Navigating development models: old and new

 

Today in its nationalist revival mode, India does not want to look back at its days of being backward, forever seen as a country of poverty, forever under the developing tag. It wants to match up to the best in other countries, to be not only a global power in terms of geopolitics, but also in its infrastructure, facilities, lifestyles. The ruling intelligentsia no more like to describe the country in terms of social fractures, held back by caste, or rural backwardness. The focus very much is on large scale manufacturing and business and employment generation. Agriculture and industry both are now seen in line with new tech, global supply chains, empowered farmers and factory workers, digital support systems, systems of accountability and all the managerialism that goes with it. In this new vision of the country, there is a strong distancing from older ideas – such as Gandhian views on development and economic life, all the buzzwords of decentralised, participative and smaller scale, local development, or NGO-shaped discourses of backwardness.

Among those who do not subscribe to this changed narrative, there is a great concern about the impact on both the environment and human communities that this is causing. Is this what the story simply is? – one of sensible and sustainable development versus the big business, neoliberal, capitalist push? It seems to me that while these concerns are still quite real the picture is more complex.

To an extent the wider narrative shift is quite understandable. To take an example, the language within NGOs and academia had long painted the 4-5 states in the north of India as BIMARU states, wherein human development indicators such as maternal mortality, infant mortality, feoticide numbers were high, sex ratios poor, education levels low, industrialisation minimal, and much of the population engaged in low-tech, and medium to low scale agriculture, or its allied sectors, and there was a lot of rural casteism too. While development professionals did take action to improve these social indicators, they also tended to entrench the very idea that these are backward states that are unable to come out of their rut. Unwittingly this attitude served the continuous need for development programmes in the region. It however did little to bring the states forward, and develop their own impetus to address their problems. I was pleased to see that it wasn’t just me thinking this way. I read a 2007 article by Raghuram Rajan and Arvind Subramanian titled ‘Does Aid Affect Governance’. These are some lines from it:

By expanding a government’s resource envelope, aid reduces its need to explain its actions to citizens, which may reduce its need to govern well (Knack (2001) and Brautigam and Knack (2004)). In particular, poor governance could lead to a deterioration in the quality of institutions necessary for a good business environment, as the government falters in its responsibilities to maintain rule of law, ensure a predictable judiciary and contract enforcement, and limit corruption….

So when the Hindu nationalist intelligentsia and politicians questioned the old narrative, they did have a point. And we did see with the regime change, that states such as Bihar or UP could also create opportunities via industry, manufacturing, support for agriculture, tourism etc. So however neoliberal that may sound, a positive self-image, and a certain industrial ambition, can motivate and drive a people, or a state.

Yet, what the change also brought with it was lots of highways, high rise apartments, smart cities, tunnels in mountains, thousands of trees cut for all this, buying up of agricultural land, continued reduction of common land, and what not. One can of course argue, that even the older infrastructure we had, did come at similar costs. Perhaps it wasn’t so visible, with older media; perhaps its narrative was more muted; perhaps it served the older elite and middle class. Data does tell us that pastoral and tribal communities have had to move due to development action in the past too. Possibly India’s infrastructure is growing much faster now too, in ways comparable to developed nations. (Not that I understand it much, but someone spoke to me about ‘gross fixed capital formation’ – which indicates levels of the nation’s money being put into fundamental infrastructure. India’s levels have been this high only once before, and they indicate high levels of investment is building a longer-term infrastructure base).

This does not mean that sustainability is completely sidelined. In fact even sustainability seems to have gone big! It’s now all about big solar power projects, hydrogen energy. The government itself is invested in organic farming, seed preservation, reviving millets. These are no more radical attempts by some NGOs like Navdanya or Vanastree. The government also wants to prevent the intervention of vested foreign interests in agriculture. Of course they do this too via private capital in agriculture, which they feel will rationalize the system, but they tend to choose national or favoured foreign corporates which they believe (possibly) will not undermine the nation. One also sees several efforts on smaller scale by NGOs, entreprenuers and CSRs to build ecologically balanced spaces. How effective such efforts can be in the eye of the wider storm of large scale development? I don’t know. There are strange distortions too. The trends for millets for example has made millets an expensive food, for instance. The really meaningful efforts for ecological balance are still small scale.

