Development has always meant many things to many men and they have argued about it ‘loud and long, each in his own opinion exceeding stiff and strong,’ like the blind men
who went to see the elephant. But perhaps it is right to say that a significant change is coming about in man’s understanding of what development means. The essence of the new understanding is expressed in the Papal Encyclical: ‘Development cannot be limited to mere economic growth. In order to be authentic, it must be complete: integral, that is, it has to promote the good of every man and the whole man’ (Populorum
Progressio). These words are followed by a quotation from an eminent specialist further elaborating the same theme: ‘We do not believe in separating the economic from the human, nor development from the civilisations in which it exists. What we hold important is man, each man and each group of men, and we even include the whole of humanity.’ Reflected in these sentences is a shift of emphasis from development as a mere economic phenomenon to development as a more inclusive and comprehensive concept. Before we dismiss development as a simple economic phenomenon let me underline the tremendous importance of the economic aspect of the problems of development. I do this not because I am jealous about my profession and its point of view, but because if development is concerned with people, its economic aspect is the most pertinent issues for the vast majority of people all over the world. In a world where millions of men, women and children worry about their next meal, where human life is reduced to less than the level of animal existence for want of the materials things of life, we can never underestimate the economic dimension of development. This is particularly true in our country where even after two decades of planning for development, life is a bitter struggle day after day for the many millions whom we see and pass by every day. To them development is not the new name for peace or justice, but the old name for food. It
is a frequent temptation for those of us who do not have to worry about the basic necessities of life (which, in our context, simply means those who thrive on the drudgery and suffering of others) to quote the Scripture and say: ‘Life is more than food, the body more than clothes.’ Evil though we are, we seem to know that stones and snakes are no substitute for food when our children are hungry, but wise as we claim to be we seem to forget that culture and values are no substitute for food when other children are hungry. How right was Gandhiji to insist that to a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God can dare appear is work and promise of food and wages! When we attempt to lift development from its worldly moorings let us be warned that it hides the danger of being preoccupied with ethereal issues to evade our responsibility for the earthly miseries of others.
It must also be noted that the insistence on the material aspect of development itself has often been seen as part of a wider emphasis on humanisation. The idea is very old indeed. On Marxist thought, of course, the economic structure is the basic foundation on which the rest of human development is to be based. But it is necessary to be dogmatic about the relationship between economic structure and human development to see that they very intimately connected. Mill saw this connection when he discussed the lot of the bulk of the human race of his time who were ‘slaves to toil in which they have no interest… drudging from early morning till late at night for bare necessaries, with all the intellectual and moral deficiencies which it implies. He described them as ‘untaught, for they cannot be better taught than fed; selfish, for all their thoughts, are required for themselves; without interest or sentiments as citizens and members of society, and with a sense of injustice rankling in their minds, equally for what they have not, and for what
others have…’ Our own Five-Year Plans have viewed development basically in this manner. The First Five Year Plan proclaimed that the aim of planning in the country was not only to increase the availability of material goods in the country, but ‘to open to our people opportunities for a richer and more varied life.’ And the Second Plan said: ‘A society which had to devote the bulk of its working force or its working hours to the production of the bare wherewithal of life is to that extent limited in its pursuit of higher ends. Economic development in intended to expand the community’s productive power and to provide the environment in which there is scope for expression and application of diverse faculties and urges.’
If this is the case, our criticism of the old approach to development cannot be that it emphasis the economic aspect, for such an emphasis is necessary, nor that it is partial, for it is admittedly so. The trouble with the old approach is something rather different. In implying that economic development is the attempt to increase the availability of goods and services in an economy (obviously for higher purposes) through the increased and more rational utilisation of capital, the old approach to development conveyed the impression that the development problem has been the same in all periods of time and is the same in all parts of the world. The greatest havoc caused by the old approach to development is the creation of this pernicious myth about a universally general development problem with the implication of a universally valid diagnosis and an equally universal remedy. The danger is that we will soon enough realise the partial nature of the old approach without challenging its underlying assumption of universalism, and that the new approach that we evolve will only reinforce the myth of universalism by making the concept of development more inclusive and comprehensive. One shudders to think of a concept of development which is all-inclusive and universal as it then transforms itself into an ideology with totalitarian overtones.
