Nonviolent Action and Struggles for Land in India and Brazil

I recently went to listen to a lecture titled "Nonviolent Action and Struggles for Land in India and Brazil". The talk was given by Dr. Schock who studies social movements that resist land alienation and promote the equitable distribution of land. Land alienation occurs when farmers are forced off of their land usually due to agricultural exports, dams, mining, and deforestation. Dr. Schock spoke about the ways people could react to being forced off of their land. The first was to adapt by moving to a more isolated area or the city. The second was to work for land reform through institutional politics. However, this is difficult because usually these reforms can be blocked by the ruling elite. The third was armed rebellion and the fourth was through nonviolent resistance. In his lecture he talked about the misconceptions associated with nonviolence. He argued that nonviolence should not be associated with passive resistance or inaction. He also explained that nonviolence does not only work if it converts the views of the opponents. The nonviolent protests do not have to persuade people of their view; they only have to compel the government to change their policy.

Dr. Schock discussed some of the nonviolent land reform movements in India and Brazil. In India, people pressure the government using large protests and civil disobedience, previously used by Henry David Thoreau. The Indian people participate in foot marches similar to Gandhi's salt march to pressure the government to change the land policies. They also threatened to sit in Parliament and fast for an indefinite time. These actions caused the government to create a new task force and national land reform committee to create a new national land policy. In Brazil, there is an unequal distribution of land where 50% of the land is owned by 4% of land owners. In 1964 a land statute was passed saying that private land not being productively used could be transferred to others for use. Thus the MST organizes nonviolent occupation of unused land with 30-300 families. They use strength in numbers to deter violence and using the 1964 land statute engage in legal battles to acquire the land. Both of these movements use Gandhi's ideas of nonviolence to evoke change in government land use policies.