India may not be able to help the lower caste protesters even if it wanted to, says tabish khair |
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About 25,000 men and women, all of them landless, most of them from the lowest castes, arrived in Delhi at the weekend after a four-week 400km march. Covering 12km a day on a single meal, they set out from Gwalior on the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, who often used long walks to protest against injustice. They had only one slogan: hal karo, hal karo; Zameen ki samasya hal karo. (Solve it, solve it; solve the land problem.)
In Delhi, police prevented them from completing the last leg of their march: a demonstration outside the Indian Parliament. They remain confined to a stretch of land away from the Parliament, facing acute water shortage, tired out after a march that, with its direct evocation of Gandhi's tactics and the tradition of non-violent agitation, had hoped to awaken the conscience of a nation - and perhaps the world. |
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70 per cent of all Indians are poorer now than they were before India’s economy started ‘shining’
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India, as a new star in the neo-liberalist sky, has been 'shining' for a decade or two. Its economy is booming; its urban middle class doing well; its scientists and professionals in demand internationally. This is the story we are often told. And it is true.
But there is another story that we are not told, a story that is just as true. Surveys have indicated that in India, as in the world, most of the benefits have not trickled down to the poor; comparatively speaking 70 per cent of all Indians are poorer now than they were before India started 'shining'. Only about five per cent of Indians, mostly in big cities, has been really striding forward; the rest are often left limping behind.
This untold story casts a long shadow. As the Observer reported on Sunday, child workers, some as young as 10, have been found working in a textile factory in India "in conditions close to slavery" producing clothes destined for Gap Kids. The children described long hours of unwaged work, as well as threats and beatings.
Gap has said it was unaware that  |
Landless thousands march on Delhi
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