Our discussion on Contestation Movements and the Emergence of Eco-Social Contracts in India and Nepal demonstrates the immense challenges for progressive and just social change. In both countries, communities marginalised on the basis of class, caste, ethnicity, faith, location and gender, along with their civil society representatives, remain structurally oppressed and often persecuted. Authoritarian, racist, patriarchal and classist government and police actions continue. We argue that it is crucial that societal, economic and political inclusion and justice remain at the centre of demands.
Drawing on our experiences and analyses of the recent political trajectories in both countries, we conclude that transformations are needed at all levels:
At the government level, affirmative action and implementation must ensure genuine intersectionality and social inclusion. The practice of nominally electing representatives of disadvantaged groups while high-jacking their authority must stop.
Political parties must overcome cemented groupings and traditions. Politicians newer to the scene and/or younger persons need to have space to take political power, and their political positions must reflect and be controlled by independent progressive civil society and democratic institutions.
Fiscal policy reform is urgent. Societal inclusion requires progressive fiscal policy to support adequate social policy expenditures; to enforce income and wealth redistribution and to enable environmental and climate action.
Access to decent work must address the lack of employment and the enormous cleavages between the formal and the informal economy, and close the gaping gender-, caste-, ethnicity- and faith-driven employment and wage gaps. This requires fundamental labour law reforms. Land rights need to be ensured and the principle of prior and informed consent needs to be enforced.
Norms and ideals need transformation. Marginalised and excluded communities and individuals demand recognition, respect and representation, access to reparation, and reclamation.
At the interpersonal level, the identities of marginalised communities need to be valorised. Progressive intersectionality could bring the causes of all marginalised groups together.
However, new eco-social contracts – affirmative action, legislation and judicial reforms, economic and fiscal restructuring, behaviour or norm change – do not on their own lead to genuine economic, political, social and ecological inclusion. As one legal expert put it: “Legislative changes come off the back of movements”. This is not easy.
Alina Saba and Gabriele Koehler
Alina Saba is an Indigenous activist of the Limbu Indigenous Peoples from the Eastern hills of Nepal. She works on Indigenous Peoples’ rights and climate justice with International Funders for Indigenous Peoples (IFIP). She is a board member of the National Indigenous Women Forum (NIWF), Nepal. She has worked with social movements such as climate justice, the Indigenous Peoples movement, and human and labour rights in Nepal, Thailand, and globally. She holds an MA in Politics and Public Policy, University of Sheffield, UK. Her MA thesis was on “Identifying the challenges of addressing diversity in Nepal through federalism”.
Gabriele Koehler is a development economist and an UNRISD Senior Research Associate. From 1983 to 2010, she held positions as UN Resident Coordinator in Latvia, UNICEF Regional Social Policy Advisor South Asia, and Special Assistant to the UNCTAD Secretary-General. She researches the UN Agenda 2030, eco-social policies, and business and human rights. She is on the board of Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF), a member of the UNICEF National Committee Germany, and an independent advisor to the Peoples’20 network.
Eco-social contracts: Reflections on India and Nepal
The volume Eco-Social Contracts for Sustainable and Just Futures. Mobilising Collective Power to Deal with the 21st Century Polycrisis brings together the research and insights of activists, politicians, academics, artists from around the world.
Our discussion on Contestation Movements and the Emergence of Eco-Social Contracts in India and Nepal demonstrates the immense challenges for progressive and just social change. In both countries, communities marginalised on the basis of class, caste, ethnicity, faith, location and gender, along with their civil society representatives, remain structurally oppressed and often persecuted. Authoritarian, racist, patriarchal and classist government and police actions continue. We argue that it is crucial that societal, economic and political inclusion and justice remain at the centre of demands.
Detail from a painting by Nepali artist Ragini Upadhyaya (2024). Nepali youth – symbolically depicted as a winged bird – are rising against “the injustices, inequalities, oppression, corruption and failures of the system” (Ragini, February 2025). https://raginiupadhayay.com/
Drawing on our experiences and analyses of the recent political trajectories in both countries, we conclude that transformations are needed at all levels:
However, new eco-social contracts – affirmative action, legislation and judicial reforms, economic and fiscal restructuring, behaviour or norm change – do not on their own lead to genuine economic, political, social and ecological inclusion. As one legal expert put it: “Legislative changes come off the back of movements”. This is not easy.
Alina Saba and Gabriele Koehler
Alina Saba is an Indigenous activist of the Limbu Indigenous Peoples from the Eastern hills of Nepal. She works on Indigenous Peoples’ rights and climate justice with International Funders for Indigenous Peoples (IFIP). She is a board member of the National Indigenous Women Forum (NIWF), Nepal. She has worked with social movements such as climate justice, the Indigenous Peoples movement, and human and labour rights in Nepal, Thailand, and globally. She holds an MA in Politics and Public Policy, University of Sheffield, UK. Her MA thesis was on “Identifying the challenges of addressing diversity in Nepal through federalism”.
Gabriele Koehler is a development economist and an UNRISD Senior Research Associate. From 1983 to 2010, she held positions as UN Resident Coordinator in Latvia, UNICEF Regional Social Policy Advisor South Asia, and Special Assistant to the UNCTAD Secretary-General. She researches the UN Agenda 2030, eco-social policies, and business and human rights. She is on the board of Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF), a member of the UNICEF National Committee Germany, and an independent advisor to the Peoples’20 network.
Share this: