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LAFTI
LAND FOR TILLERS' FREEEDOM
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On Monday, Dec 8th, the 2008 Right Livelihood Award Laureates received the Prize
in the Second Chamber of the Swedish Parliament.

Krishnammal and Sankaralingam Jagannathan, and their organisation LAFTI (Land
for the Tillers' Freedom) (India), who receive an Award "for two long lifetimes of
work dedicated to realising in practice the Gandhian vision of social justice and
sustainable human development, for which they have been referred to as 'India's
soul'."

Please visit http://www.rightlivelihood.org/jagannathan.html
Krishnammal Jagannathan and Sankaralingam Jagannathan are two lifelong
activists for social justice, and for sustainable human development, working with
those who are at the lowest rung of the social ladder. They have carried the Gandhian
legacy into the 21st century, never ceasing to serve the needs of Dalits, landless and
those threatened by the greed of landlords and multinational corporations.

Early lives (1930-1950)

Krishnammal Jagannathan was born to a landless Dalit family in 1926. Despite her
family's poverty, she obtained university level education and was soon committed to
the Gandhian Sarvodaya Movement, through which she met her husband,
Sankaralingam Jagannathan (born in 1912), also a noted Gandhian.

Sankaralingam Jagannathan came from a rich family but gave up his college studies
in 1930 in response to Gandhi's call for non-cooperation and disobedience. He
joined the Quit India Movement in 1942 and spent three and a half years in jail before
India gained its independence in 1947. During this time he already had considerable
impact as campaigner on behalf of the poor.

Sankaralingam and Krishnammal married in 1950, having decided only to marry in
independent India.

Redistributing land to the landless

Sankaralingam Jagannathan and Krishnammal Jagannathan decided early in their
life that one of the key requirements for building a Gandhian society is empowering
the rural poor by redistribution of land to the landless.

From 1950 to 1952 Sankaralingam Jagannathan was with Vinoba Bhave (the
spiritual teacher of Gandhi) in Northern India on his Bhoodan (land-gift) Padayatra
(pilgrimage on foot), the march appealing to landlords to give one sixth of their land to
the landless, while Krishnammal completed her teacher-training course in Madras.
He then returned to Tamil Nadu to start the Bhoodhan movement, and until 1968 the
two worked for land redistribution through Vinoba Bhave's Gramdan movement
(Village Gift, the next phase of the land-gift movement), and through Satyagraha
(non-violent resistance). For this work, Sankaralingam Jagannathan was imprisoned
many times. Between 1953 and 1967, the couple played an active role in the
Bhoodhan movement spearheaded by Vinoba Bhave, through which about 4 million
acres of land were distributed to thousands of landless poor across several Indian
states.  

Much land given over under these campaigns was infertile. To make it productive
Sankaralingam Jagannathan started in 1968 the Association of Sarva Seva Farmers
(ASSEFA) of which he was Chairman until 1993, and which has become one of the
best known, and most effective, Indian non-governmental development institutions,
whose work spreads over a number of states. ASSEFA's essential enduring
technique, rooted in Gandhian philosophy and based on deep commitment, applies
to all Sankaralingam Jagannathan's and Krishnammal Jagannathan's work: to
confront a practical problem with a down-to-earth approach of planning and action.
The participants in this work share amongst themselves the fruit of the labour and
show to others in a practical way that the improbable is not impossible.

After a particularly horrific incident in 1968, the brutal burning of 42 landless women
and children following a wage-dispute, the couple started to work in Thanjavur
District in Tamil Nadu to concentrate on land reform issues.

The birth of LAFTI

In 1981, the couple founded LAFTI, Land for the Tillers' Freedom. LAFTI's purpose
was to bring the landlords and landless poor to the negotiating table, obtain loans to
enable the landless to buy land at reasonable price and then to help them work it
cooperatively, so that the loans could be repaid.

Progress was initially slow: banks were unwilling to lend and the stamp duty on the
registration of small lots was exorbitant. But Krishnammal Jagannathan managed to
overcome the political and bureaucratic hurdles. By 2007 LAFTI had transferred
13,000 acres since it began work to about 13,000 families through social action and
through a land-purchase program.

LAFTI now has a seven member Executive Committee, of which Krishnammal
Jagannathan is the first secretary, a general body with 20 people from the villages,
and about 40 staff.

