Ecoswaraj: Radical Ecological Democracy, Alternatives to Unsustainability and Inequality

Eco-swaraj: Radical Ecological Democracy

Alternatives to Unsustainability & Inequity

Ashish KothariKalpavriksh

Today’s plenary menu …

• Unappetiser: violence of development / growth• • Appetiser: alternatives at the grassroots

• Main dish: frameworks of transformation

• Coffee: some key questions to ponder over

• Desert: confluences

Dominant vision of ‘development’

Violence against nature, communities, and cultures … growth as cancer

Cartoon by Vikram Nayak

World’s majority turned into nowhere people….

Clash of civilisations …

From livelihoods as ways of life …

… to livelihoods as jobs, divorced from rest of life:

Violence against each of us: our identity, our health, our well-being!

Livelihoods to Deadlihoods

Illustrator unknown

1% richest own 50% wealth!!!!

Growing inequities, deprivation

More nails in ‘growth’s coffin?

Air pollution kills ½ million every year

India (& China, etc) on the path of ‘globalised development’?

Gandhi: ‘if India is to take Britain’s path of ‘development’, it will strip the world bare like

locusts’(completing a job started by industralised countries)

Are there alternatives?

Alternatives to what? Structural roots of unsustainability & inequity

Concentration of powerCapitalism State-dominated regimes Patriarchy Caste / race / ethnicity….

False or partial solutions: Technofixes, market solutions, green growth, REDD/REDD+, CDM, geoengineering … ‘sustainable development’

Towards transformative alternatives

Resistance …

… is part of the alternative

“Civil society responsible for 2-3% GDP loss” Ministry of Home Affairs

satyagraha

Assertion of self-determination & ancient ways

of life, recognition of the unrecognised

Dongria Kondh indigenous people vs. Vedanta corporation & Indian state

India: alternative initiatives for well-being

Water

CraftsShelter

Food

Energy

Governance

LivelihoodsConservation

Village revitalisation

Urban sustainability

Learning

Health

Producer companies

Inclusion

Sexuality

Gender

Alternatives across the world

Commons

Solidarity economy Degrowth

Buen vivir / sumaq kawsayUbuntu / ukama / unhu

Ecofeminism

Agroecology / permaculture Biocivilisation

Ecosocialism

ZapatistaKurdish Rojava Kyosei

Country

Food sovereignty: sustainable agriculture

• Reviving traditional agr diversity, community grain banks • Empowering women/dalit farmers, securing land rights• Creating consumer-producer links (Zaheerabad org. food restaurant) • Linking to Public Distribution System• Community media (films, radio)

Deccan Development Society (Andhra Pradesh)

Water security: do we need big dams and canals?

Arvari Sansad (Parliament), Rajasthan: water and food sovereignty through ecoregional governance

Natural resources: conservation & livelihoods

Self-rule & decentralised governance: Mendha-Lekha (Maharashtra)

Informed decisions through monitoring, and regular study circles (abhyas gat)

All decisions by consensus in gram sabha (village assembly)

Conservation of 1800 ha forests, now with full rights under Forest Rights Act

Vivek Gour-Broome

Earnings from sustainable forest use (over Rs. 20 million in last few years), and use of govt schemes towards: • Full employment, energy security, new

livelihoods (barefoot engineers, GIS mapping)

2013: all agricultural land donated to village, collective ownership

“Our government in Mumbai and Delhi, we are the government in our village”

Elsewhere in the world ….• Indigenous peoples’ assemblies • Zapatista self-governed region: people’s assemblies,

oversight councils, rotating ‘leadership’• Kurdish Rojava autonomous region• Latin American experiments: direct and delegated

democracy (e.g. Venezuela’s consejos comunales, neighbourhood assemblies “we don’t want to be government, we want to govern”)

• Australia east coast corridor, landscape-level governance

• and many more …

Indigenous peoples’ and community conserved areas (ICCAs)

Livelihood security

Dharani farmer producer company, Andhra Pradesh

(facilitated by Timbaktu Collective)

