Independence..and Gandhiji
When Gandhiji fought for independence….he really meant people should be independent of MANY things…not just from the English:
From Disease and Illness: Gandhiji is the only person in the world who said ‘you should be ashamed to say you are ill…see what YOU have done to your body that YOU became ill’. I did not understand this concept till my homeopathy doctor told me that 90% of illness is because of food – over eating, under eating, wrong food, too hot, too cold, too spicy, too early, too late…I just stopped being foolish with my food.
From servants: How many of us can live without any help? He did. He could cook, clean his room, clean his toilet – unlike some jokers- this was not a political statement. It was freedom from needing help. Charka was a part of this independence – I can sew my own clothes. So was the Dandi march…”I can make my own salt’
From needs: another brilliant Gandhian concept ‘I am rich by the things that I can live without’ ..he had minimalist needs, and he ate a ball made of neem leaves..which told him how tasty the food was, and I guess it killed the germs in his body!
From the British of course: We think this was his only fight.
From Ignorance:
From Darkness
…..remember when he said ‘Independence’ he meant all that.
How many of us have even ATTEMPTED..forget reached. Most people go for bigger cars, bigger houses, more servants,…..Independence day? Lets drive down to Mahableshwar..thats the thought, right? L O L
Long live Gandhiji.
IndianHayek
There was a time when human beings were truly “independent” of one another. Those days, they were all living in caves, hunting & gathering food. If one wants to sustain life by himself & remain “independent” of fellow humans, that is what you got to do – hunting & gathering.
Independence is not in the nature of human beings to seek. If it were, human population wouldn’t have grown to 6 billion and human progress would never have happened. Human race would have been just another “species” on earth.
Independence is nothing to celebrate about. Human freedom & liberty are.
subra
Ayn Rand zindabad!
M S PANJWANI
@Subra:
Beautifully written as always……….mind blowing.
@IndianHayek:
Who are u my friend…aap ek zabarzast hasti malum hoti hoh…krupya aap apna parichay karvaiyeh…..
Suresh
Who said this, ” A little knowledge is dangerous; a lot of it is disastrous”. One wonders…
Also “Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts absolutely”. Something very righteous about absolutisms. But they do make engaging conversations.
Lesser mortals are always full of self-doubt!
Dr Mohammed Ali Khan
Dear Subra
Why not carry the Independence more forward!
I can make my own computer.
I will make my own cellphone.
I can make my own car.
I will learn my own Yoga or Karate
I will do my own Caesarean section on my wife if she has a difficult delivery.
I will fix my own leg if I have a fracture.
We will be independent from computer & mobile & car manufacturers, Yoga gurus, Karate masters and Gynaecologists and Ortho doctors!
Gandhi was a great man. There is no argument about it. He was one of the great gifts of India to the world after, maybe, the Buddha and Sankara.
But, great though he was, I think that he did not understand how an economy works. (Even great people can be wrong sometimes ). Civilization progresses and is sustained by specialization. If we sincerely follow and implement Gandhi’s advice on making our own food, what we will face is not spiritual upliftment, but, famine. Famine on a massive scale.
Sanjay
The above article does sound like going against concepts of “division of labour” and specialization. I feel Subra sir did not intend that. One important point is how many people are humble enough to do daily chores and independent from arrogance/ego.
Surio
Dr. Khan,
Regarding your clever use of “I will make my own….”
Have you read about Eric Brende? Obviously not. He did deliver his own children, his own means of transport and last I heard he made his own Washing machine, not the type we have in house, but the one that gives his entire family a gym workout as well. Gandhi advocated holistic and systemic adoption of ‘appropriate technology’ not indiscriminate adoption. And a doctor is a doctor in the same way as it always was, even before we all were finally ‘civilised’ by the White man. 😛
> I think that he did not understand how an economy works.
I think you don’t understand Gandhi very well. He ran his own ashram, he organised large scale protests and mobilisation of people in Natal, etc… Don’t go by that Nehru quip on how “it costed more to keep him in third class than it coasted a I class ticket”. If that was true, how did his watch get stolen?
