The Objectivity of Truth

By Unto Tahtinen

When I for the first time came to India, 1954, I stayed for two weeks at Sabarmati Ashram and then at Sevagram. My first impression was that they were a sort of museums. The ashrams carried on activities which had been a few years earlier revolutionary and most useful. My problem was - and is still - what is "Truth".

Gandhi answered to the question, what is Truth, by saying that "it is what the voice within tells you". This idea is purely formal, it does not reveal any content. It rather refers to the method, how one may get the required insight. Gandhi adds that "the human mind works through innumerable media and the evolution of the human mind is not the same for all." The answer also includes the idea, that it is a person, an individual, who is the authority of this knowledge. It is not the cultural tradition, a Holy Book nor any social or state organisation to determine the content of Truth. It is an individual and he alone, in the final analysis, after discussion with others and seriously pondering, to make the decision.

Gandhi said that in the march towards Truth "anger, selfishness, hatred, etc., naturally give way, for otherwise Truth would be impossible to attain". In the Western philosophy we may call this method "ascetic-phenomenological". "Ascetic" in this context refers in strict moral requirements, used e.g. in the Western Medieval philosophy- not so much in the contemporary phenomenology.

Gandhi used to say that "Truth" and "God" were synonyms. He said that "my own experience has led me to the knowledge that the fullest life is impossible without an immovable belief in a Living Law in obedience to which the whole universe moves".
Whenever satyagraha is used, Truth seems to indicate, as a role, a goal for a group of people. Here the Western term "natural law" or "natural right" could be used as an adequate translation of satya. The doctrine of ius naturalia implies a higher law opposed to the positive law of the state or a strict custom of a nation.

According to Gandhi, satyagraha means "scrupulous regard for truth". This regard itself seems to be individual. Gandhi says that "no power on earth can make a person do a thing against his will". In this respect satyagraha as a "soul-force" is based on the recognisable will of an individual. Yet the goal where action is directed is not an individual salvation or moksha. Moksha can be, anyway, a by-product of an individual, not the end or goal of the campaign.

The remedy for himsa, Gandhi says, is ahimsa, for untruth truth. This seems to imply that the source of satyagraha is recognition of untruth, injustice or evil and, besides, the discard of it. Thus apprehension of untruth is the source of the acknowledgement of truth also. Truth is initially the opposite to untruth. That is how we often come to get a primary glance at truth.

The source of understanding the nature of truth is not analytic nor synthetic reasoning, at least not that alone. According to Gandhi, "put all your knowledge, learning and scholarship in one scale and truth and purity in the other and the latter will by far outweigh the other. Gandhi does not much regard a mere intellectual conception of the things of life. It is the spiritual conception which eludes the intellect. God must rule the heart and transform it.

Here lies a difference of opinion between the Western Natural Law-scholars and Gandhi. According to the Western tradition, the higher law is discoverable by reason alone. This is so because Natural Law ideology has grown up in opposition to the positive law. But Gandhi calls to fasting and prayer to purify the mind. The moral requirements are self-purification and inward search. Gandhi claims that truth is by nature self-evident. It shines clear as soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it. It appears that knowledge of truth has primarily moral and spiritual requirements, reasoning is secondary and cannot succeed without those primary conditions.

The most clearly moral meaning of truth, again, is truthfulness, adherence to truth. Gandhi said that a devotee of Truth must always hold himself open to correction. One should primarily be honest to the self, give up precarious views, thereafter one has the mental capacity to be honest to others as well, be socially truthful.

Honesty or truthfulness appears to be a means to truth, not the end itself. Anyway, Gandhi often said that truth is the end, not a means to something beyond itself. The ultimate meaning of Truth, in Gandhi's words, is "to find Truth completely is to realise oneself and one's destiny, that is, to become perfect". So moksha is the ultimate end for an individual. This sense of Truth, however, does not imply nations or groups of people reaching their destiny simultaneously.

Gandhi said that it was in the course of his pursuit of truth that he discovered non-violence. He did not conceptually derive non-violence from truth, but got to know about it because of the course of pursuit. Not truth, but seeking truth, may reveal the means to the goal.

Besides, Gandhi says that non-violence is the surest method of discovering the truth. "Our progress towards the goal will be in exact proportion to the purity of our means". The problem is, how we know the right means, if we do not first know the nature of the goal.

Gandhi says, that means must be within our reach, and so ahimsa is our supreme duty. If wecare of the means, we reach the end promptly. This view allows certain relativity concerning the use of right means. He says that there is nothing (morally) wrong in every man following Truth according to his rights.

In a number of writings Gandhi seems to deny the objectivity of the statements concerning truth. "Though you have emphasised the necessity of a clear statement of the goal. but having once determined it, I have never attached importance to its repetition". He said that the opinions he has formed are not final. He may change them tomorrow. "In our endeavour to approach absolute truth we shall always have to be content with relative truth from time to time". Thus our knowledge about truth is relative, it may be partial and seen from some limited angle.

"All progress", Gandhi claims, "is gained through mistakes and their rectification". He even admits that what may be truth for one may be untruth for another, and adds that certain conditions are to be observed in making experiments to find truth. Yet there are no objective tests of truth, truth is what our "heart assents".

Gandhi said, that "the goal ever recedes from us". Thus truth as a goal appears to be a broader-value. Whenever we approach the goal, it gets a new form and the process to reach it continues. Truth-seeking is ever-lasting and we can never reach the goal completely. We may able to reach half-way-goals only.

However, although our personal knowledge about truth is relative and depending on our capacity to search it, the seeker of Truth finds out that all religions melt and become one in God. God is one and same for all. Gandhi believes that the world as a phenomena is changing every moment and is therefore unreal, yet it has something about it which persists and is therefore to that extent real. God is the purest essence. According to Gandhi, God is "that indefinable something which we all feel but which we do not know." God transcends speech and reason. Perfect Truth we can only visualize in our imagination. In the last resort one must depend on faith.
It seems that Gandhi did not oppose the Advaita Vedanta view of reality. Hence the truth of a satyagrahi has only a relative validity, it is a pragmatic truth and it can be changed when the circumstances, the priorities or the acting subjects change. But beyond maya or the pragmatic reality there is the absolute which is beyond our capacity to imagine.

There is also, curious enough, in this respect a resemblance to the famous German philosopher Immanuel Kant. According to Kant we cannot know "things-in-itself" and we know things only as "phenomena".

Thus, Truth, in the final analysis is for Gandhi purely formal. But in action, we have to act as if it were real.

Since Gandhi's death many changes have occurred in the international field, not the least in India. May I try to visualize some of them. Most of the colonies are politically free. Colonialism as an ideology has hardly any outspoken support. It is now rejected in vocabulary and philosophy everywhere. A few years ago the Soviet Union collapsed as a colonial power. Its power was undermined by changes in the minds of people.

But we have other acute problems which were not so rampant earlier. In all so called "development countries", also in the ex-socialistic countries, we have large-scale corruption. Earlier it was less a problem, now it seriously hampers the progress in all those countries which would badly need improvement. To reduce corruption, I think, truth would be needed in the sense of revealing and illuminating corruption in all its forms.

Thus the idea of truth and the forms of its practice may change from time to time. New situations require revision and correction of our views. What remains constant is truth seeking. We may ask again and again, what Gandhi meant by Truth - in the future.

KHADI : Gandhian Critique of Modernity

By Prof. Vinay Kumar Kantha

In his dress and demeanour Gandhi almost belongs to the ascetic tradition of the East. Not only in his choice of such and image, but in the essential making of his philosophy and politics, he took recourse to an innovative set of words and symbols. In deed as a mass leader he had an uncanny knack for creating and using symbols and like most popular symbols, In deed as a mass leader he had an uncanny knack for creating and using symbols, Khadi has a complex and different appellation. Gandhi sought to convey multiple messages through Khadi, arguable the focal one among them was a critique of modernity. Khadi was apt symbol of long Indian tradition on the one hand and a critique of modern western Civilization on the other hand. In relation to three important concepts, which form the very core of modernity in India again Khadi, has been used as a critique. These three concepts are nationalism, industrialism and western education.

“Khadi and Indian Tradition,” Indians have not only been weavers, but even exporters of cotton fabric since time immemorial. Historians have found clear evidence of Harappans supplying cotton textiles to Sumerians around four millennia back in the past. In the more recent history, British themselves imported huge quantities of clothes from India, before they introduced a colonial pattern of made.

At the time of arrival of the British in India, next to cultivation weaving was the commonest economic exploitation by the British themselves imported huge quantities of clothes form India, before they introduced a colonial pattern of made. At the time of arrival of the British in India, next to cultivation weaving was the activity in the Indian country side. The saga of the economic exploitation British is replete with reference to the decline of cotton weavers. That the theme of hand –woven fabric, that is, Khadi was brought up and invested with new meaning by Gandhi was nothing but natural. In fact weaving has been a common metaphor, even in the spiritual discourse of many saints and philosophers, the most notable among than was Kabir, himself a weaver. His poetry is replete with reference to warp and woof or the mechanism of weaving.

One of his many oft quoted songs is “Jheeni, Jheeni rebeenee chadria “Kabir expresses the spiritual endeavour of man through the metaphor of weaving. While not exactly forsaking the spiritual content, Gandhi reinvented the mundane human endeavor, no less complex through. Innumerable songs were composed during the years of freedom struggle or afterwards how Gandhi will or did drive out the British with the help of his charka. It became symbol of freedom struggle. “Livery of freedom” as Nehru described Khadi which was however also a means of economic regeneration of the village and much more. Gandhi declared, “My Swadeshi chiefly centers around the hand – spun Khadar and extends to every thing that can be and is produced in India.

