Why revitalising communities is an important work of our times

The Interconnected Crisis 

The world today is at the cusp of multi-fold crisis: 

• Ecological Crisis where we are consuming 1.5 times the rate at which Earth can replenish
• Socio-Economic Crisis where 26 individuals own as much wealth as bottom 50% of humanity and inequity is only getting skewed each year (Oxfam Inequity Report) 
• Spiritual Crisis with a remarkable self-alienation whose one of the consequences is rising number of suicides. 

The crisis we believe, is civilizational. It asks of us some fundamental questions about dominant way of being, way of thinking and organising. 

The Core Problem 

The crises are created by a web of factors – like mono-cultured education, globalisation, industrial modernity and so on. However, one of the most significant phenomenon that has led to these crises is dismantling of communities particularly in the last 30 years at a rate unprecedented before. Because of (a) economic mobility (including displacement due to development), (b) nuclearisation of families, (c) economic expansion, (d) recent indoctrination of technology in our lives and (e) as a response to orthodoxy that existed in some communities. 

By community we mean, both ‘a group of people living together in a local area’ as well as ‘the fabric of connectedness’ sometimes across geographies that support people to meet their needs. Communities have been a central unit of our civilisation until recently – enabling people to meet needs across Maslow’s need hierarchy, for example: 

- Physiological Needs like food, water met through active sharing culture in communities. 

- Safety Needs like livelihoods, health, property have been rooted in community and collective actions too. For example, during harvesting/sowing seasons, farmers from entire community would come together to work on one farm at a time or Joint Hindu Family businesses. 

- Belongingness to land and people is deeply intertwined with community meeting needs of connection, 

intimacy. 

Additionally, community relationships have been deeply connected to ecological relationships between human beings, other beings and their environment. Shared stories, culture and local understanding enabled people to be within ecological limits. 

As Homo Sapiens became Homo Economicus (economic man), the first victim has been communities. Said in another way, it is through the process of dismantling communities that modern markets have made inroads into societies. 

However, Raghuram Rajan in his recent book ‘The Third Pillar’ argues “Economists all too often understand their field as the relationship between markets and the state, and they leave squishy social issues for other people. That’s not just myopic, it’s dangerous.” He further says “As markets scale up, the state scales up with it, concentrating economic and political power in flourishing central hubs and leaving the periphery to decompose, figuratively and even literally.” 

Across time and cultures, societies have educated their young people to be in communities – interconnected mechanisms to meet different needs. It has been through rituals, festivals and other unique norms. Along with that the overall experience of growing up with people in structures like joint family, village, urban neighbourhoods etc. 

Over time, our education has focused only on nurturing a) consumers who are in fearful pursuit of material excess as an indication of success. And b) workers working in large corporations often disconnected from their work and people. We are not preparing people to be part of communities. 

Why it’s the right time? 

We believe this is an urgent moment in history, to realise the importance of community and actively work on revitalising them because of following reasons: 

- As the most of the world is beyond denial of climate change, we will soon enter into a phase of looking for alternatives to our dominant systems. 

- One of the asks of our times is to rewire our relationship with nature and the planet, creating and investing in creating communities can enable us to rewire that relationship. 

- With AI and super computing, many traditional livelihoods will become obsolete. The question of what does it mean to be human, can be explored, grounded in community. 

- Emerging movements (like Degrowth, local futures etc.) are asking for economy beyond extractivism and protectionism. Community infrastructures can offer possibilities of post capitalist future of work and economic life. 

- In times of protective, nationalist polarising politics where sense of identity for people is misplaced and exploited by political forces, deepening community relationship can reinvigorate multiple identities for people.