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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Jawaharlal Nehru’s Development Vision Has Been Widely Misunderstood

Jawaharlal Nehru’s Development Vision Has Been Widely Misunderstood

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published Published on Feb 8, 2010   modified Modified on Feb 8, 2010

In the debate on development paradigm Jawaharlal Nehru is frequently presented predominantly as a strong advocate of heavy industry, large dams and big machines - someone who placed big hopes in modern technology. However, a more careful reading of several of his writings presents a different picture of a thoughtful mind troubled by several aspects of modern technology and industrial society, a mind which was prepared to go back hundreds of years in search of more inspiration and insight.

On January 5, 1931 writing to his daughter Indira from jail, he pointed out: “Man’s growth from barbarism to civilisation is supposed to be the theme of history. In some of my letters I have tried to show you how the idea of co-operation or working together has grown, and how our ideal should be to work together for the common good. But sometimes, looking at great stretches of history, it is difficult to believe that this ideal has made much progress or that we are very much civilised or advanced. There is enough of want of cooperation today, of one country or people selfishly attacking or oppressing another, of one man exploiting another. If after millions of years of progress we are still so backward and imperfect, how much longer will it take us to learn to behave as sensible and reasonable persons? Sometimes we read about past periods of history which seem to be better than ours, more cultured and civilised even, and this makes us doubt if our world is going forward or backward. Our own country has surely had brilliant periods in the past, far better in every way than our present.”

In the same letter he made it clear that in his perception improved social relations are more important than mere technological advance. To quote: “Many people nowadays are apt to boast of our great civilisation and of the wonders of science. Science has indeed done wonders, and the great men of science are worthy of all respect. But those who boast are seldom the great. And it is well to remember that in many ways man has not made very great progress from the other animals. It may be that in certain ways some animals are superior to him still. ... We look down upon the insects as almost the lowest of living things, and yet these tiny things have learnt the art of cooperation and of sacrifice for common good far better than man. Ever since I read of the white ant and of its sacrifices for its comrades, I have developed a soft corner in my heart for it. If mutual cooperation and sacrifice for the good of society are the tests of civilisation, we may say that the white ant and the ant are in this respect superior to man.”

In another letter written from jail to Indira (dated June 10, 1932), Nehru was even more blunt in criticising what science and technology have achieved: “The mind of man has carried man a long way in his voyage of discovery. As he has learnt to understand Nature more he has utilised it and harnessed it to his own advantage, and thus he has won more power. But unhappily he has not always known how to use this new power, and he has often misused it. Science itself has been used by him chiefly to supply him with terrible weapons to kill his brother and destroy the very civilisation that he has built up with so much labour.”

¨

Without the understanding of and clear commitment to a larger purpose of life (concerning the welfare of all), science could turn destructive. Nehru wrote in The Discovery of India (‘An Integrated Vison of Life’): “Science ignored the ultimate purpose and looked at fact alone. It made the world jump forward a leap, built up a glittering civilisation, opened up innumerable avenues for the growth of knowledge, and added to the power of man to such an extent that for the first time it was possible to conceive that man could triumph over and shape his physical environment. Man became almost a geological force, changing the face of the planet earth chemically, physically, and in many other ways. Yet when this sorry scheme of things entirely seemed to be in his grasp, to mould it nearer to the heart’s desire, there was some essential lack and some vital element was missing. There was no knowledge of ultimate purposes and not even an understanding of the immediate purpose, for science had told us nothing about any purpose in life. Nor did man, so powerful in his control of nature, have the power to control himself, and the monster he had created ran amok.”

In the same book (‘Out of Tune With the Elements’) Nehru wrote a strong critique of modern civilisation:

It would seem that the kind of modern civilisation that developed first in the West and spread elsewhere, and especially the metro-politan life that has been its chief feature, produces an unstable society which gradually loses its vitality. Life advances in many fields and yet it loses its grip; it becomes more artificial and slowly ebbs away. More and more stimulants are needed—drugs to enable us to sleep or to perform our other natural functions, foods and drinks that tickle the palate and produce a momentary exhilaration at the cost of weakening the system, and special devices to give us a temporary sensation of pleasure and excitement—and after the stimulation comes the reaction and a sense of emptiness. With all its splendid manifestations and real achievements, we have created a civilisation which has something counterfeit abut it. We eat ersatz foods produced with the help of ersatz fertilizers; we indulge in ersatz emotions and our human relations seldom go below the superficial plane. The advertiser is one of the symbols of our age with his continuous and raucous attempts to delude us and dull our powers of perception and induce us to buy unnecessary and even harmful products”

Nehru then posed a question: “What is wrong with modern civilisation which produces at the root these signs of sterility and racial decadence?” He attempted at least a partial answer:

One fact seems to stand out: that a divorce from the soil, from the good earth, is bad for the individual and the race. The earth and the sun are the sources of life and if we keep away from them for long life begins to ebb away. Modern industrialised communities have lost touch with the soil and do not experience that joy which nature gives and the rich glow of health which comes from contact with mother earth.

