NEHRU vs GANDHI

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY

On

• Get Rid of Poverty• Industrialization• Mixed Economy • Planning Commission

• Man of Science• Imperial Colonialism• Hind Swaraj• Ideal Village Life• Political Structure• Village Industries• Society

GANDHI AND NEHRU

MAHATMA GANDHI

• Gandhiji was a man of science.

• Well aware of the scientific methodologies.

• His : science that is irrespective of region, religion, caste and economic status should be encouraged..

• Science is the cause of everything in nature.

• He elaborates about science of khadi, satyagraha, ahimsa, child birth, democracy amongst many others..

GANDHIAbout

Gandhiji

GANDHI – MAN OF SCIENCE

• Khadi Philosophy - Proposes an India of villages, each one of them being self-reliant,

self-sufficient and self-governing.

• Satyagraha was not mere passive resistance. It meant intense activity - political activity - by

large masses of people.

• Inspired from the concept of Ahimsa, he talked about the ‘Science of Love’, rather than the ‘Science of Violence’, which was prevalent then.

AboutGandhiji

IMPERIAL COLONIALISM

• Gandhi insisted that “ The English have not taken India; we have given it to them. They are not in India because of their strength: but because we keep them ”

• He was one of the earliest to realize that

colonialism was something to be overcome in our own consciousness first

Reference: The Moment of Manoeuvre

ImperialColonialism

• Unless this ‘Intimate Enemy’ was exorcised and exiled, unless we addressed this ‘Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism’, we would always be people enslaved by one power or another, whether foreign or native.

ImperialColonialism

IMPERIAL COLONIALISM (2)

Reference: The Moment of Manoeuvre

WHAT WAS HIS VISION FOR INDIA ?

GANDHI - MODERNIZATION

Gandhiji's Modern state Today’s Modern state

•‘Swaraj-re-inscription of modern state’

•Create something new from available and alien

•Home-Rule

•Machinery-symbol of Modern Civilization

•‘Mad rush for machines’

•Concentration of power

Reference : Dividend Modernity

Gandhi –Moderniz

ation

WHAT IS HIND SWARAJ?

• Education: Ethical education will occupy the first place.

• Machinery: Machinery is grand yet awful invention.

• True Civilization: It involves notions of self-rule, self-knowledge, duty, morality and mastery over mind and senses.

INDIAN HOME RULE

Reference : Hind Swaraj

IndianHome Rule

What education should we give?

•One confuses his ‘disliking’ of machines with ‘hatred’ towards science.

“Science is nothing but a search for truth-truth not only in the physical world, but in the world of logic, psychology, behavior and so on.”

• English - Necessary for scientific development • Primary Education – Character building

EDUCATION

IndianHome Rule

“ Mechanization is Good, when the hands are

too few for the work to be accomplished, it is

evil when there are more hands than required

for the work, as is the case in India. ”

• Seeked to increase physical comforts • Lead to poverty, unemployment

MACHINERY

IndianHome Rule

MACHINERY

• Charkha is a machine.• Every village should have electricity.

-Should be owned by the villagers.• Heavy machinery has its inevitable place.

-Should be owned by the State

“No machinery for the cure of idleness but the charkha. This machine no one can oust.”

Reference : Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi

IndianHome Rule

TRUE CIVILIZATION

What is True Civilization?

VILLAGE LIFE

• He ardently professed a village life for every Indian rather than modern civilization.

He said an ‘Indian’s heart belongs to the rural life’

• The philosophy behind his strong argument was :

Modern State

Competition

Greed

Conflicts

Village Life

LoveHarmony

Contentment

AN ALTERNATIVE TO MODERNIZATION

VillageLife

CONCEPT OF INDIAN VILLAGE

No urban India: Everyone lives in the villages

Indian village the nerve centers of Indian handicraft.

Village had always been the center stage for Gandhiji

His concept of Ideal village dealt with all the possible amenities, facilities but in a village environment such that everyone was self sufficient

VillageLife

Village life

•Drainage systems• Modern Medicine • Having doctors doesn't mean healthy citizens

• Against Railways and Dam projects • Professed sufficient light, ventilation, cottages with courtyards, a co-operative dairy and school education, primary secondary and High schools

ever-widening, never ending supporting circles

IDEAL INDIAN VILLAGE

Political Structure Sanitation

InfrastructureVillage

Life

TRUE CIVILIZATION

‘Poorna Swaraj’

Complete Independence

Autonomous development of local Communities

Villagers development in every walk of life,( )

Gram Swaraj, Ram RajyaOceanic Circle,

Eliminate Cityversus Village antagonism

Gandhiji’s Translation

English Translation

TrueCivilization

The outer circle would not crush the inner circle but would strengthen it and derive strength from it.

POLTICAL STRUCTURE

The power moves from up, top of the pyramid (national government) to the base of the pyramid i.e. village.

LifeTalukaVillageVillager GOVT.

STATE GOVT.