Perhaps we would be naïve to ignore the importance of bigger scale systems, remaining caught in a romance of the small? After all change can come only through systemic shifts in larger socio-economic structures. Here I think some of the arguments that favour the new narrative are worth considering, though not necessarily accepted blindly. An argument from a Hindu nationalist thinker I heard was that one of the reasons that India remained deeply caste-ridden and unequal was because of its deep ruralisation. From a historical perspective he argued that after the decline of the great kingdoms (and here he refers to the early medieval period), a lot of the large cities declined, and majority of people were in rural areas, where caste became entrenched. He believes it is urbanization that breaks this pattern– as caste has strong links with feudalism. He and some other political thinkers believe that by focusing on urbanizing tier 2 and 3 towns, and small areas, and connecting them via highways, creating industry jobs etc., these social features can be altered[1]. It can be asked that when hereditary, feudal hierarchies existed in almost all societies, why has Indian society become so locked and defined by it. Why unlike others it has not been able to weaken these ties in the same way. Of course there may be many answers to that –religious authority, excessive colonial recording and research, electoral politics and caste activism, and so on. There is to some extent a troubled relation with our past – which we want to shed and conserve in the same breath. Anyhow, so the view here is that urbanization, industry, connectivity, technology, aspiration, economic participation – all these will open up a society which till about 2 decades ago was run chiefly by its elite and old middle class. A similar argument was made for bullet trains. I like others, had felt that India really did not need bullet trains, and there was no need to emulate other nations without reasonable grounds. This was again based on the idea, maybe even romance, of gentle paces, local culture, and efficient railway systems that have a rhythm of their own. Yet the view of those pushing fast trains is again about creating well connected city and town networks, allowing the growth of expanded hubs of urban activity and living. Perhaps, developed countries of both Asia and the West have done the same for their own rural areas, allowing for a larger modernization of their social fabric? So, then this means the old must give way for the new, then? Are there also benefits? Will less Biharis now migrate to Punjab, Gujarat or Kerala to work in the future? In a recent discussion on the Punjab, I heard a view. Academics from the region mentioned that a romantic idea of Punjab as a rural area has been developed, though in truth it has historically been one of the areas with maximum urbanization, as well as modern life, culture and education. They were arguing that Punjab needs to think beyond the idea of the ‘pind’ and address economic stagnation.

Of course one can question all this discussion quite easily too. Much of the modern growth is not sustainable, it is harmful to humans and nature alike, and may not last fiscally either. Residential areas have poor occupation, cracking walls, and sewage and waste disposal problems. And so much more. One can cite the impact of fast trains on animal-human conflicts. One can speak of Kerala which involves another kind of rural-urban continuum, which is much more people friendly.

I think both views have merit, though the rapid development model has perhaps too high a cost. Surely, we can no more live in the romance of the village republic, the imagined Gandhian idea of the self-sufficient village, wherein every caste does its professional task and contributes some idea of a whole. Caste activism has deconstructed this picture. Yet the very same Gandhian economic view also went in other useful directions, and engaged with ideas to build ecologically balanced and wholesome lives for people. Many of these are as relevant today as ever, as long as we do not ignore the realities of social inequalities. There is of course a dual aspect. It is the knowledge of specific communities - tribes and castes – that is the carrier of indigenous knowledge as well. It is the same feature that prevents beautiful uses of this very knowledge.

I have watched over the past few years, various Japanese, Chinese and other Asian films and dramas. I see hints of how modernization and indigenous knowledge has been simultaneously nurtured, some of it in ways better than what India did (and some less?). It is up to us perhaps to see what meaningful ideas we catch in our fishnet. For example, if we borrow from Japan –there is Foukouka’s natural farming. But there is also the quick fix solution of Miyawaki forests that have become to new trend today – allowing builders and developers to flatten old trees and then plant new rapidly growing ones. All kinds of knowledges and development paths can serve some benefits, I suppose, if they are invoked from a sensitive, informed and balanced perspective.

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[1] It is also a fact that both for governments as well as market interests, the class group they want to reach out to now, is the new middle classes and poor. Just like in the 90s it was all about our own middle classes. One can see it in much of the advertising and promotion material one sees. There is felt need to tap this talent, and market, also of course also to uplift and empower. Ironically perhaps, these have always gone together.

Can we really cry about the heatwave?

 

There is no denying the heatwave in north India. There is however, also no denying that our abilities to cope with the weather, to adapt to existing weather conditions as a people is at an all time low. The temperatures after all are only 3-4 degrees higher than is usual, every year. But of course, as our bodies are adapted more and more often to ACs, the blast of heat we feel when we step out, the struggle that our bodies internal immunity, circulation, temperature adaptation has to do each time is also equally intense. Even sitting in ACs so many of us crib, that it is not cooling enough, even while our very ACs add further heat to the environment outside, where some poor souls are still carrying on with their work. We are not so much the victims of a heatwave, but rather of a vicious circle of our own making.

