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Here is another gem of scholastic bombast. In order to be
fully moral, an act must not only serve the individual
interest, but it should also serve the interest of others or,
at least, it should not harm the good of others. This does not
happen, observes the learned political scientist, because
"individuals cannot get access to information about the
kind of impact their action in a particular situation is going
to make on others and their welfare". Ignorance is bliss
but not in a situation when a serious social analysis is
attempted. Does it mean that a host of black marketeers,
adulterers, tax evaders, profiteers, racketeers and swindlers
of all kinds are in the dark about the impact of their actions
on others?
Rakesh
Batabyal, another fellow at the institute, examines the
essence of Indian nation with reference to the social thought
of Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore was undoubtedly a great poet
— the first Asian to get the Nobel Prize for Literature —
and equally great as a story teller. His simple tale of
Kabuliwallah is a classic of its own kind. However, to present
him as a prescient and cogent social thinker is to stretch
human a bit too far. Jati is the most immutable
identity according to Tagore, informs Batabyal. Tagore is
supposed to have used jati as the equivalent of race. Jati
has a typical connotation in the varna system and to equate it
with race sounds ridiculous.
Tagore, we
are informed, treats Indian civilisation as superior to its
western one on the ground that the latter obliterates
differences by force while the former maintains harmony with
the help of "abstract force of unity". Which of the
two civilisations is superior is a matter of serious
controversy and one may give the medal to the Indian
civilisation, if one is so inclined. However, harmony is the
least of the causes in this matter. It is erroneous to talk of
harmony in Indian civilisation based on highly discriminatory
caste stratifications, relegating the bulk of Indian
population to the base of the Hindu pyramid, the top of which
is securely occupied by numerically small twice-born Hindus.
Undoubtedly,
there has been no revolt of shudras in Hindu society but the
placid acceptance of their fate by the lower castes should not
be confused with social harmony. This harmony was a coerced
one at the intellectual plane, achieved through hegemony of
the higher castes through a highly clever and complex
mechanism of caste system and the theory of karma.
Anyway, what is the "abstract force of unity"? How
does it operate?
These
questions have not been examined. While the nationalist
historians tried to show that ancient India had an acute sense
of politics and related institutions, Tagore, it is
emphasised, was primarily concerned with the social as the
political was not the ideal of society. Another case of
serious conceptual confusion. The social and the political
have been used as binaries while in reality one determines the
other. Examples of such inconsistencies can be multiplied.
Then follow
Gandhians who examine the serious issues of social
institutions, education, etc. They are all good-natured,
well-intentioned followers of the enigmatic Mahatma. If
intentions were to shape society, there would be instant
success. However, the dynamics of social change is a much more
complex phenomenon than visualised by these innocent souls.
M.R.
Rajagopalan, secretary, Gandhigram Trust in Tamil Nadu, gives
his understanding of technology. The European countries had
guns. The American natives, Africans, and Asians lacked them
and this led to the dominance of the world by the Europeans.
However, a deeper look at history reveals something different.
Alexander and Porus had almost the same number of combatants
in the battlefield — 25,000 each. The weapons the Indian
army — swords, spears, etc. — were superior as the Indian
steel was of better quality. Nonetheless, Alexander triumphed
as the force of his adversary lacked unified command and
discipline, in which the Greeks excelled. The army of Porus
was a loose conglomeration of tribal elements with hardly any
idea of hierarchy of leadership and the consequent discipline.
To take
another example, the war of Plassey was a turning point in the
establishment of political control of India by the East India
Company. In the battle, Siraj-ud-Daula had 60,000 soldiers and
50 guns while his adversary Clive had only 3,000 soldiers and
only eight guns. Nonetheless, within a matter of hours, the
forces of Siraj-ud-Daula were in disarray and the victory
crowned Clive. Social composition, coherence, discipline,
training, and such other factors play a crucial role.
K. Muniandi,
another Gandhian, has all praise for varna dharma as it
was responsible for the "self-reliant and self-sufficient
economy undertaken by its citizens who had volunteered to
divide themselves into four communities of their choice fully
reflecting their skills and attitudes", conveniently
forgetting that it was the varna dharma that eventually
gave rise to the obnoxious caste system. How far this system
was voluntarily devised or imposed by the conquering and
dominant sections in the hoary past is a moot point and there
is a lot of controversy in history on this.
Sharan
Bahadur Namara, an educationist of Gandhian persuasion, wants
to "keep education free of government" to make it
socially useful. The process is in full swing in the country.
The privatisation has entered the realm of education in a big
way. Has it made education socially more relevant for the
masses or a preserve of the affluent classes in our society?
