Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam an Alliance for Comprehensive Democracy

An Alliance for Comprehensive Democracy Vijay Pratap, Ritu Priya and Thomas Wallgren 2004

Published by Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, 2004

Foreword Currently people all around the world are in a search for alternatives to the oneway globalisation that has increased the drift between the majority of the humankind and a narrow elite. More and more people see that the unregulated market forces will lead to increasing exploitation of the environment, widening gap between the rich and the poor and concentration of power and wealth in the hands of few.

The Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam concept, as presented by the two articles in this booklet, presents an alternative world-view where democratic relations among the people in all spheres of life is in the centre of the society. It is attractive not only because it responds to the urge for just and humane values, but also because of the pragmatic agenda it sets for engagement. The Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam concept provides a vision, which can inform and guide action in social work, economic affairs, political participation, cultural engagement and more.

I am committed to pursue the ideas of the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and hope more and more people will feel like joining the family of those who see world as one, and to whom the whole world is part of a family.

Satu Hassi Chairperson Democracy Forum Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, Finland

Preface The Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam stands for another kind of globalisation, one that is permeated by all-round democracy. As I write this small note a few weeks before the 2004 World Social Forum I am gripped by the question if the WSF so far has contributed efficiently to shaping the conceptual and agitational tools to resist the existing globalisation that has weakened the whatsoever roots of democracy that had been nurtured in the past centuries.

Globalisation weakens democracy by destroying the cultural-economic viability of the autonomous communities at the base. In South Asian countries rural communities as well as the national community had an autonomous existence economically and culturally. (At the national level it is called sovereignty). It is on the basis of these autonomous communities that democracy could be structured in one country or region, even if other countries remained non- democratic.

Autonomy creates a miniscule universe in which the individual gets the sense of being a prime mover of that universe, whereas in a larger universe he or she may get lost not knowing how to assert.

Technology determines economic policy. As the technologies become very ‘high’ the resources and activities come under international control (not even national control). The individual, unless he or she is a member or the global elite, is reduced to the status of a receiver, a consumer, depending on purchasing power.

Market globalisation has been made possible with the help of technologies that conquer distance and require unprecedented large investment that developing nations cannot afford even in terms of loans. This has made grassroots autonomy and national sovereignty redundant from the economic point of view.

The role of technology in depriving poorer countries of their control over the economy is hardly debated among centre-left intellectuals. It is not realised at all that the campaign against economic imperialism presupposes a technological revolution. This is also the dilemma that cripples those who come to power in South American countries after defeating the United States supported regimes.

They won’t be able to basically change the economic policies of the earlier regimes, like heavy dependence on exports, continuing the state of indebtedness, destroying the Amazon for expanding soya been farms, and pursuing the goal of unlimited growth.

Kishen Pattnayak Senior ideologue of socialist movement, India

Contents: Foreword by Satu Hassi Preface by Kishen Pattnayak Vijay Pratap and Ritu Priya: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: From Democracy to Sampoorn Swaraj Pursuing the Democratic Dream The Social Costs of Globalisation The Democratic Agenda Directions of Search Limitations of North-South Civil Society Dialogues Proposals for Concrete Action Thomas Wallgren: Statement of Purpose for Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Finland Diagnosis of the Times: Politics in the Context of Culture The Crisis of Centre-left Politics The Way Out: Deepening and Broadening the Agenda Overcoming the American Dream: Some Notes on the Work Ahead Acknowledgements

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: From Democracy to Sampoorn Swaraj Vijay Pratap and Ritu Priya

Pursuing the Democratic Dream People in South Asia have long cherished values which, in modern times, are best expressed under the rubric of ‘universalism’ and various dimensions of ‘democracy’. Before the colonial interventions of the West, the distinctive features of our socio-political system were cultural plurality, devolution of political power at all levels and the participatory mode of governance from the grassroots to the top.

We had our own failings, such as the obnoxious practice of untouchability, or the fact that communitarian principles manifested through the caste system degenerated into hierarchical fundamentalism. But despite all kinds of failings, the sense of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam ’ (a Sanskrit concept, meaning ‘The World is a Family’) has been part of our cultural sensibility since time immemorial. That is why our socio-cultural diversity is a source of strength and in fact the primary defining force behind our unbroken identity. There have, of course, been brief phases of ideological or identity polarisations. But soon after, the pluralist perspective prevails. The basic premise of this world-view is that no sect, religion, ideological group, class, socio-political formation, the state or ‘church’ can claim a monopoly of the truth. All truths have to start with the small letter ‘t’ and, depending upon the vantage point, they are able to capture only some aspects of the Truth and not the Truth as a whole. This forms the basis for a democratic society.

Conventionally, democracy is taken to be a political system based on the separation of judiciary, executive and legislature. In this system the legitimacy of governance is derived from the electoral process and the right to vote. Such a narrow definition reduces democracy merely into a political instrument.

However, the last century has witnessed a series of transformations. They have generated an explosion of human energies never known before, devoted to redefining human life. The praxis of ‘new’ social movements embodies a much deeper and comprehensive meaning of democracy than what is understood and practised in the mainstream political discourse. Never before in the history of humankind have such a large proportion of human beings worked for swaraj. (‘Swa’-‘raj’= self + rule, a term commonly used by Gandhi and the Gandhiinspired movements in India.)

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is an idea aspiring to redefine democracy from a mode of governance to a way of life. If democracy informs all levels and dimensions of life, this perspective of comprehensive democracy can be called sampoorn swaraj (full realisation of self-rule).

The idea of ‘self-rule’ goes much beyond the political. It encompasses life itself in a comprehensive manner that makes our lives more meaningful. Swaraj relates to all dimensions of human life and applies to relationships at all levels, from the individual to the global: 1.

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the relationship between nature and human beings, the dynamic of ‘the individual’ and ‘the community’, the dynamic inter-relationship of ‘the self’ and ‘the other’, the relationship of individuals and various types and levels of collectivities with governance structures and 5. the relationship of individuals and collectivities with the market.

The striving for democracy within these relationships can be respectively termed ecological democracy, social democracy, cultural democracy, political democracy and economic democracy.

There is a comprehensive democratic revolution in the making: humankind is striving to redefine all the basic relationships of human life. No single ideology or region can be identified as the vanguard in terms of striving for the above five dimensions of democracy simultaneously.

Issues of self-rule, related to the dynamic of nature - human being, have given rise to green parties, groups, movements and intellectuals all over the world. These green movements are increasing rapidly even in those parts of the world where, according to the conventional development indices, standards of material life are very high. In the societies of material affluence there is an attempt to recover the ‘green consciousness’ and to address the challenges of ecological degradation. In the most of the countries movement groups are engaged in defensive action of saving the livelihood support systems, along with revitalising of ecological and cultural sensibility. Since these energies aim at greater participation of local communities in resolving the nature-human dynamic, we could call this the age of striving for ecological democracy.