Khadi As a critique of Modern Civilization
Many o f us recall with relish the famous remark of Gandhi on western civilization being yet ‘a good idea’ He in deed had a deep suspicion of the material progress in the west and further, of the whole concept of modernity’. He identified the real enemy of the Indian people not as the British themselves but as their modern civilization. In the preface to the English edition of his seminal work Hindi civilization, which is the Kingdom of God. The one is the God of War, the other is the God of War, My countrymen, therefore believe that they should adopt modern civilization to drive out the English. Hind Swaraj has been written in order to show that they are following a suicide policy, and that, if they would but revert to their own glorious civilization either the English would adopt the latter and become Indianized or find their occupation in India gone. (CW X: p 189).
Khadi was reversion to that ‘glorious civilization’ as “The sun of the village solar system”.

Among the borrowings from the modern west, uncritically accepted by the western educated intelligentsia, two crucial ones are the idea of nation state and modern industrialization. Gandhi had a different concept of both. Further down, he rejected the very system of education that made educated Indians modern.

Nationalism with a Difference
In his interesting book the illegitimacy of Nationalism’. Ashis Nandy compares Tagore and Gandhi respect of their position on nationalism in the following words:
“Both recognized the need for a ‘national’ ideology of India as a means of cultural survival and both recognized that, for the same reason, India would either have to make a break with the post-medieval western concept of nationalism or give the concept a new ‘content’. As a result of Tagore, nationalism.” (Italics mine) (p.2) Interestingly, Tagore who was no great votary of Khadi though, used it as metaphor in an article on Nationalism written in 1917: “Before the nation came to rule over us (under British colonial rule) we had other government which were foreign, and these like all government, had some elements of ‘the machine in them. But he difference between them and the government by the Nation is like the difference between the handloom and the powerloom. In the products of the hand- loom the magic of man’s living fingers finds its expression, and its hum harmonizes with the music of life. But the power- loom is relentlessly lifeless and accurate and monotonous in its production.

While Tagore’s critique has a poetic flavour and a streak of romanticism. Gandhi’s critique as well as proposed alternatives is more robust and real, albert, idealistic. Gandhi asserted that “violent nationalism, otherwise known as imperialism, is the curse, non-violent nationalism is a necessary condition of corporate or civilized life”.

He saw Indian freedom movement as ‘India’s contribution to peace.” Gandhi defined his version of nationalism in terms of Swadeshi and Swaraj. He declared that his ‘Swaraj is to keep intact the genius of our civilization.

This is extended to include the principles of love and ‘freedom for the meanest of the countrymen’ on the other. Both of these ere linked with the cause of Khadi, which was part of our long tradition as also the need of the poor.

He exhorted his fellow beings to spin and weave Khadi. “I would ask you to come in Khadi, for Khadi links you with the fallen and the down trodden.” Khadi epitomized the noble spirit of truthfulness and purity He averred that ‘Khadi had been conceived as the foundation and the image of ahimsa, Areal Khadi wearer will not utter an untruth. A real Khadi-wearer will harbour no violence, no deceit, no impurity.

Against mechanistic and aggressive concept of nationalism in the west, Gandhi proposed a concept of People’s Swaraj based on truth and non- violence for which Khadi was an apt symbol. Moreover, this symbol also linked the concept of Swaraj with the concern for the poor- the last man and village, the supported bastion of backwardness. Prior Gandhi, the nationalist leaders had acquiesced in by an large to a western concept of nationalism; Gandhi not only critiqued that but provided an alternative concept, more deeply rooted in the tradition and encompassing all Indians, rich and poor alike, He gave a moral perspective to the national movement for which a set of new symbols were created by him, Khadi Ramraj, and Satyagraha he was designing a new framework of ideology more appropriate for the teeming millions of India, eighty five percent of them residing in the country side. His critique was not merely, an alternative ideology, it was a plan of mass action that he visualized was again not merely a political programme but a social and economic agenda, to quote one of his sentences: “Khadi service, village service and the Harijans service are one in reality, thought three in name".

An Alternative Frame Work of Economics
True economics, according to Gandhi, ‘never militates against the highest ethical standard, just as all true ethics to be worth its name must at the same time be also good economics’.

He was critical of pursuit of materialism which was the characteristic of the advancement of the west. He was generally opposed to machines and centralization of production and favored on the contrary a life of labour for everyone in the society, succinctly contained in his concept of bread labour. He believed in the ideal of economic self- sufficiency of the villages.

In this structure composed of innumerable village there will be ever widening, never ascending circles. Life will not be pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom. But it will be an oceanic circles whose centre will be individual always ready to perish for the village, the latter ready to perish for the circle of villages till at last the whole becomes one life composed of individuals, never aggressive in their arrogance but ever humble, sharing the majesty of the oceanic circle of which they are integral parts.

In this there is no room for machines that would displace human labour and that would concentrate power in a few hands. Labour has a unique place in a cultural human family. Every machine that helps every individual has a place.

Khadi is evidently the centre piece of the strategy for such an economic utopia. It not only means compulsion of labour through spinning but a very decentralized mode of production contributing to the possibility of a self-sufficient rural economy. It is both a value system in it self and defines an alternative framework of economy. He writes clearly that ‘Khadi mentality means decentralization of the production and distribution of the production and distribution of the necessaries of life’.

In this years of with – drawal from active politics from 1924, Gandhi devoted himself to the propagation of Khadi turning it into a cult, as a strategy of nation building ‘from the bottom up’ He suggested a ‘Khadi franchise’ for the organization and even ‘envisaged a ‘yarn currency’.

B. R. Nanda comments ‘that Gandh’s almost emotional attachment to the spinning wheel should have baffled both the British and Western educated town – bred Indians, educated town-bred Indians, is not surprising’ for ‘they were both unable, the former form lack of will, the latter from lack of ignorance, to grasp the incredible poverty of Indian village. Even Tagore, otherwise an admirer of Mahatma ,feared that spinning wheel that spinning wheel and the economic stagnation it implied will cause a ‘death – like sameness in the country.’ Gandhi reply was loud and clear: “I didn’t want the poet to forsake his music, the farmer his plough, the lawyer his brief, and the doctor his lancet. They are to spin only thirty minutes every day as sacrifice. I have every day as sacrifice. I have in deed asked the famishing man and woman, who is idle for work whatsoever to spin for a living and the half-starved farmer to spin during his income.”

Gandhi’s appeal surely had a moral ground and further he would make spinning wheel the centre of his scheme of rural reconstruction building up anti-malaria campaigns, improvement in sanitation, settlement of village disputes, conservation and breeding of cattle and hundred of other beneficent activities required for the resuscitation o f the village. He proposed that ‘Khadi is the sun of the village solar system.’
It is well-known that Ruskin’s book Unto This Last had and indelible imprint on his mind. Behind the whole Khadi campaign, it was this last man who was always in Gandhi’s mind. On the other side, he opposed the tendency of ever increasing consumption and multiplication of wants.

The self-abnegation and asceticism of Gandhi’s economic prescription has often been criticized as too idealistic and taken to the extremes Even if it is true, now environmentalists are veering round to almost a similar position. Excessive consumption may not be sustainable and may result in depletion of the limited resources on the earth. Sidestepping this debate, it may benoted that the Khadi – centered scheme for rural development was typical of Gandhian economic framework, rather, its core principal.

Not with standing misgivings about the feasibility of his economic ideas, in the first ten years of it s existence the. The all India Spinners Association had extended it activities to 5300 villages and provided employment to 220,000 spinners 20,000 weavers and 20,000 carders and disbursed more than two crores of rupees in Indian villages. Gandhi, of course, knew the limitations of his efforts in the context of the magnitude of the problem. He decided to settle in a village, named, Segaon near Wardha, which was later renamed as Sevagram. Soon Sevagram became a centre of Gandhian Scheme of village welfare and several institution All Indian Village Industries welfare and several institutions started there including All Indian Village Industries. The Association set up a school for training village workers and published it own periodical, Gram Udyog patrika. Hindustani Talimi Sangh was the other institution which experimented on Gandhi’s ideas of education. Basic Education as Critique of Modernity.

Education was arguably the most important arena for the introduction of modernity in India. Designed as it was by the colonial masters, besides remaining generally divorced from India tradition, it was also oblivious to the needs and problems of the teeming millions in the countryside. Gandhi’s basic education scheme was primarily a system of rural education and handicraft constituted the medium of instruction. Spinning and weaving was again Gandhi’s preference among the crafts and so his entire pedagogy and educational philosophy was intermeshed with his khadi based approach to life.

From his earliest days in Indian public life Gandhi was critical of the Western system of education for much of what it stood for in his opinion. A sample of his critique can be read below: “The system of education at present in vogue is wholly unsuited to India’s needs, is a bad copy of the Western model and it has by reason of the medium of instruction being a foreign language sapped the energy of the youths who had passed through our schools and colleges and has produced an army of clerks and office-seekers. It has dried up all originality, impoverished the vernaculars and has deprived the masses of the benefit of higher knowledge which would otherwise have percolated through the intercourse of the education classes with them. The system has resulted in creating a gulf between educated India and the masses. It has stimulated the brain but starved the spirit for want o f a religious basis for education and emaciated the body for want of training in handicrafts. It has criminally neglected the greatest need of agricultural training worth the name….”

