Go Local

It is time to return to core values, time to get back to basics.

....John Major

Here I am copying an article written by Satish Kumar, which elaborates an important concept - principle of 'swadeshi'. Kumar is a Gandhian scholar and also a thinker and activist in the tradition of E.F. Schumacher. Born in Bikaner, in Rajastan, India, Kumar was a Jain monk early in life, then joined the Gandhian movement and later, quite literally, walked around the world.

In the context of world’s economic crises, 99% movement, failure of states, state entitlement, green movement, this write-up appeared to me as a soothing breeze in a hot summer day. How nicely today’s economic world problem is addressed and answered, long before it actually happed, really amazed me.

Gandhi's Swadeshi - The Economics of Permanence - Satish Kumar

Mahatma Gandhi was a champion of 'swadeshi', or home economy. People outside India know of Gandhi's campaigns to end British colonialism, but this was only a small part of his struggle. The greater part of Gandhi's work was to renew India's vitality and regenerate its culture. Gandhi was not interested simply in exchanging rule by white sahibs for rule by brown sahibs; he wanted the government to surrender much of its power to local villages.

For Gandhi, the spirit and the soul of India rested in the village communities. He said, "The true India is to be found not in its few cities, but in its seven hundred thousand villages. If the villages perish, India will perish too." Swadeshi is a program for long-term survival.

 Principals of Swadeshi

 Gandhi's vision of a free India was not a nation-state but a confederation of self-governing, self-reliant, self-employed people living in village communities, deriving their right livelihood from the products of their homesteads. Maximum economic and political power - including the power to decide what could be imported into or exported from the village - would remain in the hands of the village assemblies.

In India, people have lived for thousands of years in a relative harmony with their surroundings: living in their homesteads, weaving homespun clothes, eating homegrown food, using homemade goods; caring for their animals, forests, and lands; celebrating the fertility of the soil with feasts; performing the stories of great epics, and building temples. Every region of India has developed its own distinctive culture, to which travelling storytellers, wandering 'saddhus', and constantly flowing streams of pilgrims have traditionally made their contribution.

According to the principle of swadeshi, whatever is made or produced in the village must be used first and foremost by the members of the village. Trading among villages and between villages and towns should be minimal, like icing on the cake. Goods and services that cannot be generated within the community can be bought from elsewhere.

Swadeshi avoids economic dependence on external market forces that could make the village community vulnerable. It also avoids unnecessary, unhealthy, wasteful, and therefore environmentally destructive transportation. The village must build a strong economic base to satisfy most of its needs, and all members of the village community should give priority to local goods and services.

Every village community of free India should have its own carpenters, shoemakers, potters, builders, mechanics, farmers, engineers, weavers, teachers, bankers, merchants, traders, musicians, artists, and priests. In other words, each village should be a microcosm of India - a web of loosely inter-connected communities. Gandhi considered these villages so important that he thought they should be given the status of "village republics".

The village community should embody the spirit of the home - an extension of the family rather than a collection of competing individuals. Gandhi's dream was not of personal self-sufficiency, not even family self-sufficiency, but the self-sufficiency of the village community.

The British believed in centralized, industrialized, and mechanized modes of production. Gandhi turned this principle on its head and envisioned a decentralized, homegrown, hand-crafted mode of production. In his words, "Not mass production, but production by the masses."

By adopting the principle of production by the masses, village communities would be able to restore dignity to the work done by human hands. There is an intrinsic value in anything we do with our hands, and in handing over work to machines we lose not only the material benefits but also the spiritual benefits, for work by hand brings with it a mediative mind and self-fulfilment. Gandhi wrote, "Its a tragedy of the first magnitude that millions of people have ceased to use their hands as hands. Nature has bestowed upon us this great gift which is our hands. If the craze for machinery methods continues, it is highly likely that a time will come when we shall be so incapacitated and weak that we shall begin to curse ourselves for having forgotten the use of the living machines given to us by God. Millions cannot keep fit by games and athletics and why should they exchange the useful productive hardy occupations for the useless, unproductive and expensive sports and games." Mass production is only concerned with the product, whereas production by the masses is concerned with the product, the producers, and the process.

The driving force behind mass production is a cult of the individual. What motive can there be for the expansion of the economy on a global scale, other than the desire for personal and corporate profit?

In contrast, a locally based economy enhances community spirit, community relationships, and community well-being. Such an economy encourages mutual aid. Members of the village take care of themselves, their families, their neighbours, their animals, lands, forestry, and all the natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations.