Similarly, there is phenomenal human energy on this earth trying to redefine the individual-community dynamic. Issues of dignity are on the central agenda of many groups for human rights, gender, anti-caste and anti-apartheid. There is almost aglobal churning for redefining social relationships, what we could term as social democracy. The response to the Conference against Racism in Durban is an indicator of the revolutionary energies we are talking about. The women’s movement has now a gender perspective on all issues, it is no longer just a women’s rights movement. From this standpoint this is an age of strivings for social democracy.

If we analyse the dynamic of the self and the other and systems of meaning, an entire set of issues emerge under the broad rubric called ‘culture’. The human activity on this front is also of an unprecedented kind. There has been an explosion of new ideas and ideological confrontations, both violent and non-violent. The varied strivings of a cultural democracy are many: critiques of the culture of industrialised societies and modernity, the attempts at revitalising indigenous knowledge systems, emphasising the importance of the plurality of ideas and ways of life, and loosening the controls of orthodoxy are all part of it.

After the majority of the states were liberated from colonial rule, they acquired greater control over their economies. Standard of living started rising, even though very slowly for some. Now, indigenous peoples with natural resource-based economies, and small and marginal farmers are in search for dignified ways of earning their livelihood. This is done through two ways of search and striving: first is to emulate (and even blindly imitate) the rich and prosperous North, the other is to recover the control over natural resources as well as knowledge systems in agriculture, medicine, food, water management and so on. Both represent the pervasive desire for an economic democracy.

The anti-colonial struggles in the majority of the nations have constructed new political identities. A desire for self-rule is pervasive. The people are re-examining and redefining the transplanted colonial instruments. Sometimes there is regression as the firmly established elite imposes some form of authoritarianism. Fortunately participation of people in the political institutions has acquired a tremendous legitimacy. (This explains why many dictators have had to undertake a legitimatisation exercise through some form of election, how so ever partial or imperfect.) This constitutes political democracy.

The imperative of democratic revolution requires that we recognise and relate to the positive dimension of all these energies and contribute in forming them into a definable world-view and a dream for the future. This is our vision of a universal humanistic globalisation.

The Social Costs of Globalisation However, what we witness todayis the culmination of exactly the opposite: a hegemonic globalisation that can only be viewed as a satanic force.

In South Asia the social costs of economic globalisation and the neo-liberal policies related to it have already been very high - and could become still worse.

The achievements of four decades of a democratic polity, however limited, are being reversed. Rapidly declining mortality rates have become stagnant or even reversed in some sub-populations. In India the Dalits (ex-untouchable castes), the

landless or near- landless agricultural labourers and the Adivasis (the indigenous peoples of India) will be the worst hit. At the same time the land-owning farmers have also suffered; Indian farmers are more indebted than ever before. In Nepal the legislative measures, which formed the basis of the country’s successful community forest programmes, are being rev ersed because of the pressures from the World Bank.

Besides this economic reversal, the process of economic globalisation has created new serious challenges for the democratic decision-making processes in every part of the world. The transfer of decision-making power into the hands of transnational institutions like the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank has severely reduced the sovereignty of the national governments. It has resulted in a very serious drift, undermining the whole party political system, especially the accountability of the governments to their own people. As shown by Franck Amalrick’s study: “Influencing national institutions and policies becomes openly one objective of development co-operation policies. […] The World Bank and IMF intervene at the national level under the banners of ‘sound macroeconomic policies ’ and ‘good governance’ – technical banners that fit well the technical nature of these organizations, while bilateral donors intervene under the banners of ‘democracy’ and ‘partnership’.” (Heads in the Sand: A track record global responsibility, 2001) In the present situation it does not really matter so much what kind of party or coalition of parties has been in power. In India, subsequent government coalitions have been forced to continue implementing roughly similar neo-liberal policies.

These policies include privatisation, the liberalisation of trade and investment policies and the reduction of subsidies.

One finds the same defeat of democratic dreams in Finland. Since the Nordic countries undertook the transition from peasant pre-modern to industrial modern societies, they developed social security systems to smoo then the process. It kept the ‘satanic’ features of industrial society in check at least within the region. No monstrous disparities were allowed to creep in: marginalisation and hardships were sought to be kept in check by high taxation and a sound welfare state. The decision-making and governance was reasonably participatory and transparent.

Now, with the new structures created by EU, new laws are proposed by a small group of people. National parliaments endorse them without adequate debate or space for listening to voices of disagreement.

This has amounted to a crisis in democratic decision-making because in most countries the neo-liberal reforms have been implemented against the will of the majority of the voters.

The crisis of democracy has been aggravated, in a very important way, by the problem of corruption. Corruption has increased geometrically during the last decade and there has been at least a ten-fold rise in the 1990s. For instance, the privatisation of public-owned companies and public services, and the entry of the transnational corporatio ns to the national markets, have created ample opportunities for corruption and misuse of public offices. If the Northe rn counterparts in civil society insulate us from the North-driven corruption, we in the South will be able to fight both corruption and communalism domestically.

Corruption was a major problem in South Asia even before the present era of globalisation, but deterioration of the moral and ethical basis of political life has proceeded very fast after it.

How can all these problems be addressed? How can the positive energies be synergised to shape a humanist-universalistic globalisation for an effective democratisation of human society at all levels? All epochal transformative moments in history are pregnant with both possibilities – a new dawn or an era of darkness. What are the forces of darkness at this juncture?

Globally, an elusive ‘consumer paradise’ is being promised through the electronic media and now through the internet. Those are being financed by interested stakeholders without any consideration for issues of economic equity, ecologi cal sensitivity, cultural plurality or dignity of the oppressed. All over the globe one finds a kind of mad rush for this consumer paradise. Values of austerity, larger good and rights of the future generations over our natural and other resources are considered outdated, as well as keeping the interests and perspectives of oppressed communities in mind while simultaneously asserting individual autonomy. This is resulting in fragmentation and polarisation of human collectivities. Extreme individuation and atomisation is resulting in a backlash of identity assertion. This backlash is to be clearly distinguished from the genuine expressions of autonomy, cultural self-definition, issues of ethnic identity or social dignity.

Socio-political forces, whose world-views and dreams are anchored in a falsified view of history, are becoming victims of the prevailing social pathology of a ‘madrace syndrome’. Globally, the most important challenge of our times is to respond to this threat from various kinds of fundamentalism. As mentioned earlier, expansion and deepening of democracy with a comprehensive view is the only antidote against all kinds of fundamentalism; democracy viewed as a perpetual process of mediation between diverse human tendencies and needs.

The Democratic Agenda In a phase of phenomenal upsurge of democratic aspirations, new norms have to be agreed upon at various levels of human collectivities. That has to be done through a process of participatory dialogue, even with the opponents. (Let us say, two neighbouring Nation States who are at loggerheads with each other, or two ideological adversaries in a single Nation State, or between and within communities and families.) One has to recognise the complementarity of each other’s ‘truth’ and consciously avoid being judgmental regarding the other’s viewpoint. The critical evaluation of other viewpoints has to be in an idiom that encourages mode ration.

