In Defense of Gandhi

Today (started on January 30) is the 74th death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. I am currently reading his autobiography -- a long pending life assignment for me; I am halfway through. From some conversations I have been witness to recently, where his contributions to India and its independence was questioned, and he was called over-rated, I feel motivated to express my current views on him.

Victim of Idolisation

Like many of his likes, Gandhi has been a victim of idolisation. It mayn't be wrong to say that calling him 'Mahatma' has done more to damage his life's work than anything else. Calling him the father of Nation may have been an act of love done by his devotees and friends. But today, this title has little function beyond being a fodder to controversies.

Congress had a vested interest in projecting him as Mahatma and then claiming the inheritance of his political legacy. They ran their shop for a long time in large part by appropriating this false legacy. The result: The Gandhi we see is through a veil of misinformation, exaggeration, and data manipulation propagated through 7 long decades.

The common man has his own reasons for making a deity out of anyone leading an inspiring life. Giving a status of Godliness is the most potent method of stunting a teacher ability to teach. It becomes a free pass for devotees to keep the benefits of being under the wings of a great man without having to follow in his footsteps. Each time someone expects such a thing of you, you excuse yourself, calling yourself a mere mortal. You escape the real test, and get a point for modesty!

The Narrow Lens

Gandhi's most predominant fame is as a freedom fighter which is again a very unfortunate thing. Gandhi was really a public worker who would gravitate towards what he encountered around himself. He started his career as a public worker in South Africa where he fought a long battle for the upliftment of the conditions of immigrant Indians. His public work would often bring him against the authorities. And he kept going back to South Africa after returning to India whenever he was called.

Gandhi worked on almost all conceivable areas of public work: health and sanitation, education, rural emancipation etc. From what appears to me from reading his autobiography, freedom struggle must have been only a part of his life's agenda and goal. Probably, it mayn't be wrong to say that it was, like all other areas, an avenue where he put his theories of truth to test.

The Spiritual Seeker

Public work itself was the outlet that Gandhi's spiritual quest found. Gandhi was deeply religious person, achingly in search for the spiritual secrets of life which he interchangeably refers to as truth or God. This lay at the base of his extreme compassion, courage and tolerance on the one hand, and deep disconnection with many things external. Yet, Gandhi was blessed with great worldly wisdom and tact, which kept getting better over the years. Many of his decisions and choices, particularly in his personal life, weren't half as worldly.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Early  twentieth century was to Indian social reawakening what it was to Western Science -- a golden period. There were many greats including Gandhi, Nehru, Madan Mohan Malwiya, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Tilak etc. all on the political and social front. On the other side, we had the likes of Vivekananda, Tagore, JN Tata, JC Bose etc. all doyens in their respective areas. Gandhi was not the only great soul walking on the Indian soil.

One observation we could easily make is that Gandhi diligently worked towards developing a strong network with influential people. This may very well be his most distinctive characteristic which contributed to his immense influence. And, looking at his methods, far from getting a feeling of a Mahatma, I get a feeling that he followed the best practices of networking to an extent that today's IIM graduates would be envious of.

Unnecessary Comparisons

There are many unnecessary comparisons drawn  between Gandhi and many of his influential contemporaries. One of the most prominent of them is with Subhash Chandra Bose. And I upfront admit my very scant knowledge about Netaji except what was taught to us in our school textbooks and the conspiracy theories that never seem to settle about his death and afterlife.

Netaji was of the opinion that Independence should be snatched; we can't reason with the imperialists so they peacefully let go of their control on their prized colony. It goes without saying that his point of view wasn't without merit. However, his ideas couldn't coexist under the same roof with Gandhi's ideas of non-violence. So, they parted ways.

I would like to see this as nothing more than an intellectual difference between two great men. I don't find great merit in trying to insist to settle as to whose role was primary in India's independence. To the best of my understanding, it was neither. England was then a war torn country driven to the verge of bankruptcy. They would have been keen to invest their energies in rebuilding their nation rather than worrying about a colony which was already milked dry for 2 centuries, where the public faith on the Raj was at its all time low, and mutinies waiting to erupt anywhere and everywhere. I am sure, this would have already bumped up their willingness to leave us to the breaking point. Now what gave them the final push is neither easy to decide nor so important.

