Politics, Morality, Identity: An Intimate Quest

People in South Asia have long cherished values which, in modern times, are best expressed under the rubric of ‘universalism’ and various dimensions of ‘democracy’. Before the colonial interventions of the West, even where there were rulers of foreign origin, the participatory mode of governance from the grass roots to the top, devolution of political power at all levels and cultural plurality were hallmarks of our socio-political system.

We had our own failings such as the obnoxious practice of untouchability or the fact that communitarian principles manifested through the caste system degenerated into hierarchical fundamentalism. But despite all kinds of failings, the sense of "Vasudhaiva Kutumbkam" (a Sanskrit concept meaning "The World is a Family") has been part of our cultural sensibility since time immemorial. That is why our socio-cultural diversity is a source of strength and in fact the primary defining force behind our unbroken identity. There have of course, been brief phases of ideological or identity polarizations. But soon after, the pluralist perspective prevails. The basic premise of this world-view is that no sect, religion, ideological group, class, socio-political formation, the state or ‘church’ can claim a monopoly of the truth. All truths have to start with the small letter ‘t’ and, depending upon the vantage point, are able to capture only some aspects of the Truth and not the Truth as a whole. This forms the basis for a democratic society.

Conventionally, democracy is taken to be a political system based on the separation of judiciary, executive and legislature, where the legitimacy of governance is derived from the electoral process on the principles of adult franchise. Such a narrow definition reduces ‘democracy’ merely into a political instrument.

However, the last century has witnessed a series of transformations generating an unprecedented explosion of human energies devoted to redefining human life. The praxis of ‘new’ social movements embodies a much deeper and comprehensive meaning of democracy than what is understood and practised in the mainstream political discourse. Never before in the history of humankind have such a large proportion of human beings worked for swaraj (‘swa’-‘raj’=self+rule) a term commonly used by Gandhi and the Gandhi inspired movements in India.

The idea of ‘self-rule’ goes much beyond the political and encompasses life itself in a comprehensive manner. It relates to all dimensions of human life and applies to relationships at all levels – from the individual to the global. Broadly it has five facets e.g. (1) the relationship between nature and human beings, (2) the dynamic of ‘the individual’ and ‘the community’, (3) the dynamic inter-relationship of ‘the self’ and ‘the other’, (4) the relationship of individuals and various types and levels of collectivities with governance structures, and (5) the relationship of individuals and collectivities with the market. The striving for democratic relationships within them can be respectively termed ecological democracy, social democracy, cultural democracy, political democracy and economic democracy.

There is a ‘comprehensive’ democratic revolution in the making as humankind is striving to redefine all the basic relationships of human life. No single ideology or region can be identified as the vanguard in terms of striving for all the five dimensions of democracy simultaneously. Issues of self-rule related to the nature-human being dynamic have given rise to green parties, groups, movements and intellectuals all over the world. These green movements are proliferating even in those parts of the world where, according to the conventional development indices, standards of material life are very high. In the societies of material affluence there is an attempt to recover the ‘green consciousness’ and to address the challenges of ecological degradation. In the majority countries movement groups are engaged in defensive action of saving the livelihood support systems, along with revitalizing of ecological and cultural sensibility. Since these energies aim at greater participation of local communities in deciding the nature-human dynamic, we could call it an age of striving for Ecological Democracy.

Similarly, there is phenomenal human energy on this earth trying to redefine the individual-community dynamic. Issues of dignity are on the central agenda of many human rights, gender, anti-caste and anti-apartheid groups. There is almost a global churning for redefining social relationships, what we could term as Social Democracy. The response to the Conference Against Racialism in Durban is an indicator of the revolutionary energies I am talking about. The women’s movement is no longer just a women’s rights movement. Now it has a gender perspective on all issues. From this stand-point this is an age of strivings for Social Democracy.

