The fourth World Social Forum convened on January 16th-21st, 2004 inside the dusty compound of the NESCO grounds in Goregaon, in the metropolitan city of Mumbai, India. It was the first time that the WSF had been held outside its original site in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Mumbai is home to more than ten million inhabitants and was a bold but necessary experiment, away from the safe havens of the clean and orderly Porto Alegre. Mumbai is overcrowded, poverty-stricken, polluted, and crime-ridden, embodying many of the world's ills that WSF activists intend to address with their slogan, "Another World is Possible." Compared to previous WSFs, the 2004 gathering was better organized and better attended by diverse groups.

The majority of the delegates at WSF 2004 hailed from poorer sectors of society. There were large numbers of Dalits and Adivasis, women, farmers and other rural workers, raging in the streets of the NESCO grounds chanting their slogans in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and other languages. The forums were bursting with rich, passionate cultural traditions, refashioned to express current political ideologies. Every one of the various outdoor stages was constantly filled with diverse groups of performers. Every lane was occupied at all hours with demonstrations of dancers, drummers, and singers carrying their banners. Cultural expression was the very life blood of the South Asian movements that were present.

The WSF challenges traditional societal frameworks of economic neoliberalism (i.e. free trade), corporate dominance, unregulated capitalism, and imperialism by offering positive and constructive alternatives to these practices.
- WSF 2004 description by Sonali Kolhatkar

View photos of WSF 2005 that took place the following year in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

For more information on the WSF please visit www.worldsocialforum.org