This paper situates the contemporary crisis of inequality within the global political economy shaped by neoliberalism and the post-COVID world marked by fragility, anxiety, and ecological precarity. While the BANI framework usefully captures today’s brittle and uncertain realities, it remains limited in its engagement with the structural roots of inequality embedded in market-driven growth models. Focusing on India, the paper highlights how the celebrated growth story masks persistent poverty, deepening precarity, and systemic marginalisation of Dalits, minorities, and especially Scheduled Tribes. Against this backdrop, the study explores three case studies that embody alternative pathways of resistance and transformation. The first, rooted in pandemic-era struggles, demonstrates how collective mobilization through public hearings and inquiry committees challenged state neglect and demanded accountability. The second case examines a fluorosis mitigation programme in tribal Madhya Pradesh, revealing both the gains of targeted interventions and the limitations of vertical, beneficiary-driven models. The third study, from West Bengal’s Dooars, illustrates how community–state–civil society collaboration can generate climate-resilient, livelihood- oriented, and ecologically sustainable practices. Together, these cases explore the possibilities of a pluriverse of alternatives—grounded in equity, solidarity, and ecological justice—while underscoring that genuine transformation must go beyond symptomatic relief to address structural roots of deprivation.