If we analyze the dynamic of ‘self’ with ‘the other’, of meaning systems an entire set of issues emerge under the broad rubric called ‘Culture’. Their has been an explosion of new ideas and ideological confrontations, both violent and non-violent. The human activety on this front has been unprecedented. Critiques of ‘modernity’ and the culture of industrialized societies, attempts at revitalizing indigenous knowledge systems, emphasizing importance of plurality of ideas and ways of life, and the loosening of controls of orthodoxy are part of the varied strivings of a Cultural Democracy.

After the majority of nationstates were liberated from colonial rule, they acquired greater control over their economies. The standard of living started rising, even though very slowly for some. However, natural resource based economies of indigenous peoples, small and marginal farmers are now in search for dignified ways of earning their livelihood. It is reflected in two ways. One is to emulate (and even blindly imitate) the rich and prosperous North. The other is to recover their control over natural resources as well as knowledge systems in agriculture, medicine, food, water management, and so on. Both represent the pervasive desire for an Economic Democracy.

The anti-colonial struggles in these Countries have created new political identities. A desire for self-rule is pervasive and people are questioning the grafted colonial instrumentalities in their attempts to re-examine and redefine them. Sometimes there is regression, as the entrenched elite imposes some form of authoritarianism. Fortunately participation of people in the political institutions has acquired a tremendous legitimacy. This explains why many dictators have had to undertake a legitimation exercise through some form of election, howsoever partial or imperfect. This constitutes Political Democracy.

The imperative of democratic revolution requires that we recognize and relate to the positive dimension of all these energies and contribute our mite in their coalescing into a definable world view and a dream for the future. This is our vision of a universal humanistic globalisation.

However what we witness today is the culmination of exactly the opposite – a hegemonic globalisation that can only be viewed as a satanic force.

In South Asia the social costs of economic globalisation has already been very high - and could become still worse. The achievements of four decades of a democratic polity, however limited, are being reversed. Rapidly declining mortality rates have become stagnant or even reversed in some sub-populations. The dalits, the landless or near-landless agricultural labourers, the indigenous peoples of India, the Adivasis, in India will be the worst hit. At the same time, the land-owning farmers have also suffered; Indian farmers are more indebted than ever before. In Nepal the legislative measures which formed the basis of the country’s successful community forest programmes are being reversed because of the pressures from the World Bank.

Besides the economic reversal, the process of economic globalisation has created new and serious challenges for the democratic decision-making processes in every part of the world. The transfer of decision-making power into the hands of transnational institutions like the WTO, the IMF and the WB, has severely eroded the sovereignty of the national governments, and resulted in a very serious drift, undermining the whole party political system, especially the accountability of the governments, to their own people. As Franck Amalrick has pointed out, "Influencing national institutions and policies becomes openly one objective of development co-operation policies…. The WB and IMF intervene at the national level under the banners of ‘sound macroeconomic policies’ and ‘good governance’ – technical banners that fit well the technical nature of these organizations — while bilateral donors intervene under the banners of ‘democracy’ and ‘partnership’."

In the present situation it does not really matter so much what kind of party or coalition of parties has been in power. In India, subsequent governments have been forced to continue implementing roughly similar neo-liberal policies, including privatization, the liberalisation of trade and investment policies and the reduction of subsidies. One finds the similar defeat of democratic dreams in Finland. Since the Nordic countries undertook the transition from peasant pre-modern to industrial modern societies they developed social security systems to smoothen the process so that it kept the ‘satanic’ features of industrial society in check at least within the region. Monstrous disparities were allowed to creep in, marginalisation and hardships were sought not to be kept in check by high taxation and a sound welfare state. The decision making and governance was reasonably participatory and transparent. Now, with the new structures created by EU, new laws are proposed by a small group of people and national parliaments endorse them without adequate debate and without space for listening to voices of disagreement. This has amounted to a crisis in democratic decision-making because in most countries the neo-liberal reforms have been implemented against the will of the majority of the people.

