- Prelims: Current events of international importance, Joshimath glacier, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Vikalp Sangam, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, The National Security Act etc
- Mains GS Paper II: Development processes and the development industry- the role of NGOs, SHGs, various groups and associations, donors, charities, institutional and other stakeholders etc
- ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
- 85 people’s movements and civil society organizations released a ‘People’s Manifesto for a Just, Equitable and Sustainable India’.
INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE
Context
Current Issues:
- The sinking of Joshimath and the dam burst in Sikkim
- The conflict in Manipur
- The attempt to stifle democratic voices by slapping false cases against activists and journalists and lawyers
- Suspending Opposition Members of Parliament en masse
Vikalp Sangam(People’s Movement):
- 85 people’s movements and civil society organizations released ‘People’s Manifesto for a Just, Equitable and Sustainable India’.
- They Gathered under the national platform, Vikalp Sangam (Alternatives Confluence)
- These groups represent initiatives working on:
- ecological food production
- decentralized water harvesting and management
- community-based energy production
- dignified housing and settlements
- meaningful education and health security
- locally empowered decision-making
- resistance against destructive projects.
- Vikalp Sangam has convened over 30 physical assemblies
- published 1,500 stories of positive change
- brought out a collective vision of the India
- advocated policy changes.
What does the manifesto of Vikalp Sangam demand?
- The manifesto is aimed at the general election 2024
- Various local to national institutions and processes.
- On the economy, it takes on the
- serious crisis of unemployment especially among the youth
- urging priority attention to small manufacturing, crafts
- value added produce from agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and pastoralism
- Extension of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to urban areas.
- It asks that all goods and services that can be produced through handmade and small manufacturing, should be reserved for these.
- The manifesto demands curbs on the enormous black economy
- Reduction in the ratio of highest and lowest salaries
- Greater wealth and inheritance taxation of the rich
- Basic income and pension for all workers.
- The manifesto asks for real devolution of financial and legal powers to village and urban assemblies
- Fuller implementation of panchayat laws
- A comprehensive law on accountability of state agencies including mandatory public audits
- Reviving the independence of institutions such as the Election Commission and the media.
- The manifesto seeks the repeal of repeatedly misused laws like Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and The National Security Act.
- The manifesto asks for forums of dialogue and restoring co-existence
- Priority in all public and private institutions to the most marginalized sections (women, Dalits, Adivasis, religious and sexual minorities, persons with disability).
- It seeks to reserve 6% of GDP for education, based on mother tongue, activity-based, culturally and ecologically rooted learning.
- It notes the need for community health processes based on multiple systems
- Priority to preventing ill-health through adequate nutrition, safe water, and other determinants of a healthy life.
Work done by Vikalp Sangam:
- Rural revival: leading to reduced outmigration
- Even reverse migration back from cities and large industries to villages and small manufacturing or crafts.
- Remunerative livelihoods based on agriculture or other land-based occupations
- combined with new ones such as homestay-based tourism
- Youth enterprises combining traditional and modern knowledge and technologies
Suggestions to protect environment highlighted by Sangam:
● A national land and water policy that protects important ecological functions (such as water and soil)
● Effective community-led conservation of wildlife and biodiversity
● Collective rights to natural resources by extending a law such as the Forest Rights Act to other ecosystems.
● Complete conversion of India’s farming to organic, biologically diverse methods by 2040
● Drastic cuts in toxic products, plastics and other non-biodegradable materials.
● Decentralized water harvesting managed by communities
● Decentralized renewable energy
● Phasing out fossil fuels and nuclear power by 2030.
● The manifesto asks to roll back the weakening of environmental impact assessment and forest clearance processes
○ Introduce impact assessment of sectors, such as energy as a whole.
● A National Environment Commissioner is recommended
○ with an independent constitutional status like that of the Election Commissioner or the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Way Forward
- The climate crisis, in the form of erratic weather, extreme heat, and the drying up of water sources including glaciers, needs much greater priority than given so far.
- This includes greater allocation for helping communities adapt to these impacts.
- We need to be much more alert and proactive, demanding that elected representatives do what they are supposed to do, but also asserting our own voice in all decisions affecting our lives.
- In a special section, the manifesto also urges enabling the voices of the country’s large youth population.
- Adivasi village, Mendha Lekha of Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, stated: “we elect the government in Delhi, but in our village we are the government”.
- Dalit women farmers in Telangana have asserted complete control over seeds, knowledge, water, and land to achieve nutritional security.
- Residents’ associations in Bhuj town of Kachchh have implemented local decision-making as part of urban planning.
- The Vikalp Sangam Manifesto is infused with notions of direct and accountable democracy, economic self-reliance, ecological responsibility and socio-cultural equality.
QUESTION FOR PRACTICE
Why did human development fail to keep pace with economic development in India?(UPSC 2023) (200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)
