Land Forum India

[Nayra Waddles]

Theoriginal authors (the authors) weakly held the view that South Asia is the best region to attempt land redistribution today: South Asia exhibits a high degree of land inequality, a large (and in some areas politically influential) class of poor farmers, and a modest history of land reform.

The authors may not have realised just how tractable land redistribution in South Asia could be. Since Indian independence, there has been voluntary and state initiated/mediated land reforms in several South Asian states. The most notable and successful example of land reforms are in the Indian states of West Bengal and Kerala.

There are multiple communist parties in India however the largest is the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The Communists have been in Government in Kerala since 1957 have been routinely voted into power by championing the politics of radical land redistribution and rapid advances in literacy. Previously, West Bengal was ruled by a communist alliance for over three decades where land was distributed amongst 2.4 million landless and poor farmers.

As noted by the original authors, when redistribution has succeeded globally it has been accompanied by extensive agricultural support, such as rural infrastructure development, subsidies for fertilizers and high-yield seeds, agronomic training, and cheap credit. I am no expert and these facts are worth checking but have read that im Kerala, the Communists produced a 95 percent literacy rate, the highest in India, the highest HDI of any state in India (0.784), the second-smallest poverty rate in India (behind the small state of Goa), the highest life expectancy in India (77 years) and the second-most urbanized state in India (47.7%; behind Goa).

Radical land reforms in Kerala were first led under Kerala Land Reforms (Amendment) Act, 1969 which abolished the right to use farmland in exchange for rent. However, redistribution itself was slow and the Government by 1988 had distributed only 25000 hectares which accounted for 3.2% of the promised available land. There remains significant room for advocating further redistribution that could be explored by further investigation in detail for relative cost-effectiveness with other opportunities.

Of the 1.2 billion people worldwide living in dollar poverty, over 43 percent are found in South Asia. Of these, 970 million (72 percent) live in rural areas. Approximately 150 million households, with 751 million people, can be classed as agricultural.

A considerable number of small ruminants could also be affected by land reforms. The rice farming system is concentrated in Bangladesh and West Bengal, with smaller areas in Kerala. The rice farming system contains 50 million bovines, used for draft power, milk and manure.

Despite improvements in national food security over the last three decades, benefits have not yet reached the entire population of the region. The UN FAO estimates that 254 million people are still undernourished.

In 2019, a forum post on communism and socialism for Effective Altruists broadly concluded that there is good evidence against socialist ideas. The degree to which those concerns generalize and or could spill over here requires attention. The potential impacts of funding a communist organisation on regional and world politics should also be considered, with India neighboring communist China - a rival to the US, and the US has been good to effective altruism.

Conversely, between 1950 and 1980, under Mao's influence, China experiencing the most rapid sustained increase in life expectancy of any population in documented global history, attributable mainly to public health and education campaigns.

There are complicated spill overs from land reform initiatives in India in particular. Tribal people have lost their land through redistribution (including the aforementioned redistribution efforts led by other non-Maoist communists) to either to non-tribals or to the state-led development projects. Maoist insurgents in India have successfully mobilized people against acquisition of their land by non-tribals and the state and there seems to be a strong negative correlation between the successful implementation of land reform measures and Maoist activity. Hoever there is limited evidence and mixed reports about the guerrillas governance of captured territory on food security and redistribution to tribals. Armed conflict between the Indian state and Maoists since 1997 has seen an estimated 6000-8000 civilians killed.

I have no affiliation with Rethink Priorities. I have no affiliation with GiveWell other than as a donor. I have no political affiliation, but I was previously a member of a centre-right political party in a country that is not India. I have since renounced that membership.

Worth remembering there are also left-coded objections to distant Westerners meddling in countries they don't really understand. Though of course there are Indian EAs who could take this up, and while maybe they mostly don't understand life for Keralese peasants all that well either, given the likely demographic background of most EAs, the ship has definitely sailed on middle-class Indians meddling in the lives of peasants. On the other side, there's at least one semi-well known book from an author with fairly right-wing market-orientated views about what developed countries should do who thinks land redistribution is great: -review-how-asia-works

Although Native American Chicagoans play a central role in the social fabric of the city, relatively little attention has been directed to documenting the experiences of racial discrimination and inequities for Native American Chicagoans. In this report, we examine the state of racial justice for Native Americans in Chicago.

