Small Is Beautiful: Book Review

This book by EF Schumacher was first published in 1973 without much fanfare. No one noticed when it was released. But if people celebrated its 25^th anniversary and is still being referred to by serious economists, then it speaks of its volume & its relevance even today. By size it is just 250 pages, but is packed with lot of punches. The beauty is, it just not lists the ills of the present day modern economics, but gives simple solutions for those ills. I am highly influenced by its simple analogies and solution oriented arguments. Most of my blogs and readings are influenced in this same direction. It is also closer to Hindu & any other religious way of life prescribed giving a lot of importance to the individual spiritual quest.

The author quotes Gandhiji in several occasions. Hence I can say it hinges on the principles Gramodyoga & Grama swarajya - of people employment, empowerment. It is principled on - If people are empowered to rule themselves; then economy will take care of itself. But if economy is primary concern, then people care takes back seat.

The Modern Economics: Something Bad

Modern economics is the primary driver of the politics today all over the world. (Except may be Bhutan.  Bhutan has taken the Pledge to remain carbon neutral & measure their success by Gross National Happiness, which makes me believe they are on the right path & can be a guiding force & light for the rest of the world).

The politics is always about people, eradicating poverty, hunger, establishing peace & permanence. So while politics is all about people, modern economics derails it from focusing on people happiness to people prosperity.

The basic tenet of modern economics is: Peace is attained by prosperity. So get rich and then get others rich. The easy reason is once they get rich why would rich go to war? They gain less and lose a lot.

The author quotes Lord Keynes a noted modern day economist – ‘Until we reach universal prosperity we pretend “foul is fair and fair is foul” for foul is useful & fair is not’.

So basically the modern economics dictates to enrich yourself ‘somehow’, ‘anyhow’ for that is the road to peace.

The problem with this theory is while enriching oneself there is no definition of ‘enough’. So it creates enormous stress on limited world resources putting them on a collision course with not the poor but with other rich. So the rich go to war. Rich & the poor suffer. Peace is disturbed.

Gandhiji quotes “Earth has enough for every man’s need but not enough for every man’s greed”. It can be extended to say earth is not enough for even one man’s greed.

Ancient Wisdom: Need to seep through into politics

So what’s the solution? Author has a chapter called Buddhist economics. But he admits at the beginning, itself, that it is the same tenets from any other religion, be it Christian, Hindu or any other.

The religion preaches at individual level. The individuals make up society, society makes up nation & it makes the world etc.,

The religion preaches: ‘Liberate oneself from the cravings for material & obtain maximum human satisfaction with minimal consumption’.

Man’s needs are infinite & inifinitude can be achieved only in the spiritual realm and never in the material.

With this wisdom the economic policies and politics of managing nation, people & meeting their aspirations has to be undertaken. In that endeavor, the author precinctly argues chapter by chapter: Small is Beautiful. Small land ownership. Small production, minimal destruction. Minimal consumption. Small water tanks, small district units, local produce, local consumption. Etc.,

Unemployment: Growing concern

One of the blame for unemployment is on population growth. Author argues why additional people cannot do additional work? But that requires resources. So what? Earth is bounty. But there is a clash of rich who have control over the earth resources. So it boils down to how rich control economics & politics depriving poor of their land rights.

The modern day economics argues: Agri ‘culture’ is uneconomical, unviable. It has to be made Agri ‘business’ & Agri ‘Industry’. For economists anything culture is unviable. It has to be rooted out. They always argue politics has to be away from culture, and be secular.

The author argues, that the Agriculture when rightly done as in the ancient times with a bit of modern touch, provides, peace & permanence.

Agriculture has a wider aspect: 1. It keeps man in touch with living nature. 2. It will humanize and ennoble man’s wider habitat. 3. It produces food for self and to trade. Besides it provides maximum employment. Especially it is true for our country.

So the right solution from government should be – Instead of drift away from Agi, 1. Reconstruct rural culture & 2. Reopen land for gainful occupation to large number of working people, making Agri viable and attractive.

This will yield land use towards ideal health, beauty & permanence. This will yield maximum employment too. Agriculture combined with vocational work like Khadi weaving, art, temple building, sculpture, handi-crafts can bring about long lasting peace. This has been our ancient wisdom in our country.

Intermediate Technology: Right solution of technology for Humanity

The counter argument to the Small is Beautiful is that it kills innovation and limits scientific utility to the world. But this argument only by the rich. The poor just need basic necessities to be met first.

The author puts forth the need for intermediate technology to help alleviate worker’s effort.

