MB Lal Book 5
56.
Gandhi - Call of the epoch
India
Gandhi - Call of the epoch
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By Arun Bhatt
Translated from Gujarati by Alaka Sarma
(1)
Friends,
 At the onset, I wish to thank you all, for giving me an opportunity to go through reminiscences of Gandhi at the lecture series organized on 2nd October, by Baroda Municipal Corporation.
Mohandas was like us – an ordinary being, but by worshipping Truth since childhood he emerged as a giant human being. He became a Mahatma out of Mohandas Gandhi.
Islam preaches one fundamental truth; that there is only one God, the rest are all his disciples. A man can become a fakir, saint or an angle but can’t become a God. Gandhi was originally just like us – shaky, with a tendency to slip many times in his path. But with strong will power and devotion, he had risen above all of us. That is why when I mention ‘opportunity for remembrance’ of Gandhi, these words carry a lot of meaning for me. His remembrance makes us more pure. My special thanks to Baroda Municipal Corporation for initiating such a pious tradition.
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One must always question oneself about any system that one follows. When we sit down for a meal, do we sit because it is time to have a meal or because we are hungry. If we sit down for a meal just to maintain a ritual, even though we are not hungry we will not benefit much. But if we are really hungry for insight, this churning will benefit us a lot.
I am reminded of a funny incident that happened almost fifty years ago. I was visiting the villages of Bihar for ‘Bhoodan’. I was in a small town. The President & Secretary of the local club came to me. We didn’t know each other, but it was 2nd October. They wanted to celebrate Gandhi Jayanti. They had heard that someone involved with Bhoodan movement had come from Gujarat. They told me, “Our club has decided to celebrate Gandhi Jayanti, so we have come to invite you to deliver the first talk.” I gave my consent. They needed a speaker; I needed an audience. I reached on time, the club president began to introduce me, "We are lucky to have amongst us a great philosopher…scholar…highly knowledgeable person… a freedom fighter…Mr?”….well, he had many adjectives to describe me, but what is the use of adjectives without a name? The fact was that he did not even know my name. He was puzzled…he was unable to end the sentence. He hesitated, slowly, bent down & whispered in my ear, “what is your name?” It was only when I told him my name that he could finish the sentence, by telling Mr. Arunbhai Bhatt to address the gathering.
I began my speech in the same formal way… “Today, we have gathered here to observe the birth anniversary of a great man, who didn’t utter a single unnecessary word on his birthday, the gentleman who introduced me has heaped on me all sorts of adjectives. But not a word of it is appropriate. I am an ordinary man; lucky to benefit from experiences of great souls; that is all.”
(3)
As such, ‘Gandhi’ is not a topic of discussion. Gandhi represents a philosophy that one must live. Gandhi’s greatness lies more in the implementation of his thoughts, much more than, in the quality of his thought. That is why when someone asked Gandhi to give a message for a function, Bapu said without dropping an eyelid, “My life is my message.”
Sri Narayanbhai Desai has written a detailed biography of Gandhi, published in four volumes, named, ‘My life is my message.’
(4)
Manubhai Pancholi (Darshak) once narrated this. He said, “I am very fond of reading, that too, I like to read autobiographies of great men. When I am reading autobiographies of people, I get a feeling that most are indirectly aimed at glorifying the self (the writer). When I started reading ‘My Experiments with Truth’, I could not keep it aside. Each page was so engrossing! Here is a man who doesn’t claim to be ‘a man of all virtues,’ a person who has faced the kind of temptations that have come in my life also. There were both positive and negative phases in his life – oh, so much like my life. He went abroad, got attracted to the glamour world, joined a ball dance group, became obsessed with his body…But then, one finds that the man reorganized himself and reached the level of a superman.”
An ordinary man, who began the journey of his life in the most ordinary way – reached the pinnacle of height! So inspiring! As if he lived many lives in a single life. The pillar of this amazing life was that he lived his life based on his thoughts.
(5)
I remember one more incident. The period is post independence; a few years after the death of Mahatma Gandhi Vinobaji was on his ‘Bhoodan Yatra’. His speeches covered many issues & touched many dimensions. One day, his managers thought that all his speeches be compiled, classified & published as separate volumes, so that scholars may benefit. So they prepared a note to that effect. When Acharya Vinoba was shown that, his response was far from warm. He said, “Ok, if you want you can do it, but the main thing is life.” This is not an issue of classical debate or an occasion to go verbose. But an issue of how to live one’s life. With this introduction, let me go to the topic of the day “Gandhi – Call of the epoch.”
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Gandhi – Call of the Epoch
Many times a question is raised “Is Gandhi relevant in modern times?” Lots of discussions, debates and differences of opinion take place over this issue. “Is Gandhi relevant in modern times?”
(7)
I am reminded of a dialogue. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru has written a book, “Discovery of India”. The book deals with Indian history. One of its chapter’s deals with the era of Akbar. Once Panditji happened to meet Acharya Vinoba Bhave. Vinobaji asked, “You have mentioned in your book that in the era of Akbar, there was a saint called Tulsidas who had created Ramcharit manas which is a household book in North India. Now my question to you is did the era belonged to Akbar or to Tulsidas? ” Nehru understood the comment, but still defended his version. “You are right but history is written around kings, emperors & Badshahs, that is why it is projected in this manner.” Vinoba told him, “Once I was passing by a Muslim Village, about 15-20 miles away from Delhi. It was a Friday. Our meeting was held after the evening prayer (Namaz). The whole village was present. I asked, “Do you know Emperor Akbar?” There was no response. I asked again & yet they were quiet. One elderly man said, “We don’t know which Akbar you are referring to? When we offer prayer, we beckon him, “Allah, O Akbar…” We know only that Akbar”. This happened in a Muslim village close to Delhi. I asked them, “have you heard about Tulsidas?” “Yes, prompt came the reply, he was a great saint.” “Do you know Kabir?” “Yes, we know Kabir also.”
We try to write history around kings & emperors, but the public forgets them. Saints & Sufis remain evergreen in public memory.
(8)
How to explain this? History is a witness to the fact that the span of the era of Kings & Emperors is restricted only to their life span, whereas the Rishis, Saints & Fakirs live for thousands of years. If we think in the Indian context, so many saints have enriched us, and continue to enrich us now & for all time to come.
(9)
If Lord Buddha had not rejected a life full of riches to go deep into the secrets and essence of life & had not come out with the doctrine of the ‘middle path’, he couldn’t have survived in the public mind for nearly 2500 years. Since Vedic times, people who have survived in public memory are the ones who explained to the people the universal elements, which form the pillar of our society.
(10)
Gandhiji was the representative of this tradition. Vinobaji had this to say about Bapu. “He was the fruit of the ancient tradition & a seed of the approaching epoch.” A fruit which gives rise to a seed – a continuous flow. It is in this context that we call him, “The demand of the epoch.” Even if we want to discard him by saying that “He is no longer alive”, he will not leave us. After India got independence, someone had advised Gandhi “Your work is done, now you can quietly spend the rest of your days in the Himalayas.” Bapu had said, “You are my Himalayas.” “I am there, where you are there.” The ‘I’ that he mentions represents the whole universe.
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I had read a song by Prof. Ramesh Parekh, many years ago, the title of the song was ‘The Lamp’.
A lamp enlightens all corners with pride, challenging the ego of darkness…
It grants everything its original shape, yet remains quiet, in spite of such grand action. No expectation for self, just devotion.
From where you get the strength
to fight darkness?
Who blessed you to make
this mission a success?
Oh, lamp, the moment you get lighted
is the eternal moment!
When I read this, I felt, the poem was written with Gandhi in mind. A lamp, just one lamp, enlightening the whole world. Friends, I request you with folded hands. “Let us not trivialize the eternal. Even if we make lots of effort, the eternal is not going to lose even a bit of its glory. The only outcome of this would be that the one who tries to do this will become irrelevant. I wish to humbly request you not to turn away from this all pervasive lamp. Let us not close our eyes. If we can set aside our prejudices & desires, and look at the lamp with a hopeful mind, we will get the light.”
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I don’t mean to indicate that we must blindly follow Gandhi, perspectives have changed and keeping in mind the changing times we should follow Gandhi. Gandhi himself never advocated ‘packaged’ solutions and was always evolving. His teaching never ceased to grow, never restricted its flow. Rituals and external structures may change as per place / time, but basics should not be tampered with.
Gandhiji has said the following. “I wish to tell scholars & other friends who are interested in my writings that I do not care to appear consistent for all time to come. In search of truth, I have gotten rid of many of my beliefs and have learnt many new things. I may have aged but my internal growth has not ceased. And for that matter, I don’t think that the process will stop even after my physical body withers away. I am concerned about only one thing and that is to follow the truth at any moment. So, if anyone feels that there is contradiction in my writing, then take the later version as the authentic version, if the person concerned has faith in my wisdom.”
In short, his life was continuously in the growth mode. Learning to live and living to learn was his motto. As he himself has penned down, “I am only concerned about the fact that I speak the truth at any point of time. Not just speak the truth but follow it & be ever ready to follow truth.”
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Truth is God
Gandhiji worshipped truth. That doesn’t mean that he had made on idol of truth or made a temple where he performed Puja twice daily. On the contrary, he tried to live by truth each moment of his life. He raised his voice against the mighty British Empire, because that was his truth. History has no other record of such a long and so consistent a struggle based on truth & non-violence. People who were willing to make the supreme sacrifice of dying for the nation had no idea of the strength of the non-violent path to freedom. Acharya Kripalani, a professor, had said to Bapu, “History doesn’t record any incident of attaining freedom the way you describe it. I am telling this based on my experience.” Bapu had replied, “Prof. Kripalani, you teach history whereas I make history.” Such was the confidence of Gandhi. He had full faith that truth shall prevail. He laid so much emphasis on the principles of truth and non-violence that even the mission to achieve independence appeared insignificant compared to that. He used to proclaim that he would not opt for independence at the cost of truth & non-violence.
Initially he used to say that “God is truth” – but later he modified it as “Truth is God.”
He named his autobiography as “My Experiments with Truth”. In the autumn of his life someone asked him – “Have you realized the truth?” His answer was, “No, not fully. I have just had some glimpses of it. The glow of truth becomes brighter every passing day, but ‘The Truth’ has not fully emerged”. That is why Gandhiji used to say, “May many like me perish, but let truth triumph. The scale of truth should not be marginalized to accommodate pygmies”
(14)
The foundation of Ashram life – Ekadash Vrat (एकादश व्रत)
Topping the list among the ekadash vrat [eleven religious disciplines] is ‘The Truth.’ Worship of ‘power’ (shakti) was not the goal, the focus was on purification. When life gets purified, ‘power’ is acquired. Power is the off-shoot of purification of life.
