A long paper by Swaminathan Gurumurthy Indias culture -- Past, Present and Future: Indias Culture, Society and Economy -------------------------------- I. The Critical Question The single most critical question which has tormented the Indian establishment consisting of most thinkers, intellectuals, academics, political leaders, policy makers, economists, sociologists of India since Independence is whether the Indian religions, culture, traditions, lifestyle and values are compatible with the contemporary time, particularly for economic development. This question has also acutely tested the faith and conviction of the people in Hindu culture which constituted, according to the Supreme Court, the way of life, ethos and traditions of the Indian nation itself. [1] It has also challenged the capacity of the religious and spiritual leaders to help sutain the faith of the people in their religion and philosophy. While the Indian establishment had virtually concluded that Indias traditions and culture are incompatible with contemporary economic thinking, the people of India did not agree with the establishment and the religious and spiritual leadership of India had kept the faith of the people alive in both. But, with India now perceived as a rising world super power by think tanks like the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relation [ICRIER] in India [2] and many outside, it is time to make a value judgement on Indian culture – its past, present and future – to know to whether it is compatible with contemporary demands and what is it contributory role for India and for the world as India emerges as a global force. This calls for a look back and look ahead from our current position II. Indian mind under western influence In free Indias discourse, the proponents of our sense of this ancient nation, Hindu philosophy, culture and lifestyle had always been on the defensive for the last several decades because the colonialists had made us belive that the West was always advanced in economics and technology and we were always backward in both. Since the soft India was militarily conquered and colonised, the colonial and the other Western thinkers, consistenly labelled India as barbaric [Wm. Archer (3)/ Winston Churchil (4)], or as semi-barbaric [Karl Marx (5)], or as disqualified for development in modern capitalism because of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs [Max Weber (6)] or as functioning ararchy [JK Galbraith (7)] and exerted great negative influence on the Indian mind and on Indians opinion about India. Of them, according to studies, Karl Marx and Max Weber, neither of whom visited India nor otherwise deeply familiar with Hindu culture and traditions, have exerted the greatest influence on Indian academic and intellectual establishment [8]. The continuing tsunami of such negative academic and intellectual vibrations devalued the Hindu philosophy, culture, society, traditions and values in the mind of the Indian scholars and rated them as backward and unsuitable for contemporary world. A well-known Indian economist Dr Raj Krishna even described, as late as in 1978, the moderate GDP growth rate of India as Hindu Growth Rate.[9] This term was later popularised by the then World Bank chief McNamara [10] to say that India would always survive on aid from West and deride India. Undeniably the Indian mind was dominantly influenced by the Western scholars and philosophers. But in the last decade or thereabouts, this whole impression has undergone a change with the rise of India. With the rise of Japan in 1970s, of the East Asian nations in 1980s, of China in 1990s and of India at the dawn of the 21st century, a huge geo-political and cultural power shift has been taking place in the world from the Euro-American West to the Asia. The assumption in, and of, the West till Asia rose was that West was the First [rate] World and the rest belonged to the Second and Third [rate] Worlds. The rise of Asia, Japan first, prompted the Western scholars study whether such rise was founded on any potential inherent in them. On such study, Paul Bairoch, a Belgian economist, came out with his stunning finding that as late as in 1750, India, with 24.5% and China with 33% had a combined share of 57.5% of global GDP, when the share of Britain was 1.8% and that of US just 0.1%. [11] This led to two huge debates in the West. One, whether the West had a lesser standard of living compared to Asia as late as in 18th century; two, whether the rise of West was due to any superior qualities or capabilities inherent in it, or, it was just exploitation of its colonies. Based on Bairochs study some historians like Ferdinand Braudel said that the standard of living of the West was not higher than that of Asia before industrialisation. Some felt that the West exploited the Rest and particularly Asia and grew and others differed. As if to resolve the debate, the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation [OECD] a forum of developed nations of the world, constituted a study – the Development Studies Institute – under Angus Maddison, a great economic historian, to study, in substance, whether Paul Bairoch was right. Angus Maddison, who felt at the start that Bairoch was unlikely to be correct, ended up endorsing him completely. In his study World Economic History – A Millennial Perspective [12], Maddison not only confirmed Bairoch, but went on