have great pleasure in inviting you to the joint presentation of

The Gandhi Foundation
International Peace Award 2011

to

Dr Binayak Sen and Bulu Imam

for their humanitarian work and their practice of nonviolence

at
The House of Lords on Tuesday 12th June 2012
from 6 – 8pm in Committee Room 4a.

If you wish to reserve a seat for yourself, please email John Rowley at:
festival.of.nonviolence@gmail.com.
These seats will only have a Reserved notice on them, so first come, first served.

Please allow 20 minutes for security checks

THE GANDHI INTERNATIONAL PEACE AWARD

The Peace Award was created in 1998 by Surur Hoda and Diana Schumacher with the support of The Gandhi Foundation’s Life President, Lord Attenborough. The intention is to honour individuals and groups who have advocated and practised Gandhian Nonviolence but who have received little recognition for doing so; people whom E F Schumacher called ‘our unsung heroes and heroines’. Past recipients can be seen on on the ‘Activities’ page of our website.

BHIKHU PAREKH – Chair

Lord Parekh is Emeritus Professor of Political Philosophy at the Universities of Westminster and Hull. Prior to that he was Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics. He has been a visiting professor at many universities including McGill, Harvard, Barcelona, Paris and Pennsylvania. He is the author of several widely acclaimed books in political philosophy, including Gandhi, and was recently included among the great British political philosophers of the 20th century.

Amongst many honours he has received are: BBC’s Special Lifetime Achievement Award, Distinguished Global Thinker Award from India International Centre in Delhi, The Isaiah Berlin Prize for Lifetime Contribution to Political Philosophy, Pravasi Bharatiya Sanmman and Padma Bhushan from the President of India, and sixteen Honorary Doctorates from British Universities.

DR BINAYAK SEN

Dr Binayak Sen is a Bengali paediatrician, public health specialist and activist. He is the national Vice-President of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). He originally started working as a paediatrician extending health care to poor people in the rural-tribal areas of the Chhattisgarh state, doubling up as a human rights activist. While working with the state on health sector reform, he strongly criticized the government on human rights violations during the anti-Naxalite operations advocating non-violent political engagement instead.

In May 2007, he was detained for allegedly supporting the outlawed Naxalites, thereby violating the provisions of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005 (CSPSA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967. The evidence presented against him included his meetings with the jailed Naxalite leader Narayan Sanyal and certain documents allegedly supporting his links with the Naxalites. Soon after his arrest, Sen applied for bail before the Raipur Sessions Court and then the Chhattisgarh High Court but was only granted bail by the Supreme Court of India on 25 May 2009 following a huge outcry across India and abroad. Amnesty International made him a Prisoner of Conscience.

On 24 December 2010, the Raipur Sessions Court found him guilty again of helping the Naxalites, charged him with ‘connections with a banned organization’ and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Another huge outcry ensued. On April 15, 2011, the Supreme Court of India granted him bail which is still in force. This year he has received the Heinz R. Pagels Award and the Gwangju Prize, both for his work on human rights.

BULU IMAM

Bulu Imam comes from one of India’s most distinguished families which has produced a steady stream of intellectuals over the past two centuries. His great grandfather Nawab Syed Imdad Imam was given the title Shams-ul-Ulema or Poet Laureate by the British in the late 19th century and his grandfather Syed Hasan Imam was President of the Indian National Congress in 1918.

Bulu Imam is a human rights and cultural activist who is the Convener, Hazaribagh Chapter, INTACH since 1987, campaigning to save the upper Damodar Valley (Karanpura) from opencast coal mining. In 1991 he brought to light the first rock art shelter of Jharkhand at Isco and thereafter another one dozen newly painted rock shelters. He started the Sanskriti Museum, Hazaribagh in 1992 to preserve the tribal culture of Jharkhand, and established the Tribal Woman Artists Cooperative (TWAC) in 1993. The Cooperative has already held 50 international exhibitions and highlighted opencast coal mining in Jharkhand. He has made several films on tribal culture and art. He was shortlisted for the Goldman Award, USA, in 2006. TWAC under his guidance has led teams to major mural painting events in Australia, Germany, Italy, UK and France. He submits annual reports to ICOMOS World report on Monuments and Sites in Danger, Paris (2001-7). Bulu Imam has written several monographs on ethnic societies, rock art, archaeology, tribal art as well as recently the definitive Antiquarian Remains of North Jharkhand and other major books.

He devotes himself to writing, poetry, painting and research, and work on conservation projects. He lives with his family at the Sanskriti Centre at Hazaribagh.

DR FELIX PADEL

Felix Padel is an anthropologist educated at Oxford University and the Delhi School of Economics. His first degree at Oxford was in Classics (Latin & Greek, ancient history, literature & philosophy), giving him an enduring interest in a long view of human history, especially through friendship with the eminent classicists Eric Dodds and George Forrest. After a year’s diploma in social anthropology, he went to Delhi University and did an M.Phil in sociology under the guidance of several eminent social scientists, including J.P.S.Uberoi, Veena Das, Andre Beteille, and A.M.Shah – a privileged initiation into Indian society.

While doing his doctorate in social anthropology, he continued to be affiliated at the Delhi School of Economics, and has lived half in India ever since. His first book, originally ‘The Sacrifice of Human Being: British Rule and the Konds of Orissa‘ (Oxford University Press, Delhi 1995) was based on his PhD, and initiated an approach of ‘reverse anthropology’, analysing the British invasion of tribal areas from the viewpoint of tribal villagers he met during the 1980s and 1990s, asking: who were the British who came to India? How did they behave? Who were the missionaries? What are the underlying beliefs and values that pervade colonial anthropology?