Mass production leads people to leave their villages, their land, their crafts, and their homesteads and go to work in the factories. Instead of dignified human beings and members of a self-respecting village community, people become cogs in the machine, standing at the conveyor belt, living in shanty towns, and depending of the mercy of the bosses. Then fewer and fewer people are needed to work, because the industrialists want greater productivity. The masters of the money economy want more and more efficient machines working faster and faster, and the result would be that men and women would be thrown on the scrap heap of unemployment. Such a society generates rootless and jobless millions living as dependants of the state or begging in the streets. In swadeshi, the machine would be subordinated to the worker; it would not be allowed to become the master, dictating the pace of human activity. Similarly, market forces would serve the community rather than forcing people to fit the market.

Gandhi knew that with the globalization of the economy, every nation would wish to export more and import less to keep the balance of payments in its favour. There would be perpetual economic crisis, perpetual unemployment, and perpetually discontented, disgruntled human beings.

In communities practising swadeshi, economics would have a place but would not dominate society. Beyond a certain limit, economic growth becomes detrimental to human well-being. The modern worldview is that the more material goods you have, the better your life will be. But Gandhi said, "A certain degree of physical comfort is necessary but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help; therefore the ideal of creating an unlimited number of wants and satisfying them, seems to be a delusion and a trap. The satisfaction of one's physical needs must come at a certain point to a dead stop before it degenerates into physical decadence. Europeans will have to remodel their outlook if they are not to perish under the weight of the comforts to which they are becoming slaves."

In order to protect their economic interests, countries go to war - military war as well as economic war. Gandhi said, "People have to live in villages communities and simple homes rather than desire to live in palaces." Millions of people will never be able to live at peace with each other if they are constantly fighting for a higher living standard.

We cannot have real peace in the world if we look at each other's countries as sources for raw materials or as markets for finished industrial goods. The seeds of war are sown with economic greed. If we analyze the causes of war throughout history, we find that the pursuit of economic expansion consistently leads to military adventures. "There is enough for everybody's need, but not enough for anybody's greed," said Gandhi. Swadeshi is thus a prerequisite for peace.

The economists and industrialists of our time fail to see when enough is enough. Even when countries reach a very high material standard of living, they are still caught up with the idea of economic growth. Those who do not know when enough is enough will never have enough, but those who know when enough is enough already have enough.

Swadeshi is the way to comprehensive peace: peace with oneself, peace between peoples, and peace with nature. The global economy drives people toward high performance, high achievement, and high ambition for materialistic success. This results in stress, loss of meaning, loss of inner peace, loss of space for personal and family relationships, and loss of spiritual life. Gandhi realized that in the past, life in India was not only prosperous but also conducive to philosophical and spiritual development. Swadeshi for Gandhi was the spiritual imperative.

The rise of English colonialism

Historically, the Indian local economy was dependent upon the most productive and sustainable agriculture and horticulture and on pottery, furniture making, metal work, jewelry, leather work, and many other economic activities. But its basis had traditionally been in textiles. Each village had its spinners, carders, dyers, and weavers who were the heart of the village economy. However, when India was flooded with machine-made, inexpensive, mass-produced textiles from Lancashire, the local textile artists were rapidly put out of business, and the village economy suffered terribly. Gandhi thought it essential that the industry be restored, and started a campaign to stem the influx of British cloth. Due to his efforts, hundreds of thousands of untouchables and caste Hindus joined together to discard the mill-made clothes imported from England or from city factories and learned to spin their own yarn and weave their own cloth. The spinning wheel became the symbol of economic freedom, political independence, and cohesive and classless communities. The weaving and wearing of homespun cloth became marks of distinction for all social groups.

Also responsible for the destruction of India's home economy in the eighteenth century was the introduction of British education under colonial rule. Lord Macaulay, introducing the Indian Education Act in the British Parliament, said, "A single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India ... Neither as a language of the law, nor as a language of religion has the Sanskrit any particular claim to our engagement ... We must do our best to form a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect."

This aim was pursued with the entire might of the British Raj. Traditional schools were replaced by colonial schools and universities. Wealthy Indians were sent to public schools such as Eton and Harrow and universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. Educated Indians increasingly learned English poetry, English law, and English customs to the neglect of their own culture. Reading Shakespeare and the 'London Times' became much more fashionable than reading Indian classics such as the 'Ramayana', the 'Mahabarata', the 'Vedas', and the 'Upanishads'. Educated Indians saw their own culture as backward, uncivilized, and old-fashioned. They wanted to become rulers of India, but they wanted to rule like the British.