Maati Sangathan, UttarakhandWomen’s empowerment through local resource-based

livelihoods

Rural revitalisation: outmigration is not inevitable

Ralegan Siddhi & Hivare Bazaar (Maharashtra), Kuthambakkam (TN)

Kudumbashree (Kerala)

Right to a Sustainable City ‘’Homes in the City’, Bhuj (Kachchh, Gujarat)

•self-reliance in water (India’s lowest rainfall)•solid waste management and sanitation•re-commoning of spaces •livelihoods for the poor•self-built, dignified housing for poor

(Hunnarshala, Sahjeevan, Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, ACT, Setu)

Right to a Sustainable City (contd)

Bhuj (Kachchh) •information-based empowerment for decentralised governance (SETU Urban)•women’s networks for rights & participation (Sakhi Sangini)

Middle class actions …Lake revival / conservation, water harvesting, garbage management (Bengaluru, Salem)

Participatory budgeting (Bengaluru/Pune)‘Maptivism’ by Transparent ChennaireStore (non-profit store), Chennai

Elsewhere in the world ...• Factory take-over and democratic running by workers,

Argentina, Greece … • Land re-appropriation movement (MST), Brazil • Commons / solidarity initiatives, cooperatives (e.g.

Barcelona’s Cooperativa Integral)• Local /social currencies (Helsinki, Bristol, Barcelona?)• Cuba’s urban agriculture • Transition Towns, Europe

• and many more…

Knowledge, consciousness,

attitudes, worldviews …

Learning / education: re-locating it in community, ecological roots, creativity, inquisitiveness … •Adharshila, MP •Jeevanshala, Narmada•SECMOL, Ladakh •Imli-Mahua, Chhattisgarh•Marudam, Tamil Nadu •Adivasi Academy, Guj•Swaraj University, Rajasthan •Beeja Vidyapeeth, Uttarakhand•Bhoomi College, Karnataka

Skhole = leisure!

Intergenerational transmission of knowledge

•Surshala (music)•Karigarshala (construction)•Sagarshala (coastal communities)•Kala Vidyapeeth (crafts)•Parageohydrologists

Traditional & new skills for livelihoods

Technology by/for/with/of peopleTechnological innovations to reduce ecological impact, reach & be governed by the marginalised (malkha cotton weaving, AP; Hunnarshala housing, Kachchh; Solar passive architecture, Ladakh)

Alternative Media, Communications, ArtsFreedom from govt & corporate control:

•Community radio (>150); FM? •Mobile-based (CGNetSwara, Chhattisgarh)•Movement newsletters, folk theatre•Film/video (Video Volunteers)•Internet (Scroll, Wire, Infochange, India Together …)•‘Social’ networks … virtual communities

Pic: Puroshottam Thakur

Stories from elsewhere … • Cuba’s public R&D • Community control of health, e.g. Mission Barrio

Adentro, Venezuela • Zapatista autonomous schools, ‘university of life’

Can we discern elements of a holistic framework from these initiatives?

Ecological resilience & wisdom

Radical democracy

Economic democracy

Social justice & wellbeing

Culture & knowledge diversity

Towards a sustainable and equitable society 5 interconnected, integrated circles

Olympics 2016

Olympics 2050?

Eco-swaraj: Radical ecological democracy

(Radical = going to the roots, challenging the conventional)

• achieving human well-being, through: – empowering all citizens & communities to participate in

decision-making– ensuring socio-economic equity & justice – respecting the limits of the earth

Community (at various levels) as basic unit of organisation, not state or private corporation

Swaraj

• ‘Self-rule’ • Individual & community freedom & well-being,

with • Control over one’s desires/passions, to be

responsible towards others’ freedom*

• Others = other humans, species; the planet

• IMP: not the only Indian concept …

Worldviews from elsewhere … • Indigenous peoples’ territorial struggles and notions of

well-being– buen vivir: sumak kawsay (Andes), suma qamana (Bolivia),

kume mongen (Chile)– ubuntu (S. Africa), umuntu (Uganda), ukama (Zimbabwe),

eti uwem (W. Africa)

• Degrowth, Commons, Solidarity economy, Biocivilisation, Ecosocialism …

Recipe for transformational alternatives: Ingredient 1. A NEW POLITICS

Political Swaraj“Our government in Mumbai and Delhi, we are the government in our village”

A NEW POLITICS Direct democracy (local): decentralised and nested decision-making

Direct democracy (state/national): referendums & deliberative processes

Delegated/representative democracy, with mechanisms of accountability (right to recall, public audit, reporting back…)

Ecoregional planning across states and countries … political units aligned with ecological and cultural ones? Borderless world?

