INDIC KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS AND LAND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT:
A CROSS-CULTURAL HRD MODEL FOR RURAL UPLIFTMENT


Dr. Prem Saran,I.A.S.
Commissioner & Secy to the Govt. Assam
Administrative Reforms and Training Dept, Dispur

 

Introduction: It is surely noteworthy that, in a hardheaded field like Business Management, a hard-nosed institution like the Harvard Business School should rate an Indian management theorist, Professor Debashis Chatterjee of the Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, as one of “fifteen thought leaders” worldwide in that area of expertise (“The Week”, 27 February 2000). Even more remarkable is the fact that he earned this distinction for a book like “Leading Consciously” (Chatterjee, 1999). For that work of his deals with an apparently non-managerial topic like the Indic traditions of meditation! Or perhaps this is not so strange after all, for as the well known management guru Peter Senge of MIT predicts in his Foreword to that book, it is such non-Western techniques of Human Resource Management that will probably confer the real competitive edge in tomorrow’s global markets.

To put it differently: in today’s Internetted world, Westernization is no longer an automatic synonym for globalization. In the contemporary marketplace of ideas, as in the dog-eat-dog world of business praxis, we increasingly have non-Western management approaches, such as the Japanese technique of kaizen (i.e. “continuous improvement”), the Chinese “Tao of Leadership”(Dreher, 1997), and so on. And now we have the use of Indic knowledge systems, such as the above South Asian meditative traditions--which constitute such a sophisticated technology of ‘rightbrain tapping’—for down-to-earth managerial purposes such as Human Resource Development (Saran, 2000; Alder, 1998).

In other words, there will quite likely be an accelerating utilization of Indic paradigms in the globalized knowledge-economy that is emerging apace. In the rest of this paper therefore, I propose to outline the potential use of three core themes in the Indic worldview and ethos, in the crisis-ridden area of Land Resource Management that affects all of us worldwide. I shall do so by indicating how these Indic concepts can be synergized into a cross-culturally nuanced HRD model for rural upliftment, where I use “HRD” in the broad sense of the development of human resources in the direction of Maslowian self-actualization, and thus of empowerment (Resnick, 2000).

My model can easily be operationalized by more or less standard HRD techniques such as the consciousness-raising methods used by feminist and other groups of grassroots activists, who aim thereby to empower the target groups of oppressed people. Thus, insofar as rural groups especially are concerned, traditional South Asian performing arts could be coopted for the task. These might include yakshagana in Karnataka, ojapali in Assam, or nautanki in the Hindi speaking region, as I shall briefly indicate at the end of my essay. In addition, these might also well be used to target the offending urban/ Westernized policy-making elite, as opinion leaders like Dr. M.S. Swaminathan have realized they must (“Frontline”, 1st September 2000).

However, since such techniques of consciousness-raising are quite well known, it is probably more important to address the operating concepts that are to be inculcated by them. As the highly innovative thinker Edward de Bono has rightly pointed out, by using the metaphor of drilling for oil, it is more sensible to find out where to drill than to keep drilling in the wrong place, even though one might be armed with the latest and most efficient techniques. That is, should we continue to persist with the outdated paradigms of modernity--or “Westernity”, to use my slightly facetious and deconstructive neologism--when these have so clearly brought us to our current ecologicallly catastrophic pass? Should we not rather essay a Kuhnian paradigm shift, to alternative models like those of Indic “non-modernity” (Nandy, 1980), which can moreover subsume and thus retain the valuable aspects of modernity? That is to say, the more critical and fruitful question to pose is, “What should be the epistemological orientation of such consciousness-raising/HRD”? Or, “What should be the philosophical/ ideological content of such consciousness-raising/HRD?” Accordingly that is the basic issue which I shall explore in this paper.

