By Katsuhiro Asagiri
ROME / TOKYO, Nov 4 2025 – In the shadow of Rome’s Colosseum — once a monument to imperial violence — religious leaders from across the world gathered this week to deliver a message that felt both ancient and urgent: peace must once again become humanity’s sacred duty.

Colosseo Credit: Kevin Lin, INPS Japan

The occasion was “Dare Peace,” the International Meeting for Peace: Religions and Cultures in Dialogue, hosted by the Community of Sant’Egidio. For three days, priests, rabbis, imams, monks and scholars debated what it means to uphold faith in an era defined by fear, nationalism and war.

The meeting concluded Tuesday evening with Pope Leo XIV presiding over a ceremony that was equal parts prayer service and political statement.

“War is never holy,” the pope said. “Only peace is holy — because it is willed by God.”

 
A Call for Moral Courage

Speaking beneath the Arch of Constantine, Pope Leo urged governments and believers alike to resist what he called “the arrogance of power.”

“The world thirsts for peace,” he said. “We cannot allow people to grow accustomed to war as a normal part of human history. Enough — this is the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth.”

Hirotsugu Terasaki, vice president of Soka Gakkai with Pope Leo XIV. Credit: Vatican News

The crowd, several thousand strong, included representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. Among them was Hirotsugu Terasaki, vice president of Soka Gakkai, a Buddhist organization with a long record of peace advocacy.

They stood together in silence as candles were lit around the ancient amphitheater — small lights flickering against the stone, symbolic of a shared prayer for reconciliation.

Faith and Accountability

The pope’s speech drew a clear line between faith and political responsibility.

“Peace must be the priority of every policy,” he said. “God will hold accountable those who failed to seek peace — for every day, month and year of war.”

Those words, delivered as fighting continues in Ukraine and Gaza, carried a deliberate edge. The Vatican under Leo XIV has increasingly positioned itself as a moral counterweight to political paralysis on global crises — speaking of peace not as abstraction but as obligation.

Pope John Paul II Credit: Gregorini Demetrio, CC BY-SA 3.0

Lessons From Assisi

This year’s meeting marked nearly four decades since John Paul II convened the first interreligious gathering for peace in Assisi in 1986. Since then, the Sant’Egidio Community has maintained that dialogue among faiths can temper political divides.

“We have dared to speak of peace in a world that speaks the language of war,” said Marco Impagliazzo, the group’s president. “To close the paths of dialogue is madness. As Pope Francis said, the world suffocates without dialogue.”

Session on the Dignity of Life

Earlier Tuesday, Soka Gakkai delegation took part in Session 22 titled “Justice Does Not Kill: Abolishing the Death Penalty,” held at the Austrian Cultural Forum.

Professor Enza Pellecchia of the University of Pisa, representing Soka Gakkai, took the stage and spoke about the movement’s efforts to abolish the death penalty, referring to the words of its founder, President Daisaku Ikeda, from his dialogue with the British historian Dr. Arnold Toynbee.

“The sanctity of life cannot be judged by guilt or merit — all lives are equal. Therefore, no one has the right to take a life, even in the name of justice. Accepting the death penalty is a form of institutionalized violence that assigns different values to human life, and President Ikeda has described it as ‘a manifestation of the prevailing tendency in modern times to devalue life”.

Professor Enza Pellecchia of the University of Pisa, representing Soka Gakkai, delivering her speech during the Forum titled “Justice Does Not Kill: Abolishing the Death Penalty,” held at the Austrian Cultural Forum. Credit: Seikyo Shimbun

Professor Pellecchia said that President Ikeda’s humanistic philosophy deeply resonates with Pope Leo XIV’s recent statement that “one cannot claim to be pro-life while accepting the death penalty or any form of violence.” Both, she noted, confront the same moral error — the belief that some lives are expendable.

When Religion Refuses Silence

For decades, the Colosseum has hosted symbolic gatherings for peace. Yet this year’s ceremony, participants said, carried a sharper urgency. The wars in Europe and the Middle East, the displacement of millions, and rising authoritarianism have all given moral language new weight.