Second, the crisis of democracy has been aggravated, in a very important way, by the problem of corruption. According to a leading World Bank official corruption has increased geometrically during the last decade, and there has been at least a ten-fold rise in corruption during the 1990s. For instance the privatization of public-owned companies and public services and the entry of the transnational corporations into the national markets have created ample opportunities for corruption and misuse of public offices. Corruption was a major problem in South Asia even before the present era of globalisation, but deterioration of the moral and ethical basis of political life has proceeded very fast after it.

How can all these problems be addressed? How can the positive energies be synergised to forge a humanist-universalistic globalisation for an effective democratisation of human society at all levels? All epochal transformative moments in history are pregnant with both the possibilities – a new dawn or an era of darkness. What are the forces of darkness at this juncture?

Globally, an elusive ‘Consumer Paradise’ is being promised through the electronic media and now through the internet financed by interested stake-holders without any consideration for issues of economic equity, ecological sensitivity, cultural plurality or dignity of the oppressed. All over the globe one finds a kind of mad rush for this globalism. Values of austerity, larger good, rights of future generations over our natural and other resources and keeping the interests and perspectives of oppressed communities in mind while justifiably asserting individual autonomy, are considered obsolete. This is resulting in fragmentation and polarisation of human collectivities. Extreme individuation and atomisation is resulting in a backlash of identity assertion. This backlash is to be clearly distinguished from the genuine assertions of autonomy of cultural self-definition, issues of ethnic identity or social dignity.

In a phase of phenomenal upsurge of democratic aspirations, new norms have to be agreed upon at various levels of human collectivities through a process of participatory dialogues even with the adversary. It could be two neighbouring Nation States who are at logger-heads 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 fora, people have started to develop ideas about building a global network of individuals and organizations sharing similar values and goals. Such an initiative could also be seen as an effort to engage the international civil society in organizing 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. In a personal communication on 1st of May 2001 Mr. M. P. Parameswaran, a leading ideologue of the All India People’s Science Network had written: "Strengthening of all the five types of democracies at home in India, in the states, and in the panchayats, 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 realize 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 above mentioned dimensions, 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.

All the great teachers of humankind including Gandhi, Mohammad, Christ and the Buddha, have emphasized the importance of empowerment of the weakest and the poorest of society. In spite of the fact that many people probably consider such a concept either patronizing, elitist or naive, perhaps the most important single test for any kind of democracy is whether 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 patronizing.

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

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 westernized organisations in the South is often very alienating for the majority of the (rural) people, and 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. Mankind’s relationship with nature as consumer, controller, nurturer, destroyer or as a small component of nature are all issues to be dealt with under the rubric of ecological 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 sheer economic survival. However, in most instances, issues like unemployment workers’ rights and the meaning and nature of the available working opportunities are, across the globe, issues of human dignity. 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 detrimental way. The hegemonic neo-liberal policies create identities of greed, promote consumerism and materialism, and prevent people from making good moral choices, from pursuing their spirituality. They sacrifice human dignity for profit.

The struggle for dignity and social equity has to be the core issue among dalits, so that they are well equipped to contribute from their perspective and experience in the struggle against Satanic Globalisation. It is the objective situation among dalits which forced large number of ideologues including Babasahib Ambedkar to emphasize the importance of a caste annihilation movement in India. In the past two decades there has been a regression from the earlier acceptance by the upper caste of empowerment of the ex-untouchable castes. 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 (Census 2001). These issues have to be viewed with their wider linkages under the rubric of social 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. 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 revitalized 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 mobilizing 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 defense policy and a joint army, in which 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 only from a negative viewpoint of conflict that needs to be prevented. It should also be seen as richness, where new things are being created and recreated continuously through the interaction of differences, 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.

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

For the World view that believes in the bottom-up approach of participatory democracy where institutions, ideas and ideologies are also worked out by the people themselves, there is a contradiction in terms to suggest institutions of governance. Recently, on May 29 1999, recipients of the Right Livelihood Award met in Salzburg. Issues relating to WTO came up. The solution suggested was not an alternative WTO but basically a plea to pause and undertake introspection seriously. It was suggested that operation of the W.T.O. should be suspended for five years, a Citizen’s Commission be appointed to go into the various kinds of damages it has inflicted over humankind, and civil society dialogues be organized all over the globe, especially among the affected communities.