In discussions that have taken place in various national and international forums, people have started to develop ideas about building a global network of individuals and organisations sharing similar values and goals. Such an initiative could also be seen as an effort to engage the international civil society in organising global or regional dialogue processes about a number of issues that are of crucial importance at this juncture.

The five basic dimensions of human life discussed above could form the thematic perspective for an international network on democracy. As Mr. M.P. Parameswaran, a leading ideologue of the All India People’s Science Network, has put it: “Strengthening of all the five types of democracies at home in India, in the states, and in the panchayats [local councils], is important. This is a real concrete task.

Equally important is the task of disillusionment: that progress is not what the capitalists or even the Marxists have been telling us. International solidarity is important. It gives us moral support. But there is something more important. I feel that we cannot save humanity without saving ‘the West’, especially the Americans, from their follies: without making them realise that their way of life is unsustainable and unenviable. There are a very large number of groups in the USA who share this view. A project – a programme - to weld all these groups into a single force will be useful and even necessary for us and the rest of the world. Can we think of a concrete plan of action for this? I have been feeling the necessity of such action since quite many years.”

It is, admittedly, somewhat uncomfortable to discuss democracy – which, as a process of constructive self-engageme nt of humanity, should be indivisible – in

such small bits and shreds. However, if the complexity of democracy is approached through the five dimensions mentioned above, this should bring forward a wider and richer spectrum of problems and possibilities. One possible articulation of these dimensions as thematic perspectives is suggested below. i) Empowerment of the Daridranarayan, the ‘Last Person’ (Economic Democracy): All the greatest teachers of humankind including Gandhi, Muhammad, Christ and the Buddha, have emphasised the importance of empowerment of the weakest and the poorest of society. Many people probably consider such a concept either patronising, elitist or naïve. Despite that, perhaps the most important single test for any kind of democracy is whether it works so that it can protect the needs and rights of the poorest, most oppressed and least influential people in the society.

What this means in each society and in each historical period will differ, because poverty and deprivation will be created and regenerated over and over again through widely varied means. But the issue or goal is clear and remains the same.

One of the main problems is how to relate to the needs and concerns of the Daridranarayan in a way that is empowering and not patronising.

With the Daridranarayan at the centre of all thinking, all issues concerning transactions of goods and services, technological choices and mode and relations of production have always been part of human engagement. All such issues can be considered as the economic dimension of democracy, called ‘economic democracy’ for convenie nce. ii) Ecological Regeneration and People’s Control over Natural Resources (Ecological Democracy): Environmental degradation - pollution of air, water and soil, loss of species and bio-diversity, destruction of the ozone layer, destabilisation of the climate, loss of tree and vegetative cover, soil erosion and desertification - is one of the most serious issues of our times. It should be a high priority for the movement.

However, the discourse of the West and among the westernised organisations in the South is often very alienating for the majority of the (rural) people. This discourse may result in programmes and measures neither understood nor owned by them. In the long run, such programmes can backfire. A better approach is to concentrate on people’s control over natural resources, and integrate the various environmental and conservational concerns in such an approach. Human kind’s relationship with nature as a consumer, controller, nurturer, destroyer or as a small component of nature are all issues to be dealt with under the rubric of ecological democracy.

iii) Ensuring Human Dignity (Social Democracy): There is no doubt that the neo-liberal economic policies and other measures pursued by the ‘new right’ will be causing extreme poverty on a scale that could be unsurpassed in human history. In many cases the problems should be seen in the framework of empowering the Daridranaryan and as issues of acute economic survival. However, in most insta nces, issues like unemployment or underemployment, temporary employment, workers’ rights and the meaning and nature of the available working opportunities are issues of human dignity across the globe. Even in cases where the crumbs falling from the table of the neo-liberals are more than enough to satisfy the basic material needs of the people, human dignity is sacrificed in a most harmful way. The hegemonic neo-liberal policies create identities of greed, promote consumerism and materialism and prevent people from making good moral choices and pursuing their spirituality. They sacrifice human dignity for profit.

The struggle for dignity and social equity has to be the principle issue among Dalits. This way they are well equipped to contribute from their perspective and experience in the struggle against satanic globalisation. It is the actual situation among Dalits that forced large number of ideologues, including Babasahib Ambedkar, to emphasise the importance of a caste annihilation movement in India.

(In the rest of South Asia, due to the peculiar local situation, it is not even being recognised as an important source of inequity). In the past two decades there has been regression of the upper caste from their earlier acceptance of empowerment of the ex-untouchable castes. Also, increasing voice of women in the social sphere is being accompanied by new forms of perversions and violence against them, manifested e.g. by the declining sex ratio of 0-6 year olds in India. These issues have to be viewed with their wider linkages under the rubric of social democracy. iv) Strengthening Plural Co-existence (Cultural Democracy): The issue of plural coexistence - and of the prevention of communal (or racial) violence - has a profound significance for every part of the world at the beginning of this millennium. When the world’s economic and cultural crises deepen, the threat of communal violence increases. In areas suffering from acute environmental degradation, the undermining of the natural resource base can aggravate such problems.

In South Asia there is a living tradition of peaceful co-living of various ethnic and religious groups and of sects within religions. This tradition is under great strain and needs to be revitalised in the present context. A judicial pronounceme nt in Bangladesh in January 2001 banning fatwa (religious edicts) is an authentic illustration of cultural democracy. Among the Hindus, vesting of adequate dignity

to the folk practices not conforming to Brahmanical scriptural norms should be a priority item.

A campaign for cultural democracy should also be a mobilising act against attempts to distort history in almost all countries of the world, including those in Europe and America. In Europe the Muslims are being projected as a fundamentalist or non-pluralist segment of the society. The increasing polarisation between the Islamic countries and the West (the European Union and the United States of America) has been deepened by instances like the Gulf War in 1990, which created anti-West feelings throughout the ‘Islamic world’. The European integration - all the old colonial powers being fused to one new super-power - is worsening the situation because it is considered as the potential and powerful adversarial supra state by the Islamic states. The conflict will be further aggravated if the European Union becomes a real Federal State and if it develops a joint defence policy and a joint army. In that case all the EU member states, including the Nordic countries, will become integral parts of a major military super-power with a large arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Plural coexistence, however, should not be viewed from a negative viewpoint, through only the scenarios of conflict that need to be prevented. It should be seen as richness, where new things are being created and recreated ontinuously through the interaction of differences. All of human history has developed through cultural interaction, diffusion and adaptation. Diversity in ways of life provides complementary ways of fulfilling the need for expression of diverse human tendencies in any society, and therefore must be nurtured. v) Nurturing and Deepening of Democracy (Political Democracy): Political democracy, if not constantly cared for and defended, can be greatly undermined. All the possible checks that can be built against the un-democratising thrust of social systems can only be effective if the people actively guard democratic structures and norms. Democracy - defined in terms like participation, representation and rule of law, protection of cultural, linguistic, religious and political minorities and transparency of political decision-making - is to be nurtured and deepened. However, at present only one model of such democratic processes is being adopted by all the countries with different cultures, institutions and traditions: the western liberal or market democracy, whose specificities have evolved in a small cultural-historical zone of the globe.

