Robert Gorter Hosts Ekta Parishad

MCC, Cologne, Germany, June 21 through 23

The first sentence of the Bill of Human Right reads:

“Each human being has the right to live in dignity”

In his medical facilities in Cologne in Germany, Robert Gorter, the director of Medical Center Cologne (MCC) hosted the annual international congress of the non-profit organization Ekta Parishad (“unity forum” in Hindi) which is a large Indian activist movement founded in 1991 by P.V. Rajagopa. Ekta Parishad is a federation of approximately 11,000 community-based organizations and has thousands of individual members. It is currently actively operating in 11 states. It has more than 250.000 members but it is estimated that directly or indirectly, 38.000.000 people are involved or affected by Ekta Parishad and their associated organizations.

The two main activities of Ekta Parishad are:

1) Dialoguing with the government at the state and national level and

2) Mobilizing the villagers for struggle at the grassroots level.

Yet both are very much interlinked: people are struggling at the bottom level and their struggle is supported by a formation of institutions and academics from around the world giving them the tools to fight for their rights (using democracy and non-violence) at the top level, through dialogue. Vice versa, there are supporters dialoguing at the top level to give space for political action and/or struggle at the bottom level.

On Saturday, June 21^st 2014, the annual meeting coincided with the 75^th birthday of Dr. Julius Reubke, who is very instrumental for all the activities of Ekta Parishad in Germany, and therefore, an extra lively birthday party was organized in Medical Center Cologne waiting area that lasted till 1.00 am next day.