Swami Vivekananda's economic thought

Bharat Jhunjhunwala

Swamiji repeatedly states that the decline of India was due its priests having abandoned the ideal of ascetism. The priests hypnotized the poor into slavery. The solution for India was to educate the poor. He wanted the monks to start imparting secular education to the poor. He felt that once the minds of the poor were liberated they would be able to find their own ways.

But the poverty of the Indian people was not only because of their lack of education. It was also because the rulers and businessmen chose to play the second fiddle to the British instead of confronting the British exploitation. Perhaps the priests had as much hypnotized our rulers. Swami Samarth Ramdas had encouraged Shivaji to fight the British and liberate India. The Indian priests instead advised the like of Scindias to compromise with the British and sacrificed the valiant Rani Laxmi Bai of Jhansi. This weakness of the Indian rulers and their contribution to India's poverty seems to escape Swamiji's attention.

He recognized that no country could become strong by following others. Everyone had to raise himself. But instead of attacking the problem of degenerate rulers and businessmen of India, he chose to travel to the West to raise money for education of the poor. He asks the Maharajahs of Ramnad and Mysore to be sympathetic towards the poor people. He thanks them for having helped him travel to America to raise money for education for India's poor. But he rarely asks them to throw out the exploitative rule of the British. Of course it was the duty of the Indian rulers to help their poor subjects. But their primary duty was to protect all people--including the businessmen--from foreign exploitation. He calls the Western people sons of Viorchana, the father of Ravana, but then turns around to seek the assistance of those very people. Swamiji recognizes that the Western civilization is asuric and exploitative. He mentions that India is\ indiscriminately exporting her wealth. But he does not work to stop this exploitation. He does not see the link between the poverty in India and the advent of British rule. Instead he is praiseful of the British for having woken India from her isolationism. That is true but it is only a minor beneficial bye product of the otherwise exploitative regime.

He eulogizes the openness, cooperative spirit, education etc of the Western civilization. He does not recognize that, in part at least, their wealth and openness is sustained by the transfer of wealth from India. It was the wealth extracted from the colonies that enabled the English to pay high wages to their workers. Instead of focusing on stoppage of that export of wealth, he focuses on getting charity from those very exploiters for the removal of poverty in India. He is satisfied by the crumbs of charity thrown by the English. Just as the landlord gives new clothes to his bonded labour on festivals, so also Swamiji was satisfied to receive petty charity from the Asuric Western civilization.

He recognizes that India was a great mercantile civilization. He does not, however, pause to ask how India had reconciled that material prosperity with spiritual excellence. He creates a false eulogization of India's poverty as if to become rich is a crime. He does not recognize that India's spiritual excellence was built on the foundation of economic and political excellence. Ayodhya and Lanka were not 'poor' cities. The spiritual discourse of Sage Vasistha in Ayodhya were given in an ambience of prosperity and strength. But Swamiji never seeks to rebuild Indian politics and business by removing the basic problem of degenerate rulers and priests.

He fails to realize that the asura cannot be taught. If that was possible Lord Rama would have taught spirituality to Ravana instead of fighting wars with him. Lord Krishna would have given discourse to Kamsa and Jarasandha. He negates the valiance of India's kshatriya.

Swamiji is content to leave the degenerate Indian priests aside. Having recognized that India's decline was due to their degeneration, he yet does little to reform them. Instead he seeks to build a parallel structure of reaching the education to the poor. He sees not role for the monk in this reformation of the priest. The role of the monk is reduced to circumventing the basic domestic misgovernance by directly seeking money from the Asuric exploiters.

Swamiji never pondered to sit back and ask why was it that the rich of India were not supporting his ideas. Perhaps the reason was that there wa little in his thinking that would get rid of the tyranny of foreign conquest which was holding them down. Instead of directly asking the rulers and businessmen of India to overthrow the British Asuric rule, he took a circuitous route of educating the poor. This was too far fetched an approach to be of attract on to the Indian rulers.

In his later travels, Swamiji goes to the West to raise money. But he does not call it charity. He cloaks it by saying that he was engaged in a give- and-take. He gave spiritual education and received money for education. It would seem this would be encashment of spiritual knowledge that is barred by the Indian scriptures.

He recognized late in his life that taking charity weakens the receiver. In a letter written in 1898 he says, "I see very well that my policy is wrong... I always lost sight of the demoralizing influence of charity on the receiver." But that was too late.

Perhaps Swamiji had made a strategic compromise with the West. The Indian people at that time may have become so self-effacing that it may not have been possible to raise them to confront the British directly. So Swamiji may have made a strategic compromise with the West. He may have planned to use the West's money to educate India and enable her to throw out that very rule. It appears to be so because Swamiji repeatedly says that India has to rasie herself and that foreigners will not help.

It is important to raise these issues because Swamiji has unwittingly become the justification for India's rulers continuing to look to the West for the amelioration of poverty. Our rulers, instead of focusing on proper utilization of their own revenues are busy seeking foreign investment and aid. Our businessmen look for profitable opportunities from imports. Our NGO and Sarvodaya organizations seek foreign money to remove India's poverty. We are even building the Rama Temple at Ayodhya with foreign donation. It is time that we get out of this dependence complex on the West and raise an economically and politically strong India. It only then that Swamiji's aim of giving spiritual education to the West will be achieved.

India's economy in the 21st century

By K.R. Sudhaman

President Abdul Kalam has said his vision of India is of a country that becomes developed in the next twenty years. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee recently unveiled an eight point agenda to achieve eight per cent growth in the tenth plan with a view to eradicating poverty. He has also appointed a new Finance Minister Jaswant Singh who wants to put more money in the pockets of citizens. But none has detailed how to go about in removing the inherent weaknesses in the economy without which the cherished dreams could not be achieved.

