Chukki Nanjundaswamy is Vice-president of the KRRS (Karnataka State Farmers’ Association), the biggest peasants movementi in India.
The KRRS was born in 1980 and today it includes around 10 million people. It deals with many different questions: the fight against “Green Revolution” (i.e. chemical- and capital-intensive agriculture) and biotechnology, as well as the opposition to trade liberalisation and multilateral institutions like IMF, WB, WTO and corporations.
Its work is aimed at social change at all levels: it has always denounced the caste system and also has other programmes aimed at challenging patriarchal structures.
KRRS is a Gandhian movement: the final objective of its work is the realisation of the ’Village Republic’, a form of social, political and economic organisation based on direct democracy, on economic and political autonomy and self-reliance and on the participation of all members of the community in decision-making about the common affaires that affect them.