Within Britain Felix moved in 1992 from London/Oxford to Southwest Wales, for the sense of community-in-nature there, that led him to become a member of Plaid Cymru. In 1998, he went to stay in Banares to learn Dhrupad from vocalist Ritwik Sanyal, and in 1999, he married a woman in West Orissa, which became another home.

From 2002-10, he worked on a new book with Oriya activist, writer and film-maker Samarendra Das: ‘Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel’ (Orient BlackSwan, 2010) – a book which was swiftly read and appreciated by many intellectuals, including several senior members of the Indian Government, and which has formed part of a profound opening in how many people view the adivasi and mining situations in India. At the same time, his first book was republished as ‘Sacrificing People: Invasions of a tribal landscape‘ (OBS 2010).

Felix is also a violinist, learning as a youth in London from Sheila Nelson and Emmanuel Hurwitz, and now playing many styles, with a passion for Bach. He takes inspiration from his great great grandfather Charles Darwin, for his holistic vision of man-in-nature.

If you wish to reserve a seat for yourself, please email John Rowley at: festival.of.nonviolence@gmail.com.
These seats will only have a Reserved notice on them, so first come, first served. Please allow 20 minutes for security checks on entrance to the House of Lords.

Gandhi in the Boer War

By George Paxton

Professor Anthony Parel in his Gandhi Foundation Annual Lecture 2011, Pax Gandhiana (which can be read by clicking the link at the end of this article), asks to what extent Gandhi’s nonviolence is compatible with the coercion which any state inevitably exercises. He claims that “coercion based on consent is compatible with Gandhian nonviolence”. But when coercion takes the form of physical violence, especially the extreme violence employed by armies, is that really compatible with Gandhian ethics?

Gandhi spoke and wrote a great deal as the approximately 100 volumes of his Collected Works illustrates. But he was no political philosopher, rather a man of action so his recorded words are strongly linked to the specific circumstances of the time and place they were uttered. It is relatively easy to find quotations which express contradictory positions.

Restricting ourselves to the issue of war, there were three occasions up to 1914 when Gandhi participated in war in some manner. The first was the Boer War (in 1899 and 1900), the second was a Zulu rebellion (1906), and the third was when he was in London in 1914. However in all three instances his participation amounted to raising ambulance units of Indians which I would see as very different from actual combat, although Gandhi did not personally make that distinction. The sole occasion when he did contribute to the armed forces was when in 1918 he tried to recruit Indians to fight on the British side. Without going into the reasons he gave for this, many of his friends and colleagues severely criticised him for this action which ran counter to his long standing advocacy of nonviolent action. Whatever the reasons in this instance (he gave several), the following decades saw him take an increasingly strong stance against war.

As Parel points out Gandhi spoke in favour of armed defence on occasion. But I believe that this can be explained by his recognition that most Indians (or people in general) were and are not pacifists like himself and therefore they have a right, or even sometimes a duty, to serve in the armed forces if their country is attacked or threatened. In his speech to the Second Round Table Conference in 1931, which Parel quotes from, he was representing Congress which in general held a much more conventional position than Gandhi himself. Military defence was however considered by Gandhi to be very much an inferior ethical position. He did not change his position of opposition to violence and war after the Second World War, he had for long held this position. Admittedly, confusion could arise because he held these two positions which many people would see as contradictory, i.e. absolute opposition to war as the ideal which he always advocated, and support for the right to have military defence for those less advanced in their understanding.

To illustrate Gandhi’s long held position on armed force here are some quotations:

Under Swaraj of my dream there is no necessity for arms at all.
Young India 17/11/1921

I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest causes.
Young India 11/12/1924

I do justify entire nonviolence, and consider it possible in relation between man and man and nations and nations; but it is not “a resignation from all real fighting against wickedness”. On the contrary, the nonviolence of my conception is a more active and more real fighting against wickedness than retaliation whose very nature is to increase wickedness.
Young India 8/10/1925

Referring to ambulance work in South Africa:

My repugnance to war was as strong then as it is today; and I could not then have, and would not have, shouldered a rifle.
Young India 5/11/1925

But the light within me is steady and clear. There is no escape for any of us save through Truth and nonviolence. I know that war is wrong, is an unmitigated evil. I know too that it has to go. I firmly believe that freedom won through bloodshed or fraud is no freedom. Would that all the acts alleged against me were found to be wholly indefensible rather than that by any act nonviolence was held to be compromised or that I was ever thought to be in favour of violence or untruth in any shape or form.
Young India 13/9/1928

I would not yield to anyone in my detestation of war.
Young India 7/2/1929

In Switzerland after the Round Table Conference:

Q. How could a disarmed neutral country allow other nations to be destroyed? But for our army which was waiting ready at our frontier during the last war we should have been ruined. A. At the risk of being considered a visionary or a fool I must answer this question in the only manner I know. It would be cowardly of a neutral country to allow an army to devastate a neighbouring country. But there are two ways in common between soldiers of war and soldiers of nonviolence, and if I had been a citizen of Switzerland and a President of the Federal State, what I would have done would be to refuse passage to the invading army by refusing all supplies. Secondly, by enacting a Thermopylae in Switzerland, you would have presented a living wall of men and women and children, and inviting the invaders to walk over your corpses.
Young India 31/12/1931

In the 1930s Gandhi advised several governments and their citizens to resist aggression by nonviolent means. This included Abyssinians, Czechoslovaks, Chinese, Jews in Germany, Poles, Norwegians, French, Britons, as well as Indians.

