‘UNIQUE’, was the response when the southern Indian state of Karnataka held the state-level preparatory meeting in the run-up to the World Social Forum to be held in Mumbai in January 2004. The event brought together farmers, students, teachers, women, workers, domestic workers, cultural activists, youth, intellectuals, secular-minded religious leaders and even sexual minorities. Some of the credit for the success of the meeting should go to the trade unions. A major share of the money for organising the meeting was raised by the trade unions from their members. The enthusiasm of the workers bodes well for the first-ever WSF to be held in India.

Traditionally, the left-wing trade unions have believed that the party of the working class would play the vanguard role of liberating all other oppressed sections of humanity. But ever since the collapse of Soviet Union, these images have suffered a serious setback. Trade unions are now coming together in search of an alternate vision. The WSF slogan, ‘Another World is Possible’, has struck a chord with the workers.

There is a Future

During the last decade, we have been told that the path of neo-liberal globalisation is the only way forward. There are ever so many methods by which this message is propagated almost with a religious fervour. The Bretton Woods institutions worked overtime and across the globe to ensure that the hegemony of this false propaganda is not eroded. The onslaught has not only been economic, cultural, social and political, but above all, it has been ideological. Despite the fact that this global prophecy comes close to the view that humankind has reached the end of history, its influence has gripped all ruling circles, their governments and their henchmen everywhere. In order to ensure that this tempo is never slackened they meet every year at Davos, Switzerland and reiterate that ‘There is No Alternative’. This is the clarion call of the few billionaires, who cannot give up the dream of owning the whole world.

We have all been bombarded by the proclamation ‘There is No Alternative’ day in and day out. The media and the governments of the day, backed by most mainstream political parties and many others of their ilk, repeat this dogma ad nauseam. Against such a background, the ‘coming together’ at the WSF with the bold counter proclamation ‘Another World is Possible’ forming the backdrop is a source of inspiration and hope. Indeed it has generated a new enthusiasm among all working people to whom this world primarily belongs. There is now a new resolve to come together and reclaim this world into the hands of humanity. Within the short span of four years since its birth, this new vision, under the banner of the WSF, has gathered phenomenal momentum.

What is Your Alternative?

This is the one question that the detractors of the WSF are asking. The ‘coming together’ of a critical mass of people, social forces and representatives of people’s organisations, cultural activists and thinkers who are sensitive to different streams of thought, culture and pluralist traditions is the precondition for evolving alternatives and for making it possible to launch efforts to construct a new world.

Given the power of capital, their hegemonic control over global means of production, over the media, culture, education, state power and above all ideology, the task of seeking an alternative is not simple. Above all, it requires the ‘coming together’ of different points of view and the sharing of global experiences of the people engaged in the struggle against the oppressive order. It is this realisation that has brought the farmers, students, teachers, women, workers, domestic workers, cultural activists, youth, intellectuals, secular-minded religious leaders and even sexual minorities together under one umbrella.

With every passing year most political formations in India are getting more and more alienated because of their failure to deliver promises made at the time of winning the independence struggle. Disillusionment and cynicism about the capacity of mainstream political parties to deliver is fast spreading and serious discussions about the need to launch a second independence struggle are repeatedly heard.

A Platform and a Minimum Programme

The idea of a common platform has already proved to be quite attractive. This is so because of the common realisation that sectoral work, irrespective of the excellence it may have achieved in that particular sector, is not enough to answer the needs of our time. Almost invariably, people working in their respective sectors, be it among workers, farmers, dalits, adivasis or others, do realise that the work that is being carried out in their respective sectors is wholly inadequate to address the more fundamental issues that face their sectors. Years of work at the micro-level reveal inter-linkages and the need to tackle wider issues at the macro-level. Activists in all sectors clearly realise that unless root problems are tackled there can be no salvation. There is widespread realisation that alliances are required, if root problems are to be addressed seriously.

The knowledge that such an experience is also a universal experience further encourages serious movements all over the world. At the bottom is the realisation that structural issues need to be addressed if one is to find far-reaching changes, which are so urgently required. Ordinary people in different sectors and locations have been confronted with aggressive propaganda and repeated interventions of either the structural adjustment variety or by way of conditions or WTO rules, based on the assumption that the only way forward is the way of globalisation.

The idea that a platform is a political space where people from different backgrounds, subscribing to different political and even ideological beliefs can come together and share their respective experiences, has already proved to be attractive and even exciting. A question that has immediately arisen is whether the platform is really open to all and the answer that only those who subscribe to a certain minimum understanding are welcome has further enhanced the enthusiasm of all those who have joined the platform.

In this context, even though it is not very clear as to what the inter-phase between the focal points adopted for the WSF Mumbai and the charter principles adopted at the international level is, the fact still remains that the five focal points, namely imperialist globalisation, patriarchy, communalism, casteism and war have provided an excellent basis for a wide range of people and activists to come together, generating remarkably unprecedented enthusiasm and momentum.

The good thing about this minimum content is that it has provided a basis for addressing all the fundamental issues facing India today. It has also provided the opportunity to focus issues related to patriarchy, communalism and casteism among sectors where these issues do not receive automatic attention. Many sectors including the well-organised sectors often bypass issues related to gender, communalism and casteism and the inclusion of these issues in the Indian context has been a major gain which needs to be consolidated and carried forward.

