Given the current trend, the world population is projected to rise to 9.5 billion in 2047.
India will take the top spot with a staggering population of close to 1.6 billion to leave behind current world leader in population, China , at the second place with 1.3 billion people. The Indian economy will easily be among the top three largest economies of the world. If one human being is considered the unit of currency of a nation rather than a dollar , a renminbi or a rupee, then India will find itself to be the richest nation of the world by virtue of its human potential. India’s voice in the coming years will be of planetary proportion. One would be optimistic and say that by the mid-century India would have found the solution to her most vexing problems of poverty, inequity and corruption through her evolving institutions. Our water problem may be solved through coastal seawater desalination using renewable energy sources. Our food and health problems will be solved through breakthrough research in agriculture and health sciences. By solving her own problems India will have helped find solutions to the world’s most persistent problems.
However, the genius of India has always been rooted in the perennial wisdom of its greatest leaders: the whole continuum from Gandhi to Buddha. Their thoughts have had a global impact without the help of the internet. The three elements of Indian thought that has the potential to hold sway over the world in the 21st century are Satyam (Truth), Nityam (Sustainability) and Purnam (Wholeness). These three elements can be explored in some detail and their relevance established in the times to come.
Satyam:
While an American dollar bill had ‘In God we trust’ printed on it since 1957, the Indian Rupee has had satyameva jayate (the triumph of truth) as its enduring signature. Gandhi experimented with and conveyed to the larger world that truth was indeed more powerful than an Empire. With the onset of digital Age and the era of transparency, it is possible to find out something about almost everything in nano seconds. Facts are easy to put together by the click of a button. But truth demands psychological commitment to pursue facts until they reveal more than they conceal. Truth is more than the collection of bare facts. Truth is contextual, subtle and the earnest pursuit of truth requires the fortitude to go through truth-ache. This is what a scientist does hunched in front of a microscope for hours together until he discovers the truth of his subject matter. Truth is our mental alignment with Reality. Our limited intellect cannot grasp the whole of the Reality of our universe. However, if we pursue truth diligently, we have a greater chance of encountering Reality. Here is the equation of Facts, Truth and Reality in the ascending order of subtlety and wholeness:
No wonder therefore that the greatest leaders that India ever produced were men and women who were established in ultimate reality. They were often known as realised beings!
Nityam:
Nityam is that principle that sustains us perennially. Nityam is about sustainability: the ability to nurture, support and endure. Our future world has to come to grips with sustainable development . Nityam is that mindset that enables the present generation to meet their requirements without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Committing to nityam puts our shared values ahead of our selfish needs.
Mahatma Gandhi had expressed the notion of nityam in a beautiful expression that highlighted the importance of service before self. He said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” We find our place in the continuity of life by embracing the spirit of nityam.
Purnam:
Purnam is wholeness. Indian did not define wholeness as an assembly of parts. The seers of India realised the importance of a part-less whole as the abiding definition of purnam. They had the vision of the universe where the micro and the macro were integrally linked by one unbounded consciousness of the whole. So purnam did not refer to an object or a concept. Rather, it was about a conscious and realisable intelligence that kept planets in their orbit and everything in order and harmony with each other.
An expression from Isa Upanishad explains the wholeness of this conscious intelligence in this telling expression: That is wholeness. This is wholeness. From that wholeness this wholeness came. If you remove that wholeness from this wholeness, what remains is still whole. The nature of wholeness can be explained by the analogy of an oil lamp. The flame that is lit up in the lamp is an apt analogy for wholeness. You can light up a million lamps from that original lamp, yet the source lamp remains undiminished. The realisation of wholeness awakens in us a reverence for life, reverence for each species and fosters the need for harmony and interdependence in existence.
Vision 2047
The world of the future will belong to innovators and creative conceptualisers rather than narrow specialists working inside their own silos. It will become more and more important to be able to connect the part to the whole. In envisioning the future, we need to look at the year 2047—which will be the centenary of Indian Independence—from the eyes of the school student of today. It is today’s school-going generation that will be at the helm of affairs in 2047. Our primary concern here is how to broaden the identity of the student. We want to make them ponder the question: what makes a human being more relevant for the future that will demand wholeness and not fragmentary specialisation ? We want students to leave their schools as more evolved persons. This means focusing on the core of our humanity as much as the skills.
The specific skills required to function in any job can be picked up along the way; the core, on the other hand, relates to the central values of a human being. Three values are commitment to truth, sustainability and wholeness. It is this core that we must focus on developing in students. Education must go beyond a transactional system that involves a fixed number of hours’ interaction between teacher and student: learning needs to be an ongoing engagement with our whole life, on the lines of the gurukuls of antiquity.
In addition to being firmly rooted in our country’s heritage and knowledge systems, it is our vision to bring the fruits of that knowledge into the worldwide discourse. For several centuries now the world’s centres of learning, and the conversations developing within them, have been dominated by Western analytical thought. This is like one species causing the decline and near extinction of other species. Conversations on globalisation has for a long time been synonymous with westernisation. Indian thought does have a great deal to contribute to those conversations.
The very complexity of our nation and its intellectual heritage make it ideally suited to take a lead role in dealing with what will be an increasingly dynamic future in a globalised world. Our recent experiences, too, are extremely relevant—practices such as jugaad, dhandha, and frugal engineering, which have evolved to meet the needs of our society at present, are cases in point. The Dabbawalas of Mumbai, Arvind Eye Hospital in Madurai have blended efficiency with the value of service in a way that is unmatched in the world. Indian businesses have deftly dealt with the gbobal paradox of creating value for money and value for many at the same time.
Professor Debashis Chatterjee is the Director of IIM Kozhikode