This danger is very real because what is often considered an economic approach to development has given us our terminologies about development in general and the universalism lies subtly hidden in them. Consider, for instance, the division of the world into ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries. If we accept a limited economic interpretation of development there is some justifications for such a division, however
arbitrary the line may be that draws the distinction between the two. The division is justified because from this point of view there is a universally valid or at least universally recognised scale to measure development. It is not surprising that even after we have accepted a more inclusive concept of development our division of the world into ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries remains exactly what it was before? We accept the old division (possibly with new names given, ‘North’ and ‘South,’ for instance) and then try to stuff into the old concept new content in terms of values, institutions etc. some sophisticated versions of this kind of gymnastics are coming to be widely accepted in the name of a ‘comprehensive’ view of development. The attempt to replace the concept of development with the more fashionable and more amorphous term ‘modernisation’ is the best example of this kind. Modernisation is said to be more comprehensive than development in the sense that it includes, along with economic development, aspects such as cultural change and institutional transformations as well. The message is that what the ‘developing’ countries need is not only food and clothing, not even televisions and jumbo planes, bit also more science, more culture and more ‘democracy’ (or ‘communism’ as the case may be) – more in fact of everything that the ‘developed’ countries happen to have. The modernisation approach is accompanied by the implicit, belief that the ingredients of modernisation are all alien to the native soils of the ‘developing’ countries.
Strange as it may appear, such a ‘comprehensive’ view of development provides the philosophy for both pedestrian gradualism and romantic radicalism in the attempt to translate the concept of development into operational terms. Benign champions of development are never tired of reminding the world and particularly the ‘developing’ countries that the ‘developed’ countries achieved their present state of ‘development’ or
‘modernization’ as a result of correct mixture of faith and good works applied over the course of a few centuries and hence novices should not be impatient to reach such heights of excellence. ‘Discipline yourselves’, they are told, ‘or mend your ways now so that someday your great grand-children will reach the stage we are in now’. The ‘comprehensive’ view of development can, and in fact often does fall into this rut of what our Latin American friends call the new doctrine of ‘developmentism’. At the same time, it also supplies the creed of action for the romantic radicals who want a complete replacement of the values and institutions of the ‘developing’ countries here and now because they are not compatible with ‘development’. In both cases the goals are clear because they are universal; difference of opinion arises only in terms of the pace of action.
‘Catching up’ ideas implied in these and other old and new concepts of development are not compatible within the desire to make ‘development’ more authentic. If development is seen as a process of humanisation it cannot be a picture of some always following the others. It has to reflect the freedom of the spirit of man not only to discover new paths to old destinations, but also to change his course, to move to different goals. Is this not what we mean when we assert: ‘Man is only truly man is as far as, master of his own acts and judge of their worth, he is author of his own advancement, in keeping with the nature which was given to him by his Creator and whose possibilities and exigencies he himself assumes’ (Populorum Progressio)? The commonly accepted interpretation of the ‘comprehensive’ view of development goes contrary to this
essential emphasis of development as a humanizing phenomenon. Nor is this all. A ‘comprehensive’ view of development which has not fully extricated itself from the universalism of a partial approach to development stands in great danger of becoming more materialistic than that partial economic view. The partial economic view tends to become exclusively materialistic because it leaves out ‘non-economic’ factors. The ‘comprehensive’ view may bring in the non-economic factors as well, but only to sacrifice them all at the altar of Almighty Mammon. Thus the acquisitive spirit is recommended because it will increase wealth; or communism is recommended because it will increase wealth quickly; or democracy because it will ensure a sustained increase of wealth; or Christianity because it will increase wealth here and in the hereafter! Development then becomes the new name for the golden calf. I find it difficult to decide which is a greater danger–the overemphasis on material things latent in the partial economic view of development or the surrender to material things latent in this type of ‘comprehensive’ view.
ment into operational terms. Benign champions of development are never tired of reminding the world and particularly the ‘developing’ countries that the ‘developed’ countries achieved their present state of ‘development’ or ‘modernization’ as a result of correct mixture of faith and good works applied over the course of a few centuries and hence novices should not be impatient to reach such heights of excellence. ‘Discipline yourselves’, they are told, ‘or mend your ways now so that some day your great grand- children will reach the stage we are in now’. The ‘comprehensive’ view of development can, and in fact often does fall into this rut of what our Latin American friends call the new doctrine of ‘developmentism’. At the same time it also supplies the creed of action for the romantic radicals who want a complete replacement of the values and institutions of the ‘developing’ countries here and now because they are not compatible with ‘development’. In both cases the goals are clear because they are universal; difference of opinion arises only in terms of the pace of action.