“Peace begins with the transformation of the human heart,” said Terasaki of SGI. “Interfaith cooperation is not symbolic — it’s a method for changing history.”

A Plea That Still Echoes

As night fell, the trumpeter Paolo Fresu performed a mournful solo. Children stepped forward to deliver a Peace Appeal to diplomats and officials — a reminder that the next generation will inherit the choices made now.

The pope’s final words were brief, almost whispered:

“God wants a world without war. He will free us from this evil.”

The candles continued to burn as the crowd dispersed — a fragile constellation of light against the ruins of Roman empire, and a quiet act of defiance in a world still learning to dare peace.

INPS Japan

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Temily Baker and Michel Katrib
BANGKOK Thailand, Nov 4 2025 – On a quiet July morning in Severo-Kurilsk, a coastal town in the East of the Russian Federation, the sea began to retreat unnaturally fast. Within minutes, tsunami sirens blared and 2,700 residents evacuated to higher ground. Waves up to five meters inundated the port and fish factory, but no lives were lost. The town’s survival reflected years of investment in early warning systems, community drills, and resilient infrastructure. The 2025 Kamchatka tsunami demonstrated what preparedness can achieve when science, governance, and community action align.

These efforts build on a broader regional commitment. The functioning Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWMS) and the Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (PTWS) have enabled real-time seismic and sea-level monitoring, coordinated drills, the expansion of tsunami service providers, and integration of tsunami preparedness into national disaster management frameworks across 46 ESCAP coastal countries.

As we mark World Tsunami Awareness Day under the theme “Be Tsunami Ready: Invest in Tsunami Preparedness”, this achievement reminds us that resilience is possible, but only with persistent and consistent investments and cooperation.

A shared oceanic challenge

Tsunamis remain one of the most devastating natural hazards, capable of wiping out entire communities in minutes. In the Indian Ocean, over 20 million people across 13 ESCAP member countries live in tsunami-exposed zones. In the Pacific, where 70 per cent of all recorded tsunamis have occurred, Small Island Developing States face existential risks even from moderate events.

However, tsunami risk is rarely isolated. It is compounded by coastal flooding, cyclones, landslides, and volcanic eruptions, risk now intensified by climate change. Rising sea levels reduce evacuation time and increase the reach of tsunami inundation. In the Pacific, a 50cm rise in sea level could expand tsunami flooding areas by up to 30 per cent, while in the Indian Ocean, urban centers such as Jakarta, Chennai and Colombo face cascading threats from cyclones, floods and tsunamis.

This interconnected hazard landscape demands integrated solutions. Tsunami preparedness must be embedded within broader multi-hazard frameworks, urban planning and climate adaptation strategies.

A regional effort and a new standard for measuring preparedness

Across both oceans, countries are conducting tsunami capacity assessments using a standardized, regionally endorsed methodology developed with UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and supported by the Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness.

Far more than technical exercises, they reflect two decades of progress since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami—highlighting remaining vulnerabilities and galvanizing political commitment. The push for a unified approach stems from the need to celebrate achievements, strengthen preparedness, and enable countries to evaluate their capacities across six key pillars: risk knowledge, monitoring and forecasting, warning dissemination, preparedness and response, governance and financing.

Figure 1: Map of Indian and Pacific Ocean tsunami warning systems, and country participation in the Tsunami Preparedness capacity assessments 2024-2025 (Source: ESCAP).

Bridging the gaps: Priorities for investment

Despite progress, the assessments revealed persistent gaps that must be addressed to ensure every community is tsunami ready:

1. Sustain national operations: Expand monitoring infrastructure in underserved coastal areas and ensure 24/7 operational readiness in all National Tsunami Warning Centres, through public financing and investments in human resources.

2. Strengthen risk knowledge and community awareness: Only 18 per cent of Indian Ocean countries and 31 per cent of Pacific countries, that completed the assessment, conduct hazard assessments at the community level. Public access to hazard maps, evacuation plans and culturally relevant education materials must be improved.

