Last two three weeks had been quite hectic at work, so much so that getting organised mentally to go astray on blogging thoughts was quite difficult. There was one more reason, in fact, for that. My intent was to write on the Indo-US nuclear deal, but then the amount of opinionated, and many a times conflicting, information that was coming in from various sources made it rather difficult to get a firm pedestal on which to start writing from. The conflict continues still, with the left parties deciding to observe the day on which the agreement gets inked as a 'black day'. As the saying in our vernacular goes, ours is a society where sides are taken even on an issue of one beating his mother, and no wonder the polity is so wide apart on its affiliations to this deal that the hapless millions who are caught in between the two sides (those using the grey cells, perhaps?) really find it a struggle to distinguish black form the white...Anyway, few more things to read on before I ink my thoughts on that.
But then today is October 2, the day on which the greatest of Indians was born 139 years ago. Perhaps now is the time when the ordinary Indians will be missing this great man, more dearly than ever. Just thought it timely to reproduce an article that I wrote a few years ago for a souvenir that was being published by the Embassy of India here commemorating the Indian Republic day. To be honest, the write up is more of a compilation, and several publications have been relied upon, in compiling that write up.
Here goes.....
Quite oft-quoted in social and economic circles the world over, and almost clichéd as a result, is the submission that today’s is an era of globalisation, and that globalisation is here to stay, and that nations and peoples will necessarily have to go through a “learning- unlearning” process or bring about a paradigm-shift to stand up to this social, economic and irreversible inevitability. Much as strong as this argument presented by protagonists of globalization remains, there stands an “equal and opposite” reaction to it, validating yet again the famed postulates of Newtonian physics. Most of the thinking world, more so many of the NGOs, have voiced and tabled their stiff opposition to having sweeping changes under this guise. Nevertheless, there is no denying the fact that globalization, whether right or wrong, has become a defining moment in contemporary human history. Globalisation impacts every human being in every aspect of their being - ranging from the conceptual to the materialistic, from a philosophical definition of ourselves to more mundane, physical, material and down-to-earth aspects of our lives. Something loosely akin to the Industrial revolution and colonization; probably following a similar chronological sequence too.
This write up examines how Gandhiji’s views on globalisation have become crucially relevant today, as they indeed were decades ago during the colonial days. 20th century history tells us that India's Independence scripted one of the most significant defining moments in history – one that ignited a world-wide process of decolonization, probably ending with the handover of Hong Kong to China, five decades later. But almost coinciding with this period of political de-colonisation, one could see the emergence of another kind of economic transition commencing with the establishment of the “Bretton Woods” institutions, the end of the Cold war etc. – symbolically represented by the fall of the Berlin Wall or the collapse of the USSR.
A larger sweep of history could, however, indicate that the above statement may not entirely be correct. The notion that universal identities must always take precedence over particular identities can be seen to be an old one. Karl Marx identified the highest solidarity as that of man’s with his species-being. And, one could also argue that globalisation is a process that has been going on for a long time. Amitav Ghosh, in his novel “In an Antique Land”, narrates how global links had been established long ago between traders from the Middle East and Indian merchants, long before Vasco da Gama landed on the coast of Kozhikode in Kerala.
But globalisation then had a more humane face than what it has today. Since the advent of Vasco da Gama, the trade scenario changed – the links have started assuming inhumane proportions, leading to slavery, oppression, colonialism, imperialism, and above all inequality. In one view, it may look as though globalisation has expanded choices and created more goods and services for consumption, and resulted in economic expansion of various countries. However, one should not forget that while globalisation may well have expanded the economy, it has fundamentally, and often negatively, affected the conditions of production and employment. Whether this has resulted in any upliftment of the common man - the man in the streets, the man who struggles to win his bread, clothing and shelter, is very much open to question. In one sense, 'production by the masses' which provided dignity to the worker, and is more appropriate to a society with a huge population, had to make way to 'mass production', the brutally aggressive, ecologically damaging, and self-destructive product of the market forces. As Schumacher put it, it dehumanizes the labour. The market instead of being one’s servant, has become his master.
