THE GLOBAL CRISIS: GANDHI AND LOHIA

A doubt hangs ominous in the sky of human aspirations and dreams. Twenty-first dawns with dire predictions of human race extinction, by a group of sober scientists whose credibility is beyond question.

Why is there this fear in an age of dazzling technology and consumer boom?

In the field on theories. Science, the wizard, pours marvels from its never-exhausting bag. Neurology, Bio-technology, Nanotechnology: the churning of Science Ocean may yield nectar or world destroying poison.

Nature groans. Temperature rises. Climate goes hostile to survival. Toxicity threatens the health of millions.

Merrily the rich go on singing the paeans of the market piling goods sky-high. Again and again, the tides of the sea of poverty futilely dash against their rocks of growing fabulous wealth.

The human race has only 50:50 chance of survival declares David Ross, British Royal Astronomer. Lord May, David King and Diamond: all hard realists prominent in the field of science warn that global collapse is a real possibility. Every social and econ system, either nourished or ravaged by centuries of human effort is facing the grave risk of collapse.

Craig center of J.C.V. Science Foundation blames the human gene for future human extinction.

Richard Dawkins of Oxford University puts his finger on the pulse when he says that a murderer or a rapist has either a defective brain or a faulty upbringing, the second one is more likely in most cases in the present age.

“What we lack is political will” declares Paul Davies, a physicist.

Prophetically declares Royal Society President Martin Rees, “…..the decisions that we make, individually or collectively, will determine whether the outcomes of 21^st century science are benign or devastating.”

Gandhi and Lohia are precisely those thinkers whose ideas, backed by strong political wills, will save human civilization from sure collapse.

The two greatest evils that rock human society can be pinpointed in terms of the famed humanist psychologist Erich fromm. In his book “Man Makes himself,” Fromm describes the marketing-oriented character of the modern man thus “In our time the marketing orientation has been growing rapidly together with the development of a new market that is a phenomenon of the last decades, the personality market.” Now we have two markets, the commodity market and the personality market. In a survey conducted in a Girls high School in the us 93% girls declared their first hobby as shopping. Because of the existence of the personality market, many are coerced to wear a pleasant mask along with the manipulated personality. This ubiquitous marketing orientation has created extremely selfish men and selfish nations and has legitimized cut-throat competitions.

As science scales new heights, surveillance measures gain better precision, thus making the all knowing big brother of 1984 a reality. The corporations utilize all conceivable methods to collect data about human beings as consumers. Of late, Neurology, too, has contributed to the erosions of human privacy. Brieght- house, previously an advertising firm, with the collaboration of Emory University, is utilizing MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) Techniques to tap the pre-dispositions of the limbic brain and thus how to influence the unconscious mind.²

Greed, envy, arrogance: all the vices decried by different religions of the world are utilized to enhance the marketing potential sky-high. Castes based on consumer hierarchy make modern society an unfeeling exploiting one. As community solidarity gets gradually replaced by crass individualism, Narcissistic tendencies grow and even the family gets undermined by the selfish market-made man or woman. Children suffer as a result. Anti-socials proliferate, mental illnesses double in every third decade. The one dimensional man or the cheerful robot is the ultimate outcome of the market oriented personality. No. wonder, alienation haunts the most sensitive spirits of the modern society. When it becomes unbearable, they lost their sanity.

The second evil that plagues human society, both in the past and the present, is the military-orientation of character. ³ this character which develops the trait of either a Faraday of a Robinson Crusoe knows obedience or command as the greatest virtues of human beings. Such people become either ruthless dictators or slaves. They become unfit as enlightened citizens for whom human rights are the greatest values. No wonder many of them join communal organization, hawking violence and hatred, wrecking societies and countries. People who prefer a violent revolution are not aware that such revolutionaries develop sick personalities and after coming to power become cruel and devourers of the civic rights of anyone who dare to differ. Every violent revolution aborts all future revolutions for a generation as no one who differs with the leader is given a chance to live. Mao’s theory of permanent revolution is the first casualty in every violet revolution. That hatred and violence are human-personality-endangering vices comes out in the recent research findings of the brain-scientists.

