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With Smitu Kothari’s death on March 23, India has lost an important voice for democracy, social justice and ecological sanity
“My guiding commitment is to contribute in a modest way to the consolidation of democracy, social justice and ecological sanity in India and the subcontinent,” is how scholar-activist Smitu Kothari explained the breadth of his engagement with India's social movements in an interview over a decade ago. A widely respected scholar and an indomitable activist, Smitu Kothari’s untimely death at the age of 59 of a cardiac arrest in New Delhi early on Monday, March 23, 2009, has left fellow activists and friends across the country in a state of shock. Kothari suffered a stroke while attending a meeting of the Delhi Solidarity Group and Himalaya Niti Abhiyan to discuss strategies for strengthening people's struggles in Himachal Pradesh against displacement, mining and environmental destruction. He was operated upon at the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) but succumbed to arterial complications a day later. The soft-spoken Smitu Kothari, son of the illustrious activist and political scientist Rajni Kothari, edited the Lokayan Bulletin which promoted civil society dialogue, and co-edited Ecologist Asia with other environmentalists including Vandana Shiva, Claude Alvares and Bittu Sahgal. A visiting academic at the Cornell and Princeton Universities and author of several publications on contemporary socio-political and economic discourses, Kothari was, above all, an important voice in the movement against large dams. The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), in a statement said: “Smitu had been a longtime vocal supporter of the struggle of the thousands of adivasis, farmers, labourers, fishworkers, potters and all the project-affected people in the Narmada valley and articulated their concerns at various fora both within India and across continents.” Development-induced displacement, people’s governance and social-environmental movements were some of his core concerns. He was also one of the moving spirits behind the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India held in 2007. He was actively involved in strengthening the Delhi support base for the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) that brought together grassroots initiatives like the Movement to Save the Narmada, the National Fishworkers Federation, and the Movement to Protect India's Independence. He was one of the founders of Lokayan ("Dialogue of the People"), and Intercultural Resources, two centres in Delhi promoting exchange between non-party political formations and concerned scholars and citizens from India and the rest of the world. Among the books he edited were: Voices of Struggle. Social Movements in Asia (2006); Voices of Sanity, In Search of Democratic Space (2002); A Watershed in Global Governance? An Independent Assessment of the World Commission on Dams; The Value of Nature: Ecological Politics in India (2003); Out of the Nuclear Shadow (with Zia Mian, 2001); Rethinking Human Rights: Challenges for Theory and Action (1991); and, The Non-Party Political Process: Uncertain Alternatives (with H. Sethi, 1988). He was working on a new book, Ecological Justice: Nature, Culture and Democracy. The NBA, in its statement, said: “A truly loving person, Smitu continues to be a source of inspiration not just for people's movements and struggles in India, but also to voices of dissent and alternatives across the globe.” InfoChange News & Features, March 2009
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