So you are struggling all through

your life with very limited resources to see something happen. Then on top of it, wewant to do something big to oppose the forces of globalization, and we have so

many people opposing us. I always say that if I didnt have that opposition and if Ihad all the resources that I needed, I would have done what I wanted to do by now

(laughing).

PS: So if the march in 2012 is a success what will it accomplish?

Rajagopal: We are setting up subcommittees to study and criticize the various

policies of the government. We are going to say, we cant accept the forest policy,and why. And another committee to say why we dont agree with the water policy,

and what do we want. And still another to say why we dont agree with theindustrial policy of the government and to spell out what we want. So there are a

dozen policies on which we have serious differences and we need to know exactlywhat we are asking for. So I am setting up a dozen committees and asking them to

pinpoint what issues exactly will make the shift in the interests of the oppressed and

poor. That will be the document to be discussed with the government when we areon the road.

So the government can discuss, the government can shoot. That is up to them. If

peoples power is so irritating for them, then we dont know what they might do. Butyou dont stop an action because of what the government might or might not do. Youcan only prevent violence from your side, you cant prevent violence from their side.

And that is why we are calling the next action karo y marodo or die

PS: So policy change is one goal

Rajagopal: Policy change and policy implementation.


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PS: And what else?

Rajagopal: If there is a real policy shift at the top, and policy implementation. That

is if government is doing what it is supposed to do in terms of governance, then

there is a lot that people can do. We dont believe in leaving everything togovernment. We are only asking them to stop promoting the wrong policies and

then give space for people to live the way they want. That is where the GramSwarajvillage self-government will start functioning. With the Panchayat Act

giving so many powers to the villages, they can really work to reorganize their

resources and the government will have to facilitate that process.

PS: So it will really mobilize people at the grassroots level? And that will have

an impact on how they live in the villages?

Rajagopal: Yes because then you are not taking land in the name of the expansion ofcities. You the see the moment you take land for that purpose, people migrate. Then

slums become prevalent, then violence becomes prevalent. The moment you

transfer the resources of the people to multinational companies, they will travel tothe cities. So you are driving the people out of their own habitat. You create a sea of

dislocated peoplenot because of a war like Iraqbut because of the war-like

situation you have created for their lives. So you need to provide them space torelocate themselves and work on their own life.

I say this not only about India. It may also be a model that the Latin Americans and

Africans can also follow. But it may be more than the Europeans and Americans can

afford because the dislocation in all of these countries is huge.

PS: So there is an international dimension?

Rajagopal: Here we need to talk about a different way of organizing the economy.If you think only people with a credit card will survive then the majority of Indianswill not survive because they dont have a credit card. These new forms of how you

can accumulate wealth into a card or a bank, that is not the way Indians understand

life. Its just a clever way for me to transfer billions of dollars around with me. I dontknow how poor people will ever understand this game.

The game created by the so-called clever circle of people, needs to be exposed. Noone has tried to expose this. Perhaps Obama will try, but we already see how strong

are the lobbies against him. We will have to see what he is finally capable of doing.

PS: What about places like Palestine and the West Bankwhat can they learnfrom what you are doing? Is it the same problem at the bottom of those issues?

Rajagopal: I think this is slightly different. But I am happy to see that there are so

many groups trying to tackle this nonviolently. I think the world will have to helpthem with their dialogue. This is a problem when you have one powerful, arrogant

group and one powerless group and the powerless are trying to take arms. It doesnt


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work. In fact they have lost a lot of ground that way. It has also made the other side

more oppressive in reaction.

That is where the leadership did not really come up to what was needed. Arafat had

a lot of opportunities and he used some of them. But then there was also a lot ofcorruption. There were many stories that come out after his death about the amount

of money he took and that his wife took.

That is why Gandhi becomes credible, I think. He understood that simplicity is at the

core of leadership. So simplicity and nonviolence become a very powerful tool. Thatmade a lot difference for Gandhis leadership compared to many other leaders. In

many countries you dont have that. You may have a nonviolent leader but not

someone who is committed to simplicity. You need to have a lifestyle that isacceptable to people.

PS: At the same time there are many grassroots nonviolent movements around

the world now.

