Development: July 2006 Archives

Although the system of capital punishment is unacceptable from the moral viewpoint, people do sometimes resort to this custom under specific circumstances. It does not contain any corrective measures and has no purpose other than to instil fear into people's minds. Therefore the practice of taking a life for a life out of anger cannot be accepted in a civilized social system. Even if somebody is a genuine criminal who has no public support (no matter how notorious a criminal he or she may be, he or she is still a human being), should not he or she have an opportunity to become an asset to society? It is possible that although the person fails to evoke our sympathy because of the seriousness of his or her crimes, he or she may sincerely repent and be prepared to dedicate the rest of his or her life to the genuine service of society. Furthermore, if those who commit crimes are afflicted with a mental disease, is it not our duty to cure them of their disease instead of sentencing them to death?

Society is a dynamic entity. It has to progress by endlessly struggling to break through ever-changing barriers. It has to equip itself in different ways to respond to changing conditions and new challenges. Society cannot afford to forget that the type of struggles it had to go through in the past will not be the same as the struggles it has to go through in the present, and that the struggles of today will not be the same as those of the future. Thus, as the environment changes, newer and newer codes of justice will have to be formulated on the basis of the moral code. The duty of those who frame legal codes is to fully recognize the essential characteristics of life and not violate the interests of individuals, groups or society as a whole. Otherwise the codes will be seen as unnatural and will not be accepted, which means that the state will have difficulty in implementing them effectively. (For example, during the British rule of India, the Sarda Act(5) was not properly enforced due to a lack of education.) If a large section of the society is confronted with the possibility of being considered criminals in the eyes of the law, they will engage in deceitful conduct and other antisocial acts to avoid punishment. Thus the standard of morality will decline considerably. Therefore, if such codes are ever formulated, the state will lose its credibility and become the laughing-stock of society.

Socio-economic units will not only have to fulfill peoples social and economic needs, but also their cultural aspirations. Culture denotes all sorts of human expressions. Culture is the same for all humanity, though there are differences in cultural expression. The best means of communicating human expressions is through one's mother tongue, as this is most natural. If people's natural expression through their mother tongue is suppressed, inferiority complexes will grow in their minds, encouraging a defeatist mentality and ultimately leading to psycho-economic exploitation. Thus, no mother tongue should be suppressed.

Bhutan's concept of Gross National Happiness, like E F Schumacher's concept of Buddhist economics, Hazel Henderson's compassionate economics, and the modern measure of Happy Life Years, is a recognition that progress is inextricably linked not with material growth or financial gain but with the absence of suffering or samsara. Darryl D'Monte reports from the world's last Shangri-La.

Perhaps the most elusive thing in the world is happiness which, of course, may mean different things to different people. All the same, most people would agree to a minimum programme, which is that anyone content with what s/he has, rather than hankering for what s/he doesn't have, is happy.

The task for this paper is to locate the works of Shrii P. R. Sarkar in a range of classification schemes and at the same time to make these schemes themselves problematic. In general, we find Sarkar's works exemplary for the following reasons. In terms of economy, his work is strong on both growth and distribution dimensions. Sarkar is also eclectic in his theory of political-economy drawing on market and regulatory mechanisms. Alienation is a result not of private property but of the concentration of wealth and of the location of the self in a materialistic paradigm. Sarkar's Prout manages to satisfy survival, wellbeing, identity and freedom needs. Market models are strong on freedom but weak on wellbeing (especially at the periphery). Local "small is beautiful" models are strong on survival, wellbeing and identity but weak on the freedom dimension. Sarkar also takes an eclectic model of epistemology having a range of ways of knowing the world. He also takes a layered "deep and shallow" view of the nature of reality. Finally, and this is the centerpiece of the argument, Sarkar's social theory combines linear, cyclical and transcendental dimensions, thus avoiding cultural exploitation and fatalism, and accentuating ancient, modern and postmodern constructions of the social and the economic.

Having progressively crossed the different evolutionary stages since the distant past human beings have at last reached the present stage . The journey has not been solitary: People have advanced together in society. Even in the primitive past, humans lived in clans and tribes, for alone they could not easily procure the means of livelihood. An individual who totally shuns collective life finds existence difficult, for humans are essentially social beings. Whenever one thinks of a human being one automatically thinks of the society in which he or she lives. Human existence is thus two-sided - individual existence and collective existence - and as such it has two sets of values : social values and human cardinal principles.

India achieved its independence in the year 1947. Bengal was divided into two parts. Did the aspirations of Bengal find their fulfillment? Did the politically-shattered, economically-devastated Bengal find justice from the new rulers of Delhi? Could the Bengal that had been the colony of the British raise its head with sovereign dignity? Before analysing post-independence Bengal, however, it is essential to elaborate on her socio-cultural background. How could the people of such an advanced civilisation have tolerated ruthless exploitation and oppression for such a long period of time? In any society, people's aspirations and hopes, dynamism and fighting spirit, and their social, economic and political structures all develop on the foundation of that society's cultural heritage. So at the outset let us look at the cultural evolution of Bengal.