Alternative Economy Vikalp Sangam 2020

Straight after New Year’s Eve, a four-day gathering of change-makers from across India was held at the Udavi campus in Auroville. Literally a “confluence of alternatives”, Vikalp Sangam is a network of social organisations re-imagining and re-shaping Indian society. Active in various fields from environment to education to social justice, including some of India’s most well-established NGOs as well as start-up social enterprises, they meet throughout the year to exchange, inspire each other, and seed new ways to collaborate in order to move the needle forward in a given area. This was their first nationwide confluence around the theme of economy, as it is increasingly clear to people engaged across sectors – be it education or health or democracy or media – that to re-imagine and work towards a more just and sustainable society we need to radically alter our economic system.

The seed for hosting this Alternative Economy Sangam in Auroville was planted during a planning session held in the community last December, hosted by a few long-time members of Vikalp Sangam that have joined the Auroville community in the last few years. This provided an occasion for members of Vikalp Sangam’s core group to visit Auroville for the first time, and get introduced to the alternatives that people experiment with here. Immediately there was a proposal to host the Alternative Economy Sangam in Auroville itself, and a small team of Aurovilians and volunteers came together to help this manifest, seeing the value in supporting and creating bridges with change-makers from across India.

The organisation of the event itself embodied alternative economy values, for example by exchanging knowledge for rice, by using homemade bio-enzymes for cleaning, harvesting edible weeds for lunch, and growing some of the greens for the event on campus.

Over four days, the 100 or so participants explored four key questions:

What is wealth in the new economy? What are just forms of ownership in and for society? What kind of relationships do we want an alternative economy to enable? What role do our worldviews play in facilitating or limiting how we can re-envision the economy? 

These themes were introduced each morning in artistic and embodied ways: for wealth, the organisers had created an eight-armed Lakshmi representing eight forms of wealth (spiritual, cultural, environmental, social, etc.); for ownership, participants were invited to co-create a mandala with leaves, flowers, and pebbles from the Udavi campus representing something they owned and wanted to offer. A group movement exercise explored how we relate to ourselves, each other, nature and the universe, and a series of picture frames dangling from the main Banyan tree on the campus, representing lenses through which we see our world, invited people to experiment with inhabiting different views. 

The programme itself was co-created and emergent: any participant could propose a session around the theme of the day, curated with the help of a facilitation team. Those interested would gather and dive into an exploration together, which ranged from creative (such as drawing patterns of ownership), to reflective (questioning layers of privilege caused by gender, class, creed, age, ethnicity, wealth and education), to action-oriented problem-solving and project development. 

For example, those working with farmers and tribal communities expressed the need for solidarity between consumers and producers, and the group explored how to make this happen by having both 

parties enter into a joint venture as “prosumers”, based on the successful demonstration by Just Change in the Nilgiris, who anchored the session.

Those with savings in mainstream banks formed a group exploring how to divest from anti-ecological activities. A practical solution proposed was to pool deposits into a bank as guarantee for a loan to local sustainable projects.

And, with many young people present at the gathering alongside seasoned activists, a proposal to develop a Vikalp Sangam Youth Fellowship emerged to support up and coming change-makers, connecting them with professional learning journeys in the alternatives sector, which is often poorly remunerated.

The general atmosphere was one of openness, and a commitment to resist the temptation of enforcing any single “ism”, a tendency which has created barriers rather than bridges between activists with different approaches. Across the world, this seems to be burgeoning. Vikalp Sangam co-founder Ashish Kothari presented his latest co-edited book Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary, a collection of essays that moves beyond locked polarities such as modern vs traditional, consumerism vs conservationism, personal vs political, patriarchal vs feminist. 

For many activists used to clear campaign targets and barricades this ambiguity felt uneasy. The focus of personal reflection in many sessions, and the small-scale joint projects that emerged from the overall gathering also left some wondering if and how the dominant system of overexploitation could be stopped in its tracks, and lamenting that this had not been tackled head on. Others felt that the Auroville community had not been explored and engaged enough, and a follow-up immersion is currently being explored. Meanwhile, a contingent of participants will bring the insights and questions from this forum to the World Social Forum in Barcelona this summer, and no doubt will come back with a fresh set of questions. One thing is certain, the quest for a New Economy continues to intrigue and inspire people from far and wide, and Auroville has put itself on the map as a potential host for such explorations.