Asia at a turning point: where the Nyéléni forum meets history
As part of the journey toward the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum, we are sharing the latest poster, which represents the convergence of all sectors and movements participating in the process: small-scale food producers, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, food chain workers, daily wage and migrant laborers in urban and rural areas, feminist and climate justice movements, advocates for social and solidarity economies and health for all, consumer groups, and other service and manufacturing sector workers. This third poster visualizes how these diverse struggles and transformative proposals intertwine, showing the collective strength in building people-led systemic change. It serves as a graphic reminder that agroecology, food sovereignty, climate justice, and the commons are strengthened when social movements organize and act together.
Asia is at a turning point. History still shapes the present, and organized movements have the power to change its course. The 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum, to be held from September 6 to 13, 2025, in Kandy, Sri Lanka, will be a key space for social movements and organizations worldwide to advance concrete actions and strengthen their collective struggle for systemic transformation.
The Long History Behind Today’s Crises
Shalmali Guttal, from Focus on the Global South, frames Asia’s current situation as a “third war against occupation and colonization,” now fought against corporations, oligarchies, and emerging authoritarianism. South Asia is not a monolith but a mosaic of sub-regions, each with its own histories, geographies, and struggles, and a unique agricultural biodiversity that underpins food sovereignty.
From spice and opium routes to silk and other commodities, external powers drew artificial borders and monopolies that remain flashpoints today. Early multinational corporations were not metaphors but armed enterprises designed to secure extraction and trade monopolies. During the so-called “British era,” resource extraction for distant industrialization coincided with repeated famines.
Decolonization did not end violence; internal wars and authoritarian turns erupted across the region. Attempts to build different economic and political horizons were met with structural adjustment and liberalization packages that deepened inequality. Today’s “debt relief” programs function as new rounds of adjustment benefiting private financial actors, while authoritarian currents—often backed by corporate interests—criminalize dissent and shrink civic space. Yet movements continue to organize, resist, and gain ground against corporate power.
Regional Struggles: India’s Farmers and the Politics Around Them
Chukki Nanjundaswamy, from the Indian farmers’ movement KRRS (Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha), recalls the historic thirteen-month mobilization in India (2020–2021): a massive, non-violent encampment on Delhi’s outskirts that endured extreme conditions, smear campaigns, and repression until authorities withdrew three farm laws. These laws would have accelerated corporate control, undermined public regulation, and deepened dispossession. The victory was made possible through the unity of over 500 organizations that bridged caste, class, region, religion, and gender, turning diversity into strategy.
Shivasundar, journalist and activist, adds that understanding the present requires reading India’s postcolonial arc: caste hierarchies, incomplete land reforms, and the imprint of the Green Revolution followed by neoliberal restructuring. The result is a homegrown authoritarianism, culturally legitimized, that must be confronted through broad alliances of peasants, rural workers, and urban youth, reclaiming the narrative and updating land and labor struggles for today’s political economy.
Sri Lanka: Genealogies of Dispossession and a Present Tied to Debt
Sarala Emmanuel, feminist activist and founding member of the Feminist Collective for Economic Justice, traces Sri Lanka’s trajectory from colonial plantation economies to language and land policies that entrenched inequality. State-led industrialization gave way to liberalization; uprisings and rural resistance were repressed, and the long war (1983–2009) left unresolved grievances, disappearances, and a militarized public sphere. Today, migration, precarious sectors, and weak labor protections shape everyday life. Kandy—host of the upcoming Nyéléni Forum—is both a nationalist heartland and a site of plantation workers’ struggles. Memory and justice are not optional: without truth, redress, and accountability, there is no democratic foundation for building food sovereignty.
Current Conjuncture: Austerity, Youth Revolt, and the Agroecology Debate
Sandun Thudugala, human rights activist, interprets the post-2022 crisis as the predictable result of five decades of neoliberal policy. Debt dominated by international bonds and ongoing austerity continues to impact workers, peasants, and women. Thilak Kariyawasam, Executive Director of FIAN Sri Lanka, adds that the rushed “organic” transition was used to discredit agroecology. Agroecology is not an overnight switch but a public transition requiring planning, research, extension, credit, markets, and peasant leadership.
As part of the journey toward the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum, we are sharing the latest poster, which represents the convergence of all sectors and movements participating in the process: small-scale food producers, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, food chain workers, daily wage and migrant laborers in urban and rural areas, feminist and climate justice movements, advocates for social and solidarity economies and health for all, consumer groups, and other service and manufacturing sector workers. This third poster visualizes how these diverse struggles and transformative proposals intertwine, showing the collective strength in building people-led systemic change. It serves as a graphic reminder that agroecology, food sovereignty, climate justice, and the commons are strengthened when social movements organize and act together.
Conclusions for Nyéléni
From analysis to agenda, Nyéléni’s task is to connect the dots: link historical extraction to today’s debt and corporate power; make unity operational, as India’s farmers did, through federated coordination, logistics, media, legal defense, and negotiation; center justice with truth for the disappeared, inclusive land and labor policies, and social protections to shield households. Bring landless and rural workers into the core of food sovereignty, and address agrarian reform contradictions through practical programs, land titles for the landless, debt relief, price guarantees, and defense of the commons. Plan agroecology as a public transition led by peasants and supported by state capacity, directly challenging the debt trap and tying democratic renewal to economic policy. Fertile ground awaits at Nyéléni.
Note: The information in this article is based on the webinar Asia at a Turning Point: Political Economy, Peasant Struggles, and Sri Lanka’s Crossroads, held ahead of the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum. The insights presented draw on contributions from Shalmali Guttal (Focus on the Global South), Chukki Nanjundaswamy (KRRS, Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha), Shivasundar (journalist and activist, India), Sarala Emmanuel (Feminist Collective for Economic Justice, Sri Lanka), Sandun Thudugala (human rights activist, Sri Lanka), and Thilak Kariyawasam (FIAN Sri Lanka).
The article was written by Soledad Vogliano (ETC Group) and reflects the discussions, analyses, and perspectives shared during the webinar.