Possibilities emerging: Shrishtee Bajpai on global authoritarianism and active resistance
Shrishtee Bajpai is a writer and researcher exploring radical alternatives to dominant systems, with a focus on indigenous, traditional and customary ways of living, decision-making and underlying worldviews. She has researched and networked on the rights of nature movement in South Asia and helped found the Rights of Rivers South Asia Alliance. Shrishtee is a core member of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives, a fellow of the Post Growth Institute and an advisor to the Inner Climate Academy, which aims to host activities ‘that lead to personal and societal transformation of our relationship with the living Earth’.
In this interview, Shrishtee contrasts the growing unrest and authoritarianism of the present with the hope of active resistance and growing alternatives for the future.
This is part of a series of possibility-oriented interviews published by Foundations Earth. We are currently engaging with active members of communities responding to our inquiry: ‘What if we could respond inclusively and effectively to planetary-scale problems?’ To learn more about our work you can visit our website or check out our inquiry.
At what crossroads do you find yourself at this moment in time?
Well, both personally and professionally, I think the crossroads is a kind of a situation where one feels that you're at the cusp of something drastic to change. Because there's so much happening in the world. You feel the need for it to change, not just slowly or in space or time, but something drastically needs to change. But you also know that it cannot be drastic, because drastic changes have their own repercussions.
So it's a very interesting crossroads, but also very debilitating at times, because it is demanding some really radical transformations in the way our institutions are structured, the way our allies are, basically. But also it calls for hope, it calls for a new way of being present in these times.
It's a very strange time to be living, because you can see how things are collapsing, but you also see the need to remain hopeful or be present or be doing things.
I guess I find myself there, especially as a young person working in these spheres. I think this is where I root myself as to: how do I find hope every day to move forward in what we are doing and trying to create?
What is it that is enlivening you that you see hatching or growing wildly in the commons?
I think there are two aspects to it. One is that we are seeing this growing unrest. We are seeing this growing authoritarianism, we are seeing this growing despondency, anxiety, hopelessness. There's depression. We can see psychologically, at a cerebral level, all of us have changed and are changing. And just generally, there's a sense of: what is it that we're doing to the world?
So there's one sense of that, which is very alive among people, especially young people. But along with that there's also a lot of response to it. There is a sense of resistance to what's happening. There's a sense of wanting to stop what is happening.
And that active questioning, that active resistance, that active dissent is also present in people's way of living. So many communities, so many people trying to articulate that, possibly, there's other ways around what we see dominantly.
I couldn't agree more. Is there a response that you've seen recently, or that your heart sings to, when you think of something that's really inspired you recently?
A very recent one that I was part of in this city [Pune], where I am [...] We think that resistance is happening by rural communities or people in the villages or whatnot. But at the heart of the city, where people would ideally want development, more roads, more construction, the citizens stood up against the highway that was coming up and destroying a local hill, which is a space where communities get together.
Citizens came together, without any civil society organising. They just came together because they love this hill. They said that just as you and I have a right to live, so does this forest, or [so] does this hill, and we will not let this project go through.
That was a very recent protest and resistance that happened where I live that truly inspired me [...] What it symbolises is that these resistances, these responses are happening across the country and across the world. It's just that they are not spoken about enough. They are not amplified enough. The mainstream media either talks about all the stuff gone bad, or amplifies the misinformation, or is bought over by corporates and powerful governments.
So it's really up to all of us to talk about these stories of resistances. And also [...] constructing of alternatives that people are doing, where they're articulating, okay, there is another way to live.
It's important for us to pay attention to many of these processes, to these initiatives, and see what learnings are emerging from them.
A gulmohar tree in the Taljai Hills, from Abhishek Kaginkar (source here)
How are you being affected by that which you are paying attention to? The things you just named – how are they affecting you?
