16 Social action movements Part II – some important social action movements

Ushvinder Kaur Popli

Content Outline:

Ø  Learning objectives

Ø  Some important Social Action Movements

Ø  The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)

Ø  The Gandhian Linkage to SEWA

Ø  SEWA Interventions And Institutions

Ø  Organizing Strategies offered to SEWA’s member

Ø  Governance OF SEWA Union

Ø  Election Process of SEWA

Ø  From Union to movement

Ø  Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA)

Ø  Conclusion

Learning Objectives

ü  To understand some important Social Action Movements

ü  To understand history and philosophy of SEWA

ü  T understand the working and membership of SEWA

ü  To understand the evolution of NBA

ü  To understand the workings and focus of National Alliance for people movement.

I.  THE SELF-EMPLOYED WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION (SEWA)

DAWN OF SEWA

In 1920, inspired by Gandhi, Ansooya-ben Sarabhai (the daughter of a textile mill owner) started a union of textile workers called Textile Labour Association in Ahmedabad City, western India. For the next 60 years, the textile industry- including the Textile Labour Association (TLA) and its institutional counterpart, Ahmedabad Mill Owners Association (AMA)- dominated the economic and political landscape of Ahmedabad. In 1955, a young woman lawyer named Ela Bhatt joined the TLA. In 1968, after working more than a decade on labour issues, she asked to head of the women’s wing of TLA to provide training and welfare to the wives of textile mill workers. But in 1971, a small group of migrant women cart pullers in the wholesale cloth market of Ahmedabad (India) approached the women’s wing to ask whether the TLA might be able to help them to find housing. Ela Bhatt accompanied the women to the wholesale cloth market where she met another group of women who were working as head loaders, carrying loads of cloth to the wholesale market. The head loaders described to Ela Bhatt their work, including their low and erratic wages etc.

Under the auspices of the women’s wing of the TLA, Ela Bhatt decided to organize a public meeting for the head loaders to discuss their problems. The women agreed to organize themselves into a group and each paid 25 paisa (quarter of a rupee) as a membership fee. Following the meeting, Ela Bhatt wrote an article for a local newspaper detailing the problems of the head loaders; the merchants claimed that they treated the head loaders fairly. The TLA Women’s Wing responded by reprinting the merchant’s claims of fair treatment on card that they distributed to the head loaders to use to hold the merchants accountable; thus turning the merchant’s rebuttal to the head loader’s advantage.

Word of the head loaders’ moral victory spread quickly. Soon, a group of used clothing dealers approached the women’s wing of the TLA with their complaints and again Ela

Bhatt called a public meeting to which 100 used garment dealers and other women came. During that meeting, a woman from the crowd suggested for a association of their own. Thus, on an appeal from the women and at the initiative of Ela Bhatt and the TLA Women’s Wing, the Self- Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) was born on 3 December 1971.

The women felt that as worker’s association, SEWA should establish itself as Trade Union, but the Labour Department refused to register SEWA because they felt that since there was no recognized employer. They argued that a Union was not necessarily against an employer, but was for the unity of the workers, finally SEWA was registered as a Trade Union in April 1972. By 1975, the membership in the SEWA Union had grown to 2750 women from 15 trade groups of which the largest was that of street vendors followed by head loaders, garment makers, used clothing dealers and bidi rollers. In 1975, SEWA also began organizing agricultural labourers in several villages of Ahmedabad District and later expanded its rural operations in the entire state of Gujarat. It was in the early 1980s, that SEWA began to significantly expand its operations outside Gujarat. By end of 2008, there were about 9, 66,139 SEWA members in all over India and 5, 19,309 in Gujarat alone.

Points to Remember

SEWA is a trade union registered in 1972.

It is an organisation of poor, self-employed women workers who do not obtain regular salaried employment with welfare benefits like workers in the organised sector.They are the unprotected labour force of our country which is more than 94% are in the unorganised sector.Its main goals are to organise women workers for full employment i.e. where workers obtain work security, income security, food security and social security. SEWA is both an organisation and a movement.

Today, SEWA has 700,000 members located in 7 states of India. In 14 districts of Gujarat alone, SEWA has reached out to around 5 lakh members in both, the rural and urban areas.

GANDHIAN LINKAGE TO SEWA

As its overarching goal, SEWA is committed to the pursuit of what Gandhi called India’s Second Freedom: that is, economic freedom or freedom from poverty and hunger. After the First Freedom- political freedom attained in 1947, the founding fathers of the modern India disregarded Gandhi’s notion that economic freedom should be based on agriculture and small-scale industry. But, 25 years later, Ela Bhatt adopted Gandhi’s notion of economic self-reliance as a base of SEWA’s work.

