"May Children Live With Dignity"

 

Introduction of Vivek by Rev. Michael McGee

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “...When Truth speaks through me I am invincible.” The same can be said of Vivek Pandit, who we have the honor of being our guest speaker this morning. I had the privilege of spending a week with Vivek at his headquarters in Maharashtra when I travelled to India on my sabbatical with my good friend and the director of the Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Project, Kathy Shreedhar – and it's an honor to have Kathy with us this morning as well. 

Vivek was not only a gracious host but he was an excellent teacher, taking me to villages, towns, and meetings, and sharing stories of how the poorest of the poor, the Dalits and Tribals, had won success after success by organizing for their rights.  I found him to be not only a great leader but a man of great courage and compassion.  Let us now hear his story...

Part I:  “Freeing the Slaves” by Vivek Pandit

My dear fellow brothers and sisters of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, it is my honor today that I am with you, and I sincerely appreciate the efforts of Rev. Michael McGee to bring me here. Let me start with a prayer which I have written for members of my organisation and we all begin our activity with this prayer,

Swapna mazya Jivanache, murta rupala disu de

manavachi lekare hi manava jaisi jagu de

Let the dream of my life come true, let the children of human beings, live like human beings.

This is not only my dream. This is a dream of hundreds of freed slaves, this is dream of hundreds of women those who are released from various kinds of torture, this is a dream of thousands of children those who are struggling to get primary education, and this is a dream of thousands of members of my organisation. I am here on behalf of all of them to share this dream with you. We all have this dream, yes, dream, because this is not the reality.

Reality if different. My country became free in 1947, from the empire of  British, but almost half of the citizens of our free country are not free. They don't even don’t know that they not free. I along with my wife Vidyullata moved from Mumbai, most of you know as Bombay to the nearby village in 1979. We wanted to do something good for the people. We started a medical center, a leprosy center to serve the rural people.

Soon we realised the reality of debt bondage. Many tribal brothers and sisters were in slavery after almost 30 years of India’s independence. There is an assurance, a promise given to them in the Constitution of India, that forced labour will be abolished and the right against exploitation was assured to every citizen of India. In 1976, a special act was passed by the federal legislation for the abolition of bonded labour. But there were and still are many bonded labourers in India.  I will tell you a story of Keshav Nankar.

Keshav Nankar, was 8 years old child, when his father could not repay a loan.  You may ask what was the rate of interest? But bonded labourers had no right to ask the rate of interest or how much was repaid, the accounts were not maintained, and it is up to the masters to carry forward the loan for generations to generation. Keshav had to repay the loan, which he had owed from his father to his master.

Keshav had to leave the school and started grazing the cattle of his master to repay the loan of his father.  He wanted to learn, he wanted to get educated like the children of his master, but he had no choice. He was very sad when he left the school. At the age of 18-19 his master gave him some money for his wedding, and he along with his wife entered into bondage, to repay his and his fathers loan to the master.

Both of them had to work day in and day out. They had to work according to the will of their master. They would get the food to eat and a pair of clothes per year. He had to go to the work even if he was not well. During monsoon, he had to work in the field to plough the field, after transplantation was over the bullocks used to get the rest, but he still had to work to feed the bullocks. Bullocks were being taken care of but not Keshav.

He did not know what the Constitution had guaranteed him, what promise the law has given to him. And even if someone would have told him, he had no courage to demand it, and no law enforcement machinery would come for his help. When we first met him, he told us that he was happy, that he was not subjected to any torture. Then we realised that he very quietly had accepted the exploitation, and he had no hopes. When we organised many more like him and gave them hope that, yes you can come out of bondage, you can end your slavery, they became brave and came out of it.

Keshav and his fellow bonded labourers decided to say no to the practice of bondage, and they  refused to work. It was not easy. Their master did not like it. They refused to work, they refuse to graze their animals in the field, they refused to shop, they created an impasse. But these bonded labourers, because of the organised strength of the organisation refused to surrender, They said “We will eat bitter roots from the forest, we will go hungry, we may die, but we will not surrender, because we are human beings and we are not cattle.”

