The Routledge Companion to Indian Ethics: Women, Justice, Bioethics and Ecology [1 ed.] 103263846X, 9781032638461

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‘This much-needed compendium authored by many of the finest minds who are concerned with issues of ethics in India is a uniquely useful resource. Focusing on practical ethics rather than theoretical or metaethical, it deals with an extensive range of topics and examines critical issues challenging humanity – matters relating to women, such as ecology, healthcare, social welfare, biotechnology, pharmaceutical issues, mental illness and justice, dying with dignity, abortion and reproductive rights, female infanticide, and surrogacy in India. Containing both traditional and newly-researched responses to perennial and modern human predicaments, the spectrum includes influences of Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi on these issues and contributions by Devaki Jain, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Kumkum Sangari, Renuka Sharma, Savita Singh, J. Devika, and other contemporary voices. These studies form a most valuable aid in considering and dealing with the many unavoidable tasks humanity faces. The volume is a timely response to a great need, answering questions about Gandhian ethics of science and technology and sustainability, exploring genetic modifications’ implications, climate change and development ethics after Amartya Sen, water rights, Dharmic and Yogic contributions on rural life and animal ethics. Ecofeminism, dowry problems, violence and humanity…and many more topics receive insightful reflections and decisive clarity’. William Jackson ‘A useful survey of modern ideas and theories, such as ecofeminism, care ethics, sustainability, globalization, postcoloniality, in relation to India, studied through the lenses of Gandhian thought, some Buddhist, Jain and Hindu texts, and modern ethnographies’. Ruth Vanita ‘This volume takes up the wider lens of Indian ethics to analyse various moral challenges, including and beyond the anthropocentric and community bound; the work demonstrates how Indian ethics is practical, and it addresses contemporary challenges. Hence the Companion continues the much-needed task of exploring and bringing to light the importance of Indian Ethics. Purushottama and Amy Rayner have done us all a favour of editing and authoring a number of chapters for this thought-provoking Companion. Scholars and students alike will benefit from the diversity of contributions in this volume, which fills a scholarly void, for years to come. As someone who has been long advocating taking Indian moral philosophy seriously, I find these investigations by various writers, scholars and thinkers a welcome change from the normalized Orientalism of Indology, South Asian studies, and the academy at large. We are all better off and richer for this priceless gift now being made available globally’. Shyam Ranganathan, York University, Toronto

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO INDIAN ETHICS

This companion volume focuses on the application and practical ramifications of Indian ethics. Here Indian dharma ethics is moved from its preeminent religious origins and classical metaethical proclivity to, what Kant would call, practical reason – or in Aristotle’s poignant terms, ēthikos and phrónēsis –and in more modern parlance normative ethics. Our study examines a wide range of social and normative challenges facing people in such diverse areas as women’s rights, infant ethics, politics, law, justice, bioethics and ecology. As a contemporary volume, it builds linkages between existing theories and emerging moral issues, problems and questions in today’s India in the global arena. The volume brings together contributions from some 40 philosophers and contemporary thinkers on practical ethics, exploring both the scope and boundaries or limits of ethics as applied to everyday and real-­life concerns and socio-­economic challenges facing India in the context of a troubled globalizing world. As such, this collection draws on multiple forms of writing and research, including narrative ethics, interviews, critical case studies and textual analyses. The book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and students of Indian philosophy, Indian ethics, women and infant issues, social justice, environmental ethics, bioethics, animal ethics and cross-­cultural responses to dominant Western moral thought. It will also be useful to researchers working on the intersection of Gandhi, sustainability, ecology, theology, feminism, comparative philosophy and dharma studies.

Purushottama Bilimoria works in the areas of Indian and cross-cultural philosophy, continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, critical thinking and diaspora studies. He is a Distinguished Professor of Law and International Philosophy at O. P. Jindal Global University, and a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University, Delhi-NCR, India. A Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne, he is also Permanent Fellow of the Oxford Center for Hindu Studies; he was named Lead Scientist (in 2021–2022) of the Purushottama Centre for Study of Indian Philosophy and Culture at Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, in Moscow; Co-founder of Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy and also serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Sophia and Associate Editor Journal of Dharma Studies. They have been a recipient of several awards: Distinguished Fulbright-Nehru Excellence in

Teaching and Research Fellowship; Rockefeller Foundation, Templeton Foundation, Ford Foundation, Australia Research Council. His recent publications include Testimony in Indian Philosophy (revised, 2018); History of Indian Philosophy (with Amy Rayner, 2018); Religion and Sustainability (edited with Rita D. Sherma, 2021); Contemplative Studies and Hinduism (edited with Rita D. Sherma, 2021); Contemplative Studies and Jainism (co-­ edited with R. Sherma and C. Bohenac, 2023); The Routledge Companion to Indian Ethics: Women, Justice, Bioethics and Ecology (with Amy Rayner 2023); Engaging Philosophies of Religion; Thinking Across Boundaries (with Gereon Kopf, 2023); Postcolonial Philosophy of Religion (with Andrew Irvine, 2009, 2024); and under 200 articles in professional journals. A scholastic institution in its own right, he continues to teach and be a mentor at Cal State University (San Francisco and Long Beach, California) and periodically at the University of California, University of San Francisco, Ashoka University, and the University of Melbourne. Amy Rayner is a graduate of the University of Melbourne (philosophy). Amy has worked alongside Purushottama Bilimoria for 15 years, assisting with editing, research and writing. She was the editorial secretary of Sophia and is an editorial assistant for Sophia Studies in Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures. She served as Assistant Editor and Project Secretary for publications including Globalization, Transnationalism, Gender and Ecological Engagements (2015); Postcolonial Philosophy of Religion (2009); and Routledge’s acclaimed History of Indian Philosophy (2018). Her experience in Buddhism has ranged from an interest in philosophy and meditation to engagement with social change, education and well-being. She qualified as a Buddhist Chaplain and secular spiritual carer in Canberra, Australia, in 2011 and worked at a Buddhist school and orphanage for children living with HIV in Bihar, India. Inspired by the authors of this book, in 2022, Amy trained and now teaches secular ethics at her local primary school in regional Australia.

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO INDIAN ETHICS Women, Justice, Bioethics and Ecology

Edited by Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bilimoria, Purushottama, editor. | Rayner, Amy, editor. Title: The Routledge companion to Indian ethics : women, justice, bioethics and ecology / edited by Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner. Description: Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2024. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This companion volume focuses on the application and practical ramifications of Indian ethics. It reports on contemporary wide-ranging social and communal challenges facing people in such diverse areas as women and ethics, politics, justice, bioethics and ecology. As a contemporary volume, it builds linkages between existing theories and emerging issues, problems and questions in today’s India. The volume brings together contributions from philosophers and contemporary thinkers on practical ethics, exploring both the scope as well as boundaries or limits of ethics when applied to everyday and real-life concerns and challenges facing India in the context of a troubled globalizing world. As such, this collection draws on multiple forms of writing and research, including classical essay form, reportage and interview, critical case studies and textual analyses The book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and students of Indian philosophy, Indian ethics, women’s issues, social justice, environmental ethics, bioethics, animal ethics, and cross-cultural responses to dominant Western moral thought. It will also be useful to researchers working on Gandhi, sustainability, ecology, comparative philosophy, and dharma studies”-- Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2023033850 (print) | LCCN 2023033851 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032638461 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032638485 (paperback) | ISBN 9781032638478 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Ethics--India. Classification: LCC BJ122 .R68 2024 (print) | LCC BJ122 (ebook) | DDC 170.954--dc23/eng/20231017 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023033850 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023033851 ISBN: 978-1-032-63846-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-63848-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-63847-8 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478 Typeset in Sabon by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

In loving memory of Renuka Sharma Beautiful face, mind heart The wakening in brightness. – Patrick Hutchings A splendidly luminous mind in his own right, adieu To the swift return of Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche May the wish fulfilling golden sun shine always. J. N. Mohanty Among the finest minds in contemporary philosophy, For sterling contributions into posterity. Joseph Prabhu The other leading light in the Indian Ethics Project Rita Gross Bodhisattva of Buddhist Ecofeminist Theology Baa (Savitaben) Exemplary motherhood ~Amy-la & Pz.

CONTENTS

List of Contributors xiv Preface xxiv Foreword xxviii Shyam Ranganathan Introduction 1 Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner Prologue: India in the World: The Historical Context for Intercultural Ethicality 24 Dipesh Chakrabarty PART I

Health, Ethics and Public Welfare

35

1 Public Health, Care and Bioethics in Modern India Purushottama Bilimoria

37

2 COVID-19: Lessons in Ethics for Social Assets Om Prakash Dwivedi

54

3 Biotechnology and Ethics in India Jyoti Dineshrao Bhosale

63

4 Moral Responsibility and Pharmaceutical Companies Gauri Seth (Verma)

75

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Contents

5 Mental Illness and Mental Health Justice Purushottama Bilimoria

86

6 Embryo Ethics: Traditional Hindu Perspective Piyali Mitra

99

7 Abortion, Reproductive Rights and the Unborn: Between Tradition and Modernity Purushottama Bilimoria, M. K. Sridhar and Arvind Sharma

108

8 Female Infanticide: Ethics of Death in the Shadow of Motherhood and Childbirth in India Purushottama Bilimoria and Renuka Sharma

121

9 The Theatre of Surrogacy: Ethics of Surrogacy in India Kelly Amal Dhru and Purushottama Bilimoria 10 Dying with Dignity: Sallekhanā vis-à-vis Euthanasia – Normative, Bioethical and Legal Ramifications Purushottama Bilimoria

135

142

PART II

Ecology, Sustainability and Spirituality

159

11 Ethics of Genetic Modification: Commerce without Morality and Science without Humanity – A Gandhian Response Gunjan Pradhan Sinha

161

12 Ethics, Science and Sustainability: A Gandhian Alternative Bidisha Mallik

170

13 Climate Change and Development Ethics after Amartya Sen Lindsay Dawson

184

14 WATER: Rites, Rights and Ecological Justice in India Purushottama Bilimoria and M. K. Sridhar

197

15 Protection of the Indian Coastal Ecosystem through Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notifications: An Analysis M. Sakthivel and Nagma Khan

211

16 Sustaining Dharma, Sustainable Ecology: Dharma as Rural Environmental Ethics Pankaj Jain

223

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Contents

17 On Understanding the Tribe Person’s Worldview Sujata Miri

233

18 Yoga as Therapeutic Animal Ethics Kenneth Valpey

239

19 Animal Justice and Moral Mendacity Purushottama Bilimoria

252

20 You Are What You Eat: Animal and Dietary Ethics in the Early Indian Traditions Nishant Upadhyay 21 Nature and Humans in the 21st Century: Some Reflections Manoranjan Mohanty

264 277

PART III

Engaged Ethics and Ecofeminism

281

22 Dharma Morality as Virtue Ethics Nicholas F. Gier

283

23 Engaged Jainism: Jaina Ethics in a Living Universe Christopher Key Chapple

292

24 Buddhist Spirituality and Social Activism in the 20th–21st Centuries Sallie B. King

302

25 Ecofeminism from a Buddhist Critical Perspective Rita M. Gross

313

26 Caregiver vs. Citizen? Reflections on Ecofeminism from Kerala State, India J. Devika

322

27 Humanizing the Feminine Earth: An Ecofeminist Perspective on the Corporeal Nature Meera Baindur

335

28 Ecofeminism and Hindu Tantra Rita Sherma

350

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Contents PART IV

Ethics and Politics: Contexts and Applications

361

29 Ethics and Politics in Tagore, Coetzee and Certain Scenes of Teaching Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

363

30 Towards an Ethics of Location Morny Joy

378

31 The Question of Universalist Justice: Transnational Encounters in Feminism Sara Ahmed

387

32 Activating the Imagination: Harmony, Justice, and Gender in Tagore’s Thought Esha Niyogi De

394

33 Violence and Humanity: Or, Vulnerability as Political Subjectivity Anupama Rao

402

34 From Victim to Survivor: Then and Now Interviews with Flavia Agnes Flavia Agnes and Amy Rayner (Interviewer)

413

35 Marking Time: The Gendered Present and the Nuclear Future Kumkum Sangari

424

36 The Gandhian Touch: Morals in Politics Devaki Jain

435

37 Approaching Gandhian Metaethics: Some Methodological Issues Samiksha Goyal

444

38 Globalization, Gandhi and Free Trade Sanjay Lal

454

PART V

Women and the Limits of Traditional Ethics

461

39 Women and Ethics in Hindu Thought and Practice Mandakranta Bose

463

40 Women and Values in Traditional India: A Feminist Probe Anindita Niyogi Balslev

471

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Contents

41 Normalization of Dowry Praveena Kodoth

479

42 The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA): Gandhian Ethics and Feminist Ethics in Action Margaret A. McLaren 43 The Emergent Moral Agent: A Feminism-Buddhism Exchange Vrinda Dalmiya 44 Gandhian Ethics and Feminist Perspectives: In a Somewhat Different Voice Bindu Puri

489 498

508

45 Is Controlled Śakti to the Bharatanāṭyam Practitioner as Uncontrolled Śakti Is to the Devadāsī? 518 Sandra Sattler Index 527

xiii

CONTRIBUTORS

Flavia Agnes is an activist, women’s rights lawyer, changemaker and writer. For over four decades, she has worked on legal reform for domestic violence, rape and for the protection, education and well-­being of women and children. She co-­founded MAJLIS, a legal and cultural resource centre for women, and Rahat, an organization dedicated to supporting women and children who have experienced sexual violence. She is a prolific and accomplished writer. She has been instrumental in articulating women’s rights in legal and social contexts and highlighting these issues in mainstream media. Her autobiography My Story Our Story … Of Rebuilding Broken Lives was published as the feminist movement was beginning in India. It details her experience of domestic violence, divorce, motherhood and survivorship. She has also published Law and Gender Inequality – The Politics of Personal Laws in India and Family Law in two volumes. She is co-­editor of Woman and the Law and Negotiating Spaces. Through her books and media articles, Flavia Agnes articulates and advocates for the issues facing women in India. Sara Ahmed is an independent feminist scholar whose work is concerned with how power is experienced and challenged in everyday life and institutional cultures. She has recently completed The Feminist Killjoy Handbook, her first trade publication, which is forthcoming in 2023. She is currently writing a follow-­ up text, A Complainer’s Handbook: A Guide to Building Less Hostile Institutions, and has begun a new research project on common sense. Her previous books include Complaint! (2021) What’s the Use? On the Uses of Use (2019); Living a Feminist Life (2017); Willful Subjects (2014); On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012); The Promise of Happiness (2010); Queer Phenomenology: Objects, Orientations, Others (2006); The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2014, 2004); Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-­Coloniality (2000); and Differences That Matter: Feminist Theory and Postmodernism (1998). Meera Baindur is a philosopher working as faculty in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, RV University. She is interested in Indian philosophy, environmental humanities, environmental ethics, religion and environmental and sustainability issues. Currently, her xiv

Contributors

research includes themes in lived concepts of Indian philosophy, including place, aesthetics, decoloniality, ecofeminism and gender issues. Anindita Niyogi Balslev’s philosophy career spans universities in India, France, the United States and Denmark. Formerly at the University of Copenhagen, she is a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion. She is on the board of journals (World Affairs, New Delhi, Zygon, United States) and has served on the board of the American Association for Asian Studies, United States. She has been awarded scholarships from the Government of France, fellowships from Denmark and, recently, the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship, India. She is the author of A Study of Time in Indian Philosophy, The Enigma of I-­consciousness, Reflections on Indian Thought: Fourteen Essays. Her most recent book, Cross-­Cultural Conversation: A New Way of Learning was published in 2020. Jyoti Dineshrao Bhosale is trained in the discipline of political science. Anchored primarily in political economy, her specific research and teaching interests are in the areas of modern punishment and modern science and technology. Purushottama Bilimoria works in the areas of Indian and cross-­cultural philosophy, continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, critical thinking and diaspora studies. He is a Distinguished Professor of Law and International Philosophy at O. P. Jindal Global University, and a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University Delhi-­NCR, India. A Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne, he is also a Permanent Fellow of the Oxford Center for Hindu Studies; he was named Lead Scientist (in 2021–2022) of the Purushottama Centre for Study of Indian Philosophy and Culture at Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, in Moscow; Co-­founder of Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy also serves as Co-­Editor-­in-­Chief of Sophia and Associate Editor Journal of Dharma Studies. They have been a recipient of several awards: Distinguished Fulbright-Nehru Excellence in Teaching and Research Fellowship; Rockefeller Foundation, Templeton Foundation, Ford Foundation, Australia Research Council. His recent publications include Testimony in Indian Philosophy (revised, 2018); History of Indian Philosophy (with Amy Rayner, 2018); Religion and Sustainability (edited with Rita D. Sherma, 2021); Contemplative Studies and Hinduism (edited with Rita D. Sherma, 2021); Contemplative Studies and Jainism (co-­edited with R. Sherma and C. Bohenac, 2023); The Routledge Companion to Indian Ethics: Women, Justice, Bioethics and Ecology (with Amy Rayner 2023); Engaging Philosophies of Religion; Thinking Across Boundaries (with Gereon Kopf, 2023); Postcolonial Philosophy of Religion (with Andrew Irvine, 2009, 2024); and under 200 articles in professional journals. A scholastic institution in its own right, he continues to teach and be a mentor at Cal State University (San Francisco and Long Beach, California) and periodically at the University of California, University of San Francisco and the University of Melbourne. Mandakranta Bose, Emeritus Professor at the University of British Columbia and Senior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu studies, studied Sanskrit in Calcutta and Oxford. Her many publications range from Sanskrit textual studies, women’s issues in the Hindu tradition, Bengali literature and the classical performing arts of India. Some are The Goddess (edited volume, 2018), A Woman’s Rāmāyaṇ a: Candrāvatī’s Bengali Epic (2013) and Saṇ gītanārāyaṇ a (2009).

xv

Contributors

Dipesh Chakrabarty is the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor of History and South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. His latest publication is The Climate of History in a Planetary Age (2021). Christopher Key Chapple is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and founding Director of the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A specialist in the religions of India, he has published more than 20 books, including the recent Living Landscapes: Meditations on the Elements in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Yogas. He serves as an advisor to multiple organizations, including the Forum on Religion and Ecology (Yale), the Ahimsa Center (Pomona), the Dharma Academy of North America (Berkeley), the Jain Studies Centre (SOAS, London), the South Asian Studies Association and the International School for Jain Studies (New Delhi). He teaches online through the Centre for Religion and Spirituality (LMU) and YogaGlo. Vrinda Dalmiya is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Hawai`i, Mānoa. She has been a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla (India). She is the author of Caring to Know: Comparative Care Ethics, Feminist Epistemology, and the Majābhārata (New Delhi, 2016) and co-­editor (with Sibesh Chandra Bhattacharya and Gangeya Mukherji) of Exploring Agency in the Mahābharata: Ethical and Political Dimensions of Dharma (2018). Her research interests are in comparative philosophy, feminist epistemology and care ethics. Lindsay Dawson worked as an engineering executive at Ford Motor Company. He studied philosophy at Deakin University and completed a bachelor of arts (honours) degree majoring in religion, anthropology and philosophy. Lindsay was awarded a Ph.D. in philosophy for his thesis on business ethics and has published several articles on ethics in academic journals. Esha Niyogi De’s research interests lie in South Asian studies, gender and cinema. She is completing a new monograph on women filmmakers in the industries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India titled Women’s Transborder Cinema: Female Authors and Familial Modes across South Asia (forthcoming). Her other publications include the co-­edited volume South Asian Filmscapes: Transregional Encounters (2020); the monograph Empire, Media, and the Autonomous Woman (2011); another co-­edited volume; and many articles and book chapters. She teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles. J. Devika is a social researcher, historian, translator and teacher at the Centre for Development Studies, Kerala, India. She has written on the intertwined histories of gender, politics, culture and development in Kerala and has translated literature from Malayalam to English and social science from English to Malayalam. She offers social commentary on kafila.online and maintains the website swatantryavaadini.in. Kelly Amal Dhru is a researcher and a Ph.D. candidate at the Universität Hamburg in Germany. Originally from India, Kelly holds her law degree from Gujarat National Law University, B.C.L. and M.Phil in legal philosophy from University College, University of Oxford and LL.M. from Harvard Law School as a Fulbright-­Nehru fellow in bioethics. She is the co-­founder of the Indian Bioethics Project and Lawtoons. xvi

Contributors

Om Prakash Dwivedi is an Associate Professor of English Literature at Bennett University, Greater Noida. His areas of interest cut across postcolonial theory, Indian Writing in English and cultural studies. His publications include Human Rights in Postcolonial India (2016), Re-­Orientalism and Indian Writing in English (2014) and Indian Writing in English and the Global Literary Market (2014). He is the Vice-­Chair of the international research network Challenging Precarity. Nicholas F. Gier received his B.A. (honours) from Oregon State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in religion from Claremont Graduate University (1969, 1973). He taught in the Philosophy Department at the University of Idaho from 1972 to 2003. He has published five books: Wittgenstein and Phenomenology (1981); God, Reason, and the Evangelicals (1987); Spiritual Titanism: Indian, Chinese, and Western Perspectives (2000); The Virtue of Non-­Violence: From Gautama to Gandhi (2004); and The Origins of Religious Violence: An Asian Perspective (2014). Samiksha Goyal is a Ph.D. scholar in philosophy at Monash University. She is currently working on the issue of objectivity in moral inquiry with a focus on Gandhi’s moral concepts. Her work relates directly to metaethics in Western philosophy. She has several peer-­ reviewed articles and presentations at conferences, including in the Journal of Dharma Studies (2019), Economic and Political Weekly (2020), APA Pacific Division (2021, 2022) and APA Newsletter Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies (2022). Rita M. Gross was an author, dharma teacher and an American Buddhist feminist professor emerita of comparative studies in religion. She is widely recognized as a pioneer scholar who shaped the theory and practice of women and religion and feminist theology. She earned her Ph.D. in 1975 from the University of Chicago in History of Religions, with the dissertation ‘Exclusion and Participation: The Role of Women in Aboriginal Australian Religion’. This was the first dissertation ever on women’s studies in religion. Before retiring, she was Professor of Comparative Studies in Religion at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. In 2005, she was made a lopön senior teacher by Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche and taught at the Lotus Garden Centre in Virginia. Her best-­known books are Buddhism after Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism and A Garland of Feminist Reflections: Forty Years of Religious Exploration. As a dharma teacher, professor and author, she was a uniquely passionate and eloquent voice for women’s equality, interreligious dialogue and the value of historical study as a way of enriching religious life and practice. She passed away in 2015. Devaki Jain was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2006. She was elected as the Honorary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford, in 2016. She has lectured and been a visiting fellow at universities across the world. Devaki Jain founded a wide range of institutions. She was the founder-­director of the Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST). Founding member of the Indian Association for Women’s Studies (IAWS) as well as Development Alternatives for Women for a New Era (DAWN) – a third world network of women social scientists. She has been the author of many books and essays related to women, with special reference to their economic growth.

xvii

Contributors

Pankaj Jain is an internationally recognized academic leader in sustainability, Jain studies, film studies and diaspora studies. He is the Head of the Department of Humanities & Languages and the Chair of The India Centre at FLAME University. Earlier, he was the founding co-­chair of the India Initiatives Group and Associate Professor in the Departments of Philosophy & Religion and Anthropology at the University of North Texas. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and an M.A. from Columbia University (both in Religious Studies). He co-­edited the Encyclopedia of Indian Religions (2022) and Indian and Western Philosophical Concepts in Religion (2023). His most recent monograph was Dharma in America: A Short History of Hindu-­Jain Diaspora (2019). He is also the author of the two monographs: award-­winning Dharma and Ecology of Hindu Communities: Sustenance and Sustainability (2011) and Science and Socio-­Religious Revolution in India: Moving the Mountains (2015). Morny Joy is a Professor Emerita in the Department of Classics and Religion at the University of Calgary. She researches in the areas of philosophy and religion, hermeneutics, postcolonialism and intercultural studies in South and Southeast Asia. She has published several edited volumes, including Claiming Our Rites: Studies in Religion by Australian Women Scholars; Continental Philosophy and Philosophy of Religion (2011); After Appropriation: Explorations in Intercultural Philosophy and Religion (2011); An Abundance of Riches: Women, Religion, and the Gift (2016); and Explorations in Women, Rights, and Religions (2020). Nagma Khan, presently working as a Civil Judge in Gorakhpur, UP (India), holds a B.A. LL.B. from the University School of Law and Legal Studies, Guru Govind Singh Indraprastha University and LL.M. from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, where she worked on personal laws. She has completed a PG Diploma in cyber laws from NLIU Bhopal and was part of the Indian Delegation for SAARC High School Student Exchange Program held in Japan in 2010. Also participated in the Oikos Model WTO 2015, winning an award. She attended a summer program in Bern and presented at the third ISSC, Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2015. Recently, she was part of the Oxford Women’s Leadership Symposium held in March 2021. She has interned with Global Justice Academy and elsewhere. Sallie B. King is Professor Emerita at James Madison University and Affiliate Faculty at Georgetown University. In the area of (socially activist) engaged Buddhism, she is the author of Being Benevolence: The Social Ethics of Engaged Buddhism (2005) and Socially Engaged Buddhism (2009). She is co-­ editor (with Christopher S. Queen) of Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia (1996) and editor of Buddhist Visions of the Good Life for All (2021). Praveena Kodoth is a Professor at the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum. Her early research on the transformation of familial property relations in Malabar/Kerala and the emergence of dowry in northern Kerala has been widely published. More recently, Praveena has published work on the gender politics of policy on international migration from India and on the experiences of women migrant workers in the Economic and Political Weekly, Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, as an ILO working paper and in edited volumes. She is currently involved in collaborative research on child migration and a study focusing on the shifting landscape of overseas migration from a Kerala village. xviii

Contributors

Sanjay Lal is a senior lecturer of philosophy at Clayton State University. His published works include the book Gandhi’s Thought and Liberal Democracy (2019). Additionally, his research has appeared in the journal Asian Philosophy, the Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, The Acorn: Philosophical Studies in Pacifism and Nonviolence, and The Heythrop Journal (among other places). He is currently President of Concerned Philosophers for Peace. Bidisha Mallik is an assistant teaching professor in Global Ethics at the University of Washington, Tacoma. She has also taught at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada and at the University of North Texas, Denton. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Texas. Bidisha’s research interests include Gandhian philosophy and nonviolent movements for social change and philosophy and practical ethics topics related to the environment, sustainability, public policy, gender, art and aesthetics, music and religion. Her most recent book is on the life and work of Gandhi’s Western associates, Mira Behn and Sarala Behn. Margaret A. McLaren holds the George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Chair of Philosophy at Rollins College, where she teaches courses in Philosophy and Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies. Her most recent book, Women’s Activism, Feminism, and Social Justice (2019), develops a social justice model for transnational feminism emerging out of women’s grassroots activism in India. Sujata Miri retired as Professor of Philosophy from the North Eastern Hill University, Shillong. Her abiding philosophical interest has been to understand and explore the cultures and religions of the various tribes, particularly of the north-­east. She has published several books, which include Suffering, The Khasi World View: A Conceptual Exploration; Stories and Legends of Lingmei Nagas; Ao-­Naga World-­View: A Dialogue (Ed.) and a book of Paintings on themes from the north-­east. She is the author of the novels Days and Nights and The Broken Circle. She has also published several articles in academic journals. She is known for opening up new ways of approaching indigenous religions of the country. She is married and has two daughters. Piyali Mitra received her master of philosophy from the Department of Philosophy, University of Calcutta. She wrote her dissertation on ‘Jainism and Ecology’. She has also been a visiting faculty of Dalham Learning, a private centre of liberal arts and education in Bengaluru (India). She has also been the visiting scholar of CVRP of the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. Currently, she is the Director and Secretary of The International Centre for Applied Ethics & Public Affairs (ICAEPA), Sheffield, United Kingdom. She is also associated with the Department of Philosophy and Religion, University of North Texas, Denton (United States). Manoranjan Mohanty is China scholar and a nonviolence and human rights activist with research interests spanning the political economy of China, India and global transformations. Until recently, Mohanty was a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Developing Countries Research Centre, at the University of Delhi (India); he is currently a distinguished professor at the Council for Social Development (Delhi) and former editor of its journal Social Change. He is a permanent member of India International Centre (Delhi) xix

Contributors

and a founding member of the Association of Creative Theory. Recent tomes: Contemporary Indian Political Theory (2000); Ideology Matters: China from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping (2016, Hindi edition 2021). Bindu Puri is a Professor of Contemporary Indian Philosophy at the Centre for Philosophy, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her main interests are in the areas of contemporary Indian philosophy and political philosophy. Puri has over 50 papers in edited anthologies and philosophical and interdisciplinary journals. She has authored three monographs, the most recent being The Ambedkar-­ Gandhi Debate: On Identity, Community and Justice (2022). She has eight edited volumes. The most recent, Reading Sri Aurobindo - Metaphysics Ethics and Spirituality, was published in 2022. She is a Fellow of the Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne and a member of the editorial boards of international journals of philosophy, notably Sophia and Philosophia. Amy Rayner is a graduate of the University of Melbourne (philosophy). Amy has worked alongside Purushottama Bilimoria for 15 years, assisting with editing, research and writing. She was the editorial secretary of Sophia and is an editorial assistant for Sophia Studies in Cross-­Cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures. She served as Assistant Editor and Project Secretary for publications including Globalization, Transnationalism, Gender and Ecological Engagements (2015); Postcolonial Philosophy of Religion (2009); and Routledge’s acclaimed History of Indian Philosophy (2018). Her experience in Buddhism has ranged from an interest in philosophy and mediation to engagement with social change, education and well-­being. She qualified as a Buddhist Chaplain and secular spiritual carer in Canberra, Australia, in 2011 and worked at a Buddhist school and orphanage for children living with HIV in Bihar, India. Inspired by the authors of this book, in 2022, Amy trained and now teaches secular ethics at her local primary school in regional Australia. Anupama Rao is Professor of History and MESAAS at Columbia University, Director of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Founder of the Ambedkar Initiative, and outgoing Senior Editor of Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, a position she held between 2012 and 2019. She is completing a monograph entitled Ambedkar in America and a forthcoming volume (co-­ edited with Shailaja Paik), the Cambridge Companion to Ambedkar. She has recently introduced and edited Memoirs of a Dalit Communist: The Many Worlds of R. B. More (2019) and edited Gender, Caste, and the Imagination of Equality (2018). Kumkum Sangari is the William F. Vilas Research Professor of English and the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-­Milwaukee. She has been a Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi; a Visiting Fellow at Yale University, Delhi University and Jadavpur University; and a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago, Central European University, University of London (SOAS), University of Erfurt and Ambedkar University. She has published extensively on British, American and Indian literature, the gendering of South Asian medieval devotional traditions, nationalist figures such as M. K. Gandhi, Bombay cinema, televisual memory, feminist art practice and several contemporary gender issues such as personal law, widow immolation, domestic labour, the beauty industry, son selection, commercial surrogacy and communal violence. She is the author of Solid Liquid: A (Trans) National Reproductive xx

Contributors

Formation (2015) and Politics of the Possible: Essays on Gender, History, Narratives, Colonial English (1999). She has co-­edited several books, including Recasting Women and, most recently, has edited Arc Silt Dive: The Works of Sheba Chhachhi (2016) and Trace Retrace: Paintings, Nilima Sheikh (2013). M. Sakthivel, Assistant Professor of Law at the University School of Law and Legal Studies, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, graduated in law from the Government Law College, Trichy, and LL.M. and Ph.D. from Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kerala. His book Broadcasters’ Rights in the Digital Era: Copyright Concerns on Live Streaming was published in 2020. He has published several research papers and peer-­reviewed articles on issues related to intellectual property rights and environmental laws in renowned national and international law journals. He has presented his research papers in reputed international conferences held in various countries. He is the recipient of the ‘Young Asian IP Scholar Award’ from the Singapore Management University City University of Hong Kong. Sandra Sattler is a doctoral researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where she is completing her thesis on textual and visual representations of the goddess Cāmuṇḍā. She is also currently a Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS (School of Oriental and Asian Studies, London). Her research focuses on gender in Hinduism, Purāṇ as and Indian sculpture and architecture, with a particular interest in the goddess tradition of medieval India. Savita Singh is a distinguished feminist theorist and poet, recipient of numerous awards, with works translated into French, German and Spanish, etc. Presently, professor and founding director of the School of Gender and Development Studies, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU, Delhi). She is on the board of directors and co-­chair of the International Herbert Marcuse Society (United States) and co-­founder of the Association of Creative Theory. Among recent publications are Reality and It’s Depths: A Conversation with Savita Singh and Roy Bhaskar, edited by Marvyn Hartwig (Springer, 2020); “Three Languages of the Discourse of Modernity in India”, in Exploring Indian Modernities: Ideas and Practices, edited by Leila Chourkoune and Parul Bhandari (Springer, 2018) and “Walking on Dew: A Feminist Reading of Krishna Sobti’s Listen Girl!” in Krishna Sobti: A Counter Archive, eds., Sukrita Paul Kumar and Rekha Sethi (Routledge, 2022); and Khoyi Cheezon ka Shoke (Hind poems; Radhakrishna Prakashan, 2021). Gauri Seth (Verma) is a psychiatry doctor in the United Kingdom. She studied bioethics at the University of Bristol as an intercalate bachelors during her medical school undergraduate training. She has served as a junior doctor representative to the Institute of Medical Ethics, co-­authoring and providing insights to the now-­published consensus statement on undergraduate ethics and law teaching throughout UK medical schools. She has worked as an Academic Clinical Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neurosciences and is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Currently, she is the founder of a mental wellness innovation, democratizing access to connection science for sustainable emotional wellness.

xxi

Contributors

Arvind Sharma is the Birks Professor of Comparative Religion in the School of Religious Studies at McGill University in Montréal, Canada. He has also taught in Australia (Brisbane, Sydney), the United States (Northeastern, Boston, Temple, Harvard) and India (Nalanda) and has published extensively in the fields of Indian religions and comparative religion. He was instrumental in promoting the adoption of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the World’s Religions in 2016, which was developed over three global conferences (2006, 2011, 2016) on the World’s Religions After September 11, which met in Montréal. The following Nobel Peace laureates were patrons of this project: Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Shirin Ebadi, Bishop Belo and Elie Wiesel. Renuka Sharma, formerly of the University of Melbourne and Monash Asia Institute, Australia, was trained in medicine, psychiatry and psychotherapy. She continued her practice in medical and psychoanalytic counselling, while pursuing further studies in emotions, feminist philosophy and ethics – which were curtailed due to her premature passing in 2002. A formidable worker and thinker, she left behind a legacy as an engaged social phenomenologist in Australia, India and the US. Rita Sherma is the founding Director and Associate Professor at the Center for Dharma Studies, Core Doctoral Faculty; Department Chair of Theology & Ethics; and Co-­Chair of the Sustainability 360 Initiative at GTU, Berkeley, California. Formerly, she was at USC and served as The Swami Vivekananda Visiting Professor in Hindu Studies (University of Southern California, Los Angeles). She holds an M.A. in Women’s Studies in Religion and a Ph.D. in theology and ethics from Claremont Graduate University, California. She is co-­ founder of the American Academy of Religion’s Hinduism Program Unit. She is the founding Vice President of DANAM (Dharma Academy of North America) – a scholarly society for research on Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religious and interreligious studies – and served as Vice President of the Society for Hindu-­Christian Studies. She has authored/edited/co-­ edited nine books and is the founding Editor-­in-­Chief of the Journal of Dharma Studies: Asian and Transcultural Religion, Philosophy, & Ethics. She serves on the Editorial Board of Reading Religion Journal (an American Academy of Religion publication) and serves on the Advisory Board of the Yale Forum for Religion and Ecology. Her most recent volume, co-­ edited with Purushottama Bilimoria, is Religion and Sustainability: Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses Intersection of Sustainability Studies and Religion, Theology, & Philosophy, Springer-­Nature United Nations Sustainable Development Book Series, 2022. Gunjan Pradhan Sinha is an academic and journalist. Her book titled Dharma in Governance was published in 2018. She writes on public policy and applied Indian ethics and has published extensively as a columnist in the Indian Express, the Economic Times and the Financial Express, as well as writing for think tanks such as the India Foundation and Vivekananda International Foundation. She conducts workshops for academic institutions in India and taught philosophy at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, from where she graduated. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is an Indian scholar, literary theorist and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of Columbia’s

xxii

Contributors

Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. She is the author of numerous articles and books, including the well-­known essay ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, her translation of and introduction to Jacques Derrida’s De la Grammatologie and her translations of Mahasweta Devi’s works, including Imaginary Maps and Breast Stories. Among her many honours, she was awarded the 2012 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy and, in 2013, the Padma Bhushan, the third-­highest civilian award given by the Indian government. M. K. Sridhar, Ph.D., is a leading scholar of ancient and classical India. He is currently Registrar at SVYASA Yoga University, India, and Visiting Professor at SVYASA Online University, United States. He was formerly the Academic Dean and Dean of Divisions of Yoga & Humanities and Yoga and Spirituality, SVYASA. He was the Registrar and Deputy Director of the publications wing of Karnataka Samskrit University. He was a Fulbright Scholar (2000) at South Carolina University, United States, Adjunct Professor of Sanskrit at Union University, Cincinnati, United States. A widely awarded scholar, he has lectured at Harvard, Berkeley, Stony Brook and Oxford University in the United States and United Kingdom and several universities in India. He has published numerous books and articles in journals and academic volumes. He has presented papers around the world and across India. Professor Sridhar has produced several documentaries on Sanskrit, Indian philosophy, the environment, Indology and the Yoga University. Nishant Upadhyay is a Ph.D. candidate in the Asian Cultures and Languages Program at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests focus on religious traditions, boundary-­making, politics, political philosophy, nationalism and conflicts in South Asia. Mainly focusing on Shi’i and Isma’ili Islamic traditions in South Asia – and more specifically, India – he is interested in finding how traditions develop distinctions and boundaries and employ such discourse in political, social and economic fields in our times. Kenneth Valpey is a research fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. In addition to having published articles on Indic thought and animal ethics, he has published a monograph, Cow Care in Hindu Animal Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan 2020, open access). In the Oxford Centre for Hindu studies, he co-­directs the Bhāgavata Purāṇa Research Project.

xxiii

PREFACE

Peter Singer was the first colleague to ask me to write a chapter on Indian ethics (for the Blackwell Companion to Ethics, 1991, which has since seen several editions); the threadbare ideas and outline in that much-­read chapter grew into an assortment of papers on the ethics of nonviolence, Gandhian ethics, environmental ethics (with Jock McCullough, and for Joy Palmer and David Cooper), ethics of emotions, Jaina ethics of voluntary dying, Protestant ethics vs. karma yoga, disinterested ethics in Kant and the Gītā (with Patrick Hutchings), bioethics, infanticide, filicide, ethnopsychiatric ethics (with Renuka Sharma), animal ethics (supporting Animal Liberation in Melbourne since its inception meetings in La Trobe University), etc. These strides eventuated in the ground plan for two volumes on Indian ethics and more indeed. I mentioned to Peter Singer once at a reception (to honour David Lewis and Barry Taylor) at Melbourne University that Indian Ethics (Vol. I) had come out, and I’d be sending him a copy. I added that there hasn’t been much in the English-­reading genre on Indian ethics, so he might welcome it. Looking somewhat surprised or perplexed, he asked me very directly: Why don’t those paṇ ḍits in India tell us about ethics in the Indian tradition…that scholars have been writing in Sanskrit? That question stayed with me: I wanted to respond by saying, well, Indian Ethics (Vol. I) is precisely about that, being mostly focused on classical discussions informed by paṇḍits, as well as contemporary scholars. But I would not hesitate to add now: what the paṇ ḍits would tell us (and have to me) is a lot of what we would call metaethics (the dharmaśāstras and epics are full of them); my intention has always been to start doing ethics and responding to Western pursuits of moral philosophizing from the Indian perspective and lebenswelt. The more important question would then be: how do we talk about ethics in the lives of people, in the vanishing present and the future ones to be, where it matters and how moral issues might impact their experiences, suffering and well-­ being – in the Indian context? This question has since become the prolegomenon for future work on Indian ethics, beginning with the present volume. This volume is, in some ways, essentially a sequel to the widely read and used Indian Ethics Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges (Volume I, Ashgate 2007; Routledge 2017), although both have their separate distinctiveness. It is a sequel in the sense that the present volume shifts the focus more toward the application and practical xxiv

Preface

ramifications of Indian ethics, which can otherwise be taken in more analytical, conceptual and metaethical terms, as was largely the case with the earlier volume. What this means is that there are different kinds of normative challenges and on-­the-­ground issues pertaining to the concerns of ethical or practical moral issues in the context of India and its diaspora that are not covered by straightforward metaethical and analytical concerns. The present volume is not too concerned with foundational and metaphysical presuppositions, even within the discourse of justice (and injustice that would fall within the ambit of deliberations on dharma and adharma, as explained in the lengthy introduction to the preceding volume). This expanded volume stands on its own in regard to the topics and problems that it undertakes and on which our authors were invited to reflect. That said, we do encourage readers to keep in mind or in the background the array of discussions, reconstruction of the analytics of ethics and disputations that have been covered in the previous volume and other such volumes elsewhere. In the process of putting together a volume as vast as this, there are a number of people, besides those mentioned above, I wish to recall and thank with affection. The first is Renuka Sharma. She was one of the leading lights of Indian Ethics Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges on which she worked while battling a terminal illness. As noted in the Preface to that volume, when she sadly passed away at a young age in 2002, she already had a template in her mind of what a sequel would look like. Thoughts she dictated to me barely a few days before her passing, which were gathered posthumously in a paper ‘Toward a Possible Non-­ Western Womanist Ethics: Gender, Justice, and Applied Aspects’, have influenced the Introductory chapter of this volume; her significant contributions are flagged in a number of chapters in the volume (three of which are semi-­authored). So this present volume is yet another star in the galaxy of works inspired by and, to an extent, made possible by Renuka Sharma. Therefore, it is fitting that this volume is dedicated to her memory. Renuka Sharma was helped by (the late) Sally Percival Wood in much of her work. Joseph Prabhu was the other beacon (or deacon) shepherding Indian Ethics Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges (as one of the co-­ editors and contributing authors); he played a small yet significant role in the early stages of planning this volume. His indelible mark remains invisibly in this herculean endeavour. Amy Rayner has been the constant anchor and steering captain at the helm of this project from beginning to end. Meticulously, with deep dedication and devotion, she has worked tirelessly to see the project to its completion. The organization of the volume, the arrangements of the divisions and the fine-­tuning of the contents, plus more, have seen the ingenious hand of Amy-­la. She worked long hours editing each chapter a number of times. At every stage, Amy was in direct contact with the authors and the publishers’ editors, attending to every detail. Amy guided over 45 authors based around the world through every stage of submission, revision, tracking and proofing. Her insights and guidance have been invaluable in bringing together a range of topical concerns and appropriate contributing authors. Abhilasha Semwal provided support by looking over a number of chapters and, in particular, by adding meticulous refinement to the editing process in the penultimate stage. Karyn MacDonell has been a source of encouragement and advice to the volume as a whole; Navina Bilimoria and Gangadhar C. provided much-­needed technical assistance and support. Thank you to Ruth Vanita, William Jackson and Shyam Ranganathan for providing their respective endorsements to the volume. Shyam Ranganathan also graciously provided xxv

Preface

his erudite and insightful Foreword to the book. I extend my gratitude to Savita Singh for her contribution to Indian feminist ethics in the Introductory chapter. And sincere thanks to Shoma Choudhury and Anvitaa Bajaj at Routledge, New Delhi, for their immense patience and diligent support at every stage of the production of this volume. And a final word to the tradition that has inspired the extended project on Indian ethics: The Hindu epic poems Rāmāyaṇ a and Mahābhārata (contains the Bhavagadgītā) serve to this day as significant ethical models influencing Indian (albeit largely Hindu) theories of rights, justice, law and social and personal morality. The Mahābhārata is a preeminent example of ethical controversy as a product of human meddling and confusion, while the Rāmāyaṇ a endeavours (in various iterations) to represent a paradigm for human conduct as conveyed supposedly by the gods in reincarnated forms on mother-­earth (though not without equivocations). On balance, the Mahābhārata plays a more influential role in defining the themes and tropes that shape pre-­modern – and to an extent just-­modern to postcolonial – Indian ethical thinking through the sublimely transpersonal yet precariously unstable concept of dharma/dhamma/ dharam/dharm, and hence this odēulogy: Dharma is subtle (dharmasūkṣmo asti – Bhiṣma) yet might prove to be unstable and troubling since not every contextual situation of dharma’s application have been realized, materialized, just idealized (nor foreseen in the scriptures, or even by the wise ones) it cannot be a set of categorical rules and laws; good consequence indeed is one desirable trajectory, but sustaining humanity and focusing on universal good, with compassion in the face of all sentient beings, is an imperative dharma that may also encompass duties of the state, law, virtues, one’s self-­nature informing role-­obligation to society as well as entailing entitlements (rights), justice, and nonviolent care (self-­care to boot). The Mahābhārata (kernelled)

Further Acknowledgements We acknowledge the Wurundjeri and Bunurong People who are the Traditional Custodians of this land where the bulk of the book was crafted. We should also like to express gratitude to our mentors, colleagues and fellow conversationists, alongside each of the contributing authors and endorsees to this Companion (already mentioned in the preface and footnotes), and they are Bimal K. Matilal, J. N. Mohanty, Max Charlesworth, Patrick Hutchings Esquire, Peter Wong Yih Jiun, Jay Garfield, Saririndranath Tagore (Bappa), Sherah Bloor (pillars of Sophia also), Peter Singer, Ramubhai (Ramchandra Gandhi), Ramachandra Guha, Ashis and Umaben Nandy, Daya Krishna, Akeel Bilgrami, Asha Mukherji, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Gayatri Chakravorty, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Amartya Sen, Christopher Chapple, K. T. Pandurangi, Bernard Williams, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Ninian Smart, V. N. Jha, Gerald Larson, Ian xxvi

Preface

Kesarcodi-­Watson, Frank Jackson, Peter Singer, Greg Bailey, Robert Goldman, Robert Solomon, Stephen Phillips, Kathleen Higgins, Arindam Chakrabarti, Hans Sluga, Jay Wallace, Ninian Smart, Jack (J.J.C) Smart, Arvind Sharma, A J C (Tony) Coady, Graeme Marshall, Graham Oppy, Monima Chadha, Kumkum Sangari, Raj Kumar, S.N. Sridhar, Sthaneshwar Timalsina, Pravina Rodrigues, Jeff Long, Hugh Silverman, Ed Casey, Mohammad Azadpur, Mohammad Kamal, Ian Weeks, Peter Fenner, Rayner family, Bilimoria/Billimoria (extended) Sangha, Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Lucius Outlaw, Vibhuti Yadav, Jin Park, Andrew Irvine, Michael Krausz, Alan Musgrave, Brian Ellis, Robert Young, Eliot Deutsch, Jagdish Sharma, Karl H. Potter, Mark Siderits, Sonam Thakchoe, Jay Shankar Shaw, Roger Ames, Eliot Deutsch, Wilhelm Halbfass, Richard Rorty, Christian Coseru, Jon Powers, Lenart Škof, Max Deutscher, Penny Deutscher, Marion Tapper, Margaret Cameron, Karen Jones, Karen Green, Marita Harney, Douglas Kirsner, Stan van Hooft, Ray Briggs, Samiksha Goyal, Sherah Bloor, Paul Crittenden, Laurie Patton, Douglas Berger, Agnieszka Rostalska, Shashi Prabha Kumar, Deepshika Shahi, Vaishali Gahlyan, Satyendra Srivastava, Satish Jha, Margaret Chatterjee, Anand Vaidya, Susheel Mittal (DKPrintworld family), Sanjit Chakraborty, Konina Mondal, Rama Rao Pappu, Mrinal Miri, A. Raghuramaraju, Shivesh Thakur, Ricki Levi, Tatjana Kochetkova, Christopher Coughlin, Ruzana Pskhu, Yamuna Safina, Hazel Rowley, Smt Vishalakshi, Sathya Sai Baba, Jayant Bapat, Rashmi Desai, Shannon Magree, Colette Walker, Anna Hennessey, Maureen, Lotus, Baz, Nina Ruhle, among yet others. We also express sincere gratitude to the Routledge (Taylor & Francis) team for soliciting this project and seeing it through the various stages to the present phala in your hand, especially Shoma Choudhury, Anvitaa Bajaj, Rimina Mohapatra, Suba Ramya, Melissa Brown Levine and their tireless copyeditors and production teams. Last but not least, for committed ecologists: Venus Bay (Australia), San Rafael (California), University of Melbourne with Sophia (Victoria), Oxford Center for Hindu Studies and All Souls College of the Faithful Departed (Oxford University), Ashoka University, O P Jindal Global University (Sonipat), India International Centre (Delhi), RUDN University (Moscow), Ignatius Centre (Ljubljana, Slovenia) – and for Amy-­la – Dharamshala, Bodhgaya, Nelson (New Zealand) and Canberra (Australia) – for providing svargic kutirs towards thinking, writing, recreating and cooking in the spirited company of the canine kind: Devī, Rasa and Princze Chapatti (alas, gate gate pārasaṃ gate; gone gone gone far away; oṃ śāntiḥ, nonviolent peace). Purushottama Bilimoria Venus Bay/Melbourne, Vic San Francisco/Berkeley USA Sonipat/New Delhi/India Dussehra/Sharad Pūrṇ imā 2023

xxvii

FOREWORD Shyam Ranganathan

I became interested in the question of Indian ethics while a graduate student. I found my philosophy education (largely in the analytic tradition) rather frustrating for its lack of imagination, options and the narrow ways in which it conceived of issues and solutions to problems – recycling the positions that, in the words of Alfred North Whitehead, constitute a series of footnotes to Plato. I then decided to undertake a master’s degree in South Asian studies in 1997, and it was there that I was astonished to learn of the myth that South Asians were interested in every topic of philosophy except for ethics. After all, this is the tradition that gives us the doctrine of karma, the earliest surviving tradition of ethical vegetarianism and veganism and a tradition that has a very broad approach to moral standing, inclusive of nonhuman animals and planetary bodies, such as our Earth. In keeping with this myth, there was virtually nothing written on the topic by contemporary academic authors. To this day, professional journals on South Asian philosophy are filled with writings on metaphysics, epistemology and various forms of spirituality – but lack sustained, serious work on South Asian moral philosophy. I toiled in what seemed like isolation on the topic of Indian ethics. My first book, Ethics and the History of Indian Philosophy, based on my South Asian studies thesis, was published in 2007. To my great surprise, Purushottama Bilimoria’s Indian Ethics: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges Volume I, edited with the late Joseph Prabhu and Renuka Sharma, was published the same year. When I discovered this book, I had the sense of being next door but separated by a wall from a pool of scholars led by Dr Bilimoria, who were undeterred by the myth and determined to fill that vacuum of good work on Indian ethics. Since then, I edited the Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Ethics (2017), but virtually nothing else of note on Indian ethics has been published – until this volume. It is hence with great joy that I find that Dr Bilimoria is at it again, with a second volume in this series. In my work, I have explored the ways in which South Asian moral philosophers – philosophers of dharma – had engaged in all levels of ethics. They did what we often call metaethics these days, which explores the conditions of moral theorizing, normative ethics (the aspect of ethics that specifies the proper approach to the Right or the Good) and applied ethics (which is often a case-­based approach to moral problems). Yet, the old myth xxviii

Foreword

that South Asians were uninterested in ethics is reinvented in newer versions of the claim, such as the notion that they restricted their work to the metaethical and stayed away from the practical. This current volume, The Routledge Companion to Indian Ethics: Women, Justice, Bioethics and Ecology, edited by Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner, does the work of showing how Indian ethics is practical and addresses contemporary challenges that are ignored in the literature dominated by Eurocentric considerations. I call this Eurocentric tradition rooted in ancient Greek thought the Western tradition – I use this orthography (of the ‘W’ that leans on the ‘est’) decolonially, in recognition that the West is a large area, including Black and Indigenous traditions that are historically the victims of Western colonialism, and recolonized in the generic use of the ‘west’ to speak of a European tradition. One notable theme of the West, already present in the early works of Plato and Aristotle, but also their various descendants, whether Kant or Mill, is that ethical thinking in this tradition is predominantly anthropocentric (prioritizing humans) but also communitarian (defining the agent and their ethical problems in terms of community membership). My work has led me to the conclusion that the prioritization of humans in communities in the Western tradition as the primary challenge – and limit – of moral philosophy is a function of the ancient Greek idea of logos – a concept that marries language and thought. Language is human and community-­based, and so this prioritization of human language as thought creates a tradition that, in the long run, tries to understand everything in terms of its language and culture. One implication of this tradition, founded on the model of language in the community, is that instead of sending moral philosophers to study South Asia, the West sends linguists and ethnographers who lack interest and training in moral philosophy. Against the backdrop of this license to study South Asia non-­philosophically, even individuals hired for academic positions in South Asian philosophy see no need to be specialists in moral philosophy in order to comment on the absence of ethics in South Asian philosophy. South Asians were neither anthropocentric nor communitarian. Their early outlook on the ancient philosophies of the Vedas, Buddhism, Jainism, Sāṇkhya and Yoga were cosmic in perspective. This is an advantage, as it allows Indian ethics to not be constrained in its outlook by the contingencies of human life in particular communities. This wider view, hence, allows Indian ethics to shine a light on the challenges of human life in communities as contingencies of moral choice. The Routledge Companion to Indian Ethics: Women, Justice, Bioethics and Ecology takes up the wider lens of Indian ethics to analyse various moral challenges, including and beyond the anthropocentric and community bound. The first part, Health, Ethics and Public Welfare, addresses the public policy implications of Indian moral philosophical reflection. The second part, Ecology, Sustainability and Spirituality, broadens the scope, allowing authors to explore the wider implications of Indian ethics past the world of human artifice. Important topics such as climate change, water rights and conservation are tackled here. Of special importance is the exploration of the ethics of human interactions with nonhuman animals. This is historically important, as Indian theorizing acknowledged the moral standing of nonhuman animals. The established practice of treating nonhuman animals as property or chattel that humans may use or dispose of as they wish is morally problematic, as species membership or, for that matter, being human is not in and of itself a basic moral principle. Hence, the abuses of members of the nonhuman species we witness today are vulnerable easily (though rarely offered) to moral philosophical criticism. But very little of this easy and straightforward criticism of xxix

Foreword

anthropocentrism is to be found in the Western tradition owing to its predominant and ancient anthropocentrism. Turning to South Asia for guidance on these matters is of the utmost importance as this is the tradition from where historically we derive this wider scope for moral consideration – largely absent from the Western tradition (until perhaps as late as Bentham’s 1781 The Principles of Morals and Legislation). The third part, Engaged Ethics and Ecofeminism, continues this wider moral scope for moral philosophical investigation and rightly probes South Asian sources for insight. The fourth part, Ethics and Politics, is in and of itself an important topic. The ethical has to do with the Right or the Good. Politics has to do with power. The overlap of these two areas of philosophical concern deserves more attention than it receives. The investigation here draws richly from contemporary scholarship and recent figures such as Gandhi – a leader who did not shy away from motivating political action in terms of moral conviction. Finally, part five, Women and the Limits of Traditional Ethics, explores the ways in which the concerns of feminists overlap, border and transcend traditional moral theorizing, activity and attention from the Indian tradition. As someone who has been long advocating for taking Indian moral philosophy seriously, I find these investigations by various writers, scholars and thinkers a welcome change from the normalized Orientalism of Indology, South Asian studies and the academy at large. In my work for some time, I have advanced a distinction (which I trace back to the Yoga Sūtra I. 2-­4) between an interpretive approach to explanation and an explicatory approach. To interpret is to rely upon one’s propositional attitudes, like belief (the attitude that a thought p is true), in an explanation. This is the standard approach in the literature. Scholars, usually not philosophers and uninterested in moral theory, use their beliefs to interpret South Asian intellectual production. They do so as interpretation is a default method of the Western tradition and acclaimed by leading figures as divergent as Kant, Quine and Heidegger. Anyone can engage in the activity of interpretation. Explanation in terms of one’s propositional attitudes was widely criticized in Indian philosophy in various forms by various ancient moral theories. Buddhists, Jains and Yogis would have had their own criticisms of this approach. In Yoga, this would have been depicted as an explanation bound up with egotism (asmitā). Others would have criticized such explanations as appeals to saṃvṛti or vyāvahārika satya – conventional truth (the truth that x believes that p). But as interpretation comes to us as the default option in the Western tradition, it comes to us with a Western outlook as supplying the doxastic resources for interpretation. Interpreted from a Western vantage, we can only ever acknowledge South Asian intellectual activity in so far as it coincides with what we are willing to endorse or say from a Western background. Methodologically, this is to treat the Western tradition as the frame or standard to judge South Asian intellectual history. This is colonial. But it is also to treat one’s not necessarily well-­informed Western outlook as the interpretive frame. If one believes, for instance, that normative or practical ethics is what Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics calls political science (the knowledge of what is necessary to get on in one’s community), and if one uses this belief to interpret, then South Asian philosophy will appear to have no normative or practical ethics because South Asians did not take Aristotle’s communitarian approach. The earlier idea that Indian thinkers were uninterested in ethics is an outcome of this: if what one believes is ethics is not what South Asians thought was important, then via interpretation, one would conclude that South Asians were uninterested in ethics. If one’s idea of metaethics, but not normative or practical ethics, corresponds to xxx

Foreword

what South Asians were interested in, via interpretation, one would conclude that South Asians were interested in metaethics only and did not engage in practical ethics. The real tragedy of this method is that it destroys the reasoning of moral (dharma) philosophers from the South Asian tradition, for each Indian claim is measured not in terms of its role in reason or argument but in terms of its conformity or deviation from the Western interpreter. The Orientalism of the literature that depicts South Asian philosophical investigation as strange, gap-­ridden and mystical is an artefact of this method imposed on Indian thinkers. The decolonial, anti-­anthropocentric and anti-­communitarian moral theorizing of India gets garbled by this interpretive methodology, for the Western interpreter will only ever acknowledge the individual claims that port well with their Western doxastic fund. The contrary approach is what I call explication. This is to rely upon logic (especially deductive validity). An argument is deductively valid when, if the premises are true, the conclusion has to be true. This rule of inference allows us to understand valid arguments that consist of propositions that are false. It also allows us to see that arguments comprised entirely of true propositions can be invalid. And finally, our beliefs – our attitude that a thought, p, is true – are irrelevant to reason. Interpretation, explanation in terms of belief, does not prevent us from affirming arguments that fail to be valid (for its criterion is not validity but what we believe), but it also mistakenly makes the truth of the explanation (as we see it) as central to its legitimacy, when the reasonability of an explanation is not reducible to its truth. Interpretation is a formal logical fallacy that fails to respect basic considerations of logic. So Western efforts to interpret South Asian philosophy in terms of its doxastic commitments is a deep confusion. It doesn’t even pass the muster of introduction to logic. When we explicate, we render explicit the theoretical commitments of a perspective that (in the case of dharma) would entail all the perspective’s claims about dharma and then understand the topic in terms of what the competing theories of dharma disagree about. The explicatory approach shows that while there are numerous theories of dharma, there is really just one concept of dharma at play in the South Asian tradition: this is the Right or the Good. This is what we arrive at if we explicate Western moral philosophy and Chinese philosophy about the Dao (Tao). Various claims about dharma are conflicting and incompatible entailments of conflicting and incompatible theories of dharma – each being a theory about the Right or the Good. What we find prior to colonization in South Asia is a tradition that was obsessed with moral philosophical questions, and where the lines were drawn were at the boundaries of competing positions on dharma. Religious identity, including being ‘Hindu’, had to wait for the British, who used a Persian term (‘Hindu’) to name the entire indigenous tradition a religion. Then, the South Asian tradition is interpreted instead of explicated, and South Asians lose access to their precolonial world of moral philosophy. What we require to push back the Orientalist narrative of Western interpretation is a broader exploration of the Indian tradition that is not constrained by the moral preoccupations of the Western world. This volume, pursuing moral questions that transcend the narrow anthropocentric and communitarian trend of the West, allows readers, students and researchers an opportunity to learn about the applicability of South Asian moral philosophy to contemporary challenges. Work such as this is crucial to the decolonization of research on South Asia. We are all better off and richer for this volume now being made available globally in print. Shyam Ranganathan York University, Toronto April 2023 xxxi

INTRODUCTION Practical Indian Ethics in the Global Cosmopolis Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner*

Preamble Until recently, philosophers had looked upon ethics as a system of moral rules and practices, mostly in their Western textual locations. Theologians had to deal with the high grounds of moralism and disciplinary expectations of the Church, with all the unsettling contradictions and confusions that shimmered away in the lives of the laity. Life outside of the academy and ordained orders did present numerous challenges – for instance, whether wars were just, the question of justice itself, how one conducts oneself and the meaning of life or purpose in living. The approach to the ethical questions was often answered from within institutional frameworks or from a certain transcendental perspective (as in much of classical moral philosophy, to which even Ludwig Wittgenstein [1929] succumbed) instead of being answered ‘in the lived world (lebenswelt)’. The approach taken in this volume is different. It reports on contemporary wide-ranging social and communal problems facing people in the areas of politics, gender, justice and ecology. Various theoretical disciplinary responses are used to think through these issues, using multiple perspectives, some institutional and others ‘from the ground up’, hence, intersectionally nuanced. In this way, the volume’s expanded scope extends to demonstrating that (1) on-theground moral concerns have not been overlooked or glossed over in the traditions in question (in this instance from the Indian or broadly South Asian intellectual genre), (2) there have been responses, both unenlightened and enlightened ones, (3) there are resources within these traditions to think through practically and theoretically these very issues and problems facing the polity concerned or the inheritors of the tradition, (4) as alternatives to and embedding critiques of mainstream and dominant Western approaches (including Anglofeminists) and (5) certain challenges are unique to India (e.g., the impact of liberalization, excessive industrialization, globalization, communalism and climate change), to which refreshing ethical responses are continually being made, revised or revisited (e.g., in environmentalism, bioethics, biotechnology, gender and caste justice, ecology, biodiversity). *  With Contribution by Savita Singh, commentary on Part V, at pp. 18–21.

1

DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-1

Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner

The collection of chapters that follow is a measure of the Indian contribution to contemporary thinking in ethics, particularly as it pertains to applied or practical ethics. The work is also concerned with exploring the boundaries or limits of Indian ethics that might also possibly be extended to applied concerns in the contemporary globalizing world. As such, this volume is in part the logical sequel to Indian Ethics Classical and Contemporary Challenges (hereafter Volume I; Bilimoria in Singer 1991); its specific focus on issues of women, justice, ecology and bioethics is intended to engage toward much deeper analyses of ethical issues, and in so doing provide a foothold for the beginnings of a new dialogue around ethical practices. This volume asks, Who speaks for women? More particularly, who speaks for feminism, feminist ethics, Indian women, the marginalized, even the mentally and medically challenged, the ecosystem, water, the environment and, indeed, for justice? In this Introduction, we shall begin with visiting certain prevalent myths about Indian ethics – that go back to the Orientalists and philosophers such as Kant and Hegel, but as Shyam Ranganathan has argued in his Foreword to this volume, is rampant across contemporary philosophy circles and not least, South Asian scholarship. This will be followed with a discussion of problems taken up in this volume, such as justice, women, bioethics and ecology, sustainability and so forth, with reference to a selection of chapters in the respective parts into which the volume is structured. Some theoretical discussions might veer off in a direction that is deemed beneficial in dialogue with cognate concerns or treatment in Western moral and political philosophy – such as injustice, dharma and gender rights.

‘There Is No Such Thing as Ethics in Indian Philosophy’ Some academics remain unrepentant and insistent in respect of their much-touted claim that there is no ethics to speak of in the Indian tradition. In Volume I, we attempted to demonstrate that there is what we might rightly call ethics qua ethics, at least in the classical tradition. But – the same scholars are wont to retort – that is just what we would call metaethics, the more abstract concerns of moral psychology and epistemology, where the focus is on moral claims, their meaning, justification and, perhaps also, consequences in normative context; it is, however, not what ethics is and how it is done in Western philosophy (from Aristotle to the present times). The protagonists of this claim have in mind (usually from across the Atlantic) ethics as supposedly pursued in the modern analytic tradition (inclusive of Aristotle and Kant, of course). But this is a mistaken view; ethics is not the preserve just of the analytic and theoretical tradition; there are permutations of normative ethics, practical ethics, applied ethics, professional ethics, feminist ethics, global ethics, environmental ethics, intergenerational ethics, race ethics and so forth. Ethics is also of concern and interest in theories of justice, bioethics, jurisprudence or law. Ethics is indeed connected with Indian metaphysics, socio-political theory of life, law and spirituality. It is traceable in this form in works like the Gītā, Māhābhārata, the Dharma śāstras and Pūrvamīmāṁsā (as Mandakranta Bose and Anindita Balslev demonstrate in their chapters and illustrated in Part A of Volume I; see also Olivelle 2017). According to the other position, the analytical one, the fact is to the contrary. There is no discipline called Indian moral philosophy. Though ancient Indians had given some thought to moral issues, their thoughts are mixed up with so many non-moral elements that no systematic moral philosophy can be derived from them, as Professor S. S. Barlingay once put it. His erstwhile student, Pradeep Gokhale, believes that the truth lies somewhere mid-way between these polar-extreme positions; so be it. Gokhale agrees that Indian moral philosophy as an autonomous 2

Introduction

discipline is not an established fact (Ali Malla 2018: 445–451). But it is true, at the same time, that the moral thought available in ancient Indian literature, though unsystematic in itself, contains various principles, doctrines, narratives and statements in the light of which it is possible to formulate a moral philosophy or the moral philosophies. Such a formulation is likely to be different in certain important respects from the formulations which are available in the Western tradition of moral philosophy. With due respect to both Gokhale and the antagonists of the contrary view, the two volumes have chalked the ambitious task of laying out the firm foundations for the establishment of Indian moral philosophy as an acceptable discipline alongside Western moral philosophy, or ethics worth its name. It is in the context of this broader paradigm that we are setting out the prolegomenon for any future pursuit of Indian ethics: that is to say, we must move beyond the confines and limits of metaethics and the purely theoretical or metaphysical or theological basis of moral philosophy as this arises from and pertains to the wider Indian (and its diasporic) lebenswelt. On the coattails of Indian Ethics: Volume I (which was classical and theoretical, Routledge 2007/2017), this companion develops in a much more expanded manner consequential applications to areas and concerns of women, justice, bioethics and ecology. Across the globe, it is a critical time to explore topical issues facing women, environmental ethics, social justice and cross-cultural responses to dominant Western moral thought. As such, the framework adopted is contemporary in that it builds linkages between pragmatic thinking and emerging issues in India, as well as making use of multiple forms of writing and research, including classical essay form, reportage and interview, case studies and textual analysis. In Volume I, the issues covered are now widely part of the curriculum in many courses in Western and Indian colleges and universities. We hope and trust that The Routledge Companion to Indian Ethics will serve to further the cause and provide fresh and more applied material, case studies and challenges that will supplement what is already a rich fount of Indian ethics in academic and lay studies. In our modern (and postmodern) times, there is an increasing awareness that in our present cross-cultural human situation, no single culture, religion, worldview or discipline is sufficient, even to face – let alone solve, single-handedly – many of the issues or predicaments facing humanity and the world at large. We are in need of a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach. This volume greatly represents this mood, as well as an effort towards that approach while remaining grounded in the philosophical tradition of enacting moral philosophy qua ethics. We shall now discuss in some detail themes taken up in the various chapters by providing a theoretical background to the overarching theories in normative and practical ethics to which certain responses are being made from and within the Indian context, such as the question of the justice, right, equality and equity.

Universalizing Justice vs. Locating Injustices On the question of a universalist theory of justice, Martha Craven Nussbaum believes that if poor women anywhere are to be extended meaningful support, then there is a need for a true, objective and universal theory of justice (Nussbaum 1995). There is a basic list of human functional capabilities that she believes are universal (‘cultural universals’) to all human beings; we might each and in different communities argue about the details but not about the substance of the human commonalities. There is, however, not that much support 3

Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner

for this truth claim and Nussbaum has been vehemently criticized (mostly by feminists and Indian feminists to boot) for the imperious attempt to impose a heavily Westernized theory of capabilities in the non-Western context. Bilimoria and Sharma’s chapter on infanticide in Part I discusses some difficulties with this position. So as not to overstate her criticism of the overdetermined capabilities approach, Nussbaum balances the fulcrum with some supplemental weight towards ‘equality of capabilities’ and the importance of ‘entitlements which allow the capabilities of an individual to function’, but she refrains from going all hog toward declaring equality of rights and interests or emphasis on preferences – a point of contention between her, Katherine MacKinnon and Rosi Braidotti. Her focus is more on affirmative institutional support that turns these capabilities into entitlements, which she surprisingly finds underwritten in the Indian Constitution in a more positive manner in contrast to the US Constitution, where liberty and rights are understood negatively or as the absence of action on the part of the state (which, of course, is not entirely the case when one reads the Indian Constitution and its genesis more closely and follows judicial interpretations or looks at the debacle over the personal law, community rights and absence of protections against state abuse of its power over the individual, the minority and the disadvantaged, etc.; Bilimoria 2002). But Nussbaum (1995) ends up with a regurgitation of the ten human functional capabilities as cultural universals that she still believes define a sex-friendly and plural approach to freedom in India as much as anywhere else – namely, the ability to live, bodily health, bodily integrity, the senses, imagination and thought, emotions, practical reason and affiliation; the ability to live with other species, play and laugh; and the ability to have control over the political and material environment; the basically ten capabilities originally proposed have since seen considerable additions or editions (Nussbaum 2000). They seem, on the face of it, to be rather appealing and desirable virtues. What could be wrong with the capabilities strategy? But the question still remains: how is justice to be achieved in developing countries with vastly diverse communities, conditions and challenges through the implementation of the ‘capabilities’ strategy?

Rawlsian Universalism Others have opted to substitute a Kantian justification for the ‘universalist’ theory. Take John Rawls’ articulation of this direction famously in his theory of justice (1971). Justice is taken beyond the legal scales of the retributive dispensation of just deserts (on the punishment side) to the wider contexts of the social and economic liberties wherein each individual has an equal right to participate and be able to maximize the opportunities without disadvantaging anyone else in the production and fair share of desired goods. The key term is ‘fairness’ – alongside equality, rights, dignity, autonomy and treating another as an end rather than a means – with which Rawls identifies his concept of justice: ‘In justice as fairness society is interpreted as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage’ (1971: 352). Rawls argues that those who engage in social cooperation choose together, in one joint act, the principles that are to assign basic rights and duties (1971: 346). And so a fair arrangement of the goods and benefits, and responsibilities of society, enables fair and just entitlement to benefits: inequality is seen as arbitrary and blight from traditional arrangements that gave far too much weight to comprehensive views rather than the more impartial principles which underscore liberty for all and in which all positions and offices are open to all – that is to say, there is distributive justice. The possibility of an impartial and 4

Introduction

non-inequality arrangement is achieved in Rawls’ thinking at some considerable level of abstraction, which is linked to a certain intuition and, more pertinently, to his notion of ‘the original position’ or the ‘veil of ignorance’; veiled behind or shielded from any knowledge of where in society such persons will be placed (born or moved into), each such person would ideally decide to make basic fundamentals, rights, privileges and opportunities available to all and equally. Heterogeneity and self-interest are not qualities of much use here; neither is the diversity of religious and ethnic sensibilities; rather, conformity to the law of reasoned enlightenment is the guiding Kantian trope here. However, Rawls has had his share of detractors and critics. We shall consider not the better-known ones, such as Robert Nozick, but rather turn to voices more relevant to our present concerns with gender and justice in the interstices of the first world and the third non-world, particularly. First is the question of ‘public reason’: in Rawls’ theory, any substantive value positions and views of good life are excluded from the public sphere; in other words, as William A. Galston has pointed out, only the basic notions of justice and public order are to be the contents of debate in the liberal polity (2002; van Hooft 2003). But if ‘comprehensive’ views are not part of public debate, then the varying values people live by would be compromised. Sara Ahmed, in her insightful inquiry, questions the very idea or ideal of universal justice; in her chapter, in Part IV of this volume, The Question of Universalist Justice – Transnational Encounters in Feminism, she puts it rhetorically: ‘Justice then becomes a strategic decision which is bound by a set of normative constraints, a decision which is inventive, partial, and temporary rather than founded in an assumed universality’. Not unlike Ahmed’s sentiment, Susan Moller Okin had earlier considered arguments against justice- and rights-based thinking (seeking to substitute this with care-based reasoning, virtue ethics or preferential interest utilitarianism, etc.), and she realizes that Rawlsian theory of justice based as it is on fairness is not able to countenance the complexity of issues that concern women in almost any part of the world (Okin 1989). She considers if a feminist theory of justice is possible. Still, Okin rejects the alternatives and leans towards Rawlsian justification that invites officials in Bangladesh who exclude women from the work-for-food program to engage in Rawlsian theorizing in order to try to imagine for themselves being in the original position which conceals their knowing where in the social order they belong, or which society or community (read, caste, class, ethnicity, regional and language-divide) they represent, or which ‘decent hierarchy’ they will represent once the veil of ignorance is lifted. They are supposed to act as representatives of the people poised to make decisions about and on the relevant moral principles they will freely agree to in the spirit of reflective equilibrium, regardless of the above difference (which could be counted as non-relevant moral beliefs; emphasis is added so as to distinguish this from Rawls’s ‘Difference Principle’, which allows for the differential in the distribution of primary goods in favour of the groups most disadvantaged; a little along the lines of affirmative action, which the State of California, despite its diversity made up of difference and value pluralism, is fast abandoning, at least in the tertiary sector.) These people are asked to shed, or bracket out from their purview, their differential historical backgrounds, the traditions and political institutions they have come from, and other comprehensive self-understandings by which their lives and conceptions of what is just and right have been hitherto governed. The presumption is that people anywhere, when given this utopian incentive and the will to be decent, will inexorably 5

Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner

arrive at a common understanding among themselves of what the basic idea of human rights, liberty of conscience, freedom from slavery and violence, aggression and execution, etc., amounts to, and they will agree to respect this of each other. Furthermore, under the Rawlsian so-called veil of ignorance, or rather better put, ignoring the veil, purdah’) they will also agree to help alleviate the improvised conditions of disadvantaged and underdeveloped groups to the point where the basic amenities of life – ‘goods’ are available and can be distributed to gain equilibrium in the poverty-wealth equation (although this is not a strict requirement of the theory if the normative practices of certain groups preclude sharing of the goods on an ongoing basis, for coercion is ruled out in the interest of toleration, the principle of ‘live and let live’). It is difficult, however, to imagine that the new global economic order (and their local representations in neo-colonial farces) would share any such incentives and conceive of the political and governance structure for its gradual dominance as anything remotely resembling such a sanguine assembly of principled decision-makers. The latter will, to be sure, otherwise argue for equality of opportunity and equitable distribution of goods and resources, thereby undermining the profit margin and ‘take-home’ share indices of global corporations (cf. Buchanan 2000; Dallmayr 1997). Such a strategy for justice would be seen, for example, by radical and liberationist elements in ‘third world’ regions as retrogressive by comparison to the progress they have made along the lines of, perhaps simple-minded or indigenous admixtures, of Marxist-socialism and religious sensibilities in the contexts of their own particular socio-economic realities, which have helped raise consciousness about the need for justice (without being bogged down by intricacies of the correct or most desirable theory qua theory of justice), equity in distribution of desired goods and resources, and differences on the ground with which they have been historically attuned to live, within which they choose to flourish, and which rather helps them to culturally embellish their particular society. The Rawlsian programmatic smacks of an old-fashioned Kantianinfluenced universalism. More worryingly, it has so often been pointed out that, Aristotelian and Kantian justifications for ‘universalist’ theories of justice have directly led to the oppression of women and other less advantaged groups (slaves, people of colour, under-caste groups, working and different class, etc.). If Rawls has remained Kantian but also moved into ‘politics’ – a lament by his utilitarian critics – then in what way has Rawls not been complicit to this epistemic violence? What makes these justifications, even in the name of equality of women, the more noble options? And have we exhausted all other theories of justice or alternative strategies that also seek to deliver similar goals of empowerment, equality, well-being and such goods – whose articulation, though, remains in languages other than those familiar to the theorists who work within the Western academic framework, even if they visit third world regions often enough to try out their theories (but fail to notice the ‘black mirror of history’)? As implied in Lindsay Dawson’s chapter in Part II of this volume, Amartya Sen, critical of the universalist proclivity, locates the viability of Rawlsian principles of distributive justice and reflective equilibrium squarely within Western democratic liberal societies that tend to be more affluent, but he points to their spectacular shortcomings in the varieties of regimes of the third world. For starters, Sen argues that reflective equilibrium needs to do more than simply acknowledge different conceptions of justice in society: what are the values and virtues of the extant framework of morality before the task of seeking equality between society and individuals is begun or seeing these as mere constraints, or limitations, placed upon the pursuit of one’s own interests (Rawls 1971: 821). There are wider 6

Introduction

ramifications here for the ‘holism’ of the social, political, economic, and ethical that point to the utilitarian bias in Rawl’s notion of fairness in the distribution of goods. In effect, Amartya Sen argues that freedom (2012; Sen & Drėze 1999, 2002), primarily both as an end and means and the development of ‘functional capabilities’ (1997a, 1999), is vastly more important than the exercise of a principled choice of social goods and the growth of wealth and utility (2000; 2002). Despite the facilitation of the latter, more than a million women could still go missing (Sen 1990a, 1990b; 1995; 1997)! Freedom to access education and healthcare, for example, is more important to the security and quality of life than wealth per se. According to Sen, access to education and increases in literacy rates were fundamental precursors to the rise in economic growth for Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. This is his message to India too (Sen and Drėze 1999: 145, 150). Sen’s shift from an index of social primary goods to an index of basic capabilities (despite the scepticism expressed earlier) at least takes better cognizance of the needs of minority groups, such as India’s Dalit community and severely marginalized groups, such as Muslim women, who find themselves in the foreground of a rising Hindu nationalistrevisionist projection of the homogeneous ‘Indian’ citizen (modelled on the opulent expatriate non-resident Indian, whether in Silicon Valley or in New Delhi). Hence, Sen notes that it is central to justice as he argues in The Idea of Justice (Sen 2011) that we have a strong sense of injustice on as many grounds before deciding on a reasoned theory of justice – a project decidedly of the European enlightenment that took off with Hobbes and Rosseau, who concentrated on identifying institutional arrangements for society (transcendental intuitionalism), and its quest for a perfect idea of justice rather than relative comparisons of justice and injustice (Sen 2011, 1997b; Sen & Drėze 1999, 2002). Transcendental institutionalists, in their search for perfect societies of justice, have deep requirements for socially appropriate behaviour or norms, while these are arguably derivative of rather than constitutive of the theory of justice.

Tracking Injustice Sally Haslanger (2019) likewise has emphasized tracking injustice instead of pursuing an abstracted theory of justice (as in Rawls), reinforcing the point noted earlier by Amartya Sen in his The Idea of Justice, where he critiques Rawls for not giving us indexes and precise markers of injustice in a society where certain practices may hide the level of pain, violence and injustice (such as inequity, disparities in legal rights – e.g., variant religious-customary law – and discriminatory distribution of goods and welfare). Sen provides a glaring example of the structural embedding of the caste system in South Asian society coupled with gender marginalization (which effectively forms a sub-caste within the graded hierarchy). A question we might still have for Haslanger is whether her theory of ‘ideology’ works in third world countries with very different cultural and political histories. We have to bring into the conversation here South Asian feminists who have been analysing the reasons behind the intransigence of the patriarchal system in the subcontinent that continues to resist unlearning the proclivity towards gender and transgender abuse and violence (e.g., despite judicial activism and several statutes, rape and dowry deaths have not declined across the subcontinent). How deep does the cognitive enculturation run in a society’s self-understanding and power base? Another example would be the formation of racial identity and othering. We can go back to Kant’s lectures on anthropology (especially his work, Anthropology from a Pragmatic 7

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Point of View, 2006) and examine his doctrine of human nature, the theory of race and racial classifications on the basis of human ‘essences’, the work of reason and, hence, also the ramifications for the theory (or ‘Critique’) of epistemology. Could one say that epistemology and the ethics ensuing from practical reason serve as a ruse for social-political regulative normativity? There are those who claim that the First and Second Critiques should not be read outside of this context and that the whole trajectory of the Critiques was to justify the racial and cultural superiority of the ‘man of reason’ vis-à-vis the coloured inhabitants in the non-European geographies (literally), whose reason is ‘not yet cooked’ and is therefore ‘raw’ (Bilimoria 2014). To what extent can Kant’s constructs of a highly questionable cognitive framework that is morally marked by racial exclusion and reinforced subsequently in Hegel’s equally plastic and imperialist trajectory be said to have provided the early wherewithal for the subtle and hidden normative narratives that go towards informing and abetting a particular philosophy of race with immense cultural-political ramifications for the New World? Did Kant single-handedly create the category of the ‘Negro’ and justified the perpetuation of slavery – a branded caste structure – that crossed into the Americas and lasted well-after slavery had been abolished in at least the United Kingdom and much of Europe, that also entrenched every prejudice, practice, regulative principle and pragmatics standing in the way of affording basic human and civil rights to the African Americans, immigrant Asiatics, Native Americans and the estranged Latino/a community? Further instances of the work of injustices at several levels within and outside institutional arrangements can be recognized and reckoned without a perfect idea of justice. Edmund Burke’s proclamation in his call for the impeachment of Warren Hastings did not appeal to one reasoned ground of justice but rather to the alleged multiple injustices perpetrated by Hastings in his time in India. Conversely, it is well illustrated in the folly of the characters in the Mahābhārata who remained mired in a perfect idea of dharma. But such was not forthcoming from any quarters – neither from Krishna, nor the grandwiseman Bhiṣma, nor Yudhiṣth ̣ ira; thus, they could not see or find a way of dealing with the blatant injustices (meted out by the Kaurava brothers led by Duryodhana). They remained mute to voices of those like Draupadī, Arjuna, Kuntī, who iterated in many, albeit silent words, insufferable injustices on the ground, culminating in the rhetorical exclamation of Gāndhārī amidst wooded corpses of the fallen warriors and irreparable ruins wrecked by the pointless battle between armies of the clan half-brothers: ‘Whose dharma (nīti), what justice (nyāya)?’ (Bilimoria 2013; Sharma 2014; Olivelle 2017). Consider another scenario pressing on our present (vanishing) times and which is related to sustainability ethics. It should seem spurious to think of our moral relationship with the presently absent future generations (i.e., distant and perhaps remotely located descendants and species-kind). What should be the rights and obligations, and risk and austere measures? Can we speak adequately of intergenerational social justice when the parties for whom and in whose benefit or care decisions are to be made are not able to participate in the deliberations? They cannot represent their interests or preferences and beg for their rights to be considered. If some people do not think that living animals and plants are morally considerable, then how much less in the case of as-yet non-existent future generations, animals and the ecosystem? Perhaps we cannot speak of social justice with respect to the sustainability challenge in such clear terms that spell out the socio-economic and ecological imperatives, but we can nevertheless foresee ahead the injustice (anyāya, aparādha, adharma) in not heeding to the reciprocity owed in advance to those separated by geo-temporal boundaries. Is it fair that 8

Introduction

the generations yet to come (in all species and eco-forms) bear the burden of the havoc the preceding generations have wrought in regard to the contours of sustainability, for they have as much inheritable entitlement to the capabilities and social goods and meaningful living? They are as vulnerable, for being invisible, as the equally invisible-rendered subaltern, i.e., the poor, marginalized, disadvantaged and border-barricaded members of the richer, well-heeled, call them liberal-egalitarian and civilized nations in our times. These themes are taken up in the chapters on Gandhi and ecofeminism and sustainability; see Parts II and III. Consider a somewhat aligned but different challenge. In the United States, the loose and deregulated gun control laws (or the freedom of the individual to buy, possess and carry around sophisticated lethal weapons) have become an embattled public issue with the courts of the land holding up the archē of justice whereby gun possession is defended as a democratic entitlement (under the Second Amendment) with different permutations in different states, some more restrictive and others less restrictive, e.g., California and Vermont vs. Tennessee and Texas). It becomes difficult for law professors and lawmakers to argue on the grounds of justice, constitutional or common law, any kind of pressing reforms of extant gun laws (or the absence thereof, heavens forbid), but they could if they cared to press their case on the grounds of recognized injustice, precisely in respect of the denial of safety and protection – a gross injustice – to the younger generation and the generation to come if the laws against gun control remain loose, unregulated in the right places or contexts, and if the armoury lobbyists continue to have their field-day in what is becoming a life-and-death issue not just for the present generation but for the future ones as well. So we are failing in intergenerational justice by not addressing certain palpable injustices staring us in our face or being reminded of mass shootings that seem to be occurring at the average rate of one per day somewhere in the United States and its Territories, at least since the beginning of 2021 (SFSU 2023). The aforementioned, then, are instances of realization-focused comparison, as Sen would put it, where experience, cultural history (of the past, present and the future), the value and trajectory of human life cannot be supplanted by information about institutions that exist and the rules that operate. Of course, principles have to be invoked, and policies have to be chosen, but the guiding principle is difference vis-à-vis singularity of reason or reasoned justification. If only reason came with its own justification. A universal concept of justice – if such were to be possible or even probable – has then to take into account microethical systems within which the individual is located, as Sara Ahmed argues in her chapter: the discussion of justice for ‘other worlds’ and for women equally are ‘messy’, at deeply fundamental levels. Somewhat in the same vein as Alasdair MacIntyre does, she asks about ‘whose justice, and whose voice counts?’ Rawlsian ‘original position’ made assumptions about who the people are who are supposed to agree to respect basic human rights and equality and who make decisions from behind a veil of ignorance on the principles of right and just that will constitute the rudiments of justice (although not perhaps the idea of justice itself). She juxtaposes this utopian approach to the question of women that has been left unasked and the further rather quirky pronouncement by Derrida that ‘justice is deconstruction’. Ahmed develops this critique further so as to underscore the difficulty of extending philosophizing in abstraction to speech communities – far from being ‘decent hierarchical peoples’ – whose moral and cultural particularities are marked by historical and socio-economic differences. Ruth Anna Putnam (1997), in her landmark chapter ‘Why Not a Feminist Theory of Justice’, also has been critical of Rawls for devoting most of his discussion to liberty of 9

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conscience and toleration, and that too through a patriarchally biased lens, rather than to racism and sexism. One might even go further and emphasize the place of comprehensive doctrines that take account of differences in respect of colour, ethnicity, religion and religious beliefs in the broader pluralist canvas of liberal sensibilities (as we saw Galston arguing). This puts to test liberal theories of toleration, for if pluralism is to be viable, then communities with differing value focus and even their criticisms of the choice of the liberal pillars of, say, moral autonomy, democracy in Westminster or Washington, DC, model, would have to be tolerated. But Rawls wouldn’t have a bar of such divergences for fear of evangelical and fundamentalist or neo-conservative interest groups hijacking the liberal agenda (as has been gradually happening in the United States and in Australia to some extent). Still, Rawlsian political liberalism is not a sufficient bulwark against the erosion of the more enlightened liberal justifications of universalism as the seeds of the dreaded ‘evils’, or so feared by enlightened liberals, were planted firmly within liberal ideology in – to trade on a pun – the original ‘missionary’ position, from Aristotle, through Kant, to Kukathas (Bilimoria 2002). If modernity is to be defined in terms of ‘respect for the dignity of the individual, commitment to universalistic norms, putting personal achievement over privileges of birth and accountability in public life’, then one still has to account for the ‘widening inequalities of income and of access to investment capital and new technologies, as well as new fears, anxieties and uncertainties about the future at personal, national and international levels fostered by modernity’ (Shamlal 2003: 33). Modernity also promotes universal norms in more formal and legalist tropes than in a substantive manner, creating splits between normative and instrumental aspects of rationality, such as in the irrational division of labour and means justifying ends. It proliferates hegemonies through complicitous neo-colonial regimes or imposed chaos and builds structures to secure the freedoms of its chosen people while breaking the backs of those not seen to be on its side, eroding the sovereignty of nation-states and depleting resources that adversely affect the common denominator – that is, women and children. This is a theme explored throughout the book across bioethics, ecology, politics and women. Margaret A. Maclaren points out most rightly in her chapter in Part V that ‘women and children make up the largest and fastest growing population living under poverty level all over the world. Where poverty is particularly acute, women’s situation is especially dire. If we understand poverty as a type of violence, and believe that freedom from violence is a human right, then eradicating poverty becomes a central goal of human rights’. In Part IV, Kumkum Sangari adds further refinement to this discussion in her chapter ‘Marking Time: the Gendered Present and the Nuclear Future’. Seyla Benhabib is another scholar who is only all too aware of the ruse of ‘modernity’ as a worldwide process and phenomenon. All such cultural imperialism can only be avoided if philosophy changes its tracks from the old guards like Aristotle and Kant. What Benhabib suggests in place of elitist, arm-chair moralizing by experts, is the construction of a ‘dialogical global community’, a freshly-visioned cosmopolitanism of sorts that remains reluctant about the promises of ‘unfinished’ modernity or modernism (in Hannah Arendt’s terms; Benhabib 2006). There must be a process by which ‘substitutionalist universalism’ makes way for her preferred mode of ‘interactive universalism’; likewise, ‘substitutionist feminism’ needs to be replaced by ‘dialogic feminism’. This trajectory is thus instructive, and it is echoed in the works of non-Western feminist theorists on justice. Here, the critiques developed by bell hooks, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Chandra Talpate Mohanty (discussed in 10

Introduction

Morny Joy’s chapter in Part IV ‘Towards an Ethics of Location’), Elesbeth Spelman, Sara Ahmed, Rajeshwari Sundar Rajan, among others, come to mind. These themes are explored further in Part IV of the book, ‘Ethics and Politics’. Again, an account of capabilities or needs against a backdrop of highly qualified universal notions of justice allows for a microethical formulation given the local culture, history, climate conditions and customary laws. An ‘interactive universalism’ allows for the articulation of a hierarchy of difference in theory, at least and at best to a more reflexive theory of justice – if the theory of justice is the way to go, which is not self-evident, of course. The alternative might well be distinctly feminist conceptions of care, mothering and altruism and such moral ideals that fall outside the cherished notions of justice constructed on the supposed strengths of the planks of detached logic and the equally abstracted ‘veil of ignorance’ and Kantian universalism. (Although the symbolism of the ‘veil’ is derived from the blindfolded, equal-and-fair-to-face angel holding up the scales of justice, the allusion is unfortunate as it also echoes a patriarchal view of the veil as purdah or curtain that keeps women out of men’s business; it is not a symbol of freedom as such, although its utility can be stretched to encompass preferential interests of sorts.) Carol Gilligan paved the way with her pivotal book, In a Different Voice (1982), by presenting the moral ideal of care (sorge) as an alternative or antidote to the moral ideal of justice in modernist philosophy, as brought out ably by Hekman (1995). Rosi Braidotti’s interventions in this controversial area – calling for recognition of difference – are equally significant and instructive (Braidotti 1997). Some of these themes are taken up in the chapters by Morny Joy and Vrinda Dalmiya in Parts IV and V, respectively. A universal concept of justice, if we must have one, then has to take into account microethical systems within which individuals are historically rooted and culturally and spatially located. Categories of the nation-state and citizenship conceptualize notions of justice as much as categories of gender and marginalization. But an ‘effective equilibrium’ would weigh towards the latter categories. The voices noted earlier and echoed in a number of chapters in this section (in particular Lindsay Dawson, Part II, and Devaki Jain, Kumkum Sangari, Esha Niyogi De and Morny Joy and in Part IV) are now clamouring for authentic space in the articulation of the non-Western theory of justice without throwing out the gains won by universal theories of humanism and fair society with common laws and regulations. Sen’s shift from the Rawlsian index of social primary goods to an index of capabilities (notwithstanding the criticism thereof by ‘third world’ feminists and Sen’s own leanings at the end of the day towards economic utilitarianism), thus taking into account the needs of minority groups and the disadvantaged, is to be highly commended. An account of capabilities or basic needs in the context of the historical and social realities is far more prudent and judicious than some universal code or notion of justice that does not adequately allow for a microethical formulation given the local culture, climate and customary laws. An ‘interactive universalism’ allows for the articulation of a hierarchy of difference in theory at least, and at best, to a more reflexive theory of justice. What, then, is a theory of justice most suited to an articulation of difference, given that liberal and communal systems have demonstrated in-built limitations on ethnicity and gender justice? Acknowledgement of perceived injustices that arise in specific contexts might be a better place to proceed. It may be observed in this context that distinctly feminist conceptions of care, mothering, altruism and aligned moral ideals of child-rearing fall outside received concepts of justice (as pointed out in the chapter on infanticide in Part I and in 11

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Vrinda Dalmiya’s chapter in Part V). As Sarah Hoagland has rightly pointed out, if the ethics of caring is to supplant ethics based on principle and duty, especially in the context of malicious oppression, then the concerns of the marginal other would have to be taken as being central to a system of justice. One example is the Rome Statute, which entered into force on 1 July 2002. The ratification of the Rome Statute in the International Criminal Court codified crimes of sexual and gender violence that historically had not been addressed in humanitarian law. Although brokered by communal transnationals such as the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Development Programme, this is nevertheless a document with the potential to take crime prevention and abuse reduction against women a step closer to actualization. In her interview with Amy Rayner in Part IV, Flavia Agnes calls across decades (since her groundbreaking 2001 work) for reform and codification along these lines when she notes that ‘soon we realized for victims / survivors, justice has to move beyond courts and it has to be a more wholistic support which will help them to cope with that situation in the community’. Similar arguments are made in chapters in Part V. The mainstreaming of gendered injustice into humanitarian law means that rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization and sexual violence were included in the Rome Statute as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prior codifications of humanitarian law, such as the Geneva and Hague Conventions, had failed to fully address this range of crimes as crimes against humanity or to recognize them as among the most grievous forms of violations. In addition, trafficking and gender-based persecution were included for the first time as crimes against humanity.

Reflections on Moral Ideals and Modernity: Jains, Gandhi and Nonviolence Ahiṃ sā, generally rendered as ‘nonviolence’, is a fundamental rational intuition and the highest virtue, at least in Jaina ethics. The Jaina ethical worldview can and is examined in light of normative ethics and debates regarding styles and approaches to religiously and socially inspired activism. In his chapter ‘Dharma Morality as Virtue Ethics’, Nicholas Gier argues that Gandhi’s moral philosophy can be encompassed within virtue ethics (more in post-Thomist than strictly in the Aristotelian model), and he draws on Matilal (2004) to demonstrate that dharma can best be interpreted as virtue rather than as duty (vide also Matilal in Volume I). However, in modern India, a stereotyped spiritual Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has become something of an impediment to wider scholarship and critical scrutiny. This has undermined the relevance of Gandhi’s ethics, as expressed through his critique of modernity, urban industrial civilization and Western knowledge systems, and discounted the value of his personal and social experiments for sustainability and human progress. Attention to Gandhi’s views on the role of science and technology has been insufficient. Gandhi’s thinking in these areas has drawn wide attention, and he inspired a number of movements, such as deep ecology, vegetarianism, minimalist farming, non-polluting and non-wasteland industry, civil rights and the role of women in education and politics. Gandhi is considered a postmodern liberal voice in Indian ethics, although Gandhi continues to attract his fair share of critics and detractors as well, within India and outside the subcontinent within the academe. Gandhi’s contribution to ethics in the context of modernity and its post-phase is discussed in all parts of this volume. 12

Introduction

Modernity, of course, is not just contemporaneity but signifies a difference of worldview shaped by developments in science, technology and social and economic organization. Western modernity has meant rationalization in the Weberian sense: differentiation of spheres of life, the rise of capitalism, liberal democracy and the nation-state. The question concerns the normative universality of Western modernity and whether modernization signifies Westernization. Weber certainly thought so, and his study of Hindu ethics was, at least in part, motivated by a developmental logic similar to Hegel’s pointing to the inevitability of processes of rationalization, the ‘disenchantment of the world’ and the ‘iron cage’ of modernity. M. K. Gandhi, by contrast, strongly resisted the equation of modernization and Westernization. Much as Gandhi admired aspects of Western modernity – its scientific temper, its pragmatism, efficient organization and civil liberties, for example – he considered it a fundamentally violent and destructive form of life. One could argue that Gandhi offered an alternative and non-Western form of modernity that embodied a different set of values and ideals, which blended what he considered to be the best of both Indian tradition and modernity. It is a mistake to regard Gandhi as a staunch traditionalist, as he is often described. This characterization overlooks the fact that Gandhi was quite critical of many aspects of Hindu orthodoxy, from caste and untouchability to its seeming lack of concern for questions of women and social and economic justice (Sharma 2010). By the same token, modernity for Gandhi did not imply the wholesale rejection of tradition. This tension between tradition and modernity is evident, for example, in the evolution of Gandhi’s views about technology. From the wholesale rejection of modern technology that is prominent in his manifesto ‘Hind Swarāj’ (written in Gujarati in 1909), we see him moving toward an approbation of what is nowadays called ‘appropriate technology’ – that is, technology adapted to human scale and to the needs and resources of a particular people. Hence, his fascination with the sewing machine and the chain-dangling watch that he carried with him at all times. In an interesting essay, ‘Indian Thought: Between Tradition and Modernity’, J. N. Mohanty argued that public, though non-academic philosophers like Tagore, Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo have managed a synthesis of the traditional and the modern while remaining deeply rooted in tradition. In Gandhi’s case, this traditionalism embraces the world of the Gītā, his own eclectic version of Vedānta, and the devotional ideas of medieval Hindu saints (Mohanty 2001; 1995). Tagore, too, while being remarkably open to Western thought, remained deeply rooted in Upanishadic mysticism. And yet, in spite of the traditionalism of all three thinkers, their influence on modern India and the world at large has been considerable. By contrast, Mohanty complains, ‘The Indian philosopher finds himself between two worlds – not at home in either – and more often than not lacking expertise and first-rate scholarship in either’ (2001: 59). However harsh this statement may sound, there is a measure of truth to it. Indian academic philosophy, again with some notable exceptions that include Mohanty himself, has languished, at least relative to philosophy in other parts of the world. This is especially true in the field of ethics. With the exception of Gandhi – and he is not strictly speaking a philosopher – there is hardly an Indian moral (in contrast to spiritual) philosopher who has attracted widespread attention either in India or elsewhere. While there have been attempts to treat Indian moral philosophy systematically, many of them, for the most part, have been descriptive accounts of the moral ideas scattered over the tradition without much analysis or conceptual rigour. This volume represents one of the first attempts to look rigourously at some of the ethical ideas articulated over the years in 13

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the Indian tradition. Therein lies also the contrast with extant works in the broad area, which are mostly concerned with metaethics (the parimalik complaint) and hence muchly outmoded (see, e.g., Dasgupta 1961; Sharma (IC) 1965; Hiriyanna 1975; Jhinran 1989; Perrett 1998; Matilal 2004; Sanyal, 2015; Olivelle 2017). Nevertheless, Shyam Ranganathan’s two recent books, although similarly leaning towards the metaethical, which are discussed in his Foreword to this volume, are to be commended as echoing more the tenor of Volume I. This lacuna of rigorous moral philosophy in the broader field of Indian philosophy has been remarked on by many thinkers, most forcefully by Bimal Matilal (discussed in the Introduction to Volume I). It may be instructive to probe a little deeper to diagnose this deficiency. It has nothing to do with the purportedly other-worldly character of Indian thought a la Albert Schweitzer or with any lack of concern with the right ordering of society, for these matters are dealt with extensively in the non-philosophical literature. It is rather that early on in the tradition, the umbrella notion of dharma (itself the successor of the concept of ṛta) with its vast semantic spread was developed, and all human values and norms referred back to that concept. Dharma provides an overall framework for a system of norms, rules and mores, the specific contents of which are determined by context as, for example, in the varṇāśrama dharmas contained in the Manusmṛti (Introduction Volume I; Olivelle 2017). The broad imperative it enjoins on moral agents is the duty to preserve and sustain the organic unity of being, the intrinsic harmony of the cosmos. With this convergence of both moral and cosmological ideas, the primary category is not that of moral principle but of a primordial order that is neither exclusively moral nor exclusively cosmological but both together at once. It is difficult to see how the ethical can be deduced from the cosmological (or the ought from the is). Human beings are part of a larger order in which they participate by attempting to find their place in the scheme of things, but no specific ethical norm or rule can be deduced from such a vague idea. In actual fact, duties and rights were specified in accordance with both caste considerations and one’s psycho-social stage in life (the āśramas). Each of these had dharmas attached to them by social convention rather than by some justified moral rule. As Mohanty quite rightly points out, [N]one of these stages in any sense is a reflection of man’s [sic] place in the universe; at most it is the picture of an ideal journey through life on one’s way toward mokṣa or freedom from karma-rebirth, toward the Highest Good. This account does not itself reflect some deeper-lying functional place in the universe, the doctrine connects with an individual’s place in society, and with the rebirth-mokṣa structure; as such it points in two directions: one determining the ‘rationality’ of social (world) and of individual deserts, the other pointing toward attainment of a place above the social, a free, spiritual individuality. (2000:108) Between the sociological schema and the soteriological goal, the specific moral notion seems to get swallowed up. It is obvious that this is a holistic and hierarchical model of life and the world, where duties, roles and functions are stressed within an overarching order of rights. Social and moral ideals like freedom, justice and equality are relativized to this larger order. In such a closed and hierarchically structured society, the assignment of duties and functions is 14

Introduction

carried out through the power relations of ritual status or social authority and not through independent moral or legal justification. It is obvious that such a tradition meets with difficulties when it attempts to negotiate the demands of a democratic, open and pluralistic society – that is, when it encounters modernity.

Discursive Structure of Sections In Part I, we consider certain real-life challenges in the applied context of charting injustices, with suggestions on how there came to be rectification of justice – in the broader sense than enabled by the principle of fairness. Part I of the volume treats ‘Health, Ethics and Public Welfare’ as we move to apply the question of justice in respect of certain bioethical challenges as well as, dare we say, innovations emerging from within the Indian context. The section examines the public health system, India’s response to COVID-19, pharmaceuticals and mental health justice. In Chapter 1, we see problems and solutions presented. Following a deep dive into the current issues and calamities facing public health in India, Chapter 1 calls for a bioethical framework to monitor public health in the age of rapid biotechnology and medical advances so as to help sustain/improve health outcomes for India’s 1.2 billion people. This need, and the institutional capabilities entailed, must be re-established from within India’s own philosophical, moral and normative foundations, disentangled from the West’s post-Enlightenment positivist-empirical project so that it learns to function beyond the reach of the current excesses of economic utility. This bioethical framework must enable carers to emphasize local responses as alternatives to, with and beyond imported models and to re-internalize or re-integrate indigenous cultures of well-being. The well-being and rights of women and children are discussed in terms of embryo ethics, reproductive rights and surrogacy, as well as female infanticide. For example, Chapter 8 discusses the persistent devaluation of the girl child in India and the link between the entrenched perception of female valuelessness and the actual practices of female infanticide and female foeticide through sex-selective abortion. It seeks to place female infanticide, or ‘gendercide,’ counterfactually within the context of unethical, injustice and civil wrongs. The chapter attempts to locate the occurrence of female infanticide within a broader framework by analysing some of the socio-historical, political and religious factors that underpin this unfortunate ethical state of affairs. It then looks specifically at the causal factors behind the culturally entrenched view in Indian society that female children are of less value than their male counterparts. In particular, this section examines the success of pragmatic efforts made by local healthcare centres to alter community perceptions of female value at a grassroots level. Given that the generational transmission of female infanticide is a systemic problem, we suggest that only a holistic approach that tackles both the cultural and economic dimensions of this dire ethical dilemma will produce viable and appropriate solutions. Likewise, as another example, Chapter 9 on surrogacy traces the legal journey to regulate surrogacy in India, especially within the complex sociocultural contexts, and juxtaposes the feminist critiques with the existing legal situation around surrogacy. Then we have a more detailed chapter on sallekhanā and euthanasia; this chapter presents both a comparative and, especially, dialectical relation between the seemingly disparate practices, one mostly confined to India and the other is vogue or much debated over in the West. The moral and bioethically compelling question here is whether patients should be offered active 15

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or passive aid in dying in a dignified manner. A compelling principle often invoked is that of patient autonomy with respect to how they wish to die or their death. The focus of the chapter, however, is not to engage itself with the concerns of medically assisted or promoted euthanasia but rather to examine the Jaina practice of sallekhanā and explore its comparisons to and ramifications for the contemporary debate on euthanasia. Just recently, a challenge has been mounted in a high court in India, and the case is now pending a full-bench hearing and judgment from the Supreme Court of India. The chapter examines the community’s response to the perceived bioethical issues that any practice that seeks to end life or bring forward pending death with or without due medical intervention would surely give rise to. Part II is a treatment of ‘Ecology, Sustainability and Spirituality’. It is argued by our authors that new paradigms for ethical and existential aims that can inspire the will and enhance the imagination must emerge. Without a transformed vision that compels consistent alterations in human values and behaviours, new information on the threats posed by climate change or evidence of the dangerous biogeophysical disruptions caused by wholesale unrestricted resource extraction will remain unacknowledged. Planetary survival is now predicated upon the alignment of our notions of both human and ecological rights with our highest principles. As such, ways of knowing that are embedded in religion, philosophy, theo-ethics, spiritual ethics, moral traditions and a culture that values the commons are essential resources for the transformation necessary for environmental regeneration and renewal. Sustainable Nature Requires Sustainable Societies is a strong case, following the UN Goals for Sustainable Development, made by Rita Sherma. She has argued elsewhere (2022) that any sound quest for philosophical or theological support for action that improves our present condition, our environment, and our sustainable practices requires a creative scriptural exegesis informed by the need to re-envision traditional teachings in the light of modern concerns and challenges. For a reinterpretation of scripture to become a living force for change – rather than a strained apology – a hermeneutic of engaged transformation is necessary. Such a hermeneutical approach must simultaneously critique anachronistic aspects of the tradition and highlight important seed ideas with the potential to inspire action that protects the earth. In this context, we observe that sustainability is closely related, in the minds of many, with development, albeit development within certain limits and strictures. As a case in point, Lindsay Dawson, in Part II, re-examines the call for development as a socially led process that encourages freedom, with economic growth playing a subordinate role. His theory calls for integrated, balanced decision-making on the part of governments, institutions and community representatives participating in development projects. The thinking of Denis Goulet and Sen are combined to propose a model for collaborative decision-making among equal power stakeholders mediated by belief in values supporting a balance between ecological well-being and human development. Faith in such values will be required to appropriately prioritize competing or inconsistent beliefs and inspire the breakthrough creativity that will be essential to resolve the ongoing inequities of human development while simultaneously reversing the environmental damage caused by such development. Likewise, following Manoranjan Mohanty’s astute observation in his chapter ‘Nature and Humans in the 21st Century: Some Reflections’ in Part II, it could be argued that freedom, equality, self-determination and sustainability become the central values guiding and informing all development. Many Marxists have now realized that the problem with capitalism was not that it only created obstacles to the full development of productive forces, 16

Introduction

including the productivity of labour, but it caused alienation at many different levels and caused the destruction of natural resources in pursuit of profit. Thus, capitalism denied freedom to humankind and exploited both humans and nature. Many liberals recognize the demand for self-determination of oppressed nationalities and groups. They say that their claims to local natural resources are legitimate, yet do not fulfil those claims. Much discontent is caused. The accumulated discontent leads to violent protests and terrorism. Thus, the new concept of development in the 20th century is that the process of change has to be not only materially productive but also socially equitable, politically participative and ecologically sustainable. Another good example of the latter comes from Pankaj Jain’s insight that among numerous important terms in Indic traditions, few words can match the ubiquitous presence of the term ‘dharma’. This term, from its origin, has continued to evolve and today, millions of Hindus and non-Hindus express their religiosity and ethics in their native vernacular that is woven around the semantics of dharma. In his chapter, Jain draws from his fieldwork among the Bishnois in Rajasthan and Swadhyayis in Gujarat, who tend to use the term dharma not only to describe their religious traditions but also their environmental ethics to boot. Thus, Jain argues, environmentalist practices of Hindu communities should be interpreted and analysed within the semiological nuances of dharma. To continue with the broader application of the apparently abstract theoretic thinking on ethics informed, it would appear solely, by the trope of dharma, we move in Part III to illustrate the reaches of ‘Engaged Ethics and Ecofeminism’. Here, Jainism presents an exemplary model. Jainism exceeds all others in its insistence upon impeccable moral behaviour and on the uncompromising virtue of nonviolence (ahimsa). Jainas and Buddhists alike have worked at building a gentler society. The Jainas have worked most famously in the areas of animal and habitat protection. The Buddhists have similarly taken up various causes throughout Asian history, such as the releasing of animals, that reflect a keen adherence to the precept of nonviolence. While speaking from the vantage of individual liberation, both groups emphasize the primacy of duties over rights. In Jaina subcultures and in the Buddhist societies of South-East Asia, accountability to one’s community dominates the cultural ethos. In Part III, in her chapter ‘Buddhist Spirituality and Social Activism in the 20th–21st Centuries’, Sallie B. King gives several examples of this in the contemporary Buddhist world. King explains how contemporary Buddhist leaders such as Sulak Sivaraksa and Ariyaratna have brought positive change through the innovative implementation of Buddhist precepts in Thailand and Sri Lanka, respectively. These living examples of the enactment and engagement of these principles underscore the relevance of Buddhist ethics in the modern world. To kick off a discussion on ecofeminism, we bring in Rita M. Gross with her complaint that to date, almost nothing has been written, at least in the English language, that calls itself ‘Buddhist ecofeminism’, including her own and Stephanise Kaza’s writings on Buddhist ecology. Ecofeminism is an attempt to develop a more nuanced and complex discussion of gender oppression that does not single-mindedly reduce all problems to problems of unjust relationships between men and women while at the same time not ignoring such issues either. Gross invokes Rosemary Radford Ruether, especially from her Integrating Ecofeminism, Globalization, and World Religions (2004), on examples of domination over women and nature linked with economic and racial oppressions that severely harm everyone except for a small group of wealthy, mainly male, stakeholders. Many of the nature-­ controlling policies are forced upon the world by multinational corporations, bent solely on 17

Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner

profit-making, backed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. By the same token, Buddhist teachings may well be gender-neutral and gender-free; however, its practices and institutions appear not to be so. It was hard for Rita to understand how a religion with such exemplary teachings about gender at the abstract level could get things so wrong on the ground in the practicalities of everyday life and social organization. Nevertheless, because Buddhism has seen greed as a problematic cause of suffering, it has also developed many antidotes to greed, demonstrating that greed cannot possibly lead to happiness. Buddhist ecofeminism then has its sprouting from the seeds of this insight extended to the kinds of crises, including climate change, that our world faces today. Part IV treats ‘Ethics and Politics’. Ethics is the discussion of moral goods and how one is to live, but also to live alongside others, respectful of their individuality, community membership, interests, preferences, rights and other entitlements; politics, of course, has to do with power, the control and distribution of goods, of wealth, of lived spaces, one’s movement and so forth, without the encumbrances of oppression, suppression, repression and depravation of the same. The overlap of these two areas of philosophical concern receives close attention in these chapters. The inquiries undertaken by our authors here draw significantly from contemporary scholarship and, as already noted earlier, from recent figures such as Gandhi and Tagore – who could find themselves engaged in political and larger developmental actions that arise from their basic moral (one might say ‘gut’) intuition and convictions. As an example, Tagore’s impact on education and his strident program to address the shortcomings, perhaps imperialist intent, of the imported British system of schooling is examined. There follows a range of concerns within the theme of ethics and politics, which are taken up in each of the chapters, and they speak to victim survival of heinous social crimes within the patriarchal hierarchy and the weakness of the law or other political (executive and judicial) apparatus to deliver justice where justice is due, to the future of the gender and international justice vis-à-vis the nuclear family format and gendered structures in place, to the vulnerability of marginalized subjectivity and the sovereignty of the underprivileged. These are powerful and provocative chapters, but the volume is better for having them as part of the thrust to move the discussion of Indian ethics into the poststructural, postcolonial and postmodern eras, which is not an easy or a given trajectory, as it requires a good deal of dialogue, interaction, and sensitivity to issues as well problems on the ground rather than to those just in the abstract. In Part V, ‘Women and the Limits of Traditional Ethics’, as we have already mentioned en passant while discussing injustice, our authors explore the concerns of feminists or critical women scholars and activists that are not always comfortably and convincingly addressed in traditional treatment of ethics and moral thinking. The latter complaint is in part because issues of women’s identity and gendering did not receive attention and were not part of the moral repertoire of traditional thinkers. But as feminists have pointed out, no amount of moral theorizing will be complete until there is recognition of the interconnectedness of all forms of life, including the so-called gender divide, and equal regard is paid to the flourishing of all classes of people, regardless of sex, religion and status. Again, questions of equality and equity of distribution of goods, entitlements and rights arise, and the chapters strive towards articulation of non-Western womanist ethics, in keeping with the goals sketched out by Renuka Sharma (2002). When invited to share her views on women and the limits of traditional ethics, Dr Savita Singh (2023), a feminist political theorist, scholar and poet from India, has summarized for this Introduction the key 18

Introduction

positions and added further reflections from her own side on the thrust of the discussion and concerns addressed in this final part of the volume as follows: 1. What do you feel will be the main challenges for women in the next 20 years? The main challenge for women in the next 20 years will still be to fight the inequality that is engendered and perpetrated by the patriarchal system now emerging in newer structures of repression and oppression (see Agnes 2001). Many feminists, primarily socialist ecofeminists, believe that the ongoing pernicious exploitation of nature by the aligned partner of capitalism will continue and that the ruse of technology will be logically pursued more for the purposes of control of the largest number of people than towards the liberation of humanity. By logically, I mean the capitalist logic of production or productivism, as Herbert Marcuse argued in his writings. He wrote that advanced capitalism, instead of reversing the direction of industrial progress and breaking the ‘fatal union of productivity and destruction, liberty and repression’, has locked us in a constant struggle ‘against the purveyors of Death’. Capitalism continues to justify the need for repression of the labouring masses and nature as its avarice for profit refuses to dissipate. In his later article, ‘Feminism and Marxism’ (1974), Marcuse sought an ontological shift towards the feminine principle of Eros, the life-sustaining drive that nurtures and cares. Ecofeminists, such as Carolyn Merchant, Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva, have also argued along similar lines, critiquing the monoculture and reductionism of the Western masculine-dominated science which has shaped contemporary capitalist patriarchy. It is not only repressive and exploitative of women’s labour and of nature’s resources, but it is also outright destructive of life itself. They argue that recognizing the sacredness of life should form the basis of new ethical theories since life is organic in its basic structure, unfragmented and the human species and nature are interconnected with each other. Vandana Shiva has studied the way forests come to be if left to themselves, self-sustaining and self-generating in their bio-diverse life. It is the intervention of capitalist-imperialism that objectifies nature, renders it inert and turns trees into pulp and dead wood. Unpacking these structures of thought and practices has moved feminists to articulate a feminist ethical framework to make a difference. The hackneyed superiority of patriarchal and masculine-laced ethics needs to be questioned and set aside. Sabina Lovibond, in her book Essays on Ethics and Feminism (Oxford, 2015), describes this reframing as the ‘gendering of ethics’; thus, the contemporary world is being reshaped through the process of injudicious gendering. The notion of difference now doubles itself as both the political and ethical basis of feminist theory. It has raised doubts about universal frameworks within which ethical theories were mostly couched. Our lives have been shaped by different contexts and values, and the sources of identity have also been diverse. It is the struggle against misrecognition and its consequences that has built the structure of intersectionality: the argument that our world is not made of one kind of people and their experiences alone. 2. How do you think the limits of traditional ethics for women can be addressed? Just as Black feminism fractured the toxic innocence of white liberal feminism, in India, Dalit and aadivasi feminism has broken the mirror of Brahmanical patriarchy and savarṇa feminism. In the West, a different voice arose circa the 1970s inspired by the women’s movement; in India, this tenor of questioning the arbitrary superiority of masculine power structured through Brahmanical Hindu shastras began to be voiced in early 19th-century Maharashtra. Jyotibal Phule, Savitri Bai Phule, Pandita Ramabai, Tarabai 19

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Shinde – they all wrote texts of their own. Tarabai Shinde, in her influential text, ‘Stree Purush Tulna’, exposed the fallacious hypocrisy of masculine power. The Brahmanical caste system, in particular, was found to be oppressive to both men and women. The future challenges then arise from the continued repression of a large part of humanity living in different parts of the world to construct a life-affirming and caring system of life where the value of life will still be talked about ethically. It calls for the realization that all life is part of an ontology of organic interconnection. Furthermore, it is a collective agreed-upon understanding that nature can be hurt and destroyed by human greed and that this part of our human nature must be transcended by accepting that the sustainability of all life-forms ought to be the basis of any developmental agenda. As argued earlier, the ethical frameworks arising out of a solely masculine-driven understanding of ethical questions generally framed in abstract and essentialist terms presupposed women are lacking in moral capacities to be treated as equals with men. In Western philosophy, and also in India, at least in its various shastras, including Purāṇ as and Manusmṛti, women were virtually excluded from the essentialist framework of ethical, political and social life. Hence, feminist theorists began to demand equality with men in terms of education and political participation, and they struggled against all dichotomies, division of labour included. 3. What will justice for women look like in future decades? The coming years are likely to see an increase in inequality and inequity in terms of how the wealth of the nations is accumulated and distributed across the division of people into class, caste, race, sex, gender and immigrant status and between the rich and poor, the haves and have-nots. It will require an ethical balancing of how we are to live together and in harmony, caring for each other, near and far, even as the moral circle expands. A combination of the politics of recognition and distribution should become a compelling collective response. Sensible feminists are not ready to relinquish the theoretical gains of intersectionality, nor are the socialist ecofeminists likely to accept universal liberal theories of humanism. Perhaps there might still be some mileage left in deontological theories that take rights and duties seriously in their practical framework. The discourse of human rights may still be required, as capitalism is not in a position to forego the profit-driven system of production. Largely so in India and globally, ethics of care based on the effective recognition of difference that exists between people in terms of gender, race, ethnicity and regions will continue to gain moral approval for the purposes of how liberties and social goods are distributed. We are conscious that valuable lives are not built around the practices of humiliation, discrimination and oppression. I definitely foresee a struggle between what we want and value and what, in reality, comes to be and lands as it were on our laps. Valuing all forms of life and recognizing our interconnectedness as sacred and inviolable is itself a new ethical ground on which we ought to strive to build a common habitat – a green commonwealth as Charles Reitz calls it in his book, Ecology and Revolution: Herbert Marcuse and the Challenge of a New System Today (Routledge, 2019). It must be understood that erstwhile ethical theories may compete with each other in being more ethical than the other – especially Kantian-Rawlsian deontology versus tired forms of utilitarian-consequentialism. But it is the feminist eco-socialist ethical stance that places value on all life-forms, and seeks to create a green world economy based on the principles of sustainability and judicious consumption that might call it a day in posterity’s judgment. Vandana Shiva rightly defends her position on this even as she is criticized by postmodernist and posthumanist feminists – in these words, with which I shall conclude this overview: 20

Introduction

Why do women lead ecology movements against deforestation and water pollution, and against toxic and nuclear hazards? It is not due to any so-called inborn feminine essentialism. It is because they have the capacity to do the things in a better way, in a sustainable manner. It is because it is possible to think of a green commonwealth, a concrete utopia. Women and nature share a common fate, a common world state, a common habitat for all to flourish and live with pleasure.

Conclusion We have argued that this sequel to Indian Ethics Classical and Contemporary Challenges (Volume I) does not represent a mere academic study of morality (which might be disappointing to some expectant readers) in search of metaethics or even moral realism. Rather, it examines the application of morality to particular situations and contexts, specifically on issues of women in/justice, law, bioethics and ecology. The chapters herein both demonstrate and call for a deeper, albeit critical (even deconstructive) analysis of the hitherto highly theoretical and abstract ethical forays that appear not to be conclusive. It is so because changes in contexts embracing a wider range of issues and perspectives are always there as challenges that cannot be overlooked. Still, the horizon of the possible (or pace Gayatri Spivak, the impossibility of ethics for the subaltern position) provides a foothold for the beginnings of a new dialogue around ethical practices by negotiating encounters or exchanges that do not seriously entertain the borrowed voice of the dominant paradigm of moral discourse or, for that matter, of the native informant. Still, there is little else to go by, and one asks rightly: who speaks for women? More particularly, who speaks for feminism, feminist ethics, Indian women and subaltern ethics in the here-to-remain postcolonial condition? Thus, the present volume represents, we would like to think, a more radical direction that takes the previous inquiry (mostly metaethical in nature, in Volume I) and the dialectic between tradition and modernity a stage further toward normative and practical (or applied) ethics. The ‘women question’ is always a tendentious one. While the focus of a number of the authors in this volume is on the practical action necessary for the well-being of women, the marginalized and the subaltern, we concede that a philosophical consistency in the argumentations and alternatives presented should go toward ensuring a hyphernated robust treatment of the ethical principles and practices of the ‘third’ kind that indeed can be better and rationally justified.

References Agnes, Flavia. 2001. Law and Gender Inequality: The Politics of Women’s Rights in India’. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ali Malla, Muzaffar. 2018. ‘Indian Philosophy and Ethics: Dialogical Method as a Fresh Possibility’, Sophia, 57, 443–455. Benhabib, Shelya. 2006. Another Cosmopolitanism (The Berkeley Tanner Lectures). Oxford/NY: Oxford University Press. Bilimoria, Purushottama. 1991. ‘Indian Ethics’, in Peter Singer (ed.) Companion to Ethics, 43–57. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2002. ‘The Enlightenment Paradigm of Native Right and Forged Hybridity of Cultural Rights in British India’, in Michael Barnhardt (ed.) Varieties of Ethical Reflection: New Directions for Ethics in a Global Context, 235–262. Maryland: Lexington Books for Rowman and Littlefield. ———. 2013. ‘Grief and Dharma: Suffering, Empathy and Moral Imaginative Intuition’, in Rahul Govind (ed.) Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences Journal of the Inter-university Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences, vol XX No 1, 44–54. Shimla: Institute of Advanced Studies.

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Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner ———. 2014. ‘Postcolonial Critique of Reason: Spivak between Kant and Matilal’, in Purushottama Bilimoria and Dina Al-Kassim (eds.) with responses by G C Spivak Postcolonial Reason and Its Critiques Deliberations on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Thoughts, 1–12. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bilimoria, Purushottama, Sharma, Renuka, Prabhu, Joseph. 2007/2017. Indian Ethics Classical and Contemporary Challenges. Aldershot; Abingdon: Ashgate; Taylor & Francis, Routledge. Bontekoe, Ron, Stephaniants, Marietta (eds.) 1997. Justice and Democracy Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Braidotti, Rosi, 1997. ‘Nomadic Subjects: Feminist Postmodernism as Antirelativism’, in Ron Bontekoe and Marietta Stephaniants (eds.) Justice and Democracy Cross-Cultural Perspectives, 345–362. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Buchanan, Allen. 2000. ‘Rawls’s Law of Peoples: Rules for a Vanished Westphalian World’, Ethics, 110: 697–721. Dallmayr, Fred. 1997. ‘Justice and Global Democracy’, in Ron Bontekoe and Marietta Stephaniants (eds.) Justice and Democracy Cross-Cultural Perspectives, 443–467. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Dasgupta, Surama. 1961. Development of Moral Philosophy in India. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. Galston, William. 2002. A. Liberal Pluralism: The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gandhi, 1909/1997. Hind Swarāj and Other Writings. (ed. Anthony Parel). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a Different Voice Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Haslanger, Sally. 2019. ‘Critical Standpoints and the Epistemology of (In)Justice’ Hempel Lecture 3, 29 March 2019 (https://sallyhaslanger.weebly.com/uploads/1/8/2/7/18272031/haslanger_critical_ standpoints_-_hempel_3.pdf) accessed 18 April 2024. Hekman, Susan J. 1995. Moral Voices, Moral Selves, Carol Gillian and Feminist Moral Theory Penn. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Hiriyanna, Mysore. 1975. Indian Conception of Values. Mysore: Kaivayala Publishers. Jhinran, Saral. 1989. Aspects of Hindu Morality, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Kant, Immanuel. 2006. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (ed., trans. Robert Louden, intro. Manfred Kuehn). Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press. Matilal, Bimal K. 2004. Logical and Ethical Issues An Essay on Indian Philosophy of Religion. Delhi: DC Publishers. Mohanty, J. N. 1995/2001, Essays in Indian Philosophy (ed. with biographical introduction Bilimoria). Delhi; NY: Oxford University Press. ———. 2000. Classical Indian Philosophy, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ———. 2001. ‘Indian Thought: Between Tradition and Modernity’, in Explorations in Philosophy: Indian Philosophy. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Nussbaum, Martha C., 1995. ‘Human Capabilities, Female Human Beings’, in Nussbaum, Martha C., Glover, Jonathan (eds.) Women, Culture and Development A Study of Human Capabilities, 61–104. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nussbaum, Martha C. 2000. Women and Cultural Universals. NY: Francis & Taylor/Routledge. Okin, Susan Moller. 1989. Justice Gender and the Family. New York: Basic Books. Olivelle, Patrick. 2017. A Dharma Reader Classical Indian Law. New York: Columbia University Press. Perrett, Roy W. 1998. Hindu Ethics. Honolulu: University of Hawaii. Putnam, Ruth Anna, 1997. ‘Why Not a Feminist Theory of Justice?’, in Nussbaum, Martha C., Glover, Jonathan (eds.) Women, Culture and Development, 298–331. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: The Belnap Press of Harvard University Press. Ruether, Rosemary Radford. 2004. Integrating Ecofeminism, Globalization, and World Religions. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Sanyal, Indrani. 2015. Through the Lens of Dharma-Ethics. Kolkata: Centre of Advanced Study in Philosophy, Jadavpur University.

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Introduction Sen, Amartya Kumar. 1990a. ‘Gender and Co-operative Conflicts’, in Irene Tinker (ed.) Persistent Inequalities. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1990b. ‘More than 100 Million Women Are Missing’, New York Review of Books, 20 December: 61–66. ———. 1995. ‘Gender Inequalities and Theories of Justice’, in Nussbaum and Glover (ed.) Commodities and Capabilities, 259–273. NY: Oxford University Press. ———. 1997a. Choice, Welfare and Measurement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1997b. Inequality Re-examined. Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1999. Commodities and Capabilities. NY: Oxford University Press. ———. 2011. The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2012. Development as Freedom. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Sen, Amartya Kumar, Drėze, Jean. 1999. Economic Development and Social Opportunity Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 2002. Development and Participation. Delhi: Oxford University Press. SFSU. 2023. Statistic collated by Statista at San Francisco State University, https://www.statista.com/ statistics/811487/number-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us/; accessed 24 April 2023. Shamlal. 2003. ‘Have we skipped modernity?’ review of Dipankar Gupta, Mistaken Modernity: India between Worlds. New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2001, in Biblio, January–February: 33. Sharma, Arvind. 2010. Hindu Narratives on Human Rights. NY: Praeger. Sharma, I. C. 1965. Ethical Philosophies of India. New York: Harper & Row. Sharma, Renuka. 1996. Representations of Gender, Democracy and Identity Politics in Relation to South Asia (Naari Series on Women Studies). Delhi: Satguru Publishers & DK Printworld. ———. 1999. Other Revolution: NGO and Feminist Perspectives from South Asia. Delhi: Satguru Publishers & DK Printworld. ———. 2002. Toward a Possible Non-Western Womanist Ethics: Gender, Justice, and Applied Aspects. Venus Bay, Australia: Renuka Sharma Archives. ———. 2014. Empathy: Theory and Application in Psychotherapy. Melbourne/San Rafael; New Delhi: Sophia Inc.; D K Printworld. Sherma, Rita. 2022. ‘Introduction’, Rita Sherma, and P. Bilimoria (eds.) Sustainable Societies: Interreligious, Interdisciplinary Responses; Intersection of Sustainable Studies, and Philosophy. Dordrecht:/NY Springer. Singer, Peter (ed.). 1991. Companion to Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Van Hooft, Stan. 2003. Review of Galston (2002 q.v.), ‘Forum’ Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights. Faculty of Arts, Deakin University, No 22: 8. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1929. Lecture on Ethics, Delivered to the Heretics Society. Cambridge University published by Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2014.

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PROLOGUE: INDIA IN THE WORLD The Historical Context for Intercultural Ethicality* Dipesh Chakrabarty

‘India in the World’ is my way of speaking about the cultural conversation that has gone on between India and the modern West (mainly Europe and, to some extent, the United States as well) for a long time now. India, of course, has been culturally connected to many other parts of the world, ranging from East, South-East and Central Asia to the Middle East and the entire eastern coast of Africa. Some scholars even speak of an Indian Ocean ‘world’ as a separate entity worthy of study on its own. I choose to speak of the modern West, however, for that version of the West, thanks to European rule in India, has perhaps been the most important determining influence on the intellectual and material culture of India over the last 200 to 300 years. I also concentrate on the period beginning in the latter half of the 19th century to the present, for it was after the Great Rebellion of 1857 that India became formally a part of the British Empire, and the effects of Western university education became relatively widespread and visible. There are four broad chronological phases to the history of this conversation between India and the West. The first period runs roughly from 1870 to 1914, the second is the interwar period, the third runs from the end of the Second World War through to the 1960s and then begins the period that I think we are still in, the period of postcolonial criticism and globalization; circulation of capital, skills, people and images; the decline of socialism as a viable alternative to capitalism; and the crisis of climate change and global warming. There are some interesting similarities between the period 1870–1914 and the first two decades following the Second World War. With globalization and the present crisis of global warming, however, begins a new chapter in this history. A keyword of these conversations was ‘civilization’, a word that Europeans brought to India. As Rabindranath Tagore remarked in 1941, the word ‘civilization’ that had been translated into Bengali (and Hindi) as sabhyata actually had no equivalent in ‘our languages’ (Tagore 1961, 13, 407). But the word, as we know, was of critical value to *  An extended version of this chapter is featured in my book The Crises of Civilization: Exploring Global and Planetary Histories (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018). The chapter has been edited and included in this volume with my permission DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-2

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Prologue: India in the World

European colonizers. The French historian Lucien Febvre has reminded us that the expression ‘to civilize’ became popular in French in the 18th century and passed into English after the 1760s to give rise to the expression ‘civilizing mission’ that the Enlightenment Europe often put forward as the principal rationale for Europeans colonizing other people and their lands. The hierarchical scale of human civilization that the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment developed formed a very important element in British thinking about India. The word ‘civilization’ came to be of much use to Indian nationalist critics of the West as well. Indeed, much of the conversation between India and Europe that I discuss here turned around the shared word ‘civilization’ and its profoundly contested meanings. Some of you may have been puzzled by my expression ‘conversation between India and Europe (or the West)’. We know today that there have always been many India’s and many Europe’s. How could then one speak of these entities in the singular? I accept that objection. In the 19th century, however, and for a large part of the 20th, many intellectuals spoke of ‘Europe’, ‘West’, ‘East’ and ‘India’ in the singular.1 It was not that they did not know that the histories of the regions encapsulated in the names were irreducibly plural. They knew that. But in the linguistic pragmatics of their writings and conversations, they spoke as though these individual names made sense. For the sake of convenience, I repeat their gesture.The four representative Indian voices I consider here are Swami Vivekananda, originally known as Narendranath Datta, the first modern Indian saint to bring Hinduism to the West; Rabindranath Tagore, India’s pre-eminent poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1913; Mahatma Gandhi, who I suppose needs no introduction; and Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India. Between them, these intellectuals also cover the period of the anti-colonial movement in India and the years of transition to a postcolonial state. They are all personalities who had some impact on the West and in the world generally. What I argue is that there is a rhythm to the timing and the nature of their impact: their impact was heightened whenever Western intellectuals entertained doubts about the validity and the mission of their own civilization. Absent this doubt, the impact of Indian critiques of the West is immediately reduced. Swami Vivekananda won recognition in the West at a time when very few male intellectuals in Britain or the United States entertained any doubts about the global mission of the West. For, by the time Africa was being opened up for colonial rule and exploitation towards the end of the 19th century, decades of stable European economic growth and material prosperity had made the idea of progress seem palpably true. So confident were the Europeans of ways of measuring it, the British in India regularly published annual and decennial statistical reports in the second half of the 19th century called Reports on Moral and Material Progress of India. Vivekananda made his name by speaking successfully at the first World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893. Vivekananda abandoned the stiff formality of the gathering to address his audience as ‘Sisters and Brothers of America’ and was an instant success. His representation of Hinduism in America and in Britain in the 1890s won him a large number of followers in these countries. The letters that Vivekananda wrote in this period from America and Europe to his disciple back in Madras, Alasinga Perumal, show that he understood how very ‘political’ the idea of ‘civilization’ was and how closely it was connected to the colonial enterprise. A letter dated 6 May 1895 and addressed to Perumal describes his ‘success’ in the United 25

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States: ‘India is now in the air, and the orthodox [Christian clergy] … are struggling hard to put out the fire’. He writes, If you could send and maintain for a few years a dozen well-educated strong men to preach in Europe and America, you would do immense service to India, both morally and politically [my emphasis]. Many of the Western people think of you as a nation of half-naked savages, and therefore only fit to be whipped into civilization. If you three hundred millions become cowed by the missionaries …, what can one man do in a distant land?2 (Vivekananda 1995, 79–80) Yet, for all the charm of the ‘success’ that the Swami wrote home about, the fact remains that an overwhelming majority of the people in the West who felt drawn towards the teachings of Vivekananda were women and not men. (One could surmise many of these Western women used the alternative models of masculinity that Vivekananda’s personality and teachings offered to critique the men of their own society.) Research supports this conclusion, and there is quite telling evidence in what he himself wrote at the time. In a letter from 1893, written from Massachusetts to Perumal on 20 August 1893, he stated, From this village I am going to Boston tomorrow. I am going to speak at a big Ladies’ Club here. … I must first go and buy some clothing in Boston. If I am to live longer here, my quaint dress will not do. People gather by hundreds in the streets to see me. So what I want is to dress myself in a long black coat, and keep a red robe and turban to wear when I lecture. That is what the ladies advise me to do, and they are the rulers here, and I must have their sympathy.3 (Ibid., 18–19) In a letter dated 2 November 1893, Vivekananda reproduces a newspaper report of one of his lectures: ‘Ladies, ladies, ladies packing every place – filling every corner, they patiently waited and waited while the papers that separated them from Vivekananda were read’ (ibid., 21). Mrs. S. K. Blodgett, who was present at the Parliament of Religions when Vivekananda opened his maiden speech by addressing the assembled gathering as ‘Sisters and Brothers of America,’ said of women’s immediate reaction to the Hindu monk: When that young man got up and said, ‘Sisters and Brothers of America,’ seven [?] thousand people rose to their feet as a tribute to something they knew not what. When it was over I saw scores of women walking to over the benches to get near him, and I said to myself, ‘Well, my lad, if you can resist that onslaught you are indeed a GOD!’ (Burke 1998, 81) If it were the ‘ladies’ of the West – and not the ‘gentlemen’ – who received Vivekananda’s critique of the West enthusiastically, the situation was not all that different for Mohandasa Karamchand Gandhi when he first came to London in the 1880s as a student. His inspiration came, as Leela Gandhi (2006) has shown in her book Affective Communities, from non-mainstream personalities such as the homosexual and anti-imperial writer Edward Carpenter or the vegetarian, animal-welfarist and anti-imperial Henry Salt. 26

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Both Vivekananda and Gandhi were Indian intellectuals who wanted to engage the West in a cross-civilizational conversation. Vivekananda died before his time, in 1902. Gandhi would live on to become a world personality in the interwar period, but that was a time of very different quality for the West. At the end of the 19th century, when most of the major leaders and thinkers of the West were brimming with confidence about the righteousness of European empires and their civilizing missions, Indian interlocutors of the West could speak mainly to those parts of the West that were themselves marginalized: spiritualists, women, homosexuals, vegetarians and so on. Imperial success, as the Indian writer Ashis Nandy put it in his provocative book, The Intimate Enemy, had made the dominant ‘European personality’ hyper-masculine (Nandy’s term), sidelining all that could be considered feminine or childlike in the history of the West. Readers of Nandy will remember how brilliantly he uses the biography and writings of Rudyard Kipling to illustrate this point (Nandy 1983). It was only after the end of the First World War that claims of the civilizational superiority of the West came to be questioned by Western intellectuals themselves. Think of Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, published in 1919, or Husserl’s The Crisis of European Sciences of 1933, or the rise of existentialism. Some of the mood of the period is captured in the following lines that English political scientist Harold Laski wrote in June 1923 to his friend Felix Frankfurter, a Harvard professor and later US Supreme Court Judge: The truth is, dear Felix, that we ought not to stay in India. Literally and simply, we are not morally fit to do the job. … I add my grave doubts whether the Indians can govern themselves. But it is better for them to make efforts than to have this running sore at the heart of things. If they fail, let it be their failure. Our success (if it were not too late) would only deepen their sense of inferiority. (Martin 1953, 58) Even Heidegger, who became a member of the Nazi Party, did so in part out of the mistaken idea that the Nazis would usher in a civilization that aped neither the United States nor the Soviet Union, both of which, Heidegger thought, expressed very similar technological orientation to the world. What thus came under a dark cloud of doubt in this period was the very idea that had become triumphant by the end of the 19th century: that the West was civilizationally superior to the rest of the world. You will remember Gandhi’s quip in the early 1930s when asked by some Western journalist as to what he thought of ‘Western Civilization’. Gandhi said, ‘It would be a good idea!’ It was in this period that intellectuals in the West were more prepared to listen to criticisms of their civilization coming from other places, and it was no accident that it was in this era that both Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, perhaps the two finest products of the Indo-British cultural encounter, emerged as major critical voices from outside the West. Both Tagore and Gandhi were universalists in their orientation. They were not nationalist in any narrow sense. They had their differences, but there is no doubt that both Gandhi and Tagore carried on through their lives a complex conversation with the West in which there was never a question of a complete rejection of European traditions that had played such a central role in their own making. In his 1941 essay on ‘Crisis in Civilization’, Tagore – faced with the barbarism of the war – struck a despondent note on the question of European civilization: ‘I had at one time believed that the springs of civilization would issue out of the heart of Europe. But today when I am about to the quit 27

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the world that faith has gone bankrupt altogether’. Yet he refused to lose his ‘faith in Man’. Speaking of the Englishman and missionary Charles Freer Andrews who gave his life to the cause of serving India, Tagore expressed hope that ‘such Englishmen will save British honour from shipwreck … if I had not known them, my despair at the prospect of western civilization would be unrelieved’ (Tagore 1999, 725–726). For Tagore, as for Gandhi, criticisms of European civilization were not a way of ignoring the fact that any civilization was plural and multiple when looked at from the inside. It was a civilization’s capacity to furnish itself with tools for self-criticism and, therefore, for self-improvement that impressed Tagore in the end. The general principle involved here was spelt out as a part of a lecture he gave in 1923 and then reproduced verbatim in a letter written to an Oxford-based academic in 1934: We have seen Europe cruelly unscrupulous in its politics and commerce, widely spreading slavery over the face of the earth in various names and forms. And yet, in this very same Europe, protest is always alive against its own inequities.4 (Ibid. 724–725) Though Gandhi and Tagore had their differences, it was Tagore who first called Gandhi the Great Soul, Mahatma. The one famous tract that Gandhi wrote in 1909 on the subject of self-rule in India, Hind Swarāj, contained a whole chapter on the subject where, following Edward Carpenter, he called civilization ‘a disease’ (Gandhi 2006, 34). Gandhi’s views are relatively well known, so I will not dilate on them. My point is that what made for a positive reception of Tagore’s and Gandhi’s civilizational critiques in the West were the doubts that European intellectuals of the interwar period themselves entertained about the assumption of civilizational hierarchy that had in the past provided a justification for empires. Once India became independent in 1947, the line of criticism that Tagore and Gandhi had developed seemed to have run its course. The 1950s and ‘60s were, in some ways, a re-run of the first period in my schema, 1870 to 1900. With the defeat of Nazism, Fascism and Japanese militarism and the unprecedented material prosperity of the post-war West, the idea of progress returned in a new guise: modernization, economic growth and political development. Developing countries such as India participated in that optimism. There was the Cold War and a sense of competition, symbolized by the space race, between the ideas of socialism and capitalism. There was the non-aligned movement headed by India for a while, but that was a political choice. What seemed invincible was the industrial way of life whose praise was sung by many an American theorist, ranging from Walt Whitman Rostow (the theorist of economic take-off), James Burnham (the theorist of managerial revolution) and through to Daniell Bell (the man who spoke of post-industrial society). The industrial way of life as such now seemed truly beyond question. The global Indian voice of this period was that of the first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru’s vision and spirit received an astute interpretation by Sunil Khilnani, who wrote: ‘Nehru wished to modernize India, to insert it into what he understood as the movement of universal history’ (Khilnani 1998, 8). With this transition to the era and the mantra of modernization, the civilizational critique lost its appeal to Indian leaders. It was as though Nehru’s India, as Khilnani puts it, ‘had to move forward by one decisive act that broke both with its ancient and its more recent history. The rationalist, modernist strain in Nehru’s thinking … obliterated the attachment to the heritage of an Indianness rooted in the past’ (ibid., 132). 28

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Gandhi has a predominantly iconic presence in India today, but India surely has not developed along Gandhian lines since Independence. Gandhi wanted a strong emphasis to be given to primary or foundational education. What has paid off in and for India has been the investment India made – under Nehru’s leadership – in scientific, technical and managerial education. Gandhi wanted caste discrimination to disappear through a consciousnessraising movement among members of the privileged upper castes. Castes, in new, calculative, and almost ‘official’ forms, are now an enduring feature of Indian politics and bureaucracy. Gandhi did not much like films. A proud insignia of India’s globalization, on the other hand, is her film industry, which is now truly global both in its production and appeal. Above all, Gandhi wanted a village-based India. Analysts are in agreement that the Indian village is in decline; people are migrating to the city, prepared to live in mega-cities like Bombay [Mumbai], Delhi, Calcutta [Kolkata], Hyderabad, Bangalore, Madras [Chennai] and so on, for liberalization and consumer revolution do not make sense without thriving urban cultures. The death of Gandhi’s civilizational critique of modernity and the subsequent transition to the values and vision of modernization is captured in an exchange of letters between Gandhi and Nehru in 1945, a little more than a year before Independence. Gandhi wrote (on 5 October) to Nehru: I still stand by the system of government envisaged in Hind Swarāj. … I am convinced that if India is to attain true freedom and through India the world also, … people will have to live in villages, not in towns. … Crores [1 crore = 10 m] of people will never be able to live in peace with each other in towns and palaces. …You must not imagine that I am envisaging our village life as it is today. … My ideal village will contain intelligent human beings. There will be neither plague, nor cholera, nor small pox; no one will be idle, no one will wallow in luxury. (Gandhi 2006, 150–151) To which Nehru (on 9 October) replied, ‘A village, normally speaking, is backward intellectually and culturally and no progress can be made from a backward environment. … we have to … encourage the village to approximate more to the culture of the town’ (ibid., 152–153). There was one legacy of the civilizational critique of imperialism that nobody, not even Nehru, could reject or even want to discard – that is, India’s adoption of a foundational aspect of Indian democracy. Indian institutions and social practices are undemocratic in many respects, but India is unique among developing countries and among her neighbours for having sustained a tradition of on-the-whole free and fair elections for 60-plus years. Khilnani is only half right in saying, Contrary to India’s nationalist myths, enamoured of immemorial ‘village republics’, pre-colonial history little prepared it for modern democracy. Nor was democracy a gift of the departing British. Democracy was established after a profound historical rupture … [that] incited them to imagine new possibilities.5 (Khilnani 1998, 17) Khilnani is right in emphasizing that ‘democracy’ – giving non-literate peasants the rights of citizenship – represented a rupture in Indian history, but he underestimates the role that 29

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the ‘nationalist myths’, myths celebrating Indian civilization and an allegedly deep republican tradition, played in giving Indian leaders the courage that enabled them to take the historically unprecedented step of making peasants, overnight, into citizens. If I may quote from my book Provincializing Europe, where I have touched upon this issue: In defending the new [Indian] constitution and the idea of ‘popular sovereignty’ before the nation’s Constituent Assembly on the eve of formal independence, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, later to be the first Vice-President of India, argued against the [Western] idea that Indians as a people were not yet ready to rule themselves. As far as he was concerned, Indians, literate or illiterate, were always suited for self-rule. He said: ‘We cannot say that the republican tradition is foreign to the genius of this country. We had it from the beginning of our history’. (Chakrabarty 2000, 10) Radhakrishnan’s statement is an indication of how much the introduction of democracy in a country such as India owed to the labour of those – such as Gandhi or Tagore – who adopted the European idea of ‘civilization’ and worked it to anti-colonial and democratic ends. It is no wonder that Gandhi kept calling for a universal adult franchise from as early as 1921. What Khilnani does not appreciate enough is how nationalist myths about the past of India helped our nationalist leaders develop faith in the masses. Without that faith, right or wrong, there would not have been any experiment in mass democracy in India. Nehru died in 1964 after the war with China was lost in 1962. With him also died the conviction, born of the old anti-colonial civilizational critique, that India had some special role to play on the global stage. Indian politics, under Mrs Gandhi and after, has been generally consumed with issues of internal turmoil: reservation of privileges in the public sector for low castes and conflicts over them that are sometimes violent; Hindu-Muslim conflicts and the rise of a political party that makes ‘Hindu pride’ its political platform; separatist movements among many minorities including the Sikhs in the ‘80s, the Kashmiri Muslims and groups on the north-east festering even today; and recently debates about globalization and India’s growing closeness to the United States. In general, in the last couple of decades, regional issues have dominated Indian politics, producing multi-party coalition governments at the centre. No party has been able to ride on a genuinely ‘national’ issue, not even the party of ‘Hindu pride’. The one element of global politics that has impinged on India quite seriously and increasingly in this period has been the politics of radical and militant Islam. The other aspect of India’s presence in the world has been the talk, in the last 15 years or so, of India’s emergence as an Asian economic giant, second to China. This period of India’s emergence as a global economic power has coincided with the cultural and economic processes that globalization theorists and postcolonial critics have sought to address. The important cultural products of this period that have been related to the modern history of the subcontinent, both colonial and postcolonial, include Bollywood (however inadequate that appellation may be), modern Indian and Pakistani art, ‘global English’ fiction that has flourished since Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, the impact of Amartya Sen’s work on development and freedom and the kind of postcolonial criticism that academics such as Homi Bhabha, Arjun Appadurai, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and the scholars associated with the publication Subaltern Studies initiated. Much of this cultural production and criticism addresses issues of immigration, ethnic violence and contemporary diasporic life-worlds. 30

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These cultural products are central to our understanding of the postcolonial world we live in. French thinker Etienne Balibar emphasized we all live in a world now that is not only globalized but also postcolonial. Postcolonial because the impact of decolonization has been felt in every country in one way or another. Postcolonial also because labour, skilled and unskilled, from the ex-colonial countries are now part of the metropolitan population. It is not surprising that while anti-colonial criticism arose in the countries that had been colonized by European powers, postcolonial criticism was initiated in the West as a way of democratizing the West as there was more immigration of people from the ex-colonies. It was not a coincidence that in London in the 1980s, Homi Bhabha from India and Stuart Hall from Kingston, Jamaica, and the filmmaker Isaac Julien came together to study the writings of Frantz Fanon with an eye to fighting racism in contemporary Britain, their efforts actually funded by London municipal authorities and supported by various anti-­ racist and feminist and ethnic organizations. Julien would eventually go on to make a film about Fanon (1995).6 This was a struggle to read the history, archives, and theories of colonial domination in order to find a lexicon with which to fight the racism that resisted the emergence of a multi-cultural postcolonial Britain. Much like Rushdie’s novels, postcolonial criticism rejected the civilizational language of Gandhi and Tagore, as well as the modernizing, rationalist stance of a Nehru. But because it primarily functioned as criticism internal to the liberal-democratic and developed countries of the West, it could not speak to the issues internal to Indian politics in the 1980s and ‘90s, and actually came in for a lot of criticism in India, where many intellectuals were resentful of postcolonial theorists. There is, however, no denying the role that postcolonialism played even in globalizing some of the critical discourse that was being generated inside India. One of the most significant books of cultural criticism to have come out of India in 1983 – Ashis Nandy’s The Intimate Enemy – sold but slowly for the first six years of its life until postcolonial criticism became a standard fare in the universities of the Anglo-American West and Nandy’s book was eagerly greeted there as a product belonging to that genre.7 Postcolonial criticism reigned in the 1980s and the early 1990s and eventually merged with the discussion on globalization.8 Some globalization critics even described postcolonial thinkers with their emphasis on ‘difference’ as unwittingly justifying a liberal vision of multiculturalism which, they argued, was simply capital’s way of converting differences into lifestyle preferences, thereby bringing difference, too, under the sway of an American researcher, Ashley Tellis, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace predicted in a widely-circulated paper of 2005 that India in another couple of decades or so will rank as the world’s fifth most important power in the world, taking her place after those of the United States, the European Union, China and Russia. Forbes speculated in 2017 that India is close to being the fifth superpower.9 Within India, too, there has been a lot of hoopla about this: Shining India, Incredible India and so on. But I do not mean to spoil the party – parts of India have indeed shone, and some achievements have been ‘incredible’. The late 1990s and the last few years are somewhat reminiscent of the period between the two wars in the 20th century. We again have new and major entrants into the race for capitalist growth, China and India, two giant nation-states among them. There is, however, no prospect for colonization of new lands. The old imperial model stands discredited. The Soviet model is more or less dead. There is a growing volume of trade and circulation of goods and services. A veritable media revolution is happening throughout the world. And with China and India now sharing the so-called American dream, you have, potentially, an extra two billion people on the planet making a claim on its dwindling resources. Yet all 31

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this is happening when, unlike in the 1950s, there is a steadily growing uncertainty over the very viability of our contemporary industrial way of life. The uncertainty is so strong that even Thomas Friedman, who celebrated globalization in his book The World Is Flat, came to believe – after a visit to Dalian in China and Doha in Qatar – that we may need two or three planets if the populations of China and India are really to enjoy the ‘American dream’ of houses, cars, shopping malls and suburban gardens.10 The critique this time comes from the ecological side. Though some ‘global warming’ sceptics lurk around here and there, there is general agreement today that global warming is happening, that human activity contributes to it to a substantial degree and that we increasingly face the prospects of acute shortage of fresh water (Stern 2006). It seems certain there will be a scramble over resources in the medium-term future and that we will have environmental refugees between and inside nations at a time when the world population is growing to about nine billion. In other words, we will see more population movements in the world (Weisman 2007). How do we locate India in this new and latest description of the world? Let me conclude by offering you some thoughts on the subject. The discussion of the 1980s and ‘90s on globalization and postcolonialism was environmentally blind, in fact, more blind than Tagore’s or Gandhi’s civilizational critiques. Globalization theorists emphasized the global, but the vector that interested them was that of capital. Besides, competition between nationstates could always be accommodated within theories that otherwise emphasized the global. ‘Climate change’, however, is a crisis of genuinely planetary proportions. It is for the first time in human history that we face a crisis as a species. On the other hand, the crisis will affect the poor of the world more deeply than the rich and privileged, which means the crisis is as urgent for India and China as it should be for others. Rajendra Pachauri, former head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said, A country like India has to adopt a path which is sustainable in its development policies. You know, we can’t possibly adopt the profligate and the over-consumptive lifestyle of the developed world. And I think the developed world also has to change, they really can’t continue on the same track.11 Certain basic issues stand out, and they make us realize how the legacy of the anti-colonial movements shapes what we do and think while faced with this crisis. In that sense, while the civilizational critique may have died, Gandhi or Tagore, I argue, acquired a renewed relevance in the world today.12 Firstly, now more than ever before, certain aspects of human lives call for global governance. Imagine what would have happened if this crisis had struck us in the heyday of European imperialism. Solutions favouring the richer nations of the world would have been foisted on the less fortunate and dominated peoples. The democratization of ruling structures that anti-colonial movements have helped to bring about will go far towards ensuring that our global arrangements are, relatively speaking, also just (Stern 2006, 42–43). Secondly, combating climate change calls for a rethinking of the formal structures of our democracies. Thirdly, and most importantly, perhaps, the crisis of global warming and climate change forces us to actively think from a universal and species point of view (Maslin 2014, 147; Flannery 2005). This is a crisis but also an opportunity, for it brings into our lives a greater awareness of what Kant once called the ‘categorical imperative’. In many 32

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ways, that was also what the universalisms of a Tagore or a Gandhi were searching for. Of course, it is true that our current negotiations around and over this crisis will be compromised by clashes of interests, profit-motive and self-interested moves of groups and nations. But the nature of this crisis is such that it requires us to think of the planet and our place in it. It thus has the potential to take us beyond the politics of identity and representation, thus opening up a horizon of universalist thinking and returning us to the humane universalism that many anti-colonial and anti-racist thinkers – Tagore and Gandhi were my two Indian examples – emphasized (Chakrabarty 2016, 2019).

Notes 1 Wilhelm Halbfass (1988) comes close to suggesting something like a ‘conversation’ in his monograph India and Europe in which he aims to chart a ‘philosophical dialogue’ between India and Europe from the days of the antiquity up to the early 20th century. 2 Vivekananda’s letter to Alasinga Perumal, 6 May 1895 in Vivekananda 1995. See also Rita Sherma and T. S. Rukmani (eds). 2021. Swami Vivekananda: His Life, Legacy, and Liberative Ethics. NY: Lexington Books. 3 Vivekananda’s letter to Alasinga Perumal, dated 20 August 1893 in Vivekananda 1995; see also Rita Sherma and T. S. Rukmani (eds). Swami Vivekananda: His Life, Legacy, and Liberative Ethics. NY: Lexington Books, 2021 1st edition). 4 The lines occur in a 1923 lecture entitled ‘The Way to Unity’ and are repeated in a 1934 letter written in response to a letter from Professor Gilbert Murray, published together under the title ‘East and West’ in Tagore 1999, 349, 462. 5 Dipesh Chakrabarty (2002) ‘Khadi and the Political Man’, Chapter 4. in his Habitations of Modernity Essays in the wake of subaltern studies, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 6 Frantz Fanon, ‘Black Skin, White Mask.’ https://www.isaacjulien.com/projects/frantz-fanon-blackskin-white-mask/ 7 Personal conversation with Ashis Nandy. The first print run of the book, a thousand copies, was not exhausted until 1989. Compare this with the sales history of any of the major books (published in the West) of postcolonial criticism and the difference will be obvious. 8 This position is most clearly represented in Michael Hard and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. For a critique of this position, see my Preface to the second edition of Provincializing Europe 2008. 9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/salvatorebabones/2017/12/27/india-is-poised-to-become-theworlds-fifth-largest-economy-but-it-cant-stop-there/?sh=34132a943ff1. 10 In an interview on ABC television in Australia in their ‘Lateline’ program. 11 Interview with Rajendra Pachauri on ABC Radio, Australia, ‘The World Today’ program, 9 August 2007. http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s2000531.htm. For an analysis of Pachauri’s appointment, see Cat Lazaroff, ‘Bush Administration Seeks to Oust Climate Expert’, Environment News Service, 3 April 2002. http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2002/2002-04-03-07.asp -accessed September 2007. See also his Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Wiley, 2020. 12 See Ramachandra Guha, Gandhi Before India. NY: Alfred Knopf, 2013; and Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914–1948; NY: Knopf Publishing, 2018.

References Burke, Marie Louise. 1998 (1958). Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries – His Prophetic Mission, Part 1. Calcutta: Advaita Ashram. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2019. The Crises of Civilization Exploring Global and Planetary Histories. Global: Oxford University Press. ———. 2016. “Whose Anthropocene? A Response”. In: “Whose Anthropocene? Revisiting Dipesh Chakrabarty’s ‘Four Theses,’” edited by Robert Emmett and Thomas Lekan, RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society 2016, no. 2, 103–113. Munich: Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.

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Dipesh Chakrabarty ———. 2002. Habitations of Modernity Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, 2nd edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. Fanon, Frantz. 1995. ‘Black Skin, White Mask.’ https://www.isaacjulien.com/projects/ frantz-fanon-black-skin-white-mask/ Flannery, Tim. 2005. The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change (Chapter 33). Melbourne: Text Publishing Gandhi, Leela. 2006. Affective Communities: Anti-Colonial Thought, Fin-de-siecle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship (chps 3–4). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Halbfass, Wilhelm. 1988. India and Europe. An Essay in Understanding. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Khilnani, Sunil. 1998. Idea of India. London: Penguin. Maslin, Mark. 2014. Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martin, Kingsley. 1953. Harold Laski (1893–1950): A Biographical Memoir. New York: Viking. Nandy, Ashis. 1983. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (chp 1). Delhi: Oxford University Press. Tagore, Rabindranath. 1961. “sabhyatar shankat” [“The Crisis of Civilization”]. In: Rabindrarachanabali [The Collected Works of Rabindranath], Centenary Edition, vol. 13. Calcutta: Government of West Bengal. ———. 1999. “Crisis in Civilization.” In: The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Ed. Sisir Kumar Das, vol. 3. Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Tellis, Ashley J. 2005. India as a New Global Power. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/2005/07/14/india-as-new-global-poweraction-agenda-for-united-states-pub-17079 Stern, Nicholas. 2006. “The Science of Climate Change.” In The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Report. Ed. Nicholas Stern, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vivekananda, Swami. 1995. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Mayavati Memorial Edition (sixteenth reprint), vol. 5. Calcutta: Advaita Ashram. Weisman, Alan. 2007. The World Without Us. NY: Thomas Dunne Books.

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PART I

Health, Ethics and Public Welfare

1 PUBLIC HEALTH, CARE AND BIOETHICS IN MODERN INDIA* Purushottama Bilimoria

Introduction In this chapter, we wish to discuss concerns and developments in India in the broad areas of health and medical practices that give rise to issues in healthcare, medical and professional ethics, with a slant towards bioethics. In part, it anticipates the discussion in coming chapters on responses to COVID-19, biotechnology, ethics and pharmacology, embryo ethics, abortion and gender infanticide. Of course, the bioethical culture in the subcontinent might come to signify something quite other than the ‘bioethical discourse’ as it has emerged in recent decades in the West. The latter has succeeded in fixing for itself the precise domain of objects that can legitimately be considered under the rubric of ‘ethical debate’. Medical ethics has come to be identified with such categories as IVF (in vitro fertilization), surrogacy, genetic engineering, autonomy and paternalism, euthanasia, cloning and complementary medicine. Medicine has monopolized certain specific and technical categories for grappling with ethical questions as they arise in the daily course of social life (Komesaroff 1995: 65). Not only does the mainstream discourse of bioethics determine the appropriate domain of ethical argument but also the general strategy of argumentation itself, or how the questions are to be presented, analysed, debated and resolved. Now, in India, there simply isn’t the luxury to engage in the niceties of the metaethical discourse while people are grappling with the immediate medical and health issues of everyday life, but by the same token, the people are poorer for not being able to address and deal with the complexities of ethical issues that do arise in the course of seeking treatment or assistance from carers and institutionalized advances in biomedical technologies. That is the paradox. The challenge more often is not about choices and how one might make them (e.g., in the case of surrogacy) but about understanding the larger contexts and particularities in which medicine ‘happens’ and is dispensed to an unsuspecting, in many instances non-literate, public. (Bilimoria 1990). While there have been developments in bioethical thinking, these have tended to focus on biotechnology, human genome projects, genetic modification of food products, bio-diversity, plant variety rights and so on (‘Bioethics in *  This chapter is edited by Amy Rayner; gratefully acknowledge Abhilasha Semwal and Karyn MacDonnell’s additional editing assistance.

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DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-4

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India’ 1997; Pradhan Sinha, and Malik in this volume, see Part II, Chapters 11 and 12 respectively). Although, as we shall see, individuals have begun to group themselves to find ways of addressing the vast array of unarticulated concerns that arise in the areas of health, medical and pharmaceutical practices that also have a bearing on the broader culture of bioethics – in as much as they tend to draw on the resources from within the tradition, or they have made themselves familiar with the prevalent discourse in the West or, indeed, both (e.g., Coward, Lipner, Young, 1989; Sarma 2008). In order to facilitate this discussion, we will first highlight a few major cases that have come to public attention with the responses these have also elicited from various civil liberties and professional sectors. India, it is often said, has one of the longest histories of a highly developed medical system, as well as ethical thinking. In colonial and postcolonial years, however, the nation has been undergoing tumultuous social, legal and political changes that appear to have eroded the essential virtues of both these traditions. Amidst these tidal shifts in discourse, the traditional and modern (Western-derived) approaches to human well-being, reproductive issues, disabilities, dying and even beliefs in fate and afterlife are poised for confrontation and critique, often with mixed results. In tackling issues of ethical import in the Indian medical setting, we discuss the general state of public health in India, its achievements and deficiencies since Independence. We begin with a focus on the contemporary situation, governance issues, ethical standards and access to medical care. Following this is an examination of unethical alliances – medical malpractices and their impact on the subaltern population. We then profile the case of hysterectomy on intellectually handicapped females, moving on to tuberculosis, contraception, pharmaceutical profit and AIDS/HIV. We end with a broader discussion on ethics and public health, calling for a bioethical framework to monitor public health in the age of rapid biotechnology and medical advances so as to help sustain and not endanger India’s population.

Tradition and Colonization Many scholars have argued that the beginning point of Indian bioethics ought to be the saṃ hitās of Caraka and Suśruta (Desai 1988; Filliozat 1964). However, what we have here are mostly recordings of normative prescriptions and desirable practices by the prevailing norms of society. Principles can only be drawn by extensional parity from such nuanced pronouncements, rules, norms and practices elsewhere; admittedly, it takes a lot more to work up a principle as distinct from rules and normative observations. Nevertheless, in these textual forays, we find explicit prescriptions concerning the duty of virtuous physicians (in Caraka and Suśruta), which is to attend to, heal and return to good health the ailing and the afflicted regardless of their race, caste, social status and standing (CS I, XVI; Zysk 1998). There are explicit prohibitions against causing harm (hiṃ sā) to oneself as upon others (AS I.9.25, I.3, 6; KAS IV-7). In all these treatises, the bottom line appears to be reverence for all forms of life, animal species included. Buddhist and Jain medical ethics emphasized non-injury, compassion and an ethic of care towards all creatures (Keown 2001, 2008; Chapple in this volume Chapter 23). By the late 20th to early 21st century, India’s medical system could be said to have all but gone out of control. Taking into account the much-decried handling of the COVID-19 outbreak and pandemic by Indian authorities, including the medical establishment, India’s 38

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overall rank in 2021 was 66, with a score of 42.8 (GHS [Global Health Security] Index 2021). At question remains India’s prevention protocols, health system delivery or rapid response process in this regard (see Chapter 2 by Dwivedi in this volume). The national healthcare system is highly medicalized and is given over arguably to the principle of commodification rather than that of compassion and the traditional codes of ethics as prescribed by the legendary Caraka, or the Hippocratic oath for that matter. Michel Foucault encapsulated such concerns in relation to the institutionalization of healthcare (concerns which become even more complex in the Indian social setting) when he observed that ‘the natural locus of disease is the natural locus of life – the family: gentle, spontaneous care, expressive of love and a common desire for a cure, assists nature in its struggle against the illness, and allows the illness to attain its own truth (1994:17). An observation, customary to the Indian setting, is entirely at odds with modernity’s empirical detachment. We will take a divergence toward examining the conditions “on the ground”’ in present-day India before returning to the ramifications we draw from the extant practices for further thinking on bioethics and social policy in India.

Structural and Systemic Causes of Health Inequities It is common knowledge among public healthcare experts that societies that have systemic inequalities across their population have a higher mortality rate, much-compromised longevity and risky morbidity rates among its citizens. As Baciu, Negussie and Geller (2017) have poignantly noted (and we quote at some length for its relevance in the context of the present discussion): Health inequities are systematic differences in the opportunities groups have to achieve optimal health, leading to unfair and avoidable differences in health outcomes (Braveman 2006; WHO 2011). The dimensions of social identity and location that organize or “structure” differential access to opportunities for health include race and ethnicity, gender, employment and socioeconomic status, disability and immigration status, geography, and more. Structural inequities are the personal, interpersonal, institutional, and systemic drivers – such as, racism, sexism, classism [caste-ism], able-ism, xenophobia, and homophobia – that make those identities salient to the fair distribution of health opportunities and outcomes. Policies that foster inequities at all levels (from organization to community to county, state, and nation) are critical drivers of structural inequities. The authors go on to argue, The social, environmental, economic, and cultural determinants of health are the terrain on which structural inequities produce health inequities. These multiple determinants are the conditions in which people live, including access to good food, water, and housing; the quality of schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods; and the composition of social networks and nature of social relations. Determinants of health are the terrain on which structural inequities produce health inequities. These multiple determinants are the conditions in which people live, including access to good food, water, and housing; the quality of schools, workplaces, and neighbourhoods; and the composition of social networks and nature of social relations. 39

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Post-Independence Ethics This benign philosophy of life and the incumbent ethics derived from its traditional theology has given way in the post-Independence era in the subcontinent, as elsewhere under the global impact of Western industrialism imperative, to economic rationalism and a detached Western institutionalism. A spate of Indian health reports since have found that the poor quality of healthcare is due principally to the overall poor quality of governance at all levels of the public health system (see Misra et al. 2003). Indeed, there are structural and administrative deficiencies, not to speak of accountability, inadequate planning and insensitivity to local community needs. The current official trend towards liberalization, formally adopted since mid-1991, and the opening up of the floodgates of regional trade for greater excess of market and resources by the developed have merely aided the rationalization of this detrimental ethos. This has occurred where the earlier voluntary acceptance of such negotiated international trade (within the terms of swadeshi or regional self-sufficiency) has been pushed toward a more involuntary arrangement under the revamped GATT Treaty (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), along with WTO (World Trade Organization) and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank (for reconstruction and development). It is as though the best values of the Enlightenment and humanistic promises of modernity have bypassed India. Nehru may well have balked at this impassability, but his ‘licencing rāj’ and inheriting dynasty (gradual deregulation under the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty) laid the grounds for such a deplorable outcome. India is paying a heavy price for the so-called Structural Adjustment Program (SAPs), or Economic Recovery Program (ERPs) under the new international economic order imposed by the IMF and World Bank. India’s much acclaimed economic (gross domestic product (GDP)) growth rate (with its ups and downs in recent years) and high rates of industrial, export and outsourcing expansions do not relate themselves to social development in all the sectors, much less in healthcare areas; there is an asymmetrical relationship, if not an inverse one. Foreign investments, selective international aid and, most crucially, market forces determine the distribution and availability of healthcare and professional medical help, not planning or local needs. Observers have argued that the most visible and direct impact of the new climate of liberalization and legitimation of profit incentives is in the health sector, which covers safeguarding natality, nutrition for the infant, inoculation of children, women’s well-being, disease control, occupational health and care of the sick and elderly. Thus, for example, even with intensive pharmaceutical manufacturing moved to India-based companies, access by the weaker sections of society and minority populations to life-saving drugs, including some indigenous plant-extracted medications, is woefully restricted. (Mukhopadhyay 1992) This is because the 1994 agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) protects through patents and copyrights the interests of those who develop rather than serving pressing social interests (Mahtaney 2004: 144). The Supreme Court of India reinforced the constitutional mandate (Articles 15, 30, 39 and 42), reiterating that primary or universal health and medical care is a fundamental right of the citizen. This sentiment echoes goal 3 of the United Nations (UN) SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) on healthcare. Three subsequent Five-Year Plans were supposed to have outlined strategies for social empowerment, securing health for women and children, and gender justice. However, the state policy never has moved much beyond establishing a smattering of ill-equipped, under-staffed free dispensaries and medical camps in rural areas while encouraging the private sector (through tax incentives and accreditations, perhaps 40

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kickback subsidies also) to be the key deliverers of healthcare and lowering of birth rate through family planning. The terms ‘welfare’ and ‘well-being’ seem alien to the policy options, nor are these mere ‘freebies’ expected by the community, as some government responses seem to suggest. In other words, the healthcare infrastructure with primary and secondary facilities is left in disarray; biotic resources are increasingly placed in the hands of well-oiled investors, and the overall beneficiaries are the rich and connected. General practitioners and specialists are in a position to demand exorbitant fees for diagnosis, treatment, therapy and operative functions, which under a regulated system would cost far less, and with a sound nationwide Medicare system would be more equitable and distributive than it presently has shown itself to be. As a consequence, India’s richest city, Mumbai (Bombay), has more advanced medical technologies, hospitals (in private and outsourced public sectors), sophisticated amenities and hi-tech imaging centres than the rest of India (barring perhaps Bangalore and Delhi, which are fast catching up with expectant Silicon Valley or urban New Jersey lookalikes). But the enormous costs, added to the elite patronage associated with these institutions, make it almost impossible for the poor and disadvantaged (who comprise the majority of India’s one-plus billion population) to access proper and unmitigated treatment. It is not indeed the case that the ordinary Indian patient’s travail calls for these high-tech trappings; rather, the sparse pool of medical staff is usually either too busy treating a well-heeled Bombayite or otherwise preoccupied with trying out new ‘donated’ equipment for its wondrous modern medical marvels, occasionally with disastrous results. Patients being rushed to one of Bombay’s large hospitals after suffering serious injury or accident may be turned away or prematurely discharged for a variety of reasons. This happened in horrendously unspeakable ways all across India during the COVID crisis. When information is sought on this neglect or on accidents or mishaps in the wards and operation theatres, the hospital directors ironically invoke provisions under the Consumers’ Protection Act (1986). Similar complaints have been aired by non-governmental organization (NGO) groups in Delhi (such as the Workers’ Solidarity), where it is observed that the increasing dominance of the private sector in healthcare and the trend to privatize charitable hospitals have made health services inaccessible to the poor. Government subsidies, land grants, tax deductions, import exemptions and donations have not mitigated the situation. The state and central government interventions, where they have been moved to act, have failed in these matters, partly because the Medical Council of India, the monitoring body of medical practitioners, along with its state chapters, has functioned with a view to preserving the interests of medical practitioners rather than enhancing ethical standards of practice in the interests of disenfranchised patient-client groups. Frustrated efforts by groups of concerned doctors to have their representatives elected to the boards of the Medical Council so that ethical issues could be discussed more openly are often met with opposition and a blunt closure to its internal operations. Over the years, this has led to the formation of independent monitoring and advocacy associations, such as the Medico-Friend Circle, the Medical and Hospital Users’ Association and the Bio-Medical Ethics Centre (based in a Catholic hospital). There are very few professional organizations and NGO-run lobby groups that encompass the entire gamut of ethical issues and problems that arise in the various sectors of medical and health practices. However, there have been a motley of such groups, and also individuals, who have taken up causes and issues as they have arisen, very much in the Gandhian fashion (as we have seen in earlier articles with environmental groups and civil rights protestations). An exclusively professional organization that emerged and whose 41

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work, as well as the impact on medical practitioners, is worth noting is the Forum for Medical Ethics. Operating since mid-1993, it has fostered discussion of ethical practice and dispensing of medical care at all levels; to that end, the Forum publishes the Indian Medical Ethics (ME). But it has no recognition at the institutional level, much less any support from the medical establishment (such as IMC [Indian Medical Council] or AIIMS [All India Institute of Medical Sciences]). The inaugural newsletter underscored the lowering of ethical standards in medical practice, arguing that the profession is in crisis and the community no longer holds the profession in high esteem. Ethical standards have deteriorated, and there is a downward spiral in compassionate moral responses to the needs of the patient: the days of the philosopher-medicinist (true doctor) are over! The Forum announced that henceforth, the burden falls on the doctors, patients and public intellectuals to take up sensitive and contentious issues that arise from reported cases of medical diagnosis, decisions and treatments, the ruse of medical technology and so on. Thus, in an issue on AIDS, the newsletter carried the text of an address by Justice Michael Kirby of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Australia (delivered in Delhi as part of a review of ‘judicial activism’ in both nations). The Forum’s newsletters also serialize codes of ethics from various traditions (Hindu, Islamic, Hippocratic) and more recent ethical guidelines (e.g., of the International Association of Catholic Medics). This is not very helpful, as there is no follow-up commentarial material or critical discussion on how conflicting ethical injunctions and scenarios in real-life situations, given India’s pluralist configuration, are to be resolved. The Forum, nevertheless, is a worthy and timely start. The real challenge is: how is India going to close the gap between precept, meta-ethics and practice in contemporary medicine?

Unethical Alliances The following is a sample of cases submitted to the Forum by medical professionals who have been alarmed by such unethical practices in their midst (culled from ME 1993–2002). The theoretical interpolations are our own. i. A patient with a mild attack of typhlitis (or perhaps, ‘Delhi belly’) was diagnosed as having amoebic hepatitis with appendicitis by a local general practitioner. After being referred to a consultant, the patient was sent on to a pathologist, then to a radiologist and did the rounds of other specialists for a host of tests, ending up in a nursing home belonging to a surgeon. Intravenous infusions of Metronidazole were administered, and the patient was advised to undergo an appendectomy in six weeks. The whole exercise would cost the patient three months of his family salary, while the referring doctor earned kickbacks from each of the specialists involved. ii. The wilful misdiagnosis of an infarct, or faked X-ray tests for urinary calculi, could lead a patient to have their healthy kidney, or some proximate organ, removed and possibly sold for transplant to another patient (or to another country). The so-called kidney transplant scam has been widely reported in major Indian cities despite the passage of the Human Organ Transplant Bill of 1994, which adopts ‘brain stem death’ and regulates retrieval of cadaveric organs while making commercial trading in organs an offence in law. Police authorities in Mumbai expressed surprise that the Medical Council and both the state and federal Health Departments rather belatedly came to ‘know’ of the illegal trade in organs in the hospitals. Hence, trade in the 42

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‘other kidney’ is rife in India (Cohen 2001). But the need for organ donation to save patients’ lives is also on the increase; India needs 180–200,000 kidney transplants a year, but the supply falls drastically short. Hence, animal organs have been considered as an alternative option. However, controversy rages in India over xenotransplantation, or the transplant of organs from one species to another. For example, whether a pig’s kidney could be transplanted into a human’s body, an experiment reported to have been successfully carried out in the United Kingdom. But animal rights groups invoking the code of animal experimentation are not sanguine about this prospect. iii. An applicant being recruited for a job overseas takes a mandatory medical check-up during which he learns that he requires a hernia surgery before being given a clean ‘bill of health’. Surgery is arranged. Under general anaesthetics, a skin incision in the inguinal region is made by the theatre sister. Three out of five recruits undergoing such medical assessment suffer the same fate. Elsewhere, a neurosurgeon undertakes to operate on a patient with severe intracranial hemorrhage whose pending death is merely a matter of hours. The patient is kept in the theatre all night and brought out the next morning with an entracheal tube in place and declared clinically dead or sent to a general hospital in a terminally ill state after the family pays the dues in cash. On the other hand, literally, wealthy medics and business enterprises (increasingly franchised via multinational corporations (MNCs)) have taken to investing in the mushrooming capital-intensive diagnostic and therapeutic centres like CT (computer tomography), CAT (computerized axial tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan units, shock-wave lithotripsy units and ICCUs (intensive cardiac care units). The units are often unchecked, unregulated, unlicensed and unauthorized. General practitioners are recruited on a piecemeal basis to operate these units with inadequate support staff and monitoring provisions, and the doctor required may not be in immediate proximity. Errors in intravenous administration, negligence and fouled-up diagnosis in the initial stages often lead to disasters. The public finds itself dazzled by gadgets and machine-like artificial respirators, cardiac monitors and treadmills. The fact is that those specially trained to operate them and experienced in making quick diagnoses are not available around the clock. Deteriorating cardiac status can never be diagnosed in time or treated. Life-saving medical equipment is often out of order and is prominently displayed merely to impress the public (ME, 1/2, 11/93–1/94: 8). Imagine the predicament during the COVID-19 pandemic when neither oxygen ventilators nor the operating staff were available in hospitals that had also run out of beds in the general and ICU wards. In short, the average patient who walks into hospitals or medical units potentially becomes ‘fodder for the cannon’ or is treated simply as a guinea pig. Without information or real consent, they are quickly moved through several diagnostic and research machines and then made to pay what is for them unimaginable sums of money. Ironically, where such facilities are established in non-urban areas or in small-town regions, the costs of treatment are even higher, thus leaving the poor who need medical care horrendously impoverished and poorer for it. The urgent need to protect patients from such excesses by the medical profession and to make efforts to secure the provision of cheap medical and hospitalization services for ordinary India continue to be voiced from several quarters. The India Red Cross has long questioned the uncodified morals of medicine in India, and while a Code of Medical Ethics Regulation was adopted by the Medical Council of India – updated in 20161 – its affected implementation and monitoring leaves much to be desired. 43

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Hysterectomy in the Mentally Handicapped It was reported in a daily paper that the state government of Maharashtra planned to engage a hospital and its gynaecology team to undertake a community service development project on women, children and the handicapped. The project would involve the removal of uteri of 11 or so severely mentally retarded women (aged between 15 and 25 but whose mental ages were judged to be between 2 and 3 years) in government institutions for the mentally deficient near Pune. The rationale given for undertaking this intrusive action was to unburden women who were ‘totally incapable of managing their periods’ and who were prone to unwanted and difficult pregnancies. In other words, hysterectomy, in this instance, is a ‘hygienic measure’ undertaken for the ‘broader health interests’ of the women concerned, unable to attend to their personal hygiene, reportedly smear themselves with menstrual fluid and who might become subjects of rape and unwanted pregnancy (Indian Express, 5/2/1994). The proposed action elicited a storm of protest from women’s groups, social activists and a number of medical groups. Their counterargument was that normal menstruation poses no health danger to a mentally retarded woman if minimum standards of cleanliness are ensured. Taboos and superstition surrounding menstruation as the manifestation of Indra’s curse which renders menstrual blood ‘impure and dangerous’ (Smith 1992: 23), probably added to the self-justification felt on the part of the gynaecologists and their government directorate eager to remove a ‘useless organ’. The assumption that removal of the uterus without removal of the ovaries has no long-term health consequences was also questioned, while the removal of ovaries post-hysterectomy can lead to further complications. The issue of patient autonomy and exactly who has the authority to make such decisions, notwithstanding the consent of the parents or the legal guardianship entrusted to the institutions, was hotly contested (ME, 2/1 1994: 6–8). The basic moral issues raised are: should a social problem be tackled with the now readily available convenient technology for removing the uterus? Should normal menstruation, even when the woman is not able to attend to it hygienically, be treated as a disease to be eliminated by an intrusive surgical solution? Is the state side-stepping its welfare responsibility by taking recourse to hysterectomy on mentally retarded women who should be given greater care than is currently afforded? What would be the consequence if unmitigated technological solutions are extended to other areas of social needs which the government might vouchsafe as a threatening medical or mental ‘disease’, such as mental illness, TB, leprosy and smallpox? Would this redress the constant sexual assaults these women are subjected to in homes and institutions? In other words, instead of looking closely at the social causes of such illnesses and malaise, the official position is to eliminate the symptoms by methods of medical intervention. Many of the community and medical fraternity (barring voluntary organizations) health program fall into this category. The government had, without compunction, submitted to World Bank-IMF pressure to forego the meagre provisions allocated for social welfare. Activists and women’s groups moved a court action challenging the government’s decision to perform widespread hysterectomy or involuntary sterilization on a minority, disenfranchised class of mentally handicapped women. The anxiety widely expressed by these groups is that Indian society is succumbing to the imported ideology of Social Darwinism, according to which the poor, deprived and disabled have no moral rights, socially or demographically. Attempts by the Forum for Medical Ethics to formulate guidelines for the procedure under question were met with further protests from doctors and NGO groups, notably one 44

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Paryay (a Sanskrit synonym for ‘alternatives’), which claimed that the only condition under which hysterectomy could be prescribed is when a tumour is present in the uterus; all other considerations are spurious. It is the duty of both society and state to care for those who, through no fault of their own, are either physically or mentally handicapped, and it is not the provenance of medical professionals to invent techniques for eliminating such ‘disabilities’. NGOs such as Paryay have proposed and supported alternatives to hysterectomy for the mentally handicapped. There are other kinds of gynaecological malpractices that regularly come to light. For instance, the Indian Express reported in March 2000 that the National Consumer Dispute Commission found a Nagpur-based gynaecologist to have been negligent in his handling of a woman’s pregnancy, leading to her death. She had been prescribed the wrong drugs for a complaint of stomach pain barely a week before the delivery date and was left in the labour room post-delivery for five hours without a desperately needed blood transfusion.

Tuberculosis and 25 Million People Missing Tuberculosis (TB) has received uneven attention since the recognition of this malaise as an epidemic by the new government of Independent India in 1947. Since 1970, there have been massive problems in the implementation of the NTP (National Tuberculosis Programme) at all levels. A report has estimated that the lapses in implementation have resulted in more than 50,000 deaths annually. India tallies up 25% of the global TB cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which estimated incidents of TB in 2019 to be around 2.56 million and 400,000 fatalities; in 2020, compounded with COVID-19 infections, cases increased to 2.6 million (there are ‘millions missing’ from Indian official reports) (The Times of India, 25/6/2020). The poor, at greatest risk, are most affected, having less access to effective care. A proportion gets functionally disabled due to advanced disease, and a substantial proportion also becomes indebted due to the disease (ME, 7/3, 1999). For an inmate confined within a prison with poor sanitation who contracts TB and/or COVID and is not rushed to treatment simply has their punishment rendered irredeemably cruel. The reiteration of the same scenario for each conceivable medical condition that strikes at the subaltern is insufferably evident.

Population Control and Pharmacon’s ‘Social Dumping’ The debate on contraception and the aligned question of population control is rather murky in the Indian context, as, indeed, it is in the whole South Asia region. The Indian Catholic community and Muslim ‘watch-over’ groups may be moved by theological motivations to enter the fray, while feminists and women’s movements are motivated by suspicion of the sinister motives on the part of the state and MNCs that appear to promote the widespread adoption of contraceptive practices in the interest of population control, ecological balance and less thinly spread economic benefits as one consequence at least. Ever since Sanjay Gandhi’s enforced sterilization camps were set up in the mid-1970s during the national emergency declared by his mother, then prime minister Indira Gandhi, women’s groups have been highly suspicious of government initiatives on population control program (Jaqqi 1988). As rapid economic globalization imperatives gain a foothold, new hegemonies are formed in which women suffer further disempowerment and casualty in proportion to their 45

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fertility rate. Women’s basic needs, including nutritional care, education, health, work, social and political participation and a life free of violence and oppression, become matters of secondary and merely local concern (barring foreign aid program which can, nevertheless, have hidden strings attached). Thus, the widespread use of Depo-Provera, the anti-pregnancy vaccine; Norplant and RU-486 in the third world has come under vehement attack from feminist groups. They advance the argument that this is part of a mechanism deployed by the new world order to contain populations in developing regions in achieving the dominant objective of globalizing the market economy, which needs a secure, manageable and smaller, moderately well-educated population. This is tantamount to coercive fertility control, which condones infanticide in the absence of alternative means, often in the interest of appropriating land, common resources, etcetera. Norplant has been known to cause tremendous discomfort, nausea, heavy bleeding and other kinds of complications. In Bangladesh, aid authorities funded by international agencies (‘donors’) and sanctioned by state bodies have run trials of Norplant but refuse to remove the implant, even if severe risks to women’s health became evident. Norplant has been distributed extensively for both trial purposes and in order to address perceived problems of unsustainable populations in the third world. This menace has been ignored by host countries, as governments and local aid agencies derive other kinds of benefits from the scheme. They, in turn, are relieved of dealing with fertility issues through more humane means, such as providing education, adequate information and proven indigenous methods of birth control. The theoretical issue of concern here is that Western bourgeois ideology first ‘gifts’ a woman with individual rights over her own body, satisfying the inner urge of private property, script it as an autonomous, endogamous region, objectifies it and then turns it into a ‘reproductive factory’, a socialized productive commodity, assembled for labour-power (and just the measured amount). ‘The produced commodities’, as Gayatri Spivak reminds us, ‘are children, also coded within the affective value form, not things’ (1999: 386–389). This is the importation via transnational corporations (TNCs), international development agencies and their representative NGOs or ‘native informants’ to the third world, which activists such as Farida Akhter in Bangladesh, with a subtlety and depth of insight that appears to escape Western feminist critics of Asian feminists, have been at pains to rally against. Hence, heavily medicalized health and population strategies cannot be seen as answers, at least in the long term, to securing just, fair and equitable societies in accordance with Rawlsian original position on distributive justice within which traditional values, customs and erstwhile systems of management, both personal and ecological – with healthy doses of compassion and mirth – have traditionally served the community. The question of the relationship between healthcare and pharmaceutics generally arises over and again in such discussions. Pharmaceutics is invariably an industry largely in the control of the private sector and, after the arms trade, is said to be the most profitable industry in the world. While India regulated foreign-based pharmaceutical MNCs from dominating the Indian health services for some time (though not so much lately), little control was (effectively) exercised over the plethora of spurious, substandard, high-cost and even prohibited and harmful drugs from circulating in the market. During outbreaks of epidemics, such as the scare of bubonic plague in Surat, Gujarat, unregistered drugs, some of which are fabricated out of raw material appropriated in South Asia’s vast but dwindling ecological resources, flooded the chemist stores and were made available over the counter. Spivak calls this TNCs (or MNCs) value-added enterprise, with the complicity of native (postcolonial’s inbred, brown sahib) entrepreneurs, a case of ‘social dumping’ 46

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(Spivak 1999: 412–413). The Supreme Court also observed that prescribing a code of conduct to regulate the relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies is a perilously serious concern; the code of ethics issued by the IMC applies only to doctors and not to pharma firms; furthermore, not being statutory it lacks the force of law. Thus, pharma companies are known to spend thousands of dollars handing our ‘freebies’ and ‘gifts’ to doctors and local chemists so that they can be enticed to prescribe or dispense the products of these pharma firms over other remedies. Such corrigible practices, the petitioning advocates observed, endanger positive health and put patients’ health at much risk (Hindustan Times, 19 August 2022). (For more on such tragic stories, see Chapter 4 by Dr Gauri Seth (Verma) in this volume.)

