Cari saluti e ringraziamenti dal LAFTI!

Cari amici,

cari saluti e ringraziamenti dal LAFTI!

Dal giugno 2004, il Lafti si è strenuamente dedicato alla lotta contro gli allevamenti intensivi di gamberetti , conducendola per vie legali, e al tempo stesso ha dovuto fare fronte a una serie di devastanti inondazioni fino alla peggiore delle calamità naturali, ovvero lo Tsunami. A tale riguardo è stato molto bello vedere come da ogni parte del mondo la gente, mossa a compassione, si sia prodigata nell’inviare soccorsi. Si è avuto l’impressione che la popolazione locale tendesse a ricevere aiuti senza fare alcuno sforzo. Il LAFTI non ritiene positivo né costruttivo un tale atteggiamento e per questo motivo i LAFTI workers si sono impegnati a risvegliare nella gente la volontà e la determinazione di risolvere da soli i propri problemi.

Come ben sapete, le continue e gravi inondazioni hanno pesantemente colpito la popolazione di braccianti senza terra, lasciandoli a migliaia senza tetto. Ma l’appello del LAFTI ha dato i suoi frutti. Dai villaggi in molti si sono fatti avanti per partecipare alla fabbricazione di mattoni, con i quali costruire abitazioni dignitose che sostituiscano le misere capanne di fango , regolarmente devastate dalle alluvioni.

In 15 siti, 250 famiglie circa hanno iniziato a fabbricare mattoni . Il 13 di marzo nella “fabbrica di mattoni” di Kohur si è raggiunta e festeggiata la produzione di 300.000 mattoni. In altri 6 villaggi (Sellur, Kothamankalam, Kohur, Porkalakudi, Peruchathankudi, Moonkilkudi) l’attività di fabbricazione dei mattoni procede con entusiasmo.

Nei mesi estivi la gente dei villaggi era solita impiegare il proprio tempo in attività prettamente sociali. Adesso il LAFTI è riuscito ad offrire agli abitanti di 15 villaggi l’opportunità di sfruttare questo periodo di inattività in modo utile, sviluppando una mentalità di auto-aiuto, che si sta diffondendo di villaggio in villaggio.In tal modo i mesi estivi potranno diventare un periodo di attività importante e proficuo per il LAFTI e per tanta popolazione rurale.

Con affetto e gratitudine
Krishnammal Jagannathan
LAFTI Secretary

A Message from Amma - March 13th

A Message from Amma – March 13, 2005

Dear Friends,

LAFTI is sending grateful greetings to you.

From June 2004, LAFTI passed through many ordeals and difficulties in the form of prawn struggle, court cases, natural calamities floods and lastly the worst disaster of Tsunami. It is a wonderful experience, a great many good compassionate souls from all over the World come forward to take part in the relief work. It seems the people have developed the tendency to receive help from others without any effort. LAFTI felt it is not a healthy attitude. The workers went round to awaken the people for joint efforts to resolve their own problems. It is a well-known fact that the floods caused great to the rural poor rendering thousands and thousands homeless. LAFTI efforts are fruitful. The village people have come forward for a joint venture to make their own bricks and put an end to the life of living in the wretched mud huts, which demand every year repairing.

About in 15 centers some 250 families have started to make bricks. The day 13th March is a happy day for LAFTI and to the area people. In one place called Kohur they have achieved a great success in making 300,000 (3 lakhs) bricks for their own houses. From 6 villages nearly Sellur, Kothamankalam, Kohur, Porkalakudi, Peruchathankudi, Moonkilkudi people are happily engaged in brick making.

During the summer the people used to spend their time in social functions, but LAFTI is able to create an atmosphere for the people in 15 villages to use their time in fruitful way. Now they have realized their self-help spirit. This news has reached to many villages. Hope the summer will be a happy occasion for many rural poor and LAFTI.

With love and kind regards,

Krishnammal Jagannathan
Secretary - LAFTI

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As always, LAFTI still needs resources for the housebuilding projects. You can see pictures of what is being built at www.lafti.net At that address, there is also a list of how to contribute, whether you are in North America, Japan, Europe, or Asia. Please give generously.

David

No Conflict, No Compromise (D. Willis)

No conflict. No compromise.

That is the ethic and approach of Amma and Appa to social, ecological and economic problems. You approach the women first. Get them on your side. The power of shakti, female divine energy, will carry you far. You approach women partly because this is not about political parties, which men are so quick to become involved with and which suck up resources that could more effectively be used elsewhere. The DMK, the Communists, and others may speak a good line, but end-results are what Krishnammal is really looking for. The men will be brought along later by the women.

The women are also the end-point victims for many of the problems caused by social and economic injustice, including alcohol which Amma and Appa, being good Gandhians, completely oppose. For women there are communal struggles every day, and then the struggles with their own men who may gamble or drink away what little there is. Not all men, of course, but the record is decidedly one-sided.