So far, the most important institutional framework for negotiating a society incorporating universalistic-humanistic values is political democracy, based on a multi-party system, adult franchise and separation of powers of executive, judiciary and legislature. Even this comes under threat when other forms of

democracy are not realised. The principle of subsidiarity of power, i.e. allowing the people to exercise self-rule at the grass-root level, is crucial to ensure particip atory democracy. District, provincial and national political power should not be treated as higher levels of power but different spheres of power.

The big wave of indigenisation and anti-westernisation - which is part explanation for the Islamic Resurgence, the growth of the Hindutva-movements and the economic and cultural rise of China - cannot be wished away lightly. If issues like democracy, human rights or women’s rights get labelled as “western values” by various oppressive forces in the South, there is a real danger that these values will be seriously undermined during the first century of the new millennium.

Directions of Search In the bottom-up view of participatory democracy where institutions, ideas and ideologies are worked out by the people themselves, there is a contradiction in terms to suggest institutions of governance. When the recipients of the Right Livelihood Award met in Salzburg in 1999, issues of WTO came up. The solution suggested was not an alternative WTO, but basically a plea to pause and undertake introspection seriously. It was suggested that the operation of the WTO should be suspended for five years, a Citizen’s Commission should be appointed to go into the various kinds of damages it has inflicted over humankind, and civil society dialogues should be organised all over the globe, especially among the affected communities.

Instead of giving a top-down solution, we would like to engage with the following questions with regard to the potential and direction the present flux will take. The main issues for a democratic basic transformation of society involve (a) faith, (b) hope and (c) the methods.

Faith: Regarding faith in fellow human beings, the widely shared view among the community of activists we belong to, is that selfishness and greed are only one part of the human journey and not the dominating, defining characteristic of human life.

Wants can be fulfilled, and even indulged in, without being glorified.

We insist that it is very degrading to define human beings as entities with material wants only. They have moral, spiritual and cultural orientations as well.

Commenting on an earlier draft of the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam statement Professor B.K. Roy Burman, a leading Indian anthropologist, said the following: "My understanding of anthropology impels me to accept the basically social nature of human beings. [...] Democracy is the other name of practice of companionate

value oriented culture. It is a process in non-stop dialectical relationship with antinomous culture. Commitment to responsible democracy is commitment to the processual dimension and not to any pre-fabricated structure.”

Hope: The task of building true democracy is now firmly linked with the global struggle to reform or transform capitalism without a readymade version of socialism. It is a new project. However, it is based on perennial values of compassion, justice, equality and freedom. It is based on understanding the spiral and web of life and to nurturing life in its most holistic sense in the contemporary context. There has to be hope for such a creative endeav our.

Method: The method for democratic struggles has three aspects. One is ‘dialogue’, basically to reco gnise the contours of the present times. Through dialogues we not only recognise our times but also understand the calling of our times. Dialogue at all levels, including with the adversary, is possible only if we do not believe in the conspiracy theory and believe in the willingness of the human spirit for struggle and self-sacrifice against injustice. However, grasping the essence of the times will be incomplete if we do not simultaneously fight the injustice. For this, the second component is ‘non-violent civil disobedience’. The third component of the method is ‘constructive a ction’ to create structures, activities and life styles in consonance with the vision of a democratic society.

Limitations of North-South Civil Society Dialogues For a variety of political and historical reasons, internationally funded NGOs have less popular appeal and legitimacy in our society than the non-funded / nonstructured movement groups. Civil society groups working among Dalits of India are under such pressures (to work for issues of local oppression, proper implementati on of the policy of positive affirmation, land reforms, plight of the agricultural workers and issues of Dalit atrocities etc.) that they hardly get to link these pressing issues of identity and dignity with the larger issues of globalisation.

The diversity of Indian civil society makes it imperative that the anti-globalisation perspective and struggle can flower only when there is a linking up of various social groups into a holistic democratic struggle at all levels, including the grassroot and national levels.

Northern civil society has to work out institutional mechanisms to relate to the less globalised sections of our society. In the early eighties, peasant movement ideologues like Sunil Sahastrabudhey used to emphasise a distinction between India and Bharat. Bharat refers to that section of Indian population which is either less colonised or structural could not access the global modern knowledge systems and networks. There is plenty of literature that clearly demonstrates that people in Bharat have not completely lost their touch yet and they lead a more wholesome life than those of us who are victims of the mad-race syndrome.

We are trying to convey two issues: first, in the bottom-up view of democracy, we need to learn the specificity and uniqueness of each entity and at every level.

Second, we must not undermine the autonomy of each entity and should not mixup the levels. But in an era of globalisation, where we all need to unite to deal with the satanic dimensions of globalisation, we need to know each other empathetically. Knowing oneself is a very difficult task and knowing the ‘other’ is yet more difficult. But to work out concretely the ideas of global solidarity we need to help each other to know ourselves without undermining our autonomies.

It is instructive to remember Gandhiji’s advice that he gave to a group of Christian workers from USA in 1936. This advice also makes it clear that Gandhiji was not a blind opponent of modern science and technology, as some sections would like to portray him: “When Americans come and ask me what service they could render, I tell them: if you dangle your millions before us, you will make beggars of us and demoralise us. But in one thing I don’t mind being a beggar. You can ask your engineers and agricultural experts to place their services at our disposal. They must come to us not as lords and masters, but as voluntary workers”.

Proposals for Concrete Action Till date Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam has been more a framework for connecting various levels and dimensions of political work in the manner that new forms of North-South solidarity and partnership could be worked out. It is not an organisation competing with other organisations in terms of visibility and constituency. It owns and considers itself part of the radical democratic movement.

The more we dialogue and rub shoulders with each other, the nearer we arrive at a more comprehensive and shared understanding of our times and the possible modes of intervention. The organisational form that Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam takes depends upon the local context in which people come together. Several organisations in India have adopted a programme on dialogues for comprehensive democracy, calling it ‘the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam programme’. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam in India is not a registered organisation but a forum to develop the international dimension of radical democratic politics of the country to become part of the world-wide movement for deepening democracy.

Keeping our basic premises, the challenges covered in the foregoing discussion and the limitations in mind, the following are some suggestions for concrete action: •

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Opening up spaces for multiple visions to evolve, flower and express themselves. Dialogue, or in fact multi-logue across the diverse visions and between diverse strands within them, will enrich all human striving. This can occur democratically only when each vision feels secure and empowered.

Institutionalising quasi-permanent structures/networks for enduring ‘Dialogues on democracy and globalisation’. This can be the most strategic tool for global democratisation. We need to consciously and urgently cultivate peer groups, clubs, institutions, networks, movement groups and political parties to discuss the positive forms of intervent ion to deepen democracy.