“The core point of convergence between the Buddhist and Psychological perspectives is that Hostility, which is viewed in the West as a character or personality, trait, is considered to be destructive to one’s health. Impulsive chronic violence is also considered to be dysfunctional and is classified as pathological, (Davidson, Putnam & Larson-2000)”.

(An extract from an article (“Buddhist & psychological perspective on emotion and well being” written jointly by Paul Ekman (University of California, San Francisco), R. J. Davidson (University of Wisconsin, Madison), Mathew Richard (Buddhist Scholar). B. A. Wallace (S. B. Institute for consciousness Studies. Santa Barbara, California).

Marx’s materialism ignored the matter that has the greatest influence on human personality, the grey matter preserved in the human brain. No change in external circumstances can influence the racist or the schizophrenic who weaves his own illusive world. Marx’s followers dreaming of a better world and ready to sacrifice everything for their noble cause ultimately became victims of the defective neural paths that crisscross their brains. Neither Polpot nor Stalin, or the Tibet-ravishing Mao are aberrations of communist revolutions. The military orientation of personality often does grievous injury to society.

The military and the marketing-oriented characters become doubly dangerous when they are reinforced by each other. The US has proved to be the greatest wrecker of peace in the 20^th century. It is the leading terrorist country in the world callously murdering millions in other countries to safeguard the profits of its exploiting big corporations. The industry-military complex of the us is the greatest violator of human rights not only in America but also in remote areas of the world. Boosting the murderous activities of dictators like Suharto of the Indonesia and Pinochet of Chile, the US has proved the greatest evil power of the modern age. It maintains training centers to demonize military officers of the Latin American countries. It prisons are inhuman institutions. The US uses human rights with non-chalant hypocrisy to invade and occupy resource-rich countries like Iraq. America’s war expenses in Iraq are expected to reach more than 600 billion dollars in near future. The US spends fabulous amounts on the military.

As spoken by the journalist Thomas Friedman, “For globalization to work, America can’t be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand market will never work without the hidden first.” America spends far more than the combination of the next fifteen nations who are the largest spenders for the million. Everyday the US spends about 75,000 million rupees on the military. Rs.8,000/- million everyday will suffice to banish hunger from the face of the earth. More than half of the US’s Federal Discretionary Budget is spent for the military. The US is the worst among the developed countries in the field of child mortality. Even Cuba, a country almost bereft of natural resources, has one third of the rate of child mortality as in New York. “During 45 years of the cold war with the Soviet Union, the Us intervened more than 200 times militarily in foreign countries” (Addicted to war by J. Andreas). Gandhi and Lohia are among the leading thinkers whose ideas can save the world from the grave crisis threatening modernity.

Gandhi’s stress on the principle of APARIGRAHA (Reducing human wants to the minimum) is the only remedy against the marketing orientation. Lohia, too, led a life of APARIGRAHA though APARIGRAHA was not a creed from him. He had no property worth its name in life. His death was equally unostentatious, as per his wish. An electric oven burnt his dead body without any paraphernalia accompanying it either before or after its disposal.

The age-old values of APARIGRAHA and ASTEYA (giving the society its due, before any individual enjoys wealth) which is wrongly translated as non-stealing, constitute the bedrock of any socialist society. Communism met its demise in almost all the red countries only because these two values were given a goodbye in them. Today, with the environment going toxic, the present civilization can save itself only by giving importance to these two values. The west which seems to be genetically or socially programmed to welcome strife and prodigality must change its course; otherwise dire disaster awaits humanity.

Gandhi and Lohia were both votaries of non-violent revolutions. Gandhi’s discovery of Satyagraha was the greatest gift to the present war and slaughter-prone humanity. By making truth and non-violence and inseparable pair, Gandhi made the military irrelevant for a happiness-seeking world society.

Today’s globalization slogan has been devised to boost the market. As spoken by Prof. J. K. Galbraith, “Globalization is not a serious concept. We have invented it to disseminate our politics of economic entry into other countries.