I am also aware that the relations between Gandhi and another great man, Dr. Ambedkar, weren't the sweetest. I have nearly no knowledge about the details of this disagreement. I am all too aware of the scholarly brilliance of Dr. Ambedkar, and the ground-breaking contributions towards drafting the Indian constitution and the upliftment of Dalits. Yet, he was no fan of  the other person who worked along with manual scavengers to improve the sanitary conditions of the city during plague, and worked towards their emancipation. This fails to perturb me one bit.

Consider how we do not make a big deal when statesmen or scholars of the present day debate and disagree vehemently with each other on matters professional, ethical and even personal or scientific. Why then does it perturb us so much when big guys we love who died decades ago didn't agree with each other? Because we are stuck with the idea of making gods out of them. It's we who make them into Gods, it's we who expect infallible behaviour from these Godly men, and it's we who fight like religious fanatics when our Gods don't agree with one another. It again us, who lynch out gods when they fail in living up to our picture perfect image of them. Isn't it stupid?

In other words, to pit two great souls against each other long after after they are gone is a vain debate fit for idle hero worshipers who contribute little to the real glory of either of them.

Non-Violence

Gandhi is often ridiculed for his overbearing fascination with non-violence. Non-violence, it seems, is all about giving your other cheek. I think, it's such an incredibly narrow interpretation of an unfathomably deep concept! Like truth, non-violence is open to interpretation. Gandhi didn't invent non-violence. It has found mention in many schools of thoughts over millennia. Gandhi just created a resoundingly successful experiment in using it as a tool to break the spirit of the mighty imperialists and empowering the teeming millions to think that they could take on the Britishers by coming out into the streets and filling up the jails in thousands.

Even if we look at non-violence as just a tool in the struggle for independence, it is not an exclusionary policy. I am sure there were people on both extremes and everywhere in between. Non violence was super effective in solving many complicated standoffs, and there are numerous examples of that. And admittedly, it wasn't a panacea for all issues.

A New Lens

Let's forget the Mahatma. Think of a shy, mediocre teenager from provincial Gujarat -- unsure of himself in everything: be it in his ability to speak English, his control on lust, his professional capability or his spiritual depth. And start tracing his journey from this state to when the whole nation starts looking at him as an imposing influence in some of the most stressful and controvercial of its social matters. You see that he made this big transformation possible through things which each one of us would -- in theory -- be able to do. The tricks he used were of study, self-examination, honesty, perseverance, non-violence, self experiments (in a variety of social, economic and religious austerities among others), networking with a wide-variety of people from various political schools, nationalities, religious backgrounds and races. These are none the qualities of a highly intelligent or talented person, but of a simple and ordinary person who just didn't know how to give up.

And that, in my eyes, is the most inspiring legacy of Gandhi. He essayed his life as a story of a simple man who reached dizzying heights of greatness using nothing but his pathetic experiments with truth. In front of these achievements, I count even his contributions to the National Independence as nothing.

So, let's give Gandhi a second chance. Let's liberate him of his titles and the unrealistic expectations of infallible public/political behaviour from him. Let's study his journey and his experiments with truth. Debate with his thoughts and opinions. Disagree with him, ridicule him, sometimes even feel a sense of revolt at his many naivetes and failings. But let's acknowledge him for his numerous merits which include courage, tact, willpower, resilience and so on. And then see if he fails to impress and inspire.

Can We Give another Chance to an Alternative Economy?

On the one hand there's being sympathetic to people who have been displaced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, there's this belief that the over-consumption led economics that we have been forced to leave behind us by the ravaging virus, is unavoidable to prevent famine from hitting large swaths of population.

Quite the contrary! Very powerful people have it in their interest to make people believe that the most important way they help the economics to thrive is by consuming. Because consumption generates demand. And demand generates business and employment.

