- Rajendra Prasad
It is an important objective of every enlightened
national government to adopt and execute a development model, strategy, or
method, suited to improving the quality of its people's life. The government of
a developed nation aims at making the quality still better, even though as it
is, it may be quite satisfactory. An under development in some direction, a right
method of development. It may be that development in some direction, say,
alleviation of poverty, illiteracy, or bad health conditions, etc. for a sizable
section of its people, is the crying need of the hour and the available
resources are very meager. It cannot then afford to make one experiment after
another and fail several times before changing to be blessed with a model of
development suited for its situation.
An individual's quality of
life is determined by a number of factors. His economy is very important but not
sufficient to crown it with all that is desirable. Some of the other necessary
factors are his attitude towards his way he spends it, his ability to fulfill his
needs, his capability to do well the job he is assigned to do, his education,
his reading habits, his sense of self respect and self-dignity, his dealings
with the other members of his family and society, the freedom he has to function
as a viable member of his society, etc. It is important to note that in all this
it is necessary that he has, or is able to acquire, the resources he needs to
fulfill the basic, desirable, needs of his own and of other members of his family
in a manner which is consistent with his self-respect and self-dignity. For
example, a beggar may collect at the end of each day so much of money that he
not only meets will the needs of his own and of his family, but also saves
enough to run a lucrative business of money-lending among his neighbours. But in
all likelihood he would not have an uninjured feeling of self-respect, and if he
has, our normal reaction would be that it is a
perverted feeling.
Nobody has emphasized, and
more sincerely, the need for ameliorating the economic condition of the Indian
poor than Gandhi. But still he would not agree with the view that economic well-being
of an individual can by itself make the quality of his lifestyle commendable.
Rather, he would say that he may still be very low on the cultural-moral scale.
This would obviously he true, we can add, of an economically affluent person who
takes pride in having bargained successfully with a poor physical labourer to
work in his house on a wage much lower than the latter's reasonable daily wage.
The following, a scene depicted in an Assumes short story, very well illustrates
the point I am trying to make.
A well-to-do "gentleman" buys
fish costing sixty rupees and bargains for half an hour with a manual rickshaw-puller
to drive his to his residence for a fare less by fifty paisa than the
reasonable one demanded by the latter, and feels very happy when the latter
agrees to. On reaching his residence he pays the fare and goes inside,
forgetting to carry with him the bag containing the fish he had bought. After
driving away for some distance from his residence, the rickshaw-puller notices
the fish-bag lying on the foot-space of his rickshaw, turns back towards the
gentleman's residence, knocks at his door, and offers his the fish-bag. The
gentleman is gladdened to get it back and offers his one rupee as a reward. The
rickshaw-puller taunts, saying "You were not willing to give me fifty paisa more
which I deserved for my hard labour and are now giving me double the amount for
my honesty. Keep your one rupee with yourself" and drives back towards the
market.
The fish buyer may have
the
money to buy all that he and his family need and all the goods they need may
also be available in the open market. One may say that in the economic sense he
has achieved his well-being and he ma also feel that he has achieved it in as
complete a sense as one can be reasonably expected to have. But it is an
anemic well-being because it is deeded, or devoid, of the sense of respect for
the dignity of an individual as an individual, of a sense of justice, or airplay,
in human dealings, of a disposition to value human labour whatever its nature or
market price may be. The rickshaw-puller's condition may be lacking in so many
things, and even if he is satisfied with it, we would say it very much needs to
be improved in so many respects. But still the quality of his well-being is
superior to the fish-buyer's because of the latter's value-attitudes or
dispositions. The fish-buyer's value-attitude is likely to cause some evil, or
to make someone suffer an evil for no fault of his. But the rickshaw-puller's is
not. As an oft-quoted remarks of Plato goes, one who does an evil to someone
else is much inferior to him who suffers the evil. And, I would add, the
well-being, or the quality of life, of the doer of an evil is much inferior to
that of the sufferer of the evil. The acquisition of this mental good, of the
disposition to grade one's well-being not only in terms of his economic
prosperity, or professional status, but also in terms of his value-attitudes, or
care for certain values, of his respect for elegance in life and for the dignity
of the individual as an individual irrespective of what he is, etc. is also to
be taken into account in assessing the quality of his well-being.