AIDS/HIV It is sometimes said that AIDS/HIV is the disease of the 20th–21st centuries. WHO estimates that since the beginning of the epidemic, some 84 million persons have been infected globally with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and 40 million of them have died. Recent surveys have shown that AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) has certainly struck the subcontinent in a more pernicious way than had been imagined. In 2003, when the epidemic was at its peak, there were 3.6 million cases in India, and while it has come down to 2.3 million in 2020, it is still a significant number when one considers the total population of nations like Iceland, Namibia and Suriname. It is doubtful if the health and medical authorities in the region have the wherewithal to deal adequately with, let alone contain, the transmission of the infectious virus across the population. But of equal concern to medical practitioners are the ethical aspects involved in the diagnosis and management of patients who have tested HIV positive. There are regular reports of suicide among these patients who are refused treatment in hospitals. These rejections stem largely from the overall attitude towards AIDS-infected persons as aliens, compounded with the fear of contagion and the general presumption that those infected have contracted the disease through homosexuality or have indulged in unsafe sex. The female prostitute population of red-light districts in the major cities has reported high rates of HIV positive, and some instances have been established to occur through infected blood transfusion or drug abuse. As elsewhere, doctors have questioned the conclusive evidence produced in the HIV testing and whether all individuals testing positive for HIV will necessarily develop full-blown AIDS on follow-up examination. As Justice Michael Kirby had pointed out in a New Delhi address (ME, 2/1, 1994: 3–6), to isolate and ban those who could potentially spread the virus is punitive and an inappropriate response. He referred to the Australian report ‘Courage of our Conviction’, which seeks to identify the ways in which the state laws in Australia could be brought into harmony with the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. The recommendations by Justice Kirby, which the Indian medical community has not fully digested since, are worth citing here:

• • • •

Decriminalization of brothels Regulations and public health standards for sex workers Sex workers to be covered under the Industrial Relations Act Privacy of HIV/AIDS patients and improvements in their redress against decriminalization in the workplace • Repeal laws making it an offence to administer drugs to oneself and possession (of drugs) 47

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• Investigate the therapeutic use of marijuana as a prescribed treatment for HIV/AIDS and • • • •

other terminal illnesses Abandon compulsory testing for HIV in prisons Promote the safety of prisoners by making condoms available to them A National Death Act to permit terminally ill patients to ‘die with dignity’ Legal recognition of the status of permanent relationships between homosexual couples

HIV/AIDS and the Pharmacon A plethora of drugs have flooded the hospitals and dispensaries with promises of curing the disease. Only a handful have been found to have any real effect in terms of reducing morbidity and mortality due to AIDS. HAART (Highly Antiretroviral Therapy) is one such aid, along with 15 other drugs approved for use in the developed world. Of these, 11 are currently available in India. Some fixed dose combinations are manufactured exclusively by Indian companies, and these are comparatively less expensive (ME, 10/4, 2002). The use of these generic drugs in India has been shown to have immunological and clinical benefits. Here, enter the pharmaceutical companies and TNCs that have a vested interest in the potential market in this area. With over ten companies competing to promote their own drugs or versions thereof, concerns have been afoot about the unethical practices this rush forebodes. All classes of medical and alternative therapists may be urged to prescribe these drugs in the fashion of antibiotics. The quality of the drugs, their effectiveness and their response (without resistant mutation of the virus), in the long run, are severely compromised in the process. This has posed a huge challenge in the case of the infectious and contagious COVID-19generating virus. The regulatory bodies, such as the WHO, monitoring the quality of the drugs seem helpless. Conversely, the same or different TNCs that have a vested interest in the AIDs therapy market in other developing countries, such as South Africa, have moved to impose embargos and restrictions against the importation of Indian-manufactured drugs to these regions. Market forces and not global ethical considerations dictate the distribution of medicinal goods. The restrictions have been eased in recent years.

Postscript on the COVID-19 Pandemic and Public Health Issue (With Input from Karyn MacDonell) At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic – which was more like pandemonium in every respect – the glaring statistics of people infected by COVID-19 and others reportedly dying from complications thereto were shatteringly everywhere; the numbers have receded in at least a number of countries across the world, but the disturbing and distressing effects continue to live on among us. It is hard to imagine a moment such as this that most of us have lived through in our lifetime, but it is a reality and public challenge that we can neither ignore nor look away from. The world is experiencing a tryst with destiny, and its people are living through difficult times, which calls for a phenomenological response to this new threat of unnatural and, in the majority of cases, untimely death. Official figures reported India has experienced 44,675,943 cases of COVID-19, with some 530,705 deaths (that would be half the population of an island republic like Fiji). Unofficial figures collected independently by doctors, healthcare workers and NGOs place deaths from COVID complications in India between 3.7 and 4.7 million persons. 48

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Still, it is the case that the full consequential impact has yet to manifest itself in terms of long-term genetic damage, coping with grief and bereavement and other tragic aftereffects. There was not, nor is there now, a ‘COVID-19 manual’ as such to follow; hence, patients and health professionals alike sought solutions in exhausted ‘time’ – that is to say, there was no timeframe to gauge anything by. This was due to the increasing number of people dying across the country and worldwide, the lack of communication as to how it was occurring, how much suffering was endured, as well as whether there would be medical care available at all due to the number of people infected. The imposed isolation brought about by sudden and prolonged lockdowns and the fear of spreading the infection meant many infected people could not reach or seek medical attention; the healthcare staff were at their limits or even had become infected and felt helpless in the midst of such a catastrophic crisis. There would be no ‘peace of mind’ about the process, the degree of suffering or knowing there were not enough ventilators or medication to go around (or effective enough). The thought of loved ones struggling to breathe was suffocating the grief process of those left with survivor guilt. The paralyzing fear of not knowing and the mandate to change imposed by government authorities undermined individual control whilst increasing the intensity of bereavement exponentially. This is evident anecdotally in the increase of people being diagnosed with mental health issues or being admitted to mental health units since 2019. COVID-19 created an entirely new ‘mental health client’ who had the potential to get a diagnosis of severe adjustment disorder, major depressive disorder, generalized and social anxiety, complex grief and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to name a few. The escalation of mental health issues during COVID-19 was due to multiple factors, but the ‘reality’ of death and dying in this new context added other dimensions to a ‘fact of life’ that is bound up in cultural and personal phenomena. COVID-19 saw the escalation of people with a mental health diagnosis who may not have had a diagnosis pre-COVID-19. This was due to the fact that the usual coping mechanisms of their traditional practices had been interrupted or obliterated. The newly diagnosed came from multiple ethnic-specific and socioeconomic groups, as well as across all age groups. The hospitals, clinics, dispensaries, healthcare providers and every such medical resource in the nation were stretched to its limit, to a bursting point. The nation and its people had never in recent decades experienced anything like this and felt helpless as well as abandoned by the authorities – unless they were well-heeled and had connections in the right places, mostly higher up the echelon. The COVID-19 pandemic, therefore, put the healthcare system and India’s commitment to universal health to embarrassing levels of tests; India survived the pandemic on the grand national compass, but it failed the tests sorely, and it is the people on the ground who paid the price heavily with their lives and insufferable losses. (See postscript discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic in the next session.)

Conclusion As India’s medical predicament deepens, falling further into the moral abyss created by the east-west economic divide, a sense of urgency prevails in defining an indigenous bioethical discourse. This imperative we have highlighted in case studies: hysterectomy on intellectually handicapped girls, TB, pharmaceutical abuses, absence of sustained Medicare and the AIDS/HIV syndrome. The issues raised in these cases speak unequivocally of India’s medical despair, a system displaced by the dominance of science and techno-culture spawned by 49

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colonialism and the ruse of modernity, which has left in its wake a broken public health system. This is an insufferable state of affairs. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, science’s preoccupation with classification evolved into an intricate fusion of medicalization and institutionalization, or simply science and state as ‘hand in glove’, which struggled to similarly fuse ‘East-West’ notions of utility and ethics, empiricism and intuition, modernity and tradition. Indigenous practices drawing on AYUS – i.e., Āyurveda, Caraka-Suśruta remedies, Unani, Siddha, Yoga, Jaina anuvratas, naturopathy, homeopathy and Buddhist contemplative responses – might now be re-considered, not only for their contemporary and future efficacy, but examined for their impact (or otherwise) during the transition toward the 100th anniversary of India’s Independence, and why it is that these customary practices were allowed to recede from the public health domain. Indians at large do not enjoy the luxury of engaging in the niceties of metaethical discourse while grappling with the immediate medical and health issues of everyday life. For this reason, a bioethical framework to monitor public health in the age of rapid biotechnology and medical advances so as to help sustain and not endanger a population of 1.2 billion is called for. These needs and the institutional capabilities entailed must be re-established from within India’s own philosophical, moral and normative foundations, disentangled from the West’s post-Enlightenment positivist-empirical project so that it learns to function beyond the reach of the current excesses of economic utility. It is India’s intelligentsia and grassroots researchers who will ultimately enable carers to emphasize local responses to imported models and to re-internalize or re-integrate indigenous cultures of well-being. It would be a prudent step if there were further initiatives from the central and state governments to formulate and implement policies and program that are predicated on recognizing health as a primary social good. As we noted earlier, India spends far less of its GDP on health than do most counties with a similar economic profile – a meagre 1.35% (and declining further at state levels, except perhaps in Kerala); although during the pandemic (2020–2021), healthcare expenditure did rise to 2.5% (with state-wide variations), which came back down to 1.8% in 2022. While the public sector fails the patients who have to resort to private medical services and quackery, the health risks of the population scale to alarming proportions. Major illnesses such as typhoid, malaria, polio and cataract blindness go untreated or uncontrolled. Privatization can work in many areas in the public sphere – hotels, tourism and a number of industries – but the high private share in the rural areas is a major drawback in the Indian health system. Over-diagnosing, antidoting, elaborate tests and treatments under false pretexts; under-delivery of essential medication; and lack of medically trained personnel in the public health sector (both as primary and secondary resources) lead to confusion and obfuscation of prognosis, putting the patients’ lives at immense risk, not least, as we have argued, in respect of autonomy, human rights and related bioethical issues as well. Where basic medical care for all, basic diagnosis, medicines, blood and urine tests, X-rays and so on are not made available to the needy citizens, especially the poor (whose non-literacy and inability to comprehend the technical medical jargon thrown at them compounds the problem), what is the point of offering (or proscribing) CT scans and the more expensive pharmacy prescriptions to its clientele on the basis of ‘free choice’? India manages only about five beds per 10,000 people in hospitals, which makes it rank 155th in the world, though India’s rate of doctors per 10,000 is higher within this group, at 8.6. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the ratio staggered at three beds per 10,000 and five doctors (though lesser in terms of willing, available or not taken out 50

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themselves by COVID-19 infection along with aiding health carers). Large and grand hospitals are all very well for the rich and well-heeled. But unless they provide free medical care for the rural and lower-income populace, the goal is defeated. There is a call for privatepublic partnership (PPP) for better infrastructure, research and innovation to make quality healthcare affordable and accessible for the masses. A number of not-for-profit, community-centric healthcare facilities, such as the Jain-sponsored hospitals in the north and the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences in Puttaparthi and Bangalore, have made such record-breaking efforts. In recognition of such gallant efforts on the part of nongovernmental social leaders and philanthropists, the state and central governments of India have called for greater ‘private-sector’ participatory investment into the failing healthcare system. But this is to conflate vested interest and foreign HMO-type of ‘consumer orientated’ medical care with semi-voluntary and public-serving initiatives, which the state should be looking to support with matching dollar recurrent funding. India did venture into the world’s largest vaccination program (to cover a billion people), but the quality and effectiveness of the home-grown virus treatment regime have been questioned by medical and healthcare watchgods.

Sabko Dawai, Sasti Dawai The Union Health Ministry has a plan for enabling affordable medicines for all under a scheme dubbed sabho dawai, sasti dawai; the ministry has added 34 drugs for cancer in a total list of 384 cost-effective, safe and efficacious medicines that supposedly reduces outof-pocket expenses of patients. Much depends, of course, on the corporation of the pharmaceutical companies and whether their own profit-motive strikes a balance with patient-centric, public health imperatives and future policy directions. The same day as this list (NLEM [National List of Essential Medicines]) was released, the Hindustan Times (14/019/2022: 8, 16) carried a perspicuous editorial applauding the National Health Account (NHA) released for 2018–2019 (before the pandemic struck), which shows that out-of-pocket spending came down to 48% (from 70% in 2004–2005), and in which the states account for 59%–62% of the total government expenditure. However, the editor notes the NHA numbers need to be read against the grain of post-pandemic data and, more importantly, not the amount of public health investment that was made but what ought to have been made; otherwise, this data tells us nothing about the adequacy (or lack thereof) of healthcare in the country. ‘Most indicators, from doctors to hospital beds per capita, tell us that India’s health sector faces serious supply issues. The government, both at the Centre and the states, should not lose sight of this fact’ (ibid). AIDS/HIV is another area where the situation has failed, both to prevent the spread of AIDS/HIV infections – through education and information program – and delivery of palliative or remedial care, while India has looked to exporting inexpensively produced AIDS/ HIV drugs to the rest of the world. Both the public and private sectors have a responsible role to play in managing this menace. The private health system works well and more efficiently where the primary port of call and delivery of basic medical care and treatment is centred in the public sphere, and an egalitarian healthcare (Medicare) plan supplements the basic costs along the lines of the kinds of systems that exist in Canada, only-just in Britain and still persists in Australia. With its immense resources, medical training schools and a plethora of expertise in the medical and technological area – which India loses by a gradual process of ‘brain drain’ to more developed regions of the world – India could set a model 51

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and trend for the rest of the world to emulate. But before that, there is much catching up to be done on the theoretical or abstract thinking side, even if it is just the metaethical (which calls for a certain intellectual acumen and commitment to face the issues) and in tandem with the practical, empirical and normative side. This calls for state intervention and implementation of enlightenment reforms and a complete overhauling restructuring of the healthcare system, infrastructure support and decentralized administration in the public and private spheres. ‘Free, quality health care for all’, as the chief minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal, has underscored in his five-point plan, but which will remain an empty call without the support from the powers that be; as Kejriwal reminded the Centre: these are not mere ‘freebies’. Providing quality education and healthcare, along with insurance support at the level where the economic conditions of people below the mean economic and poverty level do not enable private insurance privileges, is the constitutional obligation of a fair and responsible government. Disability allowance and comprehensive insurance schemes for the care of the ill have not yet been conceived of or successfully implemented at a national scale; in the way, for example, these have been incorporated in the NHS [National Health Service] in the United Kingdom or in the state Medicare system in Australia and New Zealand. Third-party managed insurance schemes that comprise multiple stakeholders lead to compromises, lack of accountability, and render them unaffordable to the poor (hence inequitable and gender-periled vis-à-vis the middle-class patients), and eventually lead to corruption as even the hospitals (private but also public) turn away patients. An effective repair and remedy to all of the aforementioned deficiencies and lacks would require the state, corporations and philanthropic groups to provide community-based information, health education, help lines, expansion of clinics, dispensaries, insurance schemes and service hospitals across non-urban or regional, rural and tribal areas, with a shift toward a kind of ‘Radical Package’ for the people (Sen 2005) and a lot more indeed.

Note 1 https://www.nmc.org.in/rules-regulations/code-of-medical-ethics-regulations-2002/

References ‘Bioethics in India’: Proceedings of the International Bioethics Workshop in Madras: Biomanagement of Biogeo-resources, 16–19 Jan. 1997, Chennai: University of Madras. http://www.biol.tsukuba. ac.jp/~macer/india.html AS: Āpastambasūtra-Dharmasūtra, Trans. George, Bűhler. 1932. Bombay Sanskrit series 44, 50 Poona: S V Belvalkar. Baciu, A, Negussie, Y, Geller, A, et al. (eds). 2017. ‘Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity.’ The Root Causes of Health Inequity. Washington, D.C.: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice) 11 January. 3; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425845/ Bilimoria, Purushottama. 1990. ‘Review of Robert,’ In M. Veatch (ed.), Cross Cultural Perspectives in Medical Ethics: Readings. Boston: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Bioethics (Blackwell), 4(2): 171–173. Cohen, Lawrence. 2001. ‘The Other Kidney: Biopolitics Beyond Recognition,’ Body & Society, 7(2–3): 9–29. Coward, Harold, Julius Lipner and Catherine Young (eds.). 1989. Hindu Ethics Purity, Abortion, and Euthanasia. Albany: SUNY Press. CS: Caraka-Saṃ hitā, Śarīrathāna. Varanasi: Chowkamba Orientalia, 1954. Desai, Prakash. 1988. ‘Medical Ethics in India,’ Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 13: 231–255.

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Public Health, Care and Bioethics in Modern India Filliozat, Jean. 1964. The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine. Trans. Dev Raj Chandra. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Foucault, Michel. 1994. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. New York: Vintage Books. GHS. 2021. Global Health Security. https://www.ghsindex.org/ Jaqqi, QP 1988. ‘“India” (Medical Ethics),’ In W. Reich (ed.), Encyclopedia of Bioethics. London: Macmillan: 906–911. KAS Kauṭilya Arthaśāstra, Sanskrit text, critical edition with glossary, by R.P. Kangle. Bombay, 1960, 1965 (reprinted as Part I (1992)). Keown, Damien. 2001. Buddhism and Bioethics. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave. ———. 2008. Buddhism and Medical Ethics, Principles and Practice. London: University of London. Komesaroff, Paul A. (ed.). 1995. Troubled Bodies Critical Perspectives on Postmodernism, Medical Ethics, and he Body. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Mahtaney, Piya. 2004. Globalisation: Con-Game or Reality. Kolkata: Alchemy/Mehras. ME: Indian Medical Ethics. n.d. Forum for Medical Ethics (Mumbai). www.issuesinmedicalethics.org Misra, Rajiv, Rachel Chatterjee and Sujatha Rao. 2003. India Health Report. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Mukhopadhyay, Alok, (ed.). 1992. State of India’s Health. Delhi: Voluntary Health Association of India. Sarma, Deepak. 2008. “Hindu” Bioethics? The Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics, 36 (1): 51–58. Sen, Amartya. 2005. ‘India’s poor need a radical package’, interview in The Hindu (Bangalore), Sunday, 9 January, p. 14. Smith, Frederick M. 1992. ‘Indra’s Curse, Varuṇ a’s Noose,’ in Julia Leslie (ed.) Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1999. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Zysk, Kenneth G. 1998. Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

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2 COVID-19 Lessons in Ethics for Social Assets Om Prakash Dwivedi

This chapter aims to emphasize the nation-state’s ethical responsibilities to strengthen and perpetuate a culture of social welfare, what I call ‘care duty’. The chapter examines India’s fragmented healthcare system in the wake of COVID-19’s deadly onslaught across India. It goes on to argue that a robust healthcare system must be an integral part of any state’s social assets, the lack of which renders vulnerability to its citizens, as witnessed abundantly in India’s fight against the virus. However, to blame the virus entirely for the present chaos and crisis would be naïve since it diverts one’s attention from the failure of the state to offer a dynamic healthcare system, which might have saved more lives, particularly in such cases where patients had succumbed due to lack of a health medical infrastructure. This perpetuation of vulnerability is deeply linked to the rampant privatization of the healthcare system in India since the 1990s. The rise of neoliberal capitalism and its attritional forces have systematically problematized the concept of the social.

Neoliberalism and Privatization of the Healthcare System As the COVID-19 virus continues to change its mutations, healthcare systems acquire greater attention and significance. In developing countries such as India, the COVID-19 crisis has exposed the dilapidated healthcare infrastructure. However, it would be unfair to examine these visible cracks in India’s healthcare system within the context of the pandemic. It has other reasons as well, particularly economic ones. The future of healthcare was rendered bleak by the 1978 Alma-Atma’s euphoric call for ‘Health for All’, which was energized simultaneously by a call for a ‘new international economy’.1 Subsequently, the social liberalism of the Keynesian world was replaced with the open market concept of neoliberalism, thus exacerbating the utopian call of ‘Health for All’ while giving way to ‘Selective Primary Health Care’. This monumental shift of healthcare from the domain of the nation-state to the pocket of corporate capitalism was bound to agonize life itself since it was selective and driven by a motif to maximize profit. Further, the 1990s triggered robust changes in health policy in India, exposing its citizens to the forces of the market. Many of the public sectors, including healthcare, were recalibrated to coordinate with market principles. Commenting on the 42nd report of the National Sample Survey DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-5

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Organisation (NSSO), Nikita Mehta and Jyotsana Singh claim that ‘since the 1990s, the dependence of the Indian on private healthcare has risen sharply’. Whereas 60% of citizens benefitted from public health infrastructure during 1986–1987, the 71st NSSO report of 2016 shows that ‘this trend was reversed, with only 41% availing of public healthcare’ (2016).2 The health sector was thus decentralized, underfunded and sold off to corporate conglomerates that attracted huge foreign investments or for other commercial purposes. It also led to an exodus of public doctors into private hospitals and privatized hospices, dispensaries and health clinics – such as the Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd and Max Super Specialty Hospital chain. Suddenly, the Indian healthcare infrastructure, which was already in need of more support and funding, was covertly laid off by government agencies, problematizing the core value of social justice. Nonetheless, several defenders continued to eulogize and defend the market ideology of neoliberalism. For example, Jagdish Bhagwati, a strong proponent of neoliberalism, saw it as ‘a reversal of the anti-globalisation, antimarket, pro-public-enterprise attitudes and policies that produced our dismal growth performance [during the pre-1991 period]’ (2001: 843). Conversely, one can listen to Henry Giroux, a strong opponent of neoliberalism, who highlighted that the driving strategy of neoliberal governance since the Reagan administration (1981–1989) ‘has been to “starvethe-beast” by producing large budget deficits to force reductions in various social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, education, food stamps, and community development block grants’ (2008: 14). And this is exactly what happened in India during the COVID-19 pandemic, with daily reports of death due to starvation, lack of healthcare infrastructure and loss of jobs, not to forget the increased work hours in the form of new labour laws while the country was already crawling on its knees. Clearly, the rhetoric of progress and development gets mired within the rubrics of neoliberalism. It doesn’t take much to understand the converse side of the open market ideology, particularly in areas related to social welfare, which matters a lot to common people and, fair to say, a large segment of society. Situating the problem of a poor healthcare system in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Owain Williams scathingly remarks that ‘[T]he private healthcare service and business model has proven disastrous for coordinated national pandemic responses in a number of countries, and ill-suited for universal coverage of those infected by the virus’ (2020: 182). We all know that the business model of private players runs on the parameters of investment and profit. From this vantage point, it is apparently clear that private healthcare will mostly prioritize profit over distribution, and hence, it would be presumptuous to hope for a welfare mechanism or to meet any international standards of healthcare. But, bioethics and marketing principles do not synchronize well. We know that the market is averse to any kind of ethicality, even if the issues are pinned down to the survival and sustainability of life. At a time when the lockdown forced the shutdown of several pharma companies across India, citizens faced a surmounting challenge to gain access to general medicines for viral fever. The same problem of market control and maximizing profit was evident in the development and supply of COVID-19 vaccinations across the world. However, the problem is exacerbated to a greater degree in developing nations such as India. To counter and block the development of vaccines made by India and South Africa, obviously to extract more profit and gain dependency on their vaccines, leading and powerful pharmaceutical companies exercised their market influence at the World Trade Organization (WTO). 55

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The data on vaccination generated by Amnesty International, Frontline AIDS, Global Justice Now, and Oxfam claim that rich nations representing just 14% of the world’s population have bought up 53% of all the most promising vaccines so far (that is until November 2020).3 Apparently, such hegemonic control of the market and, subsequently, of society was meant to protect and multiply the profits of leading pharmaceutical companies, diverting the supply of vaccines from poor sections to ones who have deep pockets. Reflecting on the manifestation of such gatekeeping in the medical industry, Oxfam estimated that ‘9 in 10 people living in the world’s poorest countries will miss out on a COVID19 vaccination’.4 This modus operandi constitutes the core of neoliberal capitalism, and hence, the idea of neoliberalism opening up a borderless world or a signifier of progress has turned out to be a double-edged sword. It is obvious that neoliberal capitalism has its own set of agendas that exclude the strengthening of sociological relations or even international relations. Rather, it thrives by creating uneven geographical and social spaces. Evidently, a problem can be seen with the call for ‘universal coverage’ of healthcare, which simultaneously opens up provisions for private sector investment in healthcare at a global level. The 1993 World Bank Report, ‘Investing in Health’, unfairly directed the developing nations to allow private sector entry into public healthcare services. The intensification and acceleration of this privatization meant relief for several nation-states since they no longer should spend much on public health. However, the dire consequences of such a draconian step were to be seen in the loss of innumerable lives in the ongoing pandemic. No wonder, then, that a bench of judges of the Allahabad High Court, while assessing the healthcare situation in the state of Uttar Pradesh and reminding its ethical duty to save lives, compared the handling of the COVID-19 situation to an act of ‘genocide’ (2021). Further, the bench made a scathing attack on the poor health infrastructure: ‘[W]e are at pain in observing that the death of Covid patients just for non-supplying of oxygen to the hospitals is a criminal act and not less than a genocide’ (2021).5 While it can be argued that no healthcare system can be healthy enough to survive the challenges of a pandemic of such an alarming level, nonetheless, it makes sense to examine the ethical duty of nation-states in providing a robust healthcare infrastructure to their citizens to protect and sustain their lives. This ethical lens can give us a few lessons that can be important, provided we are willing to listen and record them, to understand the role of good healthcare infrastructure in any society since no nation with poor health can survive and compete with others for a longer period. It is for reasons such as these that public health infrastructure is also seen as ‘the nerve center of the public health system’ (Bernard 2001: 3). Perhaps Amartya Sen prefigured this lurking threat long back when he strongly made a case for investments in public health insurance since he could see that the ‘[p]rivtisation of the health sector has been done prematurely in India’ (2018).6 Taking cognizance of this fragmented healthcare infrastructure, the 2017 National Health Policy of the Indian government also recommended an increase in health expenditure by the government as a percentage of gross domestic product [GDP] from the existing 1.15% to 2.5% by 2025, but the fact remains, India is yet to meet the 2% GDP target as recommended by the government in 2010. Its manifestation can be seen in the shocking doctor-population ratio in India. Against the standard norm set by the WHO of 1:1000 doctor-population ratio, the figure revealed by the Deccan Herald on the Economic Survey of 2019–2020 suggested the availability of 1:1456. Even before the pandemic hit India, a report published in The Indian Express on 20 July 2019 alerted to this weak medical infrastructure

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across India. The report mentioned that ‘in Bihar’, ‘one doctor caters to a population of 28,391 people’ and that ‘Uttar Pradesh ranks second with 19,962 people per doctor, followed by Jharkhand with 18,518 people per doctor. Madhya Pradesh has a doctor for 16,996 people’ and Karnataka recorded ‘a ratio of 1:13,556’.7 Such a poor doctor-patient ratio raises serious questions about the steps taken to energize the health infrastructure in India. As Farhan Ahmad points out, ‘[I]n this scenario, the government’s spending on healthcare is around 1.29 percent of the GDP’ (2020).8 And then, one can find a bigger issue plaguing the Indian medical care system, in a way questioning its very existence and purpose. It is quite ironic that pharmaceutical companies continue to function under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers, and not under the Ministry of Health. This fundamentally flawed structuration of the Indian medical care system has been highlighted several times, and yet, it continues to survive. For example, Rajendra Gupta, a member of the Global Agenda Council on Digital Health, advocated at the World Economic Forum (2014) a need for a new healthcare policy and went on to identify the fundamental problem that underpins the Indian healthcare system. Gupta remarks, ‘[W]e talk about promoting generics. But currently, the health ministry does not have any say over pharmaceutical-related issues. The department of pharmaceuticals is with the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers’ (2014: 3). What else should one add to highlight the deplorable condition of the Indian medical organization, which seems to have been largely neglected and pushed to margins by the state? Therefore, one should not be surprised to see how COVID-19 has tested the potential of India’s healthcare infrastructure, which is mostly in the hands of private players. In a report that was published by Abantika Ghosh shortly after the lockdown announcement, one can witness further fragmentation in India’s healthcare system. The Indian Express points to the data shared by the Union Health Ministry, ‘[T]here is one isolation bed per 84,000 Indians, and one quarantine bed per 36,000 Indians. The data, collected in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, states there is one doctor per 11,600 Indians, and one hospital bed per 1,826 Indians’ (2020).9 On a different note, the Guardian pointed to a dilapidated condition of rural India’s medical infrastructure, where ‘the number of hospitals and per capita ratio of doctors are far below those of Mumbai and Delhi, and there is currently a 76% shortfall of specialist doctors – 80% of doctors in India are in urban areas’ (2021).10 These are all shivering reflections on the appalling state of health affairs in India, which belie all the investment claims and intentions of the government as far as the revival of medical infrastructure in India is concerned. Privatization and socialism do not go hand in hand unless there is provision for the intervention of the state in meaningful ways that can keep a watchful eye on the pulse of the nation. As Giroux cuttingly observes, ‘[P]ublic and private policies of investing in the public good are dismissed as bad business, just as the notion of protecting people from the dire misfortunes of poverty, sickness, or the random blows of fate is viewed as an act of bad faith’ (28–29). The consequences of this structural imbalance ultimately weaken the notion of social justice. In the escalated business model of the private healthcare system, redistribution and democratic citizenship give way to consumerism and market efficiency. Bodies unable to finance their health or not covered by any insurance policy are treated as ‘wasted lives’, to use a term by Zygmunt Bauman (2004). They are made vulnerable and even deprived of the right to life, questioning, as they do, the very notion of fundamental rights enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

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COVID-19 and Social Assets As seen from the previous discussions, a point can be made that since the 1990s, we have come to see how the notions of privatization and surmounting greed have become a part of our mainstream culture with a concomitant erosion of public welfare. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the lurking threat that lies in the eulogizing call for private pursuits of happiness and just civil society. That market and health are diametrically opposed to each other is not something new, but over the last two decades, health has been severely compromised due to the accelerated process of opening up of markets that have taken control over assets that are germane for human life, giving rise to vulnerable societies. Following Amartya Sen’s work on ‘capability approach’ and Martha Albertson Fineman’s framework of vulnerability, I see social welfare measures constituting ‘care duty’. Fineman argues that social welfare measures are collective assets for any society and, hence, vital in extending us opportunities for resilience and an equal share in other resources that remain central to our survival. Hence, ‘individual failure should not be seen as merely the consequence of individual irresponsibility. It is also, perhaps primarily, the failure of society and its institutions’ (2017: 148). Fineman’s views are crucial to understanding the sociopolitical conditions of human vulnerability. It also provides us with the grounds to approach the issue of bioethics anew, particularly in the wake of the subsequent acceleration of neoliberal governance, which has led to a collapse of the idea of the care duty of nation-states. The neoliberal structure primarily operates on rigid structures of governmentality, aided and abetted by the rise of surveillance cultures and recalibrated laws offered by nationstates. Health requires constant care, focus and protection, whereas the ideology of the market thrives on consumption, competition and expansion. It would be unfair to expect the market to take care of health when there are enough shreds of evidence to suggest that privatization only operates on the principles of extraction and accumulation of resources. Moreover, ‘health disparities that emanate from social disparities have never been so clearly mapped as this’ moment of the COVID-19 pandemic (Nayar 2020). The COVID-19 crisis should be an eye-opener for those who see medical care as a utilitarian category. Rather, medical care should be driven by the bioethics of equity, fairness and justice in social infrastructure. While medical ethics sees healthcare as an essential component of social welfare, there is little provision to establish it as a fundamental variable of social justice. No wonder, then, that health as a right or even a part of a discourse of social justice is problematized by Kristen Hessler and Alen Buchanan, who contend that a ‘right to health care seems to imply a right to be healthy, which is an impossible standard’ (2002: 84–85). A claim like this seems to subscribe to the notion that human life is fundamentally prone to vulnerability, which is true to a larger degree. However, devising policies that scaffold such a notion will certainly widen the social vulnerability. Amartya Sen, therefore, rightly argues that it ‘is important to distinguish between the achievement and capability, on the one side, and the facilities socially offered for that achievement (such as health care), on the other’ (2002: 660). He goes on to advocate that health equity must be considered as far-reaching and essentially relevant to strengthen the social infrastructure. Sen categorically debunks the utilitarian approach toward bioethics and makes a strong case that social justice can be put to practice only when policymakers accept ‘the need for a fair distribution as well as the efficient formation of human capabilities’, which ‘cannot ignore the role of health in human life and the opportunities that persons… have to achieve good health – free from escapable illness, avoidable afflictions and premature mortality’ (2002: 660). 58

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Sen’s conceptualization of bioethics is aimed at strengthening the roots of social infrastructure and healthcare. Sen’s idea is much in consonance with what we find in Fineman’s approach to social vulnerability. Building on to their ideas of social vulnerability, I see ‘care duty’, as diametrically opposed as it is to the idea of governmentality and supporting life sustainability. I argue that ‘care duty’ can be a way of ethical responsibility towards affective thinking, driven not just by emotions but also by welfare actions. It demands networks of connectivity, interactions, infrastructures and the application of social welfare measures. It attaches great significance to the rights of human beings to live a dignified life. As already highlighted in this chapter, since the 1990s, the vital aspect of ‘care duty’ has been amiss from the dictionary of nation-states. What this loss entailed was a lurking threat, as private corporations were rolled out with lucrative offers to take care of the healthcare systems in India as in other parts of the world. This duo of state corporations had apparently eroded the very essence of ‘care’ that forms an integral part of the fundamental rights of the citizens. As laid down by the Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, ‘No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law’.11 This legal right to life, however, gets confounded in the abeyance of good healthcare infrastructure, as we have already seen during the COVID-19 crisis. In fact, in one of its sue-motto cognizance arising from the COVID-19 crisis, the Supreme Court declared, ‘Right to health is a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Right to Health includes affordable treatment. Therefore, it is the duty upon the State to make provisions for affordable treatment’ (2020).12 On a similar note, Article 38 of the Indian Constitution categorically mentions, ‘[T]he State shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of the national life’.13 However, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, these rights guaranteed to citizens were obscured as a result of a very fragile healthcare system across India. In fact, for the past two decades, public services have seen a massive cut, and rather, the money has been used to bail out corporations to maximize profit at the cost of public lives. Care for life has been systematically recalibrated to give space to the wealthy, leaving out the impoverished and, at times, even the middle class to survive on their own, thus compromising Sen’s notion of an individual’s capability. It can be said that neoliberal governance has triggered the way for a selective kind of ‘care duty’ driven by a categorical principle of who can pay. When money overtakes life, our social vulnerabilities get multiplied. The predominance of capital, when dovetailed with health, retains and even heightens new types of exclusions and vulnerabilities, questioning as they do the very notion of ‘life’. As Jyoti Bhosale and Purushottama Bilimoria aver, ‘[W]hether one may feel free to dispose of human life for the purpose of selection’, it has been observed that ‘the state and economy perform within a different frame-of-reference, which is in stark difference to the country’s philosophical background’.14 The nation-state adopts an exceptional stance when it comes to improving the dented healthcare system. It drives the citizens into the illusionary web of life created by the capitalist economy and, hence, washes off its hands by providing its citizens minimalist healthcare while the rest is left at the monetary care of markets. A large number of unvaccinated people in India, then, shouldn’t come across as a surprise. The vaccination drive was opened up for private hospitals as well, which turned out to be a farce since not many Indians could afford its cost, that too, at a time when, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy ‘[E]mployment has been falling since January 2021 when it had touched a recent peak of 400.7 million’ (2021),15 and people are 59

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struggling to sustain their daily livelihoods. Consequently, in its order of 31 May 2021, the Supreme Court took note of the immediate consequences of ‘the vaccination by private hospitals’. The Court made a valid observation on the private vaccination drive that ‘while they provide a public health service, they still remain private, for-profit entities’ (Rajagopal 2021).16 Faced with immense criticism by the global media and continuous scrutinization by the apex court, the government finally declared free vaccination for all. This reluctance to invest in healthcare is attributed to the moral failure of the government. It also reflects a failure to cultivate cultures of ‘care duty’. The anxiety to hide the actual figures of positive cases of COVID-19, disallowing space to initiate healthy dialogue on healthcare infrastructure on public platforms, could be considered an attempt to disown moral responsibility. Not that the distortion of the data game is anything new or indicative of any particular political demagogue. It has been a persistent problem in all societies, overlooking the importance of health, which should be reflected in the literal iteration of any nation-state. Reflecting on the anxiety of number games in the ongoing Covid crisis, Pramod Nayar astutely remarks that the nation’s moral responsibility is ‘determined, it appears, by the numbers: of the vaccinated, of the infection rate, of oxygen plants, the empty beds in hospitals, the dead’ (2021: 6). The moral failure is registered strongly in a high toll of 512 deaths across India arising due to lack of oxygen availability during April– May 2021, which apparently put so many Indians, gasping for oxygen, on ventilators and in ambulances. That bioethics should remain central in any society and should be taken care of by the nation-state. Speaking at a public event, Amartya Sen raised this fundamental question: ‘[C] ould anyone name a nation that had become developed without a healthy and welleducated population?’ (2015).17 Yet, the COVID-19 crisis has reinforced the same question by exposing the cracks in the safety valve of India’s healthcare mission. The way the nation-private complex has held the citizens to ransom for basic amenities, in this case, the constitutionally authorized fundamental rights, obfuscate the process of ‘care duty’. Life ceases to be priceless once it has been assigned to a market value, driven as it is by a failure of the responsible social agency. Similarly, if money becomes a determining factor of who gets access to healthcare, then concepts of social justice and health equity are rendered problematic. Arguably, in ‘any discussion of social equity and justice, illness and health must figure as a major concern health equity cannot but be a central feature of the justice of social arrangements in general’ (Sen 2002: 659). But these are exactly the discussions that we are losing grip on, thus leading to a situation that reflects the moral poverty of our social and democratic commitments.

Conclusion It is indeed a collective failure that even after 75 years of independence, there is no political discourse on the right to health. Therefore, this chapter makes a case that India’s bioethics approach needs to be rooted in healthcare and care duty. If we move our focus from health, which is fundamentally a problematic category since some people are born with disabilities, to healthcare, it will render much hope and sustainability to even the ones who are born vulnerable. Healthcare, as a form of care duty, also provides ethical grounding for social welfare measures and inclusiveness, free from any kind of identity or privileged markers. The question is, can we strike a balance between our economy and life? Can a pandemic like COVID-19 teach us lessons about the importance of social assets and bioethics? In this 60

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context, Purushottama Bilimoria suggests, what he calls an ‘unconventional’ approach, but I find an evocative and emancipatory lesson – one that is deeply embedded within the notion of care duty – that perhaps ‘there could be an economic system where there are no sellers and no buyers but rather only givers and receivers’, he goes on to replace the notion of ‘market’, ‘store managers’, ‘customers’ and ‘clients’ with ‘atithis, guests and gifting welfare’. Purushottama Bilimoria argues that such an approach can be useful to find out the ‘worth and value of the flourishing of the community at the end of the day’, which ‘is here measured qualitatively in terms of how much one and all are able to give or gift, while beholding a glowing happiness in the face of the infinite other’ (2022: 126).

Notes 1 https://www.who.int/teams/social-determinants-of-health/declaration-of-alma-ata 2 https://www.livemint.com/Politics/lz9De8e3TUkru2KTFJslBN/The-changing-pattern-ofhealthcare-in-India.html 3 https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/campaigners-warn-9-out-10-people-poor-countries-areset-miss-out-covid-19-vaccine 4 https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/campaigners-warn-9-out-10-people-poor-countries-areset-miss-out-covid-19-vaccine 5 https://theprint.in/judiciary/death-of-covid-patients-due-to-non-supply-of-oxygen-not-less-thangenocide-allahabad-hc/652560/ 6 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/public-health-insurance-need-of-the-houramartya/articleshow/64924362.cms 7 https://www.deccanherald.com/national/indias-doctor-population-ratio-of-1854-better-than-whostandard-of-11000-mos-tells-ls-1129157.html 8 https://clarionindia.net/for-a-holistic-healthcare-system-india-should-shun-neoliberalism/ 9 https://indianexpress.com/article/coronavirus/one-isolation-bed-per-84000-people-1-quarantinebed-per-36000-govt-data-6326015/ 10 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/07/covid-rips-through-rural-indias-threadbarehealthcare-system 11 ‘Article 21’. https://www.constitutionofindia.net/constitution_of_india/fundamental_rights/articles/ Article%2021 12 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/supreme-court-says-its-a-world-war-against-covid-19fundamental-right-to-health-includes-affordable-treatment-2340650 13 https://www.constitutionofindia.net/constitution_of_india/directive_principles_of_state_policy/ articles/Article%2038 14 See Chapter 1 & 3 in this volume. 15 https://www.cmie.com/kommon/bin/sr.php?kall=warticle&dt=20210607151754&msec= 740&ver=pf 16 https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/sc-has-queries-on-private-hospitals-role-in-vaccination/ article34762433.ece 17 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2015/11/19/india-is-the-only-country-in-the-world-trying-tobecome-a-global-economic-power-with-an-uneducated-and-unhealthy-labour-force-amartya-sen/

References Ahmed, Farhan. 2020. “For a Holistic Healthcare System, India Should Shun Neoliberalism,” Clarion India, May, 20. Bauman, Zygmunt. 2004. Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts. Cambridge: Polity. Bernard, Turnock J. 2001. Public Health—What It Is and How It Works. Maryland: Aspen Publishers, 2 (IX). Bhagwati, Jagdish. 2001. “Growth, Poverty and Reforms.” In Economic and Political Weekly. 36 (10). 843–846.

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Om Prakash Dwivedi Bhosale, Jyoti D. n.d. “Biotechnology and Ethics in India.” (Chapter 3 in this volume) Bilimoria, Purushottama. 2022. “A Critique of Economic Reason: Between Tradition and Modernity.” In Religion and Sustainability: Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses. Edited by Rita D. Sherma, Purushottama Bilimoria, 51–60. Springer: New York. Chatterjee, Patralekha. 2014, April 07–13. “Manifestos for Health: What the Indian Political Parties Have Promised.” British Medical Journal. 348. 1–3. Chaurasia, Manoj and Hannah Ellis-Petersen. 2021. “Covid Rips Through Rural India’s Threadbare Healthcare System.” In The Guardian. 7 May, 2021. “Death of Covid Patients due to Non-Supply of Oxygen ‘Not Less Than Genocide: Allahabad HC’.” 2021, 5 May. The Print. Fineman, Martha Albertson, “Vulnerability and Invetible Inequality.” Oslo Law Review. 4(3). 133–149. 2017. Ghosh, Abantika. 2020. “One Isolation Bed per 84,000 People.” In The Indian Express. 22 March. Giroux, A. Henry. 2008. Against the Terror of Neoliberalism: Politics Beyond the Age of Greed. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Gupta, Rajendra. 2014. World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. Davos-Klosters, Switzerland 22–25 January. Hessler, Kristen, and Buchanan, Allen. 2002. “Specifying the Content of the Human Right to Health Care.” In Medicine and Social Justice: Essays on the Distribution of Health Care. Edited by Rosamond Rhodes, P. Margaret and Silvers Anita. New York: Oxford University Press. 84–101. Nikita Mehta and Jyotsna Singh. 2016. “The Changing Pattern of Healthcare in India.” In Livemint. 5 April. Nayar, Pramod K. 2020. “Of Syndemics and Stigma: Understanding COVID19 Beyond the Pandemic.” In The Bastion. 20 June. https://thebastion.co.in/covid-19/of-sydemics-and-stigma-understandingcovid-19-beyond-the-pandemic/ ———. 2021. “Think of a Number, Any Number.” In Telangana Today. 17 June. https://telanganatoday. com/opinion-think-of-a-number-any-number Newton, Francesca. 2020. “10 Ways Corporations Have Exploited Covid-19.” In Tribune. https:// tribunemag.co.uk/2020/12/10-ways-corporations-have-exploited-covid-19 Rajagopal, Krishnadas. 2021. “Supreme Court Has Queries on Role of Private Hospitals in Covid19.” In The Hindu. 8 June, 2021. Sen, Amartya. 2002. “Why Health Equity?” Health Economics. 11, 659–661. ———. 2015. “India is the Only Country Trying to Become a Global Economic Power With an Uneducated and Unhealthy Labour Force.” In LSE Blog. 19 November. ———. 2018. “Public health insurance need of the hour.” In Times of India. 10 July. Vaidyanathan, Arunachalam. 2020. “Affordable Treatment a Fundamental Right.” In NDTV. 18 December. Vyas, Mahesh. 2021. “Employment Rate Continues to Fall.” In Economic Outlook. 7 June. Williams, Owain David. 2020. “COVID-19 and Private Health: Market and Governance Failure.” Development. 63, 181–190.

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3 BIOTECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS IN INDIA* Jyoti Dineshrao Bhosale

Biotechnology and Its (Dis)Enchantments Recent advances in biotechnology research, especially at cellular and molecular levels – in particular human genetic engineering1 and genetic screening through which it may arguably become possible to alter human beings’ natural genetic coding – pose several ethical questions. Some of these questions are profound to the extent that they tend to have all potentialities to significantly alter the basic frameworks of organizing life, so much so that the possibility of ushering in a ‘posthuman’ era is speculated by several scholars, such as Francis Fukuyama (2003) and Chris Gables Gray (2002). One of the objectives of this chapter is to consider how biotechnology-enabled tools will bear on the ethical questions of human life. To that end, first, I will review some questions raised by several Western scholars on human biotechnology, and next, I shall try to present an Indian critique of these issues. Also, by using the example of the application of agricultural biotechnology of Bt cotton in India, I intend to demonstrate how different concerns impinge on the ethical questions pegged on that technology. I will do this by presenting a brief review of the debate around the application of Bt cotton technology in India and comment on its implications for building an Indian critique of human biotechnology. It will be useful to explain why these new technologies are considered different from the earlier technologies that had been prevalent. This can best be understood by citing Jeremy Rifkin’s use of two metaphors – ‘alchemy’ and ‘algeny’ (Rifkin 1998, 32). During the pyrotechnical age, alchemy or the art of accelerating the natural process to its own perfect state, served as both a philosophical framework and conceptual guide to human beings’ technological manipulation of the natural world. But algeny, or the new biotechnical arts, not only aims at changing the essence of living things by improving the existing organisms but also designing wholly new ones with the intent of perfecting their performance. For Jeremy Rifkin, genetic engineering technologies are by their very nature eugenic tools which raise *  This chapter includes certain edited sections from my dissertation work at the University of Hyderabad. I am also immensely grateful to Professor Purushottama Bilimoria for encouraging me to publish this chapter, providing some helpful sources, and to Amy Rayner for editorial fine-tuning.

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most directly the prospect of a new kind of eugenics, having several moral implications with which that world is fraught, and ultimately, the ability to change human nature (Rifkin 1998, 72). He characterizes this as ‘humanity’s attempt to give metaphysical meaning to its emerging technological relationship with nature’ (32–35). Such technological relationship with nature that is directed towards making life ‘artificial’ in terms of creating superior human beings, according to Hannah Arendt, actually cuts the last ties through which human beings relate to the earth and its organisms. Such beings would be aimless, for they would have no idea of what would be their next step once they meet their goal of the creation of a superior life (1958, 2–4). Gray, reflecting on the context of the posthuman world, comments, ‘Reality is dynamic and lumpy. Some things follow from others, some persevere, some disappear and others seem to just appear. But that is because we cannot comprehend all of reality. We can understand a great deal, but not everything, and any epistemology that pretends we can know it all is seriously flawed. For good or ill (probably for both), the era of posthuman possibilities is beginning’ (2002, 12). These new developments in science and technology, argues Fukuyama, have endangered the assumption of a consistent, meaningful concept of human nature on which the enterprise of secular thought of European modernity rests and through which the discourses of human rights, justice, politics and morality gain meaning. What was earlier thought to be unforeseeable and unalterable has now opened up avenues that can lead to unending possibilities of alterations, most of which will be directed towards fulfilling utilitarian ends at the expense of certain ineffable human qualities (2003, 193). Jürgen Habermas maintains that previously, any such revision necessitated the adults’ submission to a critical evaluation of their own life histories. Therefore, this revision could be made only in retrospect and not at the time of its formation. It is these assumptions which acted as building blocks of modern society that these new technologies have the potential to destabilize. Also, any enhancement of the scope of technological control of nature is bound up with the economic promise of gains in productivity and increasing prosperity, as well as with the political prospect of enlarging the scope for individual choice, which is thought to promote individual autonomy, science and technology have formed a conspicuous alliance with the fundamental doctrine of liberalism and therefore they are sceptical towards any attempt at ‘moralizing human nature’ (Habermas 2003, 13, 24). Barauch Barody points out that the existing official ethical policies on genetic research, such as those of genetic engineering protocols, which must provide for appropriate levels of safety, gene therapy protocols which must not involve eugenics or germ-line modifications, screening program which must be based on voluntarism and must meet stringent additional criteria, individuals who must be protected against genetic discrimination or seeking of consent or of maintaining of confidentiality, make no attempt to ground these policies in some fundamental moral theory involving a single basic value, such as utilitarian maximization of general utility or the Kantian treatment of persons as ends. The discussion, Barody avers, is always about difficult cases, about the balancing of a variety of moral principles relevant to the cases and about the policies needed to carry out the appropriate balancing (1998, 199–203).

Genetic Engineering In India, given that the research efforts in areas such as genetic engineering and especially in its application to human beings are on a relevant modest scale, the debate on the 64

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application of genetic engineering on human beings and its ethical implications have yet to come out of its closet. Therefore, it is important to raise this question. As the questions of major ethical implications, as outlined earlier, revolve around the ideas of what is human nature and who constitutes a person, apart from reviewing some of the literature from the Western standpoint, I will try to reflect on these from the Indian standpoint, with a particular focus on Hindu philosophy. The application of genetic engineering on human beings, especially through Preimplantation Genetic Diagnoses (PGD) or embryonic research, targets the embryo. The ethical implications of such a technology, therefore, necessitate the study of the ethical status accorded to the embryo. For this, we shall extrapolate some of the views expressed in Hinduism on the question of abortion, which invoke debates around personhood. The debate over abortion in the West is between groups which consider the beginning of life from the fertilization of the egg itself on the one hand and groups which consider the fertilized egg only as a set of cells which can be considered as a person with human dignity only after the embryo lives on to become a neonate on the other. In the Hindu classical view, the human person is considered to be a composite of two essential principles – spirit (ātman) and matter (prakṛti); the spirit comprises consciousness and bliss and is impervious to substantial change, while matter is essentially insentient, tending toward diversification and change. The Hindu view of human personhood is expressed in two traditions – ‘major’ – because of its apparently weightier authority– and ‘minor’ – because it seems to rely on weaker evidence. The major tradition holds that conception coincides with the ‘descent’ or presence of the spirit in the womb, which is a way of saying that from the beginning, the embryo is the spirit-matter composite that constitutes the human person. In the minor tradition, however, the soul is said to unite with the embryo sometime after conception. But, it does not explicitly draw a distinction analogous to that between human beings and human persons (as in the West). Therefore, one cannot derive any conclusions about the permissibility of abortion from any argument which refers especially to a time-lapse between conception and ensoulment, based on the minor tradition. Also, there is no linguistic evidence or a particular term as a recognized term for designating a particular stage in the development of the embryo. However, in the Hindu tradition, as the unborn’s karma is believed to mature through its prenatal and postnatal experiences, abortion unnaturally terminates the possibility of this maturation. Abortion is believed to egregiously affect the outworking of a person’s destiny, more so since it is generally believed that it is as a human being that one could act most effectively towards achieving liberation from rebirth (Coward, Lipner, Young 1989, 52–57). With regards to the debate in the West, Habermas argues that neither of the contesting positions considers that there could be a well-formed organic matter that may not be accorded individual rights but which we could have no entitlement to discard or dispose of. As there is a strong continuity in every stage of organic life, from the fusion of the nuclei to the birth of a neonate, the demarcation point at which we could say indefeasibly that life begins is all but arbitrary. Thus, Habermas argues that neither the objectifying language of empiricism nor the language of religion provides a rational explanation for the purposes of protecting the embryo, and therefore, he calls for a philosophical rethinking of such issues. Also, when genetic raw material itself is altered, it intervenes in the natural basis of the subject’s spontaneous relation to self and, thereby, her ethical freedom. Therefore, such sciences would create problems of self-reference and could, in fact, hold past generations responsible for their actions (2003, 11 and 13). 65

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On similar grounds, with regards to the Hindu tradition, one could conceivably argue that genetic manipulation of an embryo would violate dharma, for the person embodying such manipulations may end up with the belief that owing to her genetic make-up, she is not free to be herself and therefore need not necessarily take responsibility for her actions as the law of karma is based on free and responsible action, while genetic intervention at this stage would result in a lack thereof. Therefore, one could argue that such a person would be denied an opportunity to achieve the just end of freedom from rebirth as specified in Hindu belief. Genetic manipulation of a mute embryo could also be considered a violent intervention in the natural growth of a person. Though it may not always mean killing the embryo, its manipulation also would count as an immoral act towards a highly vulnerable being.2 Expressing a somewhat similar concern but from a more libertarian perspective, Fukuyama also states that the first step towards giving parents greater control over the genetic make-up of their children will come not from genetic engineering but with PGD and genetic screening. In the future, it should be routinely possible for parents to have their embryos automatically screened and those with the ‘right’ genes implanted in the mother’s womb. He sides with geneticist Lee Silver who paints a future scenario wherein a woman produces a hundred or so embryos, has them automatically analysed for a ‘genetic profile’, and then selects the one that lacks not only alleles for single-gene disorders but also enhanced characteristics, such as height, hair colour and intelligence. Though technologies to bring this about do not exist presently, in the future, they most probably will (Fukuyama 2003, 75). Application of preimplantation technology is deemed to be bound up with the normative condition of, as Habermas puts it (2003, 21), ‘whether the fact that one was constitutionally created and had one’s right to existence and development depend on genetic screening is consistent with the dignity of human life’. He questions whether one may feel free to dispose of human life for the purpose of selection. Further, he maintains that with the application of preimplantation technology, the conceptual distinction between the prevention of the birth of a severely afflicted child and the optimization of the genetic make-up, that is, a eugenic choice, becomes blurred. Therefore, he says, the problem of making such a distinction becomes a political problem. But as biotechnological research is now bound up with investors’ interests as well as with the pressure for success felt by national governments, the development of genetic engineering acquires a dynamic which threatens to steamroll the inherently slow-paced process of an ethical-political opinion and will-formation in the public sphere (Habermas 2003, 21). As Western society is unable to provide a rational defence for protecting the embryo, the developments in genetic engineering have once again opened up questions on important aspects of morality and justice in Western thought. Unlike Greek philosophy, where the doctrines of good life and justice, and politics and ethics were made into a harmonious whole, Rawlsian philosophy restricts questions of morality to questions of justice, which are moreover built around the theme of rational acceptability and which are more so wedded to questions of identity or particular notions of the good. Thereby, they neglect the fact that such morality, based on reason, is itself sustained by a prior understanding of the species which is shared by such persons. Hence, Habermas argues that genetic endowment should not be treated with notions of restricted dignity, which may lead to its instrumentalization. It also follows that biotechnology, especially genetic engineering, has brought a change of perspective about conditions of moral judgement and action that were previously considered unalterable. He invokes Ronald Dworkin, who puts the problem in these succinct terms: 66

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We distinguish between what nature, including evolution has created, and what we with the help of these genes, do in this world. In any case, this distinction results in a line being drawn between what we are and the way we deal, on our own account, with this heritage. This decisive line between chance and choice is the backbone of our morality. … We are afraid of the prospect of human beings designing other human beings, because this option implies shifting. (28) Citing Hans Jonas, Habermas concludes that the whole modern project of mastering nature would instead be reverted to rendering us slaves to nature. He calls for philosophy to take a substantive position as the ethical self-understanding of people is at stake in its entirety (13, 24).

Genetic Screening Genetic screening, which sits apart from its other usages (such as screening of embryos, as we just noted), aims at detecting genetic diseases with the hope of possibly preventing them. As these diseases are said to be distressing and socially expensive, the possibility of preventing them is considered promising. The relation between a gene and the chance of disorder is, in some cases, direct, but in most cases, it is expressed in interaction with the environment or other external influences. However, for Jyotsna Agnihotri Gupta, most of the geneticists work from the assumption that environmental and other external factors cannot be changed, and, therefore, they have to work on the genes. Also, there is an increase in knowledge about illnesses based on single genes or monogenic disorders, which are fewer in number and affect relatively fewer people, whereas those in which more than one gene may be involved (polygenic disorder) affect more people and generally manifest later in life. Though such early detection offers people ‘choices’ in situations where otherwise one had to accept fate, it can also cause suffering (2000, 431–433). For example, Kreuzer and Massey report that in the 1970s, screening for sickle cell anaemia resulted in confusion and fear as many people did not understand the difference between being a carrier and having the disease. People who merely carried the sickle cell gene were threatened with loss of jobs and insurance. Another problem that they discuss with genetic screening is that many more diseases can be identified than be treated. Huntington’s disease is the best example for which there is no treatment or cure. Unfortunately, since the disease is dominant, all of the children of a victim have a 50% chance of inheriting the disease gene. And since the disease does not reveal itself until middle age, most victims have already had children before they know whether or not they themselves have the gene. Therefore, questions such as should a 20-year-old would be able to find out that she carries a dominant gene for a disease that will first debilitate and finally kill her in middle age arise. Also, other questions, such as should respect for human dignity in this situation mean that we try to prevent harm by not revealing his/her genetic status, or since our goal is to promote individual autonomy, we go ahead and disclose her genetic status crop up (Kreuzer and Massey 2001, 310–311). Moreover, in the past, inaccurate interpretation of genetic information as a basis for discrimination has caused a great deal of harm, for example, the persecution of Jews and gypsies, and through the American psychologist Jensen, who had argued that the differences in IQ between North American blacks and whites were mainly based on genetic 67

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differences (Gupta 2000, 433). Also, social and educational preferences are then decided on this basis. In Saudi Arabia, mandatory pre-marital screening tests were introduced. It has been said that in recognition of the high incidence of sickle cell anaemia and thalassaemia in some regions of the country, such measures would be of help. But fears have also been expressed as to whether, in the long run, the whole clan and tribe could be stigmatized and girls with certain genetic traits be victimized in terms of spinsterhood (Stahl, Rogerson and Kashmeery 2007, 178–180). Broadly, then, with regards to genetic screening, what one may see is that the effects could be different in different cultures, apart from the larger ethical problems, as pointed out earlier. The threat of increased discrimination, if some caste/ tribe is discovered by this process to have a particular kind of genetic problem, will always be there. Furthermore, most of these new technologies rest on the Western notion of privacy and individual autonomy, which presuppose the existence of the individual self whose privacy it seeks to protect and vests the power of information with the individual even when it is restricted. While the issue is in reference to informational technology, the case also extends to genetic engineering and genetic screening, whose ethical policies on research involving human subjects and protecting vulnerable subjects are predicated on a consensus that confidentiality must be respected (Brody 1998, 199–200). Soraj Hongladoram comments that as in Western philosophy, in Buddhism (or generally in the philosophies of the East), there is no assertion that an individual self exists as a self-subsisting entity; in fact, the emphasis is on the inter-relation of oneself with others. In Buddhism, there is only one reality, the conventional one to which all are accustomed. Thus, at the conventional level, there are many episodes of empirical ‘I’s’, but at the ultimate level, one cannot find the overarching ‘we’ or self. Whereas for Kant, there is a transcendental unity of apperception, which accompanies all episodes of thoughts of an individual that provide a fulcrum point for the persisting personal identity of that one individual. In Buddhism, at the ultimate level, the walls separating an individual self from other selves break down, and it makes no sense to talk about this or that self anymore, thus upholding compassion as the key to determining all action (2007 Stahl, Rogerson and Kashmeery, 112–120). It would be interesting to speculate how the countries of the East where the community still plays an important role in day-to-day life would respond to such technological developments, which otherwise assume the existence of the individual self and the notions of privacy and autonomy acting as the foundational source. It is important to point out that though India has adopted Western political ideas such as those of democracy and liberty, which again depend on the concept of the individual, some of its constitutional rights, the concept of secularism or, for that matter, even people’s demands from the state, such as for reservations, be it for the backward communities or women, it still places group or community identity at the forefront. In India, one of the areas in which the application of biotechnology on human beings has been debated for some time now is in the area of prenatal genetic tests. However, most public debates have concentrated on the aspect of prenatal sex selection because of the explosive growth of the phenomenon, with several genetic screening clinics mushrooming in some cities and towns (Patel 2007). This has left little space for discussions on gene technology and its possible applications for genetic screening in India in the future (Gupta 2000, 508). Swasti Bhattacharya, drawing from the Mahābhārata and the three queens – Kunti, Madri and Gandhari – stories of overcoming the challenge of infertility, extrapolates ethical norms that may guide fertility medications, sperm banks, donor artificial 68

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insemination, in vitro fertilization, embryonic transfer and surrogacy. This she does by offering a description of the key elements found within the Mahābhārata and the Hindu worldview that provide a basis for Hindu bioethics, which include the centrality of society, belief in the underlying unity of all life, the responsibilities and flexibility of dharma, the diversity within Hinduism, the theory of karma and the teachings of ahiṃ sā (Bhattacharyya 2006, 2019; Bilimoria 1998; Parekh 2007).

Agricultural Biotechnology and Genetic Modification Though the debate in India on the ethical implications of the application of biotechnology on human beings is not well developed, it resounded most vocally during the approval of agricultural biotechnology, especially that of Bt cotton3 for cultivation in the year 2002, which aroused much controversy. The contestation was mainly between two groups: one professed a pro-Bt stance’ and the other an anti-Bt stance. The controversy over its adoption continued even after three to four years of its approved cultivation, and some of its voices can be heard even now. Though this is more about agricultural biotechnology and not human biotechnology, as mentioned earlier, it is nevertheless useful to look at the debate for the grounds on which there was disagreement and from the ethical concerns expressed. And so a brief review of the debate follows. The proponents included the biotechnology industry, scientists and a few farmers’ groups. The industry has played an active role right from their actions of pressing the Indian government to approve Bt cotton to collaborating with the Indian seed companies and then publishing various reports on the success of Bt cotton cultivation (Kumar 2003). Most scientists see Bt cotton technology simply as an improvement over the already existing farm technology of the hybrids, which, with proper monitoring, would help improve yields. Farmers’ organizations, such as the Federation of Farmers Association (FFA), have been lobbying for the approval of Bt cotton right from the days of field trials. The FFA is part of a set of organizations spearheaded by the Kisan [Farmer] Coordination Committee (KCC) that leads the pro-Bt cotton movement. For the FFA, farmers have been continually repressed by the state that promotes ‘India’ (the urban, middle-class nation) at the cost of ‘Bharat’ (the rural ‘real’ nation), and a new social movement for genetically modified technology is seen to be the only key to development. Its members are mostly ‘middle peasants’ of Reddy, Kamma, Lingayat and Vokkaliga castes who are cash crop cultivators, economically better placed than small peasants. In 1999 and 2003, the FFA and the KCC travelled to Europe to lobby for genetically modified crops at the invitation of EuropaBio and Novartis. In 2001, they launched a campaign called ‘Let no more lives end’, urging the Indian government to approve the commercialization of Bt cotton (Majumdar 2007). The opponents of Bt cotton include a few other farmers’ groups and environmental groups. The Karnataka Rajya Ryata Sangha (KRRS), a famous farmers’ movement in the state of Karnataka opposed Bt cotton on the grounds of intellectual property rights and bioethics. They contend that Bt cotton contains what they called ‘terminator technology’ that makes the seeds sterile and unavailable for more than one use, thus allowing science and, specifically, Monsanto headquarters in St. Louis to implement patenting laws from halfway across the world. Within India, the KRRS rhetoric was couched in terms of indigenous rights and nationalist fervour as the ‘fight against the multinational seed companies represents a second phase of the freedom struggle,’ implying that imperialist forces that colonized India over 200 years ago have returned yet again (ibid.). Among the 69

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environmental groups opposing Bt cotton is the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RESTE), headed by the leading environmentalist Vandana Shiva, and the Gene Campaign, led by Suman Sahai (Kumar 2003). The ultimate step in converting nature into a resource, argues Vandana Shiva, is the conversion of ‘seed’ – the source from which plant life raises again – into a ‘genetic resource’ to be engineered (the process widely known as GMO) patented and owned by multinational technologies for corporate profit. Natural limits on the reproduction of life – ‘species barriers’ – are now to be crossed by engineering transgenic life forms, whose impact on life can be neither known nor imagined. Potential and existing diversity are nullified by transforming it into mere raw material for industrial production based on uniformity (Shiva 1998). This change in the nature of seed is seemingly justified by creating a value and meaning system that treats self-regenerative seed as ‘primitive’, as ‘raw’ germplasm, and the seed that, without inputs, is inert and non-reproducible contrasted to the ‘advanced’ or ‘improved’ kind. Another form of ‘biopiracy’ she points to is the cunning legal process through which basmati (aromatic) rice, that was cultivated for centuries in India, was patented as a ‘novel rice invention’ by a US corporation called RiceTec. Likewise, the plant neem, which has been used for centuries as a natural antiseptic, fungicide and pesticide, was patented by another US corporation, W. R. Grace. Through the IPR [intellectual property rights] regime, when patents are granted for plants like basmati rice, theft is defined as creation, and saving and sharing seeds is defined as theft (Shiva 2000). Vandana Shiva adjudges Western science to be ‘reductionist’, whose assumptions are based on uniformity and objectivity, and which assumes all basic processes to be mechanical as against the organic metaphors of the East in which concepts of order and power were based on interdependence and reciprocity with nature and among creatures, human and animals (1993a, 23–29). Her major concern is that biotechnology corporations and global agribusiness pit themselves against nature’s intrinsic biodiversity and women’s expertise and productivity, which traditional societies know better. The rupture endemic to the erosion of biodiversity through monocultures and the dismantling of the liberty to save and exchange seeds through these monopolies (IPR) is inconsistent with women’s diverse, non-violent ways of understanding nature and providing food security. This diversity of knowledge systems and production systems is the way forward, she contends, for ensuring that third world women continue to play a central role as knowers, producers and providers of food (1993b; 2010/2016). She argues that the split between ethics and technology is a Western dualism which replicates the Cartesian divide and is hostile to the Indian and other non-Western civilizations where ethics as morality is a distinctive part of technology (1999). Finally, the Western way of doing science responds to the needs of a particular form of economic and political organization, which are pro-free markets. Though not opposed to Western technology per se, Suman Sahai of the Gene Campaign argues that Bt cotton was developed primarily for cold climes such as the United States, where pests are few. Also, landholdings in the United States are large, and the subsidies are enormous, raising the farmers’ risk-taking capacity. In India, in the small landholdings where cotton is cultivated, it is almost impossible to set aside the 20% ‘refuge’ acreage for non-Bt cotton, as recommended by Monsanto, so that the bollworm can feed on the non-poisonous cotton and remain susceptible to the Bt toxin. In the absence of such ‘refuge’, the bollworm will surely develop resistance to the Bt toxin. And, as there are many kinds of cotton pests in India apart from the bollworm that is often as intense and devastating, pesticide spraying cannot be stopped (Majumdar 2007). The Gene Campaign is also 70

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engaged in demanding democracy in the approval of such new technologies, which include the various sections of society, and they also seek a greater role of the government in assessing and regulating these technologies (2006). Amidst all the uncertainty of a new science being put to the test, it was ultimately the poor farmer who became the major burden bearer. As Keya Acharya rightly remarks: ‘Crunching poverty, failing soils due to chemical over-usage and poor returns has now produced India’s new “farmer mentality” of wanting immediate high yields and damning the consequences’ (2006). Thus, for Herring, the case that the ‘triumph narrative’ of Bt cotton in India comes mainly from economists, the biotech industry and their academic allies is a difficult one to sustain, as he points out several studies which show the positive effects of insect resistance in Bt cotton. His contention is that yields are driven by numerous factors, including variance in fields and seasons. But despite these, Bt cotton has been agro-economically successful because of the lower cost of production per unit and, thus, higher net returns. These facts are consistent with the near-universal adoption of Bt technology by farmers (Herring 2013). For Shiva (2012), yields usually refer to production per unit area of a single crop. As such, planting only one crop in the entire field as a monoculture will definitely increase its yield. Planting multiple crops in a mixture will have low yields, low yields of individual crops, but a higher total output. Such an increase in yield, Davis Stone’s study shows, has led the Indian farmer to adopt Bt cotton for cultivation as a fad (2007, 68). It is seldom a well-informed choice. Neither the state nor the private enterprises have helped the farmers, who are ultimately bearers of the cost or benefits of this new technology. Many farmers commit suicide because of such agricultural losses and the enormous debt they find themselves in. The negligence of the authorities in implementing the policies made is also alarming, whether it is with checking the spread of spurious seeds in looking at the environmental hazards of this technology or educating the farmer on how to go about adopting this new variety of seeds or in seeking compensation wherever there has been a crop failure. So what is seen here is that when a new technology whose consequences could be profound is promoted for application in times of crisis, the consumers of these technologies, in their anxiety, tend to completely overlook its overall effects. The state itself seeks refuge in promoting such technologies to distract attention from the failure of its agricultural policies, which it earlier promoted and which actually led to the crisis in cotton production. On the ethical front, speaking from the third world perspective, Suman Sahai maintains, ‘The concern with bioethics is essentially a western phenomenon. The objections to biotechnology in western societies might be logical for their context and economic situation. These countries have a standard of food availability and choice that cannot be improved. They are in fact confronted not with the ethics of scarcity but with the ethics of surplus’ (Majumdar 2007). Therefore, she argues for bioethics grounded in India’s philosophy and religion, reflecting its social and human needs and resolving dilemmas in terms of native codes of appropriateness. She also observes that there is little reason for people in food surplus countries to become excited about the biotechnology route to increase the yield of wheat or potato. But those in India cannot have the same perception, she avers, posing the rhetorical question: ‘Is it more unethical to interfere in God’s work than to allow hunger deaths when these can be prevented?’ Vandana Shiva apparently challenges Sahai’s notion of ethics as a luxury for the third world and retorts that Sahai, rather than being original, mimics the position of the biotechnology industry, which sees ethics as irrelevant for the third world because for the hungry, ethics and safety are irrelevant (Visvanathan and Parmar 2002). 71

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Also, for Shiva, hunger is a structural part of the design of the green revolution based on introducing genetic engineering in agriculture largely to allow corporations to claim IPR and patents on seeds. Globalized forced trade in food, which she says is falsely called free trade, has aggravated the hunger crisis by undermining food sovereignty and food democracy. India is trying to use such liberalization generated food crisis to hand over seed supply to Monsanto, food supply to Cargill and other corporations and retail to Walmart, in line with the US-India Agreement on Agriculture signed with President Bush in 2005. Drawing from Gandhi and his emphasis on ahiṃ sā, she not only associates traditional methods in agriculture as being non-violent but also anticipates a renewed non-violent struggle against current imperialist forces (Jahanbegloo and Shiva 2012, 129–130). It is important to ponder over both these ethical standpoints as they both seem relevant. As the adoption of biotechnology spreads from plants to animals and humans, and, as mentioned earlier, the profound consequences that it can lead to, there is an immediate need to develop a sound ethical critique which is adequately rooted not only in the problems that a country like India is facing but also in philosophy and science. As India, particularly in the non-urban regions, is now marred with hunger, health and ecological problems, there is an ever-increasing threat of finding immediate solutions through such technologies. Apart from the interests of the private companies and their sponsoring international corporations that aid such research, and also those who sell and buy such technologies, the interests of the Indian state in proving itself as technologically developed, as well of its citizens who may want to resort to such technologies for economic or social reasons, will impinge on the ethical stance taken. Also, the scientific community will play a major role in determining what technologies will be approved in the future. The role of target groups and civil society participation is crucial, especially when a critic such as Ashis Nandy could indict that the Indian state since Independence, has identified science as the ‘reason’ (‘the rational temper’) of the state for the task of development, as well as the finding panacea for solving all problems while giving science such a privileged position and backing by law that it does not have to be accountable to the public gaze (1990, 9–11). Therefore, Vandana Shiva’s and Suman Sahai’s critiques are useful. Sahai’s stress on subjecting the approval of such technologies to the democratic process rather than by state sanction is valid. This will not only help in deciding on such technologies more judiciously but, via an indirect effect, it may also lead to a radical request for modern science and foster indigenous technologies. But at the same time, grounding such decisions in philosophy through an interactive dialogue between the Western and native philosophies is equally important. Figuring out how this will happen is not an easy task. As we have seen, the state and economy perform within a very different frame of reference, which is in stark difference to the country’s philosophical background. Nandy’s reflection may prove a useful reminder that India has had 600 years of exposure to the West and 200 years of experience in incorporating and internalizing not merely the West but also the Western systems of knowledge. Therefore, it can choose the option of creatively assessing the modern systems of knowledge, with a view to integrating important elements within the framework of its traditional visions of knowledge or rejecting them altogether.

Notes 1 There are two ways by which genetic engineering can be accomplished: somatic gene therapy and germ-line engineering. The first attempts to change the DNA within a large number of target cells,

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Biotechnology and Ethics in India usually by delivering the new, modified genetic material by means of virus or ‘vector’. Germ-line engineering involves changing only one set of DNA molecules, those in the fertilized egg, which will eventually undergo division and ramify into a complete human being. Among other new technologies currently under study is the making of artificial chromosomes that would add an extra chromosome to the 46 natural ones; the chromosome could be turned on only when the recipient was to give his or her informed consent and would not be inherited by descendants. See, Francis Fukuyama (2003, 76–77). 2 See Chapter 7 by Bilimoria, Sridhar and Arvind Sharma in this volume. 3 Bt Stands for Bacillus Thuringiensis. It is a genetically engineered variety of cotton that contains the Bt gene. Bt gene is a soil bacterium used as an organic pesticide against the divesting caterpillar bollworm. Bt gene is also known as biological pesticide or herbicide. In other words, Bt cotton is transgenic cotton with insect killer gene that is transferred to it from soil bacteria called Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt). This gene produces a toxic protein, which is fatal to pests, particularly to bollworm. Thus cotton crop is effectively protected from the attack of bollworm. In regard to the history of Bt cotton, the toxin gene of bacterium was isolated in 1981, and in 1990, the first Bt protected cotton crop was field tested in the United States. One of the developers of this protective protein was the late, respected Prof Shän (Shantilal) Bilimoria, Ph.D. (related) at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas; the discovery registered a patent in the United States (Bilimoria 2001). Round-up and Ready Soy are other crops that utilize the technology of herbicides developed by Monsanto.

References Acharya, Keya. 2006. Bt Cotton Farmers Are Alert This Year. India Together. http://www.indiatogether. org/2006/jun/agr-btkarnatk.htm. Accessed 14 March 2007. Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Bhattacharyya, Swasti. 2006. Magical Progeny, Model Technology: A Hindu Bioethics of Assisted Reproductive Technology. Albany: State University of New York Press. ———. 2019. ‘Shiva’s Babies: Hindu Perspectives on the Treatment of High Risk Newborn Infants.’ In Religion and Ethics in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, eds. Ronald M. Green and George A. Little, 124–141. New York: Oxford University Press. Bilimoria, Purushottama. 1998. Indian Religious Traditions (on Ecology). In Spirit of the Environment Religion, Value and Environmental Concern, eds. David E Cooper and Joy A. Palmer, 2–14. London and New York: Routledge. Bilimoria, Shän L. 2001. Use of viral proteins for controlling the cotton boll weevil and other insect pests. United States Patent, No. 6200561 B1. Brody, Barauch A. 1998. The Ethics of Biomedical Research an International Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press. Fukuyama, Francis. 2003. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. London: Profile Books. Gray, Chris Gables. 2002. Cyborg Citizen. New York: Routledge. Gupta, Jyotsna Agnihotri. 2000. New Reproductive Technologies, Women’s Health and AutonomyFreedom or Dependency. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Habermas, Jürgen, 2003. The Future of Human Nature. New York: Blackwell. Herring, Ronald J. 2013. Reconstructing Facts in Bt Cotton: Why Skepticism Fails. Economic and Political Weekly, XLVIII No. 33. Accessed 20 November 2014, http://www.epw.in/discussion/ reconstructing-facts-bt-cotton.html Jahanbegloo, Ramin and Shiva, Vandana. 2012. Talking Environment: Vandana Shiva in Conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kreuzer, H. and Massey, Andrianne. 2001. Recombinant DNA and Biotechnology, Washington DC: ASM Press. Krishna Kumar, Asha. 2003. Controversy: A Lesson from the Field. Frontline, 20/11. Accessed 13 February 2007. http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2011/stories/20030606005912300.htm Lipner, Julius. 1989. The Classical Hindu View on Abortion and the Moral Status of the Unborn. In Hindu Ethics: Purity, Abortion and Euthanasia, eds. Harold G Coward, Julius Lipner and Katherine Young. New York: State University of New York Press.

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Jyoti Dineshrao Bhosale Majumdar, Bijita. 2007. (Re) Imagining Contention at Globalized Localities: Bt Cotton in India. Sociology (Rutgers). Accessed 22 March 2007. http://www.princeton.edu/~gradconf/index_files/ piirsgradconfwebsite_files/page0001.html Nandy, Ashis, 1990. Introduction: Science as a Reason of State. In Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity, ed. Ashis Nandy. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Parekh, Bhikhu. 2007. Hindu Theory of Tolerance. In Indian Ethics: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges, eds. Purushottama Bilimoria, Joseph Prabhu and Renuka Sharma. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Patel, Tulsi (ed.). 2007. Introduction. In Sex-selective Abortion in India Gender, Society and New Reproductive Technologies, ed. Tulsi Patel. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Rifkin, Jeremy. 1998. The Biotech Century. New York: Tarcher/Putnam. Shiva, Vandana. 1993a. Reductionism and Regeneration: A Crisis in Science. In Ecofeminism, eds. Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva. New Delhi: Kali for Women. ———. 1993b. Most Farmers in India Are Women. In The Violence of Green Revolution, Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics, ed. Vandana Shiva. Goa: Other India Books. ———. 1998. Betting on Biodiversity: Why Genetic Engineering Will Not Feed the Hungry. RFSTE Research Papers. New Delhi: RFSTE. ———. 1999. The Seed and the Earth: Biotechnology and the Colonization of Regeneration of Values. In Minding Our Lives: Women from The South and the North reconnect Ecology and Health, ed. Vandana Shiva. Delhi: Kali for Women. ———. 2000. Poverty and Globalisation. Accessed 20 November 2014, http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=3LlZBHeY_JE ———. 2010/2016. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development. London: Zed Books. California: North Atlantic Books. ———. 2012. Making Peace with the Earth: Beyond Land Wars And Food Wars. New Delhi: Women Unlimited. Stahl, Bernd Carsten, Rogerson, Simon and Kashmeery, Amin. 2007. Current and Future State of ICT Deployment and Utilization in Healthcare: An Analysis of Cross-Cultural Ethical Issues. In Information Technology Ethics: Cultural Perspectives, eds. Soraj Hongladarom and Charles Ess. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Stone, Glen Davis. 2007. Agricultural Deskilling and the Spread of Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal. Current Anthropology, 48 No. 1, February. Visvanathan, Shiv and Parmar, Chandrika. 2002. A Biotechnology Story: Notes from India. Economic and Political Weekly, 2002-07-06. Accessed 10 April 2006, www.epw.org.in

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4 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES* Gauri Seth (Verma)

‘At the beginning of the 21st century one third of the world’s population still lacks access to the essential drugs it needs for good health. In the poorest parts of Africa and Asia, over 50% of the population do not have access to the most vital drugs’ (Brundtland GH 20001). The United Nations (UN) recognizes that, under international human rights law, everyone has ‘the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health’ (Hunt 2003: 6). In a paper outlining the UN’s position on neglected diseases, social justice and human rights, Paul Hunt, the UN special rapporteur on the right to health, states that this entitlement to health requires ‘available and accessible quality health care services, facilities and goods, and this includes essential medicines’ (Hunt 2003: 7).2 In the first section of the chapter, I will define the terms ‘essential medicines’, ‘accessible’ and ‘developing countries’, and explain how the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement has caused concern due to the impact it has on access to essential medicines. The section will explore whether essential medicines can be seen as a human right by referring to Alan Gewirth’s deontological concept of rights and the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC). I will argue that pharmaceutical companies can be regarded as agents according to the PGC and, accordingly, that they have rights and duties and thus a moral responsibility to help increase access to essential drugs. In the second section, I will explore how the application of agency to the pharmaceutical industry is subject to international rules such as TRIPS because companies are institutions. Using the rule consequentialist approach, I will assert that TRIPS does not maximize utility in developing countries, and, for this reason, contradicts the human rights requirements of the PGC. Can this lacuna be reconciled? (See Pin Xiong 2014.) In the third section I will discuss how relevant human rights are towards addressing this moral dilemma. In the final section, it will be concluded that pharmaceutical companies, together with international policy, should exercise greater social responsibility towards the rights of citizens in developing countries to essential medicines.

*  The original essay was written in 2006 by Gauri Verma (Seth). Gauri would like to acknowledge the support and supervision of Richard Huxtable, Benjamin Capps and Kerry Gutridge. The chapter has been edited and updated by Purushottama Bilimoria.

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DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-7

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I ‘Essential’ is defined as (1) fundamental, central and (2) absolutely necessary.3 For the purposes of this discussion, ‘essential medicines’ will refer to those that are central and necessary for the disease burdens affecting a particular country. ‘Accessibility’ means that essential drugs should be made accessible geographically and also economically (Jagadeesan and Wirtz 2021: 2–3). The World Bank Group defines developing countries as ‘low- and middle-income countries in which most people have a lower standard of living with access to fewer goods and services than do most people in high-income countries’. The central focus here derives from the controversial amendment to TRIPS.4 Before 2000, many developing countries were able to manufacture generic versions of drugs locally. This granted affordable prices to citizens in developing countries (Gupta n.d.). After pressure from multinational companies (MNCs), Article 27 of TRIPS extends patent protection to drugs, meaning all WTO (World Trade Organization) member states must enforce 20-year patent laws on pharmaceutical innovation. There is undisputed evidence that drugs have become unaffordable for citizens in the developing world as a direct consequence of this amendment. For example, the wholesale price of the antiretroviral (ARV) fluconazole per tablet (depending on the socio-economic status of the country) is $8.52 in Kenya and $9.78 in the United States but only $0.41 in Bangladesh where fluconazole is manufactured generically. (McNeil 2000; Löfgren 2017; Vijaya 2017). Hence, Indian manufacturers of generic ARV medicines who had facilitated the rapid scale up of HIV/AIDS treatment in developing countries though provision of low-priced, quality-assured medicines also came under pressure of TRIPS to abide by the first world protectionist strictures (Waning et al. 2010). Thus, the direct impact that drug prices have on affordability and therefore accessibility of essential drugs ignites consideration of the ethical and humanitarian implications TRIPS has had and will continue to have on the health of citizens in developing nations. Jayasree K. Iyer, executive director of the Access to Medicine Foundation, has argued that in the global interest of human rights, while [t]here have been massive improvements in global health in the past decades, with all major pharmaceutical companies taking action, [to] close the gaps that remain, a greater diversity of companies must get involved and stay engaged for the long haul. (Julia Kollewe 2018) This has been recognized by the UN High Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, which declared that there is a conflict between TRIPS and human rights, particularly the right to health (Hunt 2003). Gewirth provides a deontological ethical principle (similar to the Golden Rule in Kant 1785), according to which pharmaceutical companies have moral responsibilities to assist developing countries towards gaining better access to essential medicines. Resting its foundations in human rights, Gewirth’s PGC is upheld as the supreme principle of morality (Regis 1984). The PGC establishes a causal connection between rights and necessary goods. If an agent is to have necessary goods, she must claim rights to them. These necessary goods are freedom and well-being, and are the generic features of action. Freedom means having the choice to control behaviour in view of relevant circumstances, and well-being involves having abilities and conditions for achieving purposive action (Gewirth 1978). Gewirth assigns instrumental value to the generic features of action in that they are necessary for an agent to achieve purposive action (Beyleveld 1991). 76

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The PGC states, ‘Act in accord with the generic rights of your recipients as well as of yourself’ (Gewirth 1978: 135). The universalization here correlates rights to duties, meaning that an agent is both entitled to claim these necessary goods and has obligations not to interfere with another agent’s rights against their will, and to assist others if they cannot attain them by their own means (ibid.). In short, the plight of others must be regarded. Furthermore, the PGC states that to deny others the prima facie generic features of action is self-contradictory to one’s own agency. With regard to citizens in developing countries, the more relevant right is that of well-being, which Gewirth divides into a hierarchy based on their ‘indispensability for purposive action’: basic goods, nonsubtractive and additive (62–63). The lowest in the hierarchy are additive goods which allow agents to enhance their well-being over the basic level, whilst basic goods, the highest in the hierarchy, are ‘necessary preconditions for engaging in [any] purposive action’ and include life and physical integrity (212). Gewirth explicitly states that basic goods include ‘necessary medical care’ (312). Thus it has been established that necessary medical care is a basic right necessary for all agents. As essential drugs, by definition, constitute necessary medical care, it can be deduced that all agents have a basic right to essential medicines, according to this deontological principle of morality. On the grounds of equity, this should apply to agents living in developing countries. Should pharmaceutical companies be logically regarded as agents? Gewirth states that an agent is someone or something that can claim the following: ‘I do (or intend to do) X voluntarily for (my freely chosen) purpose E’ (Beyleveld 2012: 4). Thus, agents must show voluntary and purposive action. These features are not exclusive to individual beings and can apply to pharmaceutical companies in two ways. Firstly, on a corporate level, whereby the industry has purpose – namely, to develop, manufacture and sell drugs in a competitive business climate. It could be argued that profits are a necessary condition for corporate agency. Estimates show that on average, it costs $800 million and takes 10–12 years to develop and market a single drug product (Resnik D 2003.) Only 30% of new drugs invented lead to profit (PHRMA 2000). Unless a company is going to achieve profits and financial return on their investment, there is no purpose in their business activities. Thus by showing that pharmaceutical companies engage in voluntary and purposive action, it could be argued that they are agents and institutions or corporate bodies at the same time. The second argument supporting the contention that pharmaceutical companies are agents, is that corporations or institutions are constituted of individuals, all of whom are purposive agents who act voluntarily and whose well-being can be affected by others. Similarly, their actions have important effects on others. This argument coincides with Resnik’s claim that ‘corporations are like moral agents in that they make decisions that have important effects on human beings’ (Resnik 2001: 18). This is supported by Gewirth’s assertion that morality extends beyond individuals to nations: ‘the actions of states towards one another are not … devoid of the personal cognitive and volitional controls which characterise the actions of individuals’ (Gewirth 1982). This logic could directly apply to corporations. Brock (2001) conversely believes that corporations are unlike individuals in that they are ‘social institutions’, and ‘they are established for specific purposes and functions’. The latter of these arguments that because ‘specific purposes’ and ‘functions’ are characteristic features of agency according to the PGC, in fact provide strength to the argument that corporations are agents. The former is a stronger counterargument because in applying the PGC directly to corporations on the grounds that they are made up of individuals, one is ignoring the reality that the individuals are subject to rules within that institution. Uyl and 77

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Machan (1984) argue that if the concept of individual responsibility is collectivized, then the individual becomes ‘ontologically inferior’, and consequently the concept of rights to individuals is undercut. My personal view however is that institutions such as corporations are not free from social responsibility. They can undertake publicly funded research with tax breaks (Angell 2000). My argument derives support from Hettinger who points out that profit-making is a ‘socially created privilege’ (Hettinger 1989). For example, pharmaceutical companies rely on illness – medical maladies, disabilities, diseases, viruses, bacterial infections, old-age conditions, even epidemics and pandemics – for their research, production of applicable drugs and most of all profits. Their vested interests are not detached from those of others – and indeed morally considerable others. Hence for this reason the companies or corporations ought to be considered as de jure agents, beneficent or culpable. To be sure, the argument is not that corporations are boda fide persons or fictional persons: that is a whole different claim and ballgame which the courts in the United States have been keen to uphold for different reasons (having to do with protecting religious-based rights, tax exemptions, 14th Amendment guaranteed equality of all persons, legal and civil rights, freedom of speech and so forth, claimed by certain corporations). The argument advanced here is based on the distinctive recognition of agency rather than personhood as such, based on the execution of or commitment to specific purposes and functions that has moral (character-­ conduct) and ethical (consequentialist) ramifications.5 If the argument is accepted that pharmaceutical companies are agents, then it logically follows that, according to the PGC, they have moral duties to other agents, human and non-human animals. As stated earlier, universalization prohibits agents from infringing on another’s rights. This argument implies that pharmaceutical companies have negative duties not to impede access to essential medicines; and so advancing the cause of TRIPS, it could be argued that the industry has violated the PGC. The PGC also requires that where an agent is aware that another will endure harm without their help, and where they are able to help at no ‘comparable cost’ to themselves, ‘it is his moral duty to act to prevent these harms’ (Gewirth 1978).6 This ‘duty to rescue’ paralleling ‘duty to care’ underscores positive duties, meaning there is a moral responsibility to address the needs and conditions of other agents, as well as impact in the absence of meeting such obligations. Schüklenk and Ashcroft suggest the pharmaceutical industry could increase access to drugs through drug donations and price discounts. (Schüklenk and Ashcroft 2001) This requirement of a positive duty has been criticized by R M Hare who stated that ‘other people do not automatically have obligations to supply what the agent prudentially ought to seek’ (1984: 52). Gewirth’s reply to this is that universalization of duties to self as well as to others is necessary for ‘moral rightness’, and failing to do so is ‘antithetical to the categorical obligatoriness of morality’ (1984: 215). Gewirth acknowledges practical ability in positive duties to assist (Gewirth 1982). In a discussion about duties to assist the starving, Gewirth states an agent ‘must have sufficient resources to have a surplus from their own basic food needs’. If this logic is applied to pharmaceutical companies, it could follow that they must have sufficient financial resources to meet their own basic financial needs before they are under a duty to provide cheaper drugs or drug giveaways to developing nations. Given that ‘global pharmaceutical companies can … devote hundreds of millions of dollars towards projects designed to benefit developing nations without losing a great deal of profit’ (ibid. 27), there is a strong argument that they have a moral responsibility, according to the PGC, to help developing nations gain better access to essential medicines. 78

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John Arthur (1977) would also challenge a positive duty, as he argues causation is necessary before someone has a duty to rescue. This argument would therefore claim that because pharmaceutical companies did nothing to cause the existing burden of disease, they are not under a positive duty to assist. Whilst there is logic behind this argument, it seems an unreasonable justification to the dilemma, when one considers the extent of the pharmaceutical industry’s ability to assist, with reference to their profit margins. It is not unreasonable for them to divert some of these funds to social causes (ibid.). Furthermore if we turn to Mill, it could be upheld that causation can be established in failing to assist: ‘A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inactions, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury’ (Mill 1859: 74, emphasis added). Therefore the argument that companies have a moral responsibility cannot be rejected on the grounds that they did not actively cause the diseases burdens. Inaction is still morally culpable, meaning there is a moral responsibility to assist. These arguments will now be criticized from the angle of freedom. If one accepts pharmaceutical companies are agents and thus have duties to others, it must not be forgotten that they themselves have the right to the generic features of action, including freedom. Accordingly, failing to assist may not render them morally culpable if it is seen as an expression of their freedom. Patent protection is essential for financial return, which is necessary for their purpose. Companies have obligations to safeguard profits to meet their responsibilities to stockholders and employees (Resnik 2001). If they were morally obliged to increase access to essential drugs by reducing prices or promoting drug giveaways, this may impede their freedom to maximize profits. So these positive and negative duties that the PGC requires could theoretically be avoided according to the PGC. This apparent conflict within the PGC between the rights of freedom and well-being has been criticized by Narveson (1984), who argues that there is no framework in the PGC to resolve such conflicts. However, Gewirth’s hierarchy of necessary goods can help resolve this conflict. Profits are additive goods, meaning they come after basic goods. As stated earlier, necessary medical care constitutes such basic goods, so it can be argued that duties to assist others in achieving essential medicines take priority over the realization of profits. Uyl and Machan (1984) believe that in favouring welfare over freedom, Gewirth fails to strike an adequate balance between egalitarianism and liberty. However, to counterargue this objection, Gewirth states that the equality he supports is that of equal opportunity rather than global equity of material goods. An agent should have the minimum required level of basic goods so he can ‘maximise his own capacities for purpose fulfilment’ (1984: 242). In applying the hierarchy of goods in resolving the conflict between freedom and well-being it would be careless to denounce the significance of relativity when comparing goods, because what an agent perceives as an ‘additive good’ is subject to many factors, such as what they possess and value (Gewirth 1978). However an in-depth discussion of relativity is beyond the scope here. The relevant contribution to the discussion is the moral comparison between the right to essential medicines with the right to freedom to maximize profits. In essence, Gewirth solves the problem: ‘The right to freedom is not absolute; it may be overridden by other rights such as rights to life, health or subsistence’ (1984: 243). Closer attention to the profit margins of the industry may illustrate the level of additive goods being questioned as a contender against basic health. In 2002, the combined profits for the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 in the United States ($35.9 billion) were more than the profits for all the other 490 businesses together ($33.7 billion).7 Therefore pharmaceutical companies do have moral responsibilities to increase access to essential medicines. 79

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II It may be useful at this point to remind ourselves why Article 27 of TRIPS is in conflict with the right to essential medicines. By extending patent protection to drugs, the Article restricts the manufacture of generics. Rising prices make them unaffordable in developing countries. According to Gewirth’s logic, a rule can be justified if it is necessary to maintain equality of generic rights (1984: 279). Therefore, it must be determined whether patents are necessary to preserve equality in access to essential medicines. This will be deduced by establishing whether the rules from TRIPS maximize utility. Utilitarianism claims that ‘actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they intend to promote the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure’ (Mill 1861: 257). Patents have been described as a ‘necessary evil’, as they deliver ‘incentives to innovate’ new drugs (Gupta n.d.). Without patent protection, new knowledge becomes subject to overuse, which in turn minimizes its ‘economic value’ (Cohen and Illingworth 2003). Without assurance that third parties will not ‘free-ride’ on drug-products, pharmaceutical companies would have no incentive to invest in research and development (R&D). Marketing drugs is a risky procedure. An innovative drug may turn out to be unsafe and be abandoned during the testing process. There is no guarantee that the drug will be accepted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or that the drug will out-compete others on the market. Patents therefore give companies incentives to invest in R&D. This is perhaps one of the strongest supporting arguments in favour of the TRIPS agreement and coincides with Hardin’s ‘lifeboat ethics’ argument, where, in arguing against helping the poor, Hardin asks us to imagine all the developed countries adrift in a raft in the ‘moral sea’, and the developing countries out at sea needing rescuing. There is capacity for 10 more but there are 100 swimmers. In taking them all into the raft ‘the boat swamps, everyone drowns. Complete justice. Complete catastrophe’ (Hardin 1977: 12). Similarly if developing countries were not prohibited from mass producing cheaper versions of drugs, the consequence could be that overall R&D into diseases would decline, to the detriment of both developed and developing countries. This is supported by evidence from an empirical study of 100 American corporations, which suggests that without patent protection, ‘65% of new drugs would not have been introduced and 60% of new products would not have been developed’ (Mansfield 1986). There is then a strong justification of patent protection on utilitarian grounds.8 This argument is also supported by the proposition that patent protection may have a positive effect on R&D into diseases affecting the developing world, because they will provide an incentive for developing countries to reform their drugs policies and innovate drugs for themselves. Take the example of India. In 1999, India produced 70%–80% of its drugs, making it almost self-sufficient on generics (Grace 2004a). Patent laws enforced in 2005 meant that India faced competition from global companies, encouraging Indian manufacturers to innovate new drugs at certain risks to their effectiveness and compliance with international pharmaceutical standards (Löfgren 2018). This in the long run maximizes utility, especially as India’s drugs cater for diseases of the developing world, which might also resolve the 90/10 divide. This argument strikes a chord with the distinction between subjective and objective act-consequentialism. Subjective act-consequentialism requires one to act, when faced with a choice, in the way that will achieve the maximal good in that particular situation, whereas objective act-consequentialism requires one to act in the way 80

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that will actually promote the overall good, even if this does not coincide with the subjective consequentialist solution of maximizing good in the situation under discussion (Railton 1984). So although permitting generic manufacture increases access to essential drugs in the short term, it may not maximize benefit on a long-term scale if it impedes developing countries from innovating drugs for themselves. This seemingly incommensurable outcome is stressed by other recent researchers as well (e.g., Pin Xiong 2014). Whilst the argument is strong that patent protection, as a rule, is required to maximize overall utility, this can be counter-argued if we draw up the problems of this rule consequentialist approach. J.J.C. Smart argued that whilst justified rules maximize utility in the majority of cases, it does not mean that adhering to such a rule will always yield maximum utility. Applied to this dilemma, it could be argued that while preserving the incentive to innovate would protect R&D and thus maximize overall utility, enforcing the rule in a ‘one size fits all’ manner does not maximize utility for the particular case of developing countries (Sterckx 2004: 74). Many have argued that by blocking the use of drug formulae and structures, patents limit the use of new drug developments: Patents impede progress in technology by precluding other firms from cross-learning and building on the original innovation. Patents produce a loss or ‘dead-weight’ burden, insofar as the benefits of the new knowledge to society would have been greater in the absence of a patent regime. (Cohen and Illingworth 2003: 32) Coupled with the importance of drugs to utility in terms of enhancing health and therefore minimizing suffering and promoting well-being, this argument challenges the earlier utilitarian justification of patents. There is also reason to dissect the argument that patents will enhance drugs production in developing countries. ‘Patent protection does not provide enough incentives … to undertake R&D on diseases that primarily affect developing countries’ (Gupta n.d.: 14). Empirical evidence suggests that R&D expenditure of Indian firms have been directed towards diseases prevalent in developed countries, since export to these countries is more lucrative (Grace 2004b). Thus the 90/10 divide will not be resolved. This is a significant counterargument to the defence of patents on utilitarian grounds. It is also highly questionable whether industries in developing countries have the resources and infrastructure to manufacture drugs, let alone market them effectively to out-compete foreign players. If their R&D, marketing, bargaining power and sales strategies do not at least match those of Western pharmaceuticals, they lose out on the market (Sterckx 2004). Therefore, although TRIPS is necessary to safeguard R&D and thus reap greater objective consequences for developed countries, this reality is not being met for developing countries. Consequently, the argument that patent protection is necessary to maximize objective utility for developing nations is weak. This in turn alludes that TRIPS, as an institutional rule, does not conform to the requirements of the PGC, as it does not promote equality of basic needs. Where one is aware that conforming to a rule will in fact undermine utility, Smart argued that such ‘rule-worshipping’ is ‘foolish’ (1956).9 So where does this leave pharmaceutical companies? After establishing that they are institutions affected by complex rules, it was argued that the rules derived from TRIPS do not resolve inequalities in basic medicines in the developing world and so do not conform to the PGC. Following Gewirth, we could insist that the onus lies with the industry, as well 81

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as international policies governing it, to act according to the PGC by promoting equal distribution of essential medicines. Thus there is a moral requirement for the international trade rules in TRIPS to help increase access to essential medicines. There is also however a moral responsibility for pharmaceutical companies to do the same. Whilst it may seem unfair to single out pharmaceutical companies from other industries and assert that they have some moral responsibility in resolving the current inequalities in access to essential medicines in the world today, there is substance in the argument that they operate in a different sphere than other industries. Medicines, unlike textiles for example, have the potential to alleviate suffering not only in the immediate term by restoring health, but also in the long term because a healthier population will enhance economic growth and development: ‘It is becoming increasingly clear that poverty not only causes ill health but that ill health keeps people in poverty. We have compelling evidence that investing in health is a measurable, results-orientated and effective way to reduce poverty’ (Brundtland 2000). This argument is supported by the concept of ‘role specific beneficence’, which Beauchamp and Childress (2001) applied to the medical profession. They support that that the skills and knowledge of doctors places them in a unique position such that their obligations to help someone in need of medical help is greater than a layperson’s. This argument could be applied to the special skills and knowledge of pharmaceuticals, giving support to the argument of moral responsibility.

Conclusion After asserting that access to essential medicines is a crucial player in allowing people to realize their right to health, I argued that pharmaceutical companies could be regarded as agents in the context of the Gewirthian formulation of human rights and the PGC. From this assertion have stemmed various requirements of the PGC, such as rights and correlative duties, including the ‘duty to rescue’ and ‘duty to care’. In view of the fact that the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most profitable in the world, and that it has the ability to manufacture life-saving drugs that can help citizens realize their right to health, it was argued that it can assist at no comparable cost to itself, such as by delivering price discounts, drug giveaways and non-punitive supply of essential ingredients to local manufactures in poor countries struggling to maintain certain medicinal provisions to their citizens, e.g., vaccine inoculation against infections, threatening viruses (such as COVID) and other immunization needs that have been long recognized. I then discussed that as companies are institutions, their responsibilities are affected by the rules in which they function, particularly TRIPS. Following Gewirth’s dictum that rules are justified if they address inequality in rights, I have argued that, according to rule consequentialism, an amended TRIPS constitutes an unjust rule and hence does not conform to the PGC. This is because although patent protection may be necessary to maximize utility in developed countries in the context of drugs, it fails to do this for citizens in developing countries and thus does not resolve current inequalities in the right to health. According to Gewirth, institutions and rules should both conform to the PGC. This suggests that pharmaceutical companies cannot escape their moral responsibilities as agents on the grounds that they are subject to the rules of TRIPS. Pharmaceutical companies have, together with international policy, a moral responsibility to assist developing countries in gaining better access to essential medicines.

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I realize that denoting responsibilities to companies and international policy makers on the grounds of human rights may seem practically weak. I also realize that assisting citizens in developing nations in realizing their right to health depends on many factors aside from essential drugs. Nevertheless, I believe that acknowledging both that they have these rights and that companies and international policies share social responsibilities is fundamental to addressing the problem and initiating appropriate solutions. Companies and international policymakers should seek to make essential drugs more affordable and should seek to resolve the 90/10 divide. My position is supported by Target 17 of the Millennium Development Goals set out in the UN Millennium Declaration, which aims, ‘in cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, [to] provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries’.10 This shows that the international community has collectively agreed that pharmaceutical companies have a crucial role in helping with the battle of global health.

Notes 1 Speech to the WHO (World Health Organization)/Public Interest NGO Pharmaceuticals Roundtable, Third Meeting, Geneva (cited in Cohen and Illingworth 2003: 27); updated statistics up to and for 2022 do not indicate any substantive improvement to the conditions, with diseases such as malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS and other health disorders, including malnutrition, still rampant. In fact, the situation has worsened with the spread of the coronavirus infection and the ongoing COVID pandemic, plus the multi-country outbreak of monkeypox. https://www.who.int/news/ item/13-12-2017-world-bank-and-who-half-the-world-lacks-access-to-essential-health-services100-million-still-pushed-into-extreme-poverty-because-of-health-expenses. https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/december-2016-march-2017/dying-lack-medicines. https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-statementon-the-press-conference-following-IHR-emergency-committee-regarding-the-multi--countryoutbreak-of-monkeypox--23-july-2022. https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/ who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-member-state-information-session-on-covid-19and-other-issues---21-july-2022. A Who reported in 2021: At the time of writing, more than 160 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 3.3 million deaths had been reported to WHO. Yet these numbers are only a partial picture, as many countries have not been able to accurately measure and report on deaths that are either directly or indirectly attributable to COVID-19 (see Note 13 supra). 2 See also Chapter 2 by Dwivedi in this volume. 3 Oxford English Dictionary. www.oed.com 4 Marakesh Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization, Annex 1C, 33 ILM 81 (1994). 5 For an informative discussion of complications and problems in attributing person-status to corporations, see John Perry ‘The Corporations as Person’. Philosophy Talk, NPR, 18 June 2010. https://www.philosophytalk.org/blog/corporations-persons 6 This is very similar to the utilitarian view of Peter Singer. See Singer, P. 1972. ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1 (3): 229–243, and is also discussed by Beauchamp and Childress (2001). 7 http://www.amsa.org/hp/RandD.cfm accessed on 11/03/06. 8 For more discussion surrounding justification of property rights, see Locke J (1988). 9 To be sure, there have been detractors who have argued against Smart that any kind of actutilitarianism vis-à-vis rule utilitarianism is fraught with difficulties and should probably be rejected because there is no satisfactory theory of obligation. See Brian Ellis. 1981. ‘Retrospective and Prospective Utilitarianism’ Noûs 15 (3): 325–339. 10 Health and the Millennium Development Goals, World Health Organization Report (2005: 11). For some updates and mildly sobering data, see WHO’s World Health Statistics 2021: Monitoring health for the SDGs, sustainable development goals’. https://www.who.int/publications/i/ item/9789240027053

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References Angell, M. 2000. ‘The Pharmaceutical Industry — To Whom Is It Accountable.’ The New England Journal of Medicine, 342: 1902–1904. Arthur, J. 1977. ‘Rights and the Duty to Bring Aid.’ In Aiken, W. and La Follette, H. (eds.), World Hunger and Moral Obligation. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Beauchamp, T.L. and Childress, J.F. 2001. Principles of Biomedical Ethics 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bentham, J. 1970. ‘Anarchical Fallacies.’ In Melden, A. I. (ed.), Human Rights. Belmont: Wadsworth. Beyleveld, D. 1991. The Dialectical Necessity of Morality. Chicago: Chicago University Press. ———. 2012. The Principle of Generic Consistence as the Supreme Principle of Human Rights. Human Rights Review, 13: 1–18 Brock, D.W. 2001. ‘Some Questions About the Moral Responsibilities of Drug Companies on Developing Countries.’ Developing World Bioethics, 1: 33–37. Brundtland, G. H. 2000. Director General, World Health Organization, World Economic Forum, Remarks to the meeting of the Governors of the Health Industry, January. http://www.who.int/ director-general/speeches/2000/english/20000404_brasilia.html; (unpublished document) Capps, B. 2003. ‘Gewirth’s Argument for Human Rights from the Context of Agent Action (Appendix 2).’ In UK and European Policy in Stem Cell Research: Proposals for the Ethical Grounding for the Regulation. PhD Thesis. University of Bristol Cohen, J.C. and Illingworth, P. 2003. ‘The Dilemma of Intellectual Property Rights for Pharmaceuticals: The Tension Between Ensuring Access of the Access of the Poor to Medicines and Committing to the International Agreements.’ Developing World Bioethics, 3: 27–48. Gewirth, A. 1978. Reason and Morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1982. ‘Starvation and Human Rights.’ Human Rights in Essays on Justification and Applications. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1984. ‘Reply.’ In Regis, E. (ed.) Introduction in Gewirth’s EthicalRationalsim, Critical Essays with a Reply by Alan Gewirth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Glover, J. 1999. ‘Eugenics and Human Rights.’ In Burley, J. (ed.) The Genetic Revolution and Human Right: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grace, C. 2004a. ‘The Effect of Changing Intellectual Property on Pharmaceutical Industry Prospects in India and China.’ Considerations for Access to Medicines. www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/ indiachinadomproduce.pdf checked 23/02/06 ———. 2004b. ‘The Effect of Changing Intellectual Property on Pharmaceutical Industry Prospects in India and China. Considerations for Access to Medicines.’ Heart Newsletter. June 1. Institute of Development Studies (IDS). Gupta, A. n.d. ‘Patent Rights for Pharmaceuticals: TRIPS and the RIGHT to Health at Crossroads.’ Working draft, Unpublished. Hardin, G. 1977. ‘Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor.’ In Aiken, W. and La Follette, H. (eds.), World Hunger and Moral Obligation. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Hare, R.M. 1984. ‘Do Agents Have to Be Moralists?’ In Regis, E. (ed.) Introduction in Gewirth’s EthicalRationalsim, Critical Essays with a Reply by Alan Gewirth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Harris, P. and Siplon, P. 2005. International Obligation and Human Health: Evolving Policy Reponses to HIV/AIDS. www.carnegiecouncil.org/viewMedia.php/prmTemplateID/8/prmID/501 Hettinger, E.C. 1989. ‘Justifying Intellectual Property.’ Philosophy and Public Affairs, 18(1): 31–52. Hunt, P. 2003. ‘Neglected Diseases, Social Justice and Human Rights: Some Preliminary Observations.’ Health and Human Rights Working Paper Series No 4. http://www.who.int/hhr/news/en/Series_4_ neglected%20diseases_social_justice_human_rights%20Paul_Hunt Jagadeesan, Cindrel Tharumia and Wirtz, Veronika J. 2021. ‘Geographical Accessibility of Medicines: A Systematic Literature Review of Pharmacy Mapping.’ Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice, 14: 28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40545-020-00291-7 Kant, I. 1785 (2002). Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (eds. Hill, T. and Zweig, A). Oxford: University Press. Kollewe, Julia. 2018. ‘Big Pharma Failing to Develop Urgent Drugs for Poorest Countries.’ The Guardian. 21 Nov 2018.

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Moral Responsibility and Pharmaceutical Companies Locke, J. 1988. Two Treatises of Government (ed. Laslett, Peter). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Löfgren, Hans, 2018. The Politics of the Pharmaceutical Industry and Access to Medicines: World Pharmacy and India. Abingdon: Routledge. ———, 2017. ‘India’s Drug Multinationals: Growth Strategies and Global Industry Dynamics.’ In Prakash and Löfgren (eds.), Politics and Culture of Globalisation, 181–198. London: Routedge. Mansfield, E. 1986. ‘Patents and Innovation: An Empirical Study.’ Management Science, 32 (2). https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.32.2.173 McNeil, D. 2000. ‘Selling Cheap ‘Generic’ Drugs, India’s Copycats Irk Industry.’ New York Times, 1 December. Mill, J.S. 1859 (1972). On Liberty. London: J.M. Dent and Sons. ———. 1861. Utilitarianism. Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co Ltd. Narveson, J. 1984. ‘Negative and Positive Rights.’ In Regis, E. (ed.) Introduction in Gewirth’s Ethical Rationalsim, Critical Essays with a Reply by Alan Gewirth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. PHRMA, 2000. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association, PHRMA Policy Paper: Strong Patent Protection Is Essential. Washington DC. Railton, P. 1984. ‘Alienation, Consequentialism and the Demands of Morality.’ Philosophy and Public Affairs, 13 (2): 134–171. Regis, Jr., E. (ed.). 1984. Gewirth’s Ethical Rationalism, Critical Essays with a Reply by Alan Gewirth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Resnik, D. 2001. ‘Developing Drugs for the Developing World: An Economic Legal, Moral and Political Dilemma.’ Developing World Bioethics, 1: 11–32 ———. 2003. ‘Setting Biomedical Research Priorities I the 21st Century.’ Virtual Mentor, 5: 7. http:// www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category.10571.html checked 23/02/06. Schüklenk, U. and Ashcroft, R. E. 2001. ‘Affordable Access to Essential Medication in Developing Countries: Conflicts Between Ethical and Economic Imperatives.’ Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 27 (2): 179–195. Sterckx, S. 2004. ‘Patents and Access to Drugs in Developing Countries: An Ethical Analysis.’ Developing World Bioethics, 4: 58–75. Tasioulas, J. 2002. ‘Human Rights, Universality and the Values of Personhood: Retracing Griffin’s Steps.’ European Journal of Philosophy, 10: 79–100. Uyl, D.J.D. and Machan, T.R. 1984. ‘Gewirth and the Supportive State.’ In Regis, E. (ed.) Introduction in Gewirth’s Ethical Rationalsim, Critical Essays with a Reply by Alan Gewirth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Vijaya, G. 2017. ‘Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals in South India: ‘Sun Rise’ Industralisation or Global-shifting of Dirty Goods Manufacturing.’ In Prakash and Löfgren (eds.), Politics and Culture of Globalisation, 181–198. London: Routedge. Waning, B., Ellen, D and Moon, S. 2010. September 14. ‘A Lifeline to Treatment: The Role of Indian Generic Manufacturers in Supplying Antiretroviral Medicines to Developing Countries.’ Journal of International AIDS Society, 13–35. https://doi.org/10.1186/1758-2652-13-35 Xiong, Pin. 2014. ‘Pharmaceutical Patents in the TRIPS Agreement and the Right to Health: Can These Rights Be Reconciled?’ University of Western Australia Law Review, 36 (1). https://ssrn. com/abstract=2476733

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5 MENTAL ILLNESS AND MENTAL HEALTH JUSTICE* Purushottama Bilimoria

Issues of culture are often overlooked in the management of the heterogeneity of mental illness. These reflections arise both out of an active interest in the practice of psychiatry within the context of an ethnically diverse culture and an interest in the history of madness as framed within various disparate disciplines. Derrida (1978) in ‘Cogito and the History of Madness’ underscores the input of Cartesian rationalism within the mainstream notion of madness, as highlighted also in Foucault’s (1965) Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. In unravelling differences within a clinical setting, the hybridized/other mind and troubled body of the patient often eludes reified essentialist frameworks, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) commonly used within psychiatric institutions, as well as the essentialist notions of classical Freudian psychoanalysis or the stereotypical Jungian analysis of cultures, myths and legends, The uncertainties and rigid framing of ethnopsychiatry within the framework of cognitive rationalism in part gave rise to the anti-psychiatry movement (which will not be our direct concern here, see Double 2020). The postcolonial literary genre pays ample homage to the concepts of diversity within mainstream culture, which may help frame variant notions of madness. Gender and culture provide the most challenging aspects of identity formation, and issues such as nation, class, caste and religion are not irrelevant to identity formation. This, of course, challenges the unitary descriptive, acultural or secular concepts of madness, where it is presumed that the human subject can be understood in isolation from these factors. Despite the incommensurate ‘life worlds’ of individual subjectivities, the concept of empathy on which therapeutic intervention is based presupposes some similitude and even entails a fundamental acknowledgement of alterity in all encounters with the other, deemed mad or otherwise. *  The genesis of this chapter goes back to a pioneering project on mental health in India started by Renuka Sharma in collaboration with her colleagues in NIMHANS in Bangalore, Drs Sanjeev Jain and Pratima Murthy, back in the 1990s; this work was taken further by Sally Percival Wood from 2002 to 2005, under my headship of the Science and Spirituality Research in India Institute (SSRII) with the generous support of Templeton Foundation, based in Bangalore and Sophia/Melbourne (see Endnote 3, and Bilimoria et al. 2007). I am also grateful to Amy Rayner and Abhilasha Semwal for editing assistance. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-8

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Thus the Heideggerian notion of Dasein (being-in-the-world) remains irreducible to common norms. It is perhaps these notions of the similitude of difference that seemingly pose a threat in the encounter with madness. Diagnostic tools such as the DSM-5 manual provide order and reason in the face of madness and, as such, underwrite the basis of penal and judiciary institutional practices in relation to mental illness, albeit with limited acknowledgement of notions of cultural diversity. Edith Stein, an early student and collaborator of Husserl, locates the problem of intersubjectivity within the aesthetic origins of the perceptual process Einfühlung or empathy (Sharma 2014: 14, 74). The term is not only used in a number of symbolic ways but also touches on epistemological issues with respect to the self/other conundrum within certain disciplines. In Mark C. Taylor’s reading of ‘the other’, the problem remains precisely this. In discussing the ‘identity of difference and the difference of identity’, Taylor states that ‘philosophy begins and ends with the question of the other. The question is not a question, it is a complex of questions’ (Taylor 1987). At admission to a psychiatric institution, the patient enters into the canonical-historical structure of Western asylums, well-documented by Foucault in a number of publications, most significantly in his monograph The Birth of the Clinic (1994). Erving Goffman’s (1961) account of the ‘Moral Career of the Mental Patient’ parallels Light’s description of the moral career of the psychiatric registrar (Donald Light 1980) and echoes Block and Green’s (2006) quest for an ethical framework for psychiatry. Both the therapist and the patient are players positioned in an uncertain ethical field, the codes of which are defined according to outdated canonical laws about mental illness. Outdated notions of the praxis of subjectivity, namely, observer neutrality and objectivity, are challenged by post-essential subjectivity. Lorraine Code (1991) suggested that a space of ‘ambivalence and ambiguity. … Open spaces for developing interpretations that at once build and depart from textual starting points’. The history of the politics of intersubjectivity is briefly mentioned in order to highlight the departure within contemporary cultural studies from traditional psychoanalytic notions of countertransference, anthropological notions of unbiased observer neutrality or the Cartesian philosophical silencing of observer subjectivity in the framing of the discourse about the other (Sharma 1996). Thus, outdated, colonizing models of mental illness are ill-equipped to deal with levels of difference as often represented by the ethnic female subject. Transcultural psychiatry, although established as a discipline in its own right, makes reference to cases of exotic difference, such as in the descriptions of Lata, Koro, Amok, hysteria and somatization among the ‘natives’ – descriptive phenomena labelled and classified with the colonialist gaze of diagnostic certainty. Franz Fanon, a West Indies-born psychiatrist who worked in Algiers, was critical of the political foundations on which ethnopsychiatry rested (see McCulloch 1995). In raising differences to the realm of the exotic, mundane ethical issues related to patient care are thrown into the ‘too hard basket’. Difference in this category of meaning is removed from the realm of careful enquiry, which would require a heedfulness of disciplines of interpretation outside that of conventional psychiatry. This then places the emerging discipline of transcultural psychiatry within a double bind, i.e., on the one hand, acknowledging difference and, on the other hand, precluding areas of systematic inquiry (i.e., non-scientific) outside the discipline of psychiatry. The emerging cluster of disciplines, such as ethnomethodology, subaltern studies and ethnoarchaeology, are but a few of the new disciplines which challenge previous levels of semiotic understandings. 87

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Models of the Native and European Insanities In early Eastern and Western history, it could be argued that there was a palpable absence of any kind of discourse of the mind as an utterly and totally separate entity from the body and its functions (sensory perceptions, emotions, digestion, etc.); in other words, the possibility of a Cartesian-like dualism remained forever closed to their thinking; secondly, while insanity or madness was not looked upon as something sacred or a ‘blessing’ by the gods, there was nevertheless a great deal of compassion shown for those afflicted with such a condition. In sum, mental health and its breakdown were not attributed to a singular causal chain, as it occurred in the later phases in the West – the wrath of God, the kiss of the gods and angels, body becomes diseased, mind deranged. Rather, a complex set of factors and multivalence symptomatology were developed, which encompassed religion and spiritual dimensions as integral to an understanding of human behaviour. In the positivistically post-Darwinian scientized West, this kind of complexity in thinking on madness had been lost and replaced by one-dimensional modalities and cognitive frames, which, in a way, is a construct in which Christianity had a large role to play (Bathgate 2003). Christianity’s preoccupation with ‘cleansing’ took a new turn in the post-Enlightenment era as European missionaries set forth, paving the way for science and reason to save the ‘uncivilized’ from themselves. (Not to mention to pave the way for the expansion of the Industrial Revolution into new markets from which to source raw materials and to establish markets for its manufactures, which, in turn, saw the institutionalization and militarization of healthcare.) Even into the 20th century, British psychoanalysts Berkeley-Hill and Daly, who were practicing psychiatry in India in the 1930s and ‘40s, saw psychoanalysis as ‘a state-of-the-art therapeutic device and hoped to introduce it with minor modifications into India as a partial cure for the worst affliction Indians suffered from – Indianness’ (Nandy 2001: 101). Whatever traits the term ‘Indianness’ refers to, we can confidently assume that it relates to those which Europe perceived itself as having ‘moved on’ (as Hegel would have put in respect of the ‘work of nature-spirit’). Capturing the imperial programme of scientific institutionalization within a somewhat more equitable historical net which casts its gaze across the thorny psychology of Europe, British triumphalism can, itself, be diagnosed as neurotic. That is to say, if the Indian was diagnosed as inferior, the British diagnosis may well be that of a grandiose superiority delusion spawned by a repugnance of its own potential to lapse into cruelty and unreason, or even to suffer moments of self-doubt. How many British colonial histories, for example, tell us that the famed Clive of India, conqueror of Bengal, committed suicide in 1774, the victim of severe depression? Given his psychiatric disposition, was his victory at Plassey won ‘during a phase of reckless manic excitement’ (Jain 2000: 25; Jain et al. 2001: 460)? As imperialism’s burdensome progeny, the ‘other’ was mythologized as barbaric, uncivilized, immoral, superstitious and brutish. However, should the history of Western medicine – of both the physically and mentally disordered – and its accompanying irrational, sometimes inquisitional, psychoses become the subject of our gaze, we might just find that a colossal ‘transference’ has taken place. The Enlightenment saw the passage of Europe from its state of barbarity, in which the ‘laws of nature’ and reason gradually replaced the fear and superstition which, sanctioned by Rome, condoned the deaths of hundreds of ‘possessed’ at stake between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Thus it is that when the British arrived in India, they used their own standards of mental health to adjudge the ‘sanity level’ of the native population, introducing and diagnosing 88

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categories of mania, moral insanity, female alcoholism, hysteria and delirium. The asylums and institutions that the British set up in India resembled the ones that were utilized for the treatment of the mentally ill in Britain. (Bhattacharyya 2013) However, a categorical demarcation was etched between the native way of madness or lunacy and the comparatively rare case of diagnosed insanity of the British residents in India, separated even by the designated wards and treating medical or healthcare staff. Before the British intervention in the apparent psychological disorders of the natives, the treatment largely depended on the extensive social support provided by community members. It rather baffled the authorities that the native patient diagnosed with mania or other mental disorders appeared to respond remarkably well to the prognosis and that the ambient support from the extended community, local healers and such exercises complemented rather than interfered with the treatment. A study of the tension between the two classes of diagnosis will significantly enhance our understanding of how culture-bound the colonial conception of mental illness proved to be. The socio-demographic patterns of the patients, taking into account variables of class, caste, region, linguistic and gender differences, have been discerned from case notes and hospital records from the earliest period of British intervention in this area of health control, as well as from private diary entries of doctors, specialist or community-based private hospital records and recorded oral narratives. This history will need to be read against the grain or overt textuality of the official records.1 Why were anmanaa, mania, rabidity and hysteria (unmaada) singled out as pervasive maladies, especially among natives in colonial India? One could argue that a particular construction of the mental state of the ‘other’ was a necessary ruse in the colonial subjugation of the natives (Nandy 1983, 1988). Although this contention is debated, the cross-­ cultural work of Kleinman (1980) on cultural variations of affective disorders based on Malaysian experience of ‘amok’, and Japanese notions of Amae, strongly underscore the cultural context of psychiatric diagnosis. Recent debates in psychiatry and cultural anthropology have influenced the re-designation of culture-bound syndromes, notably in DSM-V, inclusive of a handful of South Asian categories. A related question that arises in this context is: how has the European model of mental health and the legacy of colonial practices in the subcontinent impacted and continued to influence, or alternatively constrain, local Indian responses to mental illness? Firstly, the treatment of ‘lunacy’ moved towards becoming an instrument of the British Government’s medical administration, and the segregation of the mentally diseased gradually found the ideal habitat within modernity’s favourite structure – the institution. Secondly, the patronage of the institution(s) gradually moved under the generous and able hands of local Indian Dewans and doctors. Arguably, lunatic asylums in India began in Colaba, Bombay (1746), when the rear of a general hospital was converted into a place specifically for housing the mentally ill (Bandyopadhyay et al. 2018: 1; Bhattacharyya 2013). Then, in 1795, the East India Company placed one Dr Valentine Connolly in charge of a house for ‘accommodating persons of unsound mind’ (Sarin et al. 2016). After the Mutiny of 1857, jail and asylum complexes were combined, and medical treatment consisted of blistering of the head and neck, cold and warm baths and tonic and aperient medicine (both native and European) (ibid.: 4). Shortly after, Lahore, Delhi, Madras, Mumbai and Ranchi received their fair share of ‘lunatic asylums’ as well. (Major J. E. Dhunjibhoy, a Parsi from Bombay, took an active role in enunciating a more holistic approach to the treatment of mental disorders.) Owen Berkeley-Hill transformed a derelict garden around 1919 into the finest mental hospital in all of Asia. 89

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An extensive case report from the south would be appropriate to bring in here.2 It was in 1848, under British administrative intervention, that the Bangalore Lunatic Asylum was founded in Mysore (Bangalore Mental Asylum and later reformed as the National Institute for Mental Health and Neuroscience, or NIMHANS). Almost a century later, in 1936, the erection of a new mental hospital was sanctioned by the Dewan of Mysore, Sir Mirza M. Ismail K. C.I. E., O.B.E., who was keen to see India merge with modernity. So, in 1938, the Bangalore Mental Hospital was established on its current site, relocating due to a ‘gradually increasing recognition that mental patients were sick people needing as much comfort and care as other patients, and having similar chances of recovery and improvement under good conditions’ (Govindaswamy 1938: 1). Such recognition embraced both linguistic and scientific progressiveness, which saw the term ‘lunatic asylum’ dropped in 1925 for the more sensitive and modern title of ‘mental hospital’. The new hospital was designed to accommodate 300 patients – 200 men and 100 women – and included cottages for ‘well-to-do patients’. The booklet outlining the project in 1938 stated that: ‘The aim of the Mental Hospital must be, not merely the protection of Society, but also the protection of the patient’ (ibid.). By the 1930s, under Superintendent Dr M. V. Govindaswamy, modern treatments had been adopted at the Bangalore Mental Hospital within the contemporary medical structure. Perfectly innocuous measures such as occupational therapy were implemented through rather more risky procedures such as pre-frontal leucotomy (or lobotomy), electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and still scientifically evolving remedies such as Cardiazol and Insulin shock treatment. Govindaswamy acknowledged that nutritional anaemia and vitamin deficiency often lead to mental ailment in indigenous patients, rendering them too weak for shock treatments, which could be fatal (Govindaswamy 1970a: 157). Yet half a century later, in the 1950s, Govindaswamy was lamenting the fact that ‘systematic clinical and theoretical training is nowhere given’ in India due to a lack of well-­ qualified mental specialists and that ‘examination to the standard of DPM or MD is out of the question’ (Govindaswamy 1970b: 136–137). Despite the structural façade of modernity and the establishment of organizations such as Girindrasekhar Bose’s Indian Psychoanalytic Society in 1921 (Nandy 2001: 83), no institute of applied psychology existed that included training in aspects of psychiatry. Recommendations to implement psychiatric training were made to the central government by the Indian Science Congress in 1946, but little progress had been made by the following decade. India, for the most part, it would not be inappropriate to say, is still beleaguered by 18th, 19th and early 20th-century colonial attitudes to mental illness/disability and cultural ‘deviancy’ judged from within the parameters of British-European patterns of acceptable social behaviour. In particular, the social upheaval during the partition of India into two major nations witnessed a substantial increase in mental illness out of sheer dislocation, dispossession, dishonour and the prospect of long-term unemployment. The severity of psychological illness was high, especially among those on the move. Records of the extent of suffering under these circumstances only remain in certain oral histories of women survivors on all three sides of the partitions, which present-day feminist activists in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have begun to systematically document. The story of how colonial discourse succeeded in infusing a sense of moral and mental debilitation on the part of the colonized continues to unfold in its legal system. The Indian Penal Code on mental illness formulated in 1912 (‘Lunacy Act’) basically regards mental illness to be a form of ‘lunacy’ and makes little or no differentiation between madness and criminality. The National 90

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Mental Health Policy of 1986 and the ensuing Mental Health Act of 1987, which supposedly brings the 1912 Act in line with contemporary psychiatry, still fail to make clear distinctions between madness, insanity and criminality and mental retardation. Thus, the West Bengal High Court in 1992 identified 1,250 mentally ill patients confined under the so-called lunacy ordinances alongside criminal offenders. The Bench emphasized the fundamental rights of every citizen to physical and mental health, ordering the state to upgrade psychiatric services and integrate mental health with primary healthcare provisions.3 Elsewhere, ethical concerns about malpractices in psychiatric institutions have been reported by women’s groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and investigative journalists. While such concerns have become part of academic and medical professionals’ deliberations, there was little evidence of imminent reform until the advent of the 21st century (on which more shortly). To continue the narrative on the travails of the 20th century, as Ratnaboli Ray pointed out in 2003 in an alarming discussion paper on the current state of ‘care’ for the mentally ill in West Bengal (2003), patients are literally left to languish in appalling conditions. There is not adequate access to the wards for concerned relatives. Visitors must talk to their loved ones through bars, again reinforcing the association of mental disease with criminality. Harking back to the dark days in 18th-century Britain, no rehabilitation facilities were offered to patients and no privacy was extended to those interred, except when they were placed in an isolation cell. The state, Ray observes, continues its withdrawal from the social sector, and it is left to civil society to step in and take up the cause for basic human rights as enshrined in the UN Declaration, to which India is a signatory. There are a number of NGOs and voluntary groups comprising psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses attempting to set up alternative hospices and psychiatric care centres so that those individuals with symptoms of mental illness or the onset of advanced infirmity can be saved from confinement in rundown asylums, or worse, in prisons. A substantial amount of work in both conceptual and policy management areas, with a keen interest in the ethical issues arising from mental illness, remains to be done in India. Despite the formation of AYUSH (which we will discuss next) and its recommendations therein, the traditionally inscribed approaches to healthcare, by and large, continue to languish. Āyurveda, Unāni (tibb yūnānī), Siddhic, shamanic, homeopathic, herbal, tantra, yoga and such practices, alongside the codes of ethics set out in the ancient texts of Caraka, Suśruta and Vāgbhaṭa are, by and large, overlooked in preference for modernity as the medical ‘holy grail’. Pockets of India’s medical profession have sought to embrace Āyurveda practice, as Bangalore Mental Hospital’s Govindaswamy himself advocated in the 1950s (Govindaswamy 1970c). He believed that the glory of Āyurveda lay in the fact that it was the first medical system to emphasize the psychosomatic aspects of medicine, as similarly recognized by Hippocrates. Govindaswamy was keen to see psychological medicine pioneered in India through ‘a coherent system of interpretive psychiatry’, which would ‘throw light on the psychological problems peculiar to India’ (ibid.: 193). Discussions between the Indian Medical Council and government health authorities have been concentrated on evaluating the extent to which Āyurveda should be taught in medical colleges and the degree of accreditation that should be applied to Āyurvedic training alongside all the requisite funding, rebates and powers in parity with those available to the allopathic guilds. But there are drawbacks as well, especially when someone like the Guru of Yoga and founder of the Patañjali Āyurveda Ltd., Baba Ramdev, tries to peddle his own Āyurveda concoctions and argues that allopathic medicine has failed, e.g., in the case of the so-called Swasari Coronil kit as an 91

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‘evidence-based’ cure for COVID-19 infection. While the AYUSH Ministry re-labelled the product as an acceptable ‘immunity booster’ (alongside turmeric, tulsi, ashwagandha, and yoga), the Delhi High Court judged that Ramdev’s public advertisement of the ‘horse-­ radish’ product as misleading and immoral. There lie the perils. Nevertheless, a word or two needs to be added here to clarify the traditional understanding of mental illness in India, which was referred to in passing earlier. Much of ancient Indian medical thinking, such as in Āyurveda (from āyus, ‘life’), is based on the theory of doṣas, rendered as humours, which manifest in three types, notably, vāta, pitta and kapha. It is with the vitiation and aggravation of the doṣas in the body and the consequent imbalance and excess increase or decrease of one of the humours in the individual that affliction, disease and disturbance of the physical and mental functions occurs. From the very subtle analysis of the intricate workings of the doṣas to rather crude generalizations are to be found in most of these medical treatises, such as this suggestion: when the mind is constantly afflicted by passion, hatred, anger, greed, excitement, fear, attachment, exertion, anxiety and grief, and when he (the individual) is subject to excessive physical assault, in these circumstances, the mind gets seriously affected, and awareness is impaired. The doṣas get vitiated and enter the hṛdya (heart region) and obstruct the channels of mind causing insanity … insanity is to be known as the agitated or unsettled state of mind, awareness, perception, knowledge, memory, involvement, virtue, behaviour and conduct (Carakasaṃ hitā-nidanasthāna, 7–4, 5). Insanity comes in various types, clustered under two basic symptoms: exogenous and endogenous. Unwholesome climatic conditions and other environmental factors that cause stress on the individual’s mind distort intelligence and memory (such as toxins and intoxicants and ill-suited or nutrient-deficient diet) are among the former. The propensity is also created by the individual’s bad deeds in previous lives or other pre-existing conditions and ailments. It is interesting to note that the ancients attribute causes of insanity in some instances to non-human agencies as well, such as the malignant gaze of the gods, the curse of elders and seers, the apparition of manes, the touch of Gandharvas (heavenly minstrels) and seizures by invisible objects (grahas), such as demons and possession by animist spirits (Suśruta saṃ hitā Sātrasthāna I-74).

WHO: World Mental Health Report4 The World Health Organization recently released the World Mental Health Report (20 June 2022). Here are some of the key points and highlights from the report (presented in bullet form for ease of reading):

• Globally, almost a billion people lived with mental health conditions in 2019 (14% being adolescents). So afflicted, dying by suicide accounted for 1/100 deaths (half being before the age of 50). • The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the situation where people were mentally stressed, suffering from bouts of depression, anxiety and malnutrition. Concomitantly, death by suicide rose among lower economic communities who had little knowledge or wherewithal of how to access mental health help and support or simply could not afford to (e.g., among coloured, gendered and marginalized communities in the United States; among students and entrepreneurs in India that saw an increase by 6.1%). • There was a spike in depressive disorders and anxiety in the first year of the pandemic (2020). 92

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• Other structural threats to mental well-being besides the pandemic include social and • • • •

economic inequalities, public health emergencies, gender inequities, war and the climate crisis. Those living with mental health issues live some two decades less than the general population. Access to mental health services remains poor. Globally, 71% of psychosis patients do not receive treatment. High-income countries provide treatment to 70% of psychosis patients, and low-income countries manage the same for just 12%. The WHO’s report lists three key ‘paths to transformation’ to quicken progress on the Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2030, but progress has been slow. These include deprofessionalization (from institutional dependence to community engagements), more focused investment in mental health at all levels and reshaping environments, such as homes, communities, schools, workplaces and healthcare services that influence mental health and strengthening the quality of mental health care by diversifying it.

India’s Mental Health Challenges

• High Public Health Burden: According to the National Mental Health Survey 2016

• • •

• • •

report, an estimated 150 million people across India – i.e., one in every six Indians or 13.7% of the population – suffer from lifetime psychiatric disorders or are in need of mental health care interventions (Gautham et al. 2020; cf. Gururaj and Isaac 2004). (The figures vary; some reports place the estimates at half the above.5) Lack of Resources: A low proportion of the mental health workforce in India (per 100,000 population) includes psychiatrists (0.3), nurses (0.12), psychologists (0.07) and social workers (0.07). Low financial resource allocation of just over 1% percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on mental healthcare has created impediments in public access to affordable mental healthcare. Other Challenges: Improvised awareness about the symptoms of mental illness, social stigma and abandonment of the mentally ill, especially the old and destitute, leading to social isolation and reluctance on the part of family members to seek treatment for the afflicted. This has resulted in a massive treatment gap. Post-Treatment Gap: Proper rehabilitation of mentally ill persons post their treatment is currently not satisfactorily present. Rise in Severity: Mental health problems tend to increase during downturns in economic conditions.

Government Initiatives for Mental Health in India

• Constitutional Provision: The Supreme Court of India has consistently maintained healthcare to be a Fundamental Right under Article 21 of the Constitution.

• National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) 1982 was the first such initiative to address the huge burden of mental disorders and the shortage of qualified professionals and research on biosocial factors in the field of mental health. 93

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• The program was re-strategized in 2003 to include two schemes, viz., Modernization of • •

• • •

•

•

•

•

State Mental Hospitals and Up-Gradation of Psychiatric Wings of Medical Colleges/ General Hospitals. This was followed by the National Mental Health Policy 2014, which envisioned a more expanded scheme with the states playing a role in the delivery of mental health care. Mental Health Care Act 2017 has given the pledge to protect, promote, and fulfil the rights of persons with mental illness (PMI). It has, by the same token, placed the onus on the state to provide and mobilize affordable access to mental health care and treatment services. However, the implementation of the benign agenda at every stratum of society, particularly in poor or low-income sectors and rural and remote areas, leaves much to be desired. It has significantly reduced the scope of Section 309 IPC and made the attempt to commit suicide punishable only as an exception, calling instead for a compassionate treatment of the attempted suicide. Kiran Helpline: In 2020, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment launched a 24/7 toll-free helpline ‘Kiran’ to provide support to people facing anxiety, stress, depression, suicidal inclinations and other mental health concerns. Manodarpan: Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan. The Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) launched this initiative under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. Its aim is to mobilize bio-psychosocial support to students, family members and teachers for their mental health – as well as care during the times of COVID-19. Such services, however, remain underutilized by mental health patients and affected communities. This is consistent with the intent of providing specialized services not only through AIMS, increasing the number of medical colleges and postgraduate seats in psychiatry, supporting the growth of primary and secondary care facilities, but also the private sector (which, though is fraught with its own inconsistencies as mentioned earlier), as well as making available affordable psychotic medications, especially to the poor and marginalized communities. ASHA: This is another initiative of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which extends to care for the mentally ill. It is based on community-level care provision, which includes facilitating access to healthcare services, building awareness about healthcare entitlements, especially among the poor and marginalized, promoting healthy safety practices, such as sanitation, and mobilizing collective action for betterment in health and meeting curative care needs, and skillful service delivery. Swachh Mansikta Abhiyan: a campaign to educate the masses about mental illness, its threats and the resources available or accessible. Here, basic counselling, empathy-based therapies and follow-up care at extant or operational health and wellness sub-centres would be imperative. There are numerous more schemes, such as Ayushman Bharat, Samarth, Sahyogi, Sambhav, Prerna and Vastalya, supplemented with District Mental Health Program that are wonderful initiatives. The Ayushman Bharat scheme boasts of being the world’s largest non-contributory government-sponsored health insurance scheme that enables increased access to in-patient healthcare for the poor, women of lower income and tribal classes and vulnerable families in secondary and tertiary facilities. These schemes call for taluk-level interventions, daycare centres and community-based interventions. Some states, such as Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat Kerala and Delhi, are far ahead in 94

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meeting the goals of these schemes than other states, union territories, protectorates and regions across the country. • Dawa aur Dua scheme (medicine and prayer in place of Daaru, alcohol) is the government’s encouragement of traditional healing services combined with a mental health workforce. Since healers whose practices are based on traditional knowledge systems (from among all the religions prevalent in India) have been an integral part of the healthcare system at the grassroots level, their wisdom and curative efforts are not to be underestimated or ignored. Their methods may include herbal remedies, homeopathy, holy water, turmeric baths, fumigation with incense, de-possession (of apparent spirits), pūjā-s, religious rites and rituals, observing fasts, making pledges (e.g., to deities to complete pilgrimage to holy sites, some sacrifices), blessing talisman with sacred inscriptions or yantras. • E-MANAS: The government also launched a program called Digital India, which constitutes an alternative to face-to-face consultations. MHCA 2017 and Telepathic Medicine Practice Guidelines-2020 are encouraging the tapping of the full potential of telehealth for India and showing the way for global healthcare. To [be] accountable, responsive and to fulfil the obligation of MHCA 2017, the Department of Health, Government of Karnataka (GOK), India, initiated a digital innovation portal titled ‘Mental Healthcare Management System’ (e-MANAS; manas obviously being a play on Sanskrit for ‘mind’, or in neuroscience parlance, the brain and its cortical-cum-cognitive functions). This is a collaborative initiative with the Tele-Medicine Centre, NIMHANS, Electronic Health Research Centre and other such innovative resource-builders and patient data-collection technologies.

Conclusion Indigenous self-understanding, generally of mind/body/behaviour and moral conduct, and more specifically of ‘madness’, had arguably a much longer, differently marked and complex history, grounded in the high traditions of Āyurveda (Brāhmaṇic traditional medicine), Unāni (Arabo-Persian), Siddha-Tantrika (South Indian and Yogic Alchemical medicine), and a plethora of local and ‘folk’ traditions, such as Vaid (humour imbalances and ‘possession exorcism’), and meditative self-hypnosis. Hence India’s tradition of healing for the mentally ill never took place within an institutional setting – which is not a handicap, but rather seen as a blessing, given the recent critical postmodernity’s deconstruction of the institutionalization of mental illness and concomitantly mental healthcare, particularly with excessive biomedicalization of mental illness and the rise of asylum culture (Bathhouse; Bluestone Psychiatric Wards, Mysore ‘Lunatic’ Hospital, NIMHANS of the 1950s, etc.). As Suresh Bada Math (2020), beginning with a citation from Patel and Xiao (2016) poignantly recounts, ‘Mental Health has received a lower priority in India … MHCA [Mental Health Care Act] 2017 grants a legally binding right to mental health care to over 1.3 billion population’. Disability allowance and comprehensive insurance schemes for the care of the mentally ill have not yet been conceived of or successfully implemented at a national scale; in the way, for example, these have been incorporated in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom or in the state Medicare system in Australia and New Zealand. Third party managed insurance schemes that comprise multiple stakeholders lead to compromises and lack of accountability, and render them unaffordable to the poor (hence inequitable and gender-periled vis-à-vis the middle-class patients), and eventually lead to corruption as even the hospitals (private but also public) turn away patients. 95

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After the advent of colonization, there occurred an intersection of ‘Western’ medicine: modern, empirical, institutionally based, with ‘Eastern’ medical practice – traditional, holistic, intuitively formed – that informed bodies of knowledge which are seldom sutured together in an effort to extend understanding beyond science’s disciplinary demarcations. The mental health situation, therefore, in India calls for active policy interventions and more intensive resource allocation by the government. Efforts at all levels need to be made to obliterate the stigma and stereotypes associated with mental illness or psychiatric conditions (diagnosed or otherwise manifest), with supplemental measures to train and sensitize the broader social community. In other words, a more integrated, deprofessionalized, multidisciplinary and communitarian – rather than the crippling libertarian approach, which is endemic to the corporate mentalité – approach is called for. The apex court in India cautioned not to treat the mental health of a person with a one-size-fits-all approach, emphasizing the need for sensitivity to the complexity and gravity of mental health issues. Numerous ‘packages’ or programmatic blueprints have been proposed by mental health workers, psychiatric institutions or mental health research units, advocacy groups, intellectuals, NGOs, outreach volunteers (seva dalis), foreign research fellows, court benches and government commissions of inquiry, but the way forward would require India to increase, both centrally and state-territory-wise, substantially its percentile GDP commitment towards education and creation of awareness about mental health and chronic issues around it, as well as collaborative support for systematic rather than systemic interventions at all the many levels where mental illness both manifests itself and cries out or begs for help. That is not just a national policy need but indeed a moral and universal imperative.

Notes 1 Some of the cases and texts drawn upon here are reported in Bilimoria et al. (2007) q.v.; see also next note. And also Sarin et al. (2016) and Murthy, Isaac, and Dabholkar (2017). 2 Drawn from HONS, History of NIMHAMS, project of psychiatrists at NIMHANS and Indian philosophers from Australia; see Mad Natives and HONS publication if found. Some further data and historical data are derived from the conference ‘Psychiatry in the New Millennium: Challenges to the Global Community,’ held in NIMHANS in 10–12 February 2005, where the investigators, Jain, Mills, Murthy, Percival Wood and Bilimoria made presentations of their findings from historical research conducted by the team and in the archives, drawing also on the prior works of Renuka Sharma and Sally Percival Wood ‘British Psychiatry: History of Madness and the Phenomenology of Mental Illness in Colonial India: The Mysore Syndrome’, HIMHANS Project Papers, 2003. 3 ‘Lunacy’, June 16, Case Finder 96, EBC Publishing. 4 The reports drawn on for this section of the discussion include the following sources and are woven together in the narrative, eschewing references to individual authors, as coupe of them have none indicated. DTE, Drishti IAS, June 2020, Drishtiias https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/ daily-news-analysis/world-mental-health-report-who. Discussion on the World Mental Health Report 2022, at the India International Centre, 12 August 2022, in particular by Pratima Murthy (NIMHANS), ‘Mental Health Care in India: Inform, Reform, Transform’. 5 https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/issue-of-mental-health

References Bandyopadhyay, G.K., Ghoshal, M., Saha, G. and Singh, O.P., 2018, February. ‘History of Psychiatry in Bengal’. Indian Journal of Psychiatry; 60(Suppl. 2): 192–197.

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Mental Illness and Mental Health Justice Bhattacharyya, Anouska 2013. Indian Insanes: Lunacy in the ‘Native’ Asylums of Colonial India, 1858–1912. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL. InstRepos:11181217 Block, Sidney, and Green, Stephen A. 2006. ‘An ethical framework for psychiatry’, The British Journal of Psychiatry; (188): 7–12 (online 02 January 2018, Cambridge University Press; https://www. cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry). Bathgate, David. 2003. ‘Psychiatry, Religion and Cognitive Science’. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.; 37: 277–285. Bilimoria, Purushottama, Sanjeev Jain, J.H. Mills, Prathima Murthy, Sally Percival Wood (with Renuka Sharma). 2007. ‘Lost Souls, Troubled Minds: Medicalization of Madness in the Mysore State During the Rāj’, in P. Bilimoria and M.K. Sridhar (eds.). Traditions of Science: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, 135–156. Delhi/Philadelphia: Munshiram Manoharlal with John Templeton Foundation Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1978. ‘Cogito and the History of Madness’, in Jacques Derrida (ed.). Writing and Difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Double, Duncan 2020. ‘Towards a History of Antipsychiatry’ (Correspondence with a short bibliography). Lancet. 7 June: 478. Foucault, M. 1994. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. New York: Vintage Books. ———. 2004. Madness and Civilization. London and New York: Routledge Classics. Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums. Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York: Anchor Books. Govindaswamy, M. V. 1938. The Mysore Government Mental Hospital, Bangalore, India, 1938 (Selfpublished booklet for the inauguration of the new Mental Hospital). ———. 1970a. ‘Cardiazol Treatment of Schizophrenic and Allied States in Indian patients’, Lecture XIV delivered at the Indian Institute of World Culture, Bangalore, India, between 1935 and 1959. Series ed. Prof. S. K. Ramachandra Rao, Bangalore: Smt. Vimala Govindaswamy, 1970 (private circulation; History of Psychiatry in Mysore, NIMHANS Archives). ———. 1970b. ‘Need for Research in Systems of Indian Philosophy and Ayurveda with Special Reference to Psychological Medicine’, Lecture XVIII: 283–286. ———. 1970c. ‘Mental Disorder in India – A Review and A Prospect’, Lecture XI: 283–286. Gururaj, G. and Isaac, M. K. 2004. “Psychiatric epidemiology in India: Moving beyond numbers”, in Agarwal, S. P. (ed.) Mental Health: An Indian Perspective, Directorate General of Health Services, New Delhi: Elsevier. Gautham, M.S., Gururaj, G., Vargese, M. et al. 2020. ‘The National Mental Health Survey of India (2016): Prevalence, socio-demographic correlates and treatment gap of mental morbidity.’ International Journal of Social Psychiatry. June 66(4): 361–372. Jain, Sanjeev. 2000. ‘Empires and the Mind’, Deccan Herald (India), 20 August 2000, Op-ed. ———. n.d. ‘Modern Specialists: the Lunatic Asylum, Bangalore and its Successors’, paper given at The Nehru Centre, London, 8 May. Jain, Sanjeev, Murthy, Pratima and Shankar, S.K. 2001. ‘Neuropsychiatric Perspectives from Nineteenth-Century India: The Diaries of Dr. Charles I. Smith’, in History of Psychiatry, xii. London: The Royal College of Psychiatry. Kleinman. 1980. Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lorraine Code. 1991. What Can She Know. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Law Teacher (anonymous). 2021. Case Studies on Insanity in Indian Law. 27th Sept. Law Study Resources/ Medical Law. https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/medical-law/lunacy-orunsound-mind-mental-abnormality.php Light, Donald. 1980. Becoming Psychiatrists. The Professional Transformation of Self. New York: Norton.1980. Math, Suresh Bada. 2020. ‘Mental Healthcare Management System (e-Manas) to Implement India’s Mental Healthcare Act, 2017’. Asian Journal of Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ajp.2020.102391 McCulloch, Jock. 1995. Colonial Psychiatry and the African Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Purushottama Bilimoria Murthy, P., Isaac, M. and Dabholkar, H., 2017, February. ‘Hospitals in India in the 21st Century: Transformation and Relevance’. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences; 26(1): 10–15. Nandy, Ashis. 1983 (2001). The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism in Return from Exile. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 1988. Science, Hegemony and Violence. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 2001. ‘The Savage Freud: The First Non-Western Psychoanalyst and the Politics of Secret Selves in Colonial India’, The Savage Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves, published in Return from Exile. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Patel, V. and Xiao, S., et al. 2016. ‘The Magnitude Of and Health System Responses to the Mental Health Treatment in Adults in India and China’. Lancet; 388(10063): 3074–3084. Ray, Ratnaboli. 2003, January. ‘Of Human Bondage: Glimpses into the Human Rights Situation of the Mentally Ill in West Bengal’. Indian Journal of Medical Ethics; 11(1). www.issuesinmedicalethics. org/111di015.html Sarin, A., Jain, S. and Murthy, P. 2016. More than Brick and Mortar. Reconstructing Histories of Mental Hospitals in India. Bangalore: National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences. Seth, Mridula. 2020. Minding the Mind: a Volunteer’s Insights on Mental Health. Chennai: Notion Press. Sharma, Renuka. 1996. Gender, Identity and the Politics of Subjectivity. In Representations of Gender, Democracy and Identity Politics in Relation to South Asia. Delhi: Indian Books Centre. ———. 2014. Empathy Theory and Applications in Psychotherapy (with introduction by Karin Brown). New Delhi: DK Printworld. Taylor, Mark C. 1987. Altarity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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6 EMBRYO ETHICS Traditional Hindu Perspective* Piyali Mitra

Introduction The Hindu tradition is amongst the oldest living religious and moral philosophies, which bears a multifaceted approach to reality; it manifests itself under different aspects and guises (bahurūpa). Advancement in reproductive technologies may represent a headway in procreation, but the anxiety over the misuse (and abuse) of such technologies can hardly be ignored. The diversity of alternative views presents distinctive challenges concerning human embryonic use for research. Ethicists tend to value the embryo as a potential person who merits protection. Consequentialists espoused that for greater humanity’s sake, an embryo whose potentiality has not been actualized could be risked in the course of experimentation and intricate research. But not all moral philosophers across cultures agreed on this position. This is an age-old moral quiddity in embryo ethics that is not easy to resolve since there is much uncertainty and complexity around the work as if it were of the humble yet magical embryo. The Hindu idea of medical ethics grounded on the promotion of preservation and sustention of life as righteous living is balanced by the thought that the flaws in the natural process are to be rectified and repaired to prevent them from becoming life-threatening. Medicine, which had a humble beginning, took a major leap from magico-religious therapeutics to rational therapeutics that is from daivavyapāśraya bheṣaja to yuktivyapāśraya bheṣaja (Chattopadhyaya 1971: 4). With a conviction that this approach would be able to address the pressing problems of the day, the chapter addresses the socio-medical issues arising out of embryo research through analysis of ancient Hindu texts. The ancient physician made an uninhibited understanding of the world and human beings derived from the same fundamental matter called bhūta, which is understood as existing in five-root forms – pañcabhūta. The roots of the concept of person or world should be traced back to the Vedic era. *  I wish to express gratitude to Darryl Macer of Bioethics and Biomedical Sciences in the University of

Sovereign Nations (US) for invitation to the Asian Bioethics Conference in Dhaka, 2019. Shamima Parvin Lasker, Secreatry of Bangladesh Bioethics Society, published a version of my report in the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 2021, 12/3: 11–19. Purushottama Bilimoria edited and provided help with Sanskrit.

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DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-9

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Concept of Person and Consciousness in Hinduism Hinduism, as ‘sanātana dharma’, is said to be a universal religion not founded by any prophet or guru but is rather based on the timeless sustaining of values of all life. Hinduism believes that the first being to tread each of the designated cyclical ages or manvantaras is a progenitor similar to the Western biblical Adam known by the name Manu. The Primeval Being called Puruṣa is the whole universe, the lord of immortality, the creator and is the prototype of the microcosmic man who is the individual being (Puruṣa-sūkta 10.90.8–14, Rao & Rao 2006). ‘Taittīriya Brāhmana’ speaks of Parama Puruṣa – the Supreme Being, the sole king of the entire universe – the world architect, the creator of the sky earth, not affected by the fruits of actions (Wilkins 1900). The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇ a relates that Puruṣa, the spirit of the universe, was alone. He did not enjoy happiness and desired a second and thus propelled the same self to rent asunder, dividing into two parts, from which arose male and female components. Thus were created beings that populated the universe. The Bhagavad Gītā explains that the human person is composed of an individual self, called ātman, whose nature is of pure consciousness; Brahman or Puruṣa has a complement of materiality called Prakṛti. Prakṛti, or matter, is lifeless but possesses a creative force and properties of goodness, passion and apathy. It is to be noted that one side of this composite is irreducible to the other, yet the self and the matter co-exist in an intimate relationship that comprises the human with its unique sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’. Matter, when it comes into union with self, becomes active and procreant (Lipner 2010: 160). In Sāṁkhya philosophy, Puruṣa and Prakrti combine to form the embryo from which the world emerged. Ṛgveda (10.121, Griffith 1896) mentions Hiraṇ yagarbha (literally, golden embryo or womb) that existed before creation. While some state the cosmic architect Brahmā emerged from the Hiraṇ yagarbha and created the world, others consider Brahmā himself to be Hiraṇ yagarbha. The Lord projects creatures into being from time immemorial with the aid of matter (Prakṛti) through the instrumentality of his magical power (māyā). The individual self is encased by the five sheaths (kośa-s) unleased by the power of ignorance (māyā). The Advaita Vedānta describes it as being hidden from sight, like the water of a pond covered with weeds. When the weeds are removed, the water is revealed and can be used by beings to quench their thirst and cool down from the heat (Ramaṇ a and Śaṅkara 2005, pp. 3–32). The Self is distinguishable from the material body and all forms as is a stalk of grass encased in its sheaths of leaf. The human being is an image of the Primeval Person (Puruṣa), either totally identical to the Absolute Being (Brahman) or a part or mode that exists in the supreme personal Being. Hindu metaphysics conceives of the basic characteristics of the human being to be rational – that is, cit or better still, have caitanya, self-illuminating light of consciousness (svayamjyotiṣṭva). In the waking state, an individual being’s consciousness is directed outwards to external objects; this marks the first articulation of the principle of intentionality (Mohanty 2008). It experiences gross objects through the five external motor sense-organs, five vital forces and four internal organs – mind, intellect, ego-sense and citta. There is a consensus among biologists that despite the presence of anatomical parts, the absence of consciousness leads to the collapse of the body. A living being not only comprises molecules, bones, tissues, cells and so forth, but most importantly, it is founded upon consciousness (Mautrana 1970, pp. 1–58). This is corroborated in the Gītā as ‘yathā prakāśayatyekaḥ kṛtsnaṃ lokam imaṃ raviḥ kṣetraṃ kṣterī tathā kṛtsnaṃ prakāśayati bhārata’ (Bhagavad Gītā 13.34, Swarupananda 1967). This means – O son of Bharata, as the sun alone 100

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illuminates all this universe, so does the living entity, one within the body, illuminate the entire body by consciousness. Consciousness is absolutely necessary for the living body to function as it does (Shanta 2015, p. 8). Ātman is the seat of consciousness. Pippalada asserts that just as the emperor functions and rules over the people, so does the prāṇa (breath) engage the other organ of the human body (Praśṇa Upaniṣad 3.3, 3.4, Sharvananda 1922); the self (ātman) resides within the very heart. There are thousands of veins and meridians (nāḍis) in the body, which branch out into many more. Along these veins travels the link breath (samāna). Upon death, the upward breath, which is considered to be the essence of fire (agni/tejas), rises and transports a person to the world of good or bad, depending on their deeds. The question that now arises is whether an embryo, the core of creation, is entitled to the same status as a human being in the Hindu context.

Embryology and Sentience in Hinduism In the Vedic Cosmo genesis, as pointed out earlier, the reproduction of Parama Puruṣa Prajāpati is the prototype of all procreation, and in the case of the individual person, the cosmic emanation of Prajāpati finds replication in the effusion of semen (san̄jñā) which constitutes the essence of humanity. According to Carakasaṃ hitā also, the ejaculated semen enters the ovary, and it comprises equal parts of air (vāyu), fire (tejas), water (ap), earth (prithvi) and ether (ākāśa) (Sharma 2014). It is said that conception does not occur simply because of the communion or fecundation of the male’s seminal fluid with the woman’s blood making up the ovary (lahu, raktta, khūn); rather, it requires the combination of ātman along with the subtle body consisting of paňcamahābhutas, and these subtle constituents are further conjugated or, as it were, determined by dint of the individual’s previous karma. The Yājňavalkya Smṛti (YS) (Verse 72–74, Gharpure 1941) maintains that the beginning-less self desiring new beginning wishes itself to be embodied along with the pleasurable indriyas (sense-organs) and the vital elements in continuation from its previous birth and some impact of hereditary traits. Conception is described in terms of molecular motion and their continuous adjustment – dividing (mitosis) and reconstructing (blastocyst) within an organic condition – supported by ethereal vibrations. In the very first month, the zygote, turning into an ‘implantation’ in the womb, remains in a fluid condition submerged in the six elements (dhātuvimūrchḥ itaḥ ) of earth, fire, etc. In short, it is in the liquid state. In the second month to the ninth week, being stirred by cold winds in the abdomen and the heat in the solar plexus, it becomes slightly hardened and is shaped in the form of a tumour (arbudam); it may even cling to the walls of the womb, and if not properly formed may even damage the womb, or self-abort (called miscarriage). If the arbudam survives, then in the third month, the limbs with organs are generated, setting it in the foetal state. The light motion of the foetus in the womb develops in the fourth month. YS (Verse 79) states that from the third month of conception, the desire of the pregnant mother is on the way to being fulfilled. In this period, granting the mother’s wish would also be fulfilling the foetus’ desire. The mind, the seat of consciousness, is developed in the fifth month. Cognition (buddhi), along with vitality, develops in the seventh month. In the seventh month also, the baby is endowed with chetasā (vitality) and reverberating with pulses – that is, the wind circulators, the arteries and the ligaments get connected with the navel. In the eighth month, there is the development of skin (tvachā), flesh (māṅsena) and memory (smṛti). In the eighth 101

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month, the garbha or foetus loses its vital power (oja) to the mother and again regains it. So an embryo born in the eighth month would be deprived of vital breaths (ato aṣtame māsi jāto garbhaḥ prāḥ airvijajyate). The oja has been described as subsiding in the heart of pure nature, slightly hot and having a yellow tinge and in the ‘body upon its destruction, it goes to destruction’ (Verse 82). With fully developed limbs and organs, the embryo/baby in the navame daśame vāpi (navame- ninth, api- even (va) or before, daśame-tenth) with extreme labour pain will be thrown out like an arrow (born) through its cavity by the forceful wind causing delivery. With the birth and in contact with air, the baby loses memories of past birth and death (Verse 83).1 The Garbhopaniṣad (Aiyar 1914, pp. 116–123) holds in the seventh month; quickening happens when an embryo becomes unified with the jīva (which is the term applicable to the heretofore embodied ātman). In the eighth month, the essential organs (such as the kidney, liver, stomach, heart, nerve chains, and brain) become fully developed. In the ninth month, the foetus expands in size. Śukla, or the seminal fluid, is of the man, and śoṇita, or the vital energy, is of the woman. By themselves, each of the constituents is powerless or neutral, but their confluence or fecundation results in conception taking place at the level of the zygote. Out of the preponderance of the father’s seed, a son is born; with the preponderance of the mother’s seed, a daughter. With the confluence of śukla and soṇiṭa, a child is born reflecting the qualities and form of a father just as a true image of the original is reflected in the mirror. If afflicted with vāyu (apana), there would be vital air trouble at the time of coming close to śukla and śoṇita. If the śukla bursts forth into the womb in two parts, it will lead to the conception of twins. It is common for a womb to conceive one embryo. But sometimes, there may be two; the conception of three embryos in a womb is as rare as one in a thousand. In the ninth month, the body composed of the five elements is able to cognize odour, taste etc., through spiritual fire or tejas. It mediates on the imperishable Oṃkāra. It develops cognition. The body develops and identifies the oneness of its existence with the eight prakṛtis or nature (Aiyar 1914, p. 119) and the 16 vikāras or changes. The baby obtains prāṇa when food and drink are transmitted to the mother through her nāḍis. This embodied jīva still within the womb, fully possessed of its characteristics, then remembers the series of its earlier incarnations and also discriminates the nature of its past actions. Lamenting and remembering its past deeds and fainting in its heart at the thought of its ajñana (or ignorance), with its head down and its feet moved upward, wishing to obtain release, comes to the mouth of the womb and is born with the much pain and suffering. After being born and touched by an all-pervading māyā, the newborn forgets its imponderable previous lives and past actions. Suśruta-saṃhitā (SS) maintains that in the fourth month of prenatal development, awareness as a distinct category (cetanādhātu) gets manifested in relation to the development of the embryo’s heart. ‘As heart is the seat of consciousness, so as the heart becomes potent, it is endowed with consciousness and hence it expresses its desire for things of taste, smell etc. (through the longings of its mother)’ (Bhishagratna 1911, Nidānasthāna [vol. II]: 138). The mind develops in the embryo in the fifth month and wakes up from the sleep of its hitherto sub-conscious existence. Buddhi or intelligence gets manifested in the sixth month, and in the corresponding months, the embryo becomes markedly developed. In the eighth month, the ojo-dhātu (or vital energy) may transpire from the foetal body to the mother. The SS, like the YS, pointed out that a child born in the eighth month dies for lack of ojo-dhātu (Bhishagratna, 1911:140). Oja is the vital nectar of life. It is the essence of all 102

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dhātus (substantial elements) and the superfine essence of all the reproductive tissue (śukradhātus), and this provides vitality, strength and immunity, enabling a person’s physical activities (Shastri 2007, Chapter 15, Verse 24). Oja has been defined either as protoplasmic matter present in cells (vindus) or as albumen or the strength-giving principle (Bhishagratna 1911, Vol. I, p. 130). Oja is the sap of one’s life energy. When present in abundance, it provides immunity, while its deficiency results in weakness and fatigue. While focusing on human life, what is important at the metaphysical level is the presence of consciousness, which provides impetus to human life. Maharṣi Punarvasu has elucidated consciousness as the most distinctive characteristic of life and āyus (Bhishagratna 1911, Vol. II, p. viii). Caraka explains that ‘Āyus’ means the conjunction of body, sense-organs, mind and self (Sharma 2014, Vol. I, Verse 42, p. 6). The self is the permanent subject of all acts of consciousness (cetanā-pratisandhāta). The self is the knower (kṣetrajña), the seer (draṣṭā), the witness (sākṣi) and the immutable. The composite whole of cit and acit (consciousness and unconsciousness), knower and known, compromises the total personality called jīva or jīvātman. To be conscious means to react in a certain way to our environment and to introspect about our inner thoughts and feelings. Conscious beings not only react to external objects, but they know that they are reacting (in other words, there is attentive self-reflexivity or svayaṃ saṃ vedanā). The stone, for example, we know is not aware of its moment of reaction, but if it is, it would have consciousness (though perhaps it has a modicum of, albeit, nonself-reflexive consciousness, as the Jaina and Sāṃkhya ontologies would have it). The matter at stake here is whether the embryo possesses or is marked by fullblown consciousness, which would include attentive self-consciousness). Garbha or conception occurs when the semen and the ovum in the uterus and the self take hold of the mahābhūtas contributed by the united impregnating matter, assuming a subtle shape and remaining confined in the uterus to be subsequently evolved as an embryo on the way to becoming a human person. The embryo is in a state of blissful slumber. The ‘waking’ state comes about after the state of sleep is over, and it depends upon the embryo developing to the point where it is endowed with consciousness. There are various opinions about when the embryo is endowed with consciousness. The Garbhopaniṣad states that it is in the seventh month onwards from the conception that the embryo gets endowed with consciousness. Suśruta points out that when the heart develops, consciousness as a distinct category becomes manifested. It is believed that the self never becomes dissociated from the subtle and sense-transcending bhūtas and past deeds and transmigrates into the embryo from another body. But the self is unable to produce itself. In such a scenario, the question would arise whether the self produces itself while born or unborn, as in both ways, it is untenable. Since a born self cannot be produced from an already born self, and an unborn self cannot do so, as it is non-existing. Even if it may be presumed the self produces itself, in that case, why is it not reproduced in the desired species endowed with supreme power, manifesting pleasure, brilliance and strength, while also being bereft of disease, old age, death and deformities? The Sāṃkhya-kārika responds to this question by speaking of a subtle body (sūkṣma deha), which continues to exist until the separation of the puruṣa principle from the ensnares of prakṛti, as described earlier. At each birth, it receives a new body, and at each death, it leaves the same. The Vaiśeṣika, on the other hand, refuses to accept the existence of a subtle body and assigns it no place in embryonic development. Śrīdhara (Nyāyakandali p. 33) stated that after the communion of the seminal fluid of the father along with the mother’s blood, there is a change in the atoms due to the heat of in the womb such that the old form 103

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is destroyed and newer similar qualities get produced in place. Through the formation of dyads and triads, the foetus’s body forms, and then there enters the mind (antaḥ karaṇa), which could not do so earlier at the level of the combination of semen and blood, for the mind needs the corporeal base for its support. Then, with the combination of unseen power (adṛṣṭa), the embryo disintegrates by the heat of the womb into atoms and together with nourishment, the atoms conglomerate to form a new body. This shows that subtle body and mind have nothing to do with the development of the embryo. The heat of the womb is responsible for all disintegration, re-combination and formation. It is held that though consciousness is produced by a conjunction of several constituents, such as manas (mind), indriyas (senses) and the external objects or viṣayas, it inheres in the self of which it is also an attribute (extraneous or dispensable). According to the Vaiśeṣika and its further development in the Nyāya doctrine, even the self is not an eternal possessor of consciousness, not even reflexive self-consciousness as we spoke of earlier (Saxena 1944, p. 44). Persona (and all living beings) at the time of death lose their consciousness (intelligent mind) through exorable pain, leaving behind their lamenting relatives (Shastri and Tagare 1950 Verse 18 Skanda-III, p. 399). In fact, in the state of deliverance, the self is bereft of all its qualities, including self-consciousness, which gets manifested when enjoined with the sense-organs, the mind (as the sixth sense) and external objects (Saxena 1944, p. 44). The self is in a state of virtual zombiehood. Hindu texts dealing with the vivid description of embryonic development do not believe in the constant association of the self with consciousness in the embryo or at the foetal stage. The self either loses consciousness because of incessant pain or gets accrued with consciousness at the stage of development of the embryo. Besides this, the embryo which takes shelter in the mother’s womb will be developed when it gets nourished by the food and water intake of the mother, a fully grown human personality (Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.1.8. Olivelle 1998, pp. 438–439). Empirically, life in the embryo would, in a sense, be dependent on the anna or food intake of the mother. Metaphysically, life is nothing else but food or the five mahābhūtas, which get embedded in the seminal fluid of the father to combine with the mother’s ova to achieve conception. The embryo itself cannot develop into a child without being implanted in a woman’s womb. To enable embryonic development, it requires external aid, and thus, it does not have an active potential to develop into a human being without help. Embryos are a part of the human body, and for their sustenance at its initial stage, it has to depend on other people’s bodies until they reach a certain autonomous stage of development. Suśruta attested to this fact when he stated that the umbilical cord (nāḍi) of the embryo is found to be attached to the mother’s artery through which the essence of lymph-chyle (rasa) produced from the assimilated food intake of the mother, gets transmitted in the blood veins. Immediately after the process of fecundation, the dhammani of the mother carrying the lymph-chyle (rasa) gets transmitted in the foetus and tends to foster its growth through its continuance in the womb (Bhishagratna 1911, Vol. II, Chapter III, Verse 17, p. 140). The Vedic embryologist opines that the developing embryo, united to the mother, comes into individual self-becoming (ātmabhūya) with the mother as part of her own. The self that remains latent in the embryo gets impetus with the association of consciousness. Until then, it cannot be a human personality. This is reinforced by the neuro-physiological indication of the embryo. Consciousness demands a sophisticated network of highly interconnected components, nerve cells. Its physical substrate, the thalamocortical complex 104

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that substantiates consciousness with its highly elaborate content, happens to occur between the 24th and 28th week of conception. Roughly two months after, synchrony of the electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythm across both cortical hemispheres signals the beginning of global neuronal integration. Thus, many of the circuit elements required for conscious development begin to grow by the third trimester – that is, beyond the period of the 26th week. The slow wave movement – that is, from sleep to dreaming stages (rapid eye movement – REM) – gets to be located in the brain region at late gestation of the foetus (Koch 2009). To harm an embryo at its earliest stage means it is defeating the interest of the embryo. A being having interest means the being has beliefs, desires, expectations and purposes. But an embryo at its earliest stage of conception is bereft of awareness about these interests. As the embryo is not the subject of such interest, the moral right of the foetus would always stand less in comparison to an adult human being. This is reinstated by the fact that though killing an embryo is considered a mortal sin in a pregnancy where the mother’s life is in balance, Hindu ethics emphasizes the mother’s rights over foetal rights. There is an ancient Indian view that states when the life of the mother is at risk due to pregnancy, the foetus may be aborted (Crawford 1997, p. 32). The life and death of the mother stand high above the esoteric demands of faith. However, the unborn life is no less intrinsically insignificant, only that it, being incomplete, will be born again. Suśruta, which is associated with India’s surgical inheritance, recommends abortion when there is a negligible chance of normal delivery or when the foetus is damaged. When the mal-presentations of the foetus (mūḍhagarbha) cannot be corrected, Suśruta advised termination of pregnancy. Time should not be lost to avert danger to the mother’s life. Suśruta advised performing craniotomy operations to remove the foetus (Ray et al. 1980, Cikitsāsthana 15.6–7). In Hinduism, the sanctity of life is combined with autonomy and self-determination. We humans live in a society and are interdependent, and human action affects one another. Crawford (1974, pp. 222–223) pointed out that Hindu ethics is not absolutist and unbending; rather, it takes on a reflective and contextual standpoint in its dealing with moral problems. The Hindu Dharmaśāstras not only emphasizes the sādhāraṇa dharma and sāmānya duties but upholds bhutahittatva, which is seeking the good of creatures. It allows room for emergency conditions where convention must be superseded in favour of prudence.

Conclusion The crux of the chapter is to enquire whether the embryo has the same moral standing as any human self in Hindu ethics and whether we are defying Hindu moral orders when using embryonic cells for research. The clinical world of conception in India is rooted deeply in its cultural topography and religious thinking. The Hindu texts contend that an embryo is an interim stage of the self’s apparition as a physical form. The Bhāgavad Gītā views that the self is unborn, eternal, changeless and ever-existing and is not killed when the body is annihilated (Swarupananda 1967 Chapter II, Verse 20). The self, being immutable, cannot be slain. The embryo being in an interim stage and the self not being destroyed upon body annihilation, it may be claimed that ‘since destruction or annihilation of the physical form does not destroy the self, experiments on embryos should therefore not be abhorrent to Hindus’ (Bharadwaj & Glasner 2009, p. 35). Jīva, not being mere flesh and bone but a 105

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conscious entity, is crucial and critical in our discussion in regard to the use of embryos for purposes of interventionist or intrusive research. While evaluating the status of an embryo along with a grown human being, we have tried to delve into the function of consciousness. In Hinduism, enquiry or jigñāsā, is the fundamental duty of human life. Humanity begins when questions about the different phases of life experience get aroused in one’s mind. So, inquiry forms the basic foundation of acquiring knowledge. An early human embryo’s reflexive stimulus response capability could be deciphered after four weeks of conception when the cerebral hemispheres begin to be differentiated around the fifth week. By the end of the sixth week, the rudimentary development of the five brain vesicles reaches further advancement. In the seventh week, the pineal gland is formed. The pineal gland was believed to be the seat of consciousness in the pseudo-science by philosophers (Ammon-Wexler 2002). So, the embryo, surely at its very initial stage, does not have the capacity to enquire about the deeper purpose and meaning of life or what is a good life; however, as a potentia becomes a human person, it is endowed with a certain degree of sentience that calls for respect and dignity. Medical research aims to help a person’s longevity in a healthy way. Human life in Hinduism aims to be in union with the Supreme Being, and that makes it more valuable than embryonic cells at a primordial stage, where it has no sensation. The difference is at the level of degree of consciousness (Bhanot 2008). Hinduism has an appreciative understanding of human nature and human history. This sort of approach provides Hindu bioethics a way to rationality, eschewing away the paths of authoritarianism, credulous and emotionalism. The autonomous individual gives due weight to scriptural injunctions, but in the final analysis, he turns towards his own inner conscience, guided by what collective religious experience has defined as being of ultimate value. After advocating the principle of non-maleficence, Hindu bioethics is also committed to the principle of beneficence. In the same breath, Hinduism upholds the sanctity of life. After appropriately satisfying the concerns of non-maleficence and ensuring safety, Hindu bioethics considers embryo research may be morally permissible, considering that its purpose is saving the lives of people. The characteristic of Hindu thought does not restrict itself to one course of action, or being committed to the principle of sanctity of life only, but also includes consideration of the situation at hand and causing the least harm. While it may not be an ideal state of things for society to indiscriminately or unwittingly (in analogy with ‘double-effect’ syndrome) inadvertently destroy embryos for research; however, discovering and farming cures for certain diseases is a potential good for society, ceteris paribus.

Note 1 See also Chapter 7, ‘Abortion, Reproductive Rights and the Unborn – Between Tradition and Modernity’, in this volume, and part of Chapter 3 by Bhosale on the ethics of biotechnology (in reproductive science).

References Aiyar, Nārāyaṇ asvāmi K. 1914. Garbha Upaniṣad: Thirty Minor Upaniṣads. Madras: Annie Besant, Vasanṭā Press. Ammon-Wexler, Jill. 2002. Pineal Gland and Your Third Eye: Develop Your Higher Self. http://www. BuildMindPower.com

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Embryo Ethics Bhanot, Anil. 2008. The ethics of stem cell research: a Hindu view. https://www.bionews.org.uk/ page_91647 Bharadwaj, Aditya and Glasner, Peter. 2009. Local Cells, Global Science: The rise of embryonic stem cell research in India. Oxford, UK: Routledge. Bhishagratna, Kaviraj Kunja Lal (trans. & ed.). 1911. The Suśruta-saṃ hitā. Volume-I & II. Calcutta: Bharat Mihir Press. Chattopadhyaya, Debiprasad (D.P.). 1971. Science and Society in Ancient India. Kolkata: Research India Publication. Crawford, S. Cromwell. 1974. The Evolution of Hindu Ethical Ideas. Kolkata: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay. ———. 1997. Dilemmas of Life and Death: Hindu Ethics in a North American Context. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publication. Gharpure, J.R. 1941. The Collection of Hindu Law Texts Yājňavalkya Smṛti with Mitākṣharā, Viramitrodaya and Dipakalikā Volume-II. Part-VI Bombay: The Collection of Hindu Law Texts. Griffith, Ralph T.H. 1896. The Hymns of the Rgveda. Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Studies. Koch, Christof. 2009. When Does Consciousness Arise? In the womb at birth or during early childhood. Consciousness Redux. https://christofkoch.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/cr-babies-09.pdf. Accessed 27 April 2018. Lipner, Julius. 2010. Hindus: The Religious Beliefs and Practices. Oxford: Routledge. Mautrana, H.R. 1970. Biology of cognition. In Autopoeisis and cognition, ed. H. R. Mautana & F. J. Varela. Dordrecht: Reidel. Mohanty, J.N. 2008. Essays in Indian Philosophy. Ed with Introduction by Purushottama Bilimoria. Delhi/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Olivelle, Patrick. 1998. The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. Ramaṇ a, Maharishi and Śaṅkara. 2005. Ramaṇa, Śaṅkara and the Forty Verses: The Essential Teachings of Advaita. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Rao, S.K. and Rao, Ramachandra. 2006. Puruṣha Sūkta. Bangalore: Sri Aurobindo Kapāli Sāstry Institute of Vedic Culture. Ray, P., Gupta, H. and Roy, M. 1980. Suśruta Saṁhitā: A Scientific Synopsis. Delhi: INSA. Saxena, S.K. 1944. Nature of Consciousness in Hindu Philosophy. Benaras: Nand Kishore & Bros. Shanta, Bhakti Niskama. 2015. Life and consciousness The Vedāntic view. Communicative & Integrative Biology. 8(5): e1085138 (1–11). http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19420889.2015.1085138 Sharma, Priyavrat. 2014. Caraka Saṃ hitā: Agniveśa’s treatise refined and annotated by Caraka and redacted by Dṛḍhabala. Varanasi: Chaukhamba Orientalia. Shastri, J.L. and Tagare, G.V. (trans.). 1950. Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Shastri, Kaviraj Ambikadutta (ed.). 2007. Suśruta Saṃ hitā. Varanasi: Chaukhamba Sanskrit Sansthan. Śrīdhara. 1895. Nyāya Khandali. India: Vizianagram Sanskrit Series. Swami Sharvananda. 1922. Praśṇa Upanishad. Madras: Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore. Swami Swarupananda, (trans.). 1967. Shrimad Bhagavad-Gītā. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama. Wilkins, W.J. 1900. Hindu Mythology, Vedic and Purāṇic. London: W. Thacker & Co.

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7 ABORTION, REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND THE UNBORN Between Tradition and Modernity* Purushottama Bilimoria, M. K. Sridhar and Arvind Sharma

A sharp and clear distinction is often made between the two ways in which a pregnancy could be lost – miscarriage by natural causes (garbhapāta) and embryo or foetal abortion (bhrūṇ ahatyā). Hence also their ramifications – both for the ethical issues involved where an intervention takes place with the intent of removing what would otherwise become, arguably, a human person and the code of medical practice governing the procedures. Both these processes are likely to have unpredictable consequences in terms of the physiological and emotional impact on the pregnant individual (and, in some cases, the family also) who has to ‘sacrifice’ the unborn in one of these manners, even if the choice is made with regards to her right and entitlement under medical duress or accentuating circumstances. Indian medical texts discuss both these processes, not simply because of the clinical aspects involved (conception, growth in the womb, loss, cause thereof, the nature of surgical or other interventions, etc.), but also in view of the health issues involved, especially of the client, and to the extent of the barely formed infant as the foetus might be perceived by those intimately concerned. Certain codes are formulated to regulate the respective processes. The codes might be presented as rules from which certain normative principles may well be derived rather than taken as non-negotiable imperatives. This, of course, is a problem endemic to much of normative ethics anywhere, and we find this not to be alarmingly different in the case of ancient Indian medical ethics, whose complete bioethical articulation across the board is still pending. With the tendency towards a more holistic conception of health rather than a part-andparcel approach of replaceable organic parts constituting the biological human person, clearly a radical rupture or intervention with what would otherwise be viewed as ‘natural’ development of the individual, which in the case of the female individual is marked by an almost inexorable expectation of childbearing, would be deemed to be unnatural, or at least contrary to the medical wisdom, so understood, within limits and with certain exceptions, as will be shown. With the previous observations in mind, we shall conduct our inquiry under five themes, namely, general considerations about the sanctity of life, special prohibitions against the *  The authors are grateful to Abhilasha Semwal for help with editing this chapter. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-10

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termination of pregnancy, the personhood issue, moral dilemmas and debates on the rights of the woman. We draw here first on the status of the unborn child in Hinduism to illustrate the interplay of the religious and the moral dimensions as they bear on ethical decision-­ making within it. The religious perspective is developed in the first part, and the morals in the second and their interaction in contemporary India are analysed in the third, with references to practices in other traditions and perspectives or processes in the modern West, particularly the United States. We begin with ancient and classical texts from Caraka-saṃ hitā, Suśruta-saṃ hitā, Vāgbhaṭa’s Aṣṭāṇ gasaṃ graha, Upaniṣads, to the Dharmaśāstras and move to modern-day discussions as well as the contemporary debates in the West, especially in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s overturning of the Roe v. Wade judgment that had been in place for some 50 years. The discussion on the Hindu perspective on abortion is to be read in tandem with ‘Embryo Ethics from an Ancient Hindu Perspective’ by Piyali Mitra, Chapter 6, in this volume.

Who/What Is Conceived and Born? Quasi-mythic accounts, adhering to the doctrine of the unity of being, suggest that the grand lord Prajāpati is present not only as the creator-lord of the universe but also as the creature in the form of the embryo in the womb. So it is said, ‘Filling the (three) light realms of this (universe), the movable and the immovable he (i.e. Prajāpati) cometh manifoldly into being, the Sire in these wombs’ (Ṛ g Veda, I.146.1.5), and further, ‘The one god, who has entered into the mind, born the first, and he [is] within the womb’ (Atharva Veda X.8.28 and Jaiminīya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇ a, III.10.12). The unity of being which the creator-lord Prajāpati embodies deepens the numinous quality of both breath and the womb. Prajāpati was called Puruṣa, the prototype of all living beings of which the human being is the visible manifestation. The person therefore is made and remade in the womb. The word puruṣa, normally considered equivalent to the word ‘person’, has itself been shown by ancient hermeneutics to be linked to the womb, underscoring the fact that the sacredness of living beings has elliptical reference to the womb, where the mysterious activity of germinating life takes place; the reverse is also there, meaning that the womb is mysterious because the person is formed there. Etymologically, the term ‘puruṣa’ denotes ‘purīṃ ṣété’ (one who dwells in the city), the city being the human body. Mythically, it also suggests or symbolizes the womb (MU II. 6). Later, the body came to be called the City of Brahmaṇ (AV X.2.28). In the Aitareya Āraṇ yaka (II.5), the person is described as garbheśayana: one who sleeps in the womb. According to the Ṛ g Veda, the foetus (bhrūṇ a) is considered a living and conscious being (Ṛ V VII. 36.9). Human life begins with fertilization; as indicated in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, the soul enters the ovum upon fertilization, then in the consequent months, the limbs develop in the mother’s womb (of course, there is some confusion in this rather primitive biology of the zygote with the embryo and the foetus and their distinct stages of development). Hence, each body in which the person dwells, whether in the womb or outside of it, is rendered sacred and inviolable. Now, this general consideration of the sanctity of life and the particular association of life with the mysteries of the breath and the womb has set the stage for inquiring specifically into the structure and the codes pertaining to the prohibition or permissibility of abortion in the Hindu sacred texts. First, we shall assume that there was strict prohibition, and in that light, cash out its implications in addition to possible limits as some voices in the tradition might have perceived. For starters, the 109

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general context is a filial one. Some texts (Manusmṛ ti, IX.148; Mahābhārata, Ādiparva, 741.27; etc.) regard the relation between parents and children as one of reversible dependence or supervenience, meaning that if parents are necessary for children to come into the world, by the principle of sufficiency, children are required for the support of the parents and for continuing the ritual offerings to their ancestors. The word putra (son) has been given the following etymology: ‘Because the son protects his ancestors from the hell called put (puṃ -nāma-narakam), he has been called putra’. All this amounts to saying that not only is there a prohibition against preventing children from being born but also there is a positive injunction to have them be born. The state of existence of the foetus in the womb is very similar to the state of existence of the ancestor in the other worlds. Both are precarious, and both need ritual support. In fact, the one is a continuation of the other through the interlude of life on Earth. The Gṛ hya-Sūtras and the Dharmaśāstras, particularly Manusmṛ ti, while laying down many purificatory ceremonies as obligatory for the protection of the embryo in the womb, make the fact of the continuation of the one to the other very clear. The Kathāsaritsāgara of Somadeva XXIII speaks of a particular rite called garbharakṣaka (protection of the embryo from external harm). Sāṅkhāyana Gṛ hya Sūtra, too, visualized evils that can befall the foetus and enjoins ceremonial measures against them. As also does the hymns of the Atharvans (X.8). Supernatural intervention can also take place for the revivification of the dead foetus as it is said in the Bhāgavata Purāṇ a that Ka, a demon, quickened in the womb the son of Uttara killed by an arrow. The killing of the foetus is especially forbidden because there is no way of knowing its sex, and an unknown foetus is potentially a male (Vaśiṣtha Dharmaśāstra (-sūtra) XX.23.24). Much burden is placed upon the foetus in the womb, for each foetus is felt to be the bearer of the human species and any threat to its life is interpreted as a threat to future progeny and hence to the whole species. Of course, this does not bear out in real domestic or global statistics. The consideration is more seemingly and narrowly utilitarian than one of moral considerability of the unborn or the moral right of the bearer of the foetus. Even so, the human population does not decline due to abortion; there are other more pernicious threats and likely causes, such as wars, famine, poverty, lack of nutrition, pollution, illiteracy, insanitation and not least, the adverse impact of climate change on the lived and living environment.

Abortion in Ancient India Induced abortion was called bhrūṇ ahatyā (hatyā, terminating; bhrūṇ a, foetus), or garbhahatȳa, also garbhasrāva. Miscarriage by natural causes was called sraṃ sana or garbhapāta (pāta, falling garbha, foetus), which later came to be associated with involuntary termination of the embryo or foetus as well. Abortion was, going by textual accounts, prohibited in ancient India, but that is not the whole story, as will be shown. From the times of the Vedas, this practice was not approved under exceptional circumstances, such as when the mother’s life was in danger. The sages also pray to the Ādityas ‘to cleanse me of the demerit (pāpa) of a woman who gives birth to a child in secret and removes it’ (Ṛ V II.29; Kane: 534). Abortion however was permitted in the case of rape or enforced sexual liaison where these would lead to undesired or illegitimate pregnancy. Atharva Veda mentions that the abortion provider (garbhapātaka) is not a person with proper conscience (6.113.2). In one famous Brāhmaṇ a text, Śatapatha, ‘abortion is used as a criminal yardstick to illustrate the despicable character of ritualistic sins and their punitive consequences’ (Crawford 1995: 23). In another of the Upaniṣad, the Kauṣitakī Upaniṣad 3.1. 774), the killing of an embryo is classed along with 110

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the most reprehensible crimes, which include patricide and matricide. A passage with a similar implication is also found in the better-known and larger Bṛ hadāraṇ yaka Upaniṣad. Both the Upaniṣads ‘assume that abortion is among the most deplorable evils, subject to consequences that karmically affect both this life and the next and that only through enlightenment is one delivered from its malevolent force’ (Crawford 1995, 24). The Dharma texts further decreed persons who engaged in abortion would lose their caste status (Kane 1946). Secondly, aborting a foetus amounts to injuring (hiṃ sā) or cutting short the life of a being. The concept of abortion in Hinduism was arguably based on the theory of rebirth (punarjanma) and the doctrine of action (karmavāda). (Of course, the rebirth or, better, the life-after, does not need to be taken in a human or animal body, for it could just mean the soul migrates to another realm, as was possibly the extent of the belief during early Vedic times.) As the Hindu tradition, following the Jaina and Buddhist normative ethics, emphasized non-injury (ahiṃ sā), the idea of abortion likely became unpalatable to all sections of the Hindu society. Ahiṃ sā became an integral part of Hindu Dharma in the post-­ Vedic period. Any act of injury done to any creature of the world or killing of it was considered an unrighteous (adharma) act that would accrue moral demerit (pāpa). The legendary law codifier, Manu, opined that a priest should not touch the food seen or touched by one performing an abortion (MS IV. 208). He suggested that libation (tarpaṇ a) should not be offered to a woman who has undergone an abortion (V. 90); so also, the person removing an embryo would pass on their karmic demerit to those who share his food (VIII. 317). Manu prescribed various expiation ceremonies (prāyaścitta) for both the performing agent and the receiving agent, such as tonsuring the head and leading the life of a monk for 12 years or accepting the guilt in the presence of a learned assembly after a holy bath at the end of a horse sacrifice (aśvamedha) (Manusmṛ ti XI. 79–88), or by controlling his psychic breath (prāṇ a) 16 times a day for a month (Manusmṛ ti XI. 249). From the times of the Vedas, marriage was not considered a means for connubial pleasures. It was emphasized that marriage was a sacred rite with the purpose of bringing about the union of two souls leading to birth for the sake of perpetuating progeny. Hence, marriage was given the highest importance in the Hindu sacraments (saṃ skāra), and abortion was viewed as an undesirable act. Again, as we propose later, the motivation is more of a filial-biased utilitarian one than a strictly moral one. The dominant view, in a nutshell, is summarized succinctly by Julius Lipner thus, ‘Since abortion inflicted mental and physical violence to the point of death on the unborn person, it flew in the face of the ingrained Hindu reverence for the seed of life. It ran counter to the Hindu genius to empathize with natural forces and processes rather than to exploit and dominate them’ (Lipner 1989: 57–59).

Prevention of Abortion and Miscarriage According to Caraka and Suśruta Caraka and Suśruta, the ancient Hindu physicians, name the jettisoning of a foetus garbhacyuti or garbhasrāva, and garbhapāta implies miscarriage after the fourth month of pregnancy. According to Suśruta, the expulsion of foetus up to the fourth month of pregnancy is termed as garbhasrāva whence the product of conception is still fluid. Thereafter in fifth and sixth months, it is termed as garbhapāta, because by this time the foetal parts have attained some stability or have become solid (SS 8/7) 111

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Miscarriage after six months is called prasūti (in the vernacular, it is used for the delivery ward). Suśruta, the original surgeon of India, reports that miscarriage may occur due to accidents, mental shocks, defects or poisons in the foods. He observes that if any of the limbs of a mother is affected owing to the aforementioned causes, then the same limb would be affected in the foetus. Caraka and Suśruta comment that if a pregnant woman engages herself in hard tasks, climbs hills and mountains, deliberately controls excretory urges, hears terrible sounds or shocking news or becomes a victim of anger, jealousy or hatred, eats highly spicy foods, drinks extremely hot fluids, then her foetus would be affected. They caution that the couple should not engage in intercourse at all during the third month of pregnancy and should cautiously engage, if at all, in the fourth and fifth months and should completely avoid the same after the fifth month (CS 8-301). Suśruta opines that the mind of a woman also plays a crucial role in the development of the foetus. Hence, she should hear pleasant sounds, be calm and serene in her attitude, engage in the worship of her chosen god, be inclined to follow righteous conduct, practice noble qualities such as helping the needy and be affectionate and compassionate towards her fellow beings. These noble acts would have a direct impact on the growing foetus. Vāgbhaṭa, in his Aṣṭāṅgasaṃ graha observed that the acidic nature of the womb drives the woman to severe pain, later resulting in repeated abortions. Hence, pregnant women should not consume too much spicy and hot foods (AS 4–10).