The following is typical:

I shall take up the Abyssinian question first. I can answer it only in terms of active, resistant nonviolence. Now nonviolence is the activist force on earth, and it is my conviction that it never fails. But if the Abyssinians had adopted the attitude of nonviolence of the strong, i.e. the nonviolence which breaks to pieces but never bends, Mussolini would have had no interest in Abyssinia. Thus if they had simply said: ‘You are welcome to reduce us to dust or ashes, but you will not find one Abyssinian ready to cooperate with you’, what could Mussolini have done? He did not want a desert. Mussolini wanted submission and not defiance, and if he had met with the quiet, dignified and nonviolent defiance that I have described, he would certainly have been obliged to retire. Of course it is open to anyone to say that human nature has not been known to rise to such heights. But if we have made unexpected progress in physical sciences, why may we do less in the science of the soul?

Harijan 14/5/1938

A different situation faced the Jews as they were not a country but a minority in Germany. Their plight produced one of Gandhi’s most powerful statements:

But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For, he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If ever there could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton destruction of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war.

… Can the Jews resist this organised and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless or forlorn? I submit that there is.

… If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German might, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this I should not wait for the Jews to join me in civil resistance, but would have confidence that in the end the rest were bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can.
 Harijan 26/11/1938

In 1940 Gandhi addressed the British:

I appeal for cessation of hostilities, not because you are too exhausted to fight but because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism. You will never kill it by its indifferent adoption. Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the Germans. The only difference is that perhaps yours are not as thorough as the Germans. If that be so, yours will soon acquire the same thoroughness as theirs, if not much greater. On no other condition can you win the war. In other words, you will have to be more ruthless than the Nazis. No cause, however just, can warrant the indiscriminate slaughter that is going on minute by minute. I suggest that a cause that demands the inhumanities that are being perpetrated today cannot be called just.
Harijan 6/7/1940

This was written as the Battle of Britain was about to commence yet how accurate the prediction of the war’s development proved to be. Of course what Gandhi advocated for other countries he advocated for the Indians although they had no government of their own:

I have written these lines for the European powers. But they are meant for ourselves. If my argument has gone home, is it not time for us to declare our changeless faith in nonviolence of the strong and say we do not seek to defend our liberty with the force of arms but we will defend it with the force of nonviolence?
Harijan 22/6/1940

The previous year after the war in Europe had begun he had written:

So far as I can read the [Congress] Working Committee’s mind after a fairly full discussion, the members think that Congressmen are unprepared for nonviolent defence against armed invasion. This is tragic. Surely the means adopted for driving an enemy from one’s house must, more or less, coincide with those to be adopted for keeping him out of the house. If anything, the latter process must be easier. The fact, however, is that our fight has not been one of nonviolent resistance of the strong. It has been one of passive resistance of the weak. … My position is, therefore, confined to myself alone. I have to find out whether I have any fellow-traveller along the lonely path. If I am in the minority of one, I must try to make converts. Whether one or many, I must declare my faith that it is better for India to discard violence altogether even for defending her borders. For India to enter into the race for armaments is to court suicide. With the loss of India to nonviolence the last hope of the world will be gone. I must live up to the creed I have professed for the last half a century, and hope to the last breath that India will make nonviolence her creed …
Harijan 14/10/1939

Nearly a year after WWII began Gandhi wrote:

The present war is the saturation point in violence. It spells to my mind also its doom. Daily I have testimony of the fact that Ahimsa was never before appreciated by mankind as it is today. All the testimony from the West that I continue to receive points in the same direction. The Congress has pledged itself to Ahimsa however limited. I invite the correspondent and doubters like him to shed their doubts and plunge confidently into the sacred sacrificial fire of Ahimsa.
Harijan 11/8/1940

A week later:

I believe all war to be wholly wrong.
Harijan 18/8/1940

He continued in this vein until he was arrested in August 1942 after the launch of the Quit India campaign and remained incarcerated until May 1944. After the war ended he wrote:

If the Government had not arrested me in 1942 I would have shown how to fight Japan by nonviolence.
Harijan 9/6/1946

A few months before his assassination this report appeared:

A friend had asked if the division of the army and the retention of British officers had Gandhiji’s approval. The friend should first ask whether Gandhiji approved of the army at all. As it was, the military expenditure in free India would probably be more, not less, than before. Gandhiji could never be a party to it. He viewed the military with apprehension. Could it be that India would also have to pass through the stage of military rule? For years they had said that they did not want any army. He stood by that statement even today, but the others did not.
Harijan 3/8/1947

At an interview at Scottish Church College:

One of the scientist members of the staff then asked Gandhiji what scientific men should do if they were now asked by the free Indian Government to engage in researches in furtherance of war and the atom bomb? Gandhiji promptly replied, “Scientists to be worth the name should resist such a State unto death”.
Harijan 24/8/1947

I suggest that we hear the true Gandhi in these quotations; certainly the Gandhi that I admire. How far India has travelled away from the path of Gandhi! Of course his message is for everyone irrespective of nationality.

Postscript

These quotations are taken from the two volume Nonviolence in Peace and War published by Navajivan Publishing House in Ahmedabad, the first volume published in 1942 and the second in 1949. Navajivan (‘new life’) Trust was founded by Gandhi in 1929 to spread his ideas. It is a pity that this particular title has long been out of print.

Pax Gandhiana: Is Gandhian Nonviolence Compatible with the Coercive State? By Professor Anthony Parel

George Paxton is a Trustee of The Gandhi Foundation, an author and Editor of the Gandhi Way

Gladson Dungdung

Gladson’s Burden

By Mallika Sarabhai

The Week, 20th April 2012

Gladson is an Adivasi living in the war-torn Jharkhand. When he was a year old, his family—farmers owning 20 acres of fertile land—became homeless. Their ancestral land disappeared when a dam was built on the Chinda river. As compensation, the family was paid∃11,000. When their neighbours and they protested they were sent to Hazaribagh Jail. Could a family of six ensure food, education, housing and health care for their entire life with ∃11,000? They headed for the forests. They bought a small piece of land, tilled it, collected forest produce and tried to make a go of it. There was no way of recovering the prosperity they had enjoyed, but with the additional income from their livestock, they got by.