Judith Brown has rightly observed, it is difficult to appreciate quite how radical and abrasive Gandhi would have sounded to educated Indians as he castigated their educational training and their values and told them they were traitors to their mother land by being willing ‘victims’ of the current system’ (1989, 107). Despite their opposition to British rule, most their nationalists did not reject the British rule, most other nationalists did not reject the British system of education outright, since they viewed it as a means by which India could became a materially advance nation. But form the beginning of his career Gandhi thought differently.
Alongside Champaran Satyagraha, his earliest foray into local politics, he launched his experiment in education. In November 1917 the first school was opened in Barharwa just a week after. The experiment grew mature and eventually in 1937 after Wardha Conference fully developed was announced, although system was announced although it was indeed a modified version of Gandhi’s won scheme of education. Even in June 1921, writing in Young India he had outlined his views with a great deal of clarity:
“I can see nothing wrong in the children, from the very threshold of their education, paying for it in work.

The simplest handicraft, suitable for all, required for the whole of India undoubtedly spinning along with the previous processes. If we introduced this in our educational institutions, we should fulfill three purposes. If we introduced this in our educational institutions, we should fulfill three purpose: make education self – supporting, train the bodies of the children as well as their minds and pave the way for a complete boycott of foreign yarn and cloth. Moreover, the children thus equipped will become self-reliant and independent.

It would be erroneous to think that Gandhi rejected ideas form the modern west in to or that remained un influenced altogether. It may be pertinent to not that he viewed his life as ‘experiments with truth’, ostensibly a tribute to science, to which he was sufficiently exposed as a student. Although he claimed that he was what he was ‘in spite of western education’, he didn’t insulate himself from the western influence. Of course, he was both selective and innovative when it came to borrowing from the west. Two persons who deeply influenced him were John Ruskin and Leo Tolstoy, but neither in deed was a typical representative of ‘modernity’. They themselves were critics of modern civilization.

As Tolstoy saw it the false supposition of modern thinkers such as Renan, Strauss, Comte, Spencer and Marx was the human betterment effected ‘not by moral efforts of individual men towards recognition, elucidation, and profession of truth, but by a gradual alteration of the general external conditions of life.’ They believe that ‘the chief activity of man who wishes to serve society and improve the condition of mankind should be directed not to the elucidation and profession of truth, but to the amelioration of external political, social, and above all, economic conditions… Let all those external conditions be realised’, responds Tostoy, ‘the position of humanity will not be bettered’.

Gandhi read a number of other nineteenth century of western civilization including Thomas Carlyle (1979-1881), Henry David Thoreau (1817-62), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) and Robert Sherard (1861-1943). A list of such works forms appendix of Hind Swaraj.

In one of his works Bhikhu Parekh has neatly analysed the synthesis of East & West that can be noticed in Gandhi’s Thought: (Gandhi) took over the concept of ahimsa (non-violence) from the Indian Traditions, especially the Jain. But the found it negative and passive and reinterpreted it in the light of the activist and socially oriented Christian concept, yielded the novel idea of an active and positive but detached and non emotive love.

Noted educationist Krishna Kumar too highlights his indebtedness to western thought in his scheme of education. He observes that if it were possible to read his plan as a anonymous text in the history of world education, one would conveniently classify it in the tradition of (the) western radical humanists.

Khadi was not exactly a simple economic activity confined to the rural households, it was an active socially –oriented campaign, a drill for the shoulders of national movement and an occasion for creating a social dialogue in a hierarchical society. Khadi was a doubt a critique of the typical western modern civilization based on industrialism, materialism. And yet it shares many a feature of the radical humanist tradition in the west, while remaining firmly rooted in the indigenous tradition. Gandhi himself started his position with regard to influences in a picturesque manner. He declared that he did not want his windows to be stuffed and wanted free air to blow about from all sides. He simply added that he would not like to be swept off his feet.

Skinny on 'real' team spirit, Dhoni?

By M H Ahssan

As far as grand gestures go, last week Mahendra Singh Dhoni almost matched Barack Obama's address to the Islamic world in impact. I am being facetious of course, but the Indian cricket captain's decision to parade all his players in front of the press corps the other day to rebut a media reports was astonishing to say the least and perhaps unprecedented in modern sport.

Stories about differences between Dhoni and his deputy Virender Sehwag could be the figment of a fertile imagination, and I can understand the consternation and disappointment of a captain (and his team) that this should happen on the eve of a major tournament. Yet such melodramatic gesture suggests miscast pique rather than the solidarity show Dhoni may have intended.

If anything, this revealed hypersensitivity -- not strength. If the story is rubbish, it deserved contempt and should be ignored; if true, no amount of strutting 'team spirit' for public consumption is a solution, because the proof of the pudding
still lies in the performance, not in theatrics.

Personally, I don't believe that Dhoni's team is riven with problems. Indeed, it would be very surprising if this is the case considering that the main protagonists are two fairly easy-going individuals who still seem committed to plainspeak and capable of resolving issues amicably.

The overt show of bonding could be a manifestation of the insecurity of being superstars. So much rides on these players these days -- from credibility to big money -- that anything even remotely disruptive is seen as major threat. The recent expulsion of Andrew Symonds is a case in point.

But Dhoni need not be unduly worried. Team spirit in sport, as in most other endeavours, is best established by performance despite the differences that might exist between players. International sport, like governments and corporate, is the playing field of adults who can -- and must -- have sharp opinions. That can provide for healthy debate and ideas which if sensibly collated can add up to winning strategies.

It is a mistaken belief that team spirit implies its constituents must all be on the same plane. What it really means is that independent opinions are crucial, but that the common objective is paramount. However, if this objective is not well defined or understood it can lead to subversion and consequent disaster. There are several examples in Indian cricket itself where individual differences -- even amongst key players -- have not necessarily made a difference to the result.

For instance, India won the 1983 World Cup when relations between Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar were not exactly hunky dory.Two years later, Gavaskar was captain and Kapil Dev is start player when India won the World Championship of Cricket in Australia in 1985, and it is not that these two had become bosom buddies in the interim. For good measure, Kapil Dev led the team to a famous win in the Rothman's Cup in Sharjah a few weeks later.

This is not a peculiarly Indian trait I might add. Don Bradman's team through the 30s and 40s kept winning despite being riddled with internal dissensions, the great West Indians of the 70s and 80s in which there were several differences between Clive Lloyd and his superstars like Viv Richards and Malcolm Marshall, and Imran Khan's 1992 World Cup wining side, which revolted almost immediately after the tournament. Consider these and a clearer picture emerges about the co-relation between team spirit and success.

I am not a cynic, but puerile expressions of team spirit don't really matter, however genuine the intent. Now, if Dhoni and his team had to come close to even winning the Twenty20 World Championships, the Indian captain might discover that the same people who had written about dissensions in the team would be singing hossanahs about its spirit. For, what succeeds like success?

In another context, and being facetious once again, that would hold true of Obama too.

How India pushes its bright students abroad?

By Siddahrth Bhatia

In the mid-90s, the total number of Indian students studying in Australia was in the hundreds, probably even less than a thousand.

Australia was not on anyone's radar -- the first preference was the US, followed by the traditional destination Britain, which still retained its post-colonial cache. In any case Indians did not have the money to go abroad to study and if they somehow did, they chose to go for graduate studies, where scholarships were easier to come by.

The latest figure for Indians studying in Australia is estimated at slightly above 90,000 students. Australia is now the second choice of Indians after the US. Indians in fact prefer Australia for a host of reasons.

How did this happen? How did a remote country, with little or no old connection with India, with hardly any international reputation as a centre of education and manage to lure so many Indians to come there? And how has it managed to maintain a steady flow even though not all who go there have pleasant experiences during their stay?

Sometime in the 90s, the Australian universities under one banner launched a campaign in India (and in other countries, including China) to woo Indians. At the same time, scores of Indian agents were appointed by various educational institutions and promised incentives if they brought in Indian students; these agents fanned out not only to Mumbai and Delhi, but also to Chandigarh, Jaipur and Hyderabad, smaller towns where students had less opportunity to make it to the better colleges.

The Australians had a lot to offer -- cheaper education compared to the US, a fairly multicultural environment and a wide variety of courses, especially in non-traditional sectors like hotel management. In addition was the lure of allowing students to work for a limited number of hours every week. The biggest attraction was the possibility that the students could legally settle down in Australia.

Throw in a mix of sun, sand and a laidback lifestyle and it was a heady cocktail. I recall a British diplomat telling me once, "We were left standing at the gate by the Australians." The prestige of Britain was intact -- Oxbridge and all that -- but it was seen as too fuddy duddy, too rigid in its rules (work and migration) and too expensive by a ratio of three to one compared to Australia.

Once students reached Australia, however, things were not so hunky dory. Many of the institutions that wooed students were bucket shops, or at best minor institutions intent only on the money the international students brought in. The recent agitation by Indian students on racist attacks was perhaps an outburst of many old frustrations. In March 2006, international students at the Central Queensland University in Melbourne planned a strike as they felt they hadn't got the facilities they were promised. The university treated them like "cash cows," they said. There is anecdotal evidence of students feeling frustrated with the quality of education and with the difficulties in breaking into the Australian job market, apart from the cultural problems they encounter. But the financial commitment they have made, often by taking loans, and the promise of permanent residency keeps them going.

