Which of the following is NOT a social movement?

The correct answer is Option (3) → World Trade Organisation

Option (1) Narmada Bachao Andolan — A social movement (Incorrect). It is the long campaign, begun in the 1980s, of the people who were to be displaced by the big dams on the Narmada, such as Sardar Sarovar, most of them adivasis and farmers. They demanded a halt to the dams and proper resettlement, which is sustained collective action on a public issue.

Option (2) Chipko Movement — A social movement (Incorrect). In the Himalayan hills, villagers, women above all, hugged the trees to stop contractors from felling the forests on which their livelihood depended. It is an ecological movement.

Option (3) World Trade Organisation — Not a social movement (Correct). A social movement is sustained collective action by people, with leadership and shared objectives, usually directed against the state to change a policy or practice. The WTO is an international institution through which countries agree on the rules of world trade; it has a growing say over economic policy, but it is an organisation of governments, not a campaign of people demanding change.

Option (4) Bardoli Satyagraha — A social movement (Incorrect). It was a peasant movement of 1928 in Surat district: a ‘non-tax’ campaign of refusal to pay land revenue, linked to the national movement under Mahatma Gandhi.

Note: The concept in Option (1), ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’, is not in NCERT (2025-26); explained here for the benefit of the students.