On a hot, dusty highway some 70km from Delhi, a human column snakes its way towards the Indian capital carrying a unique message of defiance to the country's leaders: "Give us back our land."
Some 25,000 of India's poorest people -- tribal peoples, "untouchables" and landless laborers -- have stopped traffic for nearly three weeks on the road that links Delhi and Agra, home to the Taj Mahal. Headed by a group of chanting Buddhist monks, the marchers say they aim to shame the government into keeping its promise to redistribute land.
The human train has been eating, living and washing by the road since the beginning of the month and by the end of the week will arrive at the Indian parliament, vowing to remain a public embarrassment until the government relents. Last week three marchers were killed by a speeding lorry.
With fists and voices raised, the scene is a world away from Indian newspaper headlines about the country's new luxury goods market or its soaring stock markets. Nowhere is this process of concentrating wealth in a tiny segment of the population more visible than in the ground beneath Indians' feet.
India has one of most iniquitous systems of land ownership in the world. Last week India's biggest real estate baron made a paper fortune of US$1 billion in a single day.
Most of the marchers say their dire condition is because they have no deeds to their land. Unable to grow produce on their ancestral land and with no deed to access state welfare services, the villagers are now fighting a losing war against poverty.
"I haven't got any rights on my land," said Prem Bai from the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. "I have got four boys and can hardly manage the family with few days' work laboring on others' fields. If we go to forests then the forest department arrests us."
Some say their land is being grabbed by local mafias and corrupt officials. Shikari Baiga, 25, says land his family was cultivating was grabbed by local officials to grow biofuels on.
"I was put in jail for one year for demanding our land back. Fourteen families lost 75 acres [30 hectares]. But they tell us: Where are your [deeds]? We can do nothing. That is why we are going to Delhi to get justice."
The march is the brainchild of veteran Gandhian P.V. Rajagopal, who built a name by persuading bandits in central India to lay down their arms in the 1970s.
Rajagopal says the human caravan is a warning shot.
Rajagopal says there is a rising tide of violence in the country as the poor "are being driven out of villages and slums in cities."
In the country's rush to industrialize, he said, "we've seen alarming examples of outsiders seizing land on vast scales while the local rural poor are denied land. The result will be bloodshed and violence on a massive scale unless the government acts."
The issue is increasingly an explosive one in India, where incomplete reforms have left much of the country in the hands of a few. Extreme leftwing groups have tapped the rising anger in rural areas to wage low-intensity guerrilla wars.
In March an attempt to hand over 9,000 hectares of farmland to big business ended in pitched battles and half a dozen villagers dead in Bengal.
Some say that the problem lies in the Indian state's indifference to its poorest people, the "tribals" and the Dalites, or "untouchables."
"There are 120 million people who have no rights in this country," said Balkrishna Renake, chairman of India's national commission for denotified and nomadic tribes. "They are still waiting in independent India for the right to vote, to have schools and teachers, and for their land."
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of