Dharampal, Expanded version of a paper written for a seminar on “The Crisis of Modern Science” in Malaysia, November 1986.
The movement of ideas is
as old as the history of man. It is also probable that taking the total
context into account the impact of such movements has not been too dissimilar
in different epochs. Thus it may be found that in the period which followed
Gautama Buddha, or during the ascendancy of pre-Christian Rome, or after
the spread of Islam into Spain and other parts of Europe, the ideas which
emanated form them manifested fairly similar tendencies and impacts on
those who were affected by them as are felt today by those who receive
modern western ideas and knowledge systems.
Gun-powder, the printing
press, the mariner's compass are said to have been introduced into Europe
during the 13th - 14th century. While their introduction might have brought
many blessings to Europe in the long run, to begin with their extension
must have been very unsettling both to European society and its knowledge
and state systems. The import of Indian cotton textiles is said to have
disrupted the production of English cloth in the 17th and 18th centuries.
As is well documented, even the introduction of the practice of inoculation
against the small-pox, form Turkey into England around 1720, was for many
decades a matter of vehement opposition and medical and theological controversy
in Britain.
Similar strains must have
been felt at the introduction into England and West Europe of the drill
plough and other new agricultural implements, or of new processes of metallurgy,
or of new plants and herbs, or of unknown astronomical data and theory.
However, the learning of
the art of plastic surgery first observed by the British in the city of
Pune, India, in the 1790s, or their discovery of the existence and the
use to which oil-wells were put to in Burma, again in the 1790s, do not
seem to have created any immediate social disturbance. Their impact and
importance today requires little comment.
From the 13th to the middle
of the 19th century, western Europe was a recipient of innumerable ideas
and techniques from the rest of the world , especially from the world
of Asia. It is possible, as is generally claimed, that some of these ideas,
etc., had earlier originated in Europe itself but were lost to it in the
early centuries of the Christian era. Whatever may have been their original
source it can well be imagined that when these ideas, techniques, etc.,
were first introduced into Europe they not only gave rise to controversy
and debate but their adoption and extension in their original or modified
form, must have to a lesser or greater degree, disrupted some aspects
of European life. Yet, despite such controversies and disruption, their
adoption seems to have led Europe, as a geographical and ethnic area,
from a sense of strength to strength.
What European civilisation
has produced in the past few centuries may have created numerous, perhaps
even some insoluble problems for itself, but what is termed as "the
crisis in modern science" - the theme of this international seminar
- is really the crisis which modern science has produced for the non-European
world. For Europe, despite the great breast-beating about wide-spread
pollution and ecology, etc., (much of it might be heart-felt and sincere),
modern science as such seems to have produced no new crisis. What perhaps
can be said is that for the past many centuries Europe has generated crisis
after crisis in its vast adventure in the non-European world.
The third world has been
facing imposed crises of one kind or another for nearly 400-500 years,
i.e. from about the time it began to be dominated by European power, organisational
skills, strategies, etc. These crises were much more acutely felt, not
only because they greatly disrupted and impoverished the areas of the
third world but also because they involved the wholesale elimination of
the indigenous civilisations of the Americas, and many other lands. If
I may say so, the third world today has nearly reached the stage when
this process of induced crises seems to be reaching its end.
It is the power and glitter
of modern western science and technology which can claim to have captivated,
in fact paralysed the minds of men like Jawaharlal Nehru and of the present-day
third world intellectual. However this glitter is quite recent, not even
a century old. Essentially the way power has been wielded by the west
during the last few centuries and the manner in which and the areas over
which such power has been expanded is what may be termed as the west's
secret. And it is this secret which has in turn produced the present-day
western science and technology. It seems to me that the roots of European
power and thus also of its science and technology, lie in its philosophy
and biblical assumptions. Europe's geography and its requirements made
it opt for hierarchical systems in every sphere and these form the basis
of Europe's seemingly endless power.
The concentration of material
power seems to have been the primary aim of European civilisation from
ancient times. It is this aim which has constantly determined the structure
of all that it has created through the centuries and the manner in which
its own people were treated and governed. The manner in which Europe later
dealt with the people of the non-European world had already been well
tried in Europe, and perhaps more so in England, much before Europe discovered
the Americas, or the sea routes to the East. That Europe had generally
subscribed from the days of antiquity to the slogans of liberty, equality
and fraternity amongst all human beings is a fallacy perpetuated by 19th
century radical and liberal thought and pretensions.