TALUKA

VILLAGE

TrueCivilization

CONCEPT OF VILLAGE INDUSTRIES

A novel concept propagated by Gandhiji

Empowers the people

‘Self reliant’ ‘Self sufficient’

‘Self-sustaining’‘Self-governing’ VillageIndustries

Reference: Gandhi: Village Industries

VILLAGE INDUSTRIES

Spinning wheel, the real life giving Sun’

Industries which worked (Prevalent today)

•Provide cheap milk[basic food] for everyone•Manufacture footwear from dead cowsSmall Scale Industries

(couldn’t work)

(3) Hand made Paper Industry (4) Machine Oil Industry

(1)Khadi Industry (2) Dairying Industry

VillageIndustries

Reference: Gandhi: Village Industries

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

Objective: “To get rid of the appalling poverty of people.”

UNEMPLOYMENT

INDUSTRIALIZATION

MODERNIZATION

ECONOMICALLY STABLE

NATIONAL DEFENSE

POVERTY

FOREIGN RULE

Objective

NEHRU – VIEWS ON SCIENCE

“No knowledge of ultimate purpose, not even an understanding of immediate purpose, for science had told us nothing about any purpose in life”

Drawbacks of Science: • Pursuit of science without a purpose• Science modernized the world making man a mere geological force• Scientific method of observation not applicable to all

Reference: Discovery of India

Nehru –Views onScience

Solutions Proposed:• Synthesis of science and humanism• Adventurous yet critical scientific approach should be adopted instead of application based approach.

Thus, there is a need to realize the limitations of science and then build upon them to lay foundation for industrialization.

NEHRU – VIEWS ON SCIENCE (2)

Reference: Discovery of India

Nehru –Views onScience

NEHRU’s MODEL

SOCIETY STRUCTURE:

Feudalism Capitalism Socialism

Nehru was highly impressed by Russian model and felt that all societies will ultimately adopt a socialistic structure.

Reference: Discovery of India

Nehru’s Model

SOCIALISTIC STRUCTURE PROPOSED:

• Industrialization• Mixed Economy• Planning Commission

NEHRU’s MODEL (2)

Reference: Discovery of India

Nehru’s Model

WHY INDUSTRIALIZATION ?

PROBLEMS:

• Low annual income• Lack of basic amenities for humans• Unequal distribution of wealth• Incapability of Indians to keep up with the west• Unemployment• Poverty

Reference: Discovery of India

Industriali-zation

NEHRU - INDUSTRIALIZATION

Self Sufficiency :• Industrialization and Steel mill

Twin Emphasis:• Development of Agriculture• Progress in Nuclear Science

Reference: Discovery of India

Industriali-zation

NEHRU – INDUSTRIALIZATION (2)

Rapid Industrialization is the key: • Relieve pressure on land• Combat poverty• Raise standards of living

• Strengthen defence

India’s new temple: • Dams and Power units

Reference: Discovery of India

Industriali-zation

MIXED ECONOMY

• Government manage strategic industries (like mining, electricity and heavy industries)

•Serve public interest and keep check on private enterprise

• Land redistribution

• Launched programmes to build irrigation canals

• Community development programmes

Reference: Discovery of India

MixedEconomy

PLANNING COMMISSION

• Purpose:Further Industrialization

• Belief: Problems of poverty unemployment, national defence, economic regeneration cannot be solved without Industrialization.

PlanningCommission

Reference: Discovery of India

NEHRU ON MODERNITY

• India an untamed Woman,a way

of instituting the logic of modernity

within the constitutive body of the Nation.

• Modernity more than application

of science.• India had much to learn from the west.Yet

modern west doesn’t appear to have been a

conspicuous success. Modernity

Reference: Nationalist Thought and Colonial World

NEHRU ON MODERNITY(2)

• Science and religion inseparable.

• Synthesis of science and humanism.

• Past was not dead but alive,open to the modern age and ready to give moral direction to science and technology.

Modernity

Reference: Nationalist Thought and Colonial World

GANDHI v/s NEHRU

GANDHI v/s NEHRU

• Gandhi believed that science and religion were not different or separate.

• Nehru didn’t like the religious element Gandhi brought in politics.

• Religion pointed backward, towards feudalism and science forward, towards socialism.

RELIGION

Religion

• Gandhi said that Western Civilization doesn’t know how to deal with Indian simplicity. We need to develop our own model.

• Nehru said that “every civilization which resists change, declines”, change meaning moving in the direction that science and technology was driving it.

EAST AND WEST

GANDHI v/s NEHRUEast and

West

• Gandhi didn’t agree with Nehru’s want for rapid industrialization.

• He said that the development of villages was as important for progress.

• According to Nehru, development of industries was important for progress.

INDUSTRIALIZATION

GANDHI v/s NEHRU

Industria-lization

• Gandhi never had complete faith in modern science. His appeal wasn’t primarily to the faculty of reason. On the contrary, the appeal was essentially hypnotic, calling for a suspension of reason.

• Nehru, on the other hand, never had blind faith.

SCIENCE

GANDHI v/s NEHRU

Science

CONCLUSION

• Perhaps, the debates between Gandhi and Nehru have been most documented in history.

• There can be no definite conclusions, as such because the Gandhian model wasn’t actually implemented.

Conclusion

QUESTIONS ?

Questions