A friend on his field trip to Jharkhand posted an elegant capture of himself standing in the middle of a red-mud path, snaking into an even more stunning forest. He wrote, “...some of the poorest and most unstable districts of India. Yet, the state, which has seen more than 10 different governments in its mere 16 years of existence, is perhaps one of the most strikingly beautiful parts of the country. So is its demographic makeup – incredibly diverse and intriguing to the core.” More staggering was a comment below the photograph, “I hope they never pave that road.” The lucid sentence has ever since refused to leave me – it subtly challenges our whole economic idea of development.
To high schoolers, the first definition of economics is told to be the problem of choices arising out of resource scarcity and the insatiability of human needs. This, unchallenged, goes on to shape our children’s evolving designs about the best ways to arrange production, coordinate trade, and live in financial harmony. But we never put to scrutiny the basis of this economics, after all, that’s something only ‘experts’ are qualified to do.
In his book, Ha-Joon Chang plainly says that 95 percent of economics is common sense made to look difficult, with the use of jargons and mathematics. Also, our schooling vehemently discourages dissent from these fundamentals, especially when they come from children who are expected to consume, not question.
Patriotic Customers of Our Poisonous Economies
But have we asked if our resources have always been scarce? And why have we distinguished ourselves as pigs whose needs can never be sated? The economic growth we keep clamouring about is based on the consumption of production. ‘Make in India’ fighter jets, luxury BMWs, ghost cities, and bullet trains – we may need them or not – but please, come and plunder, pollute and steal our wealth to earn us revenue and forex through exports.
Our planet is on your plate. We are a ‘third-world country,’ an underdeveloped one. Our abundantly rich village republics with self-sustaining food systems, diverse learning societies and cultural plurality are impoverished. They are evidently ‘non-productives’, adding no value to the national economy. If you live in cordiality with nature, then how can you be an asset to the economy?
Governments agitating about climate change and fossil fuel depletion are the ones desperate to have their citizens buy cars, and to have corporations set up air-conditioner manufacturing plants by snatching away the lands of dumb village folk – who in their illiteracy cannot understand our sophisticated visions – through ‘swift’ land acquisition laws. Our progress is caged in high-rises and opulent shopping complexes.
We are first seduced to eat what we do not want to, what makes us sick – and then to have liposuction done to survive. While lavishly draining both food and energy, we become patriotic customers of our poisonous economies. We are precisely the children of corporations with both hypocrisy and toxins hidden safe in our big, fat bellies.
We Create Poverty, Manufacture Wars & Poison Minds
20 million have been forcefully pushed out of the homes they inhabitated for centuries because of dam-related projects – only to keep our fans runnings? And yes, we promote education by lighting up streets with reading lamps for the children of the same displaced who migrate to city slums and search for fortunes on our six-lane highways.
We create poverty, manufacture wars and poison minds. We declare wars against those of our own people who disagree with our notion of development. And then, take pride in being an ‘emerging power,’ as Vandana Shiva puts it up – I do not understand how an ancient civilisation like ours could ever ‘emerge.’ We are self-proclaimed beggars.
The dangerous ideas have been conveniently accepted as rational theorems on which nations continue to thrive. They must never be questioned, otherwise you are being funded by ‘enemy countries’ and are a part of an anti-national, international conspiracy. This is a government with a ‘cultural agenda’ and no sense of what a culture is. They do not even know that Indian society has had peaceful co-existence as its integral tradition.
A New Paradigm of Sustainability Needed?
How little we talk about being satisfied and meeting our elementary necessities. Again in history, we are acting like civilisers from Europe commissioned to bring order to this chaotic world of paupers. An economic system based on greed will only push us closer to disaster. This isn’t a quest to save the planet – the planet doesn’t need us – but to save ourselves.
India must lead the world towards a new paradigm of sustainability. We need to exemplify that GMO-crops, bottled water, nuclear weapons, and skyscrapers are not what make us nations or prosperous economies, but our living communities. It is time that 100 smart cities take inspiration from a million villages. We must opt out of our own murder and get our economics right. I hope that road is never paved.
(Akshat Tyagi is a 15-year-old entrepreneur and author from Delhi. His book ‘Naked Emperor Of Education: A product review of the education system’ is the first Indian student voice against the dehumanising model of schooling. He headed India's No 1 Teen LifeZine in the past. He writes for several online publications and is engaged in independent research.)
Also Read:
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)