3. Enhance warning dissemination and communication: Whilst significant advances have been made on internet connectivity, multi-channel communication networks and infrastructure upgrades, only 32 per cent of countries in the Indian Ocean basin have robust warning dissemination infrastructure such as satellite phones and VSAT systems communication infrastructure to reach remote communities. The Pacific Ocean faces similar problems with reaching remote island communities where local communication infrastructure is limited.

4. Empower community-led preparedness initiatives: Invest in inclusive, locally driven tsunami preparedness efforts. Support communities to develop evacuation plans, conduct drills and integrate traditional knowledge with scientific risk assessments. The UNESCO-IOC Tsunami Ready Programme offers a valuable framework to build awareness, strengthen local leadership, and foster ownership of preparedness actions to ensure that early warnings translate into life-saving action.

5. Mobilize multi-hazard financing: Global, regional and national cooperation has proven essential to share resources, data, and knowledge for effective tsunami and multi-hazard preparedness. Yet only 32 per cent of countries have actionable plans based on tsunami risk assessments. Investment gaps should be filled to accelerate progress on community preparedness, through private sector engagement and integration of efforts with a multi-hazard approach.

The ocean connects us, but it also challenges us. Tsunamis cross borders, and so must our preparedness. The 2025 Kamchatka tsunami showed that lives are saved when communities are empowered, systems are in place, and warnings are heeded. Resilience is more than a goal, it is a choice we must make together.

Temily Baker is Programme Management Officer, Disaster Risk Reduction Section, ESCAP; Michel Katrib is Intern, Disaster Risk Reduction Section, ESCAP

SDGs: 11, 14, 17

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By External Source
Nov 4 2025 (IPS-Partners)

 
Dr. David Edwards is the General Secretary of Education International, the voice of teachers and other education employees around the world. Through its 386 member organizations, Education International represents over 32.5 million teachers and education support personnel in 178 countries.

Dr. Edwards has led the organization since 2018, after seven years as Deputy General Secretary directing education policy, advocacy, research and communications. Prior to joining Education International, Dr. Edwards was an Associate Director at the National Education Association of the United States. He has worked as an Education Specialist at the Organization of American States and began his career as a public high school teacher.

Education International leads the teachers’ constituency within Education Cannot Wait’s (ECW) governance and, accordingly, Dr. Edwards represents the constituency within the Fund’s High-Level Steering Group.

ECW: Education International is a founding member of ECW. Together with our strategic partners, ECW investments have reached more than 14 million children with the safety, hope and opportunity of a quality education. Why should donors prioritize funding for education through multilateral funds such as ECW?

Dr. Edwards: Multilateral funds are essential to ensuring coordinated and sustainable support for education in emergencies. Let’s remember that they emerged in response to duelling agencies which led to duplication and wasted partners’ time. By pooling resources and aligning efforts across contexts and organizations, they reduce duplication and enable efficient use of funds. For donors facing shrinking aid budgets, this should be a top priority.

Multilateral mechanisms not only ensure that support is not fragmented, they also ensure that it meets local needs. This is thanks to the fundamentally democratic nature of multilateral mechanisms: funds like ECW provide a platform for inclusive decision-making with representation of all stakeholders, from global institutions and national governments to the teaching profession and civil society. From our perspective, it is critical that teacher organizations can meaningfully shape priorities and interventions, including in crisis settings. It ensures that funding decisions reflect the lived realities of teachers on the ground. Democratic representation of teachers also strengthens accountability: transparent and inclusive governance structures make a real difference in monitoring and tracking progress, to ensure that support actually reaches education communities that are most affected. You want to know if a school was built, a resource delivered or impact felt? Ask a teacher.

ECW: We will need 44 million additional primary and secondary teachers worldwide by 2030. On the frontlines of humanitarian crises – where teachers work in dangerous conditions with low pay – the challenges are daunting. How can the global community help we fill this gap?

Dr. Edwards: Millions of the most vulnerable children in the world are being condemned to a life of hardship because they don’t have access to a teacher. Stella Oryang Aloyo, a South Sudanese refugee teacher working in a refugee settlement in Uganda, asked the fundamental question we must keep in mind: “What is education without teachers?”