Three Core Indic Themes. I shall start my exploration by outlining three salient features that I have identified, through my own original research, as core-themes in the Indic civilization, as there are holographically expressed in the Tantric traditions of South Asia (Saran, 1996). These are holonic individuality, disciplined eudaemonism and gender complementarity, respectively. By the first, I mean that Indic individuality is very unlike the atomistic individuality of Western modernity. It corresponds rather to Arthur Koestler’s (1978) concept of the “holon”, viz. an autonomous whole which is itself an integral part of larger, more complex wholes; moreover, he himself sees his concept as “intended to reconcile the atomistic and holistic approaches (ibid, p. 304). And in the South Asian milieu, this conception is vividly displayed in the ubiquitous figure of the mandala (i.e. meditation diagram), which appears pervasively in the visualizations of yoga (Tucci, 1961), in public festivals and rituals (Levy, 1990), in Indic cosmology (Eliade, 1958), and so on. All these cultural manifestations systematically enculturate a worldview in which the individual is perceived as being inalienably part and parcel of the entire cosmos. They thus conduce to psychological non-alienation, and thereby to autonomy or empowerment.

My second theme of “eudaemonism” or “wellbeing” (from the Greek “eudaemonia”) refers to the Tantric use of bhoga, i.e “(sensual) enjoyment”, to achieve the ananda (or "joy") of the Indic religious goal of samadhi (i.e. the mystical experience). Here we may note that the bliss of mystical union is conceived, in the canonical (Hindu) “Taittiriya Upanishad”, to lie at the very apex of the ananda-mimansa, or “hierarchy of pleasure”. It is thus viewed as being much beyond erotic pleasure, even if the latter may be used as a means to reach it, as in the Tantric cults. Therefore such a eudaemonism subsumes mere sensual hedonism (Lasch, 1979), and since it is part of a rigorous yogic discipline, it is also a controlled eudaemonism, one with a golden mean.

Further, the theme of eudaemonism is also intimately related to Indic cosmogony. For the latter views the cosmos as the lila i.e. “(erotic or other) sport/play of the divine”. In connection with my second theme therefore, I shall also examine the cross-cultural and other ramifications of this South Asian ludic worldview, as it is manifested in human play (Norbeck, 1974).

My third and last theme is expressed in the typically fluid Indic style, by the pan-South Asian iconography of the great Hindu god Shiva in his form as Ardhanariswara (i.e. “the god who is half woman”). This deeply interiorized South Asian attitude of gender-mutuality or -complementarity is based on the ancient bipolar philosophy of Samkhya, which underlies the generic Indian traditions of yoga. It thus meshes with the pervasive Indic view of women as incarnating “Shakti”, or “divine female power”. It also underlies the yogic techniques of kundalini – type praxis, wherein the postulated goddess or female principle within the yogic practitioner (male or female) is visualized as merging with the god or male principle, thus potentially triggering the experience of samadhi or mystical union.

My anthropological research indicates clearly that the above themes constitute a cultural syndrome that that is central to the Indic worldview. Further, this weltanschaung can be characterised as “non-modern”, to use Nandy ‘s (op cit) felicitous term. The major contrast between modernity/ “Westernity” and Indic “non-modernity” is that, whereas Western modernity is based on the procrustean “either/or” dichotomy of Aristotelian logic, the Indic cognitive mode is of the “both/and” type, that is to say it is fluid and inclusive.

Again, the Judaeo-Christian cum-Hellenic worldview of the West, despite its hegemony of the last few centuries, is “but one idiom of thinking”, even though ethnocentrism may prevent Westerners from realising it (Bono, 1990). Besides, and in striking contrast, Indic thinking idioms are very much more accommodative and openended. They can subsume both the “paradoxial logic” (Crosby, 1985) of the (Indic) mystic as well as the unilinear Western ethnocognitive style.

Given the above basic disjuncture between the Indic and Western ways of thinking and being, it is quite possible that the greater flexibility of the former can provide the required novel and constructive, non-Western approaches to the pressing global problems of ecological degradation. To explore this possibility therefore, I shall now look at the contemporary Indian environmental movement called Chipko, since it so neatly encapsulates the Indic cultural worldwide as a non-modern “system of knowledge” (Banuri and Marglin, 1993).