We notice that Amma is constantly asking women and men wherever we stop about the ownership of the lands we are looking at, especially inquiring about those lands that look to be illegally owned or are lying fallow when they could be used.

And in the end it is about some deeply felt human needs. As Amma told us, “People are attached to me and I to them. Fellowship. It is fellowship they are starving for.” The basic dignity and respect which Amma accords to all people, whatever their age or wherever they come from, follows her belief in the ‘unity of the light’ that ‘the spirit is one.’ “Where is there Poverty?” she says simply, “We will find it.”

There is work to do.

The Other David

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Thanks again to David Albert for this opportunity to write some of my comments on my visit to Amma and Appa. I have returned to Madurai and will soon go back to Japan. My final thought: by all means try to support Amma and Appa in whatever way you can.
I would especially encourage you to try to visit LAFTI. It is an arduous journey but you will be rewarded by seeing up close the work of two truly inspired human beings. And you get to see Amma in action. There are many smiles and there is much touching in this land of untouchability.

Poyte vare. Going, I will come (the traditional Tamil greeting when leaving, with hands held together in a gesture of prayer and respect, not a goodbye, because you promise you will always return).

Tsunami, Again (D. Willis)

I have been hesitating to write this blog.

My own home is Kobe, Japan, which experienced a devastating earthquake in 1995, with 6,500 people killed and unbelievable damage. My hesitancy in writing is not helped when I find out that about the same number were killed in Nagappatinam city alone. And that is not even mentioning the string of villages leading up to the pilgrimage center of Velankanni 15 kilometers to the south. We will never know how many died along this worst-hit stretch of coast in South India, but we are easily talking about 15,000- 20,000 deaths. The number of homes, towns, and villages destroyed is shocking, but perhaps not surprising when we think that the undersea earthquake that generated the tsunami was 150 kilometers in length. An actual mountain range under the ocean collapsed, as we now know.

The enormous destruction extends in brutal swathes across the landscape up and down the coast. Pictures of recently war-devastated Fallujah or the awesome smoking ruins of Hiroshima or Dresden come immediately to mind. We begin with the port area of Nagappatinam, where dozens of large fishing boats were either piled up or have been brought from various sections of the city where they ended up. There is no activity in the port aside from salvage. Entire neighborhoods around the port are wiped out, a few concrete buildings remaining here and there amidst the rubble of bricks and torn clothing. I am reminded of the Killing Fields of Cambodia.

The first wave seems to have been enormous and was followed by two other large but not as devastating waves. From the descriptions we hear today, water marks, and previous reports it is apparent that the wave was close to 45 feet or 14 meters high, rising up like a monster from the ocean, the sea that seems so calm and beautiful today. One boat was lifted over the top of a three-story building and smashed to pieces in a gas station on the
other side of the road from the port. The jumble of large fishing boats, which must weigh 30-40 tons. each makes the whole sequence almost dream-like, memories of fantasies one had as a child.

Refugee shelters have been set up in open lands, but not where there were houses before, those areas clearly haunted by the death and destruction. A few people wander dazed amongst the ruins of various villages. Some sit staring out at the ocean. PTSD, which we experienced very badly in Kobe is everywhere. I can feel it.

It is one thing to see pictures of the destruction but an entirely different matter to see the physical results in front of your eyes. We of course missed the terrible loss and tragedy of human lives which was all around and in the air for some weeks after the tsunami. It has already been two months since the tsunami hit, but for those living there the fear and struggles continue daily.

Nagappattinam’s black-and-white banded lighthouse stands high above the coconut palms and smashed neighborhoods. It must have witnessed the full brunt of the tsunami. The few other trees that remain have had their leaves and branches knocked off. Coconut palms have been torn up as well, though some clusters are still standing.

The wrecked neighborhoods look like a city dump that has been bull-dozed over repeatedly, but the roughness of the land and the protruding debris betrays any indication that this was man-made. Bricks are strewn everywhere. Crows pick at the ruins. Dogs wander, looking at us suspiciously and barking. In some places where there had been hundreds of huts packed tightly together there are scavengers, clearly Dalits, digging gingerly through the rubble. Roofs have been torn off, metal twisted into ghastly shapes, sand and earth mixed together in a kind of crud that conceals what had been life and livelihood. Collapsed walls, goats, building foundations, trash seemingly everywhere, but it is all the detritus of life swept away.

For two hours Sekar and I walk among the ruins and cannot say anything. We are stunned, in shock, seeing and imagining what has happened.

Towards sunset, we meet a green coconut seller in Velankanni trying to sell coconut water to pilgrims, clusters of large green coconuts hanging from his bicycle. His older brother was working selling coconuts on the beach that morning at 9:30 am when the tsunami swept him away. The look of shock in the coconut-seller is still there.

