Write an essay on ‘New Social Movements’ in developing countries. (2019, 15 Marks)
New social movements (NSMs) were first theorised in the post-industrial West by Alain Touraine, Jürgen Habermas and Alberto Melucci as identity- and value-based mobilisations distinct from class politics. Transplanted to the global South, the concept changes shape: the “new” grows out of the unmet promises of the post-colonial state and never fully leaves the “old” behind.
Why they arose
- Disappointment with the developmental state. Post-colonial states promised participation, redistribution and dignity. When planning, big projects and party clientelism failed the poor, grievances moved outside parties, into what Rajni Kothari called the non-party political process (1984).
- Liberalisation and globalisation. Land acquisition and corporate extraction provoked resistance aimed at multilateral lenders and transnational capital as much as at governments.
- A crisis of class politics. Caste, tribe, gender and ecology could not be reduced to class, which challenged orthodox Marxist parties and their single revolutionary subject.
Their distinctive character
- Old and new overlap. Post-material values cannot displace material needs where security is absent. Ramachandra Guha and Joan Martinez-Alier (Varieties of Environmentalism, 1997) call this the environmentalism of the poor: ecology as a fight over access to forests, water and land.
- Cross-class composition. A base of peasants, Adivasis or workers combines with middle-class activists who supply articulation and leadership.
- Autonomy over state capture. Andre Gunder Frank and Marta Fuentes (“Nine Theses on Social Movements”, 1987) argued that such movements seek autonomy and dignity rather than state power.
- Identity as a vehicle for material claims. Gail Omvedt (Reinventing Revolution, 1993) read India’s Dalit, peasant, women’s and environmental movements as a new radicalism joining anti-caste and anti-exploitation struggles.
The main currents
| Current | Illustrations |
|---|---|
| Ecological | Chipko (1973); Narmada Bachao Andolan, which pushed the World Bank out of Sardar Sarovar in 1993 |
| Indigenous | Mexico’s Zapatistas, who rose on 1 January 1994 as NAFTA took effect; Adivasi claims at Niyamgiri |
| Caste and rights | Dalit movements; the right-to-information and right-to-food campaigns |
| Women and sexuality | Pakistan’s Aurat March (from 2018); Latin America’s Ni Una Menos; Pride |
| Digital youth | Nepal’s Gen Z protests (2025); India’s NEET-UG 2026 paper-leak protests, which forced the Education Minister’s resignation on 25 July 2026 |
Significance and assessment
- Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, 1985) see plural antagonisms as the ground of radical democracy, decentring power from state and economy. Arturo Escobar and Sonia Alvarez (1992) found Latin American movements redefining what counts as political.
- Partha Chatterjee‘s political society shows marginal populations bargaining for recognition, widening who counts as a claimant.
- Movements widened India’s rights architecture through the RTI Act (2005) and Forest Rights Act (2006).
- The weaknesses are equally clear: NGO-isation, co-optation, fragmentation along caste and ethnic lines, the “anti-development” charge, and shrinking civic space.
Conclusion
NSMs in developing countries are hybrids in which livelihood, identity and ecology are fought for together, not copies of Western post-materialism. They are the barometer of what the post-colonial state has left undone, and their lasting achievement is to have democratised both the agenda and the idea of development.