Chipko as Indic “Civilizational Response”. Chipko or the “Embrace the Trees” movement, represents an Indic “mode of non-violent resistance to destructive development” (Shiva and Bandyopadhyaya, 1986). This treehugging strategy was used by Indian village women of the Himalayan region to protect their endangered forests, and it was so successful that these rural women were awarded the so-called Alternative Nobel Prize, by the Right Livelihood Foundation of Stockholm in 1987. They were so honoured because they had “put the life of the forests above their own” (Shiva 1989: 218).In addition, as the Foundation noted, Chipko stands for “hundreds of decentralized and locally autonomous initiatives. Its leaders and activities are primarily village women, acting to protect their means of subsistence and their communities” (ibid, n. 2).

It is significant, however, that the Chipko women were only following an old Indic civilizational paradigm of peaceful struggle against exploitation. This was dramatically exhibited in the case of the Bishnoi tribe of the arid State of Rajasthan, followers of a fifteenth century religious guru who taught them to protect the trees for their own survival. Over 300 members of this community, led by a brave village woman Amrita Devi and her three daughters, even gave their lives for the trees on one momentous occasion about 300 years ago. They did this by hugging the village trees, in order to save them from the minions of the local king, who needed wood for his palace. It was indeed such cultural modes of passive resistance that provided the cultural template for the strategy of “satyagraha” (i.e. non-violent non-cooperation) that was later patented by Gandhi.

More immediately though, the roots of Chipko lay in the colonial period, in the exploitative forest management policies of the British. For the Western/modern imperialists systematically destroyed large tracts of natural forests, which had hitherto been maintained and husbanded by local communities. These policies led over time to “forest satyagrahas” all over the country (Shiva and Bandyopadhyaya, op cit, p. 3), in protest against the exclusive commercial exploitation of the forests by the foreign government, and the simultaneous conversion of a “common resource into a commodity” (ibid, p. 5). These people’s movements were particularly successful wherever the livelihood of the local population was intimately linked with the forests, as in the Himalayan region.

In the post-colonial period too, the same policies continued to be followed in the name of “economic growth” (Ibid). This inevitably resulted in the degradation of forest ecosystems, thus endangering the econiches of forest dwelling communities, particularly in ecologically fragile areas such as the Himalayan.Thus, in response to this grave threat posed by modernity, the Chipko movement began in the Garhwal Himalayas in the early 1970s.

Again, it is to be noted here that the problems caused by ecological destruction impinged hardest on the lives of the village women, who increasingly had to trek longer and farther for fodder and water. By the late seventies therefore, large numbers of women began to mobilize to save the forests. They were roused and mobilized by the evocative slogan. “What do the forests bear? Soil, water and pure air". Significantly too, the consciousness of the activists was successfully raised by textual discourses on the role of forests in the Indic civilization. An off quoted example in this context was the ancient Rig Vedic mythos of the forest as the Goddess Aranyani, the vernal Earth Mother who nurtures both wildlife and human beings.

Gradually Chipko also became a national movement for “ecological rehabilitation” (ibid, p. 14). For in places like Garhwal itself, activists enthused the people to undertake the large-scale planting of trees. Simultaneous efforts were thus made for economic rehabilitation too, as this afforestation was also aimed at meeting the fuel, fodder and other needs of the local people. Thereby public pressure was generated for a national forest policy that is more attuned to people’s needs, and to those of the environment, rather than to the imperatives of “ecologically destructive economic growth” (ibid, p. 15)

The Chipko movement thus neatly epitomises the fundamental dichotomy between two divergent systems of knowledge, viz. those of modernity and "non-modernity”: these are “ecosystem independent” and “ecosystem-dependent”, respectively (ibid, p.17). A great divide separates the two, based as they are on “two every different kinds of scientific perceptions and philosophical approaches to nature”(ibid, p.16). Moreover, Chipko is highly significant for its contemporary relevance, given that the ecological problems that loom ahead can threaten human survival itself the world over," irrespective of the industrial status of societies" (ibid, p.21).