The components which make a
quality of life reasonably good would generally be the same for all peoples. But
it is possible that some individuals of a country lack some of them and other
individuals of the same country lack some others. Similarly, it is also possible
that individuals of one country lack some which those of another country do no;
rather, they lack some others. It is also possible that the individuals of a
country lack none of them. But, since it is human nature that one is not
satisfied with what he has, no one is likely to think that his quality of life
does not need nay further improvement. It is clear from all this that the same
method of development may not suit all countries, or even all citizens of the
same country. But it is also clear that a development mode, or strategy, would
be considered appropriate only if it contributes to improving the quality of
those individuals life to improve which it is adopted. And, the adoption of any
development strategy, to be pointful must contribute, directly or indirectly,
to improving the quality of life of those who are disadvantaged, for example,
the people who are below the poverty line, are better off those who suffer from
absolute poverty. Absolute poverty is poverty as per any standard of living,
whereas the condition of an individual can be called relative poverty in
comparison with only the condition of another individual. For example, a
professor getting Rs. 25,000 per month as his salary is relatively poorer than
his lawyer who earns Rs. 50,000 a month and the latter is relatively poorer than
his lawyer who earns Rs. 1,50,000 a month. A rickshaw-puller, on the other hand,
who gets, on an average, Rs. 30 a day, and nothing on the day he is too sick to
work, is absolutely poor whatever standard of poverty we use.
Gandhi's model for India's
Development
While conducting the struggle for
the country's independence from alien rule, Gandhi had given a model for its
development. By development he clearly meant an all-round improvement of an
average Indian's quality of life. He understanding, or diagnosis, of India's
problems was basically right then and is no less right even today. It cannot be
called wrong on the ground that it has failed because it has not been tried in
all seriousness.
I have chosen
his model for discussion in this essay because it is a competing alternative to
the much talked-about, current , one which attaches a very high value of
globalization and considers it unavoidable. Gandhi was not against India's
having global contracts, or global collaborative enterprises. But it seems that
he would not have preferred globalization to the extent to which, or, in the
manner in which, it is being preferred today. He might have rejected it since,
in effect, to a very great extent, it means free trade. He is very forthright in
saying that "England has sinned against India by forcing free trade upon her."1
He is in favour of having an indigenous way of development, using, as far as
possible, indigenous resources, in keeping with India's cultural and ethical
traditions. The idea most foundational to his model is that neither in planning
a method of development, not in its execution, should there be anything which
is unethical, or which prompts, or gives an opportunity to, any participant in
it to do anything unethical. It may look odd these days to be so much concerned
with ethics or morality because, many including a good number of the ruling
elite, think that in public life, in one's executing a public project or
development scheme, some immoralities are unavoidable or not worth bothering
about. That is why immoralities which
Gandhi would have considered serious go
unnoticed, or are not taken seriously even if noticed.
The concept of Self-sustained
Village
To develop India is to develop, for
Gandhi, its villages. "India is to be found" he says, "not in its few cities in
its 7,00,000 villages."2 I would say that, he continues, "if the village perishes
India will perish too. India will be no more India. Her own mission in the world
will get lost"3. Developing a village, according to him, is to make it
"self-sustained and capable of managing its affairs even to the extent of
defending itself against the world."4 To make it self-sustained is to enable it to
produce most of what it needs to fulfill the basic needs of its people and
possibly of some others. It should be made able to grow its food crops, cotton
for its cloth, fodder for its cattle, to have facilities for recreation and
games, clean drinking water, good sanitation, a theatre, school, facilities of
medical treatment, etc, etc. It should be left to develop in such a way that it
meets not only the physical needs of its people and of some others, but also
provides ample score for artistic and intellectual pursuits. In such a village
"There will be village poets, village artists, village architects, linguists and
research workers. In short, there will be nothing in life worth having which
will not be had in the villages."5
To develop a
village, village industries, arts and crafts, must be developed. Villagers who
work in these areas are to be helped by making available to them expertise and
raw materials they need but lack, and the goods they produce should be brought
and used even if they are more expensive and less sophisticated than their
equivalents manufactured by big mills. Heavy industrialization or mechanization
is needed where the available number of workers is less than what is needed for
the works to be done. Here in India, Gandhi says-and what he says is true now
than it was when he said it - that the number of available workers is many times
more than the number of works to be done. Therefore large-scale mechanization
will increase the number of unemployed men and women which is already too large.