Our report is organized across five substantive areas, Population, Housing, (Mis)Representations of American Indians in Popular Culture, Education, Economics, and Justice, each focusing on a different aspect of racial equity.

The members of the Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative (CAICC) are dedicated to furthering diverse causes and the greater well-being of American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and First Nations people in the Chicago area. We seek to maximize effectiveness by creating a forum for fostering mutual aid, political support, positive public recognition, strategic alliances, collaborations, and partnerships.

CAICC convenes organizational leaders and members of the Chicago American Indian community for dialogue, advocacy, and planning with the goal of empowering CAICC to better address the issues and needs of the American Indian community.Land AcknowledgementChicago is the traditional homeland of the Council of the Three Fires: The Odawa, Ojibwe and Potawatomi Nations. Many other Tribes like the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac and Fox also called this area home. Located at the intersection of several great waterways, the land naturally became a site of travel and healing for many Tribes. American Indians continue to call this area home and now Chicago is home to the sixth-largest Urban American Indian community that still practices their heritage, traditions and care for the land and waterways.

Today, Chicago continues to be a place that calls many people from diverse backgrounds to live and gather here. Despite the many changes the city has experienced, our American Indian community sees the importance of the land and this place that has always been a city home to many diverse backgrounds and perspectives.CHICAGO HAS ALWAYS BEEN INDIAN COUNTRYfrom Dorene Wiese on Vimeo

Darren James is a member of the Cote First Nation. He is an award-winning director, writer, and the head of Stop the Bomb Productions. An independent Native American filmmaker, with a background in music, he brings original storytelling and powerful visual communication to the screen. His most recent film, Altruist, won the Best Windy City Short Film award at the Chicago International Arthouse Film Festival/Blow Up Film Fest.

Ashley Houghton is a printmaker and founder of Language Tools Residency through her press, Player 1 Press. Language Tools Residency is a space for artists, writers, and educators who speak endangered languages to publish language tools, games, books and reimagine/question how we learn languages.

Zo Harris is a Community Health Sciences PhD student at the UIC School of Public Health. She is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and has worked with her own tribal community as well as urban Native populations in Boston and Chicago on topics of education, health promotion, and language preservation, specifically among youth populations. Zo is also a Jamaican citizen and has family roots in Selma, Alabama. Therefore, she strives to educate people on the unique experiences of afro-indigenous people to shed light on the lateral oppression that exists in these communities. In addition to her work on indigenous wellness systems, she has also worked on projects related to suicide prevention, social determinants of health, and racism as a public health issue.

Filiberto Barajas-Lopez, Purpecha

Filiberto is an associate professor of Curriculum & Instruction and Learning Sciences & Human Development as well as the director of the Indigenous Education Initiative at the University of Washington

Nikki McDaid-Barry (Shoshone-Bannock Tribes)

Nikki is a PhD Candidate in the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, and will be an assistant professor of Environmental Justice Education at UCLA beginning Fall 2023.

Pamela Silas (Menominee, Oneida)

Pamala is an enrolled member of the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin and a descendant of the Oneida Tribe. She holds a BS, Economics, DePaul University and is a Certified Association Executive. Pam is currently the Associate Director for outreach and engagement at the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern University and Chair of Visionary Ventures NFP. Her former work as a national leader included Executive Director of the National American Indian Housing Council, Executive Director for Native American Journalist Association, CEO of American Indian Science and Engineering Society as well as volunteer leadership on numerous boards, councils and advisories spanning her long professional career. Since early adulthood, she and her family has been active in her tribal heritage as well as her intertribal community in Chicago. She is a grandmother, an auntie and continues to support a vision for a strong, healthy and thriving Chicago Native American community.

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