Sangatya

Sangatya is intended to be a free association of free people united by a common purpose and shared values. Sangatya is a Kannada word meaning being together for a cause. It includes friendship, companionship, sharing and caring. Our common purpose is trying to live a life consistent with the values of fairness and sustainability. Our ideals are fairness in the use of common natural resources and fairness in the sharing of work and responsibilities. In principle we wish to live without using more than our share of the world's common resources. However, since we cannot determine what our share is, our practical goal is to satisfy the needs of as many people as possible with the resources at our disposal. Even this goal is meaningful when we have a large enough group of like-minded people interested in living with these ideals. Such a group is yet to coalesce. We hope that if we persist, such people will sometime join us in sufficient numbers to make this a viable community. Our doors are open to people with empathy for fellow human beings, commitment to equality regardless of caste, religion, gender, race, nationality, etc and an ethic of sharing work without class distinctions.

We believe that the challenge of sustainability cannot be met merely by proper choice of techniques or technology. More important is an ethic which values cooperation rather than competition among fellow human beings and nurturing rather than exploitation with respect to our environment.

What are our reasons for attempting an intentional community? While it is inevitable that to some extent at least we react to what happens around us, it is better if our actions and choices are also motivated by a vision of a fair society. Our opposition as activists to specific instances of injustice becomes sustainable only when we also invest our energies in building a fair society. Such energies can be effectively channelised only when people with shared concerns and values in adequate numbers cooperate in the effort. We would like this community to be a microcosm of a society of our dreams and a working model to demonstrate that it is possible to live well without having much. It should also be a place where people can come to learn through experience anything we do here, including seeing themselves as part of a larger community with shared responsibilities of nurturing commons. Our interaction with society must also include responding as activists to events unfolding around us. When we have a large vibrant group, it should be possible to take part in such activities without compromising the sustainability of the community.

For a number of reasons, our life has revolved around agriculture. Growing food in a sustainable manner is an important part of a sustainable lifestyle. More importantly, repairing - to the extent possible - the damage the biosphere has already suffered due to human activities is a crucial part of transition to a sustainable lifestyle. The most serious damage consists of loss of soil fertility, loss of soil itself due to erosion, loss of water security and loss of biodiversity. Preventing further soil erosion, restoring soil fertility as well as water security and preserving biodiversity are therefore of greatest urgency. Only the people who work with soil can take part in this important task. The crisis of climate will get addressed if people move from livelihoods which are part of an extractive system to those which are part of a system which is non-exploitative and restorative. Saving soil, restoring soil fertility, rebuilding water security and preserving biodiversity must be an integral part of growing food. Growth of other sectors of the economy since the Industrial Revolution has transferred a large population away from agriculture, thereby alienating them from the task of nurturing soil. It is impossible to take care of the soil if a few people have to produce food for a much larger number. The current trend of people moving from agriculture to other modes of life needs to be reversed.1

Sangatya has been in existence since October 2007. The land was bought using contributions from seven friends. All of us have a background in science. Some of us have been involved in activism for workers' rights, environment and peace. Over the years, our support group has expanded beyond the original seven. Many people have lived here for varying periods - one family for a year, another for two years and many individuals, at least two of whom have lived here for more than three years. Many people who come here frequently feel a sense of ownership, and therefore provide moral and material support besides contributing in physical work.

We have about 6.6 acres of land some of which is wooded, some sloping with little topsoil, some used as access road and roughly 2 acres suitable for growing grains and vegetables. The previous owners had planted areca (betelnut) trees on a part of the land. We have been gradually replacing them with a variety of trees. Doing sustainable agriculture involves a lot of learning since we are not from an agricultural background. Even while learning from other farmers we must be discriminating because not all practices followed by them are sustainable. Though people of this region have been abandoning agriculture altogether or shifting to cash crops, we have been able to build relationships with some neighbours that enable sharing of resources and labour. 

Ours is in principle a non-hierarchical community. All of us share the work of cooking, housekeeping, farming, etc. Farm work usually takes between four and six hours a day, sometimes the entire day. We do most of it when the sun is not too hot. For this reason we, like all farmers, start work early in the morning. Division of labour is not based on privileges. Work that doesn't require any special skills is shared by all with due regard to age and physical ability. All visitors who stay with us long enough are treated as members of the household. We meet every night before retiring to review the day's work, to plan the next day's work as well as to discuss anything that concerns the whole community. Even philosophical matters are discussed in these meetings. Decisions are taken by consensus. Another important purpose of meeting together once every day is nurturing a feeling of togetherness, without which our staying together itself may be unsustainable. Any differences among us must be resolved in a spirit of mutual trust and respect.