Classrooms are important but they are not enough. Books are important but they are not enough. Teachers are the heart of any education system and, in crisis contexts, they are all the more important. For children in emergency settings, access to a qualified and well-supported teacher can make the difference between hope for a better future and lifelong destitution and deprivation.

To address this shortage, the global community must invest in teachers in crisis settings as a top priority. This means ensuring that enough teachers are trained, recruited, and paid sufficiently and regularly. This last point is essential. Over the past few years, Education International has consistently warned that delayed, partial or irregular salary payment is one of the most pressing challenges facing teachers in emergencies and we have started documenting this issue. In South Sudan, at the time of publication of our study released in April 2025, teachers on government payroll had not been paid in over a year. In Yemen, Nigeria and many other contexts affected by crises, teachers experience severe delays and issues with the disbursement of their salaries.

These issues stem from fragmented funding, weak payroll systems, but also a lack of prioritization: a study published by INEE in 2022 revealed that the payment of teacher salaries is by far the most challenging area for which to secure funding in education in emergencies.

The impact on the continuity of education is huge because teachers have to look for other sources of revenue to support their families or they leave the profession altogether. As a result, education is disrupted.

This is also a matter of professional dignity: if we all agree that education cannot wait, then we have to acknowledge that teachers cannot wait either, and must take action accordingly.

Governments hold the primary responsibility to support and remunerate their workforce but, when everything falls apart, it is our responsibility as a global community to step up and support teachers. This requires flexible, multi-year funding mechanisms. It also means integrating teacher compensation into both emergency response and long-term recovery plans. If we are serious about ending the global teacher shortage and achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4), we must start by ensuring that every teacher, especially in crisis settings, is paid fully, fairly and on time.

ECW: Teachers are essential in achieving the goal of ensuring quality education for all by 2030 (SDG4). In the face of fast-changing technologies, budget constraints and other converging challenges, how can education be better delivered with coordination, speed and agility on the frontlines of fast-evolving humanitarian crises?

Dr. Edwards: To deliver education effectively in humanitarian crises, we must empower teachers and trust them. Coordination among all humanitarian and development actors is key, and teachers, through their organizations, must have a seat at the table. This will ensure that teachers are part of integrated response plans, not an afterthought.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the whole world saw how teachers that had the tools, time, training and connectivity were able to adapt quickly and innovate to meet the needs of their students – regardless of the circumstances in which they were teaching. In the rush to deliver agile and cost-effective solutions, we must resist the temptation to prioritize technology over teachers. Speed and agility in education delivery must build upon teacher leadership at all levels, from engaging teacher organizations in designing responses, to trusting and empowering teachers to innovate as they deem appropriate for their students.

Digital technologies will never replace the human connection, contextual understanding and emotional support that teachers provide. This is particularly important in crisis settings, where children often face trauma, displacement and instability. A trained, caring teacher may be the only constant adult presence in children’s lives, offering not just education, but a sense of safety, psychosocial support and, most importantly, hope. I have seen teachers protect their students by creating human tunnels ushering them to safety. I have seen resource-strapped teachers give their own lunch to hungry students. And I have spoken with teachers who have had to throw themselves on top of students to protect them from a bomb blast. I am still waiting for an AI chatbot to outperform us in the area of caring and sacrifice.

ECW: Localization is a hallmark of the UN80 Initiative and Grand Bargain Agreements. How can ECW, Education International and other leading global organizations work together to tap the vast potential of local delivery models?

Dr. Edwards: From our perspective, localization is not just about shifting delivery, it is about shifting power. It begins with trust: global organizations must shift from directing to enabling local actors to lead response efforts. This means investing in local capacity by establishing and supporting mechanisms for social and policy dialogue that bring together education authorities and teacher unions. Such mechanisms ensure that education responses are not only contextually relevant, but also that those who are in charge of implementing them feel a sense of ownership and are fully on board. While funding must reach schools and students, it is equally important to invest in the institutional capacity of local actors to lead, coordinate and monitor implementation on the ground.

