All roads, railway tracks and air routes led to Mumbai earlier this year, as an enormous and mind-boggling set of participants converged on the city for the World Social Forum conclave. The ‘carnival of ideas’ served up a veritable smorgasbord of issues, people and politics. Ammu Joseph gives a first-hand account of the week when Goregaon went global.

Mela of the marginalised…Carnival of the unlettered and the dispossessed… Crusaders’ caravan…. A variety of colourful epithets have been used to describe the World Social Forum (WSF), which passed through India earlier this year on its long march to another world. All roads, railway tracks and air routes seemed to lead to Mumbai, when more than 80,000 (some say 1,30,000) people from different parts of the country and the world converged on suburban Goregaon to participate in the WSF, which had crossed the seas from Latin America to Asia for the first time in its brief but remarkable history.

It is not clear what, if anything, Mumbaikars – let alone fellow Indians elsewhere – made of the WSF. Bemused commuters on local trains seemed to enjoy the opportunity of interacting with an uncommon range of fellow travellers over the week of WSF fever. But, most appeared to be so absorbed in their newfound role as resource persons unveiling the mysteries of Indian social and cultural life to international visitors that they may not have had a chance to figure out what exactly had attracted such an unusually large contingent of foreigners – from an estimated 150 countries – to a single, far-flung, somewhat undistinguished, corner of their city.

Local media coverage could not have helped ordinary folk going about their daily business make much sense of the mind-boggling event that featured such an enormous and diverse set of actors and as many as 1,200 scheduled events spread over six days. With most news reports and visuals showcasing celebrity participants, on the one hand, and highlighting the quaint, the exotic, the controversial and the bizarre, on the other, the average reader or viewer could be excused for assuming that the event was nothing more than a gigantic jamboree. In addition, headlines like “Gladiators of an anti-global world,” “Seekers of another path,” “Save the planet, start a Bush-fire,” “Rainbow coalition leans left for rights” and “Watch out, comrades!” would no doubt have contributed to an impression of the event as a pointless gathering of outdated, unrealistic, irrelevant lotus-eaters, whining and complaining about the inevitable. And, of course, the sensational allegation of rape involving two South African participants (inspiring headlines such as “Sex and dust at WSF”) must have reinforced the cynical notion that those championing lost causes by day were wining and dining – and fornicating – by night.

In the process, the serious nature and purpose of the event, as well as the many critical issues it sought to address, were somewhat eclipsed, especially from the view of those watching it from afar. Even for those who undertook the long, hard daily trek to the site, and valiantly dealt with the heat and the dust, the noise and the crowds – not to mention the paucity of toilets – it was understandably difficult to get a sense of the mammoth whole.

Apart from sheer size, the variety of participants and the range of issues they brought to what has been described as a “carnival of ideas” were certainly bewildering. From India alone there were thousands of people from practically every region and state, representing virtually all classes, castes, creeds, races and ethnicities, not to mention ages, sexes, sexual orientations, education levels and physical as well as mental abilities. Together, they served up a veritable smorgasbord of occupations and pre-occupations. There was considerable diversity in terms of politics, too, although some of the more radical individuals and groups had simultaneously organised an alternative conclave, the Mumbai Resistance, across the highway from the WSF. Participants made themselves seen and heard through speeches, discussions, exhibitions, performances, film screenings, demonstrations and a host of other forms of expression. A single day’s scheduled events occupied an average of 25 pages in the thick, 120-page, tabloid-size programme guide, and covered themes ranging from War and Peace through Land, Water and Food Sovereignty to Media, Culture and Knowledge. What held this motley but massive assemblage of people more or less together was their belief in the motto of the WSF: ‘Another (read better) world is possible.’

The WSF emerged out of a popular process that began in Seattle (USA) during the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organisation, which witnessed major public protests against the economic policies symbolised by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the WTO. The first WSF was held at Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January 2001, just before and as a counter-balance to the established, Establishment-oriented annual World Economic Forum that takes place early every year, usually in Davos, Switzerland. Since then, the WSF has also become an annual event and, more importantly, an ongoing process. During 2002-2003, for example, there were a number of thematic, local, national and regional forums (including an Asian Social Forum held in Hyderabad, in January 2003). Guided by a broad-based Charter of Principles drawn up during the first WSF, it has grown in both size and scope.

Women and issues of particular concern to them were prominent throughout this fourth WSF. According to one report, at least 145 conferences, seminars and workshops focussed specifically on women in relation to the various themes of the Forum. Among these were a number of large plenaries held in the main meeting halls, such as the sessions on “Women and Globalisation,” “Wars against Women, Women against War,” and the “World Court of Women on U.S. War Crimes.” Women’s organisations also spearheaded two major dialogues between diverse social movements: one titled “Breaking Barriers and Building Bridges,” and the other on issues concerning sexuality.

In addition, there were a wide range of smaller meetings on the impact of globalisation on different aspects of women’s lives, ranging from access to basic necessities such as food and shelter, education and healthcare, employment and credit, through problems related to migration, new technologies, trends in international trade and various forms of fundamentalism and militarism, to threats to lives and livelihoods from violence and conflicts of various kinds.

Women’s concerns were reflected in more broad-based events and discussions, too. For instance, the redoubtable 90-year-old Indian National Army veteran, Captain Lakshmi Sehgal, speaking at the inaugural function, highlighted the fact that women were the last to be hired and the first to be fired, especially in times of economic downslides. And Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights activist who received last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, foregrounded women’s rights in her opening speech during the panel on “Human Rights for Social Change.”

Just as globalisation has its discontents so does the WSF – including many from within the anti-globalisation fold. Some say it runs the risk of becoming incoherent by being too open-ended; others believe this is a small price to pay in order to remain inclusive. Some call it a vast talk-shop from which no concrete programme has emerged so far; others argue that debate, discussion and dialogue are essential stepping stones to democratic decisions. And so on.

A number of serious critiques have also emerged in the wake of WSF 2004, drawing attention to the many perils and pitfalls that could weaken, even threaten, the process. It is clear that the movers and shakers of the Forum will have to do some hard thinking about the future, in terms of both organisation and strategy. While the next Forum, back in self-contained Porto Alegre, may not present some of the challenges thrown up by the Indian location, if the subsequent move to Africa materialises, some of them may well re-emerge.

For instance, far more planning may be required to ensure that the WSF actually provides real time and space for relevant, meaningful exchanges of experiences and insights among grassroots participants. Similarly, it may not be too unrealistic to suggest that it may be time for all organisers of events to strive to go beyond stating the problem(s) to proposing alternatives for debate and discussion: such a thrust may well catalyse the emergence of interesting, feasible options that can alter the course of globalisation and make it more people-centred.

It must be said, however, that even in its present avatar, with all its faults and foibles, the WSF is a unique phenomenon that provides those who wish to build a more equitable and just world an arena where they can periodically share concerns and experiences, revitalise themselves, gain strength from each other, think through old ideas and come up with new ones. The success of the process depends, to a large extent, on how participants build on their WSF experiences to bring about changes at various levels, ranging from the local to the global.

Meanwhile, those who believe that opposing globalisation, in its present manifestation, is nothing but tilting at windmills might like to ponder these words from Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda, quoted by Indian feminist activist Kamla Bhasin on the first day of WSF 2004:

“They can cut all the flowers,
But they cannot stop the coming of spring.”