Gandhi and Sustainability

Introduction

Gandhiji not only gave India its freedom but also gave the world and us a new thought on nonviolence and sustainable Development. His teaching and his writings are more valid than before it was to overcome worldwide greed, violence and consumptive lifestyle which are giving very negative impact on the world’s resources.

Through ages India has time and again given to the world a new thought. Thus Buddhism, Jainism, Yogic system, Sikhism are part of the great spiritual thought given by India from the time ages.Gandhiji’s writings and teachings of development and sustainable living is a continuation of that long tradition.

To my mind Gandhiji’s greatest contribution to sustainable development was two sided. Firstly his experiments in simple living and high thinking. He believed that with simple living the resources of
The planet earth can sustain us comfortably and his famous saying that “Earth provides us enough for our needs but not for our greed” is extremely apt today fast moving generation. Secondly his insistence on all inclusive growth of the society and hence his focus basically was on rural development.

Sustainability is a vast concept born out of the environmental concern debate of the last decade. There is growing concern nationally and internationally about biodiversity and protection of plants and animals and community based activity. It is important to view sustainable efforts globally that addresses socio-economic and environmental issues. The Rio Summit project emphasized on economic growth and poverty alleviation for sustainable development. The basic need of sustainable development is the evolution of a development process with focus on the enhancement of the living conditions of population as a whole with emphasis on raising the standard of living of the poor. The United Nations called all countries to develop national strategies for sustainable development to translate the words and commitments of Earth summit into concrete policies and actions. The important issue in the 21st century is to create greater economic and societal well-being without deterioration of the environment and depletion of the resources.

So what brings us to talk about the sustainable theory of Gandhi?

Some Facts that tells us why we need to choose a sustainable path for development.
1) 60% of rural population (~ 400 million) in India lives in primitive conditions. No electricity and primitive cook stoves.
2) Around 300,000 deaths/yr take place because of pollution from these stoves. Modern technology has not touched their lives even after 60 years of independence. 3) 54% of India’s population is below 25 years of age and most of them live in rural areas with very little employment opportunities. Around 260 million people (1/4th of our population) live on less than Rs 50/day.
4) Because of rural poverty large scale migration to cities takes place leading to serious urban problems.
5) Increased aspirations because of mass media are leading to social unrest. Riots in Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat and recently in UP. Release of bottled-up emotions. (Source Wikipedia)

Sustainable development in villages is one of the biggest issues today, something that modern India is yet to realize and wake up to. The employment and empowerment of the rural sector is to be paid urgent attention to with over 60% of India’s population situated in villages. The Millennium Development Goals (UN) introduced in 2000 has been a disappointment to India as it has not been implemented well enough to evolve india in sustainable development.

Although, Mahatma Gandhi was not a development economist, yet his theory and writings are important to development. The Gandhian theory of development is based on the ideologies of Mahatma Gandhi, who is regarded in India as the Father of the Nation. At the outset, Gandhian economics rejects the precepts and
Assumptions of mainstream economics. It represents an alternative to
Mainstream economic theories as a way to promote economic progress without
Emphasizing material pursuits, or compromising human development.

Definitions
So what is Sustainability?
The word sustainability is derived from the Latin sustinere (tenere, to hold; sus, up). Dictionaries provide more than ten meanings for sustain, the main ones being to “maintain", "support", or "endure”. However, since the 1980s sustainability has been used more in the sense of human sustainability on planet Earth and this has resulted in the most widely quoted definition of sustainability as a part of the concept sustainable development, that of the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations on March 20, 1987: “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
At the 2005 World Summit it was noted that this requires the reconciliation of environmental, social equity and economic demands - the "three pillars" of sustainability or (the 3 E 's), This view has been expressed as an illustration using three overlapping ellipses indicating that the three pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing. The three pillars - or the "triple bottom line" - have served as a common ground for numerous sustainability standards and certification systems in recent years, in particular in the food industry. Standards which today explicitly refer to the triple bottom line include Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade, UTZ Certified, and The Common Code for the Coffee Community. The triple bottom line is also recognized by the ISEAL Alliance - the global association for social and environmental standards. (Source Wikipedia)

Now what is Development?

The act of developing or disclosing that which is unknown; a gradual unfolding process by which anything is developed, as a plan or method, or an image upon a photographic plate; gradual advancement or growth through a series of progressive changes; also, the result of developing, or a developed state. The series of changes which animal and vegetable organisms undergo in their passage from the embryonic state to maturity, from a lower to a higher state of organization. The act or process of changing or expanding an expression into another of equivalent value or meaning. The equivalent expression into which another has been development. The elaboration of a theme or subject; the unfolding of a musical idea; the evolution of a whole piece or movement from a leading theme or motive.
HRI(Human Development Index) is a tool developed by the United Nations to measure and rank countries’ levels of social and economic development based on four criteria: Life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling and gross national income per capita. The HDI makes it possible to track changes in development levels over time and to compare development levels in different countries.