In short, Chipko represents a constructive Indic “civilizational response” to the global ecological crisis, as Shiva and Bandyopadhyaya synoptically term it. As they point out, this Indian grassroots movement has the “philosophical significance of redirecting development into an ecologically sustainable path”, whether in South Asia or the West. It thus provides a timely and “potentially useful message of an alternative worldview” (ibid), which is what I shall now adumbrate.

Chipko and The three Core Indic Themes. In the introduction to their book “Who will Save the Forests?”, Tariq Banuri and Frederique Appfel Marglin (op cit) argue that forestry conflicts, and contemporary global environmental problems in general, represent “an arena of conflict between modern and non-modern systems of knowledge” (ibid, p.1) . They identify “disembeddedness” and “individualism” as distinguishing characteristics of the former, while” embeddedness” and the lack of a “subject/object dichotomv” (ibid, pp.1,11-13,15-16) characterize the latter. That is to say, modernity as a system of knowledge is predicated on a radical separation of the human being from the cosmos, whether this is her social and cultural ecology, or the natural environment such as the forests.

Again, as Banuri and Marglin go on to argue, this dichotomy between subject and object and object has led to the “desouling “ of nature in Westernity/modernity (ibid, p. 18, quoting James Hillman). It has enabled Western/modern man to “look at nature as if it were a passive, inert object, which could be acted upon with abandon” (ibid). Further, this vaunted model of modernity/”Westernity “ has led not only to Weber's “disenchantment of the world”, but also to other deleterious effects, as per Stephen Marglin (1990). These are the social, and cultural effects of so-called “development”, namely widespread “environmental destruction, meaningless work, spiritual desolation, neglect of the aged", and so on (ibid,p.2).

Marglin therefore argues for a “decolonization of the mind “, which would help to “decouple” the process of globalization from the above pernicious effects of the Western model of development, by a “critical re-evaluation of both Western and non-Western cultures” (ibid), pp.26-27). Or, as Vandana Shiva (1993) puts it neatly, what is needed is a deconstruction and decentering of the Western “monoculture of the mind”. For the ethnoculture of Westernity, with its rigid, Aristotelian either/or character is too inflexible for contemporary human needs, as the cognitive philosopher Edward de Bono (1999) has shown. It would therefore be more apt to examine whether our three "non-modern" Indic themes can provide alternative paradigms for human action.

Our first theme of Indic “holonic individuality” can indeed provide a valuable ideological corrective for the environmental problems created by the hegemonic knowledge system of Western modernity. For like other non-modern conceptions of personhood, the Indic personality structure is “cosmomorphic” (Crick, 1982), since it views the human person as being very much an integral part of the cosmos. It therefore conduces to psychological stability, and thus to personal autonomy and human empowerment.

Further, Indic individuality does not pit the human being against her natural environment. Quite the contrary : for what more graphic expression of human embeddedness in the cosmos could there be than the image of the Chipko volunteers linking their lives with that of the forests by protectively embracing the threatened trees? This was, as we have seen, entirely of a piece with the Chipko movement's evocation and reiteration of the holistic values of the Indic civilization, such as the Rig Vedic reverence for the forest as being the body of Aranyani, the sylvan Mother Goddess.

Such a mindset is antipodally divergent from the Western epistime of “man as center of the universe” (Bussagli, p. 15). In the traditional Indic perception, on the contrary, man was not seen as “the supremely important being that ruled over nature but was, rather, a part of it” (ibid). For in general, “all forms of life are on a level” to the Indic sensibility (ibid). That is, Chipko is emblematic of the Indic view of the human person as co-existing with other life forms, and with the natural environment.

Next, as regards my second theme of Indic eudaemonism, we may recall that it refers to the South Asian conceptions of “wellbeing”. Again, it is culturally enabled by the Indian philosophy of lila, which perceives the cosmos as “divine play”. Moreover, since this cosmic playfulness is an expression of divine omnipotence, it is totally purposeless like the play of children, to which it is indeed likened (Sax 1995:3,14).

