An Analysis of Gandhi's ideas for achieving Sustainable Development Goals – Zero Poverty |
- By Anand Vardhan* & Pradhyumn Charan*IntroductionAt its essence, sustainability means ensuring prosperity and environmental protection without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A sustainable world is one where people can escape poverty and enjoy decent work without harming the earth’s essential ecosystems and resources; where people can stay healthy and get the food and water they need; where everyone can access clean energy that doesn’t contribute to climate change; where women and girls are afforded equal rights and equal opportunities.1 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals and their aim could be easily understood through the mission statement: “A blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all people and the world by 2030” , which means that these goals target to make the world a better place to live with Sustainable Development as the primary aim by 2030. These goals were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as a successor to MDGs (Millennium Development Goals), whose validity was scheduled to end in 2015. So, to replace the MDGs, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were formulated to guide the whole world by setting targets to be achieved by 2030. To review the progress, several indicators have been enlisted by the United Nations General Assembly, which will help to review the progress during achieving the several outcome targets under the 17 interlinked Sustainable Development Goals. These goals are very important to be achieved for the better future of the globe, especially concerning the living standards across the globe and most importantly, climate change because in the words of Ban Ki Moon: “Ours can be the first generation to end poverty – and the last generation to address climate change before it is too late.” Although they are important but many of these problems have existed on Earth for a very long time. Hence, we also find many great leaders, scholars and philosophers who suggested how to end these problems, and the most prominent among these people is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhiji. For the comparison, we have taken two closely related SDGs on which Gandhiji and Marx have spoken, i.e., SDG 1: NO POVERTY & SDG 8: DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH. Sustainable Development Goal - 1: NO POVERTYAbout the Goal:“NO POVERTY” is the first Sustainable Development Goal amongst the 17 Sustainable Development Goals which were adopted by the members of the United Nations. This goal comprises of seven targets which have to be accomplished by all the member states, i.e., almost the whole world. The outcome targets are:
The targets which are related to “means of achieving” the Sustainable Development Goal 1, i.e., No Poverty are:
Thus, by looking at the various targets, especially the “outcome targets” covered under the Sustainable Development Goal 1 or “Global Goal 1” (No Poverty), we can find that the main emphasis of the United Nations is at ending the extreme poverty from the globe and reducing the poverty by 50% by 2030. Further, also to enhance equality in the world by enabling the poor to have equal opportunities & rights to ownership, technology, resources, etc. and to safeguard them from various kinds of disasters, i.e., environmental, social, economic as these people are the most vulnerable to any kind of disasters in comparison to other classes. Apart from these outcome targets, the United Nations have also laid down targets which are associated to “means of achieving” – SDG 1 (NO POVERTY). The main reason behind laying down these as a goal and apart from that making it as the “Numero uno” amongst all the 17 Global Goals to be achieved by 2030 is because poverty is the most important problem as well as the biggest problem in the world (especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia) currently because it is the root cause of a large number of other problems, i.e., hunger, sanitation, clean water, hygiene, health, etc. Further, the poor are the most vulnerable to any kind of negative phenomenon, i.e., disaster which takes place on the earth, whether it be pandemic, floods, cyclones, etc. Therefore, it is very much necessary to save these people and end the root cause of a large number of problems which are currently on the globe in the 21st century, especially the extreme poverty, in order to make world a better place to live. Further, the importance of this SDG in particular can be understood by the following quote of Ban Ki Moon, Former Secretary General, United Nations: “Reflecting on the [Millennium Development Goals] and looking ahead to the next 15 years, there is no question that we can deliver on our shared responsibility to put an end to poverty, leave no one behind, and create a world of dignity for all.” BackgroundPoverty has been a problem since a very long time, it was even during the time of Mahatma Gandhiji or we can even say as per the dialectical materialism of Karl Marx, that it has been a problem just after the primitive age when the haves started to oppress the have nots. Here, we get the very essence of poverty from the word itself – have-nots, i.e., the ones who do not have the wealth as the periods, for example, money in the today’s world. Thus, the 21st century is not the only century to face this problem. Thus, being an old as well as large problem of every century, a large number of philosophers have discussed on this and have even, provided certain ways to eradicate poverty. The most prominent amongst these two are: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Bapu or Gandhiji or Mahatma Gandhi) and Karl M arx, both of whom envisioned a classless and discrimination-free society, where there will be no poverty or divide on the basis of wealth as all will be equal. Comparative AnalysisThe following is a comparative analysis of their ideas on poverty and the steps suggested by them on eradicating it: One of the important factor to determine the wealth or the class, i.e., who is poor and which is rich is the individual’s control over the property. Like in contemporary era or any period, the one who owns more property privately is or was considered to be richer and the own who doesn’t or didn’t is considered to be relatively poor. Therefore, in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 1 or Global Goal 1, i.e., NO POVERTY, one of the important point to determine or achieve this is to how to bring the masses living in extreme poverty to have equal rights to ownership, basic