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| The organization |
The Ekta Parishad |
| Ekta Parishad (meaning "united forum') is a mass based organization built from the ground-up based on Gandhian non-violent principles of action. It has a membership of approximately 150,000 people drawn from four states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, and Orissa. Somewhat modeled after a trade union, it encompasses people who are in the "unorganized sector" and not in the formal industrial sector. This includes poor and marginal farmers, forest dwelling communities, landless, dalit and tribal groups and so on. Approximately 35-institution supports Ekta Parishad as a mass based movement. These institutions are centered on training and mobilizing village youth, and working with village communities to reorganize the village economy based on land redistribution and access to forest for forest dwellers (primarily tribal communities). They work with communities to strengthen advocacy for implementation of social legislation like minimum wages, tribal land rights, tribal self rule, measures against atrocities against scheduled tribes and scheduled castes, release of bonded labourers, decentralization of decision making and many other that make the system more accountable to the people. An important achievement has been to create local women's leadership representing the needs and aspirations of the poor and the marginalized. This is what Ekta Parishad means when it says that it is working from "the ground up". |
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Ideology…… myth to reality |
Janadesh is based on the ideology that people are supreme and people can change the course of their life through their own efforts. Basically democracy is also speaking the same theory. In Janadesh we believing that people power should also be controlled and monitored by moral power. A combination of people’s power and moral power as a mechanism to bring about basic change in the human life is Janadesh. We also believe the modernism should mean reduction of sufferings of the people rather than increasing the sufferings of millions to provide leisure and pleasure to handful of people. Development and technology are all methods and tools to reduce sufferings through distribution of resources and justice. Though Janadesh derives a lot of inspiration from the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, we believe that people deriving inspiration from different sources can come together for a common purpose. We believe that there should be new fight on the basis of where the inspiration comes from. Harmonization of thought is the way to harmonize the society. We are basically arguing that the so called mainstream population should be willing to listen and respect the voices of Adivasis, Dalits and women in order to harmonize the present Indian society. We have strong faith in non-violent action. We don’t think that violence is going to solve the problems, though it gives satisfaction to the actors from its immediate results. In a nutshell faith and people’s power to build and rebuilds the society is the principle around which Janadesh is moving. |
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| As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world... as in being able to remake ourselves. |
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