To make villages
function in a socially cohesive way, he suggests that each village be left to
function as a republic with a Panchayat, a group of individuals freely elected
by its residents, as its governing agency, taking care of all disputes and
managerial problems. The whole country would then be a republic with all the
village republics as its building - blocks. When the question of accumulation of
wealth in the hands of a few individuals is raised, Gandhiji's advice is that
the rich mill owners and landowners should treat themselves as trustees, or
custodians, of the wealth in their possession, and after having only as much as
they need for their leading a worthwhile life, the rest of the profit they
should distribute among those who do the work that has
fetched the profit so that they too lead a worthwhile life.
The Gandhian
model has as an ingredient of it, the suggestion that every Indian should have,
or inculcate, an attitude of mind which prefers an indigenous good to a foreign
- made one, and a good produced by a villager-industry to one produced by a
mill. The inculcation of this mentality is the basic theme of his gospel of
Swadeshi. His belief is that if we have the swadeshi spirit in us, villagers and
village industries would flourish, the rich would not be greedy but treat those
who work for them as equals, the Panchayat would work in a fain manner, and the
government of the country would provide all possible help. Naturally, then there
would be an all-round development of India and the equality of life lived by an
average Indian will definitely be one which he cherish or should cherish.
Globalization and its likely
ethical fall-out
The role of globalization can be point fully discussed only where we keep in
mind a particular country, which is planning to adopt, or has actually adopted,
a policy of globalization. The country which I have in mind in the present
discussion is obviously India. I would discuss it with an eye on the role of
globalization as an agent of development for improving the quality of the life
lived by an average Indian, more specifically, a disadvantaged Indian. It should
be an agent for some development even if it only adds a new shine to the lustier
of the life of an affluent Indian. It would do that, for example, by making
available to him an air-conditioned motor car which is extremely expensive but
jerk proof even on a road which has more than two feet deep crevices and more
than three feet high bumps after a distance of every ten feet. But such a
measure would not really do the country what its proper development ought to. On
the other hand, another measure, for example, one which makes available a method
of using Indian bamboo poles, instead of costly plastic or iron pipes, for being
bored into the earth to draw out underground water fit for drinking, would be
better agent of development because it would be affordable even by poor people.
It would fulfill a great need of theirs because clean drinking water is a fare
commodity to a large number of them.
A development
measure, which contributes to the further improvement of the already high
quality of life of the rich, as well as to the much needed improvement of the
living conditions of the present-day poor who find it extremely difficult to
manage to exist, would definitely be poor who find it extremely difficult to
manage to exist, would definitely be preferable. But it does seem to be possible
because the amount of effort and resources which it would need the country does
not seem to have therefore, the desirability of globalization should be
primarily determined by the role it can play in improving the quality of life
lived by disadvantaged Indian. As a developmental measure, it seems, it would
proceed by first benefiting the affluent, and then some benefits may percolate
to those who are below the poverty line. But it may also happen that they dry up
before reaching the bottom where the poor is. In the Gandhian model, on the
other hand, we have to start the development process which, first benefiting
those who are at the bottom of affluence scale, and therefore it is sure to
benefit the poor. It may even require the affluent to sacrifice a bit of their
self-interest, or comforts. This sacrifice would be morally desirable as it the
eyes of foreigners interested in India. What the affluent loses in monetary
terms is more than compensated by what he gains in moral terms, and in terms of
a higher kind of happiness accruing to his and to others as a
result of
consequential social harmony.