It is probable that most
civilisations throughout history have been largely indifferent even towards
civilisations which have been contemporaneous with them. It also seems
true that most of them have treated not only those belonging to other
civilisations but even many of their own people, at certain periods, with
indifference and in a callous manner. That many people were made slaves
through military conquest or by other means by most civilisations is borne
out by history.
But the single-mindedness
which has been applied to enslaving vast populations seems altogether
to be a European phenomenon. One recalls not only the phenomenal enslavement
of vast populations, and the commerce in slavery in the 16th, 17th and
18th century: what happened in ancient Greece or in early Rome, was relatively
on the same scale as the later European commerce in millions of people
from black Africa, referred to by Fernand Braudel as "royal merchandise".
While Plato is said to have condemned harshness towards the slaves, he
is stated to have encouraged the feeling of contempt for them as a class.
In Athens and other Greek domocracies "unskilled labour was almost
entirely slave-labour, and skilled labour was largely so".
In due time, while slavery
declined feudalism took over. The explanations for the origin of feudalism
are many, and a matter of controversy. The consolidation of feudalism
in England was evidently a result of the Norman Conquest of England in
the mid-11th century. Elsewhere the rise of feudalism might have been
due to a variety of causes including, as is claimed by Karl Marx and even
more so by Frederick Engels and others, major changes in technology. However
the role played by slavery in Europe was henceforth played by vast populations
which were given the status of serfs, villiens, etc. The consolidation
of power thus went apace with the increase of wealth amongst those who
wielded such power. The marriage of wealth with power in Europe in time
gave rise to the building of manor houses, ships, the accumulation of
capital, etc.
World conquest led to the
industrialisation of Europe. It is fairly certain that there would have
been no industrialisation of the kind which happened from the end of the
18th century without such conquest. Many of the new discoveries, technologies,
etc., were demanded by the requirements of conquest. The oft-made claim
that wars help the growth and advancement of science and technology seems
largely to be based on the European experience of the past few centuries.
Modern science thus is in
direct line to European slavery, feudalism, Europe's world conquest and
plunder, and the West's continuing dominance. While today's West superficially
may seem like quite another planet in contrast to what it had been for
over 2,000 years, its basic character has remained fairly constant. Mahatma
Gandhi was once told, "that every American had 36 slaves, for the
machine did the work of 36 slaves". This certainly was a vast improvement
on European antiquity when the right number of slaves necessary for a
Greek citizen was said to be 16. In the 1930s every, or most, Americans
enjoyed the privileges of citizens, and at least as a statistical average,
had more than double the energy and services at their command compared
to the small minority who enjoyed the status of citizens in ancient Greece.
The human slaves of course had long disappeared even in America but
the idea had not, and had in fact become even more attractive. Incidentally
Mahatma Gandhi's reply was, "Well, Americans may need that, but not
we. We cannot industrialise ourselves, unless we make up our minds to
enslave humanity."
To put it crudely, Western
civilisation tends to devour all that exists not only for its survival
but seemingly because of a long acquired appetite.
It is not that European civilisation
is unaware of this tendency and that all this has happened in a state
of absent mindedness. In fact at times Europe has even made efforts to
reform itself but the reformation in a civilisational sense, seems at
best only to be able to change or reverse direction, but has no effect
on the single-minded characteristic of Europe to its commitment to limitless
consolidation of power.
The morphology and purposes
of modern science therefore remain more or less identical to the purposes
of Europe's slave society in antiquity, to its feudalism, and to the manner
of its world conquest.
The myths about modern science
and technology prevalent in the third world are nothing new. Over forty
years ago, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, (the first Prime Minister of free
India) had observed, "I am all for tractors and big machinery".
He was of the view that, "The economy based on the latest technical
achievements of the day must necessarily be the dominating ones. If technology
demands the big machine, as it does today in a large measure, then the
big machine with all its implications and consequences must be accepted."