In such a scenario, where does Gandhiji’s relevance spring up? Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, inspired by the vision and values of Gandhiji, once wrote thus in an article titled “Crisis of Civilisation”:
"We have for over a century been dragged by the prosperous West behind its chariot, choked by the dust, deafened by the noise, humbled by our own helplessness and overwhelmed by the speed. We agreed to acknowledge that this chariot-drive was progress, and the progress was civilisation. If we ever ventured to ask, `progress towards what, and progress for whom', it was considered to be peculiarly and ridiculously oriental to entertain such ideas about the absoluteness of progress. Of late, a voice (Gandhi) has come to us to take count not only of the scientific perfection of the chariot but of the depth of the ditches lying in its path."
Nothing reflects Gandhiji’s relevance in this context, better than Gurudev’s quote. To be objective, there is nothing on record to prove that he was against globalisation per se, even though anti-globalisation movements often portray him as someone who shared their ideological leanings. Nor was he against India going global. Probably, it could not have been otherwise, as he himself was a product of globalisation – having been educated in London and influenced by the lives and teachings of the likes of Jesus, Tolstoy, Thoreau and Ruskin, and having started his political activities in South Africa before he even joined the political arena in India. He is in fact seen to have stated that globalisation is no bigger a threat to India than what she faced from the Greeks, or the Huns or the British.
Moral and ethical development should go alongside economical development. This was Gandhiji’s maxim. He believed, and rightly so, that wealth amassed unethically can only make a human being poorer – probably poorer than the poorest of a man who never neglected morals despite struggling hard to make both the ends meet. He advocated that every nation should adopt and execute a development model or strategy which is suited to improving the quality of its people's life. At the same time, he would also say that economic well-being of an individual or of a society by itself need not necessarily mean high quality of life if he, or that society, stands low on the cultural-moral scale. In other words, globalisation should be rooted in ethics. The idea which is the most foundational to his developmental model is that neither in planning nor in its execution, should there be anything unethical, or which prompts, or provides an opportunity, to any participant in it to do anything unethical. It may look outlandish to be so much concerned with ethics or morality at this time because many of the so-called world leaders of today’s tend to be believing, and firmly so, that certain amount of immorality or non-ethical behaviour is unavoidable or not worth bothering about in the larger interests of development. Gandhiji however believed that true economics never militates against ethical standards. He did not distinguish much between the two in fact. To him, good ethics must make good economics, as true economics stands for social justice, and promotes the good of all equally, including the weakest.
In the globalisation models that we see galore lately, development starts from the top with the affluent – a development measure that enriches the already-rich and the affluent, with an assumption that the resultant benefits may percolate to the poor and the under-privileged. But in reality, instead of percolating, the benefits simply evaporate or get dried up before they reach the bottom rung of the ladder. In the Gandhian model, on the other hand, the development process starts with those who are at the bottom of the affluence scale, and therefore it is sure to benefit the poor, which eventually promotes social harmony which in turn will benefit the society at large.
His economic ideals were not about the destruction of machinery, but about regulation of excesses. He did object to the 'craze for machinery’- the labour-saving machinery because such machinery can help only a few to ride on the back of the millions. He did not consider profit to be necessarily unethical; instead he postulated that a businessman has the right to make profit, but he has to do so within the bounds of morality. If profit is the sole motive of an enterprise, then such a motive is sure to throw humanity out of its equilibrium. The emphasis has to be shifted back to the person rather than the product. Costs have to be measured in human terms by taking cognizance of its benefit to human beings.
Gandhiji once said “Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much for you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man whom you have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? Will it lead to Swaraj for the hungry and the spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubt and your self melting away”.
No doubt - there is no better test than this that could be applied in today’s world, in today’s economic order.
