India is clearly on a path of ecological suicide, increasing inequality, and conflicts. An urgent search for alternative pathways that can lead it to sustainability and equity is illuminated by myriad practices of communities and agencies around the country, based on which a framework of radical ecological democracy is emerging.
2. ‘Development’
• Development = opening up of
opportunities: intellectual,
cultural, material, social
vs
• ‘Development’ = material
growth (through industrial and
financial expansion)
– measured in % economic
growth, per capita income,
etc
3. Development = economic
growth at all costs
•Industrialisation & infrastructure, esp. large-scale
•Green Revolution: heavy inputs (chemicals,
irrigation, hybrids), commercialisation, monocultures
•Urbanisation: focus on cities, away from villages
•Consumption = consumerism (demand-led economy)
6. Destruction of India’s environment
–
–
–
–
>5.5 million ha. forest diverted in last 60 years
70% waterbodies polluted or drained out
40% mangroves destroyed
Some of the world’s most polluted cities and
coasts
– Nearly 10% wildlife threatened with extinction
Smitu Kothari
7. India’s ‘development’ refugees
• Over 60 million displaced in last 50
years
• Many millions more dispossessed
of land, water, natural resources,
livelihoods
• Impoverishment of small farmers:
250,000 suicides (many in Punjab!)
9. Impacts: growing inequality,
leaving half our population behind
• Myth of growing employment:
‘jobless growth’ in organised
sector:
– 26.7 million in 1991
– 30 million in 2012
• Wealth inequities:
– top 10% own 53% wealth
– bottom 10% own 0.2%
• % below poverty line: 38 to 70%
• World’s largest number of
malnourished and undernourished
women/children
10.
11. India the new Coloniser
(joining China, Japan…)
Over half a million hectares in Africa taken
over by Indian companies to grow crops for
export to Europe etc
More coming up in L. America
Direct/indirect support by government
12. 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’
15. Deccan Development Society (AP):
integrating conservation, equity, &
livelihoods through sustainable agriculture
•Reviving traditional diversity, promoting cultivated and wild foods
•Creating community grain banks
•Empowering women/dalit farmers, securing land rights
•Creating consumer-producer links (Zaheerabad org. food restaurant)
•Linking to Public Distribution System
16. An individual revolutionary…
Natwar Sarangi
Narishu vill, Cuttack dist, Odisha
Growing 360 varieties of rice
Seed albums and banks
GenX: Jubraj Swain
17. Can India feed itself?
•Organic farming can be highly productive
•Integrated food systems (crop-livestock-fish)
•Rescuing land from non-food cash crops
•Encouraging diversity of food habits, farmerconsumer links
22. GLIMPSES OF COMMUNITY CONSERVED
AREAS IN INDIA
(from: Draft Directory of CCAs , Kalpavriksh )
Changpas
Bishnois
Gaddis
Van Panchayats
Pipens
Arvari
Grassland Sansad
management
Sacred
mangroves
Turtle
conservation
Sacred
groves
Sacred
groves
Turtle
conservation
Yuksam
Peoples
Protected JFM
Areas
Community
Forestry
Heronries
Traditional
tanks
Note: list and related publications available
with Kalpavriksh
www.kalpavriksh.org
Tragopan , and
Golden langur
protection
23. Towards tribal self-rule, with conservation:
Mendha-Lekha (Maharashtra)
All decisions in gram
sabha (village assembly);
no activity even by
government officials
without sabha consent
Informed decisions
through monitoring, and
regular study circles
(abhyas gat)
24. Conservation of 1800 ha forests, now with full rights
under Forest Rights Act
Earnings from sustainable NTPF use (over Rs. 1
crore in 2011-12), and use of govt schemes
towards:
•Full employment
•Biogas for 80% households
•Computer training centre
•Training as barefoot engineers
2013: all agricultural land donated to
village, collective ownership
Vivek Gour-Broome
25. Community Forest Rights (FRA)
Several hundred claims accepted in
Maharashtra (>7 lakh acres), Odisha
(>70,000 acres) & Andhra
126,998 acres in Baiga &
other areas, MP
Assertion of CFRs against industrial projects (e.g.