Globalization as multilateral
trade
Globalization can be operative in
so many ways. Any country can have, if it wants to, global political relations,
that is, relations with any other country in case the other is also willing to
reciprocate. In academic matters, the scholars of any country can have academic
contacts, through their readings and writing, with those of any other country.
In matters of trade, or commerce, however, it is not possible for a trader of
one country to sell his goods in another, or start a business in partnership
with a trader of another country in the latter's, or his own, country, unless
the governments of the two countries permit the two traders to do that. To
globalize trade and commerce is in principle to opt for a policy of, what Gandhi
calls, free trade.
For India to accept the policy of globalization is, therefore, to declare that,
if it serves its interests, India can permit a foreign investor to invest in
India his capital to run his business through his own agents, or in partnership
with an Indian party, private of foreign-made goods, or goods produced in India
by a foreign company in collaboration with an Indian party, have become
available in the Indian market. In such ventures only top level,
well-established, multinational, foreign firms are likely to enter the Indian
market. They would naturally choose to station themselves in big, metropolitan,
cities in India. The positive side of such ventures is that certain goods which
some Indians need or wait to have and which are not manufactured in India would
become available to them. It is also possible that the quality of their
equivalents produced by an indigenous company. Even if the former are much more
expensive than the latter, buyers, who can afford, are likely to prefer them,
and to feel happier because they have got the goods of their liking. But such
goods would generally were the needs of affluent city-dwellers. They would not
touch the Indian poor, or even the not-so-poor. Another effect of it may be that
the Indian industry producing goods of comparatively inferior quality fails to
compete with the foreign industry using a superior technology, and consequently
is forced to close down and dismiss all of its employees. It also is possible
that it betters its technology and comes up with better products. Keeping in
view the technological and financial resources of a multinational company, what
is more likely is that only a big Indian company would manage to have material
and human resources to compete with the former in making its products come up to
the standards of the latter or even better than them. Therefore globalization
may have some good effects by causing competition among big companies. But it is
also likely to have adverse effects on village industries which are small-scale
industries, and thereby to cause unemployment among village people. This would
make a large number of those presently employed in rural traditional industries
unemployed and therefore their lives miserable. In this respect it would go
against the ethics of development. Poor villagers, whom any viable model of
development ought to benefit, instead of being benefited, are likely to
become poorer than they presently
are.
As a result of globalization, foreign money will
surely enter the Indian money market. Along with it even some new technology may
also become available to Indian industrialist and enable them to produce goods
for which they presently do not have the required technology. Globalization
would also bring in the country some skilled and unskilled foreign workers who
will carry with them their ethics, including work ethics of Indian workers
coming into contact with Western workers. But the Western sex ethics is more
liberal and flexible then Indian sex ethics. The problems which may arise
on that account may also become serious. Such problems are already arising
because of the influx of foreign tourists in certain areas of the country
frequented by the latter.
Some
foreign-made goods may be better than their Indian-made equivalents, and
vice versa. But many Indians have the prejudice that foreign-made goods are
generally better than Indian goods. With globalization making foreign goods
easily available, this prejudice may become stronger or more widespread, and may
develop in many a feeling of national inferiority complex. Nationalism is not
always ethically commendable. For example, when one nation commits aggression
against another, a national of the former would be ethically right when he
opposes the national policy of his country and thereby becomes international.
But developing a general feeling of national inferiority complex is ethically
undesirable. No nation can grow and prosper if its nationals inferiority complex
is ethically undesirable. No nation can grow and prosper if its nationals do not
have national self-confidence, namely the confidence that some of their
non-nationals can also produce goods, mental or material, which are as good as,
or better than, those produced by some foreign national or nationals. When this
confidence is eroded, the feeling of national self-respect is sure to be eroded.
Behind Gandhi's emphasis on the Swadeshi spirit, these exists this idea of
inculcating and nurturing the feeling of national self-confidence and of
national self-respect.
