Civil Resistance and the Struggle for Land:

Experiences in India & Brazil

Kurt Schock Associate Professor of Sociology & Global Affairs Rutgers University, Newark

responses to land dispossession & inequality:

in contrast to everyday forms of resistance, civil resistance movements are organized and overt challenges

in contrast to violent rebellion, civil resistance movements rely on methods of nonviolent action; they are not interested in capturing state power in contrast to patronage relationships with political parties, civil resistance movements are autonomous from parties; they mobilize pressure from outside routine political channels

 padyatra (or padayatra): foot march yatra campaign: may involve other forms of transportation in addition to foot marches

Table 1. Major Statewide Yatra Campaigns

State of Campaign
Madhya Pradesh Bihar Madhya Pradesh Chattisgarh Madhya Pradesh Orissa Chhattisgarh

Date
10 December to 18 June, 2000 11 September to 11 October, 2001 14 April to 2 May, 2002 30 January to 25 February, 2003 11 September to 2 October, 2003 30 January to 24 February, 2004 16 May to 5 June, 2005

Table 2. Major National Yatra Campaigns

National Yatra Campaigns Janadesh Satyagraha Jan Samwaad Yatra Place Gwalior to Delhi 24 states Dates 2 October to 28 October, 2007 2 October 2011 to 1 October 2012

Jan Satyagraha

Gwalior to Delhi

2 October to 28 October 2012

 land occupations on land that is arable but not in productive use on land where there is a dispute over the legality of the ownership

Figure 1. Land Occupations by Year, 1987-2010

700 600 500 400 300 200

599 586 496 463 398 437

393

391

384

364 290 252

194 184 80 77 81

180

100
0

67

71

89

119

146

50

Year

Table 3. Similarities: Ekta Parishad & the MST

1.

Target

structural violence: land dispossession and inequality

2.

Political Context

high-capacity democracy

3.

Strategy

nonviolent action to promote change through institutional channels

4a. Basis of Power

4b. Basis of Power 4c. Basis of Power

sustained mass mobilization

territorialization upward scale shift

Table 4. Differences: Ekta Parishad & the MST

Ekta Parishad 1 Base landless, small farmers, indigenous peoples rural Gandhian social welfare organizations Gandhism; sarvodaya MST landless; formerly landless who won land base communities of the Catholic Church liberation theology; Marxism land occupation nonviolent intervention accommodation > nonviolent coercion pragmatic radical reform

2 3

Mobilizing Structures Ideology

4 5 6 7

Defining Method of Action Class of Nonviolent Action Mechanism of Change Type of Movement

padyatra / yatra protest & persuasion conversion > accommodation principled radical reform