Modernity/Westernity as a system of knowledge, on the other hand, is nothing if not purposeful. As Banuri and Marglin see it, Western modernity is characterize by the rationale of “instrumentalism” that constitutes its very core (ibid, pp.1.4). In fact, they argue that it is this “instrumental attitude towards nature” (p.10) which is responsible for the global environmental crisis, a view that is echoed by other scholars (Davies et al 1993 : 52-53; Stephen Marglin 1990 : 21).

Again, the above instrumentalist character of modernity has two fundamental and interlinked components, which are ineluctably brought to bear against nature. First, there is modern science, which has treated nature primarily as a “controllable and usable” commodity right from its Baconian inception, as Jatin Bajaj (1988: 50-55) has shown. And secondly, there is the Judaeo-Christian mindset of Westernity, which pits nature against man as an entity that he must exercise dominion over (White, 1967 ; Davies et al, 1993).

The latter strand is most clearly evident in the Calvinist roots of the exaggerated work-ethic that is the defining characteristic of the Western civilization, whether in capitalism or its mirror-image of Marxism (Bataille, 1998). From the standpoint of this ultimately bourgeois mentality of Western man, the “excess energy” (ibid, p. 20) of both man and nature is meant to be profitably utilized. Thus it is the resultant evacuation of the “play element from all cultural forms.. above all from productive labor” (Lasch, op cit) that constitutes the radical break between modernity and non-modernity. Or, as another Indian scholar has pointed out, it splits off Huizinga’s homo ludens, for whom play is integral to her very being, from the human being as the merely utilization homo faber, for whom nature is more a commodity than a living entity (Claude Alvarez 1988 : 22-24)

In the non-modern Indic civilization, on the other hand, imbued as it is with the ideology of lila, both nature and “holonic” man are animated by the same cosmic ludecy. This is quite evident from the vitality of pan-Indian spring festivals like Holi, which both celebrate the burgeoning vitality of nature (Rawson, 1968) and express a non-utilitarian valorization of the “surplus in man” (Rabindranath Tagore, quoted in Matilal 1994 : 292). This non-instrumentalist and non-reductionist appreciation of the vital energies of man and nature thus links the Indic eudaemonism of the Chipko activitists with the “wellbeing” of the trees in their Himalayan environment (Shiva 1988 : 255).

Finally, as regards my third theme of Indic gender-complementarity, we may recall that Chipko is an ecofeminist movement. The term “ecofeminism” refers to the global feminist “protests, and activities against environmental destruction, sparked-off initially by recurring ecological disasters” (Mies and Shiva 1993 : 13). Ecofeminists perceive the environmental crisis to be linked to the overwhelmingly masculine mindset of medernity/Westernity, because they see a common “connection between patriarchal violence against women, other people and nature” (ibid, p. 14). Further, they see woman as having an especially “deep and particular understanding” of this nexus : "both through our natures and our experience as women” (ibid).

Thus Mies (1986) clearly traces the roots of modern patriarchal capitalism and of the modern state to the rise of the bourgeoisie and of modern science in Europe, which gave rise of the civilizational holocaust of the burning of “witches” in their millions in the pre-modern Western world. As Diamond (1994: 39) puts it, the discourse of modernity is naught but a “patriarchal… language of control”, one which seeks to “mold the natural world to conform to our every desire”. Or, as Frederique Apffel Marglin (1990:102) states the case, echoing other feminists and gender scholars, modern systems of knowledge are characterised by “phallagocentrism”, or the unmitigated androcentrism of the modern West.

The main reason for this patriarchal orientation to the world of nature is seen to lie in the fact that the male’s experience of nature is significantly different from that of female. This is because of the basic physiological fact that “men cannot experience their own bodies as being productive in the same way as women can": male productivity needs tools, it is instrumental (Mies, op cit, p. 56). That is why women’s movements like “ecofemanism “ stress the importance of “woman’s” ways of knowing”, which often have a “non-instrumental core” (Banuri and Marglin, op cit, p. 20).