There is another
side of the policy of globalization or free trade, namely liberalization of
exports, which has not been mentioned in the above discussion so prominently as
the liberalization of imports has been. It is true that when there is free trade
between India and another country, things made in India by Indians can also, in
principle, enter the market of the latter, provided, of course, there is a
demand for them there. But here too only big Indian companies can be benefited
in this kind of commerce. Village industries, or cottage industries, would have
no chance, and therefore the poor Indian labourer, or even the middle-level
businessman, is likely to derive no, or very little, benefit.
Globalization and Academics
Maybe, not globalization, but
something very near it, has been operative in India, since ages, in the field of
academics. There have been no bar to importing foreign publications or to
exporting Indian publications to other countries. Since long some important
publishing houses have been having their branches in India, and Indian ones
their agencies or collaborative partners abroad. Since the fourth or fifth
decade of the previous century, initiative taken by the Government of India in
founding some centres of academic excellece like IITs and IIMs, with the
collaboration of Unesco or of countries such as USA, UK, Germany, or Russia, has
produced very good results with no undesirable fallout. This means globalization
cannot be called an unmixed evil, or something which has to have no place
anywhere. Rather, it may be said that till date, as far as academics are
concerned, we have not had enough of it, or as much of it as we need.
To elaborate
what I mean, let me refer to an obvious fact of academic life. It is well-known
to us that among intellectuals and academic institutions there exists a sizeable
class of those who are disadvantaged, in the sense that because of the areas in
which they specialize, or intend to specialize, they need some books and
periodical published abroad. But on account of their very high prices when
converted into Indian currency, or of their not being easily available in the
Indian bookmarket, they are not able to buy them. Their academic progress is
therfore very likely to be stopped, or to proceed too slowly. The obvious way,
one may say, is to hvae a fully free trade in books. But it is not a very few,
since the class of specialists is very small. Therefore the number of sellers of
foreign publications coming forward would be very small. To get out of this
difficult situation, the best way seems to be to do something on the pattern of
the founding of IITs; that is, the Government of India, or some private agency
or agencies, should come forward to found, with collaboration of some
foreign partner or partners, some central libraries, say one or two in each of
the regions of India, eastern, southern and central, conveniently located and
properly manned, procuring foreign publications in a need based manner and making
them available to intellectuals attached or non-attached, to any academic
institution. Just one national library cannot do the job. It would also be
worthwhile to persuade some well-known publishing houses from abroad to have
their branches in India to make available low-priced Indian editions or prints
of materials published abroad. It would not be unjustified to give to such firms
some concessions, like allotting a suitable building on reduced rent, or even
permitting them to start a little more lucrative business in some other area
which may compensate for their loss, or back of profit, if any, in the
publication business.
Such steps, some
way think, would benefit only a small percentage of the Indian population. But
that would only be an apparent truth. By benefiting the individuals engaged
in the pursuit of higher knowledge, by improving their equipment, it would
improve the equipment of students and young scholars who are taught by them, or
read their writings. Therefore ultimately it would tone up the caliber of all
those who go in for higher education, provided they are willing and motivated to
better their abilities.
It would be
wrong even to say that all this would not be of much assistance in toning up the
prevailling systems of primary and secondary education. School education in some
countries, for example, the USA and UK, is the bedrock of their excellence in
higher education, and so should be the case in India. The Indian system of
school education can definitely profit by some components of methodology
followed by the schools in the USA and UK. This is not to say that we borrow
their methodology lock, stock, and barrel, but only that the Indian methodology
may be segmented with some of the relevant and usable features of their
methodology. What I am suggesting is that collaboration with some other
countries may be used to tone up not only our higher education and research but
also our school education. Most of Indian intellectuals, I think, do believe
that standards of education in some foreign countries are higher than ours
though they may not say it publicly. It is not difficult to locate an Indian
scholar who has been abroad for getting a degree equivalent to, or even of a
lower rank than, the one he already had from a prestigious Indian university.
This practice is not in every case a thoughtless venture because, more often
than not, his working for the degree abroad improves a great deal of his
intellectual caliber and equipment.