When Vinoba reached Kashi after leaving his home, he heard Gandhi’s historic lecture at Varanasi. Vinoba says that, “The main thing in that lecture was that unless one is fearless, one cannot practice ‘Non-violence’ (Ahimsa). Resorting to open violence is perhaps less damaging than harbouring the feeling of violence. The state of mind which reflects ‘Ahimsa’ is the basic ‘Ahimsa’ which cannot come without fearlessness.” Vinoba says that even after a month of delivering the speech, Gandhi’s words reverberated in the streets of Kashi.
After this, Vinoba wrote to Gandhi, seeking clarification for doubts in his mind. Bapu replied to each of the queries. They exchanged two letters. In the second letter, Gandhi wrote, “your curiosity about Ahimsa cannot be quenched by letters alone; it can be understood only in the context of life.” Vinoba wrote, “I liked the answer, the solution lies in life & not in talks.”
“With this reply, Gandhi sent a time table which was a matter of great attraction for me. Till then, I had not seen any such time table of any institution.” It was written, “The goal of this Ashram is service to the nation which doesn’t contradict with the well being of the world as a whole.” The list contained ‘Vrats’ (व्रत) that were essential for Ashram life. They included Truth, non-violence, celibacy, non-possession (Aparigraha), physical labour etc. “I was surprised” says Vinoba. “I had read a lot of history but had never seen such a clause, that following these ‘vrats’ was necessary for performing service to the nation. These topics come in theories of Yoga, in religious books, in books meant for devotees but the focus on these for giving service to the nation attracted me. I thought here is a man who gives equal emphasis on political freedom as well as spiritual development. I liked the approach. Bapu invited me & I became his disciple.”
(15)
Prayer – Bapu’s strength
Prayer was Gandhi’s strength and his shelter. A friend had given me a picture of Bapu, that of Gandhi sitting in prayer. It looks as if prayer itself is sitting in the form of Gandhi. A one liner captions the picture, “I can live without food for many days but cannot survive a second without prayer.” His life itself was a prayer.
Once Nanabhai Bhatt of Gramdakshinamurti & Lok Bharati was narrating his experiences, “I wanted to understand Gandhi’s views on education. Bapu was in Sevagram. I went there. During our conversation, I realized that Gandhi used to quietly, utter each sentence & used to pause in between. I realized that he used to chant the name of God silently during the pause. His life was a prayer.”
(16)
When India became independent, the whole country was rejoicing but Bapu was disturbed. During those troubled times when he was visiting the interior villages of Noakhali, he thought his duty was to douse the cauldron of violence. The, Government wanted to give him police protection. But Bapu refused. Gandhi’s faith in Ram (his God) and truth was unshakeable and hence he feared not for his life. I am reminded of a poem by Makrand Dave.
“We couldn’t see anyone around with us
and yet, someone was there with us.”
(17)
Bapu’s dream – Non-violent Society
A society that cannot be controlled without violence should be called an uncultured society. Survival of the fittest is the rule of the Jungle. If we want to create a civilized human society, its base must be human values; truth, love, empathy. We have yet to evolve a society based on humanistic values.
What we call a ‘super power’ is hardly a ‘super power’. It is a myth to call a country with economic prosperity and atomic weapons that can destroy the world as a ‘super power’. If at all we have to put a label – we must call them ‘powerless state’. In fact, such societies cannot be called humanistic developed societies.
Real power lies in strengthening weak nations, in ensuring that all nations get equal opportunity to develop. This is embedded in selfless service. What is so great about pushing oneself at the cost of others? Today’s society is characterized by big industries, huge financial institutions & monstrous systems of administrations that can never guide mankind. Once Bapu was asked, “What is your definition of a civilized society?” Bapu said, “The society that has minimum needs is a civilized society.” Long term experience has made it clear that growing needs lead to exploitation, violence & suppression. As a result Mother Nature gets exploited. Water, soil, forests & sky gets contaminated.
(18)
Gandhi stands tall amidst all this. He is not concerned as to how many & who all are opposing him. He is least bothered about that. He clearly visualises that the world will march on the path shown by him. He has full faith in his vision.
Friends, the epoch of Gandhi has begun & it is not going to end till the work is done.
Once a few friends came to Mohemmad Paigambar. They suggested that he should not torture himself by trying to advise others to walk on the path of religion because they are least likely to improve, instead he can just pray to the all mighty. To them Mohemmad Paigambar Saheb replied, “On the day of Qayamat when Allah asks me, so many were perishing, what did you do to help them? I can tell, I tried, and may be a few benefited.”
The main thing is that “Allah, I had tried.”
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram,
Patit Pavan Sita Ram.
Ishwar Allah Tere Naam,
Sabko Sanmati de Bhagwan.
Lecture given on 2/10/2011 on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, organized by Baroda Municipal Corporation.
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Gandhian Approach Towards Health
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I represent a premier institute of Nature cure in India. It is known as Nisargopchar Gramsudhar Trust's Nisargopchar Ashram, (Nature Cure Ashram) Uruli Kanchan, a small town situated 29 kms away from Pune city in Maharashtra State of India.
Gandhiji came to Pune in December 1945 along with Sardar Patel at Dr. Dinshaw Mehta's Nature cure clinic. He stayed there for 2 months. That Nature cure center is now known as National Institute of Naturopathy. Gandhiji was invited to Uruli Kanchan village for establishment of Nature cure center. Mahatma Gandhi established nature cure Ashram in March 1946. On 22nd March 1946 he came along with his 200 disciples with a view to propagate the concepts of village sanitation and healthy living. He then decided to establish a nature cure center, which would be useful for poor and rich alike. He strongly believed that, there should not be any discrimination for health care provision in the society. During those days India was struggling for Independence while Gandhiji was leading a movement for equal justice and rights for non-white community consisting mostly of Africans and Indians in South Africa. While Gandhiji was practicing law in South Africa he was suffering from digestive complaints. He used to take some herbal medicine. He thought that, every time taking some medicine for improving digestion and clearing bowels is not a proper way of treatment. He therefore thought that, there must be something wrong with the diagnosis and management of his problem. He was taking some medicines but they were ineffective. He thought that, what was the use of such therapy when every day one has to depend on a doctor and a chemist. One of his friends from the vegetarian society gave him a book written by Adolf Just titled "Return to the Nature". He studied that book and tried simple measures like dietary reform, mud application over abdomen, use of wet compresses etc. He experienced relief by these simple measures. He thought that, such drugless therapy would be beneficial for a developing country like India, where most of the people live in villages and they do not have access to doctors and hospitals. He wrote about his experiments in his own publication "Indian opinion" under the title "Guide to health" and some articles on nature cure, use of five elements and its effects. Those articles were written during the year 1906. When Gandhiji returned to India, those compiled articles were published while he was confined in Aga Khan Palace in 1942. The book is known as "Key to Health". It is translated in different Indian and European languages. The book became popular because Gandhiji wrote with a novel idea somewhat different from the ways adopted by medical practitioners and medical scientists. Gandhiji incorporated education in health and hygiene in his 18-point constructive programmes aimed at achieving complete independence by truthful and non-violent means. He emphasised on vegetarianism, which is inseparable from naturopathic way of treatment. He believed in his famous eleven vows namely 'Non-violence, Truth, Control over Palate (taste), Celibacy, Physical work, Non-stealing, Non-possession, Fearlessness, Removal of caste barrier, Equality in religion, Swadeshi or self-reliance.'
Truth
According to him it is impossible to observe any basic principles of life without truth. He emphatically said that, Truth is God. Devotion to the truth is Justification to the existence of mankind. There should be Truth in speech, thought and action.
Truth in speech, thoughts and action depends upon how one uses his senses. Gandhiji's model of 3 monkeys is famous in India. He always used to say that, - Do not see Evil - Do not listen evil words - Do not speak bad words Indian philosophy based on Vedic scriptures says that, there should be balance between 5 motor organs and 5 sense organs. Our mental poise depends upon what we perceive thro' our sense organs since childhood. Stimulating scene, literature will have adverse effect on our mind. If we utter bad words the listener gets disturbed, his emotions get negative impact. One who quarrels, utters bad words also get disturbed. Thus mind plays a dual function. Soothing affectionate words will create joy. Worshiping God, Chanting prayers, Observing Natures beauty, fruits, vegetable, colourful flowers, butter flies, mountains, streams which we observe and experience bring joy. We perceive qualities of substances thro' senses, we get knowledge about a "substance" but substance doesn't have any sense or knowledge. The truth perceived thro' sense was, is and will be there i.e. "Omnipresent". That is the truth of the nature. This truth manifests as knowledge through our senses. Substances are perishable but the eternal truth and knowledge is not. Therefore right kind of perception thro' motor and sense organs is essential for the knowledge of space, (Ether), air, fire, water and earth. Moderation in hearing, touch, vision, taste and smell, speech, thoughts, action, is necessary for balance of these elements in the human body. Physical and mental health depends upon good quality of perception thro' sensory and motor organs. The balance is not possible without devotion. Health depends upon how one observes the laws of nature. If one is aware and practices self-discipline and good impression since childhood (Sanskara) then only health can be maintained. Any deviation from the laws of nature which are omnipresent, will cause ill health. Since the evolution of mother earth these laws are undisturbed and are going on since ages. If we do not behave physically, morally, spiritually in accordance with the laws of health, we are untruthful to this wonderful divine human existence, which the GOD created, and then we become prey to diseases at physical and psychological level.
Non violence - Love - (Ahimsa)
Only way to self-realization or heavenly truth is by way of observing non-violence at physical level in speech and at mental level. Nature has bestowed love while creating life in the form of animals and plants. Killing, destroying animals, plants, polluting earth, water, environment by greed, jealousy, hatred, urge for possession has created imbalance in physical level at large. Violent stimulating thoughts arise because of stimulating diet and urge to possess which (superiority over animals, plants) disturbs our internal environment. Not looking after self, injuring self with intoxicating agents such as tobacco, alcohol, stimulating spicy food etc. disturbs the digestion and assimilation, which is the basic cause of many diseases. Indulgence over these intoxicating substances has adverse effect on the thinking process as well which in turn leads to provocative behavior and the individual is caught in the vicious circle.
Therefore Gandhiji (and eminent naturopaths) advocated vegetarian diet which nature has created for the herbivorous human being. All vegetables, fruits, cereals are non-stimulating and have positive effect on health and mind.
Celibacy (Bramhacharya)
Gandhiji was observing celibacy since 1906. Indian philosophers, sages and saints are believers in celibacy. To achieve control over natural urges one must be truthful and non violent to self and nature.
