ABSTRACT
Just when the global discourse on democracy has become unidimensional, purveying the neo-liberal model of market democracy as the only universally desirable model, and when the Indian state has linked itself to the vertical hierarchy of global economic and political power, significant countervailing processes have emerged in the form of political and social movements at the grass roots making new, provincial and national-level alliances aimed at countering the state’s policies of globalization. These movements, led by small groups of social activists, have been active in different parts of India for over three decades working on disparate issues, albeit all concerning struggles of the economically marginalized and socially excluded, poorer populations. In the decade of the 1990s, many of them have come together and have joined larger, worldwide alliances and forums protesting against hegemonic policies of the institutions and organizations representing global economic and political power.