Read the full article at:

http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?tabId=13&programId=1073755417&BV_ID=@@@&categoryId=-1073908161&contentId=11441975

by Arundhati Roy

Rockefeller to Mandela, Vedanta to Anna Hazare…. How long can the cardinals of corporate gospel buy up our protests?

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280234

‘Arundhati Roy’s latest essay, entitled “Capitalism’s Ghosts” published in Outlook Magazine last week, is a magisterial analysis of India’s status in the world today. Her forensic detail and verifiable conclusions demonstrate how the nexus of the Indian ‘Lords of Capital’ are raping her land of its resources, forcibly removing her indigenous communities from land they have sustained respectfully for centuries, influencing politicians and courts and, through corporate ‘philanthropy’, having a profound impact on the development of the arts, science and culture. It is essential reading.’
Dr Felix Padel, 26th April 2012

Gladson Dungdung

Who am I?

An emerging human rights organization of Jharkhand, the “Jharkhand Human Rights Movement” has released the first “Jharkhand Human Rights Report 2001-2011”, which was welcomed from all corners of the society. However, I was just checking to know the reason of absence of some Human Rights Activists in the report release ceremony held in Ranchi on March 10, 2012. While responding my queries, one of the noted Human Rights Activists of Jharkhand told me, “You have written a lot against us in the report”? I was stunned to hear such unexpected view, but repeatedly questioned him, “What do you mean by “us”? He responded me saying that he cannot tell me everything over the phone but he’ll talk to me later.

Indeed, he was quite upset and angry with me. He was upset with a chapter in the report entitled “Naxalism and Human Rights violation”. Perhaps, he associates himself with the Naxal Movement, which is, of course, not wrong. But often, I hear him justifying the killings by the Naxals. In the last year, when I had raised the questions against brutal killing of innocent people by the Naxals through the media, he had told me, “I don’t expect such things from you”. The relevant question here to be asked is should a Human Rights Activist be biased for anyone? How can a Human Rights Activist justify the killings? And can a human rights activist shield the perpetrators like the state does? Ironically, this activist used to hold a big position in the Indian based internationally known civil rights organization.

I recall that the same Human Rights Activist and his companions had clapped for me and my team, when the Jharkhand Human Rights Movement (JHRM) had intervened and exposed the rampant human rights violation committed by the security forces in the Saranda Forest last year. Consequently, the Security Forces were bound to vacate 25 villages and schools. In fact, I had become a champion of the civil rights for them that time. However, the Jharkhand Human Rights Report, which has created ripple impact in the state, made me villain in the eyes of those Human Rights Activists now. What a contradiction, paradox and tragedy!

Similarly, a few years back, when I came into the limelight through the Human Rights Activism, I was coined as an anti-national by the so-called patriots. A few youth had even ruthlessly questioned me whether I get money from Pakistan, Nepal or China for speaking against the Indian State? They had even attempted to coin me as a Maoists sympathizer and supporter. And when I intensified my interventions on the issues of gross human rights violation committed by the security forces in the name of cleansing the Maoists in the Red Corridor, some of them even told me that I’m an over ground Maoist and a Maoist Ideologue as well.

The story does not end here. The Law Enforcement Agencies have also been attempted to coin me as the working force of the Maoists. When I intervened on the issue of rampant human rights violation in Saranda Forest by the security forces, the Deputy Inspector General of Police (Kolhan) Naveen Kumar said that the Jharkhand Human Rights Movement is an outfit of the CPI-Maoist, has intention to derail the anti-naxal operations therefore, it is crying foul. The Jharkhand police also traced mobile record and other documents to prove our link with the CPI-Maoist but at the end they get nothing because the JHRM has nothing to do with the Naxals.

Similarly, in the last year, when I participated in a mass rally against police atrocities held at Khunti of Jharkhand, a police officer P.K. Mishra of Khunti police station had questioned me, “Why don’t you organize Rally against the Maoists, when they kill our police forces”? He had even threatened me to tear down and dry up if I don’t shut up my mouth on the issues of police atrocities. The worst thing is, I made a complaint to the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police of Khunti about the incident and asked them for action against the police officer, but nothing was done against him. However, I didn’t shut up my mouth in demand of justice for the victims of police atrocities but I’m under the attack from all corners.

Meanwhile, I had two rounds of discussion with Jairam Ramesh, the Union Minister of Rural Development on the issue of Saranda Development Plan. I was surprised to know about his reactions. He told me that I have been raising the issues of human rights violation committed by the security forces but what about the Maoists? He also told me that the CRPF Officers are quite unhappy with me as I have been filing cases against them. However, when I inform him about the preparation of the Jharkhand Human Rights Report, which would also highlight the human rights violation committed by the Naxals in Jharkhand, he was quite happy and had expressed his willingness to release the Report.

The most interesting thing is that everyone wants me to shoot others on behalf of them in the name of the human rights. It seems that the India’s Corporate Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s theory of either this side or that side, and there is no such middle in between, is internalized by them. However, the fundamental rights i.e. right to life, liberty, equality and dignity of individual guaranteed by the Indian Constitution has no place in this theory. According to a noted educationist of Jharkhand Dr. Rose Kerketta, the state is a killer instinct therefore; whoever comes to the power will continue the same practice, hence, we should not expect much from the state for protection of human rights.

