Poverty and tradition

[Guest guest]

Arial">David Salmon, Fri May 4, 2001 3:44 pm wrote: “On

his own list, [Malhotra] and others, I hear, are assembling a "book"

to explain the origins of Indian poverty, which the proposed outline

unmistakably lays at the door of "colonial aggression" and, perhaps,

"globalization." If

there is any appreciation of the indigenous roots of Indian poverty, it is

obscure. A friendly but cynical

Westerner in California sitting on his back porch (in local dialect, deck)

could question the objectivity of the enquiry, and hence its utility.”

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Arial">RESPONSE:

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Arial">The issue of whether or not there is Eurocentrism in scholarship and

education received preconceived dismissal on this list before even providing a

definition, or criteria for evaluation, or empirical evidence. This seems strange

given the great pride about scholarly hermeneutics. Now there seems to be

another (un) scholarly rush to judgment, this time about a proposed book on the

economic history of India that would be a collection of essays by eminent

economists and historians. This instance is the first I ever heard in which a

book is critiqued before it is written, before the individual authors for the

chapters are selected, and even before the outline is finalized. How much

paranoia of losing ‘control’ and power there must be!

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Arial">The proposed book was inspired by favorable responses to remarks I made

in Washington, DC a few weeks ago, at a private seminar at the US Chamber of

Commerce, where representatives from the UN, various private funding agencies,

and NGOs were discussing ways to alleviate poverty amongst the four billion

poor people of the world. The issues I provoked included: What were the

internal and external historical factors causing poverty in regions that were

economically prosperous in earlier periods? What is reversible now and how? Is

there a less capital-intensive method of development than the present top-down

western one promoted by multinationals via IMF/WB? [by the way, there were

demonstrators outside the building protesting the Montreal Summit, and this

brought some of my issues into greater focus.] What indigenous technologies

were successful at one time and what might be their relevance today? Is

tradition a cause or potential cure for economic problems? By conflating

tradition with religion (as though only the west had secular know how), and

obsessively locating social problems as ‘essences’ of non-western cultures, did

the economic planners throw out the baby with the bathwater?

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Arial">The book is hoping to go into original sources to construct the nature

and extent of India’s economy in the past, both domestic and foreign trade, and

to include the works of Amartya Sen, Romila Thapar and other scholars both

Indian and non-Indian. The special focus is on theorizing the origins of

poverty in India, a major topic for Amartya Sen in particular. Proposals for

contributions are welcome from all interested parties. Prior to publishing, it

is hoped that the individuals papers will have gone through peer review and

presented at a panel.

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Arial">The knee-jerk and premature rush to judgment in the above-mentioned

recent posting on this list reminds us of the extent of Eurocentrism and phobia

that exists, often unconsciously, because the book is seen as possibly bringing

out the magnitude of colonial plunder of India, the myth of modern triumph as

‘western’, and the illusion of top-down developmental economic policies that

serve to further concentrate economic power. However, those afraid of losing

out their scholarly opportunity as saviors of the oppressed need not fear, as

poverty resulting from the past few centuries of history is unlikely to get

drastically reduced even over the next generation. Is Eurocentrism the shadow

side of western culture that needs to be uncovered?

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Arial">RM

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