The process of Vikalp Sangam seeks to politically empower the marginalized and vulnerable communities across the country so that these communities have ‘cohesive standpoints to speak at various governance levels’. The process also strongly ‘challenge the forces that have generated multiple current crises’.
By Salam Rajesh
At the close of last month, community representatives from across India and Nepal converged at Khamir in Bhuj city, close to the grasslands and white desert of Gujarat, for a four-day reflection on the critical issue of seeking transformative alternatives aligned to human needs and aspirations in the backdrop of nations’ aspirations for rapid strides in development without a considered view on the needs and aspirations of the marginalized communities in India and across the globe.
The convergence marked the tenth anniversary of Vikalp Sangam (Alternatives Confluence), an evolving process that was seeded way back in 2014 and emerging out of “a search for grounded alternatives to the current model of ‘development’ that is built on ecological destruction and rising inequalities”. The Vikalp Sangam involves in its core functioning over 80 movements and organizations rooted in India, with peers around the world.
The process of Vikalp Sangam seeks in giving political strength to marginalized and vulnerable communities across the country so that these communities have ‘cohesive standpoints to speak at various governance levels and strongly challenge the forces that have generated multiple current crises’.
Community leaders and representatives from the length and breadth of the country – Ladakh, Kashmir, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram – converged to dissect and deliberate on what is an “alternative” in the context of aligning various radical alternatives in responding to current political, economic, social, cultural and ecological crises.
The context ‘alternatives’ refers to ways of meeting human needs and aspirations without trashing the earth and without leaving half of humanity behind. In other words, this basically refers to the grassroots initiatives for achieving basic human needs, processes of direct political and economic democracy, struggles for justice and equality, policies, technologies and concepts that challenge structures of oppression, inequality and un-sustainability.
The world at large had seen myriad instances of struggles by marginalized and vulnerable communities across the globe, pitted against powerful entities with money and muscle power who simply bulldozes into people’s lives and properties without the least bother of how the displaced people would fend for themselves in the absence of land that they would call ‘home’ and stripped of all of their traditional rights and privileges.
The Sangam sought to celebrate and honor the history of alternative struggle movements and initiatives on the ground in India and elsewhere, with a clearer understanding on the pathways to transformative alternatives to development and sustainable livelihoods for the thousands of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) across the country, and elsewhere.
The Khamir Vikalp Sangam (21-25 November) focused on several themes critical to human needs and aspirations, including water, food and agriculture (pastoralism, fisheries, land-based livelihoods), energy (fuel, electricity), governance, civic spaces, biodiversity (biodiversity loss, rights of nature, commons, community-based conservation), health, education, social and communal harmony, and other cross-cutting agendas on class, gender, caste, disability, accessibility and inclusive living.
It may be recalled that the Vikalp Sangam has held around thirty Sangams to date, both thematic as well as regional. These gatherings have been regenerating spaces to discuss the diversity of alternatives that people on the ground are living and practicing. These spaces have enabled churning, collaboration, cross-sectoral learning and long term work among constituents of the Sangam process. Since a process oriented approach is crucial to its functioning, Vikalp Sangam members believe it is important to spend time critically evaluating the process, its objectives and its future plans, while also celebrating each other’s work.
This was exactly what the Khamir Sangam strove to achieve in a whirling four-days of intense discussion and interaction amongst its members representing diverse cultures, lifestyles and backgrounds ranging from pastoralists to forest dwellers, inland wetland and marine fishery communities, and grassland natives.
The core discussion focused on finding pathways to many of the common issues concerning water and food security, livelihoods, and the everyday struggle to fight back external pressures that undermine the rights and privileges of the Indigenous peoples and local communities, the adivasis and tribal communities, and the marginalized and vulnerable communities across the mountainscapes, deserts, grasslands, coastal areas, and river basins.
At the close of year 2022, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework came up with some resolutions that can be considered significant and a landmark for the IPLCs struggling for decades to assert their rights and privileges within their traditional territories.
Amongst the various targets set to achieve the mammoth task of regenerating 30 percent of the globe with lush greenery, Target 3 is better talked of for it specifically lays thrust on “recognizing and respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories” in all matters relating to conservation of natural landscapes and seascapes.
It is important to note that while Target 3 of the Global Biodiversity Framework envisages in achieving the ambitious goal of conserving 30 percent of the natural world by the year 2030 – hardly six years from now – including lands, waters and oceans, it is committed to doing so not only by ‘recognizing the contributions of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, but by actively seeking to recognize, respect, protect, and realize their rights’.
Similarly, Target 22 of the GBF seeks in ensuring ‘representation and participation in decision-making; access to justice and information; respecting rights over culture and over lands, territories and resources of indigenous peoples and local communities; respecting the same rights of women and girls, children, youth and people with disabilities, and ensuring the full protection of environmental human rights defenders’.
Target 23 of the GBF also lays particular thrust on ensuring gender equality, and gender responsive implementation of the whole Framework.
These discussions and deliberations at the global context is relevant to the grassroots locally when IPLCs face discrimination in their own territory, largely influenced by businesses seeking extraction of minerals, oil and other natural assets for their profits alone without the least consideration for the future of the to-be-displaced communities.
The recommendations outlined in the GBF, if implemented meaningfully in the coming years by the several nations, can lead to pathways where the State and the people can work collectively to address the myriad issues on biodiversity loss, species decline, livelihoods concerns as the result of changing climatic conditions and extreme weather events.
The pathways need to spell out ways and means where humans can live in harmony with nature in the best sense of the word. That was the core focus of the dialogues at Khamir for the tenth anniversary of Vikalp Sangam.
(Salam Rajesh is an Imphal based media professional, and currently works as an independent researcher and writer on socio-environmental issues. He coordinates campaigns and advocacy for indigenous peoples’ rights.)