On the present disorder in the nation

1. Three facts about the present state of the nation:
1. The economy is in crisis.
2. Our political leadership is powerful, but clueless.
3. Our educated class has failed us
2. On the economic crisis:
1. A depreciating rupee, a widening fiscal deficit, a serious current account deficit - all these are only technical indicators of an economic system which itself is false.
2. The actual crisis is that the economic system we have adopted is flawed at the core. It stands isolated without sharing the concerns and goals of the social system and ecological system; indeed, we can say that the present economic theory shows no understanding of human beings and human communities.
3. Real life is lived with people, real life is lived with nature, so social harmony and ecological harmony are natural goals for a human community. It is a reality that living involves livelihood. The action of livelihood is not outside society and nature, it is within this field. 
4. The aggressive action of modern economics is directly related to the development of modern technology. Today's economic energy is drunk on the power of science and technology - it has gone out of control and separated itself from society and ecology. Indeed, it is a fact now that economic growth and development is claimed even when social structures like villages, community and family are being fractured, and even when ecological systems of soil and forests and rivers are being destroyed. We, therefore, say that such a growth and development is false.

Gross National Disaster

After many months of travelling across rural India, I have had the opportunity last week to sit down in Mumbai and read the papers. I find many things that are disturbing. I see trends which people had foreseen, and yet they are happening, and that is even more disturbing. This is not about things that happen to 'other people', they concern us, our society, our nation, our earth; they portend the future. It will be worthwhile to see them.

* * * * *

I gather that the newspapers have now found out that the economy is in trouble, that the financial system is in a mess:

- Foreign exchange reserves at 285 billion dollars, just enough to cover seven months' imports.

- Rupee crashing vis-a-vis the dollar.

- Current Account Deficit (net outflow of foreign exchange) now at 4.8 per cent (of GDP), which is alarming, says RBI.

- Non-stop inflation over the last 18 months, food commodities hit all-time high.

I remember that in 1991, I saw very similar headlines. This is like an action replay, except that things are much worse now, because in the interim period, the nation's economic integrity has been compromised with structural changes, and large parts of the country have been mortgaged.

I also remember that the central characters of 1991 are the same as today: Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram and Montek Ahluwalia. It is my view that if any one group has to bear the larger blame for the nation's economic disaster and deep-rooted financial rot, it is this threesome of PM, FM and Chairman of Planning Commission . They have wilfully ignored the Indian reality and have instead bowed to the dictates of the World Bank and the IMF. Since this threesome also does salaam to Sonia, and she is the one with the 'remote control', I suppose she is also answerable for this Gross National Disaster.

Here is another set of headlines that I see:

The dependence inside Independence

Both India and the United States of America (USA) have been colonies of the English, and both claim that they are now independent. That their people are independent. Among these, the US is the senior 'independent' state, India is the junior one, and is imitating the senior in all its shades of modern democracy. So it is worthwhile to look at what we are following, to have a clear picture of what this path is leading us to.
This imitation of the US rests upon English systems that we have already copied and laid as the political foundation - a collection of 550 people in Delhi's Lok Sabha and about 4000 in the Vidhan Sabhas of different states who will 'govern' the remaining 100 crore people (1 billion people). Come to think of it, if there was one ruler, say a king, then we would say, unhappily, that we were ruled by just 0.0000001 per cent of the population. In the modern democratic system, the math does not change much, we are now ruled by a mere 0.00045 per cent of the population. But, you may say, 'we' get to choose or elect the 0.00045 per cent of people. Yes, of course, sort of; let us have a closer look at this.
It has been recorded that during the recent Presidential and Congressional elections in the USA, nearly six billion dollars was spent on behalf of candidates¹, i.e., 6 followed by nine zeros. In Indian terms, converting to rupees, that is over 30,000 crore rupees, which in numeral form is Rs 30,00,00,00,00,000, i.e., 3 followed by twelve zeros! This is an absurd number to ordinary folk, because it stuns the imagination.

Community

I see the village community as a functional structure which strengthens the possibility for families to be prosperous in a self-reliant way. In that sense, the community is for the family. The family is a functional structure which strengthens the possibility for each person to discover what is right living, in the warmth of relationship. In that sense, the family is for the person.

In this way, the functional order is in favour of each person being free and finding fulfilment. This is the purpose of society; the combined expression of a people is to serve the person so he can understand life and be complete. With this functional purpose, a village community unfolds a structure which strengthens the possibility for each person to grow and flower in a fertile social soil.

Whether such a dispensation, in its completeness, has been achieved, I do not know. But it is certainly true that in India, traditionally, we have had largely self-sufficient village communities which together constituted society. They had come up organically and had been maintained with some diligence. And now, for the last two hundred years or so, the force of modern society has been breaking them apart, first slowly, but now with great speed.

Living in rural Garhwal for the last four years, I see that the village community being dismantled today are only the structural remains; it appears that the functional purpose has been long lost, if at all it was ever fully realised. The structure has continued a while longer as a momentum of habit - so what we see crumbling today may not be tradition per se, but the inertia of tradition. Even so, I am of the view that a good thing is being pulled down, and I would say we ought to question why we are doing this.

Modern Civilization

What is modernity, or modern civilization? It is not a thing or substance. It is a way of believing, thinking, and acting which is now consuming the whole modern world.

Modernity is based upon western civilizational thought and behaviour. Its main characteristics are:

1. An economic system based on the thoughts and theories of Adam Smith who said that a greedy pursuit of making money by everybody is needed in society.

2. A social system based on the thoughts and theories of Charles Darwin, who said 'only the fittest shall survive', and therefore, life is a constant struggle; each one has to fight others for superiority.

3. A science system based on measurement and quantification; i.e. what can be measured by man exists, what cannot be measured by man does not exist.

Such a way of believing, thinking, and acting is modernity, or modern civilization. We may not be aware of it, but if one looks at one's own environment, we can see that this is evident in all our endeavours. Look at our schools. We send our children to school so that they can be made ready 'for the market', to get money, to fight for success. Values and ethics are not measurable, and therefore ignored - this builds their 'scientific temperament'. The same is true of our office jobs, of our bureaucracy, of business and of the political system itself - all these we have directly copied from English civilization. In each of these, the system is designed to increase insecurity, not lessen it. Greed for reward is used for survival and growth. One fights others so as to get ahead. And the only measurement is of things material - sales, profits and personal gain.

The Indian civilizational way of thinking is different. We hold that:

Open Letter to Team Anna

Respected Shri Anna Hazare, Shri Arvind Kejriwal and members of Team Anna,

A large section of the nation is supporting your criticism of the present state of affairs in the country and share your concern about the rot in our political system. Corruption in the form of scams is one thing, there is also the serious issue of a corrupted and unethical mind-set among the entire elite, whom the rest of the nation imitate and aspire to be.

You have said that the present democratic system is flawed and needs to be set right. May I ask, sir, most respectfully, if we can do this without also looking at the very basis of the democratic system, which is modern, western civilization? It has economic, social and political objectives based upon its own history and thinking - these are completely at odds with Indian civilizational worldview, and the nation has suffered due to this experiment.

Is it possible, sir, to see and recognise this foundational fault and then re-shape the democratic system - after all, even the modern, western democratic system is its own, it is not at all the way Greek democracy was defined, as the 'power of the people'.

More than a hundred years ago, Mahatma Gandhi wrote 'Hind Swaraj', where he foresaw and addressed this issue. May I quote a brief section from it which is uncanny in its resemblance to today's state of affairs (it is in the form of a dialogue betweeen Gandhiji and a reader):