In SEWA’s interpretation of Gandhi, the two key components of economic freedom are Full Employment and Self-Reliance. SEWA provides employment at two levels, one at the household, other at individual level and that assures security of income, food and social security and self-reliance. In a holistic sense it refers to economic or financial self-sufficiency as well as to control and autonomy of workers. Moreover, SEWA believes that collective self-reliance is more important than individual self-reliance of its members.

SEWA has translated its Gandhian vision and values into concrete operational goals and strategies. It has done so through on-going consultations and deliberations with its women members and introduced integrated strategy of what it calls struggle and development: that is union-style collective bargaining and campaigns to raise awareness and demand for change; and development interventions to promote alternative economic opportunities and build assets. To promote this strategy, SEWA engages in ‘organization, capacity building, asset building and empowerment’. The key operational framework guiding SEWA’s work is what it calls the Eleven Points. Developed and distilled by SEWA organizers and members over the years, these Eleven Points are valued as ends in themselves as well as means to the overarching goals of Full Employment and Self – Reliance.

Points to Remember

SEWA believes in the Gandhian philosophy of Satya (truth), Ahimsa (non-violence), Sarvadharma (integration of all faiths, all religion) and Khadi (preparation of local employment and self-reliance).

SEWA INTERVENTIONS AND INSTITUTIONS

In pursuit of its twin goals, SEWA offers its members a range of organizing strategies and development services. First, as a trade union, SEWA offers all of its members some combination of the following tailored to their main occupation or trade: Organization: Into trade groups or cooperatives or producers groups

Local Leadership Development: Opportunities and training to become local leaders

Collective bargaining: Trade wise or Issue based

Policy advocacy: Trade wise or Issue based

Organizing is the central strategy of the SEWA and takes several forms. In addition to organizing its members by trade into its Union, SEWA helps its members to form cooperatives and other local associations. All members of SEWA belong to a relevant trade group and are voting members of the SEWA union; many also belong to one or more membership-based organizations – cooperatives, producer groups and saving and credit groups. All members of these primary organizations are represented through elected leaders in the governance structure of SEWA Union. Two type of these primary organizations- cooperative and rural groups/associations are also federated into separate state-wide organizations.

In addition, SEWA offers the following development services to all interested members on an on-going basis:

Financial service: Savings, loans and insurance

Social services: health, childcare, and education (adult literacy)

Infrastructure service: housing plus water, sanitation, electricity, and transport (in remote areas)

Capacity- building programmes: training and technical skills, leaderships, and other skills.

Also, for its members who are self- employed working either on their own or in groups-in handicraft production, agriculture production, animal husbandry, salt production and other productive activities- SEWA offers:

Enterprise development services: skills training and product development

Marketing services: local, state, national and export- marketing services.

While most of these services are offered on an on-going basis to as many members of SEWA as possible, some services are targeted to specific groups of SEWA members. For instance, SEWA joined a public-private partnership scheme to provide slum infrastructure services to some of its urban members in designated project slums; and SEWA has collaborated with government schemes to provide water resources to its rural members in designated project sites and to organize rural producers into local producer groups under a specific government schemes.

Over the years, to provide these various services and make these various interventions, SEWA has built sisterhood institutions, as follows:

1) SEWA Union (SwasshreeMahila SEWA Sangh):recruits and organizes SEWA’s urban and rural membership and organizes campaigns around issues of concern to its memberships

2) SEWA Bank (ShriMahila SEWA Sahakari Bank Ltd): provide financial services, including loans and savings.

3) SEWA Cooperative Federation (Gujarat Mahila Cooperative Federation): organizes SEWA’s memberships into several types of cooperatives and provide support services to these cooperatives.

4) SEWA District Associations: provide services to SEWA- organized village groups and link members to others units within SEWA for other services.

5) SEWA Marketing( GramMahilaHaat, Kutch Craft Association, and SEWA Trade Facilitation Centre): help cooperatives or associations of women producers to reach local, domestic or international markets.

6) SEWA Social Security: provide health and child care services and oversees SEWA Vimo

7) SEWA Vimo: provide insurance services

8) SEWA Housing (Gujarat Mahila Housing SEWA Trust): provide housing services

9) SEWA Academy: provides research, training and communication services.

