Economic
Highlights
New Delhi, 1 October 2018
Gandhian Morality
GOVT, CORPORATE MUST REVISIT
By Shivaji Sarkar
Modern India, its democracy, the economy and
Mahatma Gandhi are inseparable. No discussion even for Gandhi baiters is
possible without a discourse on his thoughts in this 150th year of
Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s birth.
Gandhi is remembered as a freedom fighter,
ethical leader, social activist and economic thinker. Khadi -- the pure -- is a
cultural and ethical branding for him and is more than just economics. He was a
practitioner of each of this and not a mere theoretician. He experimented with
his thoughts and modified as per his experience.
Gandhi was not a trained economist but his
economic sense and views remain the base of India’s thought process as it is enshrined
in the spiritual and socio-economic principles. He had no love for western
economic system that was based on eliminating the workers, maximising profits
and control by the majority, though he was not averse to the use of machines. He
extolled the invention of the sewing machine.
His basic concern was benefit of the masses --
at least that remains the enshrined principles of the government since
Independence. As is well-known, his economics was based on Satya (truth), Ahimsa (non-violence,
wherein he considered even depriving the worker of his dues as violence) and Aparigraha – non-possession or the idea
that no one possesses anything.
This was a concept of trusteeship and against
monopolisation of the economy by the few, which is afflicting the global
socio-economy today. India is not an exception. He was against the West’s
concept of “multiplication of wants”, what we call consumerism today. In his
opinion this resulted in the proliferation of the few (corporate or multi-nationals
in modern terms) and exploitation of the masses.
And this is virtually against his view of
Gram Swaraj, which he saw as an economic unit for the freedom of the masses,
through self-sufficient villages. Today, corporate proliferation is eliminating
local culinary practices, potato chips and snacks, in the countryside. Gandhi
had dreamt of not an egalitarian society but a practical one where everyone
would have a livelihood.
“Gandhian economics”, a term coined by JC
Kumarappa, in 1951, is for an inclusive society. It is neither for a strong
government nor a central command authority, as he strongly believed that such
systems were exploitative and anti-people.
Gandhi’s idea of true self-rule in a
country means that every person rules himself and that there is no State which
enforces laws upon the people (without their wishes through a majority rule).
He never wanted a government to usurp the power of the people. Mahatma, as
Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore called him, wanted a rule with people’s consent.
Alas, it did not happen all these years. Many decisions, such as opening up the
market to multi-nationals were taken and people were merely informed.
According to Gandhi, an independent India was
not mere transfer of power. He warned in Hind
Swaraj, banned by the British government, in 1909: “You would make India
English. And when it becomes English, it will be called not Hindustan but
Englishtan. This is not the Swaraj I want”.
So he was never enamoured by Fabian socialism
that looked enchanting to Jawaharlal Nehru.
Gandhi found capitalism and socialism equally
controlling and subjugating the people, an idea unacceptable to him. So he
wanted and encouraged small industries, which unfortunately today are gasping
despite government programmes like Mudra, Start-up India and Skill India.
Democracy was a moral system that distributed
power and assisted the development of every social class, especially the
lowest. It meant settling disputes in a non-violent manner and required freedom
of thought and expression. For Gandhi, democracy was a way of life. That is
where his economic process also began.
Disagreements apart, he supported Netaji
Subash Bose’s five-year planning process to uplift economic conditions. He was anguished
over severe disparity and poverty in the society. Even Deen Dayal Upadhyay
borrowed this concept in antyodaya.
No wonder it has become an integral ideology. But it could not stop the jobless
growth and increasing disparity. Gandhi’s self-rule, the control of the economy
by our own people, is today suffering erosion.
Remember, multinational profiteering has
taken the world to severe meltdown with Lehman Brother’s bursting in 2008.
Today, India is suffering as bank NPAs rise to gigantic proportions and perhaps
one of the worst crises that ILFS, which lent billions without a guarantee, has
exposed almost all public sector financial institutions. The ethical fibre has
been torn into pieces.
Gandhi’s ethics was for maintaining social
harmony. Contrary to many Indian socialists and communists, Gandhi was averse
to all notions of class warfare and concepts of class-based revolution, which
he saw as causes of social violence and disharmony. But he knew if the society
was left to be ruled by corporate without ethics, conflicts could not be
prevented.
Was he averse to industrialists? No. His
closest supporters and admirers included industrialists such
as Ghanshyamdas Birla, Ambalal Sarabhai, Jamnalal Bajaj, and JRD Tata, who
adopted several of Gandhi's progressive ideas in managing labour relations.
But the workers today are the worst sufferers,
as their voices, the trade unions, including say even the Bharatiya Mazdoor
Sangh (BMS), are being choked by the companies. Even government’s efforts go
unheeded. He was not for any social control as Marx wanted or corporate as the
IMF and World Bank want or the G20’s concept of maximum loyalty to State today.
Control was an anathema possibly because corruption begins with it.
As a true democrat, he was for maximum
leverage to the people since he believed that would be the biggest control over
the evil. If corruption, in which India rank now 81, is global phenomenon, it
is because over the last many decades the people have been subjugated to
various corporate and other authorities across the globe.
The MNCs have penetrated the governments,
eroding economic functioning everywhere. More bankisation, digital money,
introduction of mammoth middle men, removing cash, control over people’s money
by large bodies, including government, has eroded the ultimate power of the
people. This is against Gandhi’s views. The world is becoming more unlivable
for the ethical.
The society today is deeply concerned over the
erosion of morals. Gandhi’s vision was to make this as the underpinning. The
introduction of an emphasis upon morality in corporate life compels one’s admiration
for Gandhi.
It is time for re-evaluating Gandhi and his
economic and ethical ideals. Even the United Nations adheres by it.
Celebrations are fine, but if this country wants to lead the world, Gandhism
has to be brought into practice for societal prosperity and well-being of its
people.---INFA
(Copyright,
India News & Feature Alliance)
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