India needs a new urban future. Co-operatives are the way forward

Co-operatives can transform cities into spaces of solidarity, participation, and shared ownership

In India and across the Global South, co-operatives have long held promise — not as peripheral actors in economic growth, but as vehicles of economic democracy and social justice. Amid worsening inequality, ecological collapse, and the erosion of urban commons, cooperatives offer a counter-narrative grounded in solidarity, participation, and autonomy.

India’s co-operative legacy

India hosts one of the world’s largest co-operative networks, with over 800,000 registered entities and 290 million members. Historically vital in agriculture, dairy, housing, and credit, movements like AMUL and IFFCO decentralised economic power through collective ownership.

Kerala exemplifies a State-led but community-driven co-operative model, where successive governments integrated co-operatives across healthcare, education, fisheries, and micro-enterprise. The Kudumbashree Mission stands out, mobilising over 4.5 million women into self-help groups (SHGs) and worker collectives — Asia’s largest women-led cooperative network.

Yet, co-operatives have also suffered setbacks. Many devolved into vehicles of political patronage and elite control, compromising principles of transparency and accountability. Additionally, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime has exacerbated their vulnerability. Small co-operatives, especially in agriculture and handloom, struggle with compliance, while large corporations benefit from input tax credits. For instance, handloom co-operatives face 5-18% GST, unlike corporate textile firms that neutralise tax burdens through credits — creating an uneven playing field.

This taxation model reflects deeper systemic bias: a State and policy environment geared to favour corporatism over collectivism.

Neo-colonialism and the co-operative response

Understanding the urgency of reviving co-operatives requires confronting the neo-colonial order. Thinkers like Samir Amin and Walter Rodney have argued that the post-colonial Global South remains trapped in extractivism, financial dependency, and unequal trade systems. Neoliberal globalisation hasn’t dismantled these structures — it has entrenched them.

Within this matrix, co-operatives serve as resistance. They localise production, de-financialise essential services, and return economic agency to communities. In Argentina, worker-recovered factories like the Zanon ceramics plant; in Brazil, solidarity economy networks; and across Latin America, co-operatives are tools of reclaiming sovereignty from the clutches of global capital.

Co-operatives in urban India

India’s co-operative successes are largely rural. Urban areas, facing deep housing shortages, informal employment, and privatised services, remain an underexplored frontier. Yet, examples exist that highlight the co-operative urban potential.

The Sholapur housing co-operative movement saw thousands of textile and informal workers build nearly 12,000 homes, backed by collective bargaining and State support. These settlements, complete with schools and clinics, transformed housing into a collective right rather than a commodity.

Globally, cities like Barcelona support community land trusts and housing co-operatives through public finance and legal innovations. Zurich’s ‘Mehr Als Wohnen’ (More Than Housing) project integrates resident-owned housing with co-working spaces, green mobility, and social services — demonstrating co-operative urbanism in practice.

Other global urban co-operative models include Senagal’s REMA (a youth- and waste-management-focused co-operative network), the Johannesburg Minibus Taxi Cooperatives (informally organised yet resilient, resisting ride-hailing monopolies), and Tokyo’s Seikatsu Club (a consumer co-operative that evolved into a model of ethical production, urban energy transition, and participatory governance).

Towards a co-operative urban future

To realise co-operative futures in Indian cities, we must move beyond nostalgia and engage with digital disruption, the climate crisis, and the informal economy. This calls for both policy shifts and grassroots innovation.

• Green co-operatives for just transitions

Urban India faces growing climate risks — flooding, heat stress, pollution — yet green transition plans risk becoming sites of elite capture. Co-operatives can anchor a just, inclusive green economy. Solar installations, urban afforestation, waste-to-energy systems, and rooftop farms can all be operated as worker-owned co-operatives.

Delhi’s informal waste pickers, for example, could form co-operatives to convert organic waste into compost or bio-CNG, like Brazil’s Catadores movement. Such models combine environmental restoration with decent livelihoods and local control.

• Platform and digital co-operatives

India’s gig economy — drivers, delivery agents, freelancers — is marked by precarity. Platform co-operatives offer an alternative. Built on open-source tools and collective ownership, these digital platforms let workers control algorithms and profits.

Montreal’s Eva Coop, a worker-owned ride-hailing app, competes with Uber while ensuring fair wages. India can promote similar models through public investment and procurement preferences, especially for co-operative-run digital infrastructure.

• Blockchain for transparency and trust

Mistrust and opaque governance have hurt many co-operatives. Blockchain technology, if democratically deployed, can enable transparent, tamper-proof records of financial transactions, decisions, and voting.

Urban housing or credit co-operatives using blockchain-based systems could give every member real-time oversight, rebuilding the trust essential to co-operative sustainability.

• Urban commons and mobility co-operatives

Indian cities are increasingly unwalkable and unaffordable. While public transport suffers neglect, private monopolies dominate. Worker-led mobility co-operatives — e-rickshaw pools, bicycle-sharing systems, shuttle services — could decentralise and democratise transit.

Imagine women-led transport co-operatives in Bengaluru or Hyderabad, managing affordable and safe community mobility to schools, metro stations, and workplaces. Such co-operatives could link care, climate, and community needs.

Reclaiming the city through co-operatives

Reviving co-operatives requires political vision and organised people. Fiscal frameworks like the GST must offer preferential treatment to co-operatives, recognising their social utility. State banks should prioritise co-operative lending. Urban planning laws must reserve land for co-operative housing and enterprises. A strong legal framework must safeguard autonomy from political manipulation.

Yet policy alone is not enough. The co-operative future depends on people reclaiming the city — not as consumers or renters, but as co-creators. Workers’ unions, youth forums, women’s groups, and digital communities must be the vanguard.

From relic to blueprint

Co-operatives are not relics of a bygone dream. They are blueprints for sustainable, democratic urban futures. In a world marred by alienation and inequality, they remind us that solidarity is not only desirable — it is practical. If India’s urban transformation is to be just and inclusive, co-operatives must move from the margins to the centre of planning, politics, and imagination.

Tikender Singh Panwar, former deputy mayor of Shimla, is Member of the Kerala Urban Commission. Sandeep Chachra is executive director, ActionAid Association, and ex co-chair, World Urban Campaign of UNHABITAT. (Authors' X handles: @tikender, and @sndeep)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.