Induced Abortion However, the question of the status of unborn life has a medical dimension to it. Vāgbhaṭa suggests that if the foetus is not well-developed on its own, or fails to respond to medical treatment, then abortion could be induced by the use of pungent and purgative drugs or with drugs prescribed for the expulsion of the placenta (jarāyu) (AS 4–15). In the opinion of Caraka, abortion can be induced when there is an intra-uterine death of a foetus or the foetus is obstructing organs of the body or the movements of the fluids. Vāgbhaṭa is of the view that the deceased child or the foetus could be initially removed by reciting the magical hymns of Atharva Veda, and when that fails, the mother could undergo surgery (ibid.). Suśruta Saṃ hitā recommends abortion in difficult cases where the foetus is irreparably damaged or defective and the chances for a normal birth are nil. In such instances, the surgeon should not wait for nature to take its course but should intervene by performing a craniotomy for the surgical removal of the foetus. Suśruta cautions that when an abortion is induced, the surgeon should take every care to protect the life of the mother. He directs that other organs of her body should not be destroyed by employing sharp surgical implements. In the 17th century, Acharya Lolimbarāj advocated that abortion was a ‘useful remedy’ for pregnant widows and women who suffered from poor health (Chandrasekhar 1994). Although most of these edicts were written some centuries or millennia back, they clearly speak to the bio-moral concern these ancient medical physicians showed towards sustaining the health of pregnant women in particular. It is also evident that early Indian medical treatises were not in favour of abortion except when the health of the mother was in danger, thus affirming the ‘double-effect’ theory that came to be adopted by the Catholic Church in the West. What is clearly being argued for here is that although, as a moral principle, abortion is firmly proscribed, there are nevertheless good prudential grounds on which it might be morally more risky a decision not to take into consideration the health and survival of the mother, and for this reason – to be sure, without regard to utility, but inclined more 112

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towards moral risk (Moller 2011) – the prohibition against aborting would be suspended, and the alternative argument would go through. For all intents and purposes, the traditional Hindu position could be said to be consistent with moral fallibilism even though it does not render abortion morally permissible without regard to the circumstances at hand. (For how fallibilism functions in practical decision-making in Western liberal thinking, see Moller 2011.) So, the ‘free choice’ scenario where the right of the (pregnant) woman is trumped over and against that of the potential life (by traditional Hindu accounts as we have seen and in the view of pro-life advocates) does not go through nor exactly does the pro-life argument. Both sides of the arguments are affirmed while differing also from both (Crawford 1995, 31). There is clearly a recognition of a certain moral dilemma or quiddity, and it is not a case of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution. This point is well-illustrated in the following case study.

The Case of Sugunabai Sugunabai (not real name) was born and brought up in a traditional middle-class Indian family in an urban environment. After she graduated from college, her parents prevented her from seeking employment; instead, she was married off to a middle-class young man from the same caste group. She spent her time serving her husband and in-laws. Shortly, she gave birth to a daughter. When the child was still in her infancy, Sugunabai became pregnant again. Now the couple found themselves on the horns of a dilemma: should they go ahead and have the second baby, or ought they terminate the pregnancy while it is still possible? On the one hand, they hoped that they would beget a son, and on the other hand, the risk of begetting another female created fear and desolation. The increasing pressures of urban life and the unforeseen and inevitable expenses of nurturing a second female child made the couple highly anxious, which resulted in Sugunabai being persuaded to undergo an abortion. And it was not an inexpensive investment, as it were. Sugunabai continued to suffer fearful penitence or ‘karmic’ guilt of terminating her own foetus throughout her life. Of course, the determinants of abortion in this instance arise from the socio-cultural milieu rather than from any specific bio-moral concerns, yet there are psychological consequences on which no medical ethicists turn their coats.

Abortion Scenario in India The plight of Sugunabai is one among the millions of cases of Indian women that are heard and recorded in India; many go unheard and unrecorded. Abortion has been legal in India since 1971 when the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act was passed. However, a large part of the population is neither fully aware of the law nor of the social complications that arise as a result of abortion and the postpartum trauma experienced by the individuals concerned, particularly the woman. The scene in rural areas is much worse. The young girls in the age group of 16–30 who consider undergoing an abortion resort to unwholesome clinics and unsafe procedures, putting themselves at risk at the behest of avaricious doctors, midwives or unregulated nursing homes, which often result in post-operative complexities, barrenness and in some cases the death of the pregnant women. What precise moral challenge do these scenarios give rise to, and what kinds of intellectual responses or articulations should be forthcoming? How does a nation deal with issues that concern not just the rights of the woman – or alternatively the alleged rights of the unborn – but the larger 113

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menace where uncontrolled and unprotected or unchecked practice of abortion has broader socio-economic and psychological consequences? To suggest, as some writers and campaign groups do, that prohibition on abortion is a leftover political or patriarchal control mechanism that treats women as child incubators with duties within the family home does not address the whole issue of the travails and tribulations that women go through when they find themselves pregnant with an embryo or foetal growth within a new marriage or under other liaisons or attenuating circumstances, including possible enforced sex and rape. Must the woman bear out the pain of the unwanted, unexpected or undesired pregnancy? There are a host of other issues as studies on abortion across disciplines – in the humanities, medical and social sciences, care praxis – have well brought to light (e.g., Moller 2011). We shall approach these challenges through a comparative examination of contemporary Western and non-Western debates around the legal standing of the right to abortion alongside the pertinent bioethical issues that are raised and argued through these traditions – within the space remaining for this chapter.

Views on Abortion in Other Major World Religions There are divergent views among Buddhist scholars regarding the status of the ‘unborn foetus’, its acquiring of personhood (manuṣyatva), the consequent end to that life and debates on these issues. Assuming that the foetus is a conscious or at least a sentient being (meaning it is capable of certain basic feelings), several views are expressed, and there seems to be no clear stance regarding the comparable pro-choice or pro-life attitudes on abortion (Hughes and Keown 1995; Armstrong 2021). As far as the contemporary stance in Buddhist nations is concerned, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Thailand have relatively restricted laws, whereas Cambodia permits abortion at the woman’s request during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Japan tolerates abortion both legally and socially. Abortion in Japan is allowed under a term limit of 22 weeks in instances where the health of the pregnant woman is or could be in jeopardy, or there is economic hardship or rape. But abortion is actually more rampant and easily available under these conditions or alibis; in fact, among teenagers and young women, Japan has about the highest percentile abortion in ratio to its total population, and the Japanese population is a party to this reason – and other free choice reasons driven by professional goals, career-trajectories and economic pressures of living in modern Japan – for a rather steep decline. There is a special ceremony called Mizuko kuyō for the ‘baby’ lost as a result of miscarriage, abortion or untimely death of the mother. There are several branches in Judaism, such as the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionists and their views on abortion also vary. For the Orthodox Jews, abortion becomes a religious duty when the pregnant woman’s life is in danger (this, e.g., is the law in Israel). There are several sub-groups within those groups. Some consider abortion an exercise of a woman’s right to control her own destiny. Others approve of broad physical and mental health grounds. Thus, scholars and rabbinical authorities are largely in agreement that a complete prohibition on abortion (such as the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022) is inconsistent with Jewish law and tradition and infringes on Jews’ religious freedom. A Florida synagogue made that argument in a suit filed in a state court against Florida’s law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy (Joffe 2022). In general, all Muslim thinkers are opposed to abortion as it involves the killing of a foetus or a soul and because life is said to begin at conception (Qur’an 23:12–14). It is reported that abortion was widely practiced in Muslim communities until the British 114

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attempted to make a ruling on the practice, although there appears to be no precise penal code or statutory law that addresses the practice explicitly. The various schools within Islam have divergent views. For example, the jurists from Hanafi, Zaydi and Shafi’i fiqh schools permit abortion before four months because they believe that the foetus is not associated with the soul until after this point. Some Hanbali scholars allow abortion before 40 days. According to Islamic law (Shari’ah), abortion is permitted. To quote: ‘The mother is the root and the foetus the offshoot, and it is lawful to sacrifice the latter if it is the only way to save the former’ (Brannigan and Boss 2001: 185). Some in that school prohibit abortion at all times. Surprisingly, among the Islamic nations, Tunisia, Turkey and some states in former Soviet Republics have liberal abortion laws. Some Arab countries have permitted abortion to save the honour of the family and as a means of family planning after begetting the third child (e.g., Tunisia) (ibid., 185). The Chinese government encourages selective abortion as a means of birth control and imposes forced abortion among some minority communities, such as the Muslim Uyghurs. The majority of American geneticists, as well as Indian physicians, believe that selective abortion should be permitted for both sex selection and genetic disorders. The larger segments of Indian Hindu pontifical orders (ācāra, sampradāyas) of the modern era seem to be mostly mute on this issue; however, in response to questions raised by the media, they often express the opinion that they are opposed to abortion in principle as it would result in the conscious killing of a living being, which is against Hindu Dharma. However, in a secular society that India prides itself to be, the law and normative practices – or those that are based on considerations of individual or community expediency – would override any case of religious positions unless an individual chooses to follow the dictates of their spiritual affiliation to the letter and not heed to legal and constitutional mandates, etc. When this does happen, certain dire consequences follow, as occurred in Ireland, where it involved a Hindu woman. We will discuss this case now. In 2012, a 31-year-old Indian woman dentist, Dr. Savita Halappanavar, died in Ireland owing to blood poisoning after doctors at the University Hospital Galway refused to terminate her troubled 17-week-long pregnancy, informing her that ‘this is a Catholic country’, while Savita was neither Irish nor Catholic, she was a Hindu (Deccan Herald 2012: 1). The patient was suffering from a miscarriage and risked getting infected and contracting septicemia. This is a recent case of an anti-abortion policy that went against the request of a woman whose life was under threat as she was already carrying a defunct foetus in her womb; this was not even a call to honour the ‘double-effect’ doctrine that Catholicism is thought not to be averse to (the paradoxical secular loophole within a religious straitjacket availed of when it suits the church followers, even as a convenient alibi). It was a simple call to remove a ‘dead tissue or a maligned lump of dead cells’, which ought to be seen as a medical responsibility of the doctors towards a patient who presented herself to them. But the Irish doctors saw it fit to cite religious reasons and said that the heart of the foetus was still beating – ‘if the foetus had a developed heart at all and it was not the transferred beat from the mother’s heart and active organs’. Even if the foetal heart was still beating, Savita was clearly undergoing a miscarriage, and this put her own life at risk; while she understood her predicament and felt emotionally upset about losing the expected baby, she and her husband came to the decision that it was in the best interest of the mother to have the foetus removed before septicemia sets in, which is exactly what happened even after the foetus was removed antemortem at a late hour when it was already too late. This was not a case of the weakness of a risk argument, which may be a morally justified position to hold 115

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in certain (even religiously argued) cases, but one of a religiously strident attitude where an institutionally prescribed edict by cardinals who have no experience of such life matters, risks putting the life of another, the mother, at severe peril. In the aftermath of this incident, there was an outcry from women’s groups across Britain (and in India), and candlelight protests across Ireland were held demanding changes to the country’s outdated abortion laws. The Ministry of External Affairs of the Indian government acted swiftly on the incident, and the Indian Ambassador to Ireland held discussions with the Irish deputy prime minister and foreign minister in Dublin (ibid.).

Debates on Abortion in the West and Modern India In certain quarters of Western academic circles, abortion is defined as ‘a procedure used to induce the expulsion of an embryo or foetus before it would be delivered naturally’ (Newton 1999: 1). The debate in the West largely revolves around two opposing positions, viz., dubbed as ‘pro-life’ versus ‘pro-choice’ (and certain compromises in between). According to Larry Bohannon, who represents one end of the spectrum, abortion is a tragedy not only for the unborn, who will never experience life, but for the mother. He opines that the abortion clinics should be changed to adoption clinics (2003: 2). He quotes an instance of a lady whose daughter underwent an induced abortion 30 years prior in New York as the law made abortion impermissible in Texas. That was the time (1973) when the famous Jane Roe v. Henry Wade judgment was handed down while abortion was deemed illegal in Texas. The Court took a very general stance and gave a ruling that a woman’s right to personal privacy was a constitutional right. No state law or action could deprive her of that right. The Supreme Court ruled that states could not pass laws at all regarding abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. States could make such laws during the second trimester only if there were compelling reasons to ensure the concerned woman’s health (Delany 2022). And states were allowed to make laws governing abortion once the foetus was viable, usually after the second trimester (Newton 1999: 2). The lady informed Larry Bohannon that even after 30 years, the daughter could not come out of the feeling of guilt (2003: 2). Hence, he became an advocate of a pro-life attitude towards the issue. Pro-life activists argue that the human parenthood begins at the time of conception itself. Thus, they consider abortion to be a wilfully and morally wrongful act. On the opposite end, the pro-choice advocates argue that each woman has a right over her body and what she does with it; thus, in case of a pregnancy, the decision should be left up to her, possibly with the assistance of a physician, spiritual adviser or friends of the family. They also believe that abortion services are a necessary part of civil rights and hence support abortion clinics since they provide necessary services that make safe abortion possible. At one level, it would appear that the objective of both groups is the same: to reduce the number of abortions and to make abortion a safe procedure. Critics of the pro-choice vanguard, usually called the pro-life activists, point to certain adverse impacts of abortion, but not necessarily with a view to dismissing abortion tout court. According to David C. Reardon, the women who undergo induced abortion initially suffer from severe mental stress despite having made the choice themselves. Reardon classifies these women into two groups – i.e., ‘soft-core’ and ‘hard-core’; the vast majority of aborting women, therefore, can be classified as ‘soft-core’ for whom it is a marginal choice which they would not have pursued if abortion had been illegal (2003:1). The high-risk patients or ‘hard-core’ patients were forced to undergo an abortion due to physical health, 116

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foetal malfunctions, rape or incest. The ‘hard-core’ patients experienced guilt, compromised on life and suffered from self-betrayal. ‘A study shows that thirty to fifty percent of aborted [sic] women experienced sexual dysfunctions such as loss of pleasure from intercourse, increased pain, an aversion to sex of a temporary nature immediately after their abortions’ (ibid., 3). These women underwent counselling. In Britain, following the Warnock recommendations, abortion up to 22 weeks was made permissible in law (some discussion occurred as to whether it should be extended to 24 weeks). Mary Warnock, a moral philosopher, made a compelling plea for why abortion should be legal, pleading to the predicament of the (usually, she notes) younger women who experience unwanted pregnancy: Many of them will be young and a significant number still of school age. Many will have refused to acknowledge that they were pregnant for as long as it was possible to deny it to themselves. Some may not have known they were pregnant. A combination of ignorance and fear, shame and hopelessness may have prevented their seeking either an abortion or support from their parents as the weeks went by. Some of them will, in any case, have left home and be living on the streets. Few will have any contact with the father of their baby; some may not even know who he is … Whatever their precise circumstances, these mothers are in a desperate position. Most women deplore the need for even an early abortion, whether they regret it later or not. Few take the decision lightly. But this particular group of mothers is, most of all, to be pitied. They are the vulnerable ones. (Warnock 2008) The Vatican is fully opposed to abortion, and its stance appears to be absolute and immutable (the ‘double-effect’ side effect notwithstanding), informed a great deal by the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Yet, within the Catholic Church, there are divergent views. For example, the predominantly Catholic countries of France and Belgium have the most liberal laws on abortion. In its long history, the Catholic Church did not always adjudge abortion as a form of human killing (i.e., a criminal intent of taking away a citizen of God or of the King). According to the received doctrine, the foetus does not acquire the status of a human person until it has developed fully into a human form. Given that a less-than-full human body is not capable of receiving a soul (a process called ensoulment), and a human being does not exist or come into existence without the presence of both a fully formed human body and a soul, abortion at an early stage of the foetal development was historically not thought to be equivalent to depriving a person of their life. But these apparent contradictory stands of the Catholic Church came under criticism by other theologians, ethicists and lately prochoice groups. President Bill Clinton’s government was liberal in its policy of abortion and articulated the debate that abortion should be ‘safe, legal and rare’ (Newton 1999: 3). However, the Republican government headed by President George W. Bush signed, in November 2003, the bill banning partial-birth abortion in the United States. The courts around the country, from the Supreme Court downwards, have since been handing down conservative decisions despite Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, albeit without overruling the landmark judgements or by circumventing the legal openness through arguments and loopholes, such as the mandatory respect that needs to be upheld for the rights, or rather beliefs, of religious groups that in good faith remain opposed to the liberal norms that sanction this 117

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practice. Thus, the pressure to strike down Roe v. Wade has been a long time in the making. On 24 June 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned both these landmark decisions on abortion rights. Immediately, certain of the ‘red’ states – such as Texas (which has the strictest law banning abortion), Florida and Alabama – began passing laws prohibiting abortion and the operation of state-funded abortion clinics. A May 2021 law in Texas that had allowed abortion up to six weeks of pregnancy was deemed to have been overridden as well by the Supreme Court judgment. As a result of the Supreme Court ruling, millions of women across the United States had their right to terminate a pregnancy stripped. A handful of more liberal states, such as California, Washington and Oregon, have vowed to continue to support abortion rights as women’s rights and will pass their own laws within their jurisdictions to enable the same, permitting abortion clinics to continue to provide access to the termination of pregnancy, even to women from other states where the same is denied. Between the blue and magenta states, there are debates and considerable disagreements as to exactly at or after which weeks of pregnancy abortion should be proscribed or banned. Other states with a more conservative (red) bent have passed legislation criminalizing the action of those (as the family clinics, doctors, nurses, and paramedics) who in any way might be seen to be assisting or supporting women seeking abortion (from within or from without the state). In the case of the state of Texas, a charge sheet against these individuals can be filed by anyone in or from any state. There is risky political chess work between the state laws about which we do not have space to go into here, but it does look rather messy, and there will likely be a long-drawn internecine war between states now that there is no longer a binding or compelling Federal law that mandates abortion as a prochoice option, ceteris paribus.

Conclusion From the foregoing debate, it can be surmised that the issue of abortion since ancient times has generated a much-heated discussion. It resulted in theories that either set down strict proscriptions or settled for a middle path where the life of the pregnant woman was in question, and this consideration weighed out the stricter norms or principles. In recent times, various religious, social, moral, bioethical, economic and political factors have entered into the fray when arguing for or against abortion. It becomes even more complicated when issues of moral risk are entered into.

Postscript On 10 October (2023), the Supreme Court of India heard the plea of a 26-year-old married woman seeking permission to terminate her 26-week pregnancy. The mother of two children claimed that she was unaware of her pregnancy due to an amnesic condition under medication taken for postpartum depression over a year. Her doctors argued that continuing the pregnancy would likely harm the unborn before the completion of the term, and should the infant be born prematurely, it may have severe deformities. The bench led by the respected liberal chief justice of India, Dhananjay Y. Chandrachud, opined that this would mean putting an otherwise viable and healthy child in the womb to death under judicial orders, baulking at the accidental mother: it is not just a foetus but living child. The court urged in the same vein for the ‘need to balance the rights of the unborn child even though autonomy of women must trump’. Two days later, the court called for a second opinion 118

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from the expert medical board in AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Science) in respect of the health condition of both the foetus and the pregnant woman. It would seem the spectre of the overturned Roe v Wade and ambivalent state responses have reached the Indian apex judiciary. Final judgment is pending until 16 October. (The Times of India, 13–14 October 2023: 1)

References Primary Sanskrit Texts AS: Aṣṭāṅgasaṃ graha, Śarīrasthāna. Varanasi: Chaukhamba Orientalia, 1956. AV: Atharva Veda, Devi Chand (ed.). New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2002. AV: Atharva Veda Saṃ hitā, William Dwight Whitney (ed.). Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press, 1905. Reprinted, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, Vol I and II, 1993. CS: Caraka-saṃ hitā, Śarīrasthāna. Varanasi: Chaukhambha Orientalia, 1954. KS: Kauṣatakī Upaniṣad, 108 Upaniṣads. Varanasi: Chaukhambha Orientalia, 1962. MS: Manusmṛti with Kullūkabhaṭtạ Commentary, English introduction by S. C. Banerji, J. L. Shastri (eds.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1972–74. RV: Ṛg Veda Saṃ hitā with Sāyaṇ a’s Commentary. Manmatha Nath Dutt (ed.) vols. 1–9. Calcutta: Society for the Resuscitation of Indian Literature, 1968. SS: Suśruta-saṃ hitā, vol 2: Nidānasthāna. Varanasi: Chaukhambha Orientalia. 1952.

Secondary Sources Armstrong, Jennifer Keishin. 2021. The Middle Way of Abortion. (8 September) Nova Scotia: Lions Roar. https://www.lionsroar.com/the-middle-way-of-abortion/ Bohannon, Larry. 2003. ‘What about abortion?’ p. 2. 27 November. http://www.abortionessay.com/ files/eesay2.html; http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo-over.html Brannigan, Michael C. and Boss, Judith A. 2001. Healthcare Ethics in a Diverse Society. Mountainview, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company. Chandrasekhar, S. 1994. India’s Abortion Experience, 1972–1992. Denton: The University of Northern Texas Press. pp. 25–28. Crawford, S. Cromwell. 1995. Dilemmas of Life and Death: Worldviews and Contemporary Issues. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Delany, Nora (ed.). 2022. ‘Roe v. Wade has been overturned. What does that mean for America?’ Harvard Kennedy School. June 22. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/ fairness-justice/roe-v-wade-has-been-overturned-what-does-mean Hughes, James J. and Keown, Damien. 1995. ‘Buddhism and Medical Ethics: A Bibliographic Introduction’. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 1995: 105–124. Joffe, Lisa Fishbayn. 2022. ‘Do Abortion Bans Violate Jews’ Religious Rights?’ The Jewish experience, Brandeis University. June 16 https://www.brandeis.edu/jewish-experience/social-justice/2022/ june/abortion-judaism-joffe.html Kane, P.V. 1946. History of Dharmaśāstra, Vol III. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. Lipner, Julius. 1989. ‘The Classical Hindu View on Abortion and the Moral Status of the Unborn’. In Harold G Coward, Julius Lipner and K. Katherine (eds.). Hindu Ethics: Purity, Abortion and Euthanasia. New York: State University of New York Press. Moller, Don. 2011. ‘Moral Risk and Abortion’. Philosophy, 86 (3): 425–443. Newton, David E. 1999. From Global Warming to Dolly the Sheep: an Encyclopedia of Social Issues in Science and Technology. Santa Barbara: ABC–CLIO Ltd. Reardon, David C. 2003. ‘Post–Abortion Trauma, Pro-Life’. 1 December. http://www.jytkmce.net/ profile/pabrtrauma.html Thomson, Judith Jarvis. 1971. ‘A Defense of Abortion’. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1(1): 47–66. Shomali, Mohammad Ali. 2008. ‘Islamic Bioethics: A General Overview’. Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, 1 (1): 1–8.

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Web-Based Sources ‘46 million girls went missing in India’. (due to pre-natal sex selection abortions) The Hindu, 30 June 2020. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/46-million-girls-went-missing-in-india/article 31957348.ece Center for Reproductive Rights. ‘Religious Voices Worldwide Support Choice’. p. 2. 27 November, 2003. http://www.crlp.org/pub_fac_arkrel.html http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-09-15/india/28266685_1_unsafe-abortionsabortion-numbers-mtps http://www.indiaonlinepages.com/population/literacy-rate-in-india.html, 2011. censusindia.gov.in https://www.whyislam.org/islam/abortion/ President Bush Signs Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. pp. 1–3. November 29, n.d. http://www. abortionessay.com/files/Bush.html ‘Roe v. Wade Abortion Law From 1973-2022’, June 24, 2022 NBCBoston, https://www.nbcboston. com/news/local/timeline-roe-v-wade-abortion-law-from-1973-2022/2755969/ ‘Savita’s death is wake-up call, says Irish senator Ivana Bacik attacks Catholic doctrines anti-abortion stance’, Deccan Herald 17 November 2012, https://www.deccanherald.com/content/292486/savitasdeath-wake-up-call.html The Times of India, 13–14 October 2023. ‘The World’s Abortion Laws’. Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, (Wall Chart), 1999.

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8 FEMALE INFANTICIDE Ethics of Death in the Shadow of Motherhood and Childbirth in India Purushottama Bilimoria and Renuka Sharma*

Introduction The elaborate rituals surrounding the event of birth in the human lifecycle signify different realities and value systems for men and women across various cultures and times. This chapter discusses this sensibility in the Indian context and raises some worrisome ethical issues surrounding Indian attitudes and practices, for which current theories fall short of an adequate moral appraisal. The socio-historical construction of the gods that a culture valorizes is symbolically transmitted across generations towards the establishment of cultural values that endure. Whilst the benefits and traditions of intimacy between mother and child are evident in the ritual performatives surrounding the birth of a boy, statistics on gendercide or female infanticide suggest that the bearing and birthing of a girl is an event fraught with moral conflicts. In the first section, we attempt to locate the occurrence of female infanticide within a broader framework by analysing some of the socio-historical, political and religious factors that underpin this unfortunate ethical state of affairs. My central argument here is that the empowerment of women towards greater levels of choice, autonomy and worth can be continued only through an analysis of the prevalence of gendercide in India today. The second section looks specifically at the causal factors behind the culturally entrenched view in Indian society that female children are of less value than their male counterparts. In particular, this section examines the success of pragmatic efforts made by local healthcare centres to alter community perceptions of female value at a grassroots level. We argue that whilst healthcare centres, non-governmental organizations and activists have made minor gains in terms of challenging existing attitudes, structural factors such as economic impoverishment, women’s property rights, the role of dowry and the inequality of resource distribution in the home remain considerable obstacles to the promotion of the intrinsic value of female children. Given that the generational transmission of female infanticide is a systemic *  Renuka Sharma’s ‘The Ethics of Birth and Death: Gender Infanticide in India,’ was published in the 2007 issue of the Bioethical Inquiry (4(3): 181–192) since Renuka had passed in 2002, I helped complete the article for Dr Paul Komesaroff (the inviting editor). I have here reworked the chapter to reflect the challenges in our present times.

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problem, we suggest that only a holistic approach that tackles both the cultural and economic dimensions of this dire ethical dilemma will produce viable and appropriate solutions. In the final section, we attempt a programmatic conversation between various non-Western feminist ethical frameworks in order to shed light on a possible emergent framework that might begin to examine the unthought issues surrounding this menacing problem.

Socio-Historical, Political and Religious Roots of Gendercide Birthing In most societies, a mother’s care and the rearing of her children is frequently experienced with ambivalence. But paradoxically, birthing, that most primal of functions, is often surrounded by elaborate customs, traditions and institutionalized religious rites. In his early essay, ‘Totem and Taboo’, Freud writes about the association of the event of birth with a strong group and familial urges of love, hate and affective arousal (Freud 1950). As Freudian theory suggests, the rite of passage embodied in an infant’s entry into the world is a signifier not only of immense consequence for the immediate individuals but also revelatory of ambivalently held attitudes of place, space, time, society and culture. The birth of a human child occurs within a context that is not only immediate and familial but also entrenched in a socio-historical environment that will affect the emerging natural instincts of the infant. The immediate social milieu plays a profound role in shaping the budding individual through the ministrations of the mother or guardian. Thus, it is important that during the period of parturition and afterbirth, parents, especially mothers, are adequately supported, as their primary task is the provision of a stable environment for the child. How a culture views this perennially recurring nativity through myths, legends, songs, popular literature and so on is revealing of its enshrined values relating to mothering, birth and infancy. In the Indian context, the signifier of birth is indeed a poignant one, for it invokes not only religious imagery borrowed from Hindu mythology but is also identified, postIndependence, with the birth of the nation-state. For a woman, childbirth may signify the accomplishment of one of her main tasks in life; it may mark a pivotal point in the passage towards maturity; it may also encourage acceptance by her in-laws. In many parts of India, the concept of planned childlessness is foreign. A ‘barren’ woman is subject to various degrees of discrimination, if not outright abuse. Derived from Brahmāṇ ical texts, the process of birth and the rituals accompanying it reflect a syncretic mix of folk, indigenous and regional traditions. Subsequently, the child is viewed as a redeemer of the parents from future misfortune, and childbirth is celebrated, along with a genuinely appreciated joy of birth, as a ‘blessing from above’. But whilst this sentimental ethos surrounds the general concept of birth, the event itself can, depending upon the sex of the infant, be a rather bleak affair.

Historical Considerations Matrilineal structures have, by and large, flourished in societies where a woman’s right to choose and practice health in ways conducive to self-control and agency is valued over all areas of health. The discovery of the pre-Aryan agrarian settlements of Mohenjodaro and Harappa around 1925 highlights the presence of indigenous people whose practices 122

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mingled with the traditions of the incoming Aryans. The Lokāyatā texts speak of an agrarian culture in which social ease was enjoyed by women. In contrast, the classical Sanskrit texts tended, at best, to be misogynistic in relation to issues pertaining to women’s health and sexuality. A close reading of women’s writing in Sanskrit shows issues emerge concerning concubinage, property and maintenance rights of mistresses on a par with legal wives, niyoga (roughly: sanction for a widow to beget a son by ritual union with her husband’s brother), prayers for the welfare of illegitimate children and the disposition towards secret lovers (jara). As these diverse religions intermingled, so too did traditional ideas and self-conceptions. Notably, a number of the agrarian feminine concepts and icons were incorporated into the hitherto predominantly male pantheon of the Sanskrit tradition. These tropes continued more broadly in the bhakti or devotional traditions and popular resistance movements such as Devi/Goddess-inspired movements and in images of Mother India. The decline of the Hindu Aryan era during the 1st to 4th centuries CE led to the period of Mughal rule. Women in this time had access to the land as peasants and were also involved in courtly intellectual scholarship. Again, with the emergence of Buddhist orthopraxy, women were allowed entry into the more ‘monastic’ practices of incantation-based healing and the practice of nursing allied to medicine. Kenneth Zysk (1998) has argued that in contrast to the earlier Sanskritic traditions of healing), Buddhist medical practices were more empirical in basis. Thus, hospices began to embody a more egalitarian ethos, and their care of the sick and dying also began to cater to the needs and illnesses of women. The 19th and 20th centuries were largely preoccupied with colonial rule and the freedom movement that would lead India towards self-rule and, eventually, by the mid-20th century, to an independent nation-state. The welfare and the role played by women in this movement are well-documented elsewhere (Sharma 1996; Agnes 2002). By the mid-70s, India’s women’s movement had regrouped. Its focus now was on postcolonial activities, such as an increased involvement in the trade union movement. In 1975, as the world was celebrating ‘International Women’s Year’, India experienced two years of despotic government under the rule of Emergency declared by the then prime minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. During this time, sensitivity and awareness of issues relating to women’s health and fertility reached an all-time low. Programs of forced sterilization of both men and women were implemented with military zeal. The nuclear family was advocated at all costs, and incentives were offered in billboards and radio announcements supporting the practice. Population control became the catch-cry. It stymied all attempts to promote informed consent in the context of educational programs about contraception and healthcare more generally. Subsequently, self-agency and access to a more informed decision-making process became a privilege relegated to minority elite groups capable of purchasing healthcare and education. India’s contemporary situation fares hardly any better. Ironically, in spite of only progressive reforms of the penal code in relation to dowry, child marriage, satī (‘suttee’) and widow remarriage, women’s healthcare continues to remain the purview of largely unpaid work by non-governmental organization (NGO) networks. Even NGOs have struggled to make progress with respect to healthcare, constrained as they are by financial limitations and lack of innovation. Narayan Desai, a Gandhian activist based out of Vedchhi, an Adivasi (tribal-aboriginal) village in South Gujarat, once recounted how he was shaken by an incident shortly after 123

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they started a school in the region. A brilliant young girl fell ill and died within hours after succumbing to a sunstroke after working in the paddy fields with her parents all day. Drinking cold water on top of the heatstroke without adequate intake of food was fatal to her lean constitution. Desai recalled many young women in the village falling victim either to death or premature old age immediately after their first natal delivery. He surmised, Bad economic conditions prevented them from taking any nutritious food. Quite a lot of our students, we realized, probably one-third or so, were night blind. Just a cup of milk a day could cure this. … Later on, I found out during my tour of Bhoodan that conditions in other parts of the country were even worse than this. (Desai 1997: 50–51)

Contemporary Challenges to Culturally Entrenched Views Desire for the Male Child The delivery of a male child in the context of a large family serves as a cultural metaphor that operates on multiple levels. Most importantly, it is seen as the marker of financial security against old age and a way to meet the strictures of inheritance rights. Statistics show maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality rates increase with early marriage, often followed by multiple, poorly spaced pregnancies (Raj et al. 2010). Despite this, it is commonly presumed that due to high infant mortality rates, numerous pregnancies are a sound way of investing in the future. Education programs in rural areas have had little success in changing these accepted cultural proclivities. Healthcare centres, however, have continued to challenge such entrenched attitudes by emphasizing the benefits of childrearing during a woman’s 20s rather than in her early teens. They advocate the spacing of pregnancies with attention to the health of each child and stress that child welfare and immunization programs are most effective when targeted at small families. Basic measures such as nutritional supplementation following common gastric ailments can often prevent infant mortality. With the laws brought in during the late 1980s and early 1990s that ensured free education for the girl child, it was hoped that girls not registered at birth who have fallen through the net of the community health centre system might be brought to the attention of school medical authorities. As the findings of the National Commission on Population (NCP) demonstrated, however, there has been little success with respect to these objectives. The committee found that although community centres were being increasingly used for immunization and family welfare, approximately 65% of births still take place at home (reaching up to 80% in rural or remote tribal areas where hospitals are a scarcity). Further, it noted a stark disparity between the expectations of the community and the capacities of health centres. Limitations of personnel training, large regional service numbers, limited programs with interpersonal discussion in all areas of women’s health, and coordination difficulties between agencies all speak of the limited resources that community groups must labour under. Differences in community culture and service providers’ intentions were also shown to create tensions between service delivery personnel and slum or rural dwellers, resulting in the deterioration of services, morale and communication. In spite of the best intentions, 124

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often powerfully competing religious and economic ideologies lead to the exclusion of certain classes, castes or religious groups from the ambit of service delivery. It is clear that the special needs of minority groups such as tribal women (adivasis), Muslim women and women in the sex trade require special attention. These factors continue to be overlooked in the community healthcare movement well into the 21st century. The report by the NCP also demonstrates the difficulties of altering deeply felt community attitudes towards a family without a son. It illustrates that optimum family size is a contentious issue. In squatter families, the preference, it appears, is for two sons and one daughter, but these figures are malleable if this ideal is not immediately achieved. This conflicts with town planners’ expectations of one son and one daughter. In the absence of fixed wages, social security and old age pensions and the continued belief that sons are more secure financial investments than daughters, advocating the equal status of female and male children is, at best, a difficult pursuit (Bullimer 1990: 43–48; Panigrahi 1972: 18–21). One lesson to be learnt from the report and other recent studies (e.g., UNDP 2021; Planning Commission Report 2019) is that the promotion of the virtues of the ‘girl child’ must be more complex and sensitive than simplistic strategies centred on population control. The empowerment of women can be achieved only through the examination and implementation of schemes aimed at female education, capability training, employment, economic development and an increasing awareness by lobby groups of the constitutional rights of the girl child. The broader issue of children being seen as the future service providers in the absence of social security and pensions indicates a minimal anticipated change in preferences despite massive government and NGO programs unless there is an understanding of the interplay of cultural and economic factors that underlie the practice.

Sex-Selective Testing, Abortion and Law The practice of gendercide has its origins in a diverse and complex range of antecedents, both cultural and economic. De Mause suggests that death wishes and thoughts of infanticide are a fairly frequent phenomenon following birth (cited in Jenks 1984: 48–46). Postpartum depression and the internalization of hostility arising from the perception of having ‘failed’ at the task of reproduction is a phenomenon that occurs in many societies. In India, however, this is specifically linked to the birth of a girl child. Of course, generally, the fantasy of infanticide, although not uncommon, is not acted upon unless extreme maternal illness is present. However, when it occurs with a certain regularity, the aetiology remains complex and difficult to deconstruct. Moving on, one of the ‘sacred duties’ of a husband and wife, according to religious tradition in India, is to conceive a child, particularly a son. In India, as we have shown, a girl is still considered to be a burden on the family, while a boy holds out better promises for the parents’ later stage of life. When a daughter is born, parents are faced with the burden of providing a dowry at marriage, and 25% of India’s females are married at an age below 18, leaving no time for them to accumulate earned savings of their own. Dowry appears to have begun as a way of compensating a daughter for her inability to inherit or bring her own assets to the new family. However, over the years, this has degenerated into a despicable instrument for harassing, torturing and, in many cases, murdering young brides for their inability to rein in sufficient dowry. India’s Crime Records Bureau has recorded a 15% increase in dowry deaths per annum over the last decade. Dowry violence has come to be viewed as an indicator of the changing values of a society in transition, which has embraced consumer culture (Oldenburg 2002). 125

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In another instance where tradition intersects with modernity in a rather alarming way, reproductive technology, which has seen the development of techniques to determine the sex of a foetus during pregnancy, is utilized in India to tragic consequences. Amartya Sen points out that the practice is not only rife among the rural population with low literacy and employment among women but that the tendency to use the new technology to abort female foetuses has grown in urban areas as well (Sen 2005: 239). The mothers themselves often take this decision, partly because their own empowerment (read, equality and agency) has been fledgling, further abetted by ambient social influences, the cost of raising and educating a girl child and dowry anxieties, among other variables (Patel 2007). Amniocentesis (amniotic fluid test during 15–20 weeks of pregnancy), chorion biopsy and ultrasound testing or ultra-sonography have been quite widespread in India, and much has been said about these practices in feminist literature both in India and in the West. A large number of unregistered and illegal genetic laboratories and genetic clinics advertise and openly carry out sex determination tests. There are mobile clinics operated by urban doctors that cater to rural women to avail themselves of the technology. Detecting abnormalities is hardly even the pretext, as the law lays it down, and it is also a misuse of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act that permits legal abortion under certain strict medical conditions. The swift operation costs as little as Rs 200 (which too may be unaffordable by a poverty-stricken family who then has to sell some heirloom to afford the same). If the extracted amniotic fluid indicates that a female child has been conceived, the pregnancy is invariably terminated. But the indications are never as clear as parents would like them to be, and there are considerable health risks at the later stages of gestation when the foetus has developed in size. While abortion is legal for up to seven weeks (in India), sex-selective abortion and otherwise abortions are also performed after that period. Such risky and unsafe abortions result in close to 300 deaths each month in India. Thus, a technology developed to detect and isolate genetic abnormalities in an unborn infant, then, has been appropriated for sex determination and, indeed, sex-specific selection in that females are being de-selected through abortion and other complicated methods of foeticide. Sandhya Srinivasan argues, ‘Medical technology is being touted as a “solution” to a social problem, when in fact it helps to perpetuate the stigma of having a girl, and also causes demographic imbalances which will work against women’ (The Sunday Review, 24 July 1994: 7). Several states in India have banned the practice of sex testing, notably in Maharashtra, Haryana and Rajasthan. In July of 1994, the central government passed the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (1994) (The Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act (amended 2002–2003) (Jena 2008). The objective was to ban recourse to prenatal diagnostic techniques used under the pretext of detecting abnormalities for determining the sex of a child, making it a ‘cognizable, non-bailable and non-compoundable offence’. The act, ratified by the Supreme Court in its directives to the states to monitor the over-use of ultrasound scans on pregnant women, makes it a punishable offence in law on the part of a pregnant woman who undergoes the test. But it is usually the husband or in-laws who implore the pregnant wife to seek to determine the sex of the child-to-be. The law is not likely to stop the back-door practice of sex determination in the near future, as there is money to be made and technology waiting to be used. Indeed, as one commentator has observed, the law prohibiting sex determination may exacerbate the situation for some women in the short term. The law has not changed the preference for baby boys or enhanced the status of women (it has happened that the aborted foetus turned out to be male!) (Seethalakshmi 2008); cultural attitudes do not change as a result of a law, but only through 126

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moral education and paradigm shifts in the cultural epistemes (see Ganesamurthy 2008). While India’s total fertility rate has remained at around 3.0, the birth rate remains high among poorly educated and socially disadvantaged groups. Hence, as Vaze points out, ‘[d] espite the illegality of sex determination testing in India, this policy’s efficacy varied upon jurisdictional enforcement, which resulted in the continuation of mass sex-selective testing and abortions. As a result, it is estimated that there will be 6.8 million fewer female births by 2030, precisely due to the consistent practice of sex-selective abortions’ (Vaze 2021: 2). The state of Kerala in the south (known for its advanced socialist, educational and welfare policies) evinces a spectacular exception where high literacy and women’s empowerment policies have helped maintain a lower birth rate and infant mortality and morbidity as well (2.1 to 1.7). However, that ‘enigma’ of the female-advantaged model of modernity has run into some deep anxieties itself in recent times, not least among feminist critics whose research points to alarming levels of mental distress, ill-being, unemployment, failed marriages and family life, abortions, and also suicide among Malayī women (see Chapters 26 and 41 in this volume by J. Devika and Praveena Kodoth, respectively). IVF technology, which is now also available in India, is set to refine sex pre-selection techniques by removing genetic material at the fertilized pre-embryo eight-cell stage and testing it for X-bearing spermatozoa, which shows signs of female formation. Some doctors have been reported as preferring sex pre-selection to sex determination that involves amniocentesis or chorion biopsy, as this avoids the need later on for abortion and risky or intrusive surgical operations (such as caesarean and cervical surgery). Modern technology has abetted such expectations and given rise to aspirations of more foolproof techniques. Kusum (1993), an advocate writing for the Indian Law Institute in New Delhi, reported and commented extensively on the abuses of ante- and postnatal diagnostic techniques for sex determination across India, conducted ostensibly for medical reasons. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) asked the Medical Council of India to examine the ethical aspects of sex determination tests, which it acknowledges as the cause of a high rate of female foeticide. A number of states have either passed ordinances to ban prenatal gender testing or restrict the use of reproductive technology to strictly medical situations as originally intended. Quite apart from deaths related to gender testing, the current infant mortality rate for India in 2022 is 28 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to 100/1,000 in 1985); blindness is reported in 30,000 children every year for want of vitamin A and other such tragedies. On an average day, an estimated 13,800 children under the age of 5 die every day in India (that is 5.0 million under the age of 5 a year), 7,000 of which are due solely to malnutrition or chronic under-nourishment, which is among the highest in the world (40%–60% of the children in the population) – with perhaps the exception of South Africa, but much higher than that of sub-Saharan Africa (20%–40%). This menace of liberalization and uneven re-distribution of nutritional provisions for children in the weaker sectors and among minority groups has resulted in the infant mortality rate increasing in some states (such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh – especially Bhopal where the aftereffects of the Union-Carbite debacle still linger) (Bilimoria 2017). About two-thirds of these deaths are preventable through relatively inexpensive means, such as immunization, oral rehydration for diarrhoea, use of iodized salt, cleaner water and sanitation and prompt medical attention. But 250 million people do not have access to clean water, and 700 million people do not have proper sanitary facilities. Amartya Sen has advocated, as part of his broad package for a radial health policy, the provision of mid-day meals in schools; some states have already 127

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implemented this practice, and the results have been extremely positive, according to reports of the Pratichi Trust, the Supreme Court has also pronounced a judgment on this central responsibility (Sen 2005:14). However, despite India’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, government and state authorities appear paralyzed in terms of distribution of adequate resources, regulating the exploitation of child labour, and providing better education on childcare and welfare, nutritional meals and supplements. A high degree of malnutrition or under-nourishment and low literacy rates contribute to the high rate of infant mortality; parental, especially maternal, depression; and a blown-out sex ratio, or what is called ‘the missing girls’ or ‘disappearing daughters’ syndrome (Aravamudan 2007: 39–69). Since sex determination technology became available in the 1970s, India is estimated to have about 63 million fewer females (Vaze 2021: 2). The state’s lapses in policies on education and social programs for children’s development have led to a deterioration of the conditions under which infants are conceived, born and reared, and this comprises 40% of India’s population. Neglect of services in the area of mothers’ health and well-being, and of women generally, adds to the adverse situation. Polio remains one of India’s most threatening epidemics, as immunization is not widely practiced, even in urban areas. Chronic shortages of life-saving drugs and essential equipment in state hospitals and health institutions also contribute to the failures of India’s health system. This is indicative of the lower percentage of gross domestic product spent on the public health sector than almost any other country, including those of similar income levels, while two-thirds of India’s research and development expenditure goes toward space, atomic energy and defence budgets. As Sen notes wryly, The neglect here is massive, particularly because this has led to both the substandard delivery of public health and the development of an immensely exploitative private enterprise in healthcare that survives on deficiencies – and sometimes absence – of public health attention. (Sen 2005:15) The preceding discussion goes to show that the luxury of engaging in the pros and cons of IVF and related embryonic techniques or experimentalism is simply not available nor affordable for the vast majority of the people in India. The greater anxiety is over the chances of the technology being subverted for other instrumentations, notably organ-­ harvesting, sex testing and gender de-selection that led to infanticide, on the one hand; and on the other hand, the creation of ‘reproductive dumping whorehouses’ (not unlike the blue-eyed eugenics project under the Nazis in Austria). Of course, IVF has not been without its own troubling politics in the West. The ethics of discarding embryos, aborting unwanted foetuses as a by-product of the tissue growth industry, and the uncertainties of the possibilities of cloning (human beings) to which IVF has led, have not gone unnoticed. Let’s consider the problem from another perspective. A human rights approach to infanticide not only recognizes the foetus/neonates’ rights to inheritance but also to ‘life’. The case for medical termination of pregnancy is usually followed through after a consideration of all factors in relation to maternal and child health, as well as maternal rights. The availability of extensive evidence indicating the presence of foeticide, filicide and infanticide has presently led to the legislature calling for a review of the relevant penal code(s). The first Infanticide Act was enacted by the British; modern Indian states began enacting new acts in 1988 to reinforce and update the Indian Penal Code section 315 that prohibits infanticide 128

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in the 0–1 year age group, as well as the Female Infanticide Prevention Act, 1870 (reined in by Lord William Bentinck). The Infanticide Acts introduced more recently in Maharashtra, Delhi and Karnataka mark the beginnings of such and further legal reform in the postcolonial period (Jena 2008: 14). Enforcement of this act has already proved difficult in many states, where medical fraternities continue to blatantly advertise advocating infanticide. The contemporary anti-infanticide movement appears to be fuelled by a number of factors, including the growth of an urban middle-class consciousness that cuts across traditional distinctions based on Brahmanical patriarchy. Women’s ability to gain employment outside the parameters of traditional occupations, supplemented by the urban drift of rural women, further adds to this. So, too, does increasing levels of literacy among women, which ensures economic independence and some breakdown of traditional gender stereotypes. The process of population control is beginning to address the issues of women’s empowerment, and old traditions are being challenged by new economic and social realities which place women in a different light with respect to inheritance, education, equal opportunity and economic viability, and renegotiate the terms of their independence.

Statistical Trends over a Century of Reform and Legislature In most parts of the world, birth ratios generally show a slightly higher number of female births per every male birth. However, in India, this has consistently and historically not been the case. Census figures in 1901 placed the birth ratio as 972 females to every 1,000 males. In 1961, this figure was 941 females to 1,000 males. In 1981, it dropped further to 934 females to 1,000 males. A decade later, it was lower still at 927 females to 1000 males. Statistics from The National Human Development Report (2002) showed a marginal increase of 933 female births to every 1,000 males in 2001. The Census of India (2011) witnessed a further improvement in this ratio at 941 females to every 1,000 males; by 2015 it increased to 943; by 2021, the ratio grew to 948. However, despite this small reversal within a largely decreasing trend, the number of female births in India remains considerably below world averages (NFHS-5, 2002) (The world figure is 990 females to 1,000 males, but in Africa, the ratio is 1,015 females to 1,000 males, and in the United States, it is 1,054 females per 1,000 males.) The general trend of decreasing female births per ratio of overall births has regional variations, with the highest drops in female numbers occurring in the northwestern states of Punjab, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Bihar – with lower figures recorded in the southern states, especially Kerala. In terms of the overall picture, it is best surmised by Chatterjee, who places the death ratio for girls as being greater by a third of a million per year, with every sixth death causally linked with gender discrimination (Chatterjee 1989: 233–253). While infanticide is not strictly a class- or caste-based phenomenon, demographic factors, kinship systems and spiritual orientation are factors that do appear to have some bearing. Prenatal sex determination and the practice of foeticide are offered at a commercial cost by a number of obstetrics practitioners, and for those who can afford it, such technology has become widely accessible across the length and breadth of the subcontinent. Amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling were developed for the detection of birth abnormalities in selected patients, such as women with a family history of birth defects or other medical complications, but have now evolved to be used for sex determination, which 129

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has rapidly taken the place of infanticide in certain classes. This wholesale misuse of medical technology has severe ethical undercurrents. In a survey of obstetricians, Wertz and Fletcher found that 84% carried out sex selection practices, giving reasons such as population limitation, prevention of infanticide and prevention from maternal abuse as the stated aims (Wertz and Fletcher 1998: 1359). In passing laws against such practices of prenatal sex selection, however, the tendency towards devaluation of the girl child is still not eradicated, the reasons for which continue to be embedded in both traditional and secular hegemonic trajectories. For those who cannot afford access to such technology, the depression, mourning and hostility at the reproductive failure marked by the birth of a girl child is most usually suppressed. Repression of this failure is countered with preparations for the birth of a male child, which explains the tendency towards frequent pregnancies during the early childbearing years of a woman’s life. Thus, a combination of factors like economic impoverishment, the nature of women’s property rights, the role of dowry, the inequality of resource distribution in the home, etc., and the desire for male progeny create an anti-female bias in the birth of a child. The studies I have referred to point unequivocally to this rather alarming state of affairs. However, the solution to these problems does not lie in a simple statistical increase of women to men. This alone will not lead to female empowerment. Empowerment is a complex issue, but before it can even be considered, the low female ratio has to be addressed as a menace in its own right, and it is here that infanticide plays a contributory role. In recent years, there has been a growing body of literature on ethics within feminist frameworks, with a move towards micro-ethical formulations and away from grand traditional narratives (Sharma 2000; also see Chapter 7 in this volume). These emerging frameworks have been the subject of much debate among feminists and are becoming central to a number of disciplines. In current times, an awareness of the impact of globalization has affected most areas of discourse, just as narrative theory, postmodernism and postcolonialism did in the latter half of the previous century. So far, I have taken a fairly straightforward historical and sociological view of the problem of infanticide. Yet now, imaginatively, I wish to take the emotions aroused by this practice to orientate myself ethically anew to this profoundly subjective discussion on violence, subjugation and dominance, as well as the rights of the unborn girl child. What, then, of the feelings of disgust, pity and rage that this practice induces in those sensitive to its ramifications? Perhaps what lurks here is the fear that I, too, may not have existed given different circumstances. I, too, could have been the object of immolation before birth, a pre-birth satī phenomenon of sorts (Sharma and Bilimoria 2000: 322–348). How, then, to make coherent sense out of the emotions, in theory and in the psyche, of the young women of Indian descent that I teach, mentor and counsel towards self-esteem, productive careers and fulfilling lives? This is a burning issue. Here, the project of making sense of a culture, of negotiating the spaces between tradition and modernity, must be seen as an applied praxis of living in the face of gender violence, both individually and collectively. In approaching the unspeakable, I take inspiration from two main sources, firstly as a psychiatrist practicing within refugee and immigrant groups and secondly, from involvement with subaltern feminist theory within the subcontinent. The network of 90 or so South Asian women with whom I have examined activist theory and praxis, as well as discussed within a number of fieldwork studies, share one conclusion: that conventional approaches to identity, health, religion, nationality and culture fail to meet the bill towards 130

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the construction of a core concept of the feminine self and an adaptive and imaginative ethic of deconstruction and action (Sharma 2000). Edith Stein, a close early collaborator of Husserl’s, who worked on the ethics of care and the problem of empathy, observed that existence, transcendence and inter-subjectivity could give rise in one’s life to a lived phenomenology of action and an ethics of care (Sharma 2014). The Dalai Lama, in his Kardinia Park talk in Geelong (Australia) in 2002, spoke of a circular ethics of engagement. Emotions such as love, compassion and altruistic intention override the subject/object boundary, i.e., they blur the limits between the self and the other. The enlightened disciple, having had a glimpse of nothingness by various practices of the middle way, works for the betterment of all sentient beings. Not unlike Western conceptions of empathy (Sharma empathy), the Buddhist conception of altruistic intention is based on a transcendental experience of nothingness and the attendant condition of dependent origination, the understanding of which is ideally within the grasp of all beings. Cyclical ethical emotions such as altruistic intention and compassion can and should, therefore, be the basis for an examination of the problems of human life. What, then, is the locus of thinking in relation to the practice of infanticide? A disembodied feminine that is not birthed lives in the timeless ethical unconscious of self and others. Given our global world, what structures of thinking can we bring to bear on this unethical practice? What about poverty and global debt? How are these factors located? Is there justice for the unborn girl child? What are her rights legacies, if any? Here, I am positing the idea that cyclical ethical concepts, such as care and compassion. As stated earlier, Indian feminists declared the 1990s to be the decade of the girl child. The long-term aim is the incorporation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in national action plans worldwide. This breaks down to reducing infant mortality, malnutrition and female illiteracy rates and improving access to safe drinking water and education. The declaration highlights the need for protection against infanticidal practices, child labour, prostitution, pornography and sexual abuse, as well as modification of cultural practices that cause harm and violate the rights of the girl child. These statements of intent were amplified at the Cairo Conference on Population and Development, which surmised a three-pronged action plan: the reduction of loss of girls at or prior to birth, strengthening the status of the girl child and improving child welfare, especially in the areas of ‘health, nutrition and education’. Of course, the pragmatic statements of feminist action plans and manifestos are liberating in the moment of production, and they are the focus of much aid work that produces a global euphoria on the moral good achieved by aid organizations. The ‘power-speak’ of development agencies falls short of a more reflexive praxis real to the lives of grassroots NGOs involved. The imagined reality of subordination, from a white middle-class perspective, misses the complexity of the factors that lead to a phenomenon such as infanticide. One must ask: from which perspective are we speaking about infanticide, and from which place are we acting to prohibit it?

Towards a Two-Tiered Healthcare System? Following the compilation of the Eighth Five-Year Plan Report, efforts were made to establish community health centres, foster links with village panchayats and encourage the inclusion of the dai (midwife) as part of the health team. These measures were responses to growing concerns over the interlinked but separate issues of population control and the 131

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health and welfare of women. The establishment of a community-based healthcare system, it was hoped, would enable women to make informed decisions about fertility control. The aim of such a system was to create community links with the village panchayat and to provide dais with delivery and cord kits as well as educate them on the matters of high-risk delivery, aseptic techniques, immunization and delivery support. Ideally, the community health centre was to function in a way that assisted traditional healers while allowing for the establishment of a local birth registry and the creation of epidemiological profiles, which could be later used to develop preventive programs. These aims and the concept of a regionally organized healthcare system are not dissimilar to Western models of health and service delivery. That said, one must keep in mind that the aims and methods of health and population control experts have not always been motivated by a desire to improve conditions for women. Population control efforts can often be tinged with benevolent ‘[W]estern aid philosophies’ or are simply draconian and not particularly cognizant of the ethical dimension of issues related to consent, experimentation or the politics of pity. In that regard, it is a more exclusivist practice. At the very least, it is clear that in accepting Western-instigated aid, nations often tacitly accept the incumbent ideologies of reproduction and birth control. Such ideology, when imported into economically disparate and often desperate environments, can spawn some particularly unsavoury practices. The use of women in preliminary trials of depot medications is an ongoing phenomenon. A similar incident is covert in vivo trial testing of contraceptives on women in ‘undeveloped’ countries – an enterprise that involves multinational drug companies and other requisite agencies in complex and insidious ways. In moving away from the passive acceptance of aid, national government agencies at present seem to have recognized the different guiding goals between population control and informed healthcare for women (Spivak 1999: 61). Indeed, much has been expected of the state in numerous reports of human rights and law commission inquiries. In their report on the recommendations towards reworking the Indian Constitution, former chief justices of India, the Hon S. N. Venkatachaliah, (the late) Hon Soli Sorabji, B. P. Jeevan Reddy, R. S. Sarkaria, et al., have strongly underscored the constitutional responsibility of the state in these dark areas of recent Indian history. Their following recommendation is poignant: As of today, free medical treatment in government hospitals is totally inadequate. Nor is it available always in close neighborhoods. It is not possible to deal extensively with the pathetic conditions of medical care provided by government hospitals in our country. It is a fact of life that the poorer and weaker sections of society are unable to afford the extraordinary expense involved in the medical care provided by private hospitals. There is, therefore, an urgent need to see that, progressively, the State allocates adequate funds in this area. (NCR 2002, Section 3.28.2)

Conclusion For well over a century, public reform campaigns have failed to alleviate the ingrained prejudice of valuelessness surrounding the birth of a female infant. A number of factors have contributed to the resilience of this prejudice and have helped impede reform and inhibit 132

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change. Modern technology, in the forms of amniocentesis and prenatal sex diagnoses, has been used to bolster traditionally enshrined gender values. The resurgence of religious fundamentalist movements has tended to reinstate traditional religious proscriptive value systems with respect to birth and mothering. Further, enforced population control strategies have laid the burden of guilt for the regulation of reproduction upon women while downplaying the need for welfare, education and informed choices towards self-care. The adaptation of modern technology for the fulfilment of infanticidal desires highlights the persistence and maintenance of value systems that denigrate the value of the girl child. Structural analysis of the process and of the socioeconomic concomitants of the subjugation of women will take wide-reaching concerted analysis. The value of the girl child will need to be seen in a broader context than towards a future geared only in the interest of mothering and childrearing. The examination of gender stereotypes often buttressed by religion and mythology will need to be interpreted in the context of the special needs of the girl child and adolescents. Other contentious issues, such as consent to marriage and minimum age at marriage, with the provision of viable alternatives such as employment and educational opportunities, remain a challenge for the 21st century. In this chapter, we have attempted to argue for an outline of the kind of ‘micro-ethics of empathy’ that I believe is necessary to be articulated, albeit with much greater refinement than I have been able to here. I hope to have pointed to the conceptual, textual or discursive resources for such an applied philosophical ethics, which will hopefully emerge in the decades ahead.

References Agnes, Flavia. 2002. ‘Transgressing boundaries of gender and identity’, Economic and Political Weekly. September 7: 3695–3699. Aravamudan, Gita. 1999. ‘Female infanticide in Tamil Nadu finds a legal loophole…’, The Week (Indian Weekly News Magazine), January 24: 1–4. www.the-week.com/99jan24/life2.htm ———. 2007. Disappearing Daughters The Tragedy of Female Foeticide, India: Penguin. Bilimoria, Purushottama. 2017. ‘The numerical small: casualty of hyperglobalisation’, in: Lofgren, Hans and Sarangi, Prakash (eds), The Politics and Culture of Globalisation: India and Australia, 77–96, India: Routledge. Bullimer, E. 1990. May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India, New York: Random House. Chatterjee, Partha. 1989. ‘The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question’, in: Sangari, K. and Vaid, S. (eds), Recasting Women Essays in Colonial History, Delhi: Kali for Women. Dalai Lama. 2002. https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/take-the-cake-20020515-gdu7ik.html Desai, Narayan. 1997. A Non-violent Revolution Story of a Gandhian Educator, edited with an introduction by Paul Hare, A., Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press. Freud, S. 1950. Totem and Taboo, London: Ark; 1950. Ganesamurthy, V.S. (ed.) 2008. Empowerment of Women in India Social, Economic and Political, New Delhi: New Century Publications. Gardner, David. ‘Where have all the girls gone?’ Retrieved April 23, 2006. http://www.freeindiamedia. com/women/17_feb_women.htm Girish, Uma. ‘For India’s daughters, a dark birthday’, Retrieved April 23, 2006. http://www.csmonitor. com/2005/0209/p11s01-wosc.html Jena, Krushna Chandra. 2008. ‘Female Foeticide in India: A Serious Challenge for the Society’. Orissa Review Odisha Government Magazine (Calicut): 8–17. Jenks, C. (ed). 1984. The Sociology of Childhood Essential Readings, Aldershot, UK: Basford Academic and Educational Ltd. Kusum. 1993. ‘The use of pre-natal diagnostic techniques for sex selection: The Indian scene’, Bioethics. 7 (2/3): 150–165.

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Purushottama Bilimoria and Renuka Sharma Oldenburg, Veena Talwar. 2002. Dowry Murder The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime, NY: Oxford University Press. Panigrahi, L. 1972. British Social Policy and Female Infanticide in India, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Patel, Tulsi (ed). 2007. Sex-Selective Abortion in India Gender, Society and New Reproductive Technologies, Delhi: Sage. Raj, A., Saggurti, N., Silverman, J. et al. 2010. ‘The effect of maternal child marriage on morbidity and mortality of children under 5 in India: Cross-sectional study of a nationally representative sample’, The British Medical Journal (BMJ), 2010: 340. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b4258 Sarkar, Siddharta. 2007. Gender, Work and Poverty, Delhi: Serials Publications. Seethalakshmi, S. 2008. ‘The girls never born’, Times of India, February 4: 6. Sen, Amartya. 2005. ‘India’s poor need a radical package’, The Hindu (Bangalore), Sunday, January 9: 14. Sharma, Renuka (ed.) 1996. Representations of Gender, Democracy and Identity Politics in Relation to South Asia, Naari Series in Gender Studies, Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications of Indian Book Centre. Sharma, Renuka. 2000. ‘Feminism: South Asia’, in: Kramarae, C. and Spender, D. (eds). Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women Global Women’s Issues and Knowledge, vol II, pp. 833–837, New York/London: Francis & Taylor. ———. 2007. ‘The ethics of birth and death: Gender infanticide in India’, Bioethical Inquiry, 4 (3): 181–192. ———. 2014. Empathy Theory and Application in Psychotherapy, Delhi: DKPrintworld. Sharma, Renuka, Bilimoria, P. 2000. ‘Where Silence Burns: Satī (suttee) in India, Mary Daly’s Gynocritique, and Resistant Spirituality’, in: Hoagland, Sarah Lucia and Frye, Marilyn (eds). Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly, Rewriting the Canon Series, 322–348, Philadelphia: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1999. A critique of postcolonial reason: A history of the vanishing present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vaze, Sonya, 2021. ‘Un-natural selection: Female feticide in India’, Public Health Advocate, April 11. https://pha.berkeley.edu/2021/04/10/un-natural-selection-female-feticide-in-india/ Velkoff, V.A., Adlakha, A. 1989. ‘Women of the world, women’s health in India, international programs center’, Government of India, December: 1–11. Wertz, D.C., Fletcher, J.C. 1998. ‘Prenatal diagnosis and sex selection in 19 nations’, Social Science & Medicine, 37(11): 1359–1366. Zysk, K.G. 1998. Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Reports (Web Citations) NCP: National Commission on Population. 2004. Working group on registration of births, deaths and marriages, population and human social facts Part I, Government of India, p. 45–78. NCR National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution. 2002. Delhi: Universal Law Publications, 72–73 (Chairperson: Justice Sh. M. N. Venkatachaliah, assisted by Justices Sh. B.P. Jeevan Reddy, R.S. Sarkaria, Soli Sorabjee, et al.). NFHS-5. 2002. ‘National family health survey (2019–21)’. International Institute for Population Sciences, Denoar (Mumbai), March. http://rchiips.org/nfhs/ The Eighth Five-Year Plan Report, Working Group (Beijing) 1995. http://www.china.org.cn/english/ MATERIAL/157625.htm The National Human Development Report. 2002. https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-developmentreport-2002, January 1. The Sunday Review, 24 July 1994. UNDP 2021; Planning Commission Report (2019); along with Human Development in India Report UNDP 2021 and Planning Commission Report. 2019. https://niti.gov.in/planningcommission.gov. in/docs/reports/genrep/index.php?repts=nhdcont.htm

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9 THE THEATRE OF SURROGACY Ethics of Surrogacy in India Kelly Amal Dhru and Purushottama Bilimoria

Introduction The birth of a human infant occurs within a context both immediate and familial but also in a social-historical epoch, which will provide the interpersonal surroundings of the emerging natural instincts of the infant. To a large extent, the immediate social milieu plays a profound role in the shaping of the emergent individual through the ministrations of the mother or guardian. Thus, it is of importance that during the period of parturition and afterbirth, parents, especially mothers, are shielded and supported from shocks as the primal task, ‘primary maternal preoccupation’ (Winnicott 2012), is to be the servicing and provision of a stable environment for the child. How a culture views this perennially recurring nativity through myths, legends, songs and popular literature is revealing of culturally enshrined values related to mothering, birth and infancy. In relation to the nation-state of India, the signifier of birth is a poignant one and may be identified with the birth of a nation-state but also with numerous other images, such as the birth and antics of the revered child Krishna supported by his guardian Yaśoda or the complexities of caste identity based on lineage and upbringing that was faced by ‘dāsīputra’ Karṇ a born to an unmarried Draupadī as narrated in the Mahābhārata. The sentimental ethos surrounding the event of birth may indeed be a far cry from the event itself, often a far bleaker affair. Indeed, the birth of a child in certain communities is not a moment for celebration but rather a cause célèbre for grieving: another life is born to suffer the human existence and possibly a (financial and dowry) burden on the family (especially if a girl, in the case of India at least). Commercial surrogacy abducts the socio-­ economic realities that view children as future breadwinners and financial security to a prior stage with the process of gestation and childbirth itself as a breadwinning activity. Statistics of birth control and efforts at population control are far more problematic, as is the incidence of infanticide, sex selection (differentiated de facto as compared to de jure) coupled with amniocentesis and the preferential treatment of boys over girls in the Hindu life cycle (aśramas) of the human individual. The effects of these overt and covert practices have implications, in turn, for the expectations that women will have of their own reproductive lives. The split between the projected imaginary world of woman, mother and child and the 135

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real experiences of all classes/castes of women may be situated in the disparity between a patriarchal Sanskritic tradition and the regional folk traditions around these experiences. An en-gender-ed reading of childbirth and mothering in India must take cognizance of the complexity of socio-historical, cultural and religious factors, as well as the present-day issues of population control; contraception; reproductive formations, such as IVF; and surrogacy, as well as how these present issues intermingle with traditional concerns to give rise to current practices utilizing allopathic and traditional methods of treatment as well as analytical techniques. But there are seething problems also and calls upon reflections from bioethical, critical-feminist and legal domains as well. In this context, we shall focus in this chapter on the practice and challenges of surrogacy.

Surrogacy: Some Conceptual Clarifications When intending parents or an individual wish to grow a family or invite an infant into their fold but are unable or unwilling to carry the baby due often to biological difficulties or being single, recourse is made to the method of assisted reproduction, where they solicit the services of a gestational surrogate ‘mother’ who will carry the embryo created through IVF in her womb and care for the formation until delivery. A distinction must be made between gestational and genetic surrogacy. In the latter, the egg of the woman carrying the baby is used, whereas in gestational surrogacy, the genetic material belongs to others, and the lady carrying the baby is literally ‘lending her womb’. Ethically, there is a salient difference between the two when the resulting child does not necessarily share her genetic make-up. After birth, if the procedure goes well, the baby, as per the agreement, is handed over to the couple or individual who legally assumes parenthood of the infant. In this light, in the bioethics literature, a distinction can be made between genetic, gestational and legal parenthood (for the American context, Cohen 2008; Sandel 2007).

Caveats What could possibly be wrong with this practice, or what kinds of moral, ethical and legal issues are likely to or have arisen in recognition of this seemingly straightforward reproductive (hence ‘medical’) procedure? Well, there have been small storms and load outbursts. In her chapter in this volume (Chapter 35), Kumkum Sangari refers the reader to a number of works where surrogacy appears to stumble into one kind of other problem (Points 2018; Pande 2014; Stuvøy 2018). But perhaps Sangari has been too modest to mention her own momentous work in this area, for short, Solid: Liquid (2015); see also p. 230–31 of her chapter in this volume (#35). Here an alignment appears to be made between what might be called non-altruistic surrogacy (i.e., such as procured through commercial or via for-profit agencies) and IVF and sex selection (discussed in Chapter 8 on infanticide in this volume). Furthermore, there might even be caste-, spatial-, religious- and class-based proclivities that moderate the procedure, in which the state, alongside the powerful medical profession, might play influential roles. A commentator on Sangari’s impressive work discerns links to unregulated medical technology, the growth of an avaricious private sector in medical care, health tourism, health sector reforms and so on … these patterns of exploitation 136

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of women’s reproductive labour are fundamentally and organically linked with how patriarchy works, through patterns of marriage, dowry and inheritance. (Rao 2016: 101) The upshot of the seemingly benign procedure at the end of the gestational day is female disempowerment, hetero-normative family formation and control of female sexuality, once again leading to the triumph of the patriarchal order of things. There is a neo-imperialist angle to this commodified fad as well, in as much as the rights of couples in the West or in the diaspora to begin or expand a family means at the same time curtailment of the freedom of women in India who are enlisted by agencies or the intending parents to ‘rent their wombs’ for the reproductive formation not only commercial agencies acting on behalf of intending parents but also gay couples who may bring in foreigners to Mumbai and hire a commercial surrogate to bear the baby. India, and particularly the city of Anand in Gujarat, had become a preferred haven for Ivy League eggs whose end-product is exported back to the country of origin (such as the United States, Israel, or Australia) (Sandel 1998; Sangari 2015). This changed with the ban on commercial surrogacy in India. The question of the use of Ivy League eggs brings in the related dimension of eugenic-like enhancement discussion and commodification. Arguments such as Michael Sandel’s about whether the practice of surrogacy takes away the value of family and parenthood become relevant in this context, where there is a lack of what he calls ‘acceptive love’ as compared to ‘transforming love’ of parents (Sandel 1998; 2007). This raises a plethora of legal questions. For example, it has been observed in other jurisdictions that because of the differences in the attitudes/laws/socio-political realities surrounding gay marriage, the legality and the citizenship of the resulting child have had problems with legal recognition.

The Legal Journey The legal reactions to the practice of surrogacy have been rather knee-jerk, with an aim to protect women from consenting away the use of their wombs. India, and particularly the district of Anand in Gujarat, becoming the ‘surrogacy capital of the world’, got the legal machinery rolling to regulate this practice. It began with guidelines of the Indian Council for Medical Research in 2005, which required registration of IVF clinics, as well as a requirement to allow for compensation to the surrogate mothers and a ban on genetic surrogacy. The fact that there has not been a reported case similar to the Baby M case in the United States, where the surrogate mother had refused to hand over and claimed rights over the child born through a surrogacy arrangement, goes to show the power dynamics that exist between the surrogate women and the clinics. Instead, in the Baby Manji Yamada case before the Supreme Court of India, the Japanese couple commissioning the baby had separated during those nine months of the surrogate pregnancy, and Indian law did not allow a single man to adopt (Points 2018). In the so-called Global South, one finds cases such as the Baby Gammy case of Thailand, whereby commissioning parents abandoned a child born with Down syndrome. Subsequently, this led to the ban on commercial surrogacy in Thailand while allowing altruistic surrogacy. The Law Commission of India, in its 228th report, highlighted the exploitative nature of the enterprise. Such concerns around the use of surrogacy as an exploitative practice 137

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resulted in a ban on commercial surrogacy through a notification of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2015. Eventually, this translated into the present-day legal regulation, with the Parliament of India passing the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 (hereinafter ‘SR Act’) and a corresponding Assisted Reproductive Technologies Act, 2021 (hereinafter ‘ART Act’). While there remains a lot to be said about the question of consistency between the two laws, let us focus on the SR Act.

The Situation De Lege Lata A key feature of the act is to prohibit commercial surrogacy and only permit what it calls ‘altruistic surrogacy’, as defined under Section 2(1)(b). To start with, the definition of ‘commercial surrogacy’ under Section 2(1)(g) of the SR Act also includes all its component parts, including the buying and selling of gametes. The act also sets eligibility criteria for the intending parents, as well as for the women who may offer altruistic surrogacy. Both of these dimensions are problematic and require a closer examination. As far as the surrogate mother goes, the eligibility criterion for her is an age range of 25 to 35 years and having one child of her own. Not only that, as we shall see, she has to be a close relative of the intending couple. The SR Act sets up regulatory boards at the state and national levels, a classic bureaucratic move to delegate matters to impersonal regulatory boards. This does not really solve the hidden problems of caste and class differences but only defers the problems to the bureaucracy. The definition of an ‘intending couple’ under the act means an Indian married couple, which already limits the possibility of extending surrogacy to same-sex partnerships or even single men and women, a feature that has seen many recent critiques. By contrast, earlier draft legislation bills, such as the Artificial Reproductive Technologies Bill 2014, defined a ‘couple’ under Section 2(p) as a relationship between a male person and female person who live together in a shared household through a relationship in the nature of marriage which is legal in India’. Such an Indian married couple only becomes eligible for resorting to surrogacy if they have been married for a period of five years and require certification from an appropriate authority under the act. Such criteria may be too stringent compared to the global standards. As we shall see, this model of regulation does not solve the worries of the feminist critiques.

Law in Context Exclusions and Inclusions The existing law has recently faced a plethora of constitutional challenges on the grounds that it is discriminatory. As this chapter goes to press, there is a pending Supreme Court case, Arun Muthuvel v. Union of India (2023), whereby a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court has issued notice for hearing petitions that challenge the constitutional validity of the ART Act and SR Act. The challenges in High Courts, including, for example, the Delhi High Court case of Karan Balraj Mehta and Another v. Union of India (2022), are now awaiting the said decision of the Supreme Court (Kannan 2022). 138

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As we saw, the current law only allows altruistic surrogacy and that, too, in case the couple is infertile. However, there is an exception made in case the couple already has a child with a disability. Again, the question of equality and non-discrimination comes up in this context (Bhatt and Dhru 2021). Under Section 2(s), the definition of ‘intending woman’ only includes a woman who is a widow or a divorcee, which means that having married once gives a woman the license to avail of surrogacy. One may ask, what is the crucial difference between a woman who has never married as compared to one who has and is no longer married? For an ‘intending woman’, there is an additional need for a certificate of recommendation (Section 4 a proviso) from the authority. This is similar to the additional permission required for a couple of Indian origin. One finds a preference, thus, for resident Indian married couples. Also, given that India bans commercial surrogacy for non-Indian couples and also excludes homosexual couples from availing of surrogacy, will it recognize a child born to a gay couple outside of India, for instance? Such conflicts have been commonplace between other jurisdictions, for example, in Italy.

Women as Autonomous Legal Subjects As we saw, the existing law fails on account of under-inclusivity in its approach. In addition to this, there are other concerns. The question of the permissibility of commercial surrogacy is one where the question of reproductive autonomy cuts both ways. On the one hand, given the socio-cultural backdrop laden with caste-class differences, one may argue, along the lines of Elizabeth Anderson, that such a ‘transaction’ can never truly be autonomous (Anderson 1990). There is the ‘coercion argument’ that the socio-cultural context coupled with financial needs creates undue pressure, where there is no option left but for the woman to accept exploitative conditions for becoming a surrogate mother. The SR Act, in a way, presumes such coercion when it brings in what Feinberg has called ‘hard paternalism’, where the domain of consent itself is limited (Feinberg 1986). With the new legislation, commercial surrogacy is taken ‘beyond the realm of consent’. The differing feminist viewpoints with regard to whether the decision to become a surrogate mother is an autonomous one and whether positive law sits in a negotiating position. An argument made in favour of the permissibility of commercial surrogacy from other feminist quarters has been that it helps the women agreeing to be surrogates become financially independent. Sangari, for example, does not agree with this position of the liberal feminists. The punishments under the current law apply only to the clinics and the intending couple and not to the surrogate mother. Even though there is a provision for written informed consent for altruistic surrogacy under Section 6, in the case of commercial surrogacy under Section 42 of the SR Act, the presumption is that the woman was compelled to become a surrogate mother. The punishment is passed on to the husbands and surrogacy clinics. How may the liberal feminists respond to this? On the one hand, this is aimed at protecting women from exploitation, and on the other hand, it takes away their agency, presuming against the choice even being theirs!

Altruism and Close Relations While there is a requirement that the surrogate should be a close relative, there is no explicit definition of a ‘close relative’ under the act, opening up leeway about which women may be 139

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the women who are deployed to be surrogate mothers. There is, however, a sneaky inclusion of ‘genetic relation’ under the definition of surrogate mother under Section 2(zg). It remains a question whether the existing law can be a sufficient safeguard against the caste and class hierarchies. It has been further argued before the Supreme Court that allowing only ‘altruistic’ surrogacy may lead to even worse exploitative conditions where women of lower caste and class, without even commercial or even sufficient healthcare benefits for them, take the market underground. The question of autonomy and altruism must be understood in the context of class, caste and race differences. Law, which prizes personal autonomy in the best-case scenarios, inevitably brings in state control as it attempts to regulate the sector, diminishing the realm of individual freedom, at least in that limited sense of it. Reproductive and bodily autonomy remain ideals in the context of these debates. But one must dig deeper into the embodiment dimension of this. In a strange way, the question of permissibility of surrogacy only in case of infertility brings in an acceptance of a certain ‘subservience’ to one’s body: on the one hand, it is the failure of the body to conceive (that leads to taboos for the married women and a question of identity – infertility as a taboo – especially for women who seem to gain greater respect upon attaining ‘motherhood’ – a certain reverence on the one hand, and the exploitation, so to say, of the women who are reduced to their bodies and their performative role as gestational, genetic or intending mothers).

Cultural Realities and the Role of Law One finds the recognition of different kinds of children (primarily and exclusively, sons) in Manusmṛti: for example, adopted, that is, a dattak son, who is willingly given away, as compared to an apaviddha son, who is akin to an abandoned or a cast-off son (Jha 1920). Another relevant category here would be that of a krīta son, the one who is sold. In each of these cases, the son belongs to the person or father who ‘receives’ the son (under Mitākṣarā law). The theatre of regulating surrogacy in India brings forward the limitation of the legal system when dealing with the complexities of socio-cultural realities. The parliament-made law reflects an even more restrictive ethos by excluding single women from becoming commissioning or surrogate mothers. The constitutional dream of an ‘autonomous legal subject’ remains far from realized by either the protection or non-protection of women. This, in turn, calls for a critical look at the role of law in India and of legal relations as creative fictive spaces.

References Anderson, Elizabeth S. 1990. ‘Is woman’s labour a commodity?’ Philosophy & Public Affairs, 19(1): 71–92. Bhatt, Rohin, Dhru, Kelly. 2021. ‘A Critique of the Surrogacy Bill.’ Indian Bioethics Blog. Ahmedabad: GIBP GNLU. Cohen, I. Glennm. 2008. ‘The right not to be a genetic parent?’ Southern California Law Review, vol. 81: 1115–1196. Feinberg, Joel 1986. Harm to Self: The Moral Limits of Criminal Law. New York: Oxford University Press. Jha, Ganganatha. 1920. Manusmriti with the Commentary of Medhatithi. Delhi: Motilal Benarasidass Publishers. https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/manusmriti-with-thecommentary-of-medhatithi

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The Theatre of Surrogacy Kannan, Ramya. 2022. ‘The Debates Surrounding the Surrogacy Act.’ The Hindu, June 7th. https:// www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/the-debates-around-the-surrogacy-act/article65500108.ece Pande, Amrita. 2014. Wombs in Labor: Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India. New York: Columbia University Press. Points, Kari. 2018. ‘Commercial surrogacy and fertility tourism in India: The case of Baby Manji.’ Case Studies in Ethics. The Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University. Ingvill Stuvøy 2018: https://kenan.ethics.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/BabyManji_Case2015.pdf Rao, Mohan. 2016. ‘Review of Solid: Liquid: A (trans)national reproductive formation by Kumkum Sangari.’ Social Scientist, vol. 44/3, March–April: 3–4. Sandel, Michael J. 1998. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. Tanner Lecture on Human Values, May 11 and 12. ———. 2007. The Case Against Perfection. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sangari, Kumkum. 2015. Solid: Liquid: A (Trans)national Reproductive Formation. New York: Columbia University Press. Stuvøy, Ingvill. 2018. ‘Troublesome reproduction: surrogacy under scrutiny.’ Reproductive Biomedicine and Society Online (Symposium: Making Families). https://doi.org/10.1016/j. rbms.2018.10.015 Winnicott, D. W. 2012. ‘Primary maternal preoccupation.’ In P. Mariotti (Ed.), The Maternal Lineage: Identification, Desire and Transgenerational Issues (pp. 59–66). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

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10 DYING WITH DIGNITY Sallekhanā vis-à-vis Euthanasia – Normative, Bioethical and Legal Ramifications Purushottama Bilimoria

Preamble The Los Angeles Times (January 2013) reported on elderly citizens of Tamil Nadu in India, suffering from debilitating ailments, being quietly sent off to their deaths through a practice known as thalaikothal (senicide) (Bilimoria 2014a). Counterfactually, the Jains would choose to refrain from external inducements, lethal medication procedures or any technology-driven end-of-life care. The Jaina community in India presents a rather interesting and, in some ways, unique scenario of dealing with impending death. This chapter1 focuses on what we might call the Jaina (religion of the Jains) view of voluntary death (mors volantaria), albeit to be distinguished, apparently so, from suicide. This account is nuanced with a brief reference to historical accounts, reports on recent incidents of the practice and the community’s own reflections on the normative and bioethical ramifications of this practice, particularly in the context of the current debate on euthanasia, as well as constitutional issues raised in legal deliberations on the fundamental rights of the individual to life and other liberties. While my own interest in this issue began with bioethical considerations (I was among the first to float this connection), I have come to appreciate its importance in legal philosophy, and thus am pleasantly surprised to discover that the higher courts in India have kept up a lively interest in the issue and proffered some profound reflections of legal and normative import on the problematic. These reflections have, I believe, far-reaching ramifications for a healthy and critical debate on the ‘right to die’, euthanasia and a range of related bioethical issues in the Indian context, which has begun to surface in the literature.2 In traditional India, the discussion of death, especially self-imposed death, invariably takes into consideration the specific context and circumstance of the death. Sanskrit terms rendered with the blanket Western term ‘suicide’ (literally as ‘self-murder’ for ātmahatyā), by and large, signify the act of ‘giving up one’s life-breath’, more usually for the sake of some higher good or end, or under extremely extenuating circumstances. One may, for instance, in religious terms, sacrifice her life to save another’s life, considered to be of greater worth than one’s own. Or an individual may have come to a stage in life where the ultimate challenge facing her is to overcome the fear of death – that is to say, to conquer

DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-13

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death in such a way that the act itself becomes liberating (broadly so). Since death is seen not as the end of life but simply a transition to another stage, Indians have long contemplated how one should die – what is the most noble or dignified and enlightened way of dying (Beeker 1990; Bilimoria 2021; de Silva 2002, 94)? The Jains follow a particular practice in relation to dying, which allows for a somewhat different attitude to life towards the closing stages of the finite life span. The practice in question permits a member of the community, under certain circumstances, to terminate their own life or, more accurately, to actively welcome impending death in a nonviolent manner. The determination made, the ethical prescription adopted to terminate one’s life, is known in theory as prāyopraveśana (mentioned in the Bhāgavata Purāṇ a) or ‘voluntarily embraced death’ (svecchapūrvakamṛtyu-varṇ a’; Tamil vatakkiruttal). The practice usually involves undertaking an extended fast – i.e., a graduated withdrawal from the urges of life and desisting from intake of solids, fibrous substances and fluids up to the moment of death. I will render this particular practice called sallekhanā [san-le-khan-ā, literally, the enervation of the body] as the ‘last’ or ‘terminal fast’ and santhārā being the ‘bed of straw’ on which the penultimate vow is carried out. The consequent goal is often termed samādhimaraṇ a (literally, ‘death in a state of deep absorption’ or ‘death-in-meditation’), a sort of yogic or ascetic death. Precepts (including yoga and meditation) constitute the moral technē informed by the moral consider ability principle of parasparopagrahojīvānām: egalitarian interconnectedness of all beings. The precepts (as vows, vṛatas) are intended to trigger inculcation of the virtues of non-absoluteness of beliefs (anekāntavāda), nonviolence in thought/word/action, truthfulness/integrity (sat), non-coveting, restrain (brahmācārya) and non-attachment (aparigraha) (Chapple 2017, 2019). More usually, sallekhanā is intended to result in a peaceful passing away of the incumbent (śānti-maraṇ a) (Jaini 1982, 435; Samantabhadra 1925, vol 24; Settar 1990, 177–199; 1991, 15). In order to illuminate the guiding principles that – at least religiously – sanction sallekhanā, one must turn to the ethical tradition of the Jains, which has been discussed in Chapter 23 by Chapple. Jaina ontology is predicated on the belief that every entity in the world has jīva, or sentient principle, whose distinguishing feature is consciousness along with vital energy and a happy disposition. Commensurate with its deep regard for all forms of life, from the minutest microbes and amoebic organisms to plant, animal and human life, is the commitment to the virtue of noninjury (ahimsa). The virtue of harmlessness upon any form of life, however remote one’s intention or involvement (prudence aside), minimizing substance consumption and avoiding tempering with the natural environment, constitute an ethical and ecologically balanced style of existence which each Jain is expected to pursue in the best possible way. The virtue is realized and maintained through a set of interconnected vows (vṛatas) or observances. The moral attitude of Jains is guided by the much-­ analysed logical consideration that there can never be ‘one absolute view’ on any matter (anekāntavāda) (Chapple and Bilimoria 2017). Albert Schweitzer christened these ethics as ‘reverence for all life’, and it was elevated by Mahatma Gandhi to principled nonviolence as an active resistance strategy to combat injustice (Bilimoria 2014b).

Moral Argument Jains base sallekhanā on these teachings. In ethical terms, inasmuch as the concomitant vow combines an entitlement with a reciprocal duty of care of the self, this entails forfeiting the right to a threatened existence and assuming the freedom ‘to depart’ or simply to permit 143

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oneself the honour of dying without undue prolongation, not least by artificial means. Sallekhanā, then, has moral justification grounded on the premise that one has no right to prolong her suffering in the face of imminent or impending death. To prolong one’s suffering is to actively create further suffering, which is contrary to the principle of absolute nonviolence. This is the argument in its more general form. It is refined further by the introduction of certain rather specific normative conditions and strictures, particularly with a view to preventing its whimsical adoption and abuse for other motivations or purposes. Let us consider these now.

The Phronesis of Sallekhanā The strictures under which this right or ‘rite’ of auto-homicide could be legitimately assumed are classified into two broad categories: (1) extraneous adversities and (2) terminal roga or diseases (Samantabhadra 1925, 22–23). The first pertains to contingent circumstances where one has no way of escaping or freeing oneself from the threat of death or from which one has no hope of walking away without more than an acceptable or tolerable degree of pain, suffering and the consequent burden upon others, or if it meant that some higher social end might be served or preserved by surrendering one’s life. Under this fall, adverse circumstances such as falling into a fire or haplessly drowning in a river, being confronted inescapably by a wild animal, getting hopelessly lost in the wilderness, falling captive to enemies or criminals who might pervert one’s loyal and honest character or taking a calculated but lethal risk to save another’s life (Śivārya 1978). Other kinds of adverse and ill-fated circumstances that disrupt and present insurmountable nuisance or obstacles (upasarga) on the path of one’s vocational pursuits, spiritual practices and askesis may also justify its adoption. More significantly, conditions which prove to be totally beyond human control may warrant a justification for wide-scale adoption of auto-homicide, especially in times of severe natural calamities, such as famine, massive flooding, widespread fire, earth-shattering avalanches, pestilence or a pandemic out of control, and, last but not least, when faced with the formidable onslaught of an invincible enemy force or foreign imperialism. The second category outlines conditions where the life span is shortened with the onset of terminal illness or irreversible debilitating condition(s). Such infirmity or senility might also arise from old age, physical or mental disease which resists cure or remission. Alternatively, in all probability, natural death is imminent, and there is a predictable timeline of the end state. The argument can be summarized thus: i) Voluntary terminal fast is to be sharply distinguished from suicide, for the circumstances under which the termination of one’s life is sanctioned is rather more definitive than the haphazard and often irrational decision made out of desperation or in a state of fear, panic, emotional disturbance, uncontrollable rage, and so on, that leads a seemingly hapless individual to turn to suicide; ii) prior to undertaking the practice, assurance has to be provided that proper care was taken for the well-being and nourishment of the body and mind during the person’s life; 144

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iii) every attempt has been made to treat the condition with due precaution (although a Jain is likely, on religious grounds, to refuse surgery and fluid transfusion, possibly also prolonged hospitalization, in preference for traditional medicine and home-based or palliative care); iv) the body continues to fail to respond to treatment, where unsufferable pain and discomfort set in; v) relevant disciplines, including appropriate yoga and meditational exercises, have been taken towards becalming the mind, restraining anguish, and coming to terms with the condition; vi) responsibilities and obligations that involve the interests of others have been sufficiently fulfilled such that one’s own preference in this matter does not jeopardize the interests of others, near and far; vii) when undertaking the act, no one else is made responsible for the decision or held accountable for the process after death has occurred; viii) lightening the burden of one’s compromised existence upon society may render aesthetic and moral luster to the community; ix) forgiveness of inter-dependent sentient creatures has been sought, along with blessings or spiritual consent of one’s gurus or preceptors and elders; x) disposition-wise, the agent is not prematurely yielding to the threat of death, but rather dispassionately meeting the challenge with a will and determination in such a way that the spiritual comportment of the individual could be enhanced (i.e., the interests are secured for ease of continuity in the life immediately at the point of death, either transcendentally or in the memories and lives of those surviving). Drawing on a related case study, Nitin Shah, an intensivist-physician, narrates how both his parents at different times were diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses; however, they each refused to undergo invasive medical intervention, such as chemotherapy or bypass surgery (the mother even refused hospitalization). They both passed more or less peacefully in their own time. (Shah 2020) In my own estimation, the argument draws on certain normative and bioethical principles, viz., autonomy, self-respect, negotiated right to an honourable death, rational choice, nonviolence to self and others and the aesthetic virtue of exemplarity (i.e., braving the idyllic), all of which seem to me to be laudable marks of the ethically good. However, beyond the generality of principles, Jains are aware that there might still be certain conceptual lacunae or theoretical shortcomings and difficulties of a more practical kind in specific contexts, especially in the watchful ‘eyes of the law’. But the urgency to attend to these has not been lessened, or hastened, by the arrival in India or in the diaspora of sophisticated medical bio-technologies potentially prolonging the clinical existence of patients with just those conditions. Cancer is also now more widespread than it ever was in India prior to its Independence (or dependence on modernity).

Bioethical Issues I report (using the present tense for effect) responses received at a symposium in Banaras (Bilimoria 1992) arranged to discuss the broader concerns of human bioethics. I placed three basic questions before the Jain participants: 145

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i) Is this practice a case of concealed suicide, like harakiri or Hindu satī? ii) Is this a case of euthanasia, active, passive, voluntary or involuntary (or a mix), as being debated in the West? iii) Is its legality (i.e., status in law, in India and internationally) beyond dispute or doubt?

Suicide Predictably, the answer to question one is an overwhelming ‘No!’ It is not suicide. In the case of harakiri, one commits suicide in infatuation with death or in order to make a personal mark of one’s achievement or to save face against the burden of shame over some socially unacceptable conduct. The controversial practice of satī (‘suttee’, or a widow’s self-immolation on the husband’s funeral pyre) presents something of an embarrassment to Indians from across a broad spectrum. Hindus blame the origins of the practice on the exigencies of the Moghul invasion of their peaceful monogamous bond. That some Hindu women should see it fit, or be expected, to continue this practice to the present day is something of a puzzlement to both Jains and Hindus alike (Sharma and Bilimoria 2000). Nevertheless, sallekhanā bears no comparison to the misplaced historicity and the irrationality of satī. Traditionally, Jains vehemently have been antithetical to other kinds of self-killing which the Brahmins sanctioned, such as spontaneous suicide (dharaṇ a-maraṇ a) in order to obtain justice or redress for a grievance or to retrieve outstanding loans, etc., in the interest of the family. And Jains decry death rituals or mortifying feats by ascetic-yogis in the end-stages of their spiritual journey or as punishment meted out to lower-caste felons (Manu XI.73: Yājña. III.248) – considering these means to be inhumane and utterly foolish (bālamaraṇ a). More importantly, it is argued that all such contingent forms of self-willed termination of life involve an element of coercion, and so this violates the basic principle of ahimsa. The Jaina practice, by contrast, entails no coercion, and no one else is implicated in the decision to pass away peacefully. Rather, sallekhanā may have the opposite consequence: an individual is being freed from undue and prolonged pain and suffering, and it has the effect of elevating the soul to a higher stage of being; it is an art form to be cultivated with proficiency, for which the preparatory stages are prescribed. The responses are not univocal when it comes to the second question. There is apprehensive denial that the Jaina practice amounts to ‘mercy killing’ or even that it amounts to ‘voluntary death’ as understood in the West. The reason given is that, basically, no one other than the agent or incumbent is involved in the process, while presumably in euthanasia, a doctor or some paramedical personnel administers ‘poison’ to the bed-ridden patient (in other words, it is a form of medically assisted suicide). Besides, it was thought that euthanasia involves interfering with the biology and chemistry of the body, especially where chemicals or lethal potions are intravenously or orally induced into the body to arrest the flow of blood to the brain and to stop the heart, etc. While in the case of death by fasting (anaśana), there is no such interference with the normal process of physical decay; rather, the argument goes, the metabolism is retarded, which helps the decay process to proceed and reach its logical end-point without interference by the introduction of food (nutrients), fire (vitamins), fluids (water and blood), chemicals (medicine), air (oxygen) and so on. Curiously, what Western medicine takes for granted is the process of providing normal care to the body in advanced stages of illness or deterioration – including a regime of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and pain suppressers. 146

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It may be clarified that euthanasia literally means ‘good death’ (akin to śānti-maraṇ a or ‘peaceful death’), that there are finer grades of euthanasia: active, passive, voluntary, involuntary and nonvoluntary (and the intersections therein) (Singer and Huhse 2017; Young 2007). So perhaps this description bears close relation to the passive role of the Jain preceptor, along with the spiritual community that sanctions and supports the practice, going even as far as to actively prescribe the vow of terminal fast. Often, up to four monks may be present to assess the situation and to adjudicate whether the prescribed conditions are being met. Thus, permitting the withholding of food and nutrients (regardless of whether the gestures thereafter are voluntary or involuntary) would seem to suggest something analogous to (invoking a Freudian term) the ‘passive aggressive’ stance of those intimately and immediately associated with the practice. Besides, it may be true that the individuals in the proximity of the incumbent might play no role, passive, much less active, in the process; however, this need not necessarily absolve the community as a whole from being implicated in the process. Could it be argued that the Jaina saṅgha practices at least a form of passive euthanasia? It might seem tardy and provocative, but further questions also arise, to whit: Whose right is it at the end of the day to determine when one can and cannot embrace the last fast, postures of autonomy aside? Can a young person or a minor adopt the practice? Is consent of the parents necessary? Can sallekhanā be active? That is, can terminal fast be actively conferred upon one? Can it be administered to one who is unconscious or in a coma? Jaina tradition recognizes what is called bāla-maraṇ a, death of the infant or infantile – i.e., those severely mentally handicapped or lastingly incompetent – and in principle, there appears to be no reason why a child afflicted with or suffering from the kinds of conditions described earlier should not be given sallekhanā. Parental permission would be required where there is contact, failing which a preceptor or mentor may be in a position to make a pronouncement. Consent of the recipient is not necessary (hence, a case of nonvoluntary fast). One who has fallen into a state of unconsciousness, again, can be given sallekhanā, even if the person made no requests while she was conscious, although parents or kin would be consulted. It seems evident that ‘consent’, either of the individual or a proxy or of the parent, does not seem to be a necessary condition for commending the fast. This would seem to constitute a case of involuntary sallekhanā. It can be a quasi-active process in that the spiritual representative (ācārya) attending the infantile or the unconscious patient can undertake the responsibility to withhold nutrients and guide them through yoga to curtail breathing till it stops. The analogy can be made to a hospital bedside scenario where a physician might recommend ending intravenous administration of fluid and turning off the respirator. Further, in instances where the medical complications can be more severe than encountered in the ideal ascetic ambience, would it be acceptable to inject lethal poison to bring on the impending death? One response with some hesitancy is that under extreme conditions where pain and suffering are unendurable and ‘death is not able to enter the body’, then it might be ethically proper to resort to this means. The qualification is added that both the ends and the means must remain, if not identical, at least as integrated as possible (i.e., the means should not be stretched to justify the end). The guiding principle that no untoward interference in the biological constitution and processes of the individual is acceptable is reiterated. On the issue of the burden a person in an advanced stage of illness or terminal condition might place on society, the question of whether such an individual has the right 147

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(adhikāra/haq) to continue to live and what is the responsibility of society towards such a person, the response is that sallekhanā could be – and in certain instances has been – ­recommended to or opted by the incumbent. The community then has an entitled voice in these matters even as it decides whether or not the burden (on self and society) has become excessive to the point where continuing to live would become meaningless. It is clear, though, that not everyone who subjectively feels they should now be given terminal fast ought to be given it, for a subjective assessment of one’s condition is not adequate nor sufficient, no more than it is in the case of suicidal tendencies. Besides, the utilitarian criterion is not enough in itself to justify a claim to this entitlement, for the community does take good care of the aged, the infantile and the incapacitated persons, whatever their handicaps. The moral is self-evident, and it is also clear from this response that it is the incumbent’s interest or good in the end that is morally considerable. A further question may be raised: supposing the community has given its assent for an ailing Jain to take terminal fast, but the examining physician insists that the condition could be brought under control and, in all probability, reversed if only they would submit to the rigours of modern medicine (such as surgery or radiotherapy), how would this conflict be resolved? (Nitin Shah’s parents faced this pressure, as noted earlier). The option in such a context would be left to the individual concerned, as the community is obliged to respect individual autonomy. That the physician might be controverting the code of her own professional conduct by not pushing ahead with the treatment seems of little consequence in the face of the spiritual and moral sanction already accorded to the process. But could the physician be later held legally responsible for contributing to the death by an act of omission? This takes us to the last part of the discussion.

Legality Unfortunately, the moral and bio-ethically-nuanced argument for sallekhanā has not been of any comfort to the Indian legal system, which has a history of equivocation on the legality of cognate practices. Although the legal authorities in India have, by and large, turned a blind eye to this practice, court rulings have raised increasing questions regarding its potential conflict with state law. The actual or factive incident of sallekhanā as such (where an arrest is allegedly warranted under penal or civil code proscription against culpable or abetted auto-homicide) has not come up for direct contestation in the court of law. While sallekhanā is ostensibly a religious or spiritual practice that has some social reference, there nevertheless arise issues in its precise loci vis-à-vis the law or legal provisions and prohibitions on seemingly aligned conduct that is often a cause célèbre and may even have some bearing upon the Jaina practice. Even so, sallekhanā testifies to an empathic approach to the plight of the severely ill or toward those who are deprived of their ‘fundamental rights’ – to work, to a living wage, to equality and a decent standard of life – as decreed in the Indian Constitution (Articles 14–21). News and social media have tended to sensationalize incidents that come to light (Bilimoria 2020, n12). Questions are entertained on whether deaths under these circumstances do not amount to suicide, which falls under the jurisdiction of Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code (despite being repealed or its scope reduced, remains indelibly on the statutes), and whether those aiding the process are not in part responsible on a par with those abetting satī. These questions, more often than not, lead to a consideration of the sociology of suicide and personal liberties enshrined in the Indian 148

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Constitution. Significantly, the High Courts and the nation’s Apex Court have compared such acts of attempted suicide to ‘mercy killing’ or euthanasia (medically assisted death), adjudging the former to be constitutionally defensible – even though euthanasia is not yet protected under the law – except for a 2018 landmark ruling of Mumbai High Court permitting withdrawal of medical support and EOL care for patients in irreversible coma (Economic Times, 9 March 2018). Nevertheless, and not unsurprisingly or unexpectedly, just recently, sallekhanā was challenged in a writ before the Rajasthan High Court (Nikhil Soni V/s Union of India & Others, Rajasthan HC,10.8.2015) on the grounds that it is a purely secular-utilitarian practice that, paradoxically, so the argument went, is pitted against the basics of Jain religion as such; hence, the praxis is not protected by Articles 25–26 (freedom of religious practices), nor by Article 21 that guarantees right to life and liberty, and hence should be prohibited by law. The High Court ruled upholding the complaint and, for the first time moved to situate sallekhanā/santhārā within the jurisdiction of the Indian Penal Code (a colonial legacy) and certain controversial rulings on un/abetted suicide and Bills enacted thereto (1829, 1988) abolishing the Hindu practice of satī/suttee (widow self-immolation, dubbed under British Raj as culpable involuntary homicide). This, despite the fact that Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on the criminality of attempted suicide was erased in 2014 and recognizing it as a mentally socially challenging condition under the Mental Healthcare Act (MHCA), 2017 (though policing of S309 has not fully ceased; Thaver 2020). An appeal was subsequently lodged by the Jaina community with the Supreme Court; while a stay order has been granted with a trenchant criticism of the High Court’s reasoning, a full hearing and judgment are still pending. Here, my own work has been relied upon by the Jaina community (named amicus curiae), as I was one of the first to frame the Jaina practice of ‘yogic or nonresistant death’ within the matrix of bioethics and in legal rulings on suicide, as well as contemporary deliberations on euthanasia (Bilimoria 1992, 1995). A healthy debate has since ensued in Indian medical forums and popular media on the ethics of the practice and, more broadly, on euthanasia, given India’s ‘greying’ population. Gandhi’s ardent activist follower, Vinoba Bhave, took to fasting to death (anaśana) to find release from his incapacitating illness, as did Swami Nirmalanda (1997) and Satguru Sivaya Subramaniyaswami (2002, in the Ashram he founded in Kauai, an island in Hawai’i). The argument is that the phronesis of sallekhanā has been not and ought not to be regulated by the rule of law (daṅḍanīti); further, being a religiously ordained practice, it derives its sanction from the constitutional protection of religious freedom (dharma svatantratā) and the state’s recognition of equality among religions (sarvadharma-samanvaya). Indeed, this is how ‘secularism’ is to be understood in the Indian constitutional context – namely, as the co-existence of religious practices of the different religious communities and the freedom of each community to manage its own affairs in matters of religion. One undermines or compromises the religious significance of sallekhanā and its philosophical basis by attempting to re-inscript it in legalistic terms, as though it was tantamount to the killing of a citizen of the king or the state (as suicide was decreed in medieval times), or in contravention of some other provisions on culpable homicide and harm to others in law. A general response to this defence would be that the freedom to practice religion within the constitutional framework could prove to be too broad an umbrella under which to argue against legal constraints for specific practices. This constraint is more pressing if there are no rights or provisions given in the Constitution for these practices or if they come into direct conflict (ultra vires) with certain other rights in the Constitution or elsewhere in the 149

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legal system. Furthermore, if they offend public sensibility or, alternatively, appear to reinforce a socially undesirable practice of yet another community within the nation-state with its preeminent legal rules. Does the constitutional protection of religious freedom mean that all social and institutional constraints are to be suspended even when there are sensitivities and doubts about the extent to which a particular practice does or does not so straightforwardly fall within the boundaries of religion? If one were to ignore the caveats just outlined, would it mean that an obscure tantric (esoteric) group could perform human sacrifice, invoking religious imperatives and secular respect for the personal law of the Hindu community and thereby claim legal immunity? Sallekhanā does not quite fall under the category of personal law, as there has been no codification to this effect, and the state maintains the same mandate over Jains as it does over Hindus to intervene and determine the limits of their traditional predilections in the secular context. Crudely put, if Hindus cannot have their satī, then the Jains (who are not recognized as a separate religious community to the Hindus, though they enjoy certain exemptions as do Parsis, Sikhs and Buddhists) cannot have their sallekhanā. To be sure, the secular state is under constitutional obligation to respect the customary or personal law of a community, but the courts may interpret the law in such a way as to provide protection to the individual whose well-being under the customary law may be threatened or unduly compromised, or the court might invoke ‘the right to exit’ principle (as, for example, in the landmark 1985 Shah Bano case) (Bilimoria 2003). In the discussion that follows, I wish simply to bring to light two spectacular cases that came separately before the courts in India, eliciting diametrically opposed conclusions, entailing a rejection of the more liberal pronouncement that one of the benches had dared to entertain. Neither suicide nor any other form of voluntary death (let alone euthanasia) would seem any longer to have justification in the eyes of the law. Although the judgment did not explicitly rule on religious and social forms of voluntary death, the outcome could be taken to have effectively thrown into considerable confusion a community that had hitherto relied on a comparable ‘end to life’ on religious and quasi-ethical grounds for its sanction. It possibly also paved the way for a ‘showdown’ if the practice in question were ever to be tested in court, a predicament I had a premonition of and, as noted earlier, has all but been unleashed by the Rajasthan High Court ruling.

Legal Equivocations A Supreme Court ruling or a legislature move on attempted suicide might help redeem the situation somewhat (in the wake of MHA, 2017), but to avail itself of this specific and nationally binding precedent, the community would have to be prepared to accept that the practice in question is de jure a form of suicide and that it does so fall under the jurisdiction of secular law. But this is precisely the kind of interpretation the community seems opposed to. Perhaps even after a positive, ethically grounded argument is made for euthanasia in secular thought, the community might still refuse to condescend to seek sanction under this mandate. Either way, I see the Jaina cautioned willingness to enter the modernist discourses of legal and bioethical justifications for voluntary death, especially of the kind entailed in their religious, social praxis, as both a healthy and a complementary contribution to the current debate on euthanasia. In deference to intellectual honesty and communication, I am compelled to bring the Jaina position into a confrontation with current legal and bioethical deliberations on suicide, voluntary/nonvoluntary death, the ‘right to die’, euthanasia or 150

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whatever (as the boundaries do seem to me to be somewhat blurred). To do this, I shall begin with the erstwhile law on suicide – which would seem to be the first hurdle to consider before it becomes possible to move towards a rational – even the much-touted in academic circles ‘bioethical’ – debate on sallekhanā and other forms of voluntary death, euthanasia included. Under the Benthamite impetus for reform, in the hands of British judges and statutory administrators in the mid-19th century, the newly promulgated IPC decreed suicide of any kind to be a criminal act punishable by law. Of course, the state cannot mete out punishment to one who has already committed suicide, but an individual attempting suicide could be prevented and subjected to punishment (IPC 45 of 1860, S. 309). Likewise, those inducing, aiding and abetting or assisting another to suicide are also punishable by law (S.306). Indeed, traditional Hindu dharma codes had pronounced attempts at suicide as immoral (aparāddha) and, if unsuccessful, made them punishable in this life, if successful, during cremation and in the next birth, or through the survivors (Manusmṛiti, II. 90–91, V. 89; Yājñavalkyasmṛti III.253). The general interpretation so far was that all forms of auto-homicide fall under this category and are therefore deemed a criminal act; this was intended in part to reinforce the earlier (1829) enacted prohibition on the controversial practice of satī. In case law, the judges commenting on the conditions of the attempted suicide cited numerous instances of suicide narrated and sanctioned in religious texts, including death by fasting (AIR 1987, 743–755). This inclusion has had a paradoxical effect: when attempted suicide is considered a criminal act under the penal code, advocates of terminal fasting deny that the practice constitutes or falls under the category of attempting suicide (ātmahatyā or ātmahanana); when suicide under certain extenuating conditions is interpreted as not constituting a crime by construal, say, of the constitutional right to a dignified livelihood, etc., and given that no other form of voluntary death is as yet recognizably justifiable in the eyes of (secular) law, then the advocates exercise some moderation in their denial, unclear whether to claim legal sanction for sallekhanā and have the practice deemed a form of suicide or to deny that it is suicide and risk a negative legal judgment altogether. This equivocation can now be placed in the context of the challenging issues that came to light in relation to two unrelated incidents of attempted suicide, as I mentioned earlier, each issuing a variant interpretation of the statutory acts that secure the individual’s ‘right to life’, or her ‘right to die’ or perhaps neither.

Maruti Shripati Dubal v. State of Maharashtra Bombay High Court 1986.641 (AIR 1987) A constable grieved over being refused a vending license to operate a vegetable street stall, stood outside the municipal offices and set himself on fire. He was prevented by security guards and shortly afterwards charged with attempting to commit suicide under IPC S.309.A petition filed in Bombay High Court underscored the point that S.309 was not unassailable as it contravenes certain specific provisions of Articles 19 and 21 of the Indian Constitution. Since the constitutionality of the legal rulings on suicide in India was under challenge, the court invited comments from India’s attorney general, thereby shifting the focus from naked penal to fundamental rights concerns. Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution occur in the ‘Fundamental Rights’ section. In brief, Article 19 guarantees all citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression, to 151

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assemble peaceably, to form associations, to move, reside and settle in any part of India, to practice any profession or occupation, trade or business; Article 21 states: No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. ‘Personal liberty’ is taken to mean that no person shall be subjected to imprisonment, arrest or other physical coercion. Although articulated in negative terms, it is arguable whether this article protects constitutional guarantee for a positive (fundamental) right – namely, the right to live with dignity and security. The argument presented by the petitioning counsel was that (a) the attempt to commit suicide is not an offence contra Articles 19 and 21 and (b) S.309 treats all cases of attempted suicide equally as an offence and is arbitrary in respect of the quantum of punishment prescribed (going against the grain of common law and the Law Commission’s recommendations). The attorney general contended that the Articles in question do not create or recognize the (positive) right to life as such, other than restricting the state from depriving an individual of their right to life by any means but that established by a just, fair and reasonable procedure– here betraying a palpable ignorance of the legal development that had taken place in the general treatment of negative rights. The Bombay bench of two judges, therefore, proffered the following counterargument. That, though couched in negative terms, Article 21 ‘confers a fundamental right to life and personal liberty’, and the term ‘life’ is construed in the context of the freedoms guaranteed under Article 19 to include reference to ‘livelihood’. It was argued that the fundamental rights enumerated in Article 19 would be meaningless unless they were to be seen as extensions of the ‘right to life’. The judges, therefore, surmised: ‘Article 21 spells out not only a protection against an arbitrary deprivation of life and personal liberty but also positive rights to enable an individual to live life with human dignity’. Second, invoking a well-established jurisprudential line of reasoning, the judges argued that constitutionally guaranteed rights were to be considered in tandem – that is to say, what is true of one is true of the other rights also. If a right articulated in a negative concept can afford a positive articulation by derivation, then the converse should also be possible. Thus, fundamental rights have both a positive and a negative aspect. ‘For example, the freedom of speech and expression includes the freedom not to speak and to remain silent. The freedom of association and movement likewise includes freedom not to join any association or to move anywhere. Freedom of business and occupation includes not to do business and to close down existing business. … If this is so’, the bench went on to argue, using inference from reductio, ‘logically it must follow that right to live … will include also right not to live or not to be forced to live. To put it positively, it would include a right to die’. The judgment recognized the ‘right of the individual to deal with his [her] body as he [she] chooses’. Moving on to the compounding question of the sanctity of life, the judges further observed that if life itself were to be revered without any consideration of the conditions under which it is lived, then it would be another matter, but that is not how it is in reality. The judges then adverted to the distinction between the circumstances that might warrant such an act and the means or causes by which the termination of life is attempted. But these are often confused, and an adverse judgment is passed on the act. Conceding that suicide is not generally regarded as a feature of normal life, the Durkheim-informed consideration was advanced that it is intended to countenance other kinds of abnormalities, such as ‘mental diseases and imbalances, unbearable physical ailments, affliction by socially dreaded diseases, decrepit physical condition disabling the person from taking normal care 152

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of his body and performing normal chores, the loss of senses or of desire for the pleasure of senses, extremely cruel or unbearable conditions of life making it painful to live, a sense of shame or disgrace or a need to defend one’s honor … [and so on]’, a pleading that was taken on board in the later enactment of the Mental Health Act (2017). Furthermore, the judges argued that ‘the right to die or end one’s life is not something new or unknown to civilization’. Here, the Jaina and Hindu religions are mentioned specifically as approving the practice of self-willed termination of life in certain circumstances while condemning it in other circumstances. The attitude of the Hindu and Jaina religions … shows that though ordinarily suicide was disapproved, in certain circumstances it was tolerated, condoned, connived at, accepted and even acclaimed depending upon the person and the particular circumstances. With a bold stride, the judges saw this as an occasion to make a pronouncement on euthanasia, even though no consideration in this matter had been entered in the pleas. But since issues of constitutionality, the rationality of medically constrained practices and possible extension of the biological termination of life in related circumstances were being pondered upon, the judges felt it prudent to set limits to the extent of parliamentary reforms they would consider timely. A sharp distinction was urged between terminating one’s own life by one’s own act and an act which involved or implied the intervention of another human agency to terminate life, which they referred to as ‘mercy killing’. Curiously, all forms of euthanasia were lumped under ‘mercy killing’, which the judges considered to be a homicidal act. However, a fine distinction was articulated between abetting suicide and aiding ‘mercy killing’: both being punishable by law. But as with any form of abetting death, including the suicide of children and insane persons, there are provisions in the penal code (S.306 and S.305) that take care of the offence. (In this context, S.2 of the ‘English [sic] Suicide Act of 1961’ is also cited.) Despite the rhetoric, it would appear that the defensive stance taken here was intended to disambiguate the kinds of self-willed deaths which remained opaque or undefined in the penal code, as well as to open up the debate on the medico-legal aspects of voluntarily embracing death in certain circumstances (without active intervention of another party), given the apprehension (or at this stage, inapprehension mixed with apathy) of the representative legislature on the question of euthanasia. What the judges were possibly also drawing attention to is that the IPC has failed to keep pace with changing contexts and attitudes in society and does not reflect the more liberal and caring attitude towards suicide espoused in Western countries. This wisdom was also pronounced in terse terms by the highly celebrated former Justice of the Supreme Court, V. V. Krishna Iyer (Sorabjee 2014). Following the French Revolution, suicide did not reappear in the new penal codes promulgated in 1791. Various Western nations have decriminalized suicide (although not necessarily all forms of assisted suicide). Voluntary hārākirī continues to command high respect in Japan and is occasionally practiced (Beeker 1990, 552). The charges were quashed. One implication in the light of the considerations advanced by the bench is that this should allay some of the apprehension and that, seen through the eyes of this ruling, the ‘rite’ may well appear to be humane, dignified and ethical, provided there is no abetment and intervention from an/other agents. The judges made obiter dictum reference to the Jaina practice, urging for a more liberal-humanitarian approach to religious forms 153

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of suicide. But this apparent legal sanction might not be much of a consolation, for as far as the Jains are concerned, it is ultimately dharma that gives sanction to their conduct (as the appeal writ pending before the Supreme Court sets out to argue); the courts are attempting to put the legal cart before the dharmic horse. Once again, would not the Jains have cause for concern, for the safe haven they may have assumed under the earlier decision could well rebound on them, as the Rajasthan High Court ruling forebodes? Perhaps it is better from their perspective to keep alive the tension between dharma and the legislature. At least this strategy might well succeed, for secular law pretends not to notice the illegality of the (attempted) act or give offence to their practice. Conversely, of what use is an appeal to religion when S.309 could still be enforced under the cover of S.306 or other provisions against coerced death in the penal code or in common law? (Given that its policing is not fully eradicated). Suppose the Bombay High Court decision was overturned by another parallel court on the grounds that IPC is not ultra vires, as indeed it was in a case before the Andhra Pradesh Court: Chenna Jagadeeswar and Another v. State of Andhra Pradesh Andhra High Court Appeal No. 165 of 1987 (AIR Vol. 94, April 1988, 549, 558). The arguments of judges have been summarized elsewhere (Bilimoria 1995, 2020), and we need not enter the details here. The question that foremost concerned the Andhra bench was ‘whether it is right for the state to adopt the position that those unable to lead a dignified life are welcome to depart it?’ The court expressed horror, moral and practical, at the incongruities and consequences of such an entailment (combining both Kantian and utilitarian considerations in one judgment). And so, the submissions entered on the basis of the Bombay High Court ruling were rejected, thereby setting aside the emergent ‘right to die’ principle for the purposes of its own judgment and (Andhra) state-wise precedent – awaiting, perhaps, the ratio decidendi of a Supreme Court bench against its own earlier judgment in the 1996 Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab appeal (discussed shortly). The summation nonetheless concluded on a sound note that society will neither provide sustenance nor, paradoxically, allow the sufferer to die, and it recommended that in such complexities of social maladjustments, the court should temper its judgment with humanity and compassion. Some pessimism was aired in some quarters regarding the extent to which any self-­ enacted termination of life could be permitted under the existing provisions. An essay entitled ‘Right to Die as a Fundamental Right’ (Rafiq 1988, 3–8) in a leading Indian criminal law journal drew attention to certain basic difficulties with the earlier Bombay High Court argument. Last but not least, the law does not and cannot give weight to religious practice as a mandate for its legitimacy without regard to the procedure established; it follows that the courts ‘must refrain from expressing their opinion over the belief religiously held by the people unless it becomes impossible to otherwise resolve the controversy lest they always run the risk of hurting believer(s) of the religion concerned’ (Rafiq 1988, 7). This implies that religiously sanctioned practices are not immune from judgments in terms of the fair, just and reasonable procedure established by law in accordance with the civil and secular fabric of post-Independent India, despite Weberian disenchantments (Bilimoria 2014c). What does this mean for the Jaina practice? But if the Jaina or any religious community continues to deny that the practice is a form of suicide – as the retired Justice T. K. Tukol (1976) had a dash at – and there are severe strictures on seeking its sanction under constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom of a community, then it is for the courts to 154

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decide whether there exists some other classification and constitutional sanction for the practice; the bioethical consideration on its own may not cut much ice in the current eyes of Indian law.

Supreme Court Ruling on S.309 Much of this could change, however, in the wake of a watershed decision in April 1994 by the Supreme Court of India in a writ petition for a hunger striker who was tried in a court in Orissa. P. Rathinam/Nabhushan Patnaik v. Union of India (Supreme Court No. 419 of 1987; 409 of 1986, 26 April 1994). The bench declared the constitutional invalidity of IPC S.309. Various considerations and positions that have emerged in religion, ethics, public policy, secularism and the humanitarian cause were turned over in the highly informed deliberations. The court basically upheld the conclusion of the Bombay High Court. Commentators welcomed the judgment as a thumbs-up for passive euthanasia. However, there was a back-slide in another judgment of the Supreme Court in Gian Kaur v State of Punjab AIR 1996 SC 946, 648 (Cr)374, upholding the constitutionality of section 309 IPC and deconstructing the earlier reasoning that right to life entails right to die – although the bench did make an exception in the case of the dying patient being allowed a ‘dignified process of death’ (Mani 2015, 258). Nevertheless, the erasure of S.309 (2014, 2017) has all but taken care of the unconstitutionality or ultra vires argument, and hence, the said ‘construction made from Article 21 of the Constitution’ goes through in Black Letter spirit. This was further reinforced in a Supreme Court judgment of March 2011 on the well-noted Aruna Shanbaug case (led by stellar Justices Dipak Mishra and Y. Chandrachud) and then again in July 2014, permitting a ‘living will‘ or ‘advanced directive’ that would enable terminally ill patients or those in a persistent and incurable vegetative state (PVS) to rescind medical treatment or life support process. It was a verdict that news media reporters hailed as a triumph for ‘passive euthanasia in India’ (Mahapatra and Choudhary 1994); although, evidently, there hasn’t been much of a follow-up since, and intensivists complain that the debate on euthanasia has withered away, so much that even the ‘do not resuscitate’ (DNR) option – that is commonplace in the West – does not enjoy legal sanction in India. Be that as it may. Touching briefly on the issue of aiding and abetting (or assisting) suicide, for which the laws are stricter and harsher in the civilized nations, the community of monks, the preceptor and perhaps even the physician sitting idly, in so far as they are seen to be assisting the member on terminal fast in fulfilling the vow, could be decreed to be acting in complicity. The prima facie judgment would be that this is a case of homicide, and in exceptional circumstances, a plea of manslaughter might be admissible and accepted by the court. The judgment might be harsh, as those soliciting, aiding and assisting suicide may not be able to avail themselves of the same kinds of pleas as the ‘patient’ might (e.g., a psychological basis of infirmity, insufferable pain). The deterrence factor plays a role here, as by correcting the normative values and perceptions of the community, more preventive measures might be put in place. While this is the position in India (in view of its Penal Code S.305), the position is not so clear-cut in the United States, despite the Model Penal Codes proposal of 1961. Hardly any states have moved towards enacting separate statutory regulations on assisting suicide and the admission of the charge of manslaughter in place of murder in the case of the survivor(s) of suicide pacts, as well as the not infrequent acquittals of doctors (such as the notorious Jack Kevorkian) assisting suicide among terminally ill patients, 155

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considered alongside the move towards ‘advance directive initiatives’, would seem to mitigate the common law theory. The Jaina community could find itself in a paradoxical bind, and if the circumstances of the attempt to end an adept’s life by fasting (anaśana, whether successful or not) were to implicate the attendant monks or preceptors in the process as well, then, in one reading of the penal code (S.309, intended to regulate coercive satī), the Jains are committing murder (or at best, manslaughter of second or third degree). But if, again, this interpretation is denied on the grounds that this is a religious practice, entirely voluntary on the part of the ailing adept, and that there is no solicitation, assisting or abetting involved whatsoever in the free choice of the adept to adopt the rite, then what response can legal scholarship make to this plea? This is the great expectation that awaits the next move of the Supreme Court: whether the temporary stay on the RHC pronunciamiento is extended, bringing the practice closer to the growing Western nations’ (from Scandinavia, parts of Europe, blue states in North America, across Australia) sanguine sanction on euthanasia or assisted dying, ceteris paribus – bioethically in medical practice as in law; or it is squashed. In other words, either the Jaina practice is exonerated and given sanction in law, or the age-old religious practice is declared to be constitutionally and morally unacceptable in the broader secular domain.

Conclusion This development of a more favourable outlook towards one’s right to die, in conjunction with the decisions of the Indian courts within the last two to three decades and a shifting in pan-Indian attitude towards suicide – as presenting more of a health rather than just legal challenge – have allowed the Jaina community to witness encouraging legal strides towards the legalization of sallekhanā. However, in spite of these legal victories, there remain certain obstacles that challenge both the sanguine bioethical basis as also its legitimacy under law. Due to the processes of the rite, coupled with standing laws such as S.306 and the ineffectual decriminalization of S.309, there remains the moot point that sallekhanā cannot be practice as prescribed in Jaina teachings without transgression of the law. The Supreme Court, in its full judgment, might offer a surprise: an absolute sanction; at least, that is the hope in the pending appeal lodged. Still, given the Supreme Court’s stay order, voluntary organizations such as the Dharma Jāgaraṇa Maṇdạ la in Maharashtra might, with impunity, continue with home and hospital visits to help a Jain individual diagnosed with terminal illness to come to terms with their impending death and its potential for auspiciousness. They may even prescribe the vow of the definitive last rites and provide palliative care and counselling to the patient as well as to the family, with the ­support of both lay and religious saṅghas. There the matter stands, for now at least.

Notes 1 Christian Suba edited the manuscript and made several significant inputs. Earlier papers have been reworked with more recent thinking on the issues (Bilimoria 1992, 1995, 2014a). A larger version was published in 2020. Particular gratitude for helpful pointers to my friends and colleagues, Christopher Chapple, Sagarmal Jain, Peter Singer and Helga Kuhse, Robert Young and faithfully departed mentors Bimal K. Matilal, Ninian Smart, J.N. Mohanty, Max Charlesworth, and Patrick Hutchings; and Renuka Sharma, Sally Percival Wood, Jenny Crawford, Bob Vithal, and Umaben Chauhan for a different kind of disclosure. Textual references have been kept to the minimum: which have been extensively provided in the notes of Bilimoria 2020. Abhilasha Semwal and Karyn MacDonell helped with further refinements of the text.

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Dying with Dignity 2 Notably, my acquaintance with ‘live sādhu samādhi’ that certain inclined Hindus appear to practice (Bilimoria 2014a), and incidents I read about in a middle-class patronized ashram north of Bombay while I was studying in Pune, in the late 1970s. I found myself moved by recent proactive arguments and pleas by individuals, both the professional providers of medical and palliative care and the sufferers at the receiving end, for some overdue official steps towards voluntary euthanasia legislation or legal sanction, and loci of sallekhanā within this intellectual discourse.

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PART II

Ecology, Sustainability and Spirituality

11 ETHICS OF GENETIC MODIFICATION Commerce without Morality and Science without Humanity – A Gandhian Response Gunjan Pradhan Sinha Introduction Genetically modified (GM) foods or crops are created by altering the genetic code of an organism, whether plant or animal, to produce a desired effect subservient to human purposes. This new trait may benefit cultivators, traders, private companies, governments or even consumers, depending on the context in which the living organism has been purposefully altered. Genes are comprised of proteins found in living organisms and give them their basic anatomical structure, characteristics and identity. They are linked to each other in a double helix structure in organic cells, and genetic engineering is being used to replace, add or remove a set of proteins so as to meet human desires. Sometimes, this technology can be used to save human lives (as in the case of diabetes), but that is not being undertaken in the scope of this chapter. But what does this have to do with the discipline of ethics? And more so with regard to Mahatma Gandhi, who lived in a time when such a technological tool was probably non-existent or in the very nascent stages of its conception and application. This chapter does not explore the rights and wrongs of the technology of genetic modification per se, but only discusses its application, objectives and end use within the framework of Gandhi’s philosophy. This is an attempt to analyse what a Gandhian response to the use of GM technology in food production may look like and draw conclusions from the exercise.

Context The context for writing this chapter is the extensive debate over the use of genetic engineering for producing foods that may not only bring greater health and wealth to farmers but also acquire traits that human consumers may want to impose on naturally grown food. From colour to taste, from size to waist (line), from nutrition to bumper production, from profit to feeding the poor – a plethora of considerations have gone into the making of the ongoing GM food debate. However, these factors seem to be concerned with only a myopic understanding of the benefits to select interest groups. A more fundamentally broad approach necessitated through the telescope of ethical principles for long-term human welfare and ecology needs discussion. 161

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Approach The choice of Gandhian ethics and philosophy for reading the GM foods debate has been made because of the far-reaching and holistic ideology of the thinker, ranging from politics to society to science to environment and the individual self. In this chapter, four basic principles of satya, ahiṃ sā, swarāj and swadeshi (Gandhi 1987, 2–4) are being used as the pillars of analysing genetic engineering in crops and animals.

Layout The central question at stake is whether humankind should go ahead and further refine the process of genetic modification of crops such as wheat, rice, soya and maize and of animals such as pigs, chickens, turkeys, cows and fish. The answer seems to be both yes and no, given various ethical standpoints, some of which are discussed in this chapter. One must also remember that it amounts to pumping huge amounts of resources to an end whose consequences remain debatable even within the scientific community. Coming back to ethics, according to utilitarianism (Mill 1863, 8), it would appear that modification of crops (to protect crop harvests from chemicals) and meat (to boost productivity) would help in achieving greater benefit to a larger number compared to a scenario where production levels continue to increase modestly and crop yields suffer from parasite infestations. Such an approach would heavily rely on a ‘utility of the ends’ theory, where bringing greater material benefits to a larger number would hold priority. From the Kantian deontological perspective, one could argue both for and against genetic engineering. According to Immanuel Kant, an action has to be performed out of duty to have moral worth (Kant 1785). Actions motivated by love, self-interest or anticipated consequences are permissible but not in the Kantian sense of perfect duties. Perfect duties are those that are always required of us. In this sense, increasing production to feed the world’s poor and eradicate global poverty can be construed as a perfect duty. And some would argue that GM technology is the fastest mode that could probably help us achieve this objective. However, the protection of life forms (just like Kant’s injunction against suicide) can also be considered a perfect duty, and any violation of it is antithetical to Kantian deontological ethics. GM technology, which tinkers with the basic genetic structure of organisms, would not be permissible to Kant, given such a premise. Moreover, modification of genes (so as to make tomatoes redder and waxier) would amount to acting out of selfish human interests and would not be in accordance with the Kantian principles emanating from the exercise of practical reason. Such an act would amount to endorsing and standing by an anthropocentric view of the environment. Virtue ethics, in contrast, deals not with the issue – ‘what should I do?’ but with ‘what should I become?’ (Kaplan 2012).1 Integrity, courage, wisdom and magnanimity become the key operators of the practice of such an ethics. Such a philosophy does not suggest the selective application of human virtues. If integrity has to be exercised, it must be practiced in all spheres of life. Any action that violates the integrity of individuals must, consequently, be avoided. If temperance in the exercise of the pleasures of the palette needs to be practiced as a human virtue, then genetic modification of oranges and papaya to ensure they are always sweet and bright orange would not be permissible.

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Gandhi’s Ethics and His Socio-political Philosophy Gandhi’s moral philosophy is based on the two principles of satya (Truth) and ahiṃ sā (nonviolence). They form not only the basic tenets of his ethics – both theoretical and practical but are also the backbone of his social-political philosophy. Swarāj and swadeshi are only extensions of these principles, beginning with the self and growing to encompass the community, nation and, at the highest level, all living beings. Ahiṃ sā is the means, and Truth is the end. For Gandhi, truth exists; it alone exists. It is the only God. The notion of God involves within it absolute nonviolence, and it is the only means to realizing Truth (Gandhi 1958). For Gandhi, Truth or satya is simply ‘that is’; it is sat or that which simply exists, and is, therefore, knowledge x. In other words, satya is the Reality which means God in sanātana dharma. It is that which pervades all (Gandhi 1987, 22–24, 74). This means that God is accessible to all. It simply is sat. In its moral connotation, Truth means nonviolence, honesty, simplicity, self-control, righteousness, equity and justice, among many other virtues, for Gandhi. Truth, thus, is not simply a transcendental concept but also a matter of practice and simultaneous realization. Ahiṃ sā for Gandhi is not simply physical nonviolence but an amalgamation of the Buddhist and Jain conception of the term, which implies non-violation or non-corruption in thought, speech and action. Thus, ahiṃ sā serves as an appropriate means to the end of truth, which is simply that which has not been falsified, corrupted or distorted from its state of original existence or being (Gandhi 1987, 2–4). It is from these central notions that Gandhi derived his socio-political ideology of ‘swarāj’ and ‘swadeshi’. In its literal translation, swarāj means self-rule, where there is no compromise of what is and no violation of the individual self. In its broad moral and political connotation, it implies not only governance by one’s own people but also control over one’s self and self-restraint (Verma 2016, 146–147). At the community level, it means trusteeship by the community of the local resources – natural, economic or human, etc. While the term swadeshi means belonging to one’s own land, its philosophical interpretation implies local self-reliance and the use of indigenous knowledge and abilities (Gandhi 1941, 3–5).

Gandhian Barometer for GM Food Technology At the very outset, genetic modification, which alters the basic genetic or, to be more precise, inherent natural structure of plants and animals, appears to be a technology that violates the very identity of the given plant or animal. Altering the basic genetic structure of living beings is not simply tinkering with their colour, character, and chemical content but is a form of violence driven to meet human needs and not to benefit the organism. It amounts to creating a new species that does not exist in nature, just like a car with a new engine and sans the original tyres, interior features, etc., does not qualify as the same car. Gandhi’s principle of nonviolence was extended to all beings as he prescribed a gradual moral development that grows in concentric circles to encompass all-natural creations. Moreover, as he believed in imbibing nonviolence in thought (let alone action), it entails that the research and development that goes into changing the basic genetic structure of an organism would warrant being called hiṃ sā or violence. Thus, genetic modification, which also amounts to the obliteration of identity and the creation of a zombie, is antithetical to the principles of both satya and ahiṃ sā, as advocated by Gandhi.

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Peter Singer points out that genetic modification is a form of human arrogance and disrespect for other species, much like the Gandhian view on excessive use of technology. ‘It is almost like playing God’ and is a form of speciesism (Singer and Mason 2006). In Gandhi’s view, the truth was revealed in many forms and had innumerable manifestations, which is one of the primary reasons that he called his autobiography ‘My Experiments with Truth’. If Truth is manifested in all forms of life and existence, then diversity is a myriad expression of God. However, GM food companies promote monoculture as their profits are derived from volumes and not by selling a number of different seed and chemical products. Large corporations sell GM seeds for crops such as corn and soybean, promising bumper and hassle-free harvests for farmers, driving man towards a synthetic, one-crop-dependent life. Major companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta and Du Pont not only promise pesticide-free crop cycles to farmers through the use of GM seeds but also promise bumper harvests. Their motto is to grow more with very less (Syngenta 2021). The motto itself defies the natural principles of the cosmos much revered by Gandhi himself (Gandhi 1987, 64), where he identifies the natural principles of the ecosystem with the Law of God. It must be noted that there are only a handful of crops, such as GM rice, corn, cotton, brinjal, etc., that are being marketed by these companies, as the profits are linked to volume and do not cater to the naturally diversified human needs and palette. If this is so, what lies in the future of region-specific diets such as those in the Indian subcontinent that include coarse grains such as millets, sorghums, chickpeas and amaranth? In case farmers attracted by these so-called hassle-free harvests indulge in growing just one crop, crops like quinoa would completely vanish. It is unlikely, then, that a Gandhian who values local and community-based resources and upholds the philosophy of swadeshi would endorse such a technology. Moreover, these seeds are not sold alone by these huge chemical corporations but are packaged together with other herbicides so that the farmer is completely dependent on them for all farm inputs. The seeds are so modified that they respond only to select chemicals sold by the seed suppliers themselves. An obvious outcome of such an economic transaction between the farmer and the seed corporations is the loss of the farmer’s right to choose how he wants to cultivate his crop and what he wants to grow in successive harvests. Most of these seeds also have a terminator gene that makes them infertile, and part of the produce cannot be stored by the farmer to serve as seeds for the next harvest. Such a monopoly is antithetical to the Gandhian philosophy of community ownership of resources, preserving farmers’ creativity and control of local resources (Kumarappa 1951; Bilimoria 2022). Such an arrangement is not only completely opposite to the swadeshi principle but entails a complete compromise of the philosophy of swarāj, whether taken in the individual, community or national sense. GM crops have been found to be hazardous to other species that thrive in and around the farm. Some of the damage has also been recorded to be irreversible. Large populations of monarch butterflies have been completely wiped out due to the pollen of Bt corn in Mexico. If the environmental hazards documented by the field trials and actual production of such crops are taken into account, then the ethical consequences are far-reaching. (See also chapter 3 by Bhosale in this volume.) Gandhi’s thought is well echoed in one of his favourite verses from the Upanishads that provides us with a view of his absolute reverence for nature. ‘Everything in the Universe belongs to the Supreme Lord; enjoy what is left for you as your legitimate share, and do not 164

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covet what is not yours’ – Īśa Upaniṣad (1995: 4; Nadkarni 2011). This implies a moral development of the self where desires are curtailed to avoid all luxuries, and one takes what is the bare minimum so as to cause no harm to any other living being. Furthermore, Gandhi was of the view that any attempt to get the cooperation of nature purely on human terms would bring violent destruction in its wake.

Gandhi and Technology Gandhi makes a scathing attack on the common conception of ‘civilization’ that touts and promotes the use of high technological innovation (Gandhi 1938, 30–31). In fact, some thinkers have taken an interpretation that he was opposed to all technology. But a number of passages in the Hind Swarāj suggest the contrary. Gandhi held that technology should be subservient to all humankind and should not be used by a few to amass huge wealth by directly or indirectly exploiting others. For Gandhi, civilization is a mode of conduct which points man to the path of duty (Gandhi 1938, 52–53). Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over one’s mind and passions. Civilization for Gandhi is simply ‘good conduct’ (Gandhi 1987, 72–73). This position entails that GM food companies that aim at producing a system of excesses by attracting farmers, offering them not a virtuous product but one attained by violation of basic natural dignity and identity of plants and animals, are acting contrary to Gandhi’s conception of morality. It is an act that benefits a few mammoth corporations in terms of amassing wealth and sacrifices farmers’ long-term interests for short-term gains. Moreover, there is no guarantee that promised short-term gains to the farmers are fulfilled. The reason is that genetic modification of the primary crop, such as corn or soya, has often interfered with the genetic structure of other secondary crops and natural herbs growing on the field on account of unforeseen and unwanted changes in their genetic structure due to cross-pollination. Gandhi was opposed to such ‘cut and paste’ technologies that do not take into the cultural ethos of the cultivator and the ecology of the land. Indian farmers just do not produce a single crop at one time (Kumarappa 1951, Chp 5). Apart from grains (part of which is kept back for personal consumption and as seed for the next harvest), farmers grow vegetables and legumes for their household needs. Such a technology, which promotes only monoculture, does not suit the traditional Indian agrarian ethos. Gandhi further holds that if technology and morality are not related, the use of advanced technology can lead to famines (Gandhi 1938, 80–81). For instance, railways were used by the British to transport grains to dearest markets, leading to famines in the area of origin and other markets. In such a scenario, technology helps unethical people fulfil their evil designs with greater rapidity (Nadkarni 2011, 40). Small-time millers and labour-intensive farmers that thrive on cultivating multiple grains face the threat of loss of employment if monoculture is taken up in a big way. This can have a counterproductive effect that can actually leave millions without food. Gandhi was against the loss of local skills and labour as he wanted ‘man’ to use his ‘hands and feet’ to remain self-dependent. It is difficult not to see the striking similarity of his philosophy with Sartre’s existentialism in this regard (Sartre 1945). For Gandhi, man should make of his life what he can based on his abilities and moral decisions, without being subservient to synthetic factors such as technology. It is like saying man is what he makes of himself in the context of Sartre’s work. The history of mankind from 10,000 years 165

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ago provides ample evidence that people ploughed their lands mainly by manual labour. With economic progress and technical advancements, one can plough a vast tract by means of engines and amass great wealth. But in the process, humans will stop using their own hands and feet, becoming slaves to technology. Gandhi’s prognosis was that human effort would be limited to simply pressing buttons to do everything through machinery (Gandhi 1938, 31–33).

The Myth of GM as a Panacea to World Hunger One strong defence that can be given by pro-GM interest groups is that it can be used to eradicate world hunger. But raising the issue of eradication of world hunger only seems to be a red herring that has been raised to divert attention from the main objective of the propagators of this technology, which involves deriving profits from the chemicals that go with such crop cultivation. World hunger needs to be eradicated not just by producing surpluses but also by making it affordable for distribution among the poor. But statistics suggest otherwise. Far from being an inexpensive technology, the amount spent by farmers on producing GM crops is many times over food produced by natural means and indigenously adopted technologies. Physicist and biotechnology scientist Shiva projects that if 21.4 million acres under cotton cultivation in India in 1997–1998 were shifted to genetically engineered cotton, it would cost nearly Rs 224.7 billion by 2000 projections (Shiva 2000, 101) – USD 7 billion by today’s projections. In fact, the cost of cultivating Bt cotton, which generates an insecticide due to its altered genes, is nearly nine times the cost of cultivating local varieties of cotton in India. Shiva observes that genetic modification is not directed towards increasing yield per acre. Most of the GM crops are engineered to be herbicide resistant so that they do not get affected when a large quantity of the herbicide sold by the same company supplying the seeds is sprayed. Moreover, soya, corn, tomatoes, potatoes and cotton are not going to solve the problem of world hunger.2

Gandhi’s Ethics-Based Economic Development Even though Gandhi wanted economic development for the country, he did not want that the means towards this end should be divorced from ethics. Development for him was not just a numbers game but a matter of creating greater equity and social justice and using technology to aid in meeting basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, health and basic education. In fact, the kind of development envisaged was one that is carried out in a phased manner that does not disturb the dynamic equilibrium of the social and cultural fibre. For Gandhi, true economics is the economics of justice. The happiness of human beings is inextricably linked to their ability to be just and righteous. All other standards of morality do not lead to the enduring happiness envisaged in Indian philosophical systems and only lead to destruction. A policy approach or a business paradigm that teaches people to get rich by hook or by crook does immense injustice to people, causing inequity between man and ecology (Gandhi 1969, Vol. IV, 73). From what appears to be the aim of these profit-making institutions, GM technology does not appear to hold much water when it comes to the sounding board of Gandhian ethics. GM could have a lean chance of making our farmers rich, and if they become rich, it will only be at the monumental cost of accompanying environmental pollution/damage, harm to other living beings and impending 166

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health risks to humans that are suited to ingest and digest naturally found genes. Gandhi called an agricultural system ethical or ‘good’ if it benefitted the poorest of the poor (Bakker 1990). If GM crops that are grown expensively can be afforded only by the rich, then such a system would fail to be ethical by Gandhian standards. The kind of advanced technology involved in genetic modification does not benefit the poor, as the profits go into the hands of a handful of multinational corporations. This is supported by statistics that show that eight corporations controlled 63.4% of the global seed market and 74.8% of the market of pesticides and herbicides in 2009 (Navdanya 2014). Advanced technology is seen as a solution for development, as it presupposes higher productivity, higher income, higher savings and higher investment. But this is a fallacious argument when it concludes that higher income will feed the poor (Bakker 1990). It is an Ignoratio Elenchi as money is going into the hands of the employer of those technologies who can further spend or save and not in the hands of the poor who have no access to food.

Conclusion Gandhi suggests that civilization involves doing one’s duty in line with the moral conscience or, as Kant said, following practical rationality. The virtues of self-control, honesty and temperance are also essential to his principles of satya and ahiṃ sā. He suggests a welfare economy where everybody’s happiness or welfare is attempted without compromising that of a few for a majority of others. His prescription is a gradual change in line with the social equilibrium and cultural setting of the people. Happiness translates more directly into equity and justice rather than the immediate achievement of wealth. However, the issue at hand, which is the application of genetic engineering, specifically in the case of food production, seems contradictory to the Gandhian conception of an ethics-based civilization. There seems to be no bias against technology as such, but the perils of GM food seem to be far too many at the current stage and time. It is possible that the technology has grown over the years to guarantee environmental and health safety and may then present a more plausible case for adoption. But the ends to which the technology’s use is driven need to be aligned with ethics. As Gandhi has said that economics without moral fibre is not development; the social, economic, environmental and individual fallouts need to be well metred down before nations at large take to it. In its current form, GM foods seem to be a version of economism, a value perspective which regards incomes as the supreme goal of one’s life, disregarding other values such as love and altruism. The technology serves select interest groups such as large commercial chemical conglomerates (now called life sciences companies), farmers and possibly consumers. But the weighing scale seems to be bent on long-term interests as far as ethical principles from the Gandhian standpoint are concerned. It is a form of indiscriminate and parochial mechanization, which cannot achieve the model of a ‘seva economy’ envisaged by Gandhi and his economist friend J. C. Kumarappa.3 Both believed in keeping the scale of production small and serving the hinterland so that no one loses control of the community’s resources and the value of the human agent is not degraded. Whether it is the ecology or the economy, true ethical concern begins from the self but makes wider and wider concentric circles to accommodate others. Kumarappa’s theory of ethical evolution as taking place through stages of development of a parasitic and predatory economy to the highest stage of altruism can be applied to the individual self. The self does not vanish; it only becomes wider, covering the whole earth, and this is how ethics, 167

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economics and environment align together (Kumarappa 1951, Chp 1). The preceding point is being raised in the context of GM because of its wide-ranging impact that has already been documented by scientists, agriculturists and environmentalists across the globe. We must not also forget that the origin and propagation of the technology emanates from core chemical companies, whose interests are aligned with chemical sales-driven profits rather than actual altruistic or philanthropic motives. GM technology does not meet any of the four principles that the academician M. V. Nadkarni derives from the application of Gandhian ethics to the environment. At the outset, concern for the weakest, including animals and plants, is absent in the current application of the technology. Secondly, restraint on greed and unnecessary consumption does not go hand in hand with an economy that thrives on monoculture. Thirdly, resource management is being taken away from the hands of the local people, and their management will no longer be democratic but simply in the hands of a few monopolistic players. Lastly, the technology is not suited to meet people’s needs and is imposed from outside. Rural folk and farmers of India have not dreamt of the need for such a technology. In fact, it alienates the labour from the product, making them simple workers executing the steps of a large player. It kills creativity and individual skill in the name of ‘Mammon worship’ (Nadkarni 2011, 83). It would, thus, be appropriate to conclude that as far as Gandhian principles of satya, ahiṃ sā, swarāj and swadeshi form the barometer for making an ethical judgment about genetic engineering in the context of food production, this technology in its current form is unlikely to garner support from an audience that is entrenched in the Gandhian philosophy of life.

Notes 1 See also Gier’s Chapter 22 in this volume. 2 See Chapter 3 by Bhosale in this volume for a similar evidential argument on the troubling pursuit of biotechnological advances in India. 3 See also Chapter 12 by Mallik in this volume, and reference therein to Bilimoria 2022.

Bibliography Bakker, Hans J.I. 1990. The Gandhian Approach to Swadeshi or Appropriate Technology: A Conceptualisation in Terms of Basic Needs and Equity. Journal of Agricultural Ethics, Vol 3. November. Guelph, ON: University of Guelph. Bilimoria, Purushottama. 2022. ‘A Gandhian Critique of Economic Reason: Between Tradition and Modernity’. In Rita Sherma and Purushottama Bilimoria (Eds), Sustainable Societies; Intersection of Sustainable Studies, and Philosophy, Religion, 51–60. Dordrecht: Springer. Gandhi, M.K. 1938. Hind Swarāj or Indian Home Rule. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. ———. 1941. Constructive Programme – Its Meaning and Place. Ahmedabad: Navajivan. Publishing House. ———. 1958 [1909]. Hind Swarāj or Indian Home Rule. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. ———. 1969. Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. IV. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. ———. 1987. “Who Is Hindu?” The Essence of Hinduism. Ahmedabad: Navajivan. Īśa Upaniṣad. 1995. Eight Upaniṣads with Commentary of Śrī Śaṅkarācārya. trans. Swami Gambhirananda, 4–8, Calcutta: Advaita Ashram. Kant, Immanuel. 1785. Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals, Jonathan Bennett, 2007. www. earlymoderntexts.com Kaplan, David M. 2012. “Issues Related to Food Ethics: Responsibilities to Self and Others”. In The Philosophy of Food. Los Angeles CA (USA): University of California Press. http://www.food.unt. edu/philfood/#a

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Ethics of Genetic Modification Kumarappa, J.C. 1951. “Socialism, Communism and Gandhian Economy”. In Gandhian Economic Thought. Varanasi: Sarva Seva Sangh. Manning, Richard. 2005. Against the Grain. New York, NY: North Point Press. Mill, J.S. 1863. “What Utilitarianism Is”. Utilitarianism. Jonathan Bennett, 2005. http://www. earlymoderntexts.com/pdfs/mill1863.pdf [Accessed 14 January 2015]. Nadkarni, M.V. 2011. Ethics for Our Times – Essays in Gandhian Perspective. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Produce Your Own Seeds. http://www.navdanya.org/attachments/Latest_Publications1.pdf [Accessed January 7, 2014]. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1945. Existentialism Is a Humanism. http://www.public.asu.edu/~jmlynch/273/ documents/sartre-existentialism-squashed.pdf [Accessed January 8, 2014]. Shiva, Vandana. 2000. Stolen Harvest – The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. New Delhi: India Research Press. Singer, Peter and Mason, Jim. 2006. The Ethics of What We Eat – Why Our Food Choices Matter. United States of America: Rodale, 2006. Syngenta. 2021. https://www.syngenta.com/en/company/faq/biotechnology Verma, Madan Mohan. 2016. Gandhi’s Technique of Mass Mobilization. India: Partridge.

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12 ETHICS, SCIENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY A Gandhian Alternative* Bidisha Mallik

In modern India, renderings of a stereotyped spiritual Gandhi have become an impediment to wider scholarship and critical intellectual scrutiny. As Thomas Weber (1991, 141) remarks, the ‘process of neutralization by deification’ of Gandhi evinces how, after his death, he ceased to be a wellspring of inspiration for social change and instead became a glorified saint who is now to be ‘admired or worshipped but not followed’. This has undermined the relevance of Gandhi’s ethics, as expressed through his critique of modernity, urban industrial civilization and Western knowledge systems and discounted the value of his personal and social experiments for sustainability and human progress. Scholarly attention to Gandhi’s contribution to intellectual history, the sociology of knowledge and economic sociology, particularly his views on the role of science and technology, has been insufficient. In popular mind, this has played up Gandhi’s confrontational side as a Satyagrahi, a civil resister and political revolutionary of just causes, but dimmed out what Michael Nagler (2006, 254) calls Gandhi’s positive and proactive ‘nonconfrontational’ side that stressed careful planning and rigorous social scientific research to bring about a non-disruptive and gradual process of change. This was expressed through Gandhi’s Constructive Programme, an integrated reform program for a nonviolent social order, and it was by it, as Gandhi emphasized, that civil disobedience could be effective. Gandhi could be better approached as an advocate of science and technology and as an astute thinker of sustainability in connection to his Constructive Programme. Gandhi’s ideas on science were extremely complex, involving methods, experimentation, laboratory research and field training, through which he defined an alternative science for civil society. These ideas and practices are important to study not only because they are the least explored but also because of their potential role in broadening contemporary  discourses on the social choice of sustainable science and technology for human development. *  I am indebted to the excellent editorial comments and suggestions made by David M. Grimes on several drafts of this work. This chapter was originally published in Legends in Gandhian Social Activism: Mira Behn and Sarala Behn by Springer publishers, June 2022. It has been subsequently updated and reproduced in this volume with permission. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-16

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Gandhi’s Views on Science, Technology and Development ‘It is a common superstition in India, and more so outside India … that I am an opponent, a foe, of science. Nothing can be farther from truth than a charge of this character. … I think that we cannot live without science, if we keep it in its right place’, so remarked Gandhi in a speech to students of engineering at Trivandrum in 1925. In the same address, he urged a kind of accountability in science, stating, ‘In my humble opinion there are limitations even to scientific research, and the limitations that I place upon scientific search are the limitations that humanity imposes upon us’ (Gandhi 1999a, 409–410). Far from being anti-science, Gandhi’s was a nuanced stance indicating the social and environmental impacts of industrial technologies. In Hind Swarāj or India Home Rule (1906), Gandhi presented a scathing indictment of the perils of modern civilization in the West dominating the world through its science and technology and its economic and political institutions. But in his critique, Gandhi was not uncritical of tradition or condemning all that is Western. Gandhi opposed the predominant character of modern civilization as materialistic, imperialistic and as an exploitation of the vulnerable people of the earth. Civilization, according to Gandhi, was ‘that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty’, where performing duty and observing morality builds the foundation of any civilization (Gandhi 1938, 67). However, the culture of modern civilization, Gandhi argued, as founded on colonial imperialism, industrial capitalism and scientific materialism, violates the very spirit of civilization as ‘good conduct’. ‘[M]ind is a restless bird’, he noted, ‘the more it gets the more it wants, and still remains unsatisfied. The more we indulge in our passions, the more unbridled they become’. He continued, ‘[H]appiness [is] largely a mental condition. A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich or unhappy because he is poor. The rich are often seen to be unhappy, the poor to be happy’ (Gandhi 1938, 68–69). Gandhi’s point was that ‘luxuries and pleasures’, ‘life-corroding competition’ and ‘large cities’ are unsustainable and do not add to either human health or happiness. The theory of unlimited human wants and conquest of nature that formed the defining features of such a civilization thus had no appeal to him (Gandhi 1999b, 233–234). It was from his critique of modern civilization that we arrive at the sustainability maxim captured in a prophetic statement he once made to Pyarelal: ‘Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need but not for every man’s greed’. Thus, one principal issue with modern civilization, as Gandhi perceived it, was the separation of fact from value. Gandhi argued against a nonmoral ontology that separated the ‘ought’ from the ‘is’ and made science value-neutral in theory. To Gandhi, modern civilization, with its utilitarian and self-indulgent goals, undermined the moral foundation of society (Sahasrabudhey 2002, 37–38). In the background of Gandhi’s approach to science as integral to life and ethics, his civilizational critique in Hind Swarāj can be defined as a ‘contemporary statement on science policy’ aiming to challenge the established maxims of a professionalized scientific worldview, the dualism of knowledge and power, fact and value, and the layman and the expert (Vishwanathan 1997, 130–132). With regard to technology, Gandhi’s attitude was neither that of a romantic critic of technical progress nor an advocate of a return to a pre-technological world. A closer reading of Hind Swarāj reveals his position as opposed not to technology but to the ‘craze for machinery’ (1938, 8). Far from opposed to technological change, Gandhi was critical of technology that displaced necessary human labour, benefiting a few at the top at the cost of meeting the basic necessities of those at the bottom. This was not only ‘parasitic’ 171

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as it makes the stronger live off the labour and produce of another, but also ‘irresponsible’. Stressing instead, a more ‘humanitarian industrial policy’, which ‘subserves the interests of all’ through the qualified and contextual usage of machinery, Gandhi’s critique was precisely levelled against the overwhelmingly prevailing materialism, determinism, and inbuilt sense of efficiency in modern conceptions of science and technology (Gandhi 1999c, 311; 1999d, 72). Contrary to the conception of science as a progressive, secular and universal method of inquiry, the Gandhian method regards science and its advancement more from a Kuhnian perspective. Thomas Kuhn (1962) argued in the early ’60s that scientific revolutions or significant scientific advancements emerge beyond the zone of ‘normal science’ or the conservative, paradigm-bound, ‘puzzle-solving’ approach to knowledge and scientific discourse. Paradigm shifts occur when alternatives are explored that both conceptually and empirically challenge the established frameworks of thought of self-contained scientific communities. The Gandhian method proposed such an alternative to the dominant and exclusivist versions of conventional science under the modernist paradigm. However, Gandhi’s method represented a social epistemology of science, including not merely the epistemic but also the social and the ethical. Gandhi gave a practical shape to the idea that science, technology and progress are essentially value-embedded exercises through which new truths are socially caused by ‘constantly contesting the existent’ (Fox 1989, 81). He wanted modern scientists to espouse the cause of bettering the condition of all, breaking the barrier between the elite and the subaltern in the process (Prasad 2001, 3731). A truly people-centred science has to broaden its ethical base to include the concerns of the human and the nonhuman world: I see the day clearly dawning when the honest scientist of the West will put limitations upon the present methods of pursuing knowledge. Future measurements will take note not only of the human family but of all that lives, and even as we are slowly but surely discovering that it is an error to suppose that Hindus can thrive upon the degradation of a fifth of themselves or that peoples of the West can rise or live upon the exploitation and degradation of the Eastern and African nations, so shall we realize in the fullness of time, that our dominion over the lower order of creation is not for their slaughter, but for their benefit equally with ours. (Gandhi 1999c, 312) Gandhi did not see science as an expertise-driven and mission-oriented objective search that is independent of the individual scientist but an ethical and social reflection, which he called the essential link between internal and external research that connects the scientists to the people and the environment (1999e, 210–211). This conception of science and technology, guided by society and contingent on human, social and contextual matters, is the key to understanding Gandhi’s view on social progress and economic sustainability (Sahasrabudhey, 2002, 45). For Gandhi, Western models of techno-economic development have not been appropriate for India, where it resulted in social, economic and cultural immiseration misutilization and depletion of natural resources. However, while Gandhi did not favour labour-displacing machinery for India, he did not generalize his view and realized the need for such machinery in other contexts. For instance, he acknowledged, ‘mechanization is good when hands are too few for the work’, ‘a big country like America with very sparse population, perhaps, cannot do otherwise’. He also added, ‘[A] big country, with a teeming population with an ancient rural tradition … need 172

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not, must not copy the Western model. What is good for one nation situated in one condition is not necessarily good for another differently situated’ (Pyarelal 1958, 150). At his ashrams, Gandhi devised a political ecology of knowledge organized around a series of experiments to allow equality and reciprocity among various forms of knowledge, Western and indigenous. For instance, as an antidote to the ill effects of professionalized modern medicine, Gandhi (1954) endorsed drugless alternative practices like those of Louis Kunhe and Adolf Just’s naturopathy, as well as indigenous medicines like Ayurveda and Unani.1 In fact, on several occasions when his own ashramites fell ill, Gandhi (1999f, 175–176; 1999g, 13–14) advised a combination of balanced dietetics and indigenous tonics as a cure. As a corollary to the view of science as a socially constructed value-embedded exercise is Gandhi’s philosophy and practice of Swadeshi, literally meaning local self-reliance, for the organization of life around what is near or what belongs to us and our extended selves (Sahasrabudhey 2002, 25). The spirit of self-reliance is to organize human activity on a human scale and scientifically such that it brings self-sufficiency and creativity, as well as fosters an intimate cultural relationship with the local environment by bringing the producer and the consumer together. One deviates from this spirit when satisfaction of wants comes from sources far away, as in the large-scale centralized production and distribution systems. Gandhi (1999h, 317) pointed out that not only was the Indian market flooded with British mill cloth, which brought the demise of traditional handloom weaving, but factory workers in Lancashire also wore cloth imported from Ireland and used embroidered fabric from Madras. To adopt the Swadeshi spirit was to consume local produce and cottage industry goods rather than imported or factory-made goods. The principle of Swadeshi thus opposes foreign cultural domination at the cost of native knowledge, heritage and ways of life, local subsistence practices and small-scale manufactures. Inspired by Gandhi, E. F. Schumacher (1977, 11–16) argued against the ‘idolatry of gigantism based on modern technology’ emphasizing ‘smallness, simplicity, nonviolence, and capital-cheapness’ in his discourses on ‘intermediate technology’ and ‘scale of organization’ for sustainable economics. Yet, Swadeshi did not mean one-dimensional and unreflective adherence to the local and the indigenous. For instance, Gandhi (1999i, 342) was critical of indigenous practices that lacked the spirit of progressive research and relied on ancient texts as the last word in medicine. He was desirous of reforming the indigenous practices from within, where practitioners became serious researchers and experimenters or seekers of truth in spirit and where indigenous and modern sciences could work harmoniously together. This was Gandhi’s ‘living ecology of knowledge’, a pursuit for ‘cognitive justice’ for different forms of knowledge to co-exist (Vishwanathan 1998, 42). A creative engagement with traditional and modern forms of knowledge implied attending to basic human survival and justice concerns on the one hand and the need for a ‘de-professionalization’ of human social relations on the other. Instead of serving only the minorities in the cities, scientists, he urged, should be living in and serving the millions living in the countryside for the creation of what decades later Ivan Illich (1973, 25) called a ‘postindustrial convivial lifestyle’. Thus, the Swadeshi approach was to apply science and technology on a human scale, involving public participation in the innovation, modification, betterment and even dismissal of a particular choice. The ethical precepts of truth (satya) and nonviolence (ahimsa) acted as regulative beliefs and a foundation for the incorporation of human values within the body of science and technical practice (Gandhi 1959, 18). Spiritually, Swadeshi was self-liberating because by serving the immediate neighbourhood, one is also able to come out of the limitedness of one’s own horizon and relate oneself more intimately with the rest of creation. 173

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Gandhi’s critique of modern industrial civilization not only served as an important constructive analytical tool but also a ‘baseline for a range of alternative notions of change’ (Mohanty 1989, 2072). His method of transformative change to attain freedom against foreign rule for the people of India was based on two interrelated and key ideas. The first was nonviolent civil disobedience or Satyagraha, a process to collectively resist untruth, injustice and oppression that aimed at rousing public conscience and transforming the opponent. The second was his economic program, often referred to as the Khadi movement2 or the village Constructive Programme. As a necessary corollary to the fight against colonialism, the Constructive Programme was a comprehensive package of sociocultural and economic reform projects that sought to redefine science and technology as an alternative epistemic and ethical practice through the promotion of homespun cloth, cottage industries, campaigns for sanitation, education and those against untouchability and addiction. Gandhi (1941) said civil disobedience without the Constructive Programme would be limited and incomplete, ‘like a paralysed hand attempting to lift a spoon’. Despite its being the key element of Gandhi’s revolutionary ideals for a sustainable society, civil disobedience gained prominence during the nationalist movement, while the Constructive Programme did not. The Constructive Programme was launched through the All-India Spinners Association (AISA) and All-India Village Industries Association (AIVIA) in the 1930s to promote ‘swadeshi economics’ and ‘science for the villages’ (Bilimoria 2022). Here, Gandhi wanted ‘centralization not of administration but of thought, ideas, and scientific knowledge’ (Prasad 2001, 3727–3728). Gandhi may have been among the first social scientists who aimed for a mutual affiliation between the various sciences for integrated development. Every social problem in the village, his teachings revealed, was closely related to another. No one issue could be dealt with in isolation from the others. For instance, to combat disease, the village needed to address and improve sanitation, diet, lifestyle and food habits; agriculture and animal husbandry; practice cooperative farming; impart adult education; and so on. To bring about an integrated development of the village, community scientists like Maganlal Gandhi, Jamnalal Bajaj, Krishnadas Gandhi, Mira Behn, Richard Bartlett Gregg and Maurice Frydman; chemists like Prafulla Chandra Roy; and economists like Joseph Cornelius Kumarappa experimented with spinning, food processing, compost making and organic agriculture, conservation and cattle breeding, waste management, sanitation, renewable energy sources, local systems of technology and architecture and handicrafts, not merely as a skill development process, but as a scientific endeavour. Consider, for instance, Mira Behn’s work on rural dwellings as a demonstration of sustainable construction. She linked an alternative stream of science and technology to the Gandhian vision of society in which rural buildings were fashioned harmoniously with the natural beauty of their surroundings through a process of people’s active participation with their environment, using only local materials and with respect to the climate and hydroecology of the land. The buildings were not mere functional frames to house people and things to a maximized standard of living and comfort. They were designed in a way that fosters human relations with each other and with the world and were not only ‘pleasant to look upon, but pleasant to live in, being cool in summer and warm in winter’ (Mira Behn 1960, 296). In village economics, J. C. Kumarappa’s inventions of Magan Choolha, a non-smoky, fuel-efficient cooking stove, and Magan Deep, a lamp (for unelectrified villages), which used only locally available non-edible oil rather than expensive kerosene or coal oil, deserve mention. Such inventions were labour-oriented, nature-friendly and low-energy and low-capital, requiring that they attended to the needs of people who could make, afford and 174

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operate them themselves, thus challenging both ideologically and practically the prevalent techno-economic model of centralization (Tikekar 1996). Thus, instead of an attitude of obsolescence or stasis in traditional rural technology, Gandhi advocated a theory of technological innovation to save communities that faced the danger of obsolescence by modern technology (Vishwanathan 1998, 43). He was a keen advocate of improving speed and technological efficiency and inventions in village industry tools like the spinning wheel, the distaff and the oil press machine (Prasad 2001, 3727–3728). He favoured simple and easily workable discoveries of modern science, like the sewing machine that spared people tedious and unnecessary labour and which allowed small businesses to thrive (Gandhi 1999j, 266). Technology and modern science could thus generate local employment based on the Swadeshi ideal of local production and distribution, reduced concentration of wealth and cooperation and interdependence with nature and society. Gandhi’s intention to industrialize the village economy in this manner was to bring down science and technology from the mountain tops to the plains where common folk dwell so as to give to the masses, the small producer, the breaker of soil and the handicraftsman plying his craft in his cottage their full benefit. (Pyarelal 1958, 587) Today, in various parts of rural India, dedicated followers of the Gandhian Constructive Programme continue to experiment with rural technology and integrated economics for agriculture and industry. Rural inventor Anand Ballabh Joshi of Pranaam Niwas in Kumaon Himalaya works for economic self-sufficiency and sustainability of the mountain environment and culture. His inventions, such as the hand-operated wool-carding machine, fuel-efficient smokeless oven for cooking and heating, improved agricultural implements, winnowing machine, and microhydro installations such as the water mill were designed specially to reduce the burden of women who form the backbone of hill agro-economy. Joshi’s inventions are socio-culturally motivated participatory initiatives that are affordable, durable, locally made and light in weight; they are easy to operate, control and maintain and thus tailored to meet the real needs of the mountain farming community. As he says, ‘Every researcher … thinks only of his own ideas. But we can get good success only when we think and do research according to the needs of others’.3 In this way, the Gandhian school of thought emphasized that science and technology as practice can influence and morph the day-to-day lives of the people. It highlighted the primacy of the role of traditional knowledge base, public initiative and people’s participation in techno-scientific decisions as the key ingredients for social change. However, Gandhi realized that a humanitarian confluence of the elite and the subaltern in the pursuit of de-professionalized scientific knowledge is not possible so long as the root of the problem, the mind-body dualism endemic to the professional world, remained unchallenged. In this connection, Gandhi clearly saw the necessity for reforming an educational system that perceived brainwork and manual work as essentially separate and valued hierarchically. Addressing students, Gandhi pointed out that science is essentially one of those things in which theory alone is of no value whatsoever, unless you have practical knowledge and unless you conduct practical experiments … unless our hands go hand in hand with our heads we would be able to do nothing whatsoever. (Gandhi 1999k, 412) 175

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To integrate the intellectual with the practical, in 1937, Gandhi introduced what he called Nai Talim or New Education4 within the framework of his Constructive Programme, with the aim of creating scientists who would be ‘real servants of the nation’. The idea of Nai Talim stressed educating children by teaching some useful handicrafts scientifically for an all-round development of their physical, intellectual and emotional faculties. Gandhi also argued that this kind of experiential education would be self-supporting because of the focus on productive (bread) labour, which contributes towards the maintenance of schooling. Moreover, when rural crafts become an essential part of education, urban exploitation of the rural is prevented, promoting a healthy interrelationship between the village and the town (Husain 1959, 74). In this way, education does not become a privilege of a few but becomes a universal phenomenon.

Gandhian Democracy and Development: Swarāj and Sarvodaya Contemporary social and political theorists in the West have asserted that no one is free in society ‘as long as the freedom of one person must be purchased with another’s oppression’ (Habermas 1998, 418). Gandhi developed this idea further, arguing that participatory democracy was not possible so long as the dignity and integrity of the individual were degraded by fear, dead habit, violence, competitiveness and the unrestrained pursuit of materialism. Thus, Gandhi brought the critical question of ethics to the forefront of democratic progress: what kind of self-cultivation is required in the pursuit of social solidarity so that one does not use power to coerce and dominate others? This brings us to the exercise of a kind of political freedom, which Gandhi called Swaraj self-rule or self-restraint. The idea has its roots in the spiritual self-discipline ingrained in Indian culture, which seeks to build both moral and spiritual consciousness, also known as dharma. The practice of Swaraj motivates individuals to adopt certain ethical principles as a guide to action and encourages them to be self-reflective and responsible for their conduct. It is an internal regulation that presupposes self-discipline, self-restraint, moral responsibility, respect for the interconnectedness of individuals, and a disposition neither to dominate nor to be dominated by others. This emphasis on active popular self-rule, which is different from the Western democrats’ notion of satisfying people’s wants and needs for securing popular approval for governance, formed the essence of Gandhian democracy. Swarāj, according to Gandhi (1999l, 314), means ‘consciousness in the average villagers that he is the maker of his own destiny, he is his own legislator through his chosen representatives’. Gandhi’s concept of village or Gram Swaraj was thus a completely independent republic, self-sustained, though it did not exclude dependence and cooperation from neighbouring villages, states, and the world (1961, 73–74): In this structure composed of innumerable villages, there will be ever-widening, never ascending circles. Life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom. But it will be an oceanic circle whose center will be the individual always ready to perish for the village, the latter ready to perish for the circle of villages, till at last the whole becomes one life composed of individuals, never aggressive in their arrogance but ever humble, sharing the majesty of the oceanic circle of which they are integral units. Therefore, the outermost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner circle but will give strength to all within and derive its own strength from it. … No one … will be the first and none the last. 176

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Gandhi was suspicious of the capitalistic and utilitarian norms of social organization. Good ends or consequences, as Gandhi inferred from the Ruskinian indictment of capitalism, always require good means to begin with. It is in this context that Gandhi proposed John Ruskin’s principle as stated in his book Unto This Last, in which he called Sarvodaya the ‘greatest good of all’ to counter the problems of the principle of elimination of the weakest for ‘the good for the greatest number’ (Gandhi 1956, 1–2). A democratic state, in Gandhi’s opinion, must be engaged in promoting the greatest good of all, and therefore, unless the state upholds the cause of the disadvantaged, he argued, it either remains nominally democratic or even totalitarian. States must become ‘courageously nonviolent’ to become democratic (1999m, 194). Such a post-capitalist society, which in Gandhi’s opinion applies to Western conditions as well,5 strives to ‘attain a juster distribution of the products of labor’ (1961, 77). As a comprehensive idea, Swaraj included not only participatory political democracy but also economic self-reliance, social equity and ethical behaviour, what Gandhi expressed as Poorna Swaraj, or complete independence by maintaining a strong civil society, through organized voluntary work to form village or community republics. The latter were training grounds for service to the nation that entailed active participation in the search and creation of alternative forms of knowledge for all-round development through the use of human capital, decentralized production, and appropriate technology (Rudolf and Rudolf 2006, 35). The Constructive Programme of Gandhi aimed to involve leaders of free India and bring them in direct contact to work with people, not merely for people. This made development a ‘bottom-up’ process aimed at uplifting the disadvantaged (Weber 2004, 121–122). Thus, Swaraj was a standard for democratic life that was to be earned practically by education, experience, and example at the unit or community level and then by gradually enlarging the peripheries of its influence to include larger communities in a manner that Gandhi called ‘oceanic circles’, making a living bond between the government and the people. Soon after independence, Gandhi realized that the political party of the Indian National Congress, in its ‘difficult ascent to democracy … has inevitably created rotten boroughs leading to corruption and creation of institutions, popular and democratic only in name’. With careerist politicians seeing no excitement in the constructive work, Gandhi (1999o, 305) pondered, ‘How to get out of the weedy and unwieldy growth?’ In what is known posthumously as his Last Will and Testament, Gandhi (1999, 333) outlined his proposed solution only one day before he was assassinated. In this historic document, Gandhi argued that after political independence, The Congress [Indian National Congress party] in its present shape and form, i.e. as a propaganda vehicle and parliamentary machine, has outlived its use. India has still to attain social, moral, and economic independence in terms of its seven hundred thousand villages as distinguished from its cities and towns. …For these and other similar reasons, the A.I. C.C. [All-India Congress Committee] resolves to disband the existing Congress organization and flower into a Lok Sevak Sangh. [Society to Serve the People] Gandhi’s call upon the leaders not to represent the independent government as a narrow political party but to dissolve and convert the Congress into a decentralized Lok Sevak Sangh for the service of the people was the nonviolent way of realizing Poorna Swaraj. Gandhi reasoned that India could not attain her democratic goal of Swaraj and contribute to national and world peace through Sarvodaya unless the self-reliant and nonviolent 177

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strength of the people was built from the grassroots. This would mean the removal of socioeconomic inequalities and the establishment of a nonviolent civil force for peace at home as well as abroad, both of which were beyond the capacities of the political parties (Ram 1961, 135). Thus, Lok Sevak Sangh was to be a grassroots democratic movement for social and economic development having both local and global significance and responsible for constructive work amongst village communities of India. The post-capitalist thrust of Gandhi’s political thought and practice thus challenged the assumption that existing systems of socioeconomic power relations are justified in a true democracy. The coexistence and harmonious development of different forms of knowledge and its popularization through practice by civil society is the intelligent integration that Gandhi built between science, ethics, development and democracy. Such integration necessitated an informed and empowered civil society or a democratized public sphere, a decentralized state and a commitment to pluralistic views and minority rights. Gandhi persistently maintained that unless civil power gets the upper hand against a centralizing, bureaucratic, and uniform political power to achieve ‘social, moral and economic independence’, Swaraj or democratic ideals of India will be out of reach (Gandhi 1997, 191–193).

The Gandhian ‘Utopia’: Challenges and Relevance Far from an unrealizable romantic ideal, Gandhi’s vision of a new society or ‘utopia’, as Richard Fox cogently claims, was revolutionary, as it experimented with social reform and dared to dream ‘of a world that could be’ (Fox 1989, 60). Through his critique of modernity and machines, Gandhi raised epistemological and ontological questions of critical concern today. In questioning modern organized knowledge systems, its value-free ideal and knowledge monocultures, Gandhi struck a powerful blow to its epistemic foundations. In returning science to the people and the community, Gandhi created a political economy of modern science, exemplified through the alternative discourse of social experimentation and his Constructive Programme. His adherence to truth and nonviolence as the ultimate criteria of human action gave the scientist of the decentralized, self-reliant village economic order reason to engage not with facts alone but also in creating meaning or value, both moral and existential (Sahasrabudhey 2002, 14–15). His critique of industrial modernity emerged out of a deep concern for the human condition and for building meaningful human relations with the world. Thus, Gandhi (1999r, 382–383) was careful to indicate that constructive workers must be engaged in creating social and political meanings through their work: [Y]ou would have to see … if the charkha increases your nonviolent powers … see if it increases the strength of the people and whether, in free India, the economic provisions of swaraj could be based on the spinning wheel. Would it turn people into mere automatons capable of physical labor or would it make them nonviolent soldiers of swaraj. … You would not merely improve the tools and implements, but also see their conformity with our principles. Critics of modern technology have often made pessimistic claims that it is ‘essentially unable to recognize its limit’ (Feenberg 1999, 198–199). However, Gandhi was not an essentialist who saw modern technology as inherently flawed. As a ‘practitioner and activist as well as a theorist’, he offered solutions that were more optimistic and realistic in orientation 178

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(Rudolf and Rudolf 2006, 3). He developed the theory that society should also be based on values of cooperation, non-possessiveness, self-restraint, love and altruism. Given Gandhi’s appeals to non-possession and simple life, his vision of society is often seen as engendering a pessimistic worldview that reverts to a backward-looking age. The argument by some that such a society implies the return to a rural, romantic, agrarian lifestyle tends to obscure the centrality and complexity of economic sustainability themes in Gandhian village organization.6 The latter is not an ideal that overrides all other values in an uncritical acceptance of the local, the rural and the indigenous. It points the way towards a cognitive shift from universalist assumptions of scientific rationalism, technocratic determinism and globalized industrialism to place-specific epistemology that supports the local without being isolationist to the outside world. It adumbrates reform of the modern development paradigm through ethically conscious economic practices. Additionally, the argument that Gandhi was a rural romantic appears untenable given that Gandhi also fought for urban economic and social issues such as the right for millworkers to a dignified life, justified wages, shorter working hours, better living conditions, etc. (Hardiman 2003, 92–93). His conception of village republics was neither subordinate to nor independent of the urban or the industrial but was in a structurally interdependent relationship such that the growth of the urban does not take place at the expense of the rural. As Gandhi (1999s, 244) stated, I do visualize electricity, ship-building, iron-works, machine-making and the like existing side by side with village handicrafts. But the order of dependence will be reversed. Hitherto industrialization has been so planned as to destroy the villages and village crafts. In the state of the future, it will subserve the villages and their crafts. All this has a contemporary ring in that, far from serving merely the agrarian, it addresses the sustainability and economic inequality concerns that modern economic theory failed to address. In Gandhi’s emphasis on limits to desire for a simple life, the rich or wealthy were not denied, but the wealthy may not prosper by impoverishing others. Combatting poverty and inequality, therefore, must begin with revolutionizing consciousness by disciplining greed (Fox 42–44). Thus, Gandhi devised a philosophy of ‘trusteeship’, which aimed to alter capitalism by converting the capitalist into trustees of their wealth for the poor, helping build interdependence and social responsibility. Gandhi’s emphasis on voluntary giving up of wants orientates us to the path of social responsibility. As he (Gandhi 1999t, 373) had affirmed, [u]nder this outlook multiplicity of material wants will not be the aim of life, the aim will be rather their restriction consistently with comfort. We shall cease to think of getting what we can, but we shall [also] decline to receive what all cannot get. Such a view has deep ecological and ethical implications for our world today. In a rare interview with Gandhi at Poona in 1946, the then Aga Khan, aka Sultan Muhammad Shah and first president of the All-India Muslim League, reported that in Gandhi’s vision, a ‘society’s civilization should not be judged by its powers over the forces of nature, nor by the power of its literature and art, but by the gentleness and kindness of its members towards all living beings’. Khan (1948), who was a firm believer in modern scientific and economic growth, further affirmed that in Gandhi 179

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[t]here was never any suggestion of ‘otherworldliness’ as the motive force to bring about a truly civilized society built on love and forbearance but that man’s proud place in the universe was justified only if he obeyed the highest commands of conscience. In his Tools for Conviviality, Ivan Illich (1973, 5) outlined such a society, which he termed ‘convivial’ as against a ‘manipulative’ one, where people control the tools, where ‘modern technologies serve politically interrelated individuals rather than managers’ and where people ‘rediscover the value of joyful sobriety and liberating austerity’ by relearning to cooperate and depend on each other. Reading from an Illichian lens, one does not interpret the Gandhian conception of ‘austerity’ as a world without enjoyment but one that eliminates only those pleasures which are detrimental to personal relatedness and conviviality. To sum up, Gandhi’s main argument was that science and technology as a method must be engaged with the life of the community. The Gandhian approach was also integrative across disciplines, competent both scientifically and technologically, culturally resonant and cross-culturally open to ideas. The Gandhian alternative renders the world of science plural as well as broadens its moral and cognitive space. Equally important, Gandhi’s critique of modernity was a critique of both epistemology and ethics. He countered both the prevailing beliefs and assumptions in the historical and epistemological meanings of modernity and the widely accepted notion that science and technology can provide answers to each and all problems besetting human society. As some scholars have affirmed, Gandhi succeeded in ‘overcoming the divisive and exploitative rationalism of modernism without regressing to traditionalism. In his approach, there is a merging of the reconstruction of Indian tradition and the reconstruction of Western modernity’ (Pantham 1995, 108–109). Far from being anti-science, Gandhi personified the spirit of science as an ‘educative and liberating force’ and endeavoured to cultivate that intellectual integrity, that habit of dispassionate inquiry into and search for objective truth … which the discipline of science demands…and instilled a scientific approach to everything in life (Pyarelal 1958, 586). Gandhi’s use of experiments in his rural constructive program in the field of dietetics, food, technology, and hygiene underscores his scientific temperament. His own autobiography My Experiments with Truth is a testimony of his scientific disposition towards his own life and experiences. His concept of truth comprised in addition to philosophical ideas, the essence of modern scientific way of thinking which gave it a ‘contextual and experimental form’ (Rudolf and Rudolf 2006, 6–7) This ‘contextual or situational’ vision of truth, and his ‘counter-cultural’ voice against ‘universal truths, objective knowledge and master narratives’, has led some scholars to identify Gandhi as an ‘early contributor to the intellectual lineage of postmodernism’ (15). While soon after independence, Nehru and other Congress leaders summarily rejected Gandhi’s alternatives in his Last Will and Testament, the task of realizing the Gandhian vision fell on the shoulders of Gandhi’s dedicated constructive workers. They realized that Gandhi’s real contribution to development lay in his conceptions of Swaraj and Sarvodaya, which had the capacity to unite the nation’s economy with an evolved cultural consciousness. They justified their opposition to the predominant Nehruvian developmental model as well as to the rising globalized industrial economy not merely through words but by precept 180

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and example by way of preparing their people to combat exploitative market capitalism and statist industrialism. Following the first conference of constructive workers in March 1948, the ‘Sarvodaya Samaj’ or the Society for the Welfare of All, was created as an alternative to Congress’s centralized developmental policies. Over the next few decades, constructive workers helped consolidate and expand Gandhi’s holistic vision of alternative modernity by organizing rural communities in various parts of India, sparking off movements such as the Bhoodan, Shanti-Sena, Chipko and Appiko, raising social consciousness about inequity and injustice; and creating a new ecological and ethical awakening towards a just and sustainable society.

Notes 1 Gandhi was influenced by Louis Kunhe’s (1894) The New Science of Healing and Adolf Just’s (1903) Return to Nature. 2 Khadi literally means homespun or handspun and handwoven cloth. Khadi movement was Gandhi’s practical economic programme for helping the poor of India. The economic issue of Khadi combines the principles of Swadeshi (village self-reliance) and Ahimsa (nonviolence) in the quest for Swaraj (self-rule). The Khadi programme involves educating people in spinning, weaving and other small-scale village crafts and industries. 3 Anand Ballabh Joshi, Private Papers, Pranaam Niwas, Kausani. 4 Gandhi’s educational ideas were significantly influenced by the thought of Western humanists like Tolstoy, Ruskin, Thoreau, Bondaref, Besant, Dewey, Zakir Hussain, Tagore and Carlyle, as well as by Indian educationists such as Gijubhai Badheka who experimented on the Montessori Model in the Indian cultural context. 5 Gandhi did not imagine such a society only for India. He laboured the point that if not in terms of nonviolence, it ought not to be difficult to make a successful appeal to the masses of Europe in terms of economics, and a fairly successful working of such an experiment must lead to immense and unconscious spiritual results … what seems to me to be so natural and feasible for India may take longer to permeate the inert Indian masses than the active European masses. (Gandhi 1999n, 373) 6 Several scholars have interpreted the decentralized organization of the Gandhian village community as a valorization and nostalgia of the agrarian life subject to the fallacy of the romantic agrarian environmentalist of the spinning wheel or bullock cart age, a local culture that supports conservatism and nationalism and which leads to the binary narratives of rural vs. urban, decentralization vs. centralization, and tradition vs. modernity. Ramachandra Guha, How Much Should A Person Consume (2006), 239–240; Meera Nanda, Prophets Facing Backwards: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003); Mukul Sharma, Green and Saffron: Hindu Nationalism and Indian Environmental Politics (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2012), 240–241; Kenore Newman and Ann Dale, ‘Large footprints in a small world: toward a macroeconomics of scale’, Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy 5 no. 1 (2009): 9–19.

Bibliography Bilimoria, Purushottama. (2022) ‘Gandhi’s Philosophy of Economics and Nonviolent Strategy for Civil Rights: A Requiem in Two Movements’, APA Studies on Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies. September Issue on Gandhi’s Philosophy. Feenberg, A. (1999) Questioning Technology. New York: Routledge. Fox, R. (1989) Gandhian Utopia: Experiments With Culture. Boston: Beacon Press. Gandhi, M.K. (1938) Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. Ahmedabad: Navjivan Publishing House. ———. (1941) Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place. Ahmedabad: Navjivan.

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Bidisha Mallik ———. (1954) Nature Cure. Ahmedabad: Navjivan. ———. (1956) Ruskin – Unto This Last: A Paraphrase. Ahmedabad: Navjivan. ———. (1959) Truth Is God. Ahmedabad: Navjivan. ———. (1961) Democracy: Real and Deceptive. Ahmedabad: Navjivan. ———. (1999) CWMG = Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. 99 volumes. New Delhi: Publications Division Government of India. ———. (1997) ‘Draft Constitution of Congress, January 29, 1948’. CWMG, 1999, vol. 98, pp. 333–335. ———. (1999a) ‘Speech in Reply to Students’. CWMG, vol. 30, pp. 409–414. ———. (1999b) ‘Interview to Journalists’. CWMG, vol. 54, pp. 232–34. Accessed May 20, 2012. ———. (1999c) ‘A Student’s Questions’. CWMG, vol. 33, pp. 311–313. ———. (1999d) ‘Notes: The Morals of Machinery’. CWMG, vol. 35, pp. 72–74. ———. (1999e) ‘Speech at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore’. CWMG, vol. 39, pp. 210–211. ———. (1999f) ‘Letter to Chhaganlal Gandhi’. (August 4, 1918) CWMG, vol. 17, pp. 175–176. ———. (1999g) ‘Letter to Maganlal Gandhi’. (May 5, 1919) CWMG, vol. 18, pp. 13–14. ———. (1999h) ‘Answers to Questions at Constructive Workers’ Conference, Madras’. CWMG, vol. 89, pp. 314–320. ———. (1999i) ‘Speech at Opening of Tibbi College, Delhi’. (February 13, 1921). CWMG, vol. 22, pp. 340–343. ———. (1999j) ‘Discussion with G. Ramachandran’. CWMG, vol. 29, pp. 262–271. ———. (1999k) ‘Speech in Reply to Students’ Address, Trivandrum’. CWMG, vol. 30, pp. 409–414. ———. (1999l) ‘My Inconsistencies’. CWMG, vol. 48, pp. 314–315. ———. (1999m) ‘Why Not Great Powers?’ CWMG, vol. 74, pp. 193–194. ———. (1999n) ‘What of the West?’ CWMG, vol. 32, pp. 371–373. ———. (1999o) ‘Congress Position’. CWMG, vol. 98, pp. 305–306. ———. (1997p) ‘Draft Constitution of Congress’. (January 29, 1948). CWMG, vol. 98, pp. 333–335. ———. (1999q) ‘Letter to Jawaharlal Nehru’. (November 13, 1945). CWMG, vol. 88, pp. 329–330. ———. (1999r) ‘Speech at Gandhi Seva Sangh Meeting –III’. CWMG, vol. 77, pp. 376–397. ———. (1999s) ‘Ahimsa in Practice’. CWMG, vol. 77, pp. 243–246. ———. (1999t) ‘What of the West’. CWMG, vol. 3, pp. 371–373. Gopal, S. (ed) (1972) ‘The Presidential Address (April 12, 1936)’. In: Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 7. Orient Longman, New Delhi. Guha, R. (1998) ‘Mahatma Gandhi and the Environmental Movement in India’. In Kalland, A. and Persoon, G. (eds) Environmental Movements in Asia. Curzon Press, Richmond, pp. 65–82 Habermas, J. (1998) Between Facts and Norms – Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, trans., William Rehg. MIT Press, Cambridge. Hardiman, D. (2003) Gandhi in His Time and Ours: The Global Legacy of His Ideas. Columbia University Press, New York. Husain, A.S. (1959) The Way of Gandhi and Nehru. Asia Publishing House, Bombay. Illich, Ivan. (1973) Tools for Conviviality. Harper & Row, New York. Jain, A. (2002) ‘Networks of Science and Technology in India: The Elite and the Subaltern Streams’. AI & Society, vol. 16(1–2), pp. 4–20. Khan, A. (1948) ‘Letter to Editor - Mr. Gandhi: His Philosophy of Government: Marxism and the State’. The Times, May 2. Kuhn, T. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Mallik, S. (ed) (2010) The Master and the Disciple: Interactions between Gandhi and Nehru and their Impact on Modern Indian History. Manohar, Delhi. Mira, Behn. (1960) The Spirits Pilgrimage. Longmans, London. Mohanty, Manoranjan. (1989) ‘Changing Terms of Discourse: A Poser.’ Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 24 (337) (September 16), pp. 2069–2072. Nagler, M. (2006) ‘The Constructive Programme’. In: Gandhi’s Experiments with Truth: Essential Writings by and about Mahatma Gandhi, ed Richard L. Johnson. Lexington Books, Lanham. Pantham, T. (1995) ‘Gandhi, Nehru and Modernity’. In: Crisis and Change in Contemporary India, ed. Upendra Baxi and Bhikhu Parekh. Sage Publications, New Delhi.