And believe me we all suffered, we had to go to jail, we were being attacked, we went hungry, but we won. Keshav and thousands of bonded labourers like Keshav won their freedom. Now Keshav is leading our organisation, he was elected the Chairperson of the union, he ran the election of the state legislature as an independent candidate, he is organising farmers for better yield, and he visited the United Kingdom to receive the AntiSlavery Award of the Anti Slavery Society, a consultative body of the United Nations, on behalf of myself and my wife.  By the way, we were nominated by the UUA Holdeen India Project.

We realised that it is not the Constitution, nor the Law that makes them free, but they must free themselves from the shackles of bondage. They must feel that they are free, and it is the role of our organisation to make them feel free. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “ When freedom lies in the hearts of the people, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to protect it, but when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.”

Part II:  “Planting the Seed” by Vivek Pandit

After releasing the bonded labourers from bondage, we had to find employment opportunities for them. We started with cooperative brick making, cooperative agriculture, dairy cooperatives, and  cooperatives for fishermen. We realised that some of the tribal families are in possession of the forest land. The forest department was treating them as squatters, and would torture them. With the strength of our organisation we stopped that torture and started demanding the entitlement of rights over the land. We began with a long march of 80 kilometers to the office of District Government in 1984. We protested several times, we had to go to jail many times, we had to approach the federal court, and finally after the struggle of almost two decades, we succeeded in getting 30000 Acres of land to 7700 tribal families in my district.

Forty-six percent of the children of India are malnourished. In my district alone almost 2000 children die every year for want of proper nutrition. We are working hard to end the hunger, we are working hard to end this starvation, we have a dream that no child in our area die because of lack of nutrition. Now we are providing additional nutrients to those children. When mothers are ill fed, the child is bound to be malnourished. We want people to earn their livelihood, so that they can feed themselves.

We have identified a species of Jatropha plant which will provide them the livelihood. Jatropha is a plant which produces non-edible oil seeds, which requires no water and no cattle eats it. The land our tribal people has is waste land, nothing can be produced there except Jatropha.  The government of my state has a scheme to plant horticulture plantation, like coconut, cashew nuts, mangoes etc. Till this time, rich landowners took advantage of the scheme. We demanded that the government include Jatropha under that scheme. But as usual they were reluctant.

After persuasion failed, we blocked the state Highways, we closed down the government offices in the district, and with the help of like minded legislators across political parties we raised this issue on the floor of legislature. Finally the government agreed and approved our demand. Since the year 2006 we have planted 3.7 million plants on 8500 acres of land. Last year our people received $13 million from the government directly into their respective bank accounts.

Now we are involved in the processing of Jatropha seeds. We have a dream that tribals will own a biodiesel processing unit, tribals will become the producers of not only oil seeds but the finished product, bio diesel.  This is important because we want economic freedom for them. Once they produce what they can sell, they can earn and decide their own destiny.

Part III: “Saving the Children” by Vivek Pandit

We started our work with education in 1982.  When we started releasing bonded labourers, all our teachers resigned and we had an option of continuing the schools or freeing the slaves. We opted to free the slaves. We closed down all our KG classes. It took us 13 years to release bonded labourers and rehabilitate them and building their strong organisation.

In 1995, we started schools for migrant child labourers. Children migrate along with their parents on the site of brick making. We asked the government to educate these children, and the government said that they have no money and no plan to educate these children. We set up an example of completing the curriculum in 100 days. After creative tactics of embarrassing the government, they surrendered and we were able to draft a scheme for all out of the school children for the whole of the state.

Women in general and Katkari tribes in particular have low literacy rate. Amongst Katkaris, which is one of the primitive tribe, there is only 1% female literacy. We decided to take this challenge. We started a residential school for Katkari girls. Now we have 88 girls. These girls are not only learning English, but they are learning computer, music, and basic skills. Every morning they pray and ceremonially salute the national flag daily. Today five of them are participating in the national competition of martial art of self defence.