One way is, of course – especially in the context that I am in right now – this rising sense of complete authoritarian governments, which are not allowing you to speak up against, or creating an environment of fear if you're from a minority community, or a caste. Creating this fake sense of nationalism which is based on what religion you belong to, or which cause you belong to, and giving a sense of fear to people who might not be in that majority.
There is no adequate security safety net for those activists who are in jails or going through trials. So it's not like we're speaking in a time when everything is hunky dory [...] It is an extremely difficult environment to live in.
So we all are impacted, living in this environment. We see many of the progressive laws and policies are being diluted. The Forest Rights Act in India and conservation and biodiversity laws over the last two years have been significantly diluted to make way for corporates for appropriating the resources, displacing the communities. So one is speaking with this really large context of multiple socio-political, economic and cultural crises that we are facing in our country. And you see that there are multiple links to what's happening in my context to what's also happening in the world – authoritarian governments are rising across the world, right-wing nationalism is [rising] across the world.
But then what gives me hope [..] are these multiple ways that people are articulating that this is not the way. Because that's what capitalist modernity has told us – that this is the only way that you can develop, this is the only way that you can live, and this is the only way that you will be called ‘progressed’. And so there are communities, there are people who are not just resisting, but also creating multiple ways of being, living and doing things. And so that's giving me hope, and that's impacting me as well.
The problem is that this other reality – of people and communities, and all of us who are struggling, resisting and trying to make another world possible – is not bold enough. Even in our circles, when networks and organisations get together, we only talk about problems, things that have gone wrong. That's the biggest issue, because of course we have to strengthen our analysis of the crisis. But along with that, we have to also centre our analysis of what's emerging from the ground, what and in what ways people are responding to this. And how do we strengthen that, as well? [...] If we don't need a mining project, or we don't need iron ore mining in our sacred forest, then what do we need? What is our alternative to that? What is our conceptualisation of an economy? We don't want a capitalist economy – what kind of economy do we want?
That focus, that attention, that going deeper into what really we want has not happened enough in social movement spaces, and that's what some of our work is pushing for.
Let it be ground up. Let it not come from the Global North. Let it not come from the powerful. Let it come from the people, people who are [...] at the centre of this crisis. We're actually creating these alternatives in response to them. Let's learn from them. Let's bring their voices to the forefront.
How do we do that? I think that's the reality that I want to bring.
Thank you. The question that springs to my mind is, how are you caring for yourself in all of that?
That's a very important question that all activists, and people working in these spaces, [and] researchers need to ask ourselves. And I think it's difficult. I'll tell you very personally, sometimes it feels very selfish to take care of yourself while there's so much happening around the world.
But I also realised, seeing some of the senior activists, some of the senior researchers and people who have been in the social movement spaces, that they're suffering – bodily suffering, spiritually suffering – because they haven't had enough time to take care of themselves.
It's also just generally the way social movement spaces have worked – firefighting all the time and not giving enough space for reflection. So it's a very deliberate process of slowing down a little bit, realising the capacity and the limitations that all of us have, and taking care of taking care of ourselves in a way that is regenerative.
For me, personally, what works is being out in nature, looking at birds. That's something that really brings me alive. Listening to some amazing Hindustani classical music. Because I've been a student of it, I just come alive. I think something spiritually connects me to it. Going for river walks, which is again very regenerative for me, being along the river, walking along the river, swimming in the river. That's something that heals me. And I make sure that I have time on an everyday basis to be able to connect to my body, not just to my mind.
What declaration of possibility can you make that has the power to transform our response to planetary-scale problems?
A difficult one to answer! But I will take the help of a wise elder that I met in central India. This community has been protesting against a mining project in their sacred territories for over two decades. And it keeps coming back.
Their process began with articulating that [...] we don't want this mining in our sacred forest, but let's try building what we want. And so they're starting really amazing processes of transformations locally. But one of the questions that I asked him, this was the village elder, [was]: why do you not want it? You will get more jobs, it's better for your future and you will get more money. Why are you resisting against it?
