Sunday, May 26, 2002		Books

Ecology as culture and the relevance of Gandhi
Akshaya Kumar

The Compassionate Universe
by Eknath Easwaran, Penguin India. Pages 188. Rs. 250.

ENVIRONMENT degradation is a manifestation of deep-rooted cultural crisis. Eknath Easwaran invokes the Gandhian hypothesis of 'civilization as disease' to study and analyze the ramifications of the crisis. The book under review does not throw alternative frames of inquiry, it only verifies the tenability of the Gandhian 'need versus greed' dictum in the post-Gandhian phase of development. The writer cites "seven social sins", identified by Gandhi long ago, as the cardinal causative factors of present-day malaise. These sins are: "knowledge without character", "science without humanity", "wealth without work", "commerce without morality", politics without principles", "pleasure without conscience" and finally "worship without self-sacrifice". The writer pleads for a compassionate world order where instead of profit making and competition, there is an emphasis on "cooperation, artistry and thrift".

Easwaran endorses the Gandhian strategy of satyagraha to fight against the regime of capitalist untruth. As in the famous Dandi March, making salt was a symbolic gesture of defying the anti-people dictates of colonial masters, undertaking such small ventures in the new contexts can go a long way in negotiating with problems of mind and matter both. Walking on foot instead of going by car even for a short distance, buying organic vegetables rather than the ones produced using pesticides and chemicals, sharing profit among the workers instead of garnering it all alone, etc. together constitute a "small salt march in itself". The small effort by the conscientious individual, Eknath holds, is a leap forward towards the preservation of environment and culture as a whole.

The writers proposes a four-step meditation programme to overcome greed and self-centeredness: "developing one-pointed attention", "repeating the mantrum", "training the senses", "putting others first". He claims to have pioneered this course which was for the first time offered at an accredited university in the West, at the University of California, Berkeley. Such a course helps an individual to "become zero"—a state of absolute self-sacrifice.

Grandmother, Gandhi and Gita are the three corner stones of Easwaran's moral and ecological universe. Grandmother stands for values of secure and safe community-living, Gandhi is his icon of 'little' human will which can stand up against the tyranny of the mightiest, Gita is the source book of the principle of karma, the disinterested action. There is a fair bit of sprinkling of quotes from English literature, as specimens of author's own academic grounding in this literature. Most of the quotes are inserted into the logic of the book without any noticeable critical alterations or interventions.

The author endorses Gandhian position whole hog. In fact he consolidates the myth of mahatamisation of Gandhi all the more. What makes modern civilisation so alluring and what makes Gandhi so difficult to emulate - the human dimensions of the present crisis are so easily underplayed. The metaphysical belief that the pure consciousness of one can engender transformation in the entire universe is indeed a lofty spiritual ideal, but where does the author work out the poetics of this over-arching relationship? Mere prescriptivism is no resolution of complexity; rather it makes it all the more tedious and unwieldy.

The book seeks to combine environmentalism with spiritualism using Gandhism as the possible link between the two—such a heady mix has ready customers in the burgeoning spiritual bazaar of the West and metropolitan Third World. It lacks the analytical rigour of environmentalists like Vandana Shiva or Arundhati Roy. The writer fails to take note of the perceptible differences between the rich and industrialised West and the poor and crowded Third World on the issue of responsibility of environmental disorders all across the globe. Its spiritual sub-text also fails to enthuse. The book, despite its overt Gandhian stance, would fail to make a mark even within Gandhiana for its being too uncritical and wishful. Easwaran is at best a typical Rajneesh-clone without his persuasive skills and charisma.