Also some basic art of how to be in hot weather is not followed by us. As humans are warm blooded, drinking cold water in the heat, will only make the body generate more heat to maintain balance. Instead, regular water, or at most water with a few sips of cold added for relief is what we ought to stick to. Having a cup or two of tea also helps, counter intuitively. Eat some grains as they steady the stomach, but eat light, not too greasy, don’t move rapidly between very cold and very hot spaces. These would ideally be some basics. Moving quickly from AC to non-AC situations, or drinking cold water on a hot day, is often the reason we end up with colds, headaches and stomach upsets.

A calm mind and slow, deliberate actions also helps – preventing our blood pressures from spiraling here and there. Steady walks in the evening, or even a swim is great, even if it is hot. An active body, is always better at maintaining homeostasis.

The vicious circle is worst because all the offices, malls, homes, cars that rely on ACs, only exacerbates the heat in the surrounding areas, where often less well-off people still have to work – bad weather or not.

Most of us know all this, but somehow, caught in the wave of what our peers say, and the media hype, we just do what everyone else does. Another strange thing is no one really talks of the heat in say Patna, or Churu and Jhunjhunu much, it’s always Delhi – but that’s media focus we suppose. Meanwhile, we are still cutting down trees for development projects – really, do we even have a right to be upset?

Notes with myself

The energy in oneself, energy with potential and intent, remains restless. It is waiting to find the right kind of outlet. This is sometimes a ruse - forever looking. Yet, there are moments where the energy flows and lends itself to me much more willingly. These directions are to be sought. 

Meanwhile, I can see that I have developed such a habit of spending this restlessness is all the wrong directions. When energy is spent  well - you emerge, tired but refreshed. Sometimes the task right in front needs to be done, whether one likes it or not. Sometimes, rebel and move to something else. How to know what to do so, what to act towards? 

I see how much I waste myself. 

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I find that any task, any exploration done in the Work, is not meaningful unless I use it to address my weaknesses, wrong patterns. Doing a task just to cultivate attention alone - well sometimes that is also good. Of course I realize that these two are not entirely different. Whenever attention is brought back, I encounter my contradictions. So this is it - not the mundane doing of tasks, but to be alive to the specific fears, jealousies, insecurities, weakness etc. I encounter. 

Yet, there is something more. Because man can become caught in her own suffering, her own limitations ans the struggle with them. It is like seeking water, while standing by the lakeside sometimes. Slowly, it is also a matter of making that gestalt shift - the moment I capture my attention, I am here, then the past, the wrongs, the sufferings end here. In the now, and i can act and be fully, for whatever is needed. Even this positive action, is a positive struggle. I suppose the struggle is only for the lower self, and for the higher self it is a joy. There are two sides to struggle... worth remembering. Perhaps the trick is to not miss that light peeking behind the struggle. Even struggle is at the realm of the ego, and there is another level too. 

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The many faces of 'Therapy'

 

Sometimes a theory and its critique are both valid. This is what is magical about life and knowledge about life - because it is multi-dimensional. For example, there can be meaningful spiritual and mythic as well as scientific theories about the origin of the universe, and both are true, only at different registers. 

I recently thought about how Freud's theories, those of Carl Jung who distances himself from Freud in many ways, as well as the somewhat controversial 'Logotherapy' are all useful approaches to make sense of human suffering, delusion or trauma, even though they are philosophically/ontologically? so apart. 

Freud tends to see the subconscious as a place of primitive, uncontrolled, dark desires, though also the place for creativity and sexual desire. His whole ouevre is about the struggles of modern man to deal with his neurosis - as a civilized being (typically male) he must suppress several of these primitive influences, though as a result they keep poking at him in dreams, unfulfilled desires and neuroses. Apart from this somewhat questionable macro-theory though, his discovery of the subconscious remains potent. How so many things we experience slide into the subconscious, and sometimes get trapped there in need of release. 

A simple fictional example I read in a period romance novel recently. A man who hurt his knee in a war in the early 1900s, still suffered from pain and stiffness in it, though the doctors had told him he had recovered, and would soon walk normally. Then one day, when he must rescue his lover, he is able to carry the man in his lap for a long distance, without his knee becoming a bother. He is shocked. His fiend tells him, that this is because after his injury, he felt both physical pain and mental pain, as he lost his position in the army and felt useless, unable to help. When the opportunity suddenly arose again, the memory of the pain also dissolved! though this is a fictional case, it is a typical example of the potency of psychotherapy as revealed initially by Freud. 

