Towards an Understanding  of Gandhi’s Vision of Development

The entire superstructure of the modern development paradigm is based on the forces released by industrial revolution, which brought about a radical change in the life and living of people. It resulted in great advancement in technologies and inventions which transformed rural societies into industrialized, urban ones. We are living in a world of artificial intelligence  and robots. In October 2017, Sophia an  AI-enabled android, was given Saudi Arabian citizenship.  Sophia became the first robot to receive citizenship of any country. The end result of all these developments are drastic changes in value systems. Only a few thinkers and philosophers took a critical view of the entire process of modernity and modern development. Among such a group, Gandhi stood out as one who not only offered a critique of modernity but also offered an alternative framework or system to overcome its maladies.

 As early as 1909, Gandhi in his seminal work, Hind Swaraj  pointed out the major failings of new development pattern based primarily machinery and automation. He averred that it has overemphasized the material side of human life at the expense of all other aspects. Such a lopsided view of life has created an environment of greed, competitiveness, violence and domination of the powerful over the powerless people .The worst part of modernity and its development pattern, Gandhi pointed out, is that it could not provide even material things to a large section of the people and they remain deprived of the basic needs of life. Thus it created a society which was marked by steep inequality, injustice and atrocities. Such ills did not remain confined within the frontiers of their own society; rather they reached out to the international level. Gandhi is firmly of the view that colonialism and imperialism are born out of the womb of modern industrial society. It has also a racial connotation as the white races led a great campaign for the subjugation of the coloured races empowered by new machines and weaponry systems in the wake of industrial revolution. In short, the milk of human compassion was sucked out of the hearts and minds of powerful people.

In the process of so called development, the weak and deprived sections of society were left to fend for themselves. Compassion has always remained the mainspring of individual and societal life. Gandhi was deeply concerned about such a development pattern devoid of compassion and human values. In fact compassion and non-violence are like Siamese twins. They could not be separated.  Gandhi virtually used these two terms as synonyms. Gandhi’s use of the   word ‘ahimsa’ in the place of ‘compassion’ and vice versa has given rise to confusion in the public mind. Clarifying on this question he wrote:

 “There is as much difference between ahimsa and compassion as there is between gold and the shape given to it, between a root and the tree which sprouts from it. Where there is no compassion, there is no ahimsa. The test of ahimsa is compassion. The concrete form of ahimsa is compassion. Hence it is said there is as much ahimsa as there is compassion. If I refrain from beating up a man who comes to attack me, it may or may not be ahimsa. If I refrain from hitting him out of fear, it is not ahimsa. If I abstain from hitting him out of compassion and with full knowledge, it is ahimsa.”

Reflecting further on his concept of ahimsa and its close linkage with compassion he said

 "Ahimsa is never a losing transaction. The subtraction of one side of ahimsa from the other yields zero, that is to say, the two sides are equal. He who eats to live, lives to serve and earns just enough for his food and clothing, is though acting, free from action, and non-violent though committing violence. Ahimsa without action is an impossibility. Action does not merely mean activity of hands and feet. The mind performs greater activity than even hands and feet. Every thought is an action. There can be no ahimsa in the absence of thought. The dharma of ahimsa has been conceived only for an embodied being like man. When a person who may eat anything limits, out of compassion, the things he will eat, he observes to that extent the dharma of ahimsa. On the other hand, when an orthodox person does not eat meat, etc., he does a good thing but we cannot say that he necessarily has ahimsa in him. Where there is ahimsa, there ought to be conscious compassion.”

            It will not be an exaggeration if we say that Gandhi’s whole philosophy of life was an attempt to integrate the principles of truth and non-violence. These principles guided every aspect of life whether it is economics, political or social and so on. That is why J. C.Kumarappa, a well known Gandhian economist said: “If there is anything that characterizes Gandhiji’s life, it is his devotion to truth and non-violence. Any economy that is associated with his name should, therefore, answer to these fundamental principles. …..economy based on them which will be permanent and will lead to the peace and happiness of mankind.”  ²⁸

Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915. He delivered an address in the University Extension lectures organised by Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi from 5 to 8 February, 1916. It was his first public lecture on Indian soil.  He was so disgusted with the pomp and show of Maharajas assembled there one the one hand and suffering of Indian people at large.   Gandhi emphatically pointed out to Maharajas that: “There is no salvation for India unless you strip yourselves of this jewellery and hold it in trust for your countrymen in India.” Subsequently in his speech he presented an alternative view of economic principles for finding solutions to the problems facing the common masses.