Rajagopal: There are a lot of nonviolent movements. That is the hope for the future.

And I hope one day one of them will emerge as a leader, because they are also

getting a lot of world opinion. I think one day, a nonviolent leader will emerge and asolution will be found.

It is one thing to practice nonviolence but the person in front of you may not

understand it. The more I use nonviolence I realize that it is irritating for the person

on the other side. They want to create a story that is all violence, to say ultimatelythis is all built around violence. They need to create a theory, a conspiracy theory.

Some people cannot breathe without a conspiracyif there is nothing else there are

Americans or Afghanis or whatever.Nonviolence is also much better for the state, in the sense that if groups are reactingnonviolently, using democratic space, then the state has to learn how to dialogue

with them. Just as would happen between a company and a trade union. There

would be a negotiated settlement. In many places, it doesnt happen because youhave a very arrogant leader who doesnt even want to talk. Like Prabhakaran, in Sri

Lanka, hes a good example. He was a good fighter but had no capacity to talk so he

ended killing many, many people. We could say the Sinhalese government has alsokilled many people but Prabhakaran is equally responsible because in twenty years

he couldnt find a table around which he could negotiate and get what he can, bymoving ahead two steps and then perhaps another two steps.

The state knows how to deal with violencejust call in the police or the army. But ifwithin the state there is no one who knows how to talk to a nonviolent movement

then you will get nowhere. If there is a nonviolent movement in Palestine, then the

state should say, we wont negotiate with the violent actors but we will negotiatewith you. That would make the nonviolent actors more legitimate and credible,

which would create an attraction for many more people. On the contrary, they donttalk to the nonviolent movement, they only talk because of violence. Then the


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violence becomes more legitimate. The Israelis are not talking because of the

nonviolence of the Palestinians, they are talking because of the violence of the lastyears.

So states are making violence legitimate by reacting only to it. Even the PrimeMinister of India will go to a place where there has been a bomb blast, but when we

had 25,000 people on the road, he had no time to come. We finally had to ask hisdeputy to come and meet with us. This would have been an opportunity for the

Prime Minister to say look what you are doing is wonderful and we recognize your

struggle.

PS: Is it because he was afraid?

Rajagopal: I think so. First, he is not a peoples leader. He doesnt know how to

address that effectively. Second, hes advised by a lot of people that his life is atriskand that is a way of controlling the politicians. It is a mindset, the moment you

become a leader you need half a dozen bodyguards around you.

Its a very make-belief in which we live. You can make people believe in power and

the concentration of power. Sycophancy is a big problem in countries like India. You

know, people who spend their time praising you. Sycophancy is a kind of self-employment in this country. You dont really have to do anything, just stay with

someone and tell them how important they are. You will get good pocket money forthat. And then you can become a goon and just help the rich to grab land. Hundreds

of thousands of people do that. Then you will get a car and be able to drive around

very self-importantly. You can be a goon for a political party, for a factory or acompany. They can be very prestigious positions. Sometimes they call it public

relations.

PS: I want to ask about hardness of heartnot feeling any sympathy for

someone else. It is the one unforgiveable sin in the Hebrew tradition. It seemslike many of the people you are talking about have this hardness of heart. What

can we do about that?

Rajagopal: That is a good term, hardness of heart. I didnt know that.

There is a big risk at that level and I am very concerned about that as well. Theeducational system of the day has the possibility to create big brains and small

hearts. That is the kind of gene we are injecting into bodies through this educationalsystem. Dont feel. Dont be emotional. Be rational. How sad it will be if you have a

society where the heart doesnt function at all. Even family relations are becominglike businessfast dating, fast marriage, fast divorce. Its all a business plan. Veryquickly the world is becoming a place like that. People are realizing this, they are

missing their family. When people now begin movements called slow movements it

is a result of the depression of this reality.

This is why I support the idea of closing down all the schools and colleges for fiveyears.


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PS: Closing down all the schools?Really?

Rajagopal: I think we need to revisit and relook at what we are doing to all the

children of the world. This danger is only for the middle class and upper middle

class, not for the poor people. When people tell me, the teacher is not coming to ourschool. Can you do something about it? I say, I am very happy. Dont let him in!

