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The Jan Manch (The Citizen’s Stage)
The Outcome : A Citizen’s Charter
How does one go about preparing a Jan Manch?
India’s quest for dignity and prosperity will largely coincide with humanity’s response to climate change. We have a large population that is young and mostly poor. Many Indians await prosperity. This India of the future is yet to be built. However, the engines of India’s growth are deeply embedded in the carbon economy. Neither India nor the world has the luxury of following that path.
Starting with India, our goal is to change climate discourse from a peripheral, elite policy debate to one that is visceral and central to addressing those societies’ futures. Climate Citizenship is particularly important in communities that are yet to see the benefits of our current (carbon-based) economic system.
In our recent partnership with Vaagdhara, an over 20-year-old grassroots organization working with indigenous Bhil communities of three states in India, we saw this Climate Citizenry come to life in a co-designed Citizen Jury format we named Jan Manch (The Citizen’s Stage). Vaagdhara works in 1000 villages across the western states of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh with 100,000 families. One hundred and four representatives of this community came together to deliberate, first with experts, then with their community and then amongst themselves, on the various aspects of the climate crisis in a day-long process and made a list of recommendations that they deemed fit to respond to this ongoing crisis.
Vaagdhara draws its name from the region it works in, “Vaagad”, and the Hindi word Dhara, meaning stream. The core value of the organization is “Swaraj”, self-reliance, which is a philosophy popularized by Mahatma Gandhi during the Indian Independence movement. However, they recognize and acknowledge the role the latest developments in technology can play to improve the lives of indigenous communities. Therefore, they envision creating nurturing, vibrant institutions of tribal communities in their catchment area where new-generation technologies and indigenous practices, as well as knowledge, can help ensure sustainable livelihoods for all. Their efforts towards this are bucketed under three domains -
They have classified the 1000 villages they work in into 26 clusters known as Krishi evam Adivasi Swaraj Sangthans (KASS) units. Each of these units comprises 35-40 villages across the three states and has 20-member committees that form the connection between Vaagdhara and the communities along with their field staff. Eight to nine of each of these clusters are further bucketed under three units called - Mahi, Hiran and Mangarh.
The spread of Vaagdhara’s work across the three states and 1000 villages.
Vaagdhara’s people and geographical reach
Given their value systems that place indigenous people and nature first and their large outreach in these communities, Vaagdhara formed a natural ally for us to test our idea of Climate Citizenship. As is true for indigenous communities across the world, these communities have played almost no role in causing the climate crisis the world currently faces. However, they are bearing the consequences of this planetary change in their everyday life already in the form of erratic rains, extreme heat, pest infestations and so on. Along with this, the pressure to migrate to cities for sustenance and the growing aspirations of youth have resulted in newer challenges for the people left behind in the villages. The push and pull between their everyday reality and aspirations for a better tomorrow in a world that is talking about decarbonising and reducing emissions is a wicked problem worth engaging with.
<aside> <img src="/icons/library_yellow.svg" alt="/icons/library_yellow.svg" width="40px" /> Our Jan Manch exercise with 104 members of this community was a live demonstration of these aspirations and contradictions that need to be addressed for a flourishing future for all.
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