Why would thousands of students want to go to destinations like Australia, Canada and Singapore or indeed the US and UK for undergraduate studies? For an answer to that, pick up your nearest newspaper and see hundreds of youngsters queuing up for an application form.The HSC results have just been declared and Mumbai's colleges are in the process of declaring their "cut off" lists. These lists will open up seats for students in various streams and tell us a lot about what the Indian education system has become. The colleges (and not only the so-called prestigious ones) have no time for anyone who has not scored above 85 percent and even those will get admission only in courses that are not in demand. Degrees such as Bachelor of Media Management and a BSc in information technology are considered sexy; here the cut offs start at 90 percent plus.

The Indian system says if you have scored a 'mere' 84 per cent, it is the road to perdition. We all know that high marks in a particular set of exams are no way to judge the quality and potential of a student, but those are the rules, take them or leave them. Once you make it to a good college you can drift for three years, it doesn't matter; what matters is your marks in one high school exam which are your passport and visa for entry into those hallowed portals and brand you for the rest of your life.

Where does that leave the thousands of bright students who find all doors shut to them because the good colleges are so few and far between? What if someone wants to study, say fashion design and cannot get into NIFT? They can either join an indifferent institution at home or beg, borrow and steal funds and go abroad. Which is what they eventually do. Indian students collectively contribute over 2 billion dollars to Australia every year; many stay back, which is a gain for Australia and a big loss for India. The students know the price they pay, financially and otherwise. But they do it not out of choice but out of compulsion. Their own country has no place for them. If at the end of it, they have to face a bit of racism, so be it.

The Meek shall Inherit Earth

By M H Ahssan

When Jesus said the meek shall inherit the earth, one is not sure what he meant. But he sure got it right. This article will explore the many dimensions of meekness, and how the meek are indeed inheriting the earth and vice-versa: the earth is also inheriting the meek.

The first and obvious definition of meek is poor, disadvantaged and powerless. Are these kinds of people inheriting the earth? I believe so. The earth has been ruled periodically by the strong, from Genghis Khan to Taimur the Lame to Attila the Hun, Hitler, Stalin and Mao. But decades, or even years, after they ruled, their empires withered and became weak till a new powerful ruler emerged. And the process goes on. Strong rulers come and go, but the latent power of the disinherited masses keeps bobbing up. The meek always turn up to claim their inheritance. They can never be put down.

Today, hopefully we have seen the last of absolute tyranny. The Burmese, North Korean and Sudanese regimes (among others) clearly qualify as tyrannies, but their days are numbered. The meek have got the vote, and democracy is slowly winning everywhere. The new measure of power is economic might, but even here the meek have presented their calling cards.

The key is demography. Economic might automatically draws the meek to its shores, changing the power structure. In the US, the Hispanics are the meek who are gradually inheriting chunks of America. In Europe, the poorer eastern Europeans and Africans are building a substantial presence. The race troubles in Australia show that even if you are a faraway continent separated by several thousand miles of ocean, demography will assert itself. The meek are on the move -- and that explains a part of the White man's angst.

In India, we have been continuous recipients of the meek from Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka -- and even small trickles of Hindus from Pakistan. A meek nation, we attract the poor in droves.

In the modern world, where ruthless murder of unwanted immigrants is no longer possible, demography is destiny. Rich US, with all it superpower status and technological prowess, is unable to stop the influx of immigrants any more than poor India can fence off the Bangladeshis. The meek will go where they please; if they cannot inherit the earth, they will seize it by demographic creep.

Demography, though, isn't the only kind of force shifting power to the disadvantaged. Excessive wealth is also ensuring the same. The Roman empire crumbled when its rulers became effete and decadent. Today's western world is losing its grip for the same reason. It is rich, but no longer wants to work hard. It is hoping to rest on its laurels and is, therefore, willing to bid goodbye to absolute power. Obama wants to leave Iraq and Afghanistan, not rule them. He will cede power sooner rather than later.

Our own history offers another kind of proof. We tend to believe that Gandhi's satyagraha forced the British to leave. The truth is our national movement merely convinced the British to leave a bit ahead of time. As early as World War I, the British ruling elite's consensus was moving in favour of self-rule, and Churchill's was almost the lone voice defending the empire. The rest of the British upper crust didn't wantto send its boys to rule faraway dominions.

This is an example of the powerful becoming meek as they get tired of the responsibilities that go with power. Sooner or later, all human beings want to enjoy the fruits of past labour and accumulated wealth, and become more willing to cede or share power with the rest of the hoi polloi. As the rich grow meeker, the meek grow powerful.

So what's the underlying message of it all? One, the rich world will be inundated with the poor of the world unless the poor themselves get richer faster. The meek will move in unless enlightened global policies intervene. The rich will have to accept a salad bowl of peoples staying with them. By 2050, large parts of Europe, America and Australia will be less white than now.

Two, since demography dictates who will move where, countries must have sensible and humane policies on immigration. India, for example, needs to work out the same kind of deal with the Bangladeshis as it has with the Nepalese -- free work permits, limited citizenship after a few years, and possibly full citizenship after the relevant years are lived here.

Whether we like it or not, global warming will push the Bangladeshis into Assam, West Bengal and Bihar. We should prepare to welcome them on our terms rather than allowing them to ooze in and destabilise our north-east.

The meek cannot be held back; but they can be directed to a sensible future.

HNN TEAM

EDITORIAL PANEL
1. Karan Thapar
2. Veer Singhania
3. M Rustum Khan
4. Andy John Smith
5. M H Ahssan
6. Sheena Shafia
7. Rahul Bose
8. Sudeep Khanna
9. Sarah Williams

REPORTING TEAM
1. Kajol Singh
2. Swati Reddy
3. Deepsikha Maruti
4. Ayaan Khan
5. Venkateshwar Rao
6. Kiran Kumar

DESK TEAM
1- M Sikender Khan
2- Yogesh Kumar
3- P Parthasarathy
4- H G Silvaraj

FREELANCERS
1. Ayesha Fatima
2. Saleha Fatima
3. Reema Subia
4. Somana Chaterjee
5. Harish Rawat
6. Panduranga Rao
7. Samiya Anwar
8. Salmaan Faheem
9. Rubina Yasmeen
10. Iram Shahid
11. Shahnawaz Hussain
12. Richa Khanna
13. Sameera Yadav
14. Prithviraj Kelkar
15. Siddharth Bhatia

Quality of Management Education in rural India: Problems & Perspectives

This paper deals with India’s need for management professionals in various socio- economic pockets in rural region. AICTE is trying to bring in quality benchmarking in all the B- Schools in India setting up minimum norms and standards for B- schools.

The minimum norms and standards are unachievable for many of the B-Schools functioning in rural India. Can we question the running of these schools that are producing management graduates, primarily for various small and medium scale organizations in rural India? Should we close them down pointing towards minimum infrastructure norms and standards set by AICTE without considering Socio-economic and academic constraints faced by them?

The main issues covered in the paper are related to the need for managerial inputs in rural India and role of small B-Schools catering those needs. While doing so, various issues faced by them.

Keywords: Rural region, Economic pockets, Role of small B-Schools, Quality benchmarking, Socio-economic
and academic constraints

1. Introduction
In the process of globalization, management education in India is playing key role in coping up with the rapid changes taking place in all types of business activities. The focus is on maintaining good quality of education in thousand plus B schools in India. These institutes are operating in almost all corners of the country. They are varied in nature, size and structure. The variation is because of variety of socio-economic factors influencing working of these schools. These institutes are broadly classified into three categories based on locations and socio-economic circumstances. ‘A’ category includes institutes in big metro cities. ‘B’ category covers institutes in next larger cities and ‘C’ category are mostly urban, semi urban and rural institutes.

Presently quality parameters for all the institutes in India are uniformly set. Quality expectations from Industry, controlling bodies are similar or same for all the institutes without considering variations in socio-economic status of the region in which these institutes are functioning.

Regional Institutes are trying to conform in this race with quality norms set by quality controlling authorities. Quality is perceived differently at different places. The basic expectation from quality is, it must satisfy the needs of the stakeholders. These needs can be different at different socio-economic zones of the country. Setting same or similar parameters for all the B-schools in India may do injustice to the institutes functioning in rural area. It is relevant to study quality parameters to be set for regional institutes taking into consideration the socio-economic and academic constraints.

Regional Institutes have to face various challenges to survive in this era. Every Institute has same stakeholders but their demands differ as per their Socio-economic background. And the Socio- economic status of the rural area is quite low as compared to the metros or big cities. So this is the basic difference between these big cities or Metros and rural Institutes. In the further part we discuss the challenges & pressures on the regional Institutes.

The regional institutes are to cater regional needs. The significant task is to identify management education needs and take necessary steps to fulfill the needs ensuring appropriate quality of management education. B-Schools in rural India need to focus their efforts on these tasks.

2. Objectives of Research

2.1 To identify management education needs in various socio-economic pockets in rural region.
2.2 To understand nature of the problems of B-schools in rural India
2.3 To study the role of rural B-schools in addressing management education needs in rural region.

3. Methodology
Management Institutes in Shivaji University region are the main source of information for research. Directors, teachers and students are the source of primary data, whereas office record is the source of information regarding socioeconomic background and placement information. Small and medium scale entrepreneurs are also taken into consideration to identify their specific needs for managerial inputs. Other sources are people working in NGOs, local govt., agriculture and agro-based industries and service sector

4. Hypothesis

1. The present norms and standards set by AICTE are not appropriate for rural B-schools. Control exercises are redesigned considering socio-economic and academic constraints.

