Reading Gandhi and Kumarappa Today -March 9, 2023

Reading Gandhi and Kumarappa Today

Reading Gandhi and Kumarappa Today

Time Demands Gandhi

         Online  Study Programme

  As part of 75 th anniversary of Gandhi's martyrdom,  Gandhian  Collective Kerala,  announced  an Online  Study Programme  "Time Demands Gandhi" from Martyrs' day to Dandi Yatra.   Dr.Siby K Joseph, Director, Sri Jamanlal Bajaj Memorial Library and Research Centre for Gandhian Studies,  Sevagram Ashram Pratishthan, Wardha delivered 13 th lecture of this online Study Programme on March 9,2023.The programme began with a brief introduction about the keynote speaker by Adv.Georgekutty

Kadaplackal.In his introduction,  he highlighted the contributions made by Dr.Siby K.Joseph in academics and activism. His activism started from students days with Gandhi Yuva Mandalam  he recalled. 

Dr.Siby K.Joseph was instrumental in bringing together people from almost all States of India for fasting from homes from World Environment Day to Gandhi Jayanti Day in 2020.Formerly he  served as Dean of Institute of Gandhian Studies,Wardha.  As a researcher he has a number of books to his credit.

His book Gandhi in South Africa:A Racist or a Liberator? which was released in South Africa  and foreword was written by Ela Gandhi, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi. It is a well researched work and timely answer  to those who tried to portrait Gandhi as a racist.

He summed up contributions of the keynote speaker. 

 

Shri TP Padmanabhan,the moderator of the session gave a brief introduction about the key concerns of the online Study Programme with special reference to theme : Reading Gandhi and Kumarappa Today. 

We have to read  Gandhi and Kumarappa  in the context of challenges like climate change  and corporates taking control of our lives. Gandhi's idea of communal harmony has become  increasingly important in this era of  divisive politics. People lost faith in the existing ideologies, he lamented. 

 

Dr.Siby K.Joseph  began his keynote address by stating that the introductory remarks made by the moderator made his task easy.It also gives insights on the key areas to be dealt with. 

The keynote speaker analyzed the current status of climate change with the help of data relating to it from the United Nations Organization 's publications. The increasing level of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere is a matter of grave concern for all of us.It remains as a major factor contributing to climate change. According to the  2022 data,the emission of  carbon dioxide is 415.7 ppm (parts per million) which is  equivalent to 149% of  the pre industrial levels. In the case of Methane,25 times powerful than CO2 is 1908  ppb that  is equivalent to 262% of  the pre industrial levels.It is pertinent to note that the annual increase of methane was 18 ppb during 2020-21. It is interesting to note  that  the causes for the same are  still being investigated.

In the case of nitrous oxide, it is 334.5 ppb which is equal to 124% of the pre industrial levels. These figures of green house gases

matter a lot. It depicts the precarious state of environment.

Let us look  how corporates contributed to  widening inequality between rich and poor especially after opening of  the Indian economy under the guise of New Economic Policy. As a result of NEP, corporates intruded into every aspect of human life and  took control our lives. It is really shocking  to learn that the top 10 % of the Indian population holds 77 % of  total national wealth.  This is the end result of corporate rule or corporate domination.In recent times, the disparities we witness  have become unimaginable. In 2017, 73% of wealth generated in India went to the richest 1 %, while 670 million  Indians who comprise the poorest half of the population saw only a 1% increase in their wealth.  

India is a  country of billionaires,   they are 119 in numbers. Their fortunes increased  by almost 10 times over a decade  and it is astonishing that their total wealth is higher than the entire Union Budget for the year 2018-2019 which was at 24422 billion. 

We are overcoming from Corona pandemic,it revealed the poor state of health care system. Poor  people don't have access to it.Sixty three million of them are pushed into poverty due to quantum jumps in health care costs. I am not exaggerating,  it would take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India to earn what the top paid executive at a leading Indian garment company earns a year.

The figures I quoted are from Oxfam India, which one can access easily. It is true that Gandhi's idea of interreligious relations is  extremely important in the present context as it was pointed out here.

However, I am not dealing with it because here the focus is on economic ideas of Gandhi and Kumarappa. 

Let me cite what Australian Prime Minister Mr.Antony Albanese said   on  the other  day during his visit to Sabarmati Ashram "Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy and life values continue to inspire the world today. We have much to learn  from his example. " I  don't know whether  you have noticed the PM refused to use shoes even on grounds as a matter of respect. Whether our leaders are showing such symbolic gestures.

It is true that during their life time whether it is Gandhi or Kumarappa  environmental issues were not severe as we witnessed today. In 2022,we have observed the earth overshoot day on 28th July. I was looking at  the  month wise calendar of the country wise earth overshoot day. In the case of Qutar it is February 10, 2023. I just referred the observation made by Australian PM on his visit to Sabarmati Ashram.In the case of Australia,the earth overshoot day is March 23.We can see only three countries having earth overshoot day in the month of December. 

The present state of environment is  the result of  development policies followed by  developed,developing and underdeveloped  countries.  Economic development and growth were the major concerns in the post war period. America and Canada were the only countries whose infrastructure  facilities were not severely affected during the Second World War. America became the prime mover in the post war economy with  its European Recovery Programme which provided assistance to rebuild war torn economies. In the year 1960,W W Rostow enunciated  the concept of  economic growth which visualized five stages. The final stage the age of high mass consumption through exponential growth of GDP and per capita income.This development mantra  became the ruling ideology. This period was described as golden age of Capitalism. This  growth strategy created irreparable damages to the mother earth. Thus  the environmental issues came into the discourses on development  in  1970s and the search for alternatives began.The formation of Club of Rome in 1968 and commissioning of international team of researchers of MIT   to study the predicament of mankind were major steps in this direction. 