Dignity will be achieved through education and unity. Dignity will not be achieved only through education. These girls are learning their rights and how to achieve those rights.

Summary

For all of these years, my brothers and sisters, we have experienced the existence of god. When we met the bonded labourers with tears in their eyes, with lots of sufferings and torture, and after their release when we saw their smiling faces, we experienced god in their smiling faces. When we came across women tortured by their families or by local criminals and when we saw women building their strength and becoming ready to fight injustice, we experienced the very existence of god. When we look at the blooming faces of thousands of children learning, dancing, playing in schools at brick kilns, we experience the existence of god.  When we observe Katkari girls performing the flag salutation with pride, playing music, learning the martial arts, when we see the confidence in them, god meets us. We have learned that god is not in the temple, god does not reside in churches, nor in synagogues but in human beings.

We, all these years, suffered many sufferings, many trials and tribulations. But we were not alone. There were many from different walks of life with us. You were with us. You were with us through Kathy Sreedhar, through Rev Michael. You were connected to us in our struggle for humanity. You stood by us, you walked with us. We experienced the existence of god in our being together.

Our people know that it is not enough to fight for ourselves. We are human beings and we owe to others. What is religion? In my language, religion means essence, characteristics. What is the essence of fire?  The essence of fire is to light and provide heat. What is the essence of clouds?  To provide rain and water. What is the essence of sun?  To give light and provide energy.

What is essence of human being?  None other than humanity. However poor we may be, we have to devote to others, we have to share the sorrow of others.  That is the essence, our religion. Our people contributed one rupee each and sent the money to the African National Congress when Nelson Mandela was in Prison. Our people helped earth quake victims.  Our people mourned for Rosa Parks when she passed away. It is the connection. That connection is the god.

In the 16^th century, a boy by age, only 16, but great in his work, Saint Dynaneshwashar, wrote about the religion. He was a rebel saint. Sanskrit language was treated as the language of god. It was only accessible to Brahmins. He translated the Bghavadid Gita into my language, Marathi for the common people. He prayed to god not for himself but for all beings in the universe.

Duritanche timir javo, Vishwa swadharma surye paho

Jo je vanchhil, to te laho, pranijat

He asked, “Let there be light in the life of those who are in the darkness, let every body in this universe connect to each other, let every being’s dream come true.

At the end my dear brothers and sisters, I would like to state the last stanza of my daily prayer”

“Let that be my inspiration, who has no food to eat, who has no clothes to wear,

Whatever little I could do today, be in the service of that god.”

Thank you.

Prayer by Vivek Pandit:

This is the dream of my life
May it come true
May the children of human beings
Live with human dignity

May no one sell their bodies
To quell the pangs of hunger,
And may my inner urge ever be
To destroy oppression

May the flowers yet to bloom
Not be trampled underfoot
May every breath I take
Help new flowers to bloom

May I never be weak, vulnerable
And powerless
May I find within myself
The strength to contain storms

The night that has just passed
Was the long & darkest
Let the emerging rays
Live forever in the huts of the poor

May those who have no food
And no dignity, be my inspiration
May every step I take today
Be in the service of that God

This is my prayer
May it come true
May the children of human beings
Live with human dignity

“The Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program seeks to strengthen and support the most oppressed, disadvantaged peoples in India in their struggle for economic and social justice. The Program focuses on those peoples excluded or marginalized on the basis of gender, caste, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, especially bonded migrant and child laborers, domestic and home-based workers, and scavengers.” (Mission statement)

The Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program was initiated in 1984 with a bequest from Jonathan Holdeen, and augmented with donations from individuals and foundations.  The Program is governed by a Board of Directors – of which Rev. McGee is a member -- responsible to the Unitarian Universalist Association in Boston, Massachusetts. Each year the Program supports between twenty-five and thirty-five grassroots social-change groups across India, including the group Vivek Pandit oversees. The groups are composed mainly of dalits, tribal peoples, and bonded or formerly bonded laborers and include a high proportion of women and religious minorities.