There seems to
be a suspicion in some minds that globalization in trade, and more surely in
education, would bring into the country not only some alien men and materials
but also some cultural ideas which may affect Indian culture in an adverse
manner. This suspicion is unfounded because even without globalization alien
cultural ideas are entering the Indian lifestyle. It is almost impossible to
keep Indian culture or cutures isolated. Moreover, it is vane to preserve the
identity of Indian culture by keeping it isolated from world cultures. If Indian
culture has inner strength, Gandhi would have said, contacts with others
cultures will not weaken it; rather, the latter may make it shine brighter.
Placing the Gandhian and
Globalization Models face to face
Neither the Gandhian, nor the
globalization, model raises any problem for ethical theory. Each one of them can
be assessed, depending on the specificity of the context, in deontological,
teleological, or virtue-theoritic terms, though generally theorists prefer to
judge a developement scheme in telcological, more speciffically, utilitarian,
terms. But the models do raise some problems for the ethics of development, that
is, some practical, ethical, problems. This is clear from what has been said in
earlier. It has been shown therein that the Gandhian model is more suited to
ameliorating the conditions of the Indian poor, rural or urban, whereas the
globalization model is more likely to benefit the urban, maybe even the rural,
affluent. This is an ethical, or moral, difference betweeen the two because it
is more ethical to do the former than to do the latter, and therefore the
Gandhian model is ethically superior to the globalization
model.
Since
globalization may largely benefit the urban affluent and only marginally the
rural or urban poor, we cannot say that it is all evil. But we can say that it
is not likely to do what needs to be urgetly done, namely the amelioration of
the conditions of the poor. But if the liberalization which goes with
globalization motivates a foreign investor to enter the Indian market by
starting a big industry in an area and also to have a side-by-side operation
which benefits the local poor a great deal, I do not thick there should be any
serious objection to his doing both. But still the Gandhian model is better
becuase it aiims at developing a village in a manner which retains and
strengthens those components of the village ethos which deserve to be retained
and strenthened. It is something like trying to cure a sick man's ailment by
giving him to eat out of the dibles in his own kitchen those which not only have
curative properties but are also pleasing to his palate.
Notwithstanding
his great respect for the classical Indian ideal of acquiring happiness by
having no attachment for the consequences of one's actions, Gandhi does not
plead for the poor man's cultivating this attitude, nor does he admonish him to
curtail his desires, or to exercise self-control. This he does not, because he
realizes and more truly than most of his contemporaries or cohorts did that
their desires are already too modest. The breathing idea behind his advice or
suggestion to Indians, via his proposal for developing village industries to
such an extent that they become capable of producing all, or almost all, of the
goods required to satisfy all or almost all of the basic needs or desires
of villagers, is that this method or mode of satisfying their needs would arouse
in them their sense of self-respect and self-confidence, and thereby make their
resultant happiness much superior to that which they may have by buying goods
made by some foreign countries or concerns. Gandhi's ideal was people's
happiness, a mental state, achievable through the instrumentation of
self-activity or, putting it materialistically, indigenous production. This
state is not quantifiable but is clear and precise enough for being made the
goal of a development strategy. It is, therefore, not identical with the modern
cosumption. That is, when the availability of goods increases and with it
increases material consumption, that is, the consumption of the goods, a modern
economist would say, welfare increases. Quite obviously, welfare, in this
understanding of it, would be a measurable concept and therefore more congential
for modern, or mathematical, economists.
Whichever way
one thinks fit to characterize it, Gandhi's economics, or economic development,
is by and large qualitative. It is morality-centric because its goal is the
realization of people's satisfaction on happiness, but not any kind of
satisfaction or happiness. Using a modern ethical terminology, it is informed,
that is, rationally justifiable, satisfaction or happiness which they can attain
only after having gotten rid of their prejudices, biases, superstitions, wrong
beliefs, etc. that is, after having been properly informed, that is, rationally
justifiable, satisfaction or happiness which they can attain only after having
gotten rid of their prejusices, biases, superstitions, wrong beliefs, etc. that
is, after having been properly informed of the right kind of things they ought
to desire and to have. Making them properly informed was the main objective, or
one of the main objectives, of his constructive programme, since an important
component of it was the constructive criticism of social evils accompanied with
the dissemination of a healthy and
coherence-promoting social
ethics.
