Day #16: Starting Economy Afresh...

4th April 2020:  Past few days, while the reports of increasing death and infection has been depressing, there has also been a parallel promising news of the world being cleaned up like never before. River Cauvery and Ganges are running clean apparently, the air quality has improved in 90 cities across the country, today there were photographs of how people in Jhalandhar were able to view the Himalayan range 200 kms away as the heavily polluted air cleared after 30 years, birds have re-appeared in the cities and wild animals seem to be happy as they have more space to move around because humans are not disturbing them. It is as though the planet just needed a short break from humans to clean-up itself within a very short time. What would otherwise cause projects, project management, budgets, timelines, corruption, policies, regulations, audits, reviews, reports, several thousand photographs, employment, equipment, machines and websites, happened much faster without the human agency.  

Couple of years ago, I was called to sit in a government project design discussion, the project was to generate lots of employment through enterprises (it still is), while discussing the project design, I suggested several enterprises that would not destroy the environment or rather use the same in a sustainable manner.  Many of these were centered on essentials such as producing nutritious and safe food, healthy food supplements, natural resource conservation linked enterprises, enterprises that used local traditional knowledge in healthcare, waste management related enterprises, etc., The meeting had representatives from the government and the multi-lateral agency that was funding the project. As the discussion proceeded they came up with other enterprise ideas that were mostly about creating polluting enterprises or enterprises that were considered 'profitable' in the short run, of which several popularly  abound all the time. Their logic being that these were 'established' businesses and 'markets' were assured, so, rural enterprises that are newly created through the project has a better chance of surviving. 

When I argued that this didn't make sense because such polluting enterprises were anyway being pursued without government encouragement, two friends from the government countered by saying that I was trying to 'impose' my 'ideology' on the project. Government officials often have a way of thinking anyone who talks values that they would prefer to practice in personal life, but, will compromise in their professional life as 'ideology'; while their own ideology of protecting status quo market economy through promotion of destructive enterprises is justified as  'pragmatic' approach. 

Now none of the markets but the local and for the essential exists, the global markets will take longer to recover, The 'status quo' markets are gone completely and will take a long time to recover. The 'high value' market is for health care and nutritional food, there is a growing market for traditional healthcare because that has no side-effects, there is a market for many things local. Labourers that are needed for centralized industries are going to take longer to return to their work places and be accepted, so, what are the options open for such projects and initiatives today? 

I was imagining the person in Jhalandhar this morning waking up and finding the Himalayas from their terrace. What a spectacle to have lost, what a wonderment would a person living on the banks of the Cauvery feel suddenly to know that the stopping of industrial pollutants into the river has resulted in it becoming clean, someone may venture a dip even, how much should the ice caps in the Himalayas be blessing the people far below as the ever bellowing hot dirty air supply suddenly got turned off and they could be clean again! It is as though a multi-generational dirt has been washed aside by a virus wiper, but are we ready to see clearly? do we have the vision? 

What  will we do now after the lock down ceases to be? Will be go back to work acknowledging that this was a good break from routine and say, we will  repeat the mistake of the previous generations all over again with the same intensity!  will we talk about 'balancing' environment against jobs creation and once again go back to our destructive ways? will be yet again justify polluting rivers through half baked 'cleanliness' efforts at high cost? will we once more create hot air spewing industries and call it 'growth'? will we go all out to recreate the inequality in society through profit centered air polluting industries that employ several million migrant labourers with no social security and call it 'development'? will we continue to go to our 'jobs' to service a far away market using information and communication technology knowing very well that the service we rendered didn't help them in saving their dear ones, that we were only offering remote cheap labour to their economy and in the meanwhile destroying large village tracks to build our air conditioned offices because we bring in foreign currency? will we continue to feel 'secured' in jobs that take us to centrally air-conditioned offices? 

Imagination, courage and hard work is required to re-create the economy without the associated ugliness. But, first we need to acknowledge that  there is a need for a new economic  beginning and for that we need to acknowledge that the world is beautiful just now. Let's look around and do that first even as we ensure safety of ourselves and our dear ones. 

Arundathi Roy, the language Empress of our times has written about stepping out of the Pandemic thus, "...We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. " 

Choice is ours. 

Arundathi Roy article in full available here.