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Ethics, Science and Sustainability Prasad, S. (2001) ‘Towards an Understanding of Gandhi’s Views on Science’. Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 36 (39), pp. 3721–3732. Pyarelal (Nayar), (1958) Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase – Part II, Vol X. Navjivan Trust, Ahmedabad. Ram, S. (1961) ‘The Challenge of Gandhiji’s Last Will and Testament’. Bhoodan, October 7. Rudolf, L.I. and Rudolf, S.H. (2006) Postmodern Gandhi and Other Essays. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Sahasrabudhey, S. (2002) Gandhi’s Challenge to Modern Science. Other India Press, Mapusa. Schumacher, E.F. (1977) ‘New Technology For Decentralized Development’. Khadigramodyog October 24, 1977. Tendulkar, D.G. (1934–6) Mahatma. Vol. 4, 143–44. http://www.M.K.gandhi.org/ebks/Mahatma_ Vol4.pdf Tikekar, Indu. (1996) ‘Earth Restored’. Paper presented at the Peace Society Conference, U.K. filed with Ujeli Sarvodaya Ashram, Uttarkashi. Vishwanathan, S. (1997) A Carnival For Science: Essays on Science, Technology and Development. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. ———. (1998) ‘A Celebration of Difference: Science and Democracy in India’. Science, vol. 280 (April 3), pp. 42–43. Weber, T. (1991) Conflict Resolution and Gandhian Ethics. Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi. Webe, R.T. (2004) Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor. Cambridge University Press, New York. Zachariah, B. (2001) ‘Uses of Scientific Argument: The Case of ‘Development’ in India, c 1930–1950’. Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 36 (39) (September 29–October 5), pp. 3689–3702.

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13 CLIMATE CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT ETHICS AFTER AMARTYA SEN* Lindsay Dawson

Introduction The aim of reducing inequities between the First and Third Worlds through a discourse of development ethics has become more complex since the ethical challenges of global climate change have come into sharper focus over recent years. Both are global phenomena and mutually dependent. In fact, if it were possible for today’s economic policies of globalization to alleviate the inequities between the West and developing countries using current technology, global warming would be exacerbated. This is largely because the philosophical thrust behind progress in the West over the last 250 years is being transferred to developing countries; it is based on the mantra that individual freedom to enjoy quality of life is synonymous with economic prosperity. The Nobel Prize-winning economist-cum-philosopher Amartya Sen posits a contrary view to this approach. He argues that freedom as the capability to participate in society and the market to pursue one’s version of the good life has to be supported by civic and social institutions like healthcare, education, law and order and democratic government before an economy can develop (Sen 2011). Notwithstanding Sen’s approach, paradoxically, it is the emphasis on individual freedom that is at the root of unbridled consumption, especially in the West, that contributes to global warming. In order to put Sen’s theory of development in perspective, it is informative to explain what is meant by human development and why it should be considered in ethical terms. Human development is defined in several ways. Some emphasize the progressive advancement in knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge and its translation into technology manifested in the dramatic innovations of the last 260 years. Governments and many economists define development in economic terms as the increase in wealth required for people to progress from deficiencies in basic needs, like sustenance, shelter and security, to be able to purchase the luxuries that enhance their quality of life. Others define development in terms of the happiness we are able to achieve by the increase in freedom to pursue the quality of life compared to people living in the past. According to Sen, development includes *  This chapter is in significant part based on Lindsay Dawson 2002, and 2006; it was thankfully further edited and updated by Purushottama Bilimoria. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-17

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all of these definitions, but the all-embracing one is freedom; knowledge and economic growth are simply instrumental to the enhancement of individual freedom. But for governments, the standard of living is generally equated with quality of life and, in turn, economic growth, which is then treated as an end-in-itself. It is this interpretation of development that has underwritten the development of the Third World since the instigation of the project by President Truman of the United States in 1949. The theory of Third World development was based on the assumption that the transfer of Western knowledge in agricultural science and industrial technology, fuelled by the injection of capital, would transform the lives of Third World people trapped in poverty and technological ignorance.1 It has been assumed that the trickle-down effects of the distribution of resources facilitated by the market economy would increase the wealth of all to the point where poverty is virtually eliminated. After 60 years, the results have been disappointing, with only a small number of East Asian countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea demonstrating robust economic development. Most people living in South America, the Middle East, Africa and the sub-continent are still living in a state of relative poverty. Despite undeniable improvements in adult literacy and decreasing infant mortality, the failure of development programs to effectively address the growing disparity in wealth between First and Third World countries over the last 70 years has given rise to the notion of a just distribution of resources between rich and poor countries, which is the major motivation behind development ethics.2 As I will show later, sustainable development, in environmental terms, has been an ethical goal of development for many years, well before concerns about global warming became generally acknowledged (Sherma and Bilimoria 2022). Theoretically, developers working with local authorities put sustainability measures in place to enhance the quality of life for the community and support ecosystems. The ethical relationship here is a duty of care between the developer and authorities. Although there are undoubtedly many such examples, particularly among non-governmental organization development projects, on a global scale, they pale into insignificance when we take stock of deforestation, salination and desertification along with the increasing intensity of cyclonic storms, loss of biodiversity and greater exposure to malaria threatening the lives of people living in tropical and subtropical regions.3 The consequences of these large-scale climatological and ecological disasters pose an added dimension to the ethics of Third World development that goes well beyond efforts towards localized eco-sustainability. On the one hand, there is an obligation, especially for Western consumers, to reduce consumption of carbon-based fuels to reduce global greenhouse warming. On the other, Third World countries are concerned that their development programs will be retarded by global sanctions on the use of carbon fuels. Their concern is justified by the fact that the 2004 per capita emissions of people living in low-income countries was only 0.9 tonnes, while the 15% of people living in high-income countries generated nearly half of the global carbon dioxide emissions (at the rate of 13.2 tonnes per capita) and enjoyed 55% of global gross domestic product (GDP).4 While many accept the need for a more just distribution of resources between the First and Third Worlds, the means to achieve it by increased consumption of carbon-based fuels is problematic. In this chapter, I will revisit the philosophical basis of Sen’s argument that the goal of development ought to be the fundamental human value of freedom and contrast it with theories of environmental ethics to justify an ethics of development that considers the impact of development on climate change in collaborative decision-making processes. 185

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Sen’s Development Ethics Sen’s view of development differs from the conventional mantra of development. While he does not deny there is a correlation between economic measures like GDP/gross national product (GNP) per capita and poverty, wealth is just one of the ‘instrumental capabilities’ that facilitates individual freedom and may not in itself provide the best measure of human well-being and happiness (1999: 87, 132, 134; 2009: 232–235; Bilimoria 2015) Sen’s main argument is that freedom should be both the means and the end of development. For him, freedom rather than utility should be the efficiency quest of the market system (Sen 1999: 17). As such, ‘positive’ freedom, being capable of doing something, displaces utility or opulence as a basis for the standard of living. (Sen 1998) Freedom to access education and healthcare, for example, is more important to quality of life than wealth per se. According to Sen, increases in literacy rates and access to education were fundamental precursors to the rise in economic growth for Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Kerala in south India (Sen 1999: 145,150; 2009: 19; Sen and Dréze 2002: 81, 198, 225). It is informative to trace the beginnings of these ideas to understand Sen’s theory of development and how it relates to freedom and what he calls ‘functional capabilities’ as the basis for quality of life, which he developed with Martha Nussbaum 35 years ago. Both thinkers have been inspired by Aristotle. Nussbaum’s interpretation of Aristotle’s Politics emphasizes the role of the state in ensuring the distribution of goods ‘as tools of human functioning’ (1993: 290, 91). Functioning is an actual achievement of an individual, whereas a capability is an ability to achieve or function (1993: 29, 21). While functioning is directly related to living conditions, what Sen refers to as ‘personal and social circumstances’, capabilities are reflections of the positive freedom to function (Sen 1998: 302). In the specific context of development, capabilities are represented by political, social and economic opportunities, the access to which enables us to live the quality of life we have reason to value; development is an integrated process involving each of these capabilities (Sen 1999: 5, 53; Sen 1993: 33–35). This process is facilitated by ‘instrumental freedoms’ related to the five key capabilities: economic opportunities (e.g., freedom to participate in market exchange), political freedoms (civil rights), social facilities (e.g., education and healthcare), transparency guarantees (e.g., trust in market negotiations) and social security provisions for the marginalized (Sen 1999: 38–40). The social, political and economic activities underlying development are determined by public policy through a variety of institutions. According to Sen, there is a two-way relationship (ideally) between freedom and public policy represented by ‘process freedoms’ and ‘opportunity freedoms’ (or capabilities). By the former, he means the freedom of individuals, using their civil rights, to shape public policy and, in the process, hopefully enhance the latter by generating improved or new capabilities (Sen 1999: 18). But the freedom of individuals to avail themselves of these capabilities is mediated by ‘personal and social circumstances’ (ibid.: 9). These are sources of ‘variation’ that intervene between our real income and the well-being or quality of life that we value: limits on our ability to function. Sen elaborates on five such sources: personal heterogeneities (an ill person may need more income than a fit person to combat her illness), environmental diversities (exposure to AIDS or malaria, lack of potable water, rising sea levels, etc.), variations in social climate (educational arrangements, prevalence of crime, nature of community relationships, etc.), differences in relational perspectives (to be well dressed in India requires less money than in the 186

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United States, for example) and income distribution among family members (ibid.: 70–71). Obviously, public policy influences many of these sources of variation in ‘personal and social circumstances’. To the degree that individuals are free to participate in the political process of formulating public policy, the better their social and economic capabilities. So it is that Sen’s definition of positive freedom is very much a social product (31). The key questions now are: how does the market, as the engine of economic growth, fit into this development theory, and what makes it an ethical theory? Sen repudiates the view that development in Third World countries can be generated by a simplistic transition to free market capitalism. For him, development needs markets, social support, public regulation and what he calls ‘statecraft’, which is the ability of governments to achieve an appropriate balance between these factors (Sen 1999: 126). This integrationist approach, which Sen also claims for Adam Smith, is unusual among economists (Sen 1999: 294).5 It runs counter to the majority of economists, particularly economic rationalists, who strongly support non-intervention in the operation of the free market system.6 Indeed, those dedicated to this view prefer to see all ‘social goods’ privatized on the level playing field of the free market (like welfare in First World countries, for example). But Sen is critical of this view. He says public goods, which people consume together rather than separately – and he mentions the environment as an example – are non-marketable (Sen 1999: 128, 262). I would expand public or social goods beyond the tangibles, like the environment, to include social values like trust (part of what Sen refers to as ‘transparency guarantees’) and environmental respect. Lack of social values, like trust, is a source of what Sen refers to as ‘variation’ (community relationships), impeding the full realization of capabilities. Other thinkers in this area reinforce Sen’s position. For example, Sagoff also argues that individuals behave differently as citizens and consumers and that market preferences shouldn’t be used to discriminate appropriate social values requiring critical debate rather than yes/no market voting (like environmental standards, for instance) (cited in Keat 1993: 16). Commodities have ‘use’ value for individuals, while social values have intrinsic value that can only be realized in the shared understanding of cooperating individuals and so cannot be traded on the market (Anderson 1998: 224:42). Sen also supports the incommensurability of social values and commodities. The previous outline demonstrates that Sen’s approach to development as freedom is more all-encompassing than a narrow focus on the market, industrialization and other vehicles of economic growth. The very nature of Sen’s approach demands integrated, balanced decision-making on the part of governments, institutions and community representatives participating in development projects. The flexibility afforded by Sen’s approach supports his claim that as a framework for the just distribution of resources and equitable access to ‘social goods’ for individuals to optimize their freedom, his theory is like an umbrella that incorporates the best of Mill and Bentham (1987), Nozick (1974) and Rawls (1972), while also critical of Rawls’ contractarian approach for its rather narrow scope when applied to global challenges, especially those facing Third World developing societies, ravaged by famines (most human-made), colonialism and imperialism (Sen 2009: 52–57, 69, 71; 2005: 182; 280ff). For example, he emphasizes the interest in human well-being and a preference for consequentialism inherent in utilitarianism, libertarianism’s concerns about ‘processes of choice and the freedom to act’ and Rawls’s focus on individual liberty and the resources necessary for ‘substantive freedoms’ (Sen 1999: 86). By this claim, Sen avoids being paradigmed by the algorithmic constraints of these ethical theories. Thus, his theory 187

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of development can be described as ethical, not so much in any prescriptive sense, but as a process of decision-making to achieve what he regards as the fundamental human value: freedom. Sen correlates this individual freedom with individual responsibility because, without the freedom to act, there can be no effective responsibility; responsible individuals acting freely can take charge of their own development (ibid.: 282, 284). His socially constituted freedom is closely aligned with the notion of positive freedom, the freedom to participate in society and share social goods in a cooperative fashion. It contrasts with libertarian negative freedom, the freedom from interference from those wishing to impose their social values on others, which might hinder individual self-expression. I will revisit these notions of freedom in the following excursion into environmental ethics.

Environmental Ethics The two great risks to the earth’s environment are human population growth and consumption habits. Humans are the only creatures that consume the natural environment beyond the need for subsistence, consuming almost half the energy available to sustain all the species on the earth. Human consumption habits have caused the extinction of species at a rate that rivals the extinction rate of the asteroid collision with the earth 65 million years ago, which purportedly wiped out the dinosaurs. Although the extinction of species is happening throughout the world, the epicentre of this environmental threat is largely in the consumption habits of the First World. It is informative to analyse the roots of our threat to the environment in the evolution of Western ethics because this underscores the belief that the resolution of environmental concerns can be achieved by an appeal to ethical behaviour (Leakey and Lewin 1995). A balance between egoism and altruism and the value of hope over fear, both mediated by knowledge, is traditionally recognized as the most important human ethical motivators, not just for survival but for the aspiration to a meaningful quality of life through appropriate relationships in a social environment. For example, altruism, reinforced by the Christian belief in the value of compassion and the equality of individuals in the sight of God, has contributed to human survival rates through the emergence of healthcare institutions. The ethos of treating all human life as intrinsically valuable, well beyond other creatures, continues to inspire Western health sciences and extend the lives of First World people while contributing to decreasing rates of infant mortality in the Third World. However, the aspirational consumption habits of First World people are a consequence of the culture of individualistic egoism and its expression through the consumption (or acquisition) of commodities that emerged from the Enlightenment. There are many complex interdependent trends that contributed to the evolution of Western individualism and consumption habits during the Enlightenment. The main ones were the spread of Protestantism, political emancipation and the human rights discourse, the rise of capitalism, colonization of the Third World and the harnessing of science to spawn the Industrial Revolution. Superimposed on these trends, partly reflecting them and partly shaping them, were the secular ethical philosophies of the time. There was a change in Enlightenment thinking during this period about the purpose of nature exemplified in the writings of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes. Nature became something to be interrogated by experimentation (Bacon 1994), a gift from God that it was our duty to master and use (Descartes 1984). Kant emphasized the autonomous rights of the rational individual as the centre of the moral universe (1998; Kemp 1968). According to Locke, each individual has 188

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a moral right to possess the land and physical ‘gifts of nature’ to which they contribute their transforming effort.7 The conquest of nature as a moral right facilitated the burgeoning growth of business activity that energized the capitalist enterprise (Weber, Parsons, and Tawney 1974). The productive utilization of the earth’s resources became a new moral imperative sanctioned as the Protestant work ethic, while the process of exchange arising from the purchase of commodities in the market was deemed by Adam Smith (1955) to be a way of promoting social virtues. The utilitarianism of James Stuart Mill was later used by economists to sacralize the market as the means of achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number. These ideas were influential in the emergence of the science and technology that inspired the Industrial Revolution. However, they contrast with the views of some Eastern religions and many indigenous Third World cultures that consider the environment as something humans share with the animals, to be used as needed and not something to be consumed in an open-ended fashion (Dawson 2002: 202–203). The key point to note here is how different beliefs about nature can motivate human behaviour. Enlightenment ethical theories are anthropocentric because they focus on responsibilities between rational individuals regarding their intersubjective behaviour and possession of the earth’s resources. This means animals and the natural environment are not counted or valued as moral agents with interests or as ‘rights bearers’. Because environmentalists see this ethical mono-dimensionality as the cause of the problem, they believe that shifting the locus of the moral universe away from humans to be more inclusive with nature will ensure a fairer consideration of our use of natural resources. In the next section, I will outline different ways this has been attempted.

Alternative Approaches to Environmental Ethics There are two distinct approaches to environmental ethics. The first attempts to extend anthropocentric ethics to nature, and the second, promoted by the ‘Deep Ecology Movement’, is an eco-centric approach that seeks to ground moral value in the ecosystem as a whole. Kant’s advice to be kind to animals because this helps us avoid cruelty to our fellows is an example of the former. Another is Peter Singer’s proposal to include all sentient beings in the utility equation for the maximization of pleasure and the avoidance of pain (Singer 1983). However, deep ecologists criticize Singer’s approach because it excludes non-sentient entities (e.g., plants, oceans and the atmosphere), and human interests generally prevail. Another version of the extension approach proposes granting moral rights to individual organisms on the basis that they should be free to fulfil their life functions. But here again, deep ecologists criticize the absence of ecological value invested in the atmosphere, for instance. Others claim the correlation between individual rights, responsibilities and duties has obvious relevance between rational humans of goodwill but would seem to be totally irrelevant between man and non-rational creatures. Also, the tendency in the environmental movement to bio-egalitarianism, where every living creature has equal value, would make a rights-based approach unworkable. The problem here is where to draw the line between human and non-human interests. A deep ecologist, Lawrence Johnson, attempts to bridge between individual interests (in any species, including humans) and holistic ecosystem interests (Bilimoria & McCulloch 1997: 28). Basically, everything that has well-being interests (including ecosystems) has moral value, according to Johnson (1998). Although there are different levels of interest 189

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within ecosystems, they are all interdependent (1991: 162). He advocates that human interests ought to be inconvenienced in the protection of ecosystem interests (174). However, Johnson is no environmental fascist. He urges striking a balance that seems to favour ecosystem complexity and diversity but offers no remedial algorithm on where to draw the line between interests (226–227). In fact, he is critical of such reductive moral thinking that encourages either/or choices (224). He would say that how the line is drawn is more important than where as long as those drawing the line have a respectful and considerate attitude toward the environment. Johnson’s view of environmental ethics is that it requires collective action rather than individual constraint in the process of maintaining environmental balance (270–271). And this is one of his most valuable insights of relevance to this chapter. The aforementioned approaches to environmental ethics, while still pertinent, were developed before the current concerns regarding global warming became generally accepted. In the context of those concerns, I favour Hans Jonas’s ethics of responsibility toward the environment, which is based on the indisputable power of human beings to destroy the long-term viability of life on earth and, in so doing, break what he calls the order of moral responsibility (Jonas 1985: 10, 21, 82, 118, 23). The temporal dimension of traditional individual ethics is inadequate to cater to the long-term environmental ramifications of many social decisions (113). Our rationality and propensity for investing meaning in things (key attributes of our moral sensibility) have, largely unwittingly, created this artificial threat to natural ecological development that is starting to warn us and, therefore, demands a moral response. We need to use reason and a moral sense of responsibility to determine how far and by what means we will redress the balance. This issue is particularly problematic for the process of human development. In the next section, I show how environmentalists, with some empathy for Third World development, attempt to address the issue.

Human Development and Environmental Ethics This section explores the dichotomy between development as freedom, along with preservation of the natural environment and the Western preoccupation with economic efficiency. The eco-development (sustainable development) proponents involved in this debate differentiate between a libertarian view of freedom and a socially constituted notion of freedom that is more open to environmental responsibility. The latter notion of freedom underlines criteria for sustainable development that will also be discussed. The section concludes with a pragmatic concept for collaborative, ethical decision-making that balances human development and ecological well-being in any First or Third World context. There is a fundamental opposition between nature and the libertarian definition of freedom that promotes the rights of individuals to shape their own self-development by any utilization of resources within their legal capabilities. Environmentalists claim that individual freedom expressed in quantitative terms (like measures of wealth or consumption indices) and the quest for economic efficiency leads to the destruction of the environment (Goulet 1990: 43). The libertarian view of individual freedom is highly atomistic and fails to recognize the influence of social harmony experienced by cooperating individuals in the realization of their self-development. For environmentalists, this harmony, mediated by social values, is the basis of socially constituted freedom between individuals and also extends to harmony with the environment. According to Goulet, ‘Freedom from constraining nature is indeed a positive value, but it is not an absolute one. Freedom from constraints 190

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is a value because it allows for human … realisation’ (45). Part of that realization is recognizing individual responsibility towards the environment. All freedom comes with concomitant responsibility.8 Many Third World communities still recognize this responsibility of harmony with their natural environment, which is reinforced by their faith in traditional beliefs motivating their actions. Westerners have ‘reasoned’ themselves out of traditional metaphysical paradigms that artificially ‘constrain’ their freedom. They believe in the positivism of science and economic efficiency that combine to catalyze the capitalist enterprise. Because it has enormous power to generate wealth, which in turn facilitates individual freedom for the majority of Westerners well beyond the limitations of basic human needs, the distributive outcome of the capitalist enterprise is seen as the absolute social good in itself. But eco-developers argue that this is a mono-dimensional view of development for the human condition that, by its obsession with possessions, is socially exclusive rather than inclusive. By treating wealth and individual freedom as absolutes, we lose touch with the social interaction and creativity that result from shared social values like love and friendship that shape our spiritual selfrealization.9 It is only through a re-birthing of this self-realization that we will engage a respect for nature. So, what does eco-development mean in these terms? Eco-developers encourage a more holistic view of human development in Third World countries that engenders respect for the environment while still recognizing the value of the current mainstream emphasis on economic development as a means to satisfy basic human needs. Participation through democratic processes is essential to allow local autonomy (subsidiarity) and the preservation of local diversity (cultural and environmental). Local subsidiarity is critical to reinforcing the social values that can facilitate equal opportunity for personal development.10 Interestingly, this view is very closely aligned with Sen’s position, although he has a more optimistic opinion about the value of markets in promoting economic prosperity. Both Sen and the eco-developers see development as a socially led process encouraging freedom, with economic growth playing a subordinate role (O’Hearn 2009). The eco-developers separate themselves from Sen with their emphasis on the spiritual dimension of human development that is the basis of respect for, or harmony with, nature. Even so, Sen supports the same social values and emphasis on socially constituted freedom. I would add that it is the spiritual dimension of human development that contributes to the social values embedded in culture. In communities where cooperative effort is a necessity of life, social values are thicker than in societies with stronger individualistic cultures (Sherma and Bilimoria 2022). To be sure, Sen has not been without his critics (e.g., Clifton 2013; Hamilton 2019; Selwyn 2011; Uvin 2010); nevertheless, he is able to meet their criticisms, as I discuss now. Sen’s Aristotelian foundations transform his theory of development into development ethics, albeit anthropocentric to a large degree. What transforms the criteria of eco-developers for sustainable development into an ethical theory? To answer this question, I will draw on the ideas of Denis Goulet, who has articulated this transformation more clearly than most. Goulet sees justice, freedom and respect for nature as ethical values that define each other (37). None of them are overarching absolutes because they relativize each other. For example, our freedom is limited by codes of justice and recognizing our limitations in the constraints of the natural environment. These three ethical values converge in the quest for human development in the domain of development politics. For Goulet, the role of development politics is to create ‘new frontiers of possibilities [rather than] manipulating resources’ like wealth and power (41–42). He claims that within the political decision-making process, three 191

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rationalities compete: technological, political and ethical. Like the three ethical values, each of these rationalities tries to impose their logic in a reductive fashion on the other two (42). As a way out of this hierarchical pattern of interaction between the rationalities, Goulet suggests a circular pattern of interaction between them to manage agreeable solutions. Like Sen, Goulet is not being overly prescriptive; he is more concerned with the decision-making process in coming to ethical regard for the environment. Both of them teach us that although philosophy can provide wisdom for the thinking processes that precede a decision, it cannot prescribe algorithmic silver bullets to solve human problems. This sort of creativity is only given to enlightened decision-makers. I will now show how an overlap between the ideas of Sen and Goulet can contribute to decision-making based on development ethics that attempt to address global warming concerns. Sen’s process freedoms of political, social and economic opportunities can be translated into Goulet’s competing rationalities of technology, politics and ethics. Technology is basically a function of economics, whether it is funded in academia or in the private sector. Ethics is an integral part of what Sen refers to as the social values in transparency guarantees and community relationships, which I claim are embedded in the cultural fabric of society, mediating the tools of human functioning to service human development through quality-of-life goals. I interpret Goulet’s ‘competing rationalities’ and Sen’s process freedoms as ‘enabling rationalities’ of politics, technology and the economy. The enabling rationalities support human development and ecological well-being mediated by justice, social values, environmental respect and what I refer to as ‘eco-justice.’ There is a symbiotic relationship between human development and ecological development or well-being; from a holistic perspective, human development is part of ecological development. Given that the quality of a meaningful life is the goal of human development, what defines ecological well-being? The ecology cannot speak for itself, and it is philosophical naivety to impute some sort of teleological well-being goals to it. Ethical motivation for environmental respect is that ecology is an independent good in itself because without which humans, along with every other species, cannot survive. Hence, ecological well-being interests are established by the need for a symbiotic relationship between all species in the ecological network. We know that nature moderates the homogenizing quest of all species to ‘take over’ their environment through species diversity (Lionel Johnson 1998: 246–247). Thus, the promotion of eco-diversity through the principles of sustainability practices and the reversal of major negative anthropogenic impacts on the environment would seem to be wise mediators of eco-justice to influence the relationship between the environment and humans in the quest for human development.11 In the same way that these eco-justice principles mediate the relationship between humans and the environment, traditional philosophical notions of justice mediate the apportionment of deserts appropriate to various human relationships. Justice mediates these relationships through faith in beliefs that motivate the way humans act, along with the enabling rationalities of politics, technology and the economy. Beliefs prioritize social values, ideologies and environmental respect. People need to feel passionate about their beliefs for them to be effective motivators of behaviour. Because there are often many beliefs in a nation-state, the enabling rationalities of politics and the economy (ideally) ensure fair and equal access to social and environmental goods and participation in the enabling rationalities to pursue quality-of-life goals. This is particularly important where social values and environmental respect are not uniformly accepted to achieve a balance between human development and ecological well-being. Fair access to social and environmental goods and participation in 192

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politics, technology and the economy are what Sen refers to as capabilities defining worthwhile freedom. However, I maintain that individual freedom per se is not a human or ethical value; it is just another measure of our power to act, like, for instance, the power of wealth, relationships or personal skills, which we can use for good or evil. Because the power of freedom can only be used through relationships on some level, it is a socially constituted power. Similarly, the economy is not an end-in-itself; it is just another enabling rationality or tool of human development and (potentially) of ecological well-being to be used, along with technology, mediated by the values underpinning justice and eco-justice principles. At the moment, we are a long way from using this model of ethical development balanced by respect for the environment in decision-making processes. Indeed, the main thrust of global warming mitigation seems to be the introduction of carbon trading into the market in the ideological belief that the invisible hand will guide the creation of more sustainable energy sources and influence consumer choices along ‘greener’ lines. We can only hope that the invisible hand is more successful in this mission than it has been, reducing the inequities between the First and Third Worlds over the last 60 years. Whether carbon trading succeeds or fails will be judged in the future; there are certainly many who are sceptical of the proposal. (Grubb and Neuhoff 2006; Bateson 1972: 470) Regardless of the results, the best way forward is a decision-making process among collaborators with equal power to influence balanced outcomes for human development and ecological well-being at the local level while recognizing global consequences. Market-driven decision-making that leaves outcomes to be determined by consumers might be an efficient means of choosing the most cost-effective toilet paper, for example. However, it is not an effective way to administer the justice principles necessary for equitable human development and ecological well-being. Given the risks of global warming, the relationship between the two is too complex to rely on faith in the invisible hand. When humans need to act cooperatively and creatively, relationships mediated by hope in shared beliefs and values are needed to motivate more direct decision-making processes. Decision-making processes motivated by fear of consequences, whether it is fear of breaking environmental sanctions or even fear of the results of abnormal cycles of droughts and storms, are unlikely to be effective enough in the long term. Reactive creativity sponsored by fear can be good for short-term band-aid solutions. However, collaborators united by fear, even in a forum of equal power, risk division when it comes to the really tough creative decisions that are needed to conquer new frontiers. And breakthrough creativity will certainly be required if we are to replace carbon-based energy with sustainable energy sources while simultaneously providing technology to improve Third World quality of life (Nussbaum et al. 1993). Such proactive creativity can only come from collaborative decision-making motivated by hope in a relationship of more constructive respect for the environment, informed by knowledge of its finite limitations and the consequences of its use. I am not advocating a romantic ‘back to nature’ scenario here. A forward-looking constructive relationship with nature can only be based on the best science at our disposal to enlighten balanced decision-making. Commercial globalization is the major contributor to the phenomena of climate change, which is recognized by all national governments regardless of their political, religious, ethnic or cultural persuasions. Inequalities between the First and Third World continue to grow. The solution to these two global problems provides an opportunity for faith and hope in a new relationship between ourselves and the environment to unite these diverse national interests, drawing on the spiritual dimension of human development. Never in the 193

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history of the world has there been such an opportunity to harmonize the actions of everyone motivated by the hope arising from a more constructive relationship between us and the environment. Faith in the awesome beauty and wonder of nature informed by science has the potential to be shared by everyone ‘acting locally while thinking globally’ regardless of their other motivating beliefs.12 It is this sort of faith that will be required to appropriately prioritize competing or inconsistent beliefs and inspire breakthrough creativity in a new wave of globalization fervour to resolve ongoing problems of human development while simultaneously reversing the environmental damage caused by this development.

Notes 1 The patronizing message behind this assumption is a controversial topic in development literature. For counter views see, for example, Shiva (1991), Esteva and Prakash (1997). This controversy reminds us that scientific truth claims are sometimes as difficult to discern as truth claims in the humanities. The science of global warming is also controversial. We can only base decisions on our best approximations of the truth, which, in the case of global warming, represents a scientific consensus. 2 See ‘Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World,’ United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Human Development Report 2004; for Sen’s contribution to this report see, https:// www.asiancenturyinstitute.com/development/333-amartya-sen-on-developmentas-freedom. 3 For a comprehensive assessment of the threats to life caused by the interaction of soil mismanagement and global warming see Northcott (2007: 29–31). 4 World Bank, World Development Indicators 2008 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008), Climate change by the numbers, p. 124. 5 See also J. Evensky (1998: 11–12). Sen is well aware of Smith’s other major work The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which Smith intended to be read as a supplement to his better-known Wealth of Nations. See also Dawson (2002: 54–55). 6 The arguments between economic integrationists and economic rationalist have been the subject of ongoing debate since Adam Smith’s era. A full discussion of these issues is beyond the scope of this chapter. For a comprehensive outline of the debate and its history, see Groenewegen (1996). 7 Locke (1975: 15, para 27). This right of possession is incorporated in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. 8 For libertarians, this responsibility is the avoidance of interference with the freedom of others. Any proactive, or affirmative, responsibility to others beyond this is purely optional, in their view. Libertarian stress on negative freedom divides or atomizes people. The emphasis on positive freedom, or socially constituted freedom, unites people. However, it does assume a commonly accepted framework of social mores and values facilitating cooperative effort. 9 See David A. Crocker (1990: 161), E. Gudnyas (1990: 148), M. Markovic (1990: 132). 10 Crocker (1990: 150), Goulet (38; Markovic: 133). Also, it needs to be recognized that many Third World governments do not necessarily represent local community interests in any democratic sense. 11 This chapter assumes the ethical value of reversing the anthropogenic impact of global warming as a given. However, if future cloning science enables us to ‘rebirth’ species we have driven to extinction, like the Tasmanian tiger for example, then this will open another ethical debate beyond the scope of this chapter. 12 As implied in this chapter, to some degree the rationality of science has unmasked the mystique of nature and is responsible for our destructive, interrogative attitude towards it (Zeman 1975). However, along with many scientists, I think it is still possible for scientific knowledge to enhance our appreciation of the wonder and beauty of nature. See, for example, Paul Davies (1992).

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Climate Change and Development Ethics after Amartya Sen Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. Bilimoria, Purusottama, and Jock McCulloch. 1997. Environmental Ethics. Geelong, VC: Deakin University. Bilimoria, Puushottama 2015.’ A Critique of Economic Reason: Between Tradition and Postcoloniality.’ In Value and Values: Economics and Justice in an Age of Global Interdependence, 309–333. Eds. Roger T. Ames and Peter D. Hershock, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Clifton, Hannah. 2013. ‘Amartya Sen’s Development: The Dreams and the Damage.’ https:// developmenthannahclifton.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/amartya-sen-on-development/ Crocker, David A. 1990. ‘The Hope for Just, Participatory Ecodevelopment in Costa Rica.’ In Ethics of Environment and Development: Global Challenge, International Response, xv, 264. Eds. J. Ronald Engel, J.G. Engel and International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Ethics Working Group Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Davies, Paul. 1992. The Mind of God: Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning. Ringwood, VC: Penguin. Dawson, Lindsay. 2002. An Integrated Approach to Development, Business and Environmental Ethics. Geelong: Deakin University Press. Descartes, René. 1984. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Esteva, Gustavo, and Madhu Suri Prakash. 1997. Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures. London: Zed Books. Evensky, J. 1998. ‘Ethics and the Invisible Hand.’ In Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy. Ed. Charles K. Wilber. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Goulet, D. 1990. ‘Development Ethics and Ecological Wisdom.’ In Ethics of Environment and Development: Global Challenge, International Response. Eds. J. Ronald Engel and J.G. Engel. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Groenewegen, Peter D. 1996. Economics and Ethics? New York, NY: Routledge. Grubb, Michael, and Karsten Neuhoff. 2006. Emissions Trading & Competitiveness: Allocations, Incentives and Industrial Competitiveness under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. London: Earthscan. Gudnyas, E. 1990. ‘The Search for an Ethic of Sustainable Development in South America.’ In Ethics of Environment and Development: Global Challenge, International Response, xv, 264. Eds. J. Ronald Engel, J. G. Engel and International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Ethics Working Group. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Hamilton, Lawrence Jr. 2019. Amartya Sen. UK: Polity Press. Johnson, Lawrence E. 1991. A Morally Deep World: An Essay on Moral Significance and Environmental Ethics. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Johnson, Lionel. 1998. ‘The Thermodynamic Origin of Ecosystems: A Tale of Broken Symmetry.’ In Entropy, Information, and Evolution: New Perspectives on Physical and Biological Evolution. Eds. Bruce H. Weber, David J. Depew and James D. Smith. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jonas, Hans. 1985. The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Keat, R. 1993. ‘The Moral Boundaries of the Market.’ In Ethics and Markets: Co-Operation and Competition within Capitalist Economies. Eds. Colin Crouch and David Marquand. Oxford: Blackwell. Kemp, J. 1968. The Philosophy of Kant. London, New York: Oxford University Press. Leakey, Richard E., and Roger Lewin. 1995. The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind. New York, NY: Doubleday. Locke, John. 1975. The Second Treatise of Government. Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merrill Company Inc. Markovic, M. 1990. ‘The Development Vision of Socialist Humanism.’ In Ethics of Environment and Development: Global Challenge, International Response, xv, 264. Eds. J. Ronald Engel and J. G. Engel. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Mill, John Stuart, and Jeremy Bentham. 1987. Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Eds. Alan Ryan. Global UK: Penguin Classics.

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Lindsay Dawson Northcott, Michael S. 2007. A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming. London: Christian Aid: D.L.T. Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York, NY: Basic Books. Nussbaum, Martha Craven, Amartya Sen, and World Institute for Development Economics Research. 1993. The Quality of Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press. O’Hearn, Denis. 2009. ‘Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom Ten Years Later.’ Policy & Practice A Development Education Review, 8, 9–15. Rawls, John. 1972. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Selwyn, B. 2011. ‘Liberty Limited? A Sympathetic Re-engagement with Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom.’ Economic and Political Weekly, 46(37), Sep 10, 68–76. Sen, Amartya. 1993. ‘Capability and Well-Being.’ In The Quality of Life. Eds. M. C. Nussbaum, Amartya Sen and World Institute for Development Economics Research. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 1998. ‘The Living Standard.’ In Ethics of Consumption: The Good Life, Justice, and Global Stewardship. Eds. David A. Crocker and Toby Linden. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ———. 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2005. The Argumentative Indian. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ———. 2009. Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ———. 2011. Peace and Democratic Society. Cambridge, MA: Open Book Publishers, Cambridge. Sen, Amartya, and Jean Dréze, 2002. India: Development and Participation. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Sherma, R., and Bilimoria, P. (eds) 2022. Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses: Intersection of Sustainability Studies and Religion, Theology, Philosophy. Dordrecht/NY: Springer (UN SDG Series). Shiva, Vandana. 1991. The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology, and Politics. London; Atlantic Highlands, N.J., USA; Penang, Malaysia: Zed Books. Singer, Peter. 1983. Animal Liberation: Towards an End to Man’s Inhumanity to Animals. Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: Thorsons. Smith, Adam. 1955. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica. Uvin, P. 2010. ‘From the Right to Development to the Rights-Based Approach: How Human Rights Entered Development.’ In Deconstructing Development Discourse. Buzzwords and Fuzzwords. Eds. Cornwall and Eade. Oxford: Practical Action Publishing Ltd. Weber, Max, Talcott Parsons, and R.H. Tawney. 1974. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: G. Allen & Unwin. World Bank. 2008. World Development Indicators 2008. Washington, DC: World Bank. Zeman, Jirí. 1975. ‘Information, Knowledge and Time.’ In Entropy and Information in Science and Philosophy. Eds. Libor Kubát and Jirí Zeman. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

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14 WATER Rites, Rights and Ecological Justice in India Purushottama Bilimoria and M. K. Sridhar*

Water is the primordial, uncontaminated element and is the source of power and wisdom. Stith Thomson (American folklorist) Water, water everywhere, Not a drop to drink.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Water is said to be a fundamental unit of life and a perennial source for living beings. The quest for water has occupied all the civilizations, peoples and cultures across the world. A plethora of beliefs, customs, rites, totems, taboos, symbolisms, myths, legends and ethics are found to be associated with water from time immemorial to the present day. Water has occupied a major role in the life of people of the Indian subcontinent from the pre-Vedic times to this day. It is believed that water affords a healing touch, that the cool substance could resuscitate one from ailing conditions, act as a witness in important lifecycle ceremonies, and could also wash away the demerits of people. No religious function is complete without a ceremony around water in India and among many communities across the globe (such as Ancient Egyptians, Native American Indians, Jews, Christians and Muslims) (Baird 1994: xxi). Vedic people believed that water, especially sacred or holy water, fire and mud, are self–purifying objects and, therefore, serve as sources for purification (tīrthodakañca vaṇ iśca nānyathaḥ śuddhīmaṛ hataḥ). All kinds of water resources were considered sacred, and it was believed that some gods, goddesses, legendary heroes and heroines had waterbirths. All rivers in India were accorded sacred and divine status and were worshipped periodically, then as now. The vast gamut of Sanskrit and Indian vernacular literature is replete with tales, myths and legends associated with water and its many manifestations and dimensions. * The authors wish to acknowledge Abhilasha Semwal, Gangadhar G., and Amy Rayner for their editing assistance. Parts of this article were initially published in the SSEASR Journal, Mahidol, Bangkok University, pp. 118–134, June 2010. It has been significantly revised and updated for this volume.

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The Concept of Five Great or Gross Elements The sages visualized the entire universe to be made up of three regions – namely, Earth, space and sky, with their corresponding presiding deities, namely, all the gods (viśvedevā-s), Indra and Agni. The conjoining of these elements led to the evolution of five gross elements – Earth (pṛ thvi), water (āpaḥ), energy or fire (tejas), air (vāyu) and ether (ākāśa). Each gross element was made up of subtler ethereal aspects (rasatanmātra-s) – smell, taste, form, touch and sound. The rasatanmātra-s were made up of atoms or the smallest of all particles (paramāṇ u). The Pañca-mahābhūta-s with their presiding deities such as Earth (Pṛ thvī/Bhūdevī), Varuṇa, Agni, Vāyu and Indra were invoked as visible forms of the ultimate reality, whereas rivers such as Gaṅgā, Yamunā, Sarasvatī, Śatadru (Sutlej), Sindhu (Indus) were propitiated as goddesses. All these were part and parcel of Pure Consciousness, i.e., Brahman, according to Chāndogya Upaniṣad (III.16. 1/VI. ii.1–2)). But even more so, the interconnectedness of the feminine and water is echoed in the story of the origins of the Gaṅgā and her personification as Mother Ganges (Gaṅgā Ma). Hindu mythology links Gaṅgā to the Milky Way, erupting from the dreadlocks of Śiva; as such, Gaṅgā is considered the purest among waters with the properties (guṇ a) of purification and nourishment while at the same time capable of being ferocious (Doron, Barz and Nelson 2005). At her origins in Gangotri, as she flows from the Gaumukh glacier, she is a virgin child, and as she meanders through the Himalayas downwards to the plains, she transforms into a daughter, a sister, a mature adolescent, a wife, a mother or a birther as she reunites with the oceans of the world (Capila 2022; 238). Rain from the clouds was regarded as milk pouring from the udder of a cow, perceived as the personification of motherhood, fertility and liberty. (RV I.16.114.10; X.169.3; II.7.5) This water covers the mighty oceans surrounding our globe and also the vast space from which we get the rain. The Atharvaveda also praises water, believed to have the capacity to nourish the animate and the inanimate beings, cleanse the body and cure a plethora of diseases (AV III-15-1/5;1-1/9). Fire personified as a representative of all deities in rituals is invoked in several hymns (AV II-13-1.3. /V-27-1). The wind, as an important component of nature and as a life-supporting system, is praised in several hymns (AV IV-27-2-4). These descriptions of the five great elements reveal the emotional attachment of the Atharvans to natura naturans, underscoring their reverential attitude towards nature for the immeasurable help received. The five primordial elements (pañcamahābhūtas), the entire plant and animal world, and rivers and mountains are interconnected in the great rhythm of nature.

Water in Jain Moral Worldview In Jain cosmo-micrology, the universe, which is circular, consists of continents alternating with oceans in concentric circles; there are 90 continents and oceans in the middle world, although not much description is afforded about them (Balbir 2019: 4). Of significance is the first continent, Jambūdvīpa, which serves as the template on which all the other continents are modelled. Jambūdvīpa is set around mythic Mount Meru and forms the centre of Aḍhāīdvīpa, literally, ‘two-and-a-half continents’, surrounded by oceans, and it is the only continent where human beings take birth. We also note that water is an essential ingredient for life to be present in Jambūdvīpa or the planetary continent. Water harbours microbial organisms that can be harmful and, therefore, needs to be protected. Hence, Jains, being sensitive to intentionally and accidentally killing living 198

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matter, would strain water to separate the animalcules in it, brush ants and insects from the path and wear masks over the mouth to prevent minute nigoda (fungus-like entities) from being inhaled. The Ācārāṅga Sūtra mentions how to avoid harm not only to animals but also to plants – by not touching them – and to the bodies that dwell in the earth, the water, the fire and the air. For instance, Jaina monks and nuns must not stamp upon the earth, swim in water, light or extinguish fires or thrash one’s arms in the air. This respect for life developed into a series of comprehensive treatises on water. Water is classified under ‘one sense’ bioneurology; thus, in Jain ethics, non-injury of any kind to water is a normative value. Jain teachers and exemplary monks prescribed the universal virtue of non-injury towards all the beings of the world and suggested that people do not interfere with the state of nature. They exhorted that an interference with nature could be deemed an injurious act, which in its stronger form would be violence. Hence, the ahiṃ sā principle incorporated within itself this natural balance of harmony and co-existence of sentient and non-sentient beings. Logically, the Jain principle of rejecting something has the latent meaning of accepting its opposite. Thus, in following ahiṃ sā, the negations prescribed have a more positive attitude associated with them. Avoiding injury is complemented by a feeling of respect and concern for the interest of others, humans, gods and animals alike. They are each morally considerable in their own right. Polluting the sources or collection of water (be it the humble well, the urban reservoir or the mighty ocean), excessive use of it, or withholding its distribution among the needy and for genuine agricultural and animal needs would be considered a form of violence and is therefore morally reprehensible. Likewise, with violence toward water-bodied souls – considered to be mainly two-sensed beings, possessing touch and taste – such as conches, cowries, leeches, worms of all kinds, seashell mollusks, intestinal bugs and red water insects. Of course, there are higher-sensed beings too, such as scorpions, wasps, mosquitoes, kaetzy bull-ants, flies, butterflies, locusts, fish, corals, seaweed, amphibian creatures and reptilian-evolved sea-dwellers, that are accorded the same respect and ‘caring duty’. Buddhism, likewise, underscores the inherent moral worth and considerability, in principle at least, of all beings towards which there are certain mutual and reciprocal obligations. We might not ordinarily consider, for instance, the humble gurgling stream as affording any particular obligation on the part of human beings, but the small schools of fish might be very appreciative of the sustenance and safe ecosystem that the cool water provides for them. The Buddha’s plea of compassion for all life-forms in their mutual interdependency and the aestheticization of nature that undergirds his wisdom teachings paved the way for a radical transformation of ethical attitudes towards nature and its eco-communities. So, it is taught that if one sows seeds in a fertile and well-watered field, there will be bountiful yield; giving alms to the virtuous also yields great results (Aṅguttara Nikāya IV. 238). Throughout Buddhist history, events have occurred that affirm reverence for life. The emperor Aśoka, who in the 3rd century BC united much of India, converted to Buddhism and established several laws mandating kind treatment to animals, reflecting the Buddhist observance of non-injury to living beings, which includes restriction on meat consumption, curtailing hunting and the establishment of hospitals and roadside watering stations for animals. It is the obligation of the state to provide certain social goods, such as good water supply, care for animals, a viable economic system, hospices and schools. 199

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Water-Based Rituals in Hindu-Brāhmaṇic Praxis Even though water, along with the essential elements of Earth, air (wind), fire, and space, are considered to be non-sentient (ajīva), in popular perception, however, as evidenced in Hindu (and Jain) ceremonies, rites of purification and so forth, water is regarded as having a structure that responds like any living organism to the ‘vibrations’ and movement coming from the ambient surrounding (with or without other organisms). A study by a Japanese scientist, Masaru Emoto, has demonstrated that the molecular structure in water transforms when it is exposed to human words, thoughts, sounds and ‘intentions’ (Emoto 2005). The reason is because water’s inter-molecular structure (not intra-molecular, which is wellknown as H2O) is of a “liquid crystalline” kind, which is similar to the geometrical patterns in quartz crystal that is capable of generating mechanical vibration when subjected to calibrated electrical pulses and vice versa. What this means is the repeating pattern inside the substance provides a pathway for the efficient flow of energy and information, transferring invisible signals. This water heated in a microwave oven shows a damaged electromagnetic field on its crystal formation. But when shown love and gratitude or exposed to soothing chants such as incantations and harmonious songs, the fractal crystalline structure appears to be re-formed, and the water exudes a shining quality and, if properly filtered or distilled, tastes even sweeter. That is why in most religions, water is the first element that is offered to invite or awaken spirits or gods, in initiation ceremonies, and to becalm a disturbed soul or spirit, or even to bring under control certain discomfitures (e.g., gastronomical bloating, dehydration of the body and headache). Hence, the daily ritual of a Hindu ideally begins with water. At the outset, while taking a bath, she recites a hymn invoking the major rivers of India (Gaṅgā, Yamunā, Godāvarī, Sarasvatī, Narmadā, Sindhu and Kāveri), with a plea for them to reside in the water being used for the morning rituals. While offering oblations to Āditya (Sun) at twilight (sandhyāvandanā), she invokes the water deities by sprinkling water on her body, thus: Oh! Water Deities! You bestow riches and happiness onto people. Hence grant us strength, nourishment, good eyesight and brilliance for our bodies. Drive away our karmic demerits. (Avadhāni 1997:19) The water deities are invoked for the protection of the earth from being defiled with putrefied food offered or through neglect (āpaḥ puṇ antu pṛ thivīm pṛ thivi puṭa punātu mām; Avadhāni 1997: 21). This was also considered a sacrifice of water and sacrifice of mantras (syllabic chants) (jalayajña ca mantrayajña; ārghya). The pot of water thus sanctified would be empowered with the absolving demerits of the performer. Water has the power to drive away all manner of diseases and also bestow immunity and longevity to beings (ibid.: 23). The Nārayaṇ opaniśad and Mahānārayaṇ opaniṣad consider water to be the very soul of the universe – being a prime manifestation of transcendence. Gaṇ eśa-atharvaśīrṣam (1980: 105) mentions that Lord Gaṇeśa (the much-loved, elephant-headed deity) in macro form is the earth-soil, water, fire, air and sky in one. According to the Sūryopaniṣad, water is a boon from the sun (ādityādāpo jāyate); thus, there is no reason why water could not be in other planets and extraterrestrial realms, including the stars and meteorites. Several other rituals have been associated with water. The literalist Kālidāsa mentions a ritual called udakumbha vṛ ata wherein an incantation is recited into a pitcher of water and offered to the person smitten by a cobra with the intention of reversing the flow of the infused venom (Mālavikāgnimitram IV-4).

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Myth of the Golden Floating Womb The Mahābhārata narrates how life was created in a cosmic womb. The primordial singularity wherein the universe was conceived before it burst forth into immense gaseous heat was called the ‘cosmic womb’ in the Mahābhārata or the Golden Embryo – Hiraṇ yagarbha – in the Ṛ gveda. This womb was afloat in the air after it arose out of the primordial waters and into this egg entered the self-generative potentia, thus triggering the pre-universe – the Hindu-Balinese equivalent of the ‘Big Bang’. Even the all-pervasive god Viṣṇu, along with space and time, were born after this golden moment, not before nor eternally present. The first to emerge was Brahmā, the creator lord and various other deities, with whose help he created water, heaven, Earth, sky, years, seasons, months, the fortnight with days and nights in due succession, and all the things known to humankind. (MBh I-27-35) The Taittirīya Saṃ hitā (IV-1-8) proffers another description of the cosmic womb, thus: The Lord of creation, who is present in the shoreless waters, on the earth and above the heaven and who is greater than the greatest, having entered the shining intelligence of creatures in seed form, acts in the fetus (which grows into the living being that is born). From whom the creativity of the world, Prakṛ ti, was born, who created in the world creatures out of elements such as water. The golden womb, or the placeholder of the ova, embryo and fetus is a symbol for the immaculate impregnation in a process also known in Greek mythology as parthenogenesis. The embryonic universe is, as it were, conceived and born of itself (svayambhū). Some interpreters of the Vedas compare the Hiraṇ yagarbha to the rising sun, as the Vedic seers believed that the sun was the very soul of the universe. It is indirectly connected with sacrifice, which forms an integral part of Vedic philosophy. According to Chāndogya Upaniṣad, the cosmic womb, in the beginning, was a non-being (nothing) but later changed into an embryo in its own womb, which after a year split into two chromosomes from which were formed the heaven and the earth (III.19.1.ff). This self-generative manifestation of Hiraṇ yagarbha is transformed into the Lord himself, a veritable Being and Being of beings, variously identified as Prajāpati, Brahmā, Viṣṇu, maybe Rudra.

Myth of Churning the Milky Ocean The Mahābhārata narrates the mythical account of the churning of the milky ocean by the gods and demons as a means of releasing certain ambrosia to the surface (Ādiparva: Ch. 18–19). This titanic ritualistic act represents a classic image of creation by means of the principles of chaos and confusion. The basic originary substance – i.e., water – is transformed into various types of elixirs, just as nature (natura naturans) is transformed into multiple properties, energies and substance-simulations in Spinoza’s Pantheistic universe. The Vedic ritual of pressing the soma (possibly a hallucinogenic) plant at the time of sacrifice is outlined here. Initially, it is the water that is churned. Later, they churned the milk. The milk became clarified butter that is used in all the holy rituals. The same was transformed into a certain ambrosia. Soma is the elixir of immortality, the only consumable divine beverage that distinguishes the gods from demons (Kālidāsa 1981, Kumārasambhavam, V-14). 201

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Fertility Myths The Mahābhārata narrates in much detail the supernatural births of several heroes and heroines, who are either manifestations of gods or demons or of, and an extraordinary mortal parentage. All these births are connected to the motifs of fertility abandonment or glorification of sacrifice, where water and water-related rituals play a crucial role. The myths dealing with the births of Garuḍa and Aruṇa in the epic associated with the rivalry of co-wives Kadru and Viṃatā and the depositing of their foetuses in warm water vessels reveal the natural births and fertility rites associated with them (Ādiparva Ch. 13). Moistening the face with water in the vessel is part of the rite. The births of the Kauravas, of Droṇa, Vaśiṣt h ̣ a and Agastya, sons of Sagara, had one common factor: they were born either in vessels or jars (Ādiparva Ch. 6-18/XIII. Cr. Ed; Śantiparva Cr. Ed. (I. 121, 1–5)). Births of Kauravas, Vaśiṣt h ̣ a, and Agastya were supernatural in nature, and they were born outside the purview of marriage and were drawn from the waters. According to D. D. Kosambi, the vessel or a jar in which they were born is symbolic of the uterine or the amniotic fluid in the uterus and represents either illegitimate or normal births (if the circumambulation around the vessel is properly performed) (2016: 72). Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank opined that the myths relating ‘to the water-medium birth’ might have been created to legitimatize the births of great heroes whose parentage was ‘unknown’. In the psychological plane, ‘water’ refers to the depths of unconscious life and of the soul, where the feelings reside. If ignored or undervalued, whether personally or collectively, we soon end up in an arid conscious dust board of our own creation or with the content of the soul hauled out onto the rocks by the ego, like ‘jellyfish shrivelled in the sun’ (Chetwynd 1986: 229). Of late, waterbirth has become popular in the West, as it is recognized that the infant will have been in a fluid medium before birth and will aspire for the same medium soon after its birth. Hence gynaecologists are encouraging expectant mothers to give birth under water as a form of hydrotherapy. Most religious ceremonies in India are decreed to be incomplete without a jar of water or water-filled kalaśa-s placed on the altar or by the image of the deity being invoked. Thus, also, during the consecration of a new temple (including the installation of a new iconic image of a deity), tonnes of water with other fluids (such as milk and turmeric-infused holy water) are ceremoniously poured over from large vessels amidst sacred chants. Even outside of India, in the Hindu, Jain and Sikh diasporas, where such ceremonies are carried out, it is believed that water from the Gaṅgā, one of the holy rivers of India, is the most propitious fluid needed for the ritual consecration and worship. Likewise, during the cremation or last rites, water is sprinkled on the body of the deceased, on the pyre on which the body is placed so that the last bed of the deceased is purified. Water is again used in the concluding act of cooling down the ambers into which the body parts have been incinerated. Finally, the ashes are scattered in the waters of one of the sacred rivers, preferably in India or the Himalayas or in the open sea. Water is used in ceremonies connected with governance or rājanīti as well. The new king or the heir-apparent to be installed on the throne is blessed with the pouring of water over their heads; if animals are to be sacrificed they are also bathed; the liquid is said to be collected from 108 sacred rivers and places of pilgrims all over the country. The chief priest would recite the following hymn during such a coronation ceremony (Ṛ gveda VIII. 5):

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With thy propitious regard for me, O Water: With thy propitious body touch my skin: All the Agnis sit on the waters, invoke you: Confer on me radiance, force and might: Let not the waters be unappeased and Strike away the strength of him when anointed.

Legends Concerning Water The major legends related to water pertain to river Sarasvatī, Gaṅgā-Śāntanu, the great floods and sage Agastya, to Uśaṇas and Ṛ śangu. The rivers and trees are also invoked for the well-being of the individuals in the Indian tradition. One hymn praises the rivers thus: May the rivers Sarasvatī, Sarayu and Sindhu come to our sacrifices for protecting us. They who are radiant, motherly and inspirers give us ghee-like sweet waters (RV X 64-9). The Mahābhārata narrates the flood legend of Manu, or the great deluge at the end of an epoch (3.185). The minor variants of the same myth are found in Śatapatha Brāhmaṇ a (Eggeling vol. XII: 216–230). The legend is repeated in Matsya Purāṇ a (I. 2–34: 2.1–19), Padmapurāṇ a, Viṣṇ upurāṇ a, and also appears in Jain literature and Buddhist Jātakas. This legend deals with the motif of expansion and immortality, the elements of demerit and wickedness and natural or climatic catastrophes. According to some scholars, the flood legends in the Indian context advert to a natural phenomenon observed or experienced across the globe (Sastri 1950: 4–6).

Water and Serpents There has been a concomitant relationship between water and serpents. According to some ancient myths, serpents have magical powers, capable of assuming any form they wish and have the characteristics of water spirits. They are capable of conferring fertility on barren women. Heinrich Zimmer informs us that among the powerful motifs handed down to us from Mesopotamian art (where they appear on the sacrificial goblet of King Gudea of Lagash), the pattern of a snake is that of an entwined one depicted on slabs of stones all over India (Zimmer 1990). Some scholars believe that the followers of serpent worship, called the Nāgas, were essentially water spirits and were personified forces of nature that are associated with serpents; thus, the hooded serpent became a totem.

Water – Ecology in Indic Traditions ‘Ecology’ signifies the relationships between organisms and their external conditions, including with sentient and non-sentient systems. The Indus Valley people domesticated several herbivorous wild animals. They trained those animals for agriculture, travel and hunting. Their settlements were on riverbanks amidst dense jungles and forests, and hence, they maintained a close relationship with nature and its environment. The natural phenomena, such as the rising and setting of the sun, moon and stars, the rains, and the wind and its power became the symbols of higher beings for them. These nature spirits multiplied over the ages, and umpteen rituals encircled around them. It is interesting to find that some of those rituals are being practiced in some form in India – and in the diaspora – to this day.

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There is a close relationship between water and plants. Water as a life force was represented by sap, milk, blood, menstrual fluid or semen (all of which contain water). Up to 60% of the human adult – and possibly many animals – body is made up of water; much the same goes for most plants. It is intriguing to find that Skanda, son of Pārvatī and Śiva, was born amidst a bamboo forest on the banks of the river Gaṅgā, where lord Agni was hiding; Gaṅgā here represents the primordial waters. When any tank was dug for the sake of a ritual, a fish, a crocodile, a non-poisonous snake called dundubha made from gold, a frog and fish made out of copper and a porpoise made out of iron were placed on a plate and thrown into the water. As all these were aquatic animals, the early Indians thought that one would harm them or their environment while digging a tank and hence, as an act of expiation, this was performed by the people concerned. This cautious attitude of the puranic people reflects their views on eco-balance or biodiversity.

From Water Romanticism to Contemporary Challenges In providing such a textual narrative, one might charge that we are guilty of ‘nature romanticism’ (Patton 2000: 40). Consider the contradiction of rivers, such as the Gaṅgā (Ganges) revered as an ‘immaculate deity’ and yet is among the most polluted rivers in the world, with every kind of human, post-human, industrial and animal-produce waste matter and off-cuts being dumped into the unruly waters (Sen 2018). However, we urge that the personification of natural forces has broader religious and ontological ramifications, which, however, is not our principal concern here; suffice it to note that the dynamic and vital picture that emerges from such a perspective augurs for a more naturalistic and less positivistic attitude towards nature than might otherwise be the case. The exaggerations may, in the long run, serve a heuristic purpose and even create antinomies or counterfactuals within the established injunctions. ‘If you desire A, do sacrifice B’; but suppose B leads to C, which violates A, then A is false, and the consequent, B, cannot be true or is true regardless of A. There is no room for fictionalism here, Likewise, for the emphasis on the ‘supra-natural’ qualia and earthy symbolism of water and ecosystems, which checks the too-often humanly assumed prelapsarian stewardship over the rest of nature, as in the patriarchal biblical vision, down to Francis Bacon: that God had created nature so that it may serve Man. As Thomas Berry has noted, the task of ecological repair requires the networking of the political, economic, business, educational, scientific, as well as the religious communities (Chapple 2017: 226). To that end, in the past three decades, numerous community-based groups have emerged and energized themselves, some spearheaded by religious leaders and organizations, others by secular non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and concerned political activists, that have made it their mission to address the challenges that rivers and waters face in contemporary India – for example, there is the Narmada Bachao-Andolan led by Medha Patkar (joined for a while by the writer-social critic Arundhati Roy), Save Gangā Movement (perhaps the largest such that focuses on the Ganges delta), Clean Gangā (supported by tree-huggers Chipko Movement) and Gangā Action Parivar in Rishikesh (led by Swami Chidananda Saraswati and Sadhvi Bhagawati of Paramarth Niketan). Something else has been happening further down south, with abandoned dams and parching rivers in the sub-Gangetic plains. Water from the abundant Krishna River is being diverted to drier rivers like Cauvery and Chitravathi as part of the redistribution and sharing of water between neighbouring states in the central-southern region. 204

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Water Harvesting and Indigenous Water Management This discussion has been extensively covered in our Indian Ethics Volume I (324–326). Here, we shall summarize the key points. There has been a long tradition of water harvesting throughout India. The range of techniques included canals for tributary diversion of stream water, small and large tanks (from temple holy tanks to huge summer catchments), bunds or embankments, open wells and reservoirs – to collect every possible source of water. A system of measured distribution of water across villages, determined in terms of prioritized needs of the sharing communities, functioned in a decentralized and locally administered form. Large-scale damming of rivers and surface run-off was discouraged, except if it helped to moisten the soil for summer planting or storage in smaller tanks. So, the Narmada and the Yangtse Three Gorges Dam projects would have been inconceivable. Thus, in the event that the annual rainfall fails in some years (an increasing menace, despite sporadic splashes of heavy rainfall and flooding in parts of the subcontinent), there would be sufficient water in reserve for rationing among the inhabitants of the region, as well as for channelling across to other regions if the demand there was negotiably greater. During the colonial period, this varied system of harvesting water was abandoned, further debilitated by a series of droughts, failed monsoons, invented famines and the current fallouts from the greenhouse effect or climate change. The British, since the 1830s, deployed their own ‘scientific’ experts and set about re-organizing the agro-ecological system and the distribution of land and water in ways that they thought would maximize the production of cotton and other agricultural goods. They built dams and canals (some of them 700 miles long) and introduced a sophisticated irrigation system – which also drew the attention of the Premier of Australia, Alfred Deakin, who visited India and Sri Lanka to adapt the design for Australia (he applauded the supposedly gallant efforts of the mutual British masters to uplift the savagery Indians). The Raj fervour to build dams continued with hydraulic urgency in the decades after Independence (Amrith 2018). In the decades after Independence (in 1947), successive Indian governments have not made much of an effort to revisit the traditional methods but have instead invested in mega-irrigation systems and damming groundwater with the primary intent of generating hydroelectricity (when harvesting solar energy and perhaps even the ugly windmills could have been better options). But the nation-on-the-move has remained willy-nilly oblivious to the social and ecological impact of the massive, Earth-moving and water-holing engineering projects. Think of the Narmada Dam project in Gujarat and over 200 such hydel projects currently being instituted in North-East India sanctioned by the so-called Jal Shakti Ministry, which has over the year unleashed massive protests led by urban ecofeminist-water activists with the backing of affected tribal and river-dependent peoples. There are also a few in the south, such as the Mekedatu project in Karnataka. Overall, community self-management has declined as bureaucratic intervention in village affairs increased from the centre and from politicians. Only a few could afford the tube wells sunk under licence from the state government’s water boards. The concluding judgement from Agarwal and Narain (1997: 116; 2002: 12) is telling in that regard: ‘A decentralized system of water management demands a community-based system of natural resources management. Most laws that govern India’s land, water and forests are the same today as those formulated by the British. The Indian government tries to deal with twenty-first-century problems of environment management with the 205

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nineteenth-century legislation and (gilded) bureaucracies of colonial ruler…or will they democratize its control and leave its management to rural communities?’ Southern states were also centres of traditional water harvesting systems. The Vijayanagar empire, a powerful Hindu kingdom around the thirteenth to fourteenth century, had extended its ingenious technē or technical skills in the area of water containment to southern regions of Andhra Pradesh and northwestern Karnataka, where they had built reservoirs, tanks and embankments to collect monsoon flows, which would then stream out through small channels, seepage of moisture and wooden rotating pumps to the agricultural lands and villages around. This system lay in ruins for centuries and only recently came to be repaired and revived by local authorities, doubtless inspired by the revival project. A handful of NGOs and religious institutions have been reaching out to remote areas to provide drinking water and irrigation facilities utilizing the traditional system of water harvesting. The Organisation for the Development of People (ODP) is one such organization that has been working at grassroots levels for over two decades now. Working in the rural areas of Mysore, ODP fosters development programmes for the socially weaker sections, particularly women, children and landless agricultural labourers (Patil 1997). Through constructing ‘watersheds’, the running rainwater is stored in a large catchment area (bund). In this way, the water table is maintained, which in turn helps increase the percolation of groundwater, leading to an effective below-surface water supply for borewells and other wells in the area. A hydroponic irrigation pipe system is attached to the borewells. The agricultural productivity is thereby significantly enhanced, and animals have access to small pools of water as well. A much larger and ambitious water supply project was envisioned by the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust under the inspiration of its founder, Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Based mostly around Puttaparthi (Sri Sathya Sai district), Anantapur, Kadiri and adjacent districts in Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh (later extended to remote areas across the border in Tamil Nadu), which are subject to recurring droughts and uneven climatic conditions, safe water is being provided to some 900 villages, utilizing a fairly advanced system of water harvesting and maintenance of borewells, revival of disused bunds and dried-up lakes, defunct hydroelectric-generating dams used as reservoirs, aqueducts, pumping houses, an organic filtration system (using mostly sand) and installation of 2,500 km of large diameter pipelines supplying water to overhead storage tanks in the villages. The available water is used for social and agricultural purposes. Birds and other species that had not been seen in the area for over half a century have returned to nest anew as the flora and fauna have flourished in the aquatic-enriched area. Arghyam – whose mission is stated as ‘safe, sustainable water for all’ – is another notfor-profit organization founded in 2005 in Bangalore that endeavours to train rural populations across India on water management, using advanced digital and other learning techniques. This is achieved through funding and partnering with individuals, local governments and NGOs to help design and implement transformative solutions towards water security for vulnerable communities. Arghyam has expanded its work to over 22 states in the subcontinent. The Indian government authorities have developed a scheme, appropriately dubbed ‘Jal Jeevan Mission’ (Water for Life), to provide piped water connection to 100 million households by 2024; apparently 70 million rural household have already been grateful beneficiaries of this ambitious scheme. The Prime Minister in a recent announcement hailed this 206

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feat as a ‘milestone’ (Hindustan Times 20 August 2022: 1). There are, however, other contaminants that pollute urban areas and sometimes have a detrimental impact on the stormwater drains that are used for water harvesting. Delhi, for example, has a very complex drainage system that was developed by the Mughals and improvised by the British. But in recent times, storm water drains down along the roads and combines with the sewer lines, which often have blockages. The nallahs (canals) that carry monsoon-pelted rainwater now also carry sewerage. There have been recent attempts by the Municipal Councils to rectify the system by developing new schemes for stormwater drainage, involving desilting the drains before monsoon. This has been something of a success story.

Water Wars There is nevertheless a lacuna: poverty has not been eradicated; rather, by some accounts, poverty continues to plague certain sectors of the already disadvantaged population across India, particularly in rural regions. Owing to climate change, the greenhouse effect, tsunamis, rising water levels (in coastal regions), erratic patterns of the monsoon (with summer becoming hotter beyond all-time records), rapid glacial melts in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, conversely persistent droughts and their ineffectual management (Sharma 2019; Mathur & Jayal 1993; Vatsyayan 2010; Iyer 2015), the adverse consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, industrialization and rapid urbanization (increasing demands on already depleting reservoirs), farmers’ suicides and other maladies impacting the nation, water as a commodity and basic good of ‘jal jeevan’ is becoming more and more scarce. Not only in India, but drought is now a common phenomenon in many parts of the world, even while other parts of the world, such as Europe and the southern-eastern seaboard of the United States, have been plagued with horrendous rain storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, rising water levels and devastating (for human and animal habitats) flooding. As we write, hitherto dry-climate cities like Dallas-Fort Worth in Texas are flooded under 8 inches of rain overnight. Australia has declared perennial drought conditions across the continent (despite torrential rains in the coastal areas, which, however, do not reach or flow over to the inland rivers and outlying farming area, much less the outback settlements closer to the sprawling desert). Due to not dissimilar impacts, we know that water conflicts have surfaced not only in areas such as California (the city of Los Angeles and between farmers and ranchers in Eastern California over water rights) in drought-ridden parts of Africa but also between neighbouring nations and states in other parts of the world. There is a looming water war between India and Pakistan over the shared resources of the Indus River waters that cross into both borders (and the conflict on this front is exacerbating). Vandana Shiva has for long been predicting water wars, not just or necessarily between India and Pakistan, but rather between and among different interest groups, both globally and within India, as the water crisis deepens (Vandana 2002). Water that was once in abundance has been transformed into a scarcity. She states that increased population and economic development have increased demands for water around the world, and as the resource is finite, competition across the sectors has become fierce. As a commentator notes, Shiva points out: water wars are global wars, with diverse cultures and ecosystems that share the universal ethic of water as an ecological necessity, pitted against a corporate culture of privatization, greed and enclosures of the water commons. She argues that the destruction of forest catchments and aquifers is a form of terrorism, and denying poor 207

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people access to water by privatizing water distribution or polluting water sources is another kind of terrorism. (Mirza 2002: 485) She asserts that ‘[T]he water crisis is the most pervasive, most severe, and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of the earth’ (ibid.). Shiva argues that industrial forestry leads to low rainfall, that tree species requiring high amounts of water reduce the availability of water and that mining (and animal factory farming) pollutes and destroys water catchments. For this contention, she cites a number of cases from India (ibid.). It is indeed a sad predicament and a blight on any nation that goes a long way to protect and encourage foreign investment to bottle away its water resources just so that multinational corporations (beginning with Coca-Cola down to Aquafina) can flog them at huge profit margins in the market. It is these companies that often write the rules in the presumed bilateral trade agreements. Furthermore, the rapid expansion of dams over major living rivers, such as the Tehri Dam (completed by Uttarakhand in 2005) and the equally controversial Narmada Dam (in Gujarat), contributes to infrastructural climate change that triggers flooding, landslides, submerging or displacing low-lying villages along the banks and adjacent forests. While ignoring the impact of such catastrophes, India’s claim to be a leader in reversing the tide of climate change sounds all but hollow. Meanwhile, the best of Indian river and spring water is exported to foreign countries; not much is left for the local people, and it is little wonder that India has been experiencing food grain shortage not just due to uneven monsoon rains but because water flow from rivers and other sources needed for crops is becoming a scarcity (and cereal, rice and grain prices meanwhile go up as the silos are filled for the export commodity more than for local consumption). A whole nation meanwhile could be thus left gasping in thirst and hunger, or at least deminutae nutritionis. A whole nation could be thus left gasping in thirst. Of course, the water wars are not unique to the national and transnational boundaries of India; several nations, large and small, are fraught with similar challenges. China and the United States are the biggest investors in Australia’s water entitlement (other investors are knocking on the water-stretched Australian land as well, not to speak of mines, coal and other natural resources, perhaps the air that animals and citizens breathe as well). On the US west side, California draws 48% of its much-needed water supply from its reserves and groundwater (in years when severe drought does not deplete the resource), and the rest of the water is drawn from the Colorado River that runs through seven states and parts of Mexico, all of whom share the water. But, since California is the largest user of Colorado water (especially in the Imperial Irrigation District and the southern California farm fields), the other states have raised objections about the disproportionate claim on the river water. Not surprisingly, the steep decline in the river’s water supply has induced an escalating panic during the past five years (Cal Matters 31 January 2023), so much so that, presently, there is an impasse over attempts at foot to renegotiate the terms of the age-old settlement agreement as California goes further into drought conditions. California’s offer to cut the use by 9% has not been accepted by the other states, and thus, federal intervention may be forthcoming.

Conclusion From the foregoing chapter, we find that: 1. Water in the Indic traditions assumed a sacred role owing to its intrinsic qualities. The resources of water, such as wells, ponds, lakes, springs, rivers, waterfalls, seas and 208

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oceans, were considered sacred. It was believed that many gods and goddesses, legendary heroes and heroines had their births from water resources, and there is an intimate correlation between water and the feminine gender. 2. In terms of evolution, the earliest life-form arguably began in water or misty-moisture particles in the air (or in lokas, outer space realms); hence, water becomes a source of life and is therefore treated as the oldest of the divine powers. In terms of psychology, water refers to the depths of the unconscious life and of the soul. 3. Despite the work of organizations and beneficent religious institutions towards sustainable water management (through harvesting rainwater, sinking borewells, and using modern technologies to teach resource capabilities), water has increasingly become a scarce and depleting commodity for many sectors of the Indian population, particularly the socially disadvantaged, farmers and women. Conflict over water rights is on the increase; some have predicted that water might ironically ignite the next cross-border and domestic battles – hence the trope ‘water wars’. A whole nation or nation could be left gasping in thirst and scorching pain from the tāpa or heat of climate change.

References Agarwal, A., & Narain, S. 1997. ‘Dying Wisdom: The Decline and Revival of Traditional Water Harvesting Systems in India.’ The Ecologist 27(3): 112–116. ———. 2002. Community and Household Water Management: The Key to Environmental Regeneration and Poverty Alleviation. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. Amrith, Sunil. 2018. Unruly Waters: How Mountain Rivers and Monsoons Have Shaped South Asia’s History. Boston, MA: Basic Books with Allen Lane. Aṅguttara Nikāya. 2012. Trans. Thera Nyanaponika and Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha. Sommerville, MA: Wisdom Publications. Arora, U.P. 1981. Motifs in Indian Mythology. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Ltd. AV. Atharva Veda Saṃ hitā with the Commentary of Sāyaṇ a. 1993 (1905). Trans. William Dwight Whitney, MA: Cambridge University Press; reprinted Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass. Avadhāni, Keśava. 1997. Daily Rituals (in Kannada). Bangalore: Śruti Shankar Samskrita Samshodhana Pratistanam Mattur. Baird, Callicot. 1994. Earth’s Insights: A Multicultural Survey of Ecological Ethics from the Mediterranean Basic to the Australian Outback. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994; from ‘Series Foreword’ to Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water. Christopher Key Chapple and Mary Evelyn Tucker (eds.), 2000. MA: Harvard University Press with Center for the Study of World Religions. Balbir, Nalini. 2019. ‘Jain Cosmology.’ British Library, Discovering Sacred Texts. 23 September. https://www.bl.uk/sacred-texts/articles/jain-cosmology Bhāgavata Purāṇ a. 1978. Trans. & Ed. J.L. Sastry, 4 Vols. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Bilimoria, P. 1998. ‘Indian Religious Traditions.’ In David E Cooper & Joy A Palmer (eds.) Spirit of the Environment: Religion, Value and Environmental Concern, pp. 1–14. London and New York: Routledge. Cal Matters. 2023. https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/01/california-colorado-river-water-2/ Capila, Anjali. 2022. A River Sings: The Ganga from Gangotri to Haridwar. Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, with DK Printworld, Delhi. Chapple, Christopher Key. 2017. ‘Purgation and Virtue in Jainism: Toward an Ecological Ethic’. In Bilimoria, Purushottama, Prabhu, Joseph, and Sharma, Renuka (eds.). Indian Ethics Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges, Vol 1, pp. 217–228. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge [2007 Ashgate] Chetwynd, Tom. 1986. A Dictionary of Sacred Myth. London: Unwin Paperbacks. Deodhar, C.R. 1950. Mālavikāgnimitram. Pune: Educational Publishing Company.

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Purushottama Bilimoria and M. K. Sridhar Doron, A., Barz, R., & Nelson, B. (eds.) 2005. An Anthology of Writings on the Ganga: Goddess and River in History, Culture, and Society. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Emoto, Masaru. 2005. The Hidden Messages in Water. New York/UK: Simon & Schuster. Gaṇeśa-atharvaśīrṣam, Sasvara Veda Mantrāḥ. 1980. Bangalore: Ramakrishna Ashrama. Hart, George. 1975. The Poems of Ancient Tamil: Their Milieu and their Sanskrit Counterparts. Berkeley: University of California Press. Iyer, Ramaswamy R. 2015. Living Rivers, Dying Rivers. Delhi: Oxford University Press with India International Centre, Delhi. Kālidāsa. 1981. Kumārasambhavam. Ed. M.R. Kale. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi. Kosambi, D.D. 2016 (1981). Myth and Reality: Studies in the Formation of Indian Culture. Delhi: Sage Publications. Mathur, Kuldeep, & Niraja G. Jayal. 1993. Drought, Policy and Politics in India: The Need for a Long-Term Perspective. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Matsya Purāṇ a. 1990. ed. Nag Sharan Singh Delhi: Nag Publishers. MBh. 1933–69. The Mahābhārata. Critical Edition (Cr. ED.), General Editor, V.S. Sukthankar, Poona (Pune): Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute; also trans. P.C. Roy, II Vols., Calcutta: Orient Publishing. Mirza, M. Monirul Qader. 2002. Review of Shiva (2002) (q.v.) Canadian Water Resources Journal, 27 (4): 485–487. Narayan, Vasudha. 2001. ‘Water, Wood, and Wisdom: Ecological Perspectives from the Hindu Traditions.’ Daedalus, 120 (4), 179–206. Oldham, C.F. 2018 (1905). Sun and the Serpent. Wyoming (USA): Creative Media Partners (e-books). Patil, Vijayakumar. 1997. ‘An NGO committed to the poor’. The Hindu 3 January. Patton, Laurie. 2000. ‘Nature Romanticism and Sacrifice in Rgvedic Interpretation.’ Hinduism and Ecology (q.v.). Ṛ gveda. 1905. Trans. A.B. Keith. Cambridge: Harvard Oriental Series, vol. 2. Ṛ gveda. 1981. The Rig Veda. An Anthology. Trans. Wendy Doniger. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Sastri, Suryakanta. 1950. Flood Legend in Sanskrit Literature. Delhi: Cyhand. Sen, Sudipta. 2018. Ganges: The Many Pasts of an Indian River. New Have. Conn: Yale University Press. Sharma, Ashish. 2019. ‘Drought Management Policy of India: An Overview.’ Disaster Advances. November 12(11): 51–62 Sridhar, M.K., and Bilimoria, P. 2017. ‘Animal ethics and ecology in Classical India – Reflections on a Moral Tradition.’ Indian Ethics I: 197–328. Taittirīya Saṃ hitā. 1980a. Trans. Swami Vimalananda. Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama. Taittirīya Saṃ hitā. 1980b. Trans. Swami Vimalananda. Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇ a. 2002. Delhi: Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan; trans. by Julius Eggeling. 1963. The Sacred Books of the East (Vol. XII, XXVI, XLI, XLIII, XLIV). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Upaniṣads. 2008. Trans. Patrick Olivelle. Oxford Classics. New York: Oxford University Press. Vandana, Shiva. 2002. Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution and Profit. London: Pluto Press Vatsyayan, Kapila, 2010. Water – Culture, Politics and Management. New Delhi: Pearson Education with India International Centre. Vogel, J. 1926. Indian Serpent-Lore or the Nāgas in Hindu Legend and Art. London: Probsthain. Zimmer, H. 1974 (1990). Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. London: British Museum Press; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

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15 PROTECTION OF THE INDIAN COASTAL ECOSYSTEM THROUGH COASTAL REGULATION ZONE (CRZ) NOTIFICATIONS* An Analysis M. Sakthivel and Nagma Khan

Introduction to the Coastal Area Ecosystem and Its Significance A ‘coast’ is an area which integrates land with sea. It is characterized by open space and high economic productivity (Ahlhorn 2018). Generally, the ‘coastal region’ is marked by abundant resources. Similarly, the Indian Coastal Zone features a rich and unique ecosystem consisting of ‘coral reefs, sand dunes, mangroves, seagrasses, and estuaries’ (GOI 2015). Richness in biodiversity marked by myriad flora and fauna in the coastal ecosystems, a wide variety of minerals, and other resources present in these waters portray the immense significance of coastal stretches to humankind (Beatley et al., 2009). While maintaining the climate cycle, the coastal ecosystem supports the fisheries and facilitates the establishment of some specific industries (Ahlhorn 2018). Marine products are exported for various industrial and pharmaceutical uses, which signifies the economic importance of these coastal ecosystems (Hoeksema 2004). Coasts have also enhanced global trade with marine waters, providing major international trade routes, thus highlighting that the economy derives a great deal of its gross domestic product (GDP) from the riches of these waters. However, this ecologically rich and economically profitable region faces specific inherent threats. The Indian coasts include significant low-­lying coastal areas that are sensitive to frequent cyclones and other natural disasters (Sakthivel 2010). They are vulnerable to rising sea levels (Swarna Latha & Prasad 2010). In addition to being an area of enormous productivity, coasts are also natural buffers against tall winds and waves resulting from natural calamities.

*  The authors wish to acknowledge that this is an abridged version of an extended paper is to be published in volume 10 of LUMS Law Journal.

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When left to itself, the coastal ecosystem can recover and maintain its equilibrium amidst natural pressures, but the external anthropogenic pressure negatively affects the very dynamics of the coastal area. The physical alteration of coastal areas by tourism, industrialization, rapid urbanization, lack of planning and excessive pollution tilts the coastal equilibrium (FAO 2006). Climate change, algal blooms caused by eutrophication and other human factors degrade coastal ecosystems. The ever-­increasing pulls from tourism and urbanization dilute the uniqueness of coastal landscapes. The scenic beauty of coastal waters has suffered a setback by the activities often quoted as pro bono publico. They also threaten the natural habitats of species thriving in the marine ecosystems, damaging the coastal equilibrium. These natural and anthropogenic pressures threaten the very existence of the coastal ecosystem and make it susceptible to disasters; thereby, the livelihood of the coastal population has been substantially influenced.

Need for Protection of Coastal Areas Given the changing circumstances, there is an ever-­increasing need to focus on preserving coastal areas. One cannot shun the use of new and rare resources derived from coastal areas in toto, but the ecological cost and irrevocable changes that hasty and impulsive actions entail in terms of prolonged damage to the rare coastal ecosystem cannot be ignored well. Hence, the sustainable utilization of resources should be the guiding principle for meeting present and future needs (KIADB 2006). The Apex Court interpreted that the ‘right to life includes the right to live in a clean and healthy environment’; the same could be extended to include the ‘right to clean and healthy coastal areas’ (Maneka et al. 1978). Thus, it can be argued that protecting and maintaining coastal areas is a constitutional mandate. Initially, at the international level, during the Earth Summit 1992, deliberations opened upon integrated coastal area management and protection of coastal areas under Agenda 21 (Chapter 17, UN 1992). In the Indian context, besides the existing constitutional mandate, the earliest step in protecting coastal areas was initiated in 1981, by which states were directed not to carry out developmental activities within the 500 m range from the High Tide Line (HTL) (GOI 2010). This effort could be termed the first stern directive issued to conserve coastal waters and is the genesis of the 1991 Notification (Menon et al. 2015). Abrupt clearances, the unbridled establishment of thermal power plants, widespread ports and ship-­ breaking activities were the norm in India before the introduction of CRZ Notification 1991 (Warrier 2018). Several violations in apparent disregard of regulations corrupted the marine environment, affecting fisheries and deteriorating the quality of coastal waters. This was a corollary of weak implementation of the rules due to the lethargic attitude of authorities and ignorance of the notification by state governments (EQUATIONS 2008). Unsustainable development practices and the bypassing of norms for narrow interests were the conventions until the Apex Court intervened through public interest litigation (PIL) (Jagannath 1997). After that, owing to external pressures from the aviation and tourism sectors, the Government of India overrode the first notification and introduced an amended CRZ Notification in 2011. This facilitated the construction of greenfield airports and the flourishing of tourism activities in the CRZ areas. In 2019, an altogether new notification was brought forth to further facilitate more developmental activities in coastal areas. Therefore, evaluating the efficacy of these notifications by comparing the various CRZ areas in these notifications is pertinent.

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Comparison of Protection of Coastal Areas Notifications India is part of the limited group of countries that have afforded some protection to the coastal ecosystem by introducing the CRZ Notifications (Mascarenhas 1999). As stated, the CRZ Notification 1991, notified by the central government, is an inceptive step towards protecting coastal areas in the country. Many committees were constituted between 1992 and 2005 to bring changes to the 1991 Notification. Various amendments to the original 1991 Notification have been carried out chiefly to cater to the needs of tourism and other specific sectors based on those committees’ recommendations (Menon et al. 2007). As many as 25 amendments were carried out in the 1991 Notification (Sundararaju 2019). After that, a new notification was brought in, specifically in 2011, for coastal zone regulation. Furthermore, in 2019, the earlier one was replaced by a new notification in the domain. Let us examine the same in detail based on the CRZ categories.

Objectives of CRZ Notifications While examining the paramount objective(s) of the CRZ Notifications, it is evident that the 1991 Notification did accord a certain level of protection to the coastal ecosystem. The original 1991 Notification declared ‘coastal stretches of seas, bays, estuaries, creeks, rivers and backwaters as those areas influenced by tidal action up to 500 metres from HTL and between HTL and Low Tide Line (LTL)’ as CRZ. Further, it aimed to restrict establishing and expanding industries, operations or processes in CRZs. However, CRZ Notification 2011 (hereafter ‘2011 Notification’) overruled the 1991 Notification. The objective of the 2011 Notification was to ‘invoke the management practices that were sustainable and backed by the scientific principles while considering the potential hazards, along with conserving the pristine resources’. It is worth pointing out that this Notification was based on the recommendations of M. S. Swaminathan Committee. Further, it envisaged creating a Coastal Zone Management Authority (CZMA) to achieve the said objectives. However, the committee drew flak, even though it aimed to deploy scientific principles into the regulations, as it failed to obtain and consider views of the coastal communities. The third and latest notification on the subject, the CRZ Notification 2019 (hereafter ‘2019 Notification’), was introduced due to the Shailesh Nayak Committee 2014. The committee’s recommendations on conserving coastal stretches were considered, and changes have been introduced accordingly in the 2019 Notification. The objective of the latest notification is to conserve the coastal ecosystem by emphasizing ‘sustainable development based on scientific principles’ along with securing the livelihood of the local population.

Classification of CRZ and Limits of Permissible and Prohibited Activities A common characteristic of all three notifications is that they classify the CRZ areas based on the vulnerability of the areas bounded by coastal waters into the following four categories: CRZ I, CRZ II, CRZ III and CRZ IV. However, these areas have been further classified in the evolution of the coastal legal framework. Let us examine the classification of the coastal areas under these three notifications in depth.

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CRZ I Under the earliest 1991 Notification, ecologically sensitive areas, including marine parks, coral reefs, mangroves, hubs of biological resources and areas between LTL and HTL, found a place under CRZ I. Further, the notification prohibited new constructions within 500 metres of HTL and between HTL and LTL. Besides certain exceptions, there was a near-­complete ban considering the susceptibility of these ecologically important areas. In the 2011 Notification, ecologically sensitive areas and geomorphological features maintaining the coastal integrity were clubbed under CRZ I. These included ‘mangroves, sand dunes, mudflats, salt marshes, turtle nesting grounds, seagrass beds, heritage sites and the area between LTL and HTL’, among others. There could not be any new construction except such activities relating to government works, including the atomic energy projects, pipelines and greenfield airport in Mumbai, among other specified activities. Furthermore, in the non-­ecologically sensitive areas falling between LTL and HTL, exploration of natural gas and its extraction, salt harvesting, desalination plants, trans-­harbour sea links and other things were permitted with safety measures being taken. Unlike the previous two notifications, the most recent 2019 Notification has sub-­ categorized CRZ I into CRZ I-­A and CRZ I-­B. Former CRZ I-­A consists of ‘environmentally fragile areas such as mangroves, coral reefs, national parks, sand dunes, turtle nesting grounds, horseshoe crab’s habitats, heritage sites, etc.’, and the latter comprises intertidal areas between LTL and HTL. As a general rule, no developmental activities are permitted in CRZ I-­A. Compared to the 1991 Notification, exceptions like ecotourism activities are allowed, provided an ecotourism plan is in an approved Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP). Similarly, activities relating to public utilities, like laying pipelines and transmission lines, are allowed in mangrove buffers. For defence, strategic purposes and public amenities, laying highways and roads on stilts is allowed through land reclamation in these areas. Further, the Notification mandates the Environment Impact Assessment study to be carried out for undertaking the developmental activities. Additionally, it advocates for initiating afforestation measures if the developmental activities fall within the mangrove areas. In the intertidal areas of CRZ I-­B of 2019, Notification, activities such as land reclamation for defence and other purposes requiring foreshore facilities are allowed. Further, it permits power generation using renewable energy resources, as well as the development of cargo facilities in the selected ports, salt harvesting and desalination plants, among other activities. When comparing 2019 notifications with previous ones, it is evident that the activities permitted within the CRZ I areas are more detrimental to the fragile ecosystem, which would undermine the very intendment of the CRZ notification. In particular, activities like land reclamation, which can potentially hamper the equilibrium of the coastal areas, have been given the go-­ahead for sea links and other activities (Lindeboom 2002). Furthermore, the activities allowed in the name of defence, public interest or public purpose projects and the aforementioned ecotourism activities cause severe and irreparable damage to the CRZ areas. Based on the previous discussion, it is worth summarizing that the 2019 Notification is more diluting. Hence, it could also be pointed out that the permitted activities are against the sustainable utilization approach.

CRZ II Under the 1991 Notification, developed areas proximate to the coastal stretches formed part of this category. This category included substantially built-­ up places within the 214

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urban areas. In CRZ II, some restrictions were placed for the construction of new buildings and laying down roads, and compliance with local bodies’ regulations was necessitated for these activities; the design of the buildings also had to be consistent with the landscape. Like 1991, the 2011 Notification also covered the developed areas with infrastructure and sanitation facilities proximate to the shoreline. It also imposed some restrictions while undertaking the construction and infrastructure developmental activities in this area subjected to specific conditions. Under the latest 2019 Notification, this category contains the developed urban areas near the shoreline. Unlike the previous notifications, 2019 mandates developed areas of land having more than 50% of constructed areas that are provided with basic civic amenities for inclusion within this category. Developmental activities given the go-­ahead in CRZ I-­B are also allowed in CRZ II in the 2019 Notification. Similarly, structural units could be created subject to municipal regulations. Further, any developmental activity for tourism has also been regulated in the 2019 Notification. As per this Notification, in case of any change in the Floor Space Index (FSI), the urban local body shall approach the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) through the State Coastal Zone Management Authority (SCZMA). Then, the SCZMA would bring the same to the National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA) notice. It can very well be seen that the FSI can be increased under the 2019 Notification to expand tourism activities in these areas.

CRZ III Under the 1991 Notification, relatively undisturbed areas belonging to neither of the two categories, CRZ I and CRZ II, were classified and clubbed under this category. In this zone, an area up to 200 metres was described as a ‘No Development Zone’ (NDZ), within which structural units were not allowed. These areas could be utilized only for agriculture, gardens, parks, salt manufacture, etc., between 200 and 500 metres of HTL. However, the establishment of resorts and motels was permitted upon approval by MoEFCC. The construction of dwelling units by the native residents as part of their customary land use practices was also subject to certain conditions. Nevertheless, in the actual 2011 Notification, those undisturbed areas belonging to neither CRZ I nor II, in both rural and urban, as well as developed and underdeveloped areas, were brought under this category. This category contained an NDZ, which extended up to 200 metres from HTL. However, a range of activities was permissible in NDZ, including mining rare minerals, weather radars, construction of schools, community toilets, etc., on a case-­to-­case basis, and greenfield airport development at Navi Mumbai. Furthermore, areas falling between 200 and 500 metres were allowed to be used for storage of non-­hazardous cargo and renewable energy generation, among other activities. Furthermore, NDZ was made inapplicable for the excluded port areas through notification. As per the 2019 Notification, relatively undisturbed land areas not falling under CRZ II form a part of CRZ III. It further introduces a sub-­categorization of CRZ III-­A and CRZ III-­B; the former refers to a zone with a human density exceeding 2,161 per square kilometre, and the remaining areas fall under the latter. According to the 2019 Notification, densely populated areas (CRZ III-­A) have been granted more developmental opportunities by reducing the NDZ from earlier 200 metres to 50 metres from HTL. Hence, the NDZ has been drastically cut. This change translates to more construction activities near the HTL. This increases the vulnerability of the coastal population to natural events (Kukreti 2019). 215

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This category also permits similar activities that could be carried out in CRZ I-­B. In NDZ, activities like agriculture, construction of schools, bridges, public toilets, units for domestic sewage treatment, temporary tourism facilities where national highways or state highways pass through NDZ and mining of atomic minerals, among others, are permitted subject to regulation. Streamlining the activities in areas outside the NDZ includes the establishment of beaches, hotels and tourism, airports, construction of dwelling units, limestone and atomic minerals mining and drawing of groundwater by local communities.

CRZ IV The 1991 Notification defined the ‘coastal stretches of Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep and small islands apart from those designated’ under the aforementioned three zones as CRZ IV. As per the initial notification, in these areas, construction could not be raised within 200 metres of HTL and restrictions were placed on design, construction, height and area of the buildings that could come up between 200 and 500 metres from HTL. Prohibitions were placed on the use of corals and sand. Further, in some islands, categorizing coastal stretches into CRZ I, II and III could be done with prior approval from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFC). For Lakshadweep and other small islands, similar restrictions were placed on the design, height, etc., of the buildings that could come up in CRZ, and the distance from HTL to build construction depended on the size of the island. As per the 2011 Notification, CRZ IV areas included: water areas from LTL to 12 nautical miles on the seaward side and water area of the tidal influenced water body from mouth of the water body at sea up to the influence of tide measured as five parts per thousand during the driest season of the year. In CRZ IV areas, certain activities like shipping, oil pollution, gas exploration and mining were regulated. However, no restriction was placed on traditional fishing. Furthermore, certain coastal areas require special consideration in the 2011 Notification. These included CRZ areas of Mumbai, Kerala, Goa and other vulnerable regions of the ecosystem identified under EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) 1986, like Sunderbans, etc. Under the 2019 Notification, CRZ IV consists of the water area and has been sub-­ categorized. CRZ IV-­A includes ‘the water area and the sea bed area between the LTL up to twelve nautical miles on the seaward side’ and CRZ IV B refers to ‘the water area and the bed area between LTL at the bank of the tidally influenced water body to the LTL on the opposite side of the bank and extending from the mouth of the water body at sea up to the influence of the tide’. Regulation of activities like traditional fishing, land reclamation, atomic energy projects, weather radar, construction of monuments and memorials, etc., can be found under the 2019 Notification, and the public hearing can be dispensed with under certain conditions. Under the 2019 Notification, greater autonomy is granted to the state authorities. The 2019 Notification has streamlined the process of obtaining CRZ clearances. MoEFCC has exclusive jurisdiction to deal with clearances for projects falling under the CRZ I and CRZ IV areas. State governments and state CZMA give clearances for the remaining two categories. From the previous discussion, a trend of systematically toning down the efficiency of CRZ norms through the amendment process can be very well observed. This is evident 216

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from the exempted developmental and recreational activities under these notifications. Compared with the 1991 Notification, in the 2019 Notification, the number of exemptions is much higher. Similarly, in 2011, the number of exemptions was on the higher side. This gradual onslaught on the vulnerable coastal stretches further complex the fragile area. There is no evidence to corroborate that these developmental and other recreational activities allowed in a phased-­out manner are either scientific or sustainable. Many of the stakeholders, including civil society, are alleging that these developmental activities are merely to reap the economic benefits. Furthermore, the authority to alter the essence of these notifications is in the hands of the executive through a simple notification. The delegated power given to the executives to amend these notifications rather than subjecting them to the rigourous legislative amendment process may easily pave the way for the further dilution of these notifications to accommodate the commercial short-­term interest-­oriented projects. However, in many such circumstances, the judiciary has aptly intervened and safeguarded the coastal areas. In this regard, it is worthwhile to highlight the contribution of the Indian adjudicating forums in the conservation of the coastal environment with the help of a few landmark decisions.

Judiciary on Protection of Coastal Areas Indian courts have been at the forefront of environmental protection and have served as a harbinger of environmental justice through Public Interest Environmental litigation. By taking inspiration from various international environmental documents, the Indian Judiciary has circumferenced the environmental jurisprudence in India. These international documents have been incorporated into municipal laws by the judiciary (Sakthivel 2020). One of the earlier cases is the Goa Foundation v Konkan Railway Corporation (1995) case, wherein the Bombay High Court dealt with constructing a railway line passing over rivers, creeks, etc., sans clearance. The Court observed that development is bound to affect the ecology, and the extent of damage in the present case was negligible in contrast to the advantages offered by the impugned project. Thus, it was held that the construction/maintenance of a railway line in the ecologically fragile ecosystem comprising the coastal area would not attract provisions of the EPA. The Indian Council for Enviro-­Legal Action v. Union of India (1996) case constitutes a significant breakthrough in the discourse on the protection of coastal areas. The instant case arose from a PIL filed to enforce the 1991 Notification alleging violation of the 1991 Notification due to the mushrooming of industries illegally, damaging the ecology of the coastal areas. The MoEF had taken no further steps beyond the issuance of the notification. Further, it was alleged that the 1994 amendments to the 1991 Notification, incorporated after the Vohra Committee report, if implemented, would be against the principles of scientific development. In response, the full bench of the Apex Court issued clear directions to the government to implement the 1991 Notification. It was further held that it is very well within its domain to pass necessary directions and orders to protect the fundamental rights relating to a clean environment. Nevertheless, the day-­to-­day enforcement falls in the executive’s domain, and thus the amendments were upheld. It was further held that allegations concerning infringement of the main notification would be taken up before the respective High Courts and directed the erring states to submit CZMP within one year. Soon after, in the S Jagannath v. Union of India (1997), a petition was filed to enforce the 1991 Notification and stop the rigorous prawn farming in the ecologically sensitive 217

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areas near the coast. The Court ruled that any shrimp or aquaculture industry in the ecologically fragile CRZ areas should be in line with sustainable development. The onset of the 21st century witnessed some landmark cases that have shaped jurisprudence in this area. Furthermore, the discourse has gained acceleration in present times due to the vast repercussions being felt worldwide due to climate change. Because of greater awareness, there is an inundation of environment-­related pleas before Indian courts. Foremost among them is the Goa Foundation, Goa v. Diksha Holdings Pvt. Ltd. (2001) case, wherein the judgment of the Bombay High Court allowing a holiday resort that was alleged to be falling within the CRZ area was questioned before the Apex Court. The High Court had cited that a balance had to be made between preserving the ecology and permitting hotels for the state’s economic development and dismissed the writ, declaring that the permission granted was not illegal. It was alleged that the clearances had been obtained in contravention of the provisions of the EPA and was argued that the area where the hotel was to come up should have been classified as CRZ I and that allowing hotels to develop in such areas would result in irreversible damage to the pristine sand dunes present. After going through the approved state plans and relevant notification, the Supreme Court ruled that the area for the hotel’s construction fell within CRZ III, so the sanctions were termed to be rightfully obtained. Similarly, in the Vaamika Island (Green Lagoon Resort) v. Union of India and Others (2013) case, specific constructions violated 1991 and 2011 notifications in an island named Vettilla Thuruthu in the Vembanad Lake, a critically vulnerable coastal area in the State of Kerala. It was observed that the Vembanad Lake and the adjacent areas (wetland) were brought within the purview of the Ramsar Convention in 2002. The Court also opined that India, being a party to the convention, is obligated to protect this vulnerable wetland carrying socio-­economic importance and use it wisely. In Kerala State Coastal Management Authority v. DLF Universal Ltd. (2018), there is an interesting judgment. In the present case, DLF, without obtaining prior clearance due to delayed permission by the relevant authorities, proceeded to construct a housing project based on a deemed clearance under Clause 8(3) of the EIA Notification 2006. The Court severely criticized the lethargic approach of the authorities and observed that if such an approach were permitted, it would cause grave uncertainty. Thus, by taking cognizance of the same, the Court imposed a fine of Rs. 1 crore and warned and mandated the authorities to comply with CRZ Notifications. The Court also directed that the prior clearances and necessary clarifications be issued well within the time limits prescribed. In the Kerala State Coastal Zone Management Authority v. The State of Kerala Maradu Municipality and Others (2019) case, the Supreme Court recently took a complex view and ordered the demolition of such illegal structure(s) constructed in the CRZ area. In the present dispute, construction activities on the shores of the backwaters were challenged. The construction area was a part of the tidally influenced waterbody, and no construction could be carried out in that area as per the coastal notification. It was alleged that permissions were granted in clear violation of the legal framework governing coastal areas and that these construction activities were taking place in highly susceptible areas of CRZ III. Hence, citing the illegalities in granting permissions, the Court revoked the approval given by the local body and mandated the concurrence of the respective SCZMA as a precondition. While ordering the removal of the structures, the Court emphasized the landmark judgment of the Indian Council case, under which the Apex Court issued crucial directions for the formation of appellate authorities and other measures for coastal protection were also spelled out. 218

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Thus, from the discussion, it is crystal clear that because of the necessary judicial directions, the 1991 Notification was implemented. The judiciary has addressed every attempt to further dilute the existing CRZ protection standards; thereby, at least a minimal degree of protection has been ensured for these vulnerable coastal stretches. At times, the judiciary has also cleared larger projects in these CRZ areas, considering the public interest involved. It is a fact that the judiciary can merely intervene and monitor the effective implementation of the CRZ Notifications if warranted. However, it has inherent limitations on bridging the inadequacy of the CRZ notification, as they fall within the legislature and/or executive domain. At this juncture, it is equally essential to critically examine these CRZ Notifications’ adequacy in addressing the coastal area’s concerns in detail.

Analysis of the CRZ Notifications More than a quarter-­century has passed since the first set of rules for protecting the Indian coastal ecosystem. India’s long coastline of 7,500 kilometres marks the significance of coastal areas against the ever-­increasing anthropogenic and development activities. India has the distinction of being among the few countries to take steps towards protecting coastal areas by formulating a notification as early as 1991, in which several activities have been restricted in different coastal zones. However, this first notification was subjected to around 25 amendments within its life span of 20 years, and the scope of activities, especially in NDZ, was also expanded. This resulted in the proliferation of environmentally unsound policies and practices. Swaminathan Committee was formed to review the 1991 Notification and suggest integrated coastal zone management on scientific lines. The report preached for a change from regulation to managing the coastal zones, but it was not robust enough and fell short on many grounds. However, it also pointed out the flaws in implementing the earliest notification and recommended addressing the issues and concerns of the coastal communities. In addition, it served as a harbinger for the coming of an altogether new notification in 2011. The Shailesh Nayak Committee report was revealed to the public through a right-­to-­ information application 18 months after its submission (Venkatesh 2016). The committee’s mandate was to scrutinize the discrepancies and complexities in the 2011 Notification and other pertinent issues of coastal states concerning this new notification. The recommendations have been put forth to boost a range of developmental and recreational activities, including tourism and port construction. Considering the complexities of the 2011 Notification regarding jurisdiction and definitions, it advocated for a new notification. Thus, the 2019 CRZ notification has been brought in. Even the 2019 Notification has been aimed at advancing tourism and recreational activities in the sensitive ecosystem like the 2011 Notification, and thus, it perpetuates the unsound development in CRZ. The raison d’etre of carrying out recreational and tourism activities in vulnerable areas amid rising tensions on water resources is unknown. What public good can the so-­called pro bono development activities bring when no good results from the excessive harms attached to activities in the long run, given the present vulnerabilities of our earth’s climate? Environmentalists have raised their concerns about the efficacy of the coastal protection framework, as it is often diluted through amendments. Recently, the environmental action group Vanashakti challenged the constitutionality of the 2019 Notification. The PIL claimed that the 2019 Notification decreases the area falling under the NDZ and reduces the prohibited activities, thereby increasing the vulnerability of coastal zones and doing away 219

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with EIA for various constructions. However, the petitioner was asked to approach the National Green Tribunal (NGT) as the Government of India finalized CZMP during the pendency of proceedings. Though the 2019 Notification has received negative reviews from industrialists and environmentalists, the government has expressed that the new notification is based on sustainable development; thus, it respects the ecological concerns and empowers the state to green signal the developmental activities supporting the economy. Further, the government is deliberating on exempting prior clearance requirements for exploratory drilling operations in intertidal areas and has invited comments from the public (Mohan 2021). Further, the government is also attempting to retain the provisional and impermanent structures with adequate safety measures. In this regard, SCZMA would grant clearances to ‘stand-­alone jetties, breakwaters, groynes, salt works, slipways and manual erosion control bund’. If such exemptions are brought, it will further dilute the CRZ protection norms and would cause a severe threat to the fragile ecosystem. Considering the susceptibility of the terrestrial environment adjoining coastal stretches, it is needless to point out that science and not economics should guide policymakers to bring about a just and environmentally sound regulation. Today, our society is knowledge-­ based, as put forth in the Earth Summit 1992, and human activities in different areas are interconnected. Hence, policymakers are to tread with extra care and, therefore, consider and envision the varied ramifications of different policies in the environmental domain (Ahlhorn 2014). An inclusive process taking the views and concerns of all the stakeholders connected with the CRZ is the need of the hour (Richard 2003).

Conclusions and Suggestions A range of curative steps could be considered for the wise use of CRZ. Priority should be given to the formulation and finalization of CZMP for the meaningful implementation of CRZ Notification after consultation with all the stakeholders, including coastal communities. Also, there is a need to strengthen the CZMA by providing them with the power to prosecute and punish the violators appropriately. As pointed out by the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) of India, repeated changes to the coastal legal framework have toned down the efficacy. Thus, the development activities have been permitted without any scientific basis. The continuous amendment process should be halted for certainty in CRZ conservation. This uncertainty in coastal protection, clubbed with non-­implementation of the prevailing provisions, has induced the judiciary to step in to conserve the coastal ecosystem. Considering the lacunas in the existing CRZ notification discussed in this chapter, policymakers may consider enacting exclusive legislation on coastal zone protection by introducing punitive measures, which are patently lacking in the current framework. The world is to go green now, as there is a more substantial need today than ever for all developmental activities to be sustainable. The only way forward is that environmental protection and industrial growth need to go hand in hand for the ultimate benefit of humanity in the long run.

References Official Reports EQUATIONS. (2008). Coastal Regulation in India, Why Do We Need a New Notification?. Bangalore: EQUATIONS (Equitable Tourism Options) and Focus Communications.

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Indian Coastal Ecosystem through CRZ Notifications FAO. (2006). Legislative Study 93 on Integrated Coastal Management Law: Establishing and Strengthening National Legal Frameworks for Integrated Coastal Management. GOI, (2005). Report of the Expert Committee on Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 1991. ———. (2010). Ministry of Environment and Forests, Centre for Environment Education (CEE). Report of the Public Consultation with fisherfolks and community to strengthen Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification. ———. (2015). Report of the Expert Committee on Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 1991, MoEF, New Delhi. ———. (2019), MoEF, (rep.) Final Frontier-­Agenda To Protect The Ecosystem and Habitat of India’s Coast for Conservation and Livelihood Security. UN. (1992). Technical Report of Agenda 21 – United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. ———. (2015). Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Sustainable Development Goals-­Knowledge Platform. KIADB: Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board v C. Kenchappa & Ors [2006] 6 SCC 371. Jagannath S. v Union of India (1997). 2 SCC 87. Maneka Gandhi v Union of India, AIR 1978 SC 597.

Bibliography Ahlhorn, F. (2014). Long-­term perspective in coastal zone development multifunctional coastal protection zones. Berlin: Springer. ———. (2018). In Integrated Coastal Zone Management Status, Challenges and Prospects. Fachmedien Wiesbaden: Springer. Alvares, C. (2011, January 24). Towards Ruin: The Coast Is Finally Clear. Outlook. Retrieved from https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/towards-­ruin-­the-­coast-­is-­finally-­clear/270032 Beatley, T., Brower, D. J., & Schwab, A. K. (2009). In An Introduction to Coastal Zone Management. essay. Island Press. Claude, A. (2011, November 24). Towards Ruin: The Coast Is Finally Clear. Outlook. Retrieved December 31, 2021, from https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/towards-­ruin-­the-­coast­is-­finally-­clear/270032 Gupta, A. (2013). Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 2011: An Evaluation. Business Standard. Retrieved December 31, 2021, from https://www.business-­standard.com/article/economy-­policy/ coastal-­regulation-­zone-­notification-­2011-­an-­evaluation-­111032600092_1.html Hoeksema, B. W. (2004). In Challenging coasts: Transdisciplinary excursions into Integrated Coastal Zone Development. essay, Amsterdam Univ. Press. Jona, Razzaque. (2007). Linking Human Rights, Development, and Environment: Experiences from Litigation in South Asia. Fordham Environmental Law Review, 18, 587. Lindeboom, Han. (2002). The Coastal Zone: An Ecosystem under Pressure. In OCEANS 2020 Science, Trends and the Challenge of Sustainability. Washington DC: Island Press, 49–94. Kukreti, Ishan. (2019). Coastal Regulation Zone Notification: What development are we clearing our coasts for. Down to Earth (Centre for Science and Environment Program), February 04. Retrieved December 31, 2021, from https://www.downtoearth.org.in/coverage/governance/coastal-­ regulation-­zone-­notification-­what-­development-­are-­we-­clearing-­our-­coasts-­for-­63061 Mascarenhas, A. (1999). Coastal Sand Dune Ecosystems of Goa: Significance, Uses and Anthropogenic Impacts. Current Science, 43(12), 1598–1605. Menon, M., Kapoor, M., Satnam, K., & Venkatram, P. (2015). (rep.). CZMAs and Coastal Environments: Two Decades of Regulating Land Use Change on India’s Coastline. New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research on Environmental Justice. Menon, M., Rodriguez, S., & Sridhar, A. (2007). (rep.). Coastal Zone Management Notification ’07 – Better or bitter fare? ATREE. Mohan, Vishwa. (2021). Government Moots Exempting Exploratory Oil Drilling From Prior CRZ Nod. The Times of India. Richard, Munton. (2003). In Negotiating environmental change: New perspectives from social science, essay. Edward Elgar. 109–136.

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M. Sakthivel and Nagma Khan Sakthivel, M. (2010). Protection of Mangroves: A Study with Special Reference to India. Madras Law Journal, 5, 52. ———. (2020). Larger Projects v. Environment Protection: An Analysis of Judicial Trends in India. Ambedkar University Law Journal, XI–XV, 179–198. Sundararaju, V. (2019). Why We Need A Coastal Zone Protection Act. Down To Earth. Retrieved December 31, 2021, from www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/environment/why-­we-­need-­a-­coastal-­ zone-­protection-­act-­62876 Swarna Latha, S., & Prasad, B. K. (2010). In Management and sustainable development of Coastal Zone Environments, essay. Springer. Venkatesh, S. (21 June 2016). ‘Sailesh Nayak Committee Report on Coastal Zone Regulations Released 18 months after Submission’ [Blog] Governance. Warrier, S. G. (2018, June 6). [commentary] The Coasts Need Science-­Based Policy Action. Mongabay. Retrieved August 16, 2021, from https://india.mongabay.com/2018/05/commentary-­the-­coasts-­ need-­science-­based-­policy-­action/

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16 SUSTAINING DHARMA, SUSTAINABLE ECOLOGY Dharma as Rural Environmental Ethics* Pankaj Jain

Introduction Among numerous important terms in Indic traditions, few words can match the ubiquitous presence of the term ‘dharma’. This term, from its origin, has continued to evolve, and today, millions of Hindus express their religiosity and ethics in their native vernacular, which are woven around the semantics of dharma. In this chapter, I demonstrate from my fieldwork with Bishnois in Rajasthan and Swadhyayis in Gujarat, who use the term dharma not only to describe their religious traditions but, more significantly, their environmental ethics to boot. Thus, I suggest that environmentalist practices of Hindu communities should be interpreted and analysed within the semiological nuances of dharma.

Dharma for Environmental Ethics A comprehensive survey of all the occurrences of dharma in Indic texts is beyond the scope of this chapter and has already been done elsewhere (Jain 2011).1 Here, it will suffice to mention some references that connect dharma with ecology and environmental ethics. Although Indian vernacular dictionaries have accepted dharma as the Indic equivalent vernacular term for religious traditions, there are at least 17 valences comprising, variously: scriptural injunctions, prescribed rites, customary observances, moral law, usage, practice, religious or moral merit, virtue, righteousness, duty, rules, justice (Narayanan 1997; Jhingran 1989). Fitzgerald also notes for us (2005), Dharma corresponds more closely to a notion of cosmic, social, and ritual order. If we were looking for the fundamental principle or value to provide an entry into the vast complexity of Hindu civilization, the concept of dharma might be a good place to start.

* The chapter received editing support from Purushottama Bilimoria for consistency with the tenor of the present volume; a version was published in Jain 2017.

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If we take the Vedas as a starting point, dharma appears in the adage ‘prthviṃ dharmaṇā dhṛtam’ as the sustaining force of the earth. The term dharma also appears in Puruṣa-­Sūkta 10.90, “tāni dharmāṇị ”. In the early Vedic society, yajñas or sacrifices were performed to sustain the ṛta – order, rhythm harmony – of the universe. The human offering was believed to reach the cosmic gods who would reward them with valour, victory, wealth, offspring, food and land. However, in Puruṣa Sūkta, the sacrifice is performed metaphorically, devoid of actual sacrifice, with the use of fire, animals, ghee or grains. Here, a cosmic person is sacrificed by the gods (who themselves are offshoots of the grand sacrifice), which leads to the creation of the entire cosmos, complete with natural entities such as the sun, the moon, space, the earth, the atmosphere and the four varṇạ s, or caste-­divisions, among human species. While dharma is very often translated as ‘religion’, its usage pertains more to cosmic order, moral law, virtues and righteousness – even the Good. In the epics, Māhabhārata and Rāmāyaṇ a, dharma is extolled as the pervasive moral order: Dhāraṇād dharma ity āhur dharmeṇa vidhṛtāḥ prajāh, Yat syād dhāraṇasaṃ yuktaṃ sa dharma iti niścayaḥ (MBh 12.110.11): Dharma is that which strives for the benefit of creatures; dharma is so-­called because it is wedded to ahiṃ sā (non-­harmfulness) (XII.110.10). … Dharma is friendliness that [works for] the welfare of all (XII.254.5). … Dharma is so-­called because it supports [beings]. People are supported by dharma. Because it is attached to the support [of beings], it is called dharma (XII.110.11). One, whose life is the practice of dharma, embraces non-­injurious conduct (XII.237.19–23). Dharma … [is about] nine ideals that all human beings must practice: the restraint of anger, truthfulness of speech, an agreeable nature, forgiveness, begetting children upon one’s own wives, purity of conduct, avoidance of quarrel, simplicity, and the maintenance of dependents (XII:60.7–8). (via Arati Dhand 2002) Anne Feldhaus (1995: 102) notes from several Sanskrit sources that the forest is associated with dharma, as well as the social and moral order that is supposed to rule life in the village, the city and the kingdom. Dharma in Hindu epics comes closer to the categories of ethics, morality and law and incorporates spirituality as well (Bilimoria et al. 2017b, Introduction; Bilimoria 2011; Mohanty 2017).2 I also suggest that these nuances become the basis for activism in general and for ecology in particular. Ecology, derived from the Greek word ‘oikos’ (dwelling, habitat), has a certain bearing on the expansive paradigm of Indian ethics. Hindus, in their daily lives, use dharma interchangeably to describe their ethos (ēthikos, ἠθικός) as it relates to the natural surroundings but also to their religious predilections (Sridhar and Bilimoria 2017). For the rural Hindus especially, the distinction between the religious ethos and the ecological order is minimal since they describe these with the common term dharam. Several scholars have noted this trend among Hindus. Ann Gold’s observations from her fieldwork in Rajasthan are particularly helpful (1989). She describes again in a later work the villagers who relate their moral actions with the ecological outcomes they expect (2002). Frederick Smith (2006), citing Arjun Appadurai, points out, ‘South Asians do not separate the moral from natural order, act from actor, person from collectivity, and everyday life from the realm of the transcendent’, concludes, ‘The distinction between mind and body, humanity and nature, essence, idea, quality, and deity, would be (largely) one of degree rather than of kind’.

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Dharma for Environmental Ethics: Some Problems and Responses While Western scholars have been developing ethical theories to respond to environmental challenges, non-­Western cultures in general and Hindus in particular have also made their forays in this direction. I will also address the question of whether dharma ethics has ongoing ramifications for a modernizing India. Dharma taken as the ethics of rights and virtues, has served as a role model for Hindus for several millennia (Matilal 2017). From my research with the Bishnois and Swadhyayis, I found that their principal inspirations predicate the epic heroes and their gurus whom they see as practitioners of dharma. In several of his discourses, Athavale (more on his life shortly) exhorts his followers to follow the ideal of Arjuna, the warrior of the Mahābhārata who preferred to follow the path of the pravṛtti (action) over nivṛtti (renunciation). Athavale repeatedly stressed that only actions done with a devotional motive can be considered dharmic, sufficient to lead to mokṣa or salvation. Thus, he correlated the motive of the action with the potential for mokṣa, arguably the fourth ‘artha’ added to the triadic purusārthas or ‘kingdom-­of-­ends’ (artha-­kāma-­dharma) (Daya Krishna 2017; Bilimoria et al. 2017a). To provide a grounded context, we may note that the Swadhyaya movement had its origin and development in the period of modernization and industrialization launched after the Indian Independence under the first Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s recurring Five-­ Year Plans. Rather than disavowing the industrial revolution, Pandurang Shastri Athavale sought to make use of modern technology and progressive agro-­incentives to advance his dharma philosophy, despite the strictures of Nehru’s ‘licence rāj’ syndrome (Bilimoria 2017). Similarly, Bishnois made use of the new political development to enhance the democratic process. Rather than finding their tradition pitted against modernity (as might be said of Mahatma Gandhi3), we find Bishnois occupying key positions in the state and local governments where they manage departments of forest and animal protection (Bishnoi 1992; Fisher 1997). Thus, the advent of modernity has facilitated the Swadhyayis and Bishnois to practice their dharma more effectively than through non-­cooperation protests. Swadhyaya is one of the least-­known such movements that arose in the mid-­20th century in the Western states of India. Although this movement now has some presence in several Western locations, it has not received the attention of scholars – except for a few introductory studies.4 I shall proceed to present some case studies of the Bishnois’ and Swadhyayis’ religious and environmental practices. By participating in different activities related to ecology, the practitioners of these communities undergo somatic experiences that help them to ‘relive’ the lives of Vedic sages and other mythical figures, such as Arjuna. Such is the embodied imagination or the ‘ecological mind’ where perceptions, self-­perception and symbolic ideas resonate together. This is the level at which dharma reverberates internally as virtuous dispositions before the latter acquires external significance and triggers for socially functional actions. In other words, a hermeneutical circle is drawn between the practitioners and the phenomenological experiences of their natural surroundings.

Bishnoi Dharma and Rural Environmental Ethics It was Tuesday, 9 September 1730, in Khejarli, a village near Jodhpur, a prominent city in the Indian desert. A few soldiers of Maharaja Abhay Singh arrive and begin shredding the village’s khejari trees for firewood used at a royal construction project. Amrita Devi, a Bishnoi woman, notices and rushes to stop the soldiers from their heinous act. When the

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busy soldiers reject her request, she and her family arrive to hug these trees, but they are eventually massacred by the soldiers. The news spreads to the surrounding areas, drawing some 363 Bishnois to arrive and cling themselves to the trees; they, too, are killed before the news reaches the king, who commands the soldiers to halt their offensive pilfering. Today, there are memorials, festivals and environmental awards in honour of the historic Bishnoi martyrdom. At several Bishnoi temples, placards read to this day: Heads Lost, Trees Saved! Consider It a Good Deal. The question naturally arises as to who were these Bishnois, the first of the ‘tree-­huggers’, and what motivated them to sacrifice their lives to protect the khejari trees. The Chipko movement of Uttaranchal in north-­east India is well-­known for its trunk-­hugging resistant campaign against tree-­felling. One of its leaders, Sunderlal Bahuguna and eminent environmentalist Vandana Shiva (1988) have speculated that the Chipko movement might have derived its inspiration from the Bishnois. Despite this indirect connection, little is known about the religious and ecological practices of Bishnois – even though they are often mentioned in the media, e.g., ‘Sect in India Guards Desert Wildlife’, in the New York Times (2 February 1993). Hence, I conducted an extensive textual survey of Hindi and Rajasthani manuscripts in addition to my fieldwork in Bishnoi villages. Although the details are beyond the scope of the present chapter (see Jain, 2009, 2017), I will present some vignettes on the activism of the Bishnois; I will begin with a brief sketch of their founder. Guru Jambheśvara (1451–1536 CE) was born in a Panwar Rajput family at Peepasar village of Nagore district in Western Rajasthan and lived on the hill of Mukam village in Nokha Tehsil near Bikaner. Finally, after many years of practicing meditation and austerities, at age 34, he had a spiritual vision: he saw people quarrelling with nature and destroying the very environment that sustains them. He thus resolved to reform society with the conviction that it would be necessary for human beings to sustain the environment in order for nature to sustain humans. In 1485 CE, the visionary founded the Bishnoi community, laying down 29 rules. The Rajasthani words for 29 also gave this community its unique name: bish is 20 + noi is 9. Thus, Bishnois are sometimes called ‘the twentyniners’ (Lal 2005). Out of his 29 rules, 8 are about conserving and protecting animals and trees, including non-­sterilization of bulls, keeping the male goats in sanctuary, prohibition against killing of animals and cutting down any types of green trees and protecting all life-­forms. (The edicts resonate with classical animal ethics and ecology in India, as shown by Sridhar and Bilimoria 2017). He also forbade wearing blue clothes because the dye for colouring them is obtained by cutting several shrubs. His seven other rules were about social behaviour. They directed his followers to be simple, truthful, content, abstentious and pure, also to avoid adultery and making false arguments. In addition, he prohibited criticizing others and being tolerant of the criticisms by others. His other ten rules were about personal hygiene and maintaining good health. These were instructions about drinking filtered water, taking a daily bath, improving sanitary conditions and prohibiting the use of opium, alcohol, tobacco and other narcotic substances. Meat was excluded from the diet. Ritual prohibition for 30 days after childbirth and 5 days during menstruation was prescribed for women. Four other rules provided guidance for spiritual practices, e.g., one must always remember that the Divine Nature is omnipresent, perform rituals daily, observe fast and perform communal havan (fire-­offering) on Amāvasyā (New Moon). In addition to his 29 rules, his teachings are preserved in 120 statements known as the śabdas, which warned the people against harming the animals and inspired his followers to protect the forests. In the seventh śabda, he 226

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again forbade cutting trees on certain days by referring to the trees as the gatekeepers to heavenly happiness. In his tenth śabda, he exhorts the followers of Rahmān (Muslim) likewise to desist from killing animals, saying, ‘[I]f you remember that the divinity residing in your heart also resides in animals, you will surely achieve bahiśt, heaven’. He criticized the tantric yogic practitioners for sacrificing animals to Bhairava, Yogini or other deities and asked them to understand the real meaning of yoga. In his tenth śabda, he reminded the Hindus that Rāma never asked them to kill animals (his surprise killing in the battle of Vāli notwithstanding). In his 11th śabda, he forbade violence because both the action and its motive make the individual morally culpable. The aforementioned rules laid down by Jambheśvara have been the dharmic foundation of the Bishnoi community. The term ‘dharma’ is used several times to signify both the socio-­ spiritual order and moral duty. The textual oeuvres of Jambheśvara are also supported by instances of protection and conservation of environmental resources in the hagiographical accounts of Jambheśvara narrated across several generations of Bishnois by their saints and poets. The teachings and exemplary life of the guru continue to inspire Bishnois toward environmental activism. In 2001, the Indian Union Environment and Forest Ministry bestowed, posthumously, the first Amrita Devi Award to one Gangaram Bishnoi (The Hindu 30 May 2003) for protecting a chinkara deer on 12 August 2000, which cost him his life at age 35 (The Times of India 15 August 2000). While working in his fields, he saw a person, Peparam, yielding a gun, taking aim at wild chinkara grazing nearby. Gangaram intervened to save the antelope; however, Peparam fired a shot, and the chinkara fell on the spot. Peparam and his accomplices lifted the chinkara and began to flee the site. Gangaram and his brother gave chase of the poachers, catching them 3 kilometres away. In the ensuing struggle, a poacher fired at Gangaram, killing him on the spot. He was survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters. Once again, in 2004, the same award was bestowed on another Bishnoi, Chhailuram Singh Rajput of Bhiyasar village in Bikaner district, who sacrificed his life to save blackbucks. In another well-­known incident, the Hindi film actor Salman Khan was sentenced to five years imprisonment for killing a blackbuck in 1998 (The Frontline, 22 April 2006), the sacred antelope of the Bishnois (The New York Times, 29 November 1998). This indictment has been possible largely due to the active intervention of Bishnois in the entire legal process. Similarly, in January 2007, local Bishnois of the village Agneyu in Bikaner filed complaints against another film producer when a horse died on the set. Similarly, in March 2008, the Akhil Bhartiya Jeev Raksha Bishnoi Sabha demanded the ousting of the Indian cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni for sacrificing an animal (New India Press, 14 March 2008).

Swadhyaya Movement and Vṛkṣamandiram: Tree-­Templum Let me now present another case study, that of the Swadhyaya movement, on which I also worked in my studies (Jain 2009). The Swadhyaya movement arose in the mid-­20th century in Gujarat as a new religious initiative led by its founder, the late Pandurang Shastri Athavale, whom we mentioned earlier. When I travelled to the site of the local tree-­temple with several Swadhyayis, they explained with warmth about the tree-­temples and their work in the movement. The tree-­temple appeared like an oasis, having suddenly sprung up out of nowhere. It was a dense garden of mangoes and chikoo (sapodilla) trees. Although I appreciated the view of lush green trees, I was particularly impressed that it was developed in a landscape where 227

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people had lost all hope of gainful cultivation; even the government held the field to be barren. As the caretakers of this garden began explaining the way they perceive the trees and the vision of their guru, Athavale, I began asking questions related to environmentalism. I present snippets from the survey. The first response was by way of a caveat: You might misrepresent Swadhyaya if you choose to research it from ecological perspective. Swadhyaya and its activities are only about our devotion to the Almighty; ecology is not our concern. Environmental problems are due to industrialization and the solution lies beyond Swadhyaya’s activities. Swadhyayis are not environmentalists! (Jain 2009) Based on my observations of Swadhyaya’s several activities, I tend to agree. Athavale has repeatedly emphasized that the main goal of Swadhyaya is to transform human society based on the Upaniṣadic concept of the ‘Indwelling Divinity (antaryamin)’. According to him, since the Almighty resides in everyone regardless, one should develop a sense of spiritual self-­respect for oneself irrespective of materialistic prestige or possessions. In addition to one’s own dignity, the pantheistic predilection helps them transcend the divisions of class, caste, and religion, and hence Athavale would exhort his followers to develop their community based on the idea of ‘brotherhood of humans under the fatherhood of God’. Activities of Swadhyaya are woven around this main principle, which in turn are also aimed towards promoting Indian cultural renaissance. Although environmentalism is neither the means nor the goal of Swadhyaya’s activities, natural resources such as the earth, the water, the trees and the cattle are revered and nurtured by Swadhyayis based on this understanding. Environmentalism comes nonetheless out as an important by-­product of the movement’s multi-­faceted activities, as was noted in a conference in Montreal, Canada, where the Swadhyayas were invited to present their ecological philosophy and work.5 I argue that a multivalent term like dharma is able to capture this extraordinary phenomenon and the way in which it relates to their ecology. Swadhyaya followers do not regard environmentalism as their main duty, their dharma. Alternatively, from the outside, one can regard their dharma, their cultural practices, as ecologically sustainable (which several authors have shown from their respective studies and fieldwork in Sherma and Bilimoria 2022). Vṛkṣamandiras, literally tree-­temples, are based on Athavale’s teachings of regarding trees as gods or spirit-­qualified. He developed a set of preaching that I would like to term “Arboreal Dharma,” dharmic ecology inspired by the qualities of trees. His references from different Hindu texts exemplify the dharmic interrelationship of trees with human society. In July 1979, Athavale gave a practical shape to his dharmic ecology when he inaugurated the first tree-­temple at the village Kalavad in Rajkot district in Gujarat. It was named Yājñavalkya Upavan, after the Vedic sage Yājñavalkya. Six thousand trees were planted there. Followers of Athavale have created over two dozen such tree-­temples in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Villagers nurture them throughout the year. They stay at a tree-­temple not as gardeners but as devotees. The orchard becomes their temple, and nurturing the plants becomes their devotion. The fruits or other products collected from such orchards are treated as prasāda, a sacrament. The earnings generated from the sale of fruits are either distributed among the needy families or saved for future such prayogs (social experiments). Coincidentally, these were the years when Chipko in UP, Appiko in 228

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Karnataka and Anna Hazare’s efforts in Maharashtra were being hailed as successful socio-­ ecological movements based on people’s participation. Swadhyayis strongly emphasizes that such social experiments (prayogas) are merely for expressing their devotion to the Almighty in a novel way. Instead of the usual rituals of offerings performed in Vedic rites and Hindu temples, devotion can transform one’s perspective towards their daily work schedule so that this routine labour can be utilized for devotion – which Athavale called kṛtibhakti, literally action-­oriented devotion or devotional action (karmabhaktiyoga as Gandhi might have put it). What is also noteworthy is that this devotion is not merely based on ‘blind faith’ in the words of their founder guru; rather, their goal is to apply this devotional labour to farming so as to develop bonding with the trees and, in turn, to learn the moral qualities from the trees. Ironically, the more I asked about the role of such gardens in the environment, the more my informant would cynically deny it that, Ecological problems have to be solved at the global level, not at the local level. Trees are only a small part of ecology; only small number of gardens cannot really help the environment. In my observations, the devotional labour of Swadhyayis appeared as a significant force that can be a role model for several other traditional and tribal communities. While governmental efforts also routinely organize tree plantation projects, the survival rate of such plants remains questionable.6 On the other hand, the devotion of Swadhyayis towards the  newly planted and deified plants ensures a near 100% survival rate in all their tree-­temples. To move to another example, in January 2005, after a gap of ten years, I visited the marble mines near Udaipur, a major tourist destination in southern Rajasthan. In 1995, when I last visited there, it did not suffer from scarcity of water. However, after ten years, the green valleys of the Aravallis seemed all but dried up, and so I moved to ask about the rainfall situation. The Department of Mines and Geology, Government of Rajasthan, has laws for eco-­friendly mining, but their implementation has remained questionable. The taxi driver informed me, ‘Earlier we never faced lack of rainfall in this area but since the advent of Marwaris (business community from Western Rajasthan) for the lucrative business of marble (by strip mining), God is punishing us for their greed’. This remark by a local taxi driver matches similar comments that Ann Gold and Bhoju Ram Gujar received in their ethnographic accounts from the residents of Ghatiyali: Deforestation is associated with numerous alternations in human relationships, both political and interpersonal. Most specifically, it reflects a wanton increase in the pursuit of selfish or familial interests. While Ghatiyalians conceive of God or the (bhagavān) as meting out punishment in exchange for sin, this conception is very close to Hindu theories of karma and its inevitable fruits. It ought not to suggest Judea-­Christian theories of a vengeful God who does not want his rules crossed. Notably, no one with whom we spoke named the author of divine punishment by any of the scores of names available in village religion. Rather, what we hear is a conviction that wrong actions reap evil rewards. Human behaviors are irrevocably interwoven with natural environment’s condition; the deterioration of one implies and involves the other. (Gold and Gujar 2002: 165–195) 229

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This relationship of human actions with ecological ramifications was also famously noted by Mahatma Gandhi after a severe earthquake in Bihar in 1934, ‘A man like me cannot but believe that this earthquake in Bihar is a divine chastisement sent by God for our sins’. What these remarks by Gandhi and by natives of Rajasthan suggest is a deep sense of the interconnectedness of human behaviour and natural phenomena. This interconnectedness can also be seen in Indic texts. The 20th-­century Indian leaders such as Gandhi and Athavale inspired their followers to build and nurture this relationship. Overall, we can conclude that the dharmic ecological work done by Athavale and his followers can be compared with the ecological work done by environmental non-­ governmental organizations. However, for the Swadhyayis, their work is simply a reflection of their kṛtibhakti activity inspired by their devotion to the divinity inherent in them and in nature around them. For Athavale’s followers, trees and plants merely symbolize the non-­ dual divine force that works as a connecting matrix between the human society, puruṣa, and nature, prakṛti. As Swadhyayis poignantly quipped: “To be is to be related”. By developing reverential relationships with the trees and other ecological resources, Swadhyayis strive to put their dharmic teachings into practice.

Conclusion One of the fundamental problems in studying or researching Indic traditions is the search for Western categories of knowledge within them. Scholars have long wrestled with various Western categories such as religion, ethics, theology and history and their Indic equivalents. Gerald Larson, following his colleague Ninian Smart, spoke about the need to apply Indic categories to the study of India instead of looking for Western categories (Larson 2004). I propose, therefore, not to look upon environmentalism, ethics, or theology as separate categories in Indic traditions (see Sherma, Introduction, in Sherma and Bilimoria 2022) and suggest that ethics, ecology and theology are all intertwined in Indic traditions as exemplified by various texts, recent movements and my ethnographic encounters. I am positing this intertwined or embedded relationship in a ‘dharmic’ framework rather than a ‘religious’ one. Bishnois and Swadhyayis continue to live the dharmic way of life in the sense that for them, Indic traditions are part of their daily way of life, and thus, there is no such thing as ‘religion’ in their lives, as there is no separation of sacred from profane. Therefore, there is no environmentalism distinct and separate in their lives. Being dharmic brings them closer to embodying morality or practical ethics in order to unselfconsciously maintain the ecological order around them. If Bishnois are saving animals and trees from intruders and corporate robbers, they are simply living their traditions, not ‘protecting the environment’ per se. If Bhils continue to practice their rituals in their Sacred Groves, it is their ancient tradition, not ‘saving the bio-­diversity’ (Maheshwari 1970). If Swadhyayis are building Vṛkṣamandiras, they are simply expressing their devotion and reverence for all creation according to the teachings of the Bhagavadgītā, not ‘restoring the environment’ (Parik 2001).

Notes 1 Jhingran (1989); Bilimoria et al., 2017a. Indian Ethics Volume I (especially pp. 24–55). 2 See Nicholas F. Gier Chapter 22 in this volume. 3 See Chapter 12 by Bidishi Mallik in this volume, and Prabhu (2017). 4 Between 1994 and 1996, some observers and scholars had visited the Swadhyaya villages (Bishnoi 1992). Their observations were compiled in a volume by R. K. Srivastava (1998). Note also Betty

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Sustaining Dharma, Sustainable Ecology Miller Unterberger and Rekha R. Sharma (1990); T. S. Rukmani (1999); Gita Dharampal-­Frick (2001); John T. Little (1995); George James (2005); Ananta Giri (2009). Giri’s is a book-­length study, see References. 5 Living with the Earth: Cross-­Cultural Perspectives on Sustainable Development, Indigenous and Alternative Practices, 1992, organized by the Intercultural Institute of Montreal. 6 According to a survey done in 1980s by Food and Agriculture of the United Nations, only 66% of the plants planted by state governments survived. The figures are similar for several other countries where the survey was conducted. I also found two reports in the Times of India in which serious concerns were expressed about the survival rates of plantation efforts in Bihar and Haryana (2002, 2003). Also, see a government of India report which admits to the poor survival rate of forest plantation efforts: http://envfor.nic.in/nfap/forest-­plantation.html.

Bibliography Hindi and Rajasthani Eṣa Pantha Etat Karma. 1999. Mumbai: Sat Vichar Darśana Trust. Maheshwari, Hiralal. 1970. Jambheśvara: Vishnoi Sampradāya Aura Sāhitya, Jambhavāni ke Pātha-­ Sampādana Sahita. Calcutta: B. R. Publications. Parik, Suryashankar. 2001. Jāmbhojī kī Vāṇī, Jīvanī, Darśana, aur Hindi Artha Sahita Mūlavāṇī-­ pātha. Bikaner: Vikāsa Prakāśana. Sanskṛti Pūjan. 1997. Mumbai: Sat Vichar Darśana Trust. Tattwadeep. 1997. Mumbai: Sat Vichar Darśana Trust.

Other Bilimoria, Purushottama, Prabhu, Joseph, and Sharma, Renuka (eds.). 2017a. Indian Ethics Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges, Vol I. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge [2007 Ashgate]. ———. 2017b. General Introduction, Thinking Ethics, the West and India. In Indian Ethics, Vol. 1, pp. 1–31. Bilimoria, Purushottama. 2017a. Introduction to Part A: Early Indian Ethics–Vedas to the Gītā: Dharma, Rites to Right. In Indian Ethics, Vol. 1, pp. 33–54. ———. 2017. ‘Is the War between Science and Religion a Western invention’, Foreword to Jain 2017 (q.v.) ———. 2011. “The Idea of Hindu Law.” Proceedings of the 2nd National Sanskrit Conference (Australian National University), Journal of the Australian Oriental Society, vol. 43, pp. 103–130. Bishnoi, Rajendra Singh. 1992. A Blueprint for Environment: Conservation as Creed. Dehradun: Surya. Daya Krishna. 2017. “The Myth of the Ethics of Puruṣārtha or Human Life-­Goals.” In Indian Ethics Vol. I (q.v.), pp. 103–115. Dhand, Arti. 2002. “The Dharma of Ethics, the Ethics of Dharma: Quizzing the Ideals of Hinduism.” Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 347–372. Dharampal-­Frick, Gita. 2001. “Swadhyaya and the ‘Stream’ of Religious Revitalization.” In Vasudha Dalamia, Angelika Malinar, and Martin Christof (eds.), Charisma and Canon: Essays on the Religious History of the Indian Subcontinent. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Feldhaus, Anne. 1995. Water and Womanhood: Religious Meanings of Rivers in Maharashtra. New York: Oxford University Press. Fisher, R. J. 1997. If Rain Doesn’t Come: An Anthropological Study of Drought and Human Ecology in Western Rajasthan. Delhi: Manohar. Fitzgerald, Timothy. 2005. “Problems with “Religion” as a Category for Understanding Hinduism.” In J. E. Llewellyn (ed.), Defining Hinduism: A Reader. New York: Routledge. Giri, Ananta Kumar. 2009. Self-­Development and Social Transformations? The Vision and Practice of the Self-­Study Mobilization of Swadhyaya. Lanham: Lexington Books.

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Pankaj Jain Gold, Ann G. and Gujar, Bhoju Ram. 1989. “Of Gods, Trees and Boundaries, Divine Conservation in Rajasthan.” Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 48, pp. 211–229. ———. 2002. In the Time of Trees and Sorrows: Nature, Power, and Memory in Rajasthan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Indian Ethics, Vol. I, 2017 (2007), see under Bilimoria et al. Jain, Pankaj. 2009. “Dharmic Ecology: Perspectives from the Swadhyaya Practitioners.” Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, 13(3): 305–320. ———. 2011. Dharma and Ecology of Hindu Communities: Sustenance and Sustainability. Abingdon: Routledge. ———. 2017. Science and Socio-­Religious Revolution in India: Moving the Mountains (Foreword by Purushottama Bilimoria). Abingdon: Routledge. James, George. 2005. “‘Athavale’ and ‘Swadhyaya’.” In Bron Taylor (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. New York: Thoemmes Continuum Jhingran, Saral. 1989. Aspects of Hindu Morality. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Lal, Vinay. 2005. “Bishnoi.” In Bron Taylor (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. London: Continuum. Larson, Gerald. 2004. “‘A Beautiful Sunset…Mistaken for Dawn’, Some Reflections on Religious Studies, India Studies, and the Modern University.” Journal of American Academy of Religion, vol. 72, no. 4. 1003–1019. Little, John T. 1995. “Video Vachana, Swadhyaya and Sacred Tapes.” In Laurence A. Babb and Susan S. Wadley (ed.), Media and the Transformation of Religion in South Asia. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 254–281. Matilal, Bimal K. 2017. “Dharma and Rationality.” In Indian Ethics, Vol I, (q.v.) pp. 79–102. Mohanty, J.N. 2017. “Dharma, Imperatives, and Tradition: Toward an Indian Theory of Action.” In Indian Ethics, Vol. I, pp. 57–78. Narayanan, Vasudha. 1997. “‘One Tree is Equal to Ten Sons’: Hindu Responses to the Problems of Ecology, Population and Consumption.” Journal of American Academy of Religion, vol. 65, no. 2, 291–332. Prabhu, Joseph. 2017. “Gandhi, Empire, and a Culture of Peace.” Indian Ethics, Vol. I, pp 395–410 (and Introduction to Part D by Bilimoria and Prabhu preceding it). Rukmani, T.S. 1999. Turmoil, Hope, and the Swadhyaya. Montreal: CASA Conference. Sherma, R. and Bilimoria, P. (eds.). 2022. Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses: Intersection of Sustainability Studies and Religion, Theology, Philosophy. Dordrecht/NY: Springer (UN SDG Series). Shiva, Vandana. 1988. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development. London: Zed Books. Smith, Frederick M. 2006. The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press. Sridhar, M. K. and Bilimoria, Purushottama. 2017. “Animal ethics and ecology in Classical India.” In Indian Ethics, vol. I (q.v.), pp. 297–327. Srivastava, R. K. 1998. Vital Connections: Self, Society, God. Perspectives on Swadhyaya. New York: Weatherhill Publications. Unterberger, Betty Miller and Sharma, Rekha R.. 1990. “Shri Pandurang Vaijnath Athavale Shastri and the Swadhyaya Movement in India.” Journal of Third World Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 116–132.

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17 ON UNDERSTANDING THE TRIBE PERSON’S WORLDVIEW Sujata Miri

Western scientific enterprise has exercised enormous power over the sciences of humanity and the social sciences. The modern theory of knowledge is the creature of the scientific ideology: the element which stipulates that knowledge must be free of context, resulting from the correct application of rules by the knower in a situation of what may be called epistemic confrontation between the knower and the object of knowledge. Intellectuals, trained in the tenets of modern rationality with its focus on unitary epistemologies and homogenization of evidence, look at cultural systems which do not have conceptual/cognitive equipment corresponding to Western rationality as primitive, pagan and irrational. Following Hegel, Merleau-Ponty and others, Husserl asserts that the European tradition owes its identity to the ideas of philosophy and theoria with their roots in Greek thinking, which provide it with a unique global mission – that of providing other traditions with a universal framework of meaning and understanding. The Western point of view, so it is claimed, is normative and has the authority to speak for the rest of the world. Philosophers in the West have successfully challenged Eurocentrism – the forms of Western history represented as an ordered evolutionary narrative which subsumes all other histories of the world. Influenced by the newly acquired respect for ‘difference’ among the Western university elite, disciplines such as sociology and anthropology have begun to take the study of cultures other than their own more seriously. The same cannot be said about the writings of researchers in the discipline of philosophy of culture who continue to blindly echo the earlier reference to the tribal communities as primitive, pagan and irrational. Colonialism, in specific political forms, died a long time ago, but the colonization of ideas lives on and continues to haunt Indian academia. We have failed to overcome the hegemony of the general theoretical position put forward as the eternal yardstick of judging political, intellectual and cultural debates by Western masters or under the ‘Western gaze’. In the case of more complex or so-called civilized societies, there are traditional sacred texts along with hermeneutical interpretations available for social scientists to study. The same is not true for most of the so-called primitive societies. The absence of a written intellectual tradition should not, however, lead to the conclusion that they lacked a complex system of rules of behaviour, rights and duties. The truth of life as perceived by tribal elders is almost always 233

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told in stories, music, artefacts and so on. Their comprehension of reality is centred on the imaginative and the affective. Speaking of north-east India, systems such as the Vaishnavism of Sri Sankardeva, tantric Buddhism of Assam and Sherdupken Buddhism in Arunachal Pradesh have, to a certain extent, successfully generated intellectual knowledge about themselves. These systems, having ideas similar to the mainstream traditions, escaped the fate of their neighbouring so-called tribal communities of being branded as primitive animists. Let me very briefly elaborate on the traditional vision of reality that tribes represent, a vision that sees the divine, humanity and nature as inextricably linked. All living creatures are animated by a common indwelling spirit. The very first point to emphasize is the different understanding in the tribal traditions of the notion of sameness that brings together human beings, gods and nature in a profound unity. Legends describe the creation of the world as a result of the love between the pairing of the Sky God and the Earth Goddess or between the Sun Goddess and the Earth God, who willingly separate from each other so that there will be room for others to flourish and grow. Other legends describe mountains, rivers and clouds as being gods who felt, thought, perceived and deliberated as persons. Very early in my research, I realized that the means employed in putting together these considerations cannot be purely argumentative. Besides reason, intelligence and insight, the means included other forms of persuasion or, as we might put it, other vehicles of truth, such as music, fiction, dance, painting and other forms of art. Another way of putting it would be to say that these will be considerations which will show the emotional and the evaluation in the tribal form of life to be constitutive of the epistemic. Take, for instance, the tribe’s feeling of togetherness with its environment. As we are aware, a powerful constituent of a tribal form of life is a profound ‘affective’ spiritual and ethical bond between humanity and everything around them. This affective bond is also constitutive of the unique kind of knowledge that the tribal persons have of themselves in relation to this environment. A tribe person’s ontology comprises the self and the other, which includes their community as well as the environment. When a tribal person conceives of harmony, they see it as a truth and are not concerned about its ‘objective’ validation. They can never see its entirety from the outside, for they are one with it. The reality of existence is in harmony with the real within us. The emotive and the cognitive are inextricably woven into a tribe’s articulation of nature in songs, dance and ritual. If we are serious about this venture, we will find how, in actual practice, a tribal worldview can be wholly integrative and, at the same time, non-coercive. We will notice how ethics and virtues figure centrally in understanding human as well as non-human life and how the affective and the pragmatic are constitutive of the cognitive, i.e., how knowledge cannot be abstracted from the experience of good and evil and the ways of coming to terms with such experience. Let me once again refer to the tribe person’s understanding of their relation to the world of nature and natural objects like rivers, mountains, trees, animals, birds, etc. Nature may be a mother, and different objects may inspire reciprocity in love and care. Imagination in songs, dances, stories and mythical tales generates respect, ethical concern and a sense of solidarity and active togetherness. In tribal awareness and self-awareness, this has a palpability and intimacy which mere reason cannot provide. (You may call this, if you like, the tribal philosophy of environmental ethics, but in doing so, you must be aware of the pitfalls of moving closer to the world of theory, theology and ideology; see on the practical wisdom of Bishnois in preceding chapter.) 234

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My primary interest, as a teacher of philosophy, was in the non-binary, multilevel religious discourse, more particularly, the religious and ethical discourse of tribal people, which was inextricably embedded in the practices and customary traditions of the people. The urge to reduce tribal religion to infantile psychology (Freud) or to disguised sociology (Durkheim) was so powerful that a mere philosophical exploration of the possibility of its autonomy was only the beginning. The attempt at recovery required attention to tribal religion and ethics, which, while combating the great hunger of different epistemic regimes to appropriate tribal religion, brought a complex variety of considerations to bear upon the question of its autonomy. I attempted a careful construction, as free as possible from intrusions by other visions, of a narrative of the tribal vision or what I refer to as the tribal worldview. This resulted in bringing together a caring collation of accounts, myths and stories, products of skill and artistry, rituals, music, dance and everything else that seemed to inform the life of tribes people in a stable way. All aspects of tribal life in the traditional system, constituted by language and custom, were covered in the wide framework of religion and ethics. In one sense, it can be said that religion and ethics were the centre of a tribe’s cultural life. My contention in understanding the religion and culture of tribes (e.g., Khasi-Pnars, Adis of Arunachal Pradesh and of some of the Naga tribes) has been that it is a grave mistake and injustice to treat these religions as mere devices – however clever and complex – to cope with the mundane predicaments of earthly existence. They must also be seen as possible embodiments and expressions of truths which are beyond psychology and sociology – truths which are also the ground for a view of the world as saturated with values. Indian scholars working on the distant or early past of tribal communities developed a non-pluralistic (a modern though non-European) framework to unravel their metaphysics. Their endeavours continued to be grounded in the philosophy of non-dualism bordering on panentheism, which in large areas of the country derives its inspiration from teachings of the Vedānta and the Upanishads, not to speak of the homogenizing role of modern sensibilities. Almost all introductory accounts of Indian Philosophy, whether by Mysore Hiriyanna, S. Radhakrishnan, R. C. Zaehner or C. D. Sharma, talk of the early polytheistic beliefs of the Vedic period, which were replaced gradually by a kind of monotheism, on its way to the more sound monism of the Upaniṣads (Hiriyanna 2008: 112). The process of evolution from the former to the latter was for the ‘better’ since monism as a philosophical system was ‘healthier and more sophisticated’ (Raju 1985: 9–10). In short, it is not reason but fear of the unknown causes at work in nature, universally personified by uncritical minds, that produces the tribal deities of primitive people. That large-scale adoption of the motto, polytheism should be replaced by the more coherent monism, or monotheism, became a tool in the hands of a few. Inspired by such convictions, even if tacitly, book after book reiterated the same theme, giving impetus to moves (ethical-religio-political) for urgently replacing polytheism of, for instance, the Adi communities with a more logically consistent system of beliefs (Miri 2013: 137–138). The large-scale sweep of modernity in the minds of world academia has elevated individual existence over social beings and has succeeded in driving away the essential interconnectedness of the human, social and natural world, and also between fact and value in human life and thought. The thrust of the attack by the demolition squad has been as follows: tribal religions are wholly beyond the reach of either support or criticism by rational means. The overwhelming probability of the laws of nature discovered by science and common sense is sufficient to establish that no power other than them is required to explain natural events. Thus, the belief in 235

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the many gods of the tribal pantheon rests upon a mistake and is contrary to reason. The explanation by tribal elders of how the variegated tribal godheads were held together in a coherent whole was not heeded by the relentless critique. Nor was any need felt to spell out in the context of cosmology and metaphysics, their ideas of human nature, ethics or some transcendental ontology informing their view of the moral world. Tribal religions are concerned more with the well-being of a well-knit world comprising human beings, animals and nature than with personal salvation. This would be incomprehensible to someone who is schooled in modernity, which places humankind at the centre of the universe, isolated both from the divine and nature. Let me take here for discussion what I take to be the philosophical thoughts of one of the tribal communities of north-east India – namely, the Khasis of Meghalaya. Humankind, according to the Khasis, is placed at the centre between the two powerful forces of the supreme Deity (U Blei) and Mother Earth. The three together are responsible for the well-being of all in the world. If U Blei is the primal creative force, the earth nourishes all, and humankind is responsible for maintaining balance and harmony between U Blei and the earth. Humankind is at the centre of the eternal play between U Blei and the earth. The ethical idea of Ka hok (roughly translated as ‘righteousness’) is innate in u briew, the Khasi word for humankind. Although ka hok is inherent in humankind, its particular applications must be in consonance with the voice of tradition and specifics of the context of its application, as articulated by the elders of the community. The moral/ethical life is necessarily available to human beings, and morality/ ethics encompasses human beings’ social, ethical and political dimensions. It is a part of the meaning of the concept of u briew that it necessarily includes the notion of the human being enmeshed in the life of the family, the polity and the society. Ka hok is the moral order of the universe, and the human being’s innate moral sense is its finite representation. Ka Hok is invisible and transcendent, which simply means that nothing in nature can exhaustively represent it. The invisible moral order makes itself accessible through ka hukum, particular moral/ethical imperatives, as embedded in the tradition, and the voice of the elders through time. When a person lives righteously, she upholds ka hukum and fulfils her role as the maintainer of the ethical balance and, therefore, the harmony of the world. Humankind’s relationship with nature is also subject to the imperatives of ka hok. The mountain peaks, rivers, sacred forests, etc., are the local guardians of the community – ki ryngkew ki basa – who protect it from evil forces. More importantly, [N]ature for a Khasi, is like a book. The teaching and wisdom he derives from it, he makes use of in his daily life. He examines meticulously, and with great care the objects around him. He cares for and treasures all he sees and observes so that they could be of help to him in all his needs. Nature is also like a big hospital on whose threshold all types of medicines are to be found which can heal all bodily ailments. Medicine and reason complement one another and a Khasi is not thus helpless. He lives peacefully in his own land and enjoys the embrace of nature. (Mawrie 2010: 105) Khasi mythology is rich with stories about the interconnections and interdependence between humanity, nature and animals. It is most interesting to note the fact that most traditional tribal religions stress the need for resolute efforts for the preservation of the community’s environment – what we now call the ecosystem (see Miri 2001). The tribe person’s unwavering respect for nature and animals is something that is enjoined by his 236

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ethics and religion. Take the case of the Khasis: their worldview seems to commit them to a belief in the existence of an all-pervasive order and a law operating in this world. There are intelligible connections between different courses and orders of events in the world. Human societies also conform to this all-pervasive order, and human activities are regulated in terms of rules, which are the expressions of the general order. Neither humanity nor the Supreme Being can deflect the course of law through their power. The preservation of the order or ‘system’ of nature thus acquires a sacred aspect, and this aspect is embodied in elaborate ethical rules relating to human beings’ interaction with nature. To the extent that I was able to internalize the reflections of the tribal elders, my paintings, I hoped, while expressing my own vision of the real, would, in some measure, communicate the truth of life as perceived by elders to others, to remove the various distortions of the wisdom or insights of tribal communities. The vision that has been the source of my inspiration might, I hoped, appeal to the imagination, or some other faculty, of whoever happens to look at them. Two of my paintings are reproduced in Figures 17.1 and 17.2. They are to be seen as naïve attempts at an appropriation of tribal traditions, as a sort of retelling of the general theme of the unity of the great community of beings – humans, god, trees, mountains, animals, sun, moon, Earth and so on. Why did I turn to painting in order to construct the integrity and autonomy of the tribal form of life? The answer lies in my growing conviction of the relative futility of purely philosophical, argumentative modes of persuasion. The so-called rigourous philosophizing is frequently a trap which shuts out different modes of true illumination and creates only an illusion of light. My paintings, in a sense, have been a response to, as well as an attempt to overcome, some of the difficulties of representing tribal episteme. I must make a point about a particular feature of tribal imagination. For tribal people, the non-human world is full of purposes and emotional bonds of different kinds. Such

Figure 17.1 She fell in love with the River God

The Ao Nagas were convinced of the possibility of entering into an intimate relationship with objects of physical nature, be it a tree, a mountain or a river. This is the story of a village girl who is seen going every day to the river to meet the river god whom she loves intensely. Overwhelmed by her love for the river god, it is said one fine day, she never returned to the village – she joined her lover permanently. 237

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Figure 17.2 The sacrifice

For the sake of her progeny, human beings, animals and nature, Mother Earth distanced herself from her husband, the sky god. The tears that flow from her eyes become the rivers. Since she has separated from her dear husband for the sake and prosperity of humanity, the Khasis claim that it is the duty of humankind to protect and revere Mother Earth. purposes and bonds are frequently embodied in what might look like humanized natural objects, e.g., rivers, trees, mountains, heavenly bodies and so on. This might lead us to think that tribal imagination anthropomorphizes the non-human world. To my mind, to draw such an inference would be wrong. If such imagination is anthropomorphic, it is the result of necessary constraints on human imagination; it must not be interpreted as reductionist. Reductionism is not a part of tribal thought.

References Hiriyanna, Mysore. 2008. Essentials of Indian Philosophy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Mawrie, H. O. 2010. The Khasi Milieu. New Delhi: Concept Publishers. Miri, Sujata. 2001. Ethics and Environment: Theory and The Adi and Khasi Practice. New Delhi: Spectrum Publisher. ———. 2013. ‘Understanding Tribal World View: A Painter’s Perspective’, in C. Sukalpa Bhattacharjee and Joshua Thomas (eds.) Society, Representation and Textuality: The Critical Interface. pp. 133–141. Delhi: SAGE Publishing India. Raju, P. T. 1985. Structural Depths of Indian Thought. Albany: SUNY Press.

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18 YOGA AS THERAPEUTIC ANIMAL ETHICS Kenneth Valpey

Introduction: Identifying the Ailment In 1784, Emmanuel Kant characterized enlightenment as a movement to maturity, ‘an emergence from the condition of a “self-imposed immaturity”, from an “inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another”’ (Pandian 2011: 157). Kant’s emphasis, and that of later thinkers on the subject, was on the autonomy of thought, by which humans would be empowered to realize a variety of freedoms. In contrast, the prominent champion of deep ecology, Arne Naess (2016: 81), reflecting on humanity’s 2,500-year struggle with basic questions of self-identity, has a quite different view of maturity: ‘Human nature is such that, with sufficient comprehensive maturity, we cannot help but identify ourselves with all living beings, beautiful or ugly, big or small, sentient or not’. By comprehensive maturity, Naess means ‘being mature in all major relationships’ (emphasis in original), and it is one that does not ignore ‘identification with nonhuman living beings’ (82). From this perspective, I would suggest modernity might be better characterized as a global condition of spiritual attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than one of autonomy.1 The most obvious indicator of this collective illness is the destructive consequence of our hyperactivity – namely, our unnecessary slaughtering and consuming of land animals by the tens of billions annually, efficiently and mindlessly reducing conscious beings with complex ways of living into lifeless commodities to gratify our palates.2 Naess proposes ‘self-realization’ as a remedy for this condition of immaturity, noting that such a remedy brings an enhancement of the joy we may experience in living. Here, I propose to draw on the classical yoga tradition of India as a viable conceptual and practical framework for pursuing such self-realization. Aside from a general sense that the world’s dangerous ecological waywardness calls for the application of any and all relevant traditional wisdom, yoga currently enjoys wide – indeed worldwide – popularity, even if its practice is of largely attenuated forms extracted and adapted from its roots.3 This chapter aims to serve as an introductory sketch of yoga’s potential to provide guidance for animal ethics reflection and practice. As such, I will focus on the first two limbs of the well-known classical eightfold-limbed yoga system (aṣṭāṅga-yoga) succinctly described in the Yoga-Sūtras of Patañjali (YSP). In the first section, we will consider the fivefold group 239

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of ‘self-restraints’ (yāma, the first of the eight limbs), followed by a discussion of the fivefold ‘observances’ (niyāma, the second of the eight limbs) in the second section. I will conclude with reflections on the eightfold yoga system’s aim, declared by Patañjali to be ‘freedom’ (kaivalya), to indicate how yoga may be broadly applied to the accomplishment of right living for humans in relation to animals.

In the Beginning Was Self-Restraint – Yāma Apparently following earlier Jain tradition (Chapple 2008: 33; Bryant 2018: 248), Patañjali includes five principles under the self-restraint limb (yāma) – namely, nonviolence (ahiṃ sā), truthfulness (satya), not stealing (asteya), sexual continence (brahmācarya), and non-­ possessiveness (aparigraha). The committed practice of yoga is understood to entail full acceptance of these restraints as elementary, initial steps on the path of yogic health and maturation. In other words, the implication is that the properly healthy condition of being human, such that one is able to identify oneself with all living beings, presupposes that one endeavours to be progressively competent in adhering to these restraints. In combination, the five restraints are intentional self-limitations on one’s physical and mental engagements in self-preservation, production and procreation. Surely, what we generally regard as healthy adult maturity is characterized by a significant capacity for self-restraint. From early childhood, we learn to restrain the impulses of our senses and mind in order to function reasonably well in the world, largely as ‘social selves’ (Naess 2016: 82). But to pursue the fullness of life, to realize the full potential of the self – what Naess calls the ‘ecological self’ – yoga practice calls us to apply the capacity for restraint far more thoroughly than typical conventions of adult normality have come to be set. What is conventionally considered normal health is, for the yogī, a condition of occasionally mitigated misery characterized by five ‘afflictions’ (kleśas) of the self.4 These afflictions effectively stunt one’s yoga-facilitated maturation process by which full freedom from misery is meant to be attained. Just as importantly, one attains such freedom not at the cost of other living beings’ well-being; rather, this condition of maturity serves to enable others’ attainment of freedom. From this perspective, these five principles of self-restraint are remedial: they have a corrective function, guiding behaviour away from what is detrimental to yoga practice and toward what is maximally favourable for yogic success. With respect to the remediation of human behaviour in relation to animals, we can consider each of the five principles of self-restraint in turn.

Nonviolence (Ahiṃ sā) As a basic practice of restraint foundational to yoga practice, nonviolence is remedial in the sense that it calls for practitioners to simply make a conscious effort to avoid unnecessary harm to other beings – a negative ethical principle that is arguably preliminary to an ethically informed life, rather than being an ethical principle as such.5 In yoga practice, nonviolence, or non-harm, is particularly associated with restraint of the tongue: the urge to eat flesh is to be curbed as an unnecessary indulgence of the tongue, representing the body’s alimentary system as a whole. By vowing to avoid all animal flesh, the yogī makes a simple but significant commitment to respect all animal life as an essential step towards realizing the ecological self.6

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One way to appreciate how ahiṃ sā practice is understood to have a tangible positive effect on both the yoga practitioner and his or her surroundings is from the specific declared result thereof. Patañjali states, In the presence of one who is established in nonviolence, enmity is abandoned. (Bryant 2018: 261; YSP II.35) While this can be taken as referring only to humans abandoning enmity, it can also refer to animals. This possibility is explored extensively in Indic literature.7 One indication of how interspecies peace might be conceived is in the Bhagavadgītā’s description of the sage’s ‘equal vision’: A learned brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog, or a ‘dog-eater’ – a wise person sees [them all] with equal vision. (Gītā 5.18; Valpey 2020: 3, 91, 252) Such vision is understood in classical yoga to be rooted in the recognition that all living beings are of the same non-material, non-temporal constitution.8 If such is the case, one can see that to be committed to nonviolence is a first step towards gaining such a vision. And when a yogī is well situated in equal vision, he or she may radiate from themselves such serenity that other beings – human as well as animal – find it possible to drop defences, to put aside any spirit of competition or aggression that would incite enmity. On a deeper level, the yogī committed to nonviolence recognizes the being of other beings, in comparison to which the differentiation of their particular bodies is of little or no concern. Consequently, creatures in proximity to such persons may similarly sense that the source of enmity among different embodied creatures – namely, the differences that bodies have in relation to other bodies – is of little relevance in such persons’ presence. Images of yogīs surrounded by varieties of placid animals may seem implausible in our modern sceptical demand for empirical evidence that nonhuman animals – especially carnivorous predators – exhibit passive behaviour in proximity to a yogī accomplished in the practice of nonviolence. Suffice it to say that yoga practice requires some ‘suspension of disbelief’ as one learns the disciplines centred on directing the mind from habits of misperception toward heightened perception on the way to yoga’s ultimate goal. As we continue this brief sketch, we will have further occasion to mention the nonviolence principle of self-restraint, foundational as it is to the whole of the fivefold restraints and indeed to the whole of yoga practice.

Truthfulness (Satya) Similar to nonviolence, the principle of truthfulness (satya) is also concerned with the tongue; in this case, it’s employment for one’s tendency to indulge in unnecessary untruth. Typically, untruth is spoken for the sake of advancing the social self at the expense of others, human or nonhuman. This tendency manifests in the public sphere, particularly in modern industrial animal ‘husbandry’ as sustained by political, legal and advertising institutions that are built on the perpetuation of untruths regarding the supposed need and benefits of meat consumption and hiding of confinement and slaughter practices (Kim 2021).

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As the web of untruth surrounding human mistreatment of animals confines and condemns them to wretched lives ending in early death, so humans implicated in this web are themselves condemned to a constricted sense of self-bound by immediate drives for self-preservation, production and procreation. In contrast, according to Patañjali, ‘When established in truthfulness, [there is] correspondence between action and fruit’ (Bryant 2018: 262; YSP II.36). Thus, responsible action in relation to animals brings corresponding fruit of rightness and well-being for both humans and animals, such that mixed communities of enriching relationships among humans and other species can thrive (Naess 2016: 82). Another significant application of truthfulness as a self-restraint principle ties directly to the nonviolence principle. This can be expressed as restraint of the pervasive habit of permitting oneself to behave inconsistently with respect to one’s declared attitudes, a habit facilitated by one or the other of two strategies, namely, ‘creating distance’ and ‘drawing lines’ (Thelander 2019: 216).9 In the dedicated practice of yoga, to consider oneself a ‘lover of animals’ on the one hand while eating animals on the other must be identified as a type of cognitive dissonance; rooted in untruth, such inconsistent behaviour is an unviable foundation for gaining ethical health and maturity of selfhood. A third important application of truthfulness as a self-restraint principle ties both to the nonviolence principle and to the practice of restraining the tongue – namely, restraining the tendency to speak so that one can effectively listen. Specifically, in pursuit of the mature ecological self, yoga practice includes skilled listening to animals – their calls and cries and varied ways of signalling their presence and needs – and also listening to indigenous peoples’ stories about animals, as they carry insights about animals and human-animal relationships otherwise inaccessible to moderns. Truthfulness as the practice of silence awakens – or re-awakens – sensitivities, what David Abram calls ‘unaided, animal senses’ to which ‘everything speaks’ (Abram 2011: 295).

Non-theft (Asteya) In its most straightforward and common understanding, the self-restraint practice of not stealing calls upon the yogī to abstain from the misuse of the hands, the human body’s primary limbs for grasping and production – for making, assembling or gathering things, especially food, for consumption. The Sanskrit term karma – literally ‘action’ – encapsulates a set of notions indicating causal linkages between intentional actions and consequences accruing to the actor. Yoga practitioners know that the cessation of all karma is not possible; rather, they seek to minimize unnecessary action as a key to realizing the self’s separateness from objects sought for the satisfaction of the physical and mental bodies, both of which are understood to be not-self. A deeper sense of asteya as self-restraint may be expressed by the German word Gelassenheit – a practice of letting be or not-seizing – that is conducive to the emergence of mixed community of which Naess writes (Kramer 2021: 230; Naess 2016: 82). In restraining the tendency to overly ‘manage’ one’s own and the lives of others, space is created for varieties of life-forms as fellow inhabitants in common spaces to which one makes no claim of ownership. Such a culture resists modern industrial, agricultural practices by which, for the mass production of animals for food and other products, deforestation leading to desertification amounts to grand-scale theft, ultimately denying the hope of well-being for humans or nonhumans in present or future generations. 242

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A third important aspect of non-theft as self-restraint is the avoidance of gambling practices, as these are rooted in avarice, seeking gain from others’ unwanted losses. Clearly, this aspect of non-theft is also closely connected with the truthfulness principle, insofar as gambling is often associated with deception and engaged in surreptitiously. With regard to animal ethics, an obvious application of this principle would be to avoid any involvement in animal fights, races or other animal competitions, which invariably involve betting and can cause great suffering to the animals thus engaged, often costing them their lives (Sharma and Sharma 2013: 204–218).

Non-possessiveness (Aparigraha) Similar to and invariably overlapping with the principle of non-theft is non-possessiveness, or self-restraint, from the tendency to regard oneself as the proprietor of any object, person or living being.10 It can also be translated as non-covetousness. The sense of ownership is rooted in the self’s tendency to identify with one’s physical body and mind; extending outward from these, the self identifies with immediate and extended family members and with the substances, objects, places and facilities that contribute to the maintenance of one’s own body-mind aggregate and of the significant others in one’s life. Classical Indic yoga-related literature typically includes domestic animals in lists of ‘possessions’ with which ignorant persons surround and preoccupy themselves, thereby distracting themselves from the fact of their own mortality, the inevitable forced loss of all possessions, including, finally, one’s own body. In contrast to such conditions of worldly distraction (dis-ease) is that of the accomplished yogī who, according to Patañjali (YSP II.39), by restraining possessiveness, may gain the ability to perceive his or her past lives, including lives as nonhuman animals. Famously, according to Gautama Buddha’s hagiographies, in the culmination of his meditational path to enlightenment, ‘[h]e remembered thousands of past lives, as if reliving them again, that “I had been such and such a person at that time, and then, passing out of that life I had come to this other life”’ (Buddha-carita XIV.2–3, quoted in Bryant 2018: 266). The popular Jātaka Tales – collected stories of the Buddha’s previous lives – include numerous stories of his life as an animal, each story serving to illustrate a moral lesson. What is for us to note is the connection between restraint of possessiveness and the potential for increased awareness, minimally, of kinship with other life-forms – awareness that can grow into active relatedness by identification with the ecological self.

Sexual Continence (Brahmācarya) All sorts of behaviour and mental activity associated with sexuality and procreation are seen in classical yoga teaching to be fraught with dangers to the successful pursuit of yoga’s goal. Basically, all five afflictions (kleśas) mentioned previously (ignorance, ego, desire, aversion and clinging to life) are understood to be sustained, perpetuated and compounded by unregulated sexual activity, which in turn implicates one in violence, untruth, theft and possessiveness. As a practice of self-restraint, traditional Indian social structure in terms of life stages (āśrama-dharma) restricted sexual activity to only one of the four stages, namely, that of the householder (gṛhasthā). Whereas the first stage – that of the student (brahmācarya proper), the third stage of retirement (vanaprasthā) and the final stage, full renunciation (saṃ nyāsa) – demand complete celibacy, the householder’s sexuality is restrained 243

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within the social boundary of marriage. It is also the householder and none of the other āśrama members who would be keeping domestic animals. Thus, the householder has considerable responsibility for all members of the mixed community, requiring him (especially the husband) to maintain sexual restraint for the sake of social stability as much as to progress in yoga practice. Patañjali declares that the specific reward for sexual continence is ‘power’ (vīrya, YSP II.38), the result of conserving sexual energy. This is noteworthy in light of contemporary cultural attitudes that identify virility with meat consumption, such that the sexual identity of maleness is associated with the power to kill and eat animals, while animals used for food are identified with femaleness, the dominant gender. As a cognate of the Sanskrit word vīrya, virility has come to be defined specifically with maleness, which, in turn, is affirmed by a male prerogative to meat-eating in many cultures (Adams 2010: 48–52). But if virility is to be won not by assertion of dominance by males in sexual activity but rather by restraint thereof, we begin to see how space made for the protection of animals rather than their destruction becomes linked to the development of a deeper, more enduring sort of strength. The word vīrya can also be translated as vigour, suggesting that not only physical strength is preserved by brahmācarya but also the strength of mind and will. Determined persistence in the practice of yoga has a cumulative effect to free one from the afflictions by which moral judgement is compromised. Freed from the afflictions, the yogī remains firm in her or his resolve to respect all living beings, a respect that is reflected and sustained in one’s respect for sexual boundaries. We may note, finally, that the word brahmācarya can be translated literally as ‘[the practice of] moving, or abiding, in spirit (brahman)’. The yogī, determined to become free of the crippling dis-ease of self-centred preoccupations in a limited sense of selfhood, learns to make a shift in perception, seeing all beings – of both sexes and of varied bodily forms as having the same intrinsic value as oneself (Chapple 2008: 38). Concluding this sketch of the fivefold yoga restraints in light of animal ethics, we can revisit the nonviolence principle, referred to by Patañjali as an example of how to counteract one’s tendencies to lapse in the practice of any of the restraints and observances (niyāmas, discussed in the second part of this chapter): Negative thoughts are violence, etc. They may be [personally] performed, performed on one’s behalf by another, or authorized by oneself; they may be triggered by greed, anger, or delusion; and they may be slight, moderate, or extreme in intensity. One should cultivate counteracting thoughts, namely, that the end results [of negative thoughts] are ongoing suffering and ignorance. (Bryant 2018: 257; YSP II.34) Five points are notable from this unusually long aphorism. First, ‘violence, etc.’ calls us to recognize violence to be at the core of all problematic, non-ethical behaviour. Second, conversely, the three sets of three degrees of engagement in non-ethical behaviour can all be seen as calling attention to the variety and extent of violence or its potential in human action. Third, in particular, the first set of three levels of acting – direct, indirect or approved – arguably points most immediately to the act of killing animals for human consumption. Further, the ‘counteracting thoughts’ to be cultivated are prompted by recognizing two interconnected domains of negative consequences to one’s negative thoughts, namely, suffering and ignorance. And finally, clear distinctions are drawn between ‘negative thoughts’ 244

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(vitarka), unfavourable actions and negative consequences of unfavourable actions. This aphorism serves well in our consideration of all five yāmas, as intended by the author. Yet what is underscored by the phrase ‘violence, etc.’ (hiṃ sādayaḥ) affirms that nonviolence – the first of the five yāmas – is foundational to the remaining four yāmas. In this light, for us to note here is also that the practice of nonviolence is indeed a practice, an ongoing, conscious endeavour to think and behave in ways that affirm the worth of all living beings. The same point applies to all the yāmas: self-restraint is a life-long endeavour to become free of the five afflictions caused by the diseased condition of the immature self and to progress toward human maturity in relation to all living beings.

Habits of the Heart – Niyāma The eightfold yoga system described by Patañjali is a cumulative process in that the first limb, yāma, when pursued conscientiously in its fivefold aspects, enables and supports one to successfully undertake the fivefold second limb, niyāma, or ‘observances’ which, together with yāma, is then supportive of the remaining six limbs.11 Conversely, becoming adept in the later limbs of yoga supports good maintenance and perfection of the earlier limbs. Here, we want to focus on the fivefold second limb and how each of the five observances is conducive to developing yogic maturity such that the ecological self can fully develop. Patañjali lists the fivefold observances thusly: Purity (śauca), contentment (santoṣa), austerity (tapaḥ), self-study (svādhyāya), and dedication to Īśvara (īśvara-pranidhāna) are the observances. (YSP II.32, Chapple 2008: 125; 174) In its ultra-succinct style, the only elaboration Patañjali offers for this list consists of similarly succinct claims of potential results from the successful practice of each observance. For us to note in general about the five observances is that they are all focused on oneself rather than on relations with other beings, as are the five self-restraints. As such, one might regard the observances as inherently non-political; indeed, the concern with inwardness may be said to characterize yoga as a whole. This is not to say, however, that a yogī cannot be an activist for the sake of others’ well-being. Thus, for example, the truthfulness principle as a restraint among the yāmas can take active form in the pursuit of justice for animals, whereby, as an aspect of purity, it becomes an observance such that, out of the cultivation of purity of conscience, one helps others to see the truth of proper care for sentient beings.

Purity (Śauca) As an observance for oneself, purity is the conscious pursuit of inner and outer clarity. As pure water is naturally pleasing to the taste, similarly purity of one’s existence and freedom from contamination of one’s immediate surroundings are conducive to clear thought and clear perception. Through clarity of thought and perception, the ability to perceive other beings – human and nonhuman – in non-instrumental ways becomes possible and appreciable as having genuine and enduring value. In this age of runaway environmental pollution, those committed to yoga practice become especially sensitized to the need for disengagement as far as possible from the sources of, or being the cause of, pollution. For the environment of the physical body, one 245

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is particularly careful what one eats and drinks. Not only does the yogī reject animal flesh; he or she avoids any intoxicating substances, recognizing the value in minimizing thereby the body’s need to overcome toxins, which unnecessarily agitate and stimulate the body and mind (Bryant 2018: 252; YSP II.32, citing Hariharānanda’s commentary). The pursuit of internal purity is the practice of recognizing, acknowledging and overcoming destructive emotions and attitudes. The Bhagavadgītā elaborates considerably on this subject. For us to note is that lust, anger and greed, what the Gītā (16.21) calls ‘the threefold gate of hell’ (Sargeant 1994: 630), not only lie at the root of mistreatment of animals; they also are understood to bring one’s level of consciousness to that of certain animals that exhibit excessive sexual activity, quick expressions of aggression or acquisitiveness. Yoga-related texts warn that one runs a real risk of transmigrating, after this life, into the body of such animals if one does not, in the present life, take care to rid oneself of such unhealthy emotions.

Contentment (Santoṣa) The practice of contentment complements and reinforces two of the restraints – namely, non-theft and non-possessiveness. The aim is not only to overcome the tendency to appropriate what doesn’t belong to oneself but to overcome the tendency to accumulate more than is needed, claiming ownership. The aim is also to become a giver – to recognize that maturity is to be found in identifying as the ecological self, which is intrinsically in relationships of giving and receiving among the varieties and numbers of creatures with which, or whom, one shares this world. The Bhagavadgītā places high value on equanimity, as in regarding different beings with an equal mind, regardless of whether, for example, someone is inimical, friendly or indifferent or whether a person is pious or impious. Equanimity with respect to all beings is a sign of yogic accomplishment, characterized by freedom from lamentation over past failures and from hankering for future successes (Gītā 6.9; 18.54). Also of great importance is contentment with simple food free from animal flesh, essential to the yoga-based practice of a consequential ethic in relation to animals. Again, this is a positive practice, whereby the yogī consciously chooses satisfaction with simple, healthy food over the high emotional, mental and karmic cost of yielding to demands of the tongue for rich food, especially animal flesh.

Austerity (Tapaḥ) The practice of austerity is, to lesser or greater degrees, unavoidable for any human being simply because we are subjected to unavoidable, unpleasant conditions in which we must nevertheless carry on our duties. Yoga practice calls for conscious acceptance and endurance of conditions we perceive as unpleasant or even painful in order to train the mind to rise above the dualities of pain and pleasure, good and bad, success and failure. We are warned, however, not to unnecessarily inflict suffering on ourselves, as this can bring about the opposite of the desired result of austerity – namely, a developed sense of compassion, a ‘soft heart’. A yogī may find inspiration for the practice of austerity by considering the lifeways of various types of animals. That cows and other ruminants are nourished only by grasses, many birds by various seeds, and other herbivores on fruits or roots serve to remind yoga 246

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practitioners that austere eating sustains a vast number of animals on this planet. Even the lives of carnivores can offer lessons in that, typically, they endure uncertainty in sourcing their next meal, and they endure long periods without food. Similarly, and more generally, one can consider how animals live according to their needs, not like humans, in the pursuit of accumulating facilities far beyond one’s needs.

Self-Study (Svādhyāya) The practitioner of yoga makes integral to one’s practice the observance of oneself on the several levels of one’s identity. Of particular relevance in the context of animal ethics is the reflection on one’s dependence on the lives of others, on the entire gamut of species that animate the earth’s surface. In early Vedic and later Dharma texts, one is called upon to recognize such dependence as implicating one with congenital or existential debt – to the creatures of this world and to humankind in general, but also to one’s ancestors, teachers, and to invisible but powerful celestial beings (devas) who are understood to sustain life by means of essential resources, including heat, light, water and air (Valpey 2020: 171). Self-study as an aspect of yoga practice has traditionally meant reflective study of sacred texts associated with yoga. In a different but related sense, self-study as a practice enhances and completes the self-restraint of truthfulness. By self-study, one gains self-awareness, which includes recognition and acknowledgement of one’s limitations, shortcomings and vulnerabilities. One significant limitation to be acknowledged is one’s reasoning power and rationality, whereby the commonly held distinction between humans and nonhuman animals calls for questioning.12 Further, as we saw truthfulness as self-restraint, an important aspect of it was restraining the tendency to speak, thereby enabling listening and ‘recognizing the presence of the other’. In his reflection on the practice of philosophy, Erazim Kohák writes, When two or three are gathered together, they seldom have the patience of letting be, of listening and seeing. All too eager to speak, they constitute, in their consensus, a conventional image which they interpose between themselves and the living world around them. (Kohák 1984: 35) Conversely, self-study can be a practice by which the cultural apparatus that separates one from the living world is drawn aside.13

Dedication to Īśvara (Īśvara-Praṇidhāna) We come to the last practice of the fivefold observance, a practice that comes as a surprise for many who are familiar with the ways of modern popular yoga, in which the yāmas and niyāmas are likely to be neglected altogether, and this final observance may be particularly left unmentioned. Considering the ultimate aim of yoga as being the yoking of the mind (‘yoke’ being a cognate of yoga), ultimately to reach the stage of samādhi, absorption, it would seem to be especially noteworthy that Patañjali identifies īśvara-pranidhāna’s specific benefit or result to be the attainment of samādhi (YSP II.45). This ‘theistic turn’ in Patañjali cannot be ignored, however he mentions it and however little he elaborates on it. For us to note is that the practicing yogī is urged not to see him- or 247

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herself as alone. By acknowledging a higher self, a higher controller (īśvara) who – as the Bhagavadgītā (13.22) explains – is the ‘overseer and permitter’ of the individual self’s actions, one is easily led to the understanding that this same īśvara is present in, or accompanies all beings. Moreover, Patañjali seems to align himself with statements in earlier texts, the Upaniṣads, that the true nature of the self is revealed ‘by the grace of the creator’ (Bryant 2018: 279–280, quoting the Kaṭha Upaniṣad II.20). The combination of these two understandings or recognitions is the substance, I would argue, of what Naess calls ‘self-­ realization’ in the sense of realizing what he calls the ecological self. What is meant by ‘dedication’ to īśvara? The word praṇidhāna, when in compound with īśvara, can have the sense of ‘devotion’, which is a common English translation of the term bhakti. What Patañjali mentions only briefly (possibly in the spirit of avoiding being perceived as sectarian) is elaborated extensively in other works beginning, famously, with the Bhagavadgītā, which we have already had occasion to mention. For us to note here is that the fivefold observance, together with the self-restraints, is completed in the practice of directing one’s attention and intention – one may say dedication – of yoga practice to the higher self. This higher self is referred to at the end of the Bhagavadgītā as Yogeśvara, the supreme master of yoga (18.78). The strong implication is that the basis of full maturity, developed through properly guided practice of the entire eightfold yoga system, is attainable when a devotional connection (yoga can be translated as ‘connection’) is made with the higher self – the self of all selves, of all living beings. Such full maturity becomes manifest in ethical terms as one is illuminated by the higher self with regard to just how to act in relation to other selves for the benefit of all. Finally, we may see how īśvara-praṇidhāna brings us – through Vijñānabhikṣu, a 15th-century commentator on the YSP, back to the principle of nonviolence. As summarized by Bryant, Ultimately, all creatures are parts of Īśvara, God, explains Vijñānabhikṣu, like sons to the father and sparks to the fire. Therefore, violence against others is violence against God. He quotes the [Bhagavad-] Gītā: ‘Envious people act hatefully towards me [Krishna] in their own and others’ bodies. I continually hurl such cruel hateful people, the lowest of mankind, into saṃ sāric [repeated death and rebirth] existence, into only the impure wombs of demons. (16.19; Bryant 2018: 259–260) Thus, beginning with nonviolence and ending with dedication to īśvara, the first two limbs of classical eightfold yoga form a complete circle – a maṇḍala – of principles for reforming and forming us humans into the sorts of beings who can live appropriately and joyfully with nonhuman beings on this planet.

Conclusion: An Ethics of Yogic Care for Animals If space permitted, we could go on to consider the remaining six limbs of aṣṭāṅga-yoga as a process of human ethical therapy and maturation, facilitating a move toward collective sanity and balance with respect to human relations with nonhuman animals (Valpey 2019). Let it suffice here to emphasize that the goal of yoga, as declared by Patañjali, is what he calls kaivalya, which we broadly translate as ‘freedom’. Awareness of this goal serves to go beyond the therapeutic, essentially remedial level of negative ethics, consisting 248

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of self-restraint by avoidance of harming other beings. Yoga as the realization of freedom is the attainment of freedom from habituated responses to predictable circumstances (such as our habits of complacency with regard to the macabre realities of factory animal farming) (Perrett 1998: 22–23). Moreover, yogic freedom can be seen to be the basis for the freedom of all beings, in that the yogī who attains kaivalya is, in his or her state of perceiving the self, realizing the unfolding personhood of oneself and the potential for full personhood in other beings. As yoga philosophy scholar Ian Whicher puts it (1998: 278), in the state of kaivalya, the self and matter (prakṛti) ‘are both “known”, included, and are therefore free to be what they are’ (emphasis in original). Modern ideas of freedom tend to be coupled with Kant’s notion of maturity as freedom from an ‘inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another’. Arguably, such freedom has been instrumental in leading humankind into a condition of deep collective ignorance – ignoring blatantly and systematically the extent and the self-destructive consequences of our massive mistreatment of animals. Classical yoga can go a long way to enable us humans, with qualified guidance, to reverse this trend, thereby creating the collective cultural space in which authentic freedom of the ecological self in relation to all beings might hope to thrive.

Notes 1 Although beyond the scope of this chapter, other forms of physical and mental disease could be regarded figuratively as present worldwide as symptomatically evident in the present rates of environmental degradation and consequent climate change, both integrally related to human mistreatment of animals. See also chapters 19 and 20 below. 2 Faunalytics (www.faunalytics.org) estimates 70 billion land animals slaughtered annually, based on statistics from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In India, animal slaughter has greatly increased since Independence. ‘According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, 24.3 million cattle, 46.7 million goats, and 16 million pigs were killed in the year 2009. But these figures include only those animals killed in the 3,600 legally operated abattoirs and do not include figures from the 32,000 illegal or unlicensed ones’ (Sharma and Sharma in Linzey 2013: 34). It is safe to assume that these numbers have only increased since 2009. See Chapter 19 below. 3 De Michelis (2008: 2) defines modern yoga as ‘the graft of a Western branch onto the Indian tree of yoga’. 4 Patañjali lists the five kleśas (YSP II.3) – namely, ignorance (avidyā), ego (asmitā), desire (rāga), aversion (dveśa) and clinging to life (abhiniveśa). 5 A parallel could be made with the practice of politeness. As Comte-Sponville points out, politeness is in itself at best a ‘poor virtue’, a prerequisite for the practice of the other, more substantial virtues (Comte-Sponville 2003: 7). 6 Whether, or in what way, the vegan call for avoidance of all animal products, including dairy, should be heeded for successful yoga practice is discussed in Valpey (2020). 7 This vision has been in tension with an opposite Indic understanding – namely, that all creatures have their different in-born natures – svabhāva – which cannot be changed. Animal ‘natures’ in particular are employed in fables to underscore this point, especially regarding the division between predators and prey. See, for example, Taylor (2007). 8 Such a view of equality is not unique to India. See, for example, a discussion of Western views of animal-human equality, ‘equal consideration’ and ‘equal treatment’ in Preece (1999: 25). 9 Philosophy as therapeutic practice can be regarded as the pursuit of truthfulness. ‘In the Greek tradition, the ‘idea that logos is to illnesses of the soul as medical treatment is to illnesses of the body’ is found as early as Homer’. Epicurus wrote, ‘Just as there is no profit in medicine if it does not expel disease from the body, so there is no profit in philosophy if it does not expel disease from the mind’ (McEvilley 2002: Ch. 25).

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Kenneth Valpey 10 Because of its close connection with non-theft, I list non-possessiveness here, immediately following non-theft, although in YSP it is listed after brahmācarya. The Buddhist eightfold noble path prescribes the observance of five practices (śīlas), four of which coincide with the yāma restraints; the fifth yāma, aparigraha, is replaced with abstinence from intoxication (Bryant 2018: 249). Avoidance of intoxication in the yoga system can be counted with one of the niyāmas – namely, austerity (tapas), which we will consider in the second part of this chapter. 11 After niyāma comes āsana – posture, followed by breathing regulation (prāṇāyāma), withdrawal (pratyāhāra), concentration (dhāraṇā), meditation (dhyāna), and finally absorption (samādhi). 12 Interesting in this context is a comment by the highly rational Albert Einstein: ‘[O]ur task must be to free ourselves from this prison [the delusion of being separated from the rest of the universe] by widening our circle of compassion, to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty’ (quoted in Dennis Brian, Einstein: A Life [New York: John Wiley, 1996]: 389; quoted in Preece 1999: 92). 13 Chapple (2020: passim) offers one example of how such self-study can be done specifically with the aim of connecting with the natural world, by drawing from relevant readings in sacred texts as meditations on the elements, flora and fauna.

References Abram, David. 2011. Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. New York: Pantheon Books. Adams, Carol J. 2010. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. New York: Continuum. Bryant, Edwin F. 2018. The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary. New York: North Point Press. Chapple, Christopher Key. 2008. Yoga and the Luminous: Patañjali’s Spiritual Path to Freedom. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ———. 2020. Living Landscapes: Meditations on the Five Elements in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Yogas. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Comte-Sponville, André. 2003. A Short Treatise on the Great Virtues: The Uses of Philosophy in Everyday Life. London: Vintage. De Michelis, Elizabeth. 2008. A History of Modern Yoga: Patañjali and Western Esotericism. London: Continuum. Jung, Carl G. 1967. “Commentary on ‘The Secret of the Golden Flower’” (1929). In Alchemical Studies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kim, Hemi. 2021. “Factory Farming: What the Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know.” https:// sentientmedia.org/factory-farming (accessed January 17, 2022). Kohák, Erazim. 1984. The Embers and the Stars: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Moral Sense of Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kramer, Eli. 2021. Intercultural Modes of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Principles to Guide Philosophical Community. Leiden: Brill. McEvilley, Thomas. 2002. The Shape of Indian Thought. New York: Allworth Press. Naess, Arne. 2016. “Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World.” In Arne Naess—Ecology of Wisdom. Edited by Alan Drengson and Bill Devall. UK, USA, etc.: Penguin Books. Pandian, Anand. 2011. “Ripening with the Earth: On Maturity and Modernity in South India.” In Oxford Handbook of Modernity in South Asia: Modern Makeovers. Edited by Saurabh Dube. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 157–169. Perrett, Roy W. 1998. Hindu Ethics: A Philosophical Study. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Preece, Rod. 1999. Animals and Nature: Cultural Myths, Cultural Realities. Vancouver: UCB Press. Sargeant, Winthrop. 1994. The Bhagavad Gītā. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Sharma, B.K., and Shailja Sharma. 2013. “The Treatment of Animals in India.” In The Global Guide to Animal Protection. Edited by Andrew Linzey. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, pp. 32–35. Taylor, McComas. 2007. The Fall of the Indigo Jackal: The Discourse of Division and Pūrṇ abhadra’s Pañcatantra. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Thelander, Jeanette. 2019. “Our Ambivalent Relations with Animals.” In Ethical Vegetarianism and Veganism. Edited by Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey. Milton Park, UK: Routledge.