I would like to draw a simple analogy from the author’s this particular thought process. It is like Charaka of the Gandhiji’s Khadi Gramodyoga.

A simple comparison is: The power loom employs thousands of people at a particular place; it also consumes a lot of earthly resources from land, water, electricity. It requires a lot of capital forcing only rich to fund and run it employing others. It requires enormous transportation, distribution, marketing, inventory management process for consumption of the produce. It becomes unviable to reach the hinterlands of India. Instead it gets exported and made available at cheaper rates only in cities forcing city people to consume more than what they need.

The handloom on the other hand requires very minimal capital affordable by anyone. It can be established across all 5 lakh villages across the country. It provides employment across length and breadth of the nation and not constrained to a particular factory place. Its earthly resource needs are zilch. Consumer is right at the door step or maximum in a town nearby.

The author generalizes the Intermediate Technology as:

1.       Must be indigenous meeting the needs of the locals by the locals

2.       Very easily accessible and affordable

3.       Equipment and operational harm to the nature should be within the limits of the nature’s recuperative force.

One must understand that the colonial powers who shaped today’s modern economics was primarily interested in supplies & profits from the colonies & not in development & sustenance of the natives. Hence the modern economics is ‘Export oriented & Import dependent’.

Summary

The book has a lot more to offer and ponder. It deep dives into the ills of nuclear energy and argues that the solution lies in ‘altering our pattern of living with lesser energy needs’. The modern economic performance metrics like GNP, GDP are ripped apart based on its inhuman centric approaches. Energy, fossil fuel, our dependence on it is deeply discussed. Some solutions by way of real scenario case study are provided for new patterns of ownership of factories. Interesting analogy of how man likes predictable output & hence eliminates all ‘living’ elements in industry approach, implementing same ideology on Agri – making it business than culture is described well. The ‘living’ elements are unpredictable & hence to be eliminated is the modern way of thinking and it is dangerous for all ‘living’ including humans.

The only additional thing that I would like to add from my side is, while common man should live within limits, the country needs to defend itself against great many odds of the bad world. So the destructive technologies like nuclear energy, warships, war planes need to be developed and maintained to ensure peace for the people within the country.

One of the interesting further reads on the ills of GDP centric growth is in the below article by Devinder Sharma:

http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.in/2015/02/the-fetish-for-higher-gdp.html

All in all, entire book is an interesting eye opener for someone who ponders why with great technological advancement and scientific achievements we have not been able to address world hunger and poverty. What is wrong with the world current economics, policies and present day politics guided only by economics and not by humane centric religious tenets?  

Is Godse a Patriot?

Certainly he is not.

A certain MP Sakshi Maharaj made a controversial statement recently. It created a lot of ruckus in parliament and outside. It put the government on embarrassment situation floating a fleet of apologies and PM warning BJP MP s to better behave etc.,

This controversy is certainly uncalled for. But this controversy in India is alive since it happened, and will live on for long. There are people who defend Godse. There is a play on Godse, there are books and materials available on this which basically state the facts. The facts as stated, creates opinions in people’s minds. And they take sides.

But my opinion is: taking sides on Godse is harmful for the society. Giving him such a title like Patriot is obnoxious for our society. Bharath has no dearth of brave Patriots who have laid down their lives for the good of the country. We must choose right icons for country to become a beacon of light for righteousness. 

Who is Godse?

Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi in point blank shoot out when Gandhi was going to his evening prayer meeting. Godse had high regards for Gandhi. His statement in court is available in public domain. His statements are clear and unambiguous.   

Then why he killed Gandhi?

Gopal Godse wrote a book on why his brother killed Gandhi. Gandhi took some actions which are seemingly Muslim appeasing during the 1947 bloody partition.

-          The Hindu’s from Pakistan side were coming in hordes and occupying the Delhi outskirts in shanty sheds. The cold winter was punishing them severely. Their hatred for Muslims was burning. They pushed them out of their dwelling and occupied their houses and mosques. Gandhi took to Satyagraha in support of the Muslims in India to be protected and not be sent to Pakistan. The authorities listened to his appeal and arranged for their protection and retention in India. While they scrambled for providing decent dwelling for the Hindu victims thrown out from Pakistan. Due to Gandhi’s intervention, this happened throughout the boarders in Punjab and Kolkata apart from Delhi.

-          The financial partition was done on paper. In the meantime, the Pakistan irregular army invaded the Kashmir against the spirit of the Kashmir accession accord. This angered the Indian authorities. Sardar Patel argued, the money of partition is spent on war rather than rehabilitation by Pakistan. So India withheld the money to be given as part of partition to Pakistan. Mountbatten in typical British style approached Gandhi. Gandhi took up Satyagraha again for the release of the money.

