Prosperous India - Book Review by Dr.Prema Nandakumar


Appeared in: Prabuddha Bharata, Kolkatta, Sept.2014 
  
Prosperous India by Prof. P. Kanagasabapathi, Vivekenanda Kendra Prakashan Trust, Chennai – 600 005. 160 pages. Rs.100/-

A refreshing feature of Prosperous India is the optimistic tone of the author which springs from his unshakeable faith in the native genius of the common man in India. Thanks to its own time-tested systems, ‘India remained the most prosperous nation in the world for the longest period in history, with sustainable systems that enabled social peace and higher achievements, till the interference of the Europeans’(p.5). Mark the important point. History also records innumerable assaults by Islamic hordes who repeatedly ravished India’s wealth—Mahmud of Ghazni invaded her sixteen times; Ulugh Khan’s robbing temple after temple in South India is a tale too deep for tears—but she remained rich; and hence the recurring attacks by avaricious invaders, India became poor only when the British traders entered her sacred land.

Calling upon an array of Indian and foreign scholars to stand witness to his thesis, Prof. Kanagasabapathi says that in agriculture Indians were second to none and knew how not to waste. Indeed, the Greek historian could write that ‘famine has never visited India, and that there has never been a general scarcity in the supply of nourishing food’ (p.21). Nor did India lag behind in science, technology, social systems, and political governance. For centuries India glowed almost in all facets. Then came the British traders. The tragedy that happened not long after has been documented by Dadabhai Naoroji in his Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) where he compares the British Empire to a blood-sucking vampire. Dadabhai’s was not the lone voice. Even foreign scholars like James Mill and Will Durant have spoken of this tragedy.    

  The author discusses how this decline began from the time the East India Company entered India in 1600 AD. By the time the British left the Indian shores, Indians had become slaves to the ‘white man’. As Sri Aurobindo pointed out, India had fallen into a swoon of helplessness ‘until the Master of a mightier hypnosis laid His finger on India’s eyes and cried “Awake”. Then only the spell was broken, the slumbering   mind realized itself and the dead soul lived again.’ Unfortunately for India, the policymakers  headed by Jawaharlal Nehru were not ready to heed the voices of great Indians like Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, and Mahatma Gandhi. Having no idea of the ground realities, they swore by socialism and ‘imposed [it] on this great country, which had had her own time-tested economic systems that had sustained her as an economic power and prosperous nation for centuries’ (p.67).

  This system of ancient India, clearly enunciated in this book in the course of a few short chapters is that Indians knew, to borrow a phrase of Schumacher,  that small is beautiful. They attached more value to personal savings and family savings than large scale borrowings for doing business, entrepreneurship by individuals—‘85 million entrepreneurs, perhaps the largest number in the world’ (p.84). The family and community ideal is the backbone of the non-corporate sector and gives it steely strength to dominate the Indian economy. This is found in the ‘clusters’ in places like Namakkal, Surat, and Ludhiana.

 Prof. Kanagasabapathi makes bold to say that the Indian economy is not actually dependent on the state. Here women’s contribution is not less than that of men and if Indians take the right path, they can even avoid foreign investments. India’s history records the nation’s brilliance in trade and business. It is nothing new either. Kennedy is quoted as speaking highly of maritime commerce between India and Babylon in the 6th century BC. Page after page one gets significant inputs for revising one’s view of India being a weak, helpless, poverty-stricken nation.

The final shot from the author is that though India knows how to earn, it has actually earned to help others – that is Indian Dharma. Why do Indians need a socialist economy if they have this dharma as their ideal? Despite Westernization, this religious ideal continues to keep the land’s economy strong.

The conclusion of Prosperous India injects a shot of tremendous self-confidence into the youth – the book was originally written as essays for Yuva Bharati: ‘This is a remarkable quality that keeps the Indian family system intact. It is also a distinct feature of India that makes the economy to move forward with confidence, providing to the world that the culture of this land plays a crucial role in matters related to economic development’ ( pp.155-6).

(Dr.Prema Nandakumar is a renowned Sanskrit scholar, Indologist, Research and literary critic)

Prabhuddha Bharata (A monthly journal of Ramakrishna Order started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896), Advaita Ashrama, Kolkatta, Sept.2014, pp.55-56.

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