(Source Wikipedia)

What do we mean by sustainable development?
Sustainable development (SD) is a pattern of economic growth in which resource use aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come (sometimes taught as ELF-Environment, Local people, Future). The term 'sustainable development ' was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Alternatively, sustainability educator Michael Thomas Needham referred to 'Sustainable Development ' "as the ability to meet the needs of the present while contributing to the future generations’ needs."[3] There is an additional focus on the present generations ' responsibility to improve the future generations ' life by restoring the previous ecosystem damage and resisting contributing to further ecosystem damage.
Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social challenges faced by humanity. As early as the 1970s, "sustainability" was employed to describe an economy "in equilibrium with basic ecological support systems."Ecologists have pointed to The Limits to Growth, and presented the alternative of a "steady state economy" in order to address environmental concerns. (Source Wikipedia)

Review of literature

The concept of sustainable development does imply limits—not absolute limits but limitations imposed by the present state of technology and social organization on environmental resources and by the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activities.
Reference-Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, Volume 47, Number 3, pages 8–21. © Robert W. Kates, Thomas M. Parris, and Anthony A. Leiserowitz, 2005.

The above lines explain the basic understanding of how sustainable development should be. We should know how to use the resources conserving considering our future generations will also need it for their use. So we should use to that extent that we are able to provide an explanation to ourselves and answer thinking about future generations. Man needs to think properly to conserve resources so that he can lead a balanced life. Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable so that to ensure that it meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the present of future generations to meet their own demands.
Gandhiji’s emphasis on labour intensive of production does not indicate that he was advocating obsolete machinery with less productivity. He was in favour of simple tools, which save individual labour and lighten the burden of millions of cottages.[9] While clarifying the role of machinery, he mentioned that “mechanisation is good when the hands are few for the work intended to be accomplished. It is an evil when there are more hands than required for the works, as is the case in India. The problem is how to utilize their idle hours, which are equal to the working days of six months in the year.”[10] He was against the craze for machinery in a labour-surplus economy like India and accepted the utilisation of modern tools and implements provided they help in reducing unnecessary human labour. He wanted production by the masses and not mass production. Here, it should be noted that the adoption of labour-intensive technique of production to create job opportunities was suggested by World Development Report – 1990, especially to developing countries. It was pointed out that “...Against the background of achievement, is all the more staggering, shameful that more than one billion people in the developing world are living in poverty. Progress in raising average in comes, however welcome, must not distract attention from this massive and continuing burden of poverty.[11] For removal of poverty and unemployment, it was suggested that” .....rapid and politically sustainable progress on poverty has been achieved by pursuing a strategy that has two equally important elements. The first element is to promote the productive use of the poor’s most abundant asset, labour. It calls for policies that harness market incentives, social and political institutions, infrastructure and technology to that end.....”switching to an efficient, labour intensive pattern of development and investing more in the human capital of the poor are not only consistent with faster long term growth, they contributed to it”.[12] It was further noted “since labour is an abundant resource, encouraging its use is generally consistent with rapid and efficient growth.[13] Indian Planners are not unfamiliar with these views and suggestions. They were discussed by Gandhiji over eight decades ago, initially in Hind Swaraj and then in Young India and Harijan with special focus on Khadi and village industries. He stated “I have not contemplated, much less advised the abandonment of a single, healthy, life-giving industrial activity for the sake of hand-spinning. The entire foundation of the spinning-wheel rests on the fact that there are cores of semi-unemployment people in India..... The spinning wheel is destructive of no enterprise whatever. It is life-giving activity.
References:
9-Gandhi, M.K. Young India, 16-6-1926
10-Gandhi, M.K, Harijan, 16-5-1936
11-World Development Report, 1990, p-10
12-Ibid; p-3
13-Ibid, p-56

