My long time quest to make sense of Gandhiji’s policies got a boost today when I saw this post by Vikas Kamat. He criticises a column which, rightly in my view, points out that self-sufficiency is a bad policy. Kamat says:
“Self-sufficiency means that you look inside, not outside for survival and growth. It is a profound concept and has deep roots in philosophy (as in strength of character), religion (carrying one’s own burden), and economy (a self-sufficient body is a strong body). It is a time-tested formula, that is as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.
The idiots are saying ‘We can’t grow our own food anymore, so self-sufficiency is bad. We can’t make our own cloth, so Gandhi was a fool.’
Self-sufficiency means only that you will not consume more than what you ca? produce, or will not spend more than what you can earn. It just means that you will stand on your own feet. It has nothing to do with exchange of services, in fact, exchange of products and services at a fair value is an essential characteristic of a self-sufficient economy”
All very well, except for a few problems.
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Gandhiji, unfortunately wasn’t a woolly idealist. He had clear and practical ideas – clear, practical and wrong. It was Gandhiji who wanted to grow his own food and weave his own clothes. He performed practical experiments to test his ideas. So it is Kamat who is creatively misinterpreting Gandhiji’s ideas, not the columnist.
“Self-sufficiency means only that you will not consume more than what you can produce” – This statement is imprecise. I “consumed” more than I “produced” till the age of 23. (I am “paying back” now in many ways. ) I will do the same after I retire. So you need to specify the time-scale. And no I am not indulging in sophistry. The principle of not consuming more than one produces has been used to try to stop poor countries from financing their growth through borrowings and through foreign investment.
Now if you reinterpret Gandhiji sufficiently, you can certainly make him out to be a supporter of free-markets, capitalism and individualism. Just interpret “self-sufficiency” to mean that an individual should earn his own living, not live beyond his means or borrow beyond his capacity to repay.
But then how does one justify the existence of a government-subsidised KVIC? Why should my taxes pay for Khadi which people mostly don’t buy? Ah.. that’s because in Nehru’s time they had a different interpretation of self-sufficiency. Not that an individual should be self-sufficient, but its okay if the country as a whole is self-sufficient. So how do we know that our current interpretation is right but Nehru’s was wrong?
Apparently the right way to interpret Gandhiji’s views is to
a) Eulogise him. Argue that he propounded a deep philosophy which you can’t understand unless you study it deeply and/or believe it first.
b) Distort his views to fit whatever it is you believe in in the first place
c) Be amazed at how timeless, relevant and right his views were.
d) Accuse his opponents of betraying his ideals.