to say that India was the world economic leader for 17 centuries from the beginning of the Common Era, with China, which overtook India later, as No 2. And after CE 1800, both of them lost out – with India crashing to 1.8% and China 6.2% in 1900. As the British Historian William Dalrymple wrote, the current rise of India is not rags to richest story, but that of an empire, which had lost out temporarily, striking back to acquire its due position in the world. These studies have completely disproved the views of Marx and Weber, Galbraith and Raj Krishna and also established that the Indian culture and way of life could and did build a successful globally powerful economic model for India. So, India rich in cultural heritage was also economically prosperous. It was therefore canard spread by the colonial scholars that the Indian culture and traditions were incompatible with economic prosperity. It is necessary at this point to know what, in the Hindu understanding, is tradition, culture and modernity and what is their role in the economy and soceity. Our culture, according to the Kanchi Mahaswami who lived for a century among us, is founded on the twin principle of “aparigriha” [contentment] and “nirahambhavana” [humility]. Both these virtues are the products of the larger consciousness of relation among humans and within all elements of creation; they recognise and imply a higher duty to fellow humans and to nature. The virtue of contentment recognises and balances economic differences. Humility comprehends and addresses all differences. These two virtues help to unify the diversities. This twin virtues are therefore in tune with the very principle of creation, namely, unity in diversity. The diverse appearances of high and small, high and low, and weak and strong are harmonised by these virtues of higher relations. This is supplemented by worldly relations, family, community, society and nation. Our culture honours relations. It rests on relations and it promotes and sustains relations in turn, as Sri Krishna says in Bhagwat Gita, on the basis of “parasparam bhavayantah”, namely mutually co-operative relation. Our tradition and culture mutually co-operatively related individual to families, families to communities and communities to larger society and the larger society to the country and finally the country to the world on the principle of “Vasudaiva Kutumbakam”. No other ancient civilisation even thought of the world or the world as family”; the modern civilisation looks at the world as market. The expanding relationship of these collectives is well-described in Mahabharata capturing the integral relation betwen individual, family, village, the country and God, thus: “Tyajet ekam Kulasyarthe, Gramasyarthe Kulam tyajet; Gramam Janapadasyarthe, Atmarthe prithivim tyajet”[13]. It means that [rights of] individuals are to be sacrificed for the family; [rights of] families are to be sacrificed for a village; [rights of] villages are to be sacrificed for the country; and when it comes to realising God, the entire everything can be sacrificed.” The meaning is that the individual owes duties to families, families to village [neighbourhood] village to the country. So the relation between the individual to the nation is interlinked and integrated by a sense of duty to one another. The traditional society is relation-oriented which binds everyone to duties to families, near and dear, community and society, even to nature and animals. This sense of duty is comprehended in the concept of Dharma. Now let us see how the decline of culture or collective behavioural norm leads to economic decline. X. World needs India and Indian culture and spirituality for its survival, say historians and economists The world, particularly the West, needs India. That is why two most famous historians, Arnold Toynbee from UK and Will Durant from US, who lived through the turbulent 20th century had this to say: “It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history , the only way of salvation is the ancient Hindu way. Here we have the attitude that can make it possible for the human race to grow together into a single family”: Arnold Toynbee [29] “It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to us such questionable gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and decimal system. But these are not the essence of her spirit: they are trifles compared what we may learn from her in the future. Perhaps in return for the conquest, arrogance and spoliation, India will teach us tolerance and gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of unacquisitive soul, the calm of the understanding spirit, and a unifying, a pacifying love for all living things”: Will Durant [30] If this were what Arnold Toynbee and Will Durant said in the last century, one of the most well-known economists and thinkers of the world, Jean Pierre Lehmann, who was also the Adviser to the World Trade Organisation and is presently Professor in IMD, the famous management institute in Swtizerland wrote, in 2006 that what is needed is a global ethical and spiritual role model for which the best candidate to fill the spot is India with non-conflicting Hinduism, adding that globalisation cannot work without Hindu way of life. Read full article here. t.co/RqiI2rXQLH
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 05:09:23 +0000
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