Gandhian economics is relevant

Pulin B Nayak

In recent years there appears to have been a resurgence of interest in what may be called Gandhian economics. Gandhiji first enunciated some of these ideas about a hundred years ago. These are contained in his Hind Swaraj, written in 1908 during a voyage from London to South Africa.It was later published as a booklet. Gandhiji's economic ideas continued to evolve over the next four decades after he returned to India for good at the age of 45. He altered some of his more extreme positions on, say, machinery, but on a number of core formulations his conviction was unchanged.

Even at the height of Gandhi's virtually unchallenged position during India's freedom struggle there were many within the Congress party, some of them his closest confidants, who were never impressed with his economic formulations. These included, notably, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jayaprakash Narayan. Nehru never challenged Gandhiji's overall moral and political pre-eminence, but his emphasis on heavy industry and investment planning was at variance with Gandhi's ideas. Hind Swaraj was a severe condemnation of modern civilisation. It aimed for self-rule in a context where the twin principles of satyagraha and non-violence were the core postulates. As one who had the most perspicacious understanding of the Indian countryside, Gandhi felt that the key to the country's progress lay in the strengthening of the decentralised, self-sufficient village economies. He had a strong adherent in J C Kumarappa, who was possibly the first to coin the expression, Gandhian economics.

Gandhi made a trenchant critique of machinery, saying that it was a grand, yet awful, invention. In Hind Swaraj he observes: "It is machinery that has impoverished India". Further, he says: "Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilisation; it represents a great sin". This was no doubt an extreme position. Few agreed with him on this, but it would be fair to say that Gandhi continued to change his position on this question. But fundamentally Gandhi opposed machinery because he thought it displaced labour and it concentrated production and distribution in the hands of a few. This is an old question in classical political economy with which Ricardo grappled at length. Gandhi's concern was not trivial; one needs to address the question of the appropriate choice of technique when looking at a real economy. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Gandhi's economic formulation was his theory of trusteeship.

This was developed as an alternative to the doctrine of socialism or communism. The thesis was that the capitalists would hold their wealth as trustees for the service of society. Trusteeship was thus to be thought of as a moral compact between the wealthy and society at large. This thesis has been roundly critiqued in several quarters. But in the present conjuncture when command economies are in retreat and globalised capitalism is the prevalent mode, the need for a moral and ethical basis for business practices has never been more keenly felt. Two further features of the Gandhian mode ought to assure for it a very special place in the history of economic thought.

• First, Gandhi advocated the precept of limitation of wants to take care of one's need and not greed. This is a counterpoise to the entire edifice of mainstream economic thinking which is based on the notion of a continuous expansion of the goods space to satisfy unlimited wants. It is conceivable that this may yet turn out to be the single major Gandhian insight that could dictate the agenda of the long-term sustainability of the ecosystem.
• The second has to do with the idea of focusing on the well-being of the poorest and weakest member of society that is contained in Gandhi's talisman. This was one of the last notes that Gandhi left behind in 1948. This was an intrinsic part of Gandhi's moral view of the world. It was articulated at least a decade before John Rawls's early writings. Gandhi's idea, later developed in Rawls's A Theory of Justice published in 1971, was to profoundly alter the course of theoretical welfare economics.

The writer is Director, Delhi School of Economics . THE TIMES OF INDIA : October 3, 2005