And he said, very matter of factly, that if the government wants the mining company to come, they will come and I can't stop it. I will go and live in the nearby city, my children can go and live in the nearby city.
But what about the spirits in the forest? What about these birds and animals in the forest? Who will speak for them? Who will care for them? Where will they go?
He spoke so matter-of-factly about how their imagination of a community is not just humans, but it is also more-than-humans. It's also those invisible spirits that live in the forest. So it's this articulation that it's not for us to decide what happens to this forest – it's already decided by the spirits. They don't want to give away their land. They don't want to give away their home.
To the modern mind, it seems crazy. It seems mumbo-jumbo. But it's really at the heart of so much of a struggle and so much of [the] crisis that we are facing today. We have completely disconnected ourselves from the rest of nature. We don't even feel we are nature. We feel that we humans and nature exist separately. This disconnection, this separation, I think is the heart of what we are yearning for.
That would be my declaration of [possibility]: how do we get back to where we were and where we are from, and find our sense of community not just in humans?
What courage do you need to take you in that direction?
It gives so much hope when you know that there are people along with you, that there's a community of people with you. I know that from listening to stories of people who are in central India, who are struggling against a mining project, when they speak to a community in Venezuela who are going through a similar struggle, they feel strengthened.
I think it's how much we can fuel each other about the possibilities.
We had our [Global Tapestry of Alternatives] assembly recently, in August, and people and movements and communities from across the world had come together. I think possibly in the short span of time that I've been working in this field, this was the first global conference that I was not despondent, depressed by the end of three days, because there were so many possibilities that people spoke about [...] So I think that really fueled me.
GTA assmebly in Nanyuki, from Ashik Krishnan (source here)
Yeah, thank you. Okay, so final question – what do you want or need from your community to make that happen?
I think one is, of course, having more spaces of sharing, reflection and creation. That is something I need. But I acknowledge that [it’s something] I'm getting also, so I feel that I'm privileged in that way, to be able to have that access. A lot of people don't have that.
The other thing is, I think, also space to be able to have more critical dialogues.
What I mean to say is challenging each other: you're doing amazing work on water issues, for example, but as you're bringing the intersectionality of caste or religion into your work, are you looking at the social dynamics, the economic dynamics? I think some of those intersectionalities and criticalities that we can build into our work is not happening enough. And so I think that is something that I would like to see in the future.
It's not about personal attack, but it is really about how we make our work more comprehensive, so it's more generative that way. I feel that that would really strengthen our work and our struggles together. Does that answer your question?
It does, but it prompts me to ask one more, which is: what do you need from others, or from yourself, in order to create those spaces of critical challenge?
More space, non-judgmental space, to come together that way. A more mindful coming together of people, which requires inner work as well for all of us.
And we know that in the changing climate, even to continue doing this work… it's becoming a lot more difficult, especially [for] young people, to sustain themselves financially [...] It’s one problem that we face in these circles, because as soon as you bring the question of money, you're being judged. So rather than taking it as a judgement, but actually as a reality of our everyday life – how do we support people in that way as well?
How do we stand for each other in times of absolute crisis, when an activist or a researcher, because they have raised questions of dissent, are threatened by either governments or corporations? How do we stand in support and solidarity with them? That could be very individualistic, but it could also be at community level. How can a community that is struggling against an oppressive regime be supported by the international community, not through governments, but actually through people?
Our strengths are actually threatened by oppressive governments and whatnot. So how do we stand for them? I think what it requires is also creating spaces of knowing each other a little more groundedly.
This interview was conducted by James Lock, with editing support from Sam Walby and Jack Becher.
Learn more about Shrishtee‘s work at Global Tapestry of Alternatives, Rights of Rivers South Asia Alliance, Post Growth Institute and Inner Climate Academy, or connect via LinkedIn.
Find out more about Foundations Earth on our website, or check out our organisational summary and core inquiry.