A decade earlier, he was
even more trenchant and had stated in his Autobiography, "I have
no doubt, personally, that all efforts, Hindu or Muslim, to oppose modern
scientific and industrial civilisation are doomed to failure, and I shall
watch this failure without regret."
Pandit Nehru was indeed a
man of perception, his nationalism was unquestionable, and he was proud
to be an Asian, and to belong to the third world. Yet, despite his familiarity
with the West, notwithstanding his realisation of the awesome historical
impact of western civilisation, his fascination with the products of modern
science and technology and his belief in their benign capacity remained
limitless. And as we know, however, Pandit Nehru, despite deep differences,
was also for 25 years a close follower of Mahatma Gandhi.
It will be generally agreed
that till today there had not been a greater known critic of modern western
civilisation and its statecraft as well as its science and technology
than Mahatma Gandhi. What seems to have disturbed Mahatma Gandhi most
during his early contact with Europe was the manner in which the civilisation
of Europe, especially of Britain, treated its own people, how it
eroded their individual dignity as human beings, how it subordinated them
to powerful hierarchical systems, rather than the damage done by Europe
to his own country. The latter he could oppose as a patriot but the former
violated his humanity. It is this former aspect which seems to have decided
him that his own country and anyone else who could listen to him should
have nothing to do with such a civilisation at any stage. Yet, he failed
to impart this understanding to men like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
Obviously, the elite as well
as the rulers of the third world are captivated, even awe-struck by modern
science. Its glitter fascinates them and the power it generates and consolidates,
makes them take steps to imitate what the world leaders and proprietors
of modern science do. But to believe that they are all taken in by the
rhetoric and myths of modern science is to do them injustice. Fifty years
ago this may have been true. But today, at least in countries like India,
it is the internal as well as the external compulsions of the situation,
and the relative intellectual incapacity to create contrasting but fascinating
alternatives, which seem to push today's third world intellectual or those
who get entrusted with the task of national management, towards modern
science and even more fatally towards the organisational forms and arrangements
which invariably seem to accompany it.
Bemoaning the evils of modern
science may to some extent provide moral support to the current questioning
of it in the west. But it seems more than probable that the type of questioning
which goes on today, in so far as it merely points out some of its obvious
flaws, makes modern science even more powerful. Seeking non-western alternatives
to it, however, requires an exercise at least of the order, that Mahatma
Gandhi undertook for the regaining of India's freedom.
The alternatives which the
Third World will have to create to modern western science will obviously
differ from one area, or region of the Third World to another. Geographically,
the Third World is vast and embraces a variety of climates, fauna and
flora and is inhabited with people of different ethnic origins. The differences
and variations amongst the people of the Third World are even more marked
in terms of history. What unites them most today is the fact that all
the constituents of the Third World have been dominated by European civilisation
since about 1500 AD. But even this European dominance has been felt in
different ways, and for varying periods by practically each area and on
some it has sat far more heavily than on others. What can be said to be
common to all the Third World areas is that their ordinary people have
been deprived of their human dignity, their individual and social initiative
has got eroded, their societies disrupted, their environment variously
damaged, their productions and economies made dependent on those of the
European world, their elite to a greater or lesser extent alienated form
their own people and civilization, and large proportions of their people
greatly impoverished. Therefore the objective which can be said to be
common to all of them will be to somehow overcome this historical disorientation
and establish a new balance in their respective societies so that each
one of them begins to regain its dignity and self-identity and yet be
able to maintain a certain fraternity, perhaps even solidarity, with the
rest of mankind. The details of the process which will overcome such disorientation
will obviously vary form area to area. But, perhaps, it may be worthwhile
to speculate how this may possibly be attempted in some specific area,
say for instance in India.
Before it came under European
dominance India had a prosperous agriculture as well as a flourishing
and varied industrial complex. The productivity of India’s agriculture
was at least three times that of English agriculture even till around
1800, and as an example of its industrial complex around this time India
seemed to have had the potential to produce about 1,00,000 tons of high
grade steel annually.