The first four- the Union Bank, Cooperative Federation and District Association- are membership-based organizations, governed by elected representative of SEWA members.

Organizing Strategies offered to SEWA’s member

SEWA MEMBERSHIP

Any self-employed woman in India who is 15 years or older is eligible to become a member of SEWA. In SEWA’s use of term, ‘Self-employed’ refers to all economically active persons who are not in formal salaried jobs. The members of the SEWA are generally very poor. Available evidence suggests that half of SEWA’s urban members live in households where income per capita is below the US dollar-a-day poverty line.

AGENCY THROUGH ORGANIZATION

Organizing and capacity building provide the essential foundation of SEWA. Organised local groups and trained local leaders-for all that SEWA does. As its on-going strategy, SEWA recruits new members, organise them to local groups and convenes regular local groups meetings to identify needs as well as the strategies to address needs. In this process, local grass root leaders emerge. Some leaders are trained and deployed as member of spear- head team or as paraprofessionals to help carry out SEWA activities; while others are elected to serve as representatives of the general membership on the governing bodies of the Union Bank, Cooperative Federation, District Associations and other member based organizations of SEWA.

Governance Structure	Management Structure
SEWA Union	SEWA District Association
SEWA Cooperative Federation	Service Delivery
SEWA Gram Haat and TFC	Issue Campaign
SEWA Bank

SEWA’s step wise organizing process is summarised below:

Step 1: Recruiting and mobilizing members to build awareness and solidarity; to identify needs, constraints, and opportunities and to undertake activities.

Step 2: Organising members into one or more local primary groups (trade groups, cooperatives, producer groups, saving and credit groups, village associations, campaign committee).

Step 3: Promoting and building leadership that emerges out of the local organizations.

Step 4: Training and deploying leaders to help to implement SEWA activities through decentralized management systems: as members of local spearhead teams (who implement projects or undertake campaigns) or as paraprofessionals (who provide technical services).

Step 5: Convening elections of the representatives from among the leaders to serve on the executive committees of the SEWA Union, the SEWA Bank, the Gujarat Mahila Cooperative Federation, the District Associations and other member based organizations in the SEWA family. While all of SEWA’s members belong to the SEWA Union, many of them also belong to other membership based organizations established by SEWA.

GOVERNANCE OF SEWA UNION

SEWA Union is the mother institution. It established as a trade union in 1972, SEWA is registered under the Indian Trade Union Act of 1926. Union members pay an annual membership fee five rupees and are organized into various trade groups. An additional fee is levied on trade groups, which have benefited from struggle supported by SEWA. Three tiers of elected representatives govern the Union: Trade Committees, Trade Council and Executive Committee. Every three years, the members of each trade group elect representatives to trade committees (called DhandhaSamities); the various trade committees elect their representatives (called Pratinidhis) to the central trade council; and the trade council elects an executive committee of 25 members who, in turn, elect the office-bearers of the Union. The executive committee also include five elected SEWA organizers as honorary members: one of whom serves as general secretary and two of whom serves as secretaries. Since 1981, the president of SEWA Union has been elected from the trade group with the largest membership.

The trade committees meet once a month to discuss the problems faced by women in their respective trades and to plan strategies to deal with these problems. They serve as the ‘nerve centre’ of SEWA sending out signals as to what is happening locally and what the organization needs to do. The Union hires paid organizers for each trade group who serve as member-secretaries of their representative trade committees.

In addition to or instead of serving as elected representatives in the governance structure of SEWA, local leaders are also recruited and specially trained to help SEWA implement its various activities. Local spearhead team comprising of four local leaders and one SEWA organizer manages every activity or programme of SEWA. Local leaders who have worked with SEWA for some time are trained to become spearhead team leaders.

ADVOCACY OF SEWA

Informed by its members and through the organized strength of its membership, SEWA pushes for structural change in the wider environment. Some of these structural changes are related to the informal economy as a whole, such as legal recognition of the informal economy, legal recognition of SEWA as trade union, and representation of informal workers in mainstream institutions at the local, state, national and international institutions. Other structural changes relate to specific trade groups, such as increased wages or piece rates; worker benefits and social protection measures; licences to buy and sell goods; access to new and improved markets. In addition, some of these relate to specific issues of concern of SEWA members such as housing, infrastructure services (water, electricity, and transport), land and other natural resources.In shaping the wider policy environment, SEWA also seek to change public understanding and appreciation of working poor women and their work, thereby, to change the values, norms and practice within society. In SEWA’s work, the wider environment is seen to include policies, institutions and norms.

