Anarchism and Neighbourocracy

A talk to the Indian Neighbourocracy Movement

I’m very lucky to have a relationship with the Children’s Parliaments of India, a remarkable movement of child-led self-governing assemblies in thousands of villages and neighbourhoods across India. Associated with the children’s parliaments is the neighbourocracy movement, which is establishing neighbourhood assemblies in several places around the world, what in other contexts might be called communal assemblies. It too started in India. These are some of the most effective and widespread examples of real-life bottom up democracy in the world.

I was honoured to be asked to share my story with the neighbourocracy movement - my journey to anarchism which, as I said in the talk, is a philosophy very similar to neighbourocracy (at least my version of ‘gentle anarchy’ is). Here’s the talk. It should start with the introduction by my friend and colleague Swarnalakshmi Ravi, one of the leaders of the children’s parliaments. If not, please go to 16:00 minutes.

Incidentally, we are trying to arrange for a representative of the children’s world parliament to address world leaders at the UN’s Summit of the Future in September. The children are already debating among themselves what to say. Negotiations with the Secretary-General’s office continue. I’ll let you know what happens. I can think of few better ways of representing the future than children speaking to their needs and hopes. I’ll have more to say about the Summit of the Future in further posts too.