LAFTI's other activities and outreach programmes

Although a prime focus, land-redistribution is by no means the only concern of LAFTI.
It also runs village industries, like mat-weaving, rope-making, carpentry, masonry,
fishery, etc. and gives training to Dalit boys and girls. To bridge the digital divide,
LAFTI organizes computer training for underprivileged, particularly Dalit girls. It also
organises Gram Sabhas (village committees) in 100 villages in East Thanjavur
district, with a team of 30 dedicated men and women, who are now actively engaged
in implementing the LAFTI programme.

LAFTI's economic activities are substantial: Brick kilns have been constructed and
many houses built, and fish farming established on a significant scale. LAFTI was
also very constructively involved in the famine relief programmes in 1987 and the
reconstruction programme after the tsunami in the Nagapattinam coastal area.  

Before LAFTI came in, the land-site on which the landless labourers lived did not
belong to them and they were often evicted by landlords or government in the name
of development. Due to LAFTI's efforts, the government has enacted a bill by which
the land-site on which a labourer's thatched hut is located is legally allocated to the
family. The 'people-participatory-environmental-friendly' house-building project, in
which one adult member of the family contributes labour, is currently benefiting about
5000 families.

Protecting the coastal ecosystem and struggling against prawn farms

Since 1992 Sankaralingam Jagannathan and Krishnammal Jagannathan have
addressed another major land challenge to the poor of the region: the establishment
of prawn farms along the coast. The problem is not because of the local landlords
but big industrialists from capital cities like Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi,
Hyderabad, occupying large areas of land (500-1000 acres) for aquaculture in
coastal areas, which not only throws the landless labour out of employment but also
converts fertile and cultivable land to salty desert after seven or eight years when the
prawn companies move on. It also results in the seepage of seawater into the
groundwater in the neighbourhood, so that people are deprived of their drinking water
resources. The result is that even more small farmers sell their meagre
land-holdings to multinational prawn companies and move to the cities, filling urban
slums.

To address this human and ecological tragedy Sankaralingam Jagannathan
organised the whole of LAFTI's village movement to raise awareness among the
people to oppose the prawn farms. Since 1993, villagers have offered Satygraha
(non-violent resistance), through rallies, fasts, and demonstrations in protest of
establishing the prawn farms. They have been beaten up by hired goons, their
houses have been burnt, and LAFTI workers have been imprisoned, because of false
accusations of looting and arson. Undeterred by this, Sankaralingam Jagannathan
filed a 'public interest petition' in the Indian Supreme Court, which in turn asked
NEERI (National Environmental Engineering Institute of India) to investigate the
matter. NEERI's investigation report highlighted the environmental cost of the prawn
farms to the nation and recommended all prawn farms within 500 meters of the
coast to be banned.

In December 1996, the Supreme Court issued a ruling against intensive shrimp
farming in cultivable lands within 500 meters of the coastal area. But because of the
prawn farmers' local political influence, the Supreme Court judgement was not
implemented on the ground. The legal battle around the prawn farms is still not
resolved and the Jagannathans continue their struggle to establish non-exploitative,
eco-friendly communities in the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu.

Further achievements and honours

In their lives, Sankaralingam Jagannathan and Krishnammal Jagannathan, either
independently or together, have established a total of seven non-governmental
institutions for the poor. Besides this, Krishnammal Jagannathan has also played an
active role in wider public life: she has been a Senate member of the Gandhigram
Trust and University and of Madurai University; a member of a number of local and
state social welfare committees; and a member of the National Committee on
Education, the Land Reform Committee and the Planning Committee.

These activities have gained for the Jagannathans a high profile in India and they
have won many prestigious Awards: the Swami Pranavananda Peace Award (1987);
the Jamnalal Bajaj Award (1988) and Padma Shri in 1989. In 1996 the couple
received the Bhagavan Mahaveer Award "for propagating non-violence." In 1999
Krishnammal was awarded a Summit Foundation Award (Switzerland), and in 2008
an 'Opus Prize' given by the University of Seattle.

Quotation
"Vinoba Bhave, by whom my husband and I were inspired said 'Jai Jegath' (Long Live
the World) and he was convinced this is possible by awakening of 'Sthree-shakthi'
(women-power). I sincerely believe that the social, economic and spiritual crisis we
are facing today in the world can be overcome through universal sisterhood and
science and spirituality coming together for the good of the entire humanity!"
Krishnammal Jagannathan