Rajagopal on transformative nonviolence and four pillars, Lidköping: transcript

Key points

• Conflict resolution starts with dealing with conflict within oneself, and young people are trained gradually up to transformative nonviolence.
• Transformative nonviolence means seeking freedom for both sides without hating, as Gandhi did in his struggle with the British.
• Young people who have worked at community and national level now feel a responsibility to the planet, hence the planned walk from Delhi to Geneva.
• The movement rests on four pillars: power of the poor, power of the young, power of solidarity and power of nonviolence.
• Nonviolence training is held in places such as Geneva, Nicaragua and Colombia, and interest has grown over the last 20 years.
• He hopes the cooperation with partners in Europe will lead to greater possibilities for future generations.

Chapters

1. 0:00Conflict resolution and transformative nonviolence
2. 1:52From local action to a walk from Delhi to Geneva
3. 2:26The first pillar: power of the poor
4. 3:35The second pillar: power of the young
5. 4:18Solidarity and nonviolence as pillars
6. 5:07Nonviolence training and closing hopes

Full transcript

0:00Conflict resolution. From small conflict to big conflict. My conflict within, my conflict within I should be able to deal, first of all, so that I can also deal with the conflict of two people and in the community. So, one has to graduate to this process of conflict resolution. It doesn't come in one day. So young people are trained into slowly understanding the depth of non-violence to the last level. Last level is called transformative non-violence which takes a lot of time before people understand.

0:37Transformative non-violence is something which Gandhiji practiced, Mahatma Gandhi practiced because he said look i am fighting the british people because i want them to go but i don't hate them right i'm not hating them my fight is not based on any hate right i don't have to hate somebody when i when i fight so this idea of transformative non-violence like i want to be free from poverty but i want you to be free from your habit of accumulation see i i wish good for me i also wish good for you that is transformative transforming both i want freedom from poverty but i also want you to be free from your habit of your greed of accumulating What a good feeling. I want to be free from oppression. But I also want you to be free from your habit of oppressing others. It's freedom for both. And that freedom is what is called, freedom for both is called transformative nonviolence. Transform both without hating. So nonviolence has great, great potential to move from very small action to very large transformative action.

1:52So, young people are trained in that and through this training process, now, they organize not only a march of 50,000 people, but also now like Jill was telling you, they are wanting to walk from Delhi to Geneva. So, after doing your work at the community level, after taking up issues at your national level, now you feel responsible that you also have a responsibility to the planet as a whole. It is not just dealing with India and Indian problems, but I also want to work in order to solve the problems at the global level.

2:26And that is where an organization like ETA Europe comes in. We can't do it. We are Indians. We can do away with our problems in India, but then how do we deal with issues globally unless we have partners all over the world? That is why all our struggles... We are built on four pillars. We call it a social movement built on four pillars. The first pillar is called the power of the poor. Poor people at the bottom, if they don't stand up, if they don't want to change, nothing can change.

3:02And poor is redefined in a way that we are economically poor but socially, culturally, spiritually rich. The poverty is not all kinds of poverty. Economically poor doesn't mean crottily poor. They are socially, culturally, spiritually very rich but economically poor. Many people who are economically rich may be socially, culturally, spiritually poor. So poverty is not just for one group of people.

3:35Poverty is a larger issue. So when we fight poverty, we need to fight poverty at every level. Even among rich people there can be poverty. Our people want people that they need to stand up and say, we want to change ourselves. The second pillar is called power of the young, youth, young people and their potential. Because we believe that... Like. Wind energy, solar energy, youth energy. It is an energy available in the society and we need to invest in that. We need to invest time, energy, resources to motivate and take this energy out.

4:18And the third thing is called the power of solidarity. So this is what we are expressing here today when people from seven, eight countries come together and sit and discuss how can we organize such a large action from Delhi to Geneva. that is where we are trying to build solidarity because solidarity is very important in a globalizing world globalization of solidarity is also very very important and the fourth pillar is called the pillar of nonviolence the power of nonviolence so much of our actions are built on the power of the poor power of the young power of solidarity and power of nonviolence so that That is how Yakta Parishant was functioning in India and now we are slowly trying to see whether some of these philosophies can be applicable globally.

5:07And so we do organize some training programs in non-violence in some parts of the world. Sometime in Geneva, sometime in Nicaragua, sometime in Colombia. So slowly I find there is a huge take on it. There was a time, 20 years back, when we spoke about non-violence, people said, that's not such an important issue. But today, as I travel across the globe, in a non-violence focus, this has a huge take. People find it very interesting, the energy of young people, the energy of non-violence put together.

5:41If we can transform the world, there is a great possibility. That is what many feel. So I hope this coming together of us, BLLF and ECTA Europe, will lead us to greater possibilities in the coming years. Let us work together to make the world a better place for the coming generations. Thank you very much.

Source and licence

Recording: File:Rajagopal's speech, part 2, Lidköping, Sweden.webm by Yann Forget (2017-04-26), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY 3.0.

The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.