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Yoga as Therapeutic Animal Ethics Valpey, Kenneth. 2019. “Animating Samadhi: Rethinking Animal–Human Relationships Through Yoga.” In The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics. Edited by Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey. Milton Park, UK: Routledge, pp. 73–79. Valpey, Kenneth R. 2020. Cow Care in Hindu Animal Ethics. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan (Open Access). Whicher, Ian. 1998. The Integrity of the Yoga Darśana: A Reconsideration of Classical Yoga. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

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19 ANIMAL JUSTICE AND MORAL MENDACITY* Purushottama Bilimoria

The Philosophical Questions There is always the risk of romanticizing when it comes to tackling the topic of animals in both classical discourses and contemporary practices. I wish to take up some of the sentiments that we have towards animals and put them to the test with respect to the claims to moral high grounds in Indian thought traditions. And I do this by turning the focus in this instance to the question of animals – on a par with issues of caste, gender and minority status, albeit still within the human community ambience. This leads me to ask: how sophisticated and in-depth are the appreciation of the issues and questions that are currently being debated in contemporary circles? What degree of awareness could we say has been present in the traditions, not just in some perfunctory, platitudinal, belief-based descriptions or prescriptions, but in actual explanatory and morally sensitized senses? There are numerous tropes to consider where animals are depicted and represented or misrepresented. These may pertain to animal sacrifice by humans and symbolic imagery in high-order astral practices. Consider, for example, animal mythic and hybrid iconography in ancient mythologies, art and religions; the animal is depicted as the denizen of monstrous evil, as a threatening part of ‘brutish nature’, living out the law of the jungle and hence requiring to be subdued under the law of the survival of the fittest. Then there is the utilitarian deployment of animals in agriculture farming: the importance of cow, water buffalo, oxen, horse and other hoofed animals; in dietary praxis and food consumption (meat industry, factory farming), through to game hunting, circus entertainment and zoos, domestication (pet culture), animal guidance (e.g., for the blind and aged), veterinarian euthanasia, bestiality, sexualization of animals, animals in human pornography and other unrecorded implicates of animals in the human lifeworld or phantasias. Animals have become *  An earlier version of this chapter was published in Sophia vol. 57, no. 1, March 2018, and another that included extensive comparison with Judaic tradition [‘Biblical and modern-day,’] Ithamar Theodor and Yudit Kornberg Greenber, eds., in Dharma and Halacha. Lanhan, NY: Lexington Books, 2018, 109–128. The chapter is a sequel to Bilimoria and Sridhar (2017, q.v.) and is virtual in conversation with three chapters on animal issues in this volume. I would like to acknowledge Christopher Chapple for commenting on the earlier draft, and editing assistance of Abhilasha Semwal while completing this chapter. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-23

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indispensable in scientific thinking. Consider how animals provided clues for the supposed missing links in the evolutionary chain of being, with Spencer and Darwin: non-existent prelapsarian animals were reconfigured to fill in certain gaps in neo-Darwinian theories. Today, Dawkins and Dennett clinch organism evolution as the sideshow in the primordial soup of the Big Bang. Huge dinosaurs, mammoths and other ‘monsters’ are reconstructed or virtually resurrected from fossils and archaeological excavations, with a certain degree of imaginative extrapolation (which we see projected on big screens in movie houses and videos, such as Jaws, Armageddon, Jurassic Park). Much of biology begins with observations of animal behaviour and vivisections and moves to implants of monitoring devices in the bodies of animals, followed by animal testing of tissue cells, toiletries, vaccines, antidotes and drugs supposed to save human lives, ending somewhere close to genetic-manipulations and more sophisticated animal experimentation in biomedical laboratories and in psycho-linguistic research units. Mention may also be made of animals sent out into the stratosphere space or deployed in astronautical travels (e.g., as with chimps and dogs in unmanned rockets), and so forth. These interventionist instances mark the more recent inclusion of animals in the human theatrical, theoretical and far-reaching geographies (Bleich 1986: 84–89). We just do not pause to realize the extent to which the ontology of the non-human animal species is pervasively sketched in the human lebenswelt (lifeworld). What would the human world have been without animals? This should give pause for us to wonder; we’ve done away with the gods in our modern world and replaced them with smartphones. We are on the brink of doing away with vegetation, and a disastrously similar fate might await the animal kingdom also, according to some pessimist pundits at least. So Michael Pollan ruminates that while the grass-fed ruminant and the vegetarian herbivore are not extinct yet, they are close to it. The future of the Indian cow and certain animals is at stake – precisely because the mega-food industrial complex treats these animals, which are fed bovine blood, hormones and antibiotics in feedlots, as organic robots to pump out protein (most probably mixed with central nervous system tissue) that end up on dining tables and in hamburgers and restaurants. (Pollan 2004, 2006; Modern Farmer 2013). The animal has become a commercial determinant. Consider also the quantum of violence visited upon the biospheres and animal species. If only we were to record the pain, shock, horror, anxiety, panic and confusion, as well as other stressful emotions animals are capable of, fatally at the work of the ‘peaceful quick sniper or blade’, then silence, in plant life and definitely in the animal factories and ‘live eating’ restaurants in parts of the globe. Billions of animals undergo such a fate each year in discreet slaughterhouses and at the hands of roadside butchers. The sheer sacrifice that animals are subjected to for the palettes of human beings – the imperative of hunger aside – would not be the only motivation or incentive. Once we have the ‘measure’ of the animal wrongs, what do we do? More theory (cf. Moore 2014)! A philosopher-scholar concerned with engaging in ethical and, at times, theological reflections and debating theories of justice at large might nevertheless find in this field of discourse a fertile ground for mining conceptual resources and mapping certain blind spots and lacunae present in the human moral menagerie. The analogy here is to illustrate the sudden ripples felt in the hitherto paternally constructed moral systems: in ethics, justice, law, penal codes, ‘rights of man’ discourse, toleration, inclusiveness, etc. Particularly when it was discovered that slaves, women, people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds, indeed even minorities and ‘aliens’ (foreigners), may be eligible to make claims on a par with the 253

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privileged select group to fairness, liberty, basic capabilities building and certain rights that entail duties toward equitable treatment on the part of the state or the dominant majoritarian group and rendering opportunities towards flourishing of the individual of the marginalized groups. Moral antinomies abound but may not be immediately detected where one principle can lead to two contrary, if not clashing, derivative outcomes. There might be blood on the other (gloved) hand. If there are antinomies with respect to human disposition towards animals, their welfare, treatment or neglect in moral considerations are endemic (Singer 1993). The staunch rationalists may not see real problems with this scenario, as animals are not beneficiaries – in their view – of the same moral subjective status, i.e., as moral agents, moral patients, individuals with equal inherent values, interests and rights or jural entities in legal terms. They are lacking in moral considerability because they cannot represent their own interests and recognize such claims, and therefore, they cannot be wronged. This disavowal is made despite talk of ‘natural duties’, duty of justice as fairness (via Rawls), non-cruelty/humane treatment, conservation of species or sustainability in the face of ecological degradation and concomitant environmental responsibility. But what does this all say about the reach and desired completeness, much less absoluteness, righteousness, of humanly conceived morality or be it moralism? Can non-humans be accorded moral significance or, more technically, moral considerability and to what degree? There are numerous debates on the intricacies of each of these tropes in the spaces symbolically occupied between humans and non-human animals in our modern times (philosophy, cultural studies, feminism and pop, media and film cultures). The question I am interested in is where the religions of the world and the philosophy of religion at large locate themselves in this challenging and burgeoning debate. I ask these questions because today’s animal rights/liberation movements are based largely on moral-philosophical considerations with secular and legal sensitivities rather than on religious or religion-informed philosophies (Regan 1987); someone like Peter Singer chastises religion (and he means largely Western/Abrahamic traditions but also obliquely ‘India’, meaning Indian religions), for its animosity towards or at least deplorable treatment of animals. And yet the early roots of animal welfare and nonviolence towards animals (setting aside more ancient Jaina and Buddhist precedents) – e.g., RSPCA/SPCA, anti-cruelty codes and first vegetarian movements – were all either Christian or Jewish based. We may note here Henry Salt’s Vegetarian Society of London, which re-inspired Gandhi’s vegetarianism; the Seventh-day Adventist who started Sanitarium Foods worldwide, and the British Jewish vegan who established the Animals’ Friend Society and co-founded Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Gompertz 1824, 1852; Singer 1992). However, there have been movements within Christian and Jewish theologies and grassroots activism in the West, as well as in Israel and India, to revive or re-interpret orthodox texts and furnish afresh theo-philosophical grounds for the same arguments and ends that secular animal rights advocates have been striving towards (cf. Linzey 1995; Weisberger 2003). Morality can have many homes; it is not the exclusive proclivity of the secular, often post-enlightenment utilitarian philosophers, Spinozian and virtue ethicists or a handful of peace-loving leftist activists. Indeed, as Mary Midgley has pondered all her philosophical life, one might argue that morality has its early roots in religion and could remain, in part, at least, grounded in religion (Midgley 1998; Epstein 2017). In India ethics began with the Mīmāṃ sa exegetes. My task in the rest of the chapter is to map a broad compass of Hindu, Buddhist, Jaina and Gandhi, along with the modern secular positions on animals and their moral ramifications. My concern is not with details but rather how Hindus, and to an extent, Jains, 254

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position themselves on the challenges of theodicy and on animal utilization in the light of current philosophical and scientific speculations on the supposed sentience of animals (Griffin 2001: 1–17). That is to say, these traditions look upon the life status of animals and justify, or rationalize, the many topographies of evil in respect of the animal kingdom. These topographies include suffering, harm, unnecessary or untimely death, nakedly at the hands of nature (climatic, environmental, inter/intra-species tussles, uncontrollable diseases, etc.) but also, and increasingly in greater proportion, at the hands of (hu)mankind. A framing question I will be addressing is the extent to which orthopraxis has informed ethical views in these traditions and vice versa. For example, we need to ask at what point and with what degree of compunction or complicity does Judaic thought move from the explicit vegetarianism of Genesis 1:29 (cf. 2:15–16) to homologizing women and (fowl-smelling) animals and considering flesh as food? We might likewise ask that of Christianity as well in respect of the declarations in Psalms 104:14 and 136:25. (I have addressed these questions in some detail in the prior chapter on ‘Animal Ethics and Ecology in Classical India’, in Indian Ethics volume I, 2017: 297–328). On the Brāhmaṇic-Hindu side, would animal sacrifice in the erstwhile yajñas of Vedism have ever sparked off moral conscience vis-à-vis hiṃ sā (injury/violence), had it not been for Jaina and Buddhist disquiet and defence of ahiṃ sā (a simple act of adding the negative ‘nañ’ prefix: a moral term that likely did not exist in Brāhmaṇism before the rupture)? Thereafter, Hindu texts rise to the occasion and increasingly become staunch advocates of animal care, welfare, proper husbandry, treatment and hospitality, in proportion to the inclusion of animal imagery in religious symbolism and deification. To ignore such penal ordinances (e.g., in Arthaśāstra, Dharmasūtras, Nibandhas, several Purāṇ as, Mahābhārata) would be to risk punitive measures and expiation of the demerit (prāyaścitta), here and hereafter. Is modern Hinduism, even as it becomes more secular (cf. Hindu Code Bills) and globalized after the Gandhian interlude, far behind in embracing the moral inclusiveness of animals in a reformed Hindu ethos? Or will the evangelism and self-righteousness of Hindutva, with its almost absolute embracing or ‘revivification’ of vegetarianism, likely to alienate secular Indian animalists by underscoring more the orthodoxly religious rather than the moral grounds? Still, India boasts the largest number of faith-based vegetarians, followed by Israel. And there isn’t as yet a similar upscale movement in much of EuropeUnited Kingdom, the Latin/South Americas, the Middle East or the Oceania-Pacific and the rest of Asia for that matter (Schwartz 1998). In the last section, I discuss another ironic turn and conundrum that faces modern-day India with respect to the moral attitude towards animals of certain kinds and its project of intensive dairy farming and export of meat.

The Indian Animal: Animals and Ecology in the Pre-Vedic Age to the Purāṇas It is generally believed that the people during the period of Vedic civilization (spanning 1500–500 BCE) domesticated several herbivorous wild animals (Bilimoria and Sridhar 2017: 299). They trained those animals for use in agriculture, travel and hunting. Their settlements were on river banks amidst dense jungles and forests, and hence, they maintained a close relationship with the natural environment. They superimposed a supernatural force on every aspect of nature and worshipped these. Trees and animals were objects of adoration, and they treated them as the manifestations of a higher order (ṛta). 255

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Hence, it is that the cow occupies a pride of place in several hymns of the Ṛ gveda. The cow, its variegated species and their habitat are described in the texts in glamorous detail. The sages considered the cow as the personification of motherhood, fertility and liberty. The cow was compared to goddesses such as Pṛṣṇ i, Āditi and Uṣās. Rain was regarded as nothing other than the milk pouring from the udder of a cow. It is not surprising that in the early Vedic period, the cow was killed for sacrifice as the main offering (havis) because it was seen to have such a resemblance to the deities, and this earthly ‘good’ might well be sufficient to please the gods who would, for their part of the bargain, return rain and calves plenty (RV I.16.114.10, RV.X.169.3/II.7.5 X.91.14). The cow, like the horse, was also given in sacrifices as a ‘gift’ (dakṣiṇ ā). The cow, owing to her apparent intelligence, patience and acquiescence, was adjudged as among the best sacrificial animal (yājñiya paśu). As Laurie Patton (2000: 43) noted, [A]s many Vedic hymns and later ritual texts … indicate, sacrifice of an animal into the fire was part of the ecological balance in the ancient Vedic world; the killing and distribution of the animal was part of a larger understanding of human harmony with natural forces. The Ṛ gvedic people then regarded animals as an integral part of their agrarian and pastoral culture. The deification of animals, apart from the sacrificial theology, probably also indicated a gesture towards animistic beliefs among the indigenous and non-Āryan groups in the region. So it wasn’t that there was a total, unconditional prohibition on the consumption of animal flesh, whether from the sacrificial offerings or from other sources (Jha 2001: 2–31; Bilimoria and Sridhar 2017: 300). The lesson to be gleaned here is that, historically, the killing of animals and their distribution otherwise was part of a larger hermeneutic of the harmony of the human lifeworld with the natural forces and, for the nonce, what it might mean to re-disperse the natural world in the process of rejuvenation, what it might mean to hasten the processes of life and death and how the tropes of harmony with nature and sacrifice could well converge in a kind of redistributive justice in the context of the natural environment (ibid.). Nevertheless, as noted earlier, the Vedic ethos did not entirely rescind the Brāhmaṇical right to perform animal sacrifices, which is indeed a form of hiṃ sā or violence. The Jainas and later Buddhists who emerged on the scene and became socially and indeed politically and theologically active denounced the Brāhmaṇical proclivity to rites that lead to the harming of animals; the Jainas practiced a very strict form of nonviolence as part of their daily and protracted vow of non-injury to all sentient beings. The Buddhists, under the inspiration of King Aśoka [Ashoka], even went as far as to establish hospitals and shelters for injured and abandoned animals. This benign śrāmāṇ ic (stoical) attitude towards animal kind was to have a huge impact on the Brāhmaṇical ethos as it evolved into the Purāṇic and dharmaśāstra culture (ibid., 315). Thus, in the Arthaśāstras, heinous and gratuitous acts against animals are punishable – with respect to their neglect, over-use, abuse, stealing, letting run amock, even negligence by veterinarians, etc. in the interest also of maintaining eco-balance. Apart from registering the unity of all sentient (cetana) and non-sentient (acetana) beings, the Viṣṇ u Purāṇ a (15.46) avers that gods, men, animals, reptiles and birds are but the various forms of the creator Brahmā since these have emerged from his limbs (ibid.: 304–305). Mention is also made of the need to safeguard the interests and needs for times yet to be: bhaviṣyakāla. It is interesting that such a future-regarding comparison is made long back in the Purāṇ a. And so the 256

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argument by the best inference goes a fair way towards supporting an ecological perspectivism that is not confined contingently to the interests and needs of the current generation but factors in the predictable depletion of resources exacerbated by the excessive (e.g., exponential) growth of the population burdensomely on Mother Earth, which more than likely will prove detrimental, if not catastrophic, to the needs, entitlements and interests of the future generations (bhaviṣyaloka). This is not only a mark of good ecology but a decent moral philosophy for a posthuman futurity. Early Indians took great care in keeping the animal environment clean. Garuḍa Purāṇ a (201.35–39) prescribes the following medicinal herbs for keeping the elephants healthy: myrobalans (Terminalia chebula), haritakī (Chebulic myrobalan)) and Solanum indicum (bṛhatī). Pastes of several medicinal herbs are recommended for curing several ailments of elephants. Aśoka, the Buddhist king, much later likewise built hospices and veterinarian units for ailing animals.

Animals and the Concept of Nonviolence (Ahiṃsā) The common ethos emerging through the reflections of Purāṇ as, Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstras (321–296 BC) and the epics appears to be this: it is part of the dharma of the rājānīti (sovereignty) that the king and his ministries maximize protection and maintenance of all beings and species that belong to the earth (bhauma) (Olivelle 2013). The treatises on ethics and religion (Dharmaśātras and Smṛtis), the two epics (Rāmāyaṇ a and Mahābhārata) and ancient lore (Purāṇ a) emphasized the fourfold values of life – earning (artha), pleasures (kāma), duties (dharma), liberation (mokṣa) – which could be practiced in two ways, i.e., active life in this world (pravṛtti) and renunciation of the world (nivṛtti) (Bailey and Rukmani 2000). The virtues exalted in these Smṛti canons – in contradiction to those in the Śruti or Vedic tradition – arguably led to the development of non-injury (ahiṃ sā) in dharmic traditions. A more compassionate leaning paved the way for a more successful development of nonviolent sacrifices in which pulses, cereals and ghee were substituted for animals in the sacrificial fire (MBh Śāntiparvan). The Mahābhārata declared non-injury as the highest duty to be performed by an individual. The Bhagavadgītā provides quasi-philosophical grounding for the values extolled in the Mahābhārata and is more decisive in its ethical pronouncements and denouncement of the Vedic sacrificial culture altogether but for its symbolic spiritual significance. It is for this reason that the Gītā (for short) has had a profound impact on modern Hindu-Indian thought and is drawn upon obliquely in Western ethical and ecological deliberations as well (Gandhi 1962; Naess 1989: 194; Jacobsen 1996: 231–233; Larson 1989; Chapple and Tucker 2000). Several commentators, including the 8th-century doyen of Vedānta philosophy, Śaṅkara, have observed that feeling another’s pain can be universalized so as to derive a principle of empathy and non-injury. Śaṅkara characteristically commented that one who sees that what is painful and pleasant to himself is painful and pleasant to all creatures will cause no living beings pain and that he who is non-injurious is the foremost of yogins (Śaṅkara 1976: 198–199; Bilimoria & Hutchings 1988: 36). Self-realization in the Gītā takes due cognizance of the moral principle of lokasaṃ graha, the well-being of all sentient beings. The world of living things is brought together in a process governed by moral cause-effect relationships, and it makes it imperative for each being within it to respect the autonomy, interests and destiny of the other and ultimately to find a way out of the cyclic implications of this process. 257

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Gandhi and Contemporary India: Eco-animalia Let me now move to certain contemporary narratives. I will begin with Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was acutely aware that the demands generated by the need to feed and sustain human life compounded with the growing industrialization of India, if not of the world at large, far outstripped the finite resources of nature. This might appear naïve and commonplace with the onset of the 21st century, but such pronouncements were rare as they were heretical at the turn of the 20th century. Gandhi was also adamant about the need for a rigorous ethic of non-injury in the human treatment of animals. In other words, Gandhi was invoking the Jaina principle of ahimṣā that he had learned about from his Jain mentor, Srimat Raychandrabhai and the role that it might play in the expanding circle of moral care – i.e., in more rigorous ways than the Jains had practiced in their understandably restrictive religious contexts. More passionately, on active environmental renewal projects, Gandhi wrote in 1926 that for India, the next step should not be agriculture that is destructive but rather the planting of a plethora of fruit trees and other vegetation as these provide nourishment stability in the soil and attract rainfall, as well as provide fodder for the insect and animal world (Gandhi 1959: 34–35). He was even worried about silk and wool extractions and therefore proposed their replacement exclusively with khadi (a mix of cotton and linen). The implications of such simple ecological wisdom have only just begun to dawn on tech-fested agriculture production economics (Sanford 2013). Gandhi saw vegetarianism as a moral cause, even once stating that he would prefer death to consume some beef tea or mutton, even under medical advice. He saw the life of a lamb as being no less precious than that of a human being. In his little-known lecture delivered in London in 1931, ‘The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism’, Gandhi asserts, ‘[M]an was not born a carnivorous animal, but born to live on the fruits and herbs that the earth grows’ (Gandhi 1931; cf. Regan 1975). To Gandhi, vegetarianism was not just a religious principle but a moral obsession that he spent much time and effort working on and perfecting to the tee. But this also underscores his commitment to the moral considerability of animal life. There is, of course, the proverbial adage, often attributed to Mohandas Gandhi (but likely not uttered by him in these precise terms), that suggests that the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. Gandhi gave up consuming cow’s milk when he came to the realization that dairy is obtained at the cost of the calf being removed from the lactating mother; even as he took to drinking goat’s milk, his conscience was not at peace, for he recognized that all milking animals suffer the same ignominy. We see some of Gandhi’s thinking reflected in modern-day animal liberation thinking, e.g., in Peter Singer’s argument that the morality of actions should not be determined exclusively in terms of human interests, rather that since animals indisputably have the ability to feel pain and pleasure (i.e., they have sentience), it would be wrong to intentionally cause suffering to animals. This general doctrine of sentimentalism (Latin sentientem) is meant to be a corrective to the prelapsarian spectre of speciesism. One would have to be a ‘speciesist’ to believe that animals are not as deserving of freedom from suffering and subordination brought about by human interests (from agriculture, farm-feed lots, slaughterhouses, to circuses) as is a race of people who are subjugated by another race without justification (i.e. racism). Of course, by the same token, one cannot be over-romantic according to this view about the special ‘rights’, and so on, on the part of the ‘animal species’, for this would be tantamount to ‘reverse speciesism’ (analogous to ‘reverse orientalism’). Rather, a non-anthropocentric and non-speciesist moral perspective is derivable from at least 258

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negative utilitarianism (i.e. minimizing pain for the greatergood) that underscores human responsibility to nature rather seriously, principally by including animals in the ‘expanding’ moral community of individuals and by not allowing human interests to subordinate the well-being of animals without justification. On this view, vegetarianism is also said to be morally compelling, for it is only out of selfish human interest, for food and feeling well, that one would have an animal mauled, killed and consumed with relish. One might as well eat one’s (or another’s) pet(s) (Singer 1990/2009; Finsen and Finsen 1994: 84–180). A contemporary Gandhian ethical argument for discontinuing the slaughter and consumption of the cow (ox, bull, water buffalo or cattle) has been taken up by Maneka Gandhi (wife of the late Sanjay Gandhi and daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi). Her strident animal rights campaign works through petitioning parliament and the other law-making bodies, such as the courts, as well as working with voluntary animal rescue hospices; one of her major targets has been the slaughterhouses or abattoirs along the Yamuna River and tanneries along the Gaṅgā, which have been the major source of pollution of the waters in recent decades.

Mother Dairy near to the Slaughterhouse Certain developments with respect to the fertile areas we covered earlier in modern-day India call for a pause and consideration of a plethora of concerns raised by environmentalists, feminist vegan critics and conscientious citizens. Cow’s milk and products derived from milk, notably ghee, sweetmeats, condiments and buttermilk, find ubiquitous use in feeding the new-born, food preparation and consumption, Hindu rituals and sacraments, life-cycle rights, consecrations of idols of deities installed in temples (or in the family shrine), pūjā (pooja) offerings, for use during the pilgrimage or wildly in festive celebrations and also in end-of-life rites. But treated as mere utilities, these extravaganzas, if you will, come at considerable ecological costs. Yamini Narayan (2018: 134) cites Carol Adams (2010: 305), who argues, ‘[E]ven though the animals are alive, dairy products and eggs are not victimless foods; milk and eggs are nothing more than a lucrative source of “feminized protein”, whose production however requires the “sexual slavery” of cows and chickens’. Cow milk, as such, has no inherent sacred qualia, while its natural biological function is to provide infant lactation for the calf. There is a bit of stealth implicated in removing milk from the lactating cow and other milch animals, while the calf is left bereft or only gets a disproportionate share of the milk. In massive dairy farms (in any country, for that matter), the calf is taken away within 20 hours of being born. India ranks as the world’s largest producer of dairy (19% of the world’s milk; USDA 2017), but India, ironic to its ‘holy cow’ legacy, has become one of the largest exporters (after Brazil, followed by Australia) of bovine beef and veal that come from both slaughtered water buffalos (the official claim, as if the moral weight is less vis-à-vis holier cows) and discarded or spent cows, and unreproductive or aged bovine males. In 2022 alone, the Carcass Weight Equivalent (CWE) of red meat export from India was placed at 1.5 million metric tonnes (estimated to be the same for 2023; USDA 2017). These are startling disclosures (and foreclosures) that are not widely reported or discussed in media in India, where the blame is put incessantly on Muslim and low-caste communities who continue to depend on beef and veal for their basic protein diet and are apprehended in their attempt allegedly to smuggle cow to regions where the bovine animal could be slaughtered. It is not widely known that many more millions of spent cows and 259

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unreproductive or aged males are stealthily dragged or transported to nearby slaughterhouses by the dairy cooperatives in cohorts with the meat corporates and sent on to the frozen cargo container on the way to be turned into frankfurters for Western supermarkets, barbeque and dining tables. Mother dairy economics is not the glorious achievement of a civilization that also always valued milk but now uses the intensive milch industry for literally beefing up its export revenue in foreign bank bills.

Conclusion It can be surmised from the discussions in this chapter that Brāhmaṇic thought was compelled by the forceful moral concept of non-injury championed by Buddhist and Jaina protagonists, and so it moved to a more universalistic and pragmatic stratagem. Likewise, modern-day Asian philosophies (from South to South-East and East Asia) may have yet to learn some more from these traditions and cultures – given their amoral animal praxis, both in respect of sacrificial offerings and human consumption (except for pockets of Buddhist and Daoist monastic practices). The concept of ahiṃ sā helped change the ancient outlook of a nomadically driven people and brought about a rejection of the violence involved and perpetrated in Vedic sacrifices. It further helped develop the aligned aspects of non-injury in the catalogue of virtues in ethics of the epics and other dharma canons, fledgling to begin with, alongside the Hindu and libertarian ideals of toleration, forgiveness and equanimity. Thus, animals, trees and fauna, for their part as participating subjects, could be said to have played a significant role, directly or indirectly, in the development of Indian morality and the practice of preservation of the environment around them. At some point in history, Indians could consider it a moral accomplishment to live in harmonious association with fauna and flora without disturbing the eco-components of nature. Whether in real-life practice and in their polity they achieved this or not remains in some doubt and a subject of much debate (Spivak 1999: 46–58; Crawford 2005: 222–227). However, ethics as a moral philosophy is not always measured by its practical success (consider the numerous problems with utilitarianism, perhaps the most ‘successful’ Western ethics closer to our times, that philosophers, including Amartya Sen, have been pointing out), but by its conceptual coherence and broadness of vision. The sentient and the non-sentient creatures and things of nature became increasingly, in the philosophical and devotional (including Tantric or esoteric) traditions, a part of a microcosm that is seen to be integral to the macrocosm. The forest universities imparted teaching amidst sylvan surroundings, but the denizens of forests and jungles drew minimal food from nature for their survival, thus allowing the periodical re-growth of forests. People who committed crimes against animals were severely dealt with through stringent laws. They propounded the philosophy of unitary consciousness in all the creatures of the world and cautioned against the indiscriminate killing of these creatures. This holistic approach grew slowly but appreciably such that in our times there can be a Gandhi, an Albert Schweitzer (also influenced by Jaina ethics), Arne Naess, H. H. Dalai Lama, Vandana Shiva, Arundhati Roy, Medha Patkar, Sunderlal Bahuguna (a staunch Gandhian), Maneka Gandhi among others, who are able to command or claim a voice in the global movement towards environmentalism and sustainability. They pursue their respective callings without compromising on the globalization of industrial capital interest that remains impervious to the epistemic and social-ontological violence of instrumental rationalism, with its single-minded pursuit of the money economy. They excelled in the 260

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Vedic ritualists and fishermen of yore, who used animals to appease the gods or provide nourishment to an immediate community. In this chapter, I have compared the different perspectives on animals and their fate at the hands of instrumentalist human beings and looked for responses or alternatives in the human treatment of animals across two traditions, Jainism and Hinduism. I have considered historical as well as contemporary responses in the broadly Indian tradition. At the end of the day, or in the modern era, what we can learn from the wrongs and rights of the traditions is this: we should like to think that human beings are intelligent and rational enough to be able to come to terms with the fact that they have certain basic duties to other species in the common eco-sphere (Sorabji 1993). These duties may be consistent with principled virtues on the part of human beings – individual and collective – principally, not to harm, not to disturb, not to forego trust, be willing to make restitution and be compassionate. Furthermore, these duties may ensue either in recognition of the rights of other species or a deep respect for the interests and values of other species and biospheres (in the Levinasian sense than that acceded by analytical or classical utilitarian ethics). While a morally stronger case can be made by basing the argument on interests and values than on the moral rights of animals, there is no reason why animal ethics need to favour one over the other. It would seem to me that an ethics based on deep empathy in the face of the other – of the kind that Jane Goodall has been advocating based on her relentless work among chimpanzees – is well-nigh indispensable. More specifically, an argument toward ‘moral respect for animals’ – on a par with Paul Taylor’s (1986) ‘ethics of respect for nature – can only be strengthened by finding a meaning between rights and interests’. There are ample resources for this bridge-building strategy in all religions, not least in the South Asian religious traditions but also in Judaism (Weisberger 2003; Schwartz 1998), particularly when we bring a contemporized critical hermeneutical lens to their respective texts. The chapter also raised concerns about post-Gandhian India’s dairy economics that builds on the edifice of the traditionally mandated holy milk but surreptitiously uses the milch industry to literally beef up its export earnings in foreign bills.

References Adams, C. J. 2010. “Why Feminist-Vegan Now?” Feminism and Psychology 20 (3): 302–317. Bailey, Greg and Rukmani, T. S. 2000. “Literary Foundations for an Ecological Aesthetic: Dharma, Āyurveda, the Arts, and Abhijñānaśākuntalam” Hinduism and Ecology. The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water. Edited by Christopher Key Chapple and Mary Evelyn Tucker, 101–126. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press with the Center for the Study of World Religions. Bilimoria, Purushottama. 2007. “Dismantling Normativity in Indian Ethics—From Vedic Altarity to the Gītā’s Alterity,” in Deconstruction and the Ethical in Asian Thought. Edited by Youru Wang, 33–74. NY/London: Routledge. Bilimoria, Purushottama and Patrick Hutchings. 1988. “On Disregards for Fruits: Kant and the Gītā,” in Religions and Comparative Thought. Edited by P. Bilimoria and Peter Fenner, 353–367. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications. Bilimoria, Purushottama, Joseph, Prabhu and Sharma, Renuka (eds.) 2017. Indian Ethics, Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges. Vol. 1. London and New York: Routledge Paperback. Bilimoria, Purushottama and Sridhar, Melukote. 2017. “Ecology and Animal Ethics in Ancient and Classical India,” in Indian Ethics, Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges. Vol. 1. Edited by Bilimoria, Purushottama, Joseph Prabhu and Renuka Sharma, 297–328. London: Routledge Paperback. Bleich, Judah David. 1986. “Judaism and Animal Experimentation,” in Animal Sacrifices: Religious Perspectives on the Use of Animals in Science. Edited by Tom Regan, 61–114. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

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Purushottama Bilimoria Chapple, Chris and Mary Evelyn Tucker, eds. 2000. Hinduism and Ecology. Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University Press. Crawford, Jennifer. 2005. The Attentive Heart. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Epstein, Ron. “Religious Thoughts about Animals” (compilation), http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rone/ Religion/religionanimals.html; accessed June 15, 2017. Finsen, Lawrence and Finsen, Susab. 1994. The Animal Rights Movement in America: From Compassion to Respect. New York: Twayne Publishers. Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand. 1931. “The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism.” Speech delivered to the London Vegetarian Society on 20 November 1931. http://www.sophia-project.org/uploads/1/3/9/5/ 13955288/gandhi_vegetarianism.pdf; accessed Ides of March 2018. Published by Navajivan Press, Ahmedabad, 1959; cited by Tom Regan (1975). ———. 1959. My Socialism. Ahmedabad: Navajivan. ———. 1962. The Teaching of the Gita. Edited by Anand Hingorani. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Gilmore, Sophia. 2015. “Judaism vs Hinduism (Food).” https://prezi.com/nov0vcoftelj/judaismvs-hinduism-food/?webgl=0; accessed March 15, 2016. Gompertz, Lewis. 1824. Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes. London: Westley and Parrish; 1992, 2nd Ed., Kingship Library, (ed.) Peter Singer. London: Open Gate Press; 1997. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. ———. 1852. Fragments in Defence of Animals. London: W. Horsell. Griffins, Donald R. 2001. Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jacobsen, Knut A. 1996. “Bhagavadgītā, Ecosophy T, and Deep Ecology.” Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 39 (2): 219–238. Jeremiah. 2016. The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. Jha, Dwijendra Narayan. 2001. The Myth of the Holy Cow. New Delhi: Matrix Books. Kremmer, Lisa. 2012. Animals and World Religions. New York: Oxford University Press. Larson, Gerald J. 1989. “‘Conceptual Resources’ in South Asia for ‘Environmental Ethics’,” in Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Edited by J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames, 267–277. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Linzey, Andrew. 1995. Animal Theology. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Mason, Jim and Peter Singer. 1990. Animal Factories. New York: Harmony Books. Midgley, Mary. 1998. Animals and Why They Matter. Rpt. Atlanta: University of Georgia Press. “Modern Farmer.” 2013 http://modernfarmer.com/2013/10/meet-modern-farmers-spring-2013/; accessed June 15, 2019. Moore, Stephen (ed.). 2014. Divinanimality: Animal Theory, Creaturely Theology. New York: Fordham University Press. Naess, Arne. 1989. Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy, trans. and rev. David Rothenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Narayan, Yamini. 2018. “Animal Ethics and Hinduism’s Milking, Mothering Legends: Analysing Krishna the Butter Thief and the Ocean of Milk.” Sophia 57 (1), March: 133–149. Olivelle, Patrick. 2013. King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India: Kautilya’s Arthasastra A New Annotated Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. Patton, Laurie. 2000. “Nature Romanticism and Sacrifice in Ṛgvedic Interpretations,” in Hinduism and Ecology. Edited by Chris Chapple and Mary Evelyn Tucker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, CSWR. Pollan, Michael. 2004. “The Way We Live Now: Cattle Futures?” The New York Times Magazine. January 11, 2004. ———. 2006. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Group. Regan, Tom. 1975. “The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 5 (2), October, 1975: 181–214. ———. 1987. The Struggle for Animal Rights. Clarks Summit: International Society for Animal Rights, Inc. Sanford, A. Whitney (2013). “Gandhi’s Agrarian Legacy: Practicing Food, Justice, and Sustainability in India.” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 7: 65–87.

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Animal Justice and Moral Mendacity Śaṅkara, 1976. “Introduction to His Commentary on the Bhagavdgītā,” chapter VI, in Śankarācārya’s Commentary on the Bhagavdgītā. Translated by Alladi Mahadev, 191. Chennai/Madras: Samata Books. Schwartz, Richard H. 1998. Judaism and Vegetarianism. Marblehead: Micah Publications. Singer, Peter. 1990/2009. Animal Liberation. New York: Avon Books. ———. 1992. (ed.) Gompertz, Lewis. Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes, 2nd Edn. London: Westley and Parrish; Kingship Library. ———. 1993. “Animals and the Value of Life,” in Matters of Life and Death. Edited by Tom Regan, 287–292. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. Sorabji, Richard. 1993. Animal Minds and Human Morals: The Origins of the Western Debate. Ithaca: Cornell UP. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1999. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, Toward A History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Taylor, Paul. 1986. Respect for Nature, A Theory of Environmental Ethics. New Jersey: University of Princeton Press. USDA. 2017. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chartdetail/?chartId= 82987, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1181402/india-beef-and-veal-export/, https://money. cnn.com/2015/08/05/news/economy/india-beef-exports-buffalo/ USDA Statistics. 2015. “Annual Report” in “Reports & Downloads.” Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India, http://www.mofpi.nic.in/; accessed July 2, 2015. “Livestock and Poultry: World Markets and Trade,” United States Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service, last modified April 2015, http://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/livestock_poultry. PDF; accessed July 2, 2015. Weisberger, Andrea. 2003. “Animal Rights within Judaism: The Nature of the Relationship between Religion and Ethics.” Sophia 42 (1): 77–84.

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20 YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT Animal and Dietary Ethics in the Early Indian Traditions Nishant Upadhyay

Introduction In our times, vegetarianism is inextricably associated with ethics, especially animal and ecological ethics. However, this has not always been the case. In the context of modern animal rights movements, Bilimoria (20181) poses a necessary question about their roots in ‘moral-philosophical considerations with secular and legal sensitivities and absence of religion or religious philosophers’ (Bilimoria 2018, 55–56). Consideration of religious perspectives, ethics and dietary norms remains crucial for conceptualizing a more nuanced framework for nonviolence, rights and abstention. A modest familiarity with the Indic traditions and asceticism will establish that vegetarianism and the religious ethics of nonviolence towards animals have been crucial in defining the boundaries, soteriological and worldly ethics in Brāhmaṇism, Buddhism and Jainism since an early point in history.2 While Bilimoria (2018) commits to a broader conceptualization in response to modern movements, this chapter aims at an inquiry that engages animal ethics and its relation to dietary ethics, as well as their conceptualizations, contradictions and influences in the early Indian traditions. As such, the chapter takes a comparative approach toward assessing the link between vegetarianism and animal ethics in Brāhmaṇism, Buddhism and Jainism and demonstrates that the emergence of vegetarianism is a complex process, in tandem with the development of the concepts of ahiṃ sā or nonviolence/non-injury and a growing complexity within animal ethics. The aim, then, is to provide a critical engagement with parallel developments in the traditions and how their ethics and ethical precepts generate notions of vegetarianism, corresponding to their unique soteriological goals. It will also highlight how each tradition has a different – if not completely distinct, but overlapping – notion of animal ethics, which informs their dietary ethics to a great extent. In this pursuit, I will first present an outline of how animals and animal ethics are conceptualized in Brāhmaṇism, Buddhism and Jainism, and in turn, discuss the ramifications for the conception of ahiṃ sā and vegetarianism.

Animals and Animal Ethics: A Comparative Framework Animals and animal ethics have been crucial in defining the worldview of Brāhmaṇism, Buddhism and Jainism insofar as the presence of animals and their interactions with humans DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-24

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in the texts has been crucial to construct the positionality of humans, defining ethical behaviour, worldly aims and the soteriological goals. In addition, animals and their status were crucial in defining the contours of practices and identities, soteriological theology, dietary ethics and code of conduct for ascetics and laity. In early Brāhmaṇism, the Vedic corpus conceptualized animals as an integral element of their material and divine worldview. The use of animals in sacrifice was one of the central features of this tradition, and the presence of a highly structured and defined set of rituals is evidence of that use (Vesci 1992, 103–104; Patton 2000, 42–43). The sacrifice of animals – especially in a sacrificial ritual like Aśvamedha – was crucial to define worldly aims and sovereignty, even long after the end of the Vedic period (Doniger, 2006). In a sense, animals were crucial in the achievement of both worldly and other-worldly (soteriological) aims and contributed to the karma of the one committing sacrifice. In the context of Vedic sacrifices, Patton (2000) argues that the sacrifice of animals and the presence of these rituals in Vedic hymns have been informed by a logic of maintaining ecological balance and harmony (Patton 2000, 43). While such a position of animals appears instrumental, Bilimoria and Sridhar remark that in the Vedic period, animals constituted ‘a substratum of utility for, flourishing of human beings and gods’ (Bilimoria and Sridhar 2017, 298). In the Vedic sacrificial context, McClymond (2008) demonstrates the presence of both sacrificial animals and non-animal sacrificial objects – such as vegetal and liquid oblations like soma, milk and ghee – emphasizing that the presence of the vegetal and liquid oblations along with animals is ignored, and therefore, the picture of the Vedic sacrifices is incomplete (McClymond 2008, 20–21). When placed in the context of reading the Vedic sacrifices as a ritualistic mode of maintaining harmony, a complete picture of Vedic sacrifices as a set of rituals involving animal, vegetal and liquid oblations suggests the presence of a total engagement of different ecological products of which animals were just another part, not the main subject. In thinking of the ontology of animals and, more specifically, of the cow in this sacrificial context, Valpey (2020)3 demonstrates how the binaries associated with sacrificial violence and nonviolence are assumed to represent the end of polarities that become apparent in the discourse on cows (Valpey 2020, 57). The presence and signification of cows in the Ṛgveda, its hymns, the Vedic rites and sacrifices, Valpey (2020) remarks, is integral to ‘right living, and such well-being is embodied and sustained in rituals acts of sacrifice’ (Valpey 2020, 19–20). While the cows had a unique status insofar as they embodied and signified cosmic order, wealth and prestige and embodied natural phenomena in maternal principles (Valpey 2020, 19–20), their status in the Vedic texts informs us of the complex meanings of rituals and sacrificial significations, which informed the Vedic society’s view towards animals and the ethics associated with their treatment. In this context, ahiṃ sā is neither an abstraction in the terms we conceive it nor contradicted by the act of sacrificial rite (and any violence involved in it). Instead, it appears to be a principle of harmony with the animals – along with non-animal sacrificial objects – constituting a whole of this ecological worldview. In contrast to the early Vedic texts such as the Ṛgveda, the early śramaṇ a traditions show animals to have a complex relationship with their ethics and practices since the ontology of animals evolved with the changes in the worldview brought by a Buddhist and Jaina opposition to animal sacrifice. In Buddhism, as Ohnuma (2017) observes, animals represent both an ‘unfortunate destiny’ and a role that is still capable of transcending the human realm to a higher divine status (Ohnuma 2017, 18, 26). The animals’ destiny is unfortunate insofar as it renders the possibility of their liberation in their existing bodies impossible, and yet, 265

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the animals are capable of transcending the human world to a higher plane since it is possible for them to realize the path to Buddhahood and be born in higher heaven, even if temporarily, to continue the journey towards liberation (Ohnuma 2017, 34, 40).4 In early Buddhism, animals were not sacrificed on the altar of fire in pursuit of worldly goals or divine satisfaction, and their existence was not strictly instrumental. The world of humans and animals is still distinct as the hierarchy persists in terms of the possibility of soteriological achievement, but such an obstacle can be overcome, as in the case of the elephant Parileyyaka and a monkey who served Buddha in his retreat from the disputes of two disciple factions (Brown 2009; Ohnuma 2017, 141–142). Both the monkey and Parileyyaka are rewarded for their service and devotion to the Buddha and are set on the path to nirvāṇ a through a rebirth in higher planes, which was otherwise hindered by their animal bodies. Simultaneously, the chronicles of Prince Gautama’s horse, Kanthaka, who helped the Buddha-to-be to escape Kapilavastu, demonstrate how animals can display complex emotions and attachments and, upon realizing their limitations in an encounter with the Buddha and rendering service to him, leave their bodies for higher realms (Ohnuma 2017, 102). Shows how such encounters with animals present different idioms of ‘doubling’, especially in the case of Kanthaka, where the horses’ story presents the whole narrative in a sacrificial idiom of the horse giving his life in separation from the prince Siddhārtha (Ohnuma 2017, 99). The significance of animals follows a different trajectory in the early Buddhist suttas than in the Vedas, with the animals’ integration into the life story of the Buddha. On the one hand, the animals reflect Buddha’s status as an enlightened being and the appeal of Buddha’s dhamma beyond the anthropic domain. On the other hand, the animals represent the state of nature, its wilderness and ignorance, which is perhaps a reflection of the human condition without the knowledge and dhamma of Buddha. Moreover, the Buddha’s previous lives as animals – as represented in the Jātakas – were powerful enough to transform the relationship that animals had with humans in the tradition by communicating and making humans question their dhamma and ethics. As we will see, Buddha’s own experiences in animal bodies in previous births and his dialogues with human sovereigns are not only narratives of animals communicating with humans. The animals in Jainism share a similar type of ‘unfortunate’ existence as in Buddhism, as the possibility of liberation only exists in human birth. In Jainism, animals are categorized in a hierarchy of senses, and such taxonomical hierarchy classifies some of the animals with the same number and types of senses as humans; however, only humans possess the ability to meditate and attain self-realization (Dundas 2002, 107).5 With a strong emphasis on the reality of violence and injury as an outcome of everyday existence, the aim of those set on the path of liberation is to minimize violence by practicing ahiṃ sā towards all beings. The existence of animals – even with those sharing the same number of senses as humans – does not make them capable of self-reflection to avoid all forms of violence. However, the animals are capable of empathizing to some degree, as is the case in the parable of ukkahitta, where discourse between Mahāvīra and Prince Megha highlights the previous birth of the prince as an elephant named Merūprabhā, who died in agony to save a rabbit from wildfire (Granoff 2006). The animals in Jainism, therefore, live in a complex eco-moral system, where violence constitutes a part of their reality as much as that of humans, yet those with higher senses possess a degree of discernment to accumulate positive karma and move on to a human birth in the cycle of rebirths (Dundas 2002, 106–107). 266

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The Buddhist and Jaina opposition to the sacrificial rites and practices of animal sacrifice in Brāhmaṇism should not be taken as the sole milieu of animal ethics in the tradition. When thinking of animals in the Brāhmaṇical traditions, the sacrificial rituals are not the only context in which the ethics of ahiṃ sā is conceptualized. The Mahābhārata presents a compelling case of animal and human dialogues and a changing approach to articulating human interaction with animals, eco-moralism and ethics. Howard (2018), tracing representations of animals ‘communicating’ with humans in the Mahābhārata, suggests that rather than perceiving speaking animals in a reductive anthropocentric manner, one could think of ‘god’s choice of animal bodies’ as deliberate and assess how ‘their choice creates a matrix of moral dilemmas in humanity’s interactions with nonhuman animals’ (Howard 2018, 121). In addition, communicating animals are not just sacrificial or utilitarian objects but sentient beings, and interaction with them provokes ethical questions in the context of values of assurance, protection and charity (Howard 2018, 122). Further, in the case of animals in Mahābhārata, Valpey (2020) demonstrates that animals, especially the cows, and ahiṃ sā towards them constitute a central discourse to defining dharma, which is conceptualized in terms of ‘the principles and practices of human well-being’ (Valpey 2020, 23). In different incidences of the Mahābhārata, the cows – from vaśiṣṭha–viśvamitra confrontation over possession of cow nandinī to bhīṣma’s lessons to yudhiṣṭhira – play a role in defining both the social boundaries in the hierarchy of varṇ āśrama dharma through the principle of ‘bovine charity’ along with constituting the ethics of preserving animals through ahiṃ sā (Valpey 2020, 25–28). While the cow is part of an elaborate ecosystem and ‘bovine charity’, other animals are not lost from this scope of dharma that aims to define the protection of all living beings as well as the hierarchies of the human world. Despite an elaborate system of classification, the animal ethics in Jainism overlap with Buddhism to some extent, especially in the domains of rebirth, karmic influences and the impossibility of liberation in the animal body but at the same time, holding a limited ability of self-reflection and realization which accumulates positive karma in their account. In Jainism, however, the eco-moral aspect becomes more complicated with an extended consideration for animals with less than five senses, like ants, wasps, bees and lice, as well as what Jain (2016) calls ‘a broader ecological concern’ (Jain 2016).6 In addition, the Jaina worldview prohibits uprooting plants or any action that causes death or injury to life-forms invisible to the eyes. Therefore, Jainism conceptualizes animals under a unified categorization of jiva (living matter), where suffering is a universal truth – despite different reception of it at each level – and one must avoid inflicting intentional or unintentional suffering and pain towards other living and non-living forms. The development of such considerations has been gradual, and over time, similar changes were reflected in the Brāhmaṇical traditions as well. Bilimoria and Sridhar (2017) discuss late Vedic and Purāṇic texts, where the focus on animals as sacrificial havis or an oblation to fire changed with agrarian productivity and with changes in agrarian production, evolved into a continuous eco-moral concern, where righteousness and not polluting the environment becomes a central, continuing and integrated concern along with the worldly and soteriological concerns (Bilimoria and Sridhar 2017, 302, 305). While observing the developments in animal ethics, it is worth noting that transformation in the interaction of humans with animals is not restricted to evolving theological and philosophical positions but also a result of complex material growth, socio-political changes and the development of dharma/dhamma initiated by these traditions. These socio-political and material changes are not a transformation in productivity from a Marxist and 267

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dialectical-material perspective; instead, in terms of the evolution of human societies in agricultural techniques, state structure, complex hierarchies and a different conception of eco-moralism which includes domesticated herbivores like horses, elephants and cows with urbanization. This eco-moralism is partly a reflection of – as Bilimoria and Sridhar (2017) suggest – changes in the agrarian scenario and the evolution of a worldview around the animals which have been domesticated (Bilimoria and Sridhar 2017). The rise in agricultural productivity, changing social and political structures, and complex hierarchies also change both the meanings of ahiṃ sā and its relationship with animals, eco-moralism and the natural world at large. However, it is also evident in the consideration of the Vedic sacrifices, their animal and non-animal components, as well as Jainism’s comprehensive concern for both jīva and ajīva in the framework of ahiṃ sā, the early traditions may have a common substrate of thought through which they incorporated animals, animal ethics and their status in a broader frame of defining their positions and contours of their conceptions of ahiṃ sā. In this context, we could think of the ideas of rebirth and karmic consequences of intended and unintended violence committed towards other life-forms as crucial to the development of animal ethics in all three traditions. The cyclical notions of rebirth and reincarnation transformed the hermeneutical meaning of being a human, as animals constituted not just a part of the external world of nature but of an internal world as well. The possibility of being an animal again always loomed, prolonging the misery of existence and violence, and therefore, compassion towards animals was compassion towards oneself. The harmony with nature, which Bilimoria and Sridhar (2017) suggest was present in Vedic ritualism, now involved humans in a different role of maintaining harmony through practicing ahiṃ sā beyond just religious spheres in the dietary sphere. The inclusion of animals and consolidation of their sentience in a philosophical worldview had significant consequences, as it radically transformed how they were situated in human society and how their relationship with the human worldview changed fundamentally, i.e., the animals started representing nature and its forces itself, and in turn, became the subjects of the human discourse of compassion rather than the objects of sacrifice. The animals and humans inhabit the same world. They are both sentient, cognizant and physically present and have possibilities of reincarnation in different forms. However, it is this very sentience that drives distinction through the hierarchy: animal existence is more violent and painful than human existence in Buddhism and Jainism. In contrast, a similar idea of sentience that overlaps the worlds of humans and animals together is persistent in the early Brāhmaṇical doctrines. The idea of ātman or the Self that appears as early as the Ṛgveda – and then acquires more complex interpretations in the Upaniṣads and Vedānta – presents a common, underlying substratum that defines the sentience of human and animal existence in the same world. This assertion, however, comes with two interrelated assumptions about humans and animals. First, human and animal birth is a part of the same cycle, and therefore, whoever is an animal today could become a human or vice versa. Second, there is a fundamental distinction between human life-form, its sentience and the ability to perceive the world and that of animals, who constitute similar sentience and ability to perceive, yet are incapable of setting themselves on the path of liberation. Considering Howard’s (2018) reading of animals in the Mahābhārata, where the gods’ choice of animal bodies to communicate and posit an ethical dilemma for humans somewhat distorts the simplified dynamic of animals being unable to self-reflect, the Buddhist and Jaina accounts stand in contrast. With the possibilities of animals becoming nonhuman 268

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or divine entities, by being of service to enlightened masters like Buddha and Mahāvīra – such as in the case of Parileyyaka and Merūprabhā – the Buddhist and Jaina worldview of animals becomes more comprehensive in a sense, that allows animals a transcendence beyond human life – a generous compensation for their suffering and violent existence – while keeping the ontological uniqueness of humans intact. While agreeing with Howard (2018) that such an approach is not necessarily anthropocentric, animals’ distinct ontological positioning helps to re-constitute the centrality of human existence as the only heroic existence, which is capable of transgressing the cycle of birth and death. In other words, some forms may be happier than humans; others may not be – it is a human birth ultimately that has the key to liberation. In short, human existence is almost a form of integrated duality with the rest of the natural world, and such a position has a definitive impact on shaping dietary ethics.

From Animal to Dietary Ethics: Ahiṃ sā and Vegetarianism Dietary ethics is the domain of action where discourses on animal ethics come to fruition in relation to the question of humans’ survival and interaction with nature. It transforms the human relationship with animals not just in terms of acknowledging a complex existence and instrumentality with the animal world but also in a deeper sense of their connection, place, necessity in the human diet, worldly existence and the role of a meat-based and/or vegetarian diet in attaining liberation. Dietary ethics become crucial for considering and conceptualizing animal ethics in practice, where practice determines its status and relationships with human goals in the framework of religious ethics. The status of animal sacrifice and meat consumption in the Vedic, pre-śramaṇ a society has been a matter of debate, mostly appraised by an anachronistic and ahistorical imposition of modern Brāhmaṇical norms of purity and vegetarianism on a long and complicated past (Thapar 1989). While the efforts to reorient a contradictory, meat-consuming Brāhmaṇical society towards a modern conception of a purist, vegetarian upper-caste Hinduism and its political offshoots are underway in political projects, the fact that Vedic and pre-śramaṇ a societies had elaborate rites of animal sacrifice and meat consumption is evident, both textually and archaeologically (Patton 2000; Padma 2020). Animals constituted an integral part of the agrarian and pastoral culture of the Ṛgvedic period, as they were domesticated for agrarian and economic reasons and were also the objects of sacrifice in sacrificial rites, holding both instrumental and deified values. Bilimoria and Sridhar (2017) have suggested that the deification of certain animals could have been a gesture towards the animistic beliefs of the indigenous and non-Aryan groups in the region (Bilimoria and Sridhar 2017). In addition, the presence of paśuyajña, paśubandha, puruṣamedha and gosava, along with the more famous Aśvamedha sacrifices in the Vedic corpus, reflected a highly structured, ritualized and doctrinal norms of the animal instrumentality of the Vedic religions and rituals (Vesci 1992, 103–104). In these rites, animals’ utility is not limited to mere sacrifice but also to consumption upon sacrifice. However, animals were not the sole constituent of the Vedic sacrifices. In looking at the non-animal components of the Vedic sacrifices and reading the Vedic sacrifices through a lens of culinary practice, Malmoud (1996) highlights how vegetal, i.e., grains and liquid, i.e., soma, ghee and milk emerge in the Vedic description of sacrifice and sacrificial rituals. Reading the Vedic sacrifices as not only the act of ritual or violence but ‘…a matter of cooking: it is preparation, sometimes through the combination, but always 269

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through the cooking, of edible substances’ highlights the close interrelation between animal and dietary ethics most aptly (Malmoud 1996, 34). In approaching the Vedic sacrifices through the lenses of culinary practices, Malmoud (1996) offers a broader understanding of both what sacrifice meant and the reasons for their performance, which were beyond simply violence against animals as well as an underlying relationship of humans, gods and animals in dietary terms. The presence of such interrelation highlights how the Vedic sacrifices were not just a distinct matter of ritual and belief but also consumption. In a scenario of complex norms of sacrifice and its relationship with meat consumption in the Brāhmaṇical context, one of the central contentions is – how can a tradition with structured and integral norms of animal sacrifice concomitantly commit to ethics of ahiṃ sā? Could such concepts have been present in the pre-śramaṇ a Brāhmaṇism, or did they evolve in response to the challenge posed by the śramaṇ a doctrines? To what extent is the conception of ahiṃ sā rooted in the practice of vegetarianism? Is it vegetarianism that emerges out of a concern for ahiṃ sā or ahiṃ sā is independent of vegetarian concerns? One of the dominant ideas is that the rise of Buddhism and Jainism – two śramaṇ a traditions that started around the 5th century BCE – against the idea of animal sacrifice and, to a good extent, against the Brāhmaṇical authority, influenced the rise of vegetarianism, and this rejection of the consumption of meat was based on a coherent doctrine of ahiṃ sā. For Bilimoria and Sridhar (2017), it was ‘sudden, or gradual, acceptance of non-injury’, which was linked with the ‘Jain and Buddhist eco-moralism of non-injury/nonviolence’ (Bilimoria & Sridhar 2017, 315). However, Alsdorf (2010) suggested that a conceptualization of ahiṃ sā pre-existed in the Brāhmaṇical texts, and the early Buddhists and Buddha himself consumed ‘meat on numerous occasions when they were invited to the houses of the laity’ (Alsdorf 2010, 4). For Alsdorf (2010), such ethics of ahiṃ sā do not appear to be linked with vegetarianism, which is not present in either early Buddhism or Jainism. However, at stake are the questions of whether ahiṃ sā was extended to include animals, and if so, to what extent did it contest and restrict such ahiṃ sā in everyday practices? In support of this assertion in Buddhism, Bollee (2010) suggests that in the Vinayapiṭaka of the Pali canon, meat eating by monks and the Buddha is often mentioned and presumed to the extent that ‘meat and fish, along with rice boiled in milk, groats, and barley flour, form the solemn and oft-repeated list of the “five (basic) foodstuffs”’ (Bollee 2010, 4). The Buddhist monastic law, however, placed a stronger emphasis on humility over vegetarianism. Humility (vinaya) referred to the idea of being content with what is given and not making any special requests was of prime importance. It was only in this case that the animal was killed for preparing food for monks and nuns when a vegetarian diet could be sought. However, the underlying principle of ahiṃ sā remains an equal concern where a Buddhist monk or nun is not subjected to committing themselves directly or indirectly to violence against animals. Similarly, in the case of Jainism, Alsdorf (2010) highlights a case of the Jaina monks accepting meat in the passages of canonical texts Āyāranga II and Dasaveyāliya and suggests that vegetarianism was not a strict norm among the early Jaina śramaṇ as (Alsdorf 2010, 7–10). The usage of the terms poggala and aṇ imisa – referring to māṃ sa (meat) and machha (fish), respectively – in Āyāranga II as well as in the case of Dasaveyāliya of accepting meat without bones and fishbones is considered as two cases indicating the acceptance of meat among the early period Jaina monks (Alsdorf 2010, 9–10).7 In addition, Alsdorf (2010) also highlights the canonical testimony in viyāhapannatti śataka where the seriously sick Mahāvīra, the historical founder of Jainism, sends one of his disciples to laywoman 270

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Revāi to fetch ‘the cock-meat killed by a cat’ (Alsdorf 2010, 11–12).8 Through avoiding direct or indirect participation in acquiring meat, Mahāvīra – similar to Buddha – appears to be suggesting an ethical position prohibiting monks from avoiding involvement in injury directly or indirectly while also going to the extent of setting the same condition for the layperson. Alsdorf (2010), using both cases, highlights how the conception of ahiṃ sā, while central to the Jaina doctrine, ethics and metaphysics, was not entrenched in the practice of vegetarianism. One of the central arguments for Alsdorf (2010) to suggest that ahiṃ sā as a doctrine pre-existed the rise of śramaṇ a traditions is rooted in its association with dietary practices among the early mendicant circles. However, even when seen in the context of the pre-śramaṇ ic or near-contemporary Brāhmaṇical texts, a similar picture emerges. One of the early Upaniṣads, Chāndogya Upaniṣad, suggested the sacrifice be limited to a specific occasion, where a practitioner is to refrain from violence except for committing a sacrifice in the presence of a worthy person (Olivelle 1998, 286–287). Such an exception aimed at restricting both the domain of ahiṃ sā to everyday life and sacrificial violence to a specific occasion. While not giving any idea about the consumption, such a verse appears either as a contradiction or as a different conception of an eco-moral worldview. Along the lines of seeing such a distinction as a contradiction, Bryant (2006) looks at the possibility of such presence being ‘a passage of diachronic chronological time … with later redactions of the same text prohibiting meat-eating and animal slaughter’ (Bryant 2006, 201). On the other hand, such contradictory positions may be a product of a different worldview of ahiṃ sā that viewed certain sacrificial occasions as a necessity to be in harmony with nature and gods, and occasional, ritualized violence and the rituals of sacrifice were a definitive aspect of such harmony. The latter point can be distinctly seen in complex dietary ethics emerging in Buddhism and Jainism – with both traditions advocating and emphasizing non-injury as a part of their doctrinal worldview. As demonstrated in this chapter, Alsdorf (2010) and Bollee (2010) emphasize the idea that the Buddha and Mahāvīra – as well as their followers – consumed meat while preaching ahiṃ sā towards all beings. What is the impact of such contradictions on dietary ethics and their doctrinal view of animals and animal ethics and ahiṃ sā? When looking at the dietary practices in Buddhism, a very different picture emerges. In the Buddhist ethics of food consumption, we must keep in mind that the monastic rules like vinayapiṭaka are meant to be strictly enforced within the monastic community, but a major part of it is driven by a pragmatic notion of karma and is rooted in the logic of a voluntary undertaking for those outside the monastic community and oath. In the Theravāda tradition, the Buddhist emphasis on ahiṃ sā is that of a pragmatic undertaking, which drives one’s own progress to the soteriological goal of nirvāṇ a. The undertaking of ahiṃ sā is universal but not enforced, provided the absence of a central institution enforcing norms in Buddhism. In addition, the Theravādin notion of a diet does not adhere strictly to vegetarianism but prohibits the consumption of meat in the circumstances where any animal is harmed by either a member of the monastic community or to feed a monk or a nun specifically (Gombrich 2006). However, outside the bounds of the monastic community and regulatory limits of vinaya – where humility trumps vegetarianism – the laypeople can be vegetarian or non-vegetarian depending on their voluntary undertaking. These two conditions are the only exceptions, according to the monastic rule, for not consuming meat. In contrast, the Mahāyāna tradition and their interpretation of the Buddha’s words develop a very different practice. The Mahāyāna tradition of Buddhism 271

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observes nonviolence as one of the fundamental aspects of the Buddhist doctrine and ethics and views vegetarianism as an extension of this view, conceptualizing the link between ahiṃ sā and vegetarianism by constituting an ontology of the sentience of nonhuman living beings. This recognition has two levels. Firstly, the idea of nonhuman living beings is recognized through their potential of ‘Buddhahood’, which is a potential and willingness to attain nirvāṇ a. All sentient beings are not enlightened but have the potential to achieve a human birth, through which they can attain ‘Buddhahood’.9 Secondly, in the Mahāyāna tradition, the possibility of becoming a bodhisattva requires the cultivation of compassion, which is hindered by the consumption of meat, as no matter who kills an animal for consumption, the act in itself requires violence.10 In addition to the fact that both the Theravāda and Mahāyāna traditions follow the same monastic code of conduct, i.e., vinayapiṭaka, a lack of enforcement of such norms, and instead such norms being undertakings, leaves a large interpretive ground on which different suttas supporting both traditions are interpreted (Gombrich 2006, 66). Moreover, while undertakings might be a loser framework to constitute ahiṃ sā in dietary ethics, the notion of karma and the concept of rebirth in both the Buddhist traditions is a necessary factor for considering a dietary choice of vegetarianism and/or allowance for meat eating. In the Mahāyāna tradition, one of the reasons for not consuming meat appears to be the fact that the meat consumed could be from someone who is a bodhisattva or an individual’s own relative in a previous or upcoming birth. In conclusion, while ethics are not enforceable, the undertakings of ahiṃ sā function on the grounds of a pragmatic and consequential understanding of karma, one’s own desire to attain nirvāṇ a or be a boddhisattva, and not engaging in the act of violence. In the case of both Theravāda and Mahāyāna traditions, the framework of ethics does not constitute a total prohibition or a complete disavowal of meat eating on the grounds of ahiṃ sā, unless done so with intent. As the idea of suffering was an essential part of existence in the Buddhist worldview, Jainism saw existence at large embroiled and mired with violence of different kinds. This violence, for Mahāvīra – the twenty-fourth tīrthaṅkara (lit. ford-maker) of Jaina thought and its historical founder – was structured in the domain of everyday life activities and produced bad karma, resulting in the suffering of both the other and the self (Dundas 2002, 97). Therefore, a strong set of ethics was mandated to observe actions to avoid external and internal injuries. Consequentialist in nature, the Jaina ethics do not have a strict separation of action with intention. Unlike the Buddhists, who emphasized the primacy of intentions over action, the Jaina thought conceptualized both intentions and actions to be equal and valid causalities. In other words, an action committed with or without intention generates violence and negative karmic influences and, therefore, must be guarded against. Moreover, a commitment to vegetarianism in Jainism is a matter that  goes beyond an ascetic undertaking and applies to all as a duty (Dundas 2002, 176–177). One of the reasons underlying the strict prescription of diets in Jainism is a stringent commitment to ahiṃ sā in all aspects of life, and therefore, the dietary ethics strongly recommend avoiding anything that causes violence in even the most rudimentary form. As discussed in the previous section of this chapter, animal ethics in Jainism conceptualize a hierarchy based on the senses. This hierarchy is crucial not just in placing animals (and plants) in the world vis-à-vis humans but also in conceptualizing dietary ethics vegetarianism and rooting the practice in a broader ethical commitment to nonviolence. However, it becomes complicated with early Jainism as the early Jaina ascetics consumed meat and had 272

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a similar ethical approach to meat consumption as the Buddhists (Alsdorf 2010, 13; Dundas 2002, 177), which suggested that meat can be consumed unless it is not killed for and not killed by the monks, specifically (Bollee 1977, 63; Oberlies 1997, 195). In a way, the values of ahiṃ sā are committed to in early Jainism by emphasizing a similar consequentialist view of ethics. However, over a time period, and with doctrinal developments in both the Digambara and Śvetāmbara traditions, a commitment to vegetarianism and ahiṃ sā emerges in a more absolute but still consequentialist sense. When considering the concept of compassion and its centrality in defining animal and dietary ethics in the early Mahāyāna and Jaina traditions, an ethical commitment to ahiṃ sā is deontological insofar as it is an absolute and unconditional necessity for realizing the soteriological goals. However, Jainism and Mahāyāna Buddhism differ on the point of how violence is committed and how violence can be committed, with Jainism emphasizing the equality of intentions and actions in contrast to the Mahāyāna perspective, which emphasizes the primacy of intention. Considering developments in animal and dietary ethics in Buddhism and Jainism, the commitment to ahiṃ sā and vegetarianism can be understood in terms of their anti-sacrificial positionality. By removing themselves as a subject involved in the process of sacrifice in both actions and intentions, the Buddhist and Jaina ethics chart this distinction in a consequential manner. Since any form of sacrifice requires a subject’s commitment in both actions, i.e., to commit sacrifice and intentions, i.e., why and for whom is the sacrifice performed, the method of obtaining meat by involving in animal sacrifice in any way, would endanger the fundamental premise of Buddhist and Jaina ahiṃ sā. If actions and intentions in violence are absent, the Buddhist and the Jaina practitioner become the third person who is removed from the process of violence and, therefore, not committing to either sacrifice or violence involved in the sacrificial rites. In this light, the eco-moral outcomes of the Buddhist and Jaina practices are what Brāhmaṇism is committed to regardless of its commitment to remain in conformity with the Vedic traditions. As Bilimoria and Sridhar (2017) pointed out, changes in sacrificial oblation in Brāhmaṇism were perhaps a product of changes in agrarian productivity (Bilimoria and Sridhar 2017). However, even with these changes, the ethics of sacrifice – which were opposed by early Buddhist and Jaina practitioners – remain in Brāhmaṇism. Therefore, the eco-moral impact of Buddhism and Jainism on the Brāhmaṇical rituals – given the Brāhmaṇical persistence in committing sacrifice, even if animals as sacrificial objects, are replaced by agrarian produce – does not appear to be direct and causal, as the process of committing sacrifice remains similar and against the Buddhist and Jaina ethical norms. The shifts to vegetarianism in these traditions, however, can be understood with an interesting parallel. The contemporary Western discourse on vegetarianism and veganism posits a commitment to animal rights in a secular-liberal sense and requires the human behaviour that constitutes cruelty against animals to be ‘outlawed’. In such pursuit, the animals themselves are assumed in two ways: first, they are sentient, and second, they are a part of nature whose treatment reflects the processes of human societal, philosophical and ethical development. Such positing, however, appears in the Buddhist and Jaina doctrinal positions to some extent. As we see in the case of the Buddhist and Jaina discourses, the animals are subjects of compassion due to their own status as sentient beings, and it is their treatment by humans that must be transformed in light of both worldly ethics and soteriological goals. The modern animal rights movement is a response to hyper-productivism, slaughterhouses, systemic exploitation and killing of animals mainly for meat and contains an 273

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element of ecological and health concerns too. However, both the modern perspectives and the early śramaṇ a traditions share a fundamental ethical commitment, i.e., the subject must divorce from the process of violence. While such a distance may not resolve the problems in the world around, it certainly absolves an individual of the responsibility of direct involvement in the process. But the major difference from the early traditions is in terms of the acceptance of meat on two conditions if the animal is not killed by oneself or not killed for oneself. However, an absolute abstention from eating meat appears in the Indian traditions – specifically, in Hindu-Brāhmaṇism and Jainism – and a similar absolute commitment is apparent in the modern movements as well. A look at the modern processes and shifts in the discourse on vegetarianism in the West is another plausible way to imagine the shifts and their reasons in the early traditions towards an absolute abstention from meat eating, along with the Brahminical, Buddhist and Jaina ethics and their relation to the material changes in dietary ethics.

Conclusion: The Boundaries of Ethics, Traditions and Times In their contribution to Indian ethics, Bilimoria and Sridhar (2017) argued that a sudden acceptance of non-injury in the Brāhmaṇical traditions was a product of Buddhist and Jaina eco-moralism (Bilimoria and Sridhar 2017). However, a detailed consideration of eco-moralism, animal and dietary ethics in the early Brāhmaṇical, Buddhist and Jaina traditions reveals that all three traditions and their eco-moral conceptions held similar contradictions in the early period. While opposed to animal sacrifice, meat consumption in the early Buddhist and Jaina periods did not distort their relationship with either animal or their own goals but produced a distinct hermeneutical engagement with the forces of nature that was distinct to the relationship that the early Vedic societies had. Instead, one of the central aspects of the Jaina and Buddhist compassion towards animals resulted from their active – both in terms of actions and intentions – disengagement from the direct relationship of committing violence towards animals. The new ontologies related to animals evolve with hermeneutical transformations in humans’ relationship with nature, the expansion of laity and the development of norms that defined the duties of asceticism in distinction. In early Buddhism, as Bollee (2010) remarks, in some instances, vegetarianism was explicitly discarded or declared unnecessary under ‘certain conditions’ (Bollee 2010, 4–5). The notion of ahiṃ sā, while present in Buddhism and Jainism in a consequential form, evolves to conceptualize vegetarianism and different soteriological considerations define borders and boundaries between these traditions. The development of vegetarianism was a gradual process that required the development of the concepts of compassion, a new ontology of animals, their placement in worldly (and heavenly) hierarchies, and an ultimate acceptance of their sentience and initialization of their suffering.

Notes 1 The paper ‘Animal Justice and Moral Mendacity’ is reprinted in a slightly revised version in this volume, see Chapter 19. Since my access is to the 2018 paper, the references in this discussion are to the 2018 paper. 2 Brāhmaṇism, Buddhism and Jainism are traditions with extreme complexity and diversity of thoughts, views and positions in themselves. When using these terms, the author understands the degree of generalization that they carry. However, when discussing complex issues such as animal

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You Are What You Eat ethics and dietary ethics, it becomes important to consider these traditions in a broader and categorical sense, given their shared positions on ethics. 3 See also Kenneth Valpey’s ‘Yoga as Therapeutic Animal Ethics’. Chapter 18, in this volume. 4 The concept of ‘heavens’ in the Indian Buddhist cosmos – and to a similar extent, in Jainism – especially, the Theravāda and Mahāyāna Buddhism is unique in many ways. The heavens in Buddhism are a part of saṃ sāra or the illusionary world, and therefore, any existence in them, while a product of good karma, is not permanent. Since it is a part of saṃ sāra, the ideal is to escape the cycle of birth and death. In the context of animals and their rebirths in the heavenly realm, the realm often described is that of the Trāyastriṃ śa heaven, which is the second-lowest of 26 heavens and is in the realm of desire or the Kāmadhātu (Ohnuma 2017, 35). The higher realms of the heavens are rūpa and arūpya dhātu heavens, which require the cultivation of transit states (Ohnuma 2017, 35). Such a hierarchy and animal’s positions through rebirths in these heavens show the status of animals in the Indian Buddhist imagination. 5 Jain (2016) highlights that the concept of ahiṃ sā in Jainism is rooted in its metaphysics, which despite a hierarchy of senses, believes in the qualitative equality of all sentient beings as the multitude of embodied jīvas. The only difference exists in the level of consciousness that each being exudes (Jain 2016, 10). 6 Jain (2016) remarks that in Jainism, the classification of jiva (living matter) and ajiva (non-living matter) is instrumental to determining both the contours of violence and the nature of suffering, encompassing a broader view of living and non-living forces, and thereby, constituting a ‘broader ecological concern’. The non-living matter never causes violence by itself, and violence caused by non-living forces is either caused by their use by jiva or through phenomena like earthquakes, floods and so on, which are unintentional but cause suffering. In the case of jiva or living matter, the perception and reception of suffering are determined through the life force and senses they have. In other words, the higher the number of senses, the more suffering they may feel. Regardless of this hierarchy, Jainism propagates the idea of avoiding suffering to jiva with any number of senses in all possible ways (Jain 2016, 63). 7 In both the cases of Āyāranga II and Dasaveyāliya, these translations of poggala and aṇ imisa are contested and have been subjects of controversy. For a detailed account of these controversies and contested translations, please see the discussion in Alsdorf (2010, 7–10). 8 The translations of this episode from viyāhapannatti śataka is also rooted in controversy where Mahāvīra’s use of ‘kavoya, majjāra and kukkuḍa do not signify a pigeon, a cat and a cock, but stand for kuṣmāṇ ḍa, vāyū-viśeṣa or vīralikā (a form of vegetation) and bīja-pūraka respectively’ (Alsdorf 2010, 13). Provided ‘idiosyncratic features’, which are a part of the story; however, Alsdorf (2010) positions himself against the historical authenticity of this story (Alsdorf 2010, 12). For a detailed and in-length discussion on the controversy, contestation and historicity of this story, please see Alsdorf (2010, 12–15). 9 The concept of Tathāgata-garbha or Buddha-dhātu has an important place in the Mahāyāna ethics. It is the element that is present in every being – akin to conscience/innate goodness – which does not provide an individual or being carte blanche to commit evil acts. In the Mahāyāna ethics, this innate element is the reason given against animal slaughter and meat consumption and is demonstrated in the case of Aṅgulimālīya. For detailed reading, see (Hodge 2011) 10 Boddhisattva is an ideal in the Mahāyāna Buddhism, which represents a being who has attained bodhicitta or resolve-to-be-liberated and is ethically motivated to liberate and commit to the well-being of all beings (Onians 2002). The way that Mahāyāna solves the ethical problems is by insisting on skillful means (upāya) and insight (prajñā) almost in a utilitarian way, ensuring the greater good over the ethics which are otherwise considered not permitted in the context of Buddhism (Onians 2002).

References Alsdorf, Ludwig. 2010. “The History of Vegetarianism and Cow-Veneration in India.” In The History of Vegetarianism and Cow-Veneration in India, edited by William Bollee, translated by Bal Patil, 1–74. New York: Routledge Publishers. Bilimoria, Purushottama. 2018. “Animal Justice and Moral Mendacity.” Sophia 57: 53–67.

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Nishant Upadhyay Bilimoria, Purushottama, and M. K. Sridhar. 2017 (2007). “Animal Ethics and Ecology in Classical India - Reflections on a Moral Tradition.” In Indian Ethics: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges, edited by Purushottam Bilimoria, Joseph Prabhu and Renuka Sharma, 297–328. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge (2007 edition: Ashgate, U.K., and Oxford University Press, Delhi). Bollee, William. 1977. Studien zum Sūyagaḍa: Tiel 1. Weisbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. ———. 2010. “Contributions to the History of Vegetarianism and Cow Veneration in India.” In The History of Vegetarianism and Cow-Veneration in India, edited by William Bollee, 1–75. New York: Routledge. Brown, Robert. 2009. “Telling the Story in Art of the Monkey’s Gift of Honey to the Buddha.” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, vol. 23: 43–52. Bryant, Edwin. 2006. “Strategies of Vedic Subversion: Emergence of Vegetarianism in Post-Vedic India.” In A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics, edited by Paul Waldau and Kimberley Patton, 194–206. New York: Columbia University Press. Doniger, Wendy. 2006. “A Symbol in Search of an Object: The Mythology of Horses in India.” In A Communion of Subject: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics, edited by Paul Waldau and Kimberley Patton, 335–350. New York: Columbia University Press. Dundas, Paul. 2002. The Jains, Second. New York: Routledge. Gombrich, Richard F. 2006. Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benaras to Modern Colombo, Second. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Granoff, Phyllis. 2006. The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden: An Anthology of Medieval Jain Stories. London: Penguin Books, UK. Hodge, Stephen. 2011. The English Translation of Excerpts from the Angulimaliya Sutra: Tathagatagarbha Buddhism. Accessed April 12, 2021. https://bit.ly/322XPlU Howard, Veena R. 2018. “Lessons from ‘The Hawk and the Dove’: Reflections on the Mahābhārata’s Animal Parables and Ethical Predicaments.” Sophia 57 (1): 119–131. Jain, Sulekh C. 2016. An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide. Jaipur: Prakrit Bharati Academy. Malmoud, Charles. 1996. Cooking the World: Ritual and Thought in Ancient India. London: Oxford University Press. McClymond, Kathryn. 2008. Beyond Sacred Violence: A Comparative Study of Sacrificial Violence. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Oberlies, T. 1997. “Neuer Wein in Altern Schläuchen? Zur Geschichte des buddhistischen Ordensregeln.” Bulletin d’Études Indiennes 171–204. Ohnuma, Reiko. 2017. Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Olivelle, Patrick. 1998. The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. Translated by Patrick Olivelle. New York: Oxford University Press. Onians, Isabelle. 2002. Tantric Buddhist Apologetics, or Antinomianism as a Norm. Accessed 2021. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.270455 Padma, T. V. 2020. New Evidence of Indus Valley Civilisation’s Mixed Diet Including Pig, Buffalo Meat. Accessed April 12, 2021. https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/new-evidence-of-indusvalley-civilisations-mixed-diet-including-pig-buffalo-meat/#:~:text=Archaeologists%20have%20 previously%20found%20remains,water%20buffaloes%2C%20sheep%20and%20goats Patton, Laurie L. 2000. “Viniyogavijñāna: The Uses of Poetry in Vedic Ritual.” International Journal of Hindu Studies 4 (3): 237–260. Thapar, Romila. 1989. “Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity.” Modern Asian Studies 23 (2): 209–231. Valpey, Kenneth R. 2020. Cow Care in Hindu Animal Ethics. London: Palgrave Macmillan Publishers. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-030-28408-4.pdf Vesci, Uma Marina. 1992. Heat and Sacrifice in the Vedas. Delhi: Motilal Banarasidas.

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21 NATURE AND HUMANS IN THE 21ST CENTURY Some Reflections Manoranjan Mohanty

Three Stories: Towards a Narrative of Ethics It was Patia, our occasional helper in my school days in Ranpur, Odisha, who scolded me one evening as he used to do often as much as he loved me. My fault was that I was plucking the white jasmine flowers to make a garland for Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations the next morning. He said flowers and plants too had their own life, and they go to sleep in the evening. So, it is a crime – he actually explicated ‘paapa’, literally sinful demerit – to hurt them while they are asleep. I cannot forget that lesson in ecology. That was a time when I was rebelling against many ‘superstitions’ in our society, and I had considered ‘not plucking flowers at night’ as one such blind practice. In fact, I have found Patia and later many other gardeners and plant-lovers having conversations with plants, patting them, even kissing some – not fearing allergic reactions which would put many of us off from touching them. The second is an amazing family story. This grand aunt of mine – the wife of my grandfather’s younger brother – was doing something every morning that had me intrigued for years after I had noticed it. She was offering flowers and tulsi (Indian basil leaves) with water at the bottom of a tree to the east side of our house in the village. I thought it was the usual morning prayer that women and many men offered to the sun god in coastal Odisha (earlier spelt as Orissa) after taking a bath. Only when I had gone to college and was fit for mature conversations with my parents did I learn from them that that grand aunt was my granduncle’s fourth wife. They told me the full story then. The first two wives had died, one from cholera and another from a difficult childbirth. They each left behind one child who needed care. According to local practice, my granduncle was advised to marry a ‘sahara tree’, and then, after a few days, he was married to ‘Haramoni’. This grand ‘aunt’ of mine lived till the age of almost 90. The marriage to the ‘sahara tree’ was conducted according to the Vedic rites by a Brahmin priest, with the villagers enjoying the usual wedding feast. The tree was nurtured with water and trimming. Its thin stems are used as the best toothbrush for villagers even now. I know people who refuse to use plastic toothbrushes even now and carry bundles of small stems of sahara. That a human being could marry a tree was quite a thought! The nature of the bond 277

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between humans and nature is clearly a deep mutual relationship of a unity of life force rather than a show of human ability to conquer nature. The third instance is actually a story from a book of short stories written by my wife, Bidyut Mohanty (1998). (I decided to use its wonderful theme and present it unabashedly.) The title story, Pulaanga, is the name of a big tree. It goes like this. The story’s protagonist, Avinash, who works for UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme) after gaining a degree in environmental engineering in the United States, becomes keen to arrest deforestation in his native village so as to stem global warming. Thus, he takes a truckload of eucalyptus saplings from a farm in the state capital, Bhubaneswar and proceeds ahead of the truck in his UN van. As soon as he arrives in the village, he goes straight to the orchard area and asks for the orchard keeper, who is a Dalit. The Dalit person, named Gandua, is excited to see the young sahib after nearly two decades have passed. Hearing about the purpose of Avinash’s visit, the Dalit asks him to first have a drink of green coconut, and then he would take him around to find a place for the saplings. After sipping the coconut water, which was famous in the area for its fulsome size and a rare taste of natural sweetness, Avinash is escorted by Gandua, who explains to him the name and value of tree after tree. Avinash is still not convinced by the orchard keeper’s plea that every tree or plant has great economic, social and cultural value. Be they the coconut trees, the mangoes of many varieties, jackfruit, cane or even the huge chakunda or nidrawati trees, which covered with its shade a large chunk of the orchard space. ‘Why can’t you chop off the chakunda?’ asked Avinash. ‘No, Babu, we can’t fell it’ said Gandua. ‘It’s big branches are earmarked for each elderly member of your family. The last cut that you see there was done when your grandfather passed away, and the wood was used to cremate him at the village cremation ground’. ‘What about that long row of pulanga trees?’, asserted Avinash, ‘they have absolutely no use’. ‘No, you are mistaken, Babujee, their seeds are crushed by the local oil-crusher to provide the year’s oil supply for the puja room, the Bhagabat ghar. Its leaves are dried to provide fuel during the four months of rainy season when the wood is wet. Its timber, though of inferior quality compared to teak, is better than chakunda is also used’. Avinash was stunned by self-pity about all his environmental engineering education. The orchard has remained green and full with generations of wisdom shaping its plant wealth and the Dalit’s labour. It reflected the result of not only care, maintenance and nurturing but was backed by sound ecological theory. The wise Gandua was confident about his knowledge. The story has many more interesting details than what I can possibly recount. Renewable energy, as well as regenerative ecology, were all in evidence right in that orchard. You could experience, if you have the right mind, that nature and the humans are in each other’s lap, in a close hug. I can end narratives here, but let me offer my reflection briefly.

Ending 300 Years’ Notion of Development In the 300 years following the birth of the European Enlightenment, the dominant philosophy of science embedded in the capitalist industrial revolution has treated the history of civilization as ‘man’s conquest over nature’. Accordingly, it conceived development as the maximal use of the knowledge of science and technology, albeit increasingly to exploit natural resources – the overground and underground resources – for its markets around the 278

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world and to garnish profit, ostensibly for the benefit of humans. Colonialism propagated that notion of development bridled to the concept of science. Presenting a critique of that notion, Gandhi said that nature provides enough for everyone’s needs but not everyone’s greed. Even Marx’s critique of capitalism was seen by most Marxists as saying that capitalism had to be overthrown in order to realize the full potential of the Industrial Revolution. This view has to be recast for the 21st century, in which freedom, equality, selfdetermination and sustainability are the central values undergirding all development. Many Marxists have now realized that the problem with capitalism was not that it merely created obstacles toward the full development of productive forces, including the productivity of labour, but rather it engendered alienation at many different levels and led to the destruction of natural resources in pursuit of profit. Thus capitalism has continuously denied freedom to humankind and instead exploits humans (in terms of labour, markets and denials of access to basic necessities and capabilities) and plunders nature (for its depleting resources). Today, for example, in Africa, the multinational manufacturers and distributors of a variety of food items based in the West write up the agreements (on the model of the Monsanto non-bilateral – ironically called – ‘terminator’ agreements, or what the ecological activist Vandana Shiva calls ‘food totalitarianism’) whereby the control and dispersal of basic food items are handed over to (or bought over by) the multinationals. The food stocks (especially agricultural produce from local farmers, including coffee beans for Starbucks) are then readily and ‘legally’ transferred to better profit-making megamarkets in other regions or globally, or if the market is not lucrative enough, allowed to rot in silos and warehouses and eventually dumped. From man-made famines, capitalist imperialism now moved with heavy machinery into humanmade food insecurity and basically starvation. Hence, by way of response to such global crises, liberals recognize the demand for self-determination of oppressed nationalities and groups. They argue that the latter’s claims to local natural resources are legitimate, yet they themselves fail to fulfil those claims – and in some instances, undermine them. Much discontent and discord are thereby unleashed. The accumulated discontent leads to nonviolent protests and, at times, an outbreak of violent protest and, sadly, terrorist plots. Thus, the new concept of development in the twentieth century is that the process of transformation has not only to be materially productive but also socially equitable, politically participative and ecologically sustainable.

From Conquest Mentality to Partnership between Nature and Humans The crying need is to accept, in fact, recover the notion of cosmic unity that human knowledge constantly encounters in its exploration of nature. All human knowledge through the millennia has been about discovering laws of nature and society, norms and lessons from the application of those laws and discovering the limits of existing knowledge. Thus, while we rejoice with every new discovery, we should also be humble about how little humans know about nature and society. Again, the triumphalism that Enlightenment sciences, the capitalist industrial revolution in general and capitalism under the globalization process exhibited from time to time created many false structures of knowledge. Indigenous knowledge systems were derided as inferior knowledge systems of ‘uncivilized’ peoples or regions. As a result of this knowledge domination by colonialism, humanity lost many valuable traditions of people’s knowledge. Thus, the history of civilization has to be seen as a history of human exploration of nature and society in the process of seeking timely transformation of society. From the conquest mentality that exploited nature, we ought to be moving 279

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towards an explorative, participative and partnership outlook. From the colonial assertion that those who had material power, such as capital and technology, had a right to venture to any part of the world as they did under colonialism and now under neoliberal globalization, we must move towards a world where local people connected deeply to their environment retain a legitimate right to their material and cultural resources which they can choose to share only on mutually agreed terms.

Spirit of Things The material basis of this understanding of nature and humans is observation and experience of the practice of production and culture. All this is based on historical knowledge of natural and social sciences but also on the realization of the limits of knowledge. That is why the quest is to discover the spirit of things or the meaning of a thing thus far known and realize that much may not be known about the potentiality and implication of a particular thing. This is especially so when things are seen in relationship with other things: that flowers have feelings or the sahara tree is in partnership with my granduncle, whom I had not known for a long while. The world of knowledge of Gandua’s orchard makes sense only when Avinash is transported to a partnership moment after drinking the green coconut water.

Reference Mohanty, Bidyut. 1998. Pulaanga. Calicut. Odisha Writers Samaj.

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PART III

Engaged Ethics and Ecofeminism

22 DHARMA MORALITY AS VIRTUE ETHICS* Nicholas F. Gier

By the term dharma … I understand nothing short of moral virtue. Bimal Krishna Matilal (2002, 50)

Alaisdair MacIntyre, the philosopher who has done the most to reintroduce virtue ethics, argues that utilitarianism cannot distinguish between the clear qualitative difference between the internal value of the virtues and the extrinsic value of ordinary pleasures, a difference crucial to what is called ‘character consequentialism’. Whereas it is virtually impossible to do the hedonic calculus for ordinary pains and pleasures, there is no question about the long-term good consequences of the virtues and good character, as compared to the long-term pain that the vices bring. This means that attempts, such as Michael Slote’s gallant effort, at founding the value of the virtues on their own grounds fail because one cannot deny that the virtues were preferred very early in human social development, primarily because of their good consequences (Slote 1992). In my book The Virtue of Nonviolence: From Gautama to Gandhi (Gier 2004), I proposed that Buddhist morality be conceived as virtue ethics roughly similar to Aristotle and his doctrine of the mean (though without teleology). Also, I interpreted Gandhi’s ethics of nonviolence from a virtue perspective; but I was not sure, especially since Gandhi had so many non-Indian influences, if this would apply to any other aspect of the Indian tradition. Reading the collection of Bimal Krishna Matilal’s essays on Ethics and Epics was just the breakthrough that I needed to think about a more general dharma virtue ethics that includes Hinduism and Buddhism (Matilal 2002; See also, Bilimoria et al. 2014; Davis 2014; Bilimoria, Prabhu, Sharma 2017a: 40–41; Chapple 2017: 217–229) Following an aesthetics of virtue, I will propose that the virtues are personal creations that are, as Aristotle *  This chapter began as a review of Matilal’s Ethics and Epics in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (June, 2003), and then rewritten, without the third section, as ‘Toward a Hindu Virtue Ethics’ in Contemporary Issues in Constructive Dharma, eds. R. D. Sherma and A. Deepak (Hampton, VA: Deepak Heritage Books, 2005), vol. 2, pp. 151–162. The first two sections are adapted from my 2004 monograph, The Virtue of Nonviolence. The chapter has been updated and included with permission.

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maintains, ‘relative to us’, and I also suggest that deontological or utilitarian readings of the ethics of the Hindu epics are not always supported. In the first section, I will discuss the different roles that rules and virtues play in our moral lives, and I will demonstrate that the virtues have axiological priority. The second section will present the outlines of virtue aesthetics in Gandhi. In the third section, I will demonstrate that dharma is best interpreted as virtue rather than duty. Drawing heavily on Matilal in the fourth section, I argue that there are good reasons to read portions of the Hindu epics as virtue ethics (Matilal 2017). Matilal offers some wonderful insights about the true nature of karma, and in the fifth section, I combine these with my own thoughts about Buddhism to offer a non-fatalistic interpretation of the motto ‘character is destiny’.

Rules and Virtues When one thinks of the question, ‘Which came first – moral rules or virtues?’ the obvious answer, I contend, is that virtues came first. Moral imperatives are abstractions from thousands of years of observing loyal, honest, patient, just and compassionate behaviour, just as moral prohibitions have come from equally ancient experiences with the vices. Philosopher Leslie Stephen describes virtue ethics as follows: ‘Morality is internal. The moral law … has to be expressed in the form, “be this,” not in the form “do this.” … The true moral law says “hate not,” instead of “kill not.” … The only mode of stating the moral law must be as a rule of character’ (Stephen 1990: 114). In other words, people of good character and virtue require no reminder of what the rules are or what their duty is. For John Stuart Mill, the application of internal sanctions had much more moral value than the imposition of external sanctions, those that are most often used by parents and societies to control human behaviour. Mill’s argument is persuasive: a society of mature virtues would require few police, judges and prisons, thereby maximizing utility and supporting character consequentialism. Generally speaking, the sanctions for virtue ethics are internal and self-regulating, whereas the sanctions for rule ethics, especially in its popular religious form, are external. For the Greeks, the Roman Stoics and Buddhists, virtue is its own reward, but popular Christianity appears to have made the incentive for good deeds eternal life in heaven, with damnation for those who do not follow the rules. One of the problems with rule ethics is applying the rules to specific cases. The imperatives of virtue ethics – be patient, be kind, be generous, be compassionate, be courageous – better equip an individual to negotiate the obstacles of the moral life. The virtue ethics approach is not to follow a set of abstract rules but to develop an ensemble of behaviours, dispositions and qualities that lead to human flourishing and the good life. Virtue ethics may not have pat answers to specific cases – no ethical theory could offer this – but it does prepare the moral agent for adaptation, innovation and self-discovery. Martha Nussbaum, a major proponent of virtue ethics, states, ‘The good agent must therefore cultivate the ability to perceive and correctly describe his or her situation finely and truly, including in this perceptual grasp even those features of the situation that are not covered under the existing rule’ (Nussbaum 1988: 44). Aristotle’s practical reason is the ability to perceive ‘finely and truly’ any situation, whereas Buddhists would call it the virtue of mindfulness.

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Virtue Aesthetics in Gandhi Most Euro-American philosophy has unfortunately severed the time-honoured connections between truth, goodness and beauty. A Chinese poet of the Book of Odes conceives of moral development as similar to the manufacture of a precious stone. At birth, we are like uncut gems, and we have an obligation to carve and polish our potential in the most beautiful ways possible. The ren person is a work of fine art, something wholly unique and distinctive. Whereas the craft potter takes thousands of mugs from the same mould, the ceramic sculptor makes one singular work. Although he was not at all as active in the arts as Confucius, Gandhi is committed to the same ancient unity of truth, goodness and beauty. More so than Confucius, Gandhi is committed to prioritizing truth: ‘Truth is the first thing to be sought for, and Beauty and Goodness will then be added unto you’ (Gandhi 1930: 386). Gandhi’s focus was also more on the inner beauty of the pure heart rather than natural or artistic beauty. ‘Purity of life is the highest and truest art. … The art of producing good music from a cultivated voice can be achieved by many, but the art of producing that music from the harmony of a pure life is achieved very rarely’ (Gandhi 1938: 10). Confucius would certainly have agreed with this statement. Gandhi rejected the concept of art for art’s sake and its amoral aestheticism, and there is no question that Confucius would have agreed with the proposition that art must be an ally of the good life or it loses its value. While in England, Gandhi experienced the controversy surrounding Oscar Wilde, and he joined Wilde’s critics with the charge that he was guilty of ‘beautifying immorality’ (Gandhi 1924a: 377). Gandhi may have subordinated beauty to both truth and goodness so as to forestall any philosophy of life that would place the acquisition of artworks before the basic needs of the people. Gandhi believed that for the masses to appreciate beauty, it must come through truth. ‘Show them Truth first and they will see beauty afterwards. Whatever can be useful to those starving millions is beautiful to my mind. Let us give today the vital things of life and the graces and ornaments of life will follow’ (Gandhi 1924b: 386). In this passage, Gandhi’s passion for justice appears to have led him to reduce beauty to utility. Gandhi, however, has a more sophisticated aesthetics in mind, one in which form follows function, one that is manifested in the exquisitely beautiful and simple Shaker furniture. Gandhi relates asceticism to aesthetics in the following way: ‘Asceticism is the highest art. For what is art but beauty in simplicity and what is asceticism if not the loftiest manifestation of simply beauty in daily life, shorn of artificialities and make-believe? That is why I always say that the true ascetic, not only practices art but lives it’ (Gandhi 1969: 69). In a personal conversation with Gandhi’s grandson Ramachandra, a creative writer and philosopher in his own right, he described the way that Gandhi led his daily prayer services as a form of minimalist art. Gandhi once asked a disciple if a ‘woman with fair features was necessarily beautiful?’ The initial affirmative answer was quickly withdrawn when Gandhi followed with, ‘[E]ven if she may be of an ugly character?’ (1924a: 377). For Gandhi, beauty is always ‘an index of the soul within’. He also observed that although they say that Socrates was not a handsome man, ‘to my mind he was beautiful because all his life was striving after Truth’ (ibid.). Kirti Singh has remarked that Gandhi was perhaps as ugly as Socrates, ‘yet there was a rare spiritual beauty that shone in his face’ (1994: 136, n3). This is a moral beauty that comes from the courage of being true to one’s self and being true to others. Gandhi’s virtue

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aesthetics is best summed up in this passage: ‘Life must immensely excel all the parts put together. To me the greatest artist is surely he who lives the finest life’ (ibid.: 135).

Dharma: Duty or Virtue? The Sanskrit word dharma is generally understood as strict duty, a set of obligations by which all good Hindus, Jains and Buddhists must live. But, even with this traditional understanding, there are important distinctions that are sometimes overlooked. Brahmins, for example, have different duties than vaiśyas do, and the Jain householder and the Buddhist layperson have less strict obligations than the monks. Beyond the relativism of caste duty, there is also the fact that different virtues will be required for each of the aśramas, and, furthermore, a particular virtue dominates each of the cosmic ages. In most instances, caste duties are explained as virtues, as in this list for brahmins: ‘Assiduous work, the bridling of the passions, compassion, liberality, truthfulness, … discipline, generosity, righteousness, … [and] wisdom’ (via Arokiasamy 1986: 25). This dharmic virtue ethics is further explained by the development of character traits (lakṣaṇ a) by which a person’s virtues can be known. In the Vanaparva of the Mahābhārata, King Nahuṣa asks Yudhiṣth ̣ ira what dharma is, and he defines it as the virtues of truthfulness, generosity, forgiveness, goodness, kindness, self-control and compassion (via Matilal 2017: 83). Going completely against caste determinism, Yudhiṣth ̣ ira contends that a śūdra having these qualities would actually be a brahmin, and if a brahmin lacks them, he would be a śūdra. Some passages of The Laws of Manu define dharma as customs, not duty. The righteous king ‘should ordain (as law) whatever may be the usual custom of good, religious twice-born men, if it does not conflict with (the customs of) countries, families, and castes’ (Manu 8:46, Doniger and Smith 1999: 156). The king was to honour local custom even though it might contravene smṛti. This analysis supports the theory that laws are indeed abstracted from customs and the practice of the virtues, and only if this axiological priority was honoured could healthy flexibility and tolerance of different customs and virtues flourish. Stanley Tambiah discovered this type of moral polity in ancient Sri Lanka: ‘The polities modeled on maṇḍala-type patterning had central royal domains surrounded by satellite principalities and provinces replicating the center on a smaller scale and at the margins had even more autonomous tributary principalities’ (Tambiah 1992: 175). Tambiah gives this type of polity the engaging name ‘pulsating galactic polities’, and he believes that this form of political organization is better at integrating minorities and respecting their customs. Rather than being abstract and deontological, dharma is, as Paul Häcker proposes, ‘radically empirical’, and it can be conceived only through experience (1965: 99). Even though social customs stand third behind śruti and smṛti on many Hindu textual lists, it could be argued that they are actually the true source of dharma. For example, this passage from the Māhābhārata gives priority to customs: ‘Dharma has its origin in good practices and the Vedas are established on dharma’ (Vana Parva 27.107; Kuppuswamy 1977: 17). Furthermore, Āpastamba’s Dharmasātra begins: ‘And we shall explain the accepted customary laws, the authority for which rests on the acceptance by those who know the law and the Vedas’, and ‘he should model his conduct after that which is unanimously approved in all regions by Āryas who have been properly trained’. Häcker contends that ‘this is the most concrete and most precise definition of the Hindu concept of dharma that I know’ (1965: 99). In The Laws of Manu (12.110–111) Matilal discerns the 286

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same ‘rational-democratic’ principle in the provision that a jury of ten men would convene and resolve disputes about the law (2002, 78, 2017: 89). Dharma starts as a religious rite and rules (‘rituals, study of scripture, and austerities’) and grows to pertain to every aspect of daily life (Mohanty 2017: 76). For Aristotle, ethos becomes ethikē when the virtues are developed according to practical reason operating in the context of multifaceted experiences. According to Bangalore Kuppuswamy, ‘dharma does not consist in blind conformity to customs; a man’s behaviour should be based on reasoning, should contribute to the welfare of humanity and should be guided by conscience’ (Kuppuswamy, 1977: 51–52). Franklin Edgerton defines dharma as ‘propriety, socially approved conduct, in relation to one’s fellow man or to other living beings’ (1965: 30). One is expected to match one’s own nature (svabhāa) with one’s own dharma (svadharma). As Austin Creel phrases it, ‘One’s dharma is the total situation in which he finds himself; it is the law of his own being, the proper function of nature or constitution. … It is his appropriate function; it is the manifestation in social existence of his actual capacities. Dharma in this sense is deemed not an external code but the inner law of a being’ (1977: 4–5). This inner law, however, is not something akin to Kant’s rational autonomy, which, as J. N. Mohanty observes, is far too abstract and impersonal compared to ‘the innate characteristics of the individual’ (2017, 53), which is designated in Sanskrit as svabhāva. Such a proposal has obviously gone beyond the confines of traditional Hinduism, even the revised caste system envisioned by Gandhi, where a son, although free from discrimination, would still stay within the vocation of his father. Gandhi’s challenge to his satyāgrahis, however, appears to inspire the freedom of the Hindu ascetic, whose dharma, according to Purushottama Bilimoria, ‘is the correlate of his own innate constitution of which he is master’, and ‘what he should do and not do … is left entirely to his own determination’ (2017b, 39; Bilimoria et al. 2014, 296–297). This is certainly the best example of developing one’s svadharma according to one’s svabhāva. Within Gandhi’s circle of disciples, however, it was clearly only the Mahatma who did, not within considerable controversy, allow himself this much liberty.

Virtue Ethics in the Hindu Epics If dharma is a duty, then Hindu ethics should conform to something like Kantianism, but Matilal maintains that is not really the meaning of dharma, a point already argued in the previous section. Matilal quotes Robert Lingat favourably when he maintains that dharma is never ‘imposed’ but simply ‘proposed’, and he paraphrases Louis Dumont’s idea that dharma ‘reigns from above without actually governing the world’ (2002: 42). Both of these descriptions are intriguing though vague, but Matilal proposes that dharma is ‘open-ended’, a crucial aspect of rules in virtue ethics. Matilal finds a caricature of Kantianism in Rāma, whose inflexibility with regard to duty leads to absurd and/or harsh decisions. As Matilal quips: ‘Rāma’s dharma was rigid; Kṛṣṇa’s was flaccid’ (2002: 47). Even though he was encouraged to do so by the sage Jabālā, Rāma was not going to break a promise, even if it meant that he could regain his kingdom and avoid 14 years of exile. One of Rāma’s lame excuses for shooting Vālin in the back was that a person has no duties to animals, Vālin being a member of Hanumān’s monkey army. (Kant held that mistreatment of animals was blameworthy, at least as a reflection of the person’s character.) Rāma’s extreme interpretation of a wife’s duty to her husband has led 287

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generations of Indian women to conform to an impossible ideal. Following Sītā example, traditional Indian women were expected to stay with their husbands no matter what they asked of them and no matter what (this is often called strī-dharma). As Matilal easily demonstrates, Kant’s absolute duty to tell the truth and keep a promise comes in for some severe criticism in Hindu literature. Kant too easily assumes that there is a rational harmony among our duties and that they cannot conflict. Matilal notes the significance of the fact that both Kant and Indian ethics recognize an intimate connection between truth-telling and promise-keeping, explaining the latter as ‘protecting the truth’ (satyarakṣa) (2002: 26). Matilal analyzes Kṛṣṇa’s use of the story of the hermit Kauśika as a response to Kant, but I will use a similar story that I found effective in my ethics classes. Let us say that I am over at my best friend’s house, and we are watching a football game in the back room. There is a knock at the door, and, as luck would have it, I am the one to answer. Standing at the door is a crazed man, armed head to foot, who demands that my friend come out so that he can kill him. Silence is not an option, as was also the case with Kauśika. The bandits would have tortured a confession out of the hermit, and the terrorist would interpret my silence as assent that my friend is indeed home, and he would barge right in. Therefore, I tell the terrorist, as convincingly as all my mental and emotional energy can muster, that my friend is not in my home. In this case, Kant would allow that prudence might dictate that I lie, but because I always have a moral duty to tell the truth, my action has no moral worth. The virtue ethics response is very different: my action does have moral worth, primarily because, in this instance, I did the right thing, and I could successfully challenge anyone who said I did not. I have always been a truth-teller, and the fact that I have lied in this situation in no way destroys my habit of virtue, and it certainly does not mean that I have now become a liar rather than a truthteller. Furthermore, I feel guilt and remorse about my actions, and I rededicate myself to a life of virtue. Matilal’s answer is very much the same. He maintains that Kauśika’s’ dharma is at least dictated by the constraints or contingency of the situation’ (2002: 26–27; 2017: 94). And, although Āpastamba states that all perjurers go to Hell, Matilal notes that the Dharmaśātras of Gautama and Manu make an exception when one lies to save a life. Matilal states that the dharma ‘cannot be known as universally fixed’ and that ‘our practical wisdom has a sort of malleability’ so that it can adjust to changing situations and circumstances (ibid.: 50). Furthermore, Matilal recognizes the necessity of genuine remorse as a sign of a temporary lapse from virtue. ‘The feeling of guilt must be genuine, and it must be distinguished from the feeling of simple regret’ (33). Finally, virtue ethics response allows for genuine moral conflict and supports the truth of tragic heroes caught in irreconcilable ethical dilemmas. The principle of utility is implied in Kṛṣṇa’s justification of immoral means to prevent the evil Kauravas from winning the war. Yudhiṣṭhira once said that there are many dharmas and the only way to find the correct one is to follow the mahājana, which can be translated as ‘the conduct of the good people’. In this term, Matilal finds a ‘primitive proto-utilitarianism’, which is very clearly expressed in the common phrase ‘for the sake of the happiness of many people, and for the sake of the good of many’ (68). Matilal acknowledges that the greatest attraction of utilitarianism is its monism, i.e., its assumption that all moral problems can be solved with a single principle. He claims, however, that ‘dharma-morality is pluralistic’ (68), and he proposes that this view can be held without succumbing to irrationality. Matilal’s frequent mention of ‘practical wisdom’ as 288

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the deciding factor in moral decision-making suggests that we should look at Hindu ethics from a virtue perspective. I propose then that ‘the conduct of good people’ be read as a call to emulate the virtuous among us. It is, therefore, character consequentialism that we see in the Hindu epics, not hedonic consequentialism. Matilal goes on to discuss the story of the king, who decrees that a lake of milk should be constructed for the good of his people (2017: 79). He argues that even though a sovereign, using the principle of utility, could order everyone to make sacrifices for the greatest good, people would be tempted, as this story shows, to empty a pail of water into the lake of milk under the cover of darkness. As I noted earlier, it was the virtues that came first and only afterward moral rules. This means that moral rules are actually abstractions from the practice of the virtues, just as moral prohibitions are abstractions from the practice of the vices. Therefore, no moral rule could ‘reign from above’ nor could it even ‘propose’ without the specific moral content that action and virtues provide. Interestingly enough, moral rules, even as abstractions, still preserve their normative force. Therefore, dharma can indeed ‘propose’ as a general guide for action, but it must always be contextualized and individualized. In another work, I have argued that one can support a world ethic of respect for cultural values and virtues of rich variation – a worldwide version of Tambiah’s ‘pulsating galactic polities’ – and at the same time enforce the Declaration of Human Rights in instances such as honour killing and female genital mutilation, where we can determine that certain customs can be banned.

Karma and Character as Destiny Matilal’s immense contribution to our understanding of Indian ethics is his discussion of karma and how it has been misunderstood: ‘The karma doctrine requires that man’s own “character” be his own “destiny”’ (2002: 414). This statement supports Indian virtue ethics and also allows us to confront the challenge of fatalism. Matilal makes a strong case for separating karma from caste and suggests that the concept of karma is compatible with both reason and individual responsibility. He argues that karma was originally introduced to solve the problem of evil and to answer the fatalism found in the Ājivaka school (412). The law of karma appears to be fatalistic only because it was linked to caste heredity. The Buddha once said that ‘they who know causation know the dharma’ (SS §3, 1993: 28). A great example of how dharma, as J. N. Mohanty observes, connects ‘what one ought and what in fact is’ (2017: 66). This happy violation of the Humean prohibition of deriving an ought from an is demonstrates how virtues are derived from the facts of our personal histories and how this contextualizes all moral decision-making. The famous ‘mirror of dharma’ is not a common one in which individual identities are dissolved, as some later Buddhists believed, but it is actually a myriad of mirrors reflecting individual histories. The truths they discover in their mirrors will be very personal truths, moral and spiritual truths that are, as Aristotle says of moral virtues, ‘relative to us’.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that the best option in this time of great moral crisis is a return to the virtue ethics of the ancients. Moral rules are too abstract and too rigid, and it is difficult to apply them to complex situations and decisions. They, however, still retain their normative force in the application of national and international law. Utilitarianism, on the 289

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other hand, fails to distinguish between qualitative values of the virtues and external quantities of pleasure, and sometimes, the hedonic calculus produces unrealistic and even absurd moral obligations. As opposed to rule-based ethics, where the most that we can know is that we always fall short of the norm, virtue ethics is truly a voyage of personal discovery. Ancient virtue ethics aim at a personal meaning that is a creative choice for each individual. Virtue ethics is emulative – using the sage or saviour as a model for virtue – whereas rule ethics involves conformity and obedience. The emulative approach engages the imagination, personalizes and thoroughly grounds individual moral action and responsibility. Such ethics naturally lends itself to a virtue aesthetics: the crafting of a good and beautiful soul, a unique gem among other gems.

References Arokiasamy, Soosai. 1986. Dharma, Hindu and Christian according to Roberto de Nobili. Rome: Editrice Pontificia Universita Gregoriana. Bilimoria, Purushottama, Prabhu, Joseph, and Sharma, Renuka (eds). 2014. ‘Ethics and Virtue in Classical Indian Thinking.’ In Stan van Hooft with Nafsika Athanassoulis, Jason Kawall, Justin Oakley, Nicole Saunders, and Liezl Van Zyl (eds.), The Handbook on Virtue Ethics, pp. 294–305. Durham UK: Acumen Press/Routledge. ———. (eds). 2017a. Indian Ethics Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges vol I. Abingdon UK: Routledge [2007 Ashgate]. ———. (eds). 2017b. ‘Introduction to Part A: Early Indian Ethics–Vedas to the Gītā; Dharma, Rites to Right.’ In Indian Ethics, vol. 1, 33–54. Chapple, Christopher, 2017. ‘Purgation and Virtue in Jainism: Toward an Ecological Ethic’. In P. Bilimoria, J. Prabhu, and R. Sharma (eds.), Indian Ethics, vol. I, pp. 157–178. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Creel, Austin B. 1977. Dharma in Hindu Ethics. Columbia, MO: South Asia Books. Davis, Leasa S. 2014. ‘Mindfulnes, Non-Attachment and Other Buddhist Virtues.’ In (Stan) van Hooft et al. (eds.), The Handbook on Virtue Ethics, pp. 306–317. Durham UK: Acumen Press/Routledge Doniger, Wendy & Smith, Brian. 1999. The Laws of Manu. Global: Penguin. Edgerton, Franklin. 1965. The Beginnings of Indian Philosophy, p. 30. Cambridge, MS: Harvard University Press. Gandhi, M. K. 1924a. Young India 6 (November 13, 1924). ———. 1924b. Young India 6 (November 20, 1924). ———. 1930. Young India 12 (September 11). ———. 1938. Harijan 6 (February 19, 1938). Gandhi, Madan, 1969. A Gandhian Aesthetics. Chandigarh: Vikas Bharati. Gier, Nicholas F. 2004. The Virtue of Nonviolence: from Gautama to Gandhi. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ———. 2005. ‘Toward a Hindu Virtue Ethics.’ In R. D. Sherma and A. Deepak (eds.), Contemporary Issues in Constructive Dharma, pp. 151–162. Hampton, VA: Deepak Heritage Books. Häcker, Paul. 1965. ‘Dharma im Hinduismus.’ Zeitschrift für Missionwissenschaft und Relgionswissenschaft 49. Kuppuswamy, Bangalore. 1977. Dharma and Society. Columbia, MO: South Asia Books. Matilal, Bimal K. 2002. The Collected Essays of Bimal Krishna Matilal: Ethics and Epics, Jonardon Ganeri (ed.). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 2017. ‘Dharma and Rationality.’ In P. Bilimoria, J. Prabhu, and R. Sharma (eds.), Indian Ethics, vol. I, pp. 79–102. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Mohanty, J. N. 2017. ‘Dharma, Imperatives, and Tradition: Toward an Indian Theory of Moral Action.’ In P. Bilimoria, J. Prabhu, and R. Sharma (eds.), Indian Ethics, vol. I, pp. 57–78. Abington, UK: Routledge. Nussbaum, Martha. 1988. ‘Non-Relative Virtues.’ In Peter A. French et al. (eds.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 13. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University.

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23 ENGAGED JAINISM Jaina Ethics in a Living Universe Christopher Key Chapple

Physics as Metaphysics Prophetic monotheistic religions begin with a story about God’s creation of the world and his involvement with human life as mediated through prophets such as Moses, Isaiah, Zoroaster, Jesus, Muhammed, Baha’ullah, Joseph Smith and so forth. By following the admonitions delivered by God through his prophets, humans enter a covenant whereby they feel assured of God’s blessing and a secure place in the afterlife. Goodness results in reward; evil results in punishment. These faiths centre on human redemption from sinfulness. Although humans hold some accountability for their actions, the world ultimately is under God’s control. Asian religions approach religion differently. According to the sacred texts of the Hindu tradition, the emergence of desire created the world, as narrated in the Ṛg Veda and in the Bṛ hadāraṇ yaka Upaniṣad. According to Buddhism (but also Mīmāṃsā of early Brāhmanism), the world has always existed. Human yearnings driven by hate, greed and delusion must be overcome through meditation. Buddhist meditation leads to the understanding that no abiding self exists. For the Daoists and Confucians of East Asia, the forces of yin and yang, female and male, dark and light, give birth to the world. Either by surrender (Daoism) or through strict moral exertion (Confucianism), humans seek to bring the world into harmony by balancing the forces of heaven and Earth. Like Buddhism, Jainism too teaches that the world has no beginning. Jainism furthermore holds that the universe continues to exist into infinity. However, unlike prophetic monotheisms (and post-medieval Hinduism), Jainism does not believe in a creator deity. Unlike Buddhism, Jainism teaches the reality of an abiding individual self. Unlike Confucianism and Daoism, Jainism does not seek to balance opposing or complementary forces but seeks an utter extirpation of the substance that defines and delimits human experience: the sticky, colour-hued, physical presence of karma. For Jainas, the soul is real. Its luminosity and freedom become obscured and occluded by karmas attracted to the soul by unethical behaviours. Jainism teaches that by following a strict ethical code, the fetters of karma will be unshackled, eventually setting the soul free to soar to the limits of the universe, obtain a state of blessed solitary freedom (kevala) and attain the heights of unending

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omniscience, forever more surveying the world in a state of pure energy, consciousness and bliss. One ascends the pinnacle of the mountain, never again to return. The Jainas teach a radical pluralism. Countless souls from beginningless time continue to traverse the various realms of the universe, birth after birth, from the lowest of infernal hells (seven of them), through the various continents and life forms found on Earth (Jambudvīpa) to the highest heights of the nine (in some texts more) heavens. Only the soul encased within a human body can leap beyond the boundaries of Earth directly to the blessed state of liberation. This takes place through the committed observance of vows. The denizens of hell are too distracted by the sufferings to take up the vows. Animals and lower life forms such as elemental bodies, microorganisms and plants lack the self-awareness to fully enact the vows. Gods and goddesses are too distracted by heavenly pleasures to discipline themselves. Only humans have the incentive through acquired knowledge and experience to take the steps necessary to reverse and expel the harmful influences from the past, which in Jainism take physical form. According to Jaina anatomical texts, karmas lodged within the body create all manner of deformities, including various sorts of scoliosis, weakness of the limbs and joints, and speech abnormalities. By devoting oneself to the vows delineated below, one attains the perfection of the body, acquiring the perfect posture and proportions of the 24 ascended teachers. These Tīrthaṅkaras symbolize the goal of the tradition; their depiction in sculpture and other forms of art inspire Jainas to emulate their state of great purity.

Jainism and Human Agency: A Study in Karma and Its Effects Because the karmic material that shrouds the soul authentically alters its state of being, it is important to note traditional Jain categories to describe karma. All forms of karma prevent the soul from attaining final liberation. The spiritual quest entails a systematic expulsion (nirjarā) of all karma. Thirty types of karma (with additional subcategories) obstruct the soul in four destructive ways and must be expelled willfully. The destructive karmas fall into four groupings as follows: 1. Delusional: engendering false views and incorrect conduct, leading to anger (krodha), pride (māna), deceit (māyā), and four types of greed (lobha): unrelenting, inciting greed in laypeople, inciting greed in monks, and smoldering lethargy. Delusional karmas also result in vicious laughter (hāsya), pleasure or liking (rati), displeasure or disliking (arati), sorrow (śoka), fear (bhaya), disgust (jugupsā), and the three types of sexual craving [a man for a woman (puṃ -veda), a woman for a man (strī-veda) and man for a man/woman for a woman (napuṃ saka-veda)] (Williams, 1963, 33; Tattvārtha Sūtra I:10). 2. Ignorant: incorrect function of senses and the mind; faulty reasoning; lack of intuition; lack of empathy; inability to adopt a universal view. 3. Obscured: malfunctioning of the eyes; malfunctioning of the other senses; mistaken notions; failure to perceive universal wisdom. 4. Lack of energy. (Summary reinterpreted from Jaini 1979, 131–133) Depending on the experiences that have preceded one in this lifetime and in prior lifetimes, one or more of the aforementioned destructive karmas may prevail. 293

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This analysis offers an interesting narrative in regard to what in Christian theology and Western ethics might be considered the problem of evil and of theodicy. All difficulties, internal and external, are due to individual karma. Every moment of suffering (and every moment of joy) is due to actions in the past that have resulted in the thickening (or lessening) of particles of karma. If someone flies into a fit of rage, not only does adrenaline course through the body, but karmic particles linger with memories of anger, waiting to be activated at a later time. If one becomes puffed up with pride, the ugliness of hubris will result in the stowage of pride karma. The same can be said of deceit, greed and all the rest. The layering and patterning of emotions become constitutive of the world itself. Karmas utterly predetermines one’s relationships; the internal and external exist in a state of perpetual mirroring and reciprocity. In addition to moral failings, the lists of karma in Jaina’s thought attribute difficulty and trouble to the problem of sensory and mental insufficiency. If one’s senses and mind are not in good order, the conditions are set for confusion and a habit of making mistakes that cause suffering to oneself and others. Hence, as we will see in the following section, education of the mind and body is paramount to ethics in Jainism. If one is ignorant and mistaken about the realities of the world, patterns of obstructing karmas will occlude the ability to experience the world with clarity. Education becomes a moral imperative. In an echo of what might be called a ‘pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps’ view of life, sloth or lack of energy earns its own category in the scheme of karmas. Though one may seek and obtain inspiration from others, in Jainism, each individual crafts and hones his or her own destiny. This underscores the profound and central importance of ethics in Jainism. Without self-purification, there can be no advancement on the spiritual path, no lessening of the bondage of karma.

The Vows of Jainism All ethics in Jainism begins with personal behaviour. Because the ultimate goal of the Jaina faith is to free oneself of all fettering karmas, it might be argued that the tradition is essentially and perhaps wrongfully self-obsessed. However, in seeking to purify oneself, social benefits automatically arise. In order to purge the karmas that obscure the true nature of the soul, Jainas follow 12 vows. The first five find near-universal application in the religious practices of India, whether Jaina, Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh. Known as the anuvratas or essential vows, they are also observed in the classical Yoga of Patañjali. Gandhi championed all these vows and, in his Experiments with Truth, narrates his struggles with each. The first and foundational vow is nonviolence (ahiṃ sā); followed by adhering to truth (satya); not stealing (asteya); sexual propriety, which involves celibacy for monks and nuns and faithful married life for laypeople (brahmācarya); and limitation of one’s possessions (aparigraha). These are further enhanced by three guṇ avratas or reinforcing vows. The first is to restrict travel (dig), the second is to restrict what one uses and consumes (bhogopabhoga) and the third is to take up only such occupations that do not cause undue harm (arartha-daṇ ḍa). This last reinforcing vow stipulates that observant Jainas generally do not farm because of the inevitable killing of bugs and worms in the tilling of land and gravitate towards commerce, including finance, jewellery, publishing and trade. The final four vows (śikṣavratas) require the taking up of regular spiritual discipline. The first is to meditate 48 minutes each day (sāmāyika), the second entails further restrictions on travel (deśavakastika), the third is the adoption of 294

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temporary mendicancy (poṣadha) and the last is making religious donations (atithi-saṃ vibhāga or dāna) (Cort 2001, 27; Williams 1963, 55–106, 123–165). These vows are applied by each individual according to his or her station in life and according to age. A Jaina lives within a living universe that sees souls in myriad contexts, from the soil to drops of water to microbes in the air and even in the flame of a candle. Monks and nuns adopt the vows to such a degree that they wear a mask in order to minimize harm to microscopic forms that may be caused by a loud voice or a hasty inhale. Laypeople concern themselves with avoiding harm to beings with two or more senses, such as worms who experience touch and taste; crawling bugs who, according to Jaina biology, can touch, taste and smell; flying insects that can touch, taste, smell and see; and mammals, birds and reptiles who, according to Tattvārthasūtra, can also hear and think. Hence, all Jainas adhere to a vegetarian diet to minimize the influx of fettering karmas. Orthodox Jainas avoid root vegetables because of the harm caused to the entire plant by uprooting it, as well as the pain inflicted on the organisms in the soils that live in reciprocity with the roots. Many Jainas also avoid green, leafy vegetables several days each month ‘because of the high likelihood that many tiny insects will be hidden in the leaves and therefore accidentally eaten’ (Cort 2001, 131). Additionally, many Jainas fast on a regular basis, creating periods of time free from the violence inherent in eating. The concern for inflicting no harm can also be seen in an elaborate philosophical system in which certainty, which can become a harbinger for entrenched presuppositions and prejudices, is called into question. According to Jainism, every occurrence can and must be seen from multiple points of view (naya). A thing exhibits seven qualities that distinguish it from other things. Philosopher John Koller summarizes this analysis as follows: Naigama (the ordinary or undifferentiated) Saṃ graha (the general) Vyavahāra (the practical) Ṛjusūtra (the clearly manifest) Śabda (the verbal) Samabhirūḍha (the subtle) Evambhūta (the thus-happened). (Koller, 2002, 25) The first category refers to perceiving a book. The second category places it within the genre of other similar objects. The third sees its function, perhaps as a cookbook. The fourth requires opening it and seeing recipes inside. The fifth proclaims, ‘This is a cookbook’. The sixth looks into the motivations of the author, who presumably wanted to share some techniques and ingredients. The seventh acknowledges that this book was published at a particular time and in a particular place. Jainism emphasizes complexity and a need to regard objects or things in all their depth and implications. Additionally, rather than seeing reality in terms of a light switch with two positions – on and off, true or false – Jainism posits a sevenfold analysis relying heavily upon a uniquely Sanskritic linguistic formation: the optative case, used to indicate probability rather than certainty. Indian linguistics, in addition to the indicative and the imperative, has a fully robust set of verb declensions through which to express possibility. By using a particular set of endings, any action may be seen as potential but not guaranteed. Hence, from one perspective, it may be asserted that a thing exists, while from another perspective, it may not 295

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be verifiable. As a third alternative, it might be stated that in certain ways, a thing is present, but in other ways not. Putting both together in the fourth level of analysis makes it impossible to say anything with certainty; all things defy description and, hence, are ineffable. Hence, the fifth mode of analysis states that things simultaneously exist and are ineffable; the sixth is that things do not exist and are ineffable; the seventh is that things both exist and do not exist but at the same time defy description. Kapadia (1947, cxviii) referred to the subtlety of this philosophy as ‘intellectual ahiṃ sā’. He and others have proclaimed that this thought system makes Jainas open to multiple perspectives innately predisposed to an attitude of tolerance to non-Jaina views. John Cort has argued against this perspective, pointing out that both the teachings of perspectivalism (naya) and of the many-sided (anekānta) sevenfold analysis, in fact, advance a specific Jaina argument that supports the existence of the soul, the reality of binding karma and the belief in the possibility of liberation from bondage (Cort 2000). I have argued elsewhere that this is actually a form of flexible fundamentalism, recognizing that Jainas hold firmly to their worldview and its resulting ethic while simultaneously recognizing the existence of other systems of thought and practice (Chapple, 1993, 85–97; 2010).

Normative Ethics? Rosalind Hursthouse, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, defines normative ethics in three approaches: deontological (duties and rules), teleological (consequentialism) and virtue ethics. She provides the following example: Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as ‘Do unto others as you would be done by’ and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent. (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/) Her example points out the underlying presupposition that distinguishes Western discourse on virtue and the nature of the good (see also van Hooft et al., 2014, with Bilimoria’s chapter 294–305). The assumption here is that good behaviour must be observed, and harm must be avoided. An unspoken yet culturally shared notion of the ‘common good’ drives the discussion. One might presume that the good to be sought would be equivalent in the moral code of the Ten Commandments as a minimum baseline or touchstone: do not kill other human beings, do not deceive, do not steal, do not covet. However, Jainism sets forth a more nuanced vision of moral imperatives that goes beyond exclusively anthropocentric concerns (Chapple 2002). Different individuals in different circumstances and in different stages of life will choose to interpret duties and rules differently. A monk follows a different set of rules from those of a nun. A layperson has a different set of moral expectations. An observant older person will have yet another more intense ethical practice. Hence, normative ethics in Jainism requires asking many more questions than simply figuring out how ‘someone in need should be helped’. First, the definition of ‘someone’ extends automatically to all souls, whether in the air or soil, in a plant or an animal. Second, many debates have taken place within Jainism about the nature of the help to be extended. 296

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It has been argued that to interfere with the suffering of an animal or a human being deprives that soul of its own process of purification. Gandhi incurred highly publicized censure within the Jaina and Hindu community for allowing the mercy killing of a suffering cow at his Ahmedabad ashram. In his view, the humane act would be to put an animal out of its misery. According to Jaina’s karma theory, the suffering itself serves as expiation. An animal can and should be made more comfortable in its final days and be provided with food and water. However, to hasten the death of an animal would not only extend its unresolved karma over into another birth but would also thicken the harmful karma that obscures the soul of the seemingly well-intentioned perpetrator. Various observers of Jaina pinjrapoles, from Ralph Fitch in the 19th century to Michael Fox of the Humane Society, have lamented the unmitigated moans of distressed animals, which have also been graphically presented in the documentary film Frontiers of Peace. From a Jaina perspective, just as we would not intentionally hasten the death of a grandparent, so also premature killing of an animal must be avoided.

Sallekhanā/Santhārā: The Challenge of Inviting Death Because humans possess conscious volition and the ability to purify themselves up to the moment of death, fasting for Jainas constitutes an important part of the monthly rhythm of life. By fasting, upvās one abstains from harming other beings for the sake of sustaining one’s own existence. Fasts take many shapes and forms in the Jaina universe. Some entail complete restraint from ingesting food or liquids (cauvihār). One fast, known as āṭham tapas, entails missing eight meals. Cort notes, ‘A tivihār fast involves abstinence from only food; the person can drink boiled water, but only between navkarṣi [48 minutes after sunrise] and sunset’ (Cort 2001, 135). The āyambil fast consists of eating only ‘unspiced boiled rice, gruel, and barley meal’ generally once or twice a month. The nivi fast, generally performed by monastics, requires one to abstain from milk, curds, butter, ghee, oil, molasses, alcohol, honey, meat and food cooked in thrice-used oil (Williams 1963, 39–40). Alcohol, honey and meat are forbidden to all Jainas; this list serves as a reminder that in addition to avoiding contact with these substances, monks and nuns must eat non-oily foods only. John Cort explains the complexity of some more advanced fasting techniques: The one who is fasting [the increasing āyambil fast] performs one āyambil then one upvās (here meaning one day of [full] fasting), two āyambils, one upvās, three āyambils, and so in a progression up to a hundred āyamabils. Each āyambil-upvās cycle is called a ‘line’ (oḷī). The total tap of 100 lines takes fourteen years, three months, and twenty days to complete. … It is believed to be so powerful that it can result in … the special karma that results in being born as a Jina. Some medicants perform this tap throughout their medicant life. (Cort 2001, 136) These and related fasts are considered preparatory for the final fast, known as sallekhanā or santhārā (Chapple 2010, Chapple and Jain 2020).1 The Jaina tradition advocates reducing one’s attachments toward the end of one’s life in order to ensure an auspicious rebirth. This includes attachment to food. With the permission of one’s community, one might engage in a final fast when one is no longer able to maintain the basic Jaina vows of cleanliness and clarity. Samantabhadra’s Ratnakaraṇ ḍa 297

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Śrāvakācāra (2nd century CE) states that one of four circumstances are necessary conditions for such permission to be granted: calamity, extreme famine, old age or incurable illness. The text specifies the procedure: [O]ne should give up gradually all solid foods, increase the taking of liquids like milk, then give up even liquids gradually and take warm water. Thereafter, one should give up warm water also, observe the fast … and depart from the body repeating the namaskāra mantra continually to the last. (Tukol 1976, 8) This practice is not without controversy. In 2010, the Rajasthan High Court considered a petition to ban the practice (Bareth 2010), though such a law would prove very difficult to enforce. The Jainas assert that this practice is not suicide because of their belief in the indestructibility of the soul. By welcoming the inevitable dropping of one body and, according to their view, the immediate taking up of a new body in a state of purified, prayerful awareness, this manner of death will be auspicious. (For more detailed treatment of the legal challenge and Jaina responses thereto, see p.149, Chapter 10, supra). The Jaina approach to ethics presents numerous challenges for non-adherents to the faith (see Bilimoria, Chapple, and Yin Jing Wong 2008). First, it might seem adjustable. No single standard of ethics can be universally applied or expected. The individual, vow-based nature of the tradition flies in the face of an agreed-upon universal good for all people in all circumstances for all times. Holding certain individuals – namely, monks and nuns – to a higher ethical standard sets Jainism apart from most other ethical systems. Second, the idea of non-intervention, particularly to alleviate suffering, might seem callous if one does not adhere to the Jaina notion of karma. In many ethical systems, suffering must be allayed. According to Jainas, suffering serves to strengthen and purify an individual of negative karma. Most worldviews would not accept this premise. Third, the idea of welcoming death by engaging in a final fast challenge is what some traditions consider to be the sanctity of human life. S. J. Gerald Kelly has written that ‘God is the creator and master of human life and no one may take it without His authorization’ (Lamers and Verhey 1978, 62). From the Jaina perspective, the world was not created by God, and each individual is in control of his or her life through intention and action (see again Chapter 10 by Bilimoria in the present volume).

Competing Visions of Activism Two constituencies have dialogued with Jainas in the past 40 years, attracted by their teachings on nonviolence. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) sponsored one of the first visits to the United States by Muni Chitrabhanu (1922–2019). An important religious figure within the immigrant Jaina community, he addressed the Friends General Meeting at Ithaca College in 1973. The book Capitalists without Capitalism: The Jains of India and the Quakers of the West suggests that the commitment to nonviolence and honesty that characterizes each tradition resulted in business success. Because Jains and Quakers adhere to a principled life that also affects their business practices, they became reliable and prosperous merchants. The other major group that has taken an interest in Jainism in the past decade is animal rights activists, attracted by the Jaina commitment to vegetarianism and their animal shelters. Whereas the Quakers and the Jainas share a common interest in nonviolence and would both resist investing in businesses associated with violence, most Quakers do not 298

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practice vegetarianism and, in fact, were heavily invested in the highly violent whaling industry. Jaina vegetarianism traditionally has included milk products as a staple part of the traditional diet. With the advent of modern industrialized agriculture and greater awareness of health problems associated with too much animal fat and protein, some contemporary Jainas advocate veganism for both personal and societal reasons, most notably Pravin K. Shah in his widely circulated essay ‘My Visit to a Dairy Farm’. Appalled by the treatment of cows in Vermont and his native India, he has opened a new arena for discussion within the Jaina community. The Jainas have an expression ‘Live and let live’ and, throughout Indian history, have combined a low profile with occasional effective lobbying to be given the freedom to practice their beliefs. During the Mughal period, Jaina merchants helped finance some major building projects and were granted permission to build the grand Sri Digambar Jain Lal Mandir Temple in the heart of Delhi by the Mugal Emperor Shah Jahan in 1656. Earlier, Jaina religious leader Dadaguru Jincandrasuri influenced Akbar the Great, who ‘protected Jain places of pilgrimage and gave orders that the ceremonies and observances of the Jains were not to be hindered. He also forbade the slaughter of animals for a period of one week for the year’ (Babb 1996, 124). Jains have been unrelenting in their lobby for animal protection and often quite successful in their efforts. One animal activist, Charlotte Laws, takes issue with the Jaina approach to communicating its message on behalf of animals in American society. In a book chapter titled ‘The Jain Center of Southern California: Theory and Practice across Continents’, she narrates a daylong encounter with practicing Jains. Her first contact, a young man named Yogesh, shares that he ‘regularly assists animal organizations, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Purple Cow, a facility that rescues farm animals’ (Laws 2011, 51). She learned from another informant, Gom, that ‘in India … most people don’t believe in keeping pets’. When she asked him why Jainas do not adopt companion animals, he said that ‘keeping pets deprives them of the right to be free’ (Laws 2011, 54). While speaking with a group of teenagers and later attending a class for middle school-age students at the centre, she was somewhat perplexed that activism would not include taking animals from a vivisection laboratory or a factory farm. The adult teacher leading the group remarked the preferred method for Jainas would be to purchase animals and remove them from harm’s way. Laws expresses some frustration at the overall outlook advocated by the Jainas: I did not meet a single Jain who expressed willingness to advocate for nonhumans actively, beyond setting an example in their daily life, tending needy animals themselves, and buying animals from researchers, butchers, and others who might kill or harm these creatures. Withdrawal from the world, and the non-confrontational Jain philosophy and practice, crept into conversations again and again in my visit to the Jain Center of Southern California. From the perspective of a goal-oriented American, and a passionate animal rights advocate, Jains seemed like a work of art. They were beautiful, inspiring, and carefree, but mere decorations, dancing on the sidelines— focusing on their own salvation and enlightenment, while leaving others to fight for social and political change. (Laws 2011, 54) Despite Laws’ frustration, she nonetheless provided a positive assessment of the overall Jaina message when she described the work of the volunteer teachers: ‘[T]here was a 299

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distinct optimism in the way they refrained from judging and hating others’ (Laws 2011, 58), highlighting the difference between the quiet methods advocated by the Jainas and the more aggressive techniques practice by many animal advocacy groups.

Conclusion The Jaina ethic of do-no-harm carries many distinct characteristics. It emphasizes the importance of human action. Harmful activities create a pool or reserve of negative karma that eventually comes back to hurt the perpetrator, if not in this life, then in the next. The ethical imperative requires one to carefully cultivate a personal life rooted in nonviolent principles. Jainas are expected to be vegetarian. They are to avoid professions that make money through acts of violence. Jainas are expected to share their wealth to advance the faith by building temples and supporting monks and nuns. They are also expected to donate to animal shelters and perhaps use their money to rescue animals from slaughterhouses or laboratories. This ethical approach is highly personal, to the point that some would claim that the advocacy aspect of the faith is simply too passive. Rather than trying to convince others to adopt their view and lifestyle, Jainas generally prefer to be simply left alone. Rather than asking others to become vegetarian, Jainas throughout history have generally been content to ask their rulers not to persecute them because of their faith. Nonetheless, Jainas, particularly in the western Indian state of Gujarat, have been successful in their lobbying for religious freedom. In eastern Africa, Britain and the United States, the Jaina lay immigrant community has been particularly successful (Banks 1992). The nonviolence of the Jainas is not simple. To understand how it works requires a grasping of their unique cosmology and the underlying grammatical structures of the Sanskrit language, as well as a philosophical outlook that emphasizes multiplicity rather than monism or dualism. No single narrative can account for the complexity of human behaviour; Jainas tell complex tales of past lives to explain the unfolding of karma. For Jainas throughout history, persuasion through example has been the preferred method for ensuring their protection rather than confrontation. By acknowledging that others have also deeply held beliefs, Jainas have been given private space within the larger public sphere to follow their faith, remain vegetarian, celebrate their holy days and even abet and support people engaging in the fast until death. Their example of nonviolent advocacy was one piece of many that inspired Mahatma Gandhi to engage in dramatic acts of passive resistance. Gandhi’s example, in turn, has given support to quiet revolutions throughout the world, from the civil rights movement of the United States to the velvet revolutions that have swept through the Philippines, South Africa, the former nations of the Soviet Union, and even the Arab Spring of 2011. Though criticized by the Buddha more than 2,400 years ago for engaging in extreme asceticism and criticized by animal rights advocates today for being too passive, the Jaina community continues to provide a voice of conscience on behalf of nonviolence.

Note 1 See also Purushottama Bilimoria’s Chapter 10, Dying with Dignity, on Sallekhanā in Part I of this volume.

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References Babb, Lawrence A. 1996. Absent Lord: Ascetics and Kings in a Jain Ritual Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Banks, Marcus. 1992. Organizing Jainism in India and England. Oxford: Clarendon Press Bareth, Narayan. 2010. “Another India Jain Fasts to Death.” BBC News. http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/ mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk consulted January 12, 2010. Bilimoria, P, Christopher Chapple and Yih Jing Wong, Peter, 2008. “Ethical Studies Overview: Eastern Traditions.” In Lester Kurtz (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace & Conflict, 2nd edition, pp. 720–739. Amsterdam: Elsevier Inc. Bilimoria, P. 2014. “Ethics and Virtue in Classical Indian Thinking.” In van Stan, Hooft, et al. (Eds.), The Handbook on Virtue Ethics, 2nd edition, pp. 294–305. Amsterdam: Elsevier Inc. Chapple, Christopher Key. 2010. “Eternal Life, Death, and Dying in Jainism.” In Lucy Bregman (Ed.), Religion, Death, and Dying. Volume I. Perspectives on Dying and Death, pp. 169–188. Santa Barbara: Praeger, ABC Clio. ———. Editor. 2002. Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life. Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University Press. ———. 1993. Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions. Albany: State University of New York Press. Chapple, Christopher Key and Shugan Channd Jain, Editors. 2020. Sallekhanā: The Jain Approach to Dignified Death. New Delhi: D.K. Indology. Cort, John. 2000. “Intellectual ahiṃsā revisited: Jaina tolerance and intolerance of others.” Philosophy East and West, 50(3), 324–347. ———. 2001. Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India. New York: Oxford University Press. Hursthouse, Rosalind. 2007. “Virtue Ethics.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato. stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/; accessed January 20, 2012. Jaini, Padmanabh S. 1979. The Jaina Path of Purification. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kapadia, H. R. 1947. Introduction to Haribhadra Suri's Anekantajayapataka. Baroda: Oriental Institute. Koller, John 2002. “Jain Ecological Perspectives.” In Christopher Key Chapple (Ed.), Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, pp. 19–34. Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University Press. Kuepferle, Paul. 1986. Frontiers of Peace: Jainism in India. Video. Mendham, NJ: The Visual Knowledge Corporation. Lamers, Stephen E. and Verhey, Allen, Editors. 1978. On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans. Laws, Charlotte. 2011. “The Jain Center of Southern California: Theory and Practice across Continents.” In Lisa Kemmerer and Anthony J. Nocella II (Eds.), Call to Compassion: Religious Perspectives on Animal Advocacy. New York: Lantern Books. Nevaskar, Balwant. 1971. Capitalists without Capitalism: The Jains of India and the Quakers of the West. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Shah, Pravin K. “My Visit to a Dairy Farm.” http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~pluralsm/affiliates/jainism/ ahimsa/dairy.htm Tukol, T. K. 1976. Sallekhanā Is Not Suicide. Ahmedabad: L. D. Institute of Indology. van Hooft, Stan with Nafsika Athanassoulis, Jason Kawall, Justin Oakley, Nicole Saunders and Liezl Van Zyl, Editors. 2014. The Handbook on Virtue Ethics, pp. 294–305. Durham UK: Acumen Press (now Routledge). Williams, R. 1963. Jaina Yoga. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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24 BUDDHIST SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM IN THE 20TH–21ST CENTURIES* Sallie B. King

Preamble People in the West often conceive Buddhism as a religion of monks in which spirituality involves adepts cutting themselves off from the world to pursue a detached life of meditation. Though this image is not accurate for Buddhism at any time, it is least adequate for Buddhism in the 20th and 21st centuries. In the modern world, Buddhism is a religion whose leaders may be seen flying around the world addressing parliaments on issues of global importance; it is a religion in which nuns and laypersons are coming increasingly to the fore; it is a religion which in times of national crisis has the power to move its adherents by the millions into the streets. There are two main camps among Buddhist social activists today: Engaged Buddhism (also known as Socially Engaged Buddhism) and Buddhist nationalism. Buddhist nationalism is a form of religious nationalism that favours and acts for the good of the Buddhist group. Engaged Buddhism embraces the opposite values: universal benevolence and the good of all, without exception. In its extreme forms, Buddhist nationalism can be associated with hostility and violence towards non-Buddhists, whereas Engaged Buddhists embrace principled nonviolence. This chapter refers only to Engaged Buddhism. This chapter will begin with an examination of the spiritual foundations of contemporary Engaged Buddhism and then survey some of the major forms of social activism associated with it, attempting to focus on the interface between spirituality and activism in these movements. The reader may be assured that when Engaged Buddhist monks, nuns and laypersons actively engage in social issues, they are not leaving spirituality behind.

*  Thanks to Herder and Herder (Crossroad Publishing Company) for permission to re-publish an updated abridged version of my chapter, ‘Contemporary Buddhist Spirituality and Social Activism’ previously published in Takeuchi Yoshinori et al., eds., Buddhist Spirituality: Later China, Korea, Japan and the Modern World, 1999. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-29

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Spiritual Foundations A good place to begin the search for the spiritual foundations of contemporary Engaged Buddhist social activism is the ‘Open Letter’ issued by the ‘Network for Western Buddhist Teachers’ in March of 1993. The letter is inter-sectarian and articulates the perspective of Engaged Buddhist social activists around the world. The ‘Open Letter’ gives the following as its first point of agreement among those present: Our first responsibility as Buddhists is to work towards creating a better world for all forms of life. The promotion of Buddhism as a religion is a secondary concern. Kindness and compassion, the furthering of peace and harmony, as well as tolerance and respect for other religions, should be the three guiding principles of our actions. (An Open Letter, 1993, 40) What, then, is the source in Buddhist spirituality of this concern to make a ‘better world for all forms of life’? The answer can be seen most foundationally in the Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths, in brief, are (1) suffering, (2) the cause of suffering, (3) the cessation of suffering and (4) the path or way to bring about the cessation of suffering. Buddhism, though it has evolved and changed dramatically in its 2,500 years of existence and its spread throughout the world, has always been an expression of the concerns articulated in the Four Noble Truths. In short, Buddhism has always been about the cure of suffering. The conception of suffering, the analysis of suffering, and the means for its cure have been matters for interpretation in different sects, eras and cultures, but the core idea that suffering is the problem and that Buddhism is a tool to be used to eliminate suffering has remained a constant. Today, Buddhist teachers may express this as ‘creating a better world for all forms of life’ is perhaps a modern and ambitious way of putting it, but it remains faithful to that foundational concern. But what, again, makes this spiritual, as opposed to merely well-intentioned and activist? The answer may be put in the most venerable terms of Buddhist spirituality: selflessness and compassion. Buddhism teaches that the cause of suffering may be found in a craving expressible as ‘I want’ that underlies all of our ordinary actions, thoughts and feelings. ‘I want’ pleasure and ‘I want’ to avoid pain are the fuel that marches us through our days. Through Buddhist practice, one may come to experientially realize the ultimate emptiness or non-existence of this ‘I,’ and as a consequence, one may become free of the constant drive to serve the ‘I’. One who has realized the fruits of Buddhist spiritual practice and weakened the dominance of the ‘self’ may begin to care more and more about the ‘other’. It becomes natural for such persons to take steps to relieve the other’s pain in the same way one would naturally try to relieve one’s ‘own’ pain. For example, Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, regarding the war in Vietnam, said that the suffering caused by the bombing and the oppression ‘hurts us too much. We have to react’ (Berrigan and Thich Nhat Hanh 1975, 99). Thus, the monks and nuns came out from the peace and safety of the monasteries into the villages and cities to do whatever they could to help, whether caring for orphans or protesting the government’s pro-war policies. The virtues of benevolence, loving-kindness and compassion are perhaps the first identified and most consistently exalted Buddhist virtues. One could (and most Buddhists historically did) forego meditation and strenuous self-discipline without, in the least, threatening 303

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one’s Buddhist identity, but without compassion and kindness, one could be no more than a nominal Buddhist. The ‘Open Letter’ lists ‘kindness and compassion’ as the first of three principles to guide action. Indeed, the other principles listed, ‘the furthering of peace and harmony’ and ‘tolerance and respect for other religions’, are further expressions of the same basic concern: to act in such a way as to avoid causing suffering in the form of social disharmony and antagonism. We return again to the same basic and very simple principle at the foundation of Buddhist spirituality: suffering is bad; therefore, do what you can to eliminate its causes and to relieve it when it occurs. Thus, at first glance, if one is concerned only with the spirituality that lies at its foundation, contemporary Engaged Buddhist activism is nothing new. What is new in it can be understood in terms of factors, both positive and negative, contributed by the 20th century: (1) modern social, economic, psychological, and political analysis of Western liberal origin; (2) the great example of Gandhi, whose influence among most Buddhist social activists is vast (with the prominent exception of the Ambedkarites (followers of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar) who disdain him for his failure to attack the caste system in toto); (3) acute crises, many of which have hit the Buddhist world particularly hard: genocide (Cambodia); modern warfare (Japan, Vietnam and much of Southeast Asia); the aftermath of colonialism (Sri Lanka); foreign invasion and cultural genocide (Tibet); repressive governments (Myanmar); the eco-crisis (the world); and, finally, (4) what might be called chronic crises, long term ills coming to a head in our time: extreme social inequality, bigotry, poverty (in particular, among the ex-untouchables of India) and sexism (the world). Unique forms of Buddhist social activism have arisen in response to each of these crises, drawing upon the inspiration of Gandhi, the tools of modern social analysis and the resources of Buddhism.

Poverty and Development Work In the world of contemporary Buddhism, in case after case, spirituality and social activism are so deeply intertwined that it is difficult to separate the two. An example of this may be seen in the work of a Thai monk and abbot, Nan Sutasilo, one of the ‘development monks’ found throughout Southeast Asia. Abbot Nan confronts issues of poverty and development, applying Buddhist principles to overcome rural poverty while resisting Western capitalist models of development. Why work to eliminate poverty and to develop an impoverished village at all if Buddhism is about selflessness and freedom from ‘I want’? Modern Buddhism is no friend of poverty; the combination of Western social analysis and Buddhist analysis demonstrates the causal interconnections of the various influences in human life: economic, cultural, social, psychological and spiritual conditions all act and interact upon persons and societies in causative ways. Thus, if one’s concern is spiritual development, one must also be concerned with economic development since material well-being and spiritual well-being are connected (Brown 2022). However, Buddhist activists are concerned about material well-being only to the point at which an individual’s and a society’s real needs are met. Thus, Abbot Nan sees Westernstyle development as harmful insofar as it fuels endless wanting, consumerism and everdeeper debt (Ekachai 1989). The Middle Path of Buddhism is antipathetic to consumerism: the young Siddhartha discovered that human wants are intrinsically insatiable, that despite his harem, power, wife, child and luxurious life, his wants continued to multiply and his 304

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deeper, spiritual wants remained unfulfilled. Thus, while needs must be met, insatiable wants must be avoided; this is the Middle Path in Buddhism today. For the ordinary person in the modern world, it is not easy to turn one’s back on the temptations presented by the world of consumerism. Consequently, Abbot Nan strives to help his villagers acquire ‘spiritual immunity’ to help them resist consumerism; thus, he took a group of villagers to meditate in a graveyard ‘in order to give them a new life,’ saying, [W]hen your mind is calm and clear, you can see through illusions and see situations as they are. This realization helps cleanse the mind of selfishness and greed. … When greed stops, peace arises. Your mind will be imbued with compassion, which provides the best fertilizer to nourish your life. (Via Ekachai 1989) Abbot Nan has made some creative changes in traditional practices to fund his projects. Throughout South and Southeast Asia, giving has always been an important expression of spirituality for the Buddhist laity, and monks and temples have been the object of such giving. Giving to monks and temples served as the economic base of Buddhism, but it also served to give villagers practice in giving and earned them merit. Traditionally, donations have been used for the temple’s own welfare, and the laypeople have wanted it so. But now, most temples are financially secure, and many are quite well-endowed with land and buildings. Declaring, ‘[T]he temple’s money is the people’s money’, Abbot Nan has begun taking money donated to his temple and applying it to his various projects, such as a Fertilizer Bank and a Village Rice Bank. He has inspired villagers to make a religious vow that they will resist consumerism, decrease unnecessary expenditures and donate the money saved to a village savings group, the funds of which are used to set up a medical co-operative and to pay off the villagers’ loans before the banks to whom they are indebted foreclose and take their land. He has transformed the annual three-day robe-presentation ceremony, traditionally the major festival of lay giving to the Buddhist temple, into an occasion which raises money for village development projects rather than the temple. Thus giving, and the expression of selflessness that it embodies, remains a central practice, but transformed in such a way that it directly serves the development needs of the village.

Response to War, Genocide and Invasion The Buddhist world has experienced some of the most horrific suffering produced by the 20th century. Japan is the only country in the world that has actually suffered a nuclear attack. Vietnam experienced prolonged warfare. Cambodia suffered prolonged warfare and genocide. Tibet was invaded by China, lost its sovereignty and is presently in the throes of what many call a cultural genocide. The Engaged Buddhist response has been composed of deep, principled nonviolence, efforts to prevent suffering and heal wounds, and efforts to promote peace and reconcile enemies (Yoshinori 1999). That the Buddhist response to acute military violence has characteristically been nonviolent and reconciling is an expression of the fundamental Buddhist spiritual-ethical principle of ahiṃ sā, nonharmfulness. The first of the five Buddhist lay precepts, the foundation of ethical life for Buddhists, ahiṃ sā enjoins nonharmfulness on all Buddhists. The other four lay precepts – not to steal, lie, engage in sexual misconduct or take intoxicants – are 305

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disciplines which the Buddhist undertakes in order to avoid causing harm to oneself or others. Nonharmfulness is also expressed in the Four Noble Truths: if suffering is the problem that Buddhism is intended to eliminate, then clearly the individual Buddhist will, minimally, want to avoid adding to existing suffering and, maximally, will make efforts to alleviate the suffering that exists and prevent future suffering. But ahiṃ sā is also a spiritual value; indeed, ethics and spirituality are two sides of a single coin in Buddhism. Spiritually, ahiṃ sā is the practical expression of selflessness and compassionate care for others. Engaged Buddhist social activism flows directly from this ancient, deep and all-embracing value.

Cambodia In little more than three and a half years (April 1975–January 1979) and as a direct result of Khmer Rouge policies and brutality, an estimated two to three million Cambodians died of starvation, disease, overwork, torture and execution. During the same period, the Khmer Rouge destroyed virtually all of Cambodia’s 3,600 Buddhist temples, while only an estimated 3,000 of what had been 50,000 monks survived (figures on female monastics are unavailable, though they were persecuted as well).1 Temple remains are used for ammunition storage, manure dumps, torture and execution sites. To refer in any way to Buddhism was a punishable offence. In response to this unspeakable human horror came the monk Maha Ghosananda. Having lived out the holocaust in a Thai monastery (where he had lived since 1965), Maha Ghosanada returned to Cambodia in 1978, shortly before the fall of the Khmer Rouge (Maha Ghosananda and editors 1992). Arriving at a refugee camp, he distributed copies of the Metta Sutta, the Buddha’s teachings on love and kindness. There is perhaps no more moving scene imaginable than the picture of this monk, who himself lost his entire family in the holocaust, seated in the refugee camp in the utterly devastated land of the Killing Fields, surrounded by survivors of the holocaust, who themselves had gone through years of hell on Earth, reciting over and over again as thousands prostrate and loudly wail, the verses from the Buddha’s teaching in the Dhammapāda (I.5): Hatred never ceases by hatred but by love alone is healed. This is the ancient and eternal law. This scene perhaps also captures the heart of the interface between Buddhist spirituality and Engaged Buddhist social activism in the context of acute crisis: love in response to hatred, compassion in response to suffering, healing in response to wounds, reconciliation in response to enmity. Maha Ghosananda dedicated the rest of his life to tireless efforts to heal the wounds of the Cambodian people in Cambodia and in the diaspora, to reconcile its still warring factions and to rebuild the Cambodian Buddhist church. He was elected Somteja, Supreme Patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism and is often called ‘the Gandhi of Cambodia’. He established temples first in every refugee camp, then all over the world for Cambodian expatriate communities. Beginning in 1992, he began a series of Dhamma Yietra (yātra), Walks for Peace and Reconciliation. The first accompanied many refugees returning home for the first time; the second was held just before the elections in 1993 and is credited with helping to create the atmosphere in which Cambodians were able to vote in large numbers; the third, in which one 306

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monk and one nun were killed, was held in 1994 in an effort to spread mettā karuṇā (loving-kindness and compassion) and bring reconciliation to the still warring factions.

Vietnam In 1963, the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, president of South Vietnam, was brought to an end by a combination of Buddhist and military forces acting separately. Diem, a Catholic, was infamously oppressive of Buddhism. In a country that was 80% Buddhist, this was his downfall. Having prohibited public celebration of the Buddha’s birthday in May, government officials fired on a peaceful crowd that had gathered around a radio station when it failed to air an expected Buddhist programme. This event outraged the Buddhist public, and huge protest demonstrations followed. In June, the monk Thich Quang Duc, in a state of meditative concentration and complete self-control, publicly burned himself to death in protest. Ever larger strikes, marches, protests and fasts occurred, along with further self-­ immolations. In August, Diem’s forces raided Buddhist pagodas throughout South Vietnam, resulting in the arrest of large numbers of monks. Protests and arrests continued through September and October. In November, Diem was ousted in a coup that was almost bloodless, though Diem and his brother Nhu were executed. Until May 1966, there followed a period of short-lived South Vietnamese administrations, in which governments sympathetic to Buddhism and its anti-war stance were popular with the people but unacceptable to the South Vietnamese military and their American backers, while governments acceptable to the latter were unacceptable to the masses of South Vietnamese people and the Buddhist leadership that voiced their anti-war sentiment (Kahin 1986). In this way, from 1963 to 1966, protest for freedom of religion steadily widened into protest against political oppression and, especially, for peace. Buddhism became the people’s voice and steadfastly called for an end to the war. Finally, in 1966, with strong American backing, the South Vietnamese government army of the Thieu-Ky regime crushed the military forces that had withdrawn their support from the government and arrested virtually the entire Buddhist activist leadership. This effectively ended the power of the Buddhist anti-war movement, though protests continued throughout the war years. Actions of the Buddhist Struggle Movement included massive street demonstrations against pro-war governments, evacuating villages caught in the crossfire or approaching the crossfire, as well as establishing cease-fire lines outside of villages (these actions were limited to monks and nuns, highly visible in their saffron robes and carrying Buddhist flags), rebuilding villages destroyed by warfare, working on behalf of war orphans and ‘half-orphans’ (those lacking fathers), aiding and protecting military deserters and draft resisters and composing and distributing anti-war literature, poems and songs. Laypeople, in addition, engaged in widespread non-cooperation with pro-war governments (strikes, boycotts, mass resignations and refusal to participate in the war effort) and the placing of their sacred family altars in the streets in the path of approaching tanks. At the same time that Buddhism expressed the anti-war sentiment of the Vietnamese people, it was also developing a new social work emphasis. The monk Thich Nhat Hanh founded the School of Youth for Social Service in 1964 as a vehicle for social work in the countryside. Inevitably, the monks, nuns and laypeople attracted to this dynamic new form of Buddhism found themselves engaged in efforts to protect the people from the war and to heal them from its destruction while at the same time going about their social work of teaching, building public buildings, caring for the needy and helping improve agriculture, sanitation, roads, etc. 307

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The spiritual foundations of the Buddhist Struggle Movement contain features we have seen in other movements, though in a form which might be difficult to recognize here. First, despite the role played by the military in the preceding account, the Buddhist Struggle Movement itself was strictly nonviolent. While they invited members of the South Vietnamese army to withdraw their support from regimes that were determined to perpetuate or expand the war, they never sought military backing for themselves. Similarly, the self-immolations of Buddhist monks, nuns and laypersons look violent indeed to the outside observer, but Buddhist theoreticians insisted that they should not be so understood. First, no Buddhist leadership ever endorsed or sanctioned the self-immolations; they were the actions of individuals who had made the kind of decision that was made without asking for approval. Second, the self-immolations were not seen as acts of despair or violence but as the loving efforts of a selfless person sacrificing him/herself in an effort to reach deeply into the hearts of those propagating the war so as to make them psychologically and spiritually unable to continue doing so, and to make them want to stop. Those who immolated themselves willingly took unto themselves the bad karma of causing harm to a sentient being (themselves), abandoning their parents, etc., in an effort to prevent the much greater suffering of a much greater group of sentient beings by bringing the war to an end. The self-immolators were regarded by the Vietnamese public as bodhisattvas. The second characteristic feature of the spirituality of the Buddhist Struggle Movement was the refusal to take sides with anyone against anyone else. The Struggle Movement refused to take sides with North or South, communist or capitalist; they wished to be only on the side of the people and of life. This was, after all, a fratricidal civil war in which brothers might be in opposing armies. In such a situation, Nhat Hanh expressed the sentiments of many in a poem entitled ‘Do Not Shoot Your Brother,’ which was sung throughout South Vietnam: Our enemy has the name of hatred Our enemy has the name of inhumanity Our enemy has the name of anger Our enemy has the name of ideology Our enemy wears the mask of freedom Our enemy is dressed in lies Our enemy bears empty words Our enemy is the effort to divide us. Our enemy is not man. If we kill man, with whom shall we live? (via Forest 1978, 12) Refusal to take sides with one party against another is based not only upon sympathy for all involved - the Buddhists were clear that in war, all are victims: combatants and noncombatants, victors and losers, the living and the dead - but also upon a keen Buddhist sense of karmic interconnection with a consequent nonjudgmental ethical posture. The war was the massive karmic consequence of countless interconnected causal threads, including global geopolitics, the Cold War and Vietnamese history; it was a vast karmic knot in which the threads of countless individuals from North and South Vietnam, America and the Soviet Union were hopelessly tangled. Rather than judgment, blame and side-taking, what was 308

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needed in this context was to understand the karmic forces that drove people and groups to do what they did and to remove the causes that would result in further suffering – prominently including separation and enmity between opposing ‘sides’. Thus, to avoid taking sides and to make every effort to reconcile to repair the rift in the human community was not a matter of strategy or even of distaste for the various extant camps; it was a matter of fundamental necessity in the Buddhist analysis. The war was an expression of a divided humanity; the Buddhists would not contribute to that division but heal it if they could.

Tibet and the Dalai Lama The Chinese invaded Tibet in 1949, establishing complete control in 1959, at which time the Dalai Lama fled from Tibet to India. He continues to the present to live in Dharamsala, India, together with a community of Tibetan refugees. Chinese rule in Tibet has been severely damaging to the Tibetan people, their culture, religion and the physical environment of Tibet. The Tibetan people’s suffering, strict political oppression with severe punishment for any challenge or protest against the Chinese government or its policies, was especially acute during the Cultural Revolution when death from torture, inhumane prison conditions, execution and especially famine reached its peak. It is estimated that over one million Tibetans died as a direct result of the Chinese invasion, occupation and mismanagement of Tibet; this was one-fifth of the population of Tibet at the time. Since the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese have changed their Tibet policy in a manner that remains devastating to the Tibetans. By means of a massive population transfer of ethnic Han Chinese into Tibet, the Tibetans are close to becoming a minority in their own country. Combine this with the destruction and repression of traditional religion and culture (over 6,000 monasteries, temples and historic structures were destroyed by the Chinese; vast numbers of monks and nuns were forcibly returned to lay life; the Buddhist leadership is in exile or effectively silenced) and it is clear that Tibetan culture is engaged in a struggle for survival. Many have called the present Tibet policy of China ‘cultural genocide’ for this reason; indeed, much of the hope for the preservation of Tibetan culture and religion lies in what can be preserved outside of Tibet. His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIV, regarded by Tibetan Buddhists as the incarnation of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, was, until 1959, the spiritual and temporal head of the Tibetan people. He continued as their spiritual head and was the head of the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, in north-west India, until he transferred all his power to a democratically elected government that he had insisted on forming. As the intensely beloved and deeply respected heart and spirit of the Tibetan people, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has developed into a unique and remarkable leader who embodies in his person both the continuity of the Tibetan religion and its far-reaching reform, both profound spiritual guidance and deft secular leadership. As such, he has consistently drawn on Buddhist spiritual resources to urge the Tibetans to avoid all violence in their response to the Chinese occupation. He has led the movement for the reform of the Tibetan government in exile and Tibetan ecclesial institutions, replacing hierarchical and authoritarian structures with representative and democratic ones. He has overseen efforts to preserve Tibetan culture and religion in Dharamsala and throughout the world. He has led the global effort to restore a measure of self-determination to Tibet through negotiation and diplomacy. His proposals, which have never received a positive response from the Chinese, consistently call for the demilitarization of Tibet, the restoration of human rights to the Tibetan people, 309

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abandonment of the population transfer policy, protection of the natural environment of Tibet and a negotiated settlement of relations between Tibet and China. The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Along with Maha Ghosananda and the Vietnamese Struggle Movement, the Dalai Lama is one of the foremost examples of the Buddhist practice of loving the enemy under conditions which might be expected to drive anyone to hate. In the Dalai Lama’s understanding, the proper response to the enemy is gratitude. He quotes a verse and comments as follows: If one whom I’ve helped my best And from whom I expect much Harms me in an inconceivable way, May I regard that person as my best teacher. Only when someone criticizes and exposes our faults are we able to discover our problems and confront them. Thus is our enemy our greatest friend. He provides us with the needed test of inner strength, tolerance and respect for others. Instead of feeling anger toward this person, one should respect him and be grateful. (via King 2005, 78) The Dalai Lama is absolutely certain that neither anger nor violence can solve the problems of Tibet, or any problems, in a deep and lasting way. He is confident that only love and understanding can produce a real resolution and always seeks solutions that meet the real needs of both sides of the conflict while urging the Tibetan people to be as forbearing as they possibly can. Though the path of love takes longer, he says, it is finally the only real alternative.

Human Rights and Well-being Ambedkarites The most outstanding example of a Buddhist movement working for human social equality is the group of ex-untouchable new Buddhist organizations inspired in India by Dr B. R. Ambedkar. Ambedkar, born to the Hindu Mahar Dalit (‘untouchable’) caste, rose to become one of the great statesmen and founding fathers of the postcolonial state of India and served as a major architect of the Constitution of India – elected to the Constituent Assembly at the behest of Mahatma Gandhi in 1947. Despite his advanced education and important political status, he continued to be treated contemptuously by many because of his low caste status. Repulsed by the immorality and incorrigibility of the caste system, Ambedkar vowed he would not die a Hindu. Citing its roots in India, its tolerance and its principles of social equality, Ambedkar converted to Buddhism shortly before his death in a huge public ceremony in which hundreds of thousands of other untouchables joined with him in a great mass conversion. Since that time, millions of former untouchables have converted to Buddhism, expressly to leave behind their low caste status and to gain a new level of dignity as human beings who are spiritually and socially equal to anyone. In practice, since the vast majority of Buddhists in India are ex-untouchables, the Buddhist label has by no means always helped them to escape social ostracism and disdain. Nonetheless, converts to Buddhism report a surge in self-esteem as they take a step for themselves that rejects the status imposed upon them by the larger society. To convert is to repudiate the caste system, to repudiate institutionalized inequality and to insist upon being regarded as worthy. 310

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The Ambedkarite movement poses a challenge to Buddhism. They reject what they see as the ‘blame the victim’ mentality of traditional Buddhism, which claims that one’s suffering is karmically caused by one’s own actions in past lives and insist instead upon the social and institutional causes of the suffering they experience as dalit, ‘outcaste’, people. They are interested in the betterment of their lot here and now and have little patience with delaying gratification to a future life, much less nirvāṇa. Some dalit groups do reach out to embrace traditional Buddhist spiritual practices as tools which can help to heal their wounds and bring some joy, inner peace and deep insights. Here, spirituality, psychology and social action come together. Ongoing social action is normative in this community.

Women’s Issues Concern about Buddhist nuns is rooted in their status in Buddhist institutions. For millennia, the facilities, training and popular support offered by nuns have been inferior to that offered to monks. In addition, women who have wanted to ordain as nuns in Theravada or Tibetan lineages have not been able to do so since, according to the rules of the Buddhist order, the ordination process requires existing nuns of the same sect to participate in the ordination of new nuns, and those orders have died out. In Theravada countries and in Tibet, women can only receive the vows of a novice, a situation that has led to the development of various quasi-nun categories. While their status varies, in many countries, nuns and quasi-nuns have long failed to get the material support, the education or the training they need or the full ordination that many want. In response to this situation, a new organization, ‘Sakyadhita: International Association of Buddhist Women’ (‘sakyadhītā’ means ‘daughters of the Buddha’), was formed in 1987 at the first International Conference of Buddhist Nuns to address the needs and concerns of Buddhist nuns and quasi-nuns and, especially, to press for full ordination for women (https://www.sakyadhita.org). The progressive and activist wings of the male Buddhist world have come out in their support in the years since. As a result of these efforts, using Mahayana nuns and Theravada monks, full female ordination has been re-established in the Theravada order in some countries (notably Sri Lanka and Thailand) with strong lay support. A path to full female ordination has begun in one Tibetan order.

Conclusion Engaged Buddhist social activism represents a major change in Buddhism. But is Buddhist spirituality itself changed in this movement? ‘Traditional’ Buddhist spirituality has long embraced vast diversity. Insofar as what we have here manifests the spirituality of selflessness, compassion, calm and insight, it cannot be regarded as new. Rather, it should be regarded as a natural evolution of its heritage. What is truly new in Engaged Buddhism is the contributions that it has made to a previously underdeveloped branch of Buddhist philosophy: social ethics. Notable contributions have been made by the Engaged Buddhists and their allies to reflection from a Buddhist philosophical perspective on such issues as human rights, justice, environmentalism and deep ecology; nonviolence and peacemaking; economic theory; political theory; and visions of the ‘good life’ here and now (King 2021; de Silva 2022). Finally, looking beyond Buddhism, it should be noted that the spiritual tenor of Buddhist social activism has also had a disproportionate impact in global circles of nonviolent social 311

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activism. Many non-Buddhist activists cite the Engaged Buddhist emphasis upon the necessity of cultivating spirituality in order to be effective in one’s social and political engagement—the notion that in order to ‘make peace’, a person must ‘be peace’—as a new and vital contribution to the art of peacemaking and one that they have taken to heart (Thich Nhat Hanh 1987).

Note 1 Information on Cambodia is taken from ‘Editor’s Introduction’, Step by Step by Maha Ghosananda, edited by Jane Sharada Mahoney and Philip Edmonds (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1992) 3–23.

References Abbot Nan. See Sanitsuda Ekachai 1989. ‘An Open Letter.’ 1993. The Network For Western Buddhist Teachers, Turning Wheel: Journal of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Summer. Berrigan, Daniel and Thich Nhat Hanh. 1975. The Raft is Not the Shore: Conversations Toward a Buddhist/Christian Awareness, Boston: Beacon Press. Brown, Clair. 2022. ‘Buddhist Economics: Creating a Sustainable and Compassionate Economy’. In Religion and Sustainability: Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses. R. Sherma and P. Bilimoria (eds.). United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Series, 61–68. Dordrecht/NY: Springer. De Silva, Padmasiri. 2022. ‘Environmental Philosophy of Buddhism’. In, Religion and Sustainability: Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses. R. Sherma and P. Bilimoria (eds.), 197–201. Dordrecht/NY: Springer. Ekachai, Sanitsuda. 1989. A Buddhist Approach to Fighting Rural Poverty Speeches of Abbot Nan. Ongharak Nakhorn Nayok (Thailand): International Network of Engaged Buddhists (https:// inebnetwork.org/) (accessed Halloween 2022 ed) Forest, James H. 1978. The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam: Fifteen Years for Reconciliation. Alkmaar, Holland: International Fellowship of Reconciliation. Ghosanada, Maha. 1992. Step by Step. Meditations on Wisdom and Compassion (with Editors’ Introduction, 3–23). Jane Sharada Mahoney and Philip Edmonds (eds.), Preface by Jack Kornfield. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism. Hanh, Thich Nhat. 1987. Being Peace. Berkeley: Parallax Press. His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIV. 2005. ‘The Principle of Universal Responsibility’, (pamphlet) New York: Potala Publications, no date, no origination. See Sallie B. King. Jones, Ken H. 2005. The New Social Face of Buddhism: A Call to Action. Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications. Kahin, George McT. 1986. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. King, Sallie B. 2005. Being Benevolence: The Social Ethics of Engaged Buddhism. Honolulu, HI: The University of Hawaii Press. King, Sallie B. ed. 2021. Buddhist Visions of the Good Life for All. Abingdon: Routledge. Yoshinori, Takeuchi. 1999 (2003). With James W. Heisig, Paul L. Swanson, and Joseph S. O’Leary. Buddhist Spirituality: Later China, Korea, Japan, and the Modern World. New York, NY: Crossroads (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass).

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25 ECOFEMINISM FROM A BUDDHIST CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE* Rita M. Gross

A Preliminary Definition of Ecofeminism ‘Ecofeminism’ is obviously a combination of the words ‘ecology’ and ‘feminism’. For proponents of ecofeminism, neither ecology nor feminism, by themselves, are adequate. They would claim that feminism is in danger of ignoring the environmental crisis but that ecologists often ignore gendered analyses (polarizing sexes) in their work, thus making both incomplete and inadequate. The deeper claim of ecofeminism is that the root of the entire ecological problem lies with Western systems of dualism and hierarchy, which are dualisms of higher and lower, better and worse. In ecofeminist thinking, the planet is polluted and overcrowded because nature is dominated and used by human beings without regard for its intrinsic value or its limits; women are oppressed because they are viewed as beings to be dominated by men, whose primary purpose is to care for men and children. ‘Ecofeminism sees a connection between the domination of nature and the domination of women’ (Ruether 2005: 91). These dualisms are deeply rooted in, if not derivative from, basic assumptions of Western religious thinking. Since Lynn White published the famous article in 1967, many, including ecofeminists, have come to agree that because religion is part of the problem causing the ecological crisis, religion will have to be part of the solution. The term ecofeminism was coined by Francoise d’Eaubonne in her book Le Feminisme ou la Mort [Feminism or Death] published in 1974. She and her colleagues argued that ‘the destruction of the planet is due to the profit motive inherent in male power’ (Ruether 2005: 91). They also argued that only women could bring about a revolution which would make the planet ‘green again for all’ and create a society that would treat women and men *  Rita Gross was one of the early pioneers who shaped three strands in modern scholarship: the theory and practice of women and religion, and the intersection of Buddhist ecology and Western feminism (see Ruether 2011), her work gave prominence to the trope of ‘Buddhist ecofeminism’. Because Gross’s work has been foundational in this area, the editors have felt compelled to include a chapter from an article she had earlier submitted for this volume. Gross published a version of this chapter as ‘Buddhism and Ecofeminism: Untangling the Threads of Buddhist Ecology and Western Thought’ in Journal for the Study of Religion, 2011 24/2: 17–32. We are grateful for permission to publish her chapter, posthumously (edited and slightly updated by Amy Rayner and Purushottama Bilimoria).

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primarily as people rather than first marking them by their sex (Adams 1994: xi). From a Buddhist point of view, these are very strong claims. In view of the Buddhist views about egolessness and emptiness, Buddhists are very cautious about attributing ‘inherent’ characteristics to anything. To claim that the ‘profit motive’ is ‘inherent in male power’ is to claim it is unchangeable and unalterably so and comes close to claiming moral deficiency in men and moral superiority in women. Such a claim is not unknown, especially in earlier feminist writings. In any case, the claim that there is a connection between the domination of women and the domination of nature, making it impossible to solve the ecological crisis without attending to more equitable relationships, is ecofeminism’s central claim.

What Does ‘Feminism’ Add to Ecology? What Does ‘Eco’ Add to Feminism? Ecofeminism is an attempt to develop a more nuanced and complex discussion of oppression that does not single-mindedly reduce all problems to those of unjust relationships between men and women while at the same time not ignoring such issues. Ecofeminists claim that ecologists often ignore women’s issues, while feminists often do not acknowledge the depth of the ecological crisis and that both environmental and women’s issues must be addressed if we are to negotiate the future successfully for the generations to come (in both the human and ecosystems’ domains). But the interesting question is: what does the ‘eco’ add to ‘feminism’, or, put another way, what differentiates ecofeminism from feminism? A feminist critique is certainly relevant to Buddhism (and vice versa), and many concepts and practices central to Buddhism are highly relevant to ecological thinking. But what of Buddhism and ecofeminism? To answer that question, we need a more detailed account of ecofeminism, looking especially into claims typically made by ecofeminists that were not so dominant in earlier feminist thinking. There are three dominant themes in ecofeminist thinking. We may begin with the thesis positing a special relationship between women and nature, which figures to some extent in all ecofeminist thinking. This theme has taken two forms. First, it is commonly claimed that women simply are more embedded in the natural world, more in tune with nature by virtue of their biology, than are men. Thirty years ago, the standard explanation for why women seem to be less involved in religion than men appealed to women’s closer link with nature, a link which men lack, we were told, because their efforts went into culture building. Whole theories of religion were built on the claim that men are to culture as women are to nature. That thesis is still invoked by religious conservatives to explain why men usually dominate public religious life. Men need religious rituals to provide them with what women have naturally by virtue of their biology, it is claimed. Indeed, men’s religious rituals often duplicate what women do in ordinary life: bathing, feeding and dressing initiates or deities. Some feminists and ecofeminists have embraced this claim, celebrating women’s experiences that are often denigrated or ignored by male-dominant cultures and religions. This celebration tends toward essentialism, towards positing some intrinsic quality that all women share despite cultural differences. This celebration of women’s unique sensibilities also often borders on a claim that women are morally superior to men, more peaceful and more concerned for others. Other feminists and ecofeminists are very sceptical of essentialist claims and also have difficulty with claims of female superiority. First of all, positing 314

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innate sex traits (such as masculine, feminine, etc., which in modern parlance is rendered as ‘gender’, notwithstanding its own ambiguities) is fundamentally nonsensical from a Buddhist point of view. Buddhist doctrine aside, such dualistic claims do not help women end their oppression. Every set of essential traits assigned to women that seem temporarily to forward women’s interests can also be used against women. It is only a matter of interpretation. Women’s supposed innate peacefulness could make them more worthy in some people’s estimation but unworthy in the eyes of those who think that defensive military actions are inevitable. Reversing hierarchal dualisms does not undo the problems caused by positing dualism as the ultimate nature of reality. The other form of the claim that women and nature share a special link is the thesis that women and nature are both seen as objects to be dominated and subjugated by men. The very term ‘Mother Nature’ in the English language, used only when nature does something inconvenient to human beings, underscores this identification of women and nature and expresses a desire to control her. As we have already seen, because they were identified with matter, not spirit, Christian literature had taught that women should be subservient and obedient. Many ecofeminists, especially Carolyn Merchant in her influential book, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (1980), argued that the identification of women with nature increased during the Western scientific revolution when an organic model of the universe was replaced with a mechanistic model. In organic models of the universe, the world was viewed as a living being, both feared and revered for her powers; when the analogy of the universe as a machine became dominant, fear and reverence for nature were replaced by the attempt to dominate nature. But because women and nature were so closely linked conceptually, the language scientists used to talk about subduing nature consistently used female analogies. Merchant demonstrated how early in the scientific revolution, writers such as Francis Bacon borrowed language used by those who were persecuting women as witches to describe how female nature should be ‘unveiled’ and ‘forced to yield her secrets’ (Ruether 2005: 120–121). Nature, like women, should be subdued and tamed. Tamed and subdued earth and women are then available to be useful to mankind, with little fear of any reprisal. The prominent Indian ecofeminist Vandana Shiva has continued this line of thinking about science and its negative effects on women and the earth in her many critiques of Western notions of development. According to her, patriarchal divisions of labour make women responsible for the day-to-day sustenance of their families, which in turn makes them more sensitive to ecological degradation. They feel the effects of globalization sooner than men, and because of that experience, women are more likely to oppose ‘development’ projects earlier. In this analysis, women’s greater sensitivity is due not to their intrinsic nature but to the cultural condition of male domination. Nevertheless, their interests lead them to prefer and promote a more ‘organic’ way of living as opposed to the development fostered by their male counterparts. The second major theme central to ecofeminist writing and thinking is the claim that all forms of oppression are linked and intertwined. This claim is, in part, an attempt to undo feminism’s earlier grandiose claims that sexism is the origin of all forms of alienation and domination and, in part, simply the result of more mature and sophisticated analyses. The work of Rosemary Radford Ruether, especially Integrating Ecofeminism, Globalization, and World Religions (2005), has stood out as a good example of such ecofeminist work. Domination over women and nature may be foregrounded, but those dominations are linked with economic and racial oppressions that severely harm everyone except for a small 315

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group of wealthy, mainly male, stakeholders. Other ecofeminists, such as Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva, especially highlight the connection of economics to domination over women and the earth, referring frequently to ‘capitalist patriarchy’ in their analyses (Mies and Shiva 1993: 2; see also Brown, 2022; Bilimoria 2022). Agricultural policies that deplete the earth through monocultures and excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides while enriching only biotech firms and driving most subsistence farmers from their land are subjected to scathing criticism over and over again. Large biotech companies manage to dictate the use of genetically modified seeds which cannot reproduce themselves, thus forcing farmers to rely on these companies for next year’s seed. Projects to build large dams force thousands off their lands without adequate resettlement or compensation. Attempts are made to privatize all water globally and make people pay for clean water; already, in many parts of the world, safe drinking water is not a part of national infrastructure (such is the case in India), and expensive bottled aqua is a daily requirement. All these policies are forced upon the world by multinational corporations bent solely on profit and backed up by dominant institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. There has been local and more widespread opposition to these measures around the world, often with women playing key roles in the protests. The third prominent theme in ecofeminist writings might be called an adjustment in worldview. There are several components to this worldview adjustment, and it is this portion of ecofeminist thinking that does the most to take ecofeminism beyond earlier (Western) feminist theological thinking and is of the most interest to Buddhists. This theme may be called ‘an adjustment in worldview’ because, unlike much earlier feminist theological thinking, ecofeminists do not attempt to rethink a personal, transcendent deity who is imagined as male or individual personal relationships with such a deity in ways that would be less patriarchal and sexist (cf. Christ 2003). Ecofeminists envision an interdependent world of finite, mutually relating selves. Deity, if talked about at all, is part of the system rather than separate from the system. After her survey of leading ecofeminist thinkers worldwide, Ruether finds a remarkable consensus among them. Most or all of them reject traditional Western epistemology based on the idea of an independent, objective knower separate from the object of knowledge, which it knows accurately and can control. It should be noted that many feminists rejected that model of knowing long ago when we argued that the social location of the researcher affects what the researcher sees (Gross 2005). Most of all reject the idea of an independent separate self and argue that what we call ‘self’ is actually a matrix of relationships rather than a single, coherent entity. All call for partnership models of society and of the human relationship with the natural world rather than the relationships of domination that characterize current relationships between sexes, classes, cultures and between humans and the planet. Most of all reject a view of the world as dead matter and recommend that viewing the world as an interdependent, living organism would foster ecological health and well-being for the planet. Finally, to quote Ruether again, ‘The concept of God is deconstructed. The divine is understood as a matrix of life-giving energy that is in and under all things’ (Ruether 2005: 125). A transcendent, personal creator deity is simply not part of ecofeminist thinking. As I reflect on this summary of ecofeminist thinking, I am struck that it is a very Western conversation, probably because the ecological crisis is largely the doing of the Western world, particularly of the extremely high levels of consumption in the United States. Other industrializing countries, particularly India and China, are struggling to catch up as fast as 316

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they can, however. I have never been convinced that areas of the world with lower rates of consumption consume less because of their superior moral virtue but because they do not yet have the means to consume as much as they would like or buy as many automobiles as they would prefer. Globalization, which many see as the modern equivalent of previous Western colonialism, is headquartered in the Western world. A global economy depends on the technology and science developed by the Western world. And who can gauge how deeply Western notions of a transcendent creator deity, who gave dominion over the earth to humans, traditionally understood as male humans, conditioned the development of science, colonialism and globalization? Lynn White was talking about monotheistic religions of a transcendent deity in his famous article, after all.

Add Buddhism and Stir the Urn As can be seen from the preceding survey, ecofeminist thought and activity is an ongoing conversation, but Buddhists have not been a party to most of it. One reason for this non-participation may well be that Buddhists generally do not react well to topics on ‘feminism’, even though the status of women and of nuns has improved dramatically in much of the Buddhist world in the last thirty years. Western Buddhists tend to believe that Buddhism is not in need of sex or sexual orientation analysis because Buddhism teaches that enlightenment is beyond the sexes. Asian Buddhists sometimes claim that because feminism is a Western trope, it should be avoided altogether. Feminism is too confrontational and ideological, it is often claimed. As a Buddhist, I agree with that criticism, but that criticism alone does not invalidate the insights of feminism, but only the style in which they are often expressed. A fresh analysis of what parts of the ecofeminist conversation could be relevant to Buddhists is called for. In my view, two elements of the ecofeminist discussion are definitely relevant to Buddhists, and two elements of feminism are less relevant. I argued in my Buddhism after Patriarchy that the feminist elements of ecofeminism are not relevant to the Buddhists. Buddhist teachings may well be neutral towards the sexes, but its practices and institutions are not. It is hard to understand how a religion with such exemplary teachings about equity between sexes at the abstract level could get things so wrong on the ground in the practicalities of everyday life and social organization. As my friend Jose Cabezon once remarked to me, ‘Buddhism has a great deal of potential for deconstructing patriarchy, but it has never come to much fruition’. The other element of ecofeminism that I think is highly relevant to Buddhist discussions is ecofeminism’s insistence on an integrated analysis of oppression and social injustice in which issues of patriarchy, race, class, ethnicity, environmental degradation, etc., are linked as parts of a larger system of domination instead of being analysed separately. The words ‘justice’ and ‘oppression’ do not come easily in Buddhist discourse, even to me, but I think it is necessary for Buddhists to begin to think more in terms of social issues, to think of the ways in which humanly constructed institutions cause suffering and to think about collective ways of changing those institutions to alleviate suffering. In my view, Buddhist ethical analyses have focused too single-mindedly on individual karma and on the individual’s ignorance as the cause of an individual’s suffering. While I do believe this explanation has some real virtues in providing comfort and peace of mind to suffering individuals, I do not believe it is completely accurate. Systems over which an individual has no control but which could be changed by collective action have too much ability to cause suffering to be simply 317

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accepted as necessary because of karma. Such an explanation has the effect of claiming that some individuals or groups are compelled by their karma to oppress and harm other individuals or groups, which makes no sense from a Buddhist point of view and would invalidate basic teachings about karma if it were true (see Gross and Ruether 2001). As Buddhists, we know that teachings about karma are meant to apply to the relative level, not the absolute level, but that distinction is hard for those not well-schooled in Buddhist thought to grasp. I believe we do need more adequate ways of talking about social cause and effect on the relative level. Concerning Buddhist conversations about social issues, mainly conducted by the Engaged Buddhist movement, the ecofeminist insistence on an integrated approach to linked systems of oppression is more than apt (see Chapter 24 by Sallie B. King in this volume). The Engaged Buddhist movement is willing to address many economic, political and environmental issues, but it is strangely silent on sex issues, even though Buddhists could control their own internal sex-identity arrangements, whereas they do not actually control the economic, political and environmental arenas of which they are so critical. For example, in a book of some 712 pages collected to celebrate the seventieth birthday of Sulak Sivaraksha, a prominent leader of the Engaged Buddhist movement, only three articles have anything to do with sex identity. Of those, two, including mine, take a critical approach to this issue rather than simply reporting information about Buddhist women (Gross 2003). Such a proportion of attention to sex-identified issues versus attention to other social issues is the norm for the Engaged Buddhist movement. In this case, a more integrated, systemic approach to social issues, such as that taken by ecofeminists, would be highly recommended. Given the unnecessary suffering caused by unjust and inequitable sex roles and the general concern of Buddhists to alleviate suffering, cogent discussion of sex-identity issues is even more vital to Buddhists. Finally, regarding what I call the ‘worldview adjustments’ proposed by ecofeminists, none of them are news to Buddhists because Buddhism is fundamentally non-dualistic. Buddhists have long talked of all-pervasive interdependence, of a self interdependent with its matrix, of the interconnection of all things in the phenomenal world and have found enlightenment in the midst of this very world rather than someplace else. These fundamental Buddhist insights, which ecofeminists are just discovering, are the basis of Buddhism’s relevance to sound ecological vision, which many ecological thinkers, Buddhist and non-Buddhist, have already noted some time ago. Whether Buddhists are able to put these insights into practice in situations in which they have any power to affect economics, politics or environmental policy is a separate question. But Buddhists are not in need of the worldview adjustments that ecofeminism proposes, though in my view, these adjustments are vital for Western religions and philosophies.

The Relevance and Limits of Feminism To be sure, my queasiness about ecofeminism has not to do with the ‘eco’ part of the name but with the ‘feminism’ part. For many years now, I have used the term ‘feminism’ in a very specific and limited way. I do not think it is helpful to use the term ‘feminism’ to refer vaguely to anything by or about women, partly because the term now carries such a negative charge for many people and partly because many assume, wrongly, that feminism is not relevant to men. I am more interested in what is actually going on and what can help people see things more clearly than in labels. 318

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I have argued that the goal of feminism is ‘freedom from the prison of sex roles’ and that feminism is the movement that concerns itself with just and equitable practices surrounding the sexes. In my view, the use of the term ‘feminism’ should be limited to such contexts. Thus, for example, I differentiate ‘women studies’ from ‘feminism’, even though the former arose because of the latter. While, on the one hand, everyone is gendered and sex-identity considerations pervade much of our lives, on the other hand, not everything is about the sexes either. I would argue that using the term ‘feminism’ when discussing issues that are not inevitably and inherently about the sexes is now counterproductive and perhaps also inaccurate. For example, the issue on which I worked is the theology of religions and religious diversity. I had no intention of calling my book a feminist approach to religious diversity, though sex matters and religious diversity are discussed whenever relevant. It seems to me that good theology of religions is not inherently about sex-identity issues and, therefore, there cannot be a feminist approach to the theology of religions that is different from any other sound, well-reasoned and compassionate theology of religions. I feel much the same way about ecological thinking. If it is good, well-reasoned and complete ecological thinking, it will deal with the polarized sex issues when they are appropriate and necessary for good ecological thinking. But the foremost question to me is whether or not good ecological thinking is going on, not whether it is sufficiently ecofeminist. To show how confusing things can become when the label ‘feminist’ is important, many of the topics discussed by ecofeminists do not strike me as being inherently about sex identity. They easily slide into more general ecological issues. On the other hand, important ecological work done by two women, Christian theologian Sallie McFague (1993) and Buddhist activist Joanna Macy (1991), is usually not listed among ecofeminist works nor considered by other ecofeminists, presumably because neither woman self-identifies as a feminist. They are not anti-feminist or non-feminist either! I am simply pleading for clarity and rigour when using the term ‘feminist’ and for using it sparsely rather than liberally.

