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In the first major all-India gathering of health activists since the COVID-19 pandemic, during December 11-12, 2025 over 550 community organisers, health workers, social activists and experts from 23 states across the country gathered in Delhi for the National Convention on Health Rights.

As an organiser as well as participant-observer in this convention, moving through the vibrant deliberations I surmised that while governments might have failed to draw lessons from the COVID catastrophe, health activists have clearly understood what needs to change.

This vision coupled with the remarkable energy evident during the convention, carries the potential to transform healthcare for every Indian.

This national event organised by Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA or People’s Health Movement, India) marked 25 years of founding of the network towards ensuring the right to health for all.

The opening plenary featured six national speakers drawn from public health and social movement backgrounds, who sketched the broader contours and challenges influencing people’s access to healthcare in India today. Subsequently one of the most striking sessions focused on popular resistance to health sector privatisation. From tribal communities in Vyara, Gujarat, who organised a 60-day dharna to protect their district hospital, to citizens of Mumbai resisting corporatisation of six municipal hospitals, and large movements in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh opposing takeover of district hospitals and public medical colleges under Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs), resistance was visible.

The concerns are similar: shrinking access to free care, deterioration in service quality and erosion of public accountability. The positive experience of the mass movement in Ranchi, which halted a World Bank–backed plan to privatise the district hospital, demonstrated that sustained popular mobilisation can successfully defend core public........

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