Vandana Shiva, in her latest interview on Alternative Radio explains.
From:Vandana Shiva on Gandhi for Today’s World
The Gujjars are a pastoral tribe in Rajasthan. Over the last few years, as part of globalization, the pastures have been enclosed. This land makes up about 70 percent of Rajasthan, which is a desert state where only about 30 percent is used for agriculture. The Rajasthan government passed a law making the pastures available to grow jatropha, a biofuel crop used for cars. As a result, the pastoral economy has absolutely gone. The Gujjars have lost their livelihood base. They came out in a very, very strong way, and they blocked the rails and roads of India for about two months. Parts of the country could not function, and the government was brought to its knees. All they were seeking was a few jobs, because they’ve lost their livelihoods in grazing.
I did a quick google news search putting Gujjars and jatropha together and the above website is the only news site currently that connects the dots.
Read the rest of the interview to get an interesting analogy between terrorism and weeds(as applied to agriculture).
Meetax says....
ReplyDeleteGood article about Gandhian values. Somewhere along the flow, the author lost the hypothesis.
Globalization took away their resources??? There can be more benefits of globalization...more opportunities...but wait a sec...maybe the farmers do not want to move out of their comfort zone. No one wants to acquire a new skillset...
2 conflicting statements of being self sufficient and of sharing resources of the earth (which is more efficient via globalization).....
Gandhi brought out the charkha not only to promote swadeshi but to unite people, just like Tilak renewed Ganpati festival to bring people together for a common cause.
I am pro swadeshi but I think the author missed out on a lot of points about the benefits of globalization which far outnumbers the loss of land or use of it for alternate purposes.
True. Anybody should be able to retrain themselves and acquire new skillsets within days and get jobs that the Globalized mega-corporations offer even if they have been practising a totally different trade for generations.
ReplyDeleteCommenting on the above comments:
ReplyDeleteFirstly it is not true that indigenous people will be able to acquire a totally different skill set or trade, after having practiced a certain trade for generations.
The more important question is do they want to? How does the Govt or a coorporation or anyone else, have the right to tell them what livelihood they should adopt?