These were the major tipping points for Godse to take up such heinous action. Of course there are other Muslim appeasing actions by Gandhi in the history. Like when Kolkata was burning due to a call of “Direct Action” by the Jinna’s Muslim League to butcher Hindus on the streets, Gandhi was pleading Hindu’s in deep Bengal, Naokhali to give up hatred. Similarly his stand on Cow Slaughter, Partition based on religion, supporting Khilafat movement, giving up NWFP to Pakistan when it was Hindu majority ruled by Khan Abdul Gafar Khan willing to join India etc., While we as a nation worship our Motherland in our song Vande Mataram, the educated Muslims opposed it in Congress to adopt it as national song. And Gandhi supported their ‘Sentiments’ instead of honoring our indigenous roots & culture. All these actions by the Mahatma developed strong sentiments against Gandhi amongst many Indians at that time.   

Gandhi was supporting Muslims who were killing our Nations’ roots and culture? Then may be Godse did the right thing?

No. He was wrong. Gandhi was doing it all in peace through dialogues and debates. He took majority into his stride. People who opposed should have made a mass appeal as he did to become a big force to reckon with Gandhi. There were no political opponents at all. Veer Savarkar & Hindu Mahasabha made several appeals to the Congress and Gandhi on several of these issues. RSS made several delegations. There was a lot of dissent within Congress against Gandhi on some of these decisions. But none prevailed. The majority accepted his accord. Why? Was he a messiah? Or was he right? Or majorities Indians are stupid? I know the answer but you must explore it yourself.

But one thing is sure. If Gandhi was winning his decisions through democratic peaceful means, one must counter him through peaceful means only. If he was gun totting dictator then one must counter him by gun.

Having shot him by gun did not do any good for the country nor makes Godse a patriot. He was a coward. He was an eccentric. Patriot is not a synonym with these characters. 

But Godse loved his country. His statements, writings give ample evidence. So he is a Patriot?

Everyone calls oneself a Patriot. But who do you call a Patriot? Sitting in one corner and thinking about India will not make one a Patriot. A patriot should be an Icon for kids & youth. They should be able to bravely and convincingly choose his laden path. Godse might have had great thoughts and few good deeds, but creating havoc by killing an Icon of the country makes him a dangerous person to follow. Making him a patriot for our Kids and Youth will take our country to disaster. It will be filled with hatred and develop gun culture. It will lead to Pakistan/Iraq way only. 

Did his action create any adversity?

Oh Yes! It created a disaster for decades to come. In the short term violent mobs hit and killed many of his Brahmin community in Maratha region. They were caught clueless.

The long term worst thing it created is the Nehruvian Secularism on to the Indian masses. Nehru strongly believed that National Pride, Cultural Pride is the cause of hatred and violence. He did everything from then on to bring out his version of Secularism to suppress everything that brings out any national, cultural pride in the masses.

The killing of Mahatma up surged Nehruvian Securalism which created some of the following:  

-          The first victim is the primary education. Our ancient education system was fully value based education. The skill development like Maths for commerce, Science for exploitation was secondary. But that is primary and only thing taught in school now. Ramayana, Mahabharatha was taught in schools. Those who don’t go school learnt it in their family profession. Be it a sculpture, artisan, jeweler, potter, farmer, home maker, he was completely rooted to values through simple ballads, plays, rituals based on Ramayana & Mahabharatha. But now the education system corrupts every child. Every parent thinks, school education is final and all pervasive. That, they don’t need to give any further education. That is sufficient to develop a child to stand on his legs. But is that building values to becoming good human? No one cares.

-          Second victim are the Intellectuals. All who denigrate the Hindu or ancient culture are given rewards, awards, recognition, university heads, committee heads. They decide what grants to research, where to research. Anything to do with ancient science, sociology, culture, will create National Pride and Cultural Pride which create hatred & violence. So no grants for it. UR Ananthamurthy before he died wrote a book called Hindutva. I thought finally he came to senses. But that book on Hindutva is only about vilifying Modi and Savarkar. Is that Hindutva? Such people easily get Gnanapeeth puraskara. Because such thinkers only have pervaded all universities and committees now.

Now although there is a change in central politics, the rot created over 6 decades will take that many decades to clear, provided the Hindu pride comes back & stays for long with sensibility & not hegemony. So let’s identify and worship right Individuals as our Patriot sons of the Nation.