Conditions: Rights, Capacity, Forums, and Maturity

Ingredient 2. A NEW ECONOMICS

Earthshastra: Economics as if the earth (including people) mattered

A NEW ECONOMICS Mindful of ecological / planetary limits

Open localisation: self-sufficiency/sovereignty in basic needs, larger trade built on this

Production, consumption (prosumption) locally controlled; & sustainable consumption line?

Re-integrating work & leisure: livelihoods

Re-commoning private & state property

Demonetisation & decentralisation of currencies: Relations of caring/sharing, local exchange systems, restructuring the market (haat)

Ingredient 3. A JUST SOCIETY

When people go hungry & thirsty, it is not food & water but

justice that is in short supply

A JUST SOCIETY Towards equity amongst

classescastes (eradication of)gendersethnic groupsspecies‘able’ities

Towards universal rights-based approaches, infused with responsibilities … sarvodaya

Ingredient 4. WAYS OF

KNOWING & BEING

Diverse knowledges, diverse cultures

CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE

Respecting non-divisive diversity of languages, cuisines, knowledges

Democratic R&D / S&T / knowledge / innovation: in public domain, participatory, transparent

Media and arts commons

Opportunities for spiritual / ethical growth (without falling into trap of communal religious institutions)

Alternative globalisation• Global flow of ideas, cultures, materials (millennia old)

NOT• Globalisation dominated by:

–unrestricted financial and economic flows–imposition of one model of ‘development’ across the world

Ingredient 5.

RENEWED RELATIONSHIP WITH/IN NATURE

• Diversity and pluralism (of ideas, knowledge, ecologies, economies, ideologies, polities, cultures…)

• Self-reliance for basic needs (swavalamban)• Self-governance / autonomy (swashasan / swaraj)• Cooperation, collectivity, solidarity, commons• Rights with responsibilities of meaningful participation • Dignity & creativity of labour (shram) • Qualitative pursuit of happiness• Equity / justice / inclusion (sarvodaya)• Simplicity / sufficiency / enoughness (aparigraha)• Rights of nature / respect for all life forms • Non-violence, peace, harmony (ahimsa)• Subsidiarity & ecoregionalism

And the cooking medium? Values & principles of transformative alternatives ….

Issues for dialogue….Would there be a state? Its form and role?What would be the nature of global governance? (Not the UN!)

Would there be a private business sector? Profits, or revenues channelised back into social purposes?

Issues for dialogue….How do scattered, often small initiatives face larger forces: the micro-soft (caring, sharing, open) vs. the macro-hard (bills, gates…)

Who will catalyse the transformation: Mass movements? NGOs? Worker unions? Political parties?

How to rethink academics / ‘disciplines’, epistemologies? What is nature of individual freedoms within community living?

Vikalp Sangams (Alternatives Confluences): practical collaborations, democratic visioning of futures

Vikalp Sangams (regional)Andhra Pradesh, Oct 2014Tamil Nadu, Feb 2015Ladakh: July 2015Maharashtra, October 2015Kachchh, July 2016W. Himalaya, Aug 2016

(thematic)

Energy democracy: March 2016Food sovereignty : 2016 & 2017Youth: early 2017Learning and education: 2017Arts: 2017?

Visioning the future, grassroots-up

(www.alternativesindia.org)www.vikalpsangam.org

transformap.co wiki.p2pfoundation.net

A wild idea: how about a big GAFf?

Global Alternatives Forum

Ecoswaraj / Buen vivir / Degrowth etc: impossible utopias?

“Between these seemingly ‘impossible’ paths and the obviously insane one (of unending growth), we prefer the former”Churning the Earth, 2012

• chikikothari@gmail.com

For continuing the dialogue …