A GLOBAL MOVEMENT: FROM LOCAL TO NATIONAL UNION

During the 1970s and 1980s, SEWA’s membership grew slowly but steadily from just under 1,948 in 1977 to nearly 15,144 members in 1987. Although SEWA began organizing rural women on a limited scale from Ahmedabad in the mid 1970s, it established a full-fledged filed-based rural wing only in 1989. Since then, their rural and urban membership has grown dramatically and 9, 66, 139 in 2008.

In the early 1980s, SEWA began expanding the scope of its operations to other states in India. Established in 1982, SEWA Bharat (literally, SEWA India) is the registered federation of SEWA organizations nation wide. With support and guidance from SEWA Bharat, SEWA organizationsstarted in different states like Bihar, Murshidabad, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Dehradhun.

Given the numerical size and geographical spread of its membership, representing women workers all over India, SEWA is now an officially recognized National Trade Union Federation. In 2006, SEWA become a founding member of the new International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

FROM A UNION TO A MOVEMENT

Over the past two decades, an international movement has emerged in support of the working poor, especially women in the informal economy. During the 1980s, SEWA began establishing linkages with member-ship based organizations of home-based workers and street vendors and NGOs working with these groups of workers. In the mid 1990s, at two separate meeting in Europe, these organizations under SEWA’s leadership came together to form two international alliances: one for organizations of home-based workers, the other for organizations of street vendors.

From its inspection, the alliance of home based workers organizations was centrally involved in the campaigns to pass an International Labour Organization (ILO) convention on homework. In 1995, SEWA organized a meeting at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Centre in Bellagio, Italy of representatives of street vendor’s organizations from a dozen cities around the world as well as activists and lawyers working with street vendor organizations. At that meeting, the participants drafted the Bellagio International Declaration of Street Vendors, which call s for action at four levels: by individual traders, by traders’ associations, by city governments, and by international organizations including United Nations, the ILO, and the World Bank. The participants also called for the establishment of an international network of street vendor organizations to be called ‘StreetNet’

Together, these organizations have helped foster a global movement of workers in informal economy that now includes local trade union and other membership based organizations of informal workers, national and global trade union federations that have begun organizing informal workers, several national federation workers’ education associations (IFWEA); eight national and two regional HomeNets, StreetNet International and the WIEGO network. Drawing inspiration and guidance of SEWA, this movement continues to identify and network organizations of informal workers and to inform and influence policy debates on the informal economy.

II.        NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN (NBA)

Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement) a social action movement that arose in response to the building of a World Bank-funded dam project along the Narmada River, the project – which has displaced hundreds of thousands and has imposed stunning environmental costs without reaping the promised benefits of modernization – has been the source of constant controversy. The Narmada Basin cover an area of around 94, 500 square kilometers between the Vindhya and the Satpura ranges of Central India. Narmada Valley Development Project (NVDP), an ambitious project that seeks to harness the river Narmada that flows through the three states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat, which envisages that thirty big dams; one hundred and thirty-five medium dams, and three thousand small dams will be constructed on the Narmada river and its forty-one tributaries. More than 22 million people live in the valley and several tribal groups, particularly Bhils and Gonds. The project is estimates to affect over 2.5 lakh of people.

The SardarSarovar Project (SSP) and the Narmada Sagar Project (NSP) are the two biggest dams to be constructed on the Narmada River, and the SSP alone will submerge 245 villages: 19 in Gujarat, 33 in Maharashtra, and 193 in Madhya Pradesh. Thus, these two projects are controversial to their large-scale displacement and problems of rehabilitation. This has resulted in the emergence of ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ (NBA) movement.

The movement has drawn upon a multiplicity of discourses for protests such as displacement risks and resettlement provisions; environmental impact and sustainability issues; financial implications of the project; forceful evictions and violations of civil liberties; issues pertaining to river valley planning and management; implications of western growth model, and alternative development and appropriate technology, among many others. They used various tools of protest such as Saryagraha, Jalsamarpan (sacrificial drowning in the rivers), Rasta Roko (road blockade at strategic points), GaonBandhi (refusing the entry of government officials in to the villages), demonstrations and rallies, hunger strikes and blockade of projects.

It is 25 years since the Narmada Bachao Andolan came into existence as a challenging response by the Adivasis, farmers and other nature-based communities of the Narmada valley against large-scale displacement, environmental degradation, rampant corruption and non-participatory, unplanned development, through large dams and canals that has put the lives of lakhs of people at stake.