@IndianHayek,
> when human beings were truly “independent” of
> one another. Those days, they were all living
> in caves, hunting & gathering food.
Tch, Tch. Such ignorance. Hunting gathering was more team work and more specialised than agriculture. Please read up on this topic some more. Only when we became “settlers” did we become ‘independent’. I prefer the word ‘disconnected’.
@Suresh,
I completely agree with what you say. The more I know, the less I believe in now!
Kshitij
Dear Subra,
Regarding your comment: Ayn rand Zindabad…
Ayn Rand never said that you don’t need soceity. She very much supports the idea of distribution of work. She supports the idea of excelling in the job that you like and which you are excited about.
Her only concern is, individual in a soceity does not owe anything to soceity just because he exists. He is free to trade his brains with others on mutually acceptable terms.
If we go on “…I’ll make my own…”. Humans will not persist.
In fact, distribution of work is one of the major reason why humans are so far ahead of other species…
Dr Khan
@Subra
He delivered his own children.. Nice.. What will he do when the baby is in transverse lie or any other presentation where it is impossible to deliver naturally? His wife will bleed to death when he is ‘delivering’ her.
Our civilization started out from cities. The Indus valley civilization was an urban civilization. And ‘urban’ means there is division of labour and specialization. The various Golden ages in our past were all heavily urbanized. Read Arthasashtra by Chanakya, and just look at the list of occupations mentioned by Chanakya in ancient Pataliputra. Our ancestors fully understood division of labour. Our ancestors did not make their own knives or chairs. They mostly purchased them from blacksmiths and carpenters.
I still maintain that our leaders during the time of Independence like Gandhi or Nehru ( except, maybe Rajagopalachari) had only foggy ideas about how an economy works. There were politicians basically and heavily influenced by Marxist ideas. If only we had a kautilya during our independence! We would have been a much more prosperous and powerful country by now, like ancient Magadha.
Surio
@Khan,
> What will he do when the baby is in transverse lie
And what if a person cannot “afford” healthcare to pay for whatever lucre such complicated procedures demand? The specialists exist, but the death will still occur.
Can we please stick with comparing apples with apples, and not apples with pears.
You presented the act of delivering a baby as some kind of great achievement that only a select few can perform. I simply deconstructed that myth by pointing to a layperson who did understand and did do many of these chores.
Viswanath
Sure Dr. Khan.
A portfolio manager, a financial planner, a CA to file my return of income, a broker, a banker, a mutual fund advisor, a life insurance advisor, a lawyer, – all are essentials.
then a wedding planner, a retirement planner, an architect, a builder, a broker, a car buying advisor, a doctor, a dentist, a gyneaec, an anesthisist, a pediatrician, an opthal, a gen practitioner, a diabetes specialist…..
sure I need them all. The media tells me I need them all..problem is I have lived without many of them. Not sure if I did right or wrong..but I guess I am happy 🙂
Surio
@Khan,
All our leaders had their own notion of what the word “freedom” represented. They were unified in the act of driving the British, but not in what to do afterwards.
For Gandhi, it was rejection of a soul destroying machinery called empire and return to the roots of decentralised co-existence. The man was more prescient than we give him credit for. Look up “Dunbar’s number”. And Gandhi was an anarchist. To call him a marxist is to do everything a disservice.
For Nehru, it was Fabian socialism utopia which he wanted to achieve with the very same bureaucratic machinery that serviced the empire. Ironies of Hisstory conspired to place him at the helm. It suited the vested interests because this preserved the “status quo” of the administrative machinery! Yes this man was a socialist.
