BENGALURU: If Mahatma Gandhi were around today, he would have checked the “excesses of the government”, felt historian Ramachandra Guha. He is among the 49 personalities against whom an FIR has been filed by the Muzaffarpur police in Bihar for writing an open letter to the Prime Minister against mob lynching.
Speaking on the third day of an indefinite hunger strike on the theme ‘Create Jobs-Protect Nature’ by well-known theatre personality and activist Prasanna, who is pushing for a ‘Sacred Economy’, Guha said on Tuesday, “If Gandhi was alive today, he would have checked the excesses of the government in two ways. One is by responding to the grassroots and not to the people with money power and influence. The other would have been with an environmental perspective. You can break the laws of economics and get away with it in this country and you don’t even go to jail. But violating laws of nature will affect the human civilisation,” Guha stressed.
He added that Gandhi’s emphasis today would have been on asking the civil society to act as a watchdog of the people and always asked tough questions. “He would have supported a movement like this as it is non-violent, dignified and critical, seeking to protect the interests of the last person and harmonise economic development model and policy, not with short-term interests of a few people, but a long-term plan for the society, nature and civilisation,” he said.
‘Govt failed to give good governance’
Guha referred to Gandhian economist J C Kumarappa as the pioneer of ecological economics. “He coined the phrase ‘predatory’ economics, what we are calling monster economics today. It was ‘predatory’ economy versus non-violent economy, which is ‘sacred economy’. Unfortunately, Kumarappa was sidelined by Vinoba Bhave and he was also disregarded by the National Planning Commission,” Guha said. He also criticised the RSS saying it was the apologist of BJP government.
Former Supreme Court judge Justice V Gopala Gowda said the central and state governments have miserably failed to give good governance. “The right to shelter is the constitutional duty of a responsible government. The human rights of people have been completely destroyed. Poverty, unemployment, environmental and health issues, GDP going down, farmers in distress and suicides are not being noticed by governments,” he said.
On Tuesday, Prasanna also wrote a letter to the PM saying, “Today is Dasara, a day of celebration of the defeat of the monster by the forces of the sacred. If we have to destroy the monster, we will have to destroy the monster economy first and bring the sacred economy to the fore.”