Three Decades of People’s Politics: Significance of NAPM in Contemporary India

NAPM celebrated its journey of three decades at its 13^th convention at Hyderabad from February 28-March 4, 2025 and was joined by more than 1000 people from across the country.

In India today, movements are under attack. Protest sites are barricaded. Laws are used to silence voices. Student leaders, human rights defenders, and community organisers are jailed. From Shaheen Bagh to the farmers’ protest, to those standing for Palestine, the state has responded with repression. Every day there is a news story of silencing of critiques. Teachers getting scaked for a critical article they wrote. Statements they signed, or a comment they made perceived to be critical of the regime. The repression has creeped in every sphere of life today.

It is not easy to organise in such a climate. And yet, people do. For thirty years now, the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has tried to build and sustain a space for resistance, for people’s voices, and for alternative politics, just like so many other people’s movements and civil liberties groups have done.

NAPM was formed in the early 1990s. That was the time when India’s economy was being liberalised, and communal forces were on the rise. It was clear to many that the old model of development was going to push people out – out of their homes, lands, forests, livelihoods. Displacement was becoming the price for progress. Privatisation was being promoted at the cost of public ownership and accountability. At the same time, identity-based hate and violence were growing. Babri Masjid had just been demolished. Gujarat and other states saw riots in the years that followed.

It was in this context that movements came together. Struggles from different parts of the country, fighting against dams, mines, displacement, communalism, caste oppression, hunger, corruption, and labour exploitation – all began to feel the need for a broader alliance. There was a need to build something bigger. Something that would not stop at opposing one project or one law, but challenge the whole idea of top-down, anti-people development and the systemic capture of power by an elite. That’s how NAPM came into being, to build an India of people’s dreams.

Three decades later, NAPM is still around. That in itself is something. Many alliances have come and gone. Many campaign networks have dissolved. Some were tied to electoral calculations. Some fell apart under pressure. Some simply faded.

NAPM has survived. It has endured regime changes, state crackdowns, allegations, arrests of activists, and all kinds of pressures. Over the years, it faced intimidation through larger crackdown on NGOs, police surveillance, negligence from corporate media, disinformation campaign, and state-backed vilification of movements. But it also stood firm. We saw colleagues arrested, offices raided, and campaigns targeted. Yet the alliance stayed grounded because the commitment was never to power or prestige. It was to the people and their struggles.

The Harsud rally in 1989 was a turning point. It brought together thousands of people affected by large dams, including the Narmada valley, and signalled a clear opposition to the model of development that privileged cities and corporations over forests and farming communities. In its first two decades, the alliance supported and led so many struggles against SEZs, nuclear power plants, mining projects in Orissa and Jharkhand, and the entry of foreign corporations like Enron and Coca-Cola with an intention to capture people’s lands and livelihoods. NAPM fought for community control over land waters, forests and minerals and their right to decide their development.

One of the earliest times we saw this solidarity in action was during the Desh Bachao Desh Banao Abhiyan in 2003. Starting from Plachimada in Kerala, the yatra moved across 19 states, connecting people resisting Coca-Cola, dams, SEZs, communal violence, and land grabs. Everywhere we went, the message was the same, this development model is not working for us. It is uprooting us. That yatra laid the ground for many alliances we built in the years after, like Sangharsh 2007, Jan Sansad, Bhumi Adhikar Andolan or others.

Sangharsh and Nirman, Two Constant Mantras

NAPM was never just anti-development. It was always about rethinking development with people at the centre. It opposed forced land acquisition but supported decentralised planning. It critiqued privatisation but promoted community-controlled water, energy, and education systems.

Over the years, NAPM worked with fishworkers in the west coast, farmers in Vidarbha, adivasis in the central belt, workers in the informal sector, and displaced communities across India. It stood with Muslims during the Gujarat 2002 pogrom and has consistently spoken out against communal politics. It stood with people during the time of the natural disaster, like during kosi floods, or Bhuj or Latur earthquakes. In so many instances, it followed its immediate relief by continued struggle for justice, like Kosi Navnirman Manch has done for last two decades in Bihar. 

It has also helped push policy change. NAPM and its allies played a key role in the campaigns for the Forest Rights Act, Right to Information, NREGA, the Land Acquisition and Resettlement Act 2013, Right to Food Act and the push for decentralised urban planning through several campaigns. Holding national financial institutions to account has been one of its many ongoing campaigns over the years. How does one bridge the gap between the rich and the poor saw it advocating for an amiri rekha (defining a limit on wealth accumulation) during the country wide Lok Shakti Abhiyaan in 2011.

What made NAPM different was not just what it stood for, but how it worked. We organised public hearings, where people gave testimony about displacement, police violence, or land acquisition. We filed court cases, we held solidarity visits to conflict zones, we conducted people’s audits of SEZs, and we sat across the table from ministers to say, this is not the country we were promised or debate over the finer details of a policy or law. We used every space – from Jantar Mantar to jan sansads to state assemblies – to push for justice.