We have a house typical of a village house in this geographical region. It is big enough to accommodate two families, but more than 30 have stayed in it during camps. We have minimum furniture. We eat and sleep on the floor though we have two cots, which can be folded, that can be used by those who cannot sleep on the floor. We cook using firewood because it is a renewable resource readily available on our land. We use electricity frugally. We have very few powered machines in our house. Water for household use is drawn from a well. Water for irrigation is pumped from a stream that flows along the northern border of our land. We do not grow water-intensive crops except during the monsoon. We do hire a tractor or a power-tiller for preparing the fields for sowing and planting.

Our lifestyle is a conscious choice. We wish to employ means which are accessible to and do not set us apart from ordinary people. Therefore, it is essential that we voluntarily reject some class privileges. From the point of view of the poor, security depends less on increasing cash income and more on reducing cash needs. Vagaries of the market hurt the poor the most. The poor can have security through cooperation among people having similar needs. Small farmers must try to grow food for their own consumption and some surplus but earn a substantial part of their cash needs from some work, not necessarily based on agriculture, for which they must acquire the necessary skill. This is the vision we have for our community.2

We are part of a loose association called Alliance for Sustainability and Equity as well as a larger group called Platform for Sustainability and Equity. Ours is one of five organic farms in the alliance which also has many members not engaged in farming. All these farms welcome volunteers who wish to work on organic farms. Platform for Sustainability and Equity has a website, www.ecologise.in, which has a wealth of information about sustainability and equity issues, but is no longer being updated.

At Sangatya, we also conduct workshops on sustainability and justice of up to two weeks duration meant primarily for the youth. These camps give the participants an experience of community living. There is some work in the field every day. All necessary tasks including cooking and housekeeping are done in small teams by rotation. There is plenty of time for film shows, reading and discussions covering all dimensions of sustainability and equity. The aim of these workshops is not just bringing about an academic understanding of sustainability but also convincing people about the importance of co-operating in building an alternative to the present social order that is non-exploitative and equitable. We hope that these camps will motivate the participants to learn more on the subject and incorporate the understanding in the way they live. We also hope that at least some of them will become activists.

In the nearly fifteen years since we started the Sangatya, many have come into contact with us, both through friends who have been here before and through the Ecologise network. Friends, old and new, come quite regularly. Those who come with an intention to stay long-term are rare. While we explain to anyone who wishes to join us about the values based on which we are trying to build Sangatya, we accept them unconditionally hoping that they will internalise these values when they live with us. Long-term members of the community have a responsibility to communicate these values through the way they work and interact with others. This kind of work does not attract many people in India as of now. Things may change as livelihood opportunities disappear in what is now the mainstream, but until then we must persist, engage with the society around us and try to bring more people from the project of extraction to the mission of sustainability and equity. That's what we are trying!

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1. Due to the relentless growth of the economy since the Industrial Revolution, the ecological load of human society has surpassed the regenerative capacity of the planet. While we continue to increase our consumption using non-renewable resources, we are actually reducing its regenerative capacity. Climate change is one of the several symptoms pointing to the fact that humanity has been conducting its affairs in an unsustainable manner. It is now necessary to reduce our ecological load and rebuild the regenerative capacity of the planet. This requires negative economic growth - now called degrowth - accompanied by remediation of environmental damage for some time, followed by zero growth preserving the health of the environment. Degrowth without unemployment requires that our economic activities must be more employment-intensive and less resource-intensive. Such a shift must be part of government policy, but until governments respond to this need, progressively reducing our dependence on the global economy by obtaining as much as possible locally by sustainable means must be a part of a movement for sustainability. No sector of the economy can match agriculture in its capacity to provide employment. Agriculture is economically unattractive today because of the unsustainable policies governments have relentlessly followed since the Industrial Revolution.

2. As of now, the effort spent in growing food in a sustainable manner is not suitably rewarded in the market unless one focuses on cash crops or sells organic produce at premium prices in a niche market.