The above female mode of knowing also extends integrally to the non-confrontationist strategies of resistance used in eco-feminist movements. Some graphic examples from the West are the wrapping of wool around military establishments, and the incapacitation of police motorcycles with yarn (Diamond, op cit, p. 40). Similarly, in the Indic milieu, the hugging of trees by Chipko women to protect them from logging is another such creative feminine strategy (ibid). Indeed the Gandhian mode of satyagraha or “passive resistance” which provided such an inspiring model for Chipko, is itself a quintessential expression of the positive Indic valorization of the specifically feminine modalities of knowing and being (Nandy, 1976, 1983).

Moreover, what is most striking about the ecofeminist activism of the Chipko women is the fact that they were poor rural women, the citizens of an apparently backward country. The crucial point about their, movement, however, is not so much their socio-economic status, as the fact that their success was facilitated by their overall Indic cultural milieu. And this was so because the Indic civilization is fundamentally posited on a polyvalent appreciation of the feminine principle.

The above is instantiated by the ancient and pervasively influential pan-Indic philosophy of Samkhya, wherein it is the feminine principle or prakriti which is the cosmic dynamis. Without it, the male principle or purusha is even perceived as being totally impotent to create. That is why woman is seen as incarnating shakti (i.e. “female power”), by Tantrics and others (Saran, 1998). Further, though the androgynous Samkhyan philosophy inculcates the conviction that both the male and female principles are present in each individual man and woman, it is woman who is seen crucially to embody the principle of prakriti, just as nature in general also does.

This last aspect of the pandemic South Asian understanding of gender is in a sense an anticipation of contemporary ecofeminist views, which positively homologize women to nature. Further, the Indic appreciation of the distaff side of life can also be exquisitely sampled from classical South Asian artistic productions. Thus, the sculptural representation of the Earth as Goddess, reproduced in Zimmer (1968: pl. 109), is an absolutely stunning depiction of the beauty and feminity of nature, a worthy emblem indeed for today’s veneration of Gaia. And other examples are the fine anthropomorphic icons of the holy rivers Ganga and Yamuna, which are to be found in temples all over the Indian subcontinent (ibid, pl. 227).

In short, this culturally pervasive apperception of gender provides a context that tends to empower South Asian women. It is against this non-modern civilizational background therefore that the Chipko activists so effectively forged and wielded their feminine weapon of “forest satygraha”. Indeed their attitude of female resistance is also mirrored in the organized demand for justice that women in Bhopal have orchestrated, in the wake of the environmental disaster that took place in 1984 at the Union Carbide plant there. To date that company has not settled with the affected people, who number many thousands. However, as Hamidabai, an Indian Muslim woman from one of the poorest and worst hit localities said, “We will not stop our fight… till we have justice” (quoted in Mies and Shiva 1994:14-15)

Conclusion : HRD for Rural Uplift. In sum therefore, “a return to ecological equilbrium on a global scale” (Alvares, op cit, p. 30) is mandated by the contemporary worldwide environmental crisis. And since it is the hegemonic system of knowledge called Westernity/modernity that is fundamentally at the root of the whole problem, the search for solutions to our current environmental crises must lie in other non-Western/"non-modern" directions. Thus, against the problematic background of the modern West and its manifold discontents, understandings drawn from non-modern systems of knowledge like the Indic can quite definitely prove fruitful in obviating the tragic denouement that looms ahead of us all (Banuri and Margin, op cit, pp 3-4).

That is precisely the kind of paradigm shift that I have essayed in this paper, by situating the grassroots Indian ecofeminist movement of Chipko against the cultural backdrop of my three core non-modern Indic themes. I have shown that these themes undercut and subvert the Western ethno-philosophical presuppositions of modernity as a "monocultural" phenomenon (Shiva, 1993, op cit), globally hegemonic though it may currently be. For these ethnocultural presumptions of the modern West are underpinned, according to the anthropologist and systems-theorist Gregory Bateson, by a basic “epistemological fallacy of Western civilization, namely the abstraction of a separate “I” “ (Macy 1991: 188).

