This gets complicated. Remember the industrialists; Seems that Gandhi's concern was to keep businesses happy, or was it was only the Birlas?! If he was around and seeing the India of today, its is apropos to speculate that he could have had a second or third awakening -- a major one, much on the lines of people just trying to stay on track. The first being when he was pushed onto the platform at Pietermaritsburg. I hope I will not be considered a spoiler, but the following links are worth looking at and factoring within larger thoughts. Pietermaritzburg: The Beginning of Gandhi's Odyssey http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Gandhi/Pieter.html ++++++++++
Worth knowing: Gandhi - Financial History - Part I http://www.malaysia.net/lists/sangkancil/2000-12/msg00356.html (excpt 1) Gandhi gave his blessing to the abundant wealth of Birla with his teaching on trusteeship, a concept which asserted the right of the rich to accumulate and maintain wealth, as long as the wealth was used to benefit society. Gandhi apparently borrowed the concept of trusteeship from the writings of the American millionaire, Andrew Carnegie, who had used trusteeship to promote capitalism over socialism. (excpt 2) Apparently Gandhi had reasons for publicly seeming to support a party (Swaraj, vjp) which he admitted in private he was against. Similarly, Gandhi voiced radical views against capitalism and industrialism in his public speeches and writing: Industrialism is, I am afraid, going to be a curse for mankind .... Industrialism depends entirely on your capacity to exploit.[56] ++++++++++ Gandhi, Globalization, and Quality of Life: A Study in the Ethics of Development http://www.mkgandhi-sarvodaya.org/articles/gandhi_globalization.htm ++++++++++ He did reject the factory model of industrialization,and rather preferred that a machine be kept idle than a man/person. This I deeply believed from the time I was around 20 that this should have been the model for India, Not having NAM and then chucking it all away. It is know that Gandhi preferred that money be in the pockets of the factory owners rather than extra money in the hands of the workers. I can relate to do if one grooms a society to live a particular kind of life, where the factory owner has specific responsibilities that lead to a comprehensive understanding as well as dispersion of egalitarian values. Imagine if when TV was introduced in Doordarshan had basic civic learning to all of us, not just the poor, as in Lahan Kutumbh Suki Kutumbh! As also along the lines of;defecating (and building the necessary amenities), spitting pan, groping. Its not just the poor -- the wealthy do it too; and mass training would have made the poor see that they too can at time rebuke those to the haveli born (to the manor born).. . Also when we look at the license raj etc., it helps to note that Mrs Gandhi took advice from industrialists -- right so, but who in the first place could not imagine the idea of competition, Most of them simply could not see other ways of operating and furthering a country like India. It was a particular myopia to say the least. Having said that I happen to live in the West, and for what its worth adding -- there are many things that led to it. Personally speaking, some of us are much better out of India than dead. It not fear needless to add. ++++++++++++ venantius j pinto Message: 9 Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 22:44:12 +0530 From: "soter" <so...@bsnl.in> To: <goa...@goanet.org> Subject: Re: [Goanet] misfired price blame Eric wrote: "Had Gandhi lived, there would certainly have been a new freedom movement, with a restoration of a free economy, enterprise without today's crony capitalists." Comments. Definitely. Gandhi would have started a second struggle to free the villages from central domination. We would have had thousands of republics independent and yet dependent on each other. That would have gone against the capitalist interests and so he was silenced by the gun. But Truth remains the Truth, no matter what the government does to conceal it. Operation green hunt and jailing Binayak Sen is not going to curb dissent, it will only increase it. This nation will pay dearly for its economic greed. We are a billion people and not in millions like the west. We need food and water security, not uranium, armament and computer technology. India's green revolution may have created a short term surplus of food but it has poisoned the land and water and rendered it unproductive in the long run. Punjab is a victim of fertilizers and pesticides. Looks like China will bring India to its senses sooner or later. -Soter