Gandhiji’s philosophy of Sustainable Development
Integrated rural development is the next focal point of Gandhi 's approach to development.This is closely related with the preceding one. Gandhi had sought to build India fkom thebottom, that is from the poorest and weakest and have followed the centrality of village.He was deeply pained to see the disintegration and ruin of the villages. "Our cities arenot India. India lives in her seven and half lacs of villages. The city people are broker sand commission agents for the big houses of Europe, America and Japan" (ibid,13.10.1921). In the words reminiscent of Dadabhai Naoroji 's concept of drain, the Mahatma referred to the suffering and exploitation of Indian villages as 'the bleeding process that has gone on for the past two hundred years '. His heart bled to see the misery of the Indian villagers and he formulated his famous Constructive Programme, aconsiderable number of whose categories are relevant to them. Gandhi felt that a strengthened and economically sound rural economy would revitalize Indian economy. He preached, hence the 'gospel of rural mindedness '. A rural economy of self contained villages alone could be the basis of a non violent economy. He stated,
"You have therefore, to be rural minded before you can be non violent and to be rural minded you have to faith in the spinning wheel" (Harijan, 1.11.1939). He felt that the small communities mounding their lives on the basis of voluntary co operation would be the best environment for the extinction of exploitation. The regeneration of India, he felt, would be impossible without village reconstruction. Hence he gave a slogan 'Back to villages '. He gave a call to everybody to go and work in villages, develop rural economy, rural industry and rural skill. In small self sufficient villages producing mostly for their consumption, a peaceful life devoted to the pursuit of democratic values was possible.
Big urban concentrations, on the other hand, result in the monopolization and accumulation of wealth by a minority. Economic concentration is bound to lead to political centralization. Centralization in turn, supports violence. He was of the definite view that non violence could be realized not on the basis of a factory civilization but only on that of self contained villages. Pt. Jawaharlal La1 Nehru, expressed his doubt over this model and wrote: "The whole question is how to achieve this (non violent) society and what its contents should be. I do not understand why a village should necessarily embody truth and non violence. A village, normally speaking, is backward intellectually and culturally and no progress can be made from a backward environment. Narrow mined people are much more likely to be untruthful and violent" (Pyarelal, 1965, p.545). Gandhi himself acknowledged the obnoxious essential realities of Indian village. 'Instead of having graceful hamlets dotting the land, we have dung heaps. The approach to many villages is not a refreshing experience. Often one would like to shut one 's eyes and stuff one 's nose; such is the surrounding dirt and offending smell '. However, he was not willing to accept this state of affairs as fait accompli, as an irredeemable situation. He was confident that the prevailing situation would be transformed by the villagers themselves provided proper help and guidance are extended to them. But ever since we started planning our economic life most of our planners, conceive of national plans mainly in terms of industrialisation.We have the slogan dinned into our ears, "industrialize or perish" and many of us have come to believe that industrialization is the panacea for all our ills. What we need, essentially, is however, a better balanced economy under which the growing pressure of population on the land is reduced and those who are on the land are enabled to produce and earn more. The backwardness of the economy or the unproductive employment of an increasing population or the non utilization of material resources locally cannot be remedied by intensification of the process of industrialization. Besides, the feasible rate of industrialization is governed not merely by the problems associated with the erection of factories; it is a function of an organic type of growth in which the essential feature is the mutual dependence of the various sections involved. In any development arena these sectors must keep in pace. Referring to the economic conditions of India, in a paper on 'The Human Dimension of Economic Growth: Challenge of Stagnation in Under Developed Countries ' presented by him at Asia Assembly in New Delhi in 1973, Professor Gunnar Myrdal said:
"Gandhi was certainly a planner, and a rationalistic planner but his planning was all embracing and laid main stress on sanitation and health, the raising of nutritional levels by mere intensive agriculture, a redirection and not only an expression of education so that it becomes basic and not merely literary and academic and a redistribution of land wealth to create greater equality."
He further said, "It is only in the latest years that we have more generally come back to Gandhi 's ideas, when even some economists have moved to press for an integrated planning which is the modern term for what Gandhi was all the time teaching. My Indian friends will not be offended when 1 say that if Indian planning has not been more successful than it has actually been, the main explanation is that they have not kept as close as they should, to the fundamentals of the teachings of the Father of the Nation"