We urgently need to undertake some defensive actions as well. We need to evolve a defence strategy in preserving what the hegemonic forces have not so far destroyed. Southern civilisations have been practising for thousands of years a way of life that we now describe as ‘green principles’. A careful look at their livelihood support systems will show that limiting the wants was a conscious choice for conservation and regeneration of nature and not due to sheer technological backwardness. But now, the present form of globalisation is destroying these communities at a very rapid rate. Global democratic forums need to set up a ‘defence committee’ to defend ‘green

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communities’ in the South. Otherwise, what has been preserved through thousands of years will be completely destroyed in the next couple of decades.

We need an independent information, research and media network to identify the democratic practices, struggles, dreams and dramas being unfolded and enacted in the family called Earth. We need to collect, collate and then share this information, especially for those who are still prisoners of the mirage of the American consumer paradise. We should resolve to set up such media centres all over the world and to disseminate this information in the people’s languages as widely as possible, besides doing so in English.

All these dialogues and building up of institutions and networks should culminate into building a global front for defending, deepening and expanding democracy. This front can be built through a combination of intellectual activism and organisation building. The organisation building cannot happen through intellectual activism alone. The evolution of ideological frameworks and building up of networks can happen effectively if we use the tool of civil disobedient and constructive action, as evolved by Gandhiji.

Those who believe in democracy have not only to shun violence themselves but also have to delegitimise violence as a method for social change. They have to sharpen the tools of non-violent civil disobedience. Gandhiji believed that only those who are civil and obey the laws of the land have the right to fight the unjust laws.

The agenda of boycotting genetically modified food-grains and biotechnology produced edible materials should be adopted and, if necessary, non-violent civil disobedience should be resorted to. This should be done after adequate political and technical preparation, including sustainable land use planning A campaign should be launched against all diversionary moves which, in the name of cultural nationalism and ‘national sentiments’, put issues such as the right to work and right to sustainable livelihood at the backburner.

Democratising existing global institutions by sensitising them to the above processes and making them supportive. Building such pressure on existing institutions and devising new institutions more in consonance with the calling of the present times would then be part of bottom-up movements.

The institutions must be constantly renewed by an interactive process and mechanisms for this must be structurally incorporated.

Statement of Purpose for Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Finland

Thomas Wallgren

Diagnosis of the Times: Politics in the Context of Culture The dream of equality between free people living dignified and secure lives may be as old as human kind itself. It is not the property of any one time, place or culture but belongs to all, as an ongoing task. The conditions for its realisation vary over time. In our times all people engaging in politics for equality and solidarity need to define their views on the powers – military, economic, political and cultural – unleashed by the modern West. This is true to an eminent degree for those of us who live in Western Europe and North America. Let that, then, be my startingpoint.

Modernisation as a form of civilisation combines unlikely political, social, economic, moral and cultural aspects that have been upheld triumphantly globally for five centuries. This has, famously, been the first period of world history. At no other time in the million years that humanoid creatures have inhabited this earth have any one of their cultural expressions come anywhere near the modern West in terms of dynamic influence on the biosphere and cultural developments on all continents. The five centuries of modern expansion deserve to be called the era of extremes. They have been marked by excessive amounts of both oppression and emancipation, poverty and wealth, suffering and self-realisation, cultural decline and flowering, all of which have been extremely unequally distributed.

One of the most attractive features of modernisation is its universal intention, an aim certainly not unique to modern culture, but which nevertheless serves as its moral basis, giving its other aspirations support and credibility. Modernity, which promises so many good things in this life, including emancipation from old social bonds, individual autonomy, the satisfaction of immediate desire without moral risk and unforeseen material affluence and power comes with the claim that these promises are meant for us all.

Until recently, the promise seemed realistic. It made sense to believe that modernisation as a universal moral project was compatible with the industrial growth model of social organisation. Under these conditions, it was natural that protests against the affluent utopia were mostly seen as expressing an elitist aesthetic sensibility that did not merit serious political attention. Given the ideology of the cultural neutrality of science, technology and modern Western consumer standards, it was natural too that industrial affluence of the Western type became a goal and its furtheran ce a source of cultural and political legitimacy for the powerful across the planet. This was the time when cultural visions that did not integrate the search for scientific and technological might and at least some aspects of the consumer paradise became marginalised in most traditions.

At the end of the old Millennium it had, however, become evident that the dream of modernity as the universal consumer paradise has come to its end. The world has enough for everyone’s needs but not for everyone’s greed, as Gandhi already knew.

The cultural implication is obvious but not eagerly received in all quarters: modernisation can continue today only on the basis of a choice between solidarity and growth, as the overriding concern and criterion for social and cultural success.

There is little doubt about the choice that prevails today: the US and EU and elites in all countries who follow their lead, are heading towards the abyss that opens up when priority is given to industrial growth that benefits, at most, the already rich, not to universal justice and solidarity. In the search for growth, capitalism, unfettered by the socialist challenge, comes into its own, promising infinite increases in wealth and might to the already rich and mighty. And, of course, capitalism in its pure form is a political regime too, with imperialistic warfare, global juridical regulation of the economy, and increasingly totalitarian domestic politics as its condition for success. A fundamental question of our times, especially in the modern West is how we can shift cultural track. How can we move away from the dim prospects that inevitably follow for us and others as long as we choose growth that benefits the rich rather than a solidarity as the paramount goal? How can we abandon such ‘cynical modernity’ and embark on a new ‘modernity of solidarity’ in which priority is given to the universal moral ideals of modern culture over the values of worldly success? What would it mean for us today to be guided in our politics by those very ideals of democracy, equity and freedom and dignity of all, which the dominating powers still, with unfathomable hypocrisy, claim for themselves?

It is in the search for answers to this question that I see a role for Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. That statement implies that I think the answers given at present by the best political forces are not satisfactory. Bits and pieces of the answers we need are available in the broad spectrum of left, green and centrist-liberal forces, which can credibly claim to be guided by universal, democratic aspirations. (I shall call this the centre-left.) But they need to be deepened and strengthened, bearing in mind a key lesson of the past century, the lesson that the centre-left needs to draw its strength from multiple dreams and open-ended, non-violent struggle rather than from a singular utopia that gives false justification to standardisation, violence and oppression.

The Crisis of Centre-left Politics The current crisis of modernity has a well-known political aspect. Imperial, corporate-driven, capitalist globalisation has prompted a crisis of governance with

world-wide implications. Not only are basic survival conditions of disadvantaged people, animals and plants destroyed at a phenomenal rate. Ironically, the collapse of many states and the growing uncertainty and disregard for rules that grows from within capitalism itself is, arguably, creating increasing risk for the traditional winners in global capitalism, the large corporations, and the political and administrative elites of the dominant powers.

The ensuing so-called crisis of governance has received enormous attention, especially among the educated, western and westernised elites. The natural, oftenheard response is the call for more transnational and / or global governance. Just see how wide the call has rung in academic circles, the web, NGOs, World Bank reports, government programmes and western media during the past decade.

Sometimes the call is moderated by calls for democracy in global governance, and lately radical groups and intellectuals have started gathering around programmes for transnational and global democratisation.