2. MOUs with other privileged B-schools will help in reducing problems of B-schools in rural India as well as create better awareness of the opportunities and potential in rural India among privileged schools.

5. Review of Literature:

“Education is the great Instrument of social emancipation by which a democracy establishes, maintains and protects the spirit of equality among its members” these are the views of Radhakrishan commission (1948-49). All great people & educationists like Mahatma Gandhi, Karmveer Bhaurao Patil, Mahatma Phule, Shahu Chhatrapati, Kolhapur, G.K. Gokhale, Vinoba Bhave etc. have said that education is the medicine to all the ills of Indian rural society.

Bhaurao’s educational experiments were meant to solve the difficulties confronting the rural society. He said, a man is gifted with Native Intelligence & with or without moderate formal education can also give a coherent, if not, a systematic philosophy of his own life.

Advocate Bartakke found that after Industrial revolution young people started leaving the villages for cities in spite of the danger of unemployment. He noted that slogan ‘Back to villages’ should be changed to ‘stay in villages’. He suggested that, for village industries & villages to be self –dependent, he advised the village traders to form co-operative societies and learn modern techniques of trading. He expected that education should teach them better life, better farming, better seeds, better marketing and no thirst for city life. But the education was to the contrary at that time.

In today’s global era too these philosophy hold true. Regional Institute has to play a pivotal role to develop the region by providing appropriate knowledge to the students so that they can stay in villages and apply all their managerial skills for the and others better life, better trading & better marketing.

Mahatma Gandhi was also of the same opinion, that education should be self-supporting. Education means an all - round drawing out of the best in human- body, mind & spirit. The highest development of the mind and the soul is possible under a system of education. ‘Making revolutionary changes in education system and giving practical knowledge/ life skills and through educating them’ this was the principle of Mahatma Gandhi. He was of the opinion that, college education should be related to the National necessities. Education for life: Without the use of our hands & feet, our brains would be atrophied and even if it worked it would be the home of Satan. Tolstoy was of the same opinion. The youth/student have to be the true representatives of our culture & civilization, they are the true genius of our nation and this education should be based on non- violence & without exploitation of the student. True learning can be imparted only through doing. Gandhiji’s idea was not only to teach a profession or occupation but to develop the full man through teaching that occupation.

In this way, we see it is very essential and can be possible to develop the rural areas through the students by teaching them the culture, industrial scenario of that region as well the global opportunities and threats so that they can apply their managerial skills to make the rural/ regional industry competent.

6. Research

6. 1 Management education needs in rural India.

In India, so far, management education is confined to corporate sector only. The corporate and business sector is largely benefited by professional management education imparted by various B-schools in India.

It has been observed that the rural economy has not been on the agenda of business education endeavor in India.

It is also pointed out by the committee appointed by AICTE in 2003 that there is a need to increase the focus of management education on the neglected sectors such as co-operatives, forestry, urban management, infrastructure, rural development, education and legal system.

Now there is a need to identify specific needs of these neglected sectors that are quite different from management education needs of corporate sector.


Sector Basic Management education (ME) needs Specific needs
1. Agriculture ME level 1 Government schemes for agriculture development.
Agro- marketing; domestic and foreign.
Micro financing, farm accounting etc.
2. Agro- based Industries (including co-operatives) ME level 1
ME level 2 Value addition management, agro- based industries profile, industry specific marketing and other functional requirements, related legal aspects.
3. NGOs ME level 1 Sociology, political science, micro and macro social environment, national and international schemes for poverty alleviation, management of non- profit organization.
4.Local Governments ME Level 1 Civics, sociology, social sensitivity, public administration, public financing, social values and ethics.
5. Education ME Level 1 Psychology, school administration, educational policies, educational finances, educational values.
6. Services (hospitals, regional banking, transportation etc.) ME Level 1 Services marketing, financing, professional service management, service organization and deign, service blue printing.

Most of the rural B- schools are engaged in following curriculum recommended by AICTE and universities, which is by and large based on the needs of corporate sectors. Seldom the local and regional needs are taken into consideration while designing syllabi.

Most of the students passing out from rural B-schools opt for the jobs in the corporate world leaving regional needs unfulfilled. If we look at the executive work force mix engaged in all above neglected sectors we find very few professionally trained managers who have obtained management degree. As students from regional B-schools prefer working in big cities and corporate, subsequent to this there is non- availability of management talent in rural area. This results into lack of competitiveness and lower profits in these sectors. Consequently, these sectors are unable to offer better or attractive pay package to attract and retain deserving management educated people. Thus vicious circle continues.

Rural B- schools have required ability to begin the process of professionalism in the neglected sectors. They can be used as vehicle for social and economic transformation in the rural region.

6.2. Problems and Perspective of Rural B-schools

6.2.1 Table No. 1 B-schools in India and deployment of their students in industry

Grades of Cities No.of Institutes
A 237
B 82
C 373

A: Cities : Mumbai, Kolkota, Chennai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kanpur, Banglore, Pune, Hyderabad,
B: Cities : Bhopal, Madurai, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Indore, Patna, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Vadodara, Lucknow, Vishakhapatnam, Varanasi, Ludhinia, etc.
C Cities : Remaining cities

Institutes Industries
A - Metro Institutes X - Large scale, MNCs & leading industries
B - Big-city Institutes Y - Medium scale industries
C - Regional institutes Z - Regional Industries

If we analyze this we normally find that, students in ‘A’ Institutes would prefer to go in ‘X’ type of industries, they find it suitable for themselves and the institutes are making efforts to cater the needs of these industries only. Very few students come in the ‘Y’ or ‘Z’ industries. Even if by chance they come down, all the time they are making efforts to go up.

Students in ‘B’ type of institutes have more scope as compared to ‘A’. Students as well as the institutes are making efforts to cater the needs of ‘X’ type of industries. 50% of the students of ‘B’ type institutes are able to cater the needs of ‘X’ type industry and the remaining are absorbed in ‘Y’ type industry. These students have scope in ‘Z’ type of industry also but they are not interested to go down and institutes also don’t like it.

Students in ‘C’ type of institutes have maximum scope in all X, Y, and Z kinds of industries. And the regional institutes are trying to develop appropriate quality students who can cater the needs of all kinds of industries. Here 10% of the students are absorbed in ‘X’ type of industry, 30% of them cater the needs of ‘Y’ type of industry and the remaining 60% are by and large deployed in the regional industries.

It has been observed that a few students from ‘C’ institutes can fit in ‘X’ and ‘Y’ type of industries, but the students from ‘A’ institute do not fit in ‘Z’ type industry. They are neither interested nor find themselves suitable for the environment of regional industries.

From the above discussion it becomes clear that ‘C’ type of institutes should try to concentrate on the regional development which is required to bring in balanced development in rural region.

6.2.2 Quality of students and their socio-economic background:

State Govt. has adopted 70+15+15 pattern for admission 70% from local university, 15% from other universities in the state and 15% students from out of the state.

Since out of state students and other university students are interested in ‘A’ or ‘B’ type Institutes, the profile of students in ‘C’ type, rural institutes remains by and large rural.

Due to less exposure, conventional teaching methodology till undergraduate level, the quality of students is much different from the students in metros.

These institutes need to make intensive efforts to bring these students to the minimum level which makes them eligible for management education i.e. language, minimum communication skills and orientation for active learning expected in management education.

If we look at their performance in admission entrance test, we find following composition:

15% of the candidates are within the range of 55-75 out of 200 marks
65% of the candidates are within the range of 75-100 ,
15% of the candidates are within the range of 100-125,
05% of the candidates are above 125

Students from Semi urban and Rural India are by and large introvert, shy and passive. This may be attributed to the social characteristics of the region. Though many of them are from non- agrarian family background. They have less exposure to the industrial environment where the above qualities are undesirable. The transition of agrarian society to industrial society is still in the process.

B-schools in rural area have to fight with the preconceived ideas of the students emerged out of their inferiority complex and no close interface with corporate environment.
Few guest lectures, industrial visits and library work, debates take them to a limited extent to come out of inferiority complex..

The insistence of AICTE on one or two common admission tests will deprive majority of rural students from availing management education.

6.2.3 Teaching Methodology:

Till graduation all over India the lecture method is used to a large extent, for almost 15 years student are associated with this methodology. This brings in ‘class room syndrome’ among the students where students knowingly or unknowingly are made passive in learning.

Any change in methodology i.e. Case studies, Business Games, Debates, Seminars make them uncomfortable in the initial stages. At the same time the faculty is also drawn from the same background. They are accustomed to lecture method.

Efforts made to introduce new pedagogy other than lecturing may help these students to be an active learner.

6.2.4. Institute Finances:

The major constraint for the B-schools in rural region is to raise finances for running these schools effectively.

As long as these schools were controlled by Universities in the region, the norms were set by the universities in tune with economic conditions of the region and Institutes’ fund raising capacity.
The paying capacity of the students in the rural area is comparatively lower than that of the students from metros and large cities.

Institutes finances are mainly dependent on the fees from the students in the region. Other sources like research and consultancy have no scope or very little scope to generate funds to support these B-schools.

Since AICTE has intervened in the setting up of minimum norms for all the B-schools in India, rural B-schools are in a fix and their survival is at the stake. They neither get any aid from the Govt. nor can raise required funds through fees to meet the norms set by AICTE.