Satva (Good quality) vegetarian food in the form of fruits, dry fruits, vegetables are essential to develop control over urges. It is possible to observe celibacy during marital life. There is difference between animal instinct (passion) and human intellectual awareness. Mating in animals except few species is not frequent. It is only for the procreation. Ayurveda and Naturopathy believe that, the vital fluid, which has capacity to procreate, has to be conserved. If it is wasted due to over indulgence it has delitarious effect on the body and mind. Celibacy doesn't have reference only for seminal ejaculation, but it has a wider meaning of control over 5 sense organs, 5 motor organs and the 11th sensory and motor function of mind. Therefore moderation in all activities is necessary for celibacy during married life. One who attains control over urges alone can reach the stage of "Samadhi i.e. awareness of self". It is then that, the liberation of soul becomes possible. Touch, gesture word and thought of indecent perception is breach of this principle of chastity. (Brahmacharya) means a behavioral pattern adopted in the search of truth. 20th and 21st Century are witnessing the ill effect of over indulgence in sensory and motor organs which has resulted in outbreak of HIV, AIDS, high prevalence of psychosomatic diseases, diseases of locomotor system respiratory problems, depression and stress, higher incidences of theft, robbery, disturbed relationship.
Control over the Palate and Taste (Aswad)
All natural food stuffs are tolerable since birth. Infants and babies do not overfeed. All medical pathies agree that, most of the problems arise due to modified diet, over eating processed food. Gandhi gave importance to moderation in eating habits instead of "What and how much to eat thought". He said over eating is a universal crime; it is a crime against society and sin against our own body. He was of the opinion that, over eating and indulgence in any bad habits like lying, stealing, indecent behavior is immoral.
Gandhiji was a member of vegetarian society while he was in England and South Africa. He experimented on dietetics with reference to the literature available in modern medicine. He strongly condemns eating meat as other eminent naturopaths believe. Naturopaths and Gandhiji also had opinion that milk is not essential for health. Once in 1917 Gandhi became very sick and could not recuperate from illness. He was reluctant to take milk. Somebody suggested use of goat milk. On the request of his wife he started consuming milk and fruits and he recovered very fast. In certain conditions and in country like India where people observe religious fasting, milk can be combined with fruits. Fundamental principle of Naturopathy believes that, we should not disturb what nature has given. Sweets, chocolates, Sugars, excess condiments are bad for health. Nature has created vegetables, fruits with unique taste and colors. Each has unique taste, which is agreeable to most of the animals, birds, and insects. Human beings are in the habit of modifying taste of natural substances e.g. Sugar cane is modified to sugar; wheat modified to white flour, biscuits, cookies, and fruits to Jams and Jellies. All modifications increase the taste and we lose control over palate, overeating follows, which ultimately results in to ill health. Habit of eating tasty food increases the desire to eat more. Habits once formed are difficult to shed. In naturopathy there is a concept of "No breakfast". Depending upon the age one should have two to three meals a day. It is our experience that after the age of 60, 2 meals a day are sufficient. Breakfast should consist of fruits, Juices and milk. In respiratory and digestive disorders, skin diseases and rheumatoid arthritis and heart diseases milk should be best avoided. According to Gandhiji truth is not possible without non-violence, chastity (Bramhcharya) is not possible without control over senses. He himself experienced the effect of natural food for controlling sexual and other urges. Food he advised should be taken like medicine. One cannot consume more fruits and vegetables, cereals in their natural form. Self-restraint over taste once achieved is helpful in controlling passion and desire.
Fasting
Eminent naturopaths advocate fasting on water, Juices and fruits for elimination of toxins. Gandhiji observed fast in South Africa as well as during freedom and independence movement in India. One experiences changes at physical and spiritual level. Short fasts of one to five days duration are effective in acute diseases as well as in chronic diseases. Long fasts must be done in some nature cure center under observation. Fasting has miraculous effect in chronic diseases. After fasting one should come back to normal diet in a stepwise manner.
Non Steading (Asteya)
Physical Activity - Exercises
Regular exercises, yoga is essential for maintaining vigor and stamina. Efficiency of Respiratory system, heart and circulatory system, muscles and joints increases to optimum level. It is the use of air element, which keeps the body in alert state. Gandhiji advocates brisk walking in fields, open air for 4 to 10 kms as the best exercise. Exercise acts as a great stress reliever. Long walks with rhythmic breathing, morning and evening has tranquilising effect.
Doing self-work, work in the house like sweeping, cleaning, gardening, physical work on the farm is all-important. Gandhiji promoted home industry for spinning cotton and weaving clothes, pot making, rope making, leather goods and other traditional craftsmanship for self-reliance at village level. Adults must do all personal work themselves and serve children, disabled and the aged. Motor organs-limbs are meant for work and movement- which is possible because of energy provided by the energy of propulsion i.e. air. If one doesn't use the energy then the (earth) will dominate and which will lead to obesity (Globesity) causing most of the diseases of twenty first century. Man can be saved from diseases and burden of ill health of the society for which most of the countries are spending huge amount on medicines of modern era. Regular exercises, Yoga and moderation in feeding habits will prevent huge expenses.
Equality
On social as well as, religious ground equality is important for social health. No one can deny freedom to persons following certain religion. Inequality on social, economic aspects has created health problems (stress) throughout the world.
All faiths constitute a revelation of "Truth", but all are imperfect and liable to error. All religions are based on the principal faith in The Creator-God the Almighty. Root of the religion is like a root of the tree with many branches. Spiritual health is dependent on this faith, which is acceptance of the existence of innumerable bodies with a common universal existence of eternal "Soul".
Prayer (Ramanama)
Gandhiji presented Ramanama to the village folk as a Natural therapy No. 1 for the cure of the bodily ailments. All religions believe that, God is the reliever of peoples' distress. The promise is universal. It is not restricted to particular type of ailment. WHO has also accepted the dimensions of spiritual health. Existence of the super power (God) has no connection with superstition. It is the nature's Supreme law. The same law, which keeps us away from diseases, is applied to the cure. Gandhiji said that, the prayer is only for good end and not for an evil end. It brings purity of heart. Purity of heart will never allow self-indulgence. Nature's law is one. To observe her laws is the law of worship. A man who becomes one with the law does not stand in need of vocal recitation of his name.
To achieve perfect health, morning and evening prayer is a part of treatment and occupies an important place in daily regime in all institutes established by Gandhiji. Gandhiji said, "Nature Cure treatment means that treatment which befits man". By "man" meant not only man as an animal, but as a creature possessing his body, both mind and soul for such a being prayer is the truest Nature cure, it is an unfailing remedy. Immortality is the attribute of the soul, which is imperishable. It is man's duty to try to express its purity. "Therefore a person filled with the presence of God and who has attained the state of dispassion can live a long life. When a man comes to that complete living faith in the unseen power and becomes free from passion, the body undergoes internal transformation. It needs constant practice then only Gods' grace descends upon us." Gandhiji's concept of natural positive health at the physical, psychological level goes beyond the WHO definition of health. His concepts go up to subtle level of human existence.
Five Elements
Human body is composed of the five natural elements. Man can live without food and water for some days, but life is not possible without Space (Akash) and Air (Pranic energy) for more than few minutes. God has therefore made air universally available. One should sleep in open space whenever the atmosphere is comfortable. The place should be clean. Activities of mind are dependent upon Space and positive pranic energy. For rational thinking Space between thoughts and expression is needed. Space is of utmost importance for the existence of other four elements as well as for the life on the earth.
Out of other three elements of the "Sunlight", the source of energy for animals and plants is essential. This is the energy of conversion which is used for conversion of food into body constituents, is possible by metabolic processes (Enzymes-Fire (Agni). Growth of plants and subsequently animals is dependent on energy of Sun, which gives variety of colours to food grains, vegetables and fruits, which make them attractive and more assimilable. The fourth element "water" came into existence during the process of evolution. Water is essential for internal and external purification of the body. Hydrotherapy is used widely for treatment of chronic ailments. Mother earth supports all vegetations and animal life. Use of clay or mud is effective in chronic skin diseases, digestive disorders, Hypertension. It has a cooling and detoxifying effect. Gandhiji wrote about importance of five natural elements for maintaining health and in disease conditions. The concepts of eastern naturopathy differ from concepts of western naturopathy. Gandhiji has given importance to all five elements where as western naturopaths take in to consideration only 4 elements. Scarcely the importance is given to psychological, moral and spiritual well being of individual and society. Only Dr. Lindlhar has given thought to psychological aspect of the health. Gandhiji was not exclusively preacher of Naturopathy, but he practiced naturopathy and treated his family members. His son Manilal was suffering from high fever. He treated him with fasting, juices and wet sheet packs. His wife Kasturba suffered from severe bleeding problems, he treated her with same measures and vegetarian diet, even when doctors advised to give her mutton soup. Convinced with Gandhiji's experiments she followed his advice and recovered from debilitating illness. During his stay at Uruli Kanchan Ashram Gandhiji treated many patients with dietary advice, mud poultice and water therapy. His prescription advocates prayer and recitation of 'Ramnama- The God'. Our Institutes' approach towards health is based upon Gandhiji's vision. Gandhiji was of the opinion that, the treatment should be very simple. Natural elements like Sun, Air, Earth; water and food available locally, physical labour (Shram) should be used for treatment of acute and chronic diseases. It should be affordable to poor as well as available to all others. Since the inception of our institute we have adopted simple measures. Without any mechanisation the large numbers of patients coming from different states and abroad get a very good response for various psychosomatic problems. Our main emphasis is aimed at purification at the physical as well as spiritual level. The treatment consist of, advice regarding the proper eliminative diet and various supportive treatments. Nearly 70% beds are available for the middle-income group. People belonging to lower economic status get subsidised or free treatment. The main objective of the nature cure and Gandhiji was also of the opinion that, a natural hygienist's role is to educate the community. In this direction daily discourses on naturopathy, dietetics, yoga and moral values are being conducted. To rich the remote rural areas we have conducted training programmes for the traditional healers, women's groups, school children, teachers and outdoor camps for the organized groups.
This article is prepared in memory of Mahatma Gandhi-founder of our institute on the occasion of his 136th birth anniversary on 2nd Oct. 2005
and originally published in 'Bhavan Australia', August 2012.
* Dr. Ravindra Vasant Nisal, Programme Director, Nisargopchar Ashram. Dr. Nisal, born on October 5, 1950, is a graduate of Ayurvedic & Modern Medicine is in association with Nisargopchar Ashram since 1980. He has 25 years experience in general medicine and has treated thousands of needy patients in adverse rural conditions. As a medical advisor to Nisargopchar Ashram, he has brought changes at the Ashram. He has delivered radio talks on A.I.R. Pune on more than 20 topics related to Naturopathy and health apart from being part of many national and international conferences. He was invited to talk on social health Gandhian approach at Sao Paulo university of Brazil in Oct 2005. He has to his credit many reputed publications in reputed journals.