The call for global democratisation has my sympathy and support. It can also be dangerous, however, unless it is understood in a larger cultural context. As long as we think of the crisis we face today primarily as a crisis of governance we will not be able to see that the call for governance and the call for democracy are ultimately two entirely different cultural models. We will then be prone to engage in a politics for global democracy with an agenda so narrow that it risks becoming, inadvertently, the unlikely ally of imperial, belligerent capitalism. This risk looms large in centre-left politics today and is a key reason for our collective weakness at all levels of politics. As I think this diagnosis is politically quite potent, I will next provide some warrant for it. Before going to that, let me stress, however, that I do not see Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam as a forum exclusively for those who agree with my diagnosis and argument. I see it rather as a forum, in which concerns such as the ones I express here can be debated among friends sharing common values so that we can learn together.

Let me start with an analogy. Between 1965 and 1985, the rising awareness of the ecological problems and of their links to the development crisis in the South led to a much needed questioning of the industrial growth model of society in Western Europe and North America, or ‘the North’. In the mid-80s, however, after the invention of a new terminology with the concepts ‘ecological modernisation’ and ‘sustainable development’ at the core, the radicalising questioning of the dominant development model in the North was transformed into a search for more-of-thesame. As we have seen so clearly since the publication of the so called Brundtland Report on Sustainable Development in 1987, the political search for sustainable development since has not been a search for cultural transformation in the North due to the limits to growth nor has it been about social and political transformation in order to advance global equity. Sustainable development has become the

legitimating ground for a politics of technological and administrative fixes in which the political potential of the ecological crisis is domesticated. What used to be a reason to put checks and limits on imperial aggression and corporate power has become a vehicle for enhanced power for the educated elites in business, administration, academic institutions and the new power brokers called NGOs. There is no exact parallel between ‘sustainable development’ and ‘globalisation’, and not all uses of the word globalisation are dangerous. Nevertheless, it seems to me that some very troubling political developments are intrinsically linked to the rise of the term ‘globalisation’ to the centre of our present political vocabulary.

First, there is what I want to call the unintended affiliation between e.g. many political initiatives discussed at Porto Alegre and in Davos, in the World Social Forum (WSF) and the World Economic Forum. Even President Bush will agree easily with many discussants at the WSF that because of economic globalisation, ‘the world’ needs creativity and bold action in shaping new structures of transnational governance. Given the asymmetry in communicative and administrative power, this agreement is often sufficient to enable the elites to translate radical and well-intended propositions for transnational institutional reform into a political dynamics that works in their favour. Just think how smoothly radical reform proposals, such as the call for a Currency Transaction Treaty (the ‘Tobin tax’), have during the past few years been translated into a legitimation of new means of technocratic control, such as the investment treaty in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or greater centralisation of power in the European Union (EU). The crucial step is often the shift from the correct claim, “we need fair and democratic rules to control so-and-so, e.g. transnational capital flows” to the potentially genocidal “we need a rules-based global system to control so-and-so”.

Consider further, the debates over the WTO and over the EU. In both debates, the centre-left stands divided. Some of us are eager to use the WTO and EU as tools for our goals. The reason is not that we think so well of the present WTO or EU. The reason is that we think both, or at least one of them, say the EU, belong to the best promises we have in the struggle for global democracy, peace and justice. The core of the argument to this effect is very well known. It runs, with little variety as follows: “In the 20th century, the centre-left came a long way ino taming capitalism at the national level. The finest achieve ment was, arguably, the creation of the welfare societies of the Nordic countries, which became models of equality, prosperity and democracy of global significance. Unfortunately, however, capitalism has outgrown the political reach of nation states. The centre-left must therefore create

new structures of transnational governance. If we do not join forces to reform the EU (and perhaps the WTO too) from within, we lose some of our best tools for taming global capitalism. Therefore, and also as a counterweight to US military hegemony, we need a strong EU (and, perhaps, a strong WTO).”

One could call this the political programme of the social democratic reformist optimists.

The reformist programme is challenged by other centre-left forces. They claim that the present prospects for reform of the WTO and / or the EU are so dim that we should oppose and resist rather than go along with and seek reform from within.

Not all transnational power, these forces will claim, are effective when we seek to tame capitalism. The present WTO and the present EU, they will claim, are fundamentally undemocratic. Rather than serving as tools to control corporate power the EU and/or the WTO work, in fact, to enhance it. We should not be misled by our dreams. No one who takes the trouble to analyse the draft constitution for the European Union prepared by the ‘European Convention’ can fail to see that it promises no democratisation of the EU, but rather cements the present power structure. Far from developing into a tool for democratic control of capitalism, or for putting checks on the military hegemony of the US and the EU as we have it in reality and not in our dreams, the draft constitution is developing into a tool for control by industry and finance of the polity and for securing an improved European contribution to US- led imperialist aggression. Giving more power to the EU will not, therefore, bring more justice and peace to the political system but less.

The debates over the role of EU and WTO reform to advance global justice and peace illustrate a larger problem that haunts the centre-left today. The quarrels over the role of short-term realistic reform of existing transnational institutions in a comprehensive politics for global solidarity has resulted in what could be called the Great Divide. On one side, we have the committed realists and reformists of the centre-left. Their fate during the past decade or two has been to play quite weakly in government or government coalitions whose politics is defined by a solid neoliberal hegemony. Tax cuts and deregulation in domestic politics have been accompanied by corporate-friendly ‘liberalisation’ of the international economy, under the guidance of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the WTO and their regional clones. The result is known by all: growing income gaps in and between countries globally, growing insecurity and marginalisation on all continents, the decline of small scale farming and local self-reliance, etc.

At the same time, more radical centre-left groups who refuse to fight on the terms dictated by the dominant right have been marginalised from pragmatic decision-

making. Simultaneously, they have encountered their notorious ‘strange bed-fellow problem’ i.e. the problem of distinguishing themselves from communal, nationalistic or xenophobic groups.

The situation we end up in is this: The more radical left stands with a growing nationalist and fascist right in a position of a morally righteous but politically impotent opposition. And the reformist left stands helplessly in power with the prevailing, neo-liberal right. Unable to level out their differences, the divided centre-left fights a defensive and losing battle in the capitalist whirlpool while the fascist right advances to power.

What we have lost, or never achieved sufficiently, in most European countries at least is the day-to-day co-operation and sense of self-evident solidarity between the reformist left-liberal spectrum and the more radical green-left spectrum of politics.

In my country, Finland, and I believe many other countries as well, the loss takes the form also of a loss of solidarity between established parties, trade unions and farmers’ organisations on one side, and radical more or less anarchist movement groups on the other side. (The WSF-process serves well to break this unhappy constellation. And maybe the new governments of Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil are a sign that a new centre-left hegemony is on the rise? But I shall not discuss that here.) What we witness in consequence of these divides is the sorry spectacle of a centre-left that lacks moral vision and political courage. The end result is that we have been slow and weak in challenging imperial capitalism at its roots; at the levels of cultural imagination and daily mass-support.

