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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