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Cell use, towers health hazard: Global survey
Months after WHO classified radiofrequency electromagnetic field as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’, another global report has red-flagged the use of such technology, citing health risks, including growth of brain tumour and loss of fertility in men.
BioInitiative 2012 — which is a collaborative effort by 29 authors from 10 countries, including the chair of the Russian national committee on non-ionizing radiation, a senior adviser to the European Environmental Agency and two professors fromJawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi — calls for a review of public safety limits.
It says "bio-effects" occur in the first few minutes of use at levels associated with cell and cordless phone use. These can also take effect after just minutes of exposure to mobile phone masts or cell towers that produce whole-body exposure. Infants, children, elderly, those with pre-existing chronic diseases and those with developed electrical sensitivity have been described as being the 'sensitive population' that should have the least exposure to this radiation.
"Many of these bio-effects can reasonably be presumed to result in adverse health effects if the exposures are prolonged and chronic... they interfere with normal body processes, prevent the body from healing damaged DNA (and) produce immune system imbalances, metabolic disruption and low resilience to disease," the report says.
"Essentially, body processes can eventually be disabled by incessant external stresses (from system-wide electrophysiological interference) and lead to pervasive impairment of metabolic and reproductive functions," it adds.
Cindy Sage, co-editor of the report states, "Human sperms are damaged by cellphone radiation at very low intensities (0.00034 - 0.07 microwatt per centimetre square). There is a veritable flood of new studies reporting sperm damage in humans and animals, leading to substantial concerns for fertility, reproduction and health of the offspring. Exposure levels are similar to those resulting from wearing a cellphone on the belt or in the pant pocket or using a wireless laptop computer on the lap."
The researchers have profiled 155 new papers that report on neurological effects of radiofrequency radiation (RFR), published between 2007 and mid-2012, in the report. Of these, 98 (63%) showed the effects and 57 (37%) didn't show any.
Lennart Hardell, MD at Orebro University, Sweden, who participated in the study, said there is a consistent pattern of increased risk for glioma (a malignant brain tumour) and acoustic neuroma (a slow-growing tumour of the nerve that connects the ear to the brain) with use of mobiles and cordless phones. "The existing public safety limits and reference levels are not adequate to protect public health," he added.
The government of India has taken several steps to deal with the health concern, said R K Bhatnagar, adviser (technology), department of telecommunications (DoT). He said that the radiation exposure limit for cellphone towers has been reduced from 9.2 w/m2 to 0.92 w/m2, and the specific absorption rate (SAR), a measure of the amount of radio frequency energy absorbed by the body while using a phone to 1.6 watt per kg from 2 units.
The DoT has also issued a public advisory on how to use mobile phones safely which includes use of a headset, keeping the handset away from the head and limiting the length of mobile calls. "The data on neurological damage and fertility-related issues is not conclusive. We need more large-scale epidemiological study on humans to confirm the cause and effect relation between radiation and its health effects. Till then, precaution is advisable," says R S Sharma, deputy director general of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), who is heading one such study.
Dr Ashok Seth, chief of cardiovascular sciences at Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, says he already advises his patients with cardiac implants, for example a pacemaker, to use mobile phones with caution. "We cannot and must not wait for the final conclusive data," he says. According to Dr J D Mukherjee, director, neurology at Max Hospital: "We get patients complaining about a tingling sensation in the head and numbness due to excessive use of phones. But brain tumour cases cannot be related to radiation from phones or cellular towers without a proper study."
Girish Kumar, professor in the department of electrical engineering at IIT Bombay, whose research on hazards of cellphones is being used as a reference for most policy decisions in India, said in India the new radiation exposure limit for cellular towers is still high. "We need constant monitoring of the exposure from towers to ensure that the companies are not defaulting as has been observed in many areas in Mumbai where the government has started a public grievance mechanism to address the issue," he said.
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Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Ribiero de Almeida de Niemeyer Soares Filho, architect, died on December 5th, aged 104
Dec 22nd 2012 | from the print edition
WHEN Oscar Niemeyer was a tiny child, he would draw in the air with his fingers. As soon as he could hold a pencil his mother gave him one, and he drew the same thing: floating, weightless shapes, forming and reforming. When, as a teenager, he discovered the brothels of Rio, his lines began to follow the curves of women, hip, breast and thigh. Influencing him too, through every pore, were the elliptical white beaches of Brazil, its sinuous rivers, the rounded towers of its baroque churches, its heaped-up mountains and the curling waves of the ocean. Le Corbusier, the Swiss-born architect whose modernist ideas he absorbed and then subverted, told him he had Brazil’s mountains in his eyes. Not quite true, said Mr Niemeyer; he had everything he loved in them.
His whole universe being curved like this, it was little wonder that he seldom embraced the right angle, the straight line or the square. He wriggled away from those aspects of modernism as soon as he took up architecture, under the tutelage of Lúcio Costa, in 1935. Typically, his buildings—scattered all over Brazil’s principal cities, and reaching their apogee in the new capital, Brasília, built between 1956 and 1960—were curved or hollowed forms that seemed weightless, floating in the landscape or reflected in water. The Alvorada Palace in Brasília, the Palace of the Dawn, appears to dance on points beside an ornamental lake; the church of St Francis of Assisi at Pampulha in Belo Horizonte, where he did his first work in 1942 for Juscelino Kubitschek, then mayor and later president, is a succession of lightly arching vaults; the art museum at Niterói, across the bay from Rio, grows out of the landscape on a stem like a flower. Even an apartment block in São Paulo, the Edifício Copan, could be turned into poetry, meandering languidly through the stern verticals of the city and pierced with sun-screens into leaf-like light and shade.
All this was made possible by the material he chose, reinforced concrete, which could be poured into any shape: a home-produced substance for a rapidly industrialising country that yearned, from the 1930s onwards, to cut its own self-sufficient style in the modern world. Concrete could be painted in luminous colours or decorated in native ways, with shells or palm fronds or azulejos, the blue-and-white tiles inherited from the Portuguese. He loved it for its plasticity, but also for the fact that it demanded unskilled labour, just when migrants were pouring from the countryside into the city slums. For Mr Niemeyer, whose other passion was to change “this unjust world” and make it more “horizontal”, concrete meant the liberation both of buildings and men.
He became a communist early and unfalteringly remained one, even heading the party briefly in the 1990s. It scuppered his chances in America, although both Harvard and Yale invited him; and he was relieved to have left Brazil, driven out by criticism of his work, in 1961, just before the generals came to power. Among his friends were Fidel Castro, who sent him boxes of the small cigars that wrapped him in pungent clouds as he drew, and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, for whom he designed a rocket-like Bolívar monument angled towards Washington.
Saucer and begging bowl
The rich and famous gave him work, so he refused to be embarrassed by his palace-and-casino-building. But he was prouder of the 300 schools he designed in Brazil, all different, to surprise and inspire the poor with beauty. His own house at Canoas, with trees above and rocky outcrops flowing through it, included—scandalously at the time—no separate entrance for servants, and its red roof and yellow walls were his homage to the shacks of the favelas. He even built churches full of the comforting light of the people’s heaven, though he himself didn’t believe in it for a minute.
In practice he doubted that architecture was important, or could change much. Brasília, Kubitschek’s great shout of progress, built on a site 700 miles from Rio “at the end of the world”, was intended (by Niemeyer and Costa, at least) as a socialist Utopia in which rich and poor would live in identical apartments. To his frustration, that never happened; bureaucrats lived in the middle of the city, the poor on the edges. Cynics joked that his design for the National Congress (pictured), with an inverted saucer for the Senate and a larger “begging bowl” for the lower house, symbolised mostly the greed of politicians. He often remarked that his best work—the Mondadori headquarters near Milan, or the Maison de la Culture in Le Havre—had been done outside his own country.
None of it, however, could have occurred without the curves of Brazil. Well into grand old age he would go to his office each morning to argue, as he put it, with the simple but clever beach bum inside him who knew what architecture should be. Fast and easy, as ever, his pencil darted across the paper. The walls were covered with scribbles of naked women, “baroque buttocks” round which he would draw surprising buildings. Beyond his window lay the Sugar Loaf while below, on Copacabana, the long beach rippled with white surf and girls. And above them, brief as a man’s life, swam the clouds, forming and reforming into galleries, cathedrals, ministries, palaces and houses in the air.
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India’s women
Rape and murder in Delhi
A horrible attack could prove a turning point for India’s women
Jan 5th 2013 | from the print edition
WHAT stirred so many Indians to rise up and demonstrate at the murderous gang-rape of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in Delhi on a mid-December evening? Not just the fact of the crime: in India rape has long been depressingly common. Nor just outrage at her fatal internal injuries, inflicted by an iron bar allegedly wielded by the six men charged with the attack: Indian women are far too vulnerable to violent assaults. The reason people took to the streets is that a growing middle class is uniting to make its voice heard. The hope is that their protests will at last mark an advance for India’s beleaguered women.
The UN’s human-rights chief calls rape in India a “national problem”. Rapes and the ensuing deaths (often from suicide), are routinely described in India’s press—though many more attacks go unreported to the public or police. Delhi has a miserable but deserved reputation for being unsafe, especially for poor and low-caste women. Sexual violence in villages, though little reported, keeps girls and women indoors after dark. As young men migrate from the country into huge, crowded slums, their predation goes unchecked. Prosecution rates for rape are dismally low and convictions lower still—as in many countries.
Indian women also have much else to be gloomy about, especially if they live in the north. Studies and statistics abound, but India is generally at or near the bottom of the heap of women’s misery. A UN index in 2011 amalgamated details on female education and employment, women in politics, sexual and maternal health and more. It ranked India 134th out of 187 countries, worse than Saudi Arabia, Iraq or China. India’s 2011 census confirmed an increasingly distorted sex ratio among newborn babies in many states, as parents use ultrasound scanners to identify the sex of fetuses and then abort female ones. India is missing millions of unborn girls. Discrimination continues throughout life. Boys in villages are typically fed better than girls and are more likely to get an education. Women are routinely groped and harassed by men on buses and trains. Many Indian brides still pay dowries. The misery of daughters-in-law abused after moving in with their husbands’ extended families is a staple of crime reports and soap operas.