It is true that during the
previous 600-800 years, i.e. from around AD. 1000 to AD. 1700, large parts
of northern and western India had been over-run by foreign invaders. Such
invasions, and the political domination of these areas by the invaders
had led to much strife, to occasional plunder of the rural as well as
the urban areas, and far more, to religious intolerance. But though considerably
weakened because of the de-linking of state and society, as the two began
to function according to unrelated concepts and principles, by and large
Indian society and its manners had more or less stayed intact even in
the areas politically dominated by the invaders. While tremors of these
invasions were felt from time to time in most parts of India, in more
than half of India, individual, social and political life continued to
function according to indigenous norms from very ancient times till about
the later years of the eighteenth century. Hence it were these areas of
India that put up far greater resistance, from about 1750 to 1850 AD,
to European expansion in India.
The innovativeness and vitality
of these southern and central areas, even today, because of a differing
historical experience, in that they had continued to be free till about
1750 of 1800, is therefore much more marked than of most parts of northern
India. And because of their rootedness and vitality these areas seem to
be much less swayed by European manners and fashions, and are able to
use western knowledge systems for their own purposes more effectively.
Given the historical background
of prosperous agriculture and a vast industrial infrastructure it may
be right as well as feasible - despite the decline, destruction and depression
of the past two hundred years - that India, by stages, reverts to its
earlier productive and economic arrangements at least in the spheres of
articles of staple consumption. This would imply the deliberate elimination
of socially as well as ecologically and technologically harmful practices
of production as well as of seeds, plants and materials which have been
forced upon India in the past century and a half and more so in the past
few decades. Production will again have to be geared to the requirements
of the inhabitants of India, living in the countryside as well as in the
urban conglomerations and not governed and controlled by sheer market
forces, or the requirements of international trade. Not that India need
stop international trading altogether or neglect those who live in its
growing metropolises and large cities. Besides the change in the production
techniques, etc., the other change will have to be a change in the priority
of supply. The locality where production takes place will, as earlier
on, have to have the first claim on the produce instead of the increasing
trend determined and controlled by market forces whereby all produce becomes
marketable and thus the producing locality is actually starved of what
it produces, and the nature of the produce is so changed that only such
things which are marketable get produced at all. Arrangements naturally
will be made that the non-producing areas receive a proportionate share
of all produce either form within the region where they are situated or
from a national or some other larger pool. A densely populated country
like India cannot be considered as the supplier of food and other primary
products to other countries except in a very marginal sense. It would
be foolish for it, or its political managers, even to contemplate such
a step. Any marginal supply to other countries, say for instance of tea,
or cotton, or iron ore, or coal could be considered only when there are
real surpluses, as of dairy produce in today’s western Europe, or
the amount of the primary product like iron ore or coal is in such quantities
that it is believed that it will never be exhausted.
Articles of food, clothing,
building material for houses and other public structures, forest produce
and herbs, and such articles, which in a participative way enliven and
enrich India's cultural and civilizational expressions, will be the exclusive
preserve of the indigenous productive and economic arrangements. Even
if such arrangements mean some reduction of production in certain fields
it would be more than compensated by the improvement in the quality of
the product and of the encouragement to aesthetic sensibility so characteristic
of the older India, but lost in recent times.
This move however need not
imply a rigid adherence to old forms. What is basic to the old forms is
the conceptual frame from which these forms were derived, and the interrelationship
which existed earlier on between the individual and the group on the one
hand, and amongst different groups on the other. It is such relationship
which constituted the core of India's polity and guided and directed India's
institutional and structural arrangements. Assuming that such inter-relationship
is considered precious, after due deliberation, by India's people, and
not just by its elite, even today, and it is restructured or restored
and the conceptual frame, which determined what Indians considered as
desirable, became functional again then any selective borrowings from
the present day world or other civilizations will do little injury. They
may in fact be beneficial in the same way as the introduction of the mariner's
compass, paper, printing, etc. were beneficial to Europe some 600-700
years ago.