Boys are trying to play cricket in the flattened spaces in what was once a thriving village while a women sits and stares at the sea. Pilgrims approach the water carefully, walking slowly towards the ocean. For everyone, the fear of what the ocean could do is on our minds.

If the tsunami had hit on December 25, the death toll in this Christian pilgrimage community alone would have soared into the tens of thousands. Ironically, one of the reasons Velankanni was established is that there was a vision of Mary, Jesus’ mother, saving Portuguese sailors from the sea here. The commemorative shrine for this event seems mocked by what has recently happened. But it is Sunday and the prayers and choral singing in Tamil continue over loudspeakers, with people entering the church for prayers and blessings. I wonder how the tsunami will fit into this cosmology and destruction. The tsunami entered the basilica compound, town bus stand and town, and then continued inland, leaving devastation in its wake.

The tsunami actually moved inland as far as eight to ten kilometers in places. Even villages 30-40 kilometers away noticed their water levels rising one to three feet, or up to one meter. The reports we heard from even those distant places was how angry the water was and by implication the Gods. Individual explanations tended to go along those lines, that the Gods or God was angry with the people who had been bad and wanted to punish them. But the poor were hit the most, the rich the least. Is that a justification for the system as it is, I wonder?

Nearly all of the aid has gone to the fisherman communities along the coast. They have been very vocal and effective in mobilizing support, but there are many other, largely voiceless and faceless communities that have been affected as well. Krishnammal has identified those people and those villages, places we visited on previous days. Many of those people are either without any jobs now as they had traditionally serviced the fishermen’s industries or are small land-holders.

Where the tsunami flooded fields with crops of these small land-holders the crops were dead in days as they took up the salt from their roots. The problem was compounded by the prawn farms found in the area around Nagappatinam, the salination and chemicals from these ponds spreading even to areas out-of-reach to the tsunami. Where the tsunami breached these farms. it has destroyed many of them as well. It is unlikely that they will recover, but that has not stopped large prawn farming companies from applying to various relief agencies for aid to rebuild what had been banned by the Indian Supreme Court.

Appa tells us the next day after he arrives about new activities they have taken up against new prawn farms coming up around Mammalapuram, or Mahabalipuram as it is now called, an ancient port and the site of some wondrous art. They are also located near Kalpakkam, one of India’s nuclear plants. At least this site seemed to have withstood the tsunami. But now a new tsunami has come with the capital intensive activities of prawn farms.

What is it about Appa and Amma? He is 92 years old and still active, rising at 4 a.m. for meditation every morning, followed by very supple yoga and then discussions and strategizing with LAFTI workers. He has clearly slowed down and spends a good part of the day later sleeping, but there is still a fire and a spark for the struggle. How he must wish he were even as young as Krishnammal (78!) and could continue the challenges as he would like!

Something about the nonviolent way, showing compassion, sharing suffering, sharing joy, too. (Krishnammal has been quite a matchmaker for marriages, by the way)

As Amma told us, “If one chapter closes, another opens.”

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One more reminder: We need letters of support for LAFTI’s nomination for the Right Livelihood Award. See above and below.

The Other David

The Kilvenmani Massacre (D. Willis)

“I’m determined! No living in mud huts! It is a sign of poverty.”

Amma has awoken this morning at 3 a.m., gone into Nagappatinam on some jobs, and is back by 6:30 a.m. for morning ablutions and supervising the breakfast preparations. She seems to sleep only a few hours every night. Some nights she wakes with a vision at 2 a.m. and calls for a driver to take her to a village or official’s house, to sit and wait and gently but forcefully plead for some lands or other help for the Dalits for whom she is working hardest.

I ask our driver Muttukumar, who seems very good at getting close with all visitors, if he is the one who was summoned early this morning summoned to do all that driving. His eyes widen, and then roll and he says, “Oh no, nobody can keep up with Amma like that! She called another driver.” What is this energy and resolve?

Much of it comes from Krishnammal’s determination after the horrific massacre of 44 Dalits, mostly women and children, and one baby pinned to a tree with a knife, that took place on December 25, 1968, in Kilvenmani, a village not far from LAFTI. It was this incident that sparked a fire under Amma that is unquenchable and that has led to numerous struggles and then changes in the area around Kilvenmani.

Today we are being taken to Kilvenmani to witness what happened. We journey down bumpy back roads to a village shaded by coconuts and peepul trees. There is a stark white cement building with red trim that is a memorial the Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) has erected along with a large arch where the road splits off from the main road. The Communists were very active in this area, at least until relative prosperity set in, and Krishnammal has worked with them on occasion since they share similar goals. Amma’s goals seem to trump the CPI-ML, however, and they cannot be happy losing members, as livelihoods improve and the circular nature of political parties gets compared to direct self-help.