Of course, there is no doubt in the fact of the state being the biggest violator of the human rights, consequently, the state sponsored human rights violation has been in the rapidly growth across the country. However, can we put aside the human rights violation committed by the non-state actors and the society? There are three major violators of the human rights i.e. the state, the non-state actors (Maoists, other Naxal and criminal groups) and the society as a whole. However, the state is constitutionally responsible for the protection of human rights and in fact the small forces emerge only whenever and wherever the state is fail in delivering justice.

But, these days, it has become a fashion for the so-called Human Rights Activists to cry foul on human rights violation committed by the security forces but they keep mum when the non-state actors do the same thing. Hence, it is obvious that they are also batting on behalf of the Naxals similar to the state, who bats for the corporate houses? These kinds of actions of the so-called Human Rights Activists will only add more problems in the civil rights movement and put questions in the credibility of the Activists’ voices and the person like me will also struggle for identity? Finally, I would always keep clarifying to everyone that, I neither stand with the state nor with the Naxals but I walk with the most marginalized people, whose human rights are being violated everyday by the either sides.

Gladson Dungdung is a Human Rights Activist and Writer from Jharkhand.

at St Ethelburga’s on 30th January 2012

By Mark Hoda, Chair & Trustee of The Gandhi Foundation

Mark Hoda addressing The Gandhi Foundation Multifaith Celebration 2012

It was really heartening to see such a large audience gather at St Ethelberga’s on a cold January evening. They heard  though provoking reflections on the environment and sustainability from a range of faith perspectives as well as on Gandhi’s influence on the green movement today, which continues to draw inspiration from his philosophy and satyagraha strategies.

Anglican Priest Father Ivor opened proceedings with a quote often attributed to Gandhi that “There is enough in the world for everyone’s need buy not anyone’s greed”. He also quoted from Tagore and the Upanishads before offering the Prayer of St Francis of Assisi, who he said had much in common with Gandhi.

Gandhi Foundation Trustee, Graham Davey, set out how the Quaker Testimonies of simplicity, truth, equality and peace relate to care for the environment by espousing the values of moderation, sustainability and non violence and concern for the depletion of non renewable resources. The Quaker Book of Discipline calls for us to rejoice in God’s world but to appreciate that we are not its owners but its custodians.

Gandhi Foundation and Environmental Law foundation founder, Martin Polden, offered observations on the teachings of Judaism. He quoted the Old Testament’s injunction to “Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and everything that moves on the Earth”. He said this should be read in conjunction  with chapter 2 verses 7-8, where Adam first appears, and is expressed to be ‘planted’ in the Garden of Eden, with a duty to ‘cultivate and keep it’, i.e. serve it and conserve it. Throughout the Torah, there is the injunction to take account of cultivation and obey good husbandry, said Polden.

He explained how Gandhi was influenced by the Jewish community in South Africa and how the 12^th century philosopher Maimonides influenced E.F. Schumacher’s ‘Guide for the Perplexed’. As a lawyer, Polden has worked with Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian environmentalists “on issues that concern the region and where each marks the other with respect and recognition of each as human beings, with the key of living together, as distinct from stereotypes”.

Martin Polden also said that our prayers with GF President Lord Attenborough, who is unwell. Trustee John Rowley also collected messages from the audience to send to him.

Reverend Nagase from the London Peace Pagoda, said that in Buddhism, there are two paths open to attain  Buddhahood; creating the  pure land, and to lead the people to the teachings of Buddhism. “When people become peaceful and affectionate, the land in which they live is also bound to become peaceful and affectionate in accordance…It may seem as if the path is separated into two: the land and the people, yet originally both are the realisations of a single truth”.

Reflecting on the Japanese earthquake and tsunami last year, Rev Nagase said “If the minds of the people are impure, their land is also impure, but  if their minds are pure, so is their land. There are not two lands, pure or impure, in themselves. The difference lies solely in the good or evil of people’s minds. It is the same with a Buddha and a common  mortal. While deluded, one is called a ‘common mortal’, but once  enlightened, is called a ‘Buddha’. Even a tarnished mirror will shine like a jewel if it is polished”.

Madhava Turumella from the Hindu Forum explained how he stayed at Gandhi’s Sevagram ashram after graduating from university. He said he found serenity there and appreciated the many faiths that influenced Gandhi. This religious pluralism in Turumella’s branch of Hinduism which believes in the universality of humanity and harmony with other belief systems. He echoed previous speakers when he said that the earth does not belong to anyone. He said all life is interconnected and we must not covet or steal its resources. He said that this is precisely what is happening today, however, and it is causing great damage to our world.

Gandhi Foundation Trustee, Omar Hayat, speaking about Islam, also echoed much of what previous speakers and highlighted the great commonality between faiths. Muslims are guided by the Koran and the teachings and conduct of the Prophet and Hayat gave examples of both to explain the faith’s environmental perspective. The Koran states that man is not at the centre of the world, but just one part of the environment. Islam emphasises the unity of creation and equality of all creation and the role of man as a trustee of the earth and its resources and calls for humility. The current environmental crisis reflects mankind’s spiritual crisis.

The teachings of the Prophet, emphasise that the earth must not be exploited or abused and flora, fauna and animals have equal rights to man as God’s dependants. Hayat concluded with a quote from Prophet Mohammed “Act in your life as though you are living forever and act for the Hereafter as if you are dying tomorrow”.

Green London Assembly Member, Darren Johnson, explained the impact that Gandhi has had on modern environmentalists. Johnson said Gandhi was one of the first public figures to warn of environmental damage, warning of the consequences of pollution of air water and grain, and he described him as “A patron saint of the green movement”.

