Thirty years of resistance

We are the rivers that refuse to be dammed.
We are the sea that refused to be mined.
We are the forests that will not be felled.
We are the land that will not be stolen nor destroyed.
We are the people, unyielding, unbeaten, undying.
For thirty years, we have walked together—across valleys and forests, deserts and hills, villages and slums— defying bulldozers, defending lands, breaking shackles, tearing through the walls of injustice.
Refusing to be divided in the name of caste, religion, gender, countering hate with love and compassion.
Today, as we gather in Hyderabad, we remember, we rage, we recommit.
We are the people’s movements, and we shall not be moved, but tread the path towards constitutional justice, with courage and commitment.

This poetic refrain was issued on 4th March 2025 by the National Alliance of People's Movements ¹ (NAPM), a coalition of organisations across India that have been resisting injustice of various kinds. On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, NAPM held a 4-day national convention titled ‘Defending Democracy: Constitutional Justice to Climate Justice’ in Hyderabad in southern India. About 800 people from over 25 of India’s states, cutting across a huge diversity of sectors and occupations, participated in dialogues, rallies, music, and solidarity actions.

It has been a long time since I have seen a gathering that is a near-perfect microcosm of the celebrated diversity of India - farmers, fishers, Adivasis (Indigenous or tribal peoples), Dalits (India’s so-called ‘outcastes’), LGBTQ+ and feminist activists, lawyers, students and academics, worker organisations and unions, artists of various genres (including several musical troupes from the host state, Telangana, and elsewhere), environmentalists, politicians, housing and land rights activists, and more.

Perhaps the only ones missing were senior political party functionaries and big corporate house honchos. Not surprising, for the constant refrain in the many speeches and group discussions was how the country was being taken for a ride—a violent, destructive ride—by those currently holding the reins of political and economic power.

The violence of ‘development’ and religious politics

The last few decades have seen enormous violence perpetrated in the name of ‘development,’ in India and across the world. Over 60 million people have been physically uprooted from their lands for mining, factories, tourist complexes, expressways, ports, protected areas, and so on; and more for defense projects especially in border areas. Many more have been dispossessed of their lands, waters, or other resources crucial for survival. Over 1.5 million people die every year due to air pollution ², and the majority of waterways (rivers, and lakes) are polluted well beyond human consumption standards.

All of this was exacerbated after 1991 ³ when the Indian government (then in the hands of the Congress Party) dramatically transformed the economy from being inward-looking and somewhat socialist to being integrated into the global economy and much more capitalist. Over the last decade, with the current right-wing party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in power, the neoliberal transformation of the economy has intensified, with far greater corporate influence over policy decisions and the solidification of crony capitalism.

But also over this decade, the social fabric of India has been increasingly torn apart. BJP and its able foot soldiers in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and related outfits have heightened ethnic conflicts by spreading misinformation and hatred, stoking passions amongst the Hindu majority against religious minorities. Virtually every day one hears of various forms of violence, with women and children being especially sensitive targets.

At the NAPM convention, community after community reported depressing news about land grabbing, forcible evictions, ethnic conflict, illnesses and malnutrition, public shaming, violence against women and sexual minorities, ecological devastation, and more. While very few people spoke about the violence against non-humans, this was a subtext in many presentations—after all, thousands of species are in threat of extinction. The fact that the Indian subcontinent still teems with wildlife is testimony to thousands of years of co-existence between humans and the rest of nature and some level of continued tolerance even when other species damage human property and lives.

But this will not last with the bulldozer of development running amok even in previously secure regions such as border areas or northeast India, the forests of central India and Nicobar Islands, the coral reefs of Lakshadweep and Andamans, and others. Participants spoke of how constitutional safeguards in ecologically and culturally sensitive areas were either being dismantled if they existed till now or being denied despite popular demand, such as in Ladakh.

To all this is added the climate crisis, which is already hitting the Indian subcontinent in devastating ways. With 2024 the hottest year on record so far, over 20 million people ⁴ faced extreme heat situations in summer in India; over 80% of its population lives in regions susceptible to climate impacts; over 30% of its agricultural productivity could be lost in the coming decades; glacier recession has affected hundreds of villages across the Himalayas; coastal and marine fishers face increasingly unpredictable seas; and so on.

The violence of development and ethnic conflicts builds on much older forms of discrimination and inequality, including those of gender and sexuality, caste, ethnicity, ability, and age. A range of measures emanating from the Constitution of India have helped create spaces for marginalized sections of society, but the structures of patriarchy and casteism remain influential and are unfortunately being given new power by the current political regime. Economic and financial inequality is now at historically unprecedented levels, with the richest 10% owning 77% of the national wealth ⁵.

