Spirituality | May 2008

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Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods. - Japanese Proverb  

Transforming Development - Hindu Perspective      Part  I V   BY Chander Khanna In a series of thought provoking essays, Dr. Vandana Shiva, recipient of Right Livelihood award (alternative Nobel Prize) presents one of the most coherent alternative understandings of Development as it relates to the extreme poor.     For Reference Notes

According to Dr. Shiva 47: 

Ø     In order to end poverty, we must address the conditions that create poverty. She emphasises that the poor are not those who were left behind in the wake of the riches created by the industrial revolution, but are those who were pushed out and excluded (my italics) from access to their own wealth and resources. They are poor because their wealth has been appropriated and wealth creating capacity destroyed. 

Ø     The prosperity of the industrial revolution was based on riches appropriated as a result… of the violent take over of Third World resources and Third World markets that created wealth in the North - simultaneously creating poverty in the South. 

Here, I would like to add that, in all fairness, the plundering of resources by the Colonial Rulers (which no one can or should deny) continues to be matched, if not surpassed, in many lower income countries by the indigenous, local, home-made rulers both in scope and viciousness. 

Ø     Dr. Shiva alludes to two economic myths which facilitate a separation between.....the growth of affluence and the growth of poverty. ... with growth being viewed only as growth of capital and poverty is seen as causing environmental destruction. The disease is then offered as a cure: growth will solve the problems of poverty and environmental crisis it has given rise to in the first place. 

Ø     According to her, the second myth that separates affluence from poverty, is the assumption that if you produce what you consume, you do not produce..... and if you are not part of the free market economy you are not part of... national accounting that measures economic growth. 

Dr. Shiva takes exception to the analyses of commentators like Jeffrey Sachs (Time Cover story March 2005) whose work supports perpetuation of the above myths contributing to the mystification of growth and consumerism, since according to her, they also hide the real processes that create poverty. 

She makes a very compelling case for a distinction between self-provisioning sustainable lifestyle by choice versus one that is lived because of forced deprivation - whether created by Man or by natural causes. According to Dr. Shiva sustenance economies, which satisfy basic needs through self-provisioning, may be perceived as poor but do not necessarily imply a low physical quality of life. She notes that on the contrary, because sustenance economies contribute to the growth of nature's economy and the social economy, they ensure a high quality of life measure in terms of right to food and water, sustainability of livelihoods, and robust social and cultural identity and meaning.

Conversely, a system that creates denial and disease, while accumulating trillions of dollars of super profits for businesses is a system for creating poverty for people. When seeds are patented and peasants will pay $1 trillion in royalties, they will be $1 trillion poorer. Patents on medicines increase costs of AIDS drugs from $200 to $20,000, and Cancer drugs from $2,400 to $36,000 for a year's treatment. When water is privatized, and global corporations make $1 trillion from commoditization of water, the poor are poorer by $1 trillion. 

Finally, Dr. Shiva reminds us that modern economies and concepts of development cover only a negligible part of the history of human interaction with nature. She points out that trade and exchange of goods and services have always existed in human societies, but these were subjected to nature's and people's economies. The elevation of the domain of the market and man-made capital to the position of the highest organizing principle for societies has led to the neglect and destruction of the other two organizing principles - ecology and survival - which maintain and sustain life in nature and society. 

The following internet blog illustrates the contrast between a self-provisioning sustenance life style and market driven view of development. 

A solitary fisherman, somewhere in a low-income tropical island is sitting with two fishes in a pail watching the sunset. A Wall Street financier lounging nearby in a posh resort is getting irritated by the minute watching the fisherman’s lack of enterprise. Laying aside his Blackberry and his blueberries, he finally approaches the fisherman asking him why he is not catching more fish, to which the fisherman replies that he has caught all that he needs – one for his family and one for his neighbour who is sick. 

The Wall-Street financier mutters under his breath, “… this is typical of third world countries… no enterprise, no industry…no wonder they are where they are”. He engages the fisherman in a lesson in free market economy by telling the fisherman how he could become a lot happier if he were to catch more fish generating income with which to buy a boat and start a business. 

As the fisherman appears to show interest, the happy capitalist proceeds to lay out a scenario, how profits from the business could be ploughed back to invest in plant and equipment to process fish for export. Of course the fisherman would have to a put in years of hard work, forego dividends, forget about a personal life while focussing on exports through export credits arranged from the Exim Bank which would naturally expect him to buy American fishing trawlers with the financing thereby benefiting both economies. 