Unfortunately even our leftist friends in India have neither lost their fascination for industrialization leading to the growth of the market nor the military’s dominance in either national or revolutionary activities. Marx’s legacy seems to be much eloquent in both the fields as its was a product of nineteenth century Europe, the progeny of both a war-loving ancient Jehovah land and the warrior-mentality-dominated Hellenist Greece. Europe’s climate of scarcity barely gave it scope to welcome a leisurely quality-rich life of voluntary poverty except amongst a section of religious people. The Yogic tradition in India is unique in the world in making minds truly free and compassionate without any help of magic, ritual or god. Three important religious streams of India are children of the Yogic culture. They are Buddhism, Jainism and the yogic Hindu groups. From ancient day when God and Satan occupied the western mind, dichotomies ruled the west’s realms of culture. Separation of the sacred and the secular, the Apollonian and the Dionysian, truth and values led the west to great heights of science-based material splendor, combined with conspicuous moral depravity and the rise of monstrous organizations like the TNCs. In the field of methodology, science’s amoral stance in the cause of truth, paid dividends, but, in another field, the choice of areas of scientific research were decided by the employers of scientists who merrily fattened themselves on the vices like greed and hate. Separation of the sacred and the secular robed the secular field of the vital energy associated with primal emotions. The sacred utilizing the immense potentiality of basic emotions irrigated the realm of fanaticism. In every religion, fanatics outnumbered the moderates. In India the emotions and concepts moved together, the sacred and the secular shook hands in the field of values. Man and nature became partners in every ancient culture, governed by magic and ritual. In India only, rational thought prevailed in many sacred fields, thus fostering some atheistic religions. As rationality and emotion did not separate, Apollonian and Dionysian personalities combined to produce the Yogic psyche. (Hinduism is to great extent God-based.)

Indigenous societies, whose limited violence and caring-sharing values provide hope for the thinkers dreaming of a better society, nurture a number of superstitions because of their devotion to magic and ritual. Knowledge of such non-competitive egalitarian indigenous societies where superstitions based on Totem and tam boo prevails does not serve the cause of genuine democratic socialism, based on rationality and empathy. Einstein was impressed by the peaceful and egalitarian Pueblo Indians, hurry Magoffin became eloquent in narrating the egalitarian values of pre-Columbian Americans. The existence of such societies proves that human nature yields to nature to a great extent.

With confidence, one can assert that unless we accept the values of ASTEYA and APARIGRAHA, the earth cannot be saved from the greed of an ever-expanding consumerist society. Similarly unless truth and non violence are combined, no democratic society can come into being. These four values are enough to banish want and consumerism to the dustbins of history.

Gandhi’s trusteeship theory which won the loyalty of Lohia also, is fully based on the principle of ASTEYA. ASTEYA reaches great heights when combined with APARIGRAHA. Gandhi did not live long enough to subject his trusteeship theory to rigors of practicality and its universal application. Lohia, pre-occupied as he was with a defective polity, too, could only pay lip service to the theory of trustee-ship. This theory’s success depends on the cultural level of the people and the proper social structures of different societies. Marx’s grand ideas lost relevance when greedy and paranoid people became rulers, Independent India imitated the West and relegated Gandhi to the pedestals of the backrooms.

Time is fast running out. The contented class and its Frankersteins, the TNCs, complacently strive to undermine age-old values and demolish the old cultural contours, Either we become wiser or we succumb to Thantos (Death Wish). Promotion of consumerist culture and military culture and Institutions based on them are producing unhealthy human beings who are unfit for a Gandhi socialist society. Anthropology and brain science in the present state of society, applied wisely, are capable of guiding us in the right direction. Yogic practices and Buddhist disciplines which have developed through millenniums given us hope that both the conscious and unconscious parts of the human mind can be influenced to build a character which is virtuous by almost all humanist standards. Such a character accepts ecological and Gandhian socialistic principles. Marxism which is protean in its spread has nurtured a type of social change based on non-violent struggles, given popularity by William Morris. This variety of Marxism and the ecologically-sound variety of Maxims as propagated by J. B. Foster, of Monthly Review fame, can easily blend with Gandhian socialism and Buddhist humanism.