Between 2004-14, NAPM engaged with the UPA government on several occasions, not as supporters, but as outside pressure. It held dialogues with ministers, presented alternative policy frameworks, and when needed, opposed regressive moves. That balancing act – of being inside the debate but outside the power structure – has always been part of the alliance’s method.

Today, when the political environment is even more hostile, this experience matters. The current regime is not just anti-poor or anti-minority. It is anti-democracy. Movements are being labelled as anti-national. Civil society is being painted as foreign-funded troublemakers. In such a time, the very act of standing together becomes a political act.

Building Bridges and Practising Solidarity

One of NAPM’s core strengths has been its ability to build bridges – across issues, identities, and geographies. It was never a single-issue formation. It brought together anti-dam activists, Dalit groups, women’s organisations, labour unions, LGBTQ+ voices, and urban rights groups. In the process, it created space for deep listening, dialogue, and mutual learning.

This has not always been easy. At times, the interests of one group may seem to clash with another. Land rights struggles led by marginal farmers can sometimes overlook the rights of landless workers. Environmental concerns may seem to run counter to livelihoods of certain communities. But NAPM has continuously tried to foster conversations, to find common ground, and to build what some call “inter-movement solidarity.” This means not just sharing slogans but really understanding each other’s struggles.

Some of our most powerful moments came during the Samvidhan Samman Yatra in 2018. Travelling over 25,000 km across 26 states, we met students, workers, forest communities, and women’s groups. We didn’t go to campaign for votes. We went to ask: what does the Constitution mean today? Is it still a living promise – or just a piece of paper? This became important when the government made several noises about changing the Constitution and their attack on statutory and democratic institutions became severe, eroding people’s faith in them. Protecting Constitution became a rallying cry for the opposition parties to come together too, as we saw later in the years. This only showed how NAPM and its constituents had their ears to the ground and could sense the anger and disappointment.

One of the clearest examples of solidarity in action was during the farmers’ protest in 2020–21. While much of the media coverage showed it as a movement led by men from Punjab and Haryana, the reality was much broader. Across the country, workers, women’s groups, Dalit and Adivasi organisations, and student collectives came out in support. NAPM in its own ways helped link these struggles. It organised solidarity actions in cities and villages, shared resources, and amplified voices that weren’t always visible. It also pushed to bring in issues that don’t always get space in farmer movements – like landlessness, gender inequality, caste discrimination, and the need to protect public food systems. In Delhi, many of its members stood alongside the farmers at the protest sites. In other places, it helped hold local actions, mitti satyagrahas, people’s parliaments, and awareness campaigns. That movement reminded everyone that solidarity isn’t about everyone doing the same thing – it’s about standing together with our differences, not despite them.

Internationally too, over the years NAPM has linked with networks from People’s Global Action to World Social Forum, La Via Campesina, or more recent ones like the Global Tapestry of Alternatives, and other regional coalitions. These have opened up conversations about how to oppose extractivism, authoritarianism, and corporate rule not just in India, but globally. Yet, this global solidarity has always been rooted in local realities.

Even within India, NAPM has maintained its distance from formal electoral politics. While many organisations have aligned with parties or tried to become electoral fronts, NAPM has stayed non-partisan. This doesn’t mean it has been apolitical. It has taken clear positions on state violence, displacement, communalism, and labour rights. But it has always tried to keep the voice of people at the centre, not the calculations of parties.

In a time when opposition parties are weak or compromised, the role of such independent platforms becomes even more important. Movements like NAPM act as conscience-keepers. They are not just protesting against what is wrong – they are constantly trying to put forward what could be right.

Looking Ahead: Lessons and Challenges for the Future

As NAPM enters its fourth decade, the context is very different from when it began. The scale of repression is greater. Surveillance is digital and constant. Many traditional forms of protest have become harder, with protest sites being more regulated and restricted. Social media offers new opportunities but also polarises and fragments, where disinformation continues to hold sway.

The biggest challenge perhaps is not only the shrinking of spaces but the splintering of solidarities. Movements often find themselves isolated, confined to issue silos, or overwhelmed by internal differences. The rise of the right globally has made it easier to demonise dissent, but it has also exposed the limits of the old liberal consensus.

This moment demands a new kind of solidarity, one that is strategic, rooted, and courageous. It cannot be built only on slogans or identity. It must be built on trust, on political education, and on the hard work of holding each other through differences. As the world becomes more authoritarian, the left cannot afford to be fractured. We may not always agree, but we must find ways to walk together on the paths where we do.

NAPM’s journey shows that it is possible to survive, and more than survive, to keep dreaming. It reminds us that movements need not choose between resisting what is and imagining what could be. They can, and must, do both. It also reminds us that alliances don’t have to be perfect to be powerful.

In times of crisis, solidarity is not a luxury. It is a lifeline. And NAPM, with all its flaws and strengths, offers one example of how we can build it, slowly, persistently, across all that divides us.

Madhuresh Kumar is a former National Convener of NAPM India.