Jain Spirit 2004 06 No 19

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 18

16 NEWS FEATURE
Another World is Possible':
Adivasi activist
Art from the heart
All photos: The New Internationalist (www.newint.org) / Michael York
In the last week of January 2004, the streets of Mumbai were filled with 100,000 demonstrators from India and around the world, especially the developing world. They were there to greet the opening of the World Social Forum held in India for the first time, and their mood was celebratory rather than angry. Bringing traffic to a halt in the city, which is for many a symbol of the new Indian prosperity, the demonstrators message was that 'another world is possible'. The themes of the summit, therefore, were disparate but found an underlying unity in the search for an alternative to corporate capitalism and the politico-economic monoculture that globalisation tends to impose.
The forum itself attracted tens of thousands of people from more than 100 countries and took place in an empty factory complex in one of Mumbai's northern
suburbs. This reflected, some would say, the other side of the new India. A wide range of campaigning groups and nongovernmental organisations sent representatives. The World Social Forum has been held annually since 2001, but all previous gatherings have taken place in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, which has undertaken pioneering initiatives in 'localisation and economic democracy. The shift to India marked a shift in the balance towards Asia. At the last meeting, in 2003, only 200 Asians attended, whereas this year over half of those who attended came from Asian countries. Asia contains nearly half of the world's poor and is also on the front line in the battle of ideas between neo-liberals, who advocate I unfettered market solutions, and those
who believe that social and environmental issues should have primacy.
According to Randeep Ramesh of the London-based The Guardian newspaper, "India was chosen not only for the large number of its activist groups and its historic stance as an advocate of poor nations, but because the country has been liberalising its economy for the past decade and has seen the arrival of a growing number of multinational firms." India is also rapidly becoming a global centre for information technology, although most Indians still work in agriculture. This means that the country is divided over the issue of genetically modified (GM) crops. Biotech firms and their supporters claim that GM liberates farmers and increases consumer choice by creating cheaper food, doing away with the need for pesticides and greatly increasing productivity. Opponents of GM claim that it is reducing choice by contaminating organic products. Furthermore, it locks farmers into dependency on biotech corporations because the crops are sterile. Devinder
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