(Laughing)

Not getting into the education system is a plus. You may achieve certain skills and

capacities by getting in, but at the cost of what? I think it is time for us to see what iskilling the sensitivity of people. Why is it so competitive and cut-throat? Why are

there so many lies? Why do people run after wealth and capital? Why are people so

mad? Only when you stand back can you see what an amazing thing people areconsumed with, grabbing and having more. Its a sickness.

We have created a sick world. Individually you may not feel that but when you look

at it as a whole, we have created a sick world. So I think the only way forward is by

de-educating people. De-learning and re-learning. But first I think we just have tostop. Stop for five years. Nothing is going to go wrong if we do.

Stopping would be difficult. Even if you know you have to stop, thats difficult. Imean if the craft is bad, you ground it. You dont keep flying it because you are

making money.

What are people learning? Why are educated people so arrogant? Why is it so

difficult for us to make our younger generation understand that they need torespectful to others? Why is it so difficult to tell them that there is another way of

livingother than becoming a consumer?

I mean, consumer is basically an abusive word, isnt it? I mean if we are allconsumers, is that the description we would like to give of ourselves? We used to beladies and gentlemen, now we are just consumers. It is such a terrible terminology

and it is used for people. Its very insulting. I am a human being, not just a consumer.

PS: Well, I guess you are proposing shock therapy

Rajagopal: Thats right. If you want to save the planet, we have to stop and reworkthe spirit. Instead, what is happening is that people are accelerating. Saying, well

find a solution by going faster in the same ways. It will be very difficult for societyto accept.

If I had a child, the first thing I would say is stay home. Learn from society, learnfrom the Adivasis and come back with a lot more wisdom than just the hypocrisy of

knowledge. Connect with people. You have eighty years to go in life, why should you

not stop for a while. If you have a bad stomach, you stop eating for a while. Even theanimals know that. But if we keep consuming we are only killing ourselves. It is like

we are a machine and have to be made to function all the time. If we are not in the


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shoe store, we should be in the pharmaceutical store. You should at least be

somewhere consuming something.

That is not the Adivasis idea of the good life. That is not what the ordinary people

are all about. And you see this lady who wept the other day, she was just sayingLeave me alone, with my small piece of land. I dont need Taj Mahal, and your

Bollywood and your computers, just leave me alone. But dont take this small pieceof land on which I live. That is one level of crying.

Our work may have some impact on some people but if you are thinking of theworld order of which we are a part, unless we catch the imagination of many to

follow that, then not very much will change. It is like if you take the name of Gandhi

to follow but do not catch the imagination, it is just a name, like taking the name ofJesus, but not following. Unless it clicks as a way of life, very little will change.

I think people are desperate for a change. Some of them feel they are caught in a

trap and they dont know how to get out. Others think there is a way out and they

are acting in one way or another and others are promoting the idea theoretically. Ithink there is a large network of people emerging who understand the limitation of

the process we are in. Thats a good thing. The moment you understand the

limitation of the process, the stupidity of the process, the weakness of the process,you are less likely to be fooled by it. I think a lot of people realize now that we are

caught in a very stupid process called development where you are not onlydestroying your soul but you are also destroying your world.

When we do something here, like Janadesh, then it can have a little impact acrossthe globe. Perhaps next time the impact will be still bigger. What we are building

now, Jansatyagraha, will be built from the lessons of Janadesh. In the dark of the

world, some lights are appearing. The world is darker now but the response shouldbe to light many candles.

PS: Thank you. I am so happy we were able to talk again.

Delhi, November 2nd, 2009

PS. I have been interviewing severalofthe activists in Ekta this week during

the Satyagrahain Jantar Mantar and again I am struck by how motivated andintense the youngpeople in your organization are. When I thinkofhow many

sacrifices they have made to do this worknot thinkingaboutcareers or

familyI wonder again how they have been soinspired.

Rajagopal: Yes. I think there are three things to say about that. The first is thatyoung people discover the power of the poor and it is a motivation for them. You

saw yourself, people coming from far away for this satyagraha, and then sitting all

day and sleeping on the street for four days and having one meal per daythat is avery powerful thing.