Amid this sea of misery, the anonymous medical student’s fate stood out chiefly because she was representative of India’s emerging middle class. A student of physiotherapy, she was attacked going home from an early-evening cinema screening of “Life of Pi”. She was with a male friend, a young engineer. As someone doing what people like her do across the world every night of the week, she was the friend, sister or daughter of an entire social group. As in the campaign against corruption during the past few years, the protesters’ fury was fanned by non-stop television and press coverage. The street protests were so intense that worried officials resorted to tear gas and curfew-like restrictions in parts of Delhi.
The strength of their reaction means that something good may yet come from this crime. There is no reason to think that India is destined to abuse women. Its biggest religion, Hinduism, is relatively tolerant towards them. India already has a liberal constitution and a host of progressive laws, for example against sex-selective abortion and against dowries. The country has role models: a decent crop of high-ranking women politicians, civil servants, judges and journalists.
Time is on their side
As India shifts from being a poor, mostly rural place to an urban, wealthier and modern one, more women will study, take paid jobs and decide for themselves whom to marry or divorce and where to live. Already, many of the growing band of educated, connected and active Indians are infuriated by the failure of politicians to look after them. They deplore venal party politics. They will increasingly demand that politicians deal with the things that matter to them. The scandal could thus prove a first step on the road to getting the police to take rape seriously and to enforcing the laws protecting women.
But the journey will be a long one. Violence against women tends to reflect how they are treated across society. Attitudes, therefore, matter. India’s film and music industries, for example, should stop depicting men who assault women as macho heroes. The press should drop the use of coy phrases such as “Eve-teasing” when it really means sexual harassment. Those who witness men groping women could confront them. The families of victims of sexual crime should dwell less on the shame they feel they have incurred and more on how to prosecute offenders. The pity is that to change attitudes to rape so many young women have had to suffer and die.
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The new politics of the internet
Everything is connected
Can internet activism turn into a real political movement?
Jan 5th 2013 | BERLIN AND DUBAI | from the print edition
WHEN dozens of countries refused to sign a new global treaty on inter
net governance in late 2012, a wide range of activists rejoiced. They saw the treaty, crafted under the auspices of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as giving governments pernicious powers to meddle with and censor the internet. For months groups with names like Access Now and Fight for the Future had campaigned against the treaty. Their lobbying was sometimes hyperbolic. But it was also part of the reason the treaty was rejected by many countries, including America, and thus in effect rendered void.
The success at the ITU conference in Dubai capped a big year for online activists. In January they helped defeat Hollywood-sponsored anti-piracy legislation, best known by the acronym SOPA, in America’s Congress. A month later, in Europe, they took on ACTA, an obscure international treaty which, in seeking to enforce intellectual-property rights, paid little heed to free speech and privacy. In Brazil they got closer than many would have believed possible to securing a ground-breaking internet bill of rights, the “Marco Civil da Internet”. In Pakistan they helped to delay, perhaps permanently, plans for a national firewall, and in the Philippines they campaigned against a cybercrime law the Supreme Court later put on hold.
“It feels like when ‘Silent Spring’ was published,” says James Boyle, an intellectual-property expert at Duke University, North Carolina. The publication of Rachel Carson’s jeremiad on the effects of pesticides in 1962 is widely seen as marking the appearance of modern environmental awareness, and of the politics that goes along with it. Fifty years on, might the world really be witnessing another such moment, and the creation of another such movement—this one built around the potential for new information technology to foster free speech and innovation, and the threats that governments and companies pose to it?
The new green
Debate and dissent over the issues raised by the spread of information technology are not new. In the 1990s civil-liberties groups, including the pioneering Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), campaigned against the Communications Decency Act, part of which was eventually overturned by America’s Supreme Court. Today every corner of the digital universe has its own interest group: consumer groups defend online privacy; hackers reject far-reaching software patents; researchers push for open access to scientific journals online; defenders of transparency call on governments to open their data vaults—or take the opening into their own hands.
As Mr Boyle’s analogy suggests, there was a similar diversity in early 1960s environmentalism. Some sought to clean the Hudson river, some to stop logging in Tasmania, some to ban nuclear tests. But as the late American environmentalist Barry Commoner put it: “The first law of ecology is that everything is connected to everything else.” As it was with the environment, so it became with environmentalism. Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s disparate concerns were tied together into a single, if far from seamless, movement that went on to wield real power.
The internet is nothing if not an exercise in interconnection. Its politics thus seems to call out for a similar convergence, and connections between the disparate interest groups that make up the net movement are indeed getting stronger. Beyond specific links, they also share what Manuel Castells, a Spanish sociologist, calls the “culture of the internet”, a contemporary equivalent of the 1960s counter-culture (in which much of the environmental movement grew up). Its members believe in technological progress, the free flow of information, virtual communities and entrepreneurialism. They meet at “unconferences” (where delegates make up their own agenda) and “hackerspaces” (originally opportunities to tinker with electronics); their online forum of choice will typically be something such as a wiki that all can contribute to and help to shape.
In some countries the nascent net movement has spawned “pirate parties” that focus on net-policy issues; the first, in Sweden, was descended from the Pirate Bay, a site created to aid file sharing after Napster, a successful music-sharing scofflaw, was shut down. Pirate Party International, an umbrella group, already counts 28 national organisations as members. Most are small, but Germany’s Piratenpartei, founded in 2006, has captured seats in four regional parliaments.
The green movement had intellectual leadership from within academia, such as that of Commoner and his sometime sparring partner, Paul Ehrlich. So does the net movement. One leading light is Lawrence Lessig, whose most influential book, “Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace”, argues that computer code is just as important in regulating behaviour as legal code. Another is Yochai Benkler, whose “The Wealth of Networks” extols the virtues of “commons-based peer production” like that seen in open-source software communities, where volunteers write and debug code as a gift to the community at large.
And as the environmental movement had a radical wing in organisations such as Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Army, its digital successor has also developed a direct-action arm. In early October Anonymous, a “hacktivist” collective, took down a bunch websites in Sweden as a protest against efforts to extradite Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, from Britain.
It is hard to imagine people getting as worked up about a leak of personal data or a tightening of copyright laws as they would over a nuclear disaster or global warming. The ITU does not seem to matter in the same way as the health of the planet. “Most [internet issues] have the electoral sex appeal of a transport-infrastructure plan,” jokes Stephan Klecha, who studies pirate parties at Göttingen University.
But it is plausible that people who spend much of their lives online may come to feel strongly about the technological and ideological infrastructure that they depend on. “If they see it threatened, they will fight back,” insists Tiffiniy Cheng of Fight for the Future, one of the advocacy groups that organised the anti-SOPA campaign. According to a study by the Boston Consulting Group, which surveyed consumers in 13 countries, on average 75% would give up alcohol, 27% sex and 22% daily showers to secure internet access for a year if forced to choose (see chart).
Like environmental issues, the issues that this new movement cares about can be cast as economic ones; and when put that way they look somewhat similar. Since Garrett Hardin’s 1968 essay “The Tragedy of the Commons”, environmental issues have increasingly come to be seen in terms of “negative externalities”. Hardin argued that common properties would be overexploited because the benefits of the exploitation would be appropriated by the people doing the exploiting, whereas the costs fall on all equally.
Common causes
In part because of this economic logic, the principle of making polluters pay—of internalising the externalities, as the economists put it—is fundamental to the carbon taxes and cap-and-trade regimes for pollutants pushed by pragmatic environmentalists (for all that their more radical brethren seethe at reducing everything to calculable financial costs and benefits).
Network politics are also often concerned with the issues raised by commons. The internet—means and motive for much activism—is a clear example of such a digital resource: anyone can access it under the same conditions and all traffic can, at least theoretically, be treated equally (a state which is known as “network neutrality”, and a great rallying cry). But here the externalities not captured by the market are more positive than negative. Often, the more people share and use such a commons, the more they all benefit.
When externalities do harm, internalising them makes a lot of sense. When they do good, things are a bit more complex. Some level of internalising may be needed: this is, indeed, the basic argument for intellectual-property rights. Without them, innovators may not benefit enough from sharing their creations, reducing the incentive to create. But a system set to maximise private returns will not necessarily maximise total returns.
Brett Frischmann, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York, provides a thorough look at the issues in his book “Infrastructure: The Social Value of Shared Resources”. Infrastructure—both digital and otherwise—is used by many for all kinds of activities, and is often to some extent “non-rival”, meaning one person’s use does not forestall another’s. Limiting their use, for instance by pricing them depending on who uses them and for what, can limit their value and slow innovation.
To get the most benefit, Mr Frischmann argues, “We should share infrastructure resources in an open, non-discriminatory manner when it is feasible to do so.” This does not necessarily rule out property rights; but it does mean avoiding the temptation to treat everything as if it were a physical bauble in which only a single owner had an interest. History shows that custom and practice, social norms and other non-market mechanisms can keep commons from becoming tragic under a wide range of circumstances.
Mr Boyle makes similar points when he writes, in his book “The Public Domain” that societies need to strike “a balance between open and closed, owned and free.” It is his contention, and that of the rest of the net movement, that governments are systematically getting this balance wrong. They are stuck in the physical world where most goods are rival and cannot be easily shared, he argues. Their critics contend that the activists make the same mistake in reverse, thinking everything can be shared and ownership need not matter at all.
Such thinking explains what drives many net activists: they prize an ideal of net neutrality because they fear turning the internet into a toll road that limits both expression and experimentation; they fear overbroad patents will hamper research; they think making government data freely available stimulates new uses. This insight helps explain the seeming grab-bag of issues that passes for a political programme in Germany’s Pirate Party—including demands for free public transport, the right to vote for foreigners living in Germany and a state-funded basic income for all. These proposals apply the idea of an information commons to what the Pirates see as “platforms” of all sorts: public transport, elections and society as a whole.
The degree to which the internet is new and different is also reflected in the net movement’s practicalities. “The internet fundamentally lowers the barriers to organisation,” says Kevin Werbach, who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Like-minded souls no longer need painstakingly to build an organisational structure; a mailing-list is often enough to band together online.
Dissolving democracy
The anti-SOPA protest started with discussions on blogs and elsewhere, according to Harvard’s Mr Benkler, whose research team has analysed the content of online publications and links between activist websites. Techdirt, a blog, and other specialised online publications wrote about the new legislation. As people got interested, the more established advocacy groups such as the EFF and Public Knowledge came to serve as clearing-houses for information. Groups such as Avaaz, Fight For The Future and Demand Progress, whose aim is to mobilise netizens, started offering tools to help people signal their displeasure, including by writing to members of Congress: millions ended up using them. Internet firms such as Reddit and Tumblr provided organisational support, and larger companies were part of the lobbying effort: net-activists are less likely than Greens to shun corporate interests that coincide with their own. After fierce debate among its peer-producers, Wikipedia joined the campaign, greatly increasing its impact.
