Skip to main content

Development of a different kind


Development is the only mantra today for many Indians, it seems.  Making Mr Narendra Modi the Prime Minister would mean putting India on the magical highway to economic development, they argue.  What they fail to understand is that the kind of development that prevailing economic theories and systems can provide is a highly flawed one. 
It is good to look back at some classical notions when confronted with crises.  Mahatma Gandhi had some very illuminating views on development.  All of his views may not be relevant in today’s situation and may not be practical either.  Yet it is worth revisiting a few relevant ideas.

Gandhi said: “That you cannot serve God and Mammon is an economic truth of the highest value. Western nations today are groaning under the heel of the monster-god of materialism. Their moral growth has become stunted. They measure their progress in pounds and dollars. American wealth has become the standard. She is the envy of the other nations. I have heard many of our countrymen say that we will gain American wealth but avoid its methods. I venture to suggest that such an attempt if it were made is foredoomed to failure.”

Gandhi also said: “I want the concentration of wealth, not in the hands of the few, but in the hands of all. Today machinery merely helps a few to ride on the backs of millions. The impetus behind it all is not the philanthropy to save labour, but greed. It is against this constitution of things that I am fighting with all my might.”

The views are highly relevant today, decades after they were expressed.  Just a decade back, Dr Fritjof Capra wrote in his book, The Hidden Connections, “The United States projects its tremendous power around the world to maintain optimal conditions for the perpetuation and expansion of production.  The central goal of its vast empire ... is not to expand its territory, nor to promote freedom and democracy, but to make sure that it has global access to natural resources and that markets around the world remain open to its products.  Accordingly, political rhetoric in America moves swiftly from ‘freedom’ to ‘free trade’ and ‘free markets’.  the free flow of capital and goods is equated with the lofty ideal of human freedom, and material acquisition is portrayed as a basic human right, increasingly even as an obligation.” (emphasis added)


The American model of development, which many in India today have bought lock, stock, and barrel, is rooted in plain greed and nothing else.  The antidote is what Gandhi had suggested long ago: fulfil your need and control your greed.  Otherwise we will only create a planet of aggressive people grabbing for more and more, endlessly.  There will be no peace in such a world, no joy.  What’s the point of living without peace and joy?


Top post on IndiBlogger.in, the community of Indian Bloggers


Comments

  1. Very relevant sir .... there is everything for man's need but not for his greed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gandhi was a visionary, Manish. We've failed to understand him. The west has made schools to study his philosophy but they too don't understand him, it seems.

      Delete
  2. Unfortunately most of the Indian voters are dreaming the 'American dream' where M K Gandhi is outdated. How many of your students in your school would like to follow the path of Gandhi (not in their answer sheets, but in their life)? In fact they would laugh at their 'conservative' parents for talking about the Gandhian 'idealism'!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Sibi, by mistake my response to your comment was posted from my wife's log in id since both of us use the same laptop!

      Yes, you are right, most of my students like other present students in the country do not know the real Gandhi. Whenever I discuss Gandhi in the class, I'm scandalised to hear derogatory opinions about the Mahatma, opinions propagated by today's politicians with vested interests.

      The western Universities are doing a lot of research on Gandhian philosophy. I hope that America will eventually evolve another economic system based on Gandhi's ideals. What America chooses becomes the world's choice. Hence there may be hope yet!

      Delete
  3. Unfortunately most of the Indian voters are dreaming the 'American dream' where M K Gandhi is outdated. How many of your students in your school would like to follow the path of Gandhi (not in their answer sheets, but in their life)? In fact they would laugh at their 'conservative' parents for talking about the Gandhian 'idealism'!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well Mr. Matheikal - we are talking of something that is still theory and has succeeded nowhere in the world.The flawed American model is the best we have seen to date - the other alternative being the non democratic Chinese model. And even if we could create such a hypothetical country, the world won't let us be. ANd last but not the least, out level of politics and governance is way behind even the American model - even getting there is an improvement that our youth aspire for.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's why I put my hope in America rather than India as my mentioned in my response to Sibi above. One thing we should admire about America is that they are open to new ideas and views. We are narrow-minded. We cling to antedeluvian ideas under the illusion that we are protecting our culture. America experiments with new ideas. Yes, their vision as of now is highly blinkered. There are fundamentalists there too. Yet they are more rational and scientific in comparison.