But this also makes millions of people hook themselves up helplessly to one monolithic system (which we so grandiosely call the global economy) and rest all their hopes and dreams on it never failing. And this starts the unending cycle of people scrambling hard to get away from the fringes of this system closer to its core. While there's no denying that this scrambling leads to high productivity and quality of output, that's not the complete picture. Please note the reason why we scramble so hard in the first place: Firstly, because we know that being in the fringes of this system is very bad for us, because it makes us vulnerable, helpless and pushes us to the brink of extinction. Secondly, because deep down there's this realisation that, by definition and design, a large majority of the population will be in the fringes, because the urgency to get out of those fringes is the basic engine that drives this system.
 
But there are certain invariants about this system:

• It can generate wealth as no other system can.
• It critically depends on creation of global super-specialists. These are the winners of this system. They are enormously rewarded with wealth and power. The overall efficiency of the system is entirely to the advantage of this very minuscule minority of the population, say R%.
• One of the most towering achievements of this system is that R keeps getting smaller and smaller.
• There simply aren't enough number of specialised jobs to employ to the entire human population. In fact, nowhere close. And there never will be.
• The rest of the population is doomed to struggle fruitlessly to find a toehold in this system. The efficiency thus generated from the insecurity of these suckers leads to efficiency and productivity.
• Whenever the system totters, not always from external forces (e.g. pandemics), but more often under its own weight (e.g. recessions, wars, terrorism, revolutions), the people at its fringes are washed away like ants. Nobody comes to know how many perished.

Therefore, the sufferings that are descending on our poorer brethren is not due to the pandemic, but is a result of the very structure that we have created. It's efficient on the one hand, and extremely fragile on the other. But most importantly, it's extremely unjust and unfair: those who drive it with their sweat and blood are the first ones to perish when crisis hits.

Alternatives do exist. But the reason why they don't get tried is not so much because they are unrealistic, unscalable, impractical or academic, but because the ones who decide the fate of so many people in the current system are also those who gain so disproportionately from this system, primarily by keeping millions -- billions -- on the brink of starvation. Why will they ever agree that anything else can work? Because no other system will allow them to appropriate such unrealistic shares of the commercial loot.

One such economic system that I have in mind would be rejected as plain regressive by most. I am no economist. So, I may not be able to articulate everything well and do I have elaborate arguments in defense of my ideas. Also, the whole idea may be trashed on the basis of the lack of clarity on how to get there from here. But anyway, it's my blog. I can at least write about it here.

Here are a few salient points of this economy:

• It will be less 'advanced'. Technological advancement will definitely be slowed down.
• It will be slower. Commercial activities will be far less. Many businesses which exist today will not exist or will be severely curtailed.
• There may be some severe penalties to pay. Many advanced healthcare facilities will no more be there. Deaths from deadly diseases etc. will be harder to prevent.
• It will be agrarian, artisan based economy. Megapolis economy will not exist.Government may play a role in ensuring that the above basic structure doesn't get compromised. In that sense, there will be similarity with socialism. But the Government will not be the owner of capital as in socialistic system.
• Population mobility will be curtailed, because the probability of doing well in life will be comparable everywhere.
• Scholarly pursuits will be done as an integral part of the agrarian, artisan sphere of life. On the one hand, education, research, art and culture should be closely associated to the needs of people. On the other, it should be kept away from becoming a recreational activity of the rich and privileged. The idea of scholarly independence must be rethought.
• The idea will never be to banish hardships and manual labour from people's lives. Focus of progress will be empowerment, not emancipation from inconvenience.

 I don't claim all the above to be realistic. Particularly, there's something about the way humans are wired that it will be (and has been multiple times in the past) very difficult to set up an economic system similar to the above. Every attempt so far has succumbed to the baser human aptitude for greed, hunger for power and domination, sexual and material insatiability born out of ignorance and suffering.

Nevertheless, some of the brightest minds and elevated souls in history (e.g. Plato, Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, Buddha, E.F.Schumacher etc.) have time and again thought about something in similar lines (no covert attempt here to gatecrash into that august party). So this idea is not all that silly. It can for sure act as a reference, a prototype to work towards. I would definitely want to think and read more about it.

