Ratheesh Pisharody

The year 2020, brings with it many challenges for both the planet as well as the “Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic of India”. When we celebrate India’s “Republic Day” this year on the 26th of January, there should be an attempt do more than just take a day off from work and watch colourful tableau passing through Rajpath. While our “Democracy in Practice” has been under stress from some time now, our “Secular” nature has been overtly challenged by actions of the most recent government. And while our administrative sovereignty has not yet been a problem, our economic sovereignty is debatable due to the choices we have made. Add to this a potent mix of climate and environmental catastrophes, our Republic has its work cut out.

While the challenges that we face need our action, both in plenty as well as well as in its variety, it is also an appropriate moment for us to remember some souls who worked for not only the Independence of India but also towards an original vision for India. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, very frequently referred to as the “Father of the Nation” is usually one name that crops up. An easy choice to make considering his saint-like persona and appeal; also the image-building that followed post Independence. There was one man however, who during Gandhi’s lifetime itself was in the process of putting into practice a lot of what Gandhi was theorising about. His name was Joseph Cornelius Kumarappa, known as J.C. Kumarappa.

Born Joseph Chelladurai Cornelius, he later changed his name to a more “Indian”, Kumarappa, presumably to align with the identity he chose later in life, discarding western clothes for Indian homespun. J.C. Kumarappa is not a name that takes much headline space. We don’t get to hear about his work in schools, nor is he mentioned in television debates. Called an “economic philosopher” sometimes, he transcended some of those categories. He was hardly into the kind of economics that the world understands today and was so much of a practitioner that calling him a philosopher might be considered inadequate.

J.C. Kumarappa understood very early that this part of the world (the undivided subcontinent) needed to use its geography, demography and also idiosyncrasies to further its strengths. And to do so, one would have to conceive something original rather than borrow or align with where the world was heading to—globalisation and capitalism. Considering both then and now, “India lived in her villages” (a quote we attribue to Gandhi), Kumarappa attempted to understand and formulate his plans for a future India by “living in the villages”. 

It is easy to mistake Kumarappa as a mere follower, or in modern terms, as a Gandhian. That is both an insult to him as well as our loss. When J.C. Kumarappa met Gandhi in 1929, Gandhi understood that he now had contemporaries and compatriots who share his idea of India. So more than Gandhi “recruiting” Kumarappa, we should see it as a partnership that went a long way. Sadly enough, it did not go long enough to yield the kind of results that both Gandhi and Kumarappa would have imagined.

Today we live in an India that did not really put into practice any of the ideas that Kumarappa had. What worsens the situation is the very fact that whatever little we tried to imbibe, we have eroded over a period of time. We also stand at the cusp of a global economic meltdown combined with a climate change related Arctic meltdown. The runoff from these meltdowns are going to figuratively and literally wash us away and since our actions speak louder than our words, it is fair to say that both as a global society as well as a country we hardly seem to care.

Adopting some of Kumarappa’s thoughts early on would have been “our answer” to capitalism that has continuously and cleverly morphed into newer and potent forms. While one can hope that the social and political crisis has in theory some solutions in our electoral democracy, the economic trajectory we took off sadly has none. A Republic should have put power in the hands of the people. But in a modern world which defines power via capital, we hardly put wealth in the hands of the masses. 

Decentralisation, ethical creation of wealth, caring for the environment in the process and a holistic view towards life is what the economic philosopher J.C.Kumarappa was about. His well known (but hardly read or acknowledged) “Economy of Permanence” would have been our society’s most cherished book had we taken a different fork in the road. From dabbling with organic manure to making handmade paper, Kumarappa had “got his hands dirty” at a local level, within the unit of what we call a village. Officially, he served as the head of the All India Village Industries Commission (AIVIC).

Granted that J.C. Kumarappa and his thoughts did not mean much to the ‘politicians’ of his times, the tragedy is that he also got erased from public memory after those politicians were replaced by new ones. Every time India went through a crisis in its seven decades of Independence, we did not look “inwards” and have now reached a point where it is almost impossible to realistically implement his vision.

The least we can do today is to remember him. People of the likes of J.C. Kumarappa are the ones we betrayed when we signed the Faustian pact with capitalism and later with the new world order. Our Republic’s Sovereignty, Socialism, Secularism and Democracy needs abundant damage control. Returning to J.C. Kumarappa is impossible, but some respect, remembrance and inspiration will provide us the strength to struggle through these dark times. 

(Ratheesh Pisharody is a freelance writer and independent researcher based in Bangalore.)