Global Civil Society 2009: Poverty and Activism

Bringing Justice and Culture Back in: Global Action for Local Livelihoods

by Smitu Kothari, in: Global Civil Society Yearbook 2009. London: Sage.

Noted scholar, author and activist Smitu Kothari passed away on 23 March 2009. Smitu suffered a heart attack on 20 March while attending a Delhi Solidarity Group meeting with Himalaya Niti Abhiyan friends and others to discuss strategies and support for people's struggles in Himachal Pradesh against displacement, mining and environmental destruction, writes Vijayan MJ, coordinator of the Delhi Forum.

Smitu Kothari was one of the founders of Lokayan (Dialogue of the People) and Intercultural Resources, two centres in Delhi promoting exchange between non-party political formations and concerned scholars and other citizens from India and the rest of the world. Trained in physics, communications and sociology, he was involved in ecological, cultural and human rights issues, striving to forge a national and global alternative that is socially just and ecologically sane. He was a Visiting Professor at Cornell and Princeton Universities. He was President of the International Group for Grassroots Initiatives and a Contributing Editor of The Ecologist and Development. He published extensively on critiques of contemporary economic and cultural development, the relationship of nature, culture and democracy, developmental displacement, people’s governance and social movements. Smitu was always a source of inspiration and support not only to people's movements and struggles in India, but also to voices of dissent and alternatives across the globe.

Much could be learnt from Smitu about activism, writes his friend and colleague at Intercultural Resources, Savyasaachi. It is the effort to listen to ‘the mind of the heart and the heart of the mind’. Often he would point out that activism and reflective thought need to go hand in hand with the ‘heart’. ‘It is important to trust the goodness that is there in all human beings. Give love and affirmation and everyone would make a substantial contribution to the making of a just world’ he would say. He spoke that much, to leave time and space for other voices.

Among Smitu’s many publications are: Voices of Struggle. Social Movements in Asia (2006); Voices of Sanity, In Search of Democratic Space (2002); A Watershed in Global Governance? An Independent Assessment of the World Commission on Dams (2001); The Value of Nature: Ecological Politics in India (2003); Out of the Nuclear Shadow (with Zia Mian, 2001); Rethinking Human Rights: Challenges for Theory and Action (1991); and, The Non-Party Political Process: Uncertain Alternatives (with H Sethi, 1988). At the time of his death he was working on a new book, Ecological Justice: Nature, Culture and Democracy.

LSE Professor of Global Governance, Mary Kaldor, writes: the chapter that Smitu wrote for this Yearbook is probably his last piece of work. From the beginning of the Yearbook project, Smitu has given us invaluable advice and help. He contributed immeasurably to this volume, not only through his encyclopaedic knowledge of people’s movements in India but also through his wise comments on how to think about the question of poverty and activism and his suggestions for potential authors. He leaves a huge gap in the field of social movement studies and we will greatly miss him.

Visit the Global Civil Society 2009: Poverty and Activism site