Vinoba Bhave's Thoughts on Education

In brief ...

I summarise some of Acharya Vinoba Bhave's thoughts on education (named Nai Talim). I find its strengths in education's well-grounded and practical nature and it being treated as an ennobling agent, both traits missing in any explicit terms in present day mainstream education. I however have doubts about the practicality of such a way. It results in a society which, though internally developed, is vulnerable to external attacks and desertion by its weaker and/or ambitious members. It also seems to undermine the importance of intense intellectual pursuits like abstract science, philosophy or arts. It is hard to imagine that something like Nai Talim (an abstract concept of significant intellect) itself could emerge from such a system.

Nai Talim

I recently came across a very interesting take on education while going through a compilation of Acharya Vinoba Bhave's thoughts on education. I purchased the book for Rs. 35 at Bapu Kuti in Sevagram. The concepts are given the name Nai Talim (new learning). The concept and the term originated from Mahatma Gandhi. In gist, here are a few points which come up repeatedly as salient:

• It talks predominantly about rural education in India.
• The education is craft-based.
• Work and learning can't be separated. This is called integrated learning.
• Obsessive pursuit of knowledge isn't advocated. A pragmatic approach is proposed where knowledge is used as a tool of improving life.
• Distinction between intellectual work and labour work is discouraged.
• Overall personality and character development is emphasised.

Tones of spiritualism, socialism and non-violence are mixed at all times in the explanation of the concept. The model of development seems to weigh self-reliance and organic growth over speed of development or modernisation.

Praise

In spirit, I find myself partial to this way of learning, living and developing. I find the following as the strengths:

Education as a Value Add to Life. Over-specialisation seems to be a bane of our current way of educating our children. Students spend all their learning years gaining an expertise which is useful in a setting which isn't native to him. For example, after more than 20 years of devoted effort, all I seem to know is to work on a computer. Through a series of technological world events, computers are now placed centrally in our lives. Yet, I don't see anything natural or fundamental in this situation. How well am I educated to continue leading a meaningful, satisfied and dignified life if some of the key material aspects of my work are altered, for example, say, computer disappear?

This has several implications. Firstly, it makes me vulnerable to social and technological changes on which I have no control, and which may be centred so far away from me that I have no way to feel connected to them. Secondly, it tends to drain away my faith in education. Most students struggle for all their academic years to identify practical motivations for the activity they spend most of their waking hours in: studying. Some keep an eye on the next examination. Some have the target of getting into a top university. Some vie for a high paying job. Some of a respectable degree. All these are extrinsic and artificial motivations for doing something we aren't convinced about the real use of. Most of our learning (training) happens for the service of a complex world we have no clue about.

I feel, in the least, my education must equip me to apply my thoughts to the improvement of my own life directly. My training should enable me to solve problems of physical, analytical, emotional, social, economic and ethical nature. Nai talim seems to address that.

Education as an Ennobler. Education, as we have it today, doesn't seem to ennoble anyone. It should. In fact, this objective should be given as much importance as, if not more than, intellectual development. More educated people aren't necessarily less selfish, less corrupt, more courageous or less violent. They should be. This is dealt with in the Nai Talim.

Critique

However, I also have some doubts which render the practicality of such a system like Nai Talim questionable.

1. Vulerability. Firstly, this concept seems to be in line with an age-old Indian tradition of learning. We all know of its merits. It rightly keeps our attention away from blind materialism and focuses on inner development of people, which is what development really is. The model results in a peaceful, harmonious, robust and sustainable society, at least in theory. In a world where all civilisations, nations and races are prepared to honour, if not follow, this way of living and learning, no problems will arise. However, in a world comprising of other methods of learning and development, this way appears very vulnerable. This vulnerability has more than one forms.