As dangerous as all the above is the regressive tendency of the Indian state to squeeze democratic and civil society spaces. This is particularly so in recent times, but other than a small period in which various rights-based laws were promulgated in the early 2000s, no party in power has been consistent in expanding or even sustaining the spaces available in the Constitution of India. The BJP has taken this to new depths, arbitrarily using legal provisions to shut down or cripple organizations, detain individual activists or media persons with unfounded charges of terrorism or sedition, and in general create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that has forced a part of the civil society and much of the media to become quiet. It is not surprising that on the Global Human Freedom Index of 2024 ⁶, India ranked around 100 out of 163 countries.

India today stands on an ecological, social, and political powder keg. Can anything be done to prevent an all-out explosion and implosion?

Resistance and reconstruction

Nearly as frequent as the depressing reports of stress at the NAPM convention were accounts of people’s resistance. India has a rich and diverse tradition of ‘speaking truth to power,’ or what Gandhi called satyagraha. This includes Adivasi resistance to kings and rulers over several hundred years, peasant resistance to feudal landlords, the widespread movement against British colonialism in the 18th to 20th centuries, and post-Independence (1947) struggles against dams, mining, and deforestation. It also encompasses individuals and collectives standing up to patriarchal and caste violence over the last century or more, and youth voices for justice emerging from various corners. Whether explicitly or implicitly, almost running in the blood of today’s generations is the memory and learnings from these movements. And so, the attempt by today’s powerful political and economic classes to run roughshod over 1.4 billion people and their interests is being slowed down or stopped at thousands of sites of resistance.

NAPM owes its existence to such movements. The struggle against mega-dams on the Narmada River (with the Narmada Bachao Andolan as one of post-Independence India’s iconic movements), resistance to the dangerously communal (a term that in India implies religious divisiveness) politics of the BJP-RSS combine, farmers’ mobilisation against the draft General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), which threatened to ‘liberalise’ (a polite term for privatisation and corporatisation) agriculture and food, resistance against power sector privatisation symbolised by a proposed Enron Corporation project, and others were prominent in the Indian landscape in the 1980s. Gathered under the banner of Jan Vikas Andolan (People’s Development Movement) initially, these and other movements eventually coalesced into the NAPM in 1992.

Since then, it has engaged in a number of meaningful mobilisations, some successful and some not. Its primary role has been in generating national support for local struggles, such as, for instance, against forcible land acquisition for the Enron project in Maharashtra, the water-guzzling and polluting Coca-Cola plant in Kerala, Special Economic Zones (areas of industrial production for export, virtually exempt from environmental and labour laws) in several areas, elite townships on agricultural and forest land such as at Lavasa in Maharashtra, mining and industrial projects in Odisha, and many others. By no means were these all successful—in fact, perhaps more movements have failed in their immediate objective of stopping a destructive project than have succeeded—but each set the stage for greater public awareness and debate, inspiration to create other movements, and slow down the juggernaut of statist-corporate development.

Over these decades, NAPM has also mobilized or supported advocacy to stop perverse policies and laws and bring in progressive ones, such as those guaranteeing rights to information, employment, education, and rights of forest-dwellers. It has helped establish or strengthen parallel national forums, such as the Right to Food Campaign and the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information. Recognizing also that the struggle for justice cannot be confined to India’s borders, it has aligned with global movements in spaces like the World Social Forum.

The above is a tiny glimpse of NAPM, necessarily so for a platform that has been active and brought together so many diverse strands of India’s social landscape. Fortunately, its story is now consolidated in the form of a book, ‘NAPM@30 Safarnama: 30 Years of Defending Rights, Building Alternatives,’ released at the Hyderabad convention.

From strength to strength: visioning the future

NAPM has, from time to time, come together to reflect on its journey and plan new phases. Various innovations in mobilization have resulted, such as Desh Bachao Desh Banao Abhiyan (Save Nation Build Nation Campaign) and People’s Political Front in the early 2000s, Lok Shakti Abhiyan (People’s Power Campaign) in the 2010s, and Samvidhan Samman Yatra (Respect the Constitution Journey) in 2018.

Most important has been its ability to bring together movements and ideologies that have otherwise not necessarily seen eye to eye—Gandhian, Marxist, feminist, Dalit/Ambedkarite, environmentalist, and Adivasi. While, for instance, in some academic and activist circles Dalits and Gandhians have been mutually hostile, at the NAPM convention I noticed them engaging in dialogues and actions of mutual solidarity. Grounded resistance and alternative movements do not necessarily divide themselves according to these categories, and any platform that can bring them together to challenge the forces that threaten all of them has enormous significance.

Equally important is NAPM’s ability to demonstrate the power of what the political scientist Rajni Kothari called ‘non-party political process.’ While many social movements, including those of the conventional Left, have focused on ‘capturing the state’ through revolutionary political parties, in 2004 NAPM set up the People’s Political Front as a non-party forum. But it continued also mobilizing on electoral reforms, accountability of the state, and even in some cases enabling strategic alliances with opposition parties to challenge the communal politics of parties in power, or supporting individuals who stood for election.