At Education International, we are committed to strengthening our members’ capacities, to ensure that teachers and their representatives participate actively and meaningfully in education policy development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. We have seen multiple micro-innovations blossom into full-scale programmes and badly designed programmes collapse by failing to recognize local realities that any teacher could spot. We systematically and purposefully build spaces for local expertise to be shared and strengthened. By working together in this direction, we can contribute to building education systems that are more resilient, sustainable and accountable.

ECW: We all know that ‘readers are leaders,’ and that reading skills are key to every child’s education. What are three books that have most influenced you personally and/or professionally?

Dr. Edwards: On a personal level, I think Herman Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund came at a seminal moment because of both where I read it and what I learned from it.

Being from a small, rural Midwest town in the US, the chance to study abroad in high school helped me develop an opportunities mindset. Studying in Austria meant immersion in German around the clock with peers who pressed me for my views on politics and philosophy in ways I was unaccustomed to in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. Reading Narcissus and Goldmund in the original German and then discussing it with a close friend who wanted to know which character I identified more with fundamentally rewired my understanding of what was possible. The book itself, set in medieval Europe, beautifully illustrates one of humanity’s most fundamental post-Enlightenment tensions and debate about whether we are led by our passions or our intellect. It is also a touchstone for me about my friendships and relationships, the beauty of diversity and friendships that don’t fit neatly into a world that demands we fit in boxes and take sides.

Professionally, I love the writing of Andy Hargreaves and also when he writes together with Dennis Shirley. I was going to suggest their Global Fourth Way but I think I will land on Andy’s latest book – The Making of an Educator – which tells the story that all educators can relate to those first few years, and the deafening volume of the educational politics around us. What I love about Andy, who is one of the most quoted and well-known educational leadership researchers in the world, is the accessibility of his writing and the humanity it exudes. When I read his books, I imagine myself hiking a trail with him while he spins a yarn into a narrative web that’s part Bryson, part Bunyan and always illuminating.

Lastly, and this is really hard, I think reading I, Rigoberta by Rigoberta Menchu inspired me to study in Guatemala and learn its history. The book is told through the eyes of a young girl who questions the injustice of the horror she and her community are being subjected to; a realized and learned sense of justice from a place of deep sadness that moves from bystander to agency, resilience and bravery. People like Rigoberta, Mandela and Pepe Mujica who suffer unimaginable injustice and still wage peace, these are the stories we need right now, more than ever.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By External Source
Nov 4 2025 (IPS-Partners)

From the 10th to the 21st of November 2025, the 30th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP30) will be hosted in Belém, Brazil.

The world gathers in the Amazon’s gateway city to chart a course for climate action.

This edition of COP is more than a summit. It is set in the heart of the Amazon, the “lungs of the Earth,” symbolising the link between forest protection and climate justice.

Here, nearly 198 countries under the UNFCCC will negotiate climate policy, financing, adaptation and mitigation.

At the center, the goal to limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels remains the guiding star of the Paris Agreement and the COP process.

Yet current commitments put us far from that trajectory. The upcoming global stocktake and new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) will be scrutinized here in Belém.

One of the defining agenda items is climate finance. At COP29, parties agreed to a US$300 billion per year target by 2035 for developing countries. But civil society and many Global South delegates call this “insufficient,” as the real need runs much higher.

For example, in 2022, developed nations pledged about US$116 billion – yet only USD 28 to 35 billion was delivered; nearly two-thirds of that came as loans, often on commercial terms.

Belém offers another unique spotlight: tropical forests and Indigenous rights. The Amazon Basin remains the epicenter of global forest loss. Brazil alone accounted for roughly half of all tropical forest degradation in the basin in recent assessments.

Indigenous leaders and civil society insist that the emerging “Loss & Damage” fund and climate finance models must recognize rights, agency and self-determination—not just top-down flows.

Innovation and technology transfer are also on the table: the UNFCCC has opened submissions for climate technology innovations that will be showcased at COP30.