There is no attempt to deal with this basic question.
G. Pankajam,
another Gandhian, comes out with a long list of pious
platitudes as objectives of education like promoting
"equity, peace, social justice and universal realisation
of human rights" and "pursuit of human
excellence", "acquisition of values" and so on.
How these high sounding objectives are to be achieved through
the instrumentality of education is made nowhere clear.
H.S.
Jamadagni, Vice-Chancellor, Gandhigram Rural Institute in
Tamil Nadu, is of the firm opinion that "one of the most
important agenda items for the coming century should be to
create a system of education that is affordable, give equal
opportunity to every one to educate oneself, is of the highest
quality and is appropriate to the country". However, how
these noble objectives are to be achieved in a highly
iniquitous social system like that of India is not made clear.
Gandhi was no
abstract moralist. He was a very practical man and a shrewd
tactician. How his ideological mantle has fallen upon those
who are extremely good at heart but greatly lacking in his
practical sense and his political mantle hijacked by those
who, in most of the cases, are an antithesis of Gandhi, needs
serious investigation.
While
defining the Gandhi agenda for India, Samara Bannerjee, a
historian, makes a number of sensible points like restricting
our dependency on the state, strengthening the panchayat raj
system, reworking the trusteeship concept, reorganising
agriculture to harmonise with the watershed concept, marketing
and sustainability, curbing the profit motive, etc. This
reviewer is in full agreement with him that it would be wrong
to discard Gandhi’s concept as being far-fetched and out of
sync. Several experiments like the Mondragon cooperative
movement, the micro credit of SWEA, the Bangladesh Grameen
Bank, the UP sodic lands reclamation project, changing
attitudes towards organic farming and questioning the utility
of big dams in many parts of the world, all have the stamp of
Gandhian influence.
Sanjeev
Ghotge relies heavily on Gandhi and Buddha to lay out the
parameters of the new paradigm of development. Industry,
agriculture, nature, animals and man — all have to be
integrated harmoniously into development instead of pitting
one against the other, as is the practice at present. All have
to be seen together in a new set of relationship to develop a
cooperative rather than conflicting relationship with nature.
The blind pillage of nature is posing a threat to the very
survival of life in the world.
The book
concludes with two pieces that are quite combative in argument
and perceptive in analysis. Kumkum Roy examines the issue of
reservation of seats for women in our legislative bodies in
the context of gender question. The attempts to prevaricate or
stall the Bill by different male-dominated political parties
are seen by her as stemming from deep-seated misogyny. The
attack on film "Fire", exploring the possibility of
intimacy between women, has been seen as an attack on
Indianness and Indian culture. How human relations are
distorted in a male-dominated society is conveniently ignored
and a slight deviance from the male ethos is seen as an attack
on indigenous values and traditions.
The
brahmanical model of procreation is hierarchical, making
man-woman relationship highly unequal. Women as objects have
been subjected to reproductive manipulations down the ages but
the modern technology has made the process all the more
dehumanising as seen in the case of increasing female
foeticide. Access to land and labour being highly gendered
further adds to the woes of women.
Udayon Misra’s
highly provocative and informative piece puts the issue of
India’s troubled part of the North-East in its correct
perspective. The idea of Indian nation is being increasingly
appropriated by a certain section of Hindi-Hindu heartland and
the legitimate regional aspirations of the people of the
North-East are often characterised by this section as
secessionist and must be curbed ruthlessly. To ignore the
specificity of this area would only add to the alienation of
its people.
A large
portion of this area was left unadministered by the British
colonialists. Apart from the Brahmaputra and Barak valleys,
the entire north-eastern region was virtually unaffected by
the Indian freedom movement. Then this area has its cultural
distinctiveness. The people here are largely free from caste
divisions, dowry deaths, women persecution and several other
ills that afflict the so-called mainland of the country. The
failure to appreciate the cultural distinctiveness of this
area coupled with rampant corruption in the administration and
criminalisation of politics is breeding the feeling in the
deprived people of this area that the Indian nation is being
increasingly owned by the parasitic ruling elites. This is the
root cause of the alienation of the people of the area from
the so-called national mainstream.
This area
cannot be integrated with India in the real sense with the
ferocious movement of the Hindutva bulldozer and the Sangh
Parivar’s clarion call of one people, one nation, and one
culture. Unity of the country presupposes the recognition of
the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual character of
the Indian nation and to ignore it in the name of national
unity is a sure recipe for the disintegration of the country.
As stated earlier, the book
is a mixed bag. This is inevitable in a ritualistic exercise.
All the same, it csan be read with interest.
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