We meet Subramanian and Velusamy who directly experienced the massacre, losing family members. The women had told the men to flee, expecting serious trouble, again very much about caste and their Dalit status. Local landlords came in search of what they said were Naxalites, radical Maoists who were active in the area in those days in Thanjavur (and who are still active in areas around the Andhra Pradesh/Orissa border). Suspecting that Naxalites were hiding in a long shed, but probably really knowing it was Dalit women and children and others, they set fire to the shed burning everyone alive and shooting those who tried to escape.

The next day the story was spread all over India, and it was at this point that Amma decided to take the struggle from Gandhigram near Madurai to Kilvenmani near Thanjavur. This was the beginning of LAFTI.

And as Amma tells us again when we return later to discuss Kilvenmani, “Dalits are always attacked by tsunami.”

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Another Reminder! Letters of support for our nomination of LAFTI, Amma and Appa for the Right Livelihood Award are needed. There is a substantial cash award which can help continue LAFTI’s efforts. CESVI, a European-based NGO, has been very supportive of LAFTI these past three years, but their grant is running out.

Again, we do not need anything very long or fancy, just your letter of support and appreciation for Krishnammal and Jagannathan’s important efforts. The more letters the better. These letters can be in any language. We can also send you a model letter. Thanks so much to all of you. We need the letters April 1. Please help Amma and Appa who are doing such wonderful work!

You can send them directly to the Right Livelihood people (see the sample letter below, which has the address, and a copy to David Albert at shantinik@earthlink.net

Touching (D. Willis)

We notice that there is no power distance between Amma and the workers, or her staff, visitors like ourselves, or the Dalits working at brickmaking or other activities. She is very physical, often touching people in a society which has long practiced untouchability. This touching is especially important for those she is working with, a demonstration that there is an alternative path to this rigid, seemingly uncompromising social system and its skewed hierarchy of values.

Touching. It is a significant part of her message, whether holding hands with those she is talking, putting her arms on their shoulders, grabbing their forearm. Always looking deeply and directly into their eyes. And when she touches you, you are drawn to her space and place, to the needs that are there and the question of how/what are you going to do about it!

I am reminded, too, of Amirthamai, the “hugging guru” from Kerala who has assembled devotees in the hundreds of thousands, giving as many as ten thousand hugs a day from morning to night, and who has done very good work around her ashram in Kerala (including tsunami relief work, that part of the Kerala coast where her ashram is located having been affected badly, too, as Matt, one of Sekar’s University of Wisconsin students has told me).

Amma treats them all alike, speaking with affection at times and chiding them like a mother at other times. Power distance is based on fear, and Amma will have none of that. That does not mean she will not speak her mind. She is very strong in responding to anyone she thinks is looking for a hand-out or a free ride, scolding them sometimes in coarse and rude language that would be unthinkable from anyone else: “What kind of beggar do you think you are??? If you think like a beggar you will become one.” But somehow she gets away with it, partly because of her age, and certainly the enormous respect she has from everyone for what she has done over the years. We do get comments and grumbling from some of her workers later about this, but it sounds more like children complaining how their mother is treating them, the real issue being her attention and affection. I have to say that my ears burned on a few occasions!

But who else can motivate people to build 26 houses in 30 days? That is the time she told us which one Self-Help Group recently took for the construction of new houses. “Now we are asking them to help others,” she says.

It is this community-building, the larger issue of working together against oppression and the system, that Amma is so good at. A few harsh words here and there can be tolerated and forgiven. We also noticed and later talked with two older people, a man and a woman, loners who were hangers-on in the LAFTI compound. Each had lost everything to money-lenders or poor life decisions. Each often tries to get Amma’s ear when they can to ask for lands or a cow, and, we might add, each seems to not quite be all there. And each time Amma roundly chides them and gets them to do odd-jobs around the compound, feeding them, and all who come to LAFTI if they have the courage and the will to help themselves.

We return for lunch to the LAFTI compound, but before we begin Amma sends us off to her girls’ hostel. She runs both a girls and a boys’ hostel, the later at LAFTI, places for children from remote villages to stay to get them closer to the schools they attend. “I do not want them, the next generation, to just do what their parents did. That would be ok, too, if they choose it. But they should have a choice.” In fact, as we see from later interviews, that is precisely what happens to the more successful families whom Amma and Appa have helped. Not only are they able to build a successful lifestyle, but their children marry up and often move out to the city. Ramu, one Dalit farmer who has been successful enough to purchase his own lands after receiving some from Amma, shakes his hands in the Tamil gesture of “What to do?” and says clearly that the land and farming will go out of his family with his generation, despite the success.

We arrive at the Vallivalam hostel after a bone-shaking ride of 40 minutes, see the buildings and gardens with the warden, Ms. Kannagi, and her teachers. The students, who range in age from 6 to 17, grow their own food and have some lessons at the hostel as well as those of the nearby schools. Vallivalam Primary School, about a ten minute walk to the south, past a large irrigation tank/pond, and the Vallivalam Higher Secondary School are both highly-rated schools in the area.