If there was any one person who represented this type of Western-educated Indian it was Jawaharlal Nehru, who became the first prime minister after independence. Nehru sought to promote the industrialization of India not via the capitalist route but by centralized planning. His inspiration came from the intellectuals of the London School of Economics and the Fabian Society - the labour Party's think tank.

Gandhi, on the other hand, believed that India's essential contribution to the world was simply het India-ness. He felt that Indians should recognize their own genius and not try to copy Western culture, which was simply a tool of colonization. Economics and politics should not simply be concerned with material things but should be the means to the fulfilment of cultural, spiritual, and religious ends. In fact, economics should not be separated from the deep spiritual foundations of life. This can be best achieved, according to Gandhi, when every individual is an integral part of the community; when the production of goods is on a small scale; when the economy is local; and when homemade handicrafts are given preference. These conditions are conducive to a holistic, spiritual, ecological, and communitarian pattern of society.

In Gandhi's view, spiritual values should not be separated from politics, economics, agriculture, education, and all the other activities of daily life. In this integral design, there is no conflict between spiritual and material. It is no good for some people to close themselves in a monastic order practising religion and for other people to say that a spiritual life is only for saints and celibates. Such a separation of religion from society will breed corruption, greed, competition, power mania, and the exploitation of the weak and poor. Politics and economics without idealism will be a kind of prostitution, like sex without love.

Someone asked Gandhi, "What do you think of Western civilization?" He simply replied, "It would be a good idea." For Gandhi a machine civilization was no civilization. A society in which workers had to labour at a conveyor belt, in which animals were treated cruelly in factory farms, and in which economic activity necessarily lead to ecological devastation could not be conceived of as a civilization. Its citizens could only end up as neurotics, the natural world would inevitably be transformed into a desert, and its cities into concrete jungles. In other words, global industrial society, as opposed to society made up of largely autonomous communities committed to the principle of swadeshi, is unsustainable. Swadeshi for Gandhi was a sacred principle - as sacred for him as the principle of truth and nonviolence. Every morning and evening, Gandhi repeated his commitment to swadeshi in his prayers.

Unfortunately, within six months of independence, Gandhi was assassinated, and Nehru gained a free hand in shaping the economy of India. Nehru found Gandhian thinking too idealistic, too philosophical, too slow, and too spiritual. He gathered around him Western-educated bureaucrats, and the enterprise to which they were jointly committed made them the unwitting agents of economic colonization. They pressed ahead with the construction of large dams and big factories, which for them were the temples and cathedrals of the new India. The spirit of dedication, idealism, and self-sacrifice that had been paramount under the leadership of Gandhi was quickly replaced by a lust for power, privilege, comfort, and money. Nehru and his colleagues followed the opposite path to that of swadeshi, and since that time, the history of India has been the history of corruption and political intrigue at the highest level. The political colonization of India might have ended officially with independence in 1947, but her economic colonization continued unabated and at an even greater pace. She has been turned into a playground for global economic forces.

Colonialism without the colonialists

Now, India continues to be ruled in the English way, but without English rulers. This is the tragedy of India, and there is no end in sight. The industrialists, the intellectuals, and the entrepreneurs in collusion with the government still see the salvation of India in her subordination to the policies of the World Bank and GATT. They see India as part of the global economy working hand in glove with the multinational corporations.

However, discontent among the Indian people is growing rapidly. The failures of the Congress Party under Nehru, his daughter, Indira Gandhi, and her son, Rajiv Gandhi, are fully evident to all. As Mahatma Gandhi predicted, the body politic is seething with corruption. The poor are poorer than ever, and the growing middle classes are turning away from the Congress Party. The farmers are agitating against the patenting of their seeds by multinational companies. The global economy of GATT is built on sand. Even though it may appear that its grip is firm, it has no grassroots support, and as its true implications become apparent, the people of India, among whom the teachings of Gandhi are still very much alive, will react against it and will return to swadeshi for the reenchantment of their local culture, their community, and their lives. In fact, the lessons of swadeshi may bring hope for an economics of permanence even among Westerns, once the fraudulent promise of economic growth and industrialism is exposed.

A case Study :

How a tiny hamlet of 1000 embraced new ideas for the sake of the future : The Telegraph,Calcutta, India

Jhargaon (Gumla), Jan. 23: Jhargaon holds out hope that success is possible, even in Jharkhand. Two years after it was chosen as a model, over 1,000 residents of this nondescript hamlet of Gumla, 110km from the state capital, want to junk their BPL cards. For, self respect does not allow them to be claimants of government dole.

