:: Balbir Punj

Towards 2008, with hope

By Balbir K. Punj

The global conference on climate change in Bali coming almost at the fag end of the year revealed that humanity has understood that it would have to hang together if it were to avoid being destroyed separately. The Nobel Prize this year has gone to climate change champion and former US vice president Al Gore and to the international panel that monitors the change, headed by Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri. That was another recognition of the critical issue of climate change and the need for all nations to work together to prevent it.

One aspect of this global phenomenon is the competitive economy that the western development model presents. The high level of energy intensity such an economy demands has already raised oil prices to nearly $100 a barrel, two and half times over the last 12 months. Adopting the western model of development, both India and China have become the largest hunters for oil and gas, giving Americans the chance to blame climate change on the developing countries while refusing to budge even an inch from its own high energy demands.

Climate change and terrorism are the two most dangerous challenges the world faces. In the year that is about to end several Muslim terror plots were uncovered in time in the West to prevent thousands of deaths. But the enthusiasm for terror has not been curbed. Highly motivated terror groups are being trained in many parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan and other places. Sustaining this enthusiasm is the belief that only one religion is true and therefore must be pushed down the throats of others. Again, as in climate change, governments are hesitant to call a spade a spade.

The West brought us the idea of one-dimensional change. History tells us that pluralism is a later development in the West, and society as a cooperative endeavour, rather than a competitive one, is also a later development. Imposing its religion and value systems was part of the process of colonial expansion of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Both Communism and Nazism were the outgrowths of this one-dimensional culture that assumed the right to impose itself on others through force if necessary.

It would be instructive to view the history of the entire second millennium as a conflict between the two branches of Semitic religion, Christianity and Islam. The latter won the first round, but the former recovered with science and technology on its side and finally vanquished Islam by defeating the Ottoman Empire. But Islamic monism was waiting to take its revenge. Or at least that is how Islamic militancy and its architect Osama bin Laden view their own brand of terrorism that has created sleeper cells of potential terror strikes across the world.

As we approach the second decade of the 21st century, we could reflect whether the Indian approach of cooperation rather than competition — of welcoming noble thoughts from everywhere, instead of holding on to one single stream as the final truth — has begun to influence global thinkers.

The soaring popularity of Indian systems of yoga and ayurveda in the West is often quoted as a return of the human civilisation to the pluralist and wholesome values of India. Several medical faculties in the United States are already teaching ayurveda as part of their medical curriculum. There is also a recognition that the dominance that India has achieved in information technology is largely due to its people’s genius for arithmetic and logical thinking. Logic or nyayashastra was part of Hindu teaching from time immemorial.

The month of December focused on the Citigroup’s appointment of India born and educated Vikram Pandit as its CEO to pull it out of the sub-prime mess. Earlier, India born Indra Nooyi had taken over Pepsico. In the last 20 months we have seen Indian success in taking over troubled western multi-national corporations, Lakshmi Mittal’s acquisition of Arcelor and Tata’s of Corus being cases in point. "Indians are going around buying western companies as if they are shopping for shirts," says FICCI secretary-general Amit Mitra. Many others see in this success the reversal of the trend of western MNCs taking over Indian companies.

Parallel to this runs the reversal of the earlier trend of brain drain. Those who went to Silicon Valley to set up businesses that became billion dollar behemoths are today looking for investment opportunities in India as much as in China. Indian billionaires in the US like Kanwal Rekhi have banded together in the organisation TiE to create a vehicle for their investment to support start-ups in this country. The annual meetings that New Delhi now sponsors of Indians abroad are a recognition that the Indian Diaspora has become a major factor in the worlds of both finance and culture. Many Indian thinkers like Dr M.S. Swaminathan and Dr Amartya Sen have begun to refer to the first hundred years of the third millennium as the Indian Century.

The question that many are asking is how a country constrained by a coalition government that depends for its survival on a small party with a presence only in three states, can contribute its full potential to global growth. The Indian success — in spite of having a government that bemoans its inability to push through reforms — is because of the freedom that Indian traditional enterprise enjoys today.

Is India once again destined to play a global role as it did in the early part of the last millennium? It is a fascinating thought as Indian entrepreneurs, teachers, scientists and thinkers get increasing recognition in the West, and India itself breaks away from the command and control economy that had constrained it for half a century. Here one can also contrast India’s success with democracy with the military’s grip in two of its neighbours.

Right now the people of Pakistan are struggling to regain the right to elect their government and Bangladesh has lapsed into a military backed regime with no idea when the ballot box will decide who will govern that country. Why is India succeeding with democracy despite its diversity while these two Muslim majority countries are failing to hold on to democracy?

India succeeds with democracy because democratic principles are built into India’s social and philosophical structures. It could thus turn a Buddha who challenged the Vedic society into one of its own divine incarnations. The acceptance of many shades of grey meant that you could always experiment with myriad combinations to create different tapestries. If these first hundred years are to go down as the Indian Century, the commitment to pluralism and syncretism enshrined in Vedic insight has to be renewed with vigour.

Balbir K. Punj can be contacted at bkpunj@gmail.com