Reserve Bank Governor Bimal Jalan has aptly summed up the Indian economic situation at the beginning of the new millennium. He says at best it can be described as ‘tale of two cities’. There is stability on the one hand with low inflation, declining interest rate, plentiful liquidity and comfortable Foreign exchange reserves and balance of payment situation. On the other,real economy, shows ‘persistent weakness’. The monetary and financial conditions are positive but the real economy is subdued with low growth in output, investment and employment.

One would wonder what is this persistent weakness in economy and if one were to say it in a few words-it is corruption and criminalisation of politics. In his recent book titled India’s economy in the new millennium, Jalan says ‘it is not possible to escape from the responsibility of paying attention to the nature and character of our state criminalisation of politics. The country may have the best of economic policies by its implementation would be tardy unless we tackle on a war footing this problem, which has become a bane of our society.

Jalan writes: "It is not possible to escape from the responsiblity of paying attention to the nature and character of our state apparatus, and to our previous record. We cannot decry the widespread corruption and criminalisation of politics-a phrase which has figured prominently in Parliament in recent years-on the one hand, and asked for more discretionary powers for the state on the other. To do so is to suffer from a form of congnitive dissonance’ ... The results of India’s old policies of promoting growth or reducing poverty were highly unsatisfactory, and in any case, far worse than those registered by more open and competitive economies."

It is not that the country lacked talent to come out with policies that could push up economic development but what is appalling is the poor implementation. If one analysed, this aspect, one would not be wrong in saying the mechanism for implementation is faulty, besides poor monitoring, There is hardly any major project in India in which Government could proudly say it had been done without any time or cost overrun. One estimate put the losses due to time and cost overrun around Rs 45,000 crore in major Government projects.

Jalan rightly points out that ‘the -decay and deterioration, in public services is of concern. He beautifully analysed the reasons for failure of Indian Planning. He says he is reminded of an observation by A.H.Hanson nearly 40 years ago on the reasons for the then prevailing crisis of Indian Planning. Hanson was an admirer of Indian planners, but after seeing the results on the ground,he was compelled to ask "the men are able, the organisation is adequate, the procedures are intelligently devised. Why, then, have the plans, since 1956, so persistently run into crisis’’ and replies:’’ for various reasons, Indian planners have never treated the ‘objective function’ with sufficient respect. Their tendency is to give themselves the fullest benefit of every possible doubt. Too many of their aims are contingent upon the adoption, by various sections of the Indian community, of attitudes they are exceedingly unlikely to adopt..’’

This observation by Hanson was made in 1963, Jalan says adding today after more than fifty years of experience of indepenent administration, we still seem to be giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt. Over time, our problems in the management of public resources at different levels ‘have only become more and more intractable.

Jalan’s analysis of the problems that bedevil the public delivery system is very apt. The delay in judicial process and the fact that the legal system provides full protection to the private interests of so called publice servant, often at the expense of the public that he or she is supposed to serve are a major stumbling block. Besides there is complete job security. As a result, he says problems have only become worse over time and there is little or no accountability of the public servant to perform the public duty.

Secondly, he says, the authority of Governments at both at the Centre and States to enforce their decisions has eroded over time. Governments can pass orders for example for relocation of unauthorised industrial units or other structures,’ but implementation can be delayed if they, run counter to the private interests of some. Similarly, Governments may decide to restucture public utilities to cut down-waste or output losses, but these decisions do not necessarily have to be implemented if they adversely affect the interests of public servants employed in these organisations.

Thirdly, Jalan says, Government ‘announce plans at different levels to provide social services but these are unlikely to be implemented on the ground because of fiscal stringency. He says the multiplicity of functions and responsibilities placed upon ill-equipped and ill-trained staff in public offices and local institutions make it almost impossible to deliver services with any degree of efficiency, particularly in rural areas.

Jalan, an eminent economist, who has served Finance Ministry in various capacities including that of Finance Secretary and Chief Economic advisor, has made a correct assessment of the situation on the ground. There is validity to the assessment of the defects in the country’s planning process as he has,served Planning Commission as a member before becoming RBI Governor five years ago.

Apart from the ongoing economic reforms, Jalan says it is now important to embark on an urgent programme to revitalise the governance and public delivery systems at all levels of government-centre, state and districts. "Without strengthening the ability of the Government to do what it alone can do, and narrowing the focus of its activities to what matters most for the future development of the country — education, health, clean environment, and a functioning infrastructure-India cannot adequately seize the opportunities that lie ahead."

Jalan's prescription for tackling the economic problem is to have a comprehensive legal reforms that sharply focuses on the interests of the public, and not those of the public servant, in the functioning of the governmental and public delivery systems. There should be a clearly mechanisms for establishing accountability for performance. All forms of special protection for persons working for government or or public sector agencies except for armed forces or agencies engaged in maintenance of Law and Order) should be eliminated.

On Institutional reforms, Jalan says all public monopolies sould be eliminated and there should be no purchase preference for public sector enterprises or agencies. Besides there should be a new political-bureaucratic compact based on well-defined division of responsibility and accountability.

Whether the India’s Economy in the 21st century makes a new beginning or a false dawn depended, according to Jalan, on carrying forward his prescriptions in pointing out the inherent defects in the system, he has touched upon raw nerves. Only time would tell if country’s political bosses become alieve to the realities on the ground.

Overall there is no need for being pestimistic as the economy as the resilience to withstand all the odds and moved forward. The question is whether the economy grows fast enough or not.

Eonomic pundits including Jalan are optimistic