World Social Forum - Delhi (and my internal class divide)

Went on a 6-day Cycle Journey through the hills of Mewar. Will blog it a bit? or, more likely, i won't. But definitely ask me about it. You'll find snapshots of it at www.swaraj.org/shikshantar (soon, if not already.)

Here for 3 days for the Indian Social Forum. A crowd of us from Udaipur, and a few from Chandigarh, are staying at my parents' place here. The ISF http://www.wsfindia.org/ is a space for connection and sharing towards creating a livable world. Lots of organizations hosting booths or stalls; music / dance performances and film screenings; and lots of lectures and workshops. We are meeting and talking with people while juggling, making jewelery from everyday items or baskets from used paper, .... today we'll create an installation from some of the huge amount of plastic and styrofoam trash being created in this supposed "another world is possible" event.
I think that the structure of this gathering or conference keeps us from getting very far along the road to the kind of vital, vibrant, compassionate, sustainable world that i envision. The ISF has brought hordes of well-meaning people like me to an overstressed city to sit in rows and hear lectures and leave trash mountains to the sweepers. Certainly there are also meaningful connections being made, ideas being shared and generated, and possibly new commitments towards making a truly livable world -- but i think these are minor compared with self-reproducing patterns such as narrow opposition to (and therefore acceptance of) the world as it is. Maybe what's missing is a sense of value of the local -- easy enough to forget in a nowhere megalopolis like this.

Here's another possible way:
Find people in a village in the countryside to host the gathering, and let the event itself be an instance of the kind of world people are envisioning. Outsiders and hosts work together to prepare the infrastructure in advance, using local materials and techniques (and, afterwards, to dismantle and reassimilate it into the natural environment). Don't cram the meeting into a limited time frame. Invite participants to come gradually and leave gradually, with a main section of a week in the middle when most of the action happens; in other words, soften the population vs. time graph so that it looks like a bell curve rather than a square wave pulse (where people descend en masse on Day 1and bolt at the end of Day 4). Ensure bus transport to and from the nearest city and consider blocking private vehicle access. Soften the cultural trend towards consumerism by inviting all participants to take part in sustaining the gathering's vital processes (such as water, food, and shit) by our collective effort and foresight rather than by our individual pocketbooks. Soften the physical assault of the ISF-as-it-is by avoiding amplification of sound and bright lighting (easily achieved by respecting the existing electrical energy supply). Encourage more robust engagement by using open space technology ( http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-Openspace.html ) and / or by scheduling conversations with -- rather than lectures and speeches by -- the "experts", and by providing skilled facilitation at each conversation (don't expect the "expert" to manage the dialogue). Encourage physical play among adults. And maybe most importantly -- don't strive to make it so damn big.

Tara came with me to the first two days of the gathering -- yesterday i especially enjoyed her company, rolling and cutting paper with her, being climbed upon as i sat and worked, getting her help in making a braid of 5-penny nails, sitting with her as she napped. I reckon that there are probably 5,000 kids left at home by conference participants, and that the meeting would be quite different if it weren't dominated by adult energy.

Wrestling a lot with the question of class. Continually and painfully reminded of the nature of class structure, and resisting in my own ways the narrowness of the-way-it-is. Particularly bridled when shooed away from doing dishes, when called sir, when i see Satya Violet and Tara exposed to certain people's weakness and fear cloaked as status (i'm afraid of the lessons implicit in their exposure to this toxic environment), and, generally, whenever i'm reminded of how the class order prevents real connection between human beings. Browbeaten into having a full-time cook in Udaipur, i regret my failure to stand firm by my intuition ("no way"). Perceiving the negative effect on Satya of having every damn thing done for him, including what he otherwise would have been perfectly capable of.

by Ajay