Appointing faculty as per AICTE norms i.e. 1: 15 teacher student ratio is much more higher than the normal teacher student ratio in grantable undergraduate programmes conducted in the rural region.
Same is the case with infrastructure. The building space required to run MBA programme is per student 100 sq. mtr. This is far beyond the reach of financial capacity of rural B-schools.

The basic assumption to set up certain infrastructure norms and teaching norms is, even rural institutes also can raise sufficient funds to comply these conditions. The assumption does not take into consideration the low economic conditions in rural India.

6.2.5. Controlling Bodies : Role and Pressures

Following are the factors influencing functioning of rural B-schools.
Controlling Bodies Assumptions Facts/Implications on
Rural B-schools
AICTE Demand for management education is more than the supply hence elimination based admission process is required In rural area, demand is
Less than supply, in recent years many seats remained vacant after admission process
Sources of income are many. B-schools can raise funds from fees, research consultancy , MDPs etc. Students come from economically underprivileged, social class, paying capacity is low. No scope for remunerative, research and consultancy
University B-schools are making profits Affiliation and other fees are higher compared to other PG/ UG programme.

State Govt. (DTE) Demand for management education is more than the supply hence elimination based admission process is required Too many admission rules most of them are inapplicable as number of seats are vacant.
Fees controlling authority (SSS) B- schools will charge heavy fees if not controlled Considering economic conditions of the students exorbitant fees cannot be charged.

Parent Society B-schools are surplus making units Reluctance to give financial assistance, on the contrary reverse expectation.
Student community Having a degree in management will bring top corporate placement Struggle hard in initial period and lands up sometimes at lower level management cadre in MNCs.

6.3. New role of Rural B-schools

Minimum AICTE norms and conditions are applicable to all the management institutes in India. The institutes falling short in any respect are seriously being warned to fulfill the conditions or close down. This is practically impossible for various regional B-schools in India. Even many B-schools in ‘B’ cities do not adhere to the minimum norms and conditions. Hence, it is essential to set different quality norms considering different socio-economic pockets and different roles played by different types of institutes.

The present role of B-school in rural India is like follower who is dragged behind the system framed to address the needs of the corporate sector. There is a vast difference in socio-economic status of rural India and urban India. Instead of forcing rural B-schools to follow the present quality benching set for primer B-schools and B- schools in urban area, who are mainly catering needs of corporate world, they should be considered differently. They should be given an opportunity to use their strength appropriately for solving the problems of neglected sector in rural region by imparting relevant and customized management education.

In addition to the present academic programmes conducted by these schools, the system should by evolve to integrate them with the regional needs of management education. Most of the neglected sectors do not follow basics of professional management. They have survived per-liberalization period only because protective policies of the government. They were wards of the state. In post-liberalization era due to competition and complexities in running in odds most of them are on the past of death. As seen earlier the managerial expertise can only help these businesses regenerate or survive. This expertise can be made available by strengthening regional B-schools.

7. Recommendations

Following measures can be taken to strengthen the rural B-Schools

1. AICTE should pay attention to the problems of rural B-schools by appointing advisory committee consisting of experts form rural region. This committee will take into consideration the management education needs in the rural region and set norms for rural B-schools. It can also consider delegation of controlling authorities to the universities in the region. Universities can understand the regional educational needs better.

2. There is a need for integration of government initiative for rural development and role of rural B- schools. Some schemes can be routed through these schools.

3. MOUs between premier B-schools and rural B-schools can be made which usher in following benefits:

A. Enhancement of quality of rural B-schools through designing -

1. MDPs for neglected sectors
2. Conducting research for rural development.
3. Faculty development and curriculum development.

B. Premier schools will understand the untapped opportunities and potential of rural India. Thus MOU will bring in ultimately the balanced regional development by collective efforts in improving quality management practice in neglected sector.

4. MNCs and large corporation can look into the opportunities and potential in rural region and extent their outreach activities taking rural B-schools with them. this will strengthen B-schools financially at the same time they can expand their market

5. As per the report published by NCAER, out of 6,38,667 villages only 1,00,000 villages are commercially tapped by HLL, one of the leading MNCs to tap Indian rural potential. This shows that a there is a considerable drench which can be filled by efforts of MNCs in co-ordination with regional B-schools.

6. As rightly mentioned by C.K.Prahalad in his best seller, ‘The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’, that it is not possible for MNCs to frame strategy for serving market that lies below the pyramid by sitting at the headquarters. In order to understand the characteristics of these markets they need to have strategic alliance with NGOs, universities and educational institutions. This thought expressed in the book supports our stand that B-schools can play a pivotal role in representing the fortune that lies below the pyramid.

Voluntarism in Rural Development in India: Initiative, Innovation and Institutions

By M H Ahssan

The individual urge to extend one’s responsibility for social change beyond mandated or formal duties is far more pervasive than is generally assumed. However, not each individual with such an urge takes voluntary initiatives. In still fewer cases are initiatives transformed into innovations. Only rarely are innovations institutionalized in society.

This chapter is based primarily on a review of literature and my personal experience of more than fifteen years in the field of rural development and my involvement in extensive interactions with voluntary organizations and volunteers working in public and private commercial organizations. My contention is that the literature on voluntary organizations or NGOs has neglected the scope of voluntarism that exists among professionals working in mainstream organizations. Thus, I distinguish the phenomenon of voluntarism from the actions of voluntary organization. Given the fact that problems of rural development in India are complex and widespread, isolated initiatives of voluntary organizations (volags) may not be able to bring about large-scale social change. There is a need for linking the organizational space that volags provide with the urge for change among developmental volunteers (DVs). The DVs work in various organizations but find only limited opportunity for the creative expression of their urge to relate to socially disadvantaged groups. Donor agencies have also given lesser attention to developmental voluntarism than they have to NGOs in developing countries. Public and private organizations cannot sustain support to voluntary organizations in the long run without nurturing voluntarism among a minority of employees within.

The first section of this chapter traces the roots of voluntarism in the context of Indian culture. The second section reviews the trends in the growth of voluntary organizations vis-à-vis voluntarism in rural development and social change, and the third section draws some implications for research and action at both the global and national levels.

Voluntarism in Eastern Societies
It has not been widely appreciated that the roots of voluntarism are quite different in Eastern societies, in particular in Indian society, from those of Western societies. The result has been the implanting of an alien culture in most NGOs, no matter what their ideology is.

Aparigrah, a Sanskrit word, implies the value of non-accumulation or of not keeping anything more than is necessary for one’s minimal needs. The concepts of sacrifice and charity are also differently rooted in the Indian mind. When one gives away one’s dearest object to a needy person, the sacrifice could be considered charity. If giving away something is only for one’s own self-purity and not aimed at someone else’s well-being, it is tyag (sacrifice) but not charity. Contrast this with the Western notion of giving away something that one can do without, or that one needs less, or that one has much more of than one needs.

I am not implying that the motivations of voluntarism in India are in any significant way related to the notion of aparigrah. What I do suggest is that for strengthening voluntarism in Indian society, support systems and organizations cannot ignore the cultural anchors of the spirit of voluntarism. Even if few people believe in aparigrah in urban and middle-class society, there remains a large mass of rural people who do respect a volunteer who follows the principle of aparigrah.

Voluntarism based on agarigrah has another dimension, and this is the willingness to receive knowledge from whoever is knowledgeable. Thus, giving something away (pradan) is accompanied by the inculcation or assimilation of humility and duty toward others (grahan). Voluntary organizations that emphasize giving as the basis of a relationship with poor people are either seen as paternalistic by the people or seen as a source of external resources and skills. Hardly any voluntary organizations try to tap the historical reserve of knowledge (technical, institutional, and social) of the poor. The term resource poor masks the “richness” of economically poor people. The grahan or “assimilation” of knowledge from the poor does not constitute “richness” to many NGOs. Lest this richness of the poor become a paradox, let me explain it in cultural terms.

In Western society, there are only a few words, say, aunt or uncle, nephew or niece, for characterizing a whole range of relationships from the mother’s or father’s side of the family. In Indian languages, each class of relationship has a specific word. People thus have a web of relationships, many of which operate on different planes. Richness in the ability to maintain subtle differences in protocol and mutuality provides a “safety net” of kinship linkages.

In developmental paradigms the neglect of the role of cultural roots, religious identities, and the philosophical basis of social responsibility has led to a crisis among many voluntary organizations. At a recent meeting of voluntary organizations, mostly with Marxist-Leninist leanings, organized by the Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur, it was admitted that despite one and a half decades of mobilization of the people around social and economic causes, there was still a wall of silence between the people and volunteers on the issues of cultural, religious, and caste/ethnic identities. The question “Where do you come from?” or “To which village or region do you belong?” was considered unacceptable in developmental dialogues as a basis of relationship (Aruna Roy, personal communication with the author, 1990). Any effort to build on spatial or other ethnic identities was considered reinforcement of parochialism.

Another cultural element of voluntarism is reciprocity. This includes both giving and receiving but not in the form of exchange. As Ellis (1989, p.1) puts it, “It is the giving and not the gift that is important.” Eastern as well as African societies have evolved ways of keeping track of reciprocities. Ellis adds that reciprocities are characterized further by (a) wealth being equated with one’s esteem or prestige in society based on giving behaviour, and (b) the assurance of good return because many people owe it to the giver.

