"No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest
evil, may be the greatest good."
—Plato (Greek, 427-347BC)
Word
for the day
Quondam (adj)
Former;
Onetime, e.g., his quondam partner.
Malice
towards none
How death ends animosity,
enmity, hatred, rancor, acrimony, everything?
Or does it?
First random
thought this morning
After Brexit & Trump now the dreaded Italy 'No' vote also has not
impacted the global markets as most experts would have expected.
What could be the reason?
(a) Markets are too
complacent, and would eventually explode sometime in 2017.
(b) Experts are completely
out of synch with the popular mood on the street.
(c) The forecasting models
and techniques used by the experts are obsolete.
In search of solutions - 4
“It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves. It is, therefore,
in the palm of our hands. But such Swaraj has to be experienced, by each one
for himself. One drowning man will never save another.”
“I believe that you want the millions of India to be happy, not
that you want the reins of government in your hands. If that be so, we have to
consider only one thing: how can the millions obtain self-rule?”
[M. K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj]
Over the past seven decades, the political structure has taken the
shape of a pyramid form, whereas the social structure in the country continues
to be in a ladder form.
In a pyramid structure, the space at the top is limited. The
people are continuously at struggle with each other. Those who have reached the
top fight with each other to stay there. They have also to fight with a
multitude of other people who are trying to reach the summit. To survive at the
top, you need to push all others down. The concepts such as mutual trust,
harmony, cooperation, equality, justice, etc. have little relevance under this
structure. The laws of the jungle prevail - the strongest survives and his
interest is accepted as justice. This intense and consistent struggle to
survive, seldom allows the leaders at the top to bother about the people below.
To the contrary, traditionally the Indian society is structured in
ladder form. The ultimate goal is well defined as salvation from this material
world. The space at the top is unlimited. There is no competition. Mostly
people wish that the person ahead of them moves higher faster so that they
could also move up. It's like a queue in the temple. You want the people ahead
of you to move forward faster, so that you could also get to worship the deity
sooner. No one pulls anyone back. Everyone pushes the others forward.
I have been highlighting since ever that one of the best things
India has got in past 150years is Mahatma Gandhi. And the most
unfortunate thing to occur since independence from British rule in 1947 is
brazen desertion of Mahatma Gandhi by Indian politicians. To my mind
hanging his pictures in government offices or currency notes and naming roads
after him is even more contemptuous given the blatant irreverence for his
principles and ideas.
Mahatma Gandhi understood the Indian society as no other Indian
leader in modern India did. Based on his understanding, he suggested the model
of Swaraj (self rule). Trust me, the Gandhian idea of Swaraj could have been
proposed only by a person like him who had experienced India so intimately.
(It may be pertinent to recall here that in my view Arvind
Kejriwal’s idea of Swaraj is at best a perversion of Gandhian concept of Swaraj
and deserves to be rejected with due contempt.)
“Although the word swaraj means self-rule, Gandhi gave it the
content of an integral revolution that encompasses all spheres of life. “At the
individual level swaraj is vitally connected with the capacity for
dispassionate self-assessment, ceaseless self-purification and growing swadeshi
or self-reliance".
Politically swaraj is self-government and not good government
(for Gandhi, good government is no substitute for self-government) and it means
continuous effort to be independent of government control, whether it is
foreign government or whether it is national.
In the other words, it is sovereignty of the people based on
pure moral authority. Economically, poorna swaraj means full economic freedom
for the toiling millions. For Gandhi, swaraj of the people meant the sum total
of the swaraj (self-rule) of individuals and so he clarified that for him
swaraj meant freedom for the meanest of his countrymen. And in its fullest
sense, swaraj is much more than freedom from all restraints, it is self-rule,
self-restraint and could be equated with moksha or salvation."
In one of his letters to Leo Tolstoy Gandhi explained Swaraj as
follows:
“Independence begins at the bottom. A society must be built in
which every village has to be self sustained and capable of managing its own
affairs. It will be trained and prepared to perish in the attempt to defend
itself against any onslaught from without. This does not exclude dependence on
and willing help from neighbors or from the world. It will be a free and
voluntary play of mutual forces. In this structure composed of innumerable
villages, there will be ever widening, never ascending circles.
Growth will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the
bottom. But it will be an oceanic circle whose center will be the individual.
Therefore the outermost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner
circle but will give strength to all within and derive its own strength from
it.” (as
cited in Wikipedia)
Thus, the individual is the sole basis of Swaraj. Swaraj is
unfathomable without dispassionate self-assessment, ceaseless self-purification
and growing self-reliance at individual level; and sovereignty of moral
authority, as against the political authority.
Swaraj encompasses fiercely competitive free market, moral duty
to be free, fearless, truthful, fair, just, self reliant, nationalist, and
religious.
This Swaraj, many argue is Utopian in current context. Some
argue that it is desirable but we have traveled too far down the road we took
post independence from British rule; and it is too late to go back and begin
again.
In my view, this defeatist and fatigued attitude is
unwarranted. What we need is a zero base discussion on the subject and
solutions will emerge that would lead us to the desired goal of making 1.3bn
people free, fearless and happy. An incremental approach howsoever sincere
might not yield the desired results.
With this in mind I dream of a free, fearless and fair
socio-political organization for the country."
During my various visits to the hinterlands of the country, I
found strong evidence of numerous democratic assemblies within various
communities and localities. From my experience I know for certain that most
Indians not only feel comfortable working with the members of their own
community, but are usually most productive when operating within the network of
their “Own people” or "Community".
This “communalism” is arguably a key strength of Indian
society. Therefore, in my view, the social ecology model suggested by author
and activist Murray Bookchin which advocates a “stateless, classless,
decentralized society consisting of a network of directly democratic citizens'
assemblies in individual communities/cities organized in a confederal fashion”
appears relevant in our context.
Unfortunately, our politicians and social activists have
dissipated the term “communalism” to mean intolerance and hatred towards
other religions, especially amongst Hindus and Muslims. This debauchery has
introduced many distortions in our socio-political order. In my view this needs
to be corrected as pre-condition before we begin working on any course
correction.
Religious fundamentalism (which is usually referred to as “communalism”
in Indian context), is mostly a political problem in India. A secular
political system, as envisaged by Mahatma Gandhi and incorporated in the soul
of our Constitution, would automatically weaken these miniscule elements
leading to their eventual extinction.
My solution to the India's political problem is thus predicated on
our ability to build and nurture strong communities that live in harmony with
the nature.
Tomorrow I shall present the broad contours of the political structure that
in my view can rid our country of nepotism; conflicts between various interest
groups that undermine the national interest; mediocrity at the expense of
meritocracy; promote communal harmony, equity, and cater to the aspirations of
all the people.