Conclusion: A Buddhist Critique of Ecofeminism In the end, it seems to me that, much as ecofeminists realize that dualism is a problem, and much as they try to avoid it, ecofeminism is still quite dualistic. There are the good guys and bad guys. The bad guys are the multinational corporations and the free trade agreements; the good guys are the demonstrators against the meetings of the World Trade Organization and all the activist women who work for land reform and sustainable agriculture. But dichotomizing the world into good and bad is quite problematic from a Buddhist point of view. What connects them is more fundamental than what separates them, and they too easily elide into each other. For all of their sophistication, it also seems to me that most ecofeminists miss a very simple and fundamental point that Buddhist analysis would spot immediately. Ruether, among others, claims that the ideology of consumerism that dominates so much of the world today and is responsible for so much ecological degradation is based on the 18th-century English economic theory of Adam Smith. According to this theory, humans act solely to maximize their own self-interest, and self-interest has solely to do with maximizing possessions (Ruether 2005: 33–34). If people can increase their possessions and consume more, they will be happier. Acting out this theory has resulted in what some, including Buddhist social thinker David Loy, have called ‘the religion of the market’, argued by him to be the most successful religion of all times (Loy 2000). In this religion, the shopping mall becomes 319

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the church, and today, shopping malls in India are virtually indistinguishable from shopping malls in North America. Consumerism, the religion of the market, has become a truly global religion, embracing all the traditional religions which have not stood up very well against it. This is a description, not an analysis. What allows consumerism, the religion of the market, to be so successful? Buddhists would suggest a simple answer: greed, one of the three poisons that drive all conventional, saṃ sāric life. Ecofeminists tend to focus on ‘their’ greed and ‘my’ resulting suffering, thus continuing the dualistic analyses they so often see as the problem to be overcome. Buddhists would look deeply into greed, into what it feels like, how it works and how such understanding provides the antidote to greed. Rather than being the source of happiness, as the economic theories of Adam Smith would contend, Buddhists claim that greed or desire can never be fulfilled satisfactorily and leads eventually and inevitably to suffering. Nor is greed or desire itself actually a pleasant experience if one thinks about it carefully. Because Buddhism has seen greed as a problematic cause of suffering for so long, it has also developed many antidotes to greed, many ways of demonstrating that greed cannot possibly lead to happiness (Kaza 2005). Additionally, according to Vajrayana Buddhism, with enough wisdom, all the root poisons transmute into enlightened energy. The term here, translated as greed, is also translated as passion by some. It is quite provocative to contemplate that with enough wisdom, passion is said to transmute into compassion (Trungpa 1973: 217–243). This is the third way between Buddhism and ecofeminism.

References Adams, Carol (ed.). 1994. Ecofeminism and the Sacred. New York: Continuum. Boucher, Sandy. 1993. Turning the Wheel: American Women Creating the New Buddhism. Boston: Beacon Press. Bilimoria, Purushottama. 2022. ‘A Critique of Economic Reason: Between Tradition and Modernity’. In Sherma, R., Bilimoria, P. (Eds.) Sustainable Societies: Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses; Intersection of Sustainability Studies, and, Religion, Theology, Philosophy, 51–60 (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Series). Dordrecht/NY: Springer. Brown, Clair. 2022. ‘Buddhist Economics: Creating a Sustainable and Compassionate Economy’. In Sherma and Bilimoria (Eds.) Religion and Sustainability: Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses, 61–68. Dordrecht/NY: Springer. Christ, Carol. 2003. She Who Changes: Re-Imagining the Divine in the World. New York, NY: MacMillan Palgrave (SpringNatural). Gross, Rita M. 1993. Buddhism after Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ———. 1995. ‘Buddhist Resources for Issues Concerning Population and Consumption in Relation with the Environment.’ In Harold Coward (Ed.) Population, Consumption, and the Environment: Religious and Secular Responses, 155–172. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ———. 2000. ‘Toward a Buddhist Ecological Vision.’ In Harold Coward and Daniel C. Maguire (Eds.) Visions of a New Earth: Religious Perspectives on Population, Consumption, and the Environment, 147–160. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ———. 2003. Why (Engaged) Buddhists Should Care About Gender.’ In David W. Chappell (Ed.) Socially Engaged Spirituality: Essays in Honor of Sulak Sivaraksha on his 70th Birthday, 70–74. Bangkok: Sathirakoses – Nagapradipa Foundation. ———. 2005. ‘Methodology: Tool or Trap? Comments from a Feminist Perspective.’ In Rene Gothoni (Ed.) How To Do Comparative Religions: Three Ways, Many Goals, 149–166. Berlin: Walter de Gruter. Gross, Rita M. and Rosemary Radford Ruether. 2001. Religious Feminism and the Future of the Planet: A Buddhist-Christian Feminist Conversation. New York: Continuum.

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Ecofeminism from a Buddhist Critical Perspective Kaza, Stephanie. 1993. ‘Acting with Compassion: Buddhism, Feminism and the Environmental Crisis.’ In Carol J. Adams (Ed.) Ecofeminism and the Sacred, 50–69. New York: Continuum. ———. 2003. ‘To Save All Beings: Buddhist Environmental Activism.’ In Richard C. Foltz (Ed.) Worldviews, Religion, and the Environment: A Global Anthology, 193–207. Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth. ———. 2005. Hooked! Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume. Boston: Shambhala Publications. Kaza, Stephanie and Kenneth Kraft (Eds.). 2000. Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism. Boston: Shambhala. Klein, Anne Carolyn. 1995. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists and the Art of the Self. Boston: Beacon Press. Loy, David R. 2000. ‘The Religion of the Market.’ In Harold Coward and Daniel C. Maguire (Eds.) Visions of a New Earth: Religious Perspectives on Population, Consumption, and Ecology, 15–28. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Macy, Joanna. 1991. World as Lover: World as Self. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press. McFague, Sallie. 1993. The Body of God: An Ecological Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Merchant, Carolyn. 1980. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Harper and Collins. Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva. 1993. Ecofeminism. London: Zed Books. Ruether, Rosemary Radford. 2005. ‘Integrating Ecofeminism.’ Globalization, and World Religions. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. ———. 2011. ‘Rita Gross as Pioneer in the Study of Women and Religion’. Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol. 31: 75–78. Trungpa, Chogyam. 1973. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. Berkeley, CA: Shambhala Publications. Tucker, Mary Evelyn and Duncan, R.W. (Eds.). 1997. Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. White, Lynn. 1967. ‘The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis.’ Science, Vol. 155 (March 10): 1203–1207.

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26 CAREGIVER VS. CITIZEN? Reflections on Ecofeminism from Kerala State, India* J. Devika

Introduction – The ‘Kerala Model’ and Its Legacies Kerala State, India, has been often distinguished from the rest of India for being ‘closer to the West’ in terms of social development. ‘Development’, indeed, has been a magic word in Malayalam, the language of Kerala (hence the people of Kerala are referred to as Malayalees) since the mid-20th century. No concept has perhaps been so ardently discussed; no idea has brimmed over with such promise. All States in India have, of course, their unique languages, histories and cultures. Through the discourse of the ‘Kerala Model’, however, a further uniqueness, that of the experience of ‘social development’, has been claimed for Kerala. This is all the more important because the idea has been powerfully projected in public discourse and internalized by late 20th-century Malayalees, and still, in the 21st century, it serves to define the very sense of being Malayalee. It needs to be remembered that Kerala’s fame as the paradise of social development/ human development/social capital is relatively recent, dating back to the 1970s when a United Nations–sponsored study discovered that Kerala scored very high in social development despite displaying low levels of economic growth (CDS/UN 1977). Before, the constructions of ‘Kerala’ within Indian nation-space were largely negative: it was ‘the problem State’, plagued by ‘teeming numbers’– a large population – and poor economic growth (Singh 1959). However, in the 1970s, this image was to undergo a radical shift: from ‘problem State’, Kerala went on to be recognized as the ‘model’ for third world development (Jeffrey 2003). Its effectiveness and relevance in the 21st century have been underscored by the exemplary way in which Kerala handled the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been observed that while Kerala managed skillfully to flatten the infection curve during the first two phases of COVID-19, the response faltered in the third phase when the excessive demands on the medical and healthcare placed severe constraints on the state’s capacity to meet the needs. This factor was compounded by people beginning to pay little attention to observing physical distancing, hand washing and even wearing masks (Chathukuma and Tharamangalam 2021). *  This chapter was originally published in Man in India, 89 (4), 2009: 751–769. It has subsequently been updated and reproduced in this volume with permission. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-31

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And yet, during the early stages of the ‘Kerala Model,’ there was a trade-off. Social and community reformisms and the expansion of the state’s infrastructural power from the mid-19th to the 20th centuries, and the expansion of the rationality of nationalist development since the mid-20th century – which crucially shaped the ‘modern’ in this context – had ensured that most conceptions of the good life in this society were instrumental and functional to the imperatives of production and development. The languages of reform and development were deeply gendered – gender was, and still is, deeply implicated in the process of making individuals governable. If male individuals were assigned the task of ‘conquering Nature’ for production, female individuals were directed into the space of the home and assigned ‘active domesticity’ – the task of shaping productive and disciplined full-fledged individuals within homes (Devika 2007). This involved not just making children the target of the putative ‘[w]omanly’ ‘gentle power’ of persuasion but also subjecting female reproductive embodiment to control – an imperative that expanded vastly with the acceleration of population control measures in India in the 1960s (Devika 2008). Further, in the 1970s, another key process that accentuated the rationalization of social spaces – the massive flow of labour from Kerala to countries in the Persian Gulf region and the huge inflow of remittances that this migration entailed – also took off. This signalled the rise of the Consumer-Citizen on the horizon of Kerala’s political skies. Development modernization and the concomitant rationalization of all social domains, including the family, from the early 20th century onwards, had produced capabilities that allowed Malayalees to enter the global job market (Devika 2010); in turn, the latter phenomenon led to the further drive towards turning a host of institutions – especially focused on children – into centres of production of labour saleable in the global economy. This has transformed patriarchy such that women are increasingly agents of ‘childcrafting’. Meanwhile, the inflow of remittances accelerated the transformation of land into ‘real estate’; rising levels of consumption have created enormous problems of pollution and waste disposal; the infrastructural need for globalization poses serious environmental threats. The Human Development Report for Kerala (2005) points out that till 1977–1978, average per capita consumer expenditure in Kerala was below the national average; by 1999–2000, however, it had reached 41% above the national average. The demand for non-food items in the state more than doubled in the 1990s, while the demand for food items rose by 56% (CDS/ UNDP 2005: 77–78). There has been slight progress in development with respect to economic and social development following a period of stagnation due to political exigencies and the COVID-19 pandemic (Kerala Development Report 2021). The confluence of these processes points to a contemporary crisis characterized by the interpenetration of renewed forms of patriarchy, instrumental reason and developmentalism in Kerala. It is not difficult to demonstrate that the people of Kerala are going through not simply an ecological crisis or merely a tense phase in gender arrangements. The situation is clearly more complex. We are facing no less than a crisis of ‘staying alive’ (to draw upon Vandana Shiva’s fruitful coinage) in which the social and the ecological, the material and the non-material dimensions are intensely intertwined.

Ecofeminism and the Keralan Model of Care This part of the chapter explores the possibilities of ecofeminism as an ethico-political alternative within the context outlined in the introductory section. At first glance, the significance of themes and issues raised by ecofeminism in the West appear to be relevant for 323

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contemporary Kerala. For instance, there would be little disagreement that there is a need for a radical critique of the medicalization of female bodies in Kerala, where natural processes like childbirth are now effectively treated as pathological. A second instance would be the possibility of moulding peace activism, which is a prominent element in Western ecofeminism, into a ‘Respect for Life’ activism directed against brutality and violence sponsored by both the state and non-state institutions like organized religions. Indeed, these would be poised upon the critique of the rosy picture of ‘Kerala’ projected in discourses ranging from development literature to tourism: it can be hardly forgotten that behind the much-displayed demographic ‘achievements’ gaudily displayed in the much-vaunted ‘Kerala Model’, there is the little-noticed history of the massive intervention of institutionalized modern medicine into the bodies of Malayalee women. By such critical exercises, ecofeminist thinking could well develop a style of feminist activism that may have a catalytic effect in raising issues hitherto insufficiently problematized by a progressivist critique. It could also open up possibilities of feminist intervention hitherto ignored, underrated or unnoticed. Ecofeminism could, for instance, act as a bridge between an over-rationalistic style of feminist activism and radical theology. In Kerala, the fully justified suspicion regarding institutionalized religion among feminist activists has unwittingly led to the neglect of the possibility of feminist spirituality and feminist intervention in religious thinking and practice. Considering the fact that the large chunk of believers and practitioners of faith in Kerala are women, this neglect works to the disadvantage of feminist politics. This affords the possibility of developing new forms of spirituality that are self-affirming and, indeed, opposed to the common identification of spirituality with a form of therapy (i.e., stress relief, de-addiction etc.), which really creates new sorts of dependencies, especially upon the guru, the mata, the baba or whichever superhuman figure one chooses to seek refuge in. Within environmentalist criticism, an ecofeminist critique could highlight the extent to which men, women and children bear the cost of environmental destruction differentially. It could strengthen environmental activism by forcefully upholding the ethical and normative aspects of environmental struggles and by drawing upon the values of nurture and care. It could further legitimize alternative value systems that have been suppressed by modernization. In sum, ecofeminist activism could well exert a transformative effect on feminist, radical theological and environmental activism in contemporary Kerala. Yet, the discourse that connects women, peace, harmony and life is not without its problems for women. Major strands of ecofeminism have been subject to very vigorous criticism by feminists, especially the gendered assumptions that structure the writings of many prominent ecofeminist authors (for instance, Mies and Shiva 1993; Merchant 1996; Salleh 1997; Mellor 1997). Most frequently, ecofeminisms have been accused of staying within the terms of Western dualistic thought and essentializing ‘women’, which leads to the erasure of difference, the romanticization of female reproductive embodiment, and the effective entrapment of women within a disempowered identity. Indeed, the criticism actively resonated within ecofeminist thought (Roach 1991; Plumwood 1993; Sandilands 1999); some authors have sought to distance themselves from such ecofeminism by referring to their own positions as ‘ecological feminism’ (Cuomo 1998). Such criticism also draws actively upon the debate among feminists about the political implications of caring labour, in which critics, including those who would call for a de-gendered ethic of care (Tronto 1993; Curtin 1999), point out that despite all its merits as an alternative, caring labour is mostly bound to ‘compulsory altruism’ (Land and Rose 1985; Bowden 1997). This chapter takes note of this debate and seeks to go beyond making a simple case for ecofeminism1 – which appears rather too 324

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obvious, as argued earlier. Rather than advance a case for idealized ecofeminism, it seeks to reexamine the ongoing critical debate around and within ecofeminism from within the local context. It thus turns to the sites of nurturance in Kerala in the light of the critical insights generated by the ongoing debates on ecofeminism to ask questions about their potential to generate a new ethics of connection that could form the core of a new ecofeminist politics adequate to the regional context. First, the currently dominant institution of care – the modern family – and currently dominant child-rearing practices are discussed. Against these, instances of ‘caring beyond families and humans’ from recent fieldwork among ‘visionary’ women in environmental activism in Kerala are examined. These instances indicate a different mode of care and nurture that is often at odds with the dominant mode; they also seem to confirm the recent sympathetic critiques of dominant ecofeminisms, which seek to reconfigure it beyond dualistic thinking. The conclusion, however, seeks not so much to enthrone these women as the privileged bearers of ‘true’ or the ‘pure’ ecofeminism worth emulating as to highlight the questions they raise about reconciling caregiving and citizenship.

Ungendering the Economy of Childcrafting Early 21st-century families in Kerala may be rightly described as micro-centres of childcrafting. The idea of ‘childcrafting’ was advanced by the feminist economist Nancy Folbre to describe contemporary child-rearing in the United States, where it ‘stands out as an activity that is conducted despite, rather than because of, economic self-interest’; indeed, ‘parenting constitutes one of the few truly craft-like activities of modern life, where process is as important as productivity’ (Folbre 1998: 134). While contemporary child-rearing in Kerala strongly answers to this description, it is also driven heavily by economic self-interest and aspirations for social upward mobility. This phenomenon is also the culmination of a long-term social process, which I call the ‘domestication’ of Malayalees, a process in and through which people have been directed towards investing most of their time, energies and desires in the home (Devika 2008). The home has increasingly been conceived as the space within which children were to be moulded into perfect, productive individuals capable of living within a liberal polity and thriving within a capitalist economic order. The more the domestic domain became a space for the shaping of perfect individuals, the more child-rearing has resembled a craft-like activity (and here is its resemblance to the phenomenon Folbre describes) in which children are treated as a sort of ‘raw material’ upon which parents work. This offers the parents a tantalizing mix of emotional intensities, pleasure and pain. Parenting is then persistent, even agonizing, labour, combined with the pleasure of near-total absorption and insulation from any larger worries stemming beyond the home and the pleasurable, if precarious, expectation of a perfect end product. This has had two important implications for participation in the public: one, parenting, as in handicraft, requires such constant attention to the ‘work at hand’ that it turns the person engaged in parenting completely away from the public; two, it shapes participation in the public in such a way that the interests of the household and family life acquire an inordinately high centrality within it. Most importantly, the major agent of childcrafting in Kerala is undoubtedly the modern Malayalee woman; in other words, maternal capacities in Kerala, including direct physical caregiving abilities, are closely bound to childcrafting. Both childcrafting and women’s 325

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putative ‘natural capacity’ for it have a longer history, stretching back to the mid-19th century missionary efforts to improve the family by improving the mother. Interestingly, early 20th-century discussions around the means to promote ‘active modern domesticity’ among women in Kerala touched not just upon the need to develop their supervisory capacities over material, bodies and souls within domestic spaces but also on the need for self-control over reproductive and sexual embodiment – the necessary instrument was not just female education, but also birth control. A large gulf seems to separate the two sorts of mothering. Earlier forms are reduced to superficial shows. The essence of motherliness is now identified to lie in the modern mother’s desire to shape her children into disciplined and rational individuals. Indeed, ‘liberating’ children from the ‘earlier animal-like maternal love’ to some early advocates of birth control seemed no less than a pre-condition for fashioning them as individuals, and birth control appeared as the apt tool. Indeed, from the early 20th century onwards, a huge volume of writing sought to cleanse local women of their ‘passive’ motherliness, point out the defects in their mental equipment and suggest better ways of inculcating discipline among the young. This effort was made in the interest of both the family and other groups, such as the community or the nation. The mother’s loving attention must not simply generate pleasure for itself; it must be strictly yoked to the production of useful subjects for the nation. The new domestic ideology and the new notions of maternal responsibility spread in the early decades of the 20th century through the widening network of schools, which registered a remarkable increase in girl pupils in these times (Jeffrey 2003). However, equally – or perhaps more important are the informal networks – a fact less noticed in conventional accounts of Kerala’s educational history. Non-formal education through institutions like Mahila Samajams (women’s associations), which often worked very closely with reformist organizations, schools and churches, was indeed saturated with the new domestic ideology (Devika 2007). These were institutions destined to be promoted by the modernizing state, especially after Indian independence. They were to function as an important site in which birth limitation was smoothly blended into, made part of, the role of the supervising, efficient modern mother. In the Community Development Project of the 1950s, women were largely addressed primarily as caregivers for the family, and much effort was directed to improving such skills, adding some encouragement to income generation through home-based economic activities. By the latter decades of the 20th century, the state was convinced of the widespread familiarity of Malayalee women with the new child-rearing practices. For our purposes, the previous review seems to point to a site that any ecofeminism and critical feminist writing on care, earlier and recent, would meaningfully contest. Joan Tronto’s work on caregiving, for instance, builds a persuasive critique of the gendered notion of care and the lumping together of caring and motherhood (1993); Ariel Salleh points to the disempowering effects of modern housewifery (Salleh 1997: 60). There is little doubt that the political significance of ecofeminism in Kerala’s context lies in its cogent and effective questioning of the manner in which the qualities of nurturance and caring attributed to women are strongly tied to the need to institute non-coercive, sentimental forms of social disciplining typical of middle-class power. Also, the trenchant critiques of the instrumental control over female embodiment and sexual and reproductive abilities advanced by ecofeminists (Diamond 1994) certainly apply to the scenario outlined earlier. Critical ecofeminist authors have emphasized the need to distinguish between ‘reclaiming one’s 326

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sense of embodiment from others (for example, contraception and abortion) and adopting an actual highly disciplined and mastering approach to one’s embodiment’ (Twine 2001: 34). Indeed, while they help to build a case for women’s reclamation of their sense of embodiment,2 these insights also provide powerful material to contest the current celebration of women’s ‘voluntary acceptance’ of sterilizations in Kerala. Richard Twine’s observation about the fragility of the body – that ‘we should take into account the agency of our embodiment. For instance, human bodies may produce side-effects to animal-tested medicines, invasive cosmetic surgeries and other ill-thought out technologies that forget this fragility’ (Twine 2001: 51) – is crucial. Taking this seriously will mean that we remain wary of individual choices that violate the ‘agency of embodiment’. For instance, when women ‘opt’ for sterilization in societies which subjugate their reproductive capacities to the imperatives of family well-being, respectability and upward mobility, this cannot be glibly read off as a sign of ‘voluntary acceptance’. At a more general level, Val Plumwood’s point about ecofeminist philosophy being more than ethics reveals its critical potential in contemporary Kerala. For Plumwood, the excessive portrayal of ecofeminism as primarily concerned with ethics poses the risk of depleting its potential to critique the view of the human self as totally separated from nature and the many ways in which this is linked to the view of nature as a dead resource, and to instrumental reason itself (Plumwood 1993). Only through such critique may we develop new visions of the ethical knowing self that is beyond harmful dualisms and the hierarchies they perpetuate. But the question of imagining caregiving in ‘pure form’ remains a vexed one. One of my deep discomforts with some earlier ecofeminist authors is about their tendency to talk of and celebrate ‘pure’, ‘feminine’ caregiving when their illustrations of women’s caregiving activities are inevitable of concrete instances often framed by oppressive patriarchal structures and ideologies that impose normative expectations – ‘compulsory altruism’ – on women in most human societies. The implicit claim advanced sometimes, that the caregiving practiced by ‘[non-Western] grassroots women’ is relatively less ‘contaminated’ than that practiced by the modernized housewife is certainly a questionable one: this assumes that the former practices are somehow non-functional to oppressive social structures in non-Western societies. In the next section, we will return to such questions: whether women who are arguably ‘grassroots women’– whose environmental activism is ‘lived’ rather than spoken – and who practice forms of caregiving which are in many ways directly opposed to the form discussed earlier, do present a ‘pure’– truly ‘feminine’/ maternal and non-oppressive – version of caregiving, or whether the dualistic thinking that pits caregiving against instrumental manipulation works for them at all.

Engendering Political and Public Participation A research report3 on the entry of Malayalee women into politics and the public in the wake of new opportunities for power in local governance and the new institutions of self-help made the following observation about some ‘visionary women’ who live vibrant lives of caring for the environment: Arguably, the 33% reservation of seats for women in local governance may be framed as a project in which the political agency of the ‘Third World’ woman is seen as an object for development. Similarly, the theoretical filters through which the ‘Third World’ woman’s agency is conceived also serve to make her the subject of political, 327

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economic and cultural structures rather than a creator. It would seem necessary that state interventions, international initiatives, global funds, development training (‘capacity building’), intellectually elite leadership, or mass/collective movements are necessary to restore, enhance, or even create the conditions under which her agency might evolve. … Yet one of remarkable parts of our fieldwork demonstrates how individual women have taken steps that are extraordinary in terms of how they re-imagine the idea of development or of women’s political agency. Fieldwork among Adivasi women and on environmental issues shows that transformations are happening on the ground in terms of how women, especially ‘the grandmothers of the world’, are creating new paths and new visions. They open up a space for rethinking the agency of women of the ‘underdeveloped’ world that is lost when the individual is generalized into the mass or the collective. (CDS 2008: 177–178) In many ways, this passage may appear to echo the arguments put forth on behalf of the ‘grassroots’ or ‘third world woman’ by many prominent ecofeminist authors (for instance, Salleh 1997). However, it remains a question whether the reclaiming of agency outside the structures and ideologies of development by women necessarily entails their embrace of uniquely ‘feminine’ universal ethics in which caring as a material practice and caring as knowledge or disposition are harmoniously united, as some prominent ecofeminists suggest (Mies and Shiva 1993; Salleh 1997; Mellor 1997). For instance, the activities of all the ‘visionary women’ who were interviewed do indicate that they are active agents of what Carolyn Merchant refers to as ‘earthcare’ and indeed do produce what she calls a ‘partnership ethics of earthcare’ (Merchant 1996). The question is whether this is rooted in specifically ‘feminine’ experience of everyday life and the history of ‘women’s’ interactions with the environment – again, whether this is really beyond the terms of ‘development’, a concept which has proved to be extremely malleable and capacious as it circulates between very diverse institutions, and across time and space (Pieterse 2001; Peet and Watts 1996).4 Attempting to answer these questions, I now turn to the narratives produced by ‘visionary women’ on their ‘lived earthcare activism’. First of all, is such activism rooted in alternate visions of ‘mothering’ or ‘the maternal’? Significantly, the research report quoted earlier chose to refer to these women as ‘grandmothers of the earth’ (I have chosen to refer to them as ‘visionary women’). Many prominent ecofeminist authors have used distinctly familial language to refer to the subject of ecofeminism: we frequently encounter ‘housewife activists’, ‘re/sisters’ or ‘mothers’ (Salleh 1997); at times, there is the explicit or more frequently, implicit claim that the practical experience of mothering disposes women towards a nurturing attitude towards the environment (Mellor 1997; Mies and Shiva; 1993; Salleh 1997; Merchant 1996). At the outset, to give greater weight to the attributed common femininity of the group interviewed over the differences is indefensible; nevertheless, the effort here is to inquire whether these women produce alternatives to the dominant and overarching ideals of mothering and caring that now is near-universal in Kerala. Most of the senior women were called ‘ammoomma’ (grandmother) by local people, who, however, add interesting adjectives at times. Mariamma, thus, was called Kandalammacchi (‘grandmother of the mangroves’). However, it is not easy to read a smooth connection between the status of the women interviewed here as ‘mothers’ and the earthcaring they practice. Most of the ‘visionary women’, it appears, have distanced themselves from mothering in any conventional sense: they frequently live alone and distant from their children; they do 328

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not conform to expectations regarding caring for the family. For instance, Darly, a senior woman who conducted a lone battle against the sand mining mafia on the banks of the Neyyar River in south Kerala, whose house was an almost completely isolated sand dune, simply refusing to sell her house and leave, lived all alone, wielding a sickle and raising dogs to protect herself from attacks from the sand mining goons. Or take Mariamma of Kumarakom, who was widely known for her work to protect and replant mangroves in the estuary by the Vembanad Lake, who risked conflict with her children to pursue her life of earthcaring. Indeed, the latter seems to clash directly with the more conventional feminine caregiving practically and normatively. In fact, some of these women were healers and herbalists whose caring cannot be conflated with mothering – a point that recent critical ecofeminism makes (Curtin 1999). It is not that these women never deployed maternalist metaphors when they talked of their earthcaring, nor is it the case that they were never referred to as ‘mothers’ or ‘grandmothers’ – but the case for viewing them as agents of ‘alternate mothering’ seems weak. The point is this: it appears that for these women, the opposition between caregiving and instrumental manipulation does not seem to make sense. Rather, these represent theoretical possibilities, extremes in a continuum of practices. The earthcare they practice would be located somewhere between these extremes – and this location could itself vary over time and according to the strategic demands of specific situations. Taking these two points together, one could even ask whether descriptions (positive and negative) like ‘mother-activists’ or ‘hysterical housewives’ apply to these women at all. In fact, Mary Dietz’s critique of maternalism, specifically her observation that once the public-domestic boundary is violated and ‘mothers’ mobilize in public against such violence, their very location as subjects change appears relevant here. She argues that once ‘mothers’ are politicized, they recognize themselves as not just ‘mothers’ but as ‘women who share a common political situation with other women, some of who are mothers, some of who are not. Accordingly, the values that they must defend as not as much maternal … but political’ (Dietz 1985: 33–34). Interestingly, in one of the most interesting instances of women caring for the environment through such programmes in Kerala, one of forest protection by women – the VasantaSena – in the Periyar Tiger Reserve Idukki district, the participants seemed to articulate a more complex relation to the environment and not a simple woman-nature connection. These women did not seem to perceive their roles in exclusive terms, as either an extension of the domestic instrumental caregiving or as fired by an alternate vision of unconditional feminine giving. While the concern for earthcare is evident, they also stressed the extent to which their effort to form a forest-patrolling and protection group was perceived as a threat to existing gender arrangements under which this was a man’s job. However, as the Centre for Developmental Studies (CDS) report cited earlier states, ‘Men were indignant about the audacity of women to take up forest protection and patrolling which is traditionally a male domain. They [the women] laughed it away saying that it is women who go every day to fetch firewood, tubers, honey and other non-wood forest produce to interior forest and so why cannot they do protection, regeneration and data collection work?’ (CDS 2008: 176–177). While discursive representations of the work tend to stress the fact that these women patrol the forest voluntarily and, indeed, without remuneration (Pillai and Suchintha 2006), this happened within the wider framework of income generation and self-help can hardly be ignored. These women were part of self-help groups, the logic of which is well-entrenched within liberal individualism, and they did receive loans 329

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from the India Ecodevelopment Project. However, this does not necessarily erode their concerns for earthcare. Again, there is an implicit refusal of a dualistic logic. Finally, ecofeminist authors often find epistemological grounding for ecofeminist ethics: very often, the association is between the concrete practices of caring, ‘women’s knowledge’ and the alternative to instrumental reason. Here again, one finds no conclusive evidence that the knowledge and practices that these women employ are uniquely ‘feminine’ in any fundamental way. For instance, Mariama’s knowledge of the mangroves and mangrove planting was acquired from her farmer-father-in-law, who had planted mangroves to protect his land. Often, the political insight that led women to enter environmental activism was prompted precisely by environmental degradation, which does not respect the boundary between the domestic and the public – but whether this warrants the characterization of such insight as stemming from ‘women’s unique experiences’ is questionable. While the insights that arise from women’s daily routines and domestic life and knowledge passed down generations in the female line need to be recognized and validated, projecting them as pure, uniquely gendered or morally superior may be quite unwarranted. In a weaker sense, the claim about ‘women’s ways of knowing’ may hold at least partially, especially when women do come into the struggle when the attack on the environment renders the public-domestic boundary superfluous. This is the case in several ongoing struggles in Kerala in which women have played a prominent role. For instance, in 1998, Leelakumari Amma of Peria Village opened the struggle against spraying endosulfan on the cashew plantations in Kasaragod district, which was causing serious health disorders and birth defects in the local population, the women protestors against the degradation of the Muriyad Lake in Thrissur, the many anti-waste dumping struggles in Kerala in which women are prominent, and the tribal women who initiated the anti-Coke struggle at Plachimada all began to take a lead role precisely when this boundary was breached. However, this is not an unproblematic gain – especially when a familiar connection – that between women, the hearth and life – is evoked in public constructions of environmental struggles. This may be politically counterproductive, forcing women to bear the major share of the burdens of struggle, both actual and symbolic. To elaborate on just one such instance, let’s examine the well-known struggle against the Coca-Cola factory at Plachimada in Kerala, which was initiated by a group of tribal women who noticed the effects of contaminated water in and around their homes. While their leader, Mayilamma, later came to be projected as a ‘grandmother’ struggling for the earth, the tribal women’s political insights came from being the major caregivers for their families. This, however, did not ease their burdens as women in any way. Indeed, the question is whether we are back again to ‘compulsory altruism’ –whether activism remains an addition to the woman’s long list of chores while others free-ride. Such ‘compulsory altruism’ is not just normative – it has structural roots, something to which the women activists struggling against the destruction of the wetlands in central Kerala gestured when they remarked that they needed to keep their struggle alert because men are often easily influenced and hence not to be trusted. Women’s alleged moral superiority allows the transference of a greater share of the labour of struggle to them. To sum up the discussion, some ‘visionary earthcaring women’ in Kerala do not conform to entrenched ideals of mothering and caring to the extent of remaining outside of familial structures. And even when they do deploy maternalist terms to describe their earthcare, they do not always produce ‘pure’, alternate models of caregiving. In fact, it may be asked whether the women activists interviewed here, politicized as they clearly are, may be characterized in terms of domestic-centred identities at all. Nor does their knowledge and practice appear to 330

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be ‘pure’ – it does not seem to be always rooted in ‘women’s unique ways of seeing’. In other words, it appears that women earthcarers who may be arguably described as ‘grassroots women’ in Kerala do not really draw upon dualistic frameworks in their understanding of earthcare. This response appears to be valuable in the present context in which the woman-nature connection has been instrumentalized to the ends of development, especially the conservation and regeneration of natural resources. Besides, while the strategy of evoking a necessary connection between women and nature may indeed produce forms of earthcaring that empower some women, it does not politicize either caring or motherhood. When it seems to be so in a weaker sense – i.e., when women enter environmental struggles because the danger has infected domestic and family concerns – such insight does not free them from patriarchal obligations. Indeed, women find themselves obliged to carry the major burden, symbolic or otherwise, of environmental caring and struggles. While the present struggles in Kerala are still highly localized and poorly networked, they seem closer to ‘environmental justice’ activism in the environmental movement in the United States in the late 1980s (Taylor 1997; Novotny 2000). The focus on justice and the concern about the unequal spread of undesirable environmental consequences between social groups brought a number of socially and economically marginalized people of colour into the predominantly white and middle-class environmental movement. In other words, besides the familiar concern with the health of the environment and the struggles against destruction, here, there is a focus on fairness, justice, distribution of environmental impacts, and sharing of environmental impacts as a way of linking the struggles for equality and as a way of mobilizing community-wide coalitions across race, ethnic, and class lines, and between interest groups. (Taylor 1997: 42) The result has been that the environmental discourse now contains a number of new ideas that highlight the need for justice in environmental activism: environmental equity, environmental racism, environmental discrimination and environmental blackmail (Taylor 1997: 48). Interestingly, the veneration and care of nature against the questions of environmental rights and justice are not pitted against each other in the guiding principles of environmental justice accepted at the First National People of Colour Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991 (quoted in Taylor 1997: 42). The discourse of justice and citizenship, and the discourse of veneration and care are together – and indeed uses maternalist terminology without compromising justice. The first principle proclaims that environmental justice ‘Affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity, the interdependence of all species and the right to be free of ecological destruction’ (Taylor 1997: 42). Not surprisingly, too, women activists in the environmental justice movement are sharply critical of ecofeminist celebration of the women-nature connections in ways that highlight gender oppression as primary and erase the differential experiences of the women of colour while romanticizing their labour (Taylor 1997: 58–65; Kirk 1997).

Conclusion In the local context of contemporary Kerala, it appears that the critical worth of ecofeminism, both as a means of problematizing and critiquing the near-universal individualized 331

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liberal self and as a way of reclaiming female embodiment, is indisputable. However, the same may not be the case as far as the evocation of ecofeminism as a perspective rooted in a uniquely feminine experience of caregiving. It seems that though ‘grassroots women’ are sometimes credited with uncontaminated caregiving capacities, different from the instrumental orientation of the elite housewife, this does not seem to apply to many women’s eathcarers in the struggle for the environment in Kerala. Nor does making such connections between women and the environment appear to be a political strategy of long-term advantage for women. What we see, indeed, is that women earthcarers tend to shun dualisms. This, however, does not mean that ‘grassroots women’ somehow possess inexplicably superior wisdom that keeps them from dualisms and hierarchies. Rather, the fact that dualisms do not make sense to them needs to be read in the light of the histories of exploitation, inequalities and environmental activisms in the regional context.

Notes 1 This chapter recognizes that there are layers and internal debates within the ecofeminist tradition from which a local politics could differentially draw upon. As Warren has argued, all these different layers and strands do make a connection between women’s oppression and the exploitation of nature, but that is also where, perhaps, the common thread ends. Warren 1993. 2 Twine was, however, careful to avoid both calls to celebrate embodiment that embrace an uncritical individualism and those which emphasize women’s reproductive embodiment, which collude in the erasure of male embodiment (Twine 2001). 3 This part of the chapter draws on fieldwork by Anitha Sharma and S. Santhy as part of the research project ‘Gendering Governance or Governing Women? Politics, Patriarchy, and Democratic Decentralisation’ carried out by a group of women researchers and supported by IDRC, Canada. Chapter 3 of the report which is quoted here was authored by Usha Zacharias. 4 Indeed, recent ecofeminist writings do argue that ecofeminism can be successfully made to work within paradigms such as sustainable development. Wells and Wirth have argued, ‘The ecofeminist-developer-as-practitioner helps local people further their own development by supporting their agendas and facilitating the two-way flow of information’ (1997: 309). See also Part V in R. Sherma and P. Bilimoria (eds). 2022.

Bibliography [Author not mentioned] ‘Santananiyantranam’ [Birth Control], The Mahila, 1932: 373–374. Bowden, Peta. 1997. Caring: Gender-Sensitive Ethics. New York: Routledge. Centre for Development Studies. 2008. ‘Gendering Governance or Governing Women? Politics, Patriarchy, and Democratic Decentralization in Kerala State, India’, research report submitted to IDRC, Canada. Centre for Development Studies /UNDP. 2005. Human Development Report 2005: Kerala. Thiruvananthapuram: Government of Kerala. Centre for Development Studies [CDS]/ United Nations. 1977. Poverty, Unemployment and Development Policy: A Case Study of Selected Issues with Reference to Kerala, Bombay: Orient Longman. Chathukulam, J., John, M.S. 2002. ‘Five years of participatory planning in Kerala: Rhetoric and reality.’ Economic and Political Weekly 37(49): 4917–4926. [Google Scholar] Chathukulam, J., Thottunkel, A.K. 2010. ‘The Sen in the Neo-liberal developmental programmes of Kerala’. International Journal of Rural Management 6(2): 161–192. Chathukuma, Jos and Tharamangalam, J. 2021. ‘The Kerala model in the time of COVID19: Rethinking state, society and democracy’ Cuomo, Chris J. 1998. Feminism and Ecological Communities: An Ethic of Flourishing. New York: Routledge.

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Caregiver vs. Citizen? Curtin, Deane. 1999. Chinnagounder’s Challenge: The Question of Ecological Citizenship.Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Devika, J. 2007. En-gendering Individuals: The language of re-forming in early twentieth century Keralam, Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. ———. 2008. Individuals, Householders, Citizens: Malayalees and Family Planning, New Delhi: Zubaan. ———. 2010. ‘The capabilities approach in the vernacular: The history of capability building in Kerala.’ Economic and Political Weekly 45(26): 269–277. Diamond, Irene. 1994. Fertile Ground-Women, Earth, and the Limits of Control. Boston: Beacon Press. Dietz, Mary. 1985. ‘Citizenship with a feminist face: The problem with maternal thinking,’ Political Theory 13(1): 19–37. Dreze, J., Sen, A., (eds.) 1998. Indian Development: Selected Regional Perspectives. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Dreze, J., Sen, A. 2002. India: Development and Participation. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Folbre, N. 1998. ‘Patriarchy and Fertility Decisions’ in P. Demeny and G. Mc Nicoll (eds), The Earthscan Reader on Population and Development, pp. 121–142. London: Earthscan. Government of India. 2003. Family Welfare Yearbook, 2001. New Delhi: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Jeffrey, Robin. 2003. Politics, Women and Well-being: How Kerala became a ‘Model’. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kirk, Gwyn. 1997. ‘Ecofeminism and environmental justice: building bridges across gender, race, and class’, Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies 18(2): 2–20. Land, Hilary, and Hilary Rose. 1985. ‘Complusory Altruism for Some or an Altruistic Society for All?’ in P. Beans, J. Ferris, and D. Whynes (eds.), In Defense of Welfare, pp. 74–99. London: Tavistock. Leach, Melissa. 2003. ‘Women as Natural Environmental Carers: Earth Mother Myths and Other Ecofeminist Fables or How a Strategic Notion Rose and Fell’, Paper presentedat the conference ‘Gender Myths and Feminist Fables: Repositioning Gender in Development Policy and Practice’, IDS, Sussex. [http://www.siyanda.org/docs/leach_ecofeminist.doc] Accessed: 20 December 2008. Mellor, Mary. 1997. Feminism and Ecology. Washington Square, N.Y.: New York University Press. Merchant, Carolyn. 1996. Earthcare: Women and the Environment. New York: Routledge. Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva. 1993. Ecofeminism. London: Zed Books. Novotny, Patrick. 2000 Where we live, work, and play: The environmental justice movement and the struggle for a new environmentalism. New York: Praeger. Parayil, Govindan (ed.) 2000. Kerala: The Development Experience. London and New York, Zed Books. Peet, Richard, and Michael Watts. 1996. ‘Liberation Ecology: Development, sustainability, and environment in an age of market triumphalism’, in Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements, pp. 1–27. London: Routledge. Pieterse, Jan Nederveen. 2001. Development Theory: Deconstructions/Reconstructions. London: Sage. Pillai, K. Rajasekharan and B. Suchintha. 2006. ‘Women empowerment for biodiversity conservation through self help groups: A case from Periyar Tiger Reserve, Kerala, India’, International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance, and Ecology 5(4): 338–355. Plumwood, Val. 1993. ‘Nature, Self and Gender’, Hypatia 1(6): 4–32. Roach, Catherine. 1991. ‘Loving your mother: On the woman-nature relation’, Hypatia 6(1): 56–60. Salleh, Ariel. 1997. Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern. London: Zed Books. Sandilands, Catriona. 1999. The Good-Natured Feminist: Ecofeminism and the Quest for Democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sherma, Rita and Bilimoria, Purushottama. 2020. Religion and Sustainability: Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses Intersection of Sustainability Studies and Religion, Theology, Philosophy. UN-SGD Series, Dordrecht/NY/Delhi: Springer. Singh, Jitendra. 1959. Communist Rule in Kerala. New Delhi: Diwan Chand India Information Centre.

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J. Devika State Planning Board. 1969. The Fourth Five-Year Plan 1969–1974: A Draft Outline. Thiruvananthapuram: Government of Kerala. Taylor, Paul W. 1997 (2011). Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Trenton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tronto, Joan C. 1993. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York: Routledge. Twine, Richard T. 2001. ‘Mar(k)ing Essence: Ecofeminism and embodiment’, Ethics and Environment 6(2): 31–58. Warren, Karen J. 1993. ‘Introduction to Ecofeminism’, in Michael E. Zimmerman, J. Baird Callicott, George Sessions, Karen J. Warren, and John Clark (eds.), Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, pp. 253–267. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Wells, Betty, and Danielle Wirth. 1997. ‘Remediating Development through an Ecofeminist Lens’, in Karen J. Warren (ed.), Ecofeminism: Women, Nature, Culture, p. 300. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. World Dev [Kerala Development Report]. 2021 Jan; 137: 105207. Published online 2020 Sep 23. doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105207

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27 HUMANIZING THE FEMININE EARTH An Ecofeminist Perspective on the Corporeal Nature* Meera Baindur Introduction: Decomposing Texts One of the most significant ways by which we perceive our reality is through what we can loosely refer to as a ‘worldview’. A worldview is a set of interconnected beliefs about the reality we live in that are foundational to how we perceive our relationship with our environment. One could say, in many ways, nature becomes both the subject that has an emotional effect on us and is also subjected to judgment and evaluation by us, both rationally and emotionally. One could argue that ethical perspectives towards the environment can be relational, determined by the way we human beings perceive ourselves ‘to be with’ our environment and how we make sense of that relationship. The gendering of nature as feminine makes for a powerful discourse against which we enact our relationship to it. This engendering of nature is captured by the ecological discourse known as ecofeminism. In traditional cultures, attitudes towards women and nature overlap, and a significant part of our worldview is often given by culture and tradition, particularly through faith. Gottileb (2004) writes of the influence of religious traditions on the human attitude to nature: In short, religions have been neither simple agents of environmental domination nor unmixed repositories of ecological wisdom. In complex and variable ways, they have been both. (9) He also suggests that the primary values of religion provide us with a way to live in harmony with the environment as a part of the ‘good life’ that they advocate (2004, 11). *  A previous version of this chapter was originally published as ‘Humanising the Earth: Reversing the “Reverence to Resource” in the Indian Context’, in Man In India, Special Issue: Globalism, Transnational, Gender and Ecological Engagements, Guest Editor: Purushottama Bilimoria, with assistance of Amy Rayner, 90, no. 1–2 (2010): 567–587. It has been subsequently updated and reproduced in this volume with due permission: Globalization: Transnational, Gender and Ecological Engagements, Delhi: Serial Publications, 2014. I would like to acknowledge Sundar Sarukkai and Purushottama Bilimoria for discussions on the initial drafts of this chapter and providing suggestions and corrections.

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DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-32

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Most communities base their relationship with nature, particularly conceptualized as ‘Mother Earth,’ through religious teaching and sacred beliefs. Such beliefs recorded in sacred texts are a source of many of the ways we see ourselves in relation to the world around us. Gottlieb emphasizes the significance of texts that elaborate systems of beliefs and create guidelines for human behaviour that seem to go beyond human relations. Though most narratives of these texts focus on otherworldly concerns, they play a very crucial role in people’s orientation to their everyday world, especially in the form of familiar habits and rituals: At the same time religions provide norms for the conduct for the familiar interpersonal settings of family, community and world. Religious moral teachings presuppose a spiritual foundation and are meant to root our everyday behaviour in a spiritual truth about who we really are. (8) Thus, some of the ideas in religious texts give us an insight into ethical practices and attitudes towards our environment. Of course, we cannot directly attribute a causal value to these texts, but they would give a sense of the contexts for some of the worldviews that people of a particular community may hold in relating to nature. While most people would analyse these texts for the religious or philosophical insights in them, scholars also deconstruct sacred texts and gain some critical perspectives on them. However, I am inspired by the method referred to as ‘decomposition’. I borrow this term from ecology here. A method of decomposition 1 breaks down complex things into smaller units that can be used to nourish and recreate new ideas. In decomposing ideas or discourses, the breakdown is not just critical; it yields resources for the recreation of newer discourses. In a sense, ‘decomposing’ as opposed to ‘deconstructing’ refers to an alternative way of recovering organically usable concepts from complex texts. Using this method, textual narratives are broken into smaller plots or narratives and then understanding the logical connections between these different lines of thinking. Narratives can be decomposed and recreated to form new insights. The role of narratives in establishing the rightness of these customs both for women and the earth cannot be underestimated. Code (1999) suggests that recapture of the feminist voice can occur through narrative analysis: The epistemological narratives in which such subjectivities are implicated are about power and empowering, and about accountability not just to the evidence but for the positions from which knowers speak, and to the society or social group where knowledge is circulated or withheld and differentially distributed. Because stories about the production of theories, knowledge, and experience are about human agency, they are at once and inextricably epistemological, moral, and political. (218) Told in order to firmly justify practices, social orders and customs, these narratives in the sacred texts such as Veda-s or Purāṇ a-s cannot be treated as mere myths or legends but as the voice of patriarchal sources. This chapter explores these three nuances of this concept of the earth and then critiques the idea of the divine-mother-feminine as promoting a sustainable relationship with the 336

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environment. However, as other authors such as Renuka Sharma and Rita Gross2 have suggested in this volume, within a patriarchal framework, the feminine has been devalued, and subsequently, nature and the earth have also been devalued in their material and corporeal form. If one decomposes the idea of the earth into the different ‘plots’ in the sacred texts, then one can see how the narratives of the earth as a woman are very similar to the narratives of a woman’s role in the Hindu context. In the way we imagine our relationship with the earth, I find three narratives or stories are significant for an ecofeminist critique. Firstly, the idea of the earth as having a female body arises from a tradition that views nature as mainly feminine. Secondly, specific relatedness to the earth as a mother of all beings is very common in texts and practices. The ‘mother’, because of the noble values she has, is divine, which forms the basis for the third kind of discourse, a deification process of Mother Earth into a Bhūdevi or goddess of the earth. While it seems that worship of Mother Earth as a sacred deity is somewhat beneficial to the environmental cause, there are certainly problems with this analogous thinking of the earth as a mother goddess or as feminine. These issues particularly manifest within a patriarchal framework where the idea of a ‘divine earthmother’ is problematic.

Deities in the Vedic Texts The earth is represented as a woman in the Veda-s, as a personification of nature embodied in a body that is essentially feminine. The primordial motherhood of the earth in the Veda-s is the prototype of the female, a reproductive being represented as the mother of all beings and as one who nourishes and sustains them. This picture of ‘terra-mater’ is very apparent as we trace the conceptualization of the earth in the Veda-s through different registers of representation and narratives. Decomposing the earth narratives in the Veda-s is a good starting point to capture the world view of the earth and nature as feminine. The hymns to the gods and goddesses in Veda-s cannot be studied as mere eulogies. What we can know of the belief system of the Vedic period and society comes from a broader reading of the hymns and verses of Veda-s and Purāṇ ā-s. What were the essential characteristics of religious and philosophical constructs of the period, the contextual beliefs that led the creators of these hymns to worship natural and abstract nature gods? Witzel (2003) clarifies these distinctions between the natural and other types of divinities: Many of the deities are transparently ‘natural’ though they have acquired a certain amount of ‘personality,’ while others, developed during the Indo-Iranian period, are defied abstractions that belong to the ethical (Varuṇ a Mitra, Āryaman, Bhaga, etc.) and conceptual sphere (ṛ ta) as well as to ritual practice (Soma). (71–72) The Vedic people subscribed to a panentheistic cosmogony3 that went beyond just the environment that they lived in. The seers often represent the cosmic man as Vaisvānara or Hiraṇ yagarbha. The various components of this universal man are the waters, sun, moon and the earth. Like the limbs of the body, the various components of the whole make up this cosmic realm. Each of these components or parts of the cosmic creation, Viśva, was sacralized during various periods of history. The created world of the Veda-s was a larger-than-earth place. 337

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There is no documentation as to why some deities were abstract, why some were very physical or why some had multiple names and personalities. Examining the Ṛ g Veda literature indicates that the eulogies were composed of many natural phenomena and the divinity they presented or represented. The sun, the waters and the wind were praised by turn and asked to protect mankind and issue favours to the worshippers. Others were praised by name, such as Indra or Rudra. A detailed discussion on the vast scholarly literature in the Veda-s would be beyond the scope of this chapter; therefore, I confine my decomposition of the plots to a select few verses where the goddess earth has been specifically addressed and those myths that are popularly narrated during ritual practices. In the Veda-s, there are two distinct forms of reference to the earth. One reference is to the earthly plane, the metaphysical realm of Bhūloka, which is a part of either a seven-world system of cosmic creation (saptaloka4) or sometimes a three-world system consisting of Bhū (earthly plane) Bhūvaḥ (intermediate plane) and Svaḥ (heavenly plane): Verily, with ‘Bhūḥ (earth)!’ Prajāpati generated this (earth) with ‘Bhūvaḥ (ether)!’ the ether; with ‘svah (heaven)!’ the sky. As far as these (three) worlds extend, so far extends this universe: with the universe, it (the fire) is accordingly established (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇ a, Yajur Veda 6.1.1.9–10, quoted in Bhattacharya, 1970). Dasgupta (1992, 23) classifies the Vedic deities based on the realms they occupy - as terrestrial, atmospheric and celestial. These deities, according to Flood (1996, 36), inhabited these realms as their habitats. The heavenly realm, for example, had Varuṇ a - who was a maintainer of natural law (ṛ ta) and Mitṛ a – the lord of the night, while the atmospheric gods who lived in the intermediate worlds were Indra, Vāyu and Maruts, the storm gods. The earthly plane or terrestrial plane had Soma (the plant god), Agni (fire) and Bṛ haspati (Jupiter, the priestly god of creative power). So, as the realm called Bhūloka, the earth had no sacred personification. It was, for all purposes, a metaphysical territory, a container for beings who lived in it.

The Powerful and Reproductive Mother Earth in the Veda-s Sherma (2000, 96) has clearly indicated the intimate relationship between woman and nature and remarks that nature is mostly perceived as feminine. It is commonly known that the woman-nature connection is not limited to the Indian tradition. Among the important natural features that are identified as ‘nature’ in Indian thought are the rivers and the earth. This notion of femininity is portrayed as per the qualities of womanhood idealized in a patriarchal society. The earth and the rivers are gendered as feminine personalities in mythology and are often addressed with feminine names in the Hindu tradition. The feminine form of the earth that is referred to as a goddess and mother is addressed variously in the Vedic verses as Bhūmi or Pṛ thvī.5 The earliest hymns of the Veda-s contained in the Ṛ g Veda have verses addressing the earth combined with the sky as a mystical deity, called Dyava-Pṛ thvī, a combined parental deity who has been addressed in six or seven hymns. According to Murthy (1997), heaven and earth are the most frequently named deities in the Ṛ g Veda. In some places, the sky and the earth are referred to as the two great mothers. They are also addressed as father and mother. The ‘Mother Earth’ coupled with ‘Father Sky’ is described as separated by Varuṇ a (the god of waters) or Parjanya, the rain clouds. These two, the heaven and the earth, are said to bestow prosperity on all and sustain the region: ‘On us with loving-kindness Heaven and Earth bestow riches and various 338

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wealth and treasure hundredfold!’ (RV I.149, trans. Griffith 1973). These universal parents were the earliest instances of consort pairing in Veda-s. According to Keith (2007), the prevailing conception of the sky as the father and the earth as the mother had an impact on the conceptualization of other Vedic deities. The equal pairing of both the earth and the sky produced all life in the world. The sky is said to fertilize the earth with rain, and the earth sustains all by producing food (see RV I.149, trans. Griffith 1973). The earth’s role is connected more to the function of nourishment than procreation or birthing of beings. The first representation that is indicative of the earth as an embodied woman is seen in verses that refer to motherhood in terms of a womb. The earth, in its corporeal form, is regarded as the primordial womb, a powerful maternal force, the mother of all humankind. The role of the earth is also represented as primarily reproductive or creative rather than causative. The earth adds earthiness and makes the bodies of the beings by nourishing them. The value of the earth as both the creator and the receiver of the material body is often praised. A verse in the Ṛ g Veda X, 18, 10–13 (trans. Griffith 1973), for instance, says that the earth receives the dead son into her bosom, protecting him from annihilation. Humans and beings spring from the earth, and when dead, they are laid to rest in her lap. Pṛ thvī, the earth continues to be addressed as ‘mother’ in many verses as a separate deity. She is the universal mother and sustains and nourishes all living beings. The other parent, Dyaus, the sky, is rarely mentioned as her consort in some of the verses. For example, in the Ṛ g Veda, the earth as a goddess separate from heaven is invoked as ‘the mighty earth who bears mountains and strongly holds forests’. She is the mistress of the clouds, not Indra or Varuṇa, who are usually imagined as the controllers of rain in other verses: O far flung Earth, the bright one. Like a neighing steed you drive abroad your storm clouds … when rains and lightning issue from your clouds. (Pṛ thvi- Mahini, RV V.84, trans. Panikkar 1977, 122) The earlier representation of the earth as a part of the dual deity Dyava-Pṛ thvī seems to have crystallized from an abstract magical form into a more physically represented embodied ‘woman’. It is clear from the various creation myths that the earth is a manifestation of the material of creation with properties such as broadness and bearing mountains. At the same time, she also has non-material divine properties such as effulgence and power as an independent deity. The material earth is embodied as a woman with biological attributes, especially having a womb and bearing children. On the other hand, due to her strength and power to hold mountains, the earth also begins to achieve an exalted status as a deity. The order of these transformations may evoke questions as to the exact chronological order of these hymns that refer to these changes. A deep analysis of the order of the hymns that belong to the earlier Ṛ g Veda or later Yajur Veda or as occurring in later periods of the Veda Saṃ hita or Purāṇ a is not, however, needed at this point, as these have already been chronologically arranged by historians.6

Mother as a Wife Chakravarti (1993, 581–582) is of the opinion that the severe form of woman subjugation in India occurred ‘through the instrument of religious traditions which have shaped social practices’. The connection between earth and women has to be seen in the larger social 339

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context of the Vedic literature and its origins. Chakravarti (582) claims that the control of the sexuality of women of the upper castes was institutionalized within Brāhmaṇical patriarchy by codes and rules. She quotes Yalman’s study: ‘[A] fundamental principle of Hindu social organization is to a closed structure to preserve land, women and the ritual quality within it’. In the context of the development of agriculture and private land holdings, the idea of legitimate motherhood and the notion of a single partner were established as foundations for patrilineal succession (583), she argues. I posit that the earth, embodied as a woman, was also assigned a legitimate partner, as were women who were subordinated and ‘managed by their male guardians’. A powerful ‘consort’ for the powerful yet womanly earth is thus found in some hymns to the earth. Ecofeminist decomposition would place this as a later development of the idea that occurs with the beginnings of an agrarian society. The indications of this are seen in the metaphorical representation of the earth as the female counterpart of the deity Indra, the overlord of clouds and rains. Firstly, the idea of dual parentage has disappeared with Indra taking over the responsibility of rain production and Dyaus, the Father Sky, is no longer invoked. The earth is seeded by Indra; she is a yoni, a womb that is a receptacle for the rain, and further, she accepts the overlordship of a husband by choice. Also, this cleansing earth … Has chosen for her mate Indra, not Vṛ tra! (Bhūmi Sūkta, Verse, 123 trans. Panikkar 1977) The narrative that a woman is the seed bearer for progeny is made relevant to the earth, and the subtle divestment of powers of the older deity Dyāva-Pṛ thvī takes place. The almost unperceived separation of the embodied woman-earth that yields food and the wife-earth, who is a consort to the mighty Indra, is clear when the woman-earth is described as a created being rather than an early goddess who was self-created at the cosmic level. The earth in some verses is described as something that was created from some primordial waters by the effort of a creator, such as Prajāpati. The myth of this creation in Taittirīya saṃ hitā illustrates the point and also gives the etymology for the various names of the earth. The name Pṛ thvi in the Taitirīya saṃ hitā and the Taitirīya Brāhmaṇ a is derived from the root ‘Prāth’, which means ‘to spread’ and the word Bhūmi from the root Bhū, which means ‘foundation’: The maker of the world sought her with oblations when she was shrouded in the depth of the ocean. (Bhūmi Sūkta, verse 60, trans. Panikkar 1977) He desired, ‘May I generate, this (earth) from these waters!’ He compressed it and threw it into the water. …This whole (earth) dissolved itself all over the water: all this (universe) appeared as one form only, namely, water. …Worn out with toil and austerity, he created clay, mud, saline soil and sand, gravel (pebble), rock, ore, gold, plants and trees: therewith he clothed this earth. This (earth), then, was created as (consisting of) these same nine creations. (YV 6:1:1:14) 340

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‘This (earth) has indeed become (bhū) a foundation!’ (he thought): hence it became the earth (bhūmi). He spread it out (prāth), and it became the broad one (or earth, Pṛ thvi). And she (the earth), thinking herself quite perfect, sang (YV 6:1:1:15). (Trans. Eggeling, 1885) The idea of Indra as the consort of the earth chosen by her own will is replaced by the idea of Prajapati, the progenitor or creator, as the father of the earth. The actual material creation is supplanted by more abstract concepts of creation in the Purāṇ a-s. The earth in its corporeal form is called the mother for all creatures, she who nourishes, or as she who bears/supports children who have been created from a source just like her.

From Consort to Field, De-personification Before articulating an ethical framework, we must recognize and critique the dehumanizing process of both the earth and women within a traditional patriarchy. Both the woman and the earth are valued not in themselves, but their value is given by the value of their contributions. If we are dealing with the value of something, we have only one way to value it: to measure it within quantitative or utilitarian paradigms. This section begins to decompose the narratives of earth-subjugation and depersonalization of the corporeal earth. With further development of the agrarian communities, the corporeal earth becomes dharaṇ ī, land, a resource that can be used to produce crops. Dharaṇ ī means she who bears or carries. Since the land surface carries the beings, it represents the earth. The popular Hindi word for the earth, ‘dhartī’, is derived from this word. The transformation of the earth into a field for agriculture is associated with the rise of the worship of Sītā as a goddess. Before this name was popularized in the Rāmāyaṇ a as Rāma’s wife, she is portrayed as the goddess of the plough, furrow or cultivated land. ‘Sītā’ refers to the lines made by the plough on the earth that is to be sown with seeds. Sītā, the female protagonist of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇ a, in fact, was named after the furrow goddess because she was discovered in the field by Janaka, the king of Mithila, her foster father. As noticed through some verses, the ‘terra-mater’ becomes ‘terra’ the land with the portrayal of this goddess in this way. This verse in a Purāṇa text indicates the earth’s relationship to the farmer and to other beings: Sīta to those who hold the plough, And the Earth to all living beings. (Harivaṃ śa (2.3.14) quoted in Kinsley 1998, 66) One could argue that the idea of a woman’s role in producing children is not in any way devaluing a woman’s position. The problem does not arise due to the perception of a woman as a procreator but as someone who is a subordinate in the act of procreation. The womb of the earth that bears all beings is still a womb but not the womb of a mother or source but that of a wife or a womb to be impregnated. Seeding replaces birthing as an act of procreation. Many myths suggest that the father’s seed, in all its greatness and potency, is capable of being born without the aid of a woman. The agency of the earth becomes subordinate in this discourse. In alternate procreation narratives such as in the Purāṇ a-s, for example, we find that even leaf cups, rivers or fishes can bear the seed of a human father and birth mighty sons.7 A fertile and receptive yonị (Virginia) is not primary but only the 341

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supportive cause for beings: ‘The male seed contains all the individuating characteristics and thus bequeaths identity; the female field is the nurturing ground, providing succor’ (Sherma 2000). This has an impact on the idea of ‘bearing’ children versus ‘producing’ them. The inseminating qualities of the rain or the plough and the seeding of the land assume both ritual and physical significance in the Indian tradition. The idea of the woman being a womb, a fertile ground that only nourishes the child, is also clearly indicated in verses in some of the later Upanishads. It is only a fertile ground that can bear the seed on land, so too it is only the fertile woman who can bear children. The embodiment of the earth as a woman is linked with the ideas of fertility and barrenness, both of which are qualities of the earth and a married woman. The earth is now cultivable but is seen as a land surface fit for agriculture. The earth, as the wife of the plough is not even directly addressed in praise of the plough verse,8 as an extract of this famous hymn Kṣetrapati which is an address to the lord of the field, indicates: We, through the Master of the Field, even as through a friend, obtain What nourisheth our cattle and horses. In such may he be good to us. As the cow yieldeth milk, pour for us freely, Lord of the Field, the wave that beareth sweetness, distilling nectar, well-purified like ghee, and let the Lords of holy Law be gracious. (Ṛg Veda LVII. Ksetrapati, trans. Panikkar 1977) Powerful narratives are required to justify the extraction of resources from the earth that is embodied. Due to the natural quality of being a mother, the earth nourishes and feeds all beings. However, the idea of having to plough, seed and harvest a ‘mother’ necessitates a change in the human relationship with the earth. One such narrative that is popularly recounted for us in the Mahābhārata is about the disobedient earth goddess. The original ‘Pṛ thvi’ is here described as the daughter of King Pṛthu. The daughterhood is equitable to a commodity because just like girls can be ‘given away’ by fathers, the earth is subjected to Kanya-Dāna (giving away of a daughter in marriage) through this idea. According to this myth, King Vena, who unjustly ruled the earth, was destroyed by the sages. King Pṛtha was created by the sages from the body of the wicked King Vena. Pṛthu, in contrast to Vena, was a virtuous and much-loved king. The people complained to him that during the short interval between Vena’s death and Pṛthu taking over, the goddess earth had withdrawn all her vegetation into herself, and people were suffering for want of food crops. Pṛthu, who was angered by this behaviour of the earth, went after her to punish her. The goddess took the form of a cow and ran to all the worlds (lokās) but found no place to hide. The goddess was forced to surrender to King Pṛthu and the threat of his powerful bow and sharp arrows. The goddess argued that she be spared, as people could not live without her. The king replied that he would sustain all people with his yogic power. Finally subdued, the earth goddess agreed to give back all the vegetation in the form of milk on the condition that the king would find her a suitable calf, through the aid of which she could be milked for food. Pṛthu made ‘Svayambhū-manu’9 into a calf and milked the plants from the earth. He also arranged all the scattered mountains in one place and created flat lands for agriculture. It is claimed by the story that it was only since the time of Pṛthu that agriculture, cow protection and trade came into being. Since then, the earth was called Pṛ thvi, daughter of Pṛthu, claims the myth (Mani 1989a). The story of Pṛthu and his daughter, the earth, 342

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cannot be exactly dated, but it is, however, clear that this story shows the transition of the earth from the all-powerful mother we find in the verses of the Ṛ g Veda into a rather stubborn woman in this myth.10 Also, in the same story, power and protection as virtues are vested in man, giving him credit for subduing the earth.

Terrestrial Earth and the Goddess The relationship to the terrestrial earth from here onwards, symbolized by the plough, is a matter of choice for human beings. The earth, now the field for sowing, becomes the woman embodied. The idea of a successful woman’s essential duty or Strī-dharma is to give birth to sons. The idea of this essential nature of a woman needs a little more clarification here. The term ‘Strī’, meaning one who can bear children – woman or female – (also used as an adjective), is not restricted to a set of psychological attitudes, but being feminine (being strī) is deeply connected with biological, ritual and cultural practices that are referred to as Strī-dharma. These essential attributes of a woman, and therefore of the earth, are deeply linked to the act of procreation. For the woman, her menstruation – as an indication of her fertility – becomes her dharma, her innate duty or role. Many contemporary rituals associated with the fertility of the land and menstruation of the earth itself are still celebrated as folk festivals in various parts of rural India. Further, as pointed out earlier, the connection between the women and the earth as embodied fertile ‘bearers of children’ is reinforced by attributing common qualities to both women and earth, such as fertility, forbearance, silence, patience, motherhood and sacrifice. Indradeva (1966, 164) writes about the woman-nature connections in Indian thought: ‘The earth gives birth to various vegetation. The value of the earth depends upon its fertility. Similarly, the worth of a woman lies in her ability to become the mother of sons’. The metaphor of the field and the seed is used to justify the control over a woman’s body and the body of the earth, both associated with complex ideas of fertility, barrenness and control, as well as the need to have a seed giver or a protector. The legend of King Pṛthu prescribes the relationship between the ‘ideal’ king who can milk the earth and the idea that the earth will only yield to the right king is thus politically established. The ritual of the first ploughing of the land by a king is a common account in many Purāṇ a-s and is equated to the act of insemination of the earth with the seed. The woman, once married, becomes a means for progeny. The value of a woman, therefore, is measured by either her capacity to bear children or her capacity for caring selflessly. The evaluation of a woman is given by her fitness to bear children, measured by the offspring she bears; accordingly, a male child naturally increases her value. In the same way, the earth is evaluated as a resource and its capacity to yield for us. Paradoxically, calling kings the ‘husband of the earth’ may seem to prioritize the earth. It can be read as ‘earth’s lord’, but the titles, such as ‘bhūpati’, are more indicative of relations of power and control than indicative cases of privileging the earth. The reading is more likely ‘lord of the earth’. The more powerful a woman is, the more powerful the husband who possesses her. Just like any woman, the earth, too, needs protection. As the corporeal earth was divested of all her powers, the part of the earth that was divine and sacrificing was deified. But the corporeal earth loses its sacred nature. An older narrative heard in oral renditions of the Rāmāyaṇa is that the earth, trees and women have been given to bear Indra’s sin of killing a Brahmin. The impurity of the earth and the women is a result of that sin. Hence, when we step on the earth, we need to purify it before rituals and so on. 343

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The stories in the Purāṇa-s, which are dated later than the Vedic hymns, portray the earth, Bhūmi, as a divine goddess, Bhūdevi, one of the wives of Lord Viṣṇu. She, as the daughter of Brahmā, is wedded to Nārāyaṇ a. This divine goddess is the goddess of the earth. The earth is said to be made of mud, and Bhūdevi is its goddess (Mani 1989b). The abstraction of the sacred deity from her corporeal form disembodies the earth. In this image of the earth, we see how the benevolent goddess of the earth or Bhūdevi, is a divine goddess wedded to Lord Viṣṇ u and who even lives in the heavens, or in Viṣṇ u-loka unconnected from her body-self, the earth. This creates a total separation from her corporeal self, Bhūmi, the land surface creating a goddess ‘in absentia’. She is also given an anthropomorphic form, and her counterpart, Sri-Devi, is the goddess of wealth. It seems that while kings protect their territory, representing the earth Bhūmi, the earth as a goddess, Bhūdevi is cared for by Lord Viṣṇ u (known as ‘King of Kings’). This Bhūdevi of the Purāṇa-s is not as popular as her counterpart goddess Lakṣmī and is often portrayed as a suppliant goddess. Some Purāṇa-s have the goddess earth interceding on behalf of human beings to request that some divinity descend on earth to destroy the wicked or those who are tormenting her children (the human). Yet again, we still find a strange phenomenon where the corporeal form of the earth still bears some of those immutable qualities despite being temporally existent. The earth’s immortality, even as land, is taken for granted while the temporal exhaustion of the earth’s vigour in sustaining us is ignored. Land is never addressed as a thing, an object. It is always a woman, a mother-being. In this fuzzy, unclear vision of the earth, the ageing of the form of the earth is not even considered, so the earth as a divinity loses her temporality and vulnerability of being embodied. No footfall can hurt the earth in its current representation as a goddess land. On the other hand, the earth is defied into a goddess and a self-effacing mother, divested of her corporeal nature in the context of the deification of the earth as Bhūdevi. We can infer two shifts in attitude. The reverence value is accorded to the goddess, while the earth itself is materially valued for resources. The goddess inside the temple, represented as an idol, is revered, feared and appeased. The earth, as land, is controlled, fought over and inherited. If this separation was complete, there would be no way to turn the land into a goddess again.

An Ecofeminist Ethical Turn that Draws on the Traditions After our decomposition of the narratives in these texts, we are left with ideas of the earth as that of a woman, of a mother goddess and the corporeal land and soil. What can we recreate as a new ethical framework with these ideas? The earliest hymns not only venerate the earth as a mother but attribute human qualities to the earth, which is also the land and soil. I posit that a narrative of a land-earth mother can function as a norm for our attitude towards the earth. In folk cultures and common imagination in India, people call themselves ‘children of the soil’ (for instance, ‘matir manush’, in Bengali). The love or bond between a mother and a child, in the case of the young child, is where the mother cares for the child, but the same relationship between an adult child and mother is recreated as the adult child caring for the mother. When there is no reciprocal care towards a mother, the relationship can be perceived as an exploitative one. As the child has only consumed care from the mother and ignores her when she needs support, in this relationship, the mother is a resource. We have seen earlier how the earth has been perceived over time as a resource, even in the traditional textual and mythological narratives. 344

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The prevalent view today seems to be to treat the earth as a ball of mud (mṛ t-pinda) in more ways than just cultural. The mechanistic and inert view of nature influenced by modernity reinforces the idea that the earth is a mere resource. I had a conversation with an eminent scientist about dwindling resources on Earth. In a very Pṛ tha-like way, he told me, ‘If we run out of resources on earth we will settle down on another planet’. Replace ‘yogic power’ with ‘technology’, and you have a modern narrative of the subjugation of the earth. In environmental ethics, there has always been a problem of finding common ground to practice reciprocity with what is called ‘inert nature’. Abram (2004, 82–84) articulates the difficulty of reciprocity between human beings who are free agents and nature, which in the Western context is an inert or determinate object. Arguing for a concept of nature that establishes a common ground between humans and the rest of nature, he asks, ‘How shall we locate, or establish a common ground between ourselves and the rest of nature?’ (83). His contention is that to reciprocate, we must relate to nature as animate and living and not inert as conceptualized by Western thought: Reciprocity … becomes possible only if the rest of nature is experienced as something that can reciprocate us, only if nature is not recognized as a conglomeration of objects but as a crowd of living subjects, of entities who – like ourselves – are active animate agencies. (84) It is my belief that the deeply embedded culture of viewing the earth as a mother cannot be transformed easily. ‘Earth-not-as-mother’ in the Indian context is not a viable option. How, then, can the paradoxical value we hold for ‘mother’ be transformed? The currently followed traditional rituals connected with the land provide us with a conceptual clue. The rites connected with agricultural practices in rural India, which have more to do with the fragile soil and land, embody the earth in her corporeal form and make the earth vulnerable to our use of her resources. Subjecting the idea of the earth’s fragility to humanization, one can see that as adults and grown-up children, our care for a mother would not only encompass reverence but actual service to the form of the mother’s body. This humanization is possible because, despite the seeming immortality of cosmic deities in Hindu beliefs, the world of creation is still temporal; it ages. Within the view of Hindu cosmology, besides human beings, deities, as well as other classes of beings, are subject to temporality. If we connect the decomposed idea of a corporeal Mother Earth to her temporality, we can create a reformed worldview. Inside this view, we would need to re-embody the earth as having a temporal existence. This explicit invocation of temporality into both humans as children and earth as mother is the first ethical move in a recreated narrative of the earth. The metaphor of an unchanging and ever-young earth that is divine and untouched by our activities must be replaced with a narrative that foregrounds the earth as an ageing mother. Articulating a personal relationship with the earth connects us intimately with the earth not as a token mother but as someone who allows us to be who we are – earthlings. What is suggested here is that this earth-mother is not to be idealized as an eternally young mother nor as a divine goddess but as one who is a humanized mother – a mother who is fragile. Vulnerability and the fragility of the earth as land, as well as mother goddess, can coexist to provide a powerful image for changing people’s attitudes. In Nagarajan’s (2000: 273) words, ‘The earth, the soil is fragile just as the earth goddess is fragile.’ 345

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Serving the mother seems to be a powerful narrative, even in stories such as the Mahābhārata. The attitude towards the mother by her adult children is of extreme reverence in recognition of her sacrifice and her earlier gift of care.11 The ethical concept that we derive from our tradition is that of reciprocity to the mother. Traditionally, in some parts of India, it is called a ‘debt of the womb or debt of drinking mother’s milk’ that is considered almost impossible to pay back. Reciprocity of this care is tied up to the notion of dharma. Dharma guides actions that are dependent on one’s social position, the time and the place where one is located. Contextually defined, dharma depends on the relationship that the moral agent has with the world. Dharma defines moral actions or choices that are always directed towards something or some relationship. It sometimes translates loosely as duty or obligation. Even when used in a sense – ‘one’s own dharma – “svadharma”’ (natural duty), we find that morality is not free of the en-worlded condition. Dharma is deeply connected to the idea of a cosmic debt called ṛ ṇ a, which human beings have to pay back to the universe, such as ancestral debt or divine debt. Norms are prescribed for fulfilling these obligations, and caring for one’s parents is a part of this cosmic debt. Dharma has been seen as connected to ecological ethics by earlier scholars. Bilimoria and Renuka (2007/2017) rightly point out the ecological implications of the concept of dharma: Dharma with its roots in dhṛ (sustaining) and Vedic ṛ ta (order), can open up a more holistic, organic and ecologically enlightened perspective as a contrast to the more nature subjugating, individualistic and competitive environment within which we conceptualize ethics. (25) The Vedic view of reciprocity, given by dharma, extended beyond the community to the phenomenal world in a system that Jamison and Witzel (1992) refer to in their paper as a ‘natural economy’. The earth and all beings are seen as entities and not inanimate objects. Not only was reciprocity confined to the gods, but it was also a way of giving and receiving gifts between human beings themselves. Seen from the viewpoint of raising ecological awareness, reciprocity to – ‘Mother Earth’ seems promising. It takes ethics to a level beyond sustainability, conservation or preservation but includes all the best practices of the environment. Ethics of care requires a return service to the earth and its beings; it includes concepts of restoration, environmental justice and conservation. Without falling into the ‘rights’ question and debates, it addresses what we can call in the Indian tradition, the dharma of an earth-child. To revere the earth as our mother is to show her respect in her corporeal form as the embodied earth. To empower the narratives of the Veda-s, which emphasize the corporeal earth as a ‘living earth’ capable of being hurt, can have positive implications. In place of our physical footfall upon the earth, we should look at the current notion of ecological footprint, a footprint so large that it extends beyond the earth. The early Veda-s upheld this idea. Dwivedi (2000: 10–11) refers to the relationship between human beings and the vulnerable earth, as demonstrated by the hymns in the Ṛ g Veda, where the singers of the hymn request permission from the earth to use her resources. Kinsley (1995: 58) claims, ‘though there is no direct reference to ideas of polluting the earth in Hindu culture, the idea of reciprocity between the humans and the concept of Pṛ thvī, the great earth-mother goddess is evident’. Further, he adds, ‘The earth bears and feeds the human beings, and in 346

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return they are responsible for behaving in ways that are inoffensive to the earth’. Reciprocity is evident in many injunctions that involve rituals or traditions.12 Rituals such as bhūmi-pūjā, the worship of the land or a ceremony of consecration before the digging of the earth remain as vestiges of earth-mother worship even today. Though contradictory or not directly impacting ethics, Nagarajan (2000) claims that the subtexts of the rituals associated with the earth are instrumental in reminding us about the importance of the earth. Bhū Devī acts as a reminder of the fragility of the soils and earth; she is a mnemonic device serving to shape the conceptualization of the natural world. The making of the Kolam is then clearly a way of remembering the natural world (272). She suggests that in the sacred daily ritual art of ‘kolam’ in South India, the rice flour design on the threshold is a symbolic offering to the earth goddess: The articulation of the earth goddess’s plight and the daily offering of the Kolam as a way of paying attention to the ground we walk on daily, bring to a more conscious level our connectedness and dependence on the earth. (Nagarajan, 2000, 273) The art of drawing the pattern on the ground equates the goddess earth with the material earth, according to her (273). It is also well known that classical Indian dancers touch the earth with reverence and beg forgiveness for the striking of their feet hard on the ground before and after a performance. New rituals such as the Vana mahotsava, where trees are planted to green the earth or ‘clothe’ her, have found a niche in Indian ethos, even in urban areas. I believe that such rituals become embedded in cultural practices that, in turn, shape behaviour towards the natural world. Earth-centred ethics, therefore, would have to consider the values that include the duties of a human being to the earth as a part of the same cosmic, organic universe, a relational perspective from an ecofeminist view rather than a mere rational one. Merchant (1980) writes of historical instances where the actions of human beings were restricted by the image of a benevolent living earth: ‘Whereas the nurturing earth image can be viewed as a cultural constraint restricting the types of socially and morally sanctioned human actions allowable with respect to the earth’ (3). Again, she writes, ‘As long as the earth was considered to be alive and sensitive, it could be considered a breach of human ethical behaviour to carry out destructive acts against it’ (3). In the current context, ethics for something we live on is difficult to conceive, except through a utilitarian paradigm. If we are of the earth, we belong to the earth; it is possible to extend an ethical stand for the embodied earth as the mother of humankind. As one part of the cosmic person, we would be equal stakeholders along with plants, animals and others in the relationship to the earth, not inferior or superior. Authentic reverence would have to be articulated as loyalty to our mother Bhūmi. The worldview to reconnect us ethically to the earth is not by naturalizing ourselves as natural creatures of the earth but by humanizing nature. Once the earth is humanized, the question of ethics becomes integral to our relationship with it. While this idea may not immediately change our behaviour towards the earth, it will still have an eventual impact as we can speculate that, often, attitudes are based upon the foundations of cultural and social narratives. The reciprocate and restorative duties of care by human beings to their Mother Earth as their source and all living beings as siblings, a part of themselves, would perhaps lead to better ethical conservation practices. I end with 347

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these lines from the Veda-s that call us the children of the earth and clearly indicate our close connectedness with our mother, the embodied earth: Impart to us those vitalizing forces that come, O Earth, from deep within your body, Your central point, your navel, purify us wholly, The earth is the mother; I am the son of the earth.’ (Bhūmi Sūkta, verse 12, trans. Panikkar 1977, 128)

Notes 1 I am aware that this term is similarly used in mathematical/ computer sciences too to mean ‘breakdown’, but I relate to this term as biological. 2 See also Chapter 25, Ecofeminism from a Buddhist Critical Perspective by Rita Gross in Part III of this volume. 3 Panentheism is the belief that the supreme (here, Brahman) forms and interpenetrates the Universe and at the same time transcends it. 4 Bhū, Bhūva, Svarga, Jana, Mahar, Tapa, Satya are the seven worlds (Urdhva lokas) mentioned in the longer versions of the popular Gāyatrī mantra chants. 5 While Pṛthvī, Bhūmi and Janitrī are common names of the earth in the Vedas, many other names appear in later literature. 6 For a detailed note on Vedic literature and timelines refer to Witzel, Micheal “Vedas and Upaniṣads,” in Gavin Flood (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, 68–102. Oxford: Blackwell publishing. 7 In the Mahābhārata, Droṇa, the teacher of Kurus and Pāṇḍavas, is born from a leaf cup. 8 This seems to be an earlier verse as per the historically arranged order of the Vedic hymns as the Ṛ g Veda is supposed to predate agriculture. But given the mention of the plough, one can safely assume that this hymn is composed after the development of agriculture. 9 A calf is needed to induce the cow mother to start giving milk, the king uses a human ‘self-born Manu’ who is used to ‘milk’ the resources. 10 Perhaps the myth describes a time of low food gathering resources or a famine. The stubbornness may refer to this. But the emphasis of this story is about King Pṛthu’s role in levelling the earth and creating land that could be tilled. 11 The Pāṇḍavas in the Mahābhārata, fulfil every wish and command of their mother Kuntī, even agreed to share a wife Draupadi between all of them to honour her casual command. 12 For a detailed note on ethics and actions see Christopher Key Chapple, ‘Action Oriented Morality in Hinduism’ in Indian Ethics vol.1, (eds. P. Bilimoria, J. Prabhu, R. Sharma) 2007/2017. Abingdon: Routledge; Delhi: Oxford University Press) 355–358.

References Abram, David. 2004. ‘Reciprocity.’ In Rethinking Nature, edited by Foltz, Bruce V and Robert Frodeman. 82–84. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bhattacharya, N. N. 1970. The Indian Mother Goddess. New Delhi: Manohar Publications. Bilimoria, P. Prabhu, J. Sharma Renuka (eds.) 2007/2017. Indian Ethics, vol. Abingdon : Routledge; Delhi: Oxford University Press. Chakravarti, Uma. 1993. ‘Conceptualizing Brāhmaṇical Patriarchy in Early India: Gender, Caste, Class and State.’ Economic and Political Weekly, 28(14): 581–583 Chapple, Christopher Key. 2007/2017. ‘Action Oriented Morality in Hinduism.’ In Indian Ethics Vol I, 351–363. Abingdon: Routledge/New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

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28 ECOFEMINISM AND HINDU TANTRA Rita Sherma

Introduction Over the last two decades, the ecofeminist vision has emerged to challenge the existing mercantile-­cum-­post/industrial paradigm and has attempted to shift the values that underlie the current exploitation of the earth and its inhabitants. Ecofeminist ethics rests on the premise that the ultimate goal of feminism is the eradication of all systems of exploitation, whether against women, marginalized peoples, animals or the earth. It holds that when nature and femaleness are linked, the honouring of one raises the position of the other in human thought and culture. Alternately, the denigration of either devalues the other. The vision of the earth as a sacred hierophany and material form of the divine is perhaps most dramatically displayed in goddess theology, first crystallized in the 6th-­century text – a part of the Mārkaṇ ḍeya Purāṇ a – called the Devī Māhātmya, or ‘Glorification of the Goddess’ (Brown 1990). This vision finds further expression in various purāṇic stories and culminates in the sophisticated systematization of the nature and functions of Śakti (the highest feminine principle) in the tantric tradition. Hindu Tantra, especially in its Śākta (goddess-­worshipping) strains, offers a rich and nuanced resource for the construction of an ecologically conscious spirituality. This chapter1 will explore the ontology of Hindu Tantra as a viable source of inspiration for the development of a Hindu ecofeminist theological vision. To understand the ideological basis of the ecological crisis and ecofeminism’s role in attempts to shift global perspectives on the environment, I begin with a brief note on the paradigm that justifies the destruction of the ecosystem and contrasts it with the new paradigm that is articulated by ecofeminism where the ‘imaginary of the Goddess has been appropriated to bolster the perception of nature and natural forces as sacred … [and] conducive to modern ecological aspirations’ (Pintchman 2018: 30–31). We shall demonstrate how this new paradigm finds support in Hindu tantric philosophy. Certain Hindu concepts and beliefs such as māyā, prakṛti, purity/impurity categories and the perception of female nature have traditionally been interpreted in a way that devalues material life. Women and the natural world will then be examined through an ecofeminist lens and re-­envisioned from the tantric perspective. Finally, I will address the question of the viability of the tantric

DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-33

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worldview – which is based on the notion of the radical immanence of the divine – as a theological basis for a broader ecological perspective.

Ecofeminism Since the publication of Rosemary Radford Ruether’s New Woman/New Earth in the 1970s, the hermeneutics of feminist theologies have revealed the androcentric biases of certain patriarchal religions that identify nature with the feminine. Patriarchal religions are often religions of transcendence that tend to emphasize the ascetic, penitential or renunciative form of the spiritual quest. Their theologies usually associate impurity with the body, equate temptation with women and encourage world-­negating visions, all of which support the diminution of women’s status and the ravaging of nature. Once the superiority of a gender or a class of people has been established by religious tenets, service and servitude follow for that which has been deemed inferior. Such doctrines are strengthened by apocalyptic visions of impending doom and beliefs about the illusory or delusory nature of embodied existence, all of which devalue nature and creation.2 When the soteriology of such traditions assimilates women to nature and embodiment and then requires the transcending of sexuality, worldly life and embodiment – all of which are associated symbolically with women – it sacralizes subjugation. The rationalization of oppression is achieved by the axiom that ‘superiority justifies subordination’ (Warren and Tuana 1991). The hierarchical dualisms of androcentric theologies (heaven/earth, spiritual/ material, male/female, culture/nature) often supply the rationale for the superiority of market monoliths of hegemonic cultures over women, the poor and the natural world. The following three themes identify features of Hindu philosophy which work against the development of an ecological consciousness in the Hindu psyche. These three aspects are (a) the identification of the feminine maternal with materiality, (b) the purity/impurity dichotomy or affectation and (c) the devaluation of the feminine principle and the phenomenal world that it represents by philosophies of transcendence (Agni Purāṇa 1985).

Sacred Immanence: The World According to Tantra Fortunately, there is much in the Hindu worldview that is highly supportive of worldly life and reverential affect towards nature and the feminine. Non-­ascetic, life-­affirming perspectives are as old as the Vedas and remain a vital force to this day. Perhaps the clearest expression of the Hindu valorization of the phenomenal world is Śākta philosophy, which views the universe as the material manifestation of Śakti (in this context, the Universal Goddess). Śākta theology perceives the supreme being/highest reality as the Great Goddess. She is not only the conscious matrix of the universe and the power of becoming; she is also the primordial material substance of the universe. The idea of sacred immanence, the affirmation of the force and presence of the supreme reality in every dimension of the manifest universe, is powerfully expressed in Śākta theology and is the hallmark of tantric Śāktism. Models of the Goddess represented by Śākta strains in Hindu theology expand the roles of the divine feminine and associate the feminine with transcendence as well as immanence. It is, however, an emphasis on the sacred nature of ‘this world’ and the valorization of earthly life that especially distinguishes Goddess theology. The term śakti appears early in Vedic literature, where it tends to denote some sort of potency, capability or service (Pintchman 1994, 97–98). The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (1995) 351

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(4.1) describes a supreme being who, by the manifold application of his creative power (śakti), manifests the polymorphous universe. The conceptualization of śakti as a creative force inherent in all things began its development in the philosophical literature of the classical period [and began to] represent a fully systematized principle representing a Universal Goddess with cosmogonic, soteriological and theistic significance until the 16th or 17th century CE (see, e.g., Coburn 1991). The first elaboration of the theology of the Great Goddess occurs in the Devī Māhātmya, (1991) which melds together various philosophical constructs – such as śakti, māyā, prakṛti and the notion of ultimate reality – to create a portrait of the Great Goddess. The text portrays her as the causal agent of creation and implicitly identifies her with the ground of Being – thus endowing her with transcendence. As Śakti, she is the creative and sustaining, as well as the destructive (or reabsorptive) power underlying the manifest cosmos. She is the matrix of the universe and, as mūla prakṛti, its material substance. Hence, she is fully immanent in the world. Indeed, according to the Devī Māhātmya (1991), the Goddess does not employ a specific power or force to create the world – ultimately, she is the world, and all its diverse forms are aspects of her Being. This is of paramount importance for an ecotheological spirituality that seeks a metaphysical perspective in which the earth is fully expressed of the divine.

Tantric Concepts of the Nature of the Feminine Hindu Tantra offers a profound and detailed system for Goddess worship and enfolds within its canon the glorification of women, not only as nurturing aspects of the Goddess but as embodiments of her manifold energies: creative, destructive, delusory and enlightening. Tantra draws on the various ancient, indigenous village and tribal practices and the legacy of Vedic rites (Bhattacharyya 1974). In doing so, it articulates methods of connecting with the pervasive but diffuse powers of the Goddess to channel these energies for spiritual or material benefit. Material life is not devalued or perceived as an obstacle to liberation. Neither are women, though they are still consistently identified with the material principle. The Mahānirvāṇ a Tantra 4.34–5 presents Śakti as a matrix of the universe of forms, the source into which the universe dissolves at the end of cosmic cycles, and in the vision of sādhana (spiritual practice), identical with Brahman. In the text, the Devī explicitly states that ‘as union with the Brahman is attainable through worship of Him, so it may be attained by sādhana of Me’ (4.4). In Kulacūḍāmaṇ i Nigama 1956 1.16–17, the Goddess, in the form of Bhairavī, describes the first stage of her being as the quiescent, primordial, transcendent state where she is in blissful union with Śiva (śiva-­śakti-­samarasa). This state is identified with the ultimate reality, the niṣkala Brahman. Some texts endow Śakti with an ontological primacy. S.B. Dasgupta notes that there are tantric as well as puranic texts which perceive Śakti as the ultimate truth and Śiva, the śaktimat (the ‘holder of Śakti’), as her male aspect: [This] view makes Shakti the highest truth, and Shiva is conceived of as the best support of Shakti. Shakti is the more important as the contained, while Shiva is the container. … It is from this point of view that the Mother worshippers would give a subsidiary place to Shiva, whereas Shakti as the Mother is taken to be the highest. (Dasgupta 1982: 72–73) 352

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The Lalitā Sahasranāma (1996) describes her as ātma (the Self in all beings) (5.617), paramā (Supreme Principle) (5.618), and ekākinī (the One) (v. 665). Because the omnipresent power of Śakti is felt to be expressed most fully in the feminine, worship of women is enjoined. There are many references in tantric literature for the proper procedure for the worship of women as Śakti incarnate. Kulacūḍāmaṇ i Nigama (1956) 2.30 describes for the sādhaka (male tantric aspirant) details of the ritual worship of his wife –including the process of initiation if she is not yet an aspirant. The woman is not expected to remain a silent object of devotion during the worship (pūjā); she is a dynamic partner in the process and must feel the awakening of Śakti within to bless the worshipper and experience spiritual ascent herself. The Śākta tantras forbid satī (suttee; widow self-­immolation), child marriage and other abuses. The tantric texts encourage education for women before marriage and advise the sādhaka to honour all women (see, for example, Kulacūḍāmaṇ i Nigama 3.46–57). Mahānirvāṇ a Tantra (1953) 11.49, in addition, prescribes fasting for two days as a punishment for a man who has spoken rudely to a woman, and 11.45 recommends execution for the rape of a woman; Yoni Tantra 7.9 proclaims, ‘Women are divine, women are life, women are truly jewels’. The Kulārṇ ava Tantra (1973) (7. 75) advises, Pay respect to womankind, as they are all born of the family of the Divine Mother. Punish them not in however mild a manner, whatever the transgression. Their excellences, not failings, are to be stressed. Sanjukta Gupta has argued that divine role models have a significant impact on the way women perceive their own spiritual potential and the way in which men react to women’s religious autonomy (Gupta 1991: 195). According to the tantric doctrine, Śakti contains all aspects of life: creation and dissolution, bliss and agony, the sensual and the sublime. Since the supreme power of Śakti is personified as feminine, these different facets are worshipped, or rather, meditated upon as female deities, often referred to as the mahāvidyās. Tantric ritual worship is primarily directed at these goddesses, who are seen as manifestations of the energy of Śakti. Each mahāvidyā represents a specific energy, composed of certain frequencies that have a pattern of their own and a vibrational field that creates different intonations. These frequencies are most often represented by visual patterns called yantra and auditory patterns called mantra. The powerful female deities of tantric sādhana (psycho-­spiritual discipline) are strong, autonomous, often fierce and invariably possess self-­agency and self-­determination. In Śākta Tantra, it is the male principle that is reduced to a śava (corpse) when deprived of the animating force of the Goddess. It is the fierce goddesses that dominate tantric ritual and iconography. Deities such as Tārā, Kālī, Dhāmāvatī, Chinnamastā (‘she whose head is severed’), and other similar awe-­inspiring female deities pervade the tantric lore.

Creation from Śakti’s Womb Through a process of devolution, Śakti first manifests as (a) cit-­śakti, the power of consciousness; then (b) māyā-­śakti, the power which veils the unity underlying the multiplicity of phenomena and creates the appearance of manifold realities; and finally as (c) prakṛti-­ śakti, the primordial substance of the universe. She is the energy that moves in the cosmic cycles of creation, preservation, destruction (or reabsorption into herself) and recreation. 353

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Because she is the force of consciousness inherent in all things, and indeed because all things are factively modes of her being, the natural universe is imbued with sanctity. Through increasingly sophisticated rituals and meditations, tantric disciplines seek to create an awareness of the sacred presence of Śakti in all things. Through the sacralization of the mundane actions of daily life and of the sensate functions of the human body, the aspirant is led from a dualistic mentality to the experiential realization of the ground of ultimate reality, a timeless, ineffable unity. The tantric perspective projects an ultimate reality that is an absolute nonduality. Yet, it is nevertheless dynamic, including and allowing for multiplicities and even dichotomies. Through tantric sadhana, a dualistic apprehension of reality is transformed into this state of unity-­consciousness – one that includes, not obliterates, the ever-­changing world of manifold forms and phenomena in opposition to the non-­ dual view of an illusory world.

The Feminine Principle and Non-­dualism in Tantra In Hindu thought, the Absolute is that which is not conditioned by finite relations either because it (a) excludes all relations, thus automatically transcending them as the divine ‘Other’ that is beyond relationality, or (b) includes all relations, synthesizing while still exceeding them. The first conception is the Advaita Vedānta understanding, and the second is the Śākta. This difference can have very significant implications for conceptions about the world, embodied life and nature. In the tantric doctrine, the Goddess, as prakṛti-­śakti, is the primordial material substance of the cosmos; all forms and phenomena are her myriad manifestations. As cit-­śakti, she suffuses all life with intelligence/consciousness, and as māyā-­śakti, she becomes the necessary power of differentiation by which all contrasting forms and phenomena are created and the underlying unity is veiled. Śiva and Śakti as sat-­cit-­ānanda (Being-­Consciousness-­ Bliss) exist in indistinguishable union (śiva-­śakti-­samarasa) as formless, undifferentiated, infinite potentiality before the Divine Mother transforms herself, through the power of maya, into the manifest universe of opposing pairs. Even when the world is manifested, it is not ‘other’ than a form of the Absolute, which (unlike the nirguṇ a Brahman of Advaita) is not static but dynamic. Hence the oft-­proclaimed tantric dictum: ‘Śakti is not different from Śiva; Śiva is not different from Śakti’. As the Kulārṇ ava Tantra states, all dichotomies and dualities are manifestations of Śiva-­Śakti, and as such, derive from a foundational unity and partake of the fullness of ultimate reality: Prakṛti and Puruṣa, Support and the Supported, Bhoga and Moksa, Prāṇ a and Apāna, Word and Meaning, Injunction and Prohibition, Happiness and Misery, all these manifestations that go in pairs, the constant Duals of the presiding and effectuating poises are forsooth Ourselves [Śiva and Śakti]. All forms, male and female are but emanations of Us Two. 22. (Chap. 3, p. 45)

Panpuritism in Tantra: ‘To the Pure, All Things Are Pure’ Asserting the doctrine of the universality of Brahman and the innate sacrality of all things, the Mahānirvāṇ a Tantra repeatedly admonishes against traditional practices such as pilgrimages, elaborate funeral ceremonies and other actions aimed at purifying the body and 354

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mind. The text argues that since Brahman, the principle of ultimate reality that is the source of all things, cannot be polluted, the aspirant who has realized this unity may consume anything as food, may take action without regard to purity and may have concourse with any individual regardless of caste or state of śauca (physical purity), for s/he recognizes the fundamentally pure nature intrinsic to all phenomena. Arising out of the established orthodox hierarchical society based on distinctions, Tantra proceeded to shatter distinctions and proclaim the innate purity of all things and the potential divinity of all beings. There are no historical records that ascertain the exact date of the emergence of Tantra. Many elements of tantric ritual and praxis reach back into the pre-­ Vedic period of Indian history. The notion of a Great Goddess as the matrix of the universe seems to have had currency in the pre-­Vedic period and continued to be the prime focus of those peoples of the Indian sub-­continent who were geographically, or for reasons of caste, far removed from the major centres of Brāhmaṇical Sanskrit culture. Unassimilated tribal people, outcastes, lower castes and women all contributed to the tantric tradition (Bhattacharyya 1974). Tantra prides itself on being the spiritual vehicle for passionate, dynamic and intense people. Tantra recognizes three basic types of human temperaments and correlates them to the three guṇ as: the most common, the unenlightened (paśu-­bhāva), is identified with the tamasic; the heroic (vīra-­bhāva) with the rajasic; and the godlike (divya-­bhāva) with the sattvic. The paśu is enjoined to worship the Goddess with traditional ritual (pūjā) and is excluded from the pañca-­tattva rite or from using any forbidden or dangerous elements in the ritual. Much is heard in the tantric texts about vīra-­bhāva, the temperament of the heroic. The heroic temperament is considered especially suitable to the practice of (Vāmakeśvara Tantra 1987). The rajas guṇ a, which represents dynamic activity, is strongly present in the vīra (hero). Being heroic, the vīra can dive in where the less courageous fear to tread and confront, in the rituals of Tantra, the dangers of passion, fear, and impurity in order to realize that it is the Goddess herself who veils her own presence in all things through māyā-­śakti, and it is again she who reveals this liberating knowledge to the seeker in her form as vidyā-­śakti, the power of knowledge (Tantraraja Tantra 1954).

Motivation and Morality There is motivation in Tantra to worship and celebrate the feminine, thereby, by implication, the natural world. But is there any motivation to protect the natural world with a moral purpose? Indeed, Tantra has often been criticized as being amoral because it is said that it makes no hard distinction between right and wrong or harmful and beneficial, for all is Śakti. From the ecological perspective, it can be argued that if all is Śakti – including the toxic waste, the fetid pollution, the exhaust fumes – then all is sublime and needs no corrective action. However, such an argument would ignore the tantric stance regarding the motivation and telos behind human action. The pollution and toxicity are no doubt, according to Tantra, aspects of Śakti as material substances. But what must be considered here is the fact that there are schools of Śākta Tantra that, as we shall see, do differentiate between the motives behind actions that are detrimental to others and those that are beneficial. This strain of tantric thought holds individuals accountable for their actions, both ethically and consequentially, as the karmic fallout, as is evidenced by texts that condemn those who cause harm to others or engage in excessive self-­indulgence and ‘sinful’ behaviour – often consigning the perpetrator to hell. The Mahānirvāṇ a Tantra, for example, warns, 355

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Thou hast truly spoken, O Devī, of the evil ways of men, who, knowing what is for their welfare, yet, maddened by sinful desire for things which bring immediate enjoyment, are devoid of the sense of right and wrong, and desert the True Path. (11.12–13) Most human beings have not experienced the mystical revelation of the unity of consciousness and are, therefore, according to tantric thought, unenlightened. For them, many Śākta tantras do not advocate a lack of discrimination between good and bad. It is only at the highest level of realization that all dualities and opposing pairs merge. But even the self-­ realized guru is expected to behave in accordance with rules of good conduct. Although the enlightened adept has experienced ultimate reality, s/he lives within the realm of phenomenal reality. Thus, the rules of behaviour necessary for harmonious living still apply (Bharati 1965: 21). The Kulārṇ ava Tantra (6.67–6.68) states that ‘such yogins in diverse guises, intent on the welfare of men, walk the earth [with] compassion for all men’. Another section of the same text provides a long list of attributes that characterize the ideal tantric master. In addition to many other qualities, the self-­realized guru must be compassionate to all creatures, merciful, devoid of egotism, anger, greed and hatred, able to distinguish between good and bad and possess a feeling of oneness with all (9.90–9.91). The tantric aspirant is expected to be – amongst other things – free of sin, cruelty and hatred; he must be non-­injurious to others, observe the rules of right conduct and be engaged in doing good to all creatures (9.87–9.89). Some texts also expressly forbid the killing of animals, except for the purpose of sacrifice to a deva (see Mahānirvāṇ a Tantra, 11.143). The universe is Śakti, and all phenomena, creative and destructive, are aspects of Śakti, but this should not be taken to mean that destructive acts committed by humans are to be condoned. Certain tantras recommend severe punishment or societal censure against those who cause injury to others (Mahānirvāṇ a Tantra. 11.18–152). It is true that Tantra recognizes the destructive and terrifying dimensions of the Goddess as aspects of the play (līlā) of the Divine Mother. But, according to Śākta mythology, whenever there is a grave danger to the world due to the proliferation of evil, the Goddess has manifested herself and vanquished the forces of evil. It can be argued that this is paradoxical because the demons are Śakti as well. Yet, as we have seen, Tantra maintains that although ultimate reality transcends all dualities, phenomenal reality, which is the realm of conventional life, requires (discernment) between the harmful and the beneficial. Tantra contains an implicit suggestion that the unenlightened are more likely to act in ways that do not harm the world when there is a fear of divine retribution. This is evidenced in Mahānirvāṇ a Tantra’s directive to protect the universe: The Lord protects this universe. Whoever wishes to destroy it will be themselves destroyed, and whosoever protects it, the Lord of the Universe Himself protects. Therefore should one act for the good of the world. (12.129) While the power of Śakti can be destructive as well as creative, the tantric approach to living emphasizes the life-­giving Śakti. This is evidenced by the tantric conflation of spiritual realization (yoga) with celebratory enjoyment (bhoga), which is actualized in sacramental rituals, including flowers, food, music and wine. The worship of the life-­giving aspects of Śakti is also visible in ritual iconography, which gives a strong emphasis to the symbol of 356

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the yoni, represented by an inverted triangle, which is ubiquitous in tantric symbolism. Every yantra is composed of combinations of this symbol. Each time the tantric aspirant creates a representation of the yoni – either by drawing it or creating it out of natural materials – it heightens his or her reverence for the regenerative power of the Goddess (Yoni Tantra 1985). One of the reasons for tantric veneration of the feminine is this respect for the power to bring forth life in all its forms; even female animals are protected from slaughter (Mahānirvāṇ a Tantra S, 6.7).

Conclusion: Pitfalls and Possibilities The doctrines of Hindu Tantra, though conditioned by historical and cultural factors, have certain affinities with the ecotheological perspective in general and the ecofeminist vision in particular, inasmuch as: (1) Tantra celebrates all aspects of life, both spiritual and worldly; (2) elevates the feminine principle of materiality and mutability, to the extent of identifying it as ontologically equivalent to the ultimate; (3) liberates the feminine divine, and thereby the construction of female gender in general, from the constraints of fertility and nurturance alone; (4) affirms the underlying purity of all phenomena, objects and individuals as expressions of the Goddess; (5) supports women’s and marginalized peoples’ aspirations for religious self-­agency and for attaining the highest realization; (6) eschews harsh asceticism, venerating the body and its sensations as reflective of the immanence of the divine; and (7) posits no spirit/matter dichotomy, envisioning the earth as the phenomenal manifestation of the Goddess, not as a non-­ultimate lower reality. While tantric philosophy is helpful for the cultivation of earth-­ centred spirituality, Tantra’s dynamic approach to individual spiritual empowerment can be an equally important source of inspiration. Hindu concepts such as the principle of karma, transmigration and cyclical time have been fatefully and mistakenly utilized to justify a lack of responsible action or unconscionable conduct on the part of the individual. The disenfranchisement of the individual is repeated in caste and gender constructions that have historically created a loss of self-­agency for women and undercaste communities. When the belief that one can make a significant impact in the world is undermined, inertia sets in and discourages any effort at transforming the environment, whether social, economic or ecological. The tantric approach provides personal access to divine power unmediated by intermediary priestly agents and imbues the practitioner with the capacity not only for personal transformation but also for the amelioration of pragmatic existential conditions. The tantric seeker works under the premise that the truth that lies hidden within the self is the same truth that pervades the universe from foundation to firmament. I would term this worldview a theology of identification, as it posits an identification between the self, cosmos and the Absolute. However, the application of this has traditionally not been extended to include a radical empathetic connectedness with the human community or the ecosystem. It is likely that the tantric approach, which seems to have consistently functioned under the credo ‘the world is within the self’, leads tantrics to disregard the flip side of this theological perspective – that the self also pervades the world. To regard the world as a macrocosm of the self, rather than the self as the microcosm of the world, would be to extend the interest and caring normally reserved for personal needs to the world, which has now become part of oneself. Tantrics have traditionally been denounced by orthodox Hindus for their conjurational practices. Whereas bhakti and other paths acceptable to traditional Hinduism have as their 357

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sole aim a salvific connection with the Absolute, Tantra traditionally regards material concerns and spiritual goals with equanimity and provides various resources for its adherents to access power for material as well as salvific ends. It behoves us, therefore, to consider the paradigm of power and its uses before formulating any strategy for the placement of tantric theology in a position of honour vis-­a-­vis the issue of Hindu ecofeminism. One thing is certain: if any aspect of Tantra is to be used for the purpose of providing a framework for action towards universal well-­being, the conjurational angle of tantric notions of theophany must be recognized. Furthermore, most tantric rituals of healing or procuring (physiological, psychological, material or inter-­relational well-­being) make use of a wide variety of natural materials that create a palpable connectedness to the earth and nature and sanctify through religious usage of these and related natural substances. Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon those who practice the teachings of a particular faith tradition to ensure that their actions aid and not harm others. A framework that ensures the responsible and compassionate use of accessed power within the tantric system is necessary for an ecofeminist re-­envisioning of tantric theology to be effective. No ancient system of thought, including Tantra, can readily be applied to the ecological or any other contemporary problem. However, any attempt to redirect entrenched, ecologically destructive behaviour patterns without accounting for religious convictions would find resistance among the adherents of established traditions. An ecological agenda supported by faith elicits greater commitment. A quest for philosophical or theological support for action that improves our present condition requires a creative scriptural exegesis informed by the need to re-­envision traditional teachings in the light of modern concerns. For a reinterpretation of scripture to become a living force for change – rather than a strained apology – a hermeneutic of engaged transformation is necessary. Such a hermeneutical approach must simultaneously critique anachronistic aspects of the tradition and highlight important seed ideas with the potential to inspire action that protects the earth.

Notes 1 This is an edited, revised version, originally published as ‘Sacred Immanence: Reflections of Ecofeminism in Hindu Tantra’, under the name Rita DasGupta Sherma, in Lance Nelson (ed.) 1998. Purifying the Earthly Body of God, 89–132, Albany, NY: State University of New York (SUNY) Publishing. 2 See also Rita M. Gross and Meera Baindur Chapters 25 and 27, respectively, in this volume.

References Primary Sources with Translations Agni Purāṇ a. Translated by N. Gangadharan. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985. Devī Māhātmya, in Coburn, 1991, q.v. Kulacūḍāmaṇ i Nigama. Translated by Arthur Avalon. Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1956. Kulārṇ ava Tantra. Translated by M. P. Pandit. Edited by Sir John Woodroffe. 2d ed. Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1973. Lalitā Sahasranāma. Translated by M. N. Namboodiri. San Ramon: Mata Amritanandamayi Center, 1996. Mahānirvāṇ a Tantra. Translated by Arthur Avalon. 3d ed. Sanskrit text with English translation. 3d ed. Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1953.

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Ecofeminism and Hindu Tantra Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad. In The Principal Upanishads. Translated by S. Radhakrishnan. New Delhi: INDUS-­Harper Collins Publ. India, 1995. Tantraraja Tantra. Translated by Sir John Woodroffe. Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1954. Vāmakeśvara Tantra. Translated by Michael Magee. Calcutta: Bharatiya Marg Publ., 1987. Yoni Tantra. Translated by Lokanath Maharaj. San Francisco: Azoth Publ., 1985.

Secondary Sources Bilimoria, Purushottama and Amy Rayner (eds). 2020. History of Indian Philosophy. UK/Delhi: Routledge Global; chapters 41–43, on Tantra and Kashmir Shaivism (David Lawrence). Tantra and Indian Philosophy (Jason Schwartz); Abhinavagupta (Loriliai Biernicki). Bharati, Aghedananda. 1965. The Tantric Tradition. London: Rider & Co. Bhattacharyya, N. N. 1974. History of the Śākta Religion. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publ. Coburn, James. 1991. Encountering the Goddess: A Translation of the Devī Māhātmya and a Study of its Interpretation. Albany: State University of New York. Brown, C. Mackenzie. 1990. The Triumph of the Goddess. Albany: State University of New York. Dasgupta, Shashi Bushan. 1982. “Evolution of Mother Worship in India,” In Great Women of India, ed. Swami Madhavananda and Ramesh Chandra Majumdar. Mayavati Pithoragarh, Himalayas: Advaita Ashrama. Gupta, Sanjukta. 1991. “Women in the Śaiva/Śākta Ethos,” In Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women, ed. Julia Leslie, pp. 193–209. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Press Pintchman, Tracy. 1994. The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition. Albany: State University of New York Press. ———. 2018. “Cosmological, Devotional, and Social Perspectives on the Hindu Goddess,” In The Goddess, ed. Mandakranta Bose, pp. 17–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Warren, Karen, and Nancy Tuana, eds. Fall 1991. APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy 90. pp. 179–197.

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PART IV

Ethics and Politics: Contexts and Applications

29 ETHICS AND POLITICS IN TAGORE, COETZEE AND CERTAIN SCENES OF TEACHING* Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak It is practically persuasive that the eruption of the ethical interrupts and postpones the epistemological – the undertaking to construct the other as an object of knowledge, an undertaking never to be given up. Levinas is the generic name associated with such a position. This beautiful passage from Otherwise than Being lays it out, although neither interruption nor postponement is mentioned. That connection is made by Derrida (1999). Here, then, is Levinas, for whom Kant’s critical perspectivization of the subject and the rigorous limits of pure theoretical reason seem to have been displaced by the structuralist hermeneutics of suspicion. For Levinas, structuralism did not attend to what in Kant was the mechanism that interrupted the constrained and rigorous workings of pure reason: ‘The interests that Kant discovered in theoretical reason itself, he subordinated to practical reason, become mere reason. It is just these interests that are contested by structuralism, which is perhaps to be defined by the primacy of theoretical reason’ (Levinas 1981, 58). The relationship between the postponement of the epistemological in Levinas and the subordination of pure reason in Kant is a rich theme beyond the scope of this chapter. Let us return to what Levinas will perceive as a general contemporary hermeneutics of suspicion related to the primacy of theoretical reason: ‘The suspicion engendered by psychoanalysis, sociology and politics weigh on human identity such that we never know to whom we are speaking and what we are dealing with when we build our ideas on the basis of the human fact’ (Levinas 1981: 159). The political calculus thematizes this suspicion into an entire code of strategy defined as varieties of game theory and rational choice. This can be verified across cultural differences, backwards through history and in today’s global academic discourse. Over against this, Levinas posits the ethical with astonishing humility: ‘but we do not need this knowledge in the relationship in which the other is the one next to me [le prochain]’. Kant thought that the ethical commonality of being (gemeines Wesen – repeatedly mistranslated as ‘the ethical state’) could not form the basis of a state. Surprisingly, there is a clear line from the face-to-face of the ethical to the state in Levinas (Derrida 1999, 29–33). *  This chapter was first presented at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Kolkata, India, February 2003. It was published in The Indian Postcolonial, A Critical Reader, eds. Elleke Boehmer and Rosnika Chaudhari, 194–213. London/NY: Routledge.

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It has long been my habit to scavenge and tinker in the field of practical philosophy. I will conserve from Kant the discontinuity between the ethical and the political and from Levinas the discontinuity between the ethical and the epistemological. I will suggest that the discontinuities between the ethical and the epistemological and political fields are tamed in the nestling of logic and rhetoric in fiction – which I first learnt to notice from Derrida (1982). Enabled by such a suggestion, I can move to another bit of prose on that page in Levinas: ‘For reasons not at all transcendental but purely logical, the object-man must figure at the beginning of all knowing’ (Derrida 1982). The figure of the ‘I’ as an object: this representation of the holy man in Levinas does not match our colloquial and literal expectations. My general suggestion is that the protocol of fiction gives us a practical simulacrum of the graver discontinuities inhabiting (and operating?) the ethico-epistemic and the ethico-political can, however, take such a figure on board. I will continue to want to say that fiction offers us an experience of the discontinuities that remain in place ‘in real life’. That would be a description of fiction as an event – an indeterminate ‘sharing’ between writer and reader, where the effort of reading is to taste the impossible status of being figured as an object in the web of the other. Reading, in this special sense, is sacred. In this chapter, I consider not only fiction as an event but also fiction as a task. I locate in Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) and J. M. Coetzee (1940–) representations of what may be read as versions of the ‘I’ figured as objects and weave the representations together as a warning text for postcolonial political ambitions. I am obviously using ‘text’ as ‘web’, coming from the Latin texere – ‘to weave’. In the second part of the chapter, I move into the field of education as a nation-building calculus. I examine planning as its logic and teaching as its rhetoric – in the strong sense of figuration.

Pratichi Let me now turn to India proper and speak on text and learning in Bengal. First, a word on Pratichi. Pratichi Education Report was the product of a shared exercise by a group of teachers, ranging from primary school to university level, and socially oriented researchers and activists of West Bengal. Indeed, the report is very much a part of collective action towards ensuring primary education with quality and equity. While the moral commitment and forward-looking activities taken up by this group of teachers and others, assembled on a platform called shiksha alochana, amply indicate the scope for positive changes in schooling at the primary level, they also underscore the urgency for some major changes in public policy on primary education and its delivery (Pratichi (India) Trust 2002). The cover of the first Pratichi proudly boasts an artwork by Rabindranath Tagore, containing a poem in English and Bengali, nestled in a tinted sketch, written and painted in Baghdad in 1932. Here is the poem in Tagore’s own translation: The night has ended. Put out the light of the lamp of thine own narrow corner smudged with smoke. The great morning which is for all appears in the East. Let its light reveal us to each other Who walk on the same path of pilgrimage. 364

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The Bengali is slightly more active: Nikhiler alo purba akashe jolilo punyodine/ Ekshathe jara cholibe tahara shokolere nik chine. The universe’s light burns in the eastern sky on this blessed day/ Let those who’ll walk together recognize each other. These lines resonate with what might be the mission statement of the moral entrepreneurship of the international civil society today, which, however laudable, is put together not by democratic procedure but largely by self-selection and networking. I am aware, of course, of the same forces at work in ‘democracies’. But the presence of mechanisms of redress – electoral or constitutional – however remote, produces a faith in electoral education, which is useless if our faith is put entirely in self-selected international helpers. ‘Apoman’, the poem Tagore wrote more than 20 years before this, after reading Kshitimohan Sen’s translations of Kabir (1915), is much darker. In this poem, Tagore uses the exact phrase ‘human rights’ – manusher adhikar – already at the beginning of the last century. What is to me more striking is that, instead of urging that human rights be immediately restored to the descendants of India’s historical unfortunates, he makes a mysterious prediction, looking toward the historical future: ‘apamane hote habe tahader shobar shoman’ – my unfortunate country, you will have to be equal in disgrace to each and every one of those you have disgraced millennially, a disgrace to which Kabir had responded. How can this enigmatic sentence be understood? The idea of intertextuality, loosely defined, can be used to confront this question. I will offer an anecdotal account of intertextuality. It will help us coast through Tagore’s India, Coetzee’s South Africa and the space of a tiny group of adivasis.1 In November 2002, Roald Hoffman, a Nobel laureate chemist, gave a popular mini-lecture with slides in the basement of the Cornelia Street Café in New York. The topic was ‘Movement in Constrained Spaces’, by which Hoffman meant the incessant microscopic movement that goes on inside the human body to make it function. To prepare for his talk, he had asked a choreographer, Diann Sichel (2002), from neighbouring Princeton University’s Programme in Theatre and Dance, to choreograph a dance for the space of the stage, which is very small. This is already intertextuality, where one text, Hoffman’s, would make its point by weaving itself with another, the dance. Shot silk, as it were. Again, that venerable sense of the text as in textile and texere as a weave. The choreographer managed a pattern of exquisite and minute movements for two dancers, male and female, in that tiny space. But, at the back of the long and narrow bar, two singers, female and male, sang La ci darem a mano in full-throated ease. That wonderful aria from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, sung with such force and skill, bought our choreographer the deep space of the bar, but also historical space – the space of an opera that has been heard and loved by millions for a few centuries. Yet her dancers gave something to Mozart as well. Full of lyric grace as a love song if heard by itself – a man telling his beloved the exquisite beauty of the place to which they will escape – La ci darem is, in context, a brutal seduction song of the most vicious class-fixed gendering, a gentleman seducing a confused farm girl only to penetrate her and the audience sharing the joke. The two impish and acrobatic dancers on the diminutive stage, wittily partnering, gave the lie to the possibility of any such interpretation. This is intertextuality, working both ways. Just as the chemist gave the dancer the lie, somewhat, for the movements he spoke of made the dance possible, so did the dancers give Mozart the lie by taking away his plot. Yet each gained something as well. But in this case, it did not work completely. Mozart is too elite for a radical New York audience. They did not catch the allusion. When the boring literary academic referred to it with a timid 365

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question, the choreographer melted in gratitude. This is sometimes the task of the literary academic. To restore reference in order that intertextuality may function and to create intertextuality as well. In order to do a good job with the Tagore poem, I have to read Kabir carefully. And that will be another session with the fictive simulacrum of the helpless strength of the ethical. J. M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace may be put in an intertextual relationship with Tagore’s poem (Coetzee 2000). In representing jare tumi niche felo she tomare bandhibe je niche – the one you fling down will bind you down there – in rural South Africa, Coetzee offers an illustration of what that enigmatic prediction might mean: ‘apamane hote hobe tahader shobar shoman’ – you will have to be equal in disgrace to all of them. Here, too, intertextuality works in two ways. Where Tagore alters his refrain in the last line: mrityumajhe hobe tobe chitabhashshe shobar shoman – you will then be equal to all of them in the ashes of death, thus predicting the death of a nation, Coetzee, writing an unsentimentally gendered narrative, makes his protagonist choose life. (I should add that Tagore’s last stanza is somewhat more programmatic and asks for a call to all.) Here is a plot summary of Coetzee’s novel: David Lurie, a middle-aged male professor who is a sentimental consumer of metropolitan sex work, seduces a student and is charged with sexual harassment by the appropriate committee. He refuses to utter the formulas that will get him off. He leaves the university and goes to his possibly lesbian daughter Lucy’s flower farm. The daughter is raped and beaten, and he is himself beaten and badly burnt. The daughter is pregnant and decides to carry the child to term. One of the rapists turns up at the neighbouring farm and is apparently a relative of the owner. This farmer, Petrus, already married, proposes a concubinage-style marriage to Lucy. She accepts. The English professor starts working on an outfit that puts unwanted dogs to sleep. He has a short liaison with the unattractive married woman who runs the outfit. He writes an operetta in a desultory way. He learns to love dogs and finally learns to give up the dog that he loves to the stipulated death. These are some of the daughter Lucy’s last words in the novel. Her father is ready to send his violated daughter back to her Dutch mother. Holland is the remote metropole for the Afrikaner: It is as if she has not heard him. ‘Go back to Petrus,’ she says. ‘Propose the following. Say I accept his protection. Say he can put out whatever story he likes about our relationship and I won’t contradict him. If he wants me to be known as his third wife, so be it. As his concubine, ditto. But then the child becomes his too. The child becomes part of his family. As for the land, say I will sign the land over to him as long as the house remains mine. I will become a tenant on his land.’ … ‘How humiliating,’ he says finally … ‘yes, [she says] I agree, it is humiliating. But perhaps that is a good point to start from again. … To start at ground level. With nothing. Not with nothing but. With nothing. No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity’. (204–205; emphasis mine). Apamane hote hobe tahader shobar shoman In so far as Disgrace is a father-daughter story, the intertextuality here is with Lear. If Lucy ends with nothing, Cordelia, in the text of King Lear, begins with the word ‘nothing’. That word signifies the withholding of speech as an instrument for indicating socially inappropriate affective value. In Cordelia’s understanding, to put love in the value form – let me 366

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measure how much – is itself absurd. Indeed, in the first impact of the word ‘nothing’ in the play, this protest is mimed in the clustering of silences in the short lines among the regular iambic pentameter lines. ‘Cor. Nothing, my lord. [six syllables of silence]/ Lear. Nothing? [eight syllables of silence] / Cor. Nothing. [eight again]/ Lear. Nothing will come of nothing: speak again’ (I.i.87–I.i.90). The metre picks up, and Cordelia speaks. Now, Cordelia shows that she is also a realist and knows that love in the value form is what makes the world go around. She is made to chide her sisters for not thinking of the love due to their husbands: ‘Why have my sisters husbands if they say/ They love you all?’ (I.i.97–I.i.98). Just as Disgrace is also a father-daughter story, so is King Lear also a play about dynastic succession in the absence of a son, not an unimportant topic in Jacobean England. It has been abundantly pointed out that the play’s turnaround can be measured by the fact that ‘the presence of Cordelia at the head of a French army … marks the final horrific stage in the process by which Lear’s division of the kingdom goes on turning the world upside down’.2 Thus, the love due to fathers bows to the love due to husbands and is then displaced, as it were. It is this story of fathers and husbands and dynastic succession at the very inception of capitalist colonialism that Disgrace de-stabilizes, re-asking the question of the Enlightenment (‘let those who will walk together get to know each other by the dawning universal light’, says the cover of the Pratichi Report) with reference to the public sphere and the classed and gendered subject, when Lucy, ‘perhaps’ a lesbian decides to carry the child of rape to term and agrees to ‘marry’ Petrus, who is not (one of) the biological father(s). Lucy’s ‘nothing’ is the same word but carries a different meaning from Cordelia’s. It is not the withholding of speech protesting the casting of love in the value form and giving it the wrong value. It is rather the casting aside of the affective value system attached to reproductive heteronormativity as it is accepted as the currency to measure human dignity. I do not think this is an acceptance of rape but a refusal to be raped by instrumentalizing reproduction. Coetzee’s Lucy is made to make clear that the ‘nothing’ is not to be itself measured as the absence of ‘everything’ by the old epistemico-affective value form – the system of knowing-loving. It is not ‘nothing but’, Lucy insists. It is an originary ‘nothing’, a scary beginning. Who imagines that centuries of malpractice – shotek shatabdir ashommanbhar – can be conveniently undone by diversified committees, such as the one that ‘tried’ David Lurie for rape Enlightenment-style? (Morris 2006) ‘Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art’, Lear had said to Edgar’s faked madness, erasing the place of the phallus: ‘a poor, bare, forked animal’. What does it mean, in the detritus of colonialism, for one from the ruling race to call for interpellation as ‘unaccommodated woman, a poor, bare, forked animal’ and hold negotiating power without sentimentality in that very forkèdness? What if Levinas’s catachrestic holy man is a catachrestic holy woman, quite unlike the maternity that Levinas embarrassingly places in the stomach in the passage from which I quoted? Is it a gendered special case, or can it claim generality as making visible the difficulty of the postcolonial formula: a new nation? Neither Lear nor Disgrace is a blueprint for unmediated social policy. These are figures asking for dis-figuration, as figures must. And it is the representation of the ‘I’ as a figured object – as a woman relinquishing the child as property, as always, and as a former colonizer in the ex-colony. This is how critique is operated through fictions. I emphasize that it is not an equality in death – mrityumajhe. It is not the sort of equality that suicide bombing may bring. Suicidal resistance is a message inscribed in the body when 367

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no other means will get through. It is both execution and mourning, for both self and other, where you die with me for the same cause, no matter which side you are on, with the implication that there is no dishonour in such shared and innocent death. That is equality in disgrace brought about by the withholding of response, or a ‘response’ so disingenuously requiring duress as to be no response at all, as from Israel to Palestine.3 If Lucy is intertextual with Lear, Lurie is intertextual with Kafka’s The Trial, a novel not about beginning with nothing but ending like a dog when civil society crumbles (Kafka 1998: 231). Here is the end of The Trial, where Josef K.’s well-organized civil society gives way: Logic is no doubt unshakable, but it can’t withstand a person who wants to live. Where was the judge he’d never seen? Where was the high court he’d never reached? He raised his hands and spread out all his fingers. But the hands of one man were right at K’s throat, while the other thrust the knife into his heart and turned it there twice. With failing sight K. saw how the men drew near his face, leaning cheek-tocheek to observe the verdict. ‘Like a dog!’ he said; it seemed as though the shame was to outlive him. This is how Lurie understands Lucy’s remarks about ‘nothing but’. Not as a beginning in disgraceful equality but the end of civil society (with the withdrawal of the colonizer?) where only shame is guaranteed continuity. This is a profound misunderstanding. This brings me to the second point about literature. The literary text gives rhetorical signals to the reader, which leads to activating the reader’s imagination. Literature advocates in this special way. These are not the ways of expository prose. Literary reading has to be learned. Metaphor leans on concept and concept on metaphor; logic nestles in rhetoric, but they are not the same, and one cannot be effaced in the other. If the social sciences describe the rules of the game, literary reading teaches how to play. One cannot be effaced in the other. This is too neat an opposition, of course. But for the moment, let it suffice as a rule of thumb. What rhetorical signal does Disgrace give to the canny reader? It comes through the use of focalization, described by Mieke Bal as ‘the relation between the vision and that which is “seen”’.4 This term is deemed more useful than ‘point of view’ or ‘perspective’ because it emphasizes the fluidity of narrative – the impression of (con)sequence as well as the transactional nature of reading. Disgrace is relentless in keeping the focalization confined to David Lurie. Indeed, this is the vehicle of the sympathetic portrayal of David Lurie. When Lucy is resolutely denied focalization, the reader is provoked, for he or she does not want to share in Lurie-the-chief-focalizer’s inability to ‘read’ Lucy as patient and agent. No reader is content with acting out the failure of reading. This is the rhetorical signal to the active reader to counter-focalize. This shuttle between focalization and the making of an alternative narrative as the reader’s running commentary, as it were, used to be designated by the prim phrase ‘dramatic irony’ when I was an undergraduate. You will see immediately how much more effortful and active this counterfocalization is than what that term can indicate. This provocation into counterfocalization is the ‘political’ in political fiction – the transformation of a tendency into a crisis (Bal 1985: 100). Thus, when Lurie asks, after Lucy’s impassioned speech, ‘Like a dog?’ Lucy simply agrees, ‘Yes, like a dog’. She does not provide the explanation that the reader who can work the intertextuality will provide. Lear and The Trial are not esoteric texts. We can sense the deep contradiction of a split understanding of postcoloniality here: between the risk of beginning with nothing and the breakdown of civil societies. If not, we can at least see that 368

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Lurie literalizes her remark and learns to love dogs as the other of being human, as a source, even of ethical lessons of a special sort. He is staged as unable to touch either the racial or the gendered other. These may be Lucy’s last words, but the novel continues, focalizing Lurie’s loving dogs, avoiding bathos only by his obvious race-gender illiteracy, as we counter-focalize the absent Lucy. Literary reading teaches us to learn from the singular and the unverifiable. It is not that literary reading does not generalize. It is just that those generalizations are not on evidentiary ground. In this area, what is known is proved by vyavahāra, or setting to work. Martin Luther King Jr., in his celebrated speech ‘Beyond Vietnam’, given on 4 April 1967, in Riverside Church, had tried to imagine the other again and again. In his own words, ‘Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. … Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions’. Here is a setting to work on what in the secular imagination is the literary impulse: to imagine the other who does not resemble the self. King, being a priest/ pastor, had put it in terms of liberation theology in the name of ‘the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them’. For the secular imagination, that transcendental narrative is just that, a narrative, singular and unverifiable. When it is set to work, it enters the arena of the probable: King’s imagination of the Viet Cong. I believe this is why Aristotle said poiesis or making-in-fiction was philosophoteron – a better instrument of knowledge – than historia – because it allowed us to produce the probable rather than account for that which has been possible. In so far as Lucy is a figure that makes visible the rational kernel of the institution of marriage – rape, social security, property, human continuity – we can check her out with Herculine Barbin, the nineteenth-century hermaphrodite who committed suicide but left a memoir, which Foucault edited and made available. Herculine Barbin was a scholar – a diligent student who became a schoolmistress. But when she was named a man by doctors, she could not access the scholarly position – of writing and speaking to a general public – that Kant secures for the enlightened subject in ‘What Is Enlightenment?’ (Kant 1996) Let us look at Herculine/Abel’s cautious elation at the moment of entry into the world of men: So, it was done [C’en était donc fait]. Civil status called me to belong henceforth to that half of the human race that is called the strong sex [L’état civil m’appelait à faire partie désormais de cette moitié du genre humain, appelé le sexe fort]. I, who had been raised until the age of twenty-one in religious houses, among shy [timides] female companions, was going to leave behind me a past entirely delightful [tout un passé délicieux], like Achilles, and enter the lists, armed with my weakness alone and my profound inexperience of men and things! It is this hope – of entering the public sphere as the felicitous subject – that is dashed as the possibility of agency is annulled in suicide. (Barbin 1980: 89, 98, translation modified) Barbin cannot articulate the relationship between the denial of agency and the incapability to reproduce. Yet, Tiresias-like, he offers a critical account of marriage: It has been given to me, as a man, the most intimate and deep knowledge of all the aptitudes, all the secrets, of the female character. I read in that heart, as in an open 369

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book. I count every beat of it. In a word, I have the secret of its strength and the measure of its weakness; and just for that reason I would make a detestable husband; I also feel that all my joys would be poisoned in marriage and that I would cruelly abuse, perhaps, the immense advantage that would be mine, an advantage that would turn against me. (107, 119, 120; translation modified) I presented ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ as a paper thirty years ago. In that paper, I suggested that the subaltern could not ‘speak’ because, in the absence of an institutionally validated agency, there was no listening subject. My listening, separated by space and time, was perhaps an ethical impulse. But I am with Kant in thinking that such impulses do not lead to the political. There must be a presumed collectivity of listening and countersigning subjects and agents in the public sphere for the subaltern to ‘speak’. Herculine Barbin wrote abundantly, presuming a reader repeatedly. And yet she could not speak. Her solution would be the normalization of the multi-sexed subject, a civil and agential rather than subjective solution. There would then be a listening public who could countersign her ‘speech act’. In the arrangement of counterfocalization within the validating institution of the novel in English, the second half of Disgrace makes the subaltern speak but does not presume to give a ‘voice’ either to Petrus or Lucy. This is not the novel’s failure but rather a politically fastidious awareness of the limits of its power. By the general dramatically ironic presentation of Lurie, he is shown to ‘understand’ Petrus by the neat reversal of the master-slave dialectic without sublation: Petrus needs him not for pipefitting or plumbing but to hold things, to pass him tools – to be his handlanger, in fact. The role is not one he objects to. Petrus is a good workman; it is an education to watch him. It is Petrus himself that he is beginning to dislike. (136–137) Once again, the novel and Lurie part company, precisely on the issue of reading, of control. This is a perfectly valid reading, as is the invocation of the end of Kafka’s The Trial to describe the difficult birth of the new nation. It is precisely this limited perfect validity of the liberal white ex-colonizer’s understanding that Disgrace questions through the invitation to focalize the enigma of Lucy. It is interesting that Petrus’s one-liner on Lucy shows more kinship with the novel’s verdict: ‘“She is a forward-looking lady, not backward-looking”’ (136). If we, like Lurie, ignore the enigma of Lucy, the novel, being fully focalized precisely by Lurie, can be made to say every racist thing.5 Postcoloniality from below can then be reduced to the education of Pollux, the young rapist who is related to Petrus. Counterfocalized, it can be acknowledged as perhaps the first moment in Lucy’s refusal of rape by generalizing it into all heteronormative sexual practice: ‘“When it comes to men and sex, David, nothing surprises me any more. … They spur each other on. …” “And the third one, the boy?” “He was there to learn”’ (158–159). The incipient bathos of Lurie’s literalism (‘like a dog’ means love dogs; forgiveness from Melanie’s parents means prostrating himself on the floor before them [173]; loving dogs means letting one of them into the operetta [215]; even the possibility that the last Christian scene of a man giving up dog may slide into a rictus,6 given the overarching narrative context) can be seen, in a reading that ignores the function of Lucy in the narrative, as the novel’s failure, rather than part of its rhetorical web. 370

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I want now to come to the second way in which Tagore’s refrain can be understood: the failure of democracy. The Pratichi Trust in India, to whose Report I have referred, is doing astute work because it realizes that if the largest sector of the electorate misses out on early education, democracy cannot function, for it then allows the worst of the upper sectors to flourish. Democracy sinks to that level, and we are all equal in disgrace. When we read statistics on who wins and who loses the elections, the non-specialist-located middle-class, as well as the rest of the world, if it cares, thinks it shows how the country thinks. No. In the largest and lowest sector of the electorate, there is a considerable supply of effect, good and bad; there is native sharpness, and there is acquired cunning. But there is no rational choice. Election does not even pretend to be based on rational platforms. (This applies to the United States as well, in another way. But it would take me too long to develop that here.) Gendering must be understood simply here: female teachers are preferred, though they have less authority; gendering presuppositions must be changed through education, and so on. There is little I can add to the Trust’s magisterial work. After a general caution that work in this sphere runs the risk of structural atrophy, like diversified committees in Disgrace, and therefore must be interrupted by the ethical, I will add a few codicils here and there. Professor Amartya Sen, the founder of the Trust, supports the state in opposing ‘the artificially generated need for private tuition’, artificial because generated by careless non-teaching in the free primary schools (Pratichi 10). While the state waits to implement this opposition legally, I have been trying to provide collective ‘private tuition’ to supplement the defunct primary schools to a tiny sector of the most disenfranchised. It is my hope that private tuition in this form can be nationalized and thus lose its definition. I will ask some questions in the conclusion, which will make the direction of my thoughts clear. The one-on-one of ‘private’ tuition – at the moment in the service of rote learning that cannot relate to the nurturing of the ethical impulse – is the only way to undo the abdication of the politically planned ‘public’ education. ‘Private tuition’, therefore, is a relation to transform rather than prohibit. The tutorial system at the other end of the spectrum is proof of this. I must repeat that I am enthralled by the report, and whatever I am adding is in the nature of a supplement from a literary person. The work of the Trust is largely structural. The humanities – training in literary reading in particular – is good at textural change. Each discipline has its own species of ‘setting to work’ – and the texture of the imagination belongs to the teacher of literary reading. All good work is imaginative, of course. But the humanities have little else. There is a tiny exchange on page 69 of the book: ‘On the day of our visit [to a school in Medinipur], we interviewed four children of Class 4 … well, can you tell us something about what was taught? All four children were silent’. Part of the silence rises from the very class apartheid that bad rural education perpetuates.7 The relationship between the itinerant inspector and the child is, in addition, hardly ethical. Training in literary reading can prepare one to work in these silences. I will submit an example which it would be useless to translate here. It is lesson 5 from Amader Itihash, a Class 4 history book specifically devoted to national liberation, one item which is the story of Nelson Mandela. Let us overlook the implicit misrepresentation of Gandhi’s role in Mandela’s political victory in the lifting of apartheid or the suggestive detail that the section on national liberation starts with George Washington. One cannot, however, overlook, if one is a reader of Bengali, the hopeless ornamentation of the prose, incomprehensible to teacher and student alike at the subaltern level in the outer reaches of rural West Bengal. 371

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The point is not only to ask for ‘a radically enhanced set of commitments’ ‘from the primary teachers’, as the Report stresses. The real disgrace of rural primary education is that even the good teacher, with the best will in the world, has been so indoctrinated into rote learning that, even if s/he could understand the lugubrious prose and even if s/he had retained or imbibed enough general knowledge of the world – both doubtful propositions – the technique of emphasizing meaning is not what s/he would understand by teaching. Elsewhere I have emphasized this as the systematic difference in teaching between baralok and chhotolok – translated by Pratichi as high-born and low-born, brave attempts – gatar khatano and matha khatano – manual labour and intellectual labour does not quite translate the active sense of khatano – setting to work, then, of the body alone and of the mind as well – that keeps class apartheid alive. The common sight of a child of the rural poor trying to make the head engage in answer to a textbook question and failing is as vivid a figure of withholding humanity as anything in Tagore or Coetzee. The ‘silence’ is active with pain and resentment. The solution is not to write new textbooks, the liberal intellectuals’ favourite option. The teachers at this level do not know how to use a book, any book, however progressive. Many of the textbooks, for instance, have a list of pedagogic goals at the top of each lesson. The language of these lists is abstract, starting with the title: shamortho, capacity. Sometimes, for nine or ten lessons in a row, this abstract title is followed by the remark, ‘[S]ee previous lesson’. No primary or non-formal teacher over the last 13 years has ever noticed this in my presence and, when informed of the presence of this pedagogic machinery, has been able to understand it, let alone implement it. Given the axiomatics of the so-called education within which the teacher has received what goes for training, it is foolish to expect implementation. There are progressive textbooks that try to combine Bengali and Arithmetic – the famous Kajer Pata. This combination causes nothing but confusion in students and teachers alike on this level. And frankly, it serves no specific purpose here. There are also books where some metropolitan liberal or a committee of them tries to engage what they think is a rural audience. I wish I had the time to recount the failure of their imagination case by case. There is no possibility of the emergence of the ethical when the writing subject’s sense of superiority is rock solid. The useless coyness of these failed attempts would be amusing if the problem were not so disgraceful. Both Hindu and Muslim poets are included – communalism must be avoided at all costs, of course. The point is lost on these children – though a sort of equality is achieved. All poetry is equally opaque, with occasions for memorization without comprehension, learning two-way meanings – what does a mean? b, and what is b? a, of course. The meaning of meaning is itself compromised for these children, these teachers. A new textbook drowns in that compromise. Two girls, between eleven and fifteen years of age, show me what they are being taught in primary school. It is a piece about South Africa. I asked them some questions. They have absolutely no clue at all what the piece is about, as they don’t know about any piece in the book, about any piece in any book. To say ‘they haven’t understood this piece’ would be to grant too much. The girls are not unintelligent. Indeed, one of them is, I think, strikingly intelligent. They told me their teachers would go over the material again the next day. The next day after school, we meet again. Did the teachers explain? ‘Reading poriyechhe’ is the answer – an untranslatable Bengali phrase for which there are equivalents in all the major Indian languages, no doubt. They made us read; reading would perhaps convey the absurdity. Any piece is a collection of discrete spelling exercises to be read in a high drone with 372

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little regard to punctuation. The scandal is that everyone knows this. It is embarrassing to put it in an essay about Tagore and Coetzee. Better to present social scientific surveys in English. This, too, is a way of disgracing the disenfranchised. To continue with the narrative. After the girls’ answer begins the process of explaining. As I have already mentioned, the experience of a head attempting but failing to set itself to work is killingly painful. Most of us interrupt such silences with noise, speak up and create a version of explanation to break the experience. At that point, we think we are teaching, although no teaching is taking place. Sometimes, we learn to resist this by excruciating self-control that often fails. In Foe, another novel by J. M. Coetzee (1986), there is a moment when a character called Friday (as in Robinson Crusoe), an abducted savage with his tongue cut out, resists the attempt of the white woman to teach him how to write. Varieties of such resistance in the ground-level rural classroom can be read as the anger of the intelligent child not being able to work his or her head. Such readings are necessarily off the mark. But the literary critic is practiced in learning from the unverifiable. If the older girl was just frustrated by not grasping at all what I was trying to explain, the younger one, the strikingly intelligent one, faced me with that inexorably closed look, jaws firmly set, that reminds one of Friday, withholding. No response to repeated careful questions going over the same ground over and over again, simplifying the story of Nelson Mandela further at every go. These are students who have no concept or percept of the neighbouring districts of their own state of West Bengal – because, as the Pratichi Report points out, they have arrived at Class Four through neglect and no teaching. How will they catch the reference to Africa? Into the second hour, sitting on the floor in that darkening room, I tried another tack. Forget Africa; try shoman adhikar – equal rights. It was impossible to explain rights in a place with no plumbing, pavement, electricity or stores without doors and windows. Incidentally, do people really check – rather than interrupt the painful experience of having failed to teach – the long-term residue of so-called legal awareness seminars? What is learnt through repeated brushes with the usual brutality of the rural judiciary is not significantly changed by the conviction that the benevolent among the masters will help them litigate. What is it to develop the subject – the capital I – of human rights, rather than a feudal dispensation of human rights breeding dependency and litigious blackmail and provoking a trail of vendetta in those punishers punished remotely? Let us return to the schoolroom in gathering dusk. It is common sense that children have short attention spans. I was so helpless in my inability to explain that I was tyrannizing the girls. At the time, it seemed as if we were locked together in an effort to let response emerge and blossom with its own energy. The ethical task rather than the event is effortful. And perhaps an hour and a half into the struggle, I put my hand next to the bright one’s purple-black hand to explain apartheid. Next to that rich colour this pasty brown hand seemed white. And to explain shoman adhikar, equal rights, Mandela’s demand, a desperate formula presented itself to me: ami ja, tumi ta – what I, that you. Remember, this is a student, not an asylum seeker in the metropole, in whose name many millions of dollars are moved around even as we speak.8 This is just two students accepting oppression as normality, understanding their designated textbook. The response did emerge. ‘Yes’-s and ‘no’-s were now given; even, if I remember right, a few words uttered as answers to questions. In a bit, I let them go. The next morning, I asked them to set down what they remembered from the previous day’s lesson. The older one could call up nothing. The younger one, the more intelligent 373

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one, produced this: ‘[A]mi ja, tumi ta, raja here gachhe’ – what I, that you, the king was defeated. A tremendous achievement in context but, if one thinks of all the children studying under the West Bengal Board, including the best students from the best schools in Kolkata, with whom these girls are competing, this is a negligible result. I have no doubt that even this pitiful residue of the content of the lesson is now long lost and forgotten. The incident took place about four years ago. The two girls are young women now, in high school. Speaking to them and their teachers in December, I stressed repeatedly the importance of explaining the text, of explaining repeatedly, of checking to see if the student has understood. A futile exercise. You do not teach how to play a game by talking about it. No one can produce meanings of unknown words. There are no dictionaries, and, more important, no habit of consulting dictionaries. As I continued with the useless harangue, I said, ‘As two of you might remember, I spent two hours explaining Nelson Mandela to you some years ago. It is important to explain’. A fleeting smile, no eye contact, passed across the face of the bright one sitting in the last row. It is unusual for such signals to pass from her class to mine.9 The number of calculative moves to be made and sustained in the political sphere, with the deflecting and overdetermined calculus of the vicissitudes of gendered class mobility factored in at every stop, in order for irony-shared-from-below communication to be sustained at this level, would require immense systemic change. Yet, in the supplementary relationship between the possibility of that fleeting smile – a sign of the interruptive emergence of the ethical – and the daunting labour of the political calculus, we must begin with the end, which must remain the possibility of the ethical. That inconvenient effort is the uncertain ground of every just society. If the political calculus becomes the means and the end, justice is ill-served and no change sticks. The peculiar thing about gendering is that in Lucy’s vision of ‘starting with nothing’, in the reproductive situation shorn of the fetishization of property, in the child given up as the body’s product, the ethical moment can perhaps emerge – at least so the fiction says.10 I have recounted this narrative to make clear that although on the literary register, the register of the singular and the unverifiable (this story, for example, is unverifiable because you have nothing but my testimony), the suggestive smile, directed by indirection and a shared experience, is a good event; it has no significance in terms of the public sphere, to which education should give access. The discontinuity between the ethical and the political is here instrumentalized – between the rhetoric of pedagogy and the logic of its fruition in the public sphere. The smile of complicity passed between the adivasi and the caste Indian, unprovoked, marks an immense advance. But it is neither a beginning nor an end, only an irreducible grounding condition. When I was attempting to teach in that darkening room, I had no thought but to get through. It so happened that the topic was shomanadhikar, equal rights. Writing this for you, on the other hand, I put myself grandiosely in Tagore’s poem: ‘manusher odhikare bonchito korechho jaare, shommukhe danraye rekehe tobu kole dao nai sthan – those whom you have deprived of human rights, whom you have kept standing face-to-face and yet not taken in your arms’. So, spending considerable skill and labour, to teach precisely the meaning of shomanadhikar was I perhaps undoing the poet’s description of the behaviour of the Hindu historical dominant, denying human rights over centuries to the outcastes (today’s dalit-s) and adivasi-s? The point I am laboriously making is that it is not so. Although the literary mode of instruction activates the subject, the capital I, in order to be secured, must enter the political calculus of the public sphere. Private voluntarism, such as 374

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mine, remains a mongrel practice between the literary and the rational, rhetoric and logic. And so the reader of literature asks the social scientists a question. Is it not possible for the globally beleaguered state to institute civil service positions that will call, on a regular and optional basis, upon interested humanities professionals from the highest ranks to train ground-level teachers, periodically, yet with some continuity, gradually integrating and transforming the existing training structure, thus to deconstruct or sublate private tuition and slowly make it less possible for ‘a teacher of [sic] Birbhum village’ to say, ‘How can we carry over the training to our classrooms? Baro baro katha bala soja – Talking big is easy’ (Pratichi 68). Before I had started thinking about the heritage of ‘disgrace’, I had tried to initiate the production of same-language dictionaries in the major Indian languages, specifically for ground-level teachers and students. It came to nothing because the situation was not imaginable by those whom I had approached and because the NRI (Non-resident Indian, Indian designation for diasporas) has other kinds of uses. Should the NRI have no role but to help place the state in metropolitan economic bondage? Is it not possible to think of subaltern single-language dictionaries as an important step toward fostering the habit of freedom – the habit of finding a meaning for oneself, whoever suggests this? Is it not possible to think not of writing new textbooks but of revising what is now in existence – to make them more user-friendly for the least privileged, even as such teachers and students are textually engaged? I do not believe the more privileged child would suffer from such a change, though I can foresee a major outcry. It must be repeated to foster such freedom is simply to work at freedom in the sphere of necessity, otherwise ravaged by the ravages of political economy – no more than ‘the grounding condition [Grundbedingung] for the true realm of freedom’, always around the corner (Marx 1981: 959). Shakespeare, Kafka, Tagore, Coetzee, Amartya Sen. Heavy hitters. My questions are banal. I am always energized by that paragraph in the third volume of Capital from which I quoted earlier, and where Marx writes, in a high philosophical tone: ‘[T]he true realm of freedom, the development of human powers as an end in itself begins beyond [the realm of necessity], though it can only flourish with this realm of necessity as its ground’. That sentence is followed by this one: ‘[T]he reduction of the working day is its grounding condition’. In Marx’s text, philosophy must thus displace itself into the everyday struggle. In my argument, literature, in so far as it is in the service of the emergence of the critical, must also displace itself. Its task is to foster yet another displacement: into work for the remote possibility of the precarious production of an infrastructure that can, in turn, produce a Lucy or her focalizer, figuring forth an equality that takes disgrace in its stride.

Notes 1 Adivasi is the name used commonly for so-called Indian tribals, by general account the inhabitants of India at the time of the arrival of Indo-European speakers in the 2nd millennium BC. 2 William Shakespeare, King Lear, Arden Edition, p. 141. 3 Since 1983, when I delivered ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ as a lecture at the Summer Institute at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, I have been interested in suicide as envoi. Partha Chatterjee reminded me in conversation that took place on the evening of 31 October, 2003 that the ‘cause’ is metaleptically constructed by the suicide, as the effect of an ‘effect’. My point is that Lucy is not represented as the ‘subject’ of a ‘cause’. Her representation may be read as Levinas’s object-human as the figure that subtends all knowing, including the cognition of a cause. About suicide bombing I speculate at greater length in my 2004 ‘Terror: A Speech After 9/11’ boundary 2. 31 (2): 81–111.

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Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak 4 Mieke Bal, 1985. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, p. 100. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press. 5 For a debate over such readings, see Peter D. McDonald 2002. 6 This possibility of an uneasy snigger (as well as the ‘giving up’) may mark something irreducible, the seeming ‘abyss’ – we think also of the incessant back-and-forth of the abyssal – between the ‘I’ of the ‘I think’ and the presumed self-identity of the animal: ‘This automotricity as auto-affection and self-relation, before the discursive thematic of a statement or an ego cogito, indeed of a cogito ergo sum, is the character recognized in the living and in animality in general. But between that self-relationship (that Self, that ipseity) and the I of the “I think” there is, it seems, an abyss’ (Derrida 2006, 300). It is possible that the dull effort of a cogitative Lurie has an abyssality that must not be forgotten as we attempt to acknowledge the enigmatic historicality of the mixed-race postcolonial child of rape deliberately given up as property for the adopted father, Black Christian, a Petrus upon which rock the future, guaranteeing tenancy for the colonial turned native, is founded. It is not the object-human as a figure with nothing that comes before all else, but the look of the naked animot (a word that the reader must learn from the essay by Derrida I have already cited; a word [mot] that marks the irreducible heterogeneity of animality). This is Derrida’s critique of Levinas. I have often felt that the formal logic of Coetzee’s fiction mimes ethical moves in an uncanny way. The (non)relationship between the cogitation of animality and the setting to work of gendered postcolonialism in Disgrace may be such an uncanny miming. The ‘dull decrepitude’ of the former is where equality in disgrace is impossible; we cannot disgrace the animot. It is the limit of apamane hote habe tahader shobar shoman; to call it a limit is to speak from one side. Since my ethical texts are Kant, Levinas, Derrida, and my fictions are ‘Apaman’, Disgrace and the uncoercive rearrangement of desire. I have not considered J. M. Coetzee’s staged speculations about animality and the human in ‘Lives of Animals’ (Coetzee 1999). 7 I have developed the idea of the role of rural education in maintaining class apartheid in ‘Righting Wrongs’ (Spivak 2003). 8 Clyde Prestowitz (2003) argues that the United States wants to make everyone American, and there left and right meet. The same, I think, can now be said of Europe. This is too big a topic to develop here. What I urge in the text is the need to imagine a world that is not necessarily looking for help. 9 She died a month ago of encephalitis. Her name was Shamoli Sabar. She is memorialized in my ‘Righting Wrongs’, 2002). She was one of the signatories of the petition. 10 We have to have an idea of how fiction can be made to speak through the transactional heading beyond the limits of the author’s authority, which would expose the frivolousness of a position such as Rajat (2001, 79, 115n28).

References Attwell, David. 2002. ‘Race in Disgrace.’ Interventions 4 (3): 331–341. Bal, Mieke. 1985. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Barbin, Herculine. 1980. Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-Century French Hermaphrodite [no tr. given]. New York: Pantheon. Coetzee, J.M., 1986. Foe. New York: Penguin. ———. 1999. Lives of Animals. In Amy Gutmann, ed. The Lives of Animals, 15–72. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2000. Disgrace. New York: Viking. Derrida, Jacques. 1982. White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy. In Alan Bass, trans. The Margins of Philosophy, 209–271. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1999. Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, tr. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press. ———. 2006. L’animal que donc je suis [à suivre] In Marie-Louise Mallet, ed. L’animal autobiographique. Paris: Galilée. Kabir, 1915. Songs of Kabir, tr. Rabindranath Tagore from Kshitimohan Sen. New York: Macmillan. Kafka, Franz. 1998. The Trial, tr. Breon Mitchell. New York: Schocken Books.

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Ethics and Politics Kant, Immanuel. 1996. An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? In Mary J. Gregor, trans. and ed. Practical Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press Levinas, Emmanuel. 1981. Otherwise than Being: Or Beyond Essence, tr. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Marx, Karl. 1981. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, tr. David Fernbach, vol. 3. New York: Vintage. McDonald, Peter D. 2002. Disgrace Effects. Interventions 4 (3): 321–330. Morris, Rosalind C. 2006. The Mute and the Unspeakable: Political Subjectivity, Violent Crime, and ‘the Sexual Thing’ in a South African Mining Community. In Jean and John Comarof, eds. Law and Disorder in the Postcolony, 57–101. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Paul, Ricoeur. 1974. Conflict of Interpretations, tr. Don Ihde. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Pratichi (India) Trust. 2002. The Pratichi Education Report, intr. Amartya Sen. Delhi: TLM Books. Prestowitz, Clyde. 2003. Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions. New York: Basic Book. Ray, Rajat. 2001. Exploring Emotional History: Gender, Mentality, and Literature in the Indian Awakening. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Shakespeare, William. 1959. King Lear. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Arden Edition. Sichel, Diann (2002). “Mass, Momentum and Energy Transport (Living Space),” Dancers: Josiah Pearsall, Melanie Velo-Simpson, Singers: Wendy Baker, Erik Kroncke. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2003. Righting Wrongs. In Nicholas Owen, ed. Human Rights, Human Wrongs, 168–227. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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30 TOWARDS AN ETHICS OF LOCATION Morny Joy

Introduction Is there such a thing as a postcolonial ethics, or even a post-postcolonial ethics?1 There is no question that postcolonialism and its interlocutors have had a major impact on contemporary thought. A number of discussions, however, have expanded its range to possible political applications. This chapter explores whether postcolonial influence on attitudes and behaviour, as implemented in relation to those deemed different and/or inferior to oneself, can result in what could be termed an ethical position. The relationship of ethics to politics, while inevitably complicated, can, at times, be a complementary one. In other instances, they are totally incompatible or, as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has observed, in the era of globalized capitalism, there is an aporia between ethics and politics (2004, 531).2 Politics, as I understand it, can nonetheless be ordered towards the accomplishment of an ethical goal by the implementation of certain policies. As such, ethics, as I will explore in the case of Spivak’s recent work, involves the mobilization of specific modes of human conduct in the service of such an ideal, e.g., global social justice (Spivak 2004, 526). This constitutes an attempt on Spivak’s part to resolve the contemporary aporia she observes in neoliberal politics. In this connection, I am not concerned with the question of Hindu ethics per se, but I will be basically preoccupied with examining the contribution that postcolonial theorists from India in particular – both native and diasporic3 – have made towards the realization of an ethical orientation. My focus will be even more precise because I will be concerned principally with Indian women thinkers, whose investigations in the area of postcolonial thought have constituted a significant, if not crucial, contribution to the subject of ethics – one that I believe has not been sufficiently acknowledged. The main concern of this chapter is to explore the work of postcolonial feminists from India to discover if there has been any movement in the direction of what I would term ‘ethics’, though this should not be construed either in the Kantian categorical sense or as an appeal to a traditional absolutist code. What I am searching for is something that notes what Anthony Kwame Appiah has described as ‘those social forms we now call identities: genders and sexual orientations, ethnicities and nationalities, professions and vocations’ (2005, xiv). To these categories, I would also add those of caste, class and religion.

DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-36

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The question then becomes: in what way and to what extent can all of these variables be acknowledged and yet at the same time be integrated into a stance that supports human flourishing without dictating requisite ideals of subjectivity and conduct? Even further, what specific ethical program could do justice to such a complex task without resorting to preordained values?

Indian Feminism and Postcolonial Theory One of the first notable feminist scholars of Indian origin to take exception to the stereotypes established by early male religionists, anthropologists and scholars in Western feminist scholarship was Chandra Talpade Mohanty. In her now classic article, first published in 1984, then revised in 1991, ‘Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses’, Chandra Mohanty set the stage by describing what she understood to be the lay of the land in contemporary feminist scholarship. As she observed, [F]eminist scholarship, like most other kinds of scholarship, is not the mere production of knowledge about a certain subject. It is a directly political and discursive practice in that it is purposeful and ideological. It is best seen as a mode of intervention into particularly hegemonic discourses (for example, traditional anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, etc.); it is a political praxis which counters and resists the totalizing imperative of age-old legitimate and scientific bodies of knowledge. Thus, feminist scholarly practices (whether reading, writing, critical or textual) are inscribed in relations of power – relations which they counter, resist, or even implicitly support. There can, of course, be no apolitical scholarship. (1991, 33) Chandra Mohanty analysed specific writings of women that she considered to discursively colonize the material and historical heterogeneities of the lives of women in the third world, thereby producing/representing a composite, singular third world woman – an image which appears arbitrarily constructed, but nevertheless carries with it the authorizing signature of Western humanist discourse (33). What engaged Chandra Mohanty in this context were issues that had also been grounds of contention within Western feminism itself, such as gender essentialism, unfounded methodological universalisms and unproblematized subjectivity. Specifically, she analysed the problem of a generic third world woman. This term, in addition to that of ‘subaltern’ first borrowed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (suggested by Ranajit Guha; see Guha and Spivak 1988) from the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, has also been debated by many Indian women scholars such as Uma Narayan, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Kalpana Ram and Kumkum Sangari, as well as Spivak herself (Spivak 1988). In the contestations and the clarifications that have ensued, certain crucial issues that were not necessarily compatible were at stake: how can there be an approach that allows for the diversity and complexity involved in the interaction of two autonomous human beings, where the interpreter cannot take for granted that her specific interpretation of the world, reinforced by the demands of her own culture and the particular discipline she employs, is all-inclusive? In contrast, how can one entertain the subtle (and not so subtle) unmaskings of objectivity or the correspondence theory of truth by deconstructive strategies without succumbing either to the often-invoked and much-feared blunder of relativism or to a chastened silence? It is these 379

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highly charged exchanges that I believe have provided the basis for a closer examination of the kind of ethics that could emerge if their potential constructive proposals are taken into account. This dimension of the topic will be considered later in the chapter. First, it is necessary to examine certain aspects as they have evolved. The dilemmas are especially evident in the work of Chandra Mohanty in her evaluation of the artificial generic characterization of women in formerly colonized countries: Without the overdetermined discourse that creates the third world, there would be no (singular and privileged) first world. Without “third world women,” the particular self-presentation of Western women … would be problematical. I am suggesting that one enables and sustains the other.4 (1991, 74) In the early version of her essay (1984), Chandra Mohanty herself did not offer any explicit constructive response. She drew attention to the binaries inherent in the Western approach that are responsible for the polarized terms and appealed to a deconstructive approach as a way of countering such stereotypical divisions indicative of Western thought. [I]t is only insofar as Woman/Women and the East are defined as Others, or as peripheral, that Western Man/Humanism can represent himself as center. It is not the center that determines the periphery, but the periphery that, in its boundedness determines the centre. (1991, 74) Both theoretically and practically, Chandra Mohanty stressed the need for a deconstruction of Western women’s studies of third world women and the manifold modes of disregard involved. It was only in a final paragraph and footnote, however, that Chandra Mohanty referred to the work of Marnia Lazreg (1988) and Saraju P. Mohanty (1989), who both advocate positive directions for a self-conscious cross-cultural analysis. Perhaps her awareness of their more materialist criticisms influenced her additional remark that it is only by understanding the contradictions inherent in women’s location within various structures that effective political action and challenges can be devised (1991, 66). But at this stage, she did not develop this comment further. The question inevitably arises as to whether such a Western-based deconstructive intervention would be sufficient for the keen type of applied political analysis of both Eastern and Western approaches that Chandra Mohanty has in mind. If the challenge is to move away from over-simplifications that lead to prejudiced thought and actions, perhaps something more robust than a deconstructive dismantling of Western categories is needed to effect the required substantive changes. In the meantime, as observed earlier, deconstructive tactics and their postmodern subversion of Western claims to essence and selfhood have had a mixed reaction from other third world women – particularly concerning the needed definition and implementation of forms of agency and subjectivity. Kumkum Sangari remarks that the latest Western theoretical fad need not necessarily be the most appropriate strategy for the formerly colonized (1987, 185). There has been a growing awareness that, from an interpretative stance, women are always already implicated in the inherited definitions/traditions that they employ in whatever attempts they instigate to extricate themselves. Yet there is something even more 380

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relevant in this development for the purpose of ethics of location, and this is the especially creative way that certain Indian women scholars have begun to implement such needed changes. These have regenerative consequences for formulating ethics. It is this movement that I will investigate as providing the basis of an ethics of location. In Real and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture and Postcolonialism (1993), Rajeswari Sundar Rajan discusses how she has come to understand and designate her own brand of subjectivity in a way that respects the complexities of her position. Thus, as a postcolonialist feminist academic in India I undeniably have an institutional status that affiliates me with the academy in the west; at the same time I do not have a share in all the privileges of that “other” place – especially, and above all, that of the distance that provides the critical perspective of ‘exile’. (1993 8–9) Particularly important in this context is Rajan’s own distinction, noted earlier in this paper, between native scholars, such as herself, who remain in India, and diasporic ones, such as Spivak, who live and teach in the United States (1993, 9). In thus defining and asserting herself, she refuses to be accorded either the place of the mute subaltern or of an earnest importer of Western intellectual fashions. She then continues: My intention is not to claim for myself ‘marginality’ – it is a dubious privilege in any case – but to show that location is fixed not (only) in the relative terms of centre and periphery, but in the positive (positivistic?) terms of an actual and geographical location. (1993, 9) This reiterates Radhakrishnan’s earlier observation that any location has multiple references – geographic, physical, emotional, as well as imaginary. While the interrogation of her own location employs a critical postcolonial approach, Rajan does not view it as a universal or comprehensive reactive strategy. She is insistent on a well-tuned sensibility that witnesses to particular effects that are produced in variant circumstances. In this way, Rajan articulates a form of situated subjectivity that is not absolute, that is qualified by change and diversity, but one that can nonetheless be expressed. The heterogeneity of postcolonial intellectual identities, therefore, needs to be acknowledged, as a matter of more than simple ‘influences.’ It has seemed to me worthwhile to insist upon the specificity of the configurations of the contemporary Indian social and political situation in describing the postcolonial intellectuals’ predicament. (1993, 9) For Rajan, every thinker’s affiliations are multiple, contingent and frequently contradictory (1993, 8). In her exposition, both a theoretical analysis and an activist program coincide in her acknowledgement of the kaleidoscopic forces at work in any situation. Such an orientation allows for interfaces rather than a stark bifurcation in the matters of sex/gender distinctions, theory/practice relationships, and essentialist/constructivist positions. I believe that this combination, a crucial mark of much recent feminist work both East and West, is a necessary prelude to an ethics of location.5 What I am most concerned with in this chapter, however, are the specific further developments in feminist and postcolonial theory that 381

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have consequences for applied ethics. In particular, these involve a vital concern with the other, particularly the marginalized or subaltern figures.

The Move to Activism It is not as if Gayatri Spivak herself has been silent during these developments. She did register her dismay at various misinterpretations of the term ‘subaltern’, particularly at its being interpreted as an exemplar of a passive and victimized Asian womanhood. Spivak has even admitted that it was inadvisable (1999, 308) to state categorically that the subaltern could not speak. She clarifies her usage, expressing herself candidly in an interview: ‘Everybody thinks the subaltern is just a classy word for the oppressed, for Other, for somebody who’s not getting a piece of the pie’ (Spivak in de Kock 1992, 45). For Spivak, such an interpretation trivializes the term so that it seems to refer to anyone with a complaint about discrimination rather than referring to those who are oppressed and exploited. In using the term ‘subaltern’, Spivak states that she did not specifically intend the act of speaking as the ideal action. Instead, she was implying an alternative form of dialogue whereby both speaking and listening could take place. Her emphasis, then, was directed rather to the deafness of the colonial or hegemonic ear. Thus, it was not simply a question of the subaltern’s voice. From Spivak’s perspective, if a subaltern was heard, he or she would cease to occupy an inaudible and oppressed position. She states her own point quite bluntly, ‘You work for the bloody subaltern, you work against subalternity’ (Spivak in de Kock 1992, 46). It is her work in the active involvement of teaching subaltern groups that has moved her in a definite ethical direction. In an interview in 2003 with Jenny Sharpe, Spivak describes how her interests have since changed markedly as a result of globalization. She has become vitally concerned with the condition of all rural and indigenous subalterns, regarding them as the most exploited in the present global capitalist expansionism, especially those undertaken by multinational corporations. Spivak’s contemporary activism with the rural disenfranchised women of the global South, initially in West Bengal,6 is a type of engaged pedagogy or fieldwork where she is learning to learn from below (Sharp and Spivak 2003, 620). It marks an attempt on Spivak’s part both to refine her former definition of postcolonialism and extend her range of interests in order to undertake activist commitments. Her principal aim is to counteract the continued exploitation of those, still predominantly women, who have no means of redress for their exploitation as the main target of a predatory globalized economy (Sharp and Spivak 2003, 614). It also marks a definite turn to ethics in the service of a political ideal of global justice. The relationship of ethics to politics, while inevitably complicated, can, at times, be a complementary one. Politics can be ordered towards the accomplishment of an ethical goal by the implementation of certain policies in the cause of an ideal. While Spivak does not advocate taking up politics as a career, she affirms that certain modes of ethical conduct can be mobilized in the service of such an ideal, e.g., global social justice (2004, 526). This constitutes an attempt on Spivak’s part to resolve the present aporia that she discerns in contemporary globalization with its neoconservative financial excursions that operate in accordance with paternalistic ethics similar to certain practices of colonialism. But this is not all. Spivak’s work has taken a decidedly revisionist tone. Though she acknowledges the value of her earlier analyses of postcolonialism, influenced by both Marxism and deconstruction, she now finds such unqualified theoretical stances inadequate for the task at hand. Globalization demands to be countered by a more activist agenda. Spivak regards her former theoretical models, insofar as they simply reiterate abstract 382

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formulas, as failing to engage with the dynamics of power fuelling the global exploitation of minorities that she wishes to combat. In her revision of Marx, she adds that she is now more concerned with the issue of redistribution of wealth – something she feels Marx neglected. With regard to Derrida’s work, she looks more to his writings addressed to ethics/politics, specifically to his idea of a democracy to come (Derrida 1994). Unlike Derrida, however, she is not hesitant to endorse particular activist moves of an ethical-political nature. The ethics that Spivak adopts, which, in this context, is of major concern, are also indebted to Emmanuel Levinas and his notions of absolute responsibility for the other person (1969, 1998). Yet she will modify his claims so that any metaphysical element is eliminated, and she can promote more materialist demands. This rich combination informs Spivak’s current insistence on acknowledging one’s inescapable complicity in the intrusions of one’s own cultural baggage – unconscious or otherwise. It also requires heightened attention to the distinct material conditions of each particular location involved. For Spivak, further exercises in decolonization are required. To this end, she first advocates what she terms a transnational education or ‘greater transnational literacy’ (as noted by Al-Kassim 2014, 19) to combat both the false pretensions of capitalist-inspired educational program and the retrograde effects of human rights and development aid as they are presently conceived and administered. Informing Spivak’s approach is obviously a passion for justice, which, as Derrida observed, is one of those entities that cannot be deconstructed. There is also a concomitant ethical position of responsibility. To help implement these proposals, Spivak is vitally concerned with introducing a needed critical awareness, in addition to a revitalization of the imagination by means of education in the humanities. This, she believes, especially in the global North, will help to counteract the perversions of education undertaken in the name of neoconservative policies. ‘Righting Wrongs’ (2004) is the seminal essay that consolidates this change and sets out her program both for the global North and South. It is here that Spivak expands on her notion of learning to learn from below, involving an ethics of responsibility for the other. The educational processes needed are given a more definite shape insofar as they are aimed, in both global North and South, at achieving an uncoercive rearrangement of desires (2004, 526). This project will be undertaken, but with different resonances, in the two worlds – as Spivak describes them. As far as Spivak is concerned, the idea of responsibility has been corrupted in the North and possibly in the North of the South (2004, 563). This is because children are being taught that to learn the movement of finance capital is to learn social responsibility (2004, 551). Central to the program that Spivak advocates for the North is a needed re-evaluation and approach to humanities – a subject area that is being neglected, if not banished, in the present emphasis on standards, goals and assessments – as a vital aspect of transnational re-education. This is necessary as a counter-balance on two counts: firstly, in fostering the imagination to think otherwise, and, secondly, in training minds to attend to particulars. In the North, this will take the form of a training in literary reading [that] is a training to learn from the particular and the unverifiable (2004, 532). In contrast, in the global South, an imaginative humanities-based approach will replace not just the mindless repetition of formulas but also go beyond the obvious basic needs of numeracy and literacy. As such, Spivak’s intention is to help the children of the rural poor escape the tyranny of enforced program. These measure progress solely by scores and statistics that are evaluated in accordance with prescribed norms. Instead, her liberatory hope, with teachers who are receptive to this new pedagogical model, is for these children to learn 383

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to think for themselves in a way that allows them, in time, to activate a dormant ethical imperative that derives from their own cultural heritage (2004, 546). Respect for the other would thus allow rights and responsibilities to evolve from below, according to their own preconceived communal values. Spivak describes this process: ‘Among the rural poor of the global South, one may attempt, through that species of education without guarantees, to bring about a situation where the law can be imagined as the expression of a community, always to come’ (2004, 550). In both cases, the education is in the service of the other and also without guarantees – which carries the force of open-endedness and non-determinability. To help appreciate exactly what Spivak has in mind, it is necessary to turn to the work of both Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas, on whose ideas she draws to help frame her model of a global justice that is to come (2004, 564). Spivak’s construct of global justice to come derives from Derrida’s own invocation of a ‘democracy to come’ [démocratie à venir], which he elaborates first in the key of the messianic in Specters of Marx (1994 [1993], 64–66). This quasi-atheistic sense of the messianic (as distinguished from religious messianism – whether Jewish, Christian, or Islamic) obviously attempts to avoid any literalisms or fundamentalist specificity. Instead, it appeals to the idea of the messianic without any expectation of a messiah. As such, it implies a future-oriented project, yet one that cannot be predicted, let alone be anticipated, on the basis of present knowledge (1994, 25). In this sense, it is without guarantees (Derrida 1994, 168–169), and so may not only challenge precise expectations but could well confound them. In Spivak’s adaptation of Derrida’s ideas to her approach to teaching for global justice, she avoids any template of what is to be achieved. In contrast, her approach fosters imaginative exploration of other possibilities that contemporary models of teaching promote, be it paternalism (North) or indoctrination (South). Such an approach, however, will need to be marked by a drastic change in the traditional teacher’s attitude towards his or her students – be they the privileged inhabitants of the global North or the exploited subalterns of the South. And this is where the work of Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995), mediated by Derrida, has also influenced Spivak’s position.

Conclusion The changes or qualifications to the work of both Spivak and Chandra Mohanty highlight a major reorientation. Whereas formerly, in postcolonial theory, the dynamics of appropriation were foregrounded, there is now an awareness that things have changed dramatically with the inroads of globalized capitalism. Terms such as the ‘first world/third world’ or simply ‘East/West’ are no longer appropriate. It is no longer even a hemispheric problem of North/South – but one of a pervasive state of oppression where the conglomerates of the ‘one/third’ world exploit the resources of the ‘two/thirds.’ At the same time, there is a shift away from large-scale standardized definitions that neglect or fail to pay attention to the differentiations of history, context and site-specific knowledge. Previous generalized accusations of reduction of the other to the sameness of Western philosophical categories, with the assimilation of differences, are replaced by an acknowledgement of location with its diverse terms of reference. As a result, instead of designating difference simply as a theoretical site of reaction, a more activist program is proposed. One intervention is aimed at loosening the coercive economic practices and attitudes of Western incursions by innovative educational intervention. Another focuses on finding similarities in these now-particularized locales – all the better to help construct concerted strategies to challenge the inroads of 384

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continued pervasive exploitation. A more creative collaboration can result from this pluralistic approach. The benefits of such an approach are that, while it remains acutely aware of differences, it strives to design common constructive activist responses. This is a definite move beyond certain movements that impeded earlier attempts at solidarity/identity politics and also the presumption of some to speak for all. In this altered orientation, concerted responses are sensitive to both differences and similarities in their respective locations. This potent combination, informed by what I propose as an ‘ethics of location’, initiates a strategic politics of intervention in the name of global justice. Such a vision of seeking redress or justice, with the proportion and ambition as Chandra Mohanty’s and Spivak’s, could not be carried out if it were not for their sense of commitment to women’s well-being. It is all of these aspects of their respective programs that have made me come to the conclusion that only an ethical sense of righteousness tempered by an almost infinite concern for justice can mobilize such a highly dedicated commitment that characterizes their work. An ethics of location can then be understood as emerging from dissatisfaction with purely theoretical responses to the predicament of exclusion and exploitation. It results from a deepened awareness that, while deconstruction and postcolonial thought can indeed name exclusions and abuses, they do little to address the practical implementations necessary to change these situations. They may talk about injustice but do not intervene to seek reclamation. Such interventions in the name of justice, which mark the end result of the long, demanding and often harrowing process of arguments and heated exchanges described in this chapter, indicate the beginning of an activist response that is informed by a revised ethics of global justice. This ethics of location introduced by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Chandra Talpade Mohanty is not grounded in generalities, false universalisms, or absolute demands but is informed by a rigorous and uncompromising quest for honesty and justice so that disenfranchised and exploited fellow human beings can begin to flourish.

Notes 1 This chapter is an updated and revised version of a paper entitled ‘Beyond a God’s-Eye View: Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Religion’ that was originally presented at the XVII Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions in Mexico City, 1995. A longer version appeared in the Methodological volume of the proceedings of that conference published by Brill; see Joy (2000). Reprinted with permission. 2 Spivak follows Derrida in her understanding of aporia, rather than the traditional philosophical understanding found in Kant. As she notes, ‘I use aporia to name a situation where there are two right ways that cancel each other and that we, by being agents, have already marked in one way, with a decision that marks us rather than we it. There are other more philosophically complex ways of formalizing aporia’ (2004, 372, note 35). 3 These terms appear often in the literature of postcolonial women scholars from India. ‘Native’ is a shorthand term for those scholars who have remained in India, while ‘diasporic’ refers to those who have left to study and teach in other parts of the world. Rajeswari Sundar Rajan (1993, 9) was one of the first to employ these words. 4 Chandra Mohanty was well aware that she was dealing with problematic terminology. As she reflected in a later article, ‘I suggested then that while terms such as First and Third were problematic in suggesting oversimplified similarities as well as flattening internal differences, I continued to use them because this was the terminology available to us then. I use the terms with full knowledge of their limitations, suggesting a critical and heuristic rather than non-questioning use of the terms’ (2003, 501, note 3).

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References Al-Kassim, Dina. 2014. The Face of Foreclosure, in P. Bilimoria and D. Al-Kassim (eds.), Postcolonial Reason and Its Critique: Deliberations on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Thoughts 13–22. New Delhi/N.Y.: Oxford University Press. Appiah, Anthony Kwame. 2005. The Ethics of Identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. de Kock, Leon. 1992. Interview with Gayatri Chakavorty Spivak: New Nation Writers in South Africa, Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 23(3): 29–47. Derrida, Jacques. 1994 [1993]. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International. Peggy Kamuf (trans.). New York: Routledge. Guha, Ranajit, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. 1988. Selected Subaltern Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Joy, Morny. 2000. Beyond a God’s-Eye View: Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Religion, Perspectives on Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Adjunct Proceedings of the 17th Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions, ed. A.W. Geertz and R.T. McCutcheon, 110–40. Leiden: Brill. Lazreg, Marnia. 1988. Feminism and Difference: The Perils of Writing as a Woman on Women in Algeria, Feminist Studies 14(1): 81–107. Levinas, Emmanuel. 1969 [1961]. Alterity and Transcendence, Michael B. Smith (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 1998 [1991]. Entre Nous: Thinking of the Other, Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1984. Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses, Boundary 2: 333–358. ———. 1987. Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 1991. Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses, in Chandra Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres (eds.), Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, [rev. 1984]. ———. 2003. Under Western Eyes Revisited, Signs 28(2): 499–558. Mohanty, Saraju P. 1989. Us and Them: On the Philosophical Bases of Political Criticism. Yale Journal of Criticism 2(March): 1–31. Radhakrishnan, R. 2000. Postmodernism and the Rest of the World, in Fawzia Afzal-Khan and Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks (eds.), The Preoccupation of Postcolonial Studies, 37–70. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder. 1993. Real and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture and Postcolonization. New York: Routledge. Sangari, Kumkum. 1987. The Politics of the Possible, Cultural Critique 7: 157–186. Sharpe, Jenny, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. 2003. A Conversation with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Politics and the Imagination, Signs 28(2): 609–624. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1987. Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography, in In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Methuen. ———. 1988. Can the Subaltern Speak?, in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 271–313. ———. 1999. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2004. Righting Wrongs, South Atlantic Quarterly 103(2–3): 523–581.

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31 THE QUESTION OF UNIVERSALIST JUSTICE Transnational Encounters in Feminism Sara Ahmed

Does Feminism Need a Universalist Model of Justice? Terry Eagleton, in Ideology of the Aesthetic, calls for a return to a universal and foundationalist model of justice so as to escape the relativist consequences he defines as intrinsic to any abandonment of the rationalism of the Enlightenment. (1990: 396) Eagleton’s argument involves a claim about feminism and feminism’s inability to simply ‘become postmodern’ in the sense of giving up a discourse of rationality and truth. For he argues that feminism, despite its occasional emphasis on the impossibility of ‘truth’, needs to ‘make judgments’. He goes on to argue that the ‘necessary and proper universalism of the judgment that the oppression of women in any form is always morally wrong, and that no appeal to cultural tradition can constitute a defense of such conduct, runs into headlong conflict with a cultural relativism’ (385) – and, we might add, other universalist conceptions of justice such as the Rawlsian ‘justice as fairness’ in the most abstract of terms (see Dawson Chapter 13 in this volume). Staying with Eagleton for now, the examples he cites to demonstrate that what he calls cultural relativism contradicts the moral and political demands of feminism are foot binding, satī and clitoridectomy (cf. Hoagland and Frye 2000). These are examples of cultural traditions which are implicitly positioned by Eagleton as being oppressive to women in cultures other than those of late capitalist Western democracies. It is through the use of these examples as illustrative of a paradox for feminism that Eagleton makes clear that the feminism that he is speaking of (and for) is Western feminism. It is assumed to be Western feminism, whose contamination by postmodernism would lead to an inability to make judgments about issues of women’s oppression elsewhere in other cultural traditions. There is clearly violence in this gesture, violence that points to the inadequacy of the assumption that politics and justice are simply a struggle between cultural relativism (the ‘postmodern’ Western feminist) and universalism (the ‘modern’ Western feminist). One immediately needs to re-think the politics of the gesture whereby Eagleton speaks of Western feminism’s political forms by alluding to examples from ‘beyond’ the West. How is that ‘beyond’ inscribed other than as an object/example to illustrate the needs of a subject implicitly assumed to be the Western feminist? What relations of objectification and self-othering are confirmed here? 387

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Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1991, 1992, 2003, 2018) discusses how feminist attempts to account for the universality of gender oppression have led to the production of the category of ‘the third world woman’ within feminist analysis. Chandra Mohanty discusses the way in which Western feminism has used universal categories to understand gender relations: categories which have actually been derived from their own experiential frameworks. Such feminist approaches often proceed through producing ‘third world women’ as objects of knowledge: ‘An analysis of “sexual difference” in the form of a cross-culturally singular, monolithic notion of patriarchy or male dominance leads to the construction of a similarly reductive or homogeneous notion of what I call the “third world difference”’ (1991: 53). Here, the ‘third world woman’ is interpreted in terms of a Western understanding of gender oppression: the representation of her as a victim of universal patriarchy positions the Western feminist subject as an authority while taking the ‘Western’ as a reference point for understanding different forms of power relations. In this way, Chandra Mohanty argues that Western feminism’s universalist models reinforce a colonial relation (see Sharma and Bilimoria 2002). But what Chandra Mohanty concludes through this informed analysis is not that Western feminists should become cultural relativists. On the contrary, the focus of her work is, to some extent like Eagleton’s, on the need to make decisions about issues of politics and justice across different cultural formations – so that one has to go beyond the issue of a division between inside (West) and outside (third world), given that differences and antagonisms are internal and constitutive of any given cultural formation. She argues that such a politics of alliance –where collective judgments become possible though are not assumed – can only take place through giving up the rhetorical force of universalism (1992: 69). Rather than simply assuming that cultural traditions elsewhere function as signs of women’s universal oppression, we need a politics which is sensitive to the located and complex nature of particular cultural traditions and practices. One of the examples she discusses – which is very relevant in today’s world with the controversy around hijab – is the purdah (veil, covering) – demonstrating that Western feminists have assumed the veil can be simply read as a figure of women’s oppression. On the contrary, she argues that the veil has many specific and contextual meanings that fluctuate across time and space (66–67). This would also involve questioning the status of ‘women’ as a universal category by recognizing the differences between women and the interlocking of various relations of power. A sensitive and contextualized approach to cultural specificity and the difference would lead the Western feminist away from a politics of universal judgment as self-affirming politics and towards a politics where judgments are made possible only through specific engagement. Furthermore, in this process of engagement, Western feminists may be able to hear the voices of women resisting those ‘other’ cultural traditions. This would mean giving up the assumption that the international feminist relation is definable only as a dialectic between teacher/mentor (the Western feminist) and pupil/native informant (the third world woman) (which might have echoes of the master/slave polarity). Indeed, Western feminists may be surprised by what they hear, and a displacement rather than simply an affirmation/consolidation of normative views could become possible. Rather than speaking for those ‘other’ women by identifying other cultural traditions as signs of universal patriarchy, Western feminists could unlearn the violence of ‘universalism’ (where the West becomes conflated with the universal) and hence learn to speak to and hear the voices of different women. Rather than assuming universality, justice could become a relation or passage made possible by a necessarily unequal but nevertheless surprising dialogue between different women. 388

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Justice then becomes a strategic decision which is bound by a set of normative constraints, a decision which is inventive, partial and temporary rather than founded in an assumed universality. Clearly, then, Eagleton’s gesture, which calls for (Western) feminism to ‘admit to’ its need for universality, misses the point about the hegemonic effect of universalist assumptions. It also fails to recognize that the act of giving up universalism may enable a different kind of ethical relation between subjects differently positioned by the global division of labour, which is based on a more mutual engagement. Though the engagement is not equal, it is nevertheless through a critique of universalism that this inequality, which structures international dialogues, can be made visible. Amartya Sen, insofar as he does engage with the question of gender justice – particularly with his intermittent focus on India and other non-western regions – seems palpably aware of the limitations of universalist assumptions, although, at the end of the day, he tends to veer toward neo-Kantian Rawlsian liberalism (see Qizilbash 2005). Hence, I would argue against Eagleton that feminism questions rather than assumes a model of justice for women based on the universality of rights and wrongs. Eagleton presupposes that without a foundation in universalist rhetoric, justice would become unjustifiable or unjudiciable. Justice itself would vanish in a postmodern and deconstructive nihilism. Eagleton’s basic argument is that without a foundationalist model of justice based on universal human rights, we would not be able to justify any particular model for social change (Ahmed, 1995). But, as Chantal Mouffe (1988) points out in her article ‘Radical Democracy: Modern or Postmodern’, we can defend (if we want to) the political project of modernity while abandoning the notion that it must be based on a specific form of rationality, or on some ultimate universalist or essentialist foundation. In other words, non-foundationalistic or pragmatic justifications for democratic demands or values can be sought. Indeed, if we were to assume a position which has recourse to absolute or universal foundations to be untenable and implausible, then this would not lead us to a situation where the defence of a position is impossible or unlikely. We would be in the same position of having to justify our interpretation. Nancy Fraser argues that we may be more able to argue for our position precisely because we would not have recourse to any simplistic and ultimately limited foundations (Fraser 1998: 181). Here, justice becomes re-inscribed in terms of pragmatic strategies of justification. But am I speaking here of feminism as a form of ‘groundless solidarity’ – a belief in collective political action (alliance formation) which has no grounding? Not exactly. I do not believe that feminism can have any foundation in a model of absolute truth value or universal justice. However, that does not necessarily leave feminism without ground or in a moral vacuum. But if feminism is at odds with a universalist rights-based model of justice, then what kind of justice may feminism imagine? Feminism is a political discourse that calls for broadscale social transformation and hence is necessarily implicated in ethics, understood here as the realm of critical evaluation which is irreducible to particular values (as well as in the social imaginary of injustice). Insofar as feminism’s focus on gender as constitutive demands a critique of universality and identity thinking, it may be said that feminism’s justice may be on the side of a re-evaluation of difference and otherness, on the side of the embodied, ‘feminine’ subject who cannot simply stand before the law as an intentional subject of morality. But, none of these formulations are sufficiently expressive of the range of feminist practices and their differential relation to questions of justice. I want to argue now that by 389

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working at least at some moment in a deconstructive mode, feminists can imagine a model of justice that does not assume universality and hence exceeds the particular form of a given feminism.