Moreover, the poor use a longer time frame to settle reciprocities than the rich, and in high-risk environments, such as drought-prone areas, generalized reciprocities dominate specific ones (Gupta, 1981, 1984). Studies on voluntarism have not exploited the potential of reciprocal economics versus exchange economics for fostering collection action.

The extent to which initiatives calling for deviance from accepted norms, even for social good, are sanctioned by different societies also differs in the West and the East. Cultures that provide the concepts of aparigrah and tyag also contain codes of sanction against deviance from a certain social order. The exploitation of the poor may thus become possible not merely through the “selfishness” of dominant social classes but also through “learned helplessness” (the opposite of voluntarism) on the part of the poor people.

To illustrate how cultural codification of compliant and conformist behaviour takes place, a story from mahabharat, an Indian epic, may help. Droncharya was a renowned teacher who had an ashram (a type of school based in a forest) to which royal families considered it a privilege to send their children.

He had taken a vow to make one of the five royal brothers (Pandavas), namely, Arjun, the best archer in the world. One day a tribal boy named Eklavya hesitantly approached Droncharya to seek admission into the school. Droncharya refused admission saying that only the children of royal families could be admitted to his school. Eklavya returned home dejected, built an idol of Droncharya (whom he had accepted as his teacher in his mind), and started practicing archery.

One day Droncharya was moving in the forest accompanied by the Pandavas. A dog started barking and disturbing their conversation. Eklavya, practicing nearby, heard it. He filled the mouth of the dog with arrows. Droncharya could not believe it. He told the Pandavas that if somebody was such a good archer then he surely needed to be met. They soon found Eklavya and asked him how he had learned to be such a good archer. Eklavya, recognizing Droncharya, attributed the excellence of his skill to Droncharya himself. Droncharya was flabbergasted because he had never taught Eklavya. However, on hearing the story of how Eklavya worshipped Droncharya’s idol and practiced archery, Droncharya asked for dakshina, a sort of fee for providing that knowledge. Eklavya immediately agreed. Droncharya asked for the thumb of Eklavya’s right hand, which Eklavya immediately cut and gave away, becoming unable forever after to practice archery. Almost everyone in India has heard this story, which is essentially intended to ingrain two virtues obedience and deference toward a teacher and perseverance.

Whenever I asked students or professionals from developmental organizations to speculate on the dilemma of Droncharya and Eklavya, they admitted that their parents had never told them about these matters. With some effort, they could speculate upon Droncharya’s dilemma, for example, fear of (1) not beiung able to make Arjun the best archer; (2) not getting the children of royal families as students in the future because he might not be treated as the best teacher; and (3) the possibility of the tribal boy Eklavya passing on his skill to other tribal individuals, who might challenge the established social order, dominated by the “higher” castes and royal families. Yet nobody ever thought that Eklavya also might have had some dilemmas. Almost everybody argued that it was “natural” for Eklavya to accept the order because thus he is remembered; or he proved his excellence because cutting off his thumb was a sort of certificate of excellence given by the best teacher. He achieved his life’s objective. But did he?

Whether Eklavya had any loyalty towards his kith and kin, who fed him and spared him from the normal chores of hunting and food gathering, did not occur to any student or professional. The aspirations of other tribal members to have their children trained by Eklavya never seemed to matter. In other words, the professionals from voluntary agencies and commercial organizations and students from different disciplines completely failed to identify the dilemma in the mind of the dalits (downtrodden), for whom compliance and conformity to a given social order seemed virtually the only choice. Furthermore, deference toward a teacher was so ingrained that even unethical behaviour on the part of the teacher was not to be questioned.

The enculturation of compliance and conformity through such powerful metaphors gets in the way of people taking initiatives and questioning the given social order. Those whose social conditions need to be changed the most are the least likely to take initiative. This does not imply that the poor have no concrete alternatives for change. It simply means that innovations needed for survival are quite different from innovations needed for accumulation.

Just emphasizing the “giving” without “acknowledging” or “assimilating” the knowledge of the people often weakens people’s self-help potential and curbs the growth of voluntarism among the people themselves. The institution-building process in society suffers when outside volunteers do not plan for their redundancy by developing local leadership. In another meeting of voluntary organizations held at the Institute of Rural Meeting in Anand, it was acknowledged that building people’s own organizations to that eventually they would not need outside professional help was a distant dream (Jain, 1989).

My contention is that there are thousands of Eklavyas dispersed in different mainstream organizations. They have a strong sense of taking the initiative and achieving excellence in skills that may be needed in society. However, middle-class conservatism prevents them from becoming entrepreneurs. Voluntary organizations do not consider fostering or nurturing such initiative as part of their major role. The tremendous reserve of human energy that remains untapped by mainstream organizations generates frustration on both sides – the NGOs find bureaucracy stifling and generally unhelpful, and the “compliant” or “conformist” Eklavyas find no organizational or societal space for merging the pursuit of excellence with the search for socially useful innovations. If a linkage between volunteers in public/private commercial organizations and the enabling voluntary organizations can be forged, perhaps society’s institutional capacity for self-renewal can be increased considerably.

Trends in Voluntarism in Rural Development in India
My emphasis is much more on voluntarism than on voluntary organizations as instruments of social change. I do not disregard the niches that market forces and state and public agencies leave unfilled, but I argue that these niches can be fcilled not only by their third sector or voluntary organizations but by the “developmental deviants” or “entrepreneurs” or “volunteers.” These volunteers, while remaining in the mainstream public or market organizations, can create new alignments between social needs and institutional support. The excessive attention on voluntary organizations by aid agencies seems misplaced insofar as these agencies almost completely neglect the DVs.

By supporting only NGOs, agencies reduce pressure on public and market agencies for reform and self-renewal. NGOs led by managers or leaders who are often from an urban context, by their own creativity, suppress or fail to nurture the creativity of the local disadvantaged. Social change thus becomes more and more dependent on external leaders.

Rural development as par tof social change is defined here as a process of expanding the decision-making horizon and extending the time frame for appraising investment and consumption choices by rural disadvantaged people collectively, and not necessarily at the village level but at even higher levels of aggregation.

Sustainable processes will require correspondence between people’s access to resources, ability to convert access into investments (that is, skills for using resources), and assurance of future returns from present investment (vertical assurance) and about others’ behaviour vis-à-vis one’s own (horizontal assurance or collective rationality). The changes in the network of access, ability, and assurance for DVs and the people have to be achieved simultaneously.

Voluntarism may affect any one or more subsets of the developmental triangle of access, assurance, and ability of the people and thus may remain restricted in its impact. The propositions that follow deal with the way that voluntarism has been related to the process of social change in India. Given the range of experiences, it is indeed a synoptic account.

Process of Voluntarism
1. Voluntarism triggered by a natural crisis such as flood, drought, or cyclone may legitimize the entry of outsiders in a given region, but depending upon the mobilization process, NGOs that emerge in response to such crises often diversify into other areas of social development and remain community oriented rather than class oriented.

Several church-based NGOs came into existence when international aid agencies offered relief at the time of the Bihar famine in the 1960s. Most of the relief was in the form of consumables such as foodstuffs, clothes, and medicine. The organizational structure for the distribution of this aid was different from the structure for managing durable assets such as rigs for drilling wells, transportation, and buildings. The move from relief to reconstruction attracted many young people. Instead of going back to pursue their professional careers, they remained behind to organize people, manage food for work programs, drill wells, or provide health and education facilities.

Many aid agencies sought legitimacy through relief but subsequently indulged in other interventions. The reaction of state agencies was to incorporate such volunteers or voluntary organizations as appendages of public relief and development programs. Such incorporation also took place in many NGOs, which came into the picture much later. An interesting feature of these organizations was that having begun with a community approach (relief was needed by all), they continued to use an eclectic approach to development.

Social conflicts were merely noted by some and participated in by others. The institutionalization of voluntarism in intermediary support or funding organizations or grass-roots organizations gave a techno managerial start to the intervention strategies. A negative feature of such aid was that in regions prone to frequent natural calamities, people started losing their self-help initiative. State relfief in the form of employment or food was not linked with a mobilization of voluntarism among the people. Dependency so created made the task of many radical NGOs even more difficult. People could not understand why mobilization around a radical ideology should be a reason for forging immediate material benefits.

2. Voluntarism triggered by man-made disasters such as the Bhopal tragedy can get caught in the dilemma of legitimizing the state’s indifference by becoming part of urgent relief and rehabilitation vis-à-vis questioning the basis of the tragedy and the complicity of the state in its consequences.

Ravi Rajan (1988), while analyzing rehabilitation and voluntarism, observed four distinct styles: (1) intervening organization took on the provision of relief and rehabilitation as its primary task, became dependent on the government, and with the diminution in the governments’ own commitment to the cause, soon collapsed; (2) volunteers served as “conscience keepers,” pursuing change through systematic research reports; (3) trade union activists demanded charge of the industrial plant to provide employment through alternative use of plant and machinery; and (4) perhaps the most significant strategy by volunteers was to reject the idea of voluntarism as propounded by the state. Rather, voluntarism was redefined to include sustained mobilization, the struggle for better relief, access to medical data, questioning the scretiveness of the part of the government, legal activism, and questioning the right of the government to give such a low priority to the life of the poor. Voluntarism of this nature is difficult to mobilize in backward rural areas given the dispersed nature of settlements and weak social articulation, low media attention, and poor networking among interventionists.