Carl Jung then, has a different take. He perceived the subconscious not as a dark place hiding bad urges, but as the creative well of the entire human civilization. His approach is linked with his religious-spiritual views. Colonial academics had two kinds of views of primitive times- either as dark pasts that need to be overcome, or a romantic, effervescent wellspring from when mankind was closer to the Gods, nature and the spirits, closer to his truer nature. Accordingly, Jung sees dreams and mythologies as teachers and guides, reminding us of who we are, bringing us back into balance, and telling us of our divine tasks and personalities. 

Logotherapy emerged in the controversial context of the Holocaust (developed by a Holocaust survivor), and seems sometimes like a positive motivational approach, rather than serious psychotherapy? Logotherapy also does not see the subconscious as the enemy. In fact rather than putting much store in the subconscious, it suggests that our problems may be more direct, existential struggles. For instance, I read a case in the popular book 'Ikigai' - Here, a political bureaucrat who is extremely unhappy with his job, underwent therapy for 5 years. He was told that he has a problem with authority, and so he must resolve his issues with his father, in order that things may improve at work. After five years of struggle he tried Logotherapy. It was instead suggested that he may not be in the career of his liking, and after making a change, he became steadily happier. Logotherapy, offers the useful corrective to over analytical academics and therapy which would like to always find a complex answer to a direct, lived problem. 

Jiddu Krishnamurti suggests that both the conscious and the subconscious minds, are really of one essence, and will remain in a mess unless an attention that is without judgment, a choiceless awareness is not fostered. Over my own life I have found that a combination of psychoanalytic, existential and spiritual angles have helped resolve matters. And in the remaining cases, all you need is a some good friends, some dancing, good food, a walk under the moonlight, maybe a drink! 

Romancing other ages and other places

I just finished reading the ‘A Charm of Magpies’ series by K. J. Charles. These are a m/m romance series by a British author, who also by the way is a woman. It is of course not uncommon for women to be writers of male romantic fiction.

Now mostly such romance is to be read for casual pleasure, much like a Mills and Boons, not to be taken too seriously, and with a certain awareness of its unrealistic romantic storymaking. Putting that aside though, I found something amazingly fascinating going on in this series.

 

This story is set in an imaginary Victorian England in which magic operates, and involves a love story between a ‘practitioner’ from a humble class background and a man who is an Earl from an influential family, but has returned to England after a rough 20 years spent as a trader and smuggler in China. A ‘practitioner’ here, implies someone who can do magic, that is control the ether - the energy fields that pervade everything, much like a shaman can manipulate ch’i. The practitioner can manipulate energy through his fingers, move things, touch people and influence their thoughts, hurt someone or heal them, sense negative energies, trap and free spirits, perform some spells, spirits possessions occur, magical duels too. They are sort of like Merlin the warlock, except warlocks here are practitioners gone rogue and evil. Two people deeply connected in magic and affection, may even sense each other’s feelings. The practitioner who is our male lead, Stephen, has the role of a justiciar -  those who ensure that magical norms and ethics are being followed by others like them.

 Anyway, what is of interest here is that Stephen’s, love interest is Lord Crane, who lived freely and openly as a man’s man (i.e. as gay) all those 20 years in Shanghai, a land where no one cares two hoots about all this. He now hates having to be stuck in the niceties of high society Victorian England and further having to hide his sexual preference in a time when people are sent to prison for it. The East is presented with some typical orientalizing gaze, it is crude, rough, lawless, but also freeing, not priggish and open to gay life, lively and never boring. Lord Crane misses that life, but also wants to stay in England as the man he loves - Stephen - is here. Won’t go into the details as that is not the point of this piece.

In England too, the community of practitioners are not that strict about men being with men, as they are of pagan faiths, though they may use such secret knowledge to blackmail people on and off. The Earl Crane’s forefather was a practitioner himself, and magical blood runs through Crane’s veins. While he himself does not do magic, he knows much about it from the openly practiced shamanic cultures of Shanghai, where again magic is openly practiced. Shamans are respected and feared, and are meant to practice simple lives and even celibacy. Stephen, his lover is fascinated to know about this unknown Eastern world where both magic and loving a man can be practiced openly. He wonder what such a life would be like! One of the novels also shows the temperance movement in London in those days, another conservative movement which sees drinking alcohol as evil. 

It is a fascinating twist to today’s age. I have read about gay couples in India who wish to move to the West where they can live more freely. It is also well-known how some people move to the West to move away from narrow-minded cultures (though many in India move more for ambition, jobs and status). To turn this around, to a Victorian age when Britain was far more conservative than some Eastern lands (where homosexuality was at least not a sin, though maybe not as free as depicted in this fiction) makes for a great twist. 

