Is there an alternative to development under globalisation?

The alternative to development under corporate globalisation is a political one, says

Aseem Shrivastava. It involves the evolution of a participatory ecological democracy
where key economic and social decisions are taken out of the hands of bureaucracies
and giant corporations

If 'development', as we have seen (read Who is development for?), is just a convenient

justification for the sort of economic growth which underlies elite power, what might be
the alternative/s to it?

Nowadays, the English press does not tire of repeating that "development must be
above politics". Is development merely an economic issue, as virtually everyone
among the elite tends to assume? It is very easy for those of us whose interests are
well-served by the growth process in India to imagine development as a black-and-
white, essentially de-politicised, issue. When the political questions have already been
resolved in one's favour things may certainly appear that way. But to anyone who is
routinely excluded by the processes of development, this is far from being the case.

This is the reason that our political parties ' and only when in the opposition ' are able
to exploit opportunities of protest against development projects. It is because they
blithely destroy the livelihood of poor rural communities, even as they create the
material base for the further enrichment of urban elites. Typically, one side (an urban
minority) gains the benefits, another side (a rural majority) pays the costs. Hence the
currency of terms like "destructive development". It is a recipe for environmental
disaster, since those who gain live far from the site of loss and can but poorly
appreciate the damage that they are causing. And those who can do so do not have
the power to influence the course of key decisions affecting their lives ' despite, as we
have seen, the electoral vote.

One implication of what has been said is that people are, in general, not consulted in
the matter of their own development. We live a very long distance away from
substantive democracy. The very idea of, for instance, asking people their opinion on a
certain project in their neighbourhood has a ring of absurdity to it. Examples are legion
enough to bear listing here. In only one case can this author recall a referendum over a

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controversial project. In other words, neither growth nor development, as we see them
unfold in India, is democratically regulated. Participation by the supposed
"beneficiaries" of development is conspicuous by its absence. For if growth and
development were genuinely participatory, they would represent the authentic political
choices of human communities. In other words, no one would be able to extract any
political mileage from protesting development projects. But when people, far from
seeing themselves included, actually find themselves ordinarily excluded from "the
nation" in whose name the projects are carried out, the door is left wide open for the
parties to exploit the opportunity in a cynical manner. Our recent history is replete with
instances of wrong men and women standing ' at the wrong time ' for the right causes.

It is the underlying vision and structure of decision-making that informs the

developmental vision of India Inc that has to be changed if we are to face the
enormous challenges ahead. Development, whether in its "national" mode before
1991, or in its globalised form since then, has routinely reflected the interests of one or
more sections of the ruling elites, while seriously neglecting the needs of the vast
majority. Adivasi women, for instance, have no say in water policies, when it is they
who must suffer the strain of longer walks to water-sources every year. As we have
seen, this is far from coincidental. It conforms to what the present rulers of the world
want from us. It is part of the "invisible empire" that Nehru had anticipated.

Participatory ecological democracy: A political answer to a political problem

With the onset of what looks like the grandmother of all economic depressions infecting
ever larger parts of the world economy, the door has suddenly opened to the possibility
of resuming serious discussion of a genuinely democratic alternative to development
under corporate globalisation.

Given the overwhelming nature of the ecological crisis to which the modern
developmental vision, premised on endless growth, has given birth everywhere, India
must find its own unique way through the woods. One can no longer hope to achieve
anything sustainable by chopping the woods down in order to feed the exorbitant
lifestyles of the urban rich. We can certainly not prescribe such a vision for the vast
majority of this country's population. The trouble with 'Nano-nomics' is that it wishes to
democratise consumption, but not production. It is thus asking for environmental
trouble if the project succeeds.

Any alternatives conceived must be, at once, democratic and ecologically sustainable.
Given the imminence of climate chaos, to name only one of the destructive cycles at
work, we can no longer afford to entertain resource-illiterate visions of endless growth.
Ecological resource-planning has to be undertaken on a war footing from the level of

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the village panchayat.

This does not necessarily mean the end of growth. It does mean the gradual reversal
of energy, water, and resource-intensive growth of the kind that made America and the
West so wealthy. It is not a model that can be generalised across the world without
ecocide consuming us all. Trivial arithmetic can establish that success will be failure, if
we continue with the copy-cat economy.

The alternative vision does not imply the absence of industry or services. Even if
agriculture and allied activities remain the economic mainstay of our people in the
future, it is imperative that opportunities for dignified work are created outside
agriculture in rural areas. India has always had industry, even long before the industrial
revolution in Europe. However, the energy and resource base for industry will have to
become sustainable. Crafts and skills that have languished because of the
discriminatory policy regimes which have always favoured mechanisation (because of
its short-run advantages for capitalist firms) must be supported by the state now. This
is necessary not just in order to revive them but also to ensure ecological efficiency
and sustainability, criteria which were not considered in the drives towards energy-
intensive mechanisation of industrial processes.