The Way Out: Deepening and Broadening the Agenda We, the people, parties, groups, movements, trade unions and other political organisations of the centre-left have a simple task. We need to break the neoliberal hegemony. This requires strength both in pragmatic day-to-day political reform and at the level of visions and values.

Creative work for transnational political reform has a role to play in our overall strategy, but if we are to overcome ‘the Great Divide’, we need to be more clear than we have been of late about this part of our programme. Quarrelling over the right EU or WTO politics will be endless and unproductive unless we see both tasks in a broad and long-term perspective. Let me refer briefly to two basic conditions for democracy that the centre-left needs to, but has often have failed to, take into account. (Both conditions are shrugged off as irrelevant by neo-liberals.

Keeping them in view helps, I think, in making clear the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the neo-liberal right.)

First: democracy is not interest agglomeration. According to a popular but limited version of liberal democratic thought, people enter society with interests and needs which only the individual herself can know. Democracy, on this account, is a tool we use to weigh these legitimate irreducibly individual interests and needs against each other in order to accomplish fair (re)distribution. This view is based on an atomistic notion of society (as constituted by isolated individuals or ‘atoms’) and it implies a mechanistic notion of democracy. Global democracy, we might think on this basis, is essentially achievable by having a world parliament elected through adult franchise and assisted by an effective staff of experts to take care of global problems. Regional parliaments will do the job at the regional level, national at the national level and so on. This vision of democracy as essentially comprising three components, free and fair elections, democratic legislation by the elected and the exercise of power by governments accountable to elected parliaments has only limited merit if already for the following reason: It overlooks the extent to which needs and interests are constantly defined and redefined through communication. (I cannot know what is good for me unless I know how my assessment is received by others I care for and about, and unless I know how these others assess my assessment and can learn from them, and unless the others can learn from me, and unless I know that they know how I understand their assessment, and so on and so on: The levels and kinds of reciprocal reflection, care and learning that play a role in democratic communication are quite many and complex.) For this reason alone, we can have democracy worth its name only between people who can effectively communicate with each other. And, for this reason alone, many well-intended proposals for global and transnational democratic reform that are in vogue today bear the mark of naivety.

Second: democratic communication is not easily achieved. We must, of course, be fascinated by the prospects opened up by new media and so-called global civil society. Both open up important new possibilities. But we must be clear that new media are no more neutral tools for democracy than are old media, such as the ‘free’ commercial press and TV. And ‘civil society’ is all too often founded on dreams of mass participation while its real outreach and mobilisation remains extremely weak. Of course, my point is not that we should leave internet and international conferencing to our opponents. But the fact is that even when at their best, as in the Socialist International, the International Coalition of Free Trade Unions, the World Social Forum, global movement networks such as People’s Global Action or Jubilee 2000 or in INGOs (International Non-Governmental Organisations) such as Friends of the Earth or Attac, international communication structures in the age of the net and ‘global civil society’ remain extremely asymmetrical. Language barriers, gendered technologies and economic and technological disparities continue to give fantastic privilege to the educated male elites and middle classes in all parts of the globe. This is not only true in business,

high politics and the academic world but in left-centre politics of all varieties as well. And the problem is often even more acute on the transnational and global level than on regional, national and local levels of organisation.

With these observations in mind, let me single out three strategic challenges to centre-left politics in the era of globalisation and the cultural crisis of modernity.

(It should be obvious from the discussion above that I intend the challenges I highlight as complementary to, not as replacements for, some more obvious and well-known tasks such as stopping imperialist warfare and curbing corporate power.)

First, the challenge of comprehensibility: people can exercise democratic rights and participate effectively only if political processes are understandable. Often the currently most decisive political issues, such as EU or WTO-reform, present quite serious difficulties in this regard.

Second, the challenge of creating the right structures of communication and to strengthen, and if needed create, corresponding democratic processes and institutions. We must face, not least, the fact that in the era of the internet and global air travel, and as more nations than ever before conduct multi-party elections with universal suffrage, the democratic accountability of elected and nonelected political leaders seems to have weakened rather than strengthened. Why is this and what are the remedies?

Third, the challenge of limiting the political tasks. The current level of integration and interdependence in world affairs threatens to make meaningful, reasoned political participation a full-time task. But not all people want to be full-time activists and not all people can. This (and other considerations only hinted at here) opens up the prospect that modern technology and the modes of organisation it necessitates are incompatible with comprehensive democracy. And that reminds us of the need in the centre-left to take seriously again the discussion about the right balance between the local, the national and the transnational in our political and economic strategies.

It seems to me that no democratic politics today can hope to be realistic without a view of transnational or global democratisation. But it is equally true that a democratic politics that focuses too much on the global or transnational level will have little chance of responding to the challenges I mentioned.

It is because of the need I see for the centre-left to unite and to address the challenges I have mentioned that I welcome the comprehensive perspective on democracy that lies at the core of Democracy Forum Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.

In discussions of this perspective, friends of the initiative have often talked about dimensions of democracy. Dimensions that have been mentioned include political, ecological, cultural, gender, social, economic and knowledge democracy.

One could say that this discussion of the dimensions of democracy is informed by a horizontal view of the challenges for a comprehensive politics for democratisation.

I welcome it for many reasons. At the level of our theoretical understanding, the analysis of the various dimensions of democracy reminds us that democratic politics is a richer and perhaps more demanding art than is often observed.

(Democratic politics is not only about economics and governance, even though it must be about these too.) At the level of pragmatic day-to-day work, the same analysis promises to be an energising and enriching tool. I would like to emphasise one particularly promising aspect. When we speak of the many dimensions of democracy, we will be reminded of what the political movements have always intuitively known: a political movement is successful when cultural, social, epistemic and other efforts work without competition between them towards common goals. Emma Goldman was right: A movement that does not have its own dances will not be successful. Hence, there is a place and need in democratic politics for people of many other types than those who enjoy the classical political themes of state-power and economic regulation. One way in which Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam has the potential to contribute to a resurgence of centre-left politics is by serving as a forum that inspires a broadening of the centre-left selfunderstanding, participation and political agenda.

I would, however, like to add a ‘vertical’ perspective to the horizontal perspective on democracy. Whichever ‘dimension’ of democracy we consider, it involves challenges at different vertical levels of human interaction. The mechanisms and tools for democracy will not all be the same at the family level, the community level, the national level, the regional level, the transnational level and the global level. (If we recognise this, we can also recogni se that the quarrel over direct vs. representative democracy is often spurious.)

All vertical levels of democracy in all horizontal dimensions are interdependent. If we have no democracy in our families or our companies, our schools or our local communities, we will not have individuals with the capacity to engage democratically in transnational politics. But, also, unless transnational democratic structures protect local democracies of e.g. gender and the economy against the onslaught of capitalist aggression, the latter will be facing hard times. And so on.

Democratic politics, then, is a truly comprehensive task. Democracy Forum Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam serves a role already in reminding us that this is the case. Nevertheless, it is not an initiative designed only to propel dreams.