I am searching for the right place to give the many drawings and paintings which the students of Kobe Elementary School have made for victims of the tsunami as well as monies they have raised. Kannagi helps us later to deliver these to the Vallivalam Primary School.

We return to LAFTI, exhausted, have our ‘sapadu’ rice lunch with curries and sambar, and then take a quick nap. Soon the door swings open, Muttukumar telling us Amma wants to take us to three or four projects, some right along the coast where the tsunami damage had occurred. We rouse ourselves and get back in the Tata Sumos, a rugged SUV and one of the vehicles of choice for Indian roads, so-called.

These later afternoon visits take us to benami lands (lands held illegally in someone else’s name) that are even deeper in thorns and I find myself pulling the mullu from my chapels (sandals). There are also temple lands which lie fallow in another location, another target for Krishnammal’s efforts. She wants us to document a Dalit village of thatched mud huts packed closely together, too, which she says she is going to change and another not far from the coast where the tsunami came up to the tops of the doors.

She speaks disparagingly of the mud huts. They leak, harbor insects and vermin, are washed away during heavy rains, their roofs collapsing, their mud floors turning into a soup that is mixed with all the dust and dirt of the street and nearby fields. Don’ft forget, there are no toilets in Indian villages generally, the expectation being that the nearby fields work fine early in the morning. One does have to watch where one walks. When the summer comes the dust that blows around is potent, so it is not only stomach but also respiratory ailments that are easy to get. The people living in these villages demonstrate a remarkable resiliency in the face of these challenges, but their life expectancy is short and there is little solace if one becomes ill, the nearest hospitals far away and no money in any event for any treatment. Infant mortality in these circumstances is, not surprisingly, somewhat high and also one reason to have many children. You don’t know how many will survive.

Reminder: We need letters of support for our nomination of LAFTI, Amma and Appa for the Right Livelihood Award. You can see this award at www.rightlivelihood.org We do not need anything very long or fancy, just your letter of support and appreciation for their important efforts. Send a copy to Sweden, at the address below, and e-mail a copy to David at shantinik@earthlink.net

The more letters the better, so please encourage your friends, too. These letters can be in any language. We can also send you a model letter. I have asked David to post a sample below. Thanks so much to all of you. We need the letters by April 1. You can send them directly to the Right Livelihood people – the sample letter, from Peggy Burns, shows the address. Please help Amma and Appa, who are doing such wonderful work!

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Letter from Peggy Burns:

February 28, 2005

Kerstin Bennett, Administrative Director
Right Livelihood Award
PO Box 15072
S-10465 Stockholm
Sweden

RE: Nomination of S. Jagannathan and Krishnammal Jagannathan, and LAFTI (Land for Tillers' Freedom) for the 2005 Right Livelihood Award

Dear Dr. Bennett and Members of the Committee:

I was once asked to name a person, living or dead, with whom I would most like to have lunch. I immediately thought of Mahatma Gandhi because I had always been fascinated with the story of how he had the courage to take on the British Government, speak out against the caste system, and change the course of history. Six years ago, I had the honor of sharing a meal with a remarkable Gandhian couple, S. Jagannathan and Krishnammal Jagannathan, founders of Land for Tillers' Freedom (LAFTI). Like Gandhi, they believe in the power of the human spirit and that anything is possible. They have had a deep impact on my life, as well as on the lives of everyone they encounter.

I listened to the story of how Jagannathan courageously took on the multinational shrimp industry to win an Indian Supreme Court decision to close the shrimp farms. These farms had been destroying the land, the fresh water supply, and the livelihood of people living in the coastal villages in the Nagapattinam District of Tamil Nadu. Unfortunately, Jagannathan's "victory" in the Courts did not bring an end to the shrimp farms, but he refused to give up. During my subsequent visits to India, I watched as he so eloquently inspired the people in the surrounding villages to raise their voices and drive the shrimp farms out of India. In spite of his advanced age and failing eyesight, he frequently met with government leaders and laboriously wrote letters warning them about the devastating effects of these farms on the environment. Since the tsunami, we now know he was right, and many groups around the world have begun to take up his cause.

The people of the Nagapattinam District of Tamil Nadu refer to Jagannathan as "Appa" (Father). Like a father, he is their leader, their problem-solver, and their protector.

Krishnammal is the most amazing woman whom I have ever met. She was born into extreme poverty in a Dalit (commonly referred to as “Untouchable”) community and dedicated her entire life to serving her people. Krishnammal is lovingly known as "Amma" or "Mother" throughout the region. She is comforting and gentle, yet strong and confident. For many years, she has had a dream of replacing damp, poorly ventilated mud huts with brick houses. She once wrote to me that as she traveled through the villages, she observed that children were always sick, and she felt this was due to their impoverished living conditions. Since sick children cannot succeed in school, she had to find a way to build more houses and improve their living conditions. A few years later, I traveled with her through the district, and I understood what she had told me. Children living in villages where LAFTI had built brick houses appeared to be bright-eyed and healthy. In villages where families still lived in mud huts, all the children had coughs and runny eyes and noses.