Simply wishing a new society and painting it with broad strokes of brush is not enough. Constant debates must take place about the cultural and institutional aspects of this society and the way to implement them. Many of the Europe and America-based theories including the present trend, Post-Modernism, ignore the plight of the third world. Gandhi and Lohia are original thinkers who blazed new trails for humanity. J.P. and M. N. Roy are two other thinkers who cannot be ignored in the Indian context. Decentralization of power which materializes in the form of gram Swaraj of Gandhi was equally emphasized by Lohia, J. P., and Roy. The Green Party of Germany also gave the central place in its manifesto to this concept. A fuller discussion of this matter waits in the corridors of history. Utopias, having birth in the west, have created a scare among social thinkers. To set at rest their misgivings regarding utopias turning totalitarian, every such social scheme must make the Yogic four values and scientific rationalism (Buddha was a votary of it) the bed rock of such societies. Anthropology, Sociology and Psychology (Particularly modern brain science and Buddhist Yogic practices) have the great potential to guide us in preparing a good scheme. Scientists of the environment institute of Stockholm have done a great job by pinpointing the global problems and the proposed remedy. J. B. Foster has made a commendable study of Marxist ecology. We have to move further along the same road. People who claim the legacy of Gandhi and Lohia are particularly in favorable positions to examined the scheme and make corrections. The West’s mainstream understanding of the Third World may not satisfy original thinkers of the East. After the publication of the book “Orientalism” of Edward Said, expression of such doubts will not be misunderstood evn in the West. There is a side stream in the West which is mostly fed by Christian values. This stream is extremely valuable for every Eastern thinker. Gandhi used the ideas of the few great thinkers of the West fruitfully. We cannot ignore many of the great thinkers of the west as our legacy is global at present. Indians have the unique legacy of the Buddha and Gandhi. They should have a debate with humanist and socialist thinkers of the west to prepare a blueprint for a sustainable and happy society.

Gandhi and Lohia were against cast violence. Gandhi devoted a lot of his time to Dalit upliftment. Lohia defied caste hierarchy to give justice to the lower oppressed classes. Ambedkar fought all his life to abolish caste oppression. We are heirs to the great legacies of Gandhi and Ambedkar. Dalit intellectual Nagraj in his famous book “the Flaming feet” explains how the two liberators of humanity complement each other. The Buddhist stream of thought had tremendous influence on the people of Asia. Today, almost all the leading intellectuals in the world appreciate the Buddha’s thoughts in India. In our attempt to build a better world society, we have to lay under toll all these great legacies of the East and the West as well as those of Arabia as pointed out by the best humanist Islamic thinkers of the whole world.

REFERENCES:

1. The ancient saint kings followed tradition and became Yogis. In course of time the yoga system was lost.
2. Moderation in eating and sleeping, enjoyments, work and wakefulness are to be practiced to attain success in Yoga.
3. Evolutionary Psychology – A Durant and B.J. Ellis.
4. (a). An uncontrolled man does not have a steady mind. His thoughts wander. His mind is not calm. Hence SUKHA is beyond his reach.

(b). Excessive craving for money or commodities and anger leading to aggression or hatred are insatiable and sinful Rajasic entities. They are enemies of man.

5. Evolutionary psychology: A primer – L. Cosmides and J. Tooby.
6. (a).Satwik Guna (modality) is clean, free from afflictions and bright. It leads to knowledge and Sukha.

(b). Satwik Guna leads to SUKHA; RAJAS leads to unending action, TAMAS avoids true knowledge and leads to lack of attention.

7. Same as 4(b).
8. Mind is the root cause of all morality (Dhamma).A Polluted mind invariably leads to Dukha. A cheerful, steady mind leads to Sukha.
9. All the sentient beings are considered as one. Divisions disappear. The Satwik person harbors cosmic consciousness and love.
10. Senses under control, his mind accepting all as his friends; he reaches me as he is devoted to the welfare of all.
11. The Roots of Violence: A Moral Analysis in an Indian Classic- Krishna Chaitanya: Alternatives Vol XIII No.3. (July-1988).
12. ‘Can Scientific man Survive? The Radical Humanist (23.03.1958).

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