Instead of giving a top-down solution I would like to engage with the following questions with regard to the potential and direction the present flux will take. The main issues for a democratic basic transformation of society involve a) faith, (b) hope, and (c) the methods.

I alongwith my community of activists, share the belief that selfishness and greed are only one part of the human journey and not the dominating, defining characteristic of human life. Wants can be fulfilled, and even indulged in, without being glorified.

We insist that it is very degrading to define human beings as entities with material wants only. They have moral, spiritual and cultural orientations as well. Commenting on an earlier draft of the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam statement Prof. B.K.Roy Burman, a leading Indian anthropologist, had said the following: – "My understanding of anthropology impels me to accept the basically social nature of human nature. [...] Democracy is the other name of practice of companionate value oriented culture, it is a process in non-stop dialectical relationship with antinomous culture. Commitment to responsible democracy is commitment to the processual dimension and not to any pre-fabricated structure."

The task of building true democracy is now inextricably linked with the global struggle to reform or transform capitalism without a readymade version of socialism. It is a new project, however much it is based on perennial values of compassion, justice, equality and freedom – to understand the spiral and web of life and to nurture life in its most holistic sense in the contemporary context. There has to be hope for such a creative endeavor.

In a phase of phenomenal upsurge of democratic aspirations, new norms have to be agreed upon through a process of participatory dialogues even with the adversary, at various levels of human collectivities. One has to recognize 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 which encourages moderation. Such processes are unfolding and can consciously and actively be pursued today.

The method for democratic struggles has three aspects. One is ‘Dialogue’, basically to recognise the contours of the present times. Through dialogues we not only recognise our times but also understand the calling of our times. Dialogue at all levels, including with the adversary, is possible only if we do not believe in the conspiracy theory and believe in the willingness of the human spirit for struggle and self-sacrifice against injustice. However, grasping the essence of the times will be incomplete if we do not simultaneously fight the injustice. For this the second component is ‘Non-violent Civil Disobedience’. ‘Constructive action’ to create structures, activities and life styles in consonance with the vision of a democratic society is the third component of the method.

For a variety of political and historical reasons internationally funded NGOs have less popular appeal and legitimacy in our society than the non-funded/non-structured movement groups. Civil society groups working among dalits of India are under such pressures (to work for issues of local oppression, proper implementation of the policy of positive affirmation, land reforms, plight of the agricultural workers and issues of dalit atrocities etc.) that they hardly get to link these pressing issues of identity and dignity with the larger issues of globalisation. The diversity of Indian civil society makes it imperative that only when there is a linking up of various social groups into a holistic democratic struggle at all levels, including the grass-root and national levels, that the anti-globalisation perspective and struggle can flower. Northern civil society has to work out institutional mechanisms to relate to the less globalized sections of our society. In the early eighties, peasant movement ideologues like Sunil Sahastrabudhey used to emphasise a distinction between India and Bharat. Bharat refers to that section of Indian population which is either less colonised or structurally placed in a situation from where they could not access the global modern knowledge systems and networks. There is ample literature that clearly demonstrates that people in ‘Bharat’ have not completely lost their moorings yet and they lead a more wholesome life than those of us who are victims of the mad-race syndrome.

We are trying to convey two issues (1) in the bottom –up view of democracy, we need to learn the specificity and uniqueness of each entity and at every level. (2) we must not undermine the autonomy of each entity and should not mix-up the levels. But in an era of globalisation, where we all need to unite to deal with the satanic dimensions of globalisation, we need to know each other empathetically. Knowing oneself is a very difficult task and knowing the ‘other’ is yet more difficult. But to work out concretely the ideas of global solidarity we need to help each other to know ourselves without undermining our autonomies.