The apparent
snag in the Gandhian model is the impossible looking task of impressing upon a
big landlord, or a factory owner, to behave in the manner of a trustee of
people's property and not in that of its master, as he does even now, more than
half a century after India's becoming politically independent. If this problem
can be solved by adopting some governmental, legislative, social or political,
measures to stop exploitation of the poor workers, rural or urban, the Gandhian
model would be decidedly the best. It would not only have no undesirable ethical
fallout, but will be very greatly primitive of the sentiments of national
self-respect and rational self-confidence which are likely to be weakened in
some by the adoption of the globalization model.
The idea of
trusteeship, among Gandhian ideas of social reconstruction, is the idea which
has been or, one of those ideas which have been, considered to be impracticable.
But it is also true that in his theory of social reconstruction the two
building-blocks of which are nonviolence (ahimsa) and truth (satya),
practicalizing this idea could be the only logical way to stop capitalistic
exploitation of labour. Gandhi had in his mind a picture of the way in which the
political worker, the elected representative, that is, the political ruler,
would or should, function in independent India. That his style of life would be
very simple and imbued with his commitment to the primary of the ethical to the
commitment to preferring an ethical consideration to any non-ethical or
unethical consideration was, according to him, the sin qua non for a healthy
political practice or for one participating in it. To emphasize this aspect of a
worthwhile political practice he did not hesitate whenever there was an occasion
to. But the political practice in post-Independence India took a different, or
rather an opposite, turn. Elections became highly expensive. Aspiring
politicians and political parties started collecting funds, and large amounts of
money could come only from rich capitalists. A capitalist who donates duge
amounts would naturally try to compesate for the donation made through his
profits in howsoever unfair a manner possible. And since he has obliged a
political individual or a party, he would naturally expect and also get their
support if he is in trouble on account of havng indulged in any unfair but
highly profit-yielding deal.
Taking profit is not ethically undesirable. A
businessmen has the right to make profit, but he has to keep his profit making
endeavour within the bounds of morality. He would do that marvelously well if
he treats himself as the trustee of the property from the use of which he earns
his profit. Gandhi had the moral right to say to a capitalist that he should do
that because he himself always kept his personal or public operations well
within the bounds of morality. But a post-Independence politician lost his right
to do that because of his practice of collecting money from the rich to be
elected and thereby to be in power. Therefore a trend of thought set in to the
effect that the very idea of trusteeship itself was un practicalizable. But the
fact of the matter is that such political individuals, or parties, did not come
up who had the moral right to persuade, or even tell, a capitalist to behave
like a Gandhian trustee. Abusinessman can be expected or required to earn his
profit only in a morality desirable manner, and not to exploit those who work for
him and by their work enable him to earn the profit, only if he himself is not
exploited by anyone, any politician, or political party, in being pressed to
make heavy donations to their political funds.
Heavy donations to political funds can be made only by big
industrialists, or landowners, and not by owners of small village industries
were not and are not developed to the extent to which Gandhi wanted. Even
globalization, going in for multinational trade, is in the same direction of
encouraging the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few individuals, or
groups of individuals. All this may eventually happen, in spite of some
opposition to it. But the axiom of the Gandhian model of development to develop
India while preserving its ethics-cultural identity is to develop its villages
and its ethical soundness is as valid today as, if not more than, they were in
pre-Independence India.
Notes and references :
1. M. K. Gandhi, India of My Dreams( Ahmedabad : Navajivan Publishing House,
1947 ), p.124.
2. Ibid, p.91.
3. Ibid, p.104.
4. Ibid, p.99.
5. Ibid, pp.97-98.
Source :
Gandhi Marg, Vol-22 No.2 July-Sep 2001
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