A measure of cultural democracy and self-respect would be essential to ensure

success for such radical changes. The West has no answer to the problems that its
industrialisation has created for the world, even if it helplessly wants the world to
imitate its toxic model (notice that they want us to do that while also cutting down our
carbon emissions!). The more perceptive and far-sighted minds in the West have
understood that other parts of the world must judge their success very differently.
Arnold Toynbee, the great British historian, wrote several generations ago:

"The mere degree of a society's industrialisation and mechanisation will be less

significant than the measure of its success in providing solutions to the
problems of pollution, of resource exhaustion, and of social tension, that are at
present the unexorcised concomitants of the industrial system. The future may
reveal a non-Western answer to a problem that was originally presented to the
world by the West."

India is one of the few countries in the world ' thanks to its unmatched diversity,
resilient traditions and enormous size ' where an alternative to self-destructive
industrialisation can still be forged. We have the historic task ' and opportunity ' to find
lasting solutions to problems that are originally not of our making. In doing so, we could
serve as ecological pioneers for the rest of the world. In failing to stay true to
ourselves, we will merely follow ' or even precede ' the West and the rest of the world

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into an easily predictable ecological abyss.

Existing (and further) research in appropriate technology can be deployed to reach

desired goals. Biomass-based energy generation ' though not biofuels at the cost of
food crop cultivation ' can become the basis of a model of low-impact dispersed
industrialisation, which avoids most of the insoluble problems of forced migration and
excessive urbanisation, apart from addressing the intrinsic ecological difficulties of the
traditional model of industrialisation. We have to move from "machinofacture" to
"manufacture" and "ecofacture". Much work has been done along these lines by
experienced people like K R Datye, Suhas Paranjape, Amulya Reddy, Anil Agarwal
and others.

To sustain itself in the future, growth will have to be labour-absorbing and participatory.
Given the enormous (and growing) working population of this country, it will have to be
employment-led, rather than inequality or export-driven. It will necessarily have to
change character radically. A far greater home market ' what the enthusiasts of
"decoupling" are longing for in these dark days of global depression ' will have to play a
key role. From being the bubble-brainchild of vainglorious financial whizkids in New
York or Mumbai, growth will have to mutate into something that can be led by the
thousands of rural communities who constitute the core of this country. A full-scale,
and suitably adapted and audited, form of the employment guarantee scheme will have
to be implemented far more widely than has been the case hitherto. The scope of the
scheme will have to be widened to include not only critical needs of ecological
regeneration and rural infrastructure, but also work on private farms. It must be
ensured that labour is not drawn away during seasonal peaks from vital agricultural
tasks.

To ensure all this in the long run will require the sound health of gram sabhas and
village panchayats which can take democratic decisions pertaining to local welfare and
ecology in a sane, consensual manner.

To make this happen will involve the evolution of ecologically aware political institutions
which can mediate and serve as observers to reduce the role of local corruption in key
decisions.

Given the ecological constraints and the enormity of the wealth that has already been
created around the world, redistribution (both within and across countries) must be a
key aspect of any alternative strategy for the eradication of poverty. This need not raise
too many eyebrows. The NEF estimates that redistributing a mere 1% of the income of
the richest 20% of the world's population would have the same benefit as world growth
of 20% without redistribution. (Think Cuba and Saudi Arabia, neither of which is

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officially a democracy.) Couldn't the enormous private funds sitting in tax havens
abroad be mobilised using something like the Voluntary Disclosure Scheme to initiate a
long overdue process of redistribution? The opportunity cost of such a use of these
funds in India is nil, since they are not being invested here in any case, taking the
punch out of the trickle-down claim.

Look at it another way. The rate of poverty reduction achieved between 1981 and 2001
could have been achieved through the annual redistribution of a mere 0.1% of the
income of the richest 10% of the world's population. In other words, the greater
pressure on the planet's environment during this period came on account of the extra
$44 in the 1980s and $165 in the 1990s spent by the rich for every dollar that was
incrementally spent by the poor. It is clear that population growth is not the real cause
of the global ecological crisis. If there was no growth during this time, but the aforesaid
redistribution was carried out, the rich would be mildly less rich than before and the
poor would be just as poor. But nature and our progeny would be far better off.

The alternative to development under corporate globalisation is a political one. It

involves the evolution ' howsoever difficult and remote this may seem at the moment '
of a participatory ecological democracy. But, as Dr Ambedkar understood well,
"political democracy cannot succeed where there is no economic or social democracy".
In other words, some of the key economic and social decisions have to be taken out of
the hands of bureaucracies (as has been the case especially before 1991) and giant
corporations (as has been the case after 1991). Unless such a decentralisation of
decision-making authority is collectively fought for at every level of civil and political
society, the future of our country ' and the world ' looks rather bleak. But if we can find
the courageous hope to see (and work through) the ecological imperative as the
alternative, our people may finally be able to divine the outlines of the dawn promised
to them long ago.

InfoChange News & Features, May 2009

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