If self-sufficiency is their goal, the people of Jhargaon, in Toto panchayat of Gumla Sadar block, 10km from the district headquarters, have imbibed its true spirit. Over the last two years, they have achieved a lot.

They have set up a mango orchard in collaboration with the district administration on 47 acres of fallow land, pooled in resources for group farming, banned the sale of liquor, ensured their children go to school and even set up an informal administrative system with “ministers” to monitor various aspects of their day-to-day lives.

But, their most remarkable achievement is an en masse attitudinal change, the belief that self help is the best help. All 1,160 residents are on board and it is this understanding that has propelled them to give up their BPL cards by next year in stark contrast to the growing demand for the dole cards that entitle the poor to subsidised foodgrain.

“None of us want to remain in BPL (category). Our self-respect does not permit it,” said village leader Chajren Kujur. “We have decided to hand over our BPL cards to the district administration within the next one year,” said the mother of three whom villagers call “prime minister”.

In January 21, 2010, Gumla district administration selected Jhargaon as a model where various welfare schemes would be used to develop the village socially, economically and attitudinally.

John Joseph Benjamin Tirkey, the district planning officer was assigned the task of converting the hamlet into a “model village” while Unicef assigned an officer of its own, Subir Das, to work with the district administration.

There was no looking back since then. The district administration successfully donned the role of a facilitator. Officials held several meetings to motivate villagers, renovated a few buildings and ensured that benefits of the various government welfare schemes reached them.

That’s all. They also knew when to step back and allow the people of Jhargaon to take over.

“Liquor was the biggest problem in our village and hence nearly two years back we decided to ban it,” said Kujur, who has studied up to Class IX. “Except a few, many households used to send their children to graze cows as they were unaware of the benefits of education. All of us discussed the issue and two men were appointed to graze all village cows so that the children could be in school,” she explained.

The results are showing. Headmaster of the local primary school Dipendra Kumar Choudhary proudly announced that he now had 140 children, all of whom were regulars. Before 2010, only 35 children were in class, with many bunking due to cattle grazing duty.

The enthusiasm has rubbed off on the teachers who have devised new ways of keeping the children involved. Some of life’s basic lessons — like the importance of sanitation and cleanliness — are imparted through fun and games.

Choudhary explained a unique variation of musical chairs in which each circle is divided into divisions and each of which is named by a phrase that explains a key element of personal hygiene.

A student’s fate is decided by which division he finds himself/herself in. “For instance, if someone is in ‘wearing dirty clothes’ or ‘sporting long nails’, he/she is out. But, if he/she is in ‘washing hands before meals’, a trait that needs to be encouraged among children, he moves on,” said the head master.

The district administration’s contribution has been no less. It has renovated a health centre, a large area multi-purpose societies (LAMPS) building and has also set up a Gokul gram, a milk collection centre, using various government schemes.

Villagers have been funded for buying goats and milch cows for their livelihood. Youths have been given pump sets to irrigate agricultural land and produce vegetables.

“In all, we have spent only Rs 21 lakh in various schemes in this village. But, we have been able to imbibe in the villagers an attitude for self-growth. Now, the villagers decide in their gram sabha what they want to do and we only support them,” Tirkey told The Telegraph.

Recently, about 45 villagers pooled in their land, 47 acre in all, and asked the administration to plant mango trees under national rural horticulture mission.

Jhargaon residents have also adopted a new institution — a gram sansad, or village parliament — in which all of them are members.

They have assigned specific tasks or portfolios to individuals who look after, say, education, agriculture, health or sanitation — much like ministers.

Kujur, who is widely accepted as village leader, is called “prime minister” for co-ordinating with the “ministers”.

When chief minister Arjun Munda visited Jhargaon last week, he said the village would show the way for the state.

Why did Jhargaon succeed? Gumla deputy commissioner Rahul Sharma, the man behind the scene, said its proximity to the state capital helped to a large extent as did his officials who worked very hard.

“The district headquarters is very well connected by Gumla-Bishunpur Road. We could, therefore, monitor the results of our exercises. Our officers worked very hard, very often discussing issues with villagers late into the night,” Sharma said.

The deputy commissioner revealed that the Jhargaon model would be replicated in 21 other villages across the district. “After all, more than our efforts, it is the villagers’ willingness to change that helped us realise our goal,” he said.

The difficult part, that of changing mindsets, had been achieved. The next step, he hoped, would be easier. “We are being flooded with requests from as many as 60 villages to launch similar initiatives,” Sharma said.

If you like the articles, please forward the website link to your other friends, if few more people read and likes it, my effort of writing will get some meaning.

Please don't forget to send your feedback to : partho.mridha@gmail.com