Ekta Parishad is a non-violent Gandhi-inspired social movement in India working on land and forest rights at a national level. It has been built up over the last twenty years growing from the local, to the state, to the national and increasingly, to the international level. The purpose of mobilizing an increasingly growing, very large group of poor people into a loosely structured, major grassroots movement, has been to put pressure directly on central and state government bodies in order to press for legal reforms and structural change.

The structural change that Ekta Parishad is calling for is a profound land reform to enable the marginalized and poorest segments of society to get out of poverty. Land reform – giving the poor access to land is a ‘game changer’ that could bring 40% of the populace out of absolute poverty and substantially reduce the violence that is increasingly threatening Indian society. Violence, that is fueled by naxalite, marxist groups who draw on the misery of people to exert control and to use aggressive means in confronting government, leading to police repression and a climate of fear and violence. Please visit www.ektaparishad.com for further information.

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