12-13-2007, 01:07 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Ethos and development </b>
Pioneer.com
Hiranmay Karlekar
It's time we had an Indian model of development, not the one unimaginatively imported from the West
As the year draws to an end, one needs to ponder the goal India has set for itself as a nation and ask: Is that all that we should aspire after? Mercifully, the search for an answer has been simplified by the absence of confusion about what the country wants to be -- join the global club of the rich and powerful and cast itself in the image of the developed countries. This leads us to two questions<b>. First, is it a worthy goal to set for India? Second, can India achieve the goal?</b>
As to the first, one need not froth in the mouth while talking of Western countries and, particularly, the United States which, whatever its faults, is a vibrant democracy. Nevertheless, both global warming and the energy crisis raise the question of the sustainability of the developed countries' pattern of development. More, it is remarkable that we want to be like others, and not others to be like us. This reflects that we lack an independent vision of ourselves or what we want to be; hence, we cannot expect others to be like us. Second, even if we know what we are, we are ashamed of it and want India to be like some other country.
<b>Both facts are unfortunate. A country without a vision of itself lacks a civilisational identity. In trying to be another country, it follows a developmental course that is not guided by its historical experience and is in constant danger of running aground. The argument that the experience of other countries will help in navigating our course, overlooks the fact that societal guidance systems are not environment neutral but products of history, and are difficult to replicate in a different context. Besides, the societal evolutionary process, through which contemporary Western countries have emerged, has been very different from India's. As a result, India's civilisational and cultural ethos are very different from theirs</b>.
The social, political, economic and cultural contours of the developed countries have been shaped by the Renaissance, Reformation and the Enlightenment and the impact of capitalism and imperialism. <b>On the other hand, those of India's have been shaped by its civilisational heritage as defined by Upanishads, Vedas, Ramayan, Mahabharat and Purans, and the sacred texts of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism in interaction with the Islamic and British experiences</b>.
One can argue that British rule gave India a set of modern institutions, built after those of its own, and an English-speaking Indian elite capable of running these. One can also argue that the Bengal Renaissance, which blazed form the middle of the 19th century to the first three decades or so of the 20th, created an intelligentsia and a middle class steeped in the ethos of Western modernity and capable of spearheading development pattern approximating that seen in the West.
<b>The English-speaking Indian elite, however, constitutes only a minuscule fringe, culturally alienated from the inhabitants of the country's vast rural hinterland. It led the freedom struggle because, apart from the quality of its own leaders of the time, the masses, though electrified by Mahatma Gandhi, had yet to hone their leadership skills sufficiently thanks to lack of education and the restricted franchise that mostly excluded them from the limited representative institutions the British provided. It, however, could not hold its own politically in the post-independence period, thanks to the introduction of adult franchise, which enabled the rise of leaders who empathised and communicated with the masses. Most such leaders, unfortunately, have yet to learn to run Governments and ride the challenges of a globalising economy. Nor can they intervene effectively in the growing confrontation between the 300-million strong consuming segment and the 700-million strong rural masses for resources and opportunities. Should the confrontation persist, social unrest, compounded by cross-border terrorism from Pakistan and Bangladesh, may hobble economic development</b>
We had chosen a path which made the emancipation of subaltern humanity an integral part of progress. We are now jettisoning it -- making the emergence of competent subaltern leadership more difficult -- and hitching development to meeting the consumer aspirations of the upper and middle classes. While this is making the emergence of competent subaltern leadership difficult, copying of the Western model of development hinders efforts to build an Indian model in keeping with the country's heritage. It is as much the world's as India's loss. For India's heritage, which includes the entire nature in the moral universe created by human beings, is the only one which makes for harmonious co-existence between human beings and nature.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pioneer.com
Hiranmay Karlekar
It's time we had an Indian model of development, not the one unimaginatively imported from the West
As the year draws to an end, one needs to ponder the goal India has set for itself as a nation and ask: Is that all that we should aspire after? Mercifully, the search for an answer has been simplified by the absence of confusion about what the country wants to be -- join the global club of the rich and powerful and cast itself in the image of the developed countries. This leads us to two questions<b>. First, is it a worthy goal to set for India? Second, can India achieve the goal?</b>
As to the first, one need not froth in the mouth while talking of Western countries and, particularly, the United States which, whatever its faults, is a vibrant democracy. Nevertheless, both global warming and the energy crisis raise the question of the sustainability of the developed countries' pattern of development. More, it is remarkable that we want to be like others, and not others to be like us. This reflects that we lack an independent vision of ourselves or what we want to be; hence, we cannot expect others to be like us. Second, even if we know what we are, we are ashamed of it and want India to be like some other country.
<b>Both facts are unfortunate. A country without a vision of itself lacks a civilisational identity. In trying to be another country, it follows a developmental course that is not guided by its historical experience and is in constant danger of running aground. The argument that the experience of other countries will help in navigating our course, overlooks the fact that societal guidance systems are not environment neutral but products of history, and are difficult to replicate in a different context. Besides, the societal evolutionary process, through which contemporary Western countries have emerged, has been very different from India's. As a result, India's civilisational and cultural ethos are very different from theirs</b>.
The social, political, economic and cultural contours of the developed countries have been shaped by the Renaissance, Reformation and the Enlightenment and the impact of capitalism and imperialism. <b>On the other hand, those of India's have been shaped by its civilisational heritage as defined by Upanishads, Vedas, Ramayan, Mahabharat and Purans, and the sacred texts of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism in interaction with the Islamic and British experiences</b>.
One can argue that British rule gave India a set of modern institutions, built after those of its own, and an English-speaking Indian elite capable of running these. One can also argue that the Bengal Renaissance, which blazed form the middle of the 19th century to the first three decades or so of the 20th, created an intelligentsia and a middle class steeped in the ethos of Western modernity and capable of spearheading development pattern approximating that seen in the West.
<b>The English-speaking Indian elite, however, constitutes only a minuscule fringe, culturally alienated from the inhabitants of the country's vast rural hinterland. It led the freedom struggle because, apart from the quality of its own leaders of the time, the masses, though electrified by Mahatma Gandhi, had yet to hone their leadership skills sufficiently thanks to lack of education and the restricted franchise that mostly excluded them from the limited representative institutions the British provided. It, however, could not hold its own politically in the post-independence period, thanks to the introduction of adult franchise, which enabled the rise of leaders who empathised and communicated with the masses. Most such leaders, unfortunately, have yet to learn to run Governments and ride the challenges of a globalising economy. Nor can they intervene effectively in the growing confrontation between the 300-million strong consuming segment and the 700-million strong rural masses for resources and opportunities. Should the confrontation persist, social unrest, compounded by cross-border terrorism from Pakistan and Bangladesh, may hobble economic development</b>
We had chosen a path which made the emancipation of subaltern humanity an integral part of progress. We are now jettisoning it -- making the emergence of competent subaltern leadership more difficult -- and hitching development to meeting the consumer aspirations of the upper and middle classes. While this is making the emergence of competent subaltern leadership difficult, copying of the Western model of development hinders efforts to build an Indian model in keeping with the country's heritage. It is as much the world's as India's loss. For India's heritage, which includes the entire nature in the moral universe created by human beings, is the only one which makes for harmonious co-existence between human beings and nature.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->