services, technology, and economic resources , which is the fourth “outcome target”, under this Sustainable Development Goal and which will automatically help to achieve the other outcome targets as the rights to ownership and resources directly impact an individual’s economic condition. Both Gandhi and Marx have proposed their ideas on Private Property and how poverty can be ended by applying their idea on the concept of private property. Comparative Analysis of Gandhi’s and Marx’s ideas: Mahatma Gandhi and Karl Marx had different perspectives on Private Property. The similarity in Gandhi’s & Marx’s perspective on Private Property is that they both disregarded this concept of “private ownership” in which an individual owns and possesses a property. But the difference is present in the alternatives they presented to the concept of private property. Mahatma Gandhi gave the idea of ‘Social Trusteeship’ . As per Social Trusteeship, no one is the owner of any property, rather they are the trustees of the property they possess and the wealth which they earn from such properties should be use for the welfare of the people in general. Gandhiji believed that the people who are wealthy, i.e., who are the so called “owners” of large estates comprising of vast properties can be persuaded with love, compassion & non-violence to help the masses which are in need of help for their welfare. This idea emphasizes that one can earn as much as they can, using the properties, but they must consider themselves to be as the trustee of that wealth and that property and should use the wealth and property for the welfare of the masses in general & hence, they must spend or use only that much amount of wealth for their use, which is necessary for living a simple life (Gandhi was an advocate of simple and sustainable living) and the rest should be spent for the welfare of the community. He considered that “rest” wealth to be the “right to an honourable livelihood by millions of others” . This concept can be summarised in the words of Mahatma Gandhi himself – “Supposing I have come by a fair amount of wealth – either by way of legacy, or by means of trade and industry – I must know that all that wealth does not belong to me; what belongs to me is the right to an honourable livelihood by millions of others. The rest of my wealth belongs to the community and must be used for the welfare of the community.” & “working for economic equality means abolishing the eternal conflict between capital and labour. It means the levelling down of the few rich in whose hands is concentrated the bulk of the nation's wealth on the one hand, and a levelling up of the semi-starved, naked millions on the other. A non-violent system of government is clearly an impossibility so long as the wide gulf between the rich and the hungry millions persists.” Thus, he envisioned of a Sarvodaya society in which all the people irrespective of any class, i.e., ‘Sarva’ will rise, i.e., ‘uday’ of ‘sarva’ and the rich will help the poor to come out of poverty and will work for the welfare of the poor and society at large.12 While according to Marx, there should not be any concept of an individual owning and possessing any property in their individual capacity, rather he emphasized on the ownership of all kinds of property including the means of production by the state in a Socialist Society, which is the transitional phase when a society is transforming from a Capitalist one to a Communist one and all the property including the means of production should be owned by the “commune” in a Communist Society. Thus, he basically talks about the creation of a classless society with no private ownership and all that the ownership will be jointly owned by all the persons and the profits will also be shared accordingly. Hence, he envisions of a society where everyone is equal and none of them is either poor or rich, hence a society without poverty. This was the difference between Marx’s and Gandhi’s idea on the alternatives which they presented to “Private Property”. Although, they haven’t directly used the word ‘poverty’, but the clear-cut implication of ending this private property and,
Further, the society which they envisioned are totally different, one is a totally classless one, i.e., the one which Marx envisioned, where everyone is equal and no one is rich or poor and the another is a Sarvodaya Society, where the rich who act as trustees help the poor to come out of their poverty and work for the welfare of poor. Thus, we can see here that how Gandhi’s and Marx’s classless society or the society where there are - no poverty & equal rights to ownership, basic services, technology, and economic resources exist, i.e., which are the outcome targets under Sustainable Development Goal 1 or Global Goal 1, i.e., NO POVERTY, differs in ways or manner in which they wanted it to exist and the procedure in which they wanted a classless society (as per Marx) and Sarvodaya Society (as per Gandhi) in which there is no poverty, but their aim was that a society where no one lives in distress and poverty should exist. ConclusionNow when we have looked into the Sustainable Development Goals under the lens of ideas by Gandhi and Marx it is safe to say that a single aim or objective of an initiative like Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be achieved in many ways. One idea could be better for one goal while another could be better for another goal. So, the one way to proceed with regards to achieving the goals is by comparing the works and ideas of great authors and which idea is best suited in the current times. As the problems have spread across more than one domain so it has become essential that solutions should also be from more than one point of view. So, another way could be using more than one idea on a goal to achieve it as it has become so hard in today’s world to be just a specialist there is a need for ideas that can solve the problem with generalization. The important thing here to understand is that whatever means are used to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals but it is important to achieve these goals as they are necessary for a better and more sustainable future for all the people and the world by 2030. Immediate and crucial steps are needed and the leaders need to act quickly. However, among all these discussions on how to achieve the goals the one thing that is lagging in this whole process is the zeal of the world leaders towards the goals. References:Books:
* Anand Vardhan & Pradhyumn Charan are students, 2nd Year, Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar. | Email: anandvardhandeo@gmail.com |