Gandhiji and Rural, Urban Development
India has achieved impressive growth in production and income. However,
India 's efforts to remove poverty and inequality in rural areas have failed.
The reason for this is that strategies for rural development have been aimed
Primarily at raising production, without any understanding of social and class structure and their relation to production and its distribution. According to Gandhi, the salvation of the Indian economy depends on rural development and rural transformation. The prevailing agrarian situation indicates that this cannot be brought about in the context of India 's present obsession with economic growth, and the trend of economic development in the world, in general. In the present state of socio-politico-economic affairs, the current growth model benefits the dominant class of the population at the cost of the rural poor. Some aspects of the Gandhian model, e.g., the expansion of village and cottage industries, the decentralization of production and wealth, and the institution Iof trusteeship by the state, and confiscation of excess wealth, may be implementedto build the social base for economic prosperity.
Gandhi emphasized decentralization to ensure the dignity of labour. He said, "A human state will be a decentralized society-sf equal partners". According to
Gan&, labour has four components: (a) bread labour, a kind of minimum physical labour which must be performed by everybody, from philosophers to ordinary labourers; (b) earning labour for living, as is normally understood in economics;
(c) labour as an instnunent for self actualization; and (d) as a method of service to others. Once this four-fold view of labour is accepted, no degree of division of labour can really dehumanize man.
The Gandhian concept of Man is one of an integral man, and the Gandhian concept of society is that of an integral society. The Gandhian model is based on an integral transformation of Man and society. In the Gandhian conception, the processes of individual transformation and political transformation are inevitably interconnected. The Gandhian concept basically pursues the unity of the individual and the social order. Gandhi stresses the unity of private and public life. In the Gandhian view, private life must be transparent, and in that transparency, we can see the public life, too. In Gandhian thought, the stress is on the unity of the individual and social praxis. The Gandhian view may be seen as the 'Unity of Existence '.
The social, economic, and political subsystems are closely interwoven as an organic whole, and the poor man remains outside that enclosure. His voice, his priorities, and his problems remain unheard. So, Gandhi argued against the central planning. Gandhian paradigm has the following features '0 The cause of all contradictions is centralism. It may be described as a situation in which a few control the means and the power to make decisions which affect many that are left out. The elective representative system of the present type is centralist.
n) Centralism, as the source of social contradiction, has two major loci:
(a) the sphere of production (economy); and (b) power (state).
m) Centralism in production leads to exploitation. Centralism in power leads to
Oppression. The two centralisms reinforce each other. iv) The victims of centralism, who are exploited and oppressed, alone will initiate change. No meaningful process of change can be generated by the centralist.
v) The process of change started by the victim will only reproduce the system if it copies the centralist system. So, the praxis of change should fulfill the
Following conditions:
a) The people must be broadly based, that is, it should be a mass movement.
b) The mass movement should not be characterized by centralism in its
Ideology, or in its organization.
c) If the movement becomes centralist in its organization, then it will acquire the characteristics of the state.
d) The movement should be free of violence. It should be firmly rooted in the ideology of non-violence. This characteristic of the movement to expose exploitation and oppression gives it the moral force of truth against non-truth.
e) Individuals have a central role in this praxis. The individuals can be a moral force by incarnating the values of trust and nonviolence.
Therefore, the Gandhian model advocated the idea of decentralization, which ensures the people 's participation. The Gandhian decentralized approach strengthens the feedback system which ensures self correction and self-direction. It emphasizes gram swaraj (village autonomy) and human values. It emphasizes production by the masses, but not mass production. It emphasizes labour intensive technology, small scale village and cottage industries, handicrafts, charkha and the use of renewable energy, and ecological balance. The decentralized model removes all kinds of constraints, and ensures three types of balance
a)Spatial balance
b)Sectoral balance
c)Operation balance
d)According to Gandhian thought, rural development is not a tador made programme,or a process which can be triggered by outside agencies and authorities.
The advantages of decentralization are: It allows better political and administrative penetration.
It raises efficiency and better implementation of development plans.
It facilitates better coordination between central, state, and local agencies.
It raises sensitivity and flexibility, and institutionalizes peoples ' participation.
It reduces red-tapism and the diseconomies of scale, inherent in condition. and It ensures greater equity in resource allocation and income distribution.

Conclusions
In this reading we dealt with Gandhi 's philosophy, and his economic ideas and his concepts. We explained how Gandhian economics differs from mainstream economics. The Gandhian doctrine of Trusteeship and self-sufficiency has been analysed. We also explained the Gandhian model of rural development and balanced growth. The sustainable development based on Gandhian ideas was described. The goals of Gandhian economic system are quite different from ones the country has been pursuing since independence. Therefore, plans for economic development such as one envisaging a seven per cent or eight per cent rate of growth, which are sometimes presented as Gandhian alternatives, must be outside the framework of the Gandhian Economic System taken seriously. The Gandhian path is not an alternative path of reaching the same goal of economic development which the country is pursuing. It is a path leading to an alternative goal of human life and existence. The Gandhian alternative is Sarvodaya, classless society based on destruction of the class but not on the destruction of the individuals who constitute the classes, a system of production that does not fail to make use of science and technology for creating economy of abundance but does not in the process either kill individual initiative or freedom for development nor create a Psychology of ceaseless striving for more and more of material goods, a system of distribution that will ensure a reasonable minimum income for all and, while not aiming at a universal equality of an arithmetical kind, will nevertheless ensure that all private property or talent beyond the minimum will be used as a trust for the public good and not for individual, aggrandizement, a social order where all will work but there is no inequality either in status or in opportunity for any individual, and a political system where change is the result of persuasion, differences are resolved by discussion, and conflicts by love and recognition of mutuality of interest.

References: 11-World Development Report, 1990, p-10 12-Ibid; p-3