He said that Gandhi’s contemporary influence was based on his emphasis on sustainability, social justice, democratic participation and non-violence.  Johnson felt that Gandhi would approve of modern London’s multi-ethnic society but not the massive gap between rich and poor. Gandhi would understand the reason behind the current Occupy movement in the capital.

Gandhi’s non-violent methods have inspired civil rights movements across the world and are fundamental to the green movement today. Johnson said that we have a long way to go to realise Gandhi’s vision but his philosophy is as relevant as ever.

John Dal Din, representing the Catholic faith, like Father Ivor, offered a Franciscan prayer – the Canticle of Creation. He talked of the deep links between St Francis and Gandhi.

Ajit Singh explained the influence of the Sikh faith on Gandhi. He posed the question what is the world and our place within it. Quoting Guru Nanak and Sikh morning prayers, he said that God creates and sustains the earth but mankind is responsible for it and all its life forms. All life is interconnected and any damage done to the earth is damage to me, said Singh.

David Fazey from Village Action India talked about a month-long Ekta Parishad (an indian grassroots movement) Satyagraha march in October in India in which 100,000 people will participate. It is inspired by Gandhi and is being staged to highlight the plight of Indian rural communities who are being denied rights to their land, water and forests. This march builds on the Janadesh march in 2007.

Fazey said that if the March is to be successful, it must be witnessed and he called on all those present to raise awareness of the event. A leaflet on the march was circulated and further details are available at www.marchforjustice2012.org

There were further impromptu contributions at the end of the event; Margaret Waterward highlighted a march of 450 slum children dressed in Khadi in Kolkata the previous day, calling for education and a future free of poverty; a from a representative of the Jain faith, Sagar Sumaria, highlighting the environmental damage created by our demand for consumer electronics, such as mobile phones. A peace petition was also circulated on behalf of Newham Mosque.

Mark Hoda concluded the event by thanking Omar Hayat and GF Friend Jane Sill for all their help in organising this year’s Multifaith Celebration.

Speech given by Martin Polden at the Multifaith Celebration 2012

Speech given by Madhava Turumella at the Multifaith Celebration 2012

Speech given by Omar Hayat at the Multifaith Celebration 2012

Beirut -The International Executive Committee of the Global March to Jerusalem announces the completion of the preparations for the Second International Conference where the representatives of the International Committees involved in the organization of the Global March to Jerusalem will meet. The conference will be held in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday 17th-18th January 2012.

This meeting will be held to implement the decisions of the previous meeting, held in Amman last month, in which there was a consensus to form an International Central Committee representing all regions of the world and an International Advisory Board of eminent international figures for the march. The date for the onset of the March was agreed to be on the 30th of March, 2012, which marks the 36th anniversary of Palestinian Land Day, when peaceful protest against massive expropriation of Palestinian land was brutally met with deadly force by Zionist troops. About 40 delegates representing the International Committees throughout the seven continents of the world will be attending the meeting in Beirut.

The conference will adopt a structural process for the March, and its committee structure will be filled with appointees. The general policies for the international actions will be mandated in Beirut to ensure their success. The conference will also discuss the national events and actions that will be launched in all countries starting from mid January, 2012 and until the date of the march towards Jerusalem or the nearest possible point to it, from inside Palestine and the neighbouring Arab countries, as well as the convoys from Asia, Africa and Europe that will converge on the march date. In addition to that it will coordinate international activities that will coincide with the March in different countries.

The committee would like to confirm that the Global March to Jerusalem and all the accompanying local events and actions aim to shed light on the issue of Jerusalem (the City of Peace) as the key to peace and war in the region and the world. The racist Judaisation policies of the occupation and its ethnic cleansing practices against Jerusalem, its people and holy sites threaten this peace. Such practices are internationally recognized not only as crimes against Palestinians but as crimes against the whole of humanity.

The International Executive Committee also emphasized that through this peaceful march they envisage to mobilize Arab and Muslim nations alongside all freedom loving peoples of the world to put an end to Israeli violations of international law through its continuous occupation of Jerusalem and the rest of Palestinian Land. Israel’s persistence in continuing its racist and ethnic cleansing practices through the construction of the Apartheid wall, the expansion of settlements and the escalation of killing, destruction, displacement and Judaisation reveals the extent of its crime. This kind of behaviour demands an international rally to support the right of Palestinians to freedom, independence, self-determination and the right of return. This peaceful march is inspired by our belief and the belief of those who support our cause throughout the world that the massive participation of the people of the world is a practical, nonviolent way to achieve justice and preserve peace by ending the Israeli occupation in Palestine and its capital Jerusalem.

The International Executive Committee of the Global March to Jerusalem GMJ-ICC 
Jan. 10th 2012

For more information, please contact:
Zaher Birawi: +44 7850 896 057 OR Dr. Paul Larudee +1 510 224 3518.

by Diana Schumacher

E F Schumacher, the economist-philosopher, was born 100 years ago this year. The following article is edited from a longer paper written for the Schumacher Society in 2008.

Ernst Friedrich (Fritz) Schumacher was an unlikely pioneer of the Green Movement. He was born in Bonn in 1911, studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and returned to England before the Second World War to avoid living under Nazism. He died prematurely on a visit to Caux, Switzerland, in September 1977.

Although from a distinguished intellectual background, and having himself experienced a short but meteoric academic career in Germany, England and America, Schumacher always believed that “an ounce of practice is worth a tonne of theory”. Like Gandhi in both his outer and inner life he was a searcher of truth and dedicated to peace. Unlike so many of his contemporary academics, however, he needed to see these ideals translated into practical actions.