Patel was preoccupied with ousting the Maharajas and transferring power back to the people…. Alas he died before some of his idealogies could be studied in greater detail. This man appeared to be a libertarian
Certainly Chanakya had some interesting ideas, but remember even his complex society collapsed eventually. And that is the bottomline
pravin
why was gandhi against machines? it seems like his economic thinking was undeveloped.he once said that he would prefer to go by bullock cart than a car because -by travelling by a bullockcart he will only trouble 2 bullocks and the cart driver.by using a car,he will be exploiting thousands of factory workers.
is this guy an economic infant or what?
epic fail. gandhi gave us satyagraha -which was good.but he gave us ideological violence – prohibition.he had no qualms on getting the violent state to make drinkers suffer(no i dont even drink or smoke) because he didnt like the effects of alcohol. if he were a true satyagrahi -he would have tried to convince people and counselled them instead of using heavy violent force.so much for the apostle of nonviolence.
robert heinlein thinks we should do all those wonderful things.has he heard about opportunity costs? probably not.should a lawyer who is a fantastic barber spend his time cutting hair or being a lawyer?.does heinlein understand WHY the lawyer is better off doing his court business and hiring a gardener? did the marginal revolution pas him by?.
nobody denies that it is great to be multiskilled.but you have to do what you are BEST AT -to maximise your economic aims.i mean,i love running marathons,should i quit my day job to train with kenyans?
Dr Khan
@Surio..
If that is what Subra means.. The moot point.. Then i’m in concord with him. You can be independent from other’s labour if one like it and when one can do it.. One has full liberty to do that.
What I don’t like is this glorification of such a society by influential people like Gandhi. They dream of and idealize ‘ less complex” and ‘simple’ societies of the past, but do not see how many women died in child birth, how many babies survived upto 1 year of age, what was the life expectancy in such a society.
We have a luxury of talking about simple lives because we can always utilize the services of a complex society when needed. What such glorification will do is to gradually undermine the justification for such a complex society and steal that luxury from us. Then will be FORCED to live in a ‘ simple’ society like Afghanistan, Somalia or Cambodia under Khmer Rouge.
What if the guy can afford a Gynaecologist? Should his wife still bleed to death in the interest of an ‘ Independent ‘ and ‘ Simple’ life.
The point I’m making is, that complex societies with division of labour and specialization makes life incredibly easier, convenient and safe. In such a society most of women can expect to survive a childbirth, can expect to see her child live long, can expect herself to live to a ripe old age. If we keep making the point that the opposite is true, then we should be blind to it’s benefits.Yes, such societies can collapse. One of the reason for collapse will be people who constantly undermine it intellectually.
Surio
@Khan,
You are doing exactly what you criticised Gandhi of; namely glorifying one way of life over another. As an aside, may I remind you that mortality is inevitable in life. A child that was born by the grace of all the mod-cons you speak of, might be killed in a school bus accident, might be killed by food poisoning etc..etc… and not reach adulthood at all. Or might reach adulthood and become a criminal gangster! What do we do then? Regret having saved her in the fist place?… Remember the proverb, “The road to Hell is often paved with good intentions” all the time.
Here’s a surprise for you: if I got someone from the Victorian/Edwardian era and transplanted him into today’s world, He will find that life hasn’t drastically changed at all. Within a short span of time, he will simply fit into today’s world just as easily. I make this point to show that we’ve long since stagnated in terms of “real” progress. We Indians “feel” that this are great times simply because we are able to indulge in every of our irrational desires that TV and American media have fed us for decades…..and the media tells us that we ought to feel that way after our indulgences. If I remember my science fiction, by now we should have travelling pavements and domed cities. On the contrary we are running out of planetary resources and struggling to cope with growing demands.
So, while it might be laudable that we are living the “Brave, New World”, it is a momentary blip on planetary History before oil runs out. All my arguments are merely geared towards making people to slow down their consumptive lifestyles so that our future generations can also enjoy the same quality of life that we have been pigging all this while. As a scientist myself, I can assure you that there are no “bright plans” on the horizon to rescue us from this planetary resource crunch. When the carrying capacity of Earth is exhausted, we die with it 🙁 All these things were somehow intuitively and presciently sensed by our “Mahatma” Gandhi, which is why he glorified the simple lifestyle. So our future generations can continue to live just like us. And it is for that reason he is a Mahatma (and we are not).
