E-Digest

IS SMALL REALLY BEAUTIFUL ?

The romantic would say that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. But the realist would know that it actually is in the hands of the big Forces of the Market.

Khadi and our traditional cotton industry is taken as an example to highlight the above with the specific instance of the suicide deaths of cotton farmers in Andhra Pradesh and a reflection of Gandhian ideology and Gandhian economics vs. the multinational industry set up and Global economics.

The POLITCS of COTTON & GANDHIAN ECONOMICS

1) FARMERS' SUICIDES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF COTTON TECHNOLOGY

1998 was marked by suicides of over 300 cotton farmers in Andhra Pradesh. This raises a lot questions about the sustainability of cotton farming. Causes of these disastrous deaths have been analysed in terms of failure of extension mechanisms, unavailability of credit, and specific conditions of Andhra Pradesh (See the CED file K34 for various articles).

Shambu Prasad ( ?) in his article "Suicide Deaths and Quality of Indian Cotton: Perspectives from History of Technology and Khadi Movement" analyses the historical nature of present day cotton farming and the concomitant loss of autonomy of farmers over what they are growing. The article has three parts:

Part I looks at how the nature of cotton changed from its use as a raw material for a indigenous technology that could adapt to widely differing qualities of local cotton, to one that had to service the machinery of the English industry and its production system.
Part II describes how in this process `quality' was redefined. This had different connotations for machine-made and hand-made production, and for export-trader based production and decentralised operation for local use.
Part III looks at the Khadi movement during India's freedom struggle as a contemporary and alternative technological response to the developments in the modern textile industry.

This article should be seen in the light of another one by Shambu Prasad: "Towards an understanding of Gandhi's Views on Science" where the Khadi movement is understood as an example of an alternative conception of science which Gandhi was trying to evolve.

For another study which places the suicides by farmers in the context of globalisation, see Vandana Shiva's "Seeds of Suicide". This focusses on the changes taking place in the seed sector. For a history of the cotton mill industry in India in the twentieth century see Leadbeaters "Politics of Textiles: The Indian Cotton Mill Industry and the Legacy of Swadeshi, 1900-1985".

2) THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN BOMBAY

For a background to the role that the textile industry played in the ups and downs of Bombay's commerce and industry, see Nigel Harris's paper "Bombay in the Global Economy". The strike by textile workers in the early eighties was a watershed for the textile industry in Bombay as well as for the labour movement. CED's publication "The 10th Month: Bombay's Historic Textile Strike" provides a comprehensive coverage of the strike itself and major issues behind it. There is also an essay providing a historical overview of the textile industry. Van Wersch's Bombay's Textile Strike is an extensive study.

Recently the issue of the sale of surplus land of the textile mills has been crucial and the report by Lokshahi Hakk Sangathana "Murder of the Mills" examines this issue further. Most of the textile workers who were rendered jobless survived by becoming a part of the informal service industry in Bombay. The life situation of such population is the subject of Sandeep Pendse's essay "Toil, Sweat and the City". See Darryl D'Monte's paper "Redevelopment of Bombay's Cotton Textile Mill Land: opportunity lost" presented at a 1997 "Seminar on Work and Workers in Mumbai". Twenty other papers of this seminar can be seen for an in-depth assessment of the workers' situation in Bombay in the post-liberalisation environment.

3) GANDHIAN ECONOMICS

The classic of Gandhian economics was written by J. C. Kumarappa. It is called "The Economy of Permanence: A Quest for a Social Order based on Non-Violence". First part of the book has two sections: one on Nature and another on The Individual. The second part of the book deals with `Man in Gregation', ie, people together. See the edited volume "The Economic of Peace" which contains essays by various people on Kumarappa's life and work, the relevance of Gandhian economics, and some speeches and writings of Kumarappa himself.

"Essays in Gandhian Economics" contains essays on various aspects of Gandhian thought that concern economics. For example, `Human Nature in Gandhian Economics', `Welfare Criteria', `the doctrine of non-possesion', price system, international trade, poverty etc. See Nandini Joshi's "Economics of the Spinning Wheel", which is a contemporary statement of Gandhian economics. Amlan Datta provides an evaluation of Gandhian thought for Indian development in "Beyond Socialism".

For statements of contemporary relevance of Gandhian economic thought see Sethi's "International Economic Disorder and a Gandhian Solution" and Kamla Choudhary's article in Ecologist Asia "Gandhi's Truth: Survival in Twenty First Century".

Also see Vandana Shiva's article "Globalisation, Gandhi and Swadeshi" in Mainstream, May 23, 1998 [cedbom file U00]. The former Indian Prime Minister Charan Singh's "Indian Economic Policy: A Gandhian blueprint" is another document of interest.

4) GANDHIAN INSPIRATION

In a recent book "Bapu Kuti", Rajni Bakshi has spoken in detail to social activists in India who derive inspiration from Gandhi even though they are not `Gandhian' as it is understood in the public culture of India. For different meanings of Gandhi see Ashish Nandy's interview on `Gandhi after Gandhi'.
"In the Footsteps of Gandhi" consists of interviews and reflections of international activists.
Sanjoy Ghose's "Redefining Gandhi" is an attempt at reinterpreting Gandhi for today's activists.

For a detailed analysis and case study of one of the central tenets of Gandhian thought, self-reliance, see "Self-Reliance in Small Communities" by Ramesh Manandhar, where he examines this ideal in the concrete case of housing in Nepal. Also see Vinoo Kaley's "Hut Revolution and After". Vinoo Kaley's life-work was in the work with bamboo and see his posthumous "Venu Bharati: A Comprehensive volume on Bamboo".

For a Gandhian viewpoint on industrialisation in post-independence India and prevailing poverty, see Kanakmal Gandhi's "Industrialisation through Poverty or Poverty through Industrialisation". A special issue of Humanscape documents some of the alternative initiatives the world over, some of which are directly inspired by Gandhi.

Compiled by Avinash Jha, 2001

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