...I do think that life cut off completely from the soil will ultimately wither away. Of course there is seldom such a complete cutting off and the processes of nature take their time. But it is a weakness of modern civilisation that it is progressively going further away from the life-giving elements. The competitive and acquisitive characteristics of modern capitalist society, the enthronement of wealth above everything else, the continuous strain and the lack of security for many, add to the ill-health of the mind and produce neurotic states. A saner and more balanced economic structure would lead to an improvement of these conditions. Even so it will be necessary to have greater and more living contacts with the land and nature.

...We seem to be on the verge of increasing enormously the power resources of humanity and all manner of epoch-making discoveries hover over the near future. All this is very comforting and yet a doubt creeps into my mind. It is not lack of power that we suffer from but a misuse of the power we possess or not a proper application of it. Science gives power but remains impersonal, purposeless, and almost unconcerned with our application of the knowledge it puts at our disposal. It may continue its triumphs and yet, if it ignores nature too much, nature may play a subtle revenge upon it. While life seems to grow in outward stature, it may ebb away inside for lack of something yet undiscovered by science.

Speaking at the meeting of the Indian National Commission of UNESCO in New Delhi, Nehru said: “We live essentially in an age of science or engage in technological development. That goes ahead at an increasing tempo, and in doing so, has affected and will no doubt affect the lives of men, and many finally end up by the deaths of men. We can calculate and say with assurance that many of the problems of past history are capable of solution today, in terms of having the food and the clothing and the housing and the health services, and almost everything that a person requires. We can have them today. There is enough in the world for all and more. Therefore, the old reason for conflicts no longer exists and yet something is lacking. The fact of matter is that this technological age has brought greater conflicts in its train, in spite of its promise of putting an end to conflicts.”

In his inaugural address at the Asian History Congress (December 9, 1961), Nehru again expressed serious doubts about ‘human progress’: “What is the basic philosophy of history? I try to think of history as a process that leads man to higher and better stages of progress. Then I find to my surprise that those higher stages have been represented by great men in the long past. Having been fascinated by the scientific and technological civilisation which has been built in Europe and America, I gradually come to a stage where it seems to me to have stopped. I begin seeking for something deeper than merely the physical aspect of civilisation. I find that my mind is more interested in what Pluto or the Budha said, which has a timelessness about it. So I wonder if our present-day history, having fulfilled its destiny in so far as science and technology are concerned, is at all moving to a higher plan of human existence.”

Such a vision brought him time and again to what we should try to learn from history. In his address to the Indian Historical Records Commission, New Delhi on December 23, 1948, Nehru said: “I suppose the only way really to read, write or understand history is to evoke in the mind a picture of a living society functioning, thinking and having all the virtues and failing which the human being has possessed, and gradually changing, whether in the direction of progress or in some other.”

All possibilities are open, but there must be some understanding of the conditions which make progress possible. In a speech at the inauguration of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations in New Delhi on April 9, 1950, Nehru said: “My own view of India’s history is that we can almost measure the growth and the advance of India and the decline of India from the point of view of when India had her mind open to the outside world and when it wanted to close it up. The more it closed it up the more it became static.”

There cannot be any inevitability of progress; rather we need to study history very carefully to find out the conditions under which humanity can make genuine progress, or what we need to guard against. We may conclude as we started—with a quote from Nehru’s letters from jail to Indira (this letter is dated August 8, 1933); “History, it is said, has many lessons to teach us; and there is another saying that history never repeats itself. Both are true, for we cannot learn anything from it by slavishly trying to copy it, or by expecting it to repeat itself or remain stagnant; but we can learn something from it by prying behind it and trying to discover the forces that move it.”

The author is currently a Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi.

Mainstream Weekly, 8 February, 2010, http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1874.html
 

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