It has been medically/statistically proven that affluence automatically reduces fertility. Contradictorily, it is developing countries whose population is growing, and the developed nations are increasingly looking at immigration from elsewhere to bolster their standards of living (*). So, a simple society is actually a more reproductive one, notwithstanding your fallacious accusations otherwise.
(*) Side note: UK was able to populate USA/AUS/NZ while it was still a relatively shabby nation which leart bathing regularly after it started interacting with India 😎
Affording a gynaecologist and being forced to undertake all sorts of tests and procedures in the hospital and forcing a caesaerian on someone simply because you are “covered anyways” are two different things.
Yes, cheap internet makes us indulge in pointless debate on all these topics, otherwise, we would have quietly downsized and gone about our respective simple lifestyles 😛
In the UK and USA, people had actually taken to cutting their own hair because of atrocious barber prices and the trend has increased since the recession started. Human labour is underrated in this country. When we set up similar complex societies we will end up paying the price for the same excesses as they are doing now. Enough said on simplw vs. complex lifestyles, I think.
@pravin,
Not sure what you wanted to convey, but you have contradicted yourself in many places within your own comments. Just pay attention to the circular logic that is flowing out of your last paragraph and you will know what I mean.
Best,
Surio.
Dr Khan
@Surio..
Regret having saved the child!!!
Should we let the mother and child bleed to death then, all because he may die later or become a criminal gangster!!!! Good logic
Running out of planetary resources ? Been hearing this since Roman times..Or atleast since Malthus. Yet, here we are, 7 billion strong and surviving. When oil runs out, I’m sure human ingenuity will find some replacement. Remember, the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones.” .
For the last time, what will you do when your wife is about to bleed to death during delivery. Will you take her to a gynecologist or live a simple life and let her die? ( Who knows, the baby may become a criminal gangster in the future). Just imagine that you can afford it & the Gynaecologist is honest and not ordering ” unnecessary” tests.( Believe me such doctors exist, and the tests that you deem ” unnecessary” may be a very diagnostic of the underlying disorder and not all caesareans are “unnecessary”.
Cheap Internet has only facilitated our debates.. But, people were debating since ancient times.
I’m not against you CHOOSING a simple lifestyle, I’m not against you PERSUADING other people to lead a simple lifestyle. What I’m afraid of is, that such glorification will lead people
In power to FORCE us to lead a simple lifestyle with no back up, when, for example, my wife is bleeding to death during delivery or my child. Thats why I DONT oppose Subra or Surio recommend a simple lifestyle, but when people with enormous influence like Gandhi recommend it, I worry. Gandhi was a good man, he may not force us, but his followers in power sure can!
That’s exactly what happened in Cambodia during Khmer Rouge rule. They were forcing people to lead a simple life and killed 20 lakh people in the process. They wanted everybody to back to “year zero”, empty the cities and go back to the villages.In simple terms, I don’t want to see another Cambodia repeated anywhere in the world.
Also, I think that’s Pravins reply was easy to understand & consistent if one understands economics and it was NOT contradictory at all.
Surio
@Khan,
> Should we let the mother and child bleed to death then, all because he may die later or become a criminal gangster!
All I am trying to point out, are hypotheses that are similar to yours, but exactly the converse to the ones you are espousing. Where you are trying to have a happy and bright sounding hypothesis where lives are saved due to this “super”-system, I am using your very same hypothesis and pointing to another not so positive outcome stemming out of it. Very surprised that you are not latching on to it yet.
> the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones.
The rest of the paragraph is very old stuff that have already been disproved by the Club of Rome studies… I won’t even bother… That above line however is too open to leave without a salvo. The stone age ended because we were lucky to have found other things to play with.. We don’t have anything else new to play with. Sorry to rain on your parade.