In the last of the books [SPOILERS] the two men have finally taken the leap to travel the world, to see the East. They go to Constantinople, to Shanghai, but finally land in Nagasaki. In this city which is cosmopolitan in those times, they feel a desire to settle. They can be openly together, they begin to learn the language. They enjoy how the peach tree blossom in season and people stop busy activity to admire them and picnic ad even drink under them. Public luxuries unknown in foggy and what priggish England of the age. They decide to live and work there for some years. Most importantly, Stephen the practitioner, begins to work with the magical community here. Here I made the most exciting discovery. While the practitioners in Shanghai were known as Shaman, those in Japan are the mahoutskai! This term immediately harked me back to that sweet Japanese m/m romance called Cherry Maho (those who see this sort of stuff will know). And suddenly I began to see K J Charles' work coming from this vast influence of Japanese, Korean and Chinese paranormal and m/m romance content. Of course that is not the sole influence. Cherry Maho is a quirky story about how men who stay virgin till 30, suddenly gain a magic power that lets them read the thoughts of anyone they touch. This power then (obviously!) helps the lead character find the man he can love.

Cherry Maho is not important I suppose, because mahuotskai might be a generic word for shaman type people and may exist in many other stories. It just happened that for me it was linked with Cherry Maho. There are some nice connections though - the association of magic with m/m romance is not new. Perhaps it is romantic and unreal - in the harshness of the real world. It is a bit like the Angels in America stuff, though that one has a more tragic past. Yet the links of magic with love, especially in male romance stories, whether it is China's danmei stories like Mo Dao Zhu Shi or Cherry Magic or a whole range of paranormal romance (even lesbian and straight) is a fascinating cultural phenomenon. In short the term mahoutskai suddenly brought these universes in contact for me. 

Somewhere in the story, having begun to settle in Nagasaki, Stephen realizes that he may not want to return to England having discovered the freedoms of this land. And recognizing the wanderlust of his lover. He reflects that, ‘it was a great deal easier to hold one’s country sacred if you didn’t have anywhere to compare it to’.

 This thought made me suddenly think so many things. I felt that KJ Charles may have (I’m speculating) felt the same kind of thrill and joy I have experienced in the past few years seeing some Asian dramas (the ones that are not too melodramatic), seeing/m romance, or with paranormal stories, or just simple children’s fantasy or stories with ghosts and mythological creatures from Japan. And she masterfully tries to weave some essences from this into her Victorian fantasy. It may not be true that the Eastern nations were actually that open to alternative lifestyles. But it is the concept of it. Perhaps it is the world that male romance stories and fantasy dramas from the East have conjured in our minds. And how they have suddenly opened out a different mythology, a different kind of television entertainment, so different the American and British content we grew up with in the past decades.

For me over my life, it has been amazing how everything from an Enid Blyton to now Asian dramas or British detective shows from the 80s and 90s, or Iranian films or an American show like Dr. Quinn Medicine woman (donno why I thought of that), have all widened my horizons, have been a forms of travel, have shown me parallels to my own country’s world. Sadly, it is rarely high cinema that moves me, but rather popular television and fiction. People in a different land having challenges similar to yours, and also not at all caring for some things that are big issues in your world, suddenly puts things into perspective. It is the most entertaining way to free oneself from dogma.

 It seems to me that in the past decade Asian content has opened new imaginations in the minds of people, the way perhaps Star Wars or Friends or Abba or the Beatles must have for the rest of the world in another age. I wonder perhaps does this bode of the rise of Asian countries as new superpowers. After all entertainment, runs closely with cultural dominance right? Yet it is so much more than that too. Miyazaki’s own Studio Ghibli films for instance were hugely influenced by European content and music. They carry the deep feeling for Japan and also for universal values, for happy and trauma free childhoods, for healing pain and loss, living through war etc. Don’t we all draw from the cultural depths of others as much as our own? And then it comes back full circle, to teach yet another generation in another land. 

Just the other day I encountered a fascinating YouTube talk. A pair of fathers in America- one of whom is a filmmaker and another a therapist -  were discussing Miyazaki’s film ‘My neighbor  Totoro’. It is a heartfelt film, which could be called a children’s movie, but really could touch anyone who watched it. The two men, were sitting on lazyboy chairs, having not ‘beer and sports TV’ but a detailed discussion on how the film is an fine example on the art of good parenting, how a father raises his two girls, responds to their fantasies an fears and constant excitement without being judgmental and balances his own anxieties. The two middle-aged American men are fascinated with this artistic and heartfelt Japanese film and analyze it thoughtfully. It was yet again a fine example, of how good content is culturally unique and yet belongs to the whole world, transforming anyone who finds it.

 Wow, did not know K J Charles’s m/m romance could take me in this journey of reflection!