30-Sep-2020 12:00 AM
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Aroop Volume 4..................
Guest Editor: Ananya Vajpeyi
Failure
In Hind Swaraj, Mahatma Gandhi delineated two currents of human culture in history: sudharo “the appropriate way”, and kudharo “the harmful way”. He translated these Gujarati words into markers of identity and difference – Indian civilization (sudharo) versus Western civilization (kudharo). He could think in terms of these two paths in 1909 because there was still at that time a real dilemma, despite 150 years of British colonialism already having inflicted deep and lasting injuries on India. Some recovery, some healing was still imaginable; India could even then stay on its own course, which was the auspicious and beneficial one for it (implied in the positive prefix “su” before “dhara” or stream). Not only was it the right way for India – it was a universal claim Gandhi made, that this was in fact how all of humanity ought to proceed. But through the 20th century, despite decolonization, in fact only kudharo prevailed. What was merely Western civilization became global civilization, and in the process, from a Gandhian perspective, the whole world lost its way. And this we now know to be true. Between fascism and populism in politics, global warming and climate change in the environment, neoliberalism and inequality in economics, and finally, an utterly debilitating and intractable public health emergency in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, we are plunged into the darkest possible phase of recent memory. Democracy has failed. Ecology has failed. Feminism has failed. Socialism has failed. Capitalism has failed. Not just in the United States or Russia, not just in China or India, not just in Germany or the United Kingdom, not just in Israel or Brazil, not just in Iran or Turkey, not just in Pakistan or Sri Lanka – the failure is comprehensive, all encompassing, and complete. Gandhi’s swaraj, satyagraha and ahimsa, flaring like brief beacons of hope in impenetrable darkness, are now difficult to even recall, in their meaning, in their purpose, in their promise of that other word, sudharo, and of the world it could have stood for. We can ask who is to blame but we are better off asking if anyone is blameless, because the answer is simpler – no. We are all, each and every one, complicit in the failure of the human endeavor that appears to be unfolding all around us.
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