      Delete
  5. Very apt for India's context.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Particularly in the context of the election manifesto that came out yesterday :) thank you.

      Delete
  6. Versed Summary on tacit ideology, conclusively what nation needs today is prosperity. Greed for the need that en routes people towards power convention, and then slowly and steadily society forget themselves.
    And I believe the planet you spoke about is already created. What all remains in our hands is our self and our values.. Lets see how long we carry them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Prosperity, yes, Saurabh. But everyone's prosperity, not of a few. I'm glad to see a lot of commentators agree with me directly or indirectly about the need for a change in our approaches and worldview.

      Delete
  7. Very nice post. Development to trickle down to masses is the need of the hour. It needs sacrifices by brave young men & women to leave behind dollar dreams & cush salaries & rather to plunge into spreading the technologies of tomorrow (renewable energy), get in2 implementing rainwater harvesting & water safety measures (tomorrow's wars will b for water) & channelise all those crores into being used for the right purpose...

    Only then can we have true development...sustainable & inclusive....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you mentioned water which is going to be a serious bone of contention soon. Will we start killing one another for water (giving that too a communal colour) or will we start finding alternatives so that we can live together in peace? Just one of the many questions that the coming days will hurl at us.

      Delete
  8. Gandhian philosophy is an ideal one. I cannot question it as at his time, Gandhi had united the divided nation and had made it fight for a common goal. It was something that seemed impossible at that time just as today seems eradicating greed. A friend of mine said that may be there's way to put an end to this culture of corruption and negligence that we are yet to discover. I felt that yes, there could be. May be what we need is a firm believer and a capable leader as Gandhi. Changing every single mind to adopt Gandhian philosophy today, seems somewhat impossible to me. I still wish to find out how Gandhi had made that change.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. On the one hand, Gandhi was forthright and he a person of indefatigable integrity. On the other, he lived in a time when people respected truth and truthfulness. Today even Gandhi would have found it a tough job leading India.

      But we don't have many alternatives. The world doesn't, in fact. We have made the planet a heap of rubbish and it's time to start cleaning up the mess. Gandhi can be one of the guiding lights.

      Delete
  9. Sometimes I feel 'Greed' is also a relative term and cannot be classified a negative trait altogether. Many of the inventions we enjoy today evolved due to someone's greed, to conquer the world / achieve the impossible. When someone's greed deprives many others of their rights I think it is evil?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are right, Santhosh. But it all depends how you define terms. The king of greed you mention first is not greed, in fact. It's ambition. Or a quest. There's nothing wrong about it. When ambition crosses the borders and transgresses into the rights and properties of others, it becomes greed and evil.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Kejriwal’s Arrest in Modi’s Kurukshetra

For some mysterious reason, Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest reminded me of Haren Pandya. Maybe, because Pandya’s 21 st death anniversary is approaching (26 March). Have you forgotten Haren Pandya? He was the Home Minister of Gujarat before Narendra Modi assumed dictatorial powers in that state. Modi chose to teach humility to Pandya by making him the Minister of State for revenue. Pandya chose not to learn humility from Modi and resigned from that post in Aug 2002. Remember Gujarat of 2002? You should. A fire engulfed a train on 27 Feb 2002 killing 58 Hindu pilgrims who were returning from Ayodhya where they had gone to discover their god, not very unlike Christopher Columbus undertaking a voyage to discover India and messing it all up. What caused the fire in the train? Lord Ram knows probably. The upshot was that there was a riot in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims. Haren Pandya is one of the BJP leaders who gave statements in many places indicting Modi for the riots. He asser