3. Voluntarism as manifested in the 1960s by a protest against agrarian disparities (in the form of a violent leftist movement, known as the naxalite movement) and by social reconstruction (initiatives by students, professionals in the mainstream organizations, and voluntary organizations) has undergone a sea of change in the wake of recent economic liberalization.

Radical groups using violent means of social change have sought support essentially from Maoist philosophy. After the Chinese aggression in 1962, covert support to these groups increased, and income disparities intensified after the first phase of the green revolution. Technological change had provided the spur for a large number of young people, particularly from West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, to plunge into the field of violent social change. The attempt was to annihilate rich farmers and other symbols of perceived oppressive classes or those considered class enemies.

Another stream of volunteers who entered the field of rural development came with innovative ideas for providing relief during the 1964-1966 drought in different parts of the country. These volunteers became crucial instruments of social dynamics. The war in 1965 with a neighboring country led to a slowing down of U.S. aid to India. The search for indigenous alternatives became intense, and the legitimacy of voluntarism increased.

The period between 1966 and 1972 was full of economic crises. The economic environment in the preceding decade had been aimed at the closure of the Indian economy through import substitution. Droughts, wars (1965, 1971), devaluation of currency, and inflationary pressure created an environment of social unrest in the organized and unorganized sectors. Death from starvation was supposed to have been eliminated (almost) after the drought of 1965-1967. Maharashtra started an employment guarantee scheme during the drought of 1972. In the wake of large-scale violence in 1966 and 1967 by left-wing radical groups, the report of a confidential inquiry committee by a committed civil servant (Appu) set up by the Home Ministry argued for an immediate thrust toward target group oriented programs of rural development suited to location or ecology and class-specific need.

The Small and Marginal Farmer and Agricultural Labourer Development agencies, the Drought-Prone Area Programme, and the Tribal Development and Hill Area Development plans followed. Decentralized development in the policy was accompanied by greater political centralization from 1970 to 1977. A movement based on Gandhian values that called for total social revolution was spearheaded by Jaya Prakash Narayan in 1973 and 1974. It attracted a large number of young people, particularly in Gujarat, Bihar, and Maharashtra, and many of these young people continued with voluntary work.

The government declared a state of emergency from 1975 until 1977, after a prolonged railway strike, and even urban people realized for the first time the implications of a non-democratic coercive state. Voluntarism was also sought out as a sign of despicable deviance. People has the option of being incorporated into the repressive state structure or being jailed or victimized. The post-1977 phase of change in political continuity through the single-party rule brought many Gandhians committed to decentralized development into the mainstream. Tax concessions for voluntary initiatives by commercial companies were introduced for the first time by the Janata government in 1978, and many innovative organizations came into being. A number of developmental volunteers who worked in commercial organizations found this an opportunity for exploring new organizational space. Some misused this option but many did not.

For the first time, professionals and young activists were offered competitive salaries in addition to autonomy for work unheard of in mainstream organization by and large. These events were also accompanied by a change in the policy of international aid agencies, which started shifting from funding better implementation of government programs bureaucratically to better implementation by NGOs. It was unfortunate that creative avenues in the NGOs. It was unfortunate that creative avenues in the NGOs got generally fossilized because of their proximity to the state and their participation in implementing standardized programs.

A change of government in 1980 and the restoration of rule by the Congress party led to the expected withdrawal of tax concessions; the centralization of voluntarism (companies could contribute to the Prime Minister’s fund for rural development and seek fresh grants from it for action programmes); the halting of the direct transfer of funds from a commecial balancel sheet to the social (less easy to account) balance sheet; the standardization of developmental programs such as the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP); the withdrawal of higher allocations to the IRDP for backward areas and putting them on par with other areas; and the merger of earlier adaptive or responsive programs into a standardized IRDP, with credit-linked subsidy as the dominant mode of relationship.

Another interesting development was the return of naxalite (radical Maoist leftists) underground workers to the mainstream was non-violent but articulate strategists of social change. For the first time, several ex-naxalites sought election in 1977 and some were elected.

The social space for alternative development was filled by volunteers with vlarying backgrounds; ex-radicals; liberal or social democrats who were dissatisfied with the workings of the state and wanted to influence the distribution of resources; enthusiastic urban activists who after looking for a career, failed to get one and returned to a mainstream profession rather quickly; young professionals with technical or other disciplinary backgrounds who launched action-research projects or supported other professional groups; retired civil servants, ex-Gandhians, lawyers, and so on, who formed independently or with the support of aid agencies large NGOs; and quasi-state organizations promoted to provide technical, financial, marketing, or other support to NGOs, artisans, and other beneficiaries of state-sponsored developmental programs.

At the time when social space for volunteers was widening, opportunities for career growth in mainstream organizations also began to increase. The first phase involved the growth of the banking sector after nationalization in 1969. A large number of bright young men and women with backgrounds in science, the humanities, or engineering joined banks, insurance corporations, and other such systems. “Brain drift” as opposed to “brain drain” took a heavy toll by depriving academic disciplines of bright students and luring some professionals on the margin away from other direct social development systems.

The post-1980 boom in the consumer goods industry and the continued growth of banking and other public and private ventures further increased the flow of young people toward such careers. The opportunity cost of those who chose to work in NGOs did indeed increase.

The question we want to address next is “What are the processes by which voluntarism in mainstream organizations can complement the efforts of NGOs not merely in bringing about social change on the micro-level but also in influencing public policy in favor of the disadvantaged?”

Implications for Action and Research
Generating extra-organizational space for developmental volunteers within mainstream organizations is a necessary condition for sustainable social development. One study on bank and NGO cooperation for poverty alleviation in backward regions noted that there was no NGO working in the fifty most backward sub-regions of Gujarat. State organizations like the National Bank could not gain credibility in supporting NGOs if they did not provide the opportunity for exploration and experimentation to volunteers within their system. NGOs often did not recover even the operating costs of many services from people. In the process, such NGOs remained perpetually dependent upon aid agencies. Moreover, accountability of the NGOs in regard to the poor was so low that most NGOs did not aim at inducting poor people into their own management structures.

One nationalized bank invited its clerks to volunteer for two years in a village development program in an area of their choice without any loss of seniority upon their return. This triggered numerous innovative experiments by DVs.

The hands of DVs in technology generation, adaptation, and diffusion system working on unpopular problems of larger social concern needed just as much attention. How can professionals who disregard professional rewards and devote attention to such problems but cannot put pressure for reform on their own organizations be sustained? Empowering them will require recognition of their voluntarism by a body of concerned scholars and activists. No national award has been given to date to any bank officer for initiating innovative schemes. So much so that about ten million rupees for new innovative schemes for rural development provided at the national level remained unspent because no system existed for identifying and recognizing DVs within the mainstream system.

Can the capacity of urban people to manage their own affairs be provided by urban volunteers who come from very different cultures? The poor do not cooperate with developmental organizations because they are not recognized as possessing any richness in terms of their cultural and moral fiber. The findings of our research are seldom shared with those from whom we collect data (Gupta, 1987a, 1987b). Involving the rural poor as co-researchers of social phenomena, building upon cultural roots of voluntarism, and showing respect for common property institutions can change this situation. Acknowledging local initiatives can spur their transformation into innovations. Documenting people’s knowledge and identifying the scientific merit of some sustainable resource management alternatives can rekindle people’s experimental ethic.

Institution building requires the dispensability of external leadership, the recognition of an inverse relationship between status and skills, and the discrediting of values that generate helplessness. “Lateral learning” among developmental volunteers and NGOs can be triggered to provide empirical basis for building a “theory in and of” action.

Concepts of voluntarism such as zakat among Muslims, gupt dan (anonymous charity) among Hindus, Kar Seva (voluntary labour for the common good) among Sikhs, and so on, are examples of the positive bases on which different religions build organic institutions. Different languages have words like andi (Haryanavi) and dhuni (Hindi), implying a person obsessed with ideas generally for the social good. Why has appreciation for this trait vanished? Anonymous voluntarism, a unique and long-standing tradition of the east, has been absorbed by voluntary organizations that believe that voluntarism can only exist in their types of organizations. This vision is limited, because it denies the possibility of institutionalizing culture throughout a full range of institutions, not just voluntary organizations.

Finally, neither NGOs nor the developmental volunteers can succeed unless those long-ingrained values that inhibit change among rural poor people are brought into question.

Voluntarism in rural development in India has not been accompanied by pressure for policy change except in regard to environmental issues. Often action at the local level has not been linked with lobbying at the macro level. Recognizing that the state and markets perform better if kept under constant check, developmental volunteers within the organizations will have to serve a sort of “insurgent” function so as to align, anonymously, with grass-root activists, NGOs, and professionals. International agencies can strengthen local social change by broadening local ideas and innovations into global thinking and by providing global space for developmental volunteers to validate their hypotheses. Right Livelihood awards constitute one such source of international recognition. If the rural poor of India could communicate with the homeless in America, surely the cultures of deprivation would provide the basis for collection action. Social innovators and DVs around the world are struggling for similar space in a society where one does not have to go through a phase of unbridled accumulation followed by guilt, charity, and benevolence for the have-nots.

Sustainability in nature and society requires players, whistle blowers, spectator rules, and creative chaos. DVs are arguing that the losers in a game should not lose the right to play on the same field again. Asking them to play only on separate fields (in the form of volags) will eventually rob the game of the chaotic waves of sorrow and joy. Should we let it convert the spectators into warriors?