In other words, as shown by the wellknown contemporary American philosopher Richard Rorty (1979), the above fallacy constitutes what the most fundamental axiom of Western epistemology, namely
the ethnocultural notion of the separate human observer, in whose mind the rest of nature is mirrored. By now widely realized to be a highly reductionistic view of the human condition, this assumption has obviously become thoroughly outdated and dysfunctional by now, given the myriad apocalyptical problems that humanity faces globally today (de Bono, 1999).

The above alienated mindset of Westernity/modernity, which we have noted as being so full of overweening hubris vis a vis nature, is however quite alien to the Indic civilisational world of the rural Chipko women. For they intimately partake of our three core axioms of Indic "non-modernity, which so inalienably ground the person in his/her cosmos, thereby psycho-culturally grounding and empowering him or her. Also, these three "non-modern" themes that their very lives embody and display, are extremely fluid and inclusive; they are thus capable of subsuming the exclusivist Aristotelian logic of modernity. These therefore constitute a cross-culturally valid HRD model, using "HRD" to mean the maximal development of human resources towards Abraham Maslow’s (1964) ideal of self-actualization.

That is to say, the syndrome constituted by these “non-modern” Indic themes can provide just the meaningful ideological content needed for the design of focussed and effective consciousness-raising programs for ecological regeneration. Only such epistemologically sophisticated interventions can generate the committed participation of the rural silent majority, who are tragically also the worst effected by the multiplying drudgery caused by environmental degradation. Besides, it is their mobilization that is absolutely crucial for the success of such programs.

Moreover, the use of such a cross-culturally sensitive HRD Model can promote genuine rural upliftment, not only in the more limited sense of helping to regenerate the environment for longterm sustainable development, but also in the broader sense of enabling optimal human empowerment, namely along our three Indic axes of "holonic" personhood, playful eudaemonism/wellbeing, and gender equity. In short, the creative HRD paradigms of rural upliftment needed for the coming decades of the new millenium have to be sought in "non-modern" epistemes like the Indic. They are not to be found in modernity/"Westernity", since we have seen that the etiology of our global ecological problems can be traced back to the severe ideological crises that plague Western modernity. Or, to revert to de Bono's metaphor, it is high time to begin drilling in more promising, non-Western areas like Indic non-modernity, where we are more likely to strike it rich….

A start can be made by using success stories like Chipko itself, to provide the focussed content that is required to ensure the effectiveness of such HRD/consciousness-raising work. We may recall here too that the Chipko women themselves used Indic themes for this purpose, such as the trope of the forest as the Goddess Aranyani (from the Sanskrit aranya, meaning “jungle”). Indeed many creative artists like the classical dancers Mrinalini and Mallika Sarabhai have long been using traditional performing arts like Bharata Natyam for precisely such ecological aims. As also folk artistes like Rambhiya, who has been using the Kutchi evening folksongs called “dayaro”, as an effective medium to popularize the checkdam movement for water conservation in that drought-prone area of Gujrat. In addition, the modern mass media can also be pressed into service, as witness a recent award-winning documentary film by B.V.P. Rao (my junior IAS colleague in Assam) on the Bishnoi villagers’ saga of land resource management, which foregrounds precisely such Indic-style conservation of nature.

To conclude, the effective use of HRD for rural upliftment hinges on our ability to tap “non-modern” knowledge systems like the Indic (Agarwal et al, p.440). These constitute an “emerging wisdom” (ibid, p.viii), one whose widespread dissemination will prove critical for our sustainable futures worldwide. For they embody certain values that are absolutely necessary for our balanced and humane socio-cultural and economic development. These values can be summed up as five types of respect: for nature; for cultural diversity; for the poor, and their knowledge and skills; for social, cultural, economic and gender equity; and for democracy, and the right of participation. And these in turn can be seen to flow logically from our three core themes of Indic "non-modernity"….

REFERENCES

 

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