Gandhian Economics Is Relevant |
- By Pulin B Nayak
In recent years there appears to have been a
resurgence of interest in what may be called Gandhian economics. Gandhiji
first enunciated some of these ideas about a hundred years ago. These are
contained in his Hind Swaraj, written in 1908 during a voyage from London to
South Africa. It was later published as a booklet.
Gandhiji's economic ideas continued to evolve
over the next four decades after he returned to India for good, at the age
of 45. He altered some of his more extreme positions on, say, machinery, but
on a number of core formulations his conviction was unchanged.
Even at the height of Gandhi's
virtually unchallenged position during India's freedom struggle there were
many within the Congress party, some of them his closest confidants, who
were never impressed with his economic formulations. These included, notably
Jawaharlal Nehru and Jayprakash Narayan. Nehru never challenged Gandhi's
overall moral political pre-eminence, but his emphasis on heavy industry and
investment planning was at variance with Gandhi's ideas.
Hind Swaraj was a severe
condemnation of modern civilization. It aimed for self-rule in a context
where the twin principles of Satyagraha and nonviolence were the core
postulates.
As one who had the most
perspicacious understanding of the Indian countryside, Gandhi felt that the
key to the Country's progress lay in the strengthening of the decentralized,
self-sufficient village economies. He had a strong adherent in J C Kumarappa,
who was possibly the first to coin the expression, Gandhian economics.
Gandhi made trenchant critique of
machinery, saying that it was a grand, yet awful, invention. In Hind Swaraj
he observes: "It is machinery that has impoverished India." Further, he
says: "Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilization; it represents a
great sin." This was no doubt and extreme position. Few agreed within him on
this, but it would be fair to say that Gandhi continued to change his
position on this question. But fundamentally Gandhi opposed machinery
because he thought it displaced labour and it concentrated production and
distribution in the hands of a few.
This is an old question in classical
political economy with which Ricardo grappled at length. Gandhi's concern
was not trivial; one needs to address; the question of the appropriate
choice of technique when looking at a real economy.
Perhaps the most controversial
aspect of Gandhi's economic formulation was his theory of trusteeship. This
was developed as an alternative to the doctrine of socialism or communism.
The thesis was that the capitalists would hold their wealth as trustees for
the service of society. Trusteeship was thus to be thought of as a moral
compact between the wealthy and society at large.
This thesis has been roundly
critiqued in several quarters. But in the present conjuncture when command
economies are in retreat a globalised capitalism is the prevalent mode, the
need for a moral and ethical basis for business practices has never been
more keenly felt.
Two further features of the Gandhian
mode ought to assure for tit a very special place in the history of economic
thought. First, Gandhi advocated the precept of limitation of wants to take
care of one's need and not agreed. This is conceivable that this may yet
turn out to be the single major Gandhian insight that could dictate the
agenda of the long-term sustainability of the ecosystem.
The second has to do with the idea
of focusing on the well-being of the poorest and weakest member of society
that is contained in Gandhi's talisman. This was one of the last notes that
Gandhi left behind in 1948. This was an intrinsic part of Gandhi's moral
view of the world. It was articulated at least a decade before John Rawl's
early writings. Gandhi's idea, later developed in Rawls's A Theory of
Justice published in 1971, was to profoundly alter the course of theoretical
welfare economics. (The writer is Director, Delhi School of Economics.) Source: Gandhi Today, Vol 3, 2007 |