She was a just small town girl. He was born and bred in a metropolitan city. She went to a vernacular school and knew no English. He was trained by the Jesuists and was fluent in Sanskrit and English. She was unaware of life beyond her little community. He lived in a metropolitan city with the latest in modern technology. She had never visited a major city or been on an aeroplane. He had never lived in a village and knew little of the hardships of rural life in the country. But she was wise in the ways of the world having observed her parents cope with the difficult life they led as they struggled to raise their five children. He was the top scholar of his class who hoped to study abroad to complete his education but knew little of economic struggle. But time was apassing and it was decided that he would marry. So here he was a citified and western educated man about to marry a small town girl with values as distant from his own as could be. They seemed to belong to two completely different cultures and value systems. How would they cope with these differences?
In a sense they captured perfectly the conflicts of values that were rising in India in the 1990's with rapid economic development. As Anand Giridardas observes in his excellent book, " India Calling", there are today two distinct visions of morality that are at war in India. The first vision sees compliance with the law, adherence to universal values and integrity, avoidance of corruption and a clean public service as ideals to be fought for. The second vision invites all to compete in the marketplace, using all the wiles and tricks that the law allows to amass wealth, which does not frown on corruption but rather uses it to enhance their path to success, that focuses on family’s progess rather than on social good as the prime objective of life.
“These two visions mingle and compete and combine in Indian life, but the first emphasis has echoes of Western Judeo-Christian tradition of thought, and the second emphasis is more rooted in in the Hindu world view.” AK Ramanujam argued in his brilliant essay “Is there an Indian way of thinking” that these different emphases define the fault line between the Indian and Western minds. “ He writes of the ancient Indian sage and law giver Manu, whose teachings form the basis of much of the context sensitive morality in the emerging India. Manu has no clear notion of a universal human nature from which one can deduce ethical decrees like “Man shall not kill” or “Man shall not tell an untruth. There seems to be no notion of a state, no unitary law of all men.” Ramanujan contrasts this with Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative: “ Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a Universal Law of Nature”. What he concludes is that traditional Indian thinking, moral and otherwise, is “context sensitive” as opposed to the “context free” orientation of mainstream Western thought which aspires to universal principles and norms.”
As Anand argues “Universaliation means putting oneself in another’s place- it is the golden rule of the New Testament- do not do unto others what you do not want done unto you." The main tradition of Judeo Christian ethics is based on a premise of universalisation while for Manu to be moral is to particularize- to ask who did what, to whom and when. In India, the context for moral reasoning has traditionally been ones caste or class or family circle, not the society at large and not the civic commons. It is an alternative morality of the family, a context sensitive morality in which moral reasoning is based on the effect of ones choices on those one cared about and not about any universal values or norms. The first was a society of propriety and principles and universal ideals. The second of context sensitive choices of right and wrong.
And according to Anand, the second vision was winning in modern day India- it was after all the vision of Dhirubhai Ambani – and not the first vision of universality of laws and values espoused by Nehru. In this emerging vision, it was fine to aspire to riches, to bargain and bribe to get to the top, to reward family loyalty, to undermine the judiciary and bribe the political establishment. These were becoming the ethos of the new “robber barons” of India.
The problem that Anand avoids discussing is what happens if this vision expands to cover the entire society where each individual is left free to bribe and pillage his way to success unheeding of the public good or adherence to public norms of any kind, where might is right and achieving monetary success is all and be all of existence. Will it not lead to a period akin to that of the robber barons in the U.S where a handful of mid- to late nineteenth century railroad owners and executives , who became known as the "robber barons" because of their illegal and monopolistic practices they used to control the U.S. railroads. Without laws and regulations, these robber barons largely did what they wanted, amassing wealth and power through their various monopolies in different sectors. Jay Gould, perhaps the most notorious of the robber barons, took over the Erie Railroad by bribing politicians, issuing fraudulent stock, launching price wars, influencing the gold market, and deceiving business associates. But there was a day of reckoning coming for these robber barons.
Around the turn of the century, the robber barons' dominance began to wane because of growing public anger over ticket price fluctuations and stock market dips stemming from the railroads. These fears were stoked by the muckrakers who publized their misdeeds. During this period, the federal government also dealt a series of blows to the robber barons in the form of laws, regulations, and court orders, which led to policies that curbed the formation of monopolies. These laws and regulations were not however sufficient or timely and this culture of excess and fraud was a major contributing factor to the famous "crash of 1929".
The simple lesson is that while unbridled greed will inevitably lead to a crash; it is equally true that a network of government regulations only leads to stagnation. Finding that balance between the two visions is essential to economic and equitable growth.
I turned once again to the two persons I mentioned above. How had they coped and dealt with the two visions and morality ? They had now been married for almost fifty years, They had two sons- one followed the traditional path of an arranged marriage and a service oriented career, albeit in a corporation not the government world and that too outside India, while the other son was more adventurous, marrying for love outside his caste and starting various ventures struggling to become an independent entrepreneur. While he was content to live within his modest means, she had become now a minor real estate entrepreneur and through careful investments in real estate had managed to increase the family wealth manifold. Just a small town girl...
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