1.1 External Vulnerability. Consider yourself an educated and elevated society of people leading a peaceful life in harmony with their surroundings. Any expansion is done only when bidden by necessity. So, visible signs of modernisation and technology aren't many. The real development is of course in the people: they are nobler, less aggressive, and in general happier. All hunky-dory! In comes a bellicose element: an external invader, an imperialist, a mining magnate. He is spiritually bankrupt, but has made immense strides in material development. And to drive his world at its ever increasing pace, he needs all sorts of fuels: minerals, wood, cheap labour, sex workers. He gives a damn about your inner peace and spiritual elevation; he isn't educated to believe that such things can exist. All he cares about is your mines, forests, your healthy youth and your attractive women. How do you stop him? Your military capabilities never progressed, because you never needed them so far. So, he tramples on you, kills you, destroys your monuments, burns your scriptures, rules over you for centuries, turns your lot into an intellectual and cultural morgue. He even uses his influence to convince the world that this was the barbaric tribe he was here to civilise.

A method like Nai Talim doesn't provide any protection against this effect. And we know that this form of attact happens: colonialism, atrocities on tribal villages in India and, if you will allow my including a fictional case, invasion of humans on Pandora in the film Avatar.

1.2 Internal Vulnerability. Here's another form of the vulnerability. Whatever you might say, your spiritual way of living is a bit dull, a bit slow, even boring. To enjoy it itself requires certain degree of training and orientation. On the other hand, that bellicose invader, that imperialist, makes sure to flash before everyone every evidence that his people lead an exciting life, materially fulfilled, intellectually free. He erects billboards showing beautiful models loving men due to something they wear, or possess, even though, both the beautiful model and that man posed because they got paid for it; and probably they actually hate each other in their lives. He tells stories about his most brilliant scientists. The reality may be that the scientist invented his stuff because his government wanted to bomb another nation. The scientist may have been a parasite plagearising on others' work. Or he may have been a homosexual recluse who killed himself after leading a life of unbearable persecution. But the stories told would  be of their towering scientific accomplishments as if they were all a result of an irrepressible creative urge. For a society with statistically significant population, there is bound to be a section of the population which would be swayed by this propaganda. Some will leave because they think material and sexual fulfilment is more easily available elsewhere. Some will leave because they think it's more cool to design a nuclear bomb than to till the soil. Even if you have answers to the first form of vulnerability, it's this second form which deals a deathblow to the idea of a harmonious, self contained society, because it brings forth a very important and fundamental characteristic of large collection of humans: they can never all be the same.

1.3 Way Back to Aggressiveness. And if the state tries to intervene to mitigate any of the above vulnerabilities, either through protectionist acts, strong military or iron-fisted law and order, what we have is not a spiritual society, but an equally aggressive state which is a breeding ground of inefficiency, corruption and eventually revolution.

2. Contradiction. There's one final negative factor, which I wouldn't even call a vulnerability. It's something else, something more. It's that such a way of education seems to address a large majority of people for whom imposed knowledge is an unbearable burden. For them, connecting every piece of knowledge gained with a practical experience has the potential of phenomenally increasing the outreach of education. However, there's a minority which would pursue knowledge and learning out of sheer nature. A good many of these would probably be having only one healthy organ in their body: their brain. Restricting the domain on which they are supposed to apply their thoughts would probably be okay. But to declare that mere thinking or pursuit of knowledge is of no value if not accompanied by craft based activity would paralyse these people, because, by nature, these people are probably good in only that. And it's not just about rendering these intellectual lot useless. I don't care much about sophisticated technology. But abstract mathematics and philosophy, astronomy, art, ..., I am yet to see how dedicated, passionate pursuit of such subjects would ever develop in a Nai Talim like environment. I even say the Vinoba himself falls in this category. Not in the sense that he wasn't any good in any crafts, but in the sense that many of his visions are based on his ability (and keenness) to use abstractions which he didn't need to develop as a part of his craft.

In conclusion, dedicated intellectual work of the most abstract kind are integral to the development of any society, not just the aggressive and bellicose ones, but even those which Acharyaji envisioned. This is because the concept of a large society, as large as a nation, doesn't emerge naturally from a tribal outlook that something like Nai Talim seems to advocate, but from man's inherent ability and nature to create abstractions.

Related:

Limits of Education

Small is Beautiful