Germany’s Pirate Party flashed into existence with similar speed. A few weeks before the 2011 elections in Berlin pollsters gave it only a few percentage points. But with a minimum of resources, it managed to mount an efficient campaign using social media to mobilise voters and crowdsourcing to come up with slogans. With 8.9% of the vote, it won 15 seats on the regional assembly.
Getting it together quickly, though, is no proof of long-term commitment. Some have criticised the anti-SOPA and other online campaigns as mere “clicktivism”, requiring no more commitment than the twitch of a gamer’s finger. The anti-SOPA coalition is trying to show its staying power by becoming the Internet Defense League, essentially an online phone tree. People sign up by giving their e-mail address; websites can add a logo that signals their membership. If the league’s leaders see a threat to their conception of the internet, they send out an alert.
More intriguingly, technology may come to have a role in formulating policy, as well as disseminating calls for action. Germany’s Pirate Party runs a perpetual party conference on an online platform, called “Liquid Feedback”, designed to dissolve the distinction between direct and representative democracy. Rather than voting on an issue directly or electing representatives, party members can delegate their votes on given issues to another member whose opinion they trust—and take them back if they do not agree with the delegate’s decisions. Delegates can in turn pass the votes they collect to another member, thus putting together long and fluid “delegation chains”.
The system does not create a democratic paradise: most of the Pirates don’t use it. But it allows for very transparent decision making, argues Martin Haase, perhaps the most influential member of Germany’s Pirate Party, judging by the fact that 237 of the nearly 5000 registered users active on Liquid Feedback have delegated their votes to him. “There’s no dealing in smoky back rooms,” he explains, “you can always tell who has supported what.”
Interesting internal infrastructure, though, is no guarantee of further political gains. Germany’s political system makes creating a new party relatively easy, one reason why the Greens succeeded there in the 1980s. Yet the Pirates lack the political nous and broad appeal of the Greens. Almost two-thirds of Pirate supporters are men. Although the ideals of the net movement are often egalitarian its practice can be macho and elitist. The thousands of new members attracted by the Pirates’ Berlin success included a fair share of blowhards, troublemakers and worse
On the party’s e-mail lists, discussions of whether users of Liquid Feedback should be allowed to remain anonymous or how much Pirates in parliaments should be allowed to earn routinely blow up into bad-tempered “shitstorms”. Some of its leaders have resigned in disgust and exhaustion. In national polls the party has dropped from over 13% of the vote in May 2012 to around 3% now, below the threshold needed to enter state or national parliaments in this year’s elections.
A hack or an operating system?
New parties are not the only way to political success. In most of the world the green movement’s victories came from applying pressure to established parties, and spurring the creation of new institutions—ministries of the environment, environmental protection agencies, international treaty organisations and the like. It is still early days, but such institution building is hard to imagine for the net movement. Net politics is about freeing people to experiment rather than controlling their effluents. Although the state can guarantee freedoms, policy by policy it tends to do better, these days, on the shackling front.
Moreover net activists, many of whom are libertarian, are unlikely to call for the creation of “net ministries”. Many want to hack politics—to find a way to get the system to an outcome they desire through cleverness and force majeure applied from outside—much more than they want to play politics.
It is possible that the lasting influence of the net movement will be in providing new tools and tactics for people with other political aims. All political protest and novelty now has a social-media face, whether it be that of the tea party, the Occupy movement or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; all seek the fast-multiplying effect that the internet can add to activism and uprisings. Experiments in “delegative democracy” like Liquid Feedback may rewire the way politics works from the inside, as well as speed things up. In Germany other parties are experimenting with such systems; something similar powers Italy’s populist Five Star Movement.
When asked about why her organisation does not have a fully fledged political platform, Marina Weisband, one of the leaders of Germany’s Pirate Party, once replied: “We don’t offer a ready-made programme, but an entire operating system.” The true potential of internet politics, in other words, is to reshape what people can do, rather than to campaign for particular benefits.
It is not obvious that the sort of people who think of the world in terms of operating systems will prove to be the best at using that new potential, or find in it the power to protect the freedom and openness of all the infrastructure that they care about. But many of them are increasingly serious about trying.
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Today's Paper » NATIONAL » NEW DELHI
Published: January 22, 2013 00:00 IST | Updated: January 22, 2013 05:10 IST
‘Indian youth more focused on acquiring wealth’
The unusual interest in accumulating wealth on the part of young Indians is weakening their emotional attachment to their nation and they need to be sensitised about their duty and responsibility, said Justice A. K. Patnaik of the Supreme Court inaugurating a programme here over the weekend.
Asserting that “the younger generation has to be sensitised about its duty and responsibility in accordance with the spirit of Constitution of India”, he said in order to convert the country into a nation, the citizens’ sensitisation was a must.
The Pledge Festival was organised by civil society organisation Build India Group, which has thus far administered a pledge to students to become good citizens in over 100 educational institutions across the country. Presiding, BIG president Biraja Mahapatra said the programme was an “integrity building exercise” by way of the “write-recite-commit method” in which students take the vow to become responsible and honest citizens.
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Published: January 22, 2013 19:52 IST | Updated: January 23, 2013 12:20 IST
Against all odds, autorickshaw driver’s daughter tops CA exams
She could not control her emotions and burst into tears when she heard the news of her CA results. “I was happy for me, my family and for the new life that I will enter,” said Prema Jayakumar, daughter of an autorickshaw driver from Tamil Nadu, who lives in a chawl in Malad, Mumbai.
Prema has topped the nationwide Chartered Accountancy examination in her first attempt.
The tenement that she calls home is all of 280 sq. ft. where she and her family live. But she is excited by the sudden elevation of her social status, which will be soon be followed by financial uplift.
Not only was she happy for her, but also for her younger brother, who along with her cracked the same examination. “We both can take care of our family very easily. It’s a matter of few months now, till I get a job. I hope I shouldn’t face much difficulty in that now,” Ms. Jayakumar told The Hindu.
The national first rank is something Ms. Jayakumar had not imagined when she appeared for the examination. “I was sure about passing the exam. I would have been happy with that result. But the first rank was a big surprise,” she said, laughing loudly.
Jayakumar Perumal, her father, moved to Mumbai 25 years ago from Periyakolliyur in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu in search of a better life. “I have been driving this auto for 20 years now. I raised my three children on money I earned from auto driving. I always encouraged them to study and I am very happy for what they achieved,” he said.
Ms. Jayakumar started her preparations for CA exams in 2008, after she completed her T.Y. B.Com. “I didn’t go to any coaching class for my entrance and chose to join coaching classes only for final exam. I received scholarship from my class, so I didn’t have to pay for them,” she said. “They found me cleverer and brighter than others. The scholarship meant that my parents didn’t have to worry about my educational expenses,” she said, embarrassed a little by the self-praise.
Dhanraj, her brother, who completed his T.Y.B. Com in 2010, studied for CA exam along with her. “He had also set his goal of becoming a chartered accountant, when he was in 12th standard. He was studying from then and later on we started studying together. He also worked in a call centre when he was doing his graduation,” she said.
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What have you done to protect small traders from FDI, court asks Centre
The Hindu Photo LibraryAs foreign retail giants are ready to set shop in India, a PIL shows concern on the future of these small retail outlets.
Policy has to meet constitutional norms, says Bench firing volley of questions
“Have you got any Foreign Direct Investment or it is just a political gimmick? Has the FDI policy in multibrand retail sector announced by the Centre in October 2012 brought some fruits” the Supreme Court asked Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati on Tuesday.
A Bench of Justices R.M. Lodha and S.J. Mukhopadaya told him: “We don’t want to interfere and substitute government policy decisions with judicial decisions but the policy has to meet the constitutional requirement. Our exercise is limited to see whether the policy meets the constitutional principle.”
As per the gazette notification amending the Foreign Exchange Management (Transfer or Issue of Security by a Person, Resident outside India) Regulations, 2000, 100% FDI is permitted in single brand product retailing and a 51% cap has been imposed on equity in multibrand retail.
The Bench was hearing a public interest litigation petition filed by advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, who challenged the Centre’s notification allowing FDI in retail. He pointed out that the amendments would have to be placed before Parliament for its approval as per Sections 47 and 48 of the FEMA.
During the resumed hearing, the AG told the Bench that Parliament had rejected two negative resolutions on FDI in the last session and nothing survived in the petition. At this juncture, Justice Mukhopadaya asked him whether FDI would have an impact on small traders and whether it would affect free trade. The AG said: “FDI is a policy decision and every aspect has been gone into by Parliament, where the issue was discussed in detail and put to vote.”
Justice Lodha asked: “What are the checks you have put in place to ensure that there are no restrictions on free trade?”
Serious apprehensions
Justice Mukhopadaya told the AG: “There are serious apprehensions in the minds of small traders that FDI will affect their trade. They feel FDI is a serious threat to their business. Policy is one thing. Apprehension is another issue. We have seen [that] when big traders reduce prices, small traders are eliminated from market. [But] after some time they increase the prices. If big companies adopt unfair trade practices and bring down the prices, what will happen to small traders? What has the government done to protect the interests of small traders?”
Justice Lodha asked: “You announced the policy in October 2012. Have you got any FDI? Have you brought FDI as a political gimmick or has it brought some fruits?”
‘Serious reform, not a gimmick’
The AG said: “It is not a political gimmick but part of serious reforms. It is a matter of government policy and now applications are coming for investment:”
Justice Mukhopadaya told the AG: “Reforms should not close the door to small traders. Consumers should have a choice and you [government] must ensure that. The apprehension is their right will be taken away. If the retailers are, there consumers will have a choice; if they are out, consumers don’t have a choice.”
Justice Lodha said: “Your policy cannot be sacrosanct. Reforms can go on but that should not close the doors to small traders. We are not policymakers, but a policy has to be within the constitutional parameters.”
The Bench then directed the Centre to file an affidavit in three weeks, indicating the steps it had taken to protect small retailers. The petitioner will have two weeks to file his rejoinder thereafter.
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'Gandhi for Tomorrow' theme park to come up at Sewagram
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The Sewagram Ashram in neighbouring Wardha district where Mahatma Gandhi stayed for six years after the Dandi March (1936 to 1948), is all set to become a major tourist attraction with a 'Gandhi for Tomorrow' theme park being developed there at an estimated cost of Rs. 62 crore. The major attraction of 'Gandhi for Tomorrow' is an international convention centre worth Rs. 95 crore, will be similar to the centres that have been set up in the name of anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela and 16th president of America, Abraham Lincoln. This will be an appropriate memorial when the place is celebrating 75 years of Gandhiji's stay in the area here, Wardha District Collector Nawin Sona said.
