The problem

ANCIENT civilizations nurtured the organic, and created shelters, habitats, clothing, embellishments, from what grew and lived in their surroundings. Communities related to all the elements that came together to make their worlds. Varying conditions of climate and geographical topography determined building norms; agriculture; and human skill sets, based on need and function. It was this that created the extraordinary diversity that interlaced the many layers of cultural traditions in the Indian subcontinent. Food too, was designed with care, respecting the seasons and what grew in those months, and therefore, what people ate was appropriate and sustained the general health of communities. Tacit knowledge ruled and changed with the times as traditions and skills dealt with new needs. Layers of inherent oral traditions and tacit knowledge became the bedrock of civilizations that survived, albeit in fractured and disrupted forms.

The tactile and the tacit are intrinsic to being human and being alive. The alien, inorganic interventions that swamped humankind post the industrial revolution promising fraternity and equality to all, in fact did the opposite and created clearly defined socio-economic polarizations and compelled fractures in community structures. The superimposition of boxed in uniformity and commandments diluted the creative ‘spirit’. Human values, definitions of dignity and probity, identities and diversity, languages, dialects and cultures, intellectual expressions communicated through dance and other art forms, engagement and a respect for the cross-fertilization of opposing ideas, were relegated to a subservient position. Uniformity across all these layers of human culture does not define equality and the disruptions that have invaded the world today stem from this superimposed frame of how life must be lived.

In a civilization where ideas dominated through the centuries; where multiple languages nurtured multiple imaginations; where myth, legend and poetry were orally transmitted to generations of people; where skills of the hand, human skill sets, were among the finest; where beliefs and philosophies were woven into the fabrics of the subcontinent; where the sublime and ridiculous found their place in life and living; and where ‘poison’ was not administered to grow abundant produce defying the season, the climatic conditions, the needs of the people, all in the name of growth and development – standardized systems of ‘education’ were imposed. Those sterile ‘subjects’ and curricula disconnected the people with their rooted cultures and traditions instead of working at an amalgam of the then and now, tradition and modernity. Skill sets were diluted disabled, engagement and partnerships were discouraged, tried and tested systems that were organic to space and place were replaced, confidence and pride were demeaned, and a robotic kind of ‘instruction’ was introduced that was, and continues to be, a far cry from ‘education’. This inability to merge two streams in a contemporary contextual framework and to marry the strengths of both to design a dynamic blueprint for growth, debilitated this modern nation state and reduced it to becoming part of the ‘third world’, operating at the mercy of a failing world order looking for correction.

Economically crippled by colonial rule and with the tearing apart of the cross-cultural fabric of social orders, India in her avatar as a young and modern democratic nation state adopted the same operating manual that their oppressors had used. Colonial governance was replaced by an Indian bureaucracy, and the crippling dominance of the historical past continued in a different garb. What was intrinsically alien across all sectors, consolidated roots in the fledgling democracy, and today, the corrective is becoming increasingly difficult. International ‘big brothers’ who lead the many global confederations, continue to inflict their new age, often brutal, dominance on the larger narrative and force economic direction for all ‘members’ regardless of regional and cultural realities and therefore, different definitions of growth. The ‘our way or the highway’ diktat of the new international rulers has the ‘other’ world on its knees.

India, as a federal polity, is a jigsaw of multiple identities and therefore, is a multiple civilization. She cannot grow and develop, engage in worldwide trade and more, under a uniform umbrella of economic and social administration. This is the last bastion of Creative Industries as defined by Unesco, and it is here that a fresh and creative design for living can be developed, respecting diversity and multiple identities. In a world where natural and organic materials in life and living have been replaced by non-degradable and toxic intrusions that are destroying, and sometimes poisoning life on this planet, the sane voices across the world are looking to reverse the unprecedented and suffocating growth of all that is unsustainable and debilitating.

We see and breathe this truth and therefore, need to reinvent the definition of growth and development; redefine ‘progress’; return to the drawing board and delve into past tried and tested formulae to ferret ideas that are relevant today, ideas that societies and communities are comfortable with; and work towards crafting multiple patterns that become the tapestry for a progressive, dynamic India, a new design for living. In this contemporary context, ‘khadi’ could once again become the symbol and icon of change, back to the basics, as it were, for the new millennium in which the environmental devastation triggered and perpetuated by global interventions that degraded life on earth will have to be reversed. This issue of Seminar focuses on cotton spinning and khadi as a metaphor for sustainable development and growth.

MALVIKA SINGH