With sound investment banking advice he could acquire one or two existing distribution networks, through strategically positioned leverage buy-outs spinning off the unnecessary divisions, to supply much needed Sushi for the American Mid West cattle ranchers who have developed a strong taste for everything exotic. 

The fisherman would of course have to incorporate his business in tax havens (not in his own tropical Island though) and set up holding companies to shield income from withholding taxes but more importantly to limit his liabilities from Mercury or salmonella related law suits. With each success, the enterprise would reach higher goals, getting listed on the stock exchange with an Initial Public Offering while still retaining control and the Chairmanship of the conglomerate. 

To the fisherman’s question of what he would do after all that hard work, the Harvard MBA beams with mild indulgence... “why, don’t you see you could do anything then, you could spend more time with your family, take a vacation to the beaches of a tropical island, catch a fish or two, watch the beautiful sun as it sets in the horizon.” The fisherman nods gently…“you mean what I am doing already” 

Some Pragmatic Considerations

i.   In his Gita for the Modern Man, Krishna Chaitanya 47, questions why in today’s affluent world, despite everything being in abundance (except for the very poor), is the Man of plenty so unhappy? According to Hindu thought, this is partly because we - and this includes all of us in this room - grossly exaggerate our survival needs, something an animal never does. Not with Being more but having more.

ii.  We multiply our wants in a cult of consumerism; endlessly satisfying desires which according to the Gita leads to attachment, in turn leading to craving. Unfulfilled craving leads to anger and frustration resulting in delusion. Delusion leads to faulty functioning of memory which ruins reason from which Man perishes.48

iii. The Artha Shastras, a body of Vedic literature dealing with wealth and prosperity, tell us that Man has the right to subsistence in order to live and the householder through his means supports others, but that incessant competitive rivalry in amassing wealth inevitably leads to conflict.

iv. The cult of consumption by the affluent, whether in the North or in the South, whereby we acquire all that we need as well as that we do not need, really means war on the very subsistence of the poor, war on nature and on fellowmen obscuring the Sun, polluting the air and chewing up great forests. The world may have enough for everyone’s needs, but certainly not for everyone’s greed.

v.  This is not to demonise Billionaire entrepreneurs, epitomised by Ayan Rand in her trilogy Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead and Values of Selfishness 49 as Spiritual Materialists because of their genius to create. Creativity, productivity, innovation are all as much a part of Ritam (Order) as non-materialistic Spiritual quest. In fact the Isa Vasyo Upanishad reminds us…those who worship materialism alone are doomed to darkness but those who neglect action to pursue Spirituality alone are doomed to even greater darkness.50

vi.  Instead of senselessly curbing production, we must all drastically reduce senseless consumption by reversing built-in obsolescence, the use-once-throw-away-buy-another culture creating mountains of garbage – a legacy of the “civilised” affluent. That less than 25% of the World’s population wantonly consumes and lays waste more than 70% of the world’s dwindling resources, creating ecological holocaust, is the ultimate Human Rights Violation for which all of us must hang our heads in shame. At least one Millennium Development Goal, reducing extreme poverty by half, can not only be achieved but even surpassed, completely, if all of us were simply to reduce consumption of the non-essentials by a mere ten percent.

5. Conclusion

I would like to conclude by citing the examples of India and China - accounting for one third of the World’s population with a large segment of their citizenry still in deep poverty. Now embarked on stupendous economic growth, implicitly competing with each other for the planet’s scarce resources already brought to near exhaustion by the so called pernicious West.

Will these two nations simply produce more billionaires? Or will they seize the opportunity to integrate Material and Spiritual development of not only their own people but extend a helping hand to the extreme poor of other countries? Will their patronage of resource rich nations like Burma, Biafra and Sudan under ruthless dictatorships be motivated by pure self-interest or will they also lend a helping hand in bringing about a transformation amongst some of the most disenfranchised fellow human beings?

Sharing ancient connections going back thousands of years in the philosophies of pure Sankhya and early Upanishads transmitted through the Buddhist canon, will these two emerging giants re-embrace the ethics, the morality and compassion towards the less fortunate as enunciated by Confucius, Lao Tze (founder of Taoism), and Gautama Buddha?

May Soesterberg II continue to light many more candles through reflection and meaningful dialogues like these. 

Part  I  I I  I I I

Concluded

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[Chander Khanna is the organizer of the Ontario Branch of the Himalayan Yoga Meditation Society, and one of the most active members of the Toronto interfaith community. The article is based on a Keynote Address presented at International Conference – Soesterberg, Netherlands, October 15-17, 2007. He can be reached at 416-590-9645 or ckhanna1@msn.com.]

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