He said the district administration was in the process of acquiring 10 acres of land for the theme park and the Maharashtra government has already released Rs. 1.2 crore from the budgeted funds. The theme park will depict that Gandhi was in favour of appropriate technology and not against technology. The state government will be spending a total of Rs. 537 crores for developing Sewagarm, Paunar (from where Bhoodan leader Acharya Vinoba Bhave launched his land agitation) and the Wardha township, along with other projects including centres for science and local artisans, the Collector said. A total of 27 places will be developed including a 'heritage walk' route, he said. Minister of State for Finance and district Guardian minister Rajendra Mulak, who is monitoring the project, said the convention centre will include an auditorium and study centre for those keen to learn Gandhian thoughts along with hostel facility etc. Besides, Gandhian arts, culture and technology will also be developed, he said. Plans are also afoot for a four-lane Nagpur-Wardha road 'Ahimsa Marg' which connects Sewagram. The Sewagram Ashram will remain untouched and its adjoining land is being acquired to develop these world class facilities, Mulak added. |
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Environmental Thoughts of Gandhi for a Green Future
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Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT, Madras, Chennai-36
sasikala.iitm@yahoo.com 
Abstract
The environmental concern as we understand today was not there at the time of Gandhi, but his ideas on development, technology, self sufficiency, village Swaraj etc. disclose his environmental concern. Different streams of environmental philosophy have paid their indebtedness to Gandhi.
Introduction
We live in a world in which science, technology and development play important roles in changing human destiny. However, over- exploitation of natural resources for the purpose of development leads to serious environmental hazards. In fact, the idea of development is itself controversial in the present situation as in the name of development, we are unethically plundering natural resources. It is true that a science that does not respect nature's needs and a development which does not respect people's needs threatens human survival. The green thoughts of Gandhi give us a new vision to harmonise nature with the needs of people.
Gandhi was not an environmentalist in the modern sense. Although he did not create a green philosophy or write nature poems, he is often described as an "apostle of applied human ecology."1 It is a fact that environmental concerns were minimal in Gandhi's time; but eminent environmental writers like Ramachandra Guha consider him an early Environmentalist.2 His views on nature are scattered throughout his writings. His ideas relating to Satyagraha based on truth and non-violence, simple life style, and development reveal how sustainable development is possible without doing any harm to nature and our fellow beings. His idea that "nature has enough to satisfy every one's needs, but not to satisfy anybody's greed" became one line ethic to modern environmentalism. Gandhi considered the earth a living organism. His ideas were expressed in terms of two fundamental laws: Cosmic law and the Law of Species. Cosmic Law views the entire universe as a single entity. Nothing could malfunction outside the threshold limits built into the grand system that includes both living and non-living phenomena.3 He believed that "the universe was structured and informed by the cosmic spirit, that all men, all life and indeed all creation were one."4 He wrote: "I believe in the advaita (non-duality), I believe in the" essential unity of man and for that matter, of all that lives. Therefore, I believe that if one man gains spiritually, the world gains with him and if one man fails, the whole world fails to that extent."5 Regarding the law of species Gandhi believed that without the cooperation and sacrifice of both human and non-human beings evolution is not possible. Being rational human beings, we are the custodians of the rest of creation and should respect their rights and cherish the diversity. It is for this reason that taking more than the required resources is seen as theft. Gandhi evolved these principles from his vast readings and understandings of religious traditions of Hinduism, Jainism, Christianity and Islam. His social, economic and political ideas were framed on the understanding of interdependence of the whole universe.
1
Truth, Non-violence and Satyagraha
Truth and Non-violence are the fundamentals of Gandhian Philosophy. Nonviolence or Ahimsa means non-injury, but to Gandhi non-violence was much more than the absence of violence. He used it to mean non-injury in thought, word and deed. Ahimsa, Satyagraha and Tapasya were the basic principles that guided his life.6 Truth and Ahimsa are intertwined terms. To Gandhi truth is that "which determines the spirit in which one lives or the religious and ethical criteria which governs the way in which he thinks and acts."7 He believed that truth can be achieved only by means of non-violence. It affords the fullest protection to one's self respect and sense of honor. If truth is the highest law, then non-violence is the highest duty. Gandhi claimed that truth was the most correct and fully significant term that could be used for God. To practice Ahimsa is to realize truth and to realize truth is to practice Ahimsa. The concept Satyagraha gave practical expression to the religious and ethical ideals of truth and non violence. Tapasya or self sacrifice is necessary to achieve the highest truth. It involves freedom from fear and a willingness to die. Gandhi believed that Satyagraha is nothing, but tapasya for the truth. The suffering that has to be undergone in Satyagraha is tapasya in its fullest form.8
Gandhi explained his concept of non-violence in the following terms. 1 . Non-violence is the law of the human race and is infinitely greater than and superior to brute force. 2. Non-violence affords the fullest protection to one's self-respect and sense of honor. 3. Individuals and nations who practice non-violence must be prepared to sacrifice everything for the welfare of the whole world. 4. Non-violence is a power which can be wielded equally by all - children, young men and women or grown up people, provided they have a living faith in the God of love and therefore have equal love for all mankind. When non-violence is accepted as the law of life it must pervade the whole being and not merely applied to isolated acts. 5. It is a profound error to suppose that whilst the law is good enough for individuals it is not for masses of mankind.9 Satyagraha is an active form of non-violence. Gandhi considered it as truth force or soul force. Satyagraha is based on the idea that the moral appeal to the heart or conscience is more effective than an appeal based on the threat or bodily pain or violence. Satyagraha itself originates from the belief that while violence to persons and property diverts the minds of the parties concerned from the real issues involved, non-violent action invites the parties to a dialogue about the issues themselves. The ecological scope of non-violence is unlimited. Gandhi's faith in non-violence and vegetarianism made him a votary of conservation of all diversity including all forms of life, societies, cultures, religions, and traditions.10 Arne Naess, the pioneer of deep ecology argued that ecological preservation is non violent in nature.11 Naess introduced and Thomas Weber systematized the relation between non-violence, self-realization and mutual dependence of all living beings in the following points. 1. Self-realization presupposes a search for truth 2. All living beings are one 3. Himsa (violence) against oneself makes self-realization impossible. 4. Himsa against a living being is himsa against oneself 5. Himsa against a living being makes complete self-realization impossible12 Naess used these principles to evolve a broader philosophy of environmentalism i.e, deep ecology. He believed that Gandhi's Utopia is one of the few that shows ecological balance.13 As Gandhi envisaged, non-violence has the power to solve all our problems, including ecological crisis. Many thinkers considered the Indian Environmental Movements like Chipko movement, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) etc. as the living example of Gandhian Environmentalism and they consider Gandhi as a "man with deep ecological view of life, a view much too deep even for deep ecology."14 The key agenda of the Chipko movement was that carrying forward the "vision of Gandhi's mobilization for a new society, where neither man nor nature is exploited and destroyed, which was the civilizational response to a threat to human survival."15 All these together made Gandhi an exponent of Indian environmentalism.
II
Gandhi's Critique of Modern Civilization
Modern industrial civilization has had a huge impact on human kind as well as on the environment. It made a small part of the population wealthy at the cost of exploiting the world's natural resources. Gandhi believed that it propagates nothing other than the hunger for wealth and the greedy pursuit of worldly pleasures.16 Hind Swaraj, published in 1909, criticized the modern civilization as" 'satanic'. He observed that 'machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilization; it represents a great sin. It is machinery that has impoverished India.'17 The distinguishing characteristic of modern civilization is an indefinite multiplicity of wants, whereas ancient civilizations were marked by an imperative restriction upon, and a strict regulating of these wants.18 Gandhi believed that the ancient civilizations were religious in nature which would surely limit worldly ambitions.
Gandhi believed that true civilizational values are not present in modern civilization. In Hind Swaraj Gandhi argued that what we think as 'civilization' today is an illusion, and that any civilization that ill treated outsiders could hardly avoid ill treating its own people. Gandhi's critique of western civilization and science emanates from his dissatisfaction with the divorce of science and progress from morality.19 He was not against the technology, but the technologism which creates a hierarchical relationship among men as well as between men and nature. Gandhi believed that the greatest achievements of modern civilization have been weapons of mass destruction, the awful growth of anarchism, the frightful disputes between capital and labor and cruelty inflicted on innocent, dumb, living animals in the name of science and technology. He believed a science to be science only if it afforded the fullest scope for satisfying the hunger of body, mind and soul. Modern civilization involved an egregious amount of violence against nature which was largely seen as man's property. This undermined man's unity with his environment and fellowmen and destroyed stable and long established communities.20 Natural resources were ruthlessly exploited and their rhythm and balance disturbed while animals were killed or tortured for human needs. Gandhi believed that villages would soon disappear due to the urbanization which is part of modern civilization, and of which environmental degradation is a product. While the western environmentalists spread the message of "going back to the nature" Gandhi spread the message of "going back to the villages". He believed that the "the blood of the village is the cement with which the edifice of the cities is built."21
III
Ecological Economics of Gandhi
Modern economy is "propelled by a frenzy of greed and indulges in an orgy of envy."22 It makes man more materialistic at the risk of majority and the environment. Gandhi asserted that "true economics stands for social justice; it promotes the good of all equally, including the weakest and is indispensable for decent life".23 Dr. J C Kumarappa summed up Gandhian economic ideas as constituting philosophy that sought to create an "economy of permanence". All nature is dovetailed together in a common cause". Kumarappa argued that "when this interconnection works out harmoniously and violence does not break the chain, we have an economy of permanence."24 He identified different types of economies and realized that the highest form of economy is the economy of service which Gandhi suggests. Gandhian economic Concepts like swadeshi, trusteeship, bread labour etc received attention and acceptance from the whole world.
The swadeshi spirit encourages us to consume commodities made from our own villages, thus promoting small scale industries which help ordinary farmers and weavers to live happily. Limitation of wants is another important aspect in Gandhian economics. Gandhi urged us to minimize our wants to minimize the consumption and thus reduce the burden on nature by avoiding hazardous wastes. Our civilization, culture and swaraj depend on the restriction of wants. Gandhi realized that the modern civilization and the market economics have a tendency to multiply the wants and needs of common people. Bread labour is another important economic concept of Gandhi. He valued bodily labor saying "the rains come not through intellectual feats, but through sheer bodily labor. It is a well established scientific fact that where forests are denuded of trees, rains cease, where trees are planted rains are attracted and the volume of water received increases with the increase of vegetation".25 The Gandhian concept of bread labor encourages the use of human hands and body instead of machines to produce essential items like7 vegetables, cloth etc. The economic ideas of Gandhi differed from conventional economics and bore close resemblances with ecological economics. The term sustainable development was not much discussed at Gandhi's time, but his ideal vision of the world known as Sarvodaya safeguard the rights of future generations, through the welfare of all. The following table shows the difference between conventional economics and Gandhian economics and reveals how it contributes to environmental sustainability.