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PS: I understand that now, thatis exactly what I have felt this weekand itis a

very powerful thing. Despite everything that they were enduring, they weresingingand dancingand celebrating through the whole event. As they

marched offyesterday they were truly celebrating.

Rajagopal: Yes, celebrating. So there is an incredible power there. There is the

power of moral correctness that is on the side of the poor and then there is thisability to suffer and endure and overcome things with a great inner strength. I think

that when young people see that they know they have encountered something real

and it moves them. They want to connect with it and learn from it.

The second thing is that when young people see you are genuine, that you really are

living what you are saying, then they will not only believe but they will want to be apart of that. There are so many people who say this and that but then do not live it,

that people no longer believe or even hope to find something that is real, I think.And young people are especially aware of this. They know when something is

phony, when it is not real and, on the other hand, they know when something is real

and they are attracted to that. So I think that that is a very important factor, thatthere is a personal involvement, a real connection between you and them that is

grounded in this simplicity. That is what Gandhi showed us, that you must truly livewhat you are preaching.

The third component is about how you deal with people and especially youngpeople. It is not only that you are a just a good trainer, it is also about how much

you appreciate what they do and how you appreciate when they are moving ahead.

It is like a family; so when you appreciate your children then they look forward tothis. It means something to them. Yesterday someone from the Gandhi Peace

Foundation in Delhi came and said to me, Rajagopal, whenever I meet you, you

always give me the impression that I am the most important person in your life.Other people tell me that as well. I say, That is the least that I can do.

This is not just a tactic and it isnt mechanical. Its not just about being a good trainer.

It is about the whole process: how you train people, inspire them, encourage them

to growand then, treat them as if they were your family. I always say that is only ina family that people will really take risks. When my brother is in some trouble, I will

jump to his protection, because he is my brother. I will not necessarily jump whensomeone in the village is at risk. Why is that? It is because a family feeling is far

beyond anything else I will feel.

So I have been criticized for being a father figure and for being slightly feudal in thisorganization, but I say that is the nature of a familyto say that I care for you, I am

behind you. That has always been the familys role.

PS. And thatis your role now?

Rajagopal:That is my role. I think as you grow you move from one role to another. I

think you begin as an activist and then you move on as a worker. You may become a


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leader, and then a trainer and finally, you may become an inspirer. So through all of

these stages, all the way along, it is a very scientific pattern of growth.

PS. And what that means is that you have given them the ability to do the work

now To empower them.

Rajagopal:Exactly. And so now my role is to be just an inspirer. As you have noticedin this Satyagraha. I was not there for a day because of my travel and feeling unwell.

I came on the first day and then on the third day I came back. But I was not at all

worried. I was sure things were going fine. I had absolutely no doubt about that(laughing). I did not need to be there or to be in control of the situation. So many

other people spokeall of the leaders from the different states and I was able to be

in the background. They didnt even take note that I was not there.

So it is very interesting how the training works and there is a combination of manythings involved. But motivating and inspiring young people is not really a technical

job. It is much more that you are putting your life into it. So putting your life into it-

- that is what the training program is all about.

So your question was how do we motivate young people. I would answer that young

people are looking for someone to help them out. If that someone is a hypocrite,they know that immediately. If the person who is helping is a sincere person, they

will go along.

PS: I thinkits important to recognize that the people I interviewed are not

just followers. They are all realleaders,and I think maybe you haveencouraged that.

Rajagopal: Yes, they are all important workers on their own. In their places, they

do marvelous things. They organize programs, they plan rallies. I am not even there.At any time, there are four or five hundred activities going on it different parts of thecountry. I also know that any day, that one of them gets in to trouble, I need to be

there. They know that I will be a support if and when they need it, but normally I

allow them to have the space to act on their own. So, as a result, these people arevery confident in terms of what they have achieved. Many of the achievements that

have happened in Ekta Parishad, in fact, have happened when I was not there!

PS: And thats another reason why itcant be called feudalleadership, I think>

Rajagopal: No, youre right, it isnt. So everyone in the organization is powerful.

They are respected for what they do. They also get criticism if they dont do things.So now what I am trying to do is to show people how to differentiate betweenpositive and negative criti

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Interview with Rajagopal PV