Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: From Democracy to Sampoorn Swaraj

In a phase of phenomenal upsurge of democratic aspirations, new norms have to be agreed upon at various levels of human collectivities. That has to be done through a process of participatory dialogue, even with the opponents. (Let us say, two neighbouring Nation States who are at loggerheads with each other, or two ideological adversaries in a single Nation State, or between and within communities and families.) One has to recognise the complementarity of each other’s ‘truth’ and consciously avoid being judgmental regarding the other’s viewpoint. The critical evaluation of other viewpoints has to be in an idiom that encourages moderation.

In discussions that have taken place in various national and international forums, people have started to develop ideas about building a global network of individuals and organisations sharing similar values and goals. Such an initiative could also be seen as an effort to engage the international civil society in organising global or regional dialogue processes about a number of issues that are of crucial importance at this juncture.

The five basic dimensions of human life discussed above could form the thematic perspective for an international network on democracy. As Mr. M.P. Parameswaran, a leading ideologue of the All India People’s Science Network, has put it:

“Strengthening of all the five types of democracies at home in India, in the states, and in the panchayats [local councils], is important. This is a real concrete task. Equally important is the task of disillusionment: that progress is not what the capitalists or even the Marxists have been telling us. International solidarity is important. It gives us moral support. But there is something more important. I feel that we cannot save humanity without saving ‘the West’, especially the Americans, from their follies: without making them realise that their way of life is unsustainable and unenviable. There are a very large number of groups in the USA who share this view. A project – a programme - to weld all these groups into a single force will be useful and even necessary for us and the rest of the world. Can we think of a concrete plan of action for this? I have been feeling the necessity of such action since quite many years.”

It is, admittedly, somewhat uncomfortable to discuss democracy – which, as a process of constructive self-engagement of humanity, should be indivisible – in such small bits and shreds. However, if the complexity of democracy is approached through the five dimensions mentioned above, this should bring forward a wider and richer spectrum of problems and possibilities. One possible articulation of these dimensions as thematic perspectives is suggested below.

i) Empowerment of the Daridranarayan, the ‘Last Person’ (Economic Democracy):

All the greatest teachers of humankind including Gandhi, Muhammad, Christ and the Buddha, have emphasised the importance of empowerment of the weakest and the poorest of society. Many people probably consider such a concept either patronising, elitist or naïve. Despite that, perhaps the most important single test for any kind of democracy is whether it works so that it can protect the needs and rights of the poorest, most oppressed and least influential people in the society. What this means in each society and in each historical period will differ, because poverty and deprivation will be created and regenerated over and over again through widely varied means. But the issue or goal is clear and remains the same. One of the main problems is how to relate to the needs and concerns of the Daridranarayan in a way that is empowering and not patronising.

With the Daridranarayan at the centre of all thinking, all issues concerning transactions of goods and services, technological choices and mode and relations of production have always been part of human engagement. All such issues can be considered as the economic dimension of democracy, called ‘economic democracy’ for convenience.

ii) Ecological Regeneration and People’s Control over Natural Resources (Ecological Democracy):

Environmental degradation - pollution of air, water and soil, loss of species and bio-diversity, destruction of the ozone layer, destabilisation of the climate, loss of tree and vegetative cover, soil erosion and desertification - is one of the most serious issues of our times. It should be a high priority for the movement. However, the discourse of the West and among the westernised organisations in the South is often very alienating for the majority of the (rural) people. This discourse may result in programmes and measures neither understood nor owned by them. In the long run, such programmes can backfire. A better approach is to concentrate on people’s control over natural resources, and integrate the various environmental and conservational concerns in such an approach. Human kind’s relationship with nature as a consumer, controller, nurturer, destroyer or as a small component of nature are all issues to be dealt with under the rubric of ecological democracy.

iii) Ensuring Human Dignity (Social Democracy):

There is no doubt that the neo-liberal economic policies and other measures pursued by the ‘new right’ will be causing extreme poverty on a scale that could be unsurpassed in human history. In many cases the problems should be seen in the framework of empowering the Daridranaryan and as issues of acute economic survival. However, in most instances, issues like unemployment or underemployment, temporary employment, workers’ rights and the meaning and nature of the available working opportunities are issues of human dignity across the globe. Even in cases where the crumbs falling from the table of the neo-liberals are more than
enough to satisfy the basic material needs of the people, human dignity is sacrificed in a most harmful way. The hegemonic neo-liberal policies create identities of greed, promote consumerism and materialism and prevent people from making good moral choices and pursuing their spirituality. They sacrifice human dignity for profit.