Fritz observed that throughout his own school and university careers he had given “maps of life and knowledge” on which “there was hardly a trace of many of the things I most cared about and that seemed to me of the greatest possible importance to the conduct of my life”. He saw the need to provide his colleagues and audiences with philosophical ‘maps’ and guidelines which related to actual reality. In the process, his life was one of constant questioning, including challenging most of the basic assumptions on which Western economic and academic theory have been based. What are the ‘laws’ that govern the ‘science’ of economics? What is the true value of money? What is the relationship between time and money? What is the real worth of work? And of development? These were the everyday questions which interested him as an economist.

In 1937, owing to Hitler’s frenzied ascendancy and his own feeling of the intellectual and political betrayal of Germany and its heritage by his nationalistic compatriots, he decided to abandon all social, family and business ties and to bring his young wife and son to London.

During the war, the family faced the hostility of being regarded as German aliens. They had to give up their home, and after being briefly interned, Fritz was hidden away with his family in Northamptonshire working as a farm labourer and was referred to by the very English name of James. At the same time (with the support of J M Keynes) he was seconded to do government research at the Oxford Institute of Statistics whilst at the same time working on his own ‘world improvement scheme’. Sometimes his ideas were appropriated by others, such as his contribution to the Beveridge Report in the early 1940s and to the Marshall Plan of 1947. Although he never received official recognition for his input to such prestigious schemes because of his German background, this did not disquiet him.

Although the expanding family was again domiciled in England from 1950 onwards, his quest for patterns of sustainability took him all over the world. He had experienced poverty, social injustice and alienation first hand, and felt that with his uniquely varied and practical background, he had something useful to contribute. As an economist he was derided by his peers for pointing out the fallacy of continuous growth in a finite world dependent on limited fossil fuel resources, but at the same time he became a champion of the poor, the marginalised and those who felt misgivings over the shallowness of contemporary values.

Philosophy and Religion

From his youth Fritz had always read prolifically. At one stage or another during his life, Fritz questioned all the main traditions, whether intellectual, national, economic or religious. As a young man he claimed to be a dedicated atheist, lecturing that religion and morality were mere products of history; they did not stand up to scientific examination and could be modified if regarded as inappropriate. Politically he was a person-loving socialist, the antithesis to Hitler’s fascism and an idealist with a restless mind. His values were very modern, based on the speed, measurement, efficiency and logic of the industrialised Western world which he inhabited. It was only later that he understood that such criteria were too inflexible, and totally incompatible with the more subtle ‘unconscious’ rhythms of the natural world. As a commuter from suburban Caterham (where he finally lived), to the National Coal Board headquarters in London’s Victoria (where he worked from 1950 to 1970), he used the train travelling time to study comparative religions and was greatly influenced by the French philosopher Fritjof Schuon’s The Transcendent Unity of Religions.

This ‘commuting’ period proved a most fruitful turning point in his inner life. He first studied notably those religions from the East, attending meetings and lectures on the spirituality of other faiths and began to practice meditation. Gradually he came to relinquish the atheism of his youth and to admit to the possibility of a ‘higher order of Being’. His changing economic and metaphysical views (which sometimes seemed contradictory) chronologically mirrored his own spiritual struggles and development.

There was, after all, a transcendent ‘vertical perspective’ to life: a hierarchy of orders from inanimate matter, through different levels of consciousness to a supreme consciousness or Being. After years of searching and inner struggles he had realised a way of bringing his lifelong paths of study and social concerns to a point of convergence and had reached his own spiritual homecoming. Finally, to the astonishment of Schumacher’s Marxist and Buddhist friends alike, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1971, six years before he died. It was a formal renouncement of his previously cherished views of the supremacy of the intellect and reason over the Christian virtues of compassion, forgiveness, unconditional love, the acknowledgment of a Divine Creator, and the integrity of all creation.

Buddhist Economics

In 1955, whilst working at the National Coal Board, Schumacher accepted a three-month assignment as Economic Development adviser to the Government of the Union of Burma, where he immediately attached himself to a Buddhist monastery. He soon concluded that the last thing the Burmese people needed was economic development along Western lines. They needed an economics suited to their own culture and lifestyle – a ‘middle way’ between the Western model which sought to increase material wants and consumption to be satisfied through mechanised production and the Buddhist model which was to satisfy basic human needs through dignified work which also purified one’s character and was a spiritual offering. The tools of economics therefore had to be adapted to people’s needs and values and not vice versa. Unsurprisingly, his report was not well received in official quarters, but the experience proved yet another turning in Fritz’s spiritual and intellectual development. He was later to coin the term ‘Buddhist Economics’ which, like Marxism, implies a complete rejection of the greed and materialism on which so much of modern economics is based and a respect for the value and dignity of meaningful work.

Sustainable Development

In tandem with his job at the Coal Board, Schumacher also undertook an intensive programme of international travel, initially to give substance to his proposals to save the collapsing British coal industry, and to encourage independence from the Western world’s industrial reliance on cheap oil imports from the Middle East. Alas – and to our cost today – he was successful in neither.

His aim was also to promote sustainable development strategies in the First and Third World alike. Food and fuel he saw as the two basic necessities for survival and sustainability. All communities and regions should strive to be self-sufficient in these as far as possible – otherwise they become economically and politically vulnerable. In this respect he was an early proponent of harnessing renewable energy in all its different forms and upgrading the existing traditional technologies.

Unfortunately Fritz was many years ahead of his time, and few took much notice. Putting his own self-sufficiency theories into practice, his was one of the first UK houses to have solar panels installed on its roof. He also personally became involved in sustainable agriculture; an enthusiasm which he claimed had its seeds in his work as a farm labourer. He spent much time on his organic garden, was President of the UK Soil Association, ardently supporting Richard St Barbe Baker and his Men of the Trees, and was an unflagging advocate of tree planting and forest farming schemes wherever he went.