  This Study finally resulted in the publication The Limits to Growth,which predicted that if the present growth trends remain unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet  will be reached within next one hundred years. 

The speaker explained how environmental issues became a major concern starting with UN Stockholm  Conference in 1972 till the date. He referred to  UN's Brundtland Commission  report viz.

The Report of World Commission on Environment and Development:Our Common Future 

It was after the publication of this report the term sustainable development became popular in the discourses of development. It is to be noted that this report is an attempt to reform the pattern of development and reduce the damages so that capitalist model could be continued.

The speaker  took a quick review of major efforts of UN towards sustainable development ,referring to the various conferences including the Sustainable Development Goals:The 2030 Agenda on the occasion of 75th anniversary of UN.The 17 sustainable development goals aims to end poverty and hunger,protect ecosystem  for the future generations. It is high time to review to what extent these goals have been achieved?  No doubt these attempts created some positive results but failed to achieve a breakthrough. It is significant because it created awareness about the issues and inadequacies of the existing ideologies. 

Even though for decades the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) remained as the main criterion in the hands of economists to measure economic development or growth of a country there is a growing realisation  it is the high time to leave GDP behind. The exclusive pursuit of economic growth and rising incomes are no longer considered  as  goals of  development.  New concepts and ideas  of development  have emerged even within the framework of mainstream economics. The very approach to development was questioned by leaders and economists of many countries. New ways of development thinking and practice are gaining ground  all over the globe ..” Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress  2008   by  J. Stiglitz, A. Sen, J.P Fitoussi. stated  “The time is ripe for our measurement system to shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people’s well-being. And measures of well-being should be put in a context of sustainability... emphasizing well-being is important because there appears to be an increasing gap between the information contained in aggregate GDP data and what counts for common people’s well-being”

The concept of the Doughnut Economics was developed  British Economist Kate Raworth in 2012. According to her economic growth is measured only by an increasing GDP, ignoring the finite nature of earth’s resources and the consequences of our actions. She wanted to create an economic model fit for the 21st century based on the premise that "Humanity’s 21st century challenge is to meet the needs of all within the means of the planet.”  Her book  Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist  2018 outlines seven ways. They are:1.Change the goal—from GDP to the Doughnut.2. See the big picture—from self-contained market to embedded economy.3. Nurture human nature—from rational economic man to social adaptable humans.4. Get savvy with systems—from mechanical equilibrium to dynamic complexity.5. Design to distribute—from ‘growth will even it up again’ to distributive by design.6. Create to regenerate—from ‘growth will clean it up again’ to regenerative by design.7. Be agnostic about growth—from growth addicted to growth agnostic.

The Fourth King of Bhutan Jigme Singye Wangchuck introduced  the  notion of Gross National Happiness (1972 ) and said “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product” Gross National Happiness is instituted as the goal of the government of Bhutan in the Constitution enacted on 18 July 2008. Article 9 ‘Principles of State Policy’ reads as follows. “The State shall strive to promote those conditions that will enable the pursuit of Gross National Happiness. It comprises an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and well-being of a population. The concept of GNH has four pillars: good governance, sustainable socio-economic development, cultural preservation, and environmental conservation. Later the four pillars have been further classified into nine domains to depict GNH values. The nine domains are: psychological wellbeing, health, education, time use, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards In 2011, The United Nations General Assembly passed a Resolution "Happiness: towards a holistic approach to development" urging member nations to follow the example of Bhutan and measure happiness and well-being and calling happiness a "fundamental human goal”. Many countries of the world accepted it as a policy of their respective governments.

In the context of growing disparity and division between the countries of North and South, the idea of inclusive growth became a popular concept in the discourse of development. Through this index countries’ economic performance is measured on the basis of eleven factors of economic progress in addition to GDP. It has three pillars: “growth and development; inclusion and intergenerational equity and sustainable stewardship of natural and financial resources.” It  aims to inform and enable sustained and inclusive economic progress through deepened public-private cooperation through thought leadership and analysis, strategic dialogue and concrete cooperation, including by accelerating social impact through corporate action.

The recognition of role of the state and its institutions led to the rise of the idea of institutional economics. Douglass North in his essay, “The New Institutional Economics and Development”, wrote “It is polities that shape economic performance because they define and enforce the economic rules of the game. Therefore, the heart of development policy must be the creation of polities that will create and enforce efficient property rights .”There is also a stream of scholars who thinks that  development should not  neither rely  on the government nor on the market. According to them it should be centred on the people and their wisdom Ivan Illich used terms like “specific diseconomy” to measure the degree of institutional counter productivity in various fields. His analysis became a guiding light for the later critics of colonialism and post colonialism and a number of post - development theorists like Arturo Escobar and Gustavo Esteva. Wolfgang Sachs, a leading member of the post-development school, in his introduction to the book The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power, wrote “the idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape. Delusion and disappointment, failures and crimes, have been the steady companions of development and they tell a common story; it did not work” Further he stated “it is time to dismantle this mental structure.”

The speaker  also referred to Gaia concept of development, Deep ecology propounded by Arne Naess ,Eco- feminism  while discussing earth centric approach to development .Thus it is evident that it is not  only Gandhi and Kumarappa  critiqued modern development  but also a number of thinkers and philosophers critically analysed the entire process of modernity and modern development. It is true  that their thinking is  not identical, but they are on similar lines on certain respects. If we examine  writings of Gandhi and Kumarappa,  we can see their thought process offered an alternative framework or system to overcome the  maladies created by  modern economic development .