 Gandhi was not an economist in the professional sense of the term. While delivering a lecture on “Does Economic Progress clash with Real Progress?”, at a meeting of the Muir Central College Economics Society, Allahabad on 22 December 1916, he admitted the fact  that “Frankly and truly, I know little economics as you naturally understand them”. He also pointed out that he had not read Mill, Marshall, Adam Smith and such other authors who are cited in studies in economics. Then what was the guiding light in his action, it was his conscience or the voice of God.   He answered this question in the same lecture. “There come to us moments in life when about something we need no proof from without. A little voice within tells us, ‘You are on the right track, move neither to your left nor right, but keep to the straight and narrow way’ with such help we march forward slowly indeed, but surely and steadily. That is my position.” Gandhi in the address that we have cited articulated his argument that if our goal is materialistic, we will go downhill as far as moral progress is concerned. He said, “You cannot serve God and Mammon is an economic truth of the highest value. We have to make our choice. Western nations today are groaning under the heels of the monster –God of materialism. Their moral growth has become stunted”. He even quoted Wallace, a great scientist, in support of his argument. “This rapid growth of wealth and increase of our power over nature put too great a strain upon our crude civilization, on our superficial Christianity, and it was accompanied by various forms of social immorality almost as amazing and unprecedented.” In conclusion, he stated, “Let us seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the irrevocable promise is that everything will be added with us. These are real economics. May you and I treasure them and enforce them in our daily life.”

Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya in his concluding remarks stated that the ideals of Gandhi are so high that we may not subscribe to all of them. But many years later, commenting on this lecture, two economists associated with American universities, Diwan and Lutz wrote, “An examination of his lecture clearly points out to what he knew rather than what he did not know. He was not interested in the scope and method of economic science as we economists naturally understand it. Rather, he worked for a whole lifetime on articulating the principles of an alternative and more real human economy centring on the very themes outlined in his lecture: the lack of correlation between material expansion and genuine progress, the need for an economics-cum-ethics that will enable moral growth and dignity for all, the fallacy of seeking happiness in individual acquisitive behaviour, and the need for encouraging people to seek a life rich in self-esteem and genuine meaning.” Thus it is very clear that his emphasis was on moral progress than material progress. Thus the concern of development should be moral progress and not material progress.

 Even in his statement before the trail court in 1922, during which he was imprisoned for six years, he unequivocally stated that the administration and urban people have joined hands to suck the blood of poor and deprived people of this country. He again followed it with his written statement on Poorna Swaraj in 1929   that his concept of swaraj is primarily for the poor or daridranarayan and not for the elitist people.

            He pleaded for centrality of nonviolence in the village economy he propounded to the end. As he put it, “Now I have no historical proof, but I believe that there was a time in India when village economics were organized on the basis of such non-violent occupations, not on the basis of rights of man but on the duties of man. Those who engaged themselves in such occupations did earn their living, but their labour contributed to the good of the community….Body labour was at the core of these occupations and industries, and there was no large-scale machinery. For when a man is content to own only so much land as he can till with his own labour, he cannot exploit others. Handicrafts exclude exploitation andslavery.Large-scale machinery concentrates wealth in the hands of one man who lords it over the rest who slave for him. For he may be trying to create ideal conditions for his workmen, but it is nonetheless exploitation which is a form of violence.

When I say that there was a time when society was based not on exploitation but on justice, I mean to suggest that truth and ahimsa were not virtues confined to individuals but were practiced by communities. To me virtue cease to have any value if it is cloistered or possible only for individuals.”     He visualized an economic constitution and development pattern that takes into consideration the basic needs of the people. He wrote:

“According to me the economic constitution of India and, for the matter of that, the world should be such that no one under should suffer from want of food and clothing. In other words, everybody should be able to get sufficient work to enable him to make the two ends meet.
And this ideal can be universally realized only if the means of production of the elementary necessaries of life remain in the control of the masses. These should be freely available to all as God’s air and water are or ought to be; they should not be made a vehicle of traffic for the exploitation of others. This monopolization by any country, nation or group of persons would be unjust. The neglect of this simple principle is the cause of destitution that we witness today not only in this unhappy land but other parts of the world too.”

 Gandhi’s economic ideas are based on his total commitment to non-violence and it is reflected in all his economic ideas. As stated earlier, his concept of ahimsa is inclusive of compassion. To put it differently, he made an earnest attempt to integrate his concept of ahimsa with compassion in all fields of life. The kind of alternative system of development and indeed the entire civilizational framework he provided is marked by principles of justice, equality and compassion. A close examination of his socio - politico - economic system based on decentralization will go a long way to show that his system is entirely different from the existing model of development as its primary concern is common man and his problems and solutions thereof. His well known talisman is a reflection of his compassion for the last man and a test for the development pattern we follow. He wrote “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 [her] 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 yourself melt away." 