Overcoming the American Dream: Some Notes on the Work Ahead This is not the place to discuss programmes but let me close with a remark that connects to my diagnosis above and with a few notes on the current tasks of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam as I see them.

The centre-left needs, as stressed above, to challenge the neo-liberal hegemony in ‘high politics’, especially transnationally. But it can do so successfully only if (i) it does not restrict itself to ‘reactive’, transnational political struggle and (ii) if it recognises that the current neo-liberal hegemony is rooted in a deep cultural hegemony. In the present world, ‘the American Dream’, the dream of getting a ticket to consumer paradise, has captured the hearts and minds of people across the globe. In this sense, the defeat of centre-left politics for justice, peace and democracy : the comprehensive and deep political changes that are required today can only come together with changes in cultural vision and aspiration. Correct responses and answers will be different in different contexts and different parts of the globe. We will not find all the right answers overnight. Peaceful cultural change involves deep collective learning processes and must be slow. It took centuries for the modern West to acquire its hegemonic force. It is a relatively new discovery that this cultural form has come to a point at which a choice has become inevitable between striving above all for growth for the rich, which will lead to a new cultural form, ‘cynical modernity’ and striving for ethical universalism, which will lead, in various forms and with many varieties, to modernities (or postmodernities) of solidarity. The needs of our times are truly gigantic and pressing.

Nevertheless, it would be unrealistic and dangerous to expect that the cultural and political changes that our new cultural predicament necessitates could be achieved within just one or two generations.

Regardless of how accurate the nuthshell diagnosis of the times I have suggested is, one thing seems clear. The only way to a different, more plural, ecologically realistic and more humane cultural order comes through long processes of democratic negotiation, struggle and service. The work ahead can only be achieved through real participation by very large numbers of people. Success will not come easily. But I suppose few of us thought that human life would ever be easy. And there is good news as well. We do not know the ways of history. But it seems to me realistic today to think that even quite minimal democratic advances can, due to the monstrosity and precariousness of the present structures of power, have very powerful effects.

Can Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam add anything to this struggle? That, of course, is a question to be decided through real work. I close with some remarks that give an idea of the kind of work I think Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam could advance.

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Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam grows partly out of discussions and political cooperation between South Asian and Nordic activists that have endured for more than decade. The initiative has therefore an inherent inter-cultural aspect. Nevertheless, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is not designed only or primarily to promote international activities. While we recognise the huge relevance of international and transnational politics, many of us think that most political work today still needs to reach the levels where most citizens meet and are active, i.e. the local and national levels. These basic startingpoints should help avoid both national or local parochialism and the eurocentrism and dominance of the experiential basis of the frequent travellers that is so typical of many international and transnational political initiatives, old and new.

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is not a campaign organisation, nor a body that tries to advance its own political programme or ideology. It strives to serve as a forum for understanding and bridge-building. To this end, it will be useful if Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam can be used as a forum to negotiate differences and recreate solidarity through debate over issues that are strategically divisive between people and organisations of the centre-left working on similar themes. But I also see a role for Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam in re-forging links between various sectors of the centre-left that at times have been close but have now drifted apart. One example might be the links between the academic centre-left and parties and movements, another might be the links between cultural workers and activists in parties and movements with a more immediately political identity.

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam intends, with all modesty, to be one of many groups and initiatives that support and contribute to the World Social Forum process. It should not be seen as seeking to compete with it, be it at the national, regional or international level.

Despite its intellectual profile and dialogic focus, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam should be acutely aware of the need not only for discussion and debate, but also for two other equally necessary dimensions of democratic politics. One is service: only by understanding our work as selfless service for what Gandhi called Daridranarayan (the last perso n), not as struggle for power and influence can we accomplish the unity of means and ends that is essential to all truly democratic politics. The other is resistance: to achieve democratic change, we must remember, it is often not sufficient to have good ideas and good arguments that win massive support. Often necessary

change can only be achieved after the powerful have been challenged with all means of non-violent struggle and resistance.

Acknowledgements The ideas expressed in this book are an outcome of a long lasting dialogue between the authors and many others since 1989. If all those who have contributed to the development of these ideas were named, the list would make another 50 pages.

However, there are people who have taken active interest in the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam idea whom we wish to acknowledge. In India and Nepal, G. Narendra Nath, B.K.Roy Burman, Richa Nagar, D.L.Sheth, Devinder Sharma, Arun Kumar (economist), Arun Kumar (panibaba), Arun Singh, Rajni Bakshi, Ajit Jha, R.N.Mehro tra, Anil Bhattarai, Vagish Jha, Raman Nanda and Manvi Priya have given important inputs. In Finland and Sweden a group of activist and scholars who have taken part in the discussions include Jaana Airaksinen, Tord Björk, Outi Hakkarainen, Risto Isomäki, Meri Koivusalo, Anastasia Laitila, Leena Rikkilä, Katarina Sehm-Patomäki, Tove Selin, Folke Sundman, Olli Tammilehto, Oras Tynkkynen and Marko Ulvila. Jarna Pasanen did the final editing and effort to bring out this booklet.

Vijay Pratap has been active in the democratic social movement, as member of youth wing of the Socialist Party since 1968 and later Janata Party at its inception.

He has been founder member of a number of organisations and networks for furthering democracy and people-centred development. These include the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Lokayan and Sampoorna Kranti Manch. He has been visiting fellow and convener of dialogues at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. Currently he is attempting a dialogic engagement for democratising the international North-South relations and developing local to global networks for deepening comprehensive democracy.

Ritu Priya, currently teaching at Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, has been working on the democratisation of knowledge systems. As a medical graduate with a doctorate in public health, her focus has been a search for developing approaches towards contextual and peoplecentre health policies and programmes. Dalit perceptions, health of the urban poor, the responses to AIDS and the links between health and democracy are some of her ongoing concerns. She has been member of People’s Union of Civil Liberties, the

Medico Friend Circle and coordinator of Swasthya Panchayat, working group on health in Lokayan, Delhi.

Thomas Wallgren is a philosopher and senior research fellow at the Academy of Finland. His main research interests are the philosophy of modernity and epistemology. During the past decades he has played an important role in several formations of new social movements, especially in the fields of the environment and global solidarity. He has served as a vice-chairperson of Service Centre for Development Cooperation and Finnish Society for Nature Conservation and been a leading activist of many movement groups such as Finnish Forest Action Group and Alternative to the European Union. Currently he is the vice-chairperson of Democracy Forum Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (Finland) and board member of Corporate Europe Observatory (the Netherlands).

Your co-operation and participation will contribute towards enriching this dialogue. Please send your comments and ideas to us at the following addresses: Coalition for Comprehensive Democracy - Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam c/o Lokayan 13 Alipur Road Delhi - 110 054 E-mail:vasudhaivakutumbakam@vsnl.net Democracy Forum - Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (Finland): Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Pengertie 3 37800 Toijala Finland E-mail: vk-finland@kaapeli.fi http://www.demokratiafoorumi.fi/