It may not be out of place to go back to reflect on the platform created at the time of the freedom struggle. Immediately after independence, the members of the Constituent Assembly sat together to work out a consensus on the relevant epoch. This was a very rich epoch, since it was the epoch of the independence struggle. This richness was captured in a very substantial way in the Constitution of India. The working people of India were promised a new era under the Constitution. Constitutional promises, however, remained unfulfilled and many dissatisfied tendencies rose to become full-fledged political formations. Soon the mandate of the earlier epoch got eroded and new political formations, in search of a new mandate, arose.

The counter idea that the WSF must always remain only a space is perhaps relevant to certain specific parts of the world, but in the Indian context such a conceptualisation seems to be inadequate. This may be so because we have already had the successful experience of an anti-imperialist platform that brought together almost all classes, all social forces and all political tendencies under one common united front.

The lesson to be drawn perhaps is that the formation of newer and newer platforms to take up the challenges of particular epochs is extremely important and the emergence of tendencies through the platform process is but natural and quite welcome as part of an ongoing democratic political process. What is very important is the minimum programme that unites constituents of the platform and the determination to stay together and fight for these goals.

The Idea of Inclusiveness

An extremely valuable organisational principle which came down from the WSF and which we struggled to internalise with remarkable success is the idea of inclusiveness. Everybody instantaneously welcomed the idea of inclusiveness, but very often the question that arose immediately was whether the platform is really open to everyone. In this context, the adoption of the focal points mentioned above proved useful. In practice these were converted into the equivalent of the minimum programme and once this was explained there was widespread acceptance of both the idea of the platform as well as the idea of inclusiveness within the limits of the focal points.

A very useful component of the idea of inclusiveness is the understanding that all meetings of all bodies that are entrusted with organisational work are open to everyone who wanted to be part of the WSF. To a great extent this prevented the emergence of a structured, hierarchy of leadership, though the temptation to create well-defined traditional categories kept arising again and again. At the Karnataka level, the model of flexibility played a useful role in providing insights on further developing this model in the days to come.

The Idea of Inter-Sectoral Dialogue

During the preparatory meetings of the Hubli Sammelan, it was decided that efforts must be made to help one sector understand the problems of the other. It was, therefore, proposed that each sectoral group should divide its members into two groups with one group participating in its own sectoral discussions while the other group spread itself out into commissions where discussions were being carried out by different sectors. In all there were 12 commissions at Hubli and each sector had extremely animated discussions and came out with reports that were presented in the plenary. Many of these reports were of very good quality. Though the idea of inter-sectoral dialogue could not be fully achieved, it gave the participants an experience on which to build further in the days to come. The extent of wide participation in each of the commissions was quite refreshing.

Commission reports clearly demonstrated the potential for more in-depth inter-sectoral dialogue. A concrete proposal to bring together the banking sector, the insurance sector and the farmers for an in-depth dialogue was proposed. There is abundant reason to believe that such exercises are possible between different sectors and undoubtedly this would enhance the value of the social process greatly. Almost spontaneously, the activists of Karnataka found that it was relatively easy to organise all the district sammelans as well as the state sammelan through the mobilisation of local funds from trade unions, registration fees, voluntary contributions and advertisements for the souvenir. Though there were anxious moments and fear of a huge deficit budget, the immense ability of the activists to mange with minimal funds, low expenditure, frugal food and efficient use of public space and infrastructure was displayed to good effect.

Another World is Possible

The participation of the working people and their organisations in the prepapratory meetings has been a great learning and fulfilling experience. In the last WSF at Porto Alegre, Brazil, the experiences of the new Workers Party of the country became the centre of attraction and inspiration for many other trade unions of the world. In some states, it is seen that bringing together different sections, especially workers, women, farmers, dalits, adivasis, children, cultural activists, secular spiritualists and intellectuals has been achieved with great ease and efficiency. If this has not been the experience everywhere, it is because objective conditions are not ripe enough for wider unity. But subjective conditions may differ from place to place.

The entire experience is still in its infancy. But wherever the attempt has been made the potential has been immense. There is, however, much to learn. Perhaps the way the process is shaped in the context of the third world and even in the third world within the context of national specificities needs to be different. Perhaps pluralism even in terms of certain organisational principles, particularly those that arise during the process of coalition building from below, must be given ample space so that experiences can be obtained, re-examined and modified. Unlike the global understanding, the autonomy of independent constituents wedded to their own efforts should be respected to support declarations and action programmes that may follow.

Exciting preparatory work is going on for the WSF in different parts of the world. In India too, the preparatory work has drawn enthusiastic response across the country. Organised workers, unorganised workers and bonded workers along with others are actively involved in the countdown. The WSF process in India has all the potential to capture this newly emerging space and convert it into an even more dynamic platform than the one that was created at the time of the independence struggle. Since the world belongs primarily to the working people of the world, to those who believe that ‘Another World is possible’, it is but legitimate that they must play their full and legitimate role on this platform.