SUSTAINABILITY – GANDHIJI’S MANTRA FOR DEVELOPMENT
A. Annamalai
“I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may 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? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.”
Mahatma Gandhi has given us this touch-stone as an aid to our decision making process. We are fortunate enough to finish our education either with the help of the government or by the contribution of the community or society. Now we are searching for a reasonable employment with good remuneration in the government sector. What will be our return gift to the development of our own society and the nation at large?
We are running from pillar to post to earn more money by all means. We strongly believe that money will do everything and will bring happiness in our life. In the process of earning the money, normally what happens, the first casualty is our Happiness. We must understand that the happiness is a state of mind and more and more money cannot increase the feeling. It rather produces more and more anxiety.
According to Gandhi, man’s happiness really lies in contentment. He who is discontented, however much he possesses, becomes a slave to his desires. Herein lies the ethics of resource use, need but not greed; comfort but not luxury because our natural resources are very limited. With the limited resources, unlimited growth is not at all possible. If you go on disturbing the natural balance of the Earth, then Earth will react to us.
Our planet is a living organism that acts and responds to everything we do on her. We cannot treat the earth as a nonliving thing. We have to be very serious when we deal with the nonrenewable natural resources. Therefore our development mantra should be sustainability.
Today’s growth is not considered as an organic growth. For example, if you take India, few cities and few metros are developed. This growth pattern increases the gap between the rich and poor. The Club of Rome report and World Watch Institute’s report are suggesting that we have to concentrate on organic growth – inclusive growth - and focus on sustainability. Gandhi is not against machinery or modernizing the technology. But the machinery or technology should be appropriate to our social and economic environment. It should not control the humanity. It should not replace our huge labour force. It should be environmental friendly. Ultimately it should bring the changes in the living standard of the common people. Rural economy and agro-based industries should be developed and strengthened. This is what Gandhi wanted.
His economic philosophy is vibrant, ever widening. It is not techno-centred, but people-centred. Development of handful of cities can not solve our economic problems. In fact it will create and increase our problems. Therefore, Gandhi concentrated on economic development of the villages. Instead of Mass Production, he suggested production by the Masses. Instead of centralized industries, he suggested decentralized small industries. Mass production is only concerned with the product, whereas production by the masses is concerned with the product as well as the producers, and the process involved in it. He had a dream of an Ideal village. Mass production leads people to leave their villages, their land, their crafts, and go to work in the factories. Instead of dignified human beings and members of a self-respecting village community, people become cogs in the machine, standing at the conveyor belt, living in crowded towns, and depending on the mercy of the bosses. Due to technological advancements fewer and fewer people are needed to work, because the industrialists want greater productivity. The masters of the money economy want more and more efficient machines working faster and faster, and the result is that men and women are thrown out and become technologically unemployed. Such a society generates rootless and jobless millions, living as dependants of the state or beggers in the streets of the metros.
Gandhi said "The true India is to be found not in its few cities, but in its seven hundred thousand villages. If the villages perish, India will perish too." Each village should be a microcosm of India - a web of loosely inter-connected communities. Gandhi considered these villages so important that he thought they should be given the status of ‘village republics’. The environmental concern of today was not there at the time of Gandhi, but his perception and attitude on growth, development, technology, self-reliance, Gram Swaraj etc. disclose his developmental model. His developmental model takes care of the Planet Earth as a whole. His concern for living in tune with the nature will solve most of our today’s problems.
Once Kamalnayan Bajaj, son of Gandhi’s close associate Jamnalal Bajaj, and his sister went to seek Gandhi’s blessings when he visited Wardha in 1920. Gandhi smiled and asked them whether they liked their dress or his dress (He then used to wear a dhoti, a shirt and a white cap). They remained quiet. But Gandhi repeated the question. Kamalnayan Bajaj replied with a childish pride that he liked his own dress better. He took his cap in one hand and placed a white khadi cap in other and told him how the white cap was simple and beautiful. The point that appealed to him most was that it could be washed and could be kept clean. He asked Kamalnayan whether his cap could be washed. He said “No”. Then Gandhi put the question again: “Now will you tell me which is better – the one which can become dirty, or the one which is washable?”. He agreed that white washable cap is better than his cap. Then Gandhi said to him that the cap he used was such as only the rich could wear. He pointed a finger towards Jamnalalji, and told him that only he could afford a cap like that for his children; that there were many children in the country who could not get such a cap; and that what other children could not get, we ourselves should not wear. Children’s clothes, he added, should be simple, beautiful, cheap and yet washable. He pointed to his dress and said that, though their dress appeared to be bright and colourful, it was, in fact, not beautiful. He said that the colour hid the dirt and brightness was only a show.
Simple living does not mean living in poverty. Gandhi advocated simplicity because whatever resources and facilities are available with us should be equally distributed to all the concerned. When we do so we have to take care of the voiceless and the downtrodden first. Priority should be given to the people who really need such facility. That is why Gandhi suggested the above touch-stone (Talisman) to the policy makers.
E F Schumacher, celebrated author of the book ‘Small is Beautiful’ who was influenced by the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi, while delivering the Gandhi Memorial Lecture at the Gandhian Institute of Studies, Varanasi (India) in 1973, described Gandhi as the greatest ‘People’s Economist.’ Schumacher identified Gandhi as the people’s economist whose economic thinking was compatible with spirituality as opposed to materialism. Gandhi is the emerging reality and creative alternative.
(Author is Director, National Gandhi Museum, New Delhi Email: nationalgandhimuseum@gmail.com