The struggle for dignity and social equity has to be the principle issue among Dalits. This way they are well equipped to contribute from their perspective and experience in the struggle against satanic globalisation. It is the actual situation among Dalits that forced large number of ideologues, including Babasahib Ambedkar, to emphasise the importance of a caste annihilation movement in India. (In the rest of South Asia, due to the peculiar local situation, it is not even being recognised as an important source of inequity). In the past two decades there has been regression of the upper caste from their earlier acceptance of empowerment of the ex-untouchable castes. Also, increasing voice of women in the social sphere is being accompanied by new forms of perversions and violence against them, manifested e.g. by the declining sex ratio of 0-6 year olds in India. These issues have to be viewed with their wider linkages under the rubric of social democracy.

iv) Strengthening Plural Co-existence (Cultural Democracy):

The issue of plural coexistence - and of the prevention of communal (or racial) violence - has a profound significance for every part of the world at the beginning of this millennium. When the world’s economic and cultural crises deepen, the threat of communal violence increases. In areas suffering from acute environmental degradation, the undermining of the natural resource base can aggravate such problems.

In South Asia there is a living tradition of peaceful co-living of various ethnic and religious groups and of sects within religions. This tradition is under great strain and needs to be revitalised in the present context. A judicial pronouncement in Bangladesh in January 2001 banning fatwa (religious edicts) is an authentic illustration of cultural democracy. Among the Hindus, vesting of adequate dignity to the folk practices not conforming to Brahmanical scriptural norms should be a priority item.

A campaign for cultural democracy should also be a mobilising act against attempts to distort history in almost all countries of the world, including those in Europe and America. In Europe the Muslims are being projected as a fundamentalist or non-pluralist segment of the society. The increasing polarisation between the Islamic countries and the West (the European Union and the United States of America) has been deepened by instances like the Gulf War in 1990, which created anti-West feelings throughout the ‘Islamic world’. The European integration - all the old colonial powers being fused to one new super-power - is worsening the situation because it is considered as the potential and powerful adversarial supra state by the Islamic states. The conflict will be further aggravated if the European Union becomes a real Federal State and if it develops a joint defence policy and a joint army. In that case all the EU member states, including the Nordic countries, will become integral parts of a major military super-power with a large arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Plural coexistence, however, should not be viewed from a negative viewpoint, through only the scenarios of conflict that need to be prevented. It should be seen as richness, where new things are being created and recreated continuously through the interaction of differences. All of human history has developed through cultural interaction, diffusion and adaptation. Diversity in ways of life provides complementary ways of fulfilling the need for expression of diverse human tendencies in any society, and therefore must be nurtured.

v) Nurturing and Deepening of Democracy (Political Democracy):

Political democracy, if not constantly cared for and defended, can be greatly undermined. All the possible checks that can be built against the un-democratising thrust of social systems can only be effective if the people actively guard democratic structures and norms. Democracy - defined in terms like participation, representation and rule of law, protection of cultural, linguistic, religious and political minorities and transparency of political decision-making - is to be nurtured and deepened. However, at present only one model of such democratic processes is being adopted by all the countries with different cultures, institutions and traditions: the western liberal or market democracy, whose specificities have evolved in a small cultural-historical zone of the globe.

So far, the most important institutional framework for negotiating a society incorporating universalistic-humanistic values is political democracy, based on a multi-party system, adult franchise and separation of powers of executive, judiciary and legislature. Even this comes under threat when other forms of democracy are not realised. The principle of subsidiarity of power, i.e. allowing the people to exercise self-rule at the grass-root level, is crucial to ensure participatory democracy. District, provincial and national political power should not be treated as higher levels of power but different spheres of power.

The big wave of indigenisation and anti-westernisation - which is part explanation for the Islamic Resurgence, the growth of the Hindutva-movements and the economic and cultural rise of China - cannot be wished away lightly. If issues like democracy, human rights or women’s rights get labelled as “western values” by various oppressive forces in the South, there is a real danger that these values will be seriously undermined during the first century of the new millennium.

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