As we continued to drive through the many villages, word rapidly spread that "Amma is coming," and everyone ran to greet her. As a mother, she listened to their problems, handed out a few rupees to those in need, and offered words of encouragement and hope. She promised to help provide an acre of land and a house for each family, but they had to help with the labor and, if possible, make a small financial contribution. She taught them how to form savings groups and to work together as a community. Traditionally, India has been a male dominated society, especially among the poor. In order to break this cycle and empower women to reach their fullest potential, Krishnammal has been placing the ownership of the land and the houses in the women’s names.

Although Krishnammal has very few material comforts or personal possessions, her life is richly endowed with love and mutual admiration. I once tried to give her an umbrella. With a smile and a wave of her hand, she said "I have no needs," and she handed it to someone else. This small gesture so typifies Amma. She taught me that happiness comes from within and that anything is possible.

Jagannathan and Krishnammal strongly believe in the power of education, and they helped to educate hundreds of children over the years. Through LAFTI, they established three hostels for orphaned children and operate several job-training facilities for adults. Most of LAFTI’s staff came from the surrounding villages, and many received their training through LAFTI’s programs.

Krishnammal and Jagannathan have provided the Dalit villagers with the tools (i.e., an education, job skills, land and housing) for a better life. Moreover, they have helped to instill the confidence and pride to succeed, and they planted the seeds for future generations.

The people of Tamil Nadu already know and love their Amma and Appa. Through the Right to Livelihood Award, the rest of the world would be able to honor this extraordinary couple and recognize their many achievements. Thank you for considering this nomination.

Sincerely,


Peggy Burns
Social Worker

Constructive Work: The Brick-Making Site (D. Willis)

Amma gestures towards her Army of Compassion, the lean, handsome, black young Tamils whose muscles speak for both hard work (and meat-eating in their diet). Amma feeds them breakfast and lunch, including her special urugai (fabulous South Indian pickle of lime, garlic, onion, and plenty of chilli powder), tayir (curds, yogurt), and rice. But as she says, “I feed them in the morning and at noon. Let them eat what they want in the evening,” an obvious reference and tacit nod of approval to meat-eating.

We arrive at the brick-making site after a long bumpy trip along roads that could hardly be called more than bullock cart tracks, our driver Muttukumar deftly sliding through each pot-hole and head-on with another vehicle in a space of centimeters with precarious sides slipping off to a river, a thorn forest, a paddy field. He is, along with Gandhi – LAFTI’s secretary; Thamba – LAFTI’fs photographer; Kalyappan and Muniand – LAFTI’s chief accountants and office workers; and the wonderful cooks led by Jyothi and Mani, the heart of LAFTI’s operation.

The workers gather respectfully, knowing Amma has come and would have instructions, cajoling, and questions. Men, women, children. The adults seem to be from 20-35 and the children generally pre-school age. Amma is concerned about them baking in the heat, standing by their mothers and occasionally helping with the brick-making by kneading the clay or getting ready to fill a frame, always for two good-sized bricks, of which there are thousands drying in the sun.

This is a wasteland, or rather it is a tract of land that was left unused and has gone to thorn forest. These are particularly nasty thorns, having personal experience of them in the bottoms and side of my feet in previous time spent in Indian villages around Madurai. Not only can they give a piercing wound, some of them are tipped with poison that especially smarts. Not for the meek living in these conditions. Most of the workers, and of course the children, are barefoot. Dalits generally have a minimal amount of material possessions, maybe a few sets of old clothes, perhaps a set of sandals, some cooking pots and plates. Again, from personal experience, I can tell you that sandals do not provide much protection either, as the thorns easily go through any leather or rubber.

Three chairs are brought, one for Amma and the others for her guests. There are three of us, including myself, Sekar, and Ramuthai, a field development worker from the Gandhigram Trust, which is situated at Gandhigram Rural University, and who has been brought in to evaluate and consult. I realize in talking with her, and later with Amma, that I have actually known Amma and Appa earlier than David and I thought, as I had attended the opening of Gandhigram Rural University in December of 1976 and stayed with them at that time. And I have a memory of meeting them with Dick Keithan in Kodaikanal and perhaps at his ashram in Oddanachatram as well. I then visited Amma and Appa a number of times after that in their workers’ home, which I now realize was a branch of the early beginnings of LAFTI.

Ramuthai (Rama’s mother) is shining in her gold sari, an attractive woman whom I thought to be around 30 but who is actually 50 and already has grandchildren. We talk with her and her colleague Ramesh later about the problems of the rural poor. She has been involved in projects such as a World Bank-sponsored scheme for community-managed drinking water supply. Better to have them funding something on our side at least is the conclusion, not busy aiding the privatization of water.

