The event will be launched with Raghu Dixit’s musical extravaganza, called Indo-World Folk Rock, a fusion of sounds from India and the world, Dalit rap from Dalit music maestro CJ Kuttapan of Kerala, Naga Folk Blues by Rewben Mashangva, rock bands like ThemClones, sufiyana, Dogri and Punjab folksies like Meeta Pandit et al.

The WSF has been knocked for being grandiose, simplistic and vague, with few realistic and practical ideas, and that it is merely anti-right wing and anti-capitalism. Kidwai scoffs at any query about results from past Indian meets saying, “It is difficult to measure success from gains or losses because these are groups and organizations that advocate change. I would instead ask if the movements have intensified, if new spaces have emerged, networks established.”

Kidwai is equally reluctant to blame the present government for “its lack of pro-poor policies.” “This is a political movement, mobilization is our purpose and joy, it is not a knee-jerk reaction to one government or another,” she says.

The WSF has also been viewed with suspicion by Left parties, and at its meet in Mumbai, in 2004, the extreme Left held its own event called Mumbai Resistance 2004 just across the road. This group advocated armed resistance to global capitalism and accused NGOs of being a tool of big capitalists in preventing a true revolution.

But the WSF must be cheered for bringing in radical chic — from Buy Nothing Days in the US and Canada, where rebels refuse to buy anything for 24 hours to show up the wasteful consumption habits of the First World, culture jamming activities like Whirl-Mart, where you continually “whirl” through supermarts and hyper stores with empty trolleys, tactical frivolity protests which is plain whimsy, like wearing pink or silver, or dancing and singing, or mooning, where you bare your behind.