‘Catching up’ ideas implied in these and other old and new concepts of development are not compatible within the desire to make ‘development’ more authentic. If development is seen as a process of humanisation it cannot be a picture of some always following the others. It has to reflect the freedom of the spirit of man not only to discover new paths to old destinations, but also to change his course, to move to different goals. Is this not what we mean when we assert: ‘Man is only truly man is as far as, master of his own acts and judge of their worth, he is author of his own advancement, in keeping with the nature which was given to him by his Creator and whose possibilities and exigencies he himself assumes’ (Populorum Progressio)? The commonly accepted interpretation of the ‘comprehensive’ view of development goes contrary to this essential emphasis of development as a humanizing phenomenon. Nor is this all. A ‘comprehensive’ view of development which has not fully extricated itself from the universalism of a partial approach to development stands in great danger of becoming more materialistic than that partial economic view. The partial economic view tends to become exclusively materialistic because it leaves out ‘non-
economic’ factors. The ‘comprehensive’ view may bring in the non-economic factors as well, but only to sacrifice them all at the altar of Almighty Mammon. Thus the acquisitive spirit is recommended because it will increase wealth; or communism is recommended because it will increase wealth quickly; or democracy because it will ensure a sustained increase of wealth; or Christianity because it will increase wealth here and in the hereafter! Development then becomes the new name for the golden calf. I find it difficult to decide which is a greater danger–the overemphasis on material things latent in the partial economic view of development or the surrender to material things latent in this type of ‘comprehensive’ view.
My complaint is not against the comprehensive view as such. The danger as I see it lies in implicitly combining the all-inclusiveness of the new view of development with the universalism of the old new view of development. The way out is not to give up the comprehensiveness of the new view but to recognize with it quite explicitly the need for specificity. If development is concerned with each man and each group of men, and if men and groups of men are also to be the authors of their advancement it will have its specific characteristics in different periods of time and among different groups of men.
Hence the meaning of the ‘human’ will have to be understood in terms of the categories of the particular age and the ethos of a particular group of men. It will have to be understood in terms of men’s attempt to be more human, their fights against powers and principalities–many of them their own creations–their victories and defeats, their hopes and aspirations, which even in their noblest forms fall short of the truly human.
But I must be more specific! This is the first All India Christian Consultation on Development. I can see the relevance and rationale of our Consultation only to the extent that in the next few days we make a serious effort to get a perspective of development in the Indian context today, to spell out the content that we will put into the concept of development. In the first place it means that in terms of specificity we go a
little beyond what has been said by others and by us on previous occasions. Most Christian pronouncements have so far concentrated on broadening the concept of development from its limited economic aspect to the larger human aspect. But they have also tended to be universalistic in their bias mainly because of the international composition of the conferences and consultations from which they have emerged. The
world view of the general problem of development has to be supplemented by the particular view of the specific problems of development. Obviously, the task will be to relate the Christian concern for development which is all-inclusive to the Indian problem of development which is specific. I have no illusions that it is going to be easy, but it is this difficult task that we must attempt.
I would like to suggest a few major aspects of this task to guide our thinking If we take a human approach to development our primary concern must be about the many millions in our country for whom even today–after two decades of planning for development–survival is a bitter struggle. During the initial periods of planning it was a common feature in our country to exhort people to make sacrifices for the sake of the
future generation. That future generation has come with no more hope of a better life. Many other countries in the world which started their deliberate development process along with us have shown their people that a richer life is a possibility. We should not minimize our achievements of the past two decades, but the fact remains that these achievements have made little difference to the vast majority of our countrymen. We must take this problem seriously and see why our development effort has been so weak or misdirected.
Has it been because we have not understood the mechanism of change in the rural areas where the large section of our population lives? Or has it been because we have failed to bring about the bold transformation which development demands in spite of our assertion that ‘the task before an underdeveloped country is not merely to get better results within the existing framework of economic and social institutions, but to mold and refashion them so that they contribute effectively to the realization of wider and deeper social values’? (Second Five Year Plan). Or is the problem really that we have been too gradualist in our approach to development influenced too much by a vague liberal notion of ‘democracy’ which in effect leaves it to an elite to decide what is best for the ‘masses’? If so, has not the time come for some major changes in our economic and social organizations to alter the power structure in our country so that justice for all becomes a reality?
Finally, there is the question of the involvement of the Churches in the process of development. We must try to see how the term ‘involvement’ is to be understood in our context. Often, we tend to identify it with the running of a few ‘developmental projects.’ They have a place, an important place, to enable us to give concreteness to our concerns. But do they turn out to be little acts of charity to satisfy our uneasy conscience, and do they make it difficult for us to see the wider issues of th development problem? Do they deteriorate into pockets of vested interests to perpetuate power and authority? Again, how do we express our concern for development and participate in the process of development with critical discernment at the local and national levels joining hands with all who are committed to the task of establishing ‘a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of national life’?
CISRS Bangalore