Amma sits down, our composer and songster Murugaraj sings a brief song of encouragement to the workers, and Amma begins asking questions. She spends perhaps two-and-a-half hours talking with many of the workers, making it very clear to those who ask for boons (cows, lands, homes, etc) that she expects them to help themselves first and then, this is very important, to help others. Amma has the allegiance of tens of thousands of Dalit laborers in the countryside for maybe 50-60 kilometers in any direction. She can produce a demonstration of more than ten thousand in less than a day if necessary. And they have done that for the campaigns against prawn farming and the endless rounds of pressure for the release of lands to the poor.

The cell phone has come to India, too, leap-frogging the laborious and capital-intensive need for land-lines. Amma and Venugopu, from the next generation of leaders along with a gentleman we get to know later named Veerasamy, are often on the phone, the tune of an Italian opera loudly announcing each time a call comes in (“All around the cobbler’s bench, the monkey chased the weasel.”) (Note from David #1 – No. Most folks now think it was a song about spinning yarn, and there is some little evidence that it was known by the Pilgrims as early as 1620.)

The Other David

Let's Beat the Drums!: Motivating and Mobilizing (D. Willis)

After breakfast we sit and talk with Amma about her work and our plans for our stay in Kuthur and the area. We begin with talk of the tsunami, which she says she has carefully watched. She has not rushed to give aid in the manner of many international and national NGOs, which seemed so bent on competing with each other to see who could do the most good. While she praised UNICEF for their work in getting potable water quickly to the affected areas, she is somewhat doubtful of the motives of other NGOs, seeing them as being here either for the purpose of conversion or the siphoning off of aid to the black market. Tons of materials piled up at the Collector’s Office (the highest official in the district), and much of it has not been released. What has been released has gone only to the fishermen and not to other groups.)

UNICEF moved quickly in bringing potable water to communities.

But what is most important for Amma is to put everything in perspective. As she says, for the poor there is a tsunami every day.

“I won’t give anything for free. You come and sit and work. For yourself. Make bricks!” Amma explains her perspective. There should be some kind of work for self-help, making bricks or building homes being the most apparent at this time. There are also struggles against temple lands, or so-called benami lands held in other people’s names to avoid the land ceiling laws, as well as the devastation of prawn farms.

Amma describes her work of the moment, of which there are many projects. Symbiosis wherever possible seems to be one important goal. For example, waste lands that have lain fallow and become covered with weeds and thorn forests can be cleared after they have been transferred to LAFTI, the wood obtained then being used to fire bricks that have been made for houses.

Her current projects include trying to get more lands from Sikkal Temple, a large temple in the area. She always has her eyes and ears open searching for lands that are being wasted or hoarded. With enough of the right kind of persuasion she has been able to get the titles of these lands transferred to LAFTI. In turn she does not simply give lands to those in need but enlists them in her Army of Compassion to build homes, clear other lands, and do other jobs.

Before starting this work it is important to get the workers motivated, too, and she later brings one of here workers who is a musician and song-writer to sing for us. Hard-driving village-oriented music meant to inspire: “Let’s beat the drums! Let’s change the huts! Beat the drum for the land revolution! Poverty and caste must go away! Thatched roof mud huts must go! Your hands must do it!”

“First we have to motivate them,” she says. “Then we mobilize their manpower. We mobilize them, and not just with money. We make it in their self-interest, and before
starting work we have self-help groups. It is also not just food-for-work: 75% rice and 25% money. Practice, local practice using local materials and know-how is then utilized as a strong foundation.”

For Amma there are two kinds of work that LAFTI is doing: Movement Work and Constructive Work. The Movement Work is about protests against the ecologicaldamage of prawn farms and so on, largely led by Appa. The Constructive Work having to do with houses, lands, and crafts are what Amma has been working with. With both of these, organizing people’s power is the key. We notice, too, that one of the key points of Amma’s approaches is to deeply involve the women in what is happening. With them and with the people she works with in general, there are great psychological needs to be appreciated, to be given dignity and respect, to be honored as human beings, all of which have been left out in the traditional society. Amma puts into practice this approach as the base for her work.

Later in the morning we accompany her to a remote brick-making site. We spend the morning with the workers there, talking with them and taking their pictures. Amma is busy talking with individuals about their particular stories.

More soon!

The Other David

"Have You Eaten?": Arriving at LAFTI (.D. Willis)

We arrived late last night in Kuthur, sometime around 10:30 pm. The ride from Thanjavur was more than harrowing, the wild game of passing and near-misses played out on Indian roads between overloaded buses, lorries, and cars, always intruded upon by the unexpected: herds of cattle, goats, water buffalo, sheep, donkeys, people of all shapes and sizes, bicycles, motorcycles, scooters, even the occasional elephant. We saw all of these on our journey yesterday.