The movement has traversed a long journey over the past two and a half decades through various phases of struggle and dialogue, facing repression, undertaking legal action, proposing and promoting reconstructive work. Many have been witnesses to the turns and twist in this peaceful people’s struggle asserting the right to life and livelihood as the right to true and sustainable development, with dignity.

Through its persistent struggle from the streets to the Courts, people have exposed the fake claims of rehabilitation, with rampant corruption and utter non-compliance of environmental and other laws. As per officials estimates itself, the project costs have far outweighed the claimed benefits, with just 10% of the benefits attained and 10 times increase in costs, necessitating a serious and comprehensive review into the entire project and justifying Reports by Expert Committees that all project work must be halted, until full compliance is ensured. Close to three decades after it began, SardarSarovar today stands as financially unviable, environmentally destructive and socially damaging Project and has just remained a Monument of Mismanagement for Gujarat, and the nation, and a Monument of Injustice for the people of the valley, as is the case with many other Projects implemented across the country.

Conclusion

The movement started to save the rights of the indigenous people but the focus of the NBA shifted towards rehabilitation and resettlement. However, still NBA’s most prominent victories happened somewhere around 1990 and 1993 with the withdrawal of the World Bank, the Harsud Rally, etc. Its force has dwindled from that point forward, largely because individuals are persuaded that the SSP will proceed with regardless of what given the Indian government’s conviction to let the SSP proceed. Notwithstanding this, MedhaPatkar and the NBA keep on challenging the SSP.

Points to Remember

The ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ is one of the most significant protest movements that Independent India has ever seen.

It startedin response to the building of a World Bank-funded dam project along the Narmada Riverin response to the building of a World Bank-funded dam project along the Narmada River.

During the primary opposition, there was tribal community were affecting badly because there was a lack of reservoir. Village community displaced by the inundation of the reservoir.

There were no any proper arrangements from the government for the people of the community. They also not made any rehabilitation or resettle the habitats for the region.

The SardarSarovar Project (SSP) and the Narmada Sagar Project (NSP) are the two biggest dams to be constructed on the Narmada River.

The leader of the ‘Narmada BachaoAndolan’ is MedhaPatkar who started movement against this project.

III.        NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF PEOPLE’S MOVEMENTS (NAPM)

(Struggle against Injustice and Discrimination Assertion of Rights and Reconstruction towards Sustainability and Self-reliance)

National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) started as a process in 1992 amidst the impact of Ayodhya incidence and globalization spree and took a definite shape in 1996 after a long national tour of 15 states by senior activists.It is an alliance of progressive people’s organizations and movements, who while retaining their autonomous identities, are working together to bring the struggle for primacy of rights of communities over natural resources, conservation and governance, decentralized democratic development and towards a just, sustainable and egalitarian society in the true spirit of globalism and its national office located in New Delhi, India.

It stands against corporate globalization, communalism and religious fundamentalism, patriarchy, casteism, untouchability and discrimination of all kinds and believes that an alliance emerging out of such a process with shared ideology and diverse strategies can give rise to a strong social, political force and a National People’s movement. NAPM also integrates various civil society organizations and individuals working towards similar goals.NAPM provides a forum for coming together of numerous vibrant strands of ideologies. Its programmes, actions and conceptualization of development perspectives on emerging paradigm of sustainable development, equity, freedom, justice and peace, NAPM draws from the ideas of Gandhi, Ambedkar, Marx, Lohia, Phule, Periyar and others.

The focus of NAPM is to develop linkages across the various sections of Dalits and Other Backward Castes, Minorities, Adivasis, Unprotected Workers, Labouring Poor, as well as sensitive intellectuals and other professionals. NAPM has gained strength and made significant impact through its allies organizations- fishworkers, farmers, farm labourers and forest workers, dam affected and development induced displaced, hawkers and construction and domestic workers, and other oppressed women and youth across all classes struggling for annihilation of caste system.