Amid all these strengths, there are weaknesses or gaps that NAPM needs to reflect on. While NAPM has mobilized around the slogan ‘Sangharsh aur Nirman’ (Resistance and Construction), its focus on nirman has usually been submerged under the urgency and immediacy of sangharsh. This is understandable given the desperate situation India’s marginalized people and its environment are in. Resistance itself, of course, is a form of alternative when it tries to stop destruction. But people also need food, water, energy, housing, sanitation, a voice in decision-making, good health, meaningful education, and so on, and for this, the arena of constructive alternatives is crucial.

There are some glimpses of this in the work and statements of several new alliances that NAPM has created very recently, such as those on climate and ecological justice, feminism, river valleys, health rights, worker rights, and agrarian communities. Hopefully, these can engage in the systematic, widespread, and deep engagement in radical alternatives that is necessary and be able to bring together and build on what communities and collectives are already doing on the ground.

It is from a sense of this big gap in social movements that, a decade back, a platform called Vikalp Sangam (VS) was initiated. It has intended to document and help visualize radical alternative transformations across all sectors, interconnect them for collaboration and solidarity, collectively envision a more just India, and carry out advocacy for policy shifts that can enable further such transformation. Nearly 100 movements and organizations across India ⁷ are now involved with it. Greater collaboration of NAPM with forums like VS could be of great mutual benefit, since sangharsh and nirman need each other—resistance against a coal-fired power station, for instance, would be more powerful if it also built in articulation and practice of alternatives like decentralized, community-owned renewable energy.

In turn, as another instance, farmers practicing localized, organic methods with their seeds and knowledge, or communities protecting ecosystems and wildlife in what is called ‘community-conserved areas,’ would be stronger if they joined hands with movements that resist state and corporate pressures or perverse policies.

Perhaps most importantly, VS has also promoted a more radical sense of democracy than (or in addition to) trying to make the Indian state more accountable and responsive—what Gandhi called swaraj (self-rule)—with communities claiming decision-making power and autonomy on the ground through traditional or new grassroots democratic practices. One of the slogans of communities that are engaging in this is ‘Na Lok Sabha Na Rajya Sabha, Sabse Badi Gram Sabha’—the’ village assembly is higher than the parliament. This is a radical interpretation of the Constitution of India’s preamble in which ‘We the people … give to ourselves this Constitution’ and pledge to uphold justice, equality, liberty, and fraternity.

This slogan does get shouted at NAPM gatherings, but much of the focus is still on trying to make the state accountable, bring in progressive laws, and so on—all very important, but no substitute for community mobilization towards determining their own futures. The Western liberal model of democracy is failing ⁸ everywhere, which to my mind is inherent to its very conception. We have to support and promote more radical, people-led forms such as the ‘Hamare gaon mein ham hi sarkar’—in our village, we are the government—the practice of Mendha-Lekha village in Maharashtra, or the radical autonomy movements of Zapatista indigenous people in Mexico and the Kurdish freedom movement in Rojava, Syria. Linked to these, to also envision and promote governance and management at the level of biocultural regions ⁹ rather than rigid political boundaries that currently divide nature and cultures within India, and between it and other nations of South Asia.

New (or revived old) concepts and practices of democracy, conservation, and so on, also need much greater youth involvement. On the first day of the Hyderabad convention, nearly all the speakers (over 20 of them) were elders or middle-aged, almost none of them youth (though there was good gender balance). This was partly, but only partly, made up by the prominent role that youth played in anchoring working group meetings the next day or who are pegging some of the alliances mentioned above. The old style of giving prominent space to people in their 50s and above needs to be jettisoned in favor of a much greater age mix, bringing in a combination of experience, wisdom, intellectual and tactical innovation, passion, energy, and care.

The NAPM anchor team is well aware of these issues. But it takes time to change. It has to also contend with the challenge of sustaining a network of very diverse movements and people, with primarily voluntary energy, managing the inevitable ego and personality clashes amongst ‘leaders’ with their own claims to intellectual and activist territory, creating spaces for meaningful dialogue amongst communities and people from dozens of languages and cultures, and doing all this with no centralized (government, corporate, or foreign) source of funds. And the difficulties of trying to maintain democratic and relatively horizontal functioning while also having a core group of people holding the process.

These are huge challenges, but perhaps with more youthful participation and energy, the next 30 years will see it being able to meet them. India desperately needs such platforms—the simple truth is that if the historic medley of civilizations that today comprises what is called ‘India’ is to move towards greater justice for people and the rest of nature, it is people’s movements that will get us there.