> I’m sure human ingenuity will find some replacement.
You’re a medical doctor, going by your way of choosing examples. I am a scientist by training and profession, so let me re-assure you, the answer to that above wishful thinking at this point is a big fat NO. Also I don’t need to tell you how much resources and funds are needed for pharmacological research. In a similar manner, in engineering this translates to natural resources and raw materials (*). Just one examples: World lead production, vital for storage batteries and electronics has been essentially flat since 1976! And this is just what one country is consuming in terms of resources wrt rest of the World. Human ingenuity is waaaayy too overrated IMO!
(*) For example, if you think we have enough Iron, think again! To mine and process iron ore one needs the lead, zinc, copper, and aluminum needed for the motors, transformers, cables, and electronics of the production infrastructure! Most of that needs to come from elsewhere, of course. 😛 So the more complex we become the faster we sow the seeds of our own collapse. Pretty gruesome feedback loop. 😉
You have tried to use despot rule as an example for “simple lifestyle” regression. You have conveniently omitting Bhutan out of it, so let me point that for you. Also, I have three words for counterbalancing all that you have negatively portrayed using other countries’ simple lifestyle — “2008 US crisis” (caused by a system wanting to sustain a high-end lifestyle)! And as a bonus, their broken healthcare/insurance system for yet another example against complex specialisation.
As an aside, I was just like you in my world-view of Mahatma Gandhi and his outlook. It took me a lot of critical re-reading of his work, juxtaposing it against all the hypocrisy that you are bound to notice around the World, and re-examination of one’s own prejudices! It is only then does one understand “what he meant” about “what he said”.
I would consider Subra is a prominent person in his own right. Therefore, in your dictionary, he shouldn’t talk about simple lifestyles in a positive manner nor recommend it at all then, for then who knows where it will all lead? :-P. Oh dear! 8-). I am not happy with this one-upmanship game, but just saying that such arguments are on thin-ice.
I have strived to keep this discussion impersonal, while you have crossed the line to take it to personal levels. Let’s not do it again, please. As to Pravin, usage of economic jargon does not suffice for me. He states something, then says something that can undermine himself later. Check it carefully.
Ciao.
Surio
Something went wrong with the URL linked above.
Here’s the URL.
http://www.treehugger.com/china-kedrosky.jpg
@Subra, could you edit my above comment and insert this link please. You may delete this comment as it is superfluous to the conversation other than the link.
Dr Khan
@Surio
My apologies if I sounded personal. It was not my intention. I do not believe in such tactics. My intention was to ram home a point. Bringing the abstract into the reality of day to day life. If it sounded like a personal attack, I’m sorry.
When Subra said that Gandhi was independent of his maid by cleaning his house himself, I just asked whether a follower of Gandhi or Gandhi himself will carry it a step forward and be independent of a gynecologist if his wife is in difficult labour. Obviously no, we need specialists and division of labour. It’s the essence of civilization. It’s the essence of our humanity. Only human beings can laugh, think and trade with each other. If I employ a maid, I trade my money for time and she trades her time for money. The last time I tried to clean my house, it took me more than half a day. But, my maid did it in less than an hour. She has more experience in cleaning a house, she’s been practicing for more than 20 years. She is a specialist in house cleaning!. Both of us gained from the transaction. I had time to read my medical journals and she had some money for her needs. It was a win-win transaction.Both of us profited ( to use the dirty word PROFIT) from the deal. It’s also called TRADE. Now, why should I be independent of my maid, if it makes me a lesser doctor and takes time away from my journals?
I also differ from Subra when he said that Gandhi cleaned his house & toilet to be independent of his maid.I think Gandhi did this to show the upper castes that cleaning a toilet is not degrading. I think he did it to show to the people the dignity of labour. If this was Gandhi’s intention I fully support him. Labour IS dignity. If his intention was to show his independence, I have to differ.
I also agree that that Subra is influential, but he’s not as influential as the Mahatma.:-)