The New Economic Policy which started in early 1990s has captured the imagination and practice of all major political parties – national or regional and a thriving middle class to the detriment of nearly 80 percent of the toiling masses – the real producers and the backbone of the nation. The dictum of ‘There is No Alternative’ continues to dominate but struggled at various fronts to keep reaffirming the vision and plan for a just, appropriate and sustainable development and proclaim that ‘Another World is Possible!’ and continue to strive towards evolving spaces, processes and initiatives where communities can take the initiative, dictate and control over the natural resources through local to national struggle as an endeavor outside of narrow electoral politics

In the name of development and industrialization, the State continues to bring in new unconstitutional and anti-people enactments and policies like the SEZ Act. NAPM challenges the weak Unorganized Workers Social Security Act, JNNURM, Nuclear Liability Bill, and regressive amendments to Urban Land Ceiling Act, Land Acquisition Act, and Mining, Labour, Coastal, Urban Development and Environmental laws. All these have together not only led to massive evictions but exploitation of land,forest,water, minerals etc. natural resources at the cost of the urban and rural poor and had serious socio- economic and environmental impacts. The slum dwellers in the dilapidated chawls, fishworkers in the coastal region, farmers, Dalits, Adivasis, and artisans in rural and tribal areas and all the unorganized sector workers are left without space, physical to political. The right to life, livelihood and participation in the development planning process has been denied to all these communities. NAPM demands and struggle for a comprehensive policy which recognizes the access to drinking water, housing, power, education and health of every individual as the fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution of India.

Striving for radical change, NAPM works to influence appropriate processes of democratic development planning, choice of technology and justice in the distribution of development benefits. NAPM promotes the use of alternative technology in water, energy, housing, farming and other sectors, towards building self-reliant lifestyles and communities. It cares for the environment to protect our livelihoods, climate and future generations.

NAPM allies undertake struggle against injustices of all kind, simultaneously engage in constructive thought, and work consciously as part of multi-pronged strategy towards its goal of building a more humane world for every living being on the Planet.

NAPM FUNDAMENTAL CONCERNS TODAY ARE:

·         The uncontrolled growth of obscene wealth on the one hand, and the widening disparity, debt, hunger and suicides on the other

·         Paradigm of market oriented development-induced displacement, privatization and destruction of national and natural resources

·         Development& economic policy being dictated by the unholy nexus of corporate and investors and the consequent loss of sovereignty of nation and people

· The unanimity among mainstream political parties of all hues on economic policy, and the absence of a real alternative

·   the  abuse  of  people’s  mandate  by  legislations  such  as  the  SEZ  Act,  Land Acquisition Act, Nuclear Regulatory Bill

·    The vicious cycle of State violence countered by militant violence in various parts of the country and consequent shrinking of democratic space.

CONCLUSION

In the existing political scenario, NAPM has to stand out as a unique force in people’s politics. It challenges the present corrupt, criminal electoral politics in India and strives for electoral reforms. The total surrender of the statutory system to global powers and divisive agenda is seen by NAPM as a blow to the democracy and sovereignty of our nation. It is imperative that one should truly bring about the people’s sovereignty. One must fight the global imperialism and religious fundamentalism as the dual enemy that attacks people’s right to life and livelihood. The alternative paradigm NAPM propagates is based on a vision of equity, simplicity and self-reliance.The process of bringing together movements and evolution into a national movement continues unabated through nation-wide campaigns like DeshBachao, DeshBanao (Save the Nation – Build the Nation) etc. NAPM continues to join hands with movements and sectoral alliances beyond the fold of NAPM and take forward the struggle against state violence unleashed directly in the form of police repression through draconian laws like AFSPA, UAPA etc. or more specifically through Operation Green Hunt or indirectly through various structural and systemic neo-liberal policies.NAPM appeals to all likeminded organizationsand concerned people to join their struggle striving for a world of equity, peace and justice, informed by the vision of a casteless, feminist and participatory eco-socialism and invite all actively participate in this nation building efforts.

Points to Remember

In 1992, National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) got started.

It is people’s organizations and movements, who are working together over natural resources, conservation and governance, decentralized democratic development.

The focus of NAPM is to develop linkages across the various sections of Dalits and Other Backward Castes, Minorities, Adivasis, Unprotected Workers, Labouring Poor, as well as sensitive intellectuals and other professionals.

It stands against corporate globalization, communalism and religious fundamentalism, patriarchy, casteism, untouchability and discrimination.

References

1. J. Sebstad (1982). Struggle and Development among Self-Employed Women: A Report on the Self-Employed Women’s Association, Ahmedabad, Washington, DC:USAID
2. Martha Alter Chen (2010) The Self-Employed Women’s Association (pp. 221-236)
3. Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) Retrieved from http://www.narmada.org
4. National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) Retrieved from http://napm-india.org
5. Social Movements II: Concepts of Equity and Security, Edited by T.K. Oommen, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2011.