POSCO), mining (e.g. Vedanta), logging (e.g.
Baigachak), plantations (Odisha), enclosures
(Kachchh)
33. Towards sustainable cities
Bhuj (Kachchh):
•reviving watersheds, decentralized water storage and management
•solid waste management and sanitation
•livelihoods for poor women
•dignified housing for poor
•Information-based empowerment under 74th Amendment
(Hunnarshala, Sahjeevan, Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, ACT, Setu)
35. Towards sustainable cities…
Decentralised water harvesting, Chennai
Participatory budgeting, Bengaluru/Pune
But a lot more to be done…. public transport,
energy, urban agriculture, zero-waste
colonies, ecofriendly architecture
(learn from UK transition towns, Cuba urban farming….)
36. Alternative learning / education
Traditional and modern, oral and written, local and global
•Pachashala, AP
•Jeevanshala, Narmada
•Prakruthi Badi, AP
•Adivasi Academy, Guj
•Beeja Vidyapeeth, Uttarakhand
•Bhoomi College, Karnataka
38. The government responds…
• New laws:
– Right to Information Act
– National Employment Guarantee
Act
– Scheduled Tribes and Other
Forest Dwellers (Recognition of
Forest Rights) Act 2006
• New programmes:
– Organic farming policies /
programmes in 16 states: Sikkim
100% by 2015, Kerala by 2020?
40. Radical ecological democracy
(RED) or
Ecological Swaraj
• achieving human well-being, through
pathways that:
– empower all citizens to participate in
decision-making
– ensure equitable distribution of wealth
– respect the limits of the earth and the rights
of nature
41. Fundamental values &
principles of RED
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Diversity and pluralism (of ideas, knowledge, ecologies,
economies, polities, cultures…)
Self-reliance for basics
Cooperation, collectivity, and ‘commons’
Rights with responsibilities/duties (sense of ownership)
Dignity of labour
Respect to subsistence
Qualitative pursuit of happiness
Equity / equality (gender, caste, class, ethnic)
Simplicity
Decision-making access to all
Respect for all life forms
Biophysical sustainability
42. Radical Ecological Democracy:
A NEW POLITICS and ECONOMICS
Localisation of decision-making, meeting basic needs
Embedded within larger structures of decision-making and
economic relations that do not undermine the local
State’s role as guarantor of rights, welfare of underpriviliged;
accountability through citizens’ charters, public hearings,
social audits, right to participation, right to recall …
Indicators of ‘progress’ relate to well-being: clean water,
nutritious food, secure housing, public transport, peace,
harmonious social relations, opportunities for intellectual and
spiritual learning …
43. Radical Ecological Democracy:
A JUST SOCIETY
Towards equity amongst
classes
castes
women and men
ethnic groups
abled and ‘disabled’
Towards rights-based approaches, infused with
responsibilities
44. Radical Ecological Democracy:
A NEW CULTURE OF KNOWLEDGE, AND
KNOWLEDGE OF CULTURE
Relinking with rest of nature: humans as part of nature, inherent
rights of nature
Mix of tradition and modernity … both critically examined
Learning through doing and experience, not only textbooks
Places of learning and education: mix of formal and informal,
‘barefoot’ teachers as important as PhDs!
Opportunities for spiritual / ethical growth (without falling into trap of
religious fundamentalism)
49. Pathways….creating space, buying time,
forging critical mass
• People’s resistance (Vedanta/POSCO, Orissa; anti-SEZ;
hundreds of others)
• Stretching limits of system (RTI, FRA)
• Citizens’ networking, joint actions, experimentation,
collective visioning
• Empowering political carriers …. movements,
students, unions, etc
• Alternatives confluences (vikalp sangam)
50. India is in a unique position to
evolve alternative models of wellbeing with sustainability & equity …
learning from / teaching other
countries and peoples