Feminism Beyond Deconstructive Justice Feminism’s desire to justify a transformation of gender relations may structure a very different kind of intervention, not necessarily at the level of the simply calculable (that would only be a phantasy), but certainly at the level of direction. In other words, what is required by a feminist understanding of justice is some notion of which direction (out of many) would be preferable in the re-ordering of a violent sociality. Here, feminism becomes determined by the normativity of its own pragmatic demands. This demonstrates how feminism is contained by particular social contexts and conflicting demands. Those ‘demands’ do not present themselves as transparent or as a totality. The issue of social transformation does not force feminism in one direction. Rather, the question of direction determines the debates and alliances that are ongoing within a global context. Direction is not a given telos which can be simply assumed (‘feminism is determined by its desire to change things to this’), but a question which presents itself as a crisis or conflict (‘which direction do we take here?’). Direction, in this sense, involves indecision; it involves a passage through the undecidable. The crisis is resolved through the temporary formation of strategic decisions (‘we will do this here’), which cannot be differentiated from each other simply in terms of ‘right and ‘wrong’. Rather, the question of direction is implicated in the passage of justice; in the demand to justify which direction should be taken. All directions are in this sense ‘not right’; they are necessarily inadequate to any intentional formulation. Importantly, then, the way in which feminism poses the question, ‘Which direction?’, suggests the limits and constraints within which feminism operates are constitutive rather than incidental to its desire for social transformation. Feminism, in this specific sense, is necessarily a pragmatism. At the same time, recognizing the impossibility that any ‘direction’ can be, in the fullest sense, ‘the right one’ renders that there is an infinite need to re-justify each decision. Through such an approach to justice, for example, one can re-figure the encounters of global northern feminism vis-à-vis the plight of women in the global South. Women may engage with women differentially positioned by divisions of labour without assuming a universal model of patriarchy. This engagement is predicated on making visible the structural limitations of a mutual dialogue posed by the distribution of economic and cultural capital. Through the rendering visible of these limits and through ‘giving up’ the violence of the universalism that determines and conceals the limits, feminism may speak more justly of justice for women and be more open to surprise, antagonism and difference. To investigate this structural difference, I want to conclude with a reflection on the work of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, whom I take to be one of the most important commentators on the feminist side of the question of justice. I am interested, in particular, in Spivak’s reflection on her translation of Mahasweta Devi in the book Imaginary Maps (1995). Here, Spivak formulates a model of ethical singularity, not of the other per se, but of the subaltern woman, who remains other to the various privileged categories of otherness (migrant/exile/ diasporic) within Western knowledge. Such a singularity takes the form of a mutual engagement and hence involves both accountability and responsibility. Spivak clearly argues for the necessity of translation and against ‘cultural relativism’. Translation (and reading as translation) is a figure for engagement. It involves proximity to 390

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the other. A just reading may here be a reading which gets close to the text, which caresses its forms with love. It refuses to judge the text from afar and fix the text as a discernible object in space and time. But that closeness or proximity, which avoids the distanciation of universalism, does not equal merger. The idea of translation simply as proximity to the other implies that in engagement (or mutuality), the subject and the other merge, becoming one. While the line between the translator and text becomes unstable in proximity, it also constitutes the limits of translation and the violence of the difference that cannot simply move across. A more just translation or reading moves between distance and proximity, complicating any simple relation between justice and time/space, which is central to the violence of universalism. Indeed, the necessity of making decisions and judgments as one reads, and the impossibility that those decisions and judgments can be founded in the ‘truth’ or ‘real’ of any text, suggests that a more just reading may move close and leap away with a risky zeal. But by getting close enough, this translation admits to its own precariousness and violence. Here, issues of reading and translation can be understood in terms of the engagement that can be understood in terms of the engagement with the other. Indeed, in the context of Spivak’s work, this engagement is not the rendering present of the subaltern woman. Rather, there is something which does not get across, something which is necessarily secret. Hence, ethics (and the ethics of translation) becomes, for Spivak, ‘the experience for the impossible’ (Spivak 1995: xxv). The impossibility of ethics is negotiated through a singular encounter with the subaltern woman. A meeting: a secret meeting which is also a gift in that it resists the structure of an exchange. The meeting does not have a proper object which moves from one to the other. Rather, the meeting is yet to be determined as such. It is a meeting between the translator who wants to do justice to the subaltern woman’s texts and the subaltern woman whose position in the encounter is not that of the native informant whose truth is assured in being spoken for. Significantly, the engagement with the impossibility of ethics takes place through the meeting between women – between women as embodied subjects –who are differentially positioned in a global division of labour. One has a speech which is authorized – an Indian feminist who works in the United States and India – one whose speech is being authorized for the reader of English through the other’s translation. I see this encounter as working at the level of the personal, affective realm of embodied subjects. It is through their meeting that a gift is offered, a gift which caresses the hand of the reader, of myself as a reader, as I touch the pages. Through the fractured and divided embodiment of the subaltern women, the impossibility and necessity of a just encounter becomes imagined. In the afterward, the secret encounter – the encounter which necessarily reveals and conceals – becomes the scene of global justice. Spivak writes, I have, perhaps foolishly, attempted to open the structure of an impossible social justice glimpsed through secret encounters with singular figures; to bear witness to the specificity of language, theme, and history as well as to supplement hegemonic notions of a hybrid global culture with the experience of the impossible global justice. (Spivak 1995, 197; see also Spivak’s Response to authors in Bilimoria and Al-Kassim 2014) Here, justice is traced as an encounter between the singular subaltern woman and the global – between the particular of her embodiment and the international division of labour in which she is positioned as producer and native informant. Global justice – impossible 391

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but named – becomes imagined through the staging of this encounter. The particularity of the subaltern woman, who is irreducible to the model of other or to the otherness of the other, is glimpsed only partly by witnessing the hegemonic forms which render her speech marginal. The encounter, which is an engagement, is both mutual and impossible; it is not fixed as an exchange; it is her future (her as the future) which surprises us.

Conclusion The impossibility of justice, then, whether global, social or as a form of translation – and the undecidable secret which is at once concealed and revealed by justice – can only be traced through the particularity of bodies, which are, in their particularity, already bound up in the globalized and gendered division of labour. We can only do justice to the impossibility of justice through a form of collective political action to redress such relations of force and authorization. But that action (or that direction) must begin with secret encounters with singular figures if it is to avoid (the violence of) speaking for the subaltern woman or if it is to avoid the violence of claiming that justice resides positively in a decision or in a calculable programme for social transformation. Justice here is the gift of engagement, of relations between others which are not fixed through the violence of universalism but which are yet to be found. Justice here finds no space and time other than in the imagining and enacting of alternatives to a violent sociality where some subjects are authorized through the rendering of others as abject. Such imaginings and enactments do not ‘belong’ to a moral or political subject but become possible through surprising encounters with others we more justly love.

Afterword My concerns in this chapter with issues of justice for international feminism are deeply personal as well as political. I am from a mixed-race background; my mother is English, and my father is Pakistani. For most of my life, I have lived as part of an immigrant family in Australia and then in the United Kingdom. I have only been to Pakistan a few times, although I lived there as a young child when my mother was ill. I went once for a few months when I was 17 after finishing school. I spent a lot of time with my aunt, who was heavily involved in politics. She was my first feminist teacher, the first woman to speak to me about the violence of gender. Issues of justice in relation to cultural differences and the desire to translate have hence been central to my relation to feminism. My aunt is both part of my family and another; she is both close to me and far apart. She can speak English, but I cannot speak Urdu. So we speak in English. How to speak to each other less violently? How to take responsibility for that desire as instructive? How to find justice in the passage of our mingling? How to find this justice in the context of our shared feminism? That has been such a challenge and, at the same, an inspiration for my deeper, deconstructive reflections on justice.

Bibliography Ahmed, Sara. 1995. ‘Deconstruction and Law’s Other: Towards a Feminist Theory of Embodied Legal Rights.’ Social and Legal Studies, 4: 55–73.

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The Question of Universalist Justice Bilimoria, Purushottama and Diana Al-Kassim. 2014. Postcolonial Reason and Its Critique Deliberations on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Thoughts (with Response from Spivak). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1992. ‘Force of Law: The “Mystical Foundation of Authority”,’ in Drucilla Cornell, Michel Rosenfeld and David Gray Carlson (eds.), 1993. Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, 3–67. New York and London: Routledge. Eagleton, Terry. 1990. The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Elam, Diane. 1994. Feminism and Deconstruction. London and New York: Routledge. Fraser, Nancy. 1998. Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory. Cambridge: Policy Press. Hoagland, Sarah Lucia and Marilyn Frye (eds). 2000 Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1992 [1987]. ‘Feminist Encounters: Locating the Politics of Experience,’ in Michéle Barrett and Anne Phillips (eds.), Destabilizing Theory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ———. 2003. Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory Practicing Solidarity. New Delhi: Zubaan. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, and Linda E. Carty (eds.). 2018. Feminist Freedom Warriors: Genealogies, Justice, Politics, and Hope. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Ann Russo and Lourdes Torres (eds). 1991. Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. MacIntyre, Alasdair, 2013 [1988]. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? London: Bloomsbury. Mouffe, Chantal. 1988. ‘Radical Democracy – Modern or Postmodern,’ in Andrew Ross (ed.), Universal Abandon? The Politics of Postmodernism, 31–46. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Qizilbash, Mozaffar. 2005. ‘Sen on Freedom and Gender Justice.’ Feminist Economics, 11(3): 151–166. Rawls, John. 1972. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sharma, Renuka, and Bilimoria, Purushottama, 2002. ‘Where Silence Burns: Satī (suttee) in India, Mary Daly’s Gynocritique, and Resistant Spirituality,’ in Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Marilyn Frye (eds.), Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly, 322–348. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press. Sen, Amartya. 2009. Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ in Lawrence Grossberg and Cary Nelson (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, 171–314. Urbano and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. ———. 1995. Imaginary Maps: Mahasweta Devi’s Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, and Pirtha . Translator’s Preface and Afterword. New York: Routledge. 1995 (reprint).

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32 ACTIVATING THE IMAGINATION Harmony, Justice, and Gender in Tagore’s Thought* Esha Niyogi De While Rabindranath Tagore is well recognized in South Asian studies circles and in the mainstream as an aesthete or even a mystic, he is alleged to have increasingly distanced himself from the pressing political issues of his day. Notably, he is thought to have become uninvolved with the Indians’ struggle against the colonizer. As a scholar myself of culture, politics and women, I want to speak to this allegation and to rebut it. Looking at the routes taken by his late works, written in the early 20th century, I argue that Tagore moved by way of an active engagement in the Indian freedom struggle into thinking more globally about how to change exclusionary attitudes and ideals. He sought to alter mentalities underlying the politics of domination and division in his world – i.e., of the subordination of some people, races, lands and resources by other groups. As I show in this chapter, it is the critical approach Tagore took to attitude and affect that offers lessons about global activism relevant even today. My claim is that, later in his intellectual life, Tagore increasingly came to hold the position that unless the divisive viewpoints and emotions underlying the hierarchies of nation, empire and capital could be changed, one power structure invariably would replace another in the course of world historical tussles. And it is in this regard that Tagore’s own experiments with emotion-enhancing literature and arts became germane. In the context of the heightening historical turmoil of the early 20th century, Tagore urgently examined how aesthetic practice creates emotional appeal for divisive and instrumental attitudes. He sought ways to re-educate emotions, imaginations and minds in order to foster attitudes that bring people together. In this activist approach to imaginative appeal, Tagore’s thought comes very close to critical philosophers of our day. Note that the well-known feminist postcolonial thinker Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak addresses the importance of aesthetic education along similar lines. She emphasizes that we are in need of ‘training the imagination to make it ready for implementing global justice and democracy’.1 Whereas Spivak focuses on critically implementing the Western humanist framework of democratic justice from the grounds of *  An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the Australia India Institute in the University of Melbourne, Australia. I thank Prof Amitabh Mattoo and all present at the talk for their robust and encouraging responses. Purushottama helped with the Sanskrit terms. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-38

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semi-modern India, Tagore differs. He wanted to incorporate unmodern regional literary and metaphysical legacies into his secular vision of training the imagination to implement harmonious justice on a global scale. Tagore’s regional approach to aesthetic training goes through two major phases, growing increasingly complex and critical hand in hand with world historical changes. This altering trend in Tagore’s thought reinforces the argument I have made elsewhere that ‘culture and language are … fields of social activity made and changed by human agents’ (De 2011, 19). At the same time, a consciousness that is textualized in the language is permeated with conflicting value judgments, some of which are bound to be complicit with power and capital. Within the limited scope of the present discussion, I bracket the latter and emphasize the critical aspects of Tagore’s thought. We encounter the first phase of Tagore’s thoughts on artistic imagination and global harmony at the turn of the 20th century. Radically critical of Western colonization, Tagore turns at this stage to the visions and values born of Hindu agrarian civilization to find the key to human togetherness. This implication stands out in an essay (1901a) contrasting Shakespeare’s Tempest to the Sanskrit dramatist Kālidāsa’s Abhijñāna Śakuntalam. In this piece, Tagore maintains that the imaginative layout of The Tempest turns on the ‘basic idea’ of strife over ‘sovereignty’ (ādhipatya) as it makes aesthetically appealing the strife of a man ‘deprived of control over his own kingdom spreading his power of magic on the kingdom of nature to impose a severe domination’ (Tagore 1901a, 622–623). In this reading, the Shakespearean play justifies a masculinist, territorial and ecologically destructive attitude through its literary appeal, with magic coming to stand for a technology of instrumentation which aids a scientific ruler’s expansionist agenda. Against this imaginative layout based on the principle of antagonism, Tagore posits the Śakuntalam as a ‘fully developed instance’ (supariṇ ata dṛ ṣṭānta) of literary imagination – that is, as a work that perfectly envisions and conduces human togetherness (Tagore 1901a; De 2002). Three core ideas comprising Tagore’s early notion of harmonious imagination, based on Hindu civilizational traditions, emerge in his treatment of Śakuntalam as a template for imaginative training: (a) The core of human concord is to be found in a work such as this rooted in a non-utilitarian, agrarian framework: the attunement of the mind with the world, the human with the non-human. (b) Kālidāsa’s use in this work of the unmodern Sanskrit aesthetic of rasa (relish) – an aesthetic which portrays personal desires only through ‘hints’ (ābhāsa) and therewith distils a delicate balance of depersonalized emotions – is peculiarly well-suited for clarifying a vision of interpersonal concord. (c) The woman Śakuntalā exemplifies this ideal of concord by embodying the rasa of a feminine love attuned to nature. Very soon, these three ideas merged in Tagore’s enthusiastic nationalist poetry as, in 1905, he threw himself full force into the nationalist Swadeshi Movement that rose in protest against the first attempt made by the colonial state to partition Bengal, known as the Bangabhanga. It is as if the pleasant, forbearing and self-yielding Śakuntalā of Tagore’s earlier essay reappears in his swadeshi songs as the all-protective and all-giving mother Bengal. She incarnates bountiful nature and, as such, frequently is imaged as the Hindu goddess Durgā or Lakṣmī. As well- explained by Dipesh Chakrabarty, imagination such as this invokes nationalism as a rasa – an imaginative relishing of emotions which enables the ‘cessation of the ordinary historical world’ (Chakrabarty 2000, 173). As such, rasa invokes a culture of imagination, which, according to Chakrabarty, is different from the ‘subjectcentred’ analytical imagination driving historical decisions in the modern world. Imaginative rasa penetrates beyond logic and classifies, possesses and divides lands, peoples and bodies. Following Chakrabarty’s insight, we can conclude that Tagore’s swadeshi songs centreing 395

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on the motherland as a goddess indeed aim to train the imagination of the Bengali patriot. This training is to ‘bypass … the distinction’ between subjects and objects (175) and thereby transcend the antagonistic logic of the Partition, which is fracturing the people of Bengal and causing chaos all around. Only two years later, however, we get from Tagore a far more critical assessment of nationalist imagination, uncontainable in Chakrabarty’s emphasis on cultural differences. Thus, Chakrabarty’s approach limits Tagore to an early stage of his (Hindu nationalist) thought, disregarding the more critical and globally poised phase of his intellectual development. In a more categorical way, so does Ashis Nandy’s reading of Tagore’s traditionalist nationalism, as I have argued at length in my book and elsewhere (Nandy 1994; De 2011, 2–22, 72–84; 2002, 51–56). In an essay written in 1907 on literature and aesthetic beauty, Sahitya O Saundarya captures the global turn in Tagore’s thought. Launching a broad critique of divisive imaginations, Tagore maintains in this essay that authors who produce images of saundarya (beauty) and suchita (bodily purity) in a bid to identify the utkarsha (essence) of a person or a people reinforce samprodayik (sectarian) attitudes (Tagore 1907, 775–780). The implication is that subjects located in the historical world and harbouring sectarian attitudes are the ones who author the rasa of nationalism and that they deploy essentialist images of beauty and purity as instruments to reinforce the divisive rasa. Subsequently, a prescient essay titled Narir Manusatya (Tagore 1928) goes on to explicitly gender essentialist authorship. It imputes that both British and Indian male authors, in different ways, establish their adhikāra (proprietary right) over women through portrayals of femininity. What worldly conditions drove Tagore to rethink his view about artistic imagination at this moment? Uma Dasgupta (2006) answers the question most completely for us. She notes that, on the one hand, Tagore suddenly withdrew from the Swadeshi Movement at its height ‘(4) in protest against the outbreak of communal violence from within the movement and because Muslims were being attacked in the very names of swadeshi and mother Bengal. He resigned from every swadeshi committee on the same day (4). Soon thereafter, he turned to the active work of educating both Muslim and Hindu tenants in his family’s agricultural estates (5). On the other hand, Tagore bore witness to the escalation worldwide of separatist nationalism leading to war. In view of these world historical trends, he began to disavow (nationalist) traditionalism and its gendered bases. Instead, ‘he argued that the Great War had ushered in a “new age” whereby the need of the day was for cooperation between peoples, not isolation’ (7) and civilizational separatism. Tagore himself puts his evolving cooperative viewpoint best when he says in his ‘Russiar Chithi’/Letters from Russia (1930) that the ‘local problems of a people are a part and parcel of humankind’s’ (swajatir samasya samastha manusher samasyar anatargata). Moreover, his growing concern with the gender relations underlying nationalist authorship is articulated within a broader understanding of the interconnected problems of ‘prabhu-dasher samparka’/master-slave relations (1928) in various locations of world history. Without a doubt, he was inspired by this new line of democratic thought by the Euro-American Women’s Movements, the Indian Women’s Suffrage Movement, and the Bolshevik Movement (even as he critiqued the totalitarian structure of the Russian state). In this vein, Tagore’s ideas about training the imagination in a cooperative critique of nationalist injustice flow along two parallel paths in his post-swadeshi writings. One strand of his later works brings images and authors face to face. Categories of persons who are typically used in nationalist and imperial discourses as one-dimensional 396

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images symbolizing essence or deviance, bodily purity or pollution come to life in these late writings by Tagore. As realistic characters, they act within specific historical circumstances, and they talk back at their essentialist and biased authors (who also appear as characters in the stories). On occasion, the characters talk responsibly about their own involvement in the processes which reduce human lives to one-dimensional symbols and which use symbols as instruments to reinforce master-slave relations inter-nationally or inter-communally. Take, for example, the first great political novel Tagore wrote after the Swadeshi Movement, Gora (1910). The novel ends with a Hindu Brahminical nationalist’s self-­ discovery: the man finds out that he is actually Irish by birth, adopted by a Brahmin couple during the Sepoy Uprising. This discovery brings about a moment of epiphany. The man Gora realizes that, until now, he had authored for himself an imaginary bharatbarsha (India) tinted with emotions and moods (bhāva) (569). He had been clinging to a mere image of the motherland and thus failing to recognize that he was reinforcing divisions in the name of national unification. Now, Gora is able to admit to the caste antagonism he used to perpetuate by separating his supposedly pure Brahmin body from the bharatīya people at large. Moreover, when we encounter Gora, the Irishman criticizing his own homogenous and divisive imagination, we are, of course, also hearing the gora or white man talking back at (self-critiquing) imperial European authors. As stated in an earlier essay titled ‘Virodhmulak Adarsha’ (= The Antagonistic Ideal 1901b), Tagore maintained that European writers cultivate the roots of racial/nationalist antagonisms worldwide by the way they uphold appealing pictures of racial superiority – i.e., of ‘godlike’ white men – in their works. Following the novel Gora, we find a series of articulate women characters in Tagore’s creative works. These women are shown to be talking back to prevalent images of femininity from their various historical locations. They question the use of women’s images as symbols of purity, modesty and self-sacrifice. They challenge conventional (Hindu) nationalist representations of women as pleasant goddess-mothers poised to reproduce a pure nation/race. In his second great anti-swadeshi novel, Ghare Baire/The Home and the World (1914), Tagore’s woman protagonist, Bimala (literally, the Pure One), recalls in a monologue how she became established as a Queen Bee of the Swadeshi Movement (21). She was positioned as an embodiment of the Bande Mataram or Hail-to-the-Motherland mantra through the impassioned kalpana (imagination) of the principal nationalist activist, Sandeep (literally, the Ignited One). Bimala describes how Sandeep had looked upon her with eyes ignited like the bright stars (nakshatra) (11) and had hailed her as the Hindu goddess of the bountiful land, Annapurna (13). Yet Bimala herself turns out to be critical of her own self-identification with this passionate imagination of the pure mother and land. In retrospect, she impugns her support for the crimes (pap) committed by orthodox nationalists – both Bengali swadeshis and Europeans – against others in the name of purifying imagined motherlands (15–16). Moreover, she delineates the way she had trapped herself into Hinduizing the purity of the motherland. In the heat of patriotic passion, she had joined voice with Sandeep in calling Bengal by the names of the goddesses Durgā and Lakṣmī (15). The novel suggests that this mother-goddess imagery is deployed to mask the ‘reign of fear’ (bhayer shasan) (78) imposed upon impoverished tenant farmers, including Muslims, by elite Hindu nationalists (98–99). By the late 1920s, Tagore was even more clear in speaking, as he put it, narider pakhya niye (from the side of women) (‘Narir Manusatya’ 24). He inveighs against the controlling 397

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attitudes and images he finds in the kalpana (imagination) of both male European imperialists and Indian nationalists (21). The historical events grounding this clearer transition to feminist critique in Tagore’s aesthetic thought, in my view, are the growth of a distinct feminist voice in India hand in hand with the controversies in India as well as in Britain over Indian women’s suffrage (leading to women’s enfranchisement in Bengal in 1926) (Forbes 1999, 92–103). Following this, in 1932, we hear the female protagonist of a Tagore poem called ‘Sadharan Meye’ challenging the nationalist author Saratchandra Chatterjee. This new woman character ironically pleads with the male novelist to refrain from making her into another Śakuntalā in the vein of Kālidāsa’s iconic heroine. She refuses to follow Śhakuntalā down the path of self-sacrifice (tyāga) and sorrowful forbearance (Tagore 1932, 669). Clearly, the challenge here is also self-directed. Tagore is talking back at his own portrayal, earlier on, of a self-surrendering Śakuntalā who upholds the harmonious values of Hindu agrarian civilization. The new woman of 1932 instead wants to be recognized for her autonomous needs and wants. Soon thereafter, we are to hear an even more radical woman’s voice in Tagore’s work. The latter exposes the master-slave relations underlying the Hindu caste system’s (racialized) perceptions of bodily purity and pollution. This radical new woman demands that she be both imagined and related to in a holistic way – as a fully valued manab/human both in the spirit and in the body. Dismantling the symbolism of a pristine Bengali peasant life attuned to nature – found in so many of his own earlier works – in the play/dance-drama Chandalika (1933, 1936), Tagore makes a dalit (‘outcaste’) peasant girl give voice to the discrimination and dehumanization riddling the village. While at first, it appears that a Buddhist monk by the name of Ananda has, in fact, broken down the taboo of bodily purity and pollution by naming this girl as an equal human being and accepting water from her hand, soon the question arises if the naming of equality will remain at the level of essentialist imagination only. For reinstated by the monk’s imagination as an equal, this woman of the untouchable caste begins to talk back at her humanist creator and wants him as her partner both in spirit and in body. She maintains that the elite man must return to reciprocate her full desire for partnership, lest otherwise she loses touch with her newfound self-value: nijer ami mulya bhuli (174). This mulya or value lies in her developing sense of autonomous worth, which has been authored in her by the humanist man’s equalizing attitude. The implication of the untouchable (dalit) woman’s demand is that the principle of human equality must appear on the cultural horizon, not simply as an essentialist and depersonalized image. It must be actualized in the form of social practice. Only through such pragmatic, hard-hitting portrayals of radical social change could the audience’s imagination be emotionally retrained so as to drive against ingrained (caste/race-based) biases regarding bodily purity and pollution and to want to embody the breach. Does all this mean that we actually see the post-swadeshi Tagore move away from his earlier interest in training the imagination in the depersonalized aesthetic of the rasa, the regional aesthetic and spiritual approach to universal harmony that seeks to bypass the historical world and its subjective biases? Is Tagore taking the position that, for the imagination to be trained for use in enabling global justice, it ought to be schooled to implement and critique only Western humanistic values (of equality and autonomous worth)? No. What Tagore seeks in later works is a combined approach. He wants to posit as secular historical norms, first, the habits of syncretism born of a region with a long legacy of multilingual and multiracial flows, and second, an allied metaphysical vocabulary of spiritual 398

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oneness. Illustrating this combined approach, some of Tagore’s late works take a second path. They invoke the regional concepts of syncretism and spiritual union as ethical norms in whose light divisive and self-serving attitudes can be exposed and cast aside. As our first example of this second path, let us return to the closing of the novel Gora. We hear Gora declare that only by discovering his alien birth – and being released by this means from his prior Hindu Brahminical nationalism – has he been able to land on the true ground of bharatbarsha. His body and mind no longer inscribe any ‘virodh between the Hindu, the Muslim, or the Christian samāj’ (i.e., social economy)’ (Tagore 1901b, 570). As I noted earlier, Tagore’s prior writings indicate that the wording of this challenge posed by Gora to antagonistic (virodh-conducing) social imaginations includes criticism of European racist imagination. The point to note is that, whereas Gora’s imagination of the bharatiya has to be displaced from nationalism before it is able to embrace the regional ethic of human oneness, the ethical norm itself is practiced by his mother in everyday life. Gora’s mother is portrayed to be living cooperatively and staging a syncretistic attitude on a daily basis upon the shifting grounds of a multilingual, multicommunal and multiracial region. Not only had she nurtured and reared Gora the Irish baby, and given his dying mother shelter in the midst of war. In this endeavour, she also worked hand in hand with an indigenous Christian nursemaid who suckled Gora. Allied to these practices of cooperative living and syncretistic exchange in Tagore’s partially modernized India were the popular aesthetic and spiritual traditions connected to the bhakti legacy (particularly strong in Tagore’s region of Bengal). Images of the self-surrendering bhakta or devotee appear in a number of Tagore’s late works, especially those written in the genre of allegory. Invariably, Tagore’s bhakta emerges not simply as the traditional world renouncer but rather as an actor in secular history. He/she is a responsible agent who mobilizes against the crimes committed by humans upon humanity – specifically, upon the spirit of cooperation and harmony (sahit), which Tagore saw as fundamental to the human community. Let me end by quoting parts from one such allegorical work, a deeply gloomy anti-war poem Tagore wrote in the midst of the First World War (1916). In my view, this poem encapsulates Tagore’s combined approach. It melds together ideas about human oneness and cooperation drawn both from the spiritual monism of the bhakti tradition and from the historical monism of the humanistic Enlightenment (which emphasizes equal justice and responsibility). In this anti-war 1916 poem titled ‘Jharer Kheya’ (The Boat in Storm), on the one hand, we meet a collective of human beings in anguish striving in unison to transcend destructive historical conditions. In the vein of bhakti imagery, the notion of spiritual oneness is depicted as a journey of many across the sea of worldly tribulations – in pursuit of deliverance (moksha) and under the commandment of the divine helmsman (the paramātman). The commandment has come, at this time the ties of the harbour must end, … From all corners, people leave home and rush forth with oars in hand … Even then must we row on against the grimmest obstacles, With the world’s heart-rending moans ringing in our ears, Bearing upon our heads wild stormy days, Clinging in our hearts to hope without end. [Esecche adesh, bandare badhankaal ebarer mato holo sesh. 399

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… Tārātāri tai ghar cchāri chāridik hote dānr hāte cchute āse dānri … Tobu beye tari sab thele hote habe pār, kane niye nikhiler hahakar, Shire laye duranta durdin, bakshe laye asha antaheen.] (1916, 88–91) On the other hand, we see the influence of the Enlightenment in what turns out to be a portrayal of responsible agents mobilizing against the causes of war. The bhakta or devotee is shown as a historical subject striving in secular times to be accountable for crimes against the intrinsic human spirit of concord. All persons going on the journey are invested with subjective interiority: with self-doubt and self-critique. O my companion, whom do you slander? Hang your head [in shame]. These crimes are mine, and they are yours – The cowardliness of the coward, The arrogant wrongs of the mighty, The cruel greed of the greedy, The daily agitated spirits of the deprived, The conceit of race, These many insults of the godly in human. Ore bhai, kar ninda karo tumi? Matha karo nato. E amar e tomar pāp … Bhirur bhiruta punjya, prabaler uddhata anyaya, Lobheer nisthur lobh, Banchiter nitya chityakhobh, Jati abhiman, Manaber adhistatri debotar bahu ashamaan. (My translation) (1916, 92–93) In this vision of Tagore’s, all subjects of history are being called upon to try to correct the criminality of the self-interested and divisive attitudes underlying historical strife. The collective struggle to take on the responsibility of fulfilling the godly spirit of concord in humans is an unending historical training of minds and bodies to be participated in by activists from every corner of the globe. In totality, the poem encapsulates two core ideas about global concord Tagore stated elsewhere: (a) Trends of harmony and justice would never be found in one civilization alone but only through travelling across different ‘seas of knowledge’ (Swadeshi Samāj: Tagore 1904, 699). (b) As such, ‘peoples’ history’ or manusher itihas will not end (Ghare Baire/Home and the World; Tagore, 1914, 102), for it constitutes a cumulative, visionary struggle to build a harmonious whole. The implication I draw overall from Tagore’s altering critique of historical perspectives is that progressive endeavours to realize the human inclination for being at one with others and the world must be recognized on a global scale. They must be exchanged and relearned, combined and challenged by practicing individuals everywhere. This non-reductive and, in 400

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a way, pragmatic vision of global harmony, in my view, is what lay behind the lifelong endeavours of Tagore, the philosophical writer and performing artist, to educate historical imaginations and underlying attitudes.

Note 1 http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674051836

References Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dasgupta, Uma. 2006. “Rabindranath Tagore and Modernity.” Tagore and Modernity. Eds. Krishna Sen and Tapati Gupta. Kolkata: Dasgupta and Co. De, Esha Niyogi. 2002. “Decolonizing Universality: Postcolonial Theory and the Quandary of Ethical Agency.” Diacritics 32 (2): 42–59. ———. 2011. Empire, Media, and the Autonomous Woman: A Feminist Critique of Postcolonial Thought. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Forbes, Geraldine. 1999. Women in Modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nandy, Ashis. 1994. The Illegitimacy of Nationalism. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2012. Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tagore, Rabindranath. 1901a. “Shakuntala/Prachin Sahitya.” In Rabindra Racanabali. Vol. 13. Calcutta: Vishwabharati Press, 1961. ———. 1901b. “Virodhmulak Adarsha.” In Rabindra Racanabali. Vol. 12. Calcutta: Vishwabharati Press, 1961. ———. 1904. “Swadeshi Samāj.” In Rabindra Racanabali. Vol. 12. Calcutta: Vishwabharati Press, 1961. ———. 1907. “Sahitya O Saundarya.” In Rabindra Racanabali. Vol. 13. Calcutta: Vishwabharati Press, 1961. ———. 1910. “Gora.” In Rabindra Racanabali. Vol. 6. Calcutta: Vishwabharati Press, 1976. ———. 1914. Ghare Baire. http://www.rabindrarachanabali.nltr.org/node/886 ———. 1916. “‘Jharer Kheya’/The Boat in Storm.” In Balaka. Kolkata: Vishwabharati Press, 1998. ———. 1928. “Narir Manusatya.” In Rabindra Racanabali. Vol. 13. Calcutta: Vishwabharati Press, 1961. ———. 1930. “Russiar Chithi.” In Rabindra Racanabali. Vol. 13. Calcutta: Vishwabharati Press, 1961. ———. 1932. “Sadharan Meye.” In Sanchaita. Calcutta: Vishwabharati Press, 1932.

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33 VIOLENCE AND HUMANITY Or, Vulnerability as Political Subjectivity Anupama Rao

One of the ghastliest incidences of sexual violence in India’s Maharashtra state occurred on 29 September 2006 in the village of Khairlanji, Bhandara district. What began as a land grab by local agriculturalists ended in the rape and mutilation of 44-year-old Surekha Bhotmange and her teenage student daughter, Priyanka, and the brutal murder of Surekha’s two sons, Roshan and Sudhir, ages 19 and 21, respectively. By all accounts, this was an upwardly mobile Dalit family. Sudhir was a graduate. He worked as a labourer with his visually impaired brother to earn extra money. Priyanka had completed high school at the top of her class. However, the family was paraded naked, beaten, stoned, sexually abused and then murdered by a group of men from the Kunbi and Kalar agricultural castes. Surekha and her daughter, Priyanka, were bitten, beaten black and blue and gang raped in full public view for an hour before they died. Iron rods and sticks were later inserted into their genitalia. The private parts and faces of the young men were disfigured. When the dust had settled, four bodies of this dalit family lay strewn at the village choupal [square], with the killers pumping their fists and still kicking the bodies. The rage was not over. Some angry men even raped the badly mutilated corpses of the two women. (Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, 2006) The bodies were later scattered at the periphery of the village. Dalit means ‘crushed’, ‘ground down’ or ‘broken to pieces’ in Marathi and Hindi. The term was first used in the late 1920s as an alternative to governmental nomenclature, ‘Depressed Classes’, and later, to challenge Mahatma Gandhi’s term, Harijan, or people of god, to refer to the untouchable castes. The term became popular in the 1970s, during a period of cultural and literary efflorescence in Maharashtra. It is used across India today as a militant claim for social recognition that references a millennial history of suffering and humiliation. Violence against those defined as outcast or untouchable is not new, but neither is the practice and performance of violence unchanging or transhistorical. Rather, one might correlate changes in the deployment of anti-Dalit violence as a strategy of collective DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-39

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disciplining with attendant shifts in Dalit activism around demands for civil and political rights and public recognition of Dalit dignity and self-regard. Thus, one could argue that the atrocity of caste is inversely related to the process of Dalit becoming. To provide a context, violent offences – including hurting, bruising, beating, stripping, kidnapping and rape – against Dalits have continued to increase in India, and markedly more so with the consolidation of Hindu nationalism under the Modi government, which has seen a rise in so-called Dalit and Muslim lynchings by parastaral forces who often operate with impunity due to the implicit sanction of ruling powers. The fact that these brutal events are widely circulated on social media testifies to the role of digital technologies, characterized by their intensified speed of circulation as an active accomplice in staging (and reproducing) the libidinal economy of violence, which is now rendered both banal and ordinary. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, a scheduled caste (SC) person, faced crime every 10 minutes in India in 2020, cumulating to a total of 50,291 cases registered, an increase of 9.4% from the previous year. Crimes against scheduled tribe (ST) communities also increased by 9.3% to a total of 8,272 cases in the year. Our experience says that when it comes to atrocities on Dalits, efforts are made to dilute the seriousness of the violence and shield accused people. It is a serious matter that despite a pandemic and the presence of constitutional and legislative safeguards, crimes against them are increasing, said Rahul Singh of the National Dalit Movement for Justice (Hindustan Times, Monday 25 July 2022). In the northern state of Haryana, where Dalit make up around one-fifth of the state’s population, a deeply-rooted caste-based and patriarchal society still flourishes. There are high rates of violence against women  –  data from the National Crime Records Bureau in 2018 indicates that nearly 4 women are raped every day in this state alone. According to Jacqui Hunt, the Europe and Eurasia director of Equality Now, Dalit women lack economic power and are often reliant on dominant castes for their livelihoods. When survivors of sexual assault or their families are dependent on jobs or other sources of income from someone who is from the same caste as an assailant, or the perpetrator is also their employer, accessing justice for sexual violence becomes even more problematic. ‘Culprits and their associates often wield their economic power to silence survivors and witnesses. This includes coercing survivors or victims’ family members into settling cases out of court or hounding them from their homes and villages’. (https://www.equalitynow. org/news_and_insights/the_rape_of_india_s_dalit_women_and_girls/ last accessed 25/7/2022). Yet efforts to contextualize violence are also incapable of explaining its excess; they prove insufficient for addressing the forces that enable extreme violence, what Etienne Balibar terms the practice of cruelty, which he contrasts with the politics of civility. A few examples will suffice to illuminate this paradox. In 2014, the bodies of two Dalit girls, aged 14 and 15, were found hanging from a branch of a mango tree in Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun district. Eight years later, a similar scene would unfold in the state’s Lakhimpur Kheri district, where two minor girls were found dead with family members alleging rape. In September 2020, a 19-year-old woman who hailed from a landless and poor family was 403

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two years away from becoming a law graduate when she was raped and brutalized in Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh. When she died two weeks later, her body was burnt without the consent of her family, who were threatened with further violence if they disclosed the incident. In September 2022, a 17-year-old Dalit woman who had been gang raped by two men was subsequently set on fire in her home in Pilibhit district. In these cases where the proper name of the village or the district commemorates the event of atrocity, the heinousness of caste crime – and the manner in which the gendered body of the Dalit victim is rendered spectacle – simply exceeds its status as a social discipline. Returning to the Khairlanji incident, it took more than a month for the news of its horrors to spread. Internet discussion groups in the so-called Dalit blogosphere played a vital role. Web versions of the event circulated far and wide, as did photographs of the mutilated bodies of the victims, compensating for the lack of coverage by mainstream news media. Dalit and grassroots organizations, such as the Ambedkar Center for Justice and Peace, along with the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (Committee of the Vidarbha People’s Movement), a farmers’ movement, filed petitions with the government. By November, photographs of the victims’ bodies were pasted on the walls of Dalit bastis (residential areas), and protests were held across Maharashtra, including in the cities of Bhandara, Nagpur and Pune, demanding that the state hold the culprits accountable. What came to light instead were a police cover-up, bureaucratic mishandling, and utter disregard for victims’ justice (Jaoul 2008; Teltumbde 2008). While this is not untypical of how incidents of caste violence are handled, there was a difference this time: anti-Dalit violence was followed by highly publicized Dalit counterviolence. Media exposure of the Khairlanji incident was closely followed by news that a statue of ‘Babasaheb’, or B. R. Ambedkar, had been desecrated in Kanpur, in Uttar Pradesh. This provoked retaliatory violence in Mumbai and elsewhere in Maharashtra. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) led colonial India’s sole autonomous struggle for Dalit social and political rights. Trained as a lawyer at the Inns of London, with doctorates from the London School of Economics and Columbia University, Ambedkar was a consistent critic of the Indian National Congress and its failure to take up the question of caste and untouchability as fundamental to the problem of social equality and democratic freedom. He is known as the architect of India’s Constitution. In addition to his activism, his extensive writings span topics from economics to Indian history, law, political thought and Buddhism. Ambedkar statues have played a crucial role in the Constitution of a Dalit popular. At stake is Ambedkar’s singular individuality, the agentive power of self-determination to remake the Dalit self and thereby challenge the social invisibility and humiliation to which the community was relegated. Indeed, in the postcolonial period, commemorative political symbology – flags, statues, the politics of naming and other practices of cultural production – constitutes the memory work facilitating the emergence of a new community identity. These acts of symbolization drew new objects and icons into an existing semiotic field that was organized around Ambedkar, the zero point of Dalit history and a political figure deified as a community icon. This enabled the creation of new institutional spaces and the sedimentation of affective energies and political commitments around objects and practices of Dalit life. ‘Dalit rage’ was described in a number of ways as it reverberated across state borders: as a response to the statue’s desecration in faraway Kanpur, as retaliation for Khairlanji and, finally, as a symptom of Dalits’ deep-rooted anger against an irresponsible and uncaring 404

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state. Dalit militancy was transformed from remaking the Dalit self to destroying the images and institutions of caste exclusion: protestors burnt the famous Deccan Queen – the Mumbai-Pune express train that ferries white-collar workers between the two cities, which is a symbol of bourgeois, upper-caste respectability; suburban trains were burnt, as were a hundred buses, and there was stone-throwing in cities across Maharashtra. As one activist put it, for Dalits, Khairlanji ‘was the end of imagination’, an apocalyptic event without an adequate interpretive or representational framework (Koppikar 2006). For the state machinery, however, the violence of Khairlanji was quickly substituted by the threat of Dalit counterviolence. Together, sexual violence, the desecration of a statue and Dalit counterviolence produced a field of signification enabled by acts of (symbolic) substitution and overdetermination. Indeed, the power of violent reciprocity was heightened by the originary event of sexual violation as the distinguishing feature of caste violence and by the centrality of (caste) violence in framing Dalit identity. That is, the violent excess of the Bhotmanges’ murder, preceded by the ritual desecration of their bodies, was a form of caste punishment that took recourse to the symbolic degradation of Dalit women’s bodies. To attribute to violence a purely instrumental or utilitarian function – seeing it as a reaction to Dalit economic mobility or political mobilization of Dalits – is to detour around an uncomfortable social fact: violence is pedagogical instruction in a symbolic order that might be obscured by modern state forms and discourses. I suggest that the brutal ritual desecration of the gendered Dalit body is a technology of violence that resurrects archaic forms of sexual violence and punishment in direct proportion to the politicization of Dalits and the state’s efforts to outlaw practices of caste violation; that it is a counter-response on the ‘creative’ semiotic ground of violation and violence that relocates struggles over Dalit identity to streets and homes, as well as to spaces otherwise invisible to the state’s modern, nonarchaic glance. Thus, the intensity of anti-Dalit violence suggests, somewhat paradoxically, that the symbolic significance and semiotic density of violence are deepened, even as (caste) violence is politicized. In the remainder of this chapter, I outline how legal regulation might produce the apparent revitalization of archaic practices – of humiliation, degradation and, ultimately, caste stigmatization. Lest I be misunderstood, my intent is not merely to critique protective laws but to examine how legal logics constitute affects and identities that are politically consequential for subaltern subjects by reactivating (and repoliticizing) idioms and repertoires of symbolic violence.

Law and Identity: ‘Atrocity’ as Legal Effect Violence against Dalits, or Scheduled Castes, which is the governmental term for ‘untouchable’ castes, is both social fact and social embarrassment. It even goes by a specific name: the ‘caste atrocity’. Postcolonial legality follows a longer-term colonial history of caste, especially with regard to the problem of untouchability. Let me briefly outline three dominant strains of thinking about caste. Firstly, colonial officials did not ‘invent’ caste so much as they transformed caste into an anthropological category, which was thought to adequately describe a unique and unchanging form of social stratification legitimized by Hindu tradition. Viewed as both traditional and political, caste was understood to be an identity produced by systems of social stratification. Secondly, upper-caste reformers and nationalists also understood caste to be religiously derived. But so far as they were concerned, caste was not an issue for colonial policy but for 405

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Hindu reform. Rather than focusing on the victims of caste discrimination, untouchable reform focused on the upper castes guilty of prolonging the practice and became a sort of test case for the possibility of reforming Hinduism by reforming upper-caste Hindu practices to achieve an authentically Indian self. Finally, anti-caste radicals such as Jotirao Phule, E. V. Ramasamy Naicker and B. R. Ambedkar, to name key figures, argued that distinctions between social practice and political power and between religious and secular domains were an artificial distinction which masked the complex and totalizing character of caste exploitation. Each criticized the colonial revivification of upper-caste hegemony, even as each of them made use of colonial institutions and repurposed North Atlanticist ideas of democratic freedom and political representation to press for social equality (Butler and Laclau 1997: 4–7). Thus, diverse interpretations of ‘the caste question’ were involved in its resolution at a moment of postcolonial transition: caste was secularized and rendered into a ‘class-like’ indicator of socioeconomic deprivation, while specific constitutional measures abolished untouchability and instituted legal protections for vulnerable subjects. Between 1947 and 1955, the Dalit citizen was thus conceived as a specific kind of subject through the institution of an elaborate civil rights regime and the secularization of Hinduism (Galanter 1998). The state’s commitment to equalization via positive discrimination for socially marginal and deprived populations is worthy of note: whereas a liberal democracy commits to the sanctity of specific procedures believed to guarantee unbiased outcomes, India’s democracy specifies both the desired outcomes and the gulf separating the present from them. The Indian Constitution abolished untouchability (Article 17), but its persistence was recognized, and a set of robust affirmative action policies was instituted in addition to protective laws that conceived Dalit vulnerability – and the social relations of caste – in a quite specific manner. India’s system of compensatory discrimination is a unique form of civil rights law, which understands caste to resemble a class-like structure of deprivation and impoverishment. Within this framework, the practice of untouchability is singled out in three distinctive domains of ‘reservations’, or affirmative action policies: (1) in legislative bodies, government service, educational institutions and housing and land allotment; (2) through programmes such as scholarships, grants, loans, healthcare and legal aid; (3) institution of special laws to protect Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from practices such as bonded labour, untouchability and land alienation. Let me briefly outline this last set of legal mechanisms – not because they have succeeded in containing anti-Dalit violence but because they have had the paradoxical effect of presenting Dalits as vulnerable subjects always already susceptible to injury, thus emphasizing violence as a dominant mode of sociality between castes. It is this set of relations between (caste) identity, law and violence that I explore next through a brief history of the main strands of anti-atrocity legislation.

The Problem of Definition Article 17 of the Indian Constitution reads, ‘Untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of “untouchability” shall be an offense in accordance with law’. Untouchability is thus emphasized as an exceptional practice that requires measures beyond positive discrimination, including the punishment of perpetrators of untouchability. This is instantiated by the new juridical category of ‘caste atrocity’. The term enables the production of laws to address specific forms of 406

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violation that comprise anti-Dalit violence but does so without a working definition of untouchability. As an early legal case put it: It is to be noticed that the word ‘untouchability’ occurs only in Art. 17 and is enclosed in inverted commas. This clearly indicates that the subject-matter of that Article is not untouchability in its literal or grammatical sense but the practice as it has developed historically in this country. … Art. 17 which was intended to give effect to the decision to abolish the practice of untouchability, as mentioned above, does not define that term. Nor is a definition contained anywhere else in the Constitution. This omission would appear to be deliberate as the intention presumably was to leave no room or scope for the continuance of the practice in any shape or form. (Paragraph 4, Devarajiah vs. Padmanna, 1958; emphasis added) The Protection of Civil Rights Act of 1974 – an amended version of the 1955 Untouchability Offenses Act, which abolished untouchability in public places – went further to note that ‘civil rights’ means any right accruing to a person by reason of the abolition of ‘untouchability’ by Article 17 of the Constitution, thus explicitly connecting civil rights with Dalits. However, laws against anti-Dalit violence have consistently operated without a definition of untouchability because defining untouchability was thought to reinscribe caste stigma (Lok Sabha debates 1954). The most interesting outcome of such definitional fluidity has been that untouchability has worked on an ‘I know it when I see it’ model of knowledge, which gives state officials great leeway in interpreting anti-Dalit crime. One consequence of this has been that laws meant to transform (existing) social relations have, over time, come to depend on (and reify) precisely those social conventions and practices they are in the process of transforming. Thus, the (legal) discourse around untouchability has also reproduced the social fact of untouchability, albeit with a difference.

Institutional Outcomes Each amendment to the Untouchability Offences Act (1955) has called for more stringent punishment for the perpetrators of caste crime. By 1989, the Prevention of Atrocities Act had expanded the field of caste crime to include political, ritual and symbolic acts. For instance, Section 3(1) placed humiliation – caste insults, coercion to eat or drink noxious substances – on par with denial of access to water sources, public property and thoroughfares; sexual violence against Dalit women; economic dispossession through land grabs; and demands for the performance of bonded labour, as well as efforts to prevent Dalits from voting or holding political office. In fact, atrocity laws have produced a definition of untouchability as consisting of acts of violence and humiliation where equivalence between hurtful words and harmful deeds is assumed. As well, a complicated bureaucratic apparatus was established to monitor anti-Dalit violence. The post of commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (hereafter SC/ST commissioner), created in 1950, had no statutory powers; this minister of the government of India could only make recommendations. His staff of 17 field officers was placed under the Department of Social Welfare in 1967. The primary activities of the commissioner’s office consisted of receiving complaints and grievances and keeping tabs on state and central government policies. The Department of Social Welfare, established in 1964, acquired responsibility for matters concerning Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes’ 407

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welfare until 1973, when the Home Ministry reclaimed the portfolio. In the meantime, a watchdog parliamentary Joint Committee on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was set up in 1968 to recommend implementation techniques for SC/ST Commissioner’s Reports. Unlike the commissioner, the Joint Committee held investigative powers. The Indian Parliament also set up a five-member Commission for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in 1978 to deflect charges of negligence in addressing rising caste violence: its activities replicated those of the SC/ST commissioner. Police infrastructure and programmes to sensitize police to this new category of caste atrocity were also established (Bureau of Police Research and Development 1976; Sardar Vallabhai Patel National Police Academy 1980). A Protection of Civil Rights (PCR) cell was formed in 1988 in the city of Bombay, in the state of Maharashtra, headed by a deputy inspector-general of police to monitor cases of caste and gender violence.

Atrocity and Dalit Personhood The Khairlanji incident, not to mention thousands of unreported cases across India, suggests that the prevention of caste violence is a story of failure. So why attend in detail to the forms of Dalit personhood imagined by the legislative complex? What can definitional dilemmas really tell us? Focusing on new forms of lawmaking against caste violence becomes a point of entry into the transformed social and political dynamics of untouchability. Michel Foucault argued that discourse was productive, initiating and transforming categories and practices by enfolding them within a new epistemic context (Foucault 1988). Though atrocity laws are preventive, they are also productive: they reorganize social life around new governmental categories that themselves become available as objects of social and political attachment. By defining Dalits as injured subjects susceptible to continued harm, protective measures produced a more proximate relation between Dalits and the state and impelled the development of regulatory structures and disciplinary mechanisms to protect them. Their effects, however, were both ironic and unanticipated, for the legislation of caste crime heightened the salience of caste conflict by drawing attention to the presence of anti-Dalit violence as a fact of everyday life. Although the term commonly used to describe anti-Dalit violence is jaatiya atyachaar, caste atrocity, not until the 1989 passage of the Prevention of Atrocities Against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was this term defined. The Fifth Report of the Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (April 1982, March 1983) noted that ‘atrocity’ was an everyday description and not a legal term. Dictionary definitions of ‘atrocity’ shuttle between viewing it as an unnatural act or a crime against humanity, on the one hand, and a violation of civility, an offence to aesthetic sensibilities and cultivation on the other (James et al. 1933). Nowhere does it designate offences against a particular class or group of people. However, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the term ‘atrocity’ was assumed to define offences under the Indian Penal Code perpetrated on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. [W]here the victims of crime are members of Scheduled Castes and the offenders do not belong to Scheduled Castes, caste consideration are really the root cause of crime, even though caste consciousness may not be the vivid and immediate motive for the Crime. (Awasthi 1994, 159) 408

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As atrocity, a term of everyday usage, became a legally cognizable category, it also extended (and legitimized) the perception that Dalits are at risk of violation by non-Dalits and that ‘caste considerations’ are intense enough to motivate action against Dalits. The catalogue of violent events and episodes was also expanded. Acts from the every day to the extraordinary, from the structural to the spectacular, from spatial segregation to ritual humiliation and political terror were understood as defining characteristics of the practice of untouchability. Whensoever such acts were directed against a victim from the Scheduled Castes. Between the inception of preventive laws in 1955 and refining amendments completed in 1989, crucial aspects of everyday life and social relations between castes were brought within the ambit of this new juridical category, the ‘caste atrocity’. A critical point is this: in providing punishments to deter the commission of caste crimes, the Untouchability Offences Act incorporated the Dalit’s body as deformed or injured property that belonged to the state. Manifestations of anti-Dalit violence could thus be ritual or secular, criminal or civil in nature. Thus, abolishing untouchability also cemented ‘untouchability’ as a legal effect, a category or practice that acquired salience and critical visibility through debate and discussion about its abolition. As ‘untouchability’ was framed through its contiguity with the juridical category of atrocity, its association with crime began to lift the practice of untouchability out of the context of everyday life into the realm of performance and spectacle. In contrast to practices of equalization that sought to bring Dalits within a normative framework of socioeconomic relations, the atrocity legislation was an exceptional legal measure that emphasized the Dalit’s status as a historically stigmatized subject in the very act of imagining justice for her. Few believed that merely passing laws would succeed in abolishing untouchability. However, the public life of untouchability and a new legal reality were mutually entailed processes which enabled new strategies of recognition. The incitement to declare oneself the subject of violation or the object of an authentic cultural practice must be a necessary first step in seeking recognition and redress. It is not wholly metaphorical to suggest, then, that laws to protect vulnerable subjects have produced something like a force field around them, generating new debates and bureaucratic forms and, most significantly, producing social relations of caste. As exceptional subjects, Dalits were excessively visible in bureaucratic discourses. That excessive presence (itself the product of state identification) also invited state protection. It is especially noteworthy that caste sociality (social relations between caste Hindus and Dalits) came under intense regulation because they were perceived to carry the potential for violence. As customary practices of untouchability were subjected to punishment, incidents of caste violence developed a politically explosive character, leading to new formations of violence that resurrected symbologies of ritual degradation and humiliation. It is this doubling of ‘the ritual’ and ‘the political’ that we see at work in Khairlanji.

The Sex of Caste If Khairlanji is an instance of caste atrocity, it must also be specified as a form of sexual violence, which performs a pedagogical function in socializing men and women, Dalit and caste Hindu alike, into caste norms. In the following, I explore how stigmatized existence articulates with sexed subjectivity to accentuate the consistent illegibility of sexual violence, even as it renders sexual violation a definitive feature of Dalit personhood. 409

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Gayle Rubin’s critique of sexual traffic continues to be relevant to our thinking about the process of gendering. Rubin argued that although kinship was predicated on the logic of gift exchange, ‘consent’ to this structure was actually produced elsewhere through the requirements of compulsory heterosexuality, which structured both kinship and sexed subjectivity (Rubin 1975). Caste is an effect of the regulation of sexuality and kinship and vice versa. Therefore, sexual relationships within and between caste communities are a nodal point through which caste supremacy is either reproduced or disturbed. Sexual desire between castes and conjunctural violence across castes are each constitutive outside of the social reproduction of caste through the regulation of gender and kinship. Thus, the sexual economy of caste is complex: it prohibits all men from viewing all women as potential marriage partners while giving upper-caste men sexual access to Dalit and lower-caste women. Indeed, this functions as a public secret, which is normalized as (caste) privilege by the upper castes and experienced as a sex violation by its victims. Although marriage regulates caste purity, I am suggesting that the sexual economy of caste is intrinsically unstable. The troubling permeability of violence and desire for rape and marriage suggests sexual violence as caste violence because it operates as the prerogative of upper-caste men. The brutal violence against Dalit men accused of desiring upper-caste women further illuminates the double jeopardy of sexual violence as caste violence. If Dalits’ political awareness has intensified caste conflict, a crucial but invisible consequence of Dalit politicization is understood as the desire for upward mobility now recast as a desire for sexual access to upper-caste women (Rao 2009, 217–240). The perverse logic of caste’s sexual economy is such that the violation of Dalit women as a matter of right and the violent disciplining of Dalit men are two sides of the same coin: both are acts of sexual violence, and each reproduces caste power, albeit differently.

Atrocity and ‘the Human’ The Khairlanji event illuminates the interwoven structures of sexuality and caste sociality through the spectacle of violence: that is, it reprises the violence of caste. More poignantly, it reminds us that violence can be reintegrated into the socius even, and especially, in the face of legal redress and state protection. A careful reading of the social life of the caste atrocity implicates local state functionaries in the miscarriage of justice. It also implicates the caretaking efficacy of the postcolonial state insofar as legal redress – in this case, the adjudication of murder or sexual violence as caste atrocity – itself re-encodes vulnerability as a crucial axis of Dalit existence. The bifurcation between a definition of caste crime as violence towards a vulnerable collective and adjudication of caste crime through an individuated structure of trial and punishment makes a just social order less possible, even as it becomes all the more urgent. This is reflected in a further irony: as the targets of anti-Dalit violence become more clearly political – through Dalit demands for economic empowerment, education opportunities, jobs and rights to public space – the repertoire of retributive violence reproduces those structures through which Dalits have long been stigmatized. As acts of Dalit symbolization and claims for space within the domain of production and representation have accelerated, they have drawn new objects, icons, and aspects of everyday life into an existing semiotic field that has, in turn, provoked acts of desymbolization by both upper castes and state functionaries through practices of defilement, dismemberment and desecration.

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The demand for rights and social recognition that has defined the Dalit struggle still poses a fundamental challenge to the representational economy of caste Hinduism. Becoming ‘Dalit’ is the process through which the caste subaltern enters into circuits of political commensuration and the value regime of ‘the human’. Because the name, the body and its social experience are crucial sites of political subject formation, political violence must also address this semiotic axis as a space of politics.

Coda: Violence and Humanity In lieu of a conclusion, I would like to briefly speculate on how this reading of the Khairlanji incident – and legal configurations of Dalit vulnerability more generally – might contribute to contemporary concerns with humanity and biopolitics. Critics of modern colonialism have long held this latter account of human rights and humanitarianism to provide a more adequate (global) genealogy for addressing contemporary paradoxes of rights and culture and of violence and identity (Pierce and Rao 2006). I suggest that approaching the question of a burdened or violated humanity through the arc of caste (and especially untouchability) allows us to address the entangled relationship of violence and politics, as opposed to the radical bifurcation between politics and bare life that we find, e.g., in the work of Giorgio Agamben, or between life and death in most accounts of biopolitics. This offers a way to historicize apparently transhistorical social forms such as caste. Or better yet, to understand how they are both reproduced and reactivated by politics. An engagement with ‘theory’, which seeks to provincialize Europe by deprovincializing caste, thus suggests a set of interlinked double moves that can help to produce a more ‘global’ account of the violated subject as she has come to be constituted (and rescued) as a ‘body of the state’.

Bibliography Abrams, Philip. 1988. ‘Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State.’ Journal of Historical Sociology 1/1: 58–89. Agamben, Giorgio. 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2005. State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Arendt, Hannah. 1973. ‘The Decline of the Nation State and the Ends of the Rights of Man.’ The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harvest Books. Awasthi, S. K. 1994. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Allahabad: Premier Publishing Company. Baidhar, Behara. 25 April, 1968. Baidhar. Lok Sabha Debates 16:50. Balibar, Etienne. 2014. Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Anthropology. New York: Columbia University Press. Brown, Wendy. 1995. States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bureau of Police Research and Development. 1976. Enforcement of Untouchability (Offences) Act 1955–A Survey. New Delhi. Butler, Judith, and Ernest Laclau. 1997. ‘The Uses of Equality.’ Diacritics (Spring): 3–12. Devarajiah vs. Padmanna. 1958. All India Reporter (1958 Mysore 84). Fact-finding Report of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti. 2006. http://Khairlanji.blogspot. com/2006/11/hindutva-terrorists-massacrebudhist.html Foucault, Michel. 1988. The History of Sexuality. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books Galanter, Marc. 1998. ‘Hinduism, Secularism, and the Indian Judiciary.’ In Secularism and Its Critics, 268–293. Rajeev Bhargava ed. Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press.

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Anupama Rao Hartman, Saidiya V. 1997. ‘Seduction and the Ruse of Power.’ In Hartman, Saidiya V. (ed), Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery and Self-Making in Nineteenth Century America, 79–114. New York: Oxford University Press. Human Rights Watch. 1999. Broken People: Caste Violence against India’s “Untouchables”. New York: Human Rights Watch. http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1999/india ———. 2006. ‘Learning the Use of Symbolic Means: Dalits, Ambedkar Statues, and the State in Uttar Pradesh.’ Contributions to Indian Sociology 40/2: 175–207. Jaoul, Nicholas. 2008. ‘The ‘Righteous Anger’ of the Powerless: Investigating Dalit Outrage over Caste Violence.’ South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 2 http://samaj.revues.org/ index1892.html?file=1 Koppikar, Smriti. 2006. ‘Beat the Drum.’ Outlook (December 18). Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1969. The Elementary Structures of Kinship. London: Eyre and Spottis-woode. Lok Sabha Debates. August 26, 1954: 408; August 27, 1954: 451; August 31, 1954: 709; April 27, 1955: 6608, 6664, 6650, 6660–6661, 6668–6669. Oxford English Dictionary. 1933. Being a Corrected Re-Issue with Introduction, Supplement and Bibliography of a New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. A. H. James et al. eds. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Patel, Sardar Vallabhai. 1980.Syndicate Study on Implementation of the Protection of Civil Rights Act. Hyderabad: National Police Academy. Pierce, Steven and Rao, Anupama. 2006. ‘Humanitarianism, Violence, and the Colonial Exception.’. In Pierce, Steven and Rao, Anupama (eds), Discipline and the Other Body: Correction, Corporeality, Colonialism, 1–35. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Rao, Anupama. 2009. The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rubin, Gayle. 1975. ‘The Traffic of Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex.’ In Rayna Reiter (ed), Towards an Anthropology of Women, 157–210. New York: Monthly Review Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. ‘A Literary Representation of the Subaltern: A Woman’s Text from the Third World.’ In Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (ed), Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics, 241–268. New York: Routledge. Teltumbde, Anand. 2008. Khairlanji: A Strange and Bitter Crop. Delhi: Navayana. Zîzêk, Slavoj. 1997. ‘The Supposed Subject of Ideology.’ Critical Quarterly 39/2 (Summer): 39–59.

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34 FROM VICTIM TO SURVIVOR Then and Now Interviews with Flavia Agnes Flavia Agnes and Amy Rayner (Interviewer)

Introduction Flavia Agnes is a lawyer, activist and writer. In 1991, Flavia established the Majlis Legal Centre in Mumbai. Both Flavia’s career and the purpose of Majlis Legal Centre are dedicated to providing social and legal support to women and children who are victims of sexual and domestic violence. A key achievement of Flavia’s work has been bringing legal and social change via the organization’s Majlis and Rahat to the way victims of domestic violence and rape are supported during trials. Readers of this chapter hear directly from one of India’s leading female activists about on-the-ground issues and the work being done to support women and children in India. Part One features extracts from an insightful interview in 20141 where Flavia discusses her work toward changing the way the legal system treats victims of rape. She argues for putting the victim’s needs and care more centrally into the process. Following that interview, Journalist Sneha Rajaram comments on Flavia’s work: To shift the focus of one’s agenda from wanting to punish the rapist towards wanting to empower the victim is a profound move. This statement, that the victim’s healing and empowerment are more important than just getting the rapist thrown in jail, sets an example to us all in the way we approach rape. Yes, justice must be served. But let’s not forget that the victim’s empowerment is also a part of that justice. Which brings us to the phrase ‘victim-centric approach’: isn’t it politically correct to say ‘survivor’ nowadays? And what’s the difference? (Rajaram 2015) Quite simply, Majlis’s vision is to transform victims into survivors. On this point, Flavia and the team at Majlis are clear: It is not a matter of merely changing the vocabulary [from victim to survivor], while keeping intact an oppressive system which constantly re-victimizes her, causes her extreme trauma and brings her down several notches in the social ladder from where 413

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she was, prior to the abuse. She becomes a survivor only when she emerges stronger for having walked through this intimidating system, with someone extending a helping hand, and in the process transforms the system itself, rendering it more humane. It is our hope that having responded to their needs, we helped each of them to overcome their vulnerabilities, and attain their goals and aspirations, beyond their ‘case’, and become survivors. (Majlis 2022) Changing the label from victim to survivor is meaningless without also bringing about change in the experiences of women and children as they navigate the legal, family, social, psychological and economic landscapes associated with reporting a crime of domestic or sexual violence. In Part Two, Flavia Agnes responds to Amy Rayner in an interview given in 2022. Flavia reflects upon the incremental changes achieved over the last decade, updates readers on the latest data and legal reforms and details a recent case study of how the Majlis Legal Centre supports women. Flavia comments on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted women’s experience and safety and looks to the future and what must be achieved in the next decade, in particular, questioning patriarchy and patriarchal norms. She reflects on her personal ethical framework that empowers her, over four decades and multiple projects, to bring about positive change in legal and social contexts for women and children. Social justice, the act of bringing ethical ideas into being in the world, supported and evidenced by quality, longitudinal data, is achieved incrementally through time. These ‘then and now’ interviews demonstrate the tectonic nature of change as a result of well-executed activism and social justice.

Part One It frustrates Flavia Agnes when people only talk about rape in the context of the Nirbhaya and Shakti Mills cases. She says there are hundreds of women who are victims of brutal sexual assault and need help. The only reason they become just a number is their poverty and lack of access to support. Agnes speaks about the support offered by an organization called Rahat, started by her team at Majlis. Rahat started as a survivor-support programme for victims of sexual assault. What made you want to start it? The project of providing support to rape survivors started with the case of a 4-year-old who was raped by a wage labourer in a school located near the Majlis office in Mumbai. Our team was shocked to read the news report that appeared following a complaint led by the mother of the child, and our first concern was to locate the woman and child. Since we were aware of the harrowing process of a criminal trial, we wanted to put her in touch with an NGO that provides support to rape victims during litigation. Soon we realized that the only programmes available were community, police station or hospital-based, and there weren’t any which provided support from the initial stage of lodging an FIR (first information report) right through until the trial. So, we decided to venture into it using our legal skills in supporting women during domestic violence litigation. We consistently followed up this case and secured a conviction and a sentence of seven years to the accused despite strong opposition from a reputed criminal lawyer whose services were engaged by the school authorities. In cases of sexual assault, from the time a complaint is made, the victim/survivor has to encounter formidable and daunting institutions like the police, hospitals and courts. 414

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They are in serious need of medical care, guidance, safe shelter, school admissions, safe environment [and help in] pregnancy-related issues. They also need a process of confidence-building prior to court appearances, as often the cases end in acquittals because of inconsistencies in depositions, lack of evidence, the public prosecutor’s lethargy or the inability to produce relevant case law to counter the arguments by defence lawyers and general lack of sensitivity of courts towards victims of sexual crimes. At the initial stage, our Rahat project met with a great deal of hostility. It was a challenging task to negotiate our way within government offices, court registries, police headquarters and judges’ chambers. Then, there was a major breakthrough. A woman had to die a gruesome death, and world attention was drawn to the issue of women’s safety in India. Overnight, the attitude of government officials changed, and our interventions received greater acceptability, and we were able to make considerable progress. To gain acceptance within the criminal legal system, in 2011, we formed Rahat as a collaborative project between the Department of Women and Child Development [WCD], the Government of Maharashtra and the Majlis Legal Centre to provide support to victims of sexual offences. We also forged another alliance between Rahat and the Mumbai Police. This made it easier to reach out to victims and provide immediate support. Apart from helping to ease the fear and anxiety of the victim, it has also helped in evolving a new model for victim/survivor support. Why do we need a strong support programme? What is lacking in our system? When we entered the scene, there were no mechanisms in place to provide any assistance to the victim while she went through the gruelling process of a criminal trial and to help her overcome the stigma and trauma caused by the incident of rape. There was no scheme in place to offer financial assistance or the guidance of a support person. The focus of the criminal justice system was only on investigation, on collecting evidence which would result in conviction. The interaction of the police would be limited to taking the victim for medical examination, recording her statement, conducting an identification parade and then summoning her to appear in court for trial after a year or two. Very seldom were copies of the first information report and medical reports given to the victim. She was a mere witness in a trial to be conducted by the state against the accused persons. The success of a case was measured only in terms of conviction rates. There was also a total lack of coordination between the state agencies, that is, the police, public hospitals, public prosecutors and officers of the Department of Women and Child Development involved in the investigation and in providing support. Public prosecutors who represented the victims made moral judgements on the victim’s character and thus failed to perform their duty with sincerity and commitment. They also lacked the skill and competency to represent victims in complex cases. It is argued that the Nirbhaya case brought about change. What happened after Nirbhaya? Why should the reforms be known by the name given to the victim of a brutal gang rape? I call it the Delhi gang rape case. Yes, change did come, but not entirely because of this case. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences [POCSO] Act passed in November 2012 broadened the definition of sexual crime beyond peno-vaginal penetration to include other types of penetration and also anal or oral sex, etc. But it went unnoticed. Only after the media attention on the Delhi gang rape did the police start registering cases under this act. POCSO brought in many special procedures that are required for rape trials. For instance, recording the FIR or the victim’s statement in her home or in a place of her choice by women 415

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officers in civilian clothes rather than in a police station, sensitive examination of the child or provision of a translator if the child needs, special child-friendly procedures to be followed during trial, etc., are some of the measures that were stipulated under this act. Initially, the police used this act only in a limited way to register cases of child pornography and continued to use sections of the Indian Penal Code [IPC] for cases of rape. After the Delhi gang rape, based on the suggestions of the Verma Committee, IPC provisions were reformed, and the wider definition of sexual assault in the POCSO Act was adopted. You have repeatedly pointed out that the treatment given to victims from higher income/ high-profile groups is very different from that given to those belonging to lower strata. It works in two ways. When the accused is from the middle class, and the victim is from the lower class, the victim has a tough time. When the victim is from a high-income group, and the accused is from a low-income group, the media take notice, and the prosecution is under pressure. Here, the investigation is thorough. The accused most often has little legal recourse. I am not justifying the latter’s crime but just stating that there is no uniformity in the manner in which legal provisions are applied in sexual assault cases. Take, for instance, the high-profile case known as the ‘Spanish rape case’, where evidence was recorded through video conferencing. But this is never done when a poor, vulnerable girl has to depose against great odds. I know several cases where these frightened children are brought to court and are made to give evidence in the presence of the accused. In one case, the child was cross-examined over three days. There are cases where victims have fainted while giving evidence. What would be a suitable investigation and trial process in a case of rape? There has to be uniformity in the procedures adopted in the investigation and trial. Procedures such as recording a victim’s statement in their homes, placing a screen to block the victim from the direct gaze of the abuser so that he cannot intimidate her during cross-examination, ensuring that the medical examination is conducted with sensitivity, etc., are simple measures that must be followed. The procedures stipulated under the POCSO Act, if strictly adhered to, will make the trial process less traumatic. Our courtrooms are daunting, and the trial is a frightening process. As part of our support work, we facilitate a court familiarisation visit to victims and explain to them the procedure of a trial. We explain what the FIR contains and what they are expected to say in court. We inform them that they have a right to ask for a break if they are tired, ask for water or ask for the question to be repeated. It is essential to empower them so that they are able to depose confidently and do not get cowed down by defence lawyers. Conviction rate is an issue in rape cases. What is your comment? Conviction is the focus of a criminal trial. A high conviction rate is seen as a solution. Our position is that to support the survivor is more crucial. If the investigation is thorough and the victim gets due support to depose with confidence, conviction will automatically follow. Could you tell us about the Maharashtra government’s Manodhairya scheme for rape victims? Our organization worked closely with the Department of Women and Child Development to draft a scheme for financial support to rape victims, and the Manodhairya Yojana was 416

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launched in October 2013. The scheme is unique as it provides support to victims after an FIR is filed and the medical examination is completed. District Criminal Injuries Boards comprising senior officials from all relevant government departments and representatives of NGOs have been set up. The police station is mandated to send a copy of the FIR along with the medical report to the District Women and Child Development officer, who is the member secretary of the board. A meeting of the board is then convened to sanction the funds. Depending on the gravity of the crime, compensation of Rs.2 lakh to 3 lakh is paid to victims of sexual assault and acid attacks. The transformation in the victims who have received the sum is amazing. It boosts their confidence after the trauma and the stigma from the sexual assault. We are still grappling with issues such as committee members rejecting the application on grounds that the victim is not of good moral character or that she had consented to the sexual act. These issues are being streamlined. If a child was sexually assaulted and there is an FIR and a medical report to prove it, the claim cannot be rejected. This is a forward move by the state and should be implemented in its true form.

Part Two Thank you for sharing your perceptive interviews with Anupama Katakam– it is now 2022; can you elaborate on what further social change and legal reforms have been made to achieve the victim-centric approach you highlighted in 2014? The important social change is that the National Family Health Survey 5 (2019–2021) has recorded an overall reduction of domestic and sexual violence on women and children. There have been some positive trends, including increase in age of marriage, literacy rates and more women have bank accounts and decision-making power. All these are indicators of empowerment, which, in the long term, will hopefully bring about further change. In legal terms, important interventions were made in 2012 and 2013 to begin to move towards a victim-centric approach, the effect of which we are still seeing today. In 2012 via the POCSO Act and in 2013 via the Criminal Amendment Act 2013 – which extended the definition of rape beyond peno-vaginal penetration and expanded it to include penetration into any bodily orifice and also categorized the offence into various categories – aggravated penetrative sexual abuse, sexual abuse, sexual assault, etc. At this time, video recording and transmitting the recording was also made punishable. Later, all penetrative sexual assault of children under 12 years was made more stringent and warranted death penalty or life imprisonment. These provisions were meant to act as deterrents. Under POCSO, there were provisions for special courts and child-friendly procedures as well for the appointment of a child support person who can be present in court during the trial and assist the child. Increasing the age of consent from 16 to 18 has also proved to be beneficial as this age group is most vulnerable. These above reforms have yielded positive results. A recent case where the Rahat team of Majlis provided socio-legal support, secured a conviction and helped in rehabilitating a survivor highlights some of the issues we have been discussing. Vishaka (name changed) was 16 years when she was raped by two of her brother’s friends who lived in her vicinity. The gruesome act was recorded. Vishaka was terrified, so she did not speak to anyone. After the incident, the third accused blackmailed her with the recording. Later, Vishaka’s brother came across the video, which had gone viral and an FIR 417

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(first information report) was recorded in April 2017. Then started the ordeal of the investigation and trial for this young lower-middle-class school girl. Majlis was referred this case in June 2017. We provided social and legal support to Vishaka and her mother. In 2018, the third accused, who was on bail, started threatening Vishaka and her family. We approached the High Court for directions to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) to apply for cancellation of bail in High Court (HC). The HC made it a time-bound matter in 2018, and yet Vishaka’s evidence kept getting postponed because of the cunning tactics of defence lawyers. Since considerable time had elapsed, Vishaka had forgotten the minute details about the incident, so we had to go over her statement with her. When Vishaka felt uncomfortable about deposing before a male public prosecutor, we brought this to the attention of the court. To our utmost shock, during Vishaka’s cross-examination, the CD which contained the video recording of the incident was blank. It was only because of the Majlis team’s vigilance that our request to the court to use photos that were available was accepted. Through the years, Majlis supported Vishaka with social support. Finally, her evidence was completed in 2019. But her mother’s and brothers’ were still pending. In 2018, Vishaka had completed her 10th Standard year of schooling, and she wanted to study commerce. We assisted with financial help for her college fees. We have provided counsellors for Vishaka and her mother. The accused filed two FIRs against Vishaka’s mother and brother to pressurize her to withdraw the case. We also had to intervene when her brother started abusing Vishaka and her mother. At one point, he threw them out of the house. The changes to the POCSO Act have led to increased positive outcomes: on a personal level, support to victims has become mandatory; judges have become far more sensitive. Judges now permit intervention by support persons during the trial, which aids those giving evidence for the prosecution. This can help contribute to the positive legal outcome of securing a conviction. On 13 June 2022, exactly five years after the case was referred to us, we secured the conviction. Accused 1 and 2 have been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and Rs. 10,000 in fines. Accused 3 has been sentenced to two years imprisonment and Rs. 5,000 in fines for blackmailing and asking for sexual favour. Such cases often lead to acquittals and are termed false cases. The support that Majlis team provided throughout the case, walking alongside Vishaka and ensuring accountability of the system, has led to the conviction. Vishaka is now an independent young girl working part time and pursuing her higher education. She has bravely traversed the journey from victim to survivor. With these legal amendments, our reach to provide socio-legal support has widened and deepened. Our ethical concern that we are here to provide complete rehabilitation and not just legal support has played out very well in this case. The latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2019–2021 has been released. It seems to indicate small positive changes in areas like domestic violence – the justification and frequency of it. Do I have that interpretation right? Yes. Your interpretation is correct. One can see an overall positive trend. But it is a very small step ahead. The situation has improved significantly in some states, whereas in others, there is an alarming increase in cases of domestic violence, particularly in Karnataka. Similarly, there is a marked increase in cases of domestic violence in Bihar, Manipur and 418

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Telangana. But, a considerable decrease has been recorded in many other states. Let us hope that the positive trend will continue. Reading the 2019–2021 NFHS, I made two observations. Firstly, years of schooling can make a positive difference for women when it comes to freedom of movement, egalitarian attitudes, family and sexual safety. Can you expand on this? I agree with your observation. This is also evident in the cases that we have followed up. We follow up cases of victims who have never been to school. Poverty, illiteracy and household drudgery make them more vulnerable to sexual abuse. But exposure to the outside world makes them more confident, and they learn how to avoid danger of sexual abuse. They are also less likely to get lured and exploited by predators in their locality. It is possible that access to education may contribute to sexual safety. But we cannot generalize. Educated girls also fall prey to sexual advances by local youth who approach them with false promises of marriage, etc. There are several indicators that support the relationship between education and a female’s safety, such as a decrease in the rate of marriages, the age that females enter marriage and a decrease in teenage pregnancies. When children are in school, the age of marriage automatically increases, which gives them more autonomy to negotiate their rights within marriage. Years of schooling provide better exposure to the world, and girls are better equipped to escape sexual abuse. To follow up on this topic, I read an interview you gave to the Times of India in 2018 (Rohit 2018) where you were asked, ‘At a social level, what needs to be done to make India safe for girls?’ Your response was, Unfortunately in our country we do not raise awareness about the problem of sexual abuse in our schools. This is an important measure where the children – both boys and girls – become aware of sexual boundaries that need to be maintained. Even when a child reports sexual abuse to a teacher, the teacher is not aware of the steps she needs to take. There is also no awareness about sexual abuse in our homes and neighbourhoods. Adolescent girls get involved in relationships at a young age without understanding the consequences. And when they get pregnant and are discarded by their boyfriends, they become extremely vulnerable as their own family also shuns them. We need to provide better sex education for children in schools but this issue is considered taboo by our governments. Has there been any progress to increase the education of boys and girls around consent and sexual boundaries? There are some initiatives by NGOs to create awareness in schools. These are private initiatives. But at the broad national and state level, this pressing problem is totally ignored. Ironically, the POCSO Act has rendered all sexual activity between adolescents an offence, but despite this, awareness is totally lacking, and even consensual activity is viewed as a crime. This has endangered several teenage couples, more specifically boys. We urgently need to create awareness about sexual boundaries among adolescent children, particularly from marginalized sections. My second observation from the NFHS was that the majority of violence towards women is perpetrated by someone known to her, her boyfriend, husband or relative. And that if a 419

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woman is to reach out for help, she is likely to reach out to her relatives rather than the police or a community organization. This seems to indicate awareness campaigns that focus on the rights of women and children tailored to the point of view of extended family would be helpful. What do you think families and communities need so they can meaningfully help a woman experiencing violence, especially when it is likely to be another family member who is inflicting the harm? This is true. We have to see this phenomenon within the patriarchal structure. Both parental and marital family usually disbelieve the girl and support the accused person. So, in raising awareness, the first thing is to question patriarchy and make families aware about it. We saw in Vishaka’s case discussed above how even her own brother turned against her, and the perpetrators were his friends. One has to be very vigilant. Unless we are able [to] develop tools for understanding how patriarchy spreads its tentacles, it is difficult to understand how it operates. Families and communities need clear tools that shift the focus away from protecting patriarchal norms and refocus towards providing gender training, consent education and personal safety classes to address these issues. In her doctoral thesis, Shweta Goswami discusses your views on marital rape (Goswami 2018). First, she quotes Susan J. Brison, ‘Sexual violence is a problem of catastrophic proportions – a fact obscured by its mundanity, by its relentless occurrence, by the fact that so many of us have been victims of it’ (Brison 1993: 18). Goswami goes on to comment, ‘Many a time people raise a question as to why sexual violence be treated differently from other forms of violence? Michael Foucault argued that if we ascribe severity to the act of rape and not to a punch in the face then we are freezing sexuality in reproductive organs which are different from rest of our body parts. According to him, rape is not a matter of sexuality; it is a matter of physical violence and should be punished as physical violence without bringing up the issue of sexuality’ (Taylor 2009). Goswami makes a connection to your views, writing, ‘A similar argument is made against the criminalization of marital rape proposed by an eminent feminist lawyer Flavia Agnes. She argues that in a violent marriage, women experience a continuum of violence that cannot be graded in terms of severity. Agnes argues, “For a woman who is facing domestic violence, it is equally violating if her skull is fractured, her spine is broken, her cornea is damaged, the liver is injured, or her vagina is penetrated forcefully. What women object to is the violence involved”.’ (Mishra 2017). Is this interpretation of your views correct? Can you tell us more about the continuum of violence? Yes. This interpretation of my view is correct, and I firmly believe in this even today. According to me, rape is a patriarchal construct, and it places sexual violence on a higher pedestal and ignores daily violations against women, and treats these as mundane. Our attitude regarding this has to change. But, many feminists do not agree with this framework. So even today, marital rape is excluded from sexual crimes, but sexual violence is included in the broad definition of domestic violence, which includes physical, sexual, emotional and economic violence. We need to dwell on this more and bring cases of sexual violence within this framework of domestic violence. In 2018, you gave an interview to the Times of India (Rohit 2018) during which you stated that ‘Maharashtra had introduced the Manodhairya scheme for financial support to survivors of rape, sexual assault and acid attacks. There were some problems in implementing this scheme so the high court had directed that it be revised and the amount be increased, but the entire scheme has become inaccessible to victims as the procedure has become very stringent’. Please update us on the Manodhairya scheme; what changes, challenges and expansion, if any, have occurred? 420

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The entire framework has now changed. Earlier, the relevant authority used to be the Department of Women and Child Welfare, and the responsibility was with the police to file the claim based on the FIR. The compensation was paid by the District Collector. Now the authority is the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA), and while the amount has increased, the survivor is given a very small percentage of this amount (only around Rs. 30,000) as interim compensation, and the balance is given only after her deposition in court which may take several years so claims are just pending and the entire purpose is lost. The DLSA requires the victim to collect several documents and submit including her proof of birth, age proof, bank account details, copy of FIR and her statement before the magistrate - which is usually not given to the survivor. Earlier, this used to be the responsibility of the police, but now the survivor and/or her guardian has to fulfil this requirement. So, instead of quick redressal, this procedure has become cumbersome. The new procedure also requires the DLSA to constitute a panel, and the victim/survivor and her mother/guardian are interrogated as though it is a trial. No support person is allowed during this procedure. So the survivor has to cross this hurdle alone, and only after the committee is satisfied that it is a ‘genuine’ case a small amount is granted as interim compensation. If the survivor retracts, the amount is recovered from her. So, instead of making it simpler, the new guidelines have made it extremely cumbersome and cause a great deal of trauma to the survivor and her family members, who are already going through a great deal of physical trauma and emotional anxiety. What impact has the COVID-19 pandemic had on women’s and children’s experience of safety? The lockdown during COVID increased the vulnerability of survivors of sexual and domestic violence as the support services were not listed as essential services under the COVID protocols. This problem was totally ignored by healthcare officials. Victims could not reach police stations; transport was not provided to reach safe shelters. Being locked up within the confined domestic space became a serious health hazard. This is a world phenomenon and not just in India. Men who lost their jobs were frustrated, and they could vent their frustrations only on women and children within their households. Only when the lockdown was lifted did various studies bring out this trend and start taking corrective measures. This happened because the safety of women and children is not considered an important aspect of safety under the scheme of health authorities. Now, the administration has become more vigilant about this. In Chapter 42 of this volume, Margaret McLaren writes (2024), ‘Women and children make up the largest and fastest growing population living under poverty level all over the world. Where poverty is particularly acute, women’s situation is especially dire. If we understand poverty as a type of violence, and believe that freedom from violence is a human right, then eradicating poverty becomes a central goal of human rights’. What are your thoughts on poverty as a type of violence, particularly in light of data from surveys like the NFHS? Can you link this to the work you do to transform victims into survivors? I agree with this. When we deal with domestic violence, which is civil litigation, we deal with an entirely different strata of society than when we are dealing with victims of sexual violence. Here, we witness dire poverty, the type we did not come across when dealing with reported cases of domestic violence. In this situation of extreme poverty, domestic violence is routine and routinely goes unreported. Many times, the cases come to light only because there is mandatory reporting of incidents of child sexual abuse. When we go on a home visit 421

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as support persons, we notice how desperate and dire the poverty levels are and the extent of community and societal violence experienced by women and children. Our social support team finds it extremely difficult to provide much-needed social support because of the general apathy of the institutions which are meant to support women and children. The condition of our safe homes is pathetic. This is where we encounter our greatest challenges. Several NGOs which work at the community level are trying to bring in greater monitoring mechanisms, but our interventions collectively do not even add up to a drop in the ocean. The situation is quite bleak at the micro level, though at the macro level, some policy-level interventions are yielding some positive results. We still have a long way to go. The situation becomes even worse when the victim suffers from physical or mental ailments. There are hardly any institutions that cater to her needs, and when she becomes an adult, there are virtually no support structures. There is an urgent need to redress this.2 Looking back to 2014, and from the perspective of here and now, what do you think the critical tasks of the next eight years are for the rights and protection of women and children in India? We have made considerable progress in some critical areas – particularly the legal arena. Our legislative provisions are very good; where we are lacking is in implementation and effective monitoring mechanisms. While the laws are good, our courts are clogged. Judges are overworked. We need budgetary allocations to deal with this. There is also a deeprooted patriarchy that operates across India. We must address patriarchy through result-oriented training programmes and then assess the impact of the training and refine again [and] again. At the societal level, we need to pay greater attention to the periodical reports of NFHS, which [have] systematically recorded trends state-wise and provide good indicators of women’s empowerment. This will certainly help us to make policy-level intervention[s] at the state and national level[s]. The work you are doing must sometimes take you to very challenging places, mentally and emotionally. How do your personal ethics and values empower your work? How have your inner ethics evolved over your career? My activism is rooted in the feminist movement, where, in the ’80s, we started questioning patriarchy and sexual and domestic violence. I am personally a victim or, rather, a survivor of domestic violence, and in 1984, I first published an informal publication titled My Story … Our Story … Of Rebuilding Broken Lives. I raised three children within this violent marriage and was able to shed some light on the situation of women from [the] middle class who are experiencing this form of routine violence. My inner strength and ethics come from this experience. I learnt to broaden my framework gradually to include all types of domestic and sexual violence. To this extent, I am a pioneer. After we set up Majlis in 1990, initially, we started addressing issues concerning domestic violence, but after two decades or so, we widened the focus and started providing support to victims/survivors of sexual violence, [particularly] children. Our volume includes both a focus on ‘gender’ as well as ‘justice’. What, to you, does justice look like? What does it mean? The focus of our work is also justice and gender. We initially started with justice within the courts and designed it as a rights-based programme. But soon, we realized for victims/survivors, justice has to move beyond courts, and it has to be more holistic support, which will 422

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help them cope with that situation in the community. Though initially we found it extremely challenging, now we have resigned to the fact that we do the utmost as per our capacity and that the contours of each case are different. The same yardstick cannot be applied to every case; we accordingly assess the success of each case within its own confines (Archives of interventions are published in Majlis 2022.). What advice do you have for readers who wish to apply their skills and energy to affect positive change in India and beyond? The work has to be rooted within the broader structure of feminism. We need to question patriarchy. Our work should not be viewed only within the framework of ‘social work’. We need to place our work within the broader lens of social transformation. It will take some time to evolve this framework within one’s own environment. One can borrow the feminist framework evolved by scholars from Western traditions, but finally, it has to be rooted within the Indian context. Personally, I find the framework of ‘intersectionality’, which also addresses issues of gender and marginalization, provides a useful approach to understanding and coping with gender, poverty and social exclusion.

Notes 1 The interview between Flavia Agnes and Anupama Katakam was originally titled ‘For a VictimCentric Approach’ and published in Frontline, print edition 31 October 2014. It has been subsequently edited and reproduced in this volume with permission. We kindly thank Frontline for agreeing to its inclusion. 2 See Chapter 5 on mental health justice in Part I of this volume by Purushottama Bilimoria.

References Agnes, Flavia. 2011. My Story … Our Story: Of Rebuilding Broken Lives. India: Majlis. ———. 2019. ‘What Survivors of Domestic Violence Need from Their New Government.’ Economic and Political Weekly EPW Engage Vol. 54, Issue No. 17, 27 April https://www.epw.in/engage/ article/what-survivors-domestic-violence-need-their-new sighted 18 Aug 2022 Brison, Susan T. 1993. ‘Surviving Sexual Violence: A Philosophical Perspective,’ Journal of Social Philosophy March 1993: Vol. 24, Issue No. 1: pp. 5–21. Goswami, Shweta. 2018. Sexual Violence- A Phenomenological Reading. M.Phil Dissertation, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Katakam, Anupama. 2014. Interview with Flavia Agnes. ‘For a Victim-Centric Approach’ published in Frontline, print edition. 31 October. ———. 2021. ‘For a Flawless Law.’ Published in Frontline (CHENNAI) Vol. 38, Issue No. 21, 15 January 2021: pp. 44–45. Majlis. https://majlislaw.com with Accessed 18 August 2022. McLaren, Margaret A. 2024. The Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA): Gandhian Ethics and Feminist Ethics in Action in Chapter 42 in this volume. Mishra, Soni. 2017. Interview with Flavia Agnes ‘The Week’. September 21. National Family Health Survey 5. 2019–21. http://rchiips.org/nfhs/NFHS-5Reports/NFHS-5_INDIA_ REPORT.pdf sighted 18 August 2022 Rajaram, Sneha. 2015. ‘Among Those Accused of Rape, Known Persons Outstrip Strangers 10 to1.’ The Wire. 20 September. https://thewire.in/gender/whats-the-ratio-of-known-v-stranger-rapiststake-a-wild-guess Sighted 15 August 2022 Rohit, David E. Interview with Flavia Agnes. 2018. ‘I Am Not a Supporter of Death Penalty in Any Situation, Not Even for Rape and Murder.’ Times of India. 6 May. Print Edition. Taylor, Chlöe, 2009. ‘Foucault, Feminism, and Sex Crimes.’ Hypatia Vol. 24, Issue No. 4: pp. 1–25.

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35 MARKING TIME The Gendered Present and the Nuclear Future* Kumkum Sangari

The July 2005 Indo-US nuclear agreement1 was hailed by a group of Indian scientists as a mark of India’s prospective entry into the international nuclear community. Their statement made a cursory gesture towards the ‘ultimate aim’ of universal nuclear disarmament, but their gravest anxiety was about acceding to ‘any restraint in perpetuity on freedom of action’ for India. The resistance to external supervision and control was justified not only on the grounds of independent research and national autonomy but also on maintaining India’s ability to ‘hold on to her nuclear option as a strategic requirement in the real world we live in.’2 As the government negotiated the agreement, there was more controversy on the shifting goalposts of the agreement than commentary on regional denuclearization or India’s professed commitment to global disarmament and how these were to be achieved.3 My attempt is to identify what I see as impediments in moving towards a more inclusive language of protest against the presence of nuclear weapons in India. Languages of critique which isolate the nuclear issue can generate public apathy, especially if they represent it as occupying a separate political space disconnected from other political issues of gendered violence and global insecurity. Languages that can link nuclearization with mass movements or with livelihood concerns have surfaced in the way the question of nuclear proliferation has been posed by groups like MIND (Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament) or CNDP (Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace)4 and in the rural protests against uranium mining in India.5 Yet, there is a need to make a more extensive vocabulary for connecting the prospect of mass mortality to urgent contemporary issues. Any exploration of languages of protest that can breach public apathy in this conjuncture would be inadequate without trying to understand, first, the social place of violence, especially gendered violence. Violence functions as a node and connective tissue between the state and the caste, communal and patriarchal arrangements of civil society. From this perspective, at an analogic level, the envisaged violence of a nuclear holocaust can be glimpsed in several forms of contemporary violence. Further, at a material level, nuclear violence may have already begun. Secondly, the difficulty of disentangling the national from *  An extended version of this chapter was previously published in Nivedini: Journal of Gender Studies, vol 13, Oct–Nov 2007. It has been subsequently updated and reproduced in this volume with permission. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-41

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the transnational has made it more difficult to designate the provenance of responses to nuclearization as solely local or national. (This certainly brackets the question of ‘postcolonial modernity’ and may bring up patterns of indifference or aggression that are not peculiar to India.) This discussion is confined to those ideological impediments to rejecting nuclearization that have been consolidated by a neoliberal national/global economy and polity. I will argue that what seems to be elite and popular apathy about nuclear violence and proliferation may turn out to be stubborn ideological closures poised between systemic patriarchal and daily structural violence,6 the immediate imperatives of coping and survival, the sense of global space and the circuits of temporality that accompany the neoliberal world order, the refurbishing of the national security state and new rationales of pre-emptive violence. Taken together, these seem to be implicated in the changing location of ‘nature’ (an implicitly gendered site), the female body and sites of masculinity, and consolidating into an attack on ‘reproduction’ (both as the matrix of social survival and as an overtly gendered process) that amounts to no less than a truncation/erosion of the sense of a ‘future’. Ideological closures that can block out the consequences of nuclearization are intimately related to the types of violence that the contemporary economy and polity fuel and sustain.

On Invoking a Future Feminist analyses of and protests against nuclearization pivot on issues of masculinization, the legitimation of masculinist violence and militarization, the accumulation of a capacity for violence against ‘enemies’ as translating into and justifying everyday aggression against women, the increase in social consent for violence, the reduction in women’s mobility, the silencing of dissent in the name of the anti-national and, of course, the social cost, the gross disparities of basic resources stolen from the deprivileged (including many women) and sealed in weapons of mass destruction.7 Early feminist arguments for peace extrapolated much more from women’s reproductive and nurturant roles. Kate Soper argued that women were well-equipped to speak about the nuclear threat because the discipline of caring for children enabled them to think of matters of life and death and because their part in reproduction included experiences of ‘crude biological vitality’ that made the thought of nuclear destruction particularly unacceptable. For Soper, our involvement in the social world is meaningful to us only on the assumption that the common life of which we are a part will extend into an indefinite future, and this idea of a relational subjectivity, a common humanity, is capable of inspiring the will to resist destruction. She describes the shock of thinking of all life being suddenly arrested by nuclear obliteration, of not only no personal future but no human future, and the ensuing sense of vacuity and pointlessness: It is against the background of ongoing life that the prospect of death becomes tolerable and we can accept its possible imminency at any point. But to be faced with the prospect of collective death is to be disarmed of all the usual resources which allow us to come to terms with our individual mortality. She also speaks of the difficulties involved in doing this – if we take on the prospect of possible global annihilation in all seriousness, our hold on ordinary living slips, yet in the 425

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interests of pursuing ordinary concerns, we are compelled to deny the reality of that possible outcome. And that is why even those of us who confront this reality cannot dwell on it for long.8 In recent decades, at least one of the terms of Soper’s argument no longer seems to hold: the imagination of an individual and a collective future. What seems to be in danger of being overwhelmed is the very possibility of continuing life and familiar forms of reproduction, the very idea of an ‘indefinite future’. What is at stake is not merely the erosion of ‘progressivist’ notions of a (better) future but also the future as simply the time-space of generations to come, the time of human (self)reproduction.

Everyday Violence The concept and prospect of nuclear devastation exist today in the context of the increasing tolerance for and normalization of violence in several different terrains: patriarchal, communal, caste-based, state, structural and environmental. Contrary to common perceptions, patriarchal violence is not a segregated species of violent acts. Rather, it is at the hub of the normalization of violence for several reasons. The span of patriarchal violence is remarkably wide: it cuts across class, the so-called divide between the public and private, and what are construed as distinct social terrains. The dominant agencies of patriarchal violence stretch from inside the family to caste groups, communal organizations and the state – and work both in isolation and in intersection. Everyday gendered violence can, and has, become the site in which one kind of violence functions to normalize another kind precisely because gendered violence is, at one level, a connective tissue between patriarchal systems and other social structures, the node at which the social inequalities represented by each of these dominant agencies meet and interact. Further, the rationales and logics of patriarchal violence cover the gamut of social relations, economic imperatives and sectarian politics. Most patriarchal violence is related to material considerations: control of the reproductive body and control of fertility, uneven distribution of labour and resources, exploitative production relations, the articulation of caste with class and the logic of an uneven spread of capitalism. As the capitalization of agriculture makes small plots unviable, it also exacerbates the denial of inheritance to daughters, and this, in turn, props up exogamy, dowry, the control of marriage and all related forms of violence, including sex-selective abortion of the female foetus. The dwindling of state welfarism leads back to the control of women and marriage as ‘private’ resources for service, care and domestic labour. At least two of these acts of violence, the genocidal violence which created a war zone in Gujarat in 2002 (known as the Godhra riots, and to a lesser extent, the Vadodara riots of 2016) with the spreading practice of sex selection, are palpably involved in the destruction of a future. The removal of whole ‘categories’ of people – Muslims in the Gujarat carnage, prospective daughters through sex selection – each fattened on a combination of misogyny and demographic paranoia, has both remapped and connected the political and familial space more sharply in the past decades. The Hindu rights violence in Gujarat was characterized by assaults on the precarity of embodied gender. Elsewhere and more pervasively, foeticide and infanticide are recurring features and seem to extend the familial control of female reproduction outwards to ‘other’ women. Sex detection and selective abortion involve not the family alone but the techno-medical industry and are linked to the Indian state’s family-planning policies, the fact that population 426

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control has been a major condition for development aid, the expanding role of the market, the regional trajectory of imported technologies, and the enlargement of health care by the private sector in a new entrepreneurial mode.9 If the sheer familiarity, regularity and naturalization of patriarchal and caste-based inequality are among the social bases of consent to other kinds of violence, then in popular perception, nuclear violence may well appear to occupy the furthest end of this continuum rather than to compose a category by itself. What is more, it can be perceived either ‘neutrally’ as merely the extension of both daily practices of ‘othering’ in civil society and stateled militarization or ‘positively’ as part of the state’s power against ‘others’ and thus deserving ‘patriotic’ consent. Most violent acts occupy a space larger than the one in which they occur because violence has a material, discursive and symbolic character. If patriarchal and communal violence is, in part, also pedagogic and symbolic acts designed to keep women and ‘others’ in their place, then the accumulation of the means to massified devastation in the stockpiling of nuclear weapons is a similar act designed to keep ‘non-nuclear’ countries in their place. The normalization of nuclear power as a material and symbolic means for the reproduction of national-political power needs to be seen in relation to the growing centrality of violence to the reproduction of the systemic power of the family, state and communal organizations. The point of the breakdown of familial and civic bonds and ‘protection’ in violent acts is the point at which patriarchal power is reassembled, and family, community and state are reinscribed as patriarchal institutions. An analogy could be made, then, between the re-location of gender, of violence as the first resort replacing violence as the last resort (as in communal violence and sex selection) and the broader redescription of violence in the new imperium. We inhabit a world in which there is an ever-widening circulation and replication of similar strategies of violence and in which the power of the nation-state as an agent of internal/external violence may exist in dialectical relation to the patriarchal and inegalitarian contours of civil society, as well as to the ideological ensembles taking shape on the transnational field.

Transnational Configurations and the State Since its inception, nuclear power has been discursively and ideologically ‘relocated’ in different political and economic ensembles. The ‘end’ destruction that nuclearization posits does not vary, but its social valences change depending, in part, on who has the power to represent and encash the power of the weapons. The ideological place of state violence has not been static either and is being determined not merely in national but also in transnational configurations. Masculinization became a vector connecting nuclearization with communal and patriarchal violence, as well as with new transnational aspirations. In recent times, the most pressing transnational context for nuclear anxieties is the ‘war against terror’. It is possible to argue here, as Maud Edwards has done, that ‘[g]lobal terrorism and the war against terrorism remain conflicts between men – conflicts pertaining to construction of masculinity and women’s freedom of action, to what degree and how women should exist for men’.10 I share the long-standing feminist opposition to masculinist militarization. However, it is also important to move beyond these evident paroxysms of re-masculinization. Since nuclear violence is part of the arsenal of the state and can be seen by many as one more addition to its already existing repertoire of violence, it becomes 427

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crucial to attend to the range of attitudes towards the state as well as to the relationships between states and how they manufacture consent. Religious nationalism is an increasingly gendered and transnational production that can abet and alibi the de-territorializing flow of capitalist economies in which the ideal nationstate only regulates labour and opens markets for transnational capitalism.11 Indeed, the increased legitimacy of the rhetorics of nationalism and national security, the new ideology and practice of pre-emptive violence and the refurbishing of the national security state through the war on terror are a product of transnational factors. They have a direct bearing not just on the place of violence within the nation but also on providing a new context for the perception of the nuclear hazard. If a nuclear establishment requires surveillance, security, non-transparency and secrecy, then these are becoming key components of the Indian and many other polities. While spectacular tests (such as Pokhran II) are amenable to the ideological production of masculinity, patriotism, enemies and images of the nation for export,12 secrecy puts citizens at a structural disadvantage. Secrecy seems to me to be as much about hiding the state’s capacity to harm its own citizens as about the clandestine development of nuclear strike capability. Secrecy is designed by the state to escape its own liability, to veil the fact that nuclearized states are antagonists of their own citizens. Thus, the weak or missing social movements against nuclearization may also be related to the obduracy of an anti-people state. The dominant internal representation of nuclear power as ‘above’ the realm of criminality because it is a state-sanctioned extension of military power has been strengthened by the perception and representation of nuclear power as the ‘natural’ adjunct of a national security state. This has, in turn, facilitated an ‘externalization’ of the accountability of the state. What makes the global situation more complex is that there seems to be mounting pressure towards a neoliberal consensus for most states that overrides or undercuts political antagonisms. The collaboration of elites (including the Indians) across the world in this neoliberal consensus may also function as an axis of consent to the reaggregation of state power that accompanies neoliberal economic policies at home and abroad, as well as consent to the place of violence and to the regulatory functions of war.13 As Hardt and Negri point out, pre-emptive attacks/preventive wars to maintain security mean a perpetual state of war, and thus war becomes ‘an active mechanism that constantly creates and reinforces the present global order’. The constant application of violence/war becomes not only the necessary condition for the functioning of discipline and control but also a regulative activity that maintains social hierarchies.14 Twentieth-century wars, starting with the First World War, broke down the distinction between combatants and noncombatants and denied full humanity to many people.15 Twenty-first-century war, especially the amorphous war against terrorism, is a war against non-state actors, and albeit in the name of national security, also the war of states against their own citizens.16 The use of depleted uranium and its boomerang return to the American homeland, if reports are correct, signals that the populations at home (soldiers and their civilian families) are as dispensable as the populations in the arenas of war abroad (Kirby 2003; Meuret 2005; Nichols 2005). Thus, the scenario associated with nuclear attack – no distinction between combatants and noncombatants, a ravaged environment, the irreversible contamination of the territory of uninvolved countries, the state’s disregard for its own people and the people of ‘adversary’ nations, the destruction of reproduction and future generations, genetic devastation and mass murder – seems already to be taking shape. 428

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In this context, nuclear war (in the future) can be perceived as a continuation of the war in the present, an intensification or culmination of a war that is with us, rather than as a categorically different form of devastation. The (nuclear) future is foreshadowed or has slyly slipped into the present. Given the alleged use of depleted uranium in the Gulf wars and in Afghanistan, the recurring problem of nuclear accidents, disposal of nuclear waste, contamination at sites of nuclear tests and uranium mining, et al.,17 can one say that lowlevel nuclear warfare against civilians (one’s ‘own’ and ‘other’) is not already in place? Will these ‘outcomes’, which are seen to be reserved for the (nuclear) future, in fact, simply become more drastic in that future since that future can only be an intensification of the present? In other words, if we already live in an altered present, a present infiltrated by what is seen to be as yet in the (nuclear) future, then are we merely attempting to ‘defer’ what is happening now? In this temporality, the augurs that arrive before mass mortality may be its only legible documents since the event is unlikely to spare anyone to read them.

Time in a Neoliberal Climate The prospect of nuclear violence carries many incommensurate times. There is a confusion of times that coalesces in the many meanings of permanence. There are a number of types of permanence posited in the discourse and in the materiality of nuclearization. There is the perpetual threat of nuclear violence: it is displayed as something that can happen at any time (this is analogous to the unremitting pressure of systemic violence and the perpetual threat of patriarchal violence). There is the permanent insecurity of those who have nuclear weapons as well as those who do not have them. There is the permanence of perpetual deterrence achieved by possessing nuclear weapons, amassing the means of absolute annihilation to prevent annihilation – and thereby, the permanence of belligerence, fear and threat. There is the idea of a permanent war on terror involving pre-emptive violence. Deterrence signifies a permanent stalemate between owners with ‘matching’ nuclear power, while pre-emption is part of a different but equally eternalized lexicon of permanent war: each preventive attack designed to annihilate the potentially dangerous ‘other’ generates more ‘enemy-others’ to kill. (As Hardt and Negri put it, war becomes absolute and ontological because genocide and atomic weapons put life itself on centre stage.18) And then there is the materiality of the permanent destruction that a nuclear war would cause. Ironically, the infinity of this destruction is counterpointed by the ‘finite’ strategic life of nuclear weapons, which necessitate more and more ‘generations’ and partake thus, like cars, of an incremental capitalist logic, but unlike cars, work on the assumption that the deadliest of technologies can become more ‘efficient’ and deadlier. The so-called obsolescence of nuclear weapons trades on the ruse of ‘redundancy’. The nature of the new permanence(s) revolves around violence: what is endless is the paranoia and the project of enmity, the war against an amorphous enemy, the state of panic and emergency, and state-engendered violence. Indeed, ‘permanence’ also seems to imply that the future will be no different from the present: the (violent) future is now compressed into the quotidian present. Permanence thus feeds a form of presentism that forecloses the ability to imagine a (different) future. Nuclearization creates a sense of absolute control over absolute space (defined only by the range of missiles) and power for absolute destruction in the shortest possible time for the longest imaginable time. The spectre of the annihilation of known space and time becomes a Damoclean sword under which one marks time until time stops. In this marking 429

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time of the not-as-yet, the before-it-happens, the immediate present becomes the only time. A present lived as if there may be no tomorrow is present with no guarantee outside itself. Is this sense of time merely a modernity effect, a part of the more generalized and longterm development of capitalism, or specifically produced by profitable military-industrial complexes and conducive to the current credit-oriented market economy and the temporality of elite consumption? What seems self-evident is that uneven capitalism and inequitable distribution produce a class-differentiated present.

The Place of ‘Reproduction’ The war that no one boasts about is the war on reproduction, and I use the term to indicate the means for the daily reproduction of life and labour, the cyclic reproduction associated with ‘nature’ and the reproduction of future generations. In India, especially for the deprivileged, the neoliberal economy has had a direct impact on livelihood and increased volatility in employment as well as unemployment. There is a collapse of rural employment generation, a decline in food consumption and a rise in hunger. There is a growing fragility for subsistence farming, indeed, for all but capital-intensive modes of farming. Suicides by farmers take place with scandalous regularity in the new predatory economy, which reduces protection and opens them to fluctuating and unequal international prices. The rapid expenditure of nonrenewable resources, environmental depletion or degradation of land, air and water is palpable. The moves towards the privatization of common property (such as water), a means of survival, is part of the enclosure of the global commons and what David Harvey calls ‘accumulation by dispossession’.19 All these constitute an attack on the means to reproduce as well as on the right to reproduce. The cyclic reproduction associated with ‘nature’ and with generational use of natural resources is under severe stress. Other forms of disenfranchisement and ownership have been in place, for instance, in contract farming (where farmers own neither seed nor crop but become ‘middlemen’20) and in the enforced sale of terminator seeds which interrupt the reproductive cycle and make it a ‘crime’ for a farmer to use the crop as seed for her/his next crop; contract farming and patented farming seem to be remodelling agriculture on lines that resemble post-Fordist manufacture. Despite ownership of land, farmers cannot own the seed they harvest. The World Trade Organization’s emphasis on intellectual property rights, the patenting and licensing of seed plasma and other products, along with biopiracy of genetic resources in the interests of a few large pharmaceutical companies, threatens not only to disenfranchise the people who were crucial to the development of these materials but also indexes a new privatized location for reproduction. (See Chapter 3 in this volume.) The corporate and market control of seeds in agriculture is paralleled by the corralling of wombs, sperm and eggs in new reproductive technologies. As feminists are pointing out, the privatization of genetic sequences from seeds to insects, animals and eventually humans creates a proprietary ownership of all life sequences and relegates notions of bodily integrity. Women’s bodies (ova, womb, embryos, tissues, cells) are at the centre of the development of genetic processes and assisted reproduction technologies as raw material, spare parts and part of a production process in the medical-industrial complex. Women are also positioned as potential consumers of these technologies. The ‘reproductive’ industry is a lucrative private enterprise within India, while ‘fertility’ tourism has found a market and a resource base in India and other parts of the global south. This includes commercial surrogacy:21 renting wombs from poor women in India, often married women with children.22 430

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There is thus a disaggregation and redistribution of reproductive functions and processes into the genetic, gestational and social, labour and end product. The female body becomes a reproductive commons - a site for extraction, a manipulable, marketable, biogenetic resource. Women’s bodies are not confined to generational reproduction and can be farmed for capital gains. Even as women as generational reproducers are under direct attack (as the conditions for safe child-bearing deteriorate further with the privatization of healthcare and decline in public services), the ongoing subsumption into global neoliberal capitalism foreshadows distinctly different notions of the body and reproduction. At one level, sex-selective abortion partakes of this reconfiguring of the female body as a new type of productive resource: the female body may not reproduce itself, but it may produce what are seen to be productive resources: sons. At another level, sex selection becomes, in a gross analogy, a technology-generated form of ‘pre-emptive’ violence in civil society that marks the changing sites of ‘nature’ and reproduction. There is a shift in conceptions of temporality and the future within this selective reproduction. Women’s bodies seem at once to have been absorbed into the field of ‘nature’ for resource extraction and, paradoxically, to have become a resource one can choose not to renew through sex selection. This seems to take generational reproduction out of the cycle of fate or destiny time. The double calculus of available ‘services’ and purchasing power relegates ethical questions and settles on a flattened terrain of market ‘equivalence’ between assisted reproduction and sex selection. In ‘choosing’ and ensuring their (imagined) future through son preference and daughter dispreference, families not only select a ‘masculinized’ future but buy a future fabricated in the image of the (inegalitarian) present.

The Regime of the Present The presentism of poverty and daily survival operates within the frame of structural violence exacerbated by the permanent insecurity generated by neoliberal policies. Here the security desired for the nation-state stands in shameful contrast to the depleting security of livelihood, food, basic needs, democratic rights, civil liberties, welfare and entitlement to the products of labour, in sum, the material basis of a future. The drive for national security ignores the deprivileging and disenfranchising of a large number of citizens within its territorial and ‘protective’ purview. Such structural violence can politicize citizens, but it can also obstruct politicization by draining all time and energy into daily survival struggles and depressing potentially transformative social agencies into becoming ‘coping’ agencies mired in the immediacy of destitution and displacement. This is enforced immersion in the present. This stands in stark contrast to the second form of presentism, which envelops the affluent and the upwardly mobile, hinges on competitive consumerism that appeared in the 1990s, accelerated with the millennials and Generations Z and Alpha in the 2020s and produces the paralysis of affluence. The third form of presentism hinges on the immanence of different forms of violence: the imperative of dealing with patriarchal violence, the militarization of daily life, the caste carnage and the communal pogrom. The threat of the use of nuclear violence can lose its singularity and slide into this bundle of threats, while the recurrence of daily violence can blur the violence that would come from the use of nuclear weapons. The magnitude of these pressures on the present can even evacuate the future. Gujarat 2002 changed perceptions – the immediacy and excess of that violence became, for most activists, more pressing than 431

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the consequences of nuclear proliferation. Here, the physical insecurity and persecution of minorities were aggravated by the combined operation of direct state involvement in the pogrom, politically generated paranoia and fears about national security.

Conclusion India’s subsumption into neoliberal capitalism is not complete – materially or ideologically – and it is not taking place without resistance, protest and struggle. The language of protest against nuclearization needs to be articulated with the struggles of the deprivileged against the present dispensation. The neoliberal conjuncture – composed of a peculiar economy, a reconstituted polity and the new imperialism – has put in place a regime of insecurity about daily survival, which seems to have the capacity to paralyze many forms of anxiety about the survival of the planet. The loss of entitlements and rights in the present both presages and obscures the loss of the planet as a whole. It signals the destruction of the future by systemic, patriarchal and structural violence, the incommensurate play of permanences and immanences, the blurring of the boundaries between these two, the controlled expendability of daily and generational reproduction which favours terminator seeds and women who do not reproduce their own ‘sex’. The challenge today, and perhaps not in India alone, is how to represent a catastrophic nuclear future in ways that do not blend into the catastrophes of the present and do not produce an ideological closure. Author’s note: This chapter is based on a presentation made at a workshop on ‘Culture, Society and Nuclear Weapons in South Asia’ organized by the Social Science Research Council and the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, 2005. Some updates have been provided by the editorial team.

Notes 1 After many rounds of negotiations and opposition faced from the left-parties in the Indian Parliament, the Indo-US nuclear agreement was signed by then President George W. Bush into law in October 2018. What the ‘US-India Nuclear Deal’, meant was that ‘India – a state known to possess nuclear weapons – was allowed to buy and sell nuclear fuel and technology with the rest of the world for civilian purposes, without having to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or dismantle any of its existing nuclear weapons or its nuclear weapons-making programme. In other words, India got all the benefits of being an NPT member without any of the drawbacks’ (Subrata Ghoshroy 2016). 2 The Hindu, 15 August 2006. 3 For a critique of the agreement from the perspective of regional denuclearization, see Vanaik (2005). 4 For more recent statements from these groups see, Sen (2014). Also, https://www.angelfire.com/ mi/MIND123/ 5 On protests against uranium mining, see ‘Red Alert in Nuclear India’, Down to Earth, 30 April 2004, 26–24; and Dias (2005). 6 By structural violence I indicate deprivation of food, healthcare, education and other resources necessary for human life, its development and the fulfilment of its potentials. 7 On India, Kumkum Sangari et al. (1998, 47–56). Cynthia Enloe represents a similar position in Enloe (2001) and Enloe (2004). 8 See Soper (1983, 338–350). 9 See Sangari (2015) on female foeticide. Also see Bilimoria and Sharma’s Chapter 8 on gender infanticide in Part 1 of this volume. 10 See Edwards (2002, 27). 11 See Sangari (2002a).

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Marking Time 2 Ibid. 1 13 The state does after all represent a cluster of interests – class, corporate, bureaucratic. 14 Hardt and Negri (2004, 21). 15 Hobsbawm (1994, 47). 16 Hardt and Negri point out that in the war on terrorism there is little difference between outside and inside, between foreign conflicts and homeland security. War against terrorism is indefinite, the state of war is a permanent global condition, in which suspension of democracy becomes the norm rather than the exception and forces all nations to become authoritarian and totalitarian. The notion of security signals a lack of distinction between inside and outside, between military and police. Whereas defence involves a protective barrier against external threats, security justifies a constant martial activity equally in the homeland and abroad (Hardt and Negri 2004, 14, 17, 21). 17 On the consequences of uranium mining see Mian (2001, 112–114); on nuclear pollution see Sehgal (2001, 124–125), and Ramana (2001, 285–286). Itty Abraham points out that nuclear complexes across the world are a continuing source of danger to the people they are meant to serve (see Abraham 2001, 275). 18 Hardt and Negri (2004, 19). 19 David Harvey (2003, 144). 20 Most recent legislative move under the Modi government that further entrenches the profit-oriented role of the ‘middlemen’ is with the tabling of the controversial Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, otherwise known as the Farmers’ Bill, see Kavita Kuruganti, ‘Agri Reform Bills: What Will the New System Look Like?’ The Wire, 21/9/2020; https://thewire.in/agriculture/farm-bills-new-system-mandis-monopoly-big-players 21 See Sangari (2015) on commercial surrogacy; and Dhru and Bilimoria’s chapter 9 on Surrogacy in Part 1 of this volume. 22 See Sangari (2015). See also Marsha J. Tyson Darling, ‘Gender and Biopolitics: Ethical Issues in the Context of Assisted Reproductive and Genetic Technologies’, Seminar presentation, National Consultation of New Reproductive Technologies and their Implication for Women, Jawaharlal Nehru University, January 2007; Jyotsna Agnihotri Gupta, ‘Globalization and Reproductive Technologies: Global and Local Articulations’, Seminar presentation, National Consultation of New Reproductive Technologies and their Implication for Women, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2007; Hindustan Times, 17 September 2006.

Bibliography Abraham, Itty. 2001. ‘Nuclear Power and Human Security.’ In: Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian (eds) Out of the Nuclear Shadow, 133–156. Delhi/London: Lokayan and Zed Press. Dias, Xavier. 2005. ‘DAE’s Gambit.’ Economic and Political Weekly, 6 August. Edwards, Maud. 2002. ‘September 11 and Male Violence.’ NIKK Magazine, 3. Enloe, Cynthia. 2001. Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 2004. The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ghoshroy, Subrata. 2016. ‘Taking Stock: The US-India Nuclear deal 10 years later.’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 16 February. https://thebulletin.org/2016/02/taking-stock-the-us-indianuclear-deal-10-years-later/ Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. 2004. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: The Penguin Press. Harvey, David. 2003. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1994. ‘Barbarism: A User’s Guide.’ New Left Review, I/206, July-August. Kirby, Alex. 2003. ‘Afghan’s Uranium Levels Spark Alert.’ BBC News Online, 27 September. Koshy, Ninan. 2003. The War on Terror: Reordering the World. Delhi: Leftword Books. Meuret, Leuren. 2005. ‘Depleted Uranium: Dirty Bombs, Dirty Missiles, Dirty Bullets, A Death Sentence Here and Abroad.’ SFBayView, 16 March. Mian, Zia. 2001. ‘Pakistan’s Fateful Option.’ In: Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian (eds) Out of the Nuclear Shadow. Delhi/London: Lokayan and Zed Press.

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Kumkum Sangari Monbiot, George. 2004. ‘The Paradox of Modern Warfare.’ The Hindu, 31 March 2004. Nichols, Bob. 2005. ‘Mushrooming Depleted Uranium (DU) Scandal.’ SFBayView, 23 February 2005. Ram, N. 1999. Riding the Nuclear Tiger. Delhi: Leftword Books. Ramana, M.V. 2001. ‘Do Nuclear Weapons Provide Security?’ In: Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian (eds) Out of the Nuclear Shadow. Delhi/London: Lokayan and Zed Press. Sangari, Kumkum, Neeraj Malik, Sheba Chhachhi and Tanika Sarkar. 1998. ‘Why Women Must Reject the Bomb.’ In: MIND, Out of Nuclear Darkness: The Indian Case for Disarmament. Delhi. http://www.unipune.ac.in/snc/cssh/HumanRights/10%20STATE%20ENVIRONMENT%20%20 SCIENCE%20AND%20TECHNOLOGY/C%20demilitarisation%20and%20nuclear%20 disarmament/4.pdf Sangari, Kumkum. 2002. ‘Routes of Violence.’ In: K.N. Panikkar and Sukumar Muralidharan (eds) Communalism, Civil Society and the State: Reflections on a decade of turbulence. Delhi: Sahmat. ———. 2002a. ‘New patriotisms: the beauty queen and the bomb.’ In: Rada Ivekovich and Julie Mostov (eds) From Gender to Nation. Delhi: Zubaan Books/Kali for Women. ———. 2015. Solid Liquid: A (Trans)national Reproductive Formation. Delhi, Tulika Books. Sehgal, Bittu. 2001. ‘Atomic Error.’ In: Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian (eds) Out of the Nuclear Shadow. Delhi/London: Lokayan and Zed Press. Sen, Sikla. 2014. ‘India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Up for a Makeover?’ South Asia CitizensWeb, 25 May. http://www.sacw.net/article8780.html ———. 2015. ‘The “Breakthrough” on Nuclear Agreement between Modi and Obama: A Reality Check.’ South Asia Citizens Web, 16 February. http://sacw.net/article10629.html Soper, Kate. 1983, ‘Contemplating A Nuclear Future.’ In: Elizabeth Frazer, Jennifer Hornsby and Sabina Lovibond (eds) Ethics: A Feminist Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Srinivasan, M.R. 2003. ‘50 Years of Atoms for Peace.’ The Hindu, 13 December. Vanaik, Achin. 2004. ‘Unravelling the Self-image of the Indian Bomb Lobby.’ Economic and Political Weekly, 20 November. ———. 2005. ‘Significance of the Framework Agreement.’ Economic and Political Weekly, 6 August.

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36 THE GANDHIAN TOUCH Morals in Politics* Devaki Jain

The Economic Other As death and destruction increase – due to unexpected conflicts, violence, the COVID-19 pandemic crises and improvised technologies of violence – there is a quest all over the world for security and, at a deeper level, for the peaceful conduct of the business of living in the world. Simultaneously, there is also a seeking for solace, for building reconciliation by reinvoking spirituality, showing the common basis of all religions and drawing on common consciousness. I was also party to such attempts as can be seen in the book Speaking of Faith (Jain and Eck 1986) and in my memoir, Brass Notebook (2020; 2018), where it has been argued that a feminist perspective and ethic affirmed that all religions have a common purpose and thus a unity could be forged. The recent research on the human genome showing that we all come from a few cells is another reference point for claiming the oneness of humanity. There is a trend to argue that we are one and that we need to build unity within diversity. In this chapter, I argue that this is not enough, nor wise. It would feed into the enemy’s armoury of tracing religion and its various ethics, spiritualities and ethnicities as being the basis of conflict, bringing out the affirmation of old religious-based identities to handle the new consumer-based disparities (Patel 2002). There is a contradiction between the ostensible opportunity provided by the hype of globalization and the reality on the ground. Today, the ‘other’ is being postulated as the Muslim, Hindu or Christian, but the hostility and violence we see, the intolerance, I suggest, comes from the ‘economic other’. As the demarcation of society and politics returns from social and economic categories to the use of older religious and cultural categories, there is an anxiety amongst people like myself and Amartya Sen. Amartya Sen (Sen 2001), referring to identities and freedom to choose our affiliations says, This issue has become particularly important in the context of the present political crisis and confrontation, with its ramifications becoming clearer since September 11, *  An earlier version of this chapter was published as ‘Morals in Politics: The Gandhian Touch’, chapter 13, in Jain 2019. (see below); and in Globalization, Transnational, Gender And Ecological Engagements, P. Bilimoria and Amy Rayner (eds)., 33–44. Delhi: Serial Publications, 2014.

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though the roots of the problem go back much further. … By categorising the population of the world into those belonging to ‘the Islamic world’, ‘the Christian world’, ‘the Hindu world’, ‘the Buddhist world’, etc., the divisive power of classificatory priority is implicitly used to place people firmly inside a unique set of rigid boxes. Other divisions (say, between the rich and the poor, between members of different classes and occupations, between people of different politics, between distinct nationalities and residential locations, between language groups, etc.) are all submerged by this allegedly pre-eminent way of seeing the differences between people. Such labels take us backwards: backwards from a world where the intellectual expression of societies extended the boundaries to include other categories of stratification and division, such as class, ethnicity, caste, gender and occupation. Nations identified themselves not as Christian and Pagan but as newly liberated and colonial. Philosophies emerged which made any narrow definition of ‘moral’ look absurd. Linguistic philosophy a la Wittgenstein, the Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre – and not the least Marxism; and then the ‘universal consciousness’ philosophies of the various forms of religion from Asia, the literary and artistic expressions from so many sources which celebrated human existence, and ‘civilizations’ as built around the culture of human beings and not theologies, were holding the space in the Twentieth Century. But recent events have put the clock back, and today, the term ‘civilization’/‘world’ is being defined or notified in terms of religious identity. This leads to a dangerous grouping of people: [W]ithin this new unitary system by turning to the most immediate, familiar collectively shared instrument at hand to mobilize: inherited culture. In many countries there has been a convulsive ingathering, a return to past traditions and a resurgent assertion of peoples and their leaders. (Arizpe 1996) I propose that it is the concentration of political power coupled with economic disparities that need to be dismantled or redressed for healing to take place. It is the exclusion from power to redress injustices and the perpetuation of disparities in access to the necessities of life that is firing the conflict, the hate, the militancy and the violence. Thus, one can argue that persistent poverty, especially lack of opportunities for what is called work with dignity, inequality and the visible lifestyle of high-end consumerism, all perpetuated and enlarged by the effect of visual media that has created the economic other. It is this intensification of anger at the inequality, injustice and invasive persecution, accompanied by the carelessness about losing lives in a space where ‘losing life’ is not such a unique happening, i.e., amongst the very poor, that can explain the increasing occurrence of human bombs (Jain & Eck 2001).

Inequality Intensifies: Creating the Economic Other To support my argument that the economic divide is the real perpetrator of violence, I present some data on disparities. First, from a brilliant paper that was presented by Dr Ismail Serageldin, Director of Alexandria Bibliotheca, Egypt (Serageldin 2002). The figures are very stark. The 400 highest-income earners in the United States make as much money in a year as the entire population of 20 African nations – more than 300 million people. In an annual wealth check released to mark the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, 436

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the development charity Oxfam said 2018 had been a year in which the rich had grown richer and the poor poorer. It said the widening gap was hindering the fight against poverty, adding that a wealth tax on the top 1% would raise an estimated $418 billion (£325 billion) a year – enough to educate every child not in school and provide healthcare that would prevent 3 million deaths. The wealth of more than 2,200 billionaires across the globe increased by $900 billion in 2018 – or $2.5 billion a day. The 12% increase in the wealth of the very richest contrasted with a fall of 11% in the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population. In 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the same handful of corporate billionaires, notably Jeff Bezos, proprietor of Amazon.com; Bill Gates (still), the chief beneficiary of Microsoft Corp; and CEOs of Facebook and e-Bay, have increased their earnings by some $100 billion and upwards as the world moves toward online marketing, schooling and purchasing basic household and personal needs.1 The World Inequality Report 2018 demonstrated that between 1980 and 2016, the poorest 50% of humanity only captured 12 cents in every dollar of global income growth. By contrast, the top 1% captured 27 cents of every dollar.2 The Urban Health Resource Centre in New Delhi has released some alarming details and reports in the wake of the COVID-19-triggered crises in rural and slum areas across India. Many slum families have lost their livelihoods. Some are gradually trying to resume, and many are forced to sell vegetables or other edible items or take up whatever short-term daily wage labour they are able to harness, while others have returned to native villages and may return when the livelihood prospects improve (Bilimoria 2021).

Morals and Politics of Economy The healing touch is to find a mode for dissolving political and economic inequalities. But putting equality on the ground or reducing inequality is not an easy task nor is it devoid of morals and politics. The existence of poverty is related to political choices of economic paths and to the tolerance of inequality and injustice by society. The economic logic is that competition and profit-seeking make for efficient use of resources and ultimately will lift all boats – redistributive justice or the trickle-down theory of growth. But poverty eradication requires a substantive change in the choice of economic activity, in the quantum of investment in various sectors and in the economic theory that validates those decisions. It requires a shift in the reasoning of what drives the economy and what are the indicators of progress. As the late Prof Mahboob Ul Haq lamented: For too long, it was assumed that development was a process that lifts all boats, that its benefits trickled down to all income classes and that it was gender-neutral in its impact. Experience teaches otherwise. Wide income disparities and gender gaps stare us in the face in all societies. He added that growth sometimes actually immiserates and further fuels civil strife by distancing the ‘haves’ from the ‘have nots; that economic growth was not dealing with poverty and inequality, but increasing it’ (UNDP-HDR 1995/2010). Mahatma Gandhi’s political ethics was grounded in respect for social science, science, technology and religion. Gandhi’s ethic was actually to efface difference through absorption of the other. This idea is one of the basic tenets of Jainism, to absorb the other into oneself, eliminating difference and distance. This is ahiṃ sā, a concept that originated in Jainism, 437

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which Gandhi learned from his mother, who was a practicing Jain, and in more refined form from his long-time Jain mentor, Srimad Rajchandra Bhai (Gandhi 1894/1969). There was wisdom both in Karl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi and how they addressed inequality as the crux of the matter, even though there is a crucial difference in their analysis as well as their advice. While Marx dealt with inequality by restructuring the economic system and making the state all-powerful, Gandhi sought political solutions based on social negotiations and a ‘low-profile’ state (Jain 1995). Gandhi, like Marx and Hobbes before him, saw the human being as a limited creature – capable of cruelty, narrow-mindedness, greed and violence and required strong medicine to be socially manageable. Indeed, when we see starving people marching in thousands across borders trying to escape from violence, when we hear that very young female refugees are being sold by border security into the flesh trade, when we turn away from the expropriation of earth, water and mountains for ‘growth’ – then their perceptions seem correct. While orthodox socialism addresses inequality based on ownership of means of production, Gandhi focused on inequality in consumption. His argument or his advocacy for austerity, simplicity in lifestyle was based on developing in Indians a consciousness of the problems of the poor. To consume much food, own many clothes or display many clothes when the neighbourhood was filled with those who could neither eat nor clothe themselves was a form of violence. There is a beautiful story of how a child living near the Sabarmati Ashram asked Gandhi why he only wore a dhoti. The child offered to bring Gandhi a shirt. Gandhi is supposed to have said he would wear a shirt when the millions of shirtless Indians could also afford a shirt. The practice of simplicity is an attempt to emulate or imitate the life of those who did not have enough and thereby release resources to be able to provide for those who did not have enough. Gandhi highlighted over-consumption as a cause of inequality and moderation in consumption as a way to reverse inequality and build equality. His practice and preaching on restrained consumption were also linked to environmental conservation and resource sharing. While orthodox socialism addressed itself to inequality based on ownership of means of production, Gandhi focused on inequality in consumption. He argued that visible disparity in consumption was a form of hiṃ sā, violence, and ahiṃ sā would suggest that we transpose ourselves into the lifestyle of the least, and thereby lies the ahimsa. Gandhi reapplied this technique of identification with the ‘deprived’ into many other domains – a form of melting down hierarchies. In the collectives that Gandhi built, roles were transposed to dismantle hierarchies. Everyone – men, women, children – engaged in manual work as well as ‘meditational’ or ‘contemplative’ exercises so the educated would not look down on the uneducated. Brahmins lifted night soil so that night soil lifting did not hold stigma. Persons belonging to the diverse religions in India recited the prayers of all religions. Effacing distance through muting is the kind of difference that connotes hierarchy. The ethic of simplicity bordering on austerity has a special power in visibly poor, unequal societies like India. It provides a demonstrative identification with the poor and allows a more even spread of scarce resources. Gandhi’s ethic of simplicity was also a form of ahiṃ sā. The importance of the linkage to Jainism cannot be underestimated. It was through this concept that the masses of Indian women – the poor and the traditional – could assimilate it as springing from values they understood (Jain & Eck 1985, 35). 438

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Muting Gender Hierarchies An illustration of Gandhi’s capacity to draw the poor and excluded into political and economic action is the way he mobilized women from traditional societies into public action. One incident is revealing as it brought out women and also changed women’s views on themselves and the outside’s view of women. In 1930, when picketing against foreign textiles and liquor, Gandhiji found the movement was not gathering enough momentum. So, he addressed himself directly to women. His call was answered in Delhi under the leadership of Srimathi Satyawati Vidyalankar – Delhi’s first woman satyāgrahi. A group of women walked down Chandni Chowk distributing bangles to the men, asking them to wear these bangles and stay at home, as the women were taking over the movement. This incident came to be known as ‘Churi Andolan’ and ignited women and girls to leave their sheltered lives and picket liquor shops (Jain 2019). Whenever a leader in their community was arrested, they would organize a day of mourning. They donned saffron robes, the colour of sacrifice, demonstrating they were prepared to suffer for the cause. In small groups, they sat in front of shops selling drugs, liquor or tobacco, pleading with the male customers to give their money instead to Gandhi. When pleading did not avail, they flung themselves across the thresholds, daring the men to walk over their bodies. It was something never known before in India – money was being gathered by this army of women, fighting with its own version of Satyāgraha, active nonviolent resistance. They went to prison cheerfully. There were modern women, like Jawaharlal Nehru’s wife, Kamala Nehru and his own younger sister Krishna. But there were others – wives and daughters who had lived in purdah, or seclusion, all their lives. These traditional women provided the masses the strength of numbers and solidarity of action, without which no boycott movements could have any effect. They were women who had emerged from behind the traditional doors in answer to Gandhi’s call. Like millions of other women, my mother-in-law Chamelidevi, from an orthodox family, was married into a well-known commercial family of Delhi jewellers, where as expected, her life moved around ritual and kitchen and, of course, the inevitable ghoonghat or veil. She was the first Jain woman to court arrest and was sent to a jail in Lahore. What did it require for an orthodox daughterin-law to become a freedom fighter? A khadi saree, a blouse and a pair of chappals. And a call from a saintly person (Jain 1981). Once women were drawn out of their homes – into the area of the struggle, once men got used to women working with them in important and risky tasks, women were emancipated from the greatest source of enslavement: attitudes. It is the attitude of men about what women can do and ought to do; the attitude of women towards themselves, their own roles and their adequacy; and the attitude of samāj or society, to what is right and what is wrong that can cripple as much as it can liberate a society. Gandhi’s technique illustrates how much gender hierarchies are in the mind. It suggests a critical factor in changing relations of power is to transform differences through moral, methodological and intellectual ways.

Interpreting Gandhi into a Growth Theorist As a matter of doctrinal importance, the Gandhian system of economic thought runs at a tangent to conventional economic canons. While the engines of the normal theories of growth are through processes of production and investment, which are stimulated by 439

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finance and driven by profit-seeking, Gandhi’s engine is the buying power, the economic votes, as he called it, of the poor. He promoted, Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test: Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man/woman whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. The criterion by which any political choice for economic changes is made is whether it improves the condition of the poorest person. If we deal with the removal of poverty first, then the rest of the economic policies follow (Jain 2001; Bilimoria 2021, 2022). Gandhi would argue that poverty eradication is a dynamic and purposeful engine of growth. His view could be called the ‘Bubbling Up Theory of Growth’, which counters the old ‘Trickling Down Theory of Growth’. The Bubbling up theory argues the process of removal of poverty can itself be an engine of growth, that the incomes and capabilities of those who are currently poor have the potential to generate demand, which will engine production, but of goods that are immediately needed by the poor. The oiling of this engine will bubble up and fire the economy broadly. Unlike export-led growth, it will not skew production and trade into the elite trap, which is accentuating disparities and creating discontent. Gandhi designed an economic constitution for the world in 1928. According to me, the economic constitution of India and for that matter, the world, should be such that no one under it, should suffer from want of food and clothing. In other words, everybody should be able to get sufficient work to enable him to make the two ends meet. And this ideal can be universally realized only if the means of production of the elementary necessities of life remain in the control of the masses. Gandhi was averse to all notions of class warfare and concepts of class-based revolution, which he saw as causes of social violence and disharmony. Gandhi’s concept of egalitarianism was centred on the preservation of human dignity rather than material development. For Gandhi, the distinctiveness of others, which evokes our affection, is significant only as it is a starting point that aids us in reaching the highest form of moral concern – a kind of agape (unselfish love for all). Gandhi carried these ideas in extraordinary ways. For example, his design and support of khadi, hand-spun and hand-woven cloth. He said: Political economists assert that social affections are to be looked upon as accidental and disturbing elements in human nature; but avarice and the desire for progress are constant elements … it is this human element on which the entire economics of khadi rests. The human element is not accidental, on the contrary it is intrinsic – khadi is a superior cloth because it has a soul in it. There are many aspects of khadi; amongst them the spiritual one is the one I hold uppermost and the economic one next. The spiritual aspect was repentance for having willingly surrendered freedom. The English have not taken India; we have given it to them. … It is we, the English-knowing men that have enslaved India. … Foreign cloth constitutes our slavery. … We are purifying ourselves by discarding foreign cloth which is the badge of our slavery. 440

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Khadi was not just about employment, which was only a means for alienating the mind, body and spirit from each other, but about engagement of the mind, body and spirit in the means of livelihood and in thus creating conditions for social life. This was its human element. (Ramagundam 2008)

Lessons for the Global Community How can we draw on ahiṃ sā, on such moral and methodological ideas in handling our turbulent world today? The central issue in the world today is the management of the global political economy. There is deep anxiety that the new millennium, while it has brought the exciting levelling of information technology, also brings the deterioration of our planet and conflict arising out of the persistence of poverty and the extenuation of disparities. There is a noticeable vacuum in exemplary leadership at local, national and international levels. It is here that Gandhi’s ideas in the political economy not only seem relevant but are being legitimized even if without naming by the course of experience. Gandhi is quoted as saying there is enough in the world for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed, and in a New York Times article, it says, after the financial crisis, ‘greed, to put it mildly, is no longer good’ (Applebome 2008, 1684); new interest in ‘frugal life styles’ and ‘frugal behaviour’ (Hoffman 2008) has emerged. The ‘tiny house’ movement we have seen growing in recent years signifies a gradual shift in the attitude towards consumption and striving to reach an ethics of simplicity. Today’s vanguard in development speaks of discrimination, disparities being threats to economic growth and political stability, of the importance of restrained consumption, even if for environmental reasons. Ever-expanding consumption puts strains on the environment – emissions and wastes that pollute the earth and destroy ecosystems, and growing depletion and degradation of renewable resources undermines livelihoods. The world’s dominant consumers are overwhelmingly concentrated among the well-off – but the environmental damage from the world’s consumption falls most severely on the poor. None of the theories – whether of the modernization, dependency, neoliberal or Marxist variety – seem to be working in the sense that they have all run into trouble, even if initial successes were secured. During the 1980s and 1990s, these theories were supplanted by a hegemonic neoliberal view of development based on ‘globalization’ and ‘free markets’ that effectively dismisses questions of the ethnicity of culture and does not try to understand nationalism, fundamentalism and terrorism. It can be maintained that ‘the whole Western model of development, the ‘paradigm of modernity’, of a secular, industrial nation-state, is now in question and that a coherent and persuasive alternative model is yet to be found’ (Emmerij 2002). Gandhi taught and mobilized the practice of interpreting inequality as violence, finding the ethical basis for economic growth paths, consumption restraint, nonviolence in personal relationships and levelling through beginning with the least. These ideas constitute Gandhi’s ethics of political economy. An ethics that remains of benefit to understand and practice today.

Notes 1 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-richest-people-own-as-much-aspoorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report; accessed 12/1/2020. 2 https://en.unesco.org/inclusivepolicylab/publications/world-inequality-report-2018

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References Applebome, Peter. 2008. ‘Applying Gandhi’s Ideas to Climate Change.’ New York Times, March 30. Arizpe, Lourdes. 1996. ‘Power of Culture Speech’ delivered at Power of Culture Conference, 8 and 9 November, Amsterdam (personal notes). Baldauf, Scott. 2006. ‘India’s “Girl Deficit” Deepest Among Educated.’ The Christian Science Monitor, January 16th. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0113/p01s04-wosc.html Bilimoria, Purushottama. 2022. ‘A Critique of Economic Reason Between Tradition and Postcoloniality.’ In (eds.) Rita D. Sherma & Purushottama Bilimoria, Religion and Sustainability; Interreligious Resources, Theology and Philosophy. UNSDG Series. Dordrecht/Berlin: Springer. ———. 2021. ‘Gandhi’s Swadeshi & A Dream of Self-Sufficiency.’ India Currents (Los Angeles), January 7th. Cornia, Andrea Giovanni and Court, Julius. 2001. ‘Inequality, Growth and Poverty in the Era of Liberalization and Globalization.’ WIDER Policy Brief. November, United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research. https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/ inequality-growth-and-poverty-era-liberalization-and-globalization Edwards, Peter. 2006. ‘Examining Inequality: Who Really Benefits from Global Growth?’ World Development, Elsevier. October, 34 (10): 1667–1695. Emmerij, Louis. 2002. ‘Development Thinking, Globalization and Cultural Diversity.’ Paper prepared for the North-South Round Table on Imperatives of Tolerance and Justice in a Globalized World, Cairo, 26–27 November. Gandhi, M. K., 1894/1969. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume I, 90–91. New Delhi: Publications Division, All-Indian Broadcasting Commission, Government of India. Hoffman. January 2008. ‘The Frugal Teenager, Ready or Not.’ New York Times, Sunday Styles, October 12. Jain, Devaki. 1981. ‘Journey of a Woman Freedom Fighter.’ Mainstream, August 22. ———. 2008. Mernissi Fatema, ‘Love In Digital Islam: Why Ibn Hazm is a Success on the Internet?’ for Sharjah conference, April 22. Jain, Devaki and Eck, Diana L. (eds). 1985. ‘Indian Women: Today and Tomorrow,’ Padmaja Naidu Lecture, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. New Delhi: Teen Murti House. Jain, Devaki, and Eck, Diana L. 1986. Speaking of Faith: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Women, Religion, and Social Change. London: Women’s Press. Jain, Devaki. 1986. Cross Cultural Perspectives on Women, Religion and Social Change. New Delhi: Kali For Women. ———. 1995. ‘Minds not Bodies Expanding the Notion of Gender in Development, Bradford Morse Memorial Lecture.’ UNDP Conference, Beijing, 5 September; chapter 4 in Jain 2018. ———. 2001. ‘Through the Looking Glass of Poverty’, New Hall, Cambridge, Lecture, October 19th. ———. 1996. Minds, Bodies and Exemplars: Reflections at Beijing and Beyond. New Delhi: British Council. ———. 2005. Women, Development, and the UN: A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice (United Nations Intellectual History Project Series). Bloomington: Indian University Press. ———. 2006. ‘Power Through the Looking Glass of Feminism’, paper presented in Symposium on Gender of Power. Netherlands: University of Leiden. ———. 2018. The Journey of a Southern Feminist. Washington DC: Sage Publishers. ———. 2019. Close Encounters of Another Kind: Women and Development Economics. Washington DC: Sage Publishers. ———. 2020. The Brass Notebook – A Memoir. New Delhi: Speaking Tiger Books. ———. n.d. ‘To Be or Not to Be: Problems in Locating Women in Public Policy.’ Economic and Political Weekly, 42(8) (online). Patel, Alaknanda. 2002. ‘Gujarat Violence: A Personal Diary.’ Economic and Political Weekly, December14, Mumbai. Ramagundam, Rahul. 2008. Gandhi’s Khadi: A History of Contention and Conciliation. Hyderabad: Orient Longman. Roberts, J. Timmons, and Parks, Bradley C. 2007. A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, NorthSouth Politics, and Climate Policy. Camb. M.A.: MIT Press.

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The Gandhian Touch Sainath, P. 2006. ‘The Anatomy of a Tiger India High and Low.’ November 11/12. http://www. counterpunch.org/sainath11112006.html Sen, Amartya. 2001. Exclusion and Inclusion at a South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) Convention in 2001 on the theme ‘Including the Excluded’. Serageldin, Ismail. 2002. ‘The Self and the Other: Tolerance and Justice in a Globalizing World Presentation at the Imperatives of Tolerance and Justice in a Globalized World.’ North South Round Table, Cairo, 27–28 November 2002 (originally published by World Bank, Washington, D.C. (USA) 1996). Shah, Mihir. 2008. ‘Cutting “Off the Chain of Hate”.’ The Hindu, October 21. Steinfels, Peter. 2008. ‘Modern Market Thinking has Devalued a Deadly Sin.’ New York Times, September 27. The Revolution for Gender Equality. 1995. Oxford University Press for UNDP; Published online by Cambridge University Press (2010): Foreign Policy Bulletin 6(3) https://www. cambridge.org/core/journals/foreign-policy-bulletin/article/abs/revolution-for-gender-equality/ 10CE270A17846F2C249317BA7B38A75B UNDP-HDR Human Development Report. 1995/2010. The Revolution for Gender. Weissman, Robert. 2003. ‘Grotesque Inequality: Corporate Globalization and the Global Gap between Rich and Poor.’ (Grotesque Inequalities): Multinational Monitor Article date, July 1.

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37 APPROACHING GANDHIAN METAETHICS* Some Methodological Issues Samiksha Goyal

The questions of metaethics are often viewed as philosophical questions about the nature and the status of ethical claims and assumptions that support theories and justificatory grounds of moral judgements (Finnigan 2011, 269). Typically, an examination of the ideas advanced by a philosopher begins with a study of the primary philosophical texts of the author. Such study of primary texts is usually accompanied by a study of the relevant secondary literature reflecting on the ideas and concepts in the primary texts. In the case of Gandhi, a metaethical study of Gandhi’s ideas faces a serious textual challenge in that it is not easy to situate and discern Gandhi’s claims and theories. There is a lack of philosophically grounded theoretical texts either from Gandhi or from authors commenting on Gandhi. Therefore, to make this form of study at all possible for Gandhi’s ethical concerns, it is necessary to clarify and identify the possible methodological pathway(s) in the available literature to seek responses to metaethical queries that arise from Gandhi’s thought. I begin the chapter by stating the theoretical need for a metaethical study of Gandhi’s concepts to highlight the challenges to the project; in that sense, I will be sketching some of Gandhi’s thoughts in the present chapter, basically with methodological and not conceptual issues in mind. In the second section, I will explain how the textual limitation of primary texts takes a problematic turn in the secondary literature. I will argue that the idea of an integrated study of Gandhi’s ideas and actions turns the theoretical limitation of primary texts into a conceptual limitation of the secondary literature in that they misinterpret and misrepresent Gandhi’s moral ideas in various ways. In the last section, I will discuss some recent political and historical secondary literature to explore the methodological approaches that are possibly conducive to Gandhian metaethics. I urge the reader to note that the chapter underlines the methodological issues of studying Gandhi without fully addressing the conceptual issues themselves as they occur either in the primary or the secondary literature on Gandhi.1 *  I thank the editors of this volume for their help with edits and their efforts. I am thankful to Dr. Justin Oakley for his suggestions on different drafts of this chapter and Dr. Nirmalangshu Mukherji for his editorial recommendations on earlier drafts. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-43

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Limitations of Primary Texts Gandhi’s own writings have been compiled into a hundred volumes at an average of five hundred pages in each: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (henceforth, CWMG). These texts are mainly letters, transcripts of speeches, monologues and humanist essays such as ‘Hind Swarāj’ (1909a), ‘Constructive Programme’ (1945) and others. These essays were written primarily for the general public, in which Gandhi sometimes discusses various moral and political issues. As a result, Gandhi’s writings are thematically scattered and are in the form of quasi-religious comments and wise dictums with occasional oblique references to classical religious traditions. For instance, Gandhi equates his central idea of truth with that of God. He says, ‘I claim to be a votary of truth from my childhood. It was the most natural thing to me. My prayerful search gave me the revealing maxim Truth is God, instead of the usual one God is Truth’ (Gandhi 1925/1999, 163). At no place during these remarks does Gandhi explain the terms of the maxim. For instance, he doesn’t specify what he is identifying truth with; even though God is a referent in his maxim, Gandhi doesn’t elaborate on his notion of God to explain why the ‘usual’ relation needs to be reversed, nor does he explain what a ‘prayerful search’ constitutes of. Furthermore, one could argue that if the conception of God covers Gandhi’s notion of truth, then it seems more appropriate to study his ideas under theology than moral philosophy or at the intersection of the two. In fact, it may appear that he may be rejecting the idea of a theoretical inquiry into his moral thoughts. He says, [M]y aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth. (Gandhi 1939/1999, 356) Nonetheless, despite his lack of interest in ‘consistency’, there are strong hints in the preceding remarks that he considers truth to be a moral, not a religious, goal. This regard for truth as a moral goal is also reflected in the title of his autobiography, called The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927b). Although Gandhi never explained the theoretical meaning of his intuitive concepts, his metaphorical expressions such as ‘experiments with truth’, ‘as it presents at a given moment’, and ‘growing from truth to truth’ could be viewed as theoretical moves. These expressions could mean that Gandhi considers truth to be an active multidimensional notion without a final and fixed boundary; truth is not only to be discovered or grasped in practice, but it also changes with practice. This reading of Gandhi may suggest that Gandhi was aiming at a practice-governed moral notion of truth rather than the usual metaphysical notion. Yet, although there are remarks from Gandhi suggesting that he didn’t hold a ‘cognitive’ notion of truth (Bilgrami 2003), Gandhi doesn’t address the obvious philosophical query of whether his notion of truth is to be viewed as a property of propositions (Goyal 2021). To pursue the notion of moral truth, a persistent reading of themes in his work suggests a perspective in which Gandhi’s idea of truth seems closer to moral truth than theological or semantic notions of truth. In his writings, Gandhi frequently relates truth with other moral notions like nonviolence, service, welfare of the other and agency, which suggests the presence of an intuitive moral framework. He famously regarded truth and nonviolence 445

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(ahiṃ sā) as two sides of the same coin. He says, ‘I understand the ideal of truth better than that of ahiṃ sā, and my experience tells me that if I let go my hold of truth, I shall never be able to solve the riddle of ahiṃ sā’ (Gandhi 1927a, 336). Such remarks not only suggest a moral dimension for truth, they also indicate that Gandhi’s concepts possibly form a closeknit theoretical framework. Let me illustrate this point a bit further. It seems that in Gandhi’s thought, truth and nonviolence are not merely oppositions to untruth and violence; they have a broader meaning. He says, ‘Take any instance of untruth or violence, and it will be found that at its back was the desire to attain the cherished end (vested interests)’ (Gandhi 1929/1999, 173). In this remark, Gandhi seems to associate immorality – untruth and violence – with vested interests. This could imply that nonviolence and truth, the direct opposites of violence and untruth, are meant to alter the desire for vested interests. Further, Gandhi asserts that nonviolence is meant to direct one to the service of the other. Gandhi says, ‘My non-violence bids me to dedicate myself to the service of the minorities’ (Gandhi 1947, as cited in Prabhu 1967). The query arises: how can nonviolence induce service? How is truth, which for Gandhi is closely related to nonviolence, ultimately related to service? The relation between service of the other and the aim of truth is further suggested by Gandhi in the following passage: I have felt that in trying to enforce in one’s life the central teaching of the Gītā (selfless action), one is bound to follow Truth and ahiṃ sā. When there is no desire for fruit, there is no temptation for untruth or hiṃ sā’. (Gandhi 1927b, 131) The suggestion is that truth can be arrived at only by non-violent and selfless action in Gandhi’s view. Together, this passage and the previous one suggest that selfless action and detachment from vested interest are closely related to nonviolence and truth in Gandhi’s frame of thought. The philosophical task is to articulate this intuitive framework. Gandhi also firmly relates moral notions of truth-seeking (satyāgraha), nonviolence and service with social and political notions like self-rule (swarāj) and upliftment of all (sarvodaya). Gandhi aimed to ultimately construct a just society – swarāj – on the basis of the web of cited notions. Thus, he aims to anchor a political notion of swarāj on moral grounds. He says cryptically, ‘Swarāj really means self-rule and self-restraint’ (Gandhi 1931/1999, 220). The civilization resulting from swarāj has, in essence, a ‘paramount place of morality’ (Gandhi 1930/1999, 31). For Gandhi, swarāj is a feature of an ideal society comprising individuals who morally govern/rule themselves. However, beyond such profound remarks, it is hard to find any argument and elucidation of these ideas. The preceding passages reveal the presence of moral ideals like service, selflessness and nonviolence as required moral features of human action in Gandhi’s thought. Thus, Gandhi appears to hold a strong notion of moral agency; understanding the properties of his agent requires clarification of the moral notions in which it is embedded (Goyal 2021). So, there is another angle on the urgency of the theoretical examination of his thoughts. Yet, as we saw, even if some of his remarks indicate the presence of moral notions in Gandhi’s thinking, these remarks do not provide explicit definitions and definite meanings for the required concepts that are needed for a philosophical inquiry. It is not easy to discern his responses to the following ethical and metaethical queries: what is the role of nonviolence in moral truth; is Gandhi’s moral truth consequentialist; 446

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does the presence of principles like nonviolence, truth and selflessness make Gandhi’s moral ideals a deontology; are Gandhi’s moral views closer to virtue theory owing to his focus on moral agency and the practice of selflessness? A lack of response to these queries makes it difficult to grasp the interrelations and fundamentality of the concepts introduced by Gandhi and their consequences for moral theory. Therefore, the problem is that, on the one hand, the stated characterizations of philosophical notions such as truth indicate the presence of a significant philosophical theme; on the other, the lack of theoretical exposition of these concepts poses a serious challenge to a philosophical exposition of Gandhi’s ideas. In this sense, the textual material by Gandhi contrasts sharply with the work of classical philosophers such as Plato. When one studies Plato’s notion of justice, one examines The Republic, The Laws and the related Platonic literature. In the case of Gandhi, there is no text like The Republic, which is a detailed characterization of certain concepts and theories. Further, for studying Plato’s ideas, there is a long lineage of scholarly interpretations of primary texts, beginning with Aristotle and coming down the centuries to contemporary commentators like Francis M. Cornford, Gregory Vlastos and many others. In the case of Gandhi, in contrast, the absence of primary texts perhaps explains why philosophers have seldom paid theoretical attention to Gandhi’s thought.

Problems with Historical Inquiry Given the exegetical limitations in Gandhi’s writings, turning to secondary literature is an obvious step for locating Gandhi’s concepts and their interrelations in a theoretical framework. What I am seeking from the secondary literature on Gandhi is something like what Bronwyn Finnigan (2011) calls constructing ethical theory in the context of Buddhist metaethics when confronted with a lack of ethical theorization in the primary texts themselves. In Buddhist studies, scholars like Dreyfus (1995) and Finnigan (2011) have taken up the task of first articulating what may be viewed as Buddhist ethics such that, in the next step, one may explore Buddhist metaethics. Similarly, as Dreyfus (1995, 30) says in the context of Buddhist ethics, I expect the secondary literature on Gandhi to ‘pull together the often-scattered elements of substantive ethics’ found in Gandhi’s thought and construct the logic of Gandhi’s ethical theory. An obvious way to achieve this is by comparing these scattered elements with Western moral and philosophical theories. Bilgrami (2015, 2016) attempts something similar in his work, where he spells out some of Gandhi’s ideas in terms of abstract moral categories. But Bilgrami’s work is an exception, and unfortunately, that’s not quite the case with the majority of the literature on Gandhi. The social, political, historical and religious readings represent virtually the majority of secondary literature on Gandhi. In recent years, there has been a refreshing growth of interest in a theoretical understanding of Gandhi’s moral and political concepts in this literature. However, the largely non-philosophical approaches pursued in this literature fail to provide sufficient direction to the depth of Gandhi’s ideas. In the next section, I will discuss some influential historical literature to explain the problem. But apart from providing little help for philosophical inquiry, there is another range of secondary literature on Gandhi that suffers from a more serious methodological deficiency. In the absence of substantive primary texts, this literature considers it legitimate to draw evidence from Gandhi’s personal life and activism to understand his moral and political concepts. This deficiency, which runs through some of the influential readings on Gandhi, often leads to a distorted and polemical understanding of Gandhi’s ideas so as to cast doubt 447

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on the seriousness of viewing Gandhi as a moral thinker. Bilgrami (2003, 4159) mildly warns of this danger when he says the ‘quality of Gandhi’s thought has sometimes been lost because of the other images Gandhi evolves – a shrewd politician and a deeply spiritual figure’. In what follows, I will explain the polemical challenge just stated by explaining the problematic methodology which gives rise to such perspectives on Gandhi; the discussion of the methodological problem is followed by an illustration. Unlike both Platonic and Buddhist studies, the polemical studies just mentioned signal a more general problem with what may be called Gandhian studies. Largely due to the recentness of Gandhi, the problem of the absence of philosophical texts takes a different turn in this secondary literature on Gandhi. In the absence of proper theoretical texts from Gandhi, Gandhi’s life and its historical context have served as ‘text’ for much of these studies. The basic underlying idea in these studies is to investigate the phenomenon of Gandhi as a whole – that is, to study the integration between Gandhi’s ideas and actions, including aspects of his personal life. The vast literature on Gandhi mainly views him as a remarkable politician and mass leader. Sometimes, he is also viewed as a saint, a messiah and a spiritual guru; sometimes even as a ‘philosopher’ in a stretched sense of the term.2 In a recent study, the historian Nishikant Kolge (2017) defended the historical-biographical explorations of Gandhi as the only appropriate form for studying Gandhi because, for Gandhi, according to Kolge, actions are more fundamental than the principles that guide them.3 Kolge uses Gandhi’s statement, ‘What you do not get from my conduct, you will never get from my words’ (cited in Rajmohan Gandhi 2017, ix), to reach the conclusion that for Gandhi, his actions have priority over his principles. It seems to follow that Gandhi’s actions and thoughts form a composite whole. It could be that the suggested integrated view of Gandhi is necessary for what I have labelled Gandhian studies. Taking Kolge’s claim as a timely warning, the project of ‘constructing’ a Gandhian moral theory thus requires that we distance the philosophical project from such an integrated reading of Gandhi.4 The point is that unlike the historical-biographical literature, which assumes that a study of Gandhi’s ideas can only be accomplished along with a study of his actions and context, it is important for a philosophical inquiry to abstract away from Gandhi’s personal life and his political activism because a philosophical study regards Gandhi’s ideas themselves as objects of study. Gandhi’s actions may be occasionally used as examples for illustrating these ideas; yet, whether or not Gandhi adhered to his own ideas or miserably failed at attempts to follow them would not have any bearing on the meaning of Gandhi’s ideas themselves. To my knowledge, the autobiographies or biographies of famous philosophers such as Bertrand Russell (1969/2006) and Willard Quine (1985) or even of political philosophers like Karl Marx (McLellan 1973) are seldom used to discuss their philosophical views. Similarly, a project on Gandhian metaethics is unconcerned with the personal phenomenon of Gandhi because metaethical questions are concerned only with the theoretical meaning of some of the concepts introduced by Gandhi. A philosophical inquiry requires a programmatic separation between Gandhi’s thoughts and his life. The programme just sketched may be illustrated with a brief examination of the polemical literature mentioned earlier. In her influential paper ‘Moral Saints’, Susan Wolf (1982) criticizes the idea of moral saints for its lack of appeal to common-sense morality; Wolf uses Gandhi as an example of a moral saint. Without any explanation or argumentation, Wolf borrows George Orwell’s evaluation of Gandhi (Orwell 1949/2009). My experience is that 448

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whenever Gandhi is mentioned in circles of analytic moral philosophy, Wolf’s piece is inevitably cited to question the value of the mention. The issue is that there are several problems with Orwell’s ascription of Gandhi as a moral saint and Orwell’s view of Gandhi’s ideas as promoting saintliness.5 Orwell (1949/2009) argues that Gandhi’s saintly moral ideals have ‘anti-humanistic tendency’ (466) and concludes that ‘human beings must avoid’ sainthood as personified by Gandhi (463). On scrutiny, it turns out that Orwell hardly investigates Gandhi’s ideas to reach his opinion on Gandhi; Orwell bases his evaluations merely on Gandhi’s actions. For instance, from Gandhi’s stubborn commitment to vegetarianism, which he extended to his family, Orwell first reaches the conclusion that Gandhi was a ‘moral perfectionist’ who does not allow any exceptions; next, Orwell argues that, since Gandhi is a moral perfectionist, Gandhi cannot entertain common notions of love and friendship because these things require making moral exceptions (462). Therefore, Gandhi’s ideals are ‘anti-humanistic’. Even a breezy look at some of the sophisticated accounts of Gandhi’s ideas by scholars like Akeel Bilgrami (2015) and Faisal Devji (2005/2012, 2013) shows that Orwell is fundamentally mistaken. For instance, Devji (2005/2012, 2013) focuses on Gandhi’s idea of lack of selfishness to argue that Gandhi’s ideas strongly promote the relationship of friendship. In any case, from the alleged fact of Gandhi’s preference for vegetarianism, it does not follow that a theoretical understanding of Gandhi’s moral views needs to appeal to ‘moral perfectionism’ alleged thereof. Also, Orwell’s claims are based entirely on Gandhi’s autobiography. As stated before, it is questionable whether Orwell’s autobiographical source can be used to portray stable, abstract views of the author, especially when it is used as the only source for doing so. Thus, there are two reasons for a philosophical study to be unconcerned with historical-contextual secondary literature on Gandhi. First, metaethical queries are significantly different from historical-contextual ones; secondly, on occasion, integrated reading of Gandhi’s ideas and contexts leads to a misinterpretation of Gandhi. Hence, a philosophical understanding of Gandhi’s moral views must be abstracted away from his historical context to directly examine the theoretical implications of abstract moral concepts.

Limits of Political Literature Unlike the directly historical-biographical literature, there is a growing body of recent literature in political theory which investigates the conceptual integrity in some areas of Gandhi’s thought. Some prominent South-Asian political theorists like Karuna Mantena (2012), Shruti Kapila (2015), and the historian Faisal Devji (2005/2012, 2013), among others, engage with Gandhi’s thought to draw out its implications for political theory. In doing so, they indeed throw theoretical light on some of Gandhi’s concepts, such as the search for truth (Shruti Kapila), nonviolence (Karuna Mantena and Faisal Devji), disinterested friendship (Faisal Devji) and the like. This political literature aims to develop a political theory out of Gandhi’s ideas and his political activism; hence, the mode of analysis is partly congenial to the present study. Nonetheless, there is much difference between the requirements for Gandhian metaethics and this political literature on Gandhi. For instance, while the cited authors ask what kind of political theory can be formed out of Gandhi’s thought, I am inquiring into the fundamental ideal in Gandhi’s moral thought. This literature doesn’t seem to elaborate on those moral concepts in Gandhi, whose significance is not directly visible in the social history. 449

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For instance, there is no direct discussion or even mention of Gandhi’s concept of swarāj, the moral ideal of self-rule, and anāsakti, the moral attitude of detachment. I am not claiming that it is the burden of political literature on Gandhi to explain his moral concepts; the point is that there are limitations to what a study of moral concepts can draw from political literature. Given the theoretical limitations sketched earlier, the political literature seems to be the only appropriate secondary literature in hand because, as noted, these thinkers use and explain Gandhi’s concepts to reach some understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of these concepts. Let us see if there is some lesson for moral philosophy in the noted theoretical aspects of the political literature on Gandhi. For instance, most of this literature is devoted to developing powerful critiques of classical political liberalism from a Gandhian perspective. However, it is best to be unconcerned with whether or not these interpretations of Gandhi are acceptable because it is unclear if a metaethical project is interestingly informed with an overall characterization of Gandhi’s political views. I am aware that the issue is contentious, yet prima facie metaethical questions do not need to examine whether Gandhi is an orientalist, an anarchist, a pre-modernist or a political realist and the like. These are historical positions which do not have a direct effect on the more abstract character of moral inquiry. Philosophical implications of Gandhi’s moral conceptions of selflessness, truth and nonviolence are germane to metaethical queries. I will try to expand on the limitations of this political literature for ‘constructing’ Gandhi’s moral philosophy by showing where the political literature falls short in adequately addressing the significant aspects of Gandhi’s thought. Before I do so, let me explain the limitations of the political literature for conducting metaethical discourse in terms of the analogy Plato mentioned earlier. There could be two alternative ways, among others, to study Plato’s philosophy: (A) Scholars may study Platonic philosophy to determine whether Plato was an idealist, a realist, a conceptualist and the like. In doing so, they may sometimes explain and use one or the other Platonic concepts like Justice or Forms to make their claim about his idealism, realism and so on. It is natural to view such work as falling under Platonic studies. In my view, the political literature on Gandhi, which examines whether Gandhi is a political realist, falls in this category. (B) There are studies on Plato which focus on the theory of Forms to closely investigate the relation between universals and particulars introduced in the literature by Plato. These studies concern the topic of universals and not the topic of Plato, even if Plato is the main author so studied. Similarly, an ethical study may be exclusively concerned with the concept of moral truth, nonviolence, etc., with which Gandhi was prominently concerned. Yet the study will be on moral truth rather than on Gandhi. The study that aims to pursue metaethical queries on Gandhi falls in category (B). However, in the absence of (B) type literature in Gandhi’s case, one may use the characterization of Gandhi’s concepts available in (A) type literature to launch (B) type study. It is crucial to emphasize that in the present case, (A) type literature is the political literature on Gandhi, and while engaging with (A) type literature, one may remain largely unconcerned with their respective claims about Gandhi’s political thought; one may be concerned limitedly with their characterization of Gandhi’s concepts only so as to develop (B) literature on Gandhi. 450

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For example, one may take two related steps for extracting Gandhi’s idea of moral agency as it is subliminally discussed in the (A) type literature. First, highlight how each of the political conceptions addressed thereof has underlying moral ideals. For instance, Shruti Kapila’s discussion of Gandhi’s concept of truth (Kapila 2015) points out that Gandhi’s notion not only concerns truth values of propositions but also characterizes firm convictions of the moral agent. Second, using Gandhi’s own remarks suggests how some of the characterizations proposed in the literature fail to sufficiently address several aspects of Gandhi’s thought, such as Gandhi’s notion of moral agency. The failure to achieve an integrated view of Gandhi’s concepts leads to only a partial and diffused understanding of Gandhi’s moral universe. Thus, it is possible to extract some theoretical nuances of Gandhi’s ideas by using theoretical tools and discussions from the political literature.6 I began this chapter by explaining how Gandhi’s texts are theoretically insufficient to directly respond to sophisticated philosophical issues such as the definition of moral agency in Gandhi’s thought. In the process of spelling out the theoretical limitations, I anticipated that there is an intuitive moral theme in his ideas which can possibly be developed into a proper moral theory. Thus, by marking the presence of moral concepts like conviction in truth, nonviolence, selflessness and upliftment of all, which seem to form a web of interconnected ideas in a moral framework, I indicated the legitimacy of seeking metaethical responses from Gandhi. I am aware that the suggestions made about Gandhi’s moral theory are mainly intuitive and are rather insufficient to show that these concepts, in fact, have theoretical sophistication, even if unarticulated. However, the construction of Gandhian metaethics – how Gandhi’s moral concepts form a moral network – is beyond the scope of this chapter. I also explained how the secondary literature on Gandhi could be broadly divided into two kinds: (a) historical-biographical literature, which draws theoretical conclusions on Gandhi’s ideas primarily on the basis of his political and personal life, and (b) recent political studies, which analyse Gandhi’s ideas and activism to criticize existing political theories. I argued that a study aiming to seek metaethical responses to Gandhi’s ideas must set aside the first kind of literature and draw qualified lessons from the second kind. However, by no means do I claim this to be an exhaustive and the only possible way to arrive at metaethical issues present in Gandhi’s thought; I claim that this is one of the ways to extract it. Another equally significant way of developing some of the metaethical aspects of Gandhi’s thought is by comparing his ideas with some of the classical Indian concepts like niśkāma karma of Bhagavad Gītā or ahiṃ sā and aparigrha of Jaina philosophy. It appears that not only did Gandhi incorporate some of the aspects of these ideas in his thinking, but more interestingly, he even rejected some aspects of these thoughts. Hence, a careful study of relevant classical literature may bring out the originality of Gandhi’s moral thinking.

Notes 1 For discussion on Gandhi’s moral concepts, see Goyal (2019), Goyal and Mukherji (2020), Goyal (2021), Goyal (2022). Also see Bilgrami (2003, 2015, 2020). 2 Even some recent workthat might appear to be ‘philosophical’ studies of Gandhi, fall under the stated genre; see Mohan, Shaj and Divya Dwivedi. 2018. Gandhi and Philosophy: On Theological Anti-politics. London: Bloomsbury; ‘Gandhi’s Truth: Debating Bilgrami’, in P. Bilimoria and amy Rayner (eds)., Routledge History of Indian Philosophy, 2019, chapter 54, Abingdon: Routledge. and Puri’s chapter (#44) in this volume; Jahanbegloo, Ramin. 2018. The Disobedient Indian: Towards the Gandhian Philosophy of Dissent. Delhi: Speaking Tiger Books ; P. Bilimoria and

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Samiksha Goyal Joseph Prabhu, ‘Reflections on Moral Ideals and Modernity: Gandhi, Empire and Culture of Peace’. In, P. Bilimoria et al (eds), Indian Ethics Vol I, Part C (2017); P. Bilimoria, ‘’Gandhian ethics of non‑violence’, Prabuddha Bharati (Calcutta). 1988, May, vol 93: 184–191. 3 In a recent article on the occasion of Gandhi’s 150th anniversary, the well-known historian and Gandhian scholar Vinay Lal (2019) remarks that we may understand Gandhi properly only when we pay attention to every moment of his life, including his morning ablutions, diet, walks and prayers. 4 I have defended the conception of Gandhi as a philosopher in my response to Kolge (2017) in Goyal (2019). 5 I have discussed at length the problem with Orwell and Wolf’s criticism of Gandhi as a moral saint in Goyal and Mukherji (2020). The present mention of Wolf and Orwell is meant to illustrate the problems in conflating biographical and theoretical accounts of Gandhi’s ideas. 6 See Goyal (2022) for more on how I have executed this.

Bibliography Akeel, Bilgrami. 2003/2015. Gandhi the Philosopher. In Akeel Bilgrami, Secularism, Identity and Enchantment. New Delhi: Permanent Black. 101–121. ———. 2015. Gandhi (and Marx). In Secularism, Identity and Enchantment. New Delhi: Permanent Black.122–174. ———. 2016. The Visibility of Value. Social Research, 83 (4) Winter, 917–943. ———. 2020. Value and Alienation: A Revisionist Essay on Our Political Ideals. In Nature and Value, ed Akeel Bilgrami. Columbia: Columbia University Press. 68–78. Dreyfus, G. 1995. Meditation as Ethical Activity. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 2, 28–54. Faisal, Devji. 2005/2012. In Praise of Prejudice. In The Impossible Indian: The temptation of violence. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 67–92. ———. 2013. Morality in the Shadow of Politics. In Political Thought in Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 107–126. Finnigan, Bronwyn. 2011. Buddhist Metaethics. Journal of International Association of Buddhist Studies, 33 (1–2), 267–297. Gandhi, M. K. 1909a. Hind Swaraj. In Hind Swarāj and Other Writings, ed Anthony J. Parel. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1909b. Letter to Manilal Gandhi. In Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book). Vol 10. New Delhi: Publications Divisions, Govt. of India. 317–318. ———. 1913/1999. Accidents: Snake Bites. In Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book). Vol. 13. New Delhi: Publications Divisions, Govt. of India. 239–244. ———. 1921/1999. Why Did I Assist in War? In Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book). Vol. 26. New Delhi: Publications Divisions, Govt. of India. 101–102. ———. 1925/1999. Meaning of the Gītā. In The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book). Vol. 33. New Delhi: Publications Divisions, Govt. of India. 395–396. ———. 1927a. The Bhagvad Gītā. New Delhi: Diamond Books. ———. 1927b. The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Tridip Suhrud (Trans). New Delhi: Penguin. ———. 1929/1999. Anāsaktī Yoga: The message of the Gita. In CWMG 46. New Delhi: Publications Divisions, Govt. of India. 173. https://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-literature/collectedworks-of-mahatma-gandhi-volume-1-to-98.php ———. 1930/1999. Speech At All-India National Educational Conference, Ahmedabad. In CWMG 48. New Delhi: Publications Divisions, Govt. of India. 225–228. https://www.gandhiashramsevagram. org/gandhi-literature/collected-works-of-mahatma-gandhi-volume-1-to-98.php ———. 1931/1999. Interview to Journalists. In CWMG 51. New Delhi: Publications Divisions, Govt. of India. 220–223. https://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-literature/collected-worksof-mahatma-gandhi-volume-1-to-98.php ———. 1939/1999. Harijan. In Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book). Vol 76. New Delhi: Publications Divisions, Govt. of India. 356. ———. 1942/1999. Harijan. In Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book). Vol 83. New Delhi: Publications Divisions, Govt. of India. 163.

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Approaching Gandhian Metaethics ———. 1967. The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, R. K. Prabhu and U. R. Rao eds. Ahmedabad: Navjivan Publishing House, 1967. Gandhi, Rajmohan. 2017. Foreword. In Gandhi Against Caste, ed. Nishikant Kolge. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ix–xiv. Goyal, Samiksha. 2019. Gandhi: Pragmatic Politician or Philosopher? Journal of Dharma Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-019-00045-y ———. 2021. Moral Agency in Gandhi’s Thought. American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, 95th Annual Programme, April 10. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.apaonline.org/resource/ resmgr/pacific2021/p2021_meeting_program_draft.pdf ———. 2022. Detached Moral Agency: A Study in Gandhian Meta-Ethics. In APA Studies. Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies, ed. Minh Nguyen. APA Newsletter. Fall. ISSN 2834-4413. Goyal, Samiksha and Nirmalangshu Mukherji. 2020. Gandhi and Saintliness. Economic and Political Weekly, 36 (September 5), 49–55. Guha, Ramchandra. 2018. Gandhi 1914–1948: The Years That Changed the World. New Delhi: Penguin. Kapila, Shruti. 2015. Gandhi Before Mahatma: The Foundations of Political Truth. Public Culture (October), 431–448. Kolge, Nishikant. 2017. Gandhi Against Caste. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Lal, Vinay. 2019. An Environmentalist by Nature.The Hindu, 02 October. Mantena, Karuna. 2012. Another Realism: The Politics of Gandhian Non-Violence. American Political Science Review, 106 (2), 455–470. McLellan, David. 1973. Karl Marx: His Life and Thought. London: Macmillan. Orwell, George. 1949/2000. Reflection on Gandhi. In Orwell, All Art Is Propaganda. Compiled by George Packer. New York: Mariner Books. Quine, Willard V. 1985. The Time of My Life: An Autobiography. London: Bradford Books, MIT Press. Russell, Bertrand. 1969/2006. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. London: Routledge. Wolf, Susan. 1982. Moral Saints. Journal of Philosophy, 79 (8), 419–439.

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38 GLOBALIZATION, GANDHI AND FREE TRADE* Sanjay Lal

Globalization Through the Father’s Eyes As the effects of globalization continue to be felt worldwide, perhaps no country has been more relevant to the phenomenon than India. From the outsourcing of labour to the emergence of a giant global consumer of goods and resources, India’s pivotal role in globalization is seemingly irreplaceable in the third millennium. Given India’s place in the worldwide economy, it seems rational to conclude, as a commentator on Night-Line once did, that Indians are no longer living in Gandhi’s India (assuming, of course, they ever did). While it is never particularly validating to compare one’s present-day practices with the ideals laid down by the great saints, to ignore the insights the ‘Father of the Nation’ has offered on matters pertinent to globalization is to ignore a whole class of ethical issues which are worthy of consideration as India goes forward. No matter how out of touch with reality or how hopelessly idealistic we now envision Gandhi to have been, his views remain challenging for anyone serious about the consideration of a healthy, just and sustainable economic state. In what follows, I will offer a Gandhian critique of globalization from a religious, ethical and economic perspective, all the while understanding that such distinctions are hardly relevant to the Mahatma. He states, ‘I do not believe that the spiritual law works in a field of its own. On the contrary, it expresses itself only through the ordinary activities of life. It thus affects the economic, the social, and the political fields’ (Gandhi 1925, 304). My intention will be to show not only the relevance Gandhian insights have for the present economic age but also the problems that we have invited by ignoring such ethical insights.

Globalization Critiqued from a Gandhian Religious Perspective It is perhaps the Gandhian religious perspective that is most immediately applicable to India’s present age. As shopping becomes a more prevalent pastime in the sub-continent and the disposing of income more of a sign of supposed Indian progress, Gandhi’s ethics of *  A version of this chapter was published in P. Bilimoria and Amy Rayner (eds.) Globalization, Transnational, Gender And Ecological Engagements, 3–9. Delhi: Serial Publications. 2014. Re-edited by Purushottama. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-44

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minimizing desires and simple living become all the more relevant. Indeed, the Mahatma’s ideas on such matters are relevant to all capitalistic systems – necessary ingredients of globalization. The latter point was brought home by Marx and Engels before the 20th century when, in the Communist Manifesto, it was observed that capitalism requires the opening of more markets in further and faraway places for goods to be sold and resources to be exploited (Marx and Engels 1888). Given that capitalist systems rely on populations seeking to satisfy increasingly greater consumer desires to continue and grow, the growth of capitalist systems also requires a departure from Gandhian ethics of simplicity. Gandhi states, ‘Under the new outlook multiplicity of material wants will not be the aim of life, the aim will rather be their restriction consistently with comfort’ (Gandhi 1925, 304). In keeping with traditional Hindu thinking, Gandhi advocates detachment from desires as the means for attaining liberation from suffering. We read: If people try, they can reduce their wants and, as the latter diminish, they become happier, more peaceful and healthier. From the standpoint of pure truth, the body, too, is a possession. It has been truly said that desire for enjoyment creates bodies for the soul and sustains them. When this desire vanishes, there remains no further need for the body and man is free from the vicious cycle of births and deaths. The soul is omnipresent; why should she care to be confined within the cage-like body, or do evil and even kill for the sake of that cage? We thus arrive at the ideal of total renunciation and learn the use of the body for the purposes of service so long as it exists, so much so that service, and not bread, becomes for us the stuff of life. We eat and drink, sleep and wake, for service alone. Such an attitude of mind brings us real happiness and the beatific vision in the fullness of time. Let us all examine ourselves from this standpoint. (Iyer 1986–7, 474) It is the pursuit of greater and greater desires that, from a Gandhian standpoint, perpetuates the cycles of births and deaths and its attendant suffering. By making the satisfaction of material wants our purpose in an economic system, we are kept from fulfilling what Gandhi sees as our ultimate aim – the full realization of Truth. That realization requires reducing the everyday self to a cipher, which is contrary to expanding the aggregate of desires that is that self. Indeed, Gandhi considers it an unethical form of self-indulgence to, in the pursuit of enjoyment, take more than is absolutely necessary for sustenance. It is only through detachment from the everyday self that the True Self, which underlies and permeates the everyday world of changing things, can be realized. Sustaining and growing systems which involve attachment to the things of this world and thus to the desires ultimately hamper our quest for genuine liberation. In line with such religious concerns are Gandhi’s views on non-possession. For the Mahatma, non-possession is related to non-stealing. We read: Non-possession is allied to non-stealing. A thing not originally stolen must nevertheless be classified as stolen property, if we possess it without needing it. Possession implies provision for the future. A seeker after Truth, a follower of the law of Love cannot hold anything against tomorrow. God never stores for the morrow; He never creates more than what is strictly needed for the moment. If therefore we repose faith in His providence, we should rest assured, that He will give us every day our daily bread, meaning everything that we require. Saints and devotees, who have lived in such faith, have always derived a justification for it from their experience. (Yadav 2003, 78) 455

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While the practicability of this particular teaching of Gandhi may be difficult to notice, we can understand the previous words to be enunciating an ideal that we should strive to make greater progress in upholding. An economic system that encourages amassing greater and greater possessions is antithetical to the spirit of such an ideal. What’s more is that by amassing possessions, we not only lose the serenity that comes from trusting that all one’s needs will be provided for but ultimately resort to violence to protect and defend our material gains. Given that the amassing of possessions entails the use of violence since it requires a departure from the detachment involved in upholding ahimsa (a term Gandhi saw as equivalent to nonviolence), such possessions and the system which acquiring them makes possible can only be defended by violence. As N. K. Bose notes in Studies in Gandhism, ‘(A) nything whose acquisition depends on violence, can be defended by violent means alone’ (1940, 21). By engaging in violence, we are kept from upholding ahimsa, which, to Gandhi, is the only means for arriving at Truth (Gandhi 1957, 8). We have seen in this section how certain practices, as well as the capitalistic system associated with globalization, are incompatible with basic Gandhian religious ideals. A predictable response to the previous discussion would be so much the worse for Gandhian religious ideals. Given the realities we face by living in this world, it is certainly tempting to think of the upholding of such ideals as luxuries only the well-supported and saintly few have within reach. While it could be argued that it is never to our benefit to live within a system that moves us away from such ideals, it is not unfair to ask for a critique of globalization that is more immediately in line with everyday concerns. It is in that regard that I turn to a critique of globalization from Gandhian ethical and economic perspectives.

Globalization Critiqued from a Gandhian Ethical Perspective Given that Gandhian ethics calls on us to engage in universal moral concern as well as to realize an ultimate oneness with all, it may seem surprising that such an ethic is incompatible with present-day globalization (Gandhi 1960, 78). After all, among the most prevalent defences of globalization are the claims that the economic practice raises the standard of living for those in faraway places by providing them with meaningful work and that it serves to unify the world by breaking down barriers. In this section, I will address each of these defences from a Gandhian standpoint. In regard to the aforementioned first point, the Gandhian doctrine of swadeshi (translated as ‘one’s own country’) becomes relevant (as it will when we discuss globalization from an economic standpoint). It is by recognizing this concept – which calls on us to limit our concern to those closest to us – that Gandhi holds universal moral concern can be genuinely realized. We read: I believe in the truth implicitly that a man can serve his neighbours and humanity at the same time, the condition being that the service of the neighbours is in no way selfish or exclusive, i.e. does not in any way involve the exploitation of any other human being. The neighbours would then understand the spirit in which such service is given. They would also know that they would be expected to give their service to their neighbors. Thus considered, it would spread like the proverbial snowball gathering strength in geometrical progression, encircling the whole earth. … The condition…already mentioned was that the neighbor, thus served, had, in his turn, to serve

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his own neighborhood. In this sense Swadeshi was never exclusive. It recognized the scientific limitation of human capacity for service. (Gandhi 1947, 23; 1999) Ultimately, for Gandhi, we universalize moral concern when we limit that concern to those closest to us, and they, in turn, do likewise. Eventually, all get included in our moral concerns. In the words of Gandhi’s biographer, Pyarelal (1973, 189), ‘Thus a man renders his selfless service to the family, the family to the community, the community to the district, the district to the province, the province to the nation and the nation to the world’. Given practical realities and the demands of humility, swadeshi becomes a necessary aspect of Gandhian moral concern. The Mahatma states, [Swadeshi is] the only doctrine consistent with the law of humility and love. It is arrogance to think of launching out to serve the whole of India when I am hardly able to serve my own family. It were better to concentrate my effort upon the family and consider that through them I was serving … the whole of humanity. (1973, 170; 1999) Gandhi is sensitive to the natural limitations which keep us from directly serving all of humanity, as well as the demands of humility which keep us from supposing we can meet the needs of all in the same way (even those we are not in immediate contact with). By attempting to directly serve all of humanity, we inevitably turn away from serving those closest to us – the only way in which we can, in fact, serve the whole. Thus, globalization as it is currently practiced, from Gandhi’s standpoint, actually runs counter to universalizing moral concern since, by its very nature, it moves us away from focusing on those closest to us. The nation selflessly serves the world, on Gandhi’s scheme, only after all those included in the nation are served. It is clear that present-day globalization, at its best, is more an attempt to serve the greater humanity, which invariably comes at the expense of serving those within one’s own borders. Furthermore, globalization is said to unify different cultures by eradicating trade barriers (which, in turn, supposedly eradicates other barriers) and thus seems to be in line with realizing the oneness Gandhi calls for. Present-day globalization, however, also diminishes distinctiveness among different cultures. Globalization has been seen as homogenizing the world – an observation indicated by the prevalence of the same transnational corporations seemingly everywhere. This shows another incompatibility with Gandhian ethics. For Gandhi, honouring distinctiveness is essential to realizing genuine oneness. As I show elsewhere (Lal 2006, IV), equality (which is essential to realizing oneness), be it in respect of gender, religion, class or culture, does not preclude external differences to the Mahatma. Only the supposed differences between superior and inferior should be done away with. The different entities serve different and unique roles and functions while being equal to one another. It is this kind of oneness that Gandhi advocates for us while we exist in our presently embodied state. Globalization, as it is practiced today, does not seem particularly capable of doing away with supposed differences between higher and lower. That this is the case seems to be sufficiently indicated by the phenomenon of including other cultures in partnerships only in so far as their members are willing to do unpleasant work under unpleasant conditions. Alien cultures are supposedly uplifted by their members engaging in work deemed, under similar 457

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conditions, to be unfit for certain natives. Such hardly seems the means for realizing an eradication of higher and lower. Present-day globalization, while not particularly helpful in eradicating differences between higher and lower, does seem to undermine the kinds of differences Gandhi regards as necessary for unity. The dominance of certain transnational companies on the global market serves to undermine the cultural distinctiveness that is an essential part of the ideal Gandhian world. Ultimately, the commercialism and brand name identification that becomes prevalent with the creation of a system that turns the whole world into a giant consumer body runs contrary to preserving the uniqueness of each individual place. This issue is demonstrated by the dominating presence of Coca-Cola, KFC, Red-Rooster, Dunkin Donuts and McDonald’s logos in places that were formerly more easily distinguishable from American culture.

Globalization Critiqued from a Gandhian Economic Perspective Let us now discuss globalization from a purely economic perspective. In Gandhian economics, notions of self-sufficiency, decentralization and the keeping of production close to consumption are central. The undermining of cultural distinctiveness, which is included in present-day globalization itself, is ultimately contrary to such notions. Thus, I now turn to ideas of Gandhi that are of a more constructive nature regarding economic matters as opposed to being reactionary toward dominant Western practices. As we saw earlier, the doctrine of swadeshi calls on us to limit our concern to those closest to us in our attempt to universalize moral concern. This doctrine is essential to the economics of self-sufficiency in the Mahatma. In the ideal Gandhian state, decentralized communities produce and consume the basic necessities of life themselves. In such a state, one’s access to the goods needed to provide for his family does not depend on what happens in faraway places (e.g., market fluctuations, currency speculation, contamination of goods) that are ultimately beyond his control and that are irrelevant when he is self-sufficient. Gandhi asserts that: ‘The farmer needs to know that his first business is to grow for his own needs. When he does that, he will reduce the chance of a low market ruining him’ (cited in Gruzalski 2002, 44); (whereas) ‘if there is production and distribution both in the respective areas where things are required, it is automatically regulated and there is less chance for fraud, none for speculation’ (cited in Bose, 30). In describing the doctrine of khadi (economic freedom), Gandhi states further, Khadi mentality means decentralization of the production and distribution of the necessaries of life. Therefore, the formula so far evolved is, every village to produce all its necessaries and a certain percentage in addition for the requirements of the cities. Heavy industries will be centralized and nationalized. But they will occupy the least part of the vast national activity which will mainly be in the villages. (Cited in Yadav 86) By concentrating production in and distributing goods from the urban areas, as well as having the goods be consumed so far away from the places of production, present-day globalization becomes antithetical to economic freedom. The village, where most of the Indian population continues to reside, is unable to provide for itself, which leads to the urban areas becoming saturated with villagers fruitlessly seeking a livelihood in places that 458

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are unable to support them. Most of the population becomes incapable of self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is the essence of genuine economic freedom and the starting point of a content and ethical life (see Bilimoria 2021a, 2021b; Devaki Jain, Chapter 36 in this volume). Furthermore, when what is produced is not internally consumed, the population becomes beholden and cedes control to those far removed from the particulars of its situation, and all parties wind up relying to a larger than necessary extent on factors outside of their immediate control for a functioning economic system to live under. Such is hardly conducive to genuine economic freedom. Bose concludes, Instead of producing quickly and in great bulk by centralized technology, and then taking a roundabout way of expensive distribution, Gandhi’s idea was to organize both production and consumption as close to one another as possible. This is the essence of his theory of decentralized economy through which men and women can attain a measure of economic freedom never guaranteed to them under opposite conditions. (1940, 24–25; 1999) Additionally, Gandhi’s emphasis on decentralization addresses a long-standing concern raised against capitalist systems – that they yield the seeds of their own destruction by necessitating overproduction. Gandhi states, When production and consumption both become localized, the temptation to speed up production, indefinitely and at any price, disappears. All the endless difficulties and problems that our present-day economic system presents, too, would then come to an end. There would be no unnatural accumulation of hoards in the pockets of the few, and want in the midst of plenty in regard to the rest. You see that these nations are able to exploit the so-called weaker or unorganized races of the world. Once these races gain this elementary knowledge, and decide that they are no more going to be exploited, they will be satisfied with what they can provide themselves. Massproduction, then, at least where the vital necessities are concerned, will disappear. (Cited in Bose, 30) Under Gandhi’s system, the producers have a much better sense of how much to produce and thus avoid jeopardizing their sustenance by investing vital resources in producing more than is feasible under market conditions. This will prevent the amassing and excessive indulgence a small percentage of the population has been able to engage in while disregarding the depletion of the natural environment. Indeed, this aspect of Gandhi’s ethical, economic system enables us to appreciate all the more another benefit of that system – ecological sustainability. Not only do we not consume more than is absolutely needed and thus conserve resources, but we do not deplete those essential resources via overproduction, bearing in mind also the needs of the future generation who have a right to the same resources but whom we are not consulting because – like the people in third world countries and faraway colonized lands – they are invisible to the vanishing present. What is more is that if we were to go by Gandhi’s system, we would not have the problem of releasing greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the environment by transporting necessary goods over great distances, thereby averting what some experts say is the greatest change facing humankind in the present era: climate change. Such 459

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ecological benefits are absent from present-day globalization and serve to underscore the economic viability of a system that avoids the negative utility of certain costs and irreparable damage to the environment (see Bilimoria 2021a).

Conclusion We have seen incongruities between the present-day globalization process and Gandhian ethics, as well as serious issues that are raised by a Gandhian critique of certain modern-day practices. By ignoring such issues, the realization of a globally just economic system remains ineluctably elusive. While Gandhi in no way can be seen to call for India’s isolation from the global community, at least in his perspective, India’s participation in that community as it currently occurs is neither religiously, ethically sustainable nor economically sound.

