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BOOK REVIEW 
  

Envisioning a Just and Sustainable Society 
 

Harsh Dobhal  
 
Ashish Kothari and K J Joy (eds.). 2017. Alternative Futures: India Unshackled, 
New Delhi: Authors Upfront, ISBN: 9788193392478; pp. 704, INR 995 
 

Alternative Futures is a compelling 
collection of thought-provoking essays 
on how India’s several political, 
economic, environmental, and social 
challenges might play out towards a 
hopeful future. The editors Ashish 
Kothari and K J Joy, however, do not 
intend for the volume to serve as some 
sort of a road map for future-oriented 
action. Rather, Alternative Futures, as Shiv 
Visvanathan underlines in the foreword 
as well, should be best understood as 
affirming Gandhi’s notion of the ashram 
as a laboratory for ‘futuristic, ethical and 
scientific experiments’. 

The 35 essays by 50 writers are clubbed under five broad sections—
ecological, political, economic, socio-cultural, and concluding perspectives. 
While taking a full stock of the varied visions, imaginations, and insights 
will be impossible in this limited review, one could, nonetheless, dwell upon 
some of the striking viewpoints and perspectives that suggest a general 
conceptual slant in the volume. For one—unsurprisingly, perhaps—many 

 
 Visiting Professor, School of Media and Communication Studies, Doon University, 
Dehradun, India; harshdobhal@gmail.com 

Copyright © Dobhal 2018. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 
4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 

Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v1i2.45  

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v1i2.45


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [108] 

of the essays make clear their strong disagreements with the prevailing 
hegemonic beliefs in economic growth, consumerism, and the role of neo-
liberal markets. The alternative imaginings, on the other hand, argue for a 
provocative range of possibilities for achieving economic justice, social 
equality, ecological sustainability, and the deepening of democratic values 
and practice. 

In the section ‘Political Futures’, Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, and Pravitta 
Kashyap provide us helpful arguments for ‘direct democracy’, their claim 
here being that a ‘rainbow coalition of grassroots social movements’ could 
assemble both the intellectual and organizational muscle to make 
democracy more participative and meaningful. Aditya Nigam’s essay, with 
similar reasoning, weaves together the often differing thoughts of Gandhi, 
Nehru, Tagore, and even M N Roy to make a compelling case for ‘radical 
social democracy’. In sum, the essays in this section urge us to reconsider 
the critical differences between the electoral logic of representative 
democracy from that of striving instead for popular participation in which 
communities and citizens can meaningfully decide upon, and have agency in 
realizing, their interests. 

The essays in the ‘Ecological Futures’ section cover themes such as water, 
environmental governance, biodiversity, and energy. Shripad 
Dharmadhikary and Himanshu Thakkar argue against large dams and the 
now infamous scheme of interlinking rivers. For them, centralized water 
infrastructures—besides displacing traditional access of local 
communities—fail to ensure that rivers have sufficient ecological flows. For 
them, moreover, only water infrastructures that allow inclusive community 
access and are sensitive to ecologies of flow can enable the sustainable 
management of water resources. Kartik Shanker, Meera Anna Oommen, 
and Nitin Rai point out, in a similar vein, that the history of exclusionary 
conservation in India or what is widely referred to as the ‘guns and fences’ 
approach to environmental protection has largely failed. Not only have 
subsistence communities been denied access to their traditional livelihood 
means in such elite, expert-driven, and bureaucratically administered 
conservation agendas but whole worlds of traditional knowledges and local 
expertise have been marginalized. In the opinion of these ecologists, the 
effort for an inclusive conservation must be premised on a more ‘holistic’ 
approach in which heterogeneous multi-use landscapes are encouraged and 
communities living within biodiversity-rich zones are made part of the 
striving for environmental justice. 

The ‘Economic Futures’ section deals with diverse sub-themes such as food 
sovereignty, pastoralism, crafts, industry, urbanization, transportation, and 
technological alternatives. Aseem Shrivastava and Elango Rangasamy 



[109] Harsh Dobhal 

elaborate upon the need for the localization and regionalization of 
economies. The belief here is that these new scales might offer better 
opportunities for crafting ecologically stable and collectively self-sufficient 
societies. Bharat Mansata, Kavitha Kuruganti, Vijay Jardhari, and Vasant 
Futane debate a range of possibilities for achieving food sovereignty, 
dignified livelihoods to farmers, and ecological sustainability. K J Joy draws 
our attention to a biomass-based future, which, he hopes, can tie together 
livelihood and ecosystem needs. Dunu Roy urges us to think about 
industrial manufacturing without having to be competitive or profit-driven. 

The theme ‘Socio-Cultural Futures’ engages with the issues of languages, 
schooling, arts, alternative media, knowledge, health, dalits, gender, 
minorities, and adivasis. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta explores possibilities for 
an alternative media which can be made responsive to public concerns and 
is based on collaborations between media practitioners, representatives of 
civil society, whistle-blowers, and other stakeholders. Arguing that language 
is just not a mode of communication but a world view, G N Devy suggests 
that language diversity in India is an important inheritance and helps us 
sustain our multicultural identity. Anand Teltumbde emphasizes on the 
need for the socio-economic, sociopolitical, and sociocultural 
empowerment of dalits and argues that empowerment is vital for working 
towards the abolishment of caste and communal consciousness. Gladson 
Dungdung’s passionately written essay on the adivasis (indigenous people 
of India) discusses not only the legacies of violence, exploitation, and 
domination that have shaped the latter’s contemporary worlds but also 
compellingly outlines a possible adivasi future comprising a need-based 
economy, cooperation, and communities living in harmony with nature. 

While these essays are persuasive, they offer no particular road maps for 
achieving or realizing these better alternatives. Nonetheless, the essays in 
Alternative Futures remain useful for not only helping us understand the 
many social, economic, political, and environmental ills that afflict 
contemporary India. These writings also set the stage for fuelling a range of 
possible discussions amongst academics, public intellectuals, journalists, 
legal practitioners, and peace activists. In sum, there is a now a meaningful 
conceptual template for all those interested in working to a future that can 
be better than the present. 

 