Table 1: Differences between Conventional and Gandhian Economics
IV
Gandhian Conflict Resolution and Environment
Conflict resolution is an emerging branch of social science which deals with the techniques to resolve conflicts between nations or between individuals. It can also be applied to address environmental issues.
Whenever there is a mismatch between different interests, conflicts arise. Gandhian non-violence or Satyagraha is accepted by many as an effective technique of conflict resolution. Gandhi never used the word 'conflict resolution'; instead he use terms like mediation and 'negotiation'. He never considered conflicts as problems, father, they were opportunities for moral growth and transformation. 'The contribution of Gandhi in conflict resolution was his "working hypothesis that the non-violent resolution of group conflict was a practical goal."26 His philosophy of truth and nonviolence contribute to the theory of conflict resolution. Gandhi believed that truth is one and different individuals perceive it differently. Nobody can claim that their perception is correct. If we are not sure about the supreme truth there is no need of violence or conflict. In order to realize truth one should have to realize God. Self realization is the way to realize God. Self realization will lead us to refrain from violence against other beings. So far as the Indian environmental movements are concerned, the conflict is often between different interest groups or between the state and people, and are often led by peasant groups or tribal people. It is often in the form of struggle for the protection of livelihood control over resources or some form of self-determination. Environmental injustice, and marginalization are considered as instances of structural violence. As Gandhi believed violence and counter violence will never help to resolve conflicts, he considered Satyagraha as the "only force of universal application be that of Ahimsa or love" to fight these kinds of problems.27 It is entirely different from mere passive resistance, where there is no scope for mutual love. In passive resistance, Gandhi believed "there is a scope for hatred" but "Satyagraha may be offered to one's nearest and dearest."28 Environmental movements in India used Satyagraha as the moral equivalent of war. Forest Satyagraha was first used effectively in Chipko movement to protest against deforestation. Gandhian techniques like padayatras were conducted to save nature. Conflict resolution techniques based on non-violence and self sacrifice were used by environmental activists like Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Baba Amte, Sunderlal Bahuguna, Medha Patker and others.
Conclusion
Several decades before the rise of environmental movements, Gandhi picked up fundamental environmental issues like over-consumption, violence to man and nature and so on. There are several movements in different parts of me globe fighting against environmental injustice. Some of them are violent in nature, but in India environmental movements have been forged by Gandhian traditions of non-cooperation and non-violence. The Gandhian definition of non-violence is far more than mere passive resistance, rather "it is a way of life, which affects everything from what a person eats through to how they relate to the world around them"29. Gandhian Satyagraha often functions as a conflict resolution technique. Gandhi wrote much about the colonial power, its impudence, and the heinous destiny it has imposed on the country. He criticized modernization and industrialization for its lethal effects on the society. He believed that "the economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom (England) is today keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts."30 He observed that the Indian situation demanded a new vision on economics which is centered on agriculture and village industries. He conceptualized a new economic order based on ecological balance. The village romanticism of Gandhi has been considered as central to his environmental philosophy. However, going back to the thoughts of Gandhi is essential to build up a green future, where there is no place for human greed.
Notes and References
1. T N Khoshoo, Mahatma Gandhi: An Apostle of Applied Human Ecology (New Delhi: TERI, 1995), p.9.
2. Ramachandra Guha, "Mahatma Gandhi and Environmental Movement in india" in Arne Kalland and Gerard Persoon (ed), Environmental Movements in Asia (London: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies & Routledge , 1998), p.67. 3. R P Mishra, "Facing Environmental Challenges; The Gandhian Way". Anasakti Darshan, 5, 2 (July-December 2009), p.9. 4. Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy; A Critical Examination (London: Macmillan, 1989), p.72. 5. Young India, December 4, 1924. 6. Daniel M May ton II, Non Violence and Peace Psychology: Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, societal and World peace (New York: Springer and Science + Business Media LLC, 2009), p.6. 7. Glyn Richards, The Philosophy of Gandhi: A Study of His Basic Ideas (UK: Curzon, 1991), p.33. 8. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG), (New Delhi: The Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, and Ahmedabad: The Navajivan Trust, 1965), Vol. XVI, p.13. 9. Harijan, September 5, 1936 10. T N Khoshoo, op.cit. p.3. 11. Arne Naess, "Self Realization: An Ecological approach to Being in the World" in John Seed, Joanna Macy et.al (ed), Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings (Philadelphia: Society Publishers, 1988), p.26. 12. Thomas Weber, 2009, p. 18 13. The Selected Works of Arne Naess (SWAN), Edited by Allen Drengson in cooperation With the Author, (Netherlands: Springer, 2005), Vol.2, p.lxviii. 14. R C Sharma, Gandhian Environmentalism (New Delhi: Global Vision, 2003), p.45. 15. Vandana Shiva and Jayantho Bandopadhyay, “Chipko in India’s Civilizational Response to the Forest Crisis” in India’s Environment: Myth and Reality (Dehra Dun: Natraj, 2007), p.21 16. Ramashray Roy, Self and Society; A Study in Gandhian Thought (New Delhi: Sage, 1985), pp. 36-38 17. M K Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Trust, 1938), p.81. 18. Young India, June 2, 1927 19. Shambhu Prasad, "Towards an understanding of Gandhi's views on science", Economic and Political Weekly, 36, 39 (Sept.2001), pp. 3721-3723. 20. Bikhu Parekh, op.cit., p. 23. 21. CWMG, Vol.XCI, p. 57 22. E F Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (London: Vintage Books, 2011), p.18 23. Harijan, Oct. 9, 1937 24. J C Kumarappa, Economy of Permanence: A Quest for a Social Order Based on Non-violence (Wardha, C. P. : All India Village Industries Association, 1946), p. 5 25. Young India, October 15, 1925 26. SWAN, Vol V, p.5. 27. CWMG, Vol. XLVIII, p.341. 28. CWMG, Vol. XXXIV, p.97. 29. Timothy Doyle, Environmental Movements in Minority and Majority Worlds: A Global Perspective (London: Rutgers University Press, 2005), p.18. 30. CWMG, Vol. XLIII, p. 413.
SASIKALA A S is a Research Scholar attached to the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras, Chennai. Email: sasikalaalappattu@gmail.com
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Letter to Amsha
Dear Amsha
Thank you for letting me read your scholarly study of the link between corruption and wages. I must confess at the outset that much of it is Greek to me since I am completely ignorant of the academic side of Economics. I can only add a few general points for discussion of the subject at a layman’s level, in an inter-disciplinary case study. I have absolutely no competence to comment on your thesis prepared after a painstaking study of several years.Your paper is not only stimulating but highly provocative. You have very carefully and meticulously grafted on the current Indian situation standard factors that influence the determination of the inverse ratio between wage levels and corruption, giving a specific value to each factor. From there you proceed to build a hypothesis based on facts largely taken from the West or Westernized regions and countries like Hongkong and Singapore , and America itself.The main factor you have ignored is that India is floating on a sea of corruption. I do not know of a single Indian, including myself, who can honestly say with his hand on Bible, Gita or Quran that he is not corrupt. What we call “corruption” is actually our way of life. It is the air we breathe. It is my experience of 84 years that the “aam aadmi” in India is more corrupt than the leaders and bureaucrats. I give you an example from today’s Time’s of India . A TV channel has found voluminous material, tons of it, on money laundering for large companies by some of the World’s largest banks. Is any of them short of money? How much will you pay them by way of salaries to their executives to make them honest? Is there an upper limit?Here, given below this note, is the Times of India story which clearly shows two things: First, every one in India, whether in Government of Private sector, likes to make easy money illegally and two, only the massive application of the new technological tools, like digital currency and sting operations, which ensure transparency in public and private dealings, can bring this menace under control.That wages have a direct effect on productivity is an axiomatic truth in the developed world. But it is not so in the developing world, specially India . Here various cultural factors come into play. In his Nobel Prize winning book “Asian Drama” written half-a-century ago Gunar Myrdal described India as a “soft state” where there was practically no enforcement of laws and every economic offence was condoned. Today the situation is ten times worse. People behave as if they are not subject to any law. There is no link between productivity and wages in India . Primarily because corruption is part of our way of life. It is endemic in our culture. You go on increasing the wages of teachers, media-men, engineers, administrators, doctors, lawyers, salesmen, military officers and so on, they will still want more. Teacher’s scales have been increased two to four times in the last few years yet they are fighting tooth and nail against introduction of systems that will make them do some work in return. IAS officers’ and MPs’ salaries have risen ten-fold but they still treat it as “pocket money”, since they make crores under the table. Nobody pays sales tax. Also nobody demands it. Nobody pays the minimum wage under the Minimum Wage Act. Also, there is the cultural factor of caste. In Hindu tradition the upper castes, specially Brahmins and Thakurs (Kshatriyas) are not supposed to do any work. Vaishyas (or banias) can do only trade.Idleness is a form of corruption which comes under your yardstick of productivity. Not working for the pay you receive because you can get away without doing any work at all is common to Indian culture.However, there are two additional fundamental factors which must be kept in mind while determining wages:One is the per capita income of a country and the other is the disparity between the highest and lowest salaries. You have rightly taken the example of America and pointed out that private sector and government salaries are more or less the same. There the minimum wage is between fifteen and twenty dollars an hour which works out to four thousand dollars a month (for 200 hours) against the average top executive pay of say $20,000 a month –– a ratio of one to five. In India the gap between the lowest 25% people who work on 12 rupees a day and the normal executive pay of Rs. one to ten crores a year is about 2000 to 20,000 times. Here is what Time Magazine of March 11, 2013, has to say on this subject:Welcoming the passing away of US-baiter Chavez as an opportunity for America to improve its relations with Latin America Time says.Even if Maduro (Chavez’s chosen successor) loses, (in the forthcoming election for President) Washington and the rest of the world need to remember the unmistakable reasons for Chavez’s rise to power –– chief among them a failure to build the kind of democratic institutions in Latin America that can close the region’s unconscionable wealth gap. That flaw still lingers, which is why the memory of Chavez will too.You have also given examples of Singapore and Hongkong. You will find two things there: There differential ratio between per capita incomes, minimum wage scales and executive pay will be more or less the same as in any Western democracy like U.S., Canada, Australia and West Europe, including the Nordic countries. Secondly, most of the citizens there are Chinese who are conscious that they are competing with communist China and must show better results. It is an entirely different culture. Cultural factors do matter. You will find marked difference in productivity in different regions of India for the same pay.
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