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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