India and Intermediate Technology

It was during an official visit to India in 1970 to advise the Indian Government on a Five Year Development Plan, that Fritz became deeply moved by the hopeless poverty and deprivation of countless thousands of people. He encountered a despair such as he had not met in other poor countries and realised that all the official government and other Western aid schemes proposed so far were completely inadequate. As a heartfelt response, in 1966 with a small group of committed colleagues including George McRobie from the National Coal Board, he founded the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), a London-based charity concerned with technology transfer. The aim was to give practical ‘tool aid’, skills and education to poor rural communities in developing countries rather than expensive highly mechanised equipment which was not appropriate to the understanding and needs of the illiterate majority and which put them out of work. What was needed was ‘production by the masses and not mass production’ using ‘technologies with a human face’. With Indian colleagues, he helped to set up in Lucknow the Appropriate Technology Development Association (ATDA), working very much along the same lines and supported financially by the UK India Development Group of which Fritz was Chair.

Schumacher also understood that Western aid to poor communities frequently simply served to increase their cultural and economic dependence, and to increase the gulf between rich and poor, educated and illiterate, young and old, even within their own societies. This still holds true. On the other hand, by respecting communities’ own indigenous and cultural traditions, providing them with skills and upgraded tools and recognising that each individual could play their part the communities would be enabled to achieve long term sustainability and security. This ‘middle way’ has gained increasing acceptance over the past forty years, particularly among the poor countries themselves. The ‘development’ charities which Fritz founded continue to flourish today, although ATDA has become the Schumacher Centre Delhi. The India Development Group became the Jeevika Trust; and the ITDG has been renamed Practical Action.

In 1950 Schumacher accepted the post of Economic Adviser to the National Coal Board, partly because of his socialist conviction that true economic sustainability would most readily come about through proper organisation and use of energy resources. He was also an early advocate of the principle of subsidiarity and realised that the workers themselves needed to operate within ‘human scale’ structures even within large organisations. The National Coal Board he hoped would be an excellent springboard for testing his ideas in practice.

Small is Beautiful

Despite growing recognition of Schumacher’s numerous projects, broadcasts, writings, and public lectures, the real breakthrough only came with the publication in 1973 of his first book Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. This was written in layman’s terms, since it was mainly based on previous lectures and articles, but somehow caught the spirit of the times. Small is Beautiful was not just about appropriate size. It articulated what millions of ‘little people’ worldwide subconsciously believed: that unlike any previous culture or civilisation, twentieth century Western society, whether agricultural or industrial, was living artificially off the Earth’s capital rather than off its income. Its lifeblood was the ever-increasing use of non-renewable resources primarily by the rich countries at the expense of the poor. The world could not continue sustainably on the increasing curve of production and consumption without material or moral restraint.

A Guide for the Perplexed followed in 1977; other publications such as Good Work and This I Believe were produced posthumously and were based on his earlier writings in different publications. Over thirty years after Schumacher’s death, the wisdom, warnings and predictions contained in these controversial writings, are seen to be more relevant than ever. Many organisations worldwide have since developed one or other aspect of his work. Nevertheless the trend towards gigantism, the vast growth of mega cities, mass unemployment, unsustainable patterns of energy use, rampaging environmental degradation and social violence demonstrate that none of Schumacher’s simple, human-scale solutions have been interpreted correctly by those in a position to change policies. There is now an even more urgent need to revisit some of these fundamental prerequisites for sustainability. These include, above all, the transcendence of moral values; the equality and dignity of all people; the integrity of human work as the resource base of any economy; the value of local communities; and the need for decentralised decision-making and regional self-sufficiency wherever practicable, particularly with respect to food and fuel.

There is always a great danger to freeze a human icon such as Schumacher in the situation of their time, and not to allow for the fact that their own ideas would be constantly changing and moving on with changed circumstances. The revolutions in information technology, virtual reality and genetic engineering would have occupied Schumacher’s attention insofar as they affect our overall human condition. It is now up to a new generation to arm itself with the necessary knowledge and moral courage to find its own solutions to the contemporary interrelated crises and to build peace with all levels of Creation.
As Fritz Schumacher said in Good Work:

“I certainly never feel discouraged. I can’t myself raise the winds which might blow us, or this ship, into a better world. But I can at least put up the sail, so that when the wind comes I can catch it.”

Diana Schumacher is a Patron of The Gandhi Foundation and active in the environmental field. She was a founder of the Schumacher Society and founded its Annual Schumacher Award. She also co-founded the Environmental Law Foundation.

Timeless Inspirator: Reliving Gandhi
Edited by Raghunath Mashelkar

Sakal Publications 2010 HB pp369 ISBN 978 93 80571 48 5

A recent book by Joseph Lelyveld Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India was seen by some tabloid newspapers as suggesting Gandhi had latent sexual feelings towards his close friend Hermann Kallenbach. The controversy was used by the BJP Gujarat chief minster, Narendra Modi, to try to ban the book nationally. The article, in The Nation, explores the motives behind Modi’s attempts and also critiques the book itself. Read the full article by Martha C. Nussbaum:

Gandhi and South Africa by Martha C. Nussbaum, published in The Nation

Joseph Lelyveld book caused a stir even in the popular press in the UK when it was published and was banned in the state of Gujarat in India. Among the reviews, one by well-known historian Professor Andrew Roberts expressed a very negative view of Gandhi. Antony Copley of the Gandhi Foundation, and a historian himself, responded:

Antony Copley’s response to Professor Andrew Robert’s review