Kuthur is a remote village, but it is connected to a main road. We had no idea where we were going and had to stop frequently to ask, even our taxi driver on this last leg not knowing. Finally a signboard appeared for LAFTI. We swing around into the village
and soon found ourselves facing a compound wall with a large painting of Mahatma Gandhi and sayings of his written in Tamil. All was dark and quiet, but some young men appeared as we entered the LAFTI compound. Smiling, always smiling in Tamil Nadu, they took us to our room, where we soon went to sleep.

Rising at 5:30 am just before dawn, I start out of LAFTI’s main building and suddenly Amma appears, arms outstretched, reaching for my hands, her wonderful smile beaming. She clasps my hands, looking deeply in my eyes with her charismatic sparkle, a big smile on her face, immediately asking how my children, my two sons, are doing. This is characteristic of Amma, asking after your family and then you, before anything else. Amma’s selflessness. We talk for some time, my asking after her and Appa, their children Sathya and Bhoomi, and then her work recently. We will go see it, she says.

“Then, have you eaten?” In the very Tamil form of greeting, it is one of the first things you ask the other person. Everyone must be well fed! And Amma’s cooking, as we are to find out, especially with the help of Jyothi, Mani, and others, is superb. Slow food in action.

We noticed during our stay in Kuthur that to eat is very close to the Gandhian philosophy of to live. Simple, wholesome country food, the ingredients all from local fields, trees, and plants. This is village food and vegetarian. The philosophy of nonviolence has permeated eating with Gandhians, too, and one will not see tandoori chicken at any Gandhian gathering! I do note, however, that many of the Dalits whom Amma is working with are meat eaters, including beef, though this meat-eating is also considered at least partly responsible for their low status, according to various caste origin myths.

Sekar’s daughter Rohini has admirably translated some of these myths and their commentary, and shown them to me, the inevitable gloss being that something bad happened and they therefore ended up as meat eaters. There is, thus, an aspiration for vegetarianism and the higher status which it confers. At the same time, the protein in meat of course helps people who must do a lot of hard manual labor in the sun. We do notice that the usual concerns with purity and pollution associated with eating practices in South India are very much absent at LAFTI, aside from washing one’s right hand before and after the meal. Everyone sits and eats together, using the same plates and cups. There are no individual utensils, of course, since all the food is eaten by hand.

David has spoken earlier of sambar powder, the base of the gravy or sauce that usually accompanies rice or other foods in South India. A masala or mixture of dry spices, it is the foundation of what is called curry powder. Garam masala is another word for a
masala of dry ingredients, and every house has their own recipes depending on the type of curry that is being cooked. Curry, by the way, simply means food, like gohan in Japanese. There are also wet masalas.

We eat in a large thatched shed, sitting on the ground on woven straw mats all together with round stainless steel trays as plates. Amma is very on-task with all the cooks in the preparation of the food, and we notice her directing the general preparations often. Amma is involved in many aspects of the operations of LAFTI, but this duty she seems to especially relish.

Morning is usually idli, the round Tamil steamed rice/dal cake. We typically eat four or five of those. Part of the batter is ground rice and part ground dal (lentils), ground in a large granite mortar and pestle and then left overnight to slightly ferment. It is a nutritious and tasty batter used to make iddis and the thin crepe called dosai. Sambar gravy with vegetables, which also has a dal base, and freshly ground coconut chutney with mustard seeds and green chillis are the accompaniment for idli and dosai. We also have a rice mixture with mustard seeds and curry leaves. The curry plant provides fresh or dry leaves that are a pungent and important part of all South Indian curries, two other major ingredients being chilli powder from red chillis and turmeric root which gives the characteristic yellow color.

South Indian food is rice-based, and the main meal of the day is lunch, when a large mound of rice with two or three side vegetables, some curds (yogurt), sambar and rasam, fiery pepper water. Seconds, thirds, and fourth servings are expected. And after lunch there is a long nap of one to two hours. Quite sensible given the intense heat of the middle of the day in South India.

Some variations on dosai with sambar and chutney or perhaps the northern wheat-based chappati or deep-fried puri breads, along with a potato or other vegetable curry, are evening meals. Indians also love sweets, and Sekar and I bring sweets into the landscape! They are not typical in LAFTI, but everyone is happy to see them nonetheless! Appa in particular has quite a sweet tooth.

Sugar cane is originally from India, by the way, and I think the attraction of sugar was as great as spices to the early Europeans coming to Asia. They did not have sugar, nor did sugar exist in the Americas. Indian sweets are very sweet, usually ghee- (clarified butter) or milk-based. But they are not often seen in village South India, where day-to-day struggles for food and getting something on the plate is the highest priority and, for some, a difficult one to meet.

The Other David