But food, clothing, housing,
the accompaniments of culture though basic are not the only requirements
of any society today. For instance, India has been accustomed to a large
network of rail transport for a century or more, to a wide network of
postal and telegraphic services, and recently to telephones, to newspapers,
journals and books, to motor transport by road, to radio and more recently
to television, and to air transport (Incidentally it is this latter mode
of travel which has made this international seminar possible in the same
way as it makes possible the holding of thousands upon thousands of international
conferences and seminars, meetings between top people who are said to
run the world, and a whole amount of international junketing by people
who may not be so great and may not hold the destiny of the world in their
palms.). It is possible, at least in theory, to give most of this up and
whatever transport and communications was still thought essential, to
be performed by other and slower means. Such a change in itself will be
healthy both for society and the individual. But in the circumstances
of today any drastic alternations in the fields of transport and communications,
even when their overwhelming use is restricted as at present to between
10% and 20% of India's people, may not be feasible. However a detailed
and in depth examination from an Indian perspective of these twin fields
is long overdue. Such an examination as a result may also suggest the
feasible alterations and the ways and means by which these could be brought.
Another instance can be concerning
the requirements of energy. At present the energy field in India is dependent
on animal draught-power, coal, fuel-wood and charcoal - though less and
less on the latter as more and more of Indian forests are being denuded
or are being replaced by species of trees like Eucalyptus. Again about
80% to 90% of India's people receive very little of the energy available,
and a substantial proportion of them are virtually starved of all sources
of energy supply, except of course of sun-shine, at least so far. Ordinarily,
the requirements of energy in a sunny country like India should be far
less than in those which are less fortunate with regard to heat and light
from the sun. But to be able to take advantage of such a fortunate geographical
situation the habitats of India, and the daily routine of life (greatly
damaged and disoriented since about 1800) has to be such that it is easily
capable of benefiting from such natural advantage. But till the habitats,
the daily life, etc., get remodeled, it is necessary for India, even within
the larger present dispensation, to reallocate the energy it has, and
taking advantage of the sun-shine use it through various devices for production
of energy necessary for domestic uses as well as for production processes
and other public purposes.
Where inter-relationship
with the world was the primary objective, India, much like other area
of the Third World would need to take a variety of steps. The first of
these has to be to suggest a better and viable alternative to the current
relationships based primarily on the force which dominate today's world.
Mahatma Gandhi tried to convince the world of the desirability of a non-violent
world order and also of social and individual life based and guided by
the principles of self-control. His advice was listened to by many throughout
the world but did not get adopted in any large way. New attempts with
the same objective but perhaps with somewhat different constituents and
more elaborate in its details need to be made and India could be one of
the countries which could help in such attempts. But till such attempts
succeed India, like other countries, will, by the logic of circumstances,
have to pay at least the necessary minimum attention to its own security,
and maintain or create such structures which are conducive to this end.
This may also make it essential for India to be as knowledgeable and innovative
about such aspects of the building and holding together of material power
as are required in today's world.
So far, countries like India
seem either to have resisted the intervention of modern western scientific
and technological know-how in their individual and public life, or have
welcomed it with open arms, without any apparent thought. Both have led
to failure though in different ways. In the state of mental and spiritual
confusion which has been a characteristic of countries like India - since
they began to feel the impact of European military, political and intellectual
domination - this failure perhaps was inevitable. The power of this impact
has been of such dimensions that even the close followers of Mahatma Gandhi,
or most of the institutions which were created under his inspiration could
not but imitate, though unconsciously, the ways of their adversary. This
reflected by the manner institutions and organisations got organised,
the hierarchical patterns which they adopted, the rules and regulations
which began to govern them, all mostly drawn from and inspired by the
state system which the British crated in India. Even in the technological
field, where all of Mahatma Gandhi's emphasis was on an indigenous aesthetic,
on manual labour and on increased self reliance, even those who believed
in and administered this programme have ultimately been reduced to an
imitation of a scaled-down and out-dated western technology - renamed
intermediate or appropriate technology - and have been more or less cut
off from the roots and the moorings of their own society. The adoption
of what is called the amber charkha (a reduced hand-driven replica of
the spindle in a cotton textile mill) in place of the ancient Indian cotton
spinning wheel is one of the more vulgar representations of such departure.
To enable it to strike its
own path, and also to be of some benefit to the rest of the Third World
or to the world at large, a country like India has to comprehend its own
past and its concepts and priorities as well as India's present reality.
In addition it has to know the world, and especially the civilization
of Europe, as well as it can. Such self-awareness and the knowledge of
the larger environment amidst which they function are crucial for countries
like India to overcome what this seminar has termed "the crisis of
modern science."