   The greatest challenge before us is to contextualise Gandhi’s notion of development in the present national and international economic scenario where the driving force is globalization, privatization and liberalization. As a result of these policies the economic inequality is out of control.  The Oxfam International Report of January 2023 viz. Survival of the richest  reveals that since 2020, the richest 1% have captured almost two-thirds of all new wealth – nearly twice as much money as the bottom 99% of the world’s population. Billionaire fortunes are increasing by $2.7bn a day, even as inflation outpaces the wages of at least 1.7 billion workers, more than the population of India. Food and energy companies more than doubled their profits in 2022, paying out $257bn to wealthy shareholders, while over 800 million people went to bed hungry. Only 4 cents in every dollar of tax revenue comes from wealth taxes, and half the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax on money they give to their children. A tax of up to 5% on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, and fund a global plan to end hunger.

 

    Due to the opening of Indian economy in the 1990s we are also on the verge of a gross economic disaster. It resulted in growing poverty, unemployment and widening the gap between the rich and the poor. The data provided by the Oxfam about India is also shocking.  “The top 10% of the Indian population holds 77% of the total national wealth. 73% of the wealth generated in 2017 went to the richest 1%, while 67 million Indians who comprise the poorest half of the population saw only a 1% increase in their wealth. There are 119 billionaires in India. Their number has increased from only 9 in 2000 to 101 in 2017. Between 2018 and 2022, India is estimated to produce 70 new millionaires every day.Billionaires' fortunes increased by almost 10 times over a decade and their total wealth is higher than the entire Union budget of India for the fiscal year 2018-19, which was at INR 24422 billion.Many ordinary Indians are not able to access the health care they need. 63 million of them are pushed into poverty because of healthcare costs every year - almost two people every second.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 in a year”

The corona pandemic further aggravated the scenario. The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, in his Lecture of Nelson Mandela’s International Day 2020  said “COVID-19 has been likened to an x-ray, revealing fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built. It is exposing fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: The lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all; The fiction that unpaid care work is not work; The delusion that we live in a post-racist world; The myth that we are all in the same boat. While we are all floating on the same sea, it’s clear that some are in super yachts, while others are clinging to the drifting debris.” Oxfam Briefing Paper – January 2021 show how the  Covid pandemic really   turned into inequality  virus “ It took just nine months for the fortunes of the top 1,000 billionaires to return to their pre-pandemic highs, while for the world’s poorest, recovery could take more than a decade. The increase in the wealth of the 10 richest billionaires since the crisis began is more than enough to prevent anyone on Earth from falling into poverty because of the virus and to pay for a COVID-19 vaccine for all. The increase in the wealth of the 10 richest billionaires since the crisis began is more than enough to prevent anyone on Earth from falling into poverty because of the virus and to pay for a COVID-19 vaccine for all”

The effects of this development pattern are known to all of us and it doesn’t require any elaboration.  The burning  issues we face   are Climate Change, Ozone Lair Depletion ,Ocean Acidification ,Chemical Pollution,Fresh Water withdrawals,Land Conversion,Bio Diversity Loss,Air Pollution and others. The statistics and reports regarding all these are really shocking. It is proved beyond doubt that this pattern of development and economic policies cannot continue for a long time. What is required is complete restructuring of the economy on Gandhian lines with emphasis on swadeshi and self reliance which can withstand the forces of globalization.  It is a known fact that Gandhian notion of development cannot be fitted into of mainstream west-influenced development pattern by making cosmetic changes in the economy. It cannot be added in bits and pieces in order to rationalise or humanize the mainstream development because it is altogether a different discourse based on humane self, community and comity of nations guided by principles of cooperation and interconnectedness. In order to realize that dream first we have to change our thinking pattern which appears to be governed by a subtle agenda of the status quo -- "There is No Alternative" i.e. what is called a TINA mentality.

 

The tallest claim made by leaders of different ideological orientations that they would put the reins of power in the hands of the common people has remained as a distant dream. It was in this context Gandhi’s alternative discourse on development combining non-violence and compassion becomes relevant. If Gandhi’s alternative system of development is implemented to its logical conclusions which would really put the man in the street in the centre stage of society.  In the light of above discussions it is clear that evolving a system which really integrates development and compassion remains as the greatest challenge of modern times. Gandhi did offer a new perspective in this regard; but his ideas are too revolutionary to put into practice by the ruling elite all over the world.  Gandhi has immense faith in the people’s power. Gradually a small voice is being raised all over the world backed up by grass root movements on Gandhian lines that gives us hope for the future. It would ultimately result in the transformation of development pattern based on violence to a more humane development based on compassion.

It is based on the presentation made by Dr. Siby K. Joseph , Director, IFPNP, Sevagram Ashram Pratishthan, Wardha, MS, India