Smitu

‘Builder of Bridges across troubled waters’

Smitu will continue to live and be with us through this works. To carry his work
forward would be the most appropriate tribute.

He lived more for others than for himself-making available the best of his self.

Several excerpts from several conversation and a multiple images flood my mind at
this moment of loss of a dear friend. I would like to share some-‘very activity that
each one of us undertakes needs to come forth with the passion of conviction and
the earnestness of humility that is grounded in not forgetting that there is much to
learn; leadership is by example and not by command;.....’

With plural imaginations, relentlessly learning to weave a togetherness of the

personal, the political and the social, Smitu inspired students, activists and
professionals.

He loved music, read and wrote to persuade people to see beyond the limited
confines of biographies and resisted wherever possible any injustice.

With music in his heart, compassion in the mind he travelled the world with a firm
stride. He worked towards building horizontal alliances between social movements
and groups in countries of the “less-industrialized world” and the industrialized
world. This he believed was crucial to the pursuit of global social and ecological
justice. He saw these alliances transcend the narrow agendas of the ruling classes. He
said “For the first time in human history, a diverse range of actors were participating
in the massive task of regional and global institution building that respected cultural
and ecological pluralism1”. He pointed out the World Bank under the U.S. dominance
was disrespectful of pluralism and lacked transparency, accountability, and
information disclosure.

What can we learn from Smitu about activism?

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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.

In this he saw there were embedded alternatives to the mainstream world view and
development paradigm. He had coordinated research to bring to light the diversity of
creative grass root initiatives that worked out alternative sustainable development in
diverse fields-medicine, social forestry, bio-diversity, health, agriculture, inter-
cultural mutuality..... He was himself part of several such initiatives. For Instance, he
was a founder member of the Timbuktoo collective, where nature healed itself and
an entire ecosystem was recovered.

There were many occasions when Smitu would share the inspiration that comes
from being witness to several instances of nature healing ‘itself’. These he would
point out demonstrate the way resistance and life processes are interwoven, both
concerned with a celebration of plural possibilities. Resistance was not to obstruct
development; on the contrary it is an insistence that clears the ground for justice.
Amongst other things it is an affirmation of possibilities inherent in nature healing
itself.

On this and several other subjects Smitu was clear that we need to learn from the
lives of indigenous people across the world. All of this learning, he felt could go into
the making of an Indigenous Encyclopaedia.

As a teacher he saw learning as transformative processes. How could it not be so?

For him learning space is not the confines of a walled classroom. Student and
teachers, as co-learners need to go to where life processes work out. An important
aspect of learning is the preparedness for immersion in the experiences that these
processes offer. It is ‘learning to receive’ the gift of life we need to learn. What

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unfolds is a civilization depth. Smitu underlined this. ‘It is this depth that can make
available an inclusive perspective to the crisis of times’.

Parliamentary democracy needs to be questioned. How can a small minority in the

Parliament represent a culturally diverse billion people? There are civilization
processes that are beyond the reach of this system of governance. With reference to
these non-party political processes Smitu positioned his life and work.

The composite culture grounded in syncretic traditions, were for Smitu, the fabric of
civilization processes. Contemporary political governance, which was based on a
relatively short duration time scale, worked against the grain of these traditions.
Smitu was deeply inspired by these traditions and was of the view that these would
hold back contemporary fundamentalisms.

Smitu was one of the earliest advocates of Pakistan-India peace

An important turning point in his journey was the Lokayan initiative. He was a
founder member of this initiative for dialogue generated by non-party political
processes. Another turning point, in continuity, was the World Social Forum. He was
at the core of this process. Here was a forum to explore and affirm the thousand
possibilities against the assertion that there was no possibility other than neo-liberal
WTO sponsored globalisation. A third turning point was the formation of Inter-
Cultural Resources (ICR).

At the ICR he had begun to consolidate his learning’.

We need fresh thinking as to what these institutions will look like, how their internal
processes will be democratized, and what will be the vertical and horizontal
relations within and among them. The inter-institutional relations become important
both in the context of a centralizing economy and in the context of the exploding
ecological crisis which is impoverishing millions and which increasingly spans
conventional political borders, such as when deforestation in Nepal causes floods in
India or fossil fuel consumption in the industrialized world engenders flooding and
displacement of hundreds of thousands in Bangladesh. We need to urgently create
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new forms of inter-institutional cooperation to address these trans-boundary
problems which compound the struggles for survival of millions on the planet.

We face an enormous challenge of engaging communities in a process of

delegitimizing the culture of consumerism and creating commitment to viable
alternatives. We must link the numerous democratic "locals" into a system of mutual
accountability further linked to similar efforts in the North that are contesting
corporate power, social inequality and violence and practicing religious tolerance
and humane people-cantered development. Only then can we hope to contain and
eventually marginalize the unholy alliance and its constituent members2.

Savyasaachi

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1
From Village Independence see http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC40/Kothari.htm
2
From Building Alliances Among India’s popular movements see.
http://www.pcdf.org/1997/PW6kothari.htm