It is instructive to remember Gandhiji’s advice that he gave to a group of Christian workers from U.S.A. in 1936. This advice also makes it clear that Gandhiji was not a blind opponent of modern science and technology, as some sections would like to portray him:

"When Americans come and ask me what service they could render, I tell them, if you dangle your millions before us, you will make beggars of us, and demoralize us. But in one thing I don’t mind being a beggar. You can ask your engineers and agricultural experts to place their services at our disposal. They must come to us not as lords and masters, but as voluntary workers".

Keeping our basic premises, the challenges discussed in the foregoing discussion, and these caveats in mind, the following are some of the suggestions for concrete action:

1. Opening up spaces for multiple visions to evolve, flower and express themselves. Dialogue, in fact multi-logue, across the diverse visions and between diverse strands within each will then enrich all human striving. This can occur democratically only when each vision feels secure and empowered.

2. Institutionalizing quasi-permanent structures/networks for enduring ‘Dialogues on democracy and globalisation’ can be the most strategic tool for global democratisation. We need to consciously and urgently cultivate peer groups, clubs, institutions, networks, movement groups, and political parties to discuss the positive forms of intervention to deepen democracy.

3. We urgently need to undertake some defensive actions as well, to evolve a defense strategy in preserving what has not been so far destroyed by the hegemonic forces. Southern civilisations for thousands of years have been practicing a way of life that we now describe as ‘Green Principles’. A careful look at their livelihood support systems will show that limiting the wants was a conscious choice for conservation and regeneration of nature and not due to sheer technological backwardness. But now, the present form of globalisation is destroying these communities at a very rapid rate. Global democratic fora need to be set up a ‘Defense Committee’ to defend ‘Green communities’ in the South. Otherwise, what has been preserved through thousands of years will be completely destroyed in the next couple of decades.

4. We need an independent information, research and media network to identify the democratic practices, struggles, dreams and dramas being unfolded and enacted in the family called Earth. We need to collect, collate and then disseminate this information, especially for those who are still prisoners of the mirage of the American Consumer Paradise. We should resolve to (a) set up such media centers all over the world, (b) to disseminate this information in the people’s languages as far as possible, besides doing so in English.

5. All these dialogues and building up of institutions and networks should culminate into building a global front for defending, deepening and expanding democracy. This front can be built through a combination of intellectual activism and organization building. The organization building cannot happen through intellectual activism alone. The evolution of ideological frameworks and building up of networks can happen effectively if we use the weapons of civil disobedient and constructive action, as evolved by Gandhiji.

   Those who believe in democracy have not only to shun violence themselves but also have to delegitimise violence as a method for social change. They have to sharpen the weapons of non-violent civil disobedience. Gandhiji believed that only those who are civil and obey the laws of the land have the right to fight the unjust laws.

   After adequate political and technical preparation including sustainable land use planning, the agenda of boycotting genetically modified food-grains, biotechnology produced edible materials, should be adopted and if necessary non-violent civil disobedience should be resorted to. A campaign should be launched against all diversionary moves which, in the name of cultural nationalism and ‘national sentiments’, put issues such as the right to work, right to sustainable livelihood on the backburner.

6. Democratising existing global institutions by sensitising them to the above processes and making them supportive. Building such pressure on existing institutions and devising new institutions more in consonance with the calling of the present times would then be part of bottom-up movements. The institutions must be constantly renewed by an interactive process and mechanisms for this must be structurally incorporated.

1.  Burman, B.K.R. April 2001. Personal Communication.

2.  Gandhi, M.K. 1940. An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House.

3.  Gandhi, M.K. 1944. Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House.

4.  Huntington, S. P. 1996. The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order. USA: Simon and Schuster

5.  Imrana Qadeer, Presentation at the Conference Against Globalisation in New Delhi, 2001, Shri S.P.Shukla, Convener

     < spshukla@id.eth.net>

6.  Parameswaran, M.P., April 2001. Personal Communication.

7.  Shiv Visvanathan, ‘Norfolk Genetic Information Network (NGIN): A Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Science ?’, 2000,

     http://www.ngin.org.uk