And the Brazilian COP30 Presidency has launched more than 30 thematic days for inclusion and implementation – a shift toward action-oriented gatherings.

What does success look like in Belém?

Strong, visible commitments on new or enhanced NDCs aligned with the 1.5 °C goal. A credible roadmap from USD 300 billion to USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035 for climate finance.

Operationalization of the loss and damage fund with meaningful access for the most vulnerable. Forest finance instruments that reward conservation and respect Indigenous stewardship.

Belém is more than a meeting place. It is a moment of choice—for equity, ambition and the planet’s future.

When the delegates leave Belém, the proof will not be in the words. It will be in the changed pathways: more finance flowing, forests standing, and carbon dropping. The world will be watching.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Zofeen Ebrahim
BANGKOK, Nov 4 2025 – “If nations can have defense ministries, why not peace ministries?” asks Rajagopal PV, the soft-spoken yet formidable founder of Ekta Parishad. “We are told to see issues through a gender lens—why not a peace lens? Why can’t we imagine a business model rooted in non-violence or an education system that teaches peace?”

Founded in 1989, Ekta Parishad—literally Forum for Unity—is a vast people’s movement of more than 250,000 landless poor, now recognized as one of India’s largest and most disciplined grassroots forces for justice.

To Rajagopal, these aren’t utopian dreams—they’re blueprints for a possible world.

Over the decades, Ekta Parishad has secured land rights for nearly half a million families, trained over 10,000 grassroots leaders, protected forests and water bodies, and helped shape key land reform laws and policies in India.

All this has been achieved not through anger, but through disciplined, nonviolent marches that stretch across hundreds of kilometers. Along the way, many leaders have walked beside him—among them, the current Prime Minister of Armenia.

In an age marked by deep disorder—where wealth concentrates in few hands, poverty spreads, and the planet itself trembles under human greed—the 77-year-old Gandhian remains unshaken in his belief that peace alone can redeem humanity.

“We must rescue peace from the clutches of poverty and all its evils,” he told IPS on the sidelines of the International Civil Society Week, standing on the football ground of Bangkok’s Thammasat University.

“And it can be done,” he insists—and his life is proof. In 1969, the centenary year of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth, the Government of India launched a unique exhibition on wheels, a ten-coach train carrying Gandhi’s life and message across the nation. Rajagopal was part of the team that curated and travelled with it.

“For an entire year, we journeyed from state to state. Thousands of schoolchildren would gather at railway platforms, their faces lit with curiosity, waiting to meet Gandhi through our displays,” he recalls.

Yet somewhere along those long railway tracks, Rajagopal began to feel that displaying Gandhi’s ideals wasn’t enough. “The exhibition was beautiful,” he says, “but what was the use of preaching non-violence if we couldn’t live it, breathe it, and bring it to life?”

That realization led him to one of the most daring experiments in peacebuilding India had ever seen—negotiating with the feared bandits of the Chambal valley. “It was 1970,” he recalls. “We moved cautiously, first meeting villagers on the periphery to build trust. Once we had their confidence, we sent word to the dacoits: we wanted to talk. With the government’s consent, we ventured into what we called a ‘peace zone’—often by night, walking for hours through deep ravines—to meet men the world only knew as outlaws.”

The dialogues continued for four years. Eventually, as many as 570 bandits laid down their arms before a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi—a sight India had never seen before. The government, in turn, promised they would not face the death penalty and would receive land and livestock to rebuild their lives. Rehabilitation took another four painstaking years, but it was a victory of conscience over fear.

“They didn’t just surrender their weapons—they surrendered their anger,” Rajagopal says quietly. “There was real repentance, and that takes time—but it lasts.” His commitment came at a cost. At his ashram—a spiritual retreat he had founded—he was threatened, beaten, and ordered to abandon his peace efforts. He talked them through to accepting his presence.

“Today that same region is heaven,” he smiles, his eyes crinkling with memory. “Fifty years ago, people trembled at sunset—terrified of the bandits. Today, you can travel at 2:00 pm in the night, where fear ruled once.”

