About Vikalp Sangam (the People’s Movement)
Current Concerns:
- The collapse of the Sikkim dam and the sinking of Joshimath
- The Manipur war
- the attempt to silence democratic voices by bringing fictitious accusations against reporters, attorneys, and activists
- mass suspension of parliamentarians who support the opposition
Movement of the People, or Vikalp Sangam:
- “People’s Manifesto for a Just, Equitable and Sustainable India” was released by 85 civil society organisations and people’s movements.
- They gathered under the banner of Vikalp Sangam, the national platform for alternatives convergence.
These organisations stand for projects focusing on:
- Decentralised water harvesting and management, community-based energy generation, ecological food production, respectable housing and settlements, significant health and education security, and locally driven decision-making
- opposition to harmful initiatives.
- Vikalp Sangam has organised more than thirty in-person gatherings.
- published 1,500 tales of improvement
- presented a unified picture of the policy reforms that India supported.
What demands is there in the Vikalp Sangam manifesto?
- The 2024 general election is the target of the manifesto.
- various national and local organisations and procedures.
About the economy, it adopts the:
- severe unemployment issue, particularly for young people
- requesting that small manufacturing and crafts receive top importance
- product with added value derived from forests, fishery, pastoralism, and agriculture
- the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act’s expansion into cities.
- It requests that all products and services that are capable of being created through small-scale, handmade manufacturing be kept exclusively for them.
- The manifesto calls for restrictions on the massive black market.
- decrease in the difference between the highest and lowest salaries
- Higher inheritance taxes and wealth taxes for the wealthy
- pensions and a basic income for all employees.
- The manifesto requests that village and urban assemblies be given actual financial and legal authority.
Greater application of panchayat legislation:
- A comprehensive statute requiring public audits and requiring governmental entities to be accountable
- restoring the autonomy of organisations like the media and the Election Commission.
- The National Security Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, two frequently abused legislation, need to be repealed, according to the manifesto.
- The manifesto calls for conversation conferences and the restoration of coexistence.
- giving the most marginalised groups (women, Dalits, Adivasis, members of sexual and religious minorities, and people with disabilities) priority in all public and commercial institutions.
- It aims to set aside 6% of GDP for education, emphasising activity-based, mother-tongue, culturally and ecologically based learning.
- It highlights the necessity of multisystem-based community health approaches.
- giving priority to maintaining good health through a balanced diet, clean water, and other factors that contribute to a healthy lifestyle.
The work of Vikalp Sangam:
- Reviving rural areas can lower outmigration.
- Migration in the opposite direction, from cities and big industries to villages and small manufacturing or crafts, is also possible.
- lucrative jobs centred on farming or other land-based activities.
- blended with more recent ones, such homestay-based travel.
- young businesses fusing old and new technologies and knowledge.
Sangam’s recommendations for preserving the environment are as follows:
- A national strategy concerning land and water that safeguards significant ecological services (such soil and water)
- Successful community-based wildlife and biodiversity conservation
- Collective rights to natural resources by including other ecosystems into a law like the Forest Rights Act.
- By 2040, all Indian farming practices will be switched to organic, biologically varied practices.
- Significant reductions in plastics, hazardous products, and other non-biodegradable materials.
- Community-managed decentralised water harvesting.
Distributed renewable energy:
- By 2030, fossil fuels and nuclear electricity will be phased out.
- The manifesto calls for reversing the deregulation of the procedures for environmental impact assessments and forest clearing.
- Introduce sector-specific impact assessments, like the one for all of energy.
- It is advised to appoint a National Environment Commissioner.
- has an autonomous constitutional standing like to that of the Comptroller and Auditor General or the Election Commissioner.
- The climate issue, which manifests as unpredictable weather patterns, intense heat waves, and the melting of glaciers and other water sources, requires significantly more attention than it has received thus far.
- Increased funding for assisting communities in adjusting to these effects is part of this.
- We must be far more vigilant and proactive in ensuring that our elected officials carry out their duties while also raising our own voices in all choices that have an impact on our daily lives.
- The manifesto also calls for elevating the voices of the nation’s sizable youth population in a dedicated section.
- In the Gadchiroli region of Maharashtra, Adivasi village in Mendha Lekha declared: “We elect the government in Delhi, but in our village we are the government.”
- To achieve nutritional security, Telangana’s Dalit women farmers have established exclusive control over land, water, knowledge, and seeds.
- In the Kachchh town of Bhuj, resident associations have incorporated local decision-making into urban planning.
- Concepts of direct and accountable democracy, economic self-reliance, ecological stewardship, and socio-cultural equality are all present in the Vikalp Sangam Manifesto.
