Ramesh Chandra Sharma, Campaign Coordinator of Ekta Parishad, the main nonviolent mass movement in India that struggles for landless people’s rights over land, forests and water, visited Spain from 23rd to 27th March to talk about the marginalized people’s nonviolent struggle for their rights and dignity and to present Jai Jagat 2020 March.
Ramesh was one of the speakers at the I Martin Luther King’s Congress on Nonviolence, which was part of Noviolence2018’s campaign, and which brought some emblematic representatives of nonviolent social activism together in Madrid.
Ramesh presented Jai Jagat 2020 at the Congress and explained that the march, which is expected to mobilize about one million people in India, aims to get the impoverished, grassroot movements and people of all walks of life together worldwide. This campaign has been underway since 2014 and will culminate in 2020 with a Global March for Justice and Peace from New Delhi to the UN headquarters in Geneva. “We have considered walking this march because we need to build a bridge between our society and yours. We have the responsibility to get young people to understand the need for struggling», he said.
Ramesh also met the associations that are organizing Jai Jagat in Spain to talk about parallel actions taking place in different parts of the world. Different activities are in progress in Latin America, especially carried out by SERPAJ, the Service for Peace and Justice, presided over by the Peace Nobel Prize Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, and several other groups. Africa probably poses the main challenges. The African Alliance for Land together with several local organizations are organizing a caravan from Senegal that will merge with the Spanish march in Melilla and will continue through Spain, to later enter France, where French associations are also working, to finally reach Geneva in September 2020.
Ramesh said that the march will serve to denounce both the situation at many borders and multinational corporations’ exploitation of soil, water and minerals. He also spoke about the “internal process of colonization in rich societies through consumerism, one of the causes of inequality and injustice worldwide… Setting ourselves free is one of the greatest challenges the world is facing at present.” He insisted that sympathy is the best way to solve world problems, that we do not only need to challenge institutions like the UN, which must change its whole operation system, but also to open a debate with people,
On Monday 26th March, Ramesh, together with several members of Jai Jagat Spain Net, met the councillor for social services of the city of Valladolid to present the campaign and to encourage the city’s support to this global movement.
From Valladolid, Ramesh left for Pamplona, where he was welcomed by associations of immigrants, who attentively listened to his talk and are already considering how to join Jai Jagat global march.
The Spanish branch of Jai Jagat 2020 March, part of the European branch «On the Move», will focus on the demands and actions than the social, economic and political reality of Spain requires, in line with the overall objectives of Jai Jagat 2020, which are hunger, unemployment, labour exploitation, housing and migration.
Every person and association willing to struggle for a nonviolent and fairer world is welcome to join Jai Jagat, which means Victory for the World in Hindi. Thousands are already “on the move.”