The mass surrender may have looked like a triumph for the state, but Rajagopal urges people to look deeper. “It’s the invisible violence—poverty, injustice, and oppression—that breeds the visible one: dacoities, kidnappings, and killings,” he explains.

Though Rajagopal and his companions had ended one form of violence, the deeper, quieter kind—born of poverty and neglect—still festered. Until that was confronted, he knew, peace would remain incomplete.

Years of working alongside the poor had taught him one truth: non-violence needs structure. If India’s Indigenous and landless communities were to be heard, they had to be organized.

“We began training young people from dozens of villages,” he says. “They went door to door, teaching others not only about their rights—especially the right to land—but also how to claim them peacefully.”

With that foundation, a five-year plan took shape. Each village home chose one member to take part. Every day, the family set aside one rupee and a fistful of rice—a humble but powerful act of commitment.

They even created a “playbook” of possible scenarios—how to stay calm under provocation, how to respond to setbacks, and how to practice non-violence in thought and action. “In one of our marches, a truck ran over three of our people, killing them,” he recalls softly. “There was grief, but no retaliation. Instead, they sat in silence and meditated. That was our true test.”

In 2006, 500 marchers walked 350 kilometers from Gwalior to Delhi, demanding land rights. Nothing changed. But they didn’t stop.

A year later, in 2007, 25,000 people—many barefoot—set out again on the national highway. “Imagine that sight,” Rajagopal says, eyes gleaming. “Twenty-five thousand people walking for a month, powered only by hope.”

The march displayed not just India’s poverty but also its power—the quiet power of the poor united. It was among the most disciplined mobilizations the country had ever seen. “There was one leader for every hundred people,” Rajagopal explains. “We walked by day and slept on the highway by night. Those in charge of cooking went ahead each morning so that by sundown, a single meal was ready for all.”

In a later march, Rajagopal recalls, the government sent a large police force. “I was worried,” he admits. “I called the authorities to tell them this was a non-violent protest—we didn’t need protection. The officer replied, ‘They’re not there for you; they’re here to learn how disciplined movements should be.’”

Along the route, villages greeted them like family—offering bags of rice, water, and prayers. “There was never a shortage of food,” Rajagopal smiles. “When your cause is just, the world feeds you.”

By the time the march reached Delhi, the government announced a new land reform policy and housing rights and agreed to enact the Forest Rights Act.

The government dispersed the marchers with hollow promises and the reforms never happened.

So Ekta Parishad planned an even larger march—a Jan Satyagraha of 100,000 people in 2012.

“Halfway through, the government came running.”

Rajagopal’s face lights up as he recalls the event. “They agreed to our ten-point agenda and signed it in front of the people. That moment was historic—governments almost never do that; the Indian government certainly never does it!”

The agreement included land and housing rights, a national task force on land reform, the prime minister’s oversight of policy implementation, and fast-track courts to resolve land disputes.

Today, because of these long, barefoot marches, more than three million Indigenous people in India now have legal rights to land and housing. The struggle also gave birth to India’s Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act—a landmark in people’s movements.

“The Act also safeguards fertile land,” Rajagopal explains. “Before the government can acquire any area, a social impact study must be done. And if farmland is taken, the owners receive four times its value in compensation.”

“The purpose of our marches,” Rajagopal says, “is not to fight the government, but to win it over. The government is not the enemy; injustice is. We must stand on the same side of the problem.”

For Rajagopal, peace is not a sentiment but a system—something that must be built, brick by brick, through dialogue and respect. “Non-violence,” he says, “isn’t passive. It’s active patience—listening, accepting differences, never policing thought.” The same principle, he believes, can heal families, neighborhoods, nations—and the world itself.

His next mission is to create a Youth Peace Force, ready to enter conflict zones and resolve disputes through dialogue. He has also launched the Peace Builders Forum, or Peace7, uniting seven countries—South Africa, Japan, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Canada, India, and Armenia. His dream is to expand it to Peace20, where, as he smiles, “wealth will never be a criterion for membership.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);