Is another world possible?

WATCHWORD

Leningrad may have changed its name to St Petersburg, but the old revolutionary lives on in Leningrad Chowk, Prabhadevi, in the heart of capitalist Mumbai.

It's entirely appropriate that this chowk is home to the offices of the World Social Forum, India, which is organising a mammoth get-together of NGOs, political activists, trade unions, and Leftists of all hues from all over the world, who will be gathering in Mumbai from the 16th to the 21st of this month.

Over 75,000 people are expected, representing shades of opinion ranging from the Young Women's Christian Association to the Maoists, united only in their opposition to "capitalist-led globalisation and neo-liberal economic policies".

Ex-World Bank chief economist and currently World Bank chief critic Joseph Stiglitz will be attending, as will be leading luminaries of the international Left like Noam Chomsky, as well as all our home-grown radicals.

Conferences have been organised on weighty subjects like 'Globalisation, Economic and Social Security', 'Wars against Women, Women against Wars', and 'Militarism, War and Peace'. There will be debates and round-table conferences on themes such as 'Globalisation and its Alternatives'.

And just in case you thought this was just a Left-wing version of the World Economic Forum, there will be street theatres, an international film festival, art shows, an exhibition against the invasion of Iraq, rallies, cultural events and even rock concerts, with performances by Junoon and Indian Ocean. In short, the event will be a carnival of the Left, a showcase of radical people's movements from across the world.

For those of you who haven't heard of the World Social Forum, it's meant to provide a platform where an alternative to the dominant neo-liberal theories and practices can find expression. It's been held every year since 2001 at Porto Allegre, and this is the first year it has moved out of Brazil.

It's meant to "demonstrate that the path to sustainable economic development and social and economic justice does not lie in imperialist globalisation but in alternative models for people-centred and self-reliant progress." The message is 'Another world is possible.'

As part of the effort towards building that world, the office at Leningrad Chowk hums with activity. Eight industrial sheds in the suburb of Goregaon are being converted into soundproof halls for the conferences, and a big amphitheatre is being built.

Most of the funding is being done through European endowments, Oxfam being a big contributor. But even corporates have chipped in with donations, anxious to do their bit for the social good. Of course, the organisers do have some scruples about the colour of their money.

Gautam Mody, trade unionist and one of the organisers of the meet, told me they've decided not to accept contributions from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, nor do they accept funds from corporates that follow a "primitive accumulation pattern", a reference to companies with a reputation for making money deviously.

How much sense does it make to build coalitions between groups as disparate as the Gandhi Peace Foundation and the Maoists? Critics on the Left have lambasted the Forum for being a talking shop, powerless and not likely to be taken seriously by its adversaries. Some have accused the meet of being a mere safety valve, an occasion to let off steam. NGOs, those "mendicant orders of capitalism", have taken over the Left.

Perhaps more importantly, all that will happen if you oppose globalisation is that you'll be left out of the global circuits of capital. As the economist Joan Robinson put it years ago, "the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all."

Country after country in Asia, starting from Japan and South Korea to Taiwan and China, has shown that the swiftest method of sustainable development is not by opposing globalisation, but rather by ensuring that the process of integration into the world economy takes place on terms favourable to it.

The story of Chinese development is the story of how that country used the multinationals to further its own goals, transforming its economy without even adopting private property rights, an awkward fact that liberal economists don't like talking about.

What is needed is for Third World countries to learn how to use globalisation for their own purposes, which is exactly what they did at Cancun. And India is slowly but surely realising just how much leverage its low-cost English-speaking and educated workforce gives it in a globalised economy.

But perhaps the WSF, despite the rhetoric, is not really about globalisation at all. Rather, behind the marches and the celebrations, behind the make-believe unity of the 'rainbow coalition', it's part of the Left's desperate search for a future in a world in which it finds itself with its back to the wall.

manas@business-standard.com