References Bilimoria, P. 2021a. ‘A Critique of Economic Reason: Between Tradition and Modernity.’ In: Sherma Rita and Bilimoria (eds.), Religion & Sustainability: Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses., 51-60, UN-SDS Series, Dordrecht: Springer. Bilimoria, P. 2021b. ‘Gandhi’s Swadeshi & A Dream of Self-Sufficiency.’ India Currents (Los Angeles) January 7th. Bose, N.K. 1940. Studies in Gandhism. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. Gandhi, M.K. 1925. Young India, September 3; CWMG, vol. 32, 373. ———. 1947. Harijan March 23; CWMG, vol. 94, 52. ———. 1957. Yeravda Mandir. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. ———. 1960. All Men Are Brothers. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. ———. 1999. CWMG (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi) (Electronic Archive, 98 vols). New Delhi: Publications Division Government of India. Gruzalski, B. 2002. Environmental Ethics 24 (Fall): 236. Iyer, Raghavan. (ed.) 1986–7, The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. III. New York: Oxford University Press. Lal, Sanjay (2006). The Tension and Coherence of Love, Identification, and Detachment in Gandhi’s Thought. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Marx, K. and Engels, F. 1888. Manifesto of the Communist Party. trans. Samuel Moore. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr. Pyarelal. 1973. Mahatma Gandhi, The Last Phase, vol. I, Book 2. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House; cited in Thekkinedath, Joseph. 1973. Love of Neighbour in Mahatma Gandhi. Kerala: Pontifical Institute of Theology and Philosophy. Yadav, K. C. (ed.) 2003. Gandhi: The Spirit of India. Haryana: Hope Indian Publications.

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PART V

Women and the Limits of Traditional Ethics

39 WOMEN AND ETHICS IN HINDU THOUGHT AND PRACTICE Mandakranta Bose

Introduction While there is no branch of thought within the Hindu tradition that is specifically marked as ethics, there is no lack of ethical reflections and prescriptions about human conduct. For the most part, there are general rules of conduct designed to facilitate life, both public and private, which are theorized as conforming to the cosmic principles of virtue and sustaining life harmoniously. In addition, however, there are rules of conduct specially prescribed for particular group identities determined by race, class and gender. Women constitute one such identity set. For women, special guidelines exist that lay down what is virtuous, good and righteous. These guidelines rest upon three principles: first, virtue for women means serving the interests of the men in their lives, especially their husbands and sons; second, the duty of putting men first overrides all general ethical rules, even if it means doing something that would be generally deemed wrong; and third, the rules for women are derived from what is assumed to be the essential nature of women, which is idealized at once as self-erasing and flawed. Both of these characteristics necessitate women’s dependence on men and the duty of providing nurturing and selfless service to men. That is the dharma of women, viewed as inherent in their very constitution, and it is the ideal they must pursue. Any deviation from this norm calls for censure. This general pattern of ethical thought in the Hindu tradition has been occasionally contested through the ages, but its dominant trend has been to assert women’s inferiority and to deny them self-determination. Whether such an ‘ethics’ is truly ethical calls for serious critical inquiry. Hindu ethics has to be understood within the overarching system called dharma. The importance of dharma in Hindu social, religious and cultural life cannot be overestimated, for it underlies and dictates all thought and conduct. The principles and injunctions of dharma are set out in Sanskrit texts from ancient to colonial times. These texts comprise the vast discourse called Dharmaśāstra and have been used till recent times as sources of the laws of India. These have been traditionally the sources of morality and ethics in Hindu social and religious culture, laying down the rules of virtuous living. The word dharma is loosely taken to mean religion, but it is, in fact, not so much about matters spiritual as about life lived according to what is conceived as the immutable cosmic principle of truth 463

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and justice. Dharma holds together and sustains righteous existence on earth by embodying that principle. The Mahābhārata glosses dharma as: dhāranād dharma ityāhu dharmeṇa vidhṛtāḥ prajāḥ / yasyāddhāraṇa samyuktam sa dharma iti niśchayaḥ// (Mbh: Śāntiparva 110.11) [Since it holds [society together], it is known as dharma; people are held by dharma. Whatever has the power to hold is known as dharma.] It is in this sense that dharma is consonant with the idea of an ultimate power and, in that sense, a religious system. Its injunctions are encoded in Dharmaśāstra, which consists of many texts that set down a body of laws that nurture, regulate and keep together a stable community living in harmony by the observance of duty, righteousness, justice and mutual benefit, with measured penalties for violations. At the same time, these regulations are fitted to the dharma of particular life forms and social locations, the word in this context denoting the essential nature of particular identities. The dharma of a Brahmin is not the same as that of a tiger; the dharma of a Vaiśya is not that of a śūdra; the dharma of a woman is not that of a man. Thus, the general principles of dharma remain unaltered, but their applications admit variations to suit the particular nature of the actor. Within this broad and varied ambit of dharma, there exist guidelines generically termed nīti that lead to wise and righteous conduct and provide the basis of ethical action. Nīti is derived from the root nī, literally meaning ‘to bring forward’, but used in the sense of ‘to guide’, ‘to project’ and ‘to uphold’ (human values). It is thus that nīti fits in with dharma, the two concepts comprising the ethical ideology of the Hindus, the distinction between the two blurred in common usage. Dharma and nīti operate on two levels: first, the general or sādhāraṇ a context of thought and action within which the actor exists, and second, the actor’s particular or viśeṣa circumstances. Sādhāraṇ a dharma is defined by the sage Vasiṣth ̣ a as, dharmam carata mā adharmam satyam vadata mā anṛtam/ dīrgham paśyata mā hrsvam param paśyata mā aparam// (Vasiṣṭha Dharmasūtra, 30.3) [Follow [the path of] dharma and not adharma, tell the truth and not untruth/ Look far and not [at what is] close to you; look for the best and not the other//] Duty, good behaviour and truthfulness are regarded as general ethical attributes enjoined upon all (sārvajana) irrespective of race, gender, class or caste or even species. Truthfulness is expected from priests as well as parrots. More particularized are the rules of viśeṣa dharma, which are more specifically enunciated as befitting the actor’s particular social and biological identity. For instance, varṇ āśrama dharma consists of sets of rules that the four castes of Hindus must observe, but over and above them, each caste must follow the special rules prescribed for that varṇ a, and these have tended to be frozen in service to the hierarchical interests of the Hindu social order. Some influential early Hindu sages acknowledge that occasionally, ethical rules may need to be re-examined and modified to suit the social realities of changing times and implemented reasonably. The great lawgiver Manu, for instance, advocates that ethical views ought to follow the needs of society, for the definition of dharma itself may change with changing times. Despite warnings against blind faith in 464

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rules and tradition, group interests shaped by gender and privilege have historically subdued reasoning and conscience. The ancient sage Bṛhaspati advised: kevalam śāstram āśritya na kartavyo vinirṇayaḥ/ yuktihīnavicāre tu dharmahāni prajāyate// (Bṛhaspatismṛti. Vyāvahārādhyāya: 114) To do a righteous act one must not follow śāstra alone; dharma suffers when one acts without using proper reasoning. Another early authoritative text, the Gautamadharmasūtra, cautions that while the only true representatives of dharma are those who are knowledgeable in the Vedas, even such jñānīs or learned persons could make mistakes and act in adhārmic or unrighteous ways. For instance, Paraśurāma killed his mother following his father’s instructions, and Brahmā made sexual advances to his own daughter, Sarasvatī. Rules and regulations are necessary, but they must be subjected to the scrutiny of good sense. Regrettably, this intellectual liberalism did not prevail for long and traditional rules and customs reigned unchallenged for centuries, leaving the Hindu ethos stagnant and oppressive for many. Nowhere is this more evident than in the lives of women, for whom increasingly admonitory regulations evolved through time to set out and valorize specific rules of conduct designed to meet women’s moral and ethical responsibilities – that is, their viśeṣa dharma, which ideally governs women’s lives. This is not to say that the general principles of conduct do not apply to women. Such injunctions as the need to tell the truth to help the needy or to protect the weak are as relevant to women as to men. They are equally subject to the contestation of conflicting injunctions. For instance, if telling a lie may save somebody’s life, then false speech is a permissible choice, as Lord Kṛsn ̣ ̣a advises Yudhiṣth ̣ ira in the Mahābhārata: ‘anṛtam jībitasyārthe vadan na spṛśyate anṛtaiḥ’ (to tell a lie to save a life is not touched by untruth, Mbh, Droṇaparva, 164. 99). But beyond these common duties of humankind, women have duties and responsibilities deemed especially suited to their essential nature. That essentiality consists of both strengths and weaknesses, idealized on the one hand as the capacity for infinite love, compassion, self-sacrifice and dutifulness – that is, all the functions of a nurturing psyche, and on the other hand deplored as feebleness of the will and the intellect, greed, sensuality and uncertainty of purpose. The very conception of womanhood is thus an untested biological and psychological assumption. From this assumption follows the ethical construction of womankind. The ideal woman in the Hindu view of life is a gentle, self-effacing and chaste individual who puts everybody in her family or indeed her entire community before herself and does so in a hierarchy of gender and age, from her father or father-in-law – that is, the patriarch, down to the children of the family, her own and those of others. Not only the dharma texts but also innumerable legends and literary works abound in tales of women who perform incredible deeds of selfless service to husbands, children and even strangers in need of help. She is especially attentive to her husband’s well-being and wishes, serving him with unconditional submission to the point of neglecting her other prescribed duties or even flouting common laws of morality. An extreme example of this subservience is the story in the Garuḍa Purāṇ a of the woman who carried her leper husband on her shoulders to the prostitute he desires (Garuḍa Purāṇ a, 1. 142, 17–28). Duty to the husband here triumphs not only over selfesteem or self-interest but also community standards of moral decency. 465

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Given this view of women, Hindu ethical thought fashioned regulations designed both to sustain and enhance women’s inherent virtues and to check their weaknesses. These ideas and rules occur across the millennia of Hindu history in the countless literary, legal and religious texts of the Hindus, such as the purāṇ as or collections of myths; or the great epics, the Rāmāyaṇ a and the Mahābhārata; or poems and dramas such as Kālidāsa’s Abhijnānaśakuntalam. These injunctions are sometimes given elliptically by way of moral illustration but often as direct instruction. They appear most purposefully in the Dharmaśastras, which provide guidance to human conduct in general in three areas, namely, ācāra, vyavahāra and prāyaścitta. Of these, the section on ācāra contains general advice on female conduct, but one part of it is especially devoted to strīdharma, that is, a code of conduct for women, and it is this code, reinforced by many glosses that determined women’s duty through centuries. Present-day laws no longer provide authority for their application, but social attitudes and expectations, even outside India in the Hindu diaspora, continue to be influenced by the expectations of duty and moral conduct drawn from the ancient ethical tradition. That these expectations have been enforced by tradition is evident, but it is not only the inertia of long practice that has kept them in place. The self-perpetuating urge of the patriarchal establishment has had more to do with the continuing hold of custom. As noted before, ethical positions have been open to question, but reason has seldom prevailed. An excellent case in point comes from one of the earliest and most revered (and in modern times severely censured) authorities, the great sage Manu, whose pronouncements on women’s lives as wives bear close scrutiny. These concern the customs of niyogavidhi or levirate, the remarriage of widows, polygamy and satī or the immolation of widows along with their husbands. Regarding niyogavidhi – that is, the impregnation of an incapacitated husband’s wife by another man, often his brother – Manu called it a barbaric custom, appropriate only for animals, that was introduced by uneducated Brahmins during the rule of king Veṇa (Manusmṛti, chap. 9). In the face of Manu’s objections and his authority, this use of a woman as no more than a body was legitimized for a long time, with one famous example of the practice being the births of Dhṛtarāṣtṛ a and Pāṇdu in the Mahābhārata by the agency of a surrogate father. Evidently, expediency trumped ethics in the interest of continuing the dynasty through the birth of male children. Ignored in this case, Manu’s strictures against the remarriage of widows were embraced in Hindu society, though not without some counterarguments. Manu did not support women’s remarriage and disapproved of a punarbhū or a remarried woman and of a paunarbhava or the son of a remarried woman (Manusmṛti 5. 156–158, 160). Nevertheless, the very existence of such terms means that the practice of remarriage was not unknown. Sages of such weight as Baudhāyana (4.5), Vasiṣth ̣ a (17.20), Yājñavalkya (1.67), Parāśara (4.30) and Nārada (12.45–12.46), all prescribed remarriage under special circumstances, as laid down in this verse, which occurs in many texts: naṣtẹ mṛte pravrajite klīve ca apatite patau/ pañcasv āpatsu nārīṇām patir anyo vidhīyate// (Parāśarasmṛti, 4. 30, Nāradasmṛti, 12. 97, Garuḍapurāṇ a 107. 8. 29–30) The disappearance or death or renunciation or impotence or lost caste-status of her husband – in these five predicaments a woman is allowed to take another husband. Even with the backing of such authority, Hindu society opted for Manu’s dictum, and remarriage was banned for many centuries until the early 19th century when Ishvarchandra 466

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Vidyasagar helped to reestablish the law of remarriage. Similarly, the inhuman custom of satī persisted through time, cropping up even as late as the late 20th century to the shame of India even though it had been legally banned in 1829 through the efforts of Raja Rammohan Roy. Although satī was never a widespread practice, its acceptance by sections of Hindu society shows well that a practice can be powerful enough to set aside so fundamental an ethical value as the abjuration of violence when it serves expediency. In this case, it was predominantly the male clique within a family that would consider it necessary to get rid of an unattached woman who was likely to claim a share in the dead man’s property or to attract unwelcome sexual attention. Less directly brutal but no less oppressive was polygamy, which was practiced until 1956 when the Hindu Code Bill was passed in the Supreme Court. (Bose 2010). The elasticity of Hindu society’s ethical position has been such that Manu’s rejection of punarvivāha or women’s remarriage was for long dutifully extolled while his commendation of ekapatnītva or fidelity to one wife was simply ignored, as was his objection to satī, even though his opposition to it had the additional support of his commentator, the sage Medhātithi: pumvat strīṇām api pratiṣiddha ātmatyāgaḥ … ato astyeva patim anumaraṇe api striyā pratiṣedhaḥ: (Medhātithi’s comment on Manusmṛti 5. 155) Just as a man is forbidden to take his own life, a woman is forbidden to follow her husband in death. Later, other śāstras, purāṇ as and tantras forbade this inhuman act, and yet it kept cropping up in defiance of ethical ideals, legal provisions and sheer humanity, backed by false readings of the śāstras to fit special interests. A notorious modern case that drew the attention of the world in 1987 was the immolation of 18-year-old Roop Kanwar. Against this litany of wrongs, it must be noted that ethical ideas about women in Hindu thought and practice are not uniformly exploitive or punitive. We must also set the record straight for Hindu society by noting that the exploitation or oppression of the weak in the name of ethical principles is not exclusive to Hindus and far less to their ethical ideology. In the foundational Buddhist text Lotus Sutra, one of the Buddha’s two chief disciples, Sāriputra (6th–5th century BCE), says to a woman, ‘The female body is polluted; it is not a fit vessel for the Dharma’ (ch. 12, p. 184). Later in the text, the Buddha himself implies that women are potential causes of male sexual transgression: ‘He should not teach the Dharma/ To a woman alone in a quiet place’ (ch. 14, p. 196). In the 2nd century, Tertullian, one of the most influential of the Church Fathers, chided women thus, ‘Tu es ianua diaboli – You are the doorway of the devil’ (De Cultu Feminarum, I, i). While this extreme denunciation is clearly not representative of Christianity either in principle or in practice, belief in women’s inferiority and, therefore, the appropriateness of their subjection to men dominated Christian society till recent times, existing side by side with their elevation to the ‘ministering angel’ of Sir Walter Scott (Marmion, canto 6, stanza 30). Love and consideration for women and their well-being are only too common in the Hindu ethos. Countless injunctions in the Dharmaśās̄tras require women to be respected and cared for. The lawgiver Manu says, yatra nāryas tu pūjyante ramante tatra devatāḥ | yatraitās tu na pūjyante sarvās tatrāphalāḥ kriyāḥ || (Manusmṛti 3. 56) 467

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Where women are revered, there rejoice the gods; where they are not revered, all rituals fail. Citing ‘many [unnamed] śāstras’, the Matsyapurāṇ a says, ‘[A] girl is equal to ten sons’ (154. 157). The Mahābhārata declares that a man’s wife is half of him and his best friend: ‘ardham bhāryā manuṣyasya bhāryā śreṣṭhatamaḥ sakhā’ (Mbh, Ādiparva, 68. 40). Other authorities acknowledge women’s right to property (Āpastamba Dharmasūtra, 2. 14. 16–20, 2. 29. 3–4) and inheritance (Bṛhaspatismṛti, 25. 56, and Yājñavalkyasmṛti, 2. 115), as well as to affection from parents (Mahābhārata, Ādiparva, 145. 36; Matsyapurāṇ a, 154. 497; Abhijñāna Śakuntalam, act 4. 6; Harṣacarita, Act 4, verse 5ff). These are, sadly, minority views. With all this praise goes a total denial of independence to women. The following verse by Manu also appears in Gautama, Baudhāyana, Viṣṇu, Nārada and Yājñavalkya: pitā rakṣati kaumāre bhartā rakṣati yauvane/ rakṣati sthavire putrā na strī svātantryam arhati/ (Manusmṛti, 9. 3) The father protects a woman in her childhood, the husband protects her in her youth, the son protects her in her old age, and a woman never gains independence. More sadly still, the majority of opinion on women in Hindu texts of conduct is expressed as vicious characterizations of women and demands for stringent control over their lives. On the subject of women, the ethical tradition of the Hindus admits the most glaring contradictions, the adulation of female virtue being rendered hollow by the denial almost of their human identity, often contained in the same text. It is a contradiction that is reflected in social practice, for instance, in the idealization of women as pure souls above earthly desires being offset by an incorrigible distrust of women’s self-control or reverence for the great female sages of ancient and modern times, placing no bar to the denial of education to women well into the 20th century. Ethical principles fundamental to Hinduism, such as the duty to protect all life, especially that of one’s dependents, have not been able to prevent fathers, husbands, brothers and sons from burning their widowed womenfolk alive (Bose 2010). It is as though ethical values have been erased by some deep hatred of women. This would be astonishing in any cultural system but doubly so in one rooted so firmly in the worship of female deities. To cite only some views of women’s divine connections, Mahānirvānatantra declares, ‘Every woman, O Goddess, is your very form, your body concealed within the universe’ (10. 80). In the same vein, Śaktisamāgamatantra says, ‘Woman is the creator of the universe; the universe is her form. Woman is the foundation of the world’ (2. 13). Why, then, are women disparaged? No single explanation of such abuse will do, but it seems to spring from a conception of women’s nature that is as perverse as it is arbitrary. What is more, it holds fast across millennia. A text as early as the Ṛ g Veda says that ‘the hearts of hyenas are the hearts of women’ (Ṛ gVeda, 10. 95. 15); Manusmṛti advises that ‘it is the very nature of women to corrupt men on earth’ (2. 213) and that ‘by running after men like whores, by their fickle minds, and by their natural lack of affection, these women are unfaithful to their husbands even when they are zealously guarded here’ (9. 15). Aśvaghoṣa dehumanizes woman with this simile: ‘Just as a cow if restrained from grazing on one plot goes straight to another, so 468

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a woman regardless of a former love, goes elsewhere to take her pleasure’ (Saundarānanda, 8. 41–43). A text devoted to Devī, the Great Goddess, is Devībhāgavatapurāṇ a, which declares that ‘falsehood, vain boldness, craftiness, stupidity, impatience, over-greediness, impurity and harshness are the natural qualities of women’ (1. 5. 83), the Rāmāyaṇ a calls women ‘fickle-minded and cruel’ (Araṇyakāṇḍa, 29.30), and the Mahābhārata warns that there is ‘no one viler than a woman, the root cause of all evil’ (Mbh. Anuśāsanaparva, 38. 12), and again, ‘they are the edge of a razor, poison, snake and fire combined in one’ (Mbh. Anuśāsanaparva, 38. 29). Founded as it is on this history of misogyny, the ethical regimen for women is minatory and inflexible. Perhaps the fullest charter of conduct for women is one composed in the 18th century by Tryambakayajvan, whose Strīdharmapaddhati is a manual that sets down in detail the daily routine that the ideal wife must follow. A parallel manual from a distant land and culture is the Puritan lawyer Henry Swinburne’s A Treatise of Espousal or Matrimonial Contracts (published posthumously in 1686). Far more dehumanizing in its message is Tryambakayajvan’s work, which takes women to be biologically and thus fundamentally impure (S.Dh.P. 21.3–22.8). This makes them inferior to men and rightly to be ruled by men. Here, the conception of women is again as creatures who are intrinsically impure, which is biologically and therefore unavoidably determined because they menstruate. In this view of ethical conduct, the good that a woman must strive to achieve is to obey and serve her husband unquestioningly, even when this viśeṣa dharma of a woman conflicts with other duties and sādhāraṇ a dharma. We have already seen in the story of the leprous Brahmin and his wife to what bizarre limits this can drive a woman. Admittedly, there is much to commend in the Hindu ethical construction of womanhood, such as compassion, selflessness, gentleness and unconditional service to family and dependents. But one begins to question the ethics of tying these virtues to the inferiority of women as a set of corrective expectations and low expectations at that (Bose 2010). Women’s failure to meet them is considered only too likely, as the testimony of texts spanning over 3,000 years from the Ṛ g Veda to the Strīdharmapaddhati shows. Situated side by side with goddess worship as a central ideology of the Hindus, paeans to women in literature and the play of affection and respect in personal relationships, this systematic denigration of women casts a shadow on the integrity of Hindu ethics as a philosophical and social category. That post-industrial, globalized life has made much of the strictures and requirements irrelevant is as yet an untested promise of a sustained critical re-examination of what being virtuous means to a Hindu.

Bibliography Primary Sources Aśvaghoṣa. The Saundarānanda of Aśvaghoṣa, ed. E. H. Johnston. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975 [1928]. Bāṇabhaṭtạ . The Harṣacarita of Bāṇ abhaṭṭa, ed. P. V. Kane. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1973 [1918]. Baudhāyanadharmasūtram, ed. Pandit Chinnaswami Sastri. Kashi Sanskrit Series, Benares City: Chowkhamba Vidya Vilas Press 104, 1934. Brahmavaivartapurāṇ a, vols. 1 & 2, ed. Shri Ram Sharma Acharya. Bareli: Samskriti Samsthan, 1970. Bṛhaspatismṛti (reconstructed text), ed. K. V. Aiyanger. Baroda: Gaekwad Oriental Series, no. 85, Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1941. Devīmāhātmyam with the commentary of Nilāmbarācārya, ed. M. L. Wadekar. Vadodara: Oriental Institute, 1997.

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Mandakranta Bose Dharmasūtras: The Law Codes of Āpastamba, Gautama, Baudhāyana and Vasiṣṭha, ed. & tr. Patrick Olivelle. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2000. Garuḍa Purāṇ a, ed. Khemraj Shrikrishnadas. Bombay: Venkateshwar Steam Press, 1906. Kālidāsa. Abhijñānaśakuntalam, ed. M. R. Kale. 1994 [1898]. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. [The] Lotus Sutra, transl. Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama. Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2007. Retrieved from: https://www.bdk.or.jp/document/ dgtl-dl/dBET_T0262_LotusSutra_2007.pdf [The] Mahābhārata, ed. V. S. Sukthankar, et al. Pune: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933– 66. Retrieved from: https://sanskritdocuments.org/mirrors/mahabharata/mahabharata-bori.html Mahānirvāṇ atantra, ed. Baldeo Prasad Misra. Bombay: Srivenkateswar Steam Press, 1985. Manusmṛti, vol. 2, ed. Ganganath Jha. Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society, 1939. Manusmṛti, with the commentary of Medhātithi, ed. Ganganatha Jha. 2 vols. Delhi: Parimal Publications, 2012 [1992]. The Matsyapurāṇ a, with translation by Sriram Sharma Acharya. 2 vols. Bareli: Samskriti Samsthan, 1970. Nāradasmṛti. Text & Studies, no. 84, ed. Dr. Heramba Chatterjee Shastri. 2 vols. Calcutta: Sanskrit College, 1988–89. Parāśara. Parāśarasmṛti, ed. Alaka Sukla. Delhi: Parimal Publications, 1990. Ṛ gVeda Saṃ hitā. Maṇ ḍalas 1–10, ed. K. L. Joshi. Varanasi: Chaukhamba Orientalia, 2000. Śaktisamāgamatantra, Tārākhaṇ ḍa, vol. 2, ed. Benoytosh Bhattacharya. Baroda: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1941. Scott, Sir Walter. Marmion. Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin. 1893. Śrī Garuḍamahāpurāṇ am, ed. Sri Damodar Satvalekar. Haryana: Ramlal Kapur Trust, 1984. Śrīmaddevībhāgavatapurāṇ am, vol. 1, ed. Pushpendu Kumar, tr. Raibahadur Shrischandra. Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 2006. Śūdraka. Mṛcchakaṭikam, ed. R. Dvivedi and J. Vajpeyi. Varanasi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1998. Tertullian. De Cultu Feminarum. 2nd–3rd ce. www.thelatinlibrary.com/tertullian/tertullian.cultu1. shtml Trambakayajvan. Strīdharmapaddhati, transl. as The Perfect Wife, Julia Leslie. Delhi: Penguin Books, 1995 [1989]. Vālmīki. Śrīmadvālmikīrāmāyaṇ am. Gorakhpur: Gita Press, Samvat 2056 [1999 c.e.]. Viṣṇ usmṛti, ed. K. L. Joshi, tr. M. N. Dutt. Delhi: Parimal Publications, 2006. Yājñavalkya. Yājñavalkyasmṛti, ed. Narayan Ram Acharya. Delhi: Nag Publishers, 1985 (reprint, originally published by Nirnay Sagar Press, Bombay).

Critical Studies Bose, Mandakranta. Women in the Hindu Tradition: Rules, Roles and Exceptions. UK/NY: Routledge, 2010. Datta, Krishna. Dharmaśāstre Nītividyā. Kolkata: Calcutta University, 2010. Mitter, Dwarka Nath. The Position of Women in Hindu Law. Making of Modern Law Series, Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale Cengage Company. 2013. Pintchman, Tracy. Women’s Lives, Women’s Rituals in the Hindu Tradition, NY: Oxford University Press. 2007.

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40 WOMEN AND VALUES IN TRADITIONAL INDIA A Feminist Probe* Anindita Niyogi Balslev

I India is often described as a land of contrasts. This is not merely a geographical description pointing to the mighty Himalayas in the north and the deep Indian Ocean to the south or the extraordinarily fertile Indo-Gangetic Plain swaying to the east contrasting with the barren Thar desert in the west. This sub-continent is, from very ancient times, a hub of original thought traditions, which have continued through the vicissitudes of history. These thought traditions, indeed, are the abodes of varied and distinctly different views on virtually any vital theme that has been an issue for philosophical deliberation and debate. Reflections on womanhood, as documented in the classical literature that may largely be described as a male discourse, show no exception to this trend. Ancient texts of various genres appearing over a long span of time depict images of womanhood in an utterly contrasting manner. Disregarding the question of time that separates the texts, the Maitrāyanī Saṃ hitā says that woman is the personification of the evil – Nirṛ ti; the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇ a classifies women along with all that to be considered as ‘objects of untruth and impurity’ versus strong protest from the author of Bṛ hat-Saṃ hitā, Varāhamihira. Going against the contention that women are incapable of practicing Dharma, he asks candidly: ‘Tell me truly what faults attributed to women are not practiced by men?’ Similarly, Manu writes that ‘the mother is thousand times more venerable than the father’ (Buhler 1886, ii.145), and ‘[w]here the female relations live in grief, the family soon wholly perishes; but that family where they are not unhappy ever prospers’ (iii.57). This tendency in literature to depict womanhood and femininity as either depreciated to rock bottom or praised sky-high has been observed by feminist philosophers in different cultural contexts. There are plenty of examples where womanhood is glorified as the emblem of virginity, purity and chastity or maligned as a personification of vice, weaknesses and promiscuity. The depictions that are in between these extremes generally painted women as supportive and nurturing and regarded them as those who move about in the * This chapter was originally published in my collection of essays entitled Reflections on Indian Thought: Fourteen Essays, New Delhi 2020. It has subsequently been updated and reproduced in this volume with permission.

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already well-drawn-out social spheres of existence. While these components can be exemplified in the Indian context, the Indian conceptual situation is too complex to allow for simplistic analysis. The Indian cultural soil is multi-religious and multi-ethnic in character, and women in India, like in any major culture, do not form a homogenous group. In this chapter, while discussing the question of ‘women and values’ in the Indian context, the focus rests on the mainstream tradition, viz., the Upaniṣadic. The phrase ‘traditional India’ does not signify a state of affairs that belongs to India’s past alone since it seems to me that the same or very similar values – discussed in the classical sources – still dominate India’s cultural life. To say this is not to overlook the fact that apart from Dharmabased norms, there are also other influences that are presently at work on Indian soil. While attempting to make a feminist probe into some aspects of ‘traditional India’, it is crucial to take note of the general ethos of the culture, especially the ethical sensibilities that operate in social as well as religious contexts shared by men and women alike. It would be highly artificial to attempt any wholesale generalizations about ‘women and values’ without that. Since no detailed analysis can be attempted here, let me only draw attention to the ancient idea of a moral universe – an idea as old as the Ṛ g-Veda itself. This view that we are all inhabitants of a moral universe has exerted a profound influence on the Indian conceptual world. In the notion of Ṛ ta, suggestive of ‘truth’ and ‘order’, is expressed a view that the universe we inhabit is governed by laws – not only in its physical but also in its moral aspects. This idea finds its full-fledged expression in the idea of Karma, claiming that all actions have efficacy and inevitably bring about consequences that the doer must face. This implies that the human situation is not determined by any external agency, nor is it to be considered as arbitrary or accidental, but as one created by human actions. The question that may now be raised is: what are the ultimate objectives that human beings strive to attain through actions? This is where the question of values arises. Within the traditional frame of discussion, these values/objectives are classified under four headings: pursuits for achieving Dharma/righteousness, Artha/wealth, Kāma/pleasure and ultimately, Mokṣa/emancipation. These objectives are called ‘Puruṣārtha’, as these are the goals or the values that are consciously pursued by human agents. Crucial is the idea that Dharma plays a central role in any discussion on Hindu ethics. Note that Hindu ethical ideas cannot be studied within the bounded space of a single text. Various texts, classified as Śruti, Smṛ ti and Śāstra, contain important insights that are of great interest for understanding ethical issues. It is also within the frame of such discourses that one comes across interesting and controversial discussions concerning the question of ‘women and values’. We will focus on some aspects of this large question in what follows. One important component of the cultural background that deserves mention is the images and icons prevalent in India’s religious practice. The continuous presence of the image of the Mother Goddess in the religious life of the sub-continent is a fact that no feminist probe into ‘traditional India’ can ignore. This practice has important implications for the large theme of ‘women and values’. Many feminist writers – such as Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow (1987)1 – have drawn attention to this religious practice in certain cultures, noting that the notion of goddess – where femininity and divinity coincide – has both political and sociological significance. In the case of India, it is not only the imageries and rituals but also the significant cognitive support, especially in the Śākta traditions, that is indeed formidable. This question will be referred to later in this chapter. These preliminary observations emphasize that prior to discerning how the question of ‘women and values’ has been treated in the Indian context, one has to get acquainted with 472

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the contending trends and varied perceptions regarding both ‘women’ and ‘values’. This is a complex set of issues. I intend neither to idealize nor to depreciate the status of women in the Indian context but rather urge to see the precious strands within the tradition that can serve as the cause of empowerment of women and avoid one-sided generalizations.

II Let me say a few words about the ‘feminist probe’. It may be asked, what can a feminist probe into the question of values bring about? The answer to this question is sought within the frame of contemporary feminist literature that bears witness to how a feminist enquiry has begun to forge numerous links between gender bias and theory-making initiatives. Ethics is one sphere of knowledge in which the contributions of feminist writers – such as Virginia Held (1990)2 are of special interest. These shed light on features pertaining specifically to women’s situations that a dominant male discourse on ethics has overlooked, thereby strengthening the stereotyped sex roles and structured social relationships that govern traditional societies. The fact is, as it seems from existing documents, women have always been conscious of their place in traditional societies, just as they knew that ‘others’ also have obligations towards them. However, they very largely conceived their roles, which were usually assigned to them, in terms of the duties and values that they were expected to live up to. Only sporadically, more as solitary ventures than as a group, have they expressed concern for what we describe today as ‘women’s rights’ (Balslev 2001) or have questioned specific values that were and often still are prescribed for women only. Today, as we all know, the voice of feminists is not a solitary protest. No study of ‘women and values’ can ignore the insights that have emerged from such critical scrutiny in recent times. An array of questions is raised regarding the feminist enterprise concerning ethics. The question that bewilders many when encountering the phrase ‘feminist ethics’ is what significance the epithet ‘feminist’ has in this context. Briefly, the phrase may be seen as indicative of the fact that there are among us, both men and women, who, such as Sigmund Freud (1925, 246)3 put it, ‘cannot evade the notion … that the level of what is ethically normal is different (in women) from what it is in men’. Does feminist ethics assume that women’s values and ethical approaches involve criteria that are different from those of the male members of society? Or, is it rather so that the phrase ‘feminist ethics’ is primarily an attempt to infuse into theory-building those components that failed to do justice to the reality of women’s situation precisely because it is demarcated as a sphere where decision-making processes are done on an entirely different premise? These are complicated issues that deserve deeper deliberation. However, it can hardly be doubted that no matter how these questions are dealt with, an effort in this direction is bound to expand our understanding of the implications of the gender category in theory-making. A feminist probe into Indian culture to understand how, in the classical literature, certain Dharmas were described as applicable to all humanity and certain others were especially prescribed for women (Strī-dharma) could, with careful scrutiny, disclose the conceptual roots where gender category is directly involved in theory-making. This query may also unravel what perceptions lie behind the pronouncements of practical injunctions – the do’s (vidhi) and don’ts (niṣedha) with regard to ethically interesting issues in the gender context and what precisely are the ramifications of these views in socio-legal spheres. 473

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In this connection, notice an important task before feminist thinkers in any traditional context would be to critically scrutinize the various constructs found in influential texts regarding ‘women’s nature’. These often represent conceptual moves that support essentialistic approaches toward interpreting femininity as well as for constructing gender differences that are questionable Jean Grimshaw (1986).

III Let us focus our attention on the Indian scene. In order to get a glimpse of the ethos of this ancient culture, reference will be made to a range of texts – beginning from the Upaniṣads to such Smṛ ti texts as the Purāṇ as, the epics, the Dharma sastras. The major importance for undertaking such a study based on these sources is the unfailing recognition that the primary values that keep inspiring women in India or which leave them ill at ease can all be seen documented in these ancient renderings. The idea of Dharma is of crucial significance for any discussion on Hindu ethics. The meaning of Dharma is difficult to render in English as it entails various shades of meaning. It carries several senses, such as law, virtue, duty and religion – all these nuances sometimes can be jointly present and yet separate in other contexts. It is to be remembered that the sources of Dharmas are not Śruti (revealed literature) alone. The Smṛ ti (codes of traditional practices of the community and legal literature), Sadācāra (the conduct of those venerated in the society) and one’s own conscience are all recognized as vital for sanctioning the ethical decision-making processes. In the literature, various lists of Dharmas are available. In the Yājñavalkyasmṛ ti, we find reference to nine virtues such as non-injury, sincerity, honesty, cleanliness, sense-control, charity, self-restraint, compassion and forbearance. There are also lists of vices that one needs to shun, such as lust, anger, greed, infatuation, pride and jealousy. These recommendations and prohibitions are applicable to all, regardless of gender identity. There are also records of discussions regarding whether Dharma is to be treated as intrinsic or instrumental. No pursuit of kama (pleasure, be it sensual or aesthetic) or artha (wealth, perhaps also associated with political power) can be commended if these are in strife with Dharma (righteousness/moral codes). In that sense, Dharma as a value is hailed and is said to be that which distinguishes human beings from all other animals. The question as to how Dharma stands in relation to the goal of salvation/mokṣa is a more complicated one. A classification of Dharmas, recorded in the Dharma Śāstras and in the Purāṇ as, which is of interest to our present discussion, concerns the notions of Sādhāraṇ a (generic) Dharma and Viśeṣa (specific) Dharma. It is spelt out in this scheme that whereas the Sādhāraṇ a Dharmas are applicable to all, the Viśeṣa Dharmas pertain only to one’s own specific group (hence, called Svadharma). The specific duties recommended to specific groups take note of the differences in gender (whether one is a male or a female), station in society (whether one is a priest/teacher, a ruler/warrior, a merchant or a labourer) as well as one’s stage in life (whether one is a student, a householder or an anchorite). In other words, there are specific values and obligations that are appropriate to each of these situations. This scheme is based on the view that the question of morality is intimately bound with the social organization of which an individual is a part and that certain recommendations and prohibitions need to be prescribed that are in accordance with the agent’s gender, profession and phase of life. The specific code of conduct that is recommended for women (Strī-dharma), apart from the Sādhāraṇ a Dharmas that apply to all irrespective of gender, etc., also implies that there 474

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are obligations that men have toward them. The obligations on the part of women are drawn in a set-up where it is recommended, in turn, that a woman must be protected by her father in her childhood, by her husband in her youth and by her son in old age – as the influential text in Manusmṛ ti has put it. Although very largely, women seem to exercise their authority and display attitudes of caring and responsibility within this social frame, this set-up itself has been questioned by feminist critics. Some have argued that this situation hardly leaves any room for a woman to ‘choose a life’ outside of marriage and motherhood. Generally speaking, such choices were not taken into consideration in a male ethical theory. This creates a dichotomy between male and female values, separating the private from the public domain. It hardly leaves room for a conception of life for a woman outside of the family setting, where she can be seen as an independent moral agent. Manu is quite clear on this: ‘Independence and womanhood do not go together’. Feminist ethics challenges the hegemony of this male theory. As one peruses the literature, one comes across various oscillating images of women and the roles that they played in society at different phases of history. In the Vedic period, it seems that women participated in open conferences (sabhā/samiti) and took part in debates. Their movements were not restricted to domestic life alone. They had access to formal education as well. However, the picture changes from period to period. It is interesting to note the illuminating distinction that was drawn between the ideas of brahmāvadinī and sadyovadhu in the Vedic period, as this throws light on the sort of values women were seen as primarily seeking to accomplish. The former appellation is applied to women who are perceived to be essentially striving for spiritual values and knowledge of Brahman, whereas the latter refers to those for whom domestic life and dedication to family welfare are the central values. However, no absolute rigid distinction between these two types was assumed to be necessary (Roma Chaudhury 1962). Just as a brahmāvadinī could be an ascetic who has renounced the world practices of celibacy, she could also be a married woman recognized for her attainment of a spiritual goal or one who is striving for it. This distinction seems to point more to the diverse ideals that women saw as worth pursuing. In reality, they could pursue either one or the other or a combination of these ideals in various ways, perhaps in accordance with their individual propensities and circumstances, more than as clearly demarcated alternative goals. There are several references in the Vedic literature to women seers as well as to women scholars and teachers, which show that women were not excluded or prevented from such pursuits. Apart from all these, the classical literature contains ample records where ‘femininity’ has been conceived in various ways. Indeed, a given projection of femininity can be seen as playing a predominant role in theory and practice. These projections appear in symbolic cults, in abstract philosophical schemes and in metaphysics, just as in iconography and mythology. An overall view regarding this large theme would require a thorough and extensive study of a range of texts, such as the Suśrutasaṃ hitā, the Gautama Dharmasūtra, the Manusmṛ ti and the Mahābhārata, as well as several comparatively less venerated texts for a deeper understanding of diverse issues. Of all texts, undoubtedly, it is the two great epics of India – the Rāmāyaṇ a and the Mahābhārata – that can be said to have exerted enormous influence in shaping a sense of values. In this context, Haridas Bhattacharya (1969, 643) observes, ‘Hindu ethics would not have had such an abiding hold on such a vast country, if Brāhmaṇical literature had not immortalized certain ideal types of character in its heroes and heroines’. These also contain powerful portrayals of great women figures, some of whom are acknowledged in the 475

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tradition as ideal women. These narratives are not to be treated simply as fiction; some of these characters are exemplary figures embodying values and ideals that are cherished in the sub-continent. A whole array of stories depicting women in many conflicting situations, the choices they make and the consequences that follow from these have been topics for ethical discussions. The ideal women, however varied their circumstances otherwise may be, are most often seen as wives, their life stories unfolding primarily in relation to the destiny of their husbands. Some of the major feminine characters, such as Sītā, Kuntī, Gāndhārī and Draupadī, are intriguing subjects for a study of women and values. In the context of feminist thinking, Dharma – which is itself a hyper-complex concept – takes on even more intricate and subtle nuances. The choices a woman faces and the decisions she makes are often difficult. Some of these stories highlight the gender context; others are no more than cases where it happens to be a woman who is confronted with that situation. Recall the figure of Gāndhārī, a queen who voluntarily blindfolded herself in order to share the same personal destiny as her born-blind husband, King Dhṛtarāṣtṛ a. Righteous as she was, the epic paints her in the same consistent moral posture during the battle of Kurukṣetra. Thus, as her eldest son Duryodhana – the villain of the narrative – bowed down before her every day of the war, she blessed him, pronouncing fearlessly: ‘Victory lies where righteousness is’ (Mahābhārata, Strīparvan, 14). Again, we see the same Gāndhārī upon hearing that her son Bhima has been killed in an unfair battle, expressing her resentment against Kṛṣṇa for allowing foul practices in a war. Some of the stories also describe genuine moral dilemmas that can present challenges to any ethicist who wishes to theorize about the resolvability of all such dilemmas in clear-cut renderings of what is wrong and what is right. There is hardly any major issue of concern for feminists today that does not figure in these epics in one way or another. Complex situations such as motherhood, bearing an illegitimate child, the role of an ideal wife, the tragedy of an ideal wife in a society which legitimizes polygamy and is obsessed with feminine chastity, the rights of a wife – legal and moral – when a husband can even use her as a pawn in a game involving gambling, the question of polyandry or that of a case of rape, name it and the epics will tell colourful stories about each and all of these themes. As an example of a firm protest from a woman figure, let me turn to the Dyūtaparva of the epic Mahābhārata. Here, Draupadī, the key female figure of that episode, is forced to appear in an open assembly where all the important male members of the community are present. This is a dramatic moment in the life of the princess. Her husband, Yudhiṣthira, was invited to a game of dice by Duryodhana, the villain of that narrative, where there was use of foul play and deceit. As a consequence of that, Yudhiṣthira gradually lost everything, including his kingdom, his brothers, himself and even his wife – all used as pawns in the hope of a final victory. Startled Draupadī puts a mighty significant question to the assembly, which has social, moral and legal implications. She asks directly whether her husband had lost her as a pawn before or after he had lost himself. Learning that Yudhiṣthira had lost himself first, she squarely interrogates the eminent members of the assembly, who were supposed to be well versed in all the codes of conduct, whether her husband had even the right to stake her as a pawn after he had lost himself. However, few protests against her husband’s actions could be heard, and that too not from the highly respected male members. The narrative describes these distinguished persons, conversant with the legal and moral codes, sitting with their heads down, being confronted with this moral dilemma. Nevertheless, the voice of Draupadī was heard, and her challenge of the patriarchal social, legal and moral codes not only stunned the society of her time, but her voice has 476

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never been forgotten. This story itself legitimizes a feminist probe into the question of gender asymmetry in legal and ethical contexts. Again, the immense respect for motherhood that is shown in the Indian culture is often reflected in various stories of Indian classics. The profound influence and impact of diverse forms of mother cults and the cognitive tradition that supports such practices can regenerate new thinking for empowering women. Let me dwell on the theme of the goddess and assess the role it has played in feminist thinking. With growing recognition of the importance of the study of ‘women and religion’, there has been a swelling interest in the theme of the goddess. Feminist writers have found the theme to be important on different grounds. It provides an alternative to the image of the Divine Male, nurtured and cherished in patriarchal religious traditions. Secondly, the gender-related images, icons and concepts are looked upon as expressions of how the ultimate significance of femininity has been conceived in relation to or as opposed to symbolisms that are masculine. The feminist self-perception has become enriched by the study of the theme of ‘goddess’ in diverse cultural frames, as this has made room for a religious interpretation of femininity in a manner that is difficult to achieve within a patriarchal theological frame. The goddess can be interpreted as a symbol of women’s power status, as well as for the auspiciousness of the female body. It pushes beyond the conventional bounds of the traditional role ascribed to women while suggesting revisions of existing concepts of gender roles. Given that the effect of symbols and the impact of images of various sorts on our collective life is so profound – even though this often goes unnoticed – it is indeed not surprising that the religious traditions which employ exclusive male symbolisms for representing the Almighty are bound to influence the secular sphere of existence in a manner that facilitates male authority. In the case of India, a discourse of such a patriarchal style can be situated in a larger cultural context, which otherwise leaves plenty of room for the celebration of the Mother Goddess. Yet the extent to which the symbolic religious forms have an impact on traditional Indian culture can be limited. It does seem that even where the worship of Śakti is a customary religious practice, there is still an ongoing struggle to empower women adequately. Sri Aurobindo, an adherent of the Tantric tradition himself, once remarked that the idea of woman as an object of worship as laid out in the Śākta tradition ‘never got translated into social practice’. In conclusion, a strong motivation for carrying out a feminist inquiry of values is that by uncovering the roots of that history of interpretation, be that in art or philosophy, in secular literature or religious discourse, one might expect to get a better grasp of the power relations through which gender differences have been constructed and which still hold ground as well as what their eventual social costs are.

Notes 1 Carol P. Christ (1987, 277) asserts, ‘The affirmation of female power contained in the Goddess symbol has both psychological and political consequences. Psychologically, it means the defeat of the view engendered by patriarchy that women’s power is inferior and dangerous. This new “mood” of affirmation of female power also leads to new “motivations”; it supports and undergirds women’s trust in their own power and the power of other women in family and society’. 2 Virginia Held (1990, 323), writes, ‘The association between the philosophical concepts and gender cannot be merely dropped, and the concepts retained regardless of gender, because gender has been built into them in such a way that without it, they will have to be different concepts. As feminists repeatedly show, if the concept of “human” were built on what we think of “woman” rather than

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Anindita Niyogi Balslev what we think about ‘man’, it would be a different concept. Ethics, thus, has not been a search for universal, or truly human guidance, but a gender-biased enterprise’. For more, see A. Balslev 2001. 3 See Freud (1925); he further observes, ‘We must not allow ourselves to be deflected from such conclusions by the denials of the feminists, who are anxious to force us to regard the two sexes as completely equal in position and worth’. However, Freud also remarks that ‘Pure masculinity and femininity remain theoretical constructs of uncertain content’ (253–254).

Bibliography Balslev, Anindita. 2001. ‘Women’s rights and cultural norms.’ In: Human Rights, Minority Rights, Women’s Rights, (ed.) Alexander Brostl, and Marijan Pavcnik, 63–71. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag. Bhattacharya, Haridas. 1969. Indian ethics. In: The Cultural Heritage of India, Vol. iii, (ed.) Haridas Bhattacharya, 620–645. Calcutta: Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture. Bose, Mandakranta. 2010. Women in the Hindu Tradition: Rules, Roles and Exceptions. UK/NY: Routledge. Buhler, G. 1886. Manusmriti: The Laws of Manu. The Sacred. Books of the East vol 25. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Chaudhury, Roma. 1962. ‘Some reflections on the ideals of Indian Womanhood.’ In: The Cultural Heritage of India, Vol. ii, (eds.) S.K. De, U. N. Ghosal, A. D. Pusalkar, and R. C. Hazra, 601–609. Calcutta: Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture. Christ, Carol P. 1987. ‘Why women need the Goddess?’ In: Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader on Religion, (eds.) Carol O Christ, and Judith Plaskow, 273–287. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Freud, Sigmund. 1925. ‘Some psychical consequences of the anatomical distinction between the sexes.’ In: Strachey J, (ed.) The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol 19, 241–260. London: The Hogarth Press. Grimshaw, Jean. 1986. Feminist Philosophers: Women’s Perspectives on Philosophical Tradition. Sussex: Wheatsheaf Books. Held, Virginia. “Feminist transformations of moral theory.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (1990): 321–344. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2108046, accessed February 21, 2021. doi:10.2307/2108046 Olivelle, P. 2005. Manu’s Code of Law: A Critical Edition and Translation of the MānavaDharmaśāstra. New York: Oxford University Press. Pintchman, Tracy. 2007. Women’s Lives, Women’s Rituals in the Hindu Tradition, NY: Oxford University Press.

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41 NORMALIZATION OF DOWRY Praveena Kodoth

Dowry in Contemporary India In June 2021, the deaths of three young women in Kerala in circumstances clouded by allegations of dowry-related violence turned the spotlight on dowry and served as a rude reminder of gender inequality in a state that prides itself on having achieved high indicators of human development with gender equality and is known for matrilineal traditions that did not support dowry. The National Crime Records Bureau statistics show that Kerala has a relatively low prevalence of dowry deaths among Indian states. But dowry violence is by no means unfamiliar to people living in the state, yet it rarely elicits the kind of attention as one of the incidents reported in June 2021. The violence leading to the death of 24-year-old Vismaya Nair within a year of marriage, discussed extensively in the media, highlighted the wide social acceptance of dowry, as well as the contemporary meanings attached to the practice. The acceptance of dowry in social contexts where it was not a custom is an important part of the evidence of the pan-Indian character of the practice.1 The purpose of this chapter is to understand the pan-Indian character of dowry and its contemporary rationale in the light of material conditions that have evolved since British colonization. While dowry violence and deaths attract public attention and are condemned, a more banal dimension is that dowry renders in-marrying brides vulnerable to violence, irrespective of whether they actually experience violence. Dowry as a form of suppressed violence is an important aspect of gender inequality in contemporary India. The potential for violence has a causal effect, translating into caution, fear and strenuous efforts by families of brides to meet demands and match expectations from the bridegroom’s family in order to avoid violence or fallouts such as the break up of marriages, which are considerably more damaging for a bride and her family than for the husband. Dowry was provided in 95% of marriages recorded in rural India between 1960 and 2008, according to the Rural Economic and Demographic Survey, 2006, which covered 17 major states with about 96% of India’s population (Anukriti et al. 2021).2 The survey shows that dowry was paid in all major religious communities, but Christians and Sikhs paid higher average dowries, while Muslims paid slightly lower average dowries compared

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to Hindus. The amounts paid by the families of brides often came to several years of household income. Dowry is prohibited in India, but the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 has been largely ineffective in curbing dowry. Among the problems with the legislation is the definition of dowry, which excludes customary gifts. The proposal to consider any transfer as dowry was opposed by an overwhelming majority in Parliament, where dowry was repeatedly justified as an expression of parental affection (Sheel 1999, 169). The Act deems culpable both giving and receiving dowry and uses a gender-neutral language that suggests, ironically, that transfers from the bride’s family to the bridegroom’s and vice versa constitute dowry. Those who pay dowry may have little incentive to make complaints when dowry demands are raised during matchmaking because of the importance attached to getting a girl married. However, a discourse of gifts gives way to dowry retrospectively when marriages run into trouble and reach the courts (Donner 1999, 189–191). Punishment for dowry-related crime has been incorporated into the Indian Penal Code (IPC) through multiple clauses: Section 498A (against cruelty to wives), Section 304B (against dowry death) and stringent punishment for abetment to suicide due to harassment for dowry (Section 306), but the number of reported cases under these penal provisions have increased each year (Agnes and D’mello 2015).3 Dowry is marked by ambivalence. It is disapproved of but also accepted as a licit compensation for educated and well-employed bridegrooms (Benei 1995, 36). Respondents differentiate between dowry or demand-based transfers and gifts given by parents out of affection and ascribe status to the latter (Roulet 1996; Kodoth 2008). Also, women’s attitudes may be aligned to dowry within patriarchal systems that hold out little promise of inheritance rights for them.4 Though young women are more likely to be exposed to modernizing influences that are antithetical to dowry, Srinivasan and Lee (2004) found that they are no less likely to approve of dowry than older women and surmised that being more recently married, young women may be more conscious of the benefits that accrued to their new families through dowry.5

Dowry as a Customary Institution The current practice of dowry bears little resemblance to the custom of endowing daughters with property and/or gifts at the time of marriage that goes back several centuries. The Dharmaśāstras, a corpus of ancient texts believed to be of a non-prescriptive nature, recognized strīdhanam as the property of women with variations in scope under the two major legal doctrines, the Mitākṣarā and Dāyabhāga. Agarwal (1994, 90, 94) notes that Mitakshara contained a more inclusive definition of strīdhanam as comprising movable and immovable property, but under British rule, the Privy Council reduced women’s rights over property inherited from a male to a limited interest and deemed that it would not pass to her stīidhanam heirs (her daughters). Under Dāyabhāga, women were given full rights of disposal over stīidhanam, which was, however, limited to movable property, comprising gifts received at marriage and gifts from her husband after marriage. There were well-honed regional differences in custom pertaining to dowry. Mukund (1999, 1354) points out that women in south India had stronger rights to property than indicated in the legal texts. Women from landed and nonland-holding castes received strīdhanam at marriage, but the former also received a share of land. With reference to the north, Oldenburg (2003, 9) describes dowry as one of the few women-centred institutions 480

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in the overwhelmingly patriarchal and agrarian society and argues that its transformation into a coercive practice owes much to the kind of material transformations wrought under the British. The greater scope for women’s property rights in the south has been understood in terms of differences in kinship systems. Isogamy, or equal status marriage that dominated south India, was characterized by close distance, close kin and cross-cousin marriages and considerable scope for natal families to endow women with property as strīdhanam. North Indian kinship, associated with village and clan exogamy and the prohibition against the marriage of relatives, sustained a more complex understanding of women’s property in dowry or dahej. Three contentious issues in the literature pertaining to the custom of dowry in the Indian context are germane to our discussion here: hypergamy, women’s property and a distinction between bride price and dowry. The first is the proposition that hypergamy, a norm that girls marry upwards in social rank, characterized marriage in north India and explained the custom of dowry in the region. According to Trautmann (cited in Milner 1988), the Dharmaśāastra ideal was isogamy, but an emphasis on asymmetry developed in Brảhmaṇic thought after the period of the Vedas. Milner (1988) conceives of isogamy (status homogeneity and caste endogamy) as the pan-Indian tendency and hypergamy as a recessive tendency.6 In this scheme, hypergamy could assume institutionalized form, in which case it shaped the intense competition for high-ranking bridegrooms and, consequently, high dowries.7 Even the proposition that hypergamy characterized marriage among the higher castes in the north may be overstated (Snehi 2003). Pocock (1957) observes that customs associated with high status (such as dowry) were found only at the higher economic levels of these castes, whereas at the lower levels, which constituted the majority of the caste, customs were similar to those of the lower castes. The Kanya Kubja Brahmins, Rajputs, Leva Patidars, Anavils and Khedwals practiced hypergamy and were notorious for paying large dowries for high-ranking bridegrooms (Milner 1988; Mohanadoss 1995, 562). But higher castes in north India ascribed variously to asymmetric exchange, i.e., lack of reciprocity between wife givers and wife takers, without giving rise to dowry as in Punjab or reciprocal marriages with an emphasis on kanyādāna ideal, i.e., the unidirectional flow of gifts, and large dowries as in Bengal (Milner 1988, 155).8 While the lower rank of the Kangra Rajputs paid bride price for brides from a lower caste (Parry 1979), reciprocal marriage and payments corresponding to dowry and bride price were observed among Brahmins in the north and west.9 Oldenburg (2003) argues that it was the British administration that gave emphasis to hypergamy owing to their preoccupation with high dowry as a presumed cause of female infanticide, though they were more concerned with achieving moral legitimacy for their interventions and overlooked evidence of female infanticide among Jats and other groups in the Punjab that paid bride price. The idea that dowry is the result of hypergamy is refuted by its practice in isogamous marriages as well (Parry 1979, 228). The second issue concerns the idea that dowry constituted women’s property. Dumont (1983) highlighted the common feature across north and south India that marriage-initiated gift giving had continued over generations and served to create and bind ties of affinity. The gifts given by the bride’s natal family constituted transfers of their wealth to her and/or her marital family. Goody’s (1973) interpretation that dowry was a premortem inheritance similar to dowry in pre-industrial Western society met with intense disagreement from scholars working with north Indian data. Madan (1975, 236) pointed out that the dowry may reflect 481

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many factors, the circumstances in which the marriage is arranged, the economic situation of the bride’s family and the profile of the bridegroom and his family such that two sisters married a few years apart may not receive the same value of dowry. He views dowry (1975, 234) at best as compensation for the lack of inheritance rights to women. Vatuk (1975, 193) asserted that dowry is a ‘misnomer’ for the north Indian custom of gift giving as ‘the gifts and money given by the bride’s family did not for most part go to endow the daughter but are rather transferred to the groom and his family becoming part of their joint estate’. Thus, scholars also dispute the idea that women had control over the property that was given to them at marriage. While it is not possible to draw an equivalence between a daughter’s share of natal family wealth and dowry, Agarwal (1994) surmises that Goody’s interpretation may represent the south Indian context, whereas interpretation by Vatuk and others represents the north Indian practice. The characterization of marriage payments in binary terms as comprising either a dowry system or a bride price system in some of the literature has also raised contention. The proposition that a bride price system existed in south India and among lower castes in the north, whereas a dowry system prevailed among higher castes in the north, underpins the work of demographers and economists, who have sought to explain the growth or persistence of dowry in India.10 However, this characterization overlooks the complexity of marriage transfers. Bride price was paid by virtually all castes, even the Brahmins in south India (except Kerala) (Srinivas, 1996:167), but women also received strīdhanam (Mukund 1999). Lower castes in north India paid the bride price, but girls also received gifts comprising jewellery, utensils and cash. Randheria and Visaria (1984, 649) write with reference to lower castes in Gujarat that if the totality of transactions is considered, it would be a dowry system.

Explaining the Transformation of Dowry The use of the term ‘dowry’ in scholarship in India has involved an act of translation and matching of specific customary institutions and marriage payments for their resemblance to the practice in the pre-industrial West. The term has acquired new forms and meanings over the 20th century while not necessarily shedding all of its old forms or meanings. Expectations, demands, explicit negotiation and a market character have infused dowry with a coercive edge. Though not without resemblance to the practice under institutionalized hypergamy, it embodies a fundamental transformation. As Srinivas (1996, 177) points out, dowry is characterized by asymmetry, uncertainty and unpredictability in the absence of established norms about what the groom’s family may demand. What were the conditions that spurred the transformation of marriage transactions? Oldenburg (2003, 15) underlines the ‘masculinization’ of the economy under the British as a cause. This included the effect of rendering the Indian male as the dominant legal subject by putting land exclusively in the hands of men and holding men responsible for revenue payment, which made male children more desirable and undermined women’s entitlements within the family, as well as the heavy recruitment of men from Punjab into the army, which held out the promise of economic rewards and social security, making them good prospects on the marriage market, as important factors in the transformation of dowry into a coercive institution. Srinivas (1996) observes that ‘modern’ dowry was coeval with increasing monetization of the economy, growing prosperity and the rise of the ‘organized’ sector, features that 482

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enabled men with desirable characteristics to demand a price. He refers to the market character of matchmaking that implicated men with modern education and high-status employment who commanded the highest dowries. This underlined the non-religious character of dowry as it emerged under the British and has taken deep root in contemporary Indian society. Changes have also been observed in the quantum and content of dowries. The rise of sizeable cash dowries led by those at the higher end of the caste-class spectrum has had a spiralling effect. Dalits are also being drawn into paying demand-based dowries, making dowry an all-caste phenomenon (Srinivasan 2005, 597, Kapadia 1993, 49, Jakimow 2012). Demand-based dowries in the form of specific transfers to the bridegroom and/or his family may coexist with traditional gifts such as jewellery, clothes and other gifts given to the bride (Caplan 1984, 217).11 But also, the entire dowry (including the gifts given to the girl) may be subject to negotiation and demands. The foregoing discussion pertains to the work of sociologists and anthropologists whose work was complemented by historians and legal scholars. But dowry has also drawn the attention of demographers and economists who have also advanced explanations for its persistence in India. Bhat and Halli (1999) argue that the coercive form of dowry in India may have demographic underpinnings as population changes produced an excess of brides or a marriage squeeze against women, resulting in competition for bridegrooms. In the context of population changes, Caldwell et al. (1983) observed that the potential effect of the excess of brides was moderated by other changes, in particular, the rise in marriage age of women and the decline in the age gap between couples. A marriage squeeze is not, however, a simple effect of population changes on the marriage market. It is socially constructed, i.e., conditioned by the structure of marriage in India, which, in accordance with gender and caste norms, determines age at marriage, the age gap between spouses, whom to marry, as well as the possibility of divorce and remarriage.12 By 2011, the marriage squeeze had turned against men in most states for the marriage age cohorts of males 20–24 years and females 15–19 years (Vishwakarma & Yadav 2019). But this did not give rise to the bride price. On the contrary, it is observed that aggregate scarcity of brides coexists with scarcity of preferred bridegrooms; young men with education and stable employment attract large dowries, whereas those with little or no employment have low marriage prospects (Basu and Kumar 2022). In the north-west, where bride shortage set in much earlier, the societal response was diversified and included clan exogamy and across-region marriages, even as men who own land are educated and have jobs are sought after by local brides and attract substantial dowries (Larsen and Kaur 2013).13 In this region, high dowries are paid for ‘suitable boys’ while men take care of marriage expenses across the region, which cannot be deemed as bride price (Kaur 2013, 42). This underscores the gendered nature of societal responses to a marriage squeeze. We may think about the changing character and persistence of dowry in India in the light of the explanation by economists Botticini and Siow (2003) of the decline of dowry in Europe. In pre-industrial Europe, sons remained in family occupations, while daughters left the family upon marriage; therefore, the work incentives of sons were aligned by paying dowry to daughters. This ensured that daughters did not free ride on the sons’ efforts, and sons’ incentives to extend family wealth were undiminished. Botticini and Siow argue further that dowry is an inefficient way of redistributing resources in modern industrial societies with diversified occupations and developed labour markets, where children can compete 483

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for jobs; therefore, parents will transfer their wealth as human capital and as bequests irrespective of gender. Compared to Europe, women in India are systematically more disadvantaged relative to men in terms of human capital investments and labour market prospects. Despite economic modernization, the contemporary Indian marriage system is characterized by caste endogamy and arranged marriages.14 Systemic violence against couples entering into inter-caste or inter-religious unions is a grim reminder of the costs of breaching socially acceptable boundaries (Chowdhry 1997; Mody 2002) and could work as a deterrent against such marriages. As Ambedkar observed, ‘[E]ndogamy or the absence of intermarriage is one of the characteristics that may be called the essence of caste’. Freedom to choose marital partners represents a strong threat to the caste order. The structure of Indian marriage affects women’s labour market prospects and reduces their bargaining power within a marriage. This is reflected in low and declining levels of women’s employment, underpinned by a lack of employment opportunities as well as ­supply-side constraints – which persist despite significant advances in women’s education and reduced fertility. Dowry is a price for the ‘protection’ of women, the need for which is produced within the extant marriage system. The structure of marriage fosters gender inequality and is evident in its correlates – women’s relatively early age at marriage and the normative age gap between spouses – as well as the relatively low investment in women’s human capital and their structural disadvantages in the labour market. Previously limited to the higher castes, over the 20th century, women from the lower castes have also become increasingly dependent on marriage. The political economy of dowry, which underlines the interests that coalesce in dowry payments, also underscores the effects of the marriage system. Modernizing, developmental and globalizing processes have enabled men with prospects of earning high incomes or stable livelihoods with social security, lower in the intersecting caste-class order, to expect, demand and claim considerable dowries. Parry (2001) observes that a move from the informal sector to a job in the public sector Bhilai Steel Plant, even at the lowest levels of the occupational hierarchy, holds out the promise of a sizeable dowry and a bride of a very different social profile. Dowries have been fuelled by the mobility aspirations of working-class families (Lindberg 2014) as well as by the globalizing aspirations of the middle class (Biao 2005) and serve as a validation of a new sense of masculine self among low caste, labouring and/or migrant men (Kapadia, 2002; Jakimow 2012) and as a marker of a reformed caste identity (Ruud 1999; Parry 2001). In all these contexts, dowry has sub-served social mobility of women, which is achieved normatively in association with marriage.

The Rationale of Contemporary Dowry In conclusion, let me revert to the rationale underpinning dowry and its meanings with reference to its practice in an atypical context, that of Kerala society. The custom of transferring property at marriage was observed only by a few communities in Kerala. One of these was the Syrian Christians, who were strongly patrilineal. The Travancore Christian Committee, formed in 1911 to codify inheritance and succession of the community, observed changes taking place in the practice of dowry in the context of modernization. Witnesses to the committee pointed out that demands ‘were out of all proportion with the value of the estate of the bride’s father or the share of his sons’ and that ‘parents of educated 484

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boys seem to be the worst sinners in this respect’ (Kodoth 2003, 389). By the early 21st century, Kerala had earned the dubious distinction of recording the highest average dowries in recent years and exhibited stark and persistent dowry inflation (see Anukriti et al. 2021). An important factor that drives dowry payments in Kerala (as elsewhere in India) is the fear of daughters remaining unmarried (Lindberg 2014, 41). Dowry is conceived of as the price of achieving a normative identity and respectable status. Hence, families strategize and initiate matchmaking early enough so that they have a wider choice of bridegrooms (Kodoth 2008). The death of Vismaya Nair, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, illustrates the potential dangers of young married women’s lack of power within the extant marriage system. Vismaya had an arranged marriage. Her husband held a secure job as a motor vehicles inspector in the government sector, and her parents had paid a sizeable dowry. It was reported that the husband took to violence as he was ‘embarrassed’ by the make and model of the car gifted to him at marriage, betraying a sense of entitlement. Why did Vismaya not exit the marriage? Her parents were aware of her husband’s violent behaviour and had even witnessed him beating her. Her friend told a reporter that ‘she did not want to shame her family, as divorce would mean extreme humiliation for her brother and father, who had paid a huge dowry’.15 Parental failure to protect daughters from marital abuse is intertwined with the belief that women’s lives are bound to marriage. But parents of girls are often enough, also parents of boys and may find their roles reversed. In this context, dowry and the violence it embodies must be seen in the light of the contemporary marriage system, which produces a specific form of gender inequality and demands the ‘protection’ of women through marriage. In these circumstances, young married women’s lack of power renders them vulnerable to violence.

Notes 1 Reviews of scholarship in Mukund (1999) and Srinivas (1996) underscore the emergence of dowry among social groups with no such previous custom in south India. For context specific studies of the transformation of marriage payments and emergence of a new idiom of dowry, see Caplan (1984), Caldwell et al. (1983), Kapadia (1993, 2002), Upadhyay (1990), Srinivasan (2005), Kodoth (2008), Lindberg (2014), Jakimow (2012). For discussion of dowry practice and discourse in north India and changes therein, see Sharma (1984), Vatuk (1975), Madan (1975), Roulet (1996), Oldenburg (2003), Benei (1995), Chowdhry (1994). As for figures of death resulting from dowry-related incidents, the National Crime Bureau (NCRB) reported that in the national capital (Delhi), one woman died every three days in dowry-based violence or suicide in 2021, which was commensurate with the overall increase in crimes against women since the pandemic. Lucknow, Jaipur and Hyderabad come next in the list of reported ‘dowry deaths’ (Hindustan Times, 30 August 2022). 2 The survey, which recorded roughly 40,000 marriages between 1960 and 2008, began in 2006, but 84% of interviews were conducted in 2008. Net dowry was computed using the difference in the value of gifts given by the bride’s family and received by it from the groom’s family, the former being about seven times more than the latter (Anukriti et al. 2021). 3 See also Flavia Agnes interviewed by Amy Rayner in this Volume: Part 4, Chapter 34. 4 Women have been largely unable to claim their rights to inheritance under religious personal laws in India because the norm of male inheritance remains unchanged and those who make claims risk loss of support from their brothers, besides being represented in negative light (Basu, 2005; Philips, 2003; Agarwal, 1994). 5 But nearly two-thirds of the women in a sample of 4,000 expressed disapproval of dowry. 6 Other scholars also argue that isogamy characterized marriage in north India. For a discussion, see Snehi (2003).

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Praveena Kodoth 7 Hypergamy could be intra caste or inter caste (Mohanadoss, 1995). The Kangra Rajputs and Patidars of Gujarat practiced inter-caste hypergamy on the social margins (Parry 1979; Pocock 1957, 22). 8 Kanyādāna or the gift of the virgin was the most approved of form of marriage in the Dharmaśātras. 9 For a discussion of these practices among the Kashmiri Pandits, see Milner (1988: 155) and the Anavil Brahmins in Gujarat, see Van der Veen (1972: 51). 10 See, for instance, Rajaraman (1983) and Bhat and Halli (1999). 11 Caplan rues the fact that anthropologists were not adequately careful in maintaining the separation between the two portions included in the dowry. 12 Only 1% of women aged 35 to 39 years and 2% of men aged 40 to 44 years are unmarried (NFHS 4, 2015–2016; All India cited in Basu and Kumar, 2022). 13 The authors examined data from three districts of north India that had highly skewed sex ratios, one district each in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. 14 Only 5.1% of marriages in India were inter-caste and 2.1% were inter-religious; only 5% of women chose their own marriage partner, whereas in 60% of cases, women’s families took that decision for them (Goli et al. 2013, 203–204). This is based on Indian Human Development Survey, 2005, a nationally representative, multi-topic survey of 41,554 households across India. 15 I have drawn on a report of Shaji and Sharma (2021). See also Flavia Agnes with Amy Rayner in this volume: Part 4, Chapter 34.

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Normalization of Dowry Goody, J. R. 1973. Marriage Prestations, Inheritance and Descent in Pre - Industrial Societies, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, Autumn, pp. 37–54. Jakimow, T. 2012. ‘Everyone Must Give’: Explaining the Spread and Persistence of Bridegroom Price among the Poor in Rural Telangana, India, Journal of Asian and African studies, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 180–194. Kapadia, K. 1993. Marrying Money: Changing Preferences and Practice in Tamil Marriage, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 25–50. ——— 2002. Translocal Modernities and Transformation of Gender and Caste, In The Violence of Development, London: Zed Books. Kaur, R. 2013. Mapping the Adverse Consequences of Sex Selection and Gender Imbalance in India and China, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. xlviii, No. 35, pp. 37–44. Kodoth, Praveena. 2003. Gender, Community and Identity in Christian Property Law Reform: the case of early twentieth century Tiruvitamkoor, Inter Asia Cultural Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 383–393. ———. 2008. Gender, Caste and Matchmaking in Kerala: A Rationale for Dowry, Development and Change, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 263–283. Larsen, M. and R. Kaur, 2013. Signs of Change? Sex Ratio Imbalance and Shifting Social Practices in Northern India, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. xlviii, No. 35, pp. 45–52. Lindberg, A. 2014. The Historical Roots of Dowries in Contemporary Kerala, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 22–42. Madan, T.N. 1975. Structural Implications of Marriage in North India: Wife Givers and Wife Takers Among the Pandits of Kashmir, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 217–243. Milner, M. Jr. 1988. Status Relations in South Asian Marriage Alliances: Towards a General Theory, Contributions to Indian Sociology (ns), Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 145–169. Mody, Perveez. 2002. Love and the Law: Love-Marriage in Delhi, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 36, No. 1, February 2002, pp. 223–256. Mohanadoss, T. 1995. Hypergamy and Its Inherent Contradictions Anthropos, Bd. 90, Vol. 4, No. 6, pp. 558–563. Mukund. K. 1999. Women’s Property Rights in South India: A Review, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 34, No. 12, pp. 1352–1358. Oldenburg, V. 2003. Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Parry, Jonathan. 1979. Caste and Kinship in Kangra, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ———. 2001. Ankalu’s Errant Wife: Sex, Marriage and Industry in Contemporary Chattisgarh, Modern Asian Studies, Vol 35, No. 4, pp. 783–820. Philips, A. 2003. Stridhanam: Rethinking Dowry, Inheritance and Women’s Resistance among the Syrian Christians of Kerala, Anthropologica, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 245–263. Pocock. D.F. 1957. Inclusion and Exclusion: A Process in the Caste System of Gujarat, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 13, No. 1, Spring, 1957, pp. 19–31. Rajaraman, I. 1983. Economics of Bride-Price and Dowry, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 18, No. 8, pp. 275–279. Roulet, M. 1996. Dowry and Prestige in North India, Contributions to Indian Sociology (ns), Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 89–107. Shaji, K.A. and B. Sharma. 2021. Kerala Dowry Death: How the Stigma of Divorce Trapped A 24-Yr-Old in a Violent and Abusive Marriage, June 28. https://indiaaheadnews.com/india/ kerala-dowry-death-how-the-stigma-of-divorce-trapped-a-24-yr-old-in-a-violent-and-abusivemarriage-174951/ Sharma, Ursula. 1984. Dowry in North India: Its Consequences for Women in R. Hirschon (ed.) Women and Property, Women as Property, London: Croom Helm. Sheel, Ranjana. 1999. The Political Economy of Dowry: Institutionalisation and Expansion in North India, New Delhi: Manohar Publications. Snehi, Y. 2003. Female Infanticide and Gender in Punjab: Imperial Claims and Contemporary Discourse, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 38, No. 41, pp. 4302–4305. Srinivas, M.N. 1996. Some Reflections on Dowry Iin Village, Caste, Gender and Method: Essays in Indian Social Anthropology, Delhi: Oxford University Press. Srinivasan, P. and Gary R. Lee. 2004. The Dowry System in Northern India: Women’s Attitudes and Social Change, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 66, pp. 1108–1117.

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42 THE SELF-EMPLOYED WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION (SEWA) Gandhian Ethics and Feminist Ethics in Action* Margaret A. McLaren

In this chapter, I discuss the history and structure of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and suggest that it productively incorporates both feminist and Gandhian ethics. I demonstrate that in doing so, it serves as a model of culturally informed feminist grassroots organizing that can be instructive for other feminist projects. SEWA’s model is feminist in a number of ways; I will focus on three: recognizing the effects of gender and class, in conjunction with other axes of oppression, on daily life; embracing a community-based, democratic model of leadership; and working for social justice by changing exploitative social systems through collective action. During his lifetime, Mohandas K. Gandhi advocated for the importance of constructive economic and social programs that would lift people out of poverty and allow them to become self-reliant. He was especially concerned with the poor in rural villages whose traditional way of life had been eroded by industrialization (Gandhi 1960a). Gandhi believed that creative, sustainable work is important for human dignity, especially for those who are poor and disenfranchised. Dignified work has both a practical component of economic support and a moral aspect of self-respect. Self-reliance (swadeshi) means not only formal independence but also cultural and moral autonomy (Gandhi 1960b). The SEWA in India is a contemporary example of an organization that not only fits Gandhi’s idea of a constructive social program but also incorporates the Gandhian ethics of nonviolence, self-reliance and satyāgraha (nonviolent protest) into its structure and functioning (see also Bindu Puri’s Chapter 44, ‘Gandhian Ethics and Feminist Perspectives: In a Somewhat Different Voice’, in Part V of this volume). For decades, human rights activists have been advocating for the recognition of women’s rights as human rights in international agreements and policies. The power of the ‘women’s rights as human rights’ movement stems partially from its reliance on the already existing framework of international human rights, yet the recognition of sex-specific violence broadens the definition of human rights. Legal and political advances are necessary for women’s full recognition and participation in public domains. Promoting human rights for women means granting and protecting women’s political and legal rights on par with those of men. *  This chapter is based on my long-standing research on SEWA and as such draws also from my book, Women’s Activism, Feminism and Social Justice (OUP 2019).

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DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-49

Margaret A. McLaren

It also means addressing issues that differentially affect women, such as rape as a form of torture and as a weapon of war, domestic violence, sexual exploitation, honour killing, dowry murder, and reproductive issues, including sex-selective abortion. Violence against women characterizes many of the ways that women’s human rights are violated. A systemic or structural understanding of violence broadens the notion of rights even more to include not just the protections afforded by legal and political rights but also the positive benefits of economic and social rights. A systemic analysis of the conditions and effects of poverty reveals that poverty is a type of violence. The anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer, in his book Pathologies of Power (2003), discusses the situation of the poor, those who lack basic resources such as enough food, safe drinking water, a place to live and access to health care. Referring to deprivation suffered by the poor, he uses the term ‘structural violence’. Structural violence includes extreme and relative poverty, as well as social inequalities such as racism and gender inequality. Farmer claims that ‘civil rights cannot really be defended if social and economic rights are not’ (Farmer, 9). Understood as structural violence, eradicating poverty becomes a priority for a more ethical and equitable world. Moreover, poverty is gendered. Women and children make up the largest and fastest-growing population living under the poverty level all over the world. Where poverty is particularly acute, women’s situation is especially dire. Eradicating poverty as a form of structural violence ought to be a central goal of human rights; nonviolence, in a broad sense, is a significant aspect of a just and ethical world. Nonviolence (ahiṃ sā) is one of Gandhi’s central commitments. Often, nonviolence is associated simply with a lack of physical violence or force. However, Gandhi understood the idea of nonviolence or ahiṃ sā more broadly as not harming others; this includes both active violence and passive violence (Gandhi 1968). Active violence involves using force or behaving violently. Passive violence is not recognizing the impact of your actions on others. Think of the way that excessive material consumption or use of resources harms others through the exploitation of their labour or deprives them of basic necessities. Violence here is understood as structural or systemic; one’s actions or lack of action have far-reaching effects and consequences. Viewing violence in this way links our individual actions to larger ethical issues, such as poverty. Moreover, as discussed earlier, poverty itself is a type of violence. Anti-poverty work, thus, is a form of nonviolence. Gandhian ethics both infuse and are exemplified by SEWA, especially his ideas about human dignity, self-reliance and nonviolence. Together, Gandhian and feminist principles inform the work of SEWA. SEWA, in turn, is an example of a culturally informed model of grassroots feminist organizing that can provide a flexible framework for other grassroots feminist projects, as well as indicate new directions for feminist theorizing. The SEWA, founded in 1972 by Ela Bhatt (1933–2022), was originally part of the Textile Labour Association (TLA). The TLA, a labour union founded in Ahmedabad in 1917 under the guidance of Anasuya Sarabhai, Shankerlal Banker and Mohandas K. Gandhi, emphasized mediation and negotiation to resolve disputes between labour and capital. The TLA began when textile workers were struggling to afford their basic necessities, such as housing and food, as costs rose at the end of World War I. To make matters worse, mill owners planned to discontinue their plague allowance, which comprised 75% of the workers’ pay (Shukla 1977, 2). Workers asked for a wage increase from their employers, who were reluctant to provide it, and the workers contacted Anasuya Sarabhai to represent them. Sarabhai was already doing social work for working-class children and the poor in the area (Kannappan 1962, 87). M. K. Gandhi was asked to mediate between the textile workers 490

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and the millowners. The millowners not only refused to raise the wages in accordance with the demand from the workers, but in retaliation, they locked the workers out of the mills. Gandhi led the workers in a ‘righteous struggle’, a 22-day strike based on principles of Truth and nonviolence (Shukla 1977). Gandhi fasted in support of the weaver’s strike, the first of his many historical fasts (Kannappan 1962, 87). Finally, both sides agreed to settle the disagreement through arbitration and came to a compromise on wages. Out of this successful intervention on behalf of the mill workers by both Anasuya Sarabhai and Gandhi, the TLA was born. The TLA was based explicitly on Gandhian principles from its founding.1 The Gandhian principles that underlay the TLA also infused SEWA, especially his ethics of dignity of labour, the importance of human values, and nonviolence. These principles, taken together, indict poverty in several ways: ‘[P]overty is wrong because it is violent; it does not respect human labour, [it] strips a person of his or her humanity, and [it] takes away their freedom’ (Bhatt 2006, 8). SEWA’s founder, Ela Bhatt, began her career as a lawyer for the TLA (also known as Majoor Mahajan). Already committed to working on behalf of those in poverty and the working poor, Ela was deeply influenced by Gandhi’s ideas on work and economics, especially his commitment to simplicity, nonviolence and the dignity of labour (Bhatt 2006, 8). Her experiences working for the TLA made her realize the importance of organizing workers. She turned her attention to organizing women in the informal labour sector with the support of the TLA leadership. As Bhatt recollects, ‘I wanted to organize the women workers in a union so they could enjoy the same benefits that organized labour received’ (2006, 9). Bhatt recognized that the women working in the informal economy engaged in a variety of different occupations but often were subject to similar types of exploitation from their employers, middlemen and moneylenders. Because of the lack of health care and other benefits, the low pay and the job insecurity, the women often lived in poverty, although they were working long hours. Organizing women around the issues of poverty and work proved to be extremely effective in India. SEWA organizes women in the informal sector of the economy in India using a feminist model of participation and power sharing characterized by democratic practices and institutions. Organizing the informal sector is no small task; jobs in the informal sector comprise over 90% of employment in India (ILO 2019). And the vast majority of women working for wages in India are employed in the informal sector (; SEWA Bharat 2021). So, wages and conditions of labour within the informal sector are very much women’s issues. Informal labour includes many activities, such as piecework, including tailoring, embroidery, cigarette rolling and incense making; street vendors; ragpickers/recyclers; gum collectors; salt-makers; and construction workers. The common feature of informal labour is that there are no benefits and no steady salary (ILO 2018). Workers are paid the bare minimum, always less than it takes to survive, and there is no job security. Often, women working more than full time in the informal sector do not earn enough to provide for their basic needs, such as housing, food and healthcare. SEWA’s main goal is to organize women workers for full employment and self-reliance. Full employment means security with regard to work and income, as well as security to cover basic needs, such as food, shelter and healthcare. When SEWA began in 1972, it was the only all-women’s union in the world. Because of its appeal to women working in the informal sector, it experienced rapid growth; by 2004, SEWA had become the largest union in India, with a membership of over 700,000 women (Bhatt 2006, 16). SEWA has continued to grow and now has over 1.5 million members (SEWA 2021). 491

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Organizing women as workers productively brings together issues of gender and class. SEWA’s success relies on adapting to the needs and vision of its members and developing leadership from within local communities, which are often comprised of mainly poor women without much formal education. SEWA membership spans the nation, and the organization SEWA Bharat serves as a national federation to coordinate SEWA groups in at least 16 different states in India (SEWA Bharat 2021). SEWA’s focus is on improving women’s lives on a material and economic level and making women’s voices heard locally, nationally and globally. SEWA defines itself as a movement, not a program. It is a member organization where the needs and goals of the members are given priority. The common denominator is each member’s desire to earn enough to help provide basic necessities for herself and her family. But SEWA’s success lies not only in helping each individual achieve her goal but also in helping all members realize the power of acting collectively. As a workers’ movement, SEWA stays close to its roots by facilitating the formation of cooperatives and unions. Both unions and cooperatives have a democratic, participatory structure that fosters the empowerment of individuals within the organization as well as introduces the power of the group. As an all-female group, SEWA promotes and fosters the idea that women are powerful and capable. Women are encouraged to take on positions of leadership, which are not generally available to poor women with limited education. The skills that they learn in these leadership roles – travelling outside their village, collecting information, public speaking, running meetings and keeping accounts – increase their confidence and their status in the community. Along with these skills, the women benefit from increased security due to their affiliation with SEWA. Membership in SEWA provides the women access to SEWA’s cooperative bank, healthcare insurance, disaster insurance, child care, literacy classes, computer classes, transportation for raw materials and finished products, etc. In addition to all these benefits, in many cases, women’s income improves as a direct result of SEWA’s bargaining for higher wages and better working conditions. Feminists advocate a rich intersectional approach, giving simultaneous attention to gender and class, as well as other aspects of social identity. The SEWA in India models this type of intersectional feminist ethics in its organizing structure and methods. SEWA helps poor women workers organize to advocate for better wages and safer working conditions. Its focus on women working in the informal sector provides a shared basis for organizing (class and gender) across other types of differences such as ethnicity, religion and caste. In her book-length study of SEWA, Kalima Rose (1992) notes, The spirit and diversity of SEWA would presently be difficult to come by anywhere else. … Tribal, Hindu, Harijan, migrant, and Muslim women; tattooed Vaghari women, women in purdah; sinewed, muscular smiths; sun-darkened cart pullers and agricultural labourers; young, nimble girl bidi rollers with their mothers and grandmothers, progressively more thin and bent from sitting over their rolling work; streetwise and bawdy vendors alongside of women timidly emerging from homebound communities; all in different dress; speaking different languages and dialects; practicing different trades – all are coming together to generate strength. (20) SEWA begins each campaign or project by doing surveys to find out the issues and problems of the community. The survey provides a deeper understanding from multiple perspectives, 492

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and it also helps to identify potential leaders in the community. In this way, SEWA exemplifies the community-based, democratic model of leadership prized by many feminists. One of SEWA’s early successful campaigns was helping home-based quilt makers to organize for better wages. Quilt makers use fabric scraps (called chindi) left over from clothing production in the textile mills. They buy the chindi from a middleman (a trader) who picks it up and delivers it to the city. It takes an average of two days to produce 12 quilts, often composed of 60–90 individual pieces. In 1977, each woman received only 60 paise per quilt – a total of 7.20 rupees (roughly equivalent to 20 cents) for two days of work. Not only was this not a fair wage for her work, it also did not account for the costs of production. By using her own workplace and providing her own sewing machine, electricity, vessels for washing, fuel for boiling water, cleaning products, and even the thread for sewing – all of which she paid for with her own money – she was in fact, subsidizing the trader. (Bhatt, 60) Some women rented the sewing machines they used, increasing the cost of production even more for them. The women were paying too much for their raw materials and making too little for their finished product. Because they lacked control both over the raw materials they needed and the markets for their products, their labour went uncompensated. During a three-year period, the chindi quilters lobbied for a wage increase. They engaged in various forms of peaceful protest (satyāgraha): they wrote letters, held demonstrations and held meetings with the ministers of finance and labour. However, rather than acceding to their demands for higher wages, the chindi traders retaliated by denying the SEWA members work for a period of several months (Bhatt 2006, 64). The quilt makers countered this by setting up their own cooperative through SEWA; by pooling their resources, they could afford the transportation to get the chindi scraps from the mills and to set up a small shop to sell their quilts. In the end, the workers triumphed. They received a one hundred percent increase in their income over a period of three years (from .60 rupees to 1.25 rupees per quilt). This successful outcome was clearly due to the strength of the quilt makers’ collective bargaining power. After the story of this community’s success spread, other communities where women also stitched products from chindi expressed an interest in joining SEWA and organizing a union in their area. This success story is a great example of the power of collective bargaining and solidarity, both of which are important feminist values. Oftentimes, one of the frustrations that the women express in the community meetings is not only the low wage for their work but also the lack of control over their working conditions. Usually, the low wage is symptomatic of a lack of resources and choices in general and especially with regard to work. As SEWA’s founder, Ela Bhatt, says, ‘To be poor is to be vulnerable. The condition of being poor, of being self-employed, and of being a woman are all distinct yet interrelated states of vulnerability. Poverty makes one the chronic victim of forces beyond one’s control’ (Bhatt, 23). One health crisis or disaster, such as an earthquake, drought or flood, can push an already struggling family deeper into poverty. Even under normal circumstances, poor families must borrow money from moneylenders to make ends meet. The moneylenders charge an exorbitant interest rate, and borrowers find themselves further indebted with each day and with no way to pay off the interest, let 493

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alone the loan. This cycle of poverty is familiar and, barring access to credit for the poor, seemingly inevitable. This is why banks that ethically lend money to the poor, such as the SEWA Cooperative Bank, are an important part of ending the cycle of poverty. Usually, people with no assets and without any credit history cannot borrow money. Other obstacles for the poor include illiteracy, making it difficult to fill out forms; no bank in the area and no transportation; and no safe place to keep money. SEWA Cooperative Bank instituted picture identity cards so that illiterate women could also have access to the bank and has set up local savings groups and mobile banks in villages and some areas of the city. Additionally, the SEWA Bank offers a quick turnaround time between applying for and receiving a loan. This is especially important if the loan is going to be used to recover from a disaster, pay for emergency healthcare or cover funeral expenses. Access to credit, in addition to sustainable and dignified work, moves toward the goal of Gandhi’s principle of self-reliance. The SEWA Cooperative Bank was one of the earliest cooperatives formed by SEWA; it was founded in 1974, prior to Mohammed Yunnus’ Nobel Prize-winning Grameen Bank, founded in 1983. Although on the surface, these institutions may seem similar, after all, both lend money to poor women previously unable to secure credit or loans, there are some fundamental differences between the institutions. As a cooperative bank, SEWA’s bank is owned and run by its members. The idea for the bank came from one of SEWA’s members; one of the obstacles the women faced as they organized themselves into unions and cooperatives was their lack of capital to buy raw materials or items to sell in bulk. This had kept them vulnerable to moneylenders who charged extremely high interest rates. At a meeting of 4,000 SEWA members, a woman spoke up: ‘We may be poor, but we are so many, why not a bank of our own?’ (Krishnaswami 2002, 36). The SEWA Bank began with each woman saving small amounts of money and pooling their resources; 4,000 women deposited 10 rupees each. So, the first significant difference is that the SEWA Bank is based on a savings model, not a debt model. The second difference is that the bank is owned and controlled by SEWA members, who are also its clients. Cooperatives not only provide an alternative economic model, but they also exemplify an alternative social vision of cooperation. Because cooperatives are jointly owned and managed by the women themselves, they must work together to be successful.2 SEWA’s holistic approach to addressing the needs of its members is reflected in the range of financial support it provides. Since its founding in 1974, the SEWA Bank has evolved to embrace a twin model of financial literacy and financial inclusion. Knowledge about how to budget and manage money is just as important as access to financial institutions, such as the thrift and credit cooperatives and self-help groups that developed out of SEWA’s commitment to financial inclusion to provide additional options to the SEWA Cooperative Bank. By 2018, the SEWA Bank had generated over 100 million rupees in savings and held a total capital of 3,450 million rupees. Between 2013 and 2018 alone, it provided financial services to over 40,000 women. And 480,000 women have accounts in SEWA Bank (SEWA Bharat, 2018). Having a savings account helps to empower women because it may be the only asset she has; generally, house titles and property are still in men’s names. Ela Bhatt has been an outspoken proponent of the importance of women having assets in their own name. She says, ‘We should encourage women to build up assets for two reasons. Because women’s income is used mostly for roti, capra, and makaan (bread, clothes, and house), the more cash income which goes into her hands, the faster the family’s quality of life goes up. And secondly, there is an increasing number of 494

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women headed households, and in times of crisis, assets are the only things which help them’ (quoted in Rose 1992, 198). So far, I have stressed the importance of economic issues and the role that SEWA plays in securing a livelihood for its members. The values of collectivity, solidarity and economic and social justice clearly both ground and arise from SEWA’s work. Moreover, the Gandhian ethics of respect for human dignity and human equality are explicitly stated as integral to SEWA’s mission. The validation that women experience, particularly from their peers when they meet together in small groups to discuss the problems and issues they are facing, is important for establishing a connection among the women and also fosters feelings of self-respect. The community identifies leaders from within to be organizers and spokeswomen. Once the needs of the members of the community are identified, SEWA works with them to build the capacity to accomplish their goals. For instance, if the women in the community have embroidery skills but live in a remote rural area where there is no market for embroidery, SEWA helps them organize into groups (cooperatives), and several cooperatives pool their resources to transport their goods to the city. Because each cooperative is an entity with collective resources, someone needs to be trained to keep the accounts of the group and to attend to administrative matters. As the women learn these new skills, their confidence grows. This increased confidence is, in itself, positive, and it empowers women whose lives are difficult and whose work has been invisible. This empowerment often translates into the ability to make changes in their personal lives, such as exercising more decision-making power in the family or even leaving an abusive situation. This empowerment in their personal lives is directly related to the increased economic and political power that the women have by being members of SEWA’s unions and cooperatives; as one’s economic power increases, so does one’s status in the family and the community, which often shifts the gendered power dynamics and gender roles. SEWA anchors women’s power firmly on a material and economic basis – as bank members, property holders, income earners, policyholders, etc. But this individual empowerment remains inextricably tied to the women’s membership in a larger group and their collective power to transform the conditions of their lives. By working together, the women are able to secure a decent livelihood, access to education, healthcare and insurance, childcare and loans. They recognize that their success relies on the success of their SEWA sisters as they share resources and problem-solve together. Empowerment not only changes individuals’ lives, but it also transforms social relations in concrete, particular ways. SEWA fosters values of economic and social justice and creates solidarity among poor women. This solidarity begins in local communities and then extends across national borders. After its local success, SEWA expanded across state borders and then across national borders, successfully making global alliances and founding international organizations. Their strategy of organizing around gender and class has proved very effective, not only in addressing the needs of specific local communities but also in forging alliances across national boundaries. Representatives of SEWA attended international meetings such as the International Labour Organization, where they took the lead in establishing HOMENET, an international network of home-based workers. Out of this effort came WIEGO: Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing, an organization that documents the contributions of women micro-entrepreneurs to the global economy. SEWA also has a sister organization in South Africa called SEWU, the Self-Employed Women’s Union, founded by Pat Horn, who modelled SEWU on SEWA after her visit to its main office in Ahmedabad, India. 495

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Additionally, SEWA participates in the global coalitions STREETNET, a worldwide network of street vendors; GRASSNET, an international network of grassroots handicraft workers; and the Global Trading Network of Grassroots Entrepreneurs. While SEWA always begins with specific issues in local communities, such as police harassment of street vendors, the organization also allies itself with others who may face similar issues in different contexts and countries. Members forge connections at international meetings and then continue the transnational organizing through the internet. SEWA has been very effective in building alliances and solidarity across borders while staying grounded in local communities and facilitating significant change in women’s daily lives. In order to resist some of the pernicious effects of globalization we need strong global labour alliances. In the final chapter of Feminism Without Borders, Chandra Mohanty suggests that transnational feminism would do well to ally itself with anti-globalization movements, especially because gender and labour figure prominently in anti-globalization struggles (Mohanty 2003). As global capital moves into developing countries, too often, poor women lose out. For example, much of the informal economy in Ahmedabad, India (where SEWA began), relied on the textile mills that produced cotton for garments. As the influence of Western values and fashions and the influx of ready-made garments from synthetic fibre became predominant, the textile mills closed down, and the women who made chindi quilts had to find other work. Globalization continues to impact national economies through their adherence to the neo-liberal economic program imposed by structural adjustment programs, which advocate the privatization of public goods and services, such as health care, education, and water; promote trade and monetary liberalization; and support outsourcing production and labour to low wage countries with few protections for workers (McLaren 2019). The processes and effects of globalization are complex, but those without education, marketable skills or property have the most to lose. In countries such as India, where the majority of people live in rural areas and rely on agricultural work and the land to sustain them, the placement of a factory or a dam in their community may mean loss of arable land and food, rather than a new job or electricity (Roy 1999). Women are particularly vulnerable to these changes because they often still have less education and less cultural and political power than men. Without the possibility of earning a livelihood, women are subject to the whims of others. Cooperatives and unions represent an important alternative to both the exploitative conditions of factory work and the ever-increasing pattern of women’s migration of labour overseas to take up jobs as domestics. Cooperatives allow for control over the process of production and for shared responsibility and benefits among the members of the cooperative. Unions provide the strength in numbers and collective goals necessary to negotiate for fair wages and safe working conditions. SEWA’s training and capacity-building better women’s situation within their households and community, and SEWA’s international activism around gender and labour issues helps to mitigate the negative effects of globalization by providing sustainable and dignified wage labour for women. SEWA embodies both feminist and Gandhian ethics and actively works toward a more just and equitable model of society. The principles of self-reliance, nonviolence, the power of the collective and individual empowerment through developing leadership from within communities whose members have been systematically exploited, marginalized and devalued all contribute to making SEWA a valuable model for other grassroots organizations, both within and beyond India. 496

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Notes 1 For more detailed background on the history and formation of the Textile Labour Association, see Kandubhai K. Desai, Textile Labour Association, Ahmedabad, an ingenious experiment in trade-union movement, and Manaharlal T. Shukla, Six Decades of Textile Labour Association Ahmedabad. 2 See McLaren (2019) for a more detailed comparison of SEWA’s Bank, the Grameen Bank and microfinance institutions.

Bibliography Bhatt, Ela R. 2006. We Are Poor But So Many: the Story of Self-Employed Women in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Desai, Kandubhai K. (1948; reissued 1971) Textile Labour Association, Ahmedabad, an Ingenious Experiment in Trade-Union Movement. Ahmedabad: Dave Samarak Trust. Farmer, Paul. 2003. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gandhi, M.K. 1960a. Village Industries. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. ———. 1960b. Village Swarāj. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. ———. 1968. The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 3: The Basic Works. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. International Labor Organization (ILO). 2018. More than 60 per cent of the world’s employed population are in the informal economy, April 30, 2018. https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/ newsroom/news/WCMS_627189/lang--en/index.htm ———. 2019. Paper on employment 2019. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/--ifp_skills/documents/publication/wcms_734503.pdf Kannappan, Subbiah. 1962. The Gandhian model of unionism in a developing economy: The TLA in India. IRL Review 16 (1): 86–110. Krishnaswami, Lalita. 2002. Coperatives Our Strength. Gujarat, India: Gujurat State Women’s SEWA Cooperative Federation, Ltd. McLaren, Margaret A. 2019. Women’s Activism, Feminism and Social Justice. New York: Oxford University Press. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press. Puri, Bindu. 2022. ‘Gandhian ethics and feminist perspectives: In a somewhat different voice’. (Chapter 44 in present volume) Rose, Kalima. 1992. Where Women Are Leaders: The SEWA Movement in India. New Delhi: Vistaar Publications. Roy, Arundhati. 1999. The Cost of Living. New York: Modern Library. Self-Employed Women’s Association website. https://www.sewa.org/ [accessed November 18, 2021] SEWA Bharat 2018. The SEWA movement. Downloaded from Publications https://sewabharat.org/ about-us/sewa-movement/ ———. 2021. https://sewabharat.org/about-us/sewa-movement/ Shukla, Manaharlal T. 1977. Six Decades of Textile Labour Association Ahmedabad (1917–1977). Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press.

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43 THE EMERGENT MORAL AGENT A Feminism-Buddhism Exchange* Vrinda Dalmiya

Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to juxtapose a Buddhist theory of (No)-Self with a feminist theory of moral subjectivity. Placing these two traditions side by side helps expose residual sources of ‘mastery’ or ‘grasping’ that may linger in each and obstruct their (respective) goals of ‘compassion’ and ‘care’. Feminism is, first and foremost, a political commitment to ending the exploitation of women. Since the oppression of women is bound up with all kinds of other exploitations – of race, class, ethnicity and even of nature – a consistent feminism becomes a stand against all oppression. Feminist theorizing in ethics is an articulation of concepts, not from a value-neutral nowhere, but from and within such an ideologically committed starting point. The diagnosis of this structural oppression is often in terms of a specific theory of self-identity. Val Plumwood (1993) argued that self-other interactions end up becoming exploitative because the self is understood as having a ‘master identity’ that constructs others as ‘homogenized’, ‘instrumentalized’ and ‘backgrounded’ vis-á-vis a master self. The antidote to the resulting oppression lies in an alternative self-construction or a new vision of self-identity. Both this diagnostic move and its solution in a revisionary metaphysics of the self can be mapped onto Buddhism. Buddhism is committed to ending suffering, and we can look upon oppression as a kind of ‘suffering’ (dukkha).1 The source of suffering is an inappropriate understanding of selfhood. The path to enlightenment lies in recognizing and reformulating self-identity, which results in a conceptual reformulation of social interactions. But of course, the Buddhist re-conceptualization of subjectivity is not the feminist one. Though both can be viewed as ‘particularizing’ moves, they are particularizations in completely different senses. According to a certain strand in feminism, the Rational Self of traditional moral theory is a mere theoretical abstraction that needs to be replaced by socially embedded and embodied ‘particular’ or ‘concrete’ selves. The Buddhist, too, calls the *  Many thanks to Mark Siderits for extended conversations and comments. Also, to Arindam Chakrabarti. An earlier version was published in Sophia 40(1), 2001, pp. 61–72; it has been subsequently edited and updated by Purushottama Bilimoria and reproduced in this volume with permission. DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-50

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commonsensical notion of self a ‘fiction’, but its positive move consists in dismantling the ‘I’ into causally interacting bundles of particulars (skandhas). Interestingly, these two significantly different processes of deconstructing prevalent notions of self-identity are both intended to provide a grounding to transcend selfish egoism – which is ‘care’ in the case of a particular brand of feminist theory and ‘compassion’ in Buddhism. Could a feminist profit from the Buddhist strategy? And do Buddhists have any need to pay heed to feminist arguments? In attempting to answer these questions, I do not assume either feminism or Buddhism to be monolithic. The specific feminist theory of subjectivity that I am concerned with here emerges from contemporary discussions of an ‘ethic of care’. For a sample of a Buddhist analysis of moral subjectivity, I draw on Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra,2 an 8th-century text of Madhyamaka Buddhism.

A Feminist Re-conceptualization of Self: Ethics of Care The particularization of self in feminist care ethics, what Lawrence Blum calls ‘care particularity’, stems from revisioning moral action as involving ‘an irreducible particularity – a particularity of the agent, the other, and the situation’ (Blum 1994, 218). The move here is away from detached, atomistic agents, working for universal justice in a voluntarily contracted society, to individuals distinguished and distinguishable by their embodied specificities and social locations, working to avoid harm and negotiate dependency within a given network of relationships. The moral point of view is defined as taking into adequate consideration the interests of everyone. A moral actor is required to transcend her own empirical specificities and her own special interests and think in terms of principles acceptable to all to achieve this. The universality of moral decisions is ensured by the agreement of all individuals represented in terms of what they share, which is a common rationality. True moral autonomy is the ability to choose unswayed by passions. Moral deliberation becomes, as Jake famously described, ‘a math problem with humans’ and ethics, a discipline that clearly ‘seeks one transcendental moral subjectivity’ (Young 1990, 101). A dramatically different picture emerges in Amy’s attempts to solve the Heinz dilemma – of whether or not Heinz (a hypothetical individual) should steal the drug he cannot afford to buy in order to save his dying wife. Unlike Jake, we find Amy hesitates in supporting theft in these circumstances: ‘Well, I don’t think so. I think there might be ways besides stealing it, like he could borrow the money or make a loan or something, but he really shouldn’t steal the drug – but his wife shouldn’t die either’. In trying to think through a solution, she comes up with alternative scenarios: If he stole the drug, he might save his wife then, but if he did, he might go to jail, and then his wife might get sicker again. … So, they should really just talk it out and find some other way to make the money. (Gilligan 1982, 28) What surfaces here is a concern about negotiating a conclusion that minimizes harm to all the protagonists within a given matrix of relationships. The moral domain is structured not in terms of hierarchically pre-arranged principles (‘life’ versus ‘property’) but in terms of conflicts of real needs of real people. But once Heinz, his wife and the druggist become important for a moral decision, the actual judgment reached is no longer generalizable. Moral decisions become inextricably contextual. 499

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Further, needs are identified not only by looking at similarities but at differences between individuals. What becomes morally relevant, then, is not the common ability to choose but the actual choices stemming from variations in personalities and contexts. Moral deliberation, as an assessment of needs, requires responsiveness and sensitivity to detail that goes beyond deductions from a priori principles. Caring is such sensitivity to such ‘particular others’ by moral agents who are similarly particularized themselves. Now, ‘particular others’ are also selves-in-relation. Both my actual choices and needs that define who I am stem from my location and position in the world. Individuals are not Hobbesian ‘mushrooms’ who enter into contracts to form a community; rather, they are individuated by and through their changing relations with others. Communities, thus, become constitutive of selves. The ethical fallout of this transformed vision of subjectivity is a blurring of the distinction between self and other, between egoism and altruism. Undoubtedly, the goal of morality is to transcend narrow egoism. With the self-conceived as inherently social, however, particularity cannot be reduced to a selfish egoism. This is what motivates the feminists to ‘care particularity’ in their quest for social justice.

Care Particularization: Potentials and Pitfalls The attractiveness of care particularity also stems from the dangers that a ‘generalized self’ poses for the feminist agenda. The Rational Self is a typically masculinist model undermining situated thinking usually associated with female activities. Thus, the guise of universalization hides a bias towards symbolically male formations and activities usually performed by men. A reference to ‘generalized selves’ is a reference to others only to the extent that they are similar to us. This can hardly ensure the moral standpoint defined as encompassing all (different from our) points of view. Such is the ‘epistemic incoherence’ in traditional moral theory, as pointed out by Seyla Benhabib (1992, 161). But it is interesting that a few feminists remain wary of care ethics. Apprehending needs through an empathic identification implies a transparency of subjects. According to Iris Young (1997), a genuine difference would deny such transparency or symmetry between subjects. Further, commitment to care particularity can easily mutate into self-annihilation and martyrdom. A focus on fulfilling the needs of particular others is uncomfortably close to patriarchal stereotypes of the feminine and often seems to be the cause/symptom of their oppression rather than its cure. But the principal worry here could be a ‘metaphysical incoherence’ parallel to Benhabib’s criticism of generalized moral selves (Benhabib 1992). It is hard to imagine the feminist agenda of changing and resisting social constructions being adopted by selves defined in terms of those very social components. To accommodate the possibility of critique arising from a social self, Marilyn Friedman suggests looking at the variety of relationships that may make up an individual and providing resources for ‘moving back and forth’ and resisting particular aspects of its relational composition in terms of the others. But, Friedman (1993, 77) herself continues to worry in a footnote: ‘If we conceive of the self as being wholly constituted by its complex of socially derived identity constituents, then it is not clear who or what is it that ‘moves back and forth’ among the ‘plurality of partial identities’. This ambivalence towards an ethic of care brings out a certain paradox within feminist theory. In its diagnostic guise, feminism is often committed to denying liberal, modernist individualism. The relational self-of-care ethics emerges from such critique. However, feminist theory (often) is still seduced by very traditional notions of empowerment, agency and 500

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autonomy. For its normative vision, feminism thus remains rooted in the very modernist framework that it rejects. This is very clear when something like a reciprocity condition is built into care on the basis of an ‘exchange’. Friedman, for example, criticizes Gilligan’s mature care ethics that includes oneself in the scope of a caring negotiation to minimize hurt as not going far enough and insists on incorporating the insight ‘that she deserves to be cared for in return by those she loves’ (159, emphasis added). Thus, unless we can radically rethink associated notions of agency and empowerment, the appeal of care particularization fails. Thus, care particularity, as spelled out here, clearly needs to be supplemented in crucial ways. Can Buddhist ethics and selfhood help?

Buddhist Re-conceptualization of Self: The No-Self Doctrine According to Sakyamuni Buddha, the apparently substantial and unified ‘I’ is a mere ‘convention’, a ‘name’. Just as the chariot is a collection of entities like the axle, wheel and seat referred to as ‘one’, the self is a group of five discrete psychophysical elements (skandhas) – the body (rūpa), and the four psychical (nāma) elements of samjñā (sensation), saṃ skāra (recollective dispositions), vijñāna (consciousness) and vedanā (feelings). These elements are different over time, so the group that is the future ‘I’ is constituted by elements that are different from, though causally connected to, the current set of elements which is the present ‘I’. This Reductionist fracturing of the ‘I’ into discrete particular elements (skandhas) is Buddhist particularization. To be sure, the valences and hence tussle between Reductionism and non-Reductionism in Buddhism (especially in respect of the Pudgalavāda reassemblage of moral agency from attachment to the aggregated conventional or particularized self) is a tense and protracted one, particularly on the questions of causal determinism vs. indeterminism, freedom vs. responsibility (or autonomy vs. culpability), paleocompatibilism vs. incompatibilism (see Siderits 2013a, 2013b, 2015, 2016, 2017; D’Amato 2013; Breyer 2013; Hanner 2018a, 2018b; Carpenter 2015; Finnigan 2015; Westerhoff 2009; Correya 2022). Note that such skandha-particularization (pudgala) goes beyond both the generalized self that the feminists were reacting against as well as the feminists’ own notion of the particular self. Embodiment, feelings and desires – all individuators of subjects according to the feminist – find a place in the Buddhist theory of self. However, the feminist may speak of a personal narrative (a substance?) that grounds a unified point of view distinguished by these embodied and embedded features. Caring deliberations all move towards authenticity or integrity, reflecting this ‘core’ of a self-in-relation. Particularized selves thus have sharp boundaries distinguishing them from each other. Buddhist particularization relinquishes even this unity as a construction and myth. ‘I’ am not one, distinct from a second you, because of features W, X, Y, Z and a shared rationality, R. The ‘I’ is a convenient device to refer to those distinct elements, W, X, Y, Z and R. What is ultimately real in the Buddhist world are the particular elements alone, and it is merely ‘conventional’ to speak of these as constituting a ‘person’. Consequently, the particular selves of the feminist become as much a fiction as the generalized self of Kant. On skandha-particularization, the kind of difference between me and you is also present between my current state on the one hand and my future person, my past and present state of you on the other. The kind of otherness generally thought to exist between selves is seen to be present within a self. Not only am I dependent on and distinct from my neighbour, but I am also an other to myself at another time. 501

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Skandha-Particularization: Potentials and Pitfalls The moral implications of this Buddhist theory of subjectivity are brought out clearly by Śāntideva in the Bodhicaryāvatāra (Siderits 2000c; Harrison 2013; Goodman 2016; I borrow mostly from Mark Siderits’ reading of that text). The first argument shows that selfish egoism is not ‘natural’ but a product of ignorance about the self. Grasping the fictionality of self-construction makes it irrational to prioritize one’s own interests over others. The choice to alleviate some pain (and ignore others) on the grounds that they belong to ‘me’ is unjustified because (ultimately) there is no such thing as me. ‘[W]hy do I protect my body against future suffering when it does not affect me?’ (8.96), asks Śāntideva. The notion ‘it is the same me even then’ is a false construction since it is one person who dies, quite another who is born’ (8.98). Put succinctly, the argument is as follows: ARGUMENT I (1) Suffering (anywhere and everywhere) is bad and should be removed. (2) The relation between the current me and the future me is on a par with the relation between the current me and the (a) future state I take to be of another person or (b) a present state of another person. (3) Therefore, there is no justification for prioritizing the elimination of the suffering of the future state considered to be me over the suffering of the states of others. (4) Therefore, there is no justification for selfish egoism. We find Śāntideva grappling with this issue when he asks rhetorically: ‘Why can I not also accept another’s body in the same way (i.e. as myself), since the otherness of my own body has been settled and is not hard to accept’ (8.112). The positive answer that emerges is: ‘I should dispel the suffering of others because it is suffering like my own suffering. I should help others too because of their natures as beings, which is like my own being’ (8.94 emphasis added). Obviously, then, even though denying the ultimate reality of self-construction, the Buddhist here makes full heuristic use of it on the conventional level in order to render the bodhisattva ideal of universal compassion plausible. We thus get the following: ARGUMENT II (a) I work for the elimination of suffering of my own future self. (b) The relationship between me (now) and my future self parallels the relationship between me and others. (c) So, I should work for the mitigation of the suffering of others as well. Buddhist scholars (such as Williams 2000; Goodman 2016) are quick to note the pitfalls in such a two-tier move to altruism. First, the strategy obviously presupposes the reality of impersonal pains. Pain is considered an evil (premise (1) of Argument I) that ought to be removed even though a person ‘having’ the pain is a mere construction. However, from a phenomenological point of view, if there must be something that ‘it is like’ to be a pain, then there must also be something that ‘it is like for the subject’ whose pain it is. Without the reality of self, the Buddhist imperative to eliminate pain wherever it occurs becomes nonsensical. Second, Argument II is flawed because of an internal incoherence between its two premises. Premise (a) ‘I work for the elimination of suffering of my own future self’ is dependent 502

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on the received view of selfhood. Premise (b), on the other hand, is the Reductionist step that undercuts this received self-construction. Since the conclusion to altruism is meant to follow from both (a) and (b) – using the motivational resources of a conventional self and adding them to a Reductionist self – we have an extremely unholy alliance here. In general terms, the Buddhist needs a conventional self to fuel the engine of altruism – she tries to model the motivation of other-regard on the ‘natural’ motivation for self-regard. The conventional truth of the person-construction cannot be denied. To the extent that such a conventional self-construction is in place, I do distinguish between myself and others, and consequently, a motivation for other-regard modelled on (ordinary) self-regard is absurd. Of course, this glimpse into the Buddhist debate on subjectivity is rather selective (see earlier under ‘Buddhist Re-conceptualization of Self’) – guided, as it is, by a concern that a feminist revisioning of self for ethical purposes also encounters serious (and similar?) pitfalls. The project in this chapter is to see whether a solution offered to the paradox in skandha-particularization can help with the paradox in feminist care particularization noted earlier. I turn to a possible Buddhist response with no claims of exhaustiveness from the point of view of Buddhist ethics and appeal to just those parts of the controversy that could be relevant for strengthening care particularity.

A Buddhist Solution: The Conventionality of Self According to Siderits, the conventionality of self-constructions takes centre stage in the resolution to the paradox of skandha-particularization. Conventions are pragmatically grounded, and the ‘convenience’ of the person-convention is that it helps minimize the overall incidence of (impersonal) suffering. For example, if the pain of punishment occurring at some time after I hurt another is construed as belonging to the same person (me) who committed the crime at an earlier time, then there is an initiative for me at any one time not to inflict that hurt in order to prevent the pain of punishment in the future. If the pain of indigestion is thought to belong to me, who overeats, it is likely that I will not overeat now and, consequently, prevent the occurrence of that future pain. But, Sidertis (2000a, 415) emphasizes, ‘[I]t is worth remembering that we must teach children to anticipate future pleasures and pains. The child’s first response to the parental “You’ll be sorry tomorrow” is one of indifference to the fate of that future unfortunate’. Thus, we have to be taught to regard events occurring later in a particular causal series as ‘mine’ (see also Siderits 2013a, b, 2015, 2016, 2017). The apparent paradox in the Buddhist argument arises because it is believed that once we give up the conventional ‘I’, we lose all ‘personal’ initiative to move to altruism. The sense in which this is true is that along with the traditional self, we also abandon the structure of motivations associated with it. To reject the received construction of ‘I’ but to remain wedded to the agency associated with that convention is not really to abandon that notion at all. However, since motivational factors are packaged along with self-notion, this only means that alternative forms of motivation are possible. We habitually work to eliminate suffering located in the causal chain called ‘I’. It took lifetimes of practice to make seeking pain relief for this five-some bundle alone appear as the ‘natural’ thing to do (remember the training of children). But we can be trained to look out for suffering in different causal chains as well. ‘[W]ith practice, the idea of a self arose towards this, our own body, though it is without a self; with practice will not the same idea of a self develop towards others too?’ (Śāntideva 8.115). The Buddhist training for compassion aims at just this. 503

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The Japanese Buddhist master Dōgen makes a similar case for compassion in the practice of Zazen (Wrisley 2020).

Care Particularity and Buddhist Agency The generalized self can be seen as a ‘convention’ grounded in its ethical consequences. The basic ‘impartialist’ move, by construing self-identity in terms of what is common to people, provides a justification for looking to interests other than one’s own. However, feminists point to certain sufferings made invisible or actually caused by such abstract and generalized selves. An alternative subjectivity, constructed along the lines of care particularization, is proposed to help capture such kinds of pain that slip through the grid of generalized selves. Buddhist thought could claim that care particularity, with its notion of a unified and unique self, can easily harbour an egoism and so needs to be further replaced by skandha-particularization. The latter deconstructs watertight compartments between selves by introducing that same distinction within a self, thereby facilitating maximal altruism by rendering egoism incoherent. Thus, we have a narrative of how progressively more ‘particularized’ selves are adopted for ethical purposes. This narrative, however, makes Buddhist Reductionism the final moment in a certain linear progression and ignores the difference in the trajectories of the two particularizing moves. Buddhist particularity may be conceived as vertical – as going beneath and fracturing a unified personal identity into its mereological components. Feminist care particularity is horizontal – it explains the uniqueness of personal identity through a relational nexus with similarly unique personal units. The ‘particularizing’ here is not into constituent parts that are ultimately more real but is an account of the individuality of a personal self as emerging through relations rather than as a pre-given. Can the Buddhist move, even though operating on a different plane, help the difficulties in feminist particularization noted earlier? Let us return to Friedman’s worry that in the absence of something that goes ‘back and forth’ between different relational contexts, the notion of a relational self being able to resist its social constituents is meaningless. It can be argued that feminists, like the critics of Buddhism, are stuck with a hangover from traditional selfhood (in this case, a generalized self) and fail to appreciate the scope of self-reconstruction. The yearning for a pre-social surd to ground agency, empowerment and resistance stems from a failure to recognize that once metaphysics (of self) is changed, so also must notions of agency. Buddhist insight helps feminism to take the step to a politically germane relational subjectivity. Caring in earlier incarnations is associated with being a certain way and negotiating actions reflecting a core identity. Yet caring is a practice wherein the self is created through its choices and negotiations. The possibilities of action are infinite – surprising and contradictory – simply because there are no fixed contours (to the self) from which such actions flow. Buddhists affirm that there is no incoherence in this, no need to ‘borrow’ a modernist notion of agency. Once we theorize the self as potentially aligning itself to an infinite set of others, a self that is aware of the otherness within itself, we also work with a radically different paradigm of freedom and choice. The agency, stripped of its older transcendental moorings, becomes contemporaneous with the very process of self-making. The frictions arising out of the plurality of lifestyles, which is the postmodern condition, are starting points for reflecting on values and identities. Caring need not be seen as constituting a fixed identity but ‘as a series of relationships within which identity and commitment are expressed’ 504

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(Sevenhuijsen 1998, 26). Buddhist selfhood, therefore, can push care ethics towards a postmodern self without a sense of paradox. From this Buddhist/postmodern vantage point, the alliances with others at the heart of care and selfhood need not be based on homogenizing empathy. Again, as Siderits points out in his various works (referenced earlier), the Buddhist path to achieving compassion is not to take ‘identification’ seriously. It is because we do so that we have difficulty realizing that the future states considered as mine are really as other to the current me as some contemporary state of another. The asymmetry of subjects implying that ‘others’ are genuinely different from me and with whom I cannot fully identify is demanded by Iris Young and turns out to be the meditation on which Buddhist compassion is based. But it is important to remember that the feminist care subject, the relational self – whether postmodern or not – remains personal (individual) in an important sense. What does this adherence to individuality signify for the Buddhist enterprise? From this point of view, there would, of course, be no need to construe pain as impersonal, but this effectively begs the question against the Buddhist. So, the point really is whether or not the trajectory of feminist particularization is completely irrelevant to Buddhism. Does Buddhism benefit from feminist insights?3 The issue calls for fine-tuning the respective goals of feminism and Buddhism. Premise (1) in the Buddhist argument for altruism (Argument I) is an acknowledgment that suffering is to be avoided wherever and whenever it appears. Feminists, however, arrive at the all-pervasiveness of oppression through a gendered route. Unlike Buddhist thinkers, they are committed first and foremost to the amelioration of the suffering of women. Yet since this is linked to all kinds of exploitation, they are led to something like the Buddhist first premise, i.e., suffering is to be avoided everywhere. The absolute, metaphysical presence of pain is not sufficient for a feminist because, given prevalent structures of social power, certain kinds of suffering are not even identifiable as such unless we consciously adopt a gendered lived-body point of view. For similar reasons, to guard against some forms of suffering in the way the world is today requires a consciousness of gendered and individuated self-­ identities. To meditate away the body and gender will not be ‘convenient’ in the Sideritsian sense – it will not be an arrangement that maximizes the reduction of suffering. For example, Śāntideva urges us to meditate on both our own bodies (male or female) and the bodies of women as being a ‘pouch of filth’ or a ‘pile of meat’ in an attempt to overcome certain forms of desire. But the egalitarianism of this is utopian (Siderits 2000b, c). Remember that as a technique to help us realize the truth, this is undertaken by imperfect people living in the conventional world. Given the power structures in this conventional world, it is quite likely that such pronouncements will only reinforce regressive, conventional stereotypes of the female body. The oppression of individual women, then, can quite easily be erased and be seen as a stepping stone to enlightenment (of males) rather than as suffering (for women). I do not think a feminist would have any quarrel with the bodhisattva’s compassion in principle. If there were genuine bodhisattvas around, then feminists could probably retire, but one cannot forget feminism in the path towards bodhisattvahood.

Conclusion The Buddhist pulverization of the individual, along with its altruistic fallout, is an a-political, contemplative move. The feminist re-conceptualization of the exploited (as well as of the exploiter) as relational yet individuality retaining is an explicit political programme. 505

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These two traditions operate on different planes, but there is a need for them to talk to one another. One way of articulating this is to make explicit the distinction between ‘self’ and ‘person’, which has been buried in the discussion in this chapter. The conventional unity of particular skandhas is the ‘person’. But the entrenchment of this unity into a coherent narrative is a ‘self’. Now Buddhists urge us to fracture this self and concentrate on living with personhood – on the conventionality and, hence, the expandability or extendibility of identity-making alliances. However, it is important to note that individual meditations take place in socio-political contexts that are structured by entrenched selves. Techniques of spiritual practice may thus acquire unintended connotations and consequences in the conventional sphere, which is the domain of Buddhist (no)self-(re)making. On the other hand, feminists may well have a coherent political vision and a theory of re-aligning selves that goes with it. But without a recipe for self-re-making, it is difficult for conventionally embedded selves to start living as if they were relational. Brute changes in social and material conditions could bring about some transformations in self-perceptions. But from the Buddhist point of view, the normalization of this alternative subjectivity is deepened by the experience of alterity within the self. For this, we need meditations to look beyond selfhood to conventional personhood. Thus, whether our aim is the path of true enlightenment or the path of true emancipation, an individual aspirant is well advised to traverse both – but treading ‘lightly’ on each.

Notes 1 The relationship between ‘being oppressed’ and ‘being in pain’ is interesting, but I will not explore the complications here. 2 See the exchange between Mark Siderits and Paul Williams in Philosophy East and West, 50, July 2000, pp. 412–459. 3 See Part III, Chapter 25 by Rita M. Gross in this volume on certain ‘ethical deficiencies’ in Buddhism in respect of gender and the feminine.

Bibliography Benhabib, Seyla. 1992. ‘The Generalized and the Concrete Other – The Kohlberg-Gilligan Controversy and Moral Theory.’ Benhabib Seyla (ed.), In Situating the Self Gender, Community, and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics, New York, NY: Routledge. Blum, Lawrence. 1994. Moral Perception and Particularity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Breyer, Daniel S. 2013. ‘Freedom with a Buddhist Face.’ Sophia, 52: 359–379. Carpenter, Amber D. 2015. ‘Persons keeping their karma together. The reasons for the Pudgalavāda in early Buddhism.’ In K. Tanaka, Y. Deguchi, J. L. Garfield, & G. Priest (eds.), The Moon Points Back, 1–44. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Correya, Stalin Joseph. 2022. ‘Giving the Imaginary Interlocutor Her Due: Existential Anguish in the Madhyamaka.’ Sophia (forthcoming). D’Amato, Mario, 2013 ‘Buddhist Fictionalism’. Sophia. 52: 409–424. DOI 10.1007/s11841012-0336-y Finnigan, Bronwyn. 2015. Madhyamaka Buddhist ‘Meta-Ethics: The Justificatory Grounds of Moral Judgments‘, Philosophy East and West, 65(3): 765–785. Friedman, Marilyn. 1993. What Are Friends For? Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a Different Voice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goodman, Charles. 2016. ‘Śāntideva.’ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato. stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/shantideva/ Hanner, Oren. 2018a. ‘Buddhism as Reductionism: Personal Identity and Ethics in Parfitian Readings of Buddhist Philosophy.’ Sophia 57: 211–231

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The Emergent Moral Agent ———.2018b. ‘Moral Agency and the Paradox of Self-Interested Concern for the Future in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya.’ Sophia 57: 591–609. Harrison, Paul, 2013 [2009]. ‘Verses by Śāntideva in the Śikṣāsamuccaya: A New English Translation.’ In Carol Altman Bromberg, Timothy J. Lenz, and Jason Neelis (eds.), Evo Ṣuyadi: Essays in Honor of Richard Salomon’s 65th Birthday, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 23, 87–103. Klein, Ann Carolyn. 1995. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen, Boston: Beacon Press. Plumwood, Val. 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, London: Routledge. Śāntideva. 1996. Bodhicaryāvatāra, Translated with Introduction and Notes by Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (See also Harrison above, Wallace below). Sevenhuijsen, Selma. 1998. Citizenship and the Ethics of Care. London: Routledge. Siderits, Mark 2000a. ‘The Reality of Altruism: Reconstruction of Śāntideva.’ A Review of Altruism and Reality: Studies in the Philosophy of Bodhicaryavatara by Paul Williams. Philosophy East and West, 50 (3): 412–424. ———. 2000b. ‘Reply to Paul Williams.’ Philosophy East and West, 50 (3): 453–459. ———. 2000c. ‘Why is the Bodhisattva Compassionate?’ Numata Lecture, Honolulu, Hawaii, October 2000. Unpublished. ———. 2011. ‘Is everything connected to everything else? What the Gopῑs Know.’ In The Cowherds, Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy, 167–180. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ———. 2013a. ‘Buddhas as Zombies: A Buddhist Reduction of Subjectivity.’ In Mark Siderits, Evan Thompson and Dan Zahavi (eds.), Self, No Self? Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions, Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2013b. ‘Buddhist Paleocompatibilism.’ Philosophy East and West 63(1): 73–87. doi:10.1353/ pew.2013.0005 ———. 2015. Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy: Empty Persons, second edition, Aldershot: Ashgate. ———. 2016. ‘Do Persons Supervene on Skandhas?’ In Siderits (ed.), Studies in Buddhist Philosophy, 77–92. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2017. ‘Buddhist reductionism and the structure of Buddhist ethics.’ In Bilimoria, Sharma, and Prabhu (eds.), Indian Ethics Vol I, Classical and Contemporary Challenges, 283–295. Abingdon-UK: Routledge Paperback. Wallace, Vesna and B. Allan, 1997. A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (Bodhicaryāvatāra trans.). Ithaca: Snow Lion. Westerhoff. January 2009. Nāgārjun’s Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, Paul. 2000. Altruism and Reality: Studies in the Philosophy of the Bodhicaryavatara, England: Curzon Press. Wrisley, George. 2020. ‘The Role of Compassion in Actualizing Dōgen’s Zen.’ Japanese Studies Review, XXIV: 111–136. Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference, Princeton: Princeton University. ———. 1997. ‘Asymmetrical Reciprocity: On Moral Respect, Wonder, and Enlarged Thought.’ In Intersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy, and Public Policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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44 GANDHIAN ETHICS AND FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES In a Somewhat Different Voice Bindu Puri

This chapter engages in a philosophical evaluation of M. K. Gandhi’s role in the emancipation of Indian women whilst taking into consideration the changing contours of the discipline of women’s studies in India. It locates Gandhi’s views in the damaging context of the critique made by Madhu Kishwar and Sujata Patel. Though both these writers had made an independent analysis of Gandhi’s views on Indian women, there seemed fair agreement on the substance of their critiques. In as much as both agreed that while Gandhi had made several efforts at improving the condition of Indian women, his perspective suffered from serious limitations. On reflection, these limitations can be organized primarily around three arguments which point to a gender bias in Gandhi, according to both Kishwar and Patel. The first of these limitations was in terms of economic dependence; ‘Gandhi cannot be said to have evolved a concrete programme to tackle one of the basic causes of women’s powerlessness-their total economic dependence and lack of control on the resources of the family’ (Kishwar 2006: 295). As Kishwar argues, ‘(O)ne, of the limitations of Gandhian thinking, then, was that he sought to change not so much the material condition of women as their “moral” condition. … He failed to put an economic content into his concept of emancipation’ (Kishwar 2006: 295). The second argument locates the reason for this limitation in a biological essentialism in Gandhi’s perspective. Basically that ‘the role that he envisages and advocates for women is based on the ideology of division of labor between the sexes which has been historically an important tool for the oppression and exploitation of women’ (Kishwar 2006: 315). The third argument has to do with the gender bias these writers find in Gandhi’s emphasis on sexual purity and celibacy. Gandhi ‘advocated a minimization of sexual contact within marriage and a complete repression of it outside marriage’ (Kishwar 2006: 279). This, according to Kishwar, was more repressive for women than it was for men. Patel seems to re-iterate the same point when she says that ‘Gandhi has created a puritanical and ascetical Kali’ (Patel 2006: 350). According to Patel and Kishwar, these limitations in the Gandhian perspective are the result of a patriarchal bias, which implies that Gandhi did not present a positive moment for women’s studies in India. Patel argues that Gandhi’s reconstruction of the Indian woman ‘is drawn from a space inhabited by an urbanized middle class upper-caste Hindu male’s DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-51

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perception of what a woman should be’ (Patel 2006: 330); Kishwar supports this position by saying that Gandhi’s ideas on Indian women (while they might have appeared emancipatory) can be reconstructed as revealing the biases of a ‘benevolent patriarch’ (Kishwar 2006: 302). This retrospective critique is significant given that earlier women writers in India had largely eulogized Gandhi for making positive contributions to the life of Indian women in his own times: ‘Gandhi facilitated the acceptance of the woman’s cause by the nationalists, particularly in the public life’ (Mazumdar 1979: 60). This and other similar accounts (Forbes 1979; Ahmed 1984) had emphasized the point that without ‘belittling their role as mothers and wives’ (Mazumdar 1979: 58), Gandhi had advocated the freedom, dignity and self-development of Indian women. This chapter will suggest that it is philosophically difficult to accept Patel and Kishwar’s retrospective and complete denunciation of Gandhi, meting out as it were third-party justice from the vantage point of the present. A philosophical reconstruction of Gandhi’s moral insights could indicate that Gandhi had anticipated arguments which came much later in feminist theory and which identified the need for an alternative ethics – one which incorporates a second-order sensitivity – to what has been considered the moral experiences of women (albeit often as a consequence of unchosen roles), feminine models of moral reasoning and concepts of motivation and moral personhood. It is possible to say that Gandhian ethics makes space for such sensitivity in that Gandhi took the moral experiences of women as seriously as those of men. Perhaps then, Gandhi could present a positive moment for ethical writing in India and, more specifically, for women’s writers engaged in the critical intellectual exercise of looking at gender bias in philosophical theory. Section One of this chapter will locate Kishwar and Patel’s critique of Gandhi within the discipline of feminist ethics. Section Two will attempt to reconstruct Gandhi’s moral insights. It will be argued that Gandhi had anticipated (and responded to) concerns raised by care ethics even before feminist ethics had raised them. Section Three will examine the details of Kishwar and Patel’s critique and evaluate Gandhi’s views on Indian women in that context.

Section One: Feminist Ethics: In a Different Voice As women emerged into economic and political modernity, feminists were sceptical about the inequality of social and political arrangements and used a primarily Kantian but also contractarian and Rawlsian ethical perspective to press for justice and rights. In the 1980s, there were substantial changes in the sort of scepticism that had dominated such ethics. Feminist scepticism no longer remained restricted to a first-order discussion of gender bias in social, economic and political spheres. There was scepticism about philosophical theorizing itself in terms of which moral issues were problematized. In this context, one should note that care ethics (Gilligan 2013; Noddings 2013; Calhoun 2013; Baier 2013) has, for instance, been sceptical about the nature of moral philosophy itself and – paradoxically enough – about the dominant Western tradition of moral philosophy; which has been variously characterized as individualist, Kantian, Contractarian, Rawlsian, a justice perspective or a theoretical-juridical perspective on morals. As Baier puts it, those ‘who have only recently won recognition of their equal rights’ (Baier 2013: 721) and who might have been expected to be ‘especially aware of the supreme importance of justice’ (Baier 2013) are ‘now suggesting that justice is only one virtue among many and one that may need the 509

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presence of the others to deliver its own undenied value’ (Baier 2013). Suffice it to say that whatever manner one may choose to characterize the dominant, modern, Western perspective on morals, an important strand of the feminist critique incorporates criticism of the content of modern moral theories, of epistemological positions that underlie such content and of the sorts of self-images and motivations that are normative for moral personhood. Despite a broad diversity of theoretical approaches in feminist ethics, some common themes define the projects of such an ethics. Firstly, as might seem obvious, feminists insist on the moral equality of men and women. Secondly, feminist ethics is keen to emphasize the importance ‘for both sexes’ (Gilligan 2013: 696) of attending to ‘the truth of the women’s perspective to the conception of moral development’ (Gilligan 2013). Thirdly, an important strand of feminist ethics emphasizes that a justice perspective in ethics advocates ideals of correct moral reasoning while neglecting ‘an understanding of the “ethics of care”’ (Baier 2013: 726), which emphasizes the ‘experience of caring for’ (Baier 2013) and ‘being cared for’ (Baier 2013). Care ethics asserts that ‘the version of morality and moral maturity found in women’ (Baier 2013) with ‘a recognition of an often unchosen nature of responsibilities’ (Baier 2013) could lead to a different model of moral reasoning, which shows how men and women ought to deliberate about ethically important matters. Such a model of ethical reasoning constructed by the ‘combined insights’ of moral experiences across genders include a desire to avoid conflict and to promote compromise and cooperation, recognition of the merits of diverse and sometimes incompatible viewpoints, and a willingness to allow one’s emotions to govern one’s choices and actions (Baier 2013). Of course, feminist ethics does not claim that all women and no men use such models of moral reasoning but only that these sorts of reasoning are general to the moral experience of many women. It follows that gender-neutral ethics would make some space for broader models of moral reasoning. In her account of the ethical importance of Gilligan’s work, Annette Baier emphasized the differences between these two models of moral development (Baier 2013: 721–728). That is, between Gilligan’s care perspective and the version found in the work of the psychologist Kohlberg, who was largely influenced by the Kantian moral tradition as developed by John Rawls (Kohlberg, 1981 & 1984). Kohlberg’s version saw moral development as progress in the understanding of mutual respect, where personal autonomy and independence were the paramount values. In contrast, the care perspective, as presented by Gilligan, argued that ‘relationships that have traditionally … framed’ (Gilligan 2013: 695) women’s ‘moral judgements’ (Gilligan 2013) suggest that there are ‘two different modes’ (Gilligan 2013: 698) of ‘social experience and interpretation’ (Gilligan 2013) that is of justice and care ‘which rests on the premise of nonviolence’ (Gilligan 2013); both of which need to be connected to arrive at ‘a more comprehensive portrayal of adult work and family relationships’ (Gilligan 2013). According to Baier, there are major differences between Gilligan’s version of moral maturity (Gilligan 1987) and the orthodoxy (that is a Kantian Rawlsian ethics) which she challenges. Accordingly, Baier argues for a moral theory that ‘has to be a cooperative product of women and men, [and] has to harmonize justice and care’ (Baier 2013: 727) (see also Dalmiya, Chapter 43, in this volume on Gilligan and care ethics). Having discussed the concerns raised by care ethics as an alternative to ‘the assumed supremacy of justice among the moral and social virtues’ (Baier 2013:721), the next section will argue that Gandhian ethics was sensitive to such concerns even before they had been articulated by feminist theory. 510

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Section Two: Reconstructing Gandhian Ethics In The Sovereignty of the Good, Iris Murdoch speaks of three concepts that should be central to an adequate moral philosophy: (1) goodness, truth, realism; (2) love; and (3) freedom. It is the central argument of this section that the same three concepts are important to any philosophical reconstruction of Gandhi’s moral insights (Puri 2012). As the first two seem more relevant to the present argument, this section will bring out their philosophical importance in a Gandhian ethics without dwelling on Gandhi’s concept of freedom/ swarāj. Iris Murdoch points out that certain predominant existentialist behaviourist positions in modern moral philosophy are deeply ‘unsatisfactory’. According to Murdoch, there is a ‘void in present-day moral philosophy’ (Murdoch 1970: 45). The focus of moral existentialist behaviourist positions on overt actions means that love as a central concept in morals seems to have been forgotten or ‘theorized away’… an unexamined life can be virtuous and the fact [is] that love is a central concept in morals. Contemporary philosophers frequently connect consciousness with virtue and although they constantly talk of freedom they rarely talk of love. But there must be a relation between these latter concepts. (Murdoch 1970: 42) Murdoch argues that the interrelationships between goodness/realism, love and freedom ‘unify the moral world’ (Murdoch 1970: 56). Gandhi’s moral insights can be reconstructed as philosophically centred around versions of these three value concepts: satya/truth, ahiṃ sā/nonviolence/love and swarāj/freedom. This supports the argument that though Gandhi was not a philosopher, his moral insights have philosophical potential. Gandhi said of himself, I have not the qualifications for teaching my philosophy of life. I have barely qualifications for practicing the philosophy I believe. I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good-wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed, but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. (Gandhi 1888–1948: 31, 142) A scholarly reconstruction of Gandhi’s primary moral insights also suggests that Gandhi was philosophically open to (what have been described as) the moral dimensions of the experiences of women, to feminine models of moral reasoning and conceptions of moral motivation that were closer to the experiences of many women. Though Gandhian ethics remained theoretically open to experiences of both men and women, often enough, he seemed closer to (what in his times were seen as) the primary experiences of women, i.e., relationships of care and models of moral reasoning related to a reduction of conflict rather than to correct reasoning. Returning for the moment to Murdoch, who writes, ‘[I]t is perfectly obvious that goodness is connected with knowledge…with a refined and just perception of what is really the case’ (Murdoch 1970: 37). ‘“Good: Real”: “Love”: These words are closely connected’ (Murdoch, 1970: 41). The connection between goodness and the real seems fairly apparent 511

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as evidenced by the centrality of truth to morality. However, one might well ask how love seems relevant to an understanding of morality. Murdoch suggests that the only way to see clearly (e.g., what is real/good) and to escape ego is by developing the right kind of ‘attention’. This word, borrowed from Simone Weil, expresses ‘the idea of a just and loving gaze directed upon an individual reality’ (Murdoch, 1970: 33). The three primary concepts in a satisfactory moral philosophy and moral psychology are the good/the real, love and freedom. ‘It is in the capacity to love, that is to see that the liberation of the soul from fantasy consists’ (Murdoch, 1970: 65). It is useful to recapitulate Murdoch’s argument here as it can be argued that Gandhi’s reflections on morality are philosophically relevant to Murdoch’s conception of the task of moral philosophy. The concepts of truth/satya, love/ahimsa and freedom/swarājya can be said to be central to Gandhi’s conception of moral self-consciousness. Gandhi saw individual moral life primarily in terms of a quest for the Truth, which is what he called God. This was essentially a quest which needed to be informed by the practice of the virtues conceived in accordance with the yamas and niyamas, which were part of ethical discipline in the traditional Indian schools of philosophy (Bilimoria 2024). Speaking for himself, Gandhi writes, [F]or me truth is the sovereign principle, which includes numerous other principles. This truth is not only truthfulness in word, but truthfulness in thought also, and not only the relative truth of our conception, but the Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle that is God. (Gandhi 1888–1948: 44, 91) The central Gandhian insight about morality was that truthfulness as a virtue of character was not only the means to but constitutive of truth/the good as the goal of moral life. That Gandhi used truth in this dual sense becomes clear when we consider that he constantly referred to truth as a virtue/yama qua disposition of character as well as the end of the moral life. Witness that he said in 1921 that it was more correct to say that ‘Truth is God’ than to say that ‘God is Truth’. (Gandhi 1888–1948, 25: 136). The selection of the term ‘Truth’ (over ‘God’) as the best description of the ultimate object of human moral aspiration expresses Gandhi’s insight that the central concept of human morality is knowledge or realism. For Gandhi to be good is to be truthful, which means to ‘see’ things as they really are. Murdoch gives us an insight as to why it should matter in human moral endeavours to connect knowledge/realism and goodness: I would suggest that the authority of the good seems to us something necessary because the realism (ability to perceive reality) required for goodness is a kind of intellectual ability to perceive what is true. … In thus treating realism … as a moral achievement, there is of course a further assumption to be made in the field of morals: that true vision occasions right conduct. (Murdoch, 1970: 64) As is apparent from the equation of truth with God (like Murdoch), Gandhi seemed to conceive the moral life as a quest for knowledge or truth understood as a freedom from ego-generated self-deceptions. Note in this context that Gandhi often argued that ahiṃ sā and truth were indissolubly connected and explicitly connected ahimsa with egolessness: 512

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Let us now examine the root of ahimsa. It is utter-most selflessness. Selflessness means complete freedom from a regard for one’s body. … That is the way of ahimsa. (Gandhi 1888–1948: 36, 449–550) For Gandhi, a practise of nonviolence/egolessness was the only means to (and constitutive of) the truth as the end or goal of moral life. ‘Ahimsa is not the goal. Truth is the goal. But we have no means of realizing truth in human relationships except through the practice of ahimsa. A steadfast pursuit of ahimsa is inevitably bound to truth’ (Gandhi 1888–1948, 91: 59). Gandhi also argued (like Murdoch) that the progressive achievement of truth/­knowledge through a practise of ahimsa as love occasions right conduct. One might understand this argument if one would consider that love is perhaps the only emotion which has the power to displace the ego (think only of love in a parent-child relationship), and it is this insight that led Gandhi to connect ahimsa/love with both truth and conduct inspired by truth. It might seem apparent that the practise of ahimsa as progress in humility would remove ego-generated sources of wrongdoing and contemporaneously help the aspirant to see things as they are, in truth, free from the deceptions caused by the ego. While this connection between truth and love is very important to Gandhi’s conception of the moral life, it also demonstrates his receptivity to the moral dimensions of the experiences of both men and women. It is important to reflect upon how Gandhi reinvented ahimsa/nonviolence as love and considerably expanded its meaning to appreciate this. ‘It binds us to one another … ahimsa and love are one and the same thing’ (Gandhi in Bose, 1948; 14). The importance of Gandhi’s conception of morality cannot be underestimated at the level of philosophical theory, especially in the context of concerns (raised, for instance, by care ethics) about traditional Western ethical theories. In Gandhi’s understanding, the ­virtue of ahimsa/love (as freedom from self-concern and the dominance of related self-­ deceptions) was the primary means of moral knowledge – that is, knowledge of truth/good/ God. This meant that Gandhi’s moral epistemology can be understood as an alternative to what Gilligan describes as Kohlberg’s Kantian Rawlsian conception of moral development. Consider that Kohlberg’s model constructs moral development as progress from pre-­ conventional and conventional levels to a post-conventional stage where what is seen to matter is not pleasing parental authority or fitting in with a community but ‘respect for each person’s individual rational will, or autonomy’ (Baier 2013: 723). In contrast, progress towards truth in a Gandhian framework could only come from an engagement with human relationships and the practice of nonviolence as love. This conception seemed to have been based on the values of interconnection and expansion of circles of concern in human relationships. In Gandhi’s vision of moral development, It may entail continuous suffering and the cultivating of endless patience. Thus, step by step we learn to make friends with all the world; we realize the greatness of God, or truth. Our peace of mind increases in spite of suffering … our pride melts away, and we become humble. (Gandhi 1888–1948, 49: 408) It can be argued that Gandhi’s emphasis on responding with love (and related stress on the reduction of confrontation and emphasis on care) to different others might seem to open up the domains of moral theorizing to conceptual spaces beyond (and different from) Kohlberg’s 513

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‘justice operation’, which aimed to arrive at an equilibrium between conflicting claims. It may be recalled that Kohlberg’s approach has been characterized by Gilligan as resting predominantly on male experiences and male models of reasoning. In contrast, Gandhi’s conception of ahimsa as love as the central virtue in moral life and the proper means to truth/knowledge/ goodness took the familiar everyday experience of human relationships within the family as a philosophical resource. Gandhi frequently drew explicitly on such experiences and emphasized the fact that such insights were closer to the moral experiences of women as (often enough, given the standpoint of the times in which he lived) the primary caregivers in family life. He acknowledged the moral indebtedness of his ideas of the connection between love and truth to his own experience of his wife’s relationships within the family. I learnt the lesson of non-violence from my wife, … Her determined resistance to my will, on the one hand, and her quiet submission to the suffering of my stupidity involved, on the other, ultimately made me ashamed of myself … in the end she became my teacher in non-violence. (Gandhi 1888–1948, 74: 310–311) Gandhi also invoked images of relationships in the family as models of ahimsa. Referring to women in the family, he often argued that they could ‘win over everyone with … love, affection, and non-violence. This is our every-day experience’ (Gandhi 1888–1948, 94: 399). Gandhi equated God with truth, suggesting that it is the experience of love/ahimsa in intimate relationships within(and moving outwards from) family life that can inculcate moral aspirants into an ahiṃ sānat life as the only path to truth/God.

Section Three: Taking Serious Account of the Feminist Critique of Gandhi One might now return to some of the more serious charges against Gandhi made by Kishwar and Patel. The first serious charge pertains to Gandhi’s emphasis on purity, which seemed deeply dissembling to both Kishwar and Patel and which they saw as linked to a denial of economic and sexual rights to women. Patel argued that the stress on purity explained Gandhi’s denial of full-time economic employment to women: ‘The most distinct and precious quality of a woman is her purity. To retain this purity, she should not do economic work; by doing economic work her purity and honour are violated’ (Patel 2006: 329). However, this argument could appear misguided if one were to consider that Gandhi’s emphasis on purity in women did not appear to have any connection with caution about full-day employment for them. It might be seen that quite to the contrary, Gandhi had insisted that purity need not be safeguarded by confining women to the domestic space: [W]hy is there all this morbid anxiety about female purity? Have women any say in the matter of male purity? … Why should men arrogate to themselves the right to regulate female purity? It cannot be superimposed from without. It is a matter of evolution from within and therefore of individual effort. (Gandhi 1888–1948: 37, 69–70) The argument about restricted employment for women (however misguided it may appear retrospectively) came from another and different Gandhian concern, one which was related to motherhood and the role of a mother in imparting basic moral education. 514

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Both Kishwar and Patel also insist that Gandhi’s emphasis on sexual purity was a denial of sexual rights to women and, more importantly, that this was the result of a male bias. Patel argues that; ‘The Gandhian ideology of sexuality assembles now a very interesting set of attributes together … the male is considered a highly sexed individual … the female, it seems, does not have sexual needs and is a model of sexual restraint’ (Patel 2006: 349). For Kishwar, Gandhi overlooked the fact that the institution of marriage ‘restrains women in a very oppressive way while allowing much greater freedom to men’ (Kishwar 2006: 279). It cannot be denied that Gandhi was interested in sexual purity and that brahmacharya was a very important virtue for Gandhi. Yet, what is being entirely overlooked by Patel and Kishwar is that this was not part of any gender bias. Gandhi was equally interested in the sexual restraint of both men and women. Gandhi’s emphasis on brahmacharya/celibacy and purity/saucha drew from traditional accounts (for instance, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras), which had stressed the power and value of brahmacharya and asceticism. A reflection upon brahmacharya as the denial of sexuality in Gandhi might make it difficult to sustain the argument that Gandhi exclusively stressed female purity as complete sexlessness while allowing greater sexual freedom to men. His own life showed an intense personal involvement with purity, understood as celibacy, given that he took the vow of brahmacharya in 1906. In itself, this ought to be sufficient to show that Gandhi’s emphasis on purity was not patriarchal. However, one might also look in this connection at Gandhi’s arguments against discriminative practices that had justified remarriage for widowers and not widows: Justice required that, as long as widowers have the right to remarry widows too should have it … they should be the same for both men and women and should command the willing consent of all thinking women and of all thinking men. (Gandhi 1888–1948, 39: 196) Kishwar and Patel have drawn attention to the second serious limitation in the Gandhian position as an espousal of a biological essentialism, which leads to a denial of employment opportunities for women. They have argued that Gandhi saw women’s essential positions – firstly as mothers and secondly as solely responsible for domestic work – as a function of their biological characteristics. In this context, Kishwar argued that ‘the role that he (Gandhi) envisages and advocates for women is based on the ideology of division of labor between the sexes which has been historically an important tool for the oppression and exploitation of women’ (Kishwar 2006: 315). On reflection, it might seem apparent (as noted earlier) that Gandhi certainly seemed concerned about the importance of motherhood and that his arguments about part-time employment for women seem to have emerged from the concern that women needed reduced working hours to make time for their children. However misguided this might appear from the vantage point of the present, it could be said perhaps (in Gandhi’s defence) that he had also emphasized that motherhood should not be at the expense of a woman’s own spiritual, economic and political development. Hence, he encouraged women to do part-time work, insisted on equal property rights for men and women and tried to ensure equal control of the family’s income for both partners. ‘A husband and wife have equal rights in what either earns. The husband earns with the wife’s help’ (Gandhi 1888–1948, 56: 46). Perhaps the most significant point to note in this context is that Gandhi had clearly demarcated between the duties of motherhood (which he saw as natural to women) and the necessity of domestic work, which he argued was a common responsibility of men 515

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and women. The prominence which Gandhi gave to the issue of domestic work seems to suggest that Gandhi spoke in a different voice from Western Kantian-inspired moral theories. It is surely noteworthy that such moral theories completely neglected the importance of ‘domestic tasks’ (Baier: 724) in sustaining society. In sharp contrast, Gandhi paid it a good deal of attention. Far from taking a biologically essentialist perspective, Gandhi often argued against leaving domestic work to women. ‘To me this domestic slavery of women is a symbol of our barbarism. … It is high time that our womankind was freed from this incubus’ (Gandhi 1888–1948, 74: 459). Again, he argued that ‘Since cooking must be done, both [husband and wife] should take a hand in it. If they do and work in the spirit of service, they can easily discover many ways of saving time’ (Gandhi 1888–1948, 39: 87). Interestingly, Gandhi’s experiments in dietetics also served to reduce the pressure of domestic work and on cooking as he repeatedly stressed the need for inculcating simpler eating habits. Gandhi gave a central place in human moral life to love, reduction of conflict and fulfilment of responsibilities. Hence, the responsibilities of child-rearing and essential domestic tasks became visible in his ethics. It also seems clear that Gandhi’s moral insights drew from the various dimensions of (what have been characterized as) the moral experiences of both men and women. One might say then that Gandhi’s models of moral reasoning (truth, love and freedom) and conflict resolution as satyagraha (nonviolent resistance) incorporated a concern for both love/care and justice. Thus, decades before an alternative feminist ethics was able to voice them, Gandhi’s ethics had philosophically anticipated and responded to some of its concerns.

References Ahmed, Karuna. 1984. “Gandhi, Women’s Role and the Freedom Movement”. Occasional Paper, 1984. New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Baier, Annette. 2013. “The Need for More than Justice”. In Russ Shaffer-Landau (Ed.) Ethical Theory: An Anthology, pp. 721–28. Wiley-Blackwell. Bilimoria, Purushottama. 2024. ‘Mahatma Gandhi: A Requiem in Three Movements’. In Ananta Giri, Savita Singh, Dananjay Rai (Eds.) The Calling of a Creative Society in Honor of Professor Manoranjan Mohanty. London: Anthem Press (forthcoming). Bose, N. K. 1948. Selections from Gandhi. Ahmedabad: The Navajivan Trust. Calhoun, Cheshire. 2013. In Russ Shaffer-Landau (Ed.), Ethical Theory: An Anthology, pp. 713–720). Oxford, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell. Forbes, Geraldine. 1979. “Women’s Movement in India: Traditional Symbols and New Roles”. In M. S. A. Rao (Ed.) Social Movements in India Vol. 2. Delhi: Manohar. Gandhi, M. K. 1888–1948. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. 98 Vols. https://www. gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-literature/collected-works-of-mahatma-gandhivolume-1-to-98.php (accessed in October 2022). Gilligan, Carol. 2013. “In a Different Voice”. In Russ Shaffer-Landau (Ed.) Ethical Theory: An Anthology, pp. 692–698. Oxford UK: Wiley-Blackwell. ———. 1987. “Moral Orientation and Moral Development”. In Eva Feder Kittay & Diana T. Meyers (Eds.) Women and Moral Theory. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield. Kishwar, Madhu. 2006. “Gandhi on Women”. In A. Raghuramaraju (Ed.) Debating Gandhi: A Reader, pp. 269–323. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. (Being reprinted from Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 20, No. 41 (Oct. 12, 1985: 1753–1758) Kohlberg, Lawrence. 1981 & 1984. Essays in Moral Development, 2 vols. New York: Harper & Row. Mazumdar, Veena. 1979. “The Social Reform Movement in India: From Ranade to Nehru”. In B. R. Nanda (Ed.) Indian Women: From Purdah to Modernity. Delhi: Vikas.

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Gandhian Ethics and Feminist Perspectives Murdoch, Iris. 1970. The Sovereignty of Good. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Noddings, Nell. 2013. “An Ethic of Caring”. Russ Shaffer-Landau (Ed.) Ethical Theory: An Anthology, pp. 699–712. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Patel, Sujata. 2006. “Construction and Reconstruction of Woman in Gandhi”. In A. Raghuramaraju (Ed.) Debating Gandhi: A Reader, pp. 324–355. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Being reprinted from Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 23, No. 8 (Feb. 20, 1988): 377–387. Puri, Bindu. 2012. The Gandhi Tagore Debate; On Matters of Truth and Untruth, (Sophia: Studies in Traditions of Philosophy & Culture). New Delhi: Springer.

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45 IS CONTROLLED ŚAKTI TO THE BHARATANĀṬ YAM PRACTITIONER AS UNCONTROLLED ŚAKTI IS TO THE DEVADĀSĪ? Sandra Sattler Introduction This chapter explores the ways in which the concept of immanent female power, śakti, has been utilized during the anti-nautch movement and the consequent rise of bharatanāṭyam. The dancer’s position within the women’s question is critically examined with a particular focus on how her identity was constructed in terms of controlled or uncontrolled śakti. The last part focuses on the concrete example of Rukmini Devi and her approach to Indian dance, aiming at applying the hitherto explained link between controlled/uncontrolled śakti and bharatanāṭyam dancer/devadāsī. In ‘The Nation and Its Women’ (1993), Partha Chatterjee famously argued that the women’s question was absorbed into the nationalist agenda by constituting an ideal womanhood in which Hindu women were first and foremost responsible for the home and the spiritual well-being of the family and the nation. The devadāsī woman did not, in any case, meet the criteria of the ideal woman. The former temple dancers were systematically stigmatized as prostitutes, and their tradition began to be considered illegal in 1934 with the Bombay Devadāsī Protection Act. While Chatterjee’s essay will serve as a point of departure, I shall argue that it was essential for nationalists and reformers to produce the image of the ideal woman in accordance with the concept of controlled śakti (female power)1 and consequently assigned those qualities that parallel the concept of uncontrolled śakti to the devadāsī. Scholars such as Amrit Srinivasan (1985) have claimed that the devadāsī woman was regarded as a threat to patriarchal hierarchies, as they did not conform to ideals of the perfect wife (pativratā) but lived largely independently and enjoyed privileges otherwise only known to men. I will show how the discourse of uncontrolled and controlled śakti can function as a tool to understand the decline of the devadāsī custom together with the redefinition of their dance (sadir) and the subsequent rise of bharatanāṭyam, India’s national dance, in the early 20th century.

DOI: 10.4324/9781032638478-52

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Śakti In ‘Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?’ Sherry B. Ortner (1972, 73) explains that the inferiority of women across cultures and regions is a result of their (culturally prescribed) association with nature and, accordingly, men embodying ‘human consciousness and its products’ – that is, culture. Since nature is regarded as wild, untamed and almost arbitrary, those who are in charge of the cultural domain constantly need to control and alter nature. Women, specifically linked to the natural sphere mainly due to physical factors, are made suitable for the cultural sphere only through control by their fathers, husbands, brothers, etc. It is Ortner’s dichotomy of nature and culture and its analogy to female and male which provides the basis for our understanding of controlled and uncontrolled śakti. In fact, śakti, understood as immanent female power, is operating within the same discourse of control aligned with nature and culture. Susan Wadley, following Ortner, showed in ‘Women in the Hindu Tradition’ that the distinction between nature (women) and culture (men) has a long tradition in Hindu literature and philosophy: from the Laws of Manu that did not advocate independence for women and the Dharmaśāstras in which women’s function as wives is primarily elucidated, the general trend in scriptures on classical Hindu law to regard women in a highly structuralist relationship to males, to the Rāmāyaṇ a with Sītā as the perfect, devoted wife who practices self-restraint, devotion and service for her husband (Wadley 1977, 117–118). In Hindu philosophy, the differentiation of the female principle of matter or nature (prakṛti) and the male concept of conscious spirit (puruṣa) corresponds to Ortner’s dichotomy of the gendered realms of nature and culture (Wadley 114–115). While women are depicted as being dangerous due to their (natural, uncontrolled) female power, they are also frequently understood as the bestower of life, with ‘womanist’ sensibilities. This auspiciousness of women, however, is highly dependent on the control that men (or culture) exercise over them; as Wadley says, ‘The source of this benevolence (…) is that the male controls the female; that Nature is controlled by Culture’ (Wadley 115–116). Thus, it remains debatable how exactly women’s agency and empowerment are governed on the grounds of ethics surrounding (controlled) śakti (Erndl and Hiltebeitel 2000). Usha Menon’s (2002) article ‘Making Śakti: Controlling (Natural) Impurity for Female (Cultural) Power’ reveals how the concept of controlled (or dharmik) and uncontrolled śakti is played out in the cultural consciousness of women and men today by drawing on fieldwork she has conducted in Bhubaneswar, Orissa. She used three popular narratives that are regularly re-narrated in the community in order to support her thesis. Resonating Ortner and Wadley, Menon summarizes her argument the following way: ‘Śakti’s source is nature, but it becomes a moral power only when channelled into the selfless, self-controlled service of others. It is when women achieve such moral authority that … they become truly empowered’ (155). While principles such as ‘individual rights, personal choice and self-gratification’ (142) are not neglected, they do not determine the goal for the women. Instead, the notions of ‘duty, self-control and service’ (142) provide the basis for ethical values, especially among women.2 It is worth pointing out that Menon’s article deals with a specific cultural and regional milieu – namely, upper-caste Hindus in the temple city of Bhubaneswar. It may be exactly the fact that her anthropological evidence rests on a selected group of mostly Brahmin men and women that renders Menon’s findings persuasive for our understanding of the framing of ideal womanhood and śakti, as those notions were equally heavily influenced in the 519

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anti-nautch movement by a fragment of society, particularly the upper-castes and nationalists (Menon and Shweder 2003).

The Devadāsīs Past The problem with trying to locate the devadāsī system in the ancient period lies with the idea of a ‘system’, which would signify a somewhat homogenous, structured arrangement of dancing girls that belonged to a temple. In her 2000 book Donors, Devotees, and Daughters of God, Leslie Orr claimed that a temple woman during the Chola period (850– 1300 AD) could possess multiple roles that were assigned to females associated with a centre of religious worship– she could be a dancer, a ritual specialist, a courtesan, etc. (5). Further, women that were associated with temples, first and foremost functioned as the patrons of the temple. They were predominantly donors (162). In turn, they gained social respectability, privileges in the temple and merit. Only in the later Chola period were women more engaged in temple activities, that is, ritual activities and dancing (163). Davesh Soneji (2010, xiii–xiv), drawing on Narayana Rao, Shulman and Subrahmanyam’s work (1992, 187), locates the existence of a devadāsī system in the 16th to the 17th century, from whence they fulfilled the role of temple servants and courtesans. At that time, the devadāsī’s lifestyle constituted an antithesis to that of the good, virtuous wife, pativratā, who was supposed to worship her husband invariably. Since devadāsīs belonged to the temple and were metaphorically married to God, meaning they could never be widowed, they were regarded as ever auspicious (nityasumaṅgalī), a phenomenon that left them basically inviolable in a religious sense (Meduri and Spear 2004, 437; Kersenboom 1997; 1991). They were sacred, even though they were not chaste – an aspect of the devadāsī woman that would later trigger suspicion and render them profane prostitutes under the anti-nautch movement. Her exceptional status in society came with rights that were denied to other women as ‘[s]he alone among women could inherit property, adopt children, and lead a relatively autonomous sexual life’ (Meduri and Spear 437). The devadāsī constituted a hereditary class in which mothers exercised control over usually male-dominated customs. Yet, besides possessing a greater agency than the average middle-class woman, the devadāsī’s advantages came with sanctions and regulations. Courts adhered to specific rules regarding women’s behaviour. Shortly before the anti-nautch campaign began,3 Raja Shivaji II died in 1855 without naming a male heir, an event with fatal consequences for the devadāsīs (Hari Krishnan 2010, 69). The loss of patronage and an increasing urbanization made the former temple dancer ‘slid[e] into the abyss’ (Meduri and Spear 439; Meduri 1988). The changing nature of the temple institution in the mid-19th century would have inevitably led to an alteration of the devadāsī custom. Nationalists’, social reformers’ and colonial missionaries’ agendas channelled this process of change, resulting in trying to erase a whole class of ritual specialists and dancers from south India.

The Framing of Uncontrolled and Controlled Śakti: Anti-Nautch Movement and the Women’s Question The debates around the issue of the devadāsī woman began in the latter half of the 19th century and were refined with Muthulaksmi Reddi’s efforts to legally prevent the dedication of dancing girls to temples. Reddi formulated early drafts of what came to be the Prevention 520

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of Dedication Act of 1947. In ‘Why Should the Devadāsī Institution in the Hindu Temples Be Abolished?’ from 1927, Reddi argued that devadāsīs are prostitutes, victims without the capacity to speak for themselves. The custom is considered to be even worse than satī (Reddi 2010, 123), for both of which religion is to be blamed. Despite the polemic language, the devadāsī system is not accurately contextualized, portraying the dancing girls solely as victims of religion. Reddi hoped to ‘purify’ Indian society from these ‘polluted’ women that cast a shadow on the honour of the Indian pride (‘I wish that no member of our society associates with these women’ (117)). Reddi is echoing here the nationalists’ claims, as outlined by Partha Chatterjee, of the necessity to produce only respectable, highly spiritual women in order to strengthen national honour and identity. Reddi further stated, Still some of us … tolerate a system by which the young and innocent children of those communities, who if left alone or removed to better environments, would become virtuous and loyal wives, affectionate mothers and useful citizens, are slowly introduced into an evil life. (Reddi 2010, 117; emphasis added) A woman, in this context, is only valuable and respectable if she agrees to have her sexuality controlled within respectable matrimony shaped by Brāhmaṇical and Victorian ideals of domesticity. It is, further, the duty of the nation to conform to gendered categories, as it will turn those females into ‘useful citizens’, aiding in creating a pure national identity. The opposition that is laid out between respectable women and devadāsī clearly juxtaposes the concepts of controlled (primarily the control over women’s sexuality, their devotional and self-sacrificial nature) and uncontrolled śakti. Yet the fall of the devadāsī in the public eye occurred before Reddi’s pamphlet. As early as 1923, devadāsīs were widely regarded as a rejected group that offended the honour of all Indians (Tambe 2009, 103). Public opinion in the 1920s on the devadāsī problem was further exacerbated by the colonial portrayal of women as symbols of a backward society in dire need of governmental control from outside. Thus, the devadāsī issue is linked with the publication of Katherine Mayo’s expose of Mother India in 1927,4 which sparked the famous Mayo controversy. This, on the one hand, helped to maintain and nourish society’s (particularly British) negative perception of the devadāsīs and, on the other hand, harbingered the nationalists and reformers to seek to erase the shameful group of female dancers that unwittingly stood in the way of forming a respectable, self-governing nation. In the context of the political situation instigated by the Mayo controversy in the late 1920s, the devadāsī woman was marginalized due to her unsuitability to represent the proper Indian woman who ideally reflected the concept of controlled śakti. Further, devadāsīs were singled out as being unfit for the new ‘woman formula’. Femininity was framed to make Indian men appear more masculine in order to counter-attack Mayo’s claim that they lacked masculine virtues, which would be necessary for self-rule (Thapar 1993, 83). Thapar further describes the new womanhood that gained momentum at the beginning of the 20th century as follows: The mythical figures of Sītā and Savitri were considered the epitome of ideal Indian womanhood. The woman was supposed to be devoted to her husband and to show reverence for elders. In addition, she was supposed to be her husband’s Ardhangini (complementary half) and Sahadharmini (helpmate), as well as to possess the virtues 521

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of benevolence and self-sacrifice. There was at the same time equal stress on her acquiring the practical skills of running a house and rearing children. All these virtues were considered non-threatening in the traditional male hierarchy. (84; emphasis added) Effectively, Thapar’s summary of the ‘new woman’ mirrors the traits entailed in the concept of controlled śakti. The three binding qualities that the new woman had to possess were devotion, self-sacrifice and respectability that was linked to her chastity. In addition to this, Thapar explains, the ‘common woman’ concept was created, which included dancing girls. This construct similarly parallels the one of uncontrolled śakti: ‘[T]he common woman … was coarse, promiscuous and vulgar’ (83). The essence of the ideal woman was utilized by Mahatma Gandhi, who perpetuated and popularized the idea. He insisted upon women’s identification with the core values of the ideal woman as devoted, self-sacrificial and serviceable (Taneja 2005, 60). The doctrine of the ideal woman and controlled śakti were also present in the realm of literature composed in the early 20th century. Those aspects of the devadāsī’s life that made her appear sexually uncontrolled, wild, dominant, immoral and matrifocal were overemphasized. The picture drawn by the Tamil novel Tāsikal Mocavalai allatu Matiperra Mainar, written by Muvalur Ramamirthammal in 1936 (2003), illustrates this point. Web of Deceit, the English title of Ramamirthammal’s work, narrates the story of devadāsīs who initially opposed the anti-nautch campaign. But, as the plot moves forward, the women realize that advocating the abolition movement is the only way out of destitution. The devadāsī woman is portrayed as greedy, immoral and materialistic. The story teaches reform of the seductive, barbaric dancer is inevitable if one is to restore the national honour and rehabilitate the cruel devadāsī women. Eminent feminist-philosopher Judith Butler argued in her work Gender Trouble (1999) that gender categories are ‘products of discourse and power relations’ (Jagger and Butler 2008, 51). In that sense, by virtually constructing the ideal woman by assigning selected characteristics to them, as happened in the anti-nautch movement, strict gender norms were discursively produced by the more powerful (e.g., Huebel 2010, 174). For the devadāsī, gender performances were also a matter of actual performances, neither just on a discourse level nor solely in terms of everyday activities.5 The performance and, consequently, the creation of the dancer’s pure/impure identity were working on various levels – all of which were strictly defined and controlled in a patriarchal framework. In fact, the performances given by dancers of bharatanāṭyam can figuratively be seen as indications of controlled śakti and, hence, a display of desired gender identities. Dancing, Anne-Marie Gaston contends, showcases ‘myths which embody the ideal role they [Indian girls] are to emulate as women’ (2010, 154). Besides the storyline, it was the nature of the performances themselves, their preparation and general limitations that suggest a close connection of the newly defined dance with controlled śakti. Mitra found (in the context of bharatanāṭyam performed today) that, they are expected to follow close instructions as rendered by their gurus and attempt to emulate them to perfection. Caught in this process of repetition and emulation, there is no place for the dancer’s intellectual growth and corporeal expression or a sense of self. (2006, 76) 522

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Mitra further asserts that the physical as well as artistic space of the dancer is highly limited and controlled with the aim of symbolizing domesticity and national pride through performed spirituality and chastity of middle-class and upper-caste women (ibid.). Even though Mitra does not distinguish between controlled and uncontrolled śakti, she notes that the process of desexualization and the subsequent creation of the asexual Indian woman was a means to overcome the trauma of colonialism. The invention of the controlled, chaste woman, Mitra continues, is a ‘national myth’, particularly ‘the myth of śakti’ (2005, 171). Here, the national trope is clearly depicted with controlled śakti as a means to counter-attack colonial ideology.

Rukmini Devi as Emblem of Controlled Female Power Rukmini Devi Arundale was born in 1904 in an upper-class Brahmin family (although her father was deeply involved with the Theosophical Lodge in Adyar) in south India; she married the theosophist George Arundale. Rukmini Devi’s motivation to open up bharatanātyam to the wider community of learners and spectators was propelled in part by her experience early on of Anna Pavola’s grand stage performances during their coincidental encounter en route and in Sydney, Australia. In tandem, she also witnessed the experimental theatre performances of Euro-Russian ballet by the Australian enthusiast of Indian nautch, Louise Mary Lightfoot (Bilimoria 2017). Making bharatanāṭyam fit for middle-class women, Rukmini Devi defined dance (i.e., sadir) anew by desexualizing it and emphasizing spirituality and tradition as the trajectory of the dance-making and performing (Mitra 2006, 75). Any obvious ties to the devadāsī system and lifestyle needed to be erased in order to present bharatanāṭyam as an appealing cultural artefact for the edification of a broader audience. Rukmini Devi’s approach paralleled the national agenda not just in setting norms for a woman to appear respectable but also in her firm belief in the golden age and cultural purity of ancient India (O’Shea 2007, 118; Bilimoria 2017: 248). Through her performances, Rukmini Devi ‘established symbolic domesticity’ (O’Shea 2007; 118). She chose to perform well-crafted and choreographed narratives that would frequently end in marriage between the protagonist and a god or hero (Bilimoria 2017) – once again depicting matrimony as the proper way of life for respectable people (Bilimoria 2017). Crucially, Rukmini Devi’s approach to bharatanāṭyam gave access to a larger part of society, as the dance was now increasingly performed in the public sphere in front of an audience. Naturally, to perform in the public sphere meant stronger supervision by those who laid out the concepts of respectable womanhood. As Meduri (1988) intriguingly argued: [T]he ‘open system’ of public performances [has not] lent any new dignity or status to the contemporary performer. She is still dependent on a male system, even more so in fact than in the days of sadir. (12) Rukmini Devi perpetuated the idea of women as freer agents by seemingly allowing them to take on diverse tasks in dance studies. Women could now train in choreography, dance or composition. As Mitra has argued, in practice, this alleged freedom and greater agency 523

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of women was paired with strong control over their repertoire, particularly an anxiety to prevent any connection to the erotic elements of the devadāsī’s dance. Nonetheless, there is an undergirding element of liberative resistance as well against the anti-nautch movement (Putcha 2019). In that sense, Rukmini Devi’s dance responds to the ideological concerns of the nationalist project that are identical to the concept of controlled śakti; the dancer shows devotion (to god and her husband); she is the chaste, pure wife and self-sacrificing in her deeply felt responsibility towards the nation and serviceable as a teacher of bharatanāṭyam. The new woman and her controlled śakti were strictly monitored and defined (Peterson and Soneji eds. 2008).

Conclusion We have seen how the discourse of śakti, either regarded as purified or untamed, was subject to the constitution of Indian womanhood, which severely affected the female Indian dancer. Through applying the dichotomy of controlled and uncontrolled śakti, we have also seen when and how specific ideals were utilized and to what effects. The transition process from devadāsī to bharatanāṭyam dancer has involved broader Hindu ideologies that were claimed to be universal, such as female power, as emphasized by Swami Vivekananda (Jain 2003, 240). Notably, the differentiation between controlled and uncontrolled female energy frequently goes unnoticed. It is worth emphasizing that such inquiries usually face some difficulties as the concept of śakti within various Hindu sects across time and regions can mean many different things to many different people. Here, however, we have seen how the concept itself has been constantly reiterated and unilaterally shaped to serve the various agendas at work, particularly to nourish the ideology of the nationalist movement. During the anti-nautch campaign and after, the idea of immanent female power has been drastically confined to the virtues of the loyal, well-behaved and controlled wife in the domestic sphere, with lasting consequences for the devadāsīs.

Appendix ‘Staging the “Devadasi” in Today’s World’, Yashoda Thakore Rao and Purvadhanashree Mod: Deepa Chakravarthy; ‘Devadasi-Sadhir Dancer’; ‘5 Devadasi Dances’; ‘Tale of Temple Dancers’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLzUaIGM-z4; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BlPssexMzU; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_kfxTnrrKQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_F_yfG7DPc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNFCfDKP-2U

Notes 1 Śakti has divergent meanings in Hinduism. It most broadly (and most relevant for the discussion at hand) means energy or power and denotes specifically female power. The Hindu Goddess (Devī) can be characterized as Śakti since she possesses the supine quality and prowess of śakti. Frequently

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Is Controlled Śakti to the Bharatanāṭyam Practitioner śakti is also understood as the consort of a male deity. For a coherent overview, see Timalsina (2010) ‘Śakti’; cf. Coburn (1982); Pintchman and Sherma (2011). 2 The reader is urged to cross-reference to Chapters 39 and 40 by Bose and Balslev in this volume. 3 Debates were initiated in 1875 with the publication of an article called ‘Vesyalu’ (Telugu meaning prostitutes) by Kandukuri Viresalingam (Soneji 2010, xx; see also Soneji 2012). 4 Mayo (1927; 2000) mentions the devadāsīs system, calling it ‘the much despised and much maligned “Devadāsī institution”’ (278). 5 See, for instance, Cecilia Busby (2004), who has challenged Butler’s definition of gender. Busby, instead, claimed body, sexuality and gender are a product of everyday activities (15ff) and proved her hypothesis with her description of women’s lived everyday experiences in a fishing village in Kerala. However, the devadāsī woman’s gender construction and that of the bharatanāṭyam dancer were a result of the reinforcement of gendered norms of behaviour and propriety through discourse and performances.

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INDEX

Pages in italics refer to figures and pages followed by n refer to notes. Abbot, Nan Sutasilo 304–305 abortion 37, 65, 105, 108–115, 327; case of Sugunabai 113; induced 112–113; in Japan 114; miscarriage and prevention of 111–112; in other major world religions 114–116; postscript 118–119; scenario in India 113–114; sex-selective abortion 15, 431, 436, 490; in West and modern India, debates on 116–118 Abram, David 345 ācāra 466 Ācārāṅga Sūtra 199 Acharya, Keya 71 active domesticity 323 Adams, C. J. 259 adhikāra (proprietary right) 396 adivasi(s) 365, 374, 375n1 Aḍhāīdvīpa 198 Advaita Vedānta 100 affective communities 26 afflictions (kleśas) of self 240 Africa 279 Agamben, Giorgio 411 Agarwal, A. 205 Agarwal, B. 480, 482 Agnes, Flavia 12, 413–423 ahiṃsā 111, 146, 163, 199, 255, 269–272, 437–438, 441, 451, 456, 490, 514 ahiṃsā/love 513 Ahmad, Farhan 57 Ahmed, Sara 5, 11, 387–392 AIDS/HIV 47–48, 51

air (Vāyu) 101–102, 198, 338 Aitareya Āraṇyaka 109 Akhil Bhartiya Jeev Raksha Bishnoi Sabha 227 Akhter, Farida 46 albumen 103 ‘alchemy’ and ‘algeny’ 63 Allahabad High Court 56 All-India Congress Committee (A.I.C.C) 177 All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) 42, 119 All-India Spinners Association (AISA) 174 All-India Village Industries Association (AIVIA) 174 Alsdorf, Ludwig 270–271 altruistic surrogacy 138, 140 Amae 89 Ambedkar, B. R. xx, 304, 310, 404–406, 484; Ambedkar-Gandhi debate xx; see also dalit(s); statue of ‘Babasaheb’ 404 Ambedkar Center for Justice and Peace 404 Amnesty International 56 amniocentesis 126–127, 129, 133 amāvasyā (New Moon) 226 ancient and classical texts 109 Anderson, Elizabeth 139 Andhra Pradesh Court 154 Andrews, Charles Freer 28 animal(s): dietary ethics, ahiṃsā and vegetarianism 269–274; inclusion of 253; medicinal herbs for elephants healthy 257; mythic 252; sacrifice 252–253, 267, 273; settlements 255

527

Index animal ethics 239–247, 252–260, 264–275; Brāhmaṇism 265–266; Jainism 266–267; Jewish/Judiac 254–255 Animal Ethics and Ecology in Classical India 255 animal justice 252–260; concept of nonviolence (ahiṃsā) 257; see also ahiṃ sā; cruely to 254; Gandhi and contemporary India, ecoanimalia 258–259; mother dairy near to slaughterhouse 259–260; PETA 299; Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 254 Animals’ Friend Society 254 anmanaa 89 anti-Coke struggle at Plachimada 330 anti-Dalit violence 402, 404–410 anti-globalization movements 496 anti-nautch movement 520–523 Ao Nagas 237 aparigarha 451 Apex Court 212, 217–218 Apollo Hospitals 55 aporia 378 Appadurai, Arjun 30, 224 Appiah, Anthony Kwame 378 Arboreal Dharma, dharmic ecology 228 arbudam 101 Arendt, Hannah 64 Arghyam 206 Aristotle xxix–xxx, 2, 10, 186, 283, 286–289, 369, 447 Ariyaratna 17 Arthaśāstras 256 artha/wealth 225, 472 Arthur, J. 79 Article 17 of the Indian Constitution 406–407 Article 21 of the Indian Constitution 59 Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution 151–152 Article 27 of TRIPS 76, 80 Artificial Reproductive Technologies Bill 2014 138 Arundale, George 523 Āryans 123 ASHA 94 Ashcroft, R. E. 78 Asian Buddhists 317 Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha 112 Atharvans 110 Atharvaveda 110, 112, 198 ātman 65, 100–101, 268 auto-homicide 144 autonomous legal subject 140 Aśvaghoṣa 468 Āyurveda 91, 95 āyus 92, 103 AYUS 50 AYUSH 91–92

Baciu, A 39 Bacon, Francis 188, 315 bahiśt, heaven 227 Bahuguna, Sunderlal 226, 260 Baier, Annette 510 Baindur, Meera 335–348 Bajaj, Jamnalal 174 Balibar, Etienne 31 bāla-maraṇa 147 Bal, Mieke 368 Balslev, Anindita Niyogi 471–478 Bangabhanga 395 Bangalore Lunatic Asylum 90 Bangalore Mental Hospital 90–91 Bangladesh 90 Barbin, Herculine 369–370 Barlingay, S. S. 2 Bauman, Zygmunt 57 Beauchamp, T.L. 82 Behn, Mira 174 Bell, Daniell 28 Bengal 395, 397 Bengali 364–365, 371–372 Bengali patriot 396 Benhabib, Seyla 10, 500 Berkeley-Hill, Owen 88–89 Berry, Thomas 204 Bezos, Jeff 437 Bhū (earthly plane) 338 Bhabha, Homi 30–31 Bhagavadgītā 100, 230, 246, 451 Bhagwati, Jagdish 55 bhakti 123 bhakti legacy 399 bharatanāṭyam 518; dancer/devadāsī 518, 524; Rukmini Devi as teacher of 523–524 bharatbarsha (India) 397, 399 Bhat, P. N. Mari 483 Bhattacharya, Haridas 475 Bhattacharya, Swasti 68 Bhatt, Ela R. 491, 493 Bhūdevi 344 Bhāgavata Purāṇa 110 Bhiṣma xxvi, 8, 267 Bhūḥ (earth) 338 Bhūloka 338 Bhūmi 340, 344 Bhopal 127 Bhosale, Jyoti D. 63–73 Bhotmange, Surekha 402, 405 bhūpati 343 bhrūṇahatyā 110 bhūta 99 Bhutan 114 Bhūvaḥ (ether) 338 Big Bang 201, 253

528

Index Bihar 129 Bilgrami, Akeel 447–449 Bilimoria, P. 4, 37–52, 59, 61, 86–96, 108–119, 121–133, 135–140, 142–157, 197–209, 226, 252–261, 264, 267–268, 270, 273–274, 287, 346 Bill Gates 437 bioethical culture 37 bioethical issues: questions before Jain participants 145–146; suicide 146–148, 151 bioethical ramifications 142 bioethics 37, 55; conceptualization of 59; culture of 38; developments in thinking 37; issues of ethical import 38 biotechnology: adoption of 72; agricultural biotechnology and genetic modification 69–72; application of Bt cotton technology 68–72; genetic engineering 64–67; genetic screening 67–69; objections to 71; research 66 birthing 122 The Birth of the Clinic (1994) 87 Bishnoi community 226–227 Bishnoi dharma 225–226 Block, Sidney 87 Blodgett, S. K. 26 Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Ethics (2017) xxviii Bodhicaryāvatāra 499 bodhisattva 272 Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara 309 Bohannon, Larry 116 Bollee, William 271, 274 Bombay Devadāsī Protection Act 518 Bombay High Court 151, 154–155, 217–218 Book of Odes 285 Bose, Girindrasekhar 90 Bose, Mandakranta 463–469 Bose, N. K. 456 Botticini, M. 483 brahmācarya 240, 243–244, 250, 515 Brāhmaṇical: Brāhmaṇism 255, 267; caste system 20; patriarchy 19; society 269; texts 122 Brahmins 438, 466 brahmāvadinī 475 Braidotti, Rosi 4, 11 Brass Notebook (2020) 435 Brison, Susan J. 420 British Empire 24 British intervention 89 Brock, D.W. 77 Brody, Barauch A. 64 Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 111 Bṛhaspati (Jupiter) 338 Bṛhat-Saṃhita 471 brutish nature 252

Bryant, Edwin 271 Bt cotton technology 68–71 Buddha 266, 269 Buddhahood 266 Buddhism xxix, 68, 199, 264–265, 268, 272–273, 283, 292, 302, 498; 20th century 305; and ecofeminism 317–318, 320; economic base of 305; feminism and 505; human rights and well-being 310–311; oppression as kind of ‘suffering’ (dukkha) 498; text of Madhyamaka 499 Buddhism after Patriarchy 317 Buddhist: conventionality of self 503–505; discourse 317; engaged social activism see Buddhist spirituality and social activism; ethical analyses 317; and Jaina opposition to animal sacrifice 265, 267; morality 283; movement 310; nationalism 302; principles 304; reductionism 504; spiritual-ethical principle of ahiṃ sā 305–306; spiritual foundations 303–304; spiritual practice 303, 311; see also Buddhist spirituality and social activism; temple 305; views 314–315 Buddhist critique of ecofeminism 319–320; Buddhism 317–318; definition of ecofeminism 313–314; see also ecofeminism; relevance and limits of feminism 318–319; what does ‘eco’ add to ‘feminism? 314–317 Buddhist spirituality and social activism: Ambedkarite movement 310–311; Cambodia 306–307; contemporary engaged Buddhism 302, 304; Four Noble Truths 303, 306; ‘Open Letter,’ social activism 303–304; poverty and development work 304–305; Tibet and Dalai Lama 309–310; Vietnam 307–309; warfare and genocide 305–306; women’s issues 311 Buddhist Struggle Movement 307–308 Buddhist theory of (No)-Self 498, 501, 506 Burke, Edmund 8 Burnham, James 28 Bush, George W. 117 Butler, Judith 522 Cabezón, José 317 Cairo Conference on Population and Development 131 California 118, 207–208 Cambodia 306 Capabilities thesis 3–4, 7, 9, 11, 15, 50, 58, 186–187, 190, 193, 254, 279, 323, 440 Capital 375 capitalism 17, 19, 279, 430, 455 Capitalists without Capitalism: The Jains of India and the Quakers of the West 298

529

Index Caraka and Suśruta 38–39, 50, 111–112 Caraka-saṃhitā 101, 109 care, duty of 54, 58–61 care ethics xvi, 499–505, 509–513 caregiver vs. citizen 322–332 care particularity 500–501; and Buddhist Agency 504–505 Carpenter, Edward 26, 28 Cartesian rationalism 86 caste: atrocity 406, 408–410; and conjunctural violence 410; considerations 409; dalit personhood 408–409; Hinduism 411; lower castes 481; Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes 406–408; sex of 409–410; stigmatization 405; supremacy 410; system in South Asian society 7; violence of see violence and humanity Catholic Church 117 Catholic Church in West 112 Catholicism 115 Centre for Developmental Studies (CDS) 329 Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy 59 Chakrabarty, Dipesh xxvi, 24, 33, 395–396 Chakravarti, Uma 339–340 Chamelidevi 439 Chandrachud, Dhananjay Y. 118 Chapple, Christopher Key 292–300 character consequentialism 283–284 Charlesworth, Max xxvi Charlotte Laws 299 Chatterjee, Partha 129, 518, 521 Chatterjee, Saratchandra 398 chetasā (vitality) 101 childcrafting 323, 325–326 child-rearing in Kerala 325 Childress, J.F. 82 China and India 31–32 chindi quilters 493 Chinese government 115, 309 Chitrabhanu, Muni 298 Chāndogya Upaniṣad 109, 198, 201 Chowk, Chandini 439 Christ, Carol P. 472 Christianity 88, 255, 284, 467 citta 100 City of Brahman 109 civilization 24–26, 70, 436 civilized societies 233 civilizing mission 25 civil rights law 406 civil society 424, 427, 431 classical Freudian psychoanalysis 86 classical Sanskrit texts 123 climate change 18, 24, 32, 110, 184–194, 207–208, 212, 218, 459 Clinton, Bill 117

Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) 424 coastal area(s): ecosystem 211–212; judiciary on protection of 217–219; need for protection of 212 coastal ecosystem 211–212 coastal equilibrium 212 coastal region 211 coastal regulation zone (CRZ) 211–212; areas 218; see also coastal area(s); classification of see CRZ Notifications Coastal Zone Management Authority (CZMA) 213, 216, 220 Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) 214, 217, 220 Code, Lorraine 87, 336 Code of Medical Ethics Regulation 43 Coetzee, J. M. 363–376 cognition (buddhi) 101 The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG) 182, 445 commercial surrogacy 135, 137–139, 430, 433n21 communal transnationals 12 communal violence 396, 427 Communist Manifesto 455 community-based healthcare system 132 comptroller and auditor general (CAG) of India 220 Confucianism 292 Confucians of East Asia 292 The Congress 177, 180 Connolly, Valentine 89 consciousness 100–101, 104 Constitution of India 59, 61n11, 61n13, 151–152, 310, 406–407, 440, 524 construction and infrastructure 215 Constructive Programme 170, 174–177, 445 Consumers’ Protection Act (1986) 41 Convention on the Rights of the Child 128, 131 cooperatives and unions 494–496 Cordelia, in text of King Lear 366–368 Cornford, Francis M. 447 corporeal earth 341, 343, 346 Cort, John 296–297 cosmic womb 201 COVID-19 pandemic 15, 37, 43, 50, 54, 322–323, 414, 421, 435, 437; crisis 41, 60; India’s healthcare system 54–57; see also healthcare; market and health 58; public health issue and postscript on 48–49; social assets 58–60; vaccination 56, 59–60 Crawford, S. 105 Creel, Austin 287 The Crisis of European Sciences of 1933 27

530

Index CRZ Notifications 212; analysis of 219–220; CRZ I 213–217; CRZ II 214–215; CRZ III 215–216; CRZ IV 216–217; objectives of 213 cultural imperialism 10 cultural relativism 387, 390 cultural traditions 387–388 dai (midwife) 131 dais 132 Dalai Lama 131, 260 Dalai Lama XIV 309 dalit(s) 311, 483; see also Ambedkaranti-Dalit violence strategy 402, 404–410; becoming 403, 411; blogosphere 404; body 405, 409; civil rights with 407; family 402; identity 405; militancy 405; personhood 408–410; politicization 405, 410; rage 404; social and political rights 404; symbolization 410; vulnerability 406, 410–411; women 403 Dalit bastis (residential areas) 404 Dalmiya, Vrinda 11–12, 498–506 Daly, Mary 88 Daoism 292 Darly 329 Dasgupta, Surama 14 Dasgupta, S.B. 352 Dasgupta, Surendranath 338 Dasgupta, Uma 396 Datta, Narendranath 25 Dawa aur Dua scheme 95 Dawkins 253 Dawson, Lindsay 6, 16, 184–194 Deakin, Alfred 205 The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (1980) 315 d’Eaubonne, Francoise 313 Deccan Herald 56 The Decline of the West 27 decolonization 383 decomposition, method of 336 De, Esha Niyogi 394–401 degradation 172, 254, 315, 317, 319, 330, 405, 409, 430, 441 Delhi 57 Delhi High Court 91 demand-based dowries 483 De Mause 125 democracy 29, 68, 383, 394 democratic justice 394 Dennett, Daniel 253 dented healthcare system 59 Department of Mines and Geology 229 Department of Social Welfare 407 Department of Women and Child Development (WCD) 415

Department of Women and Child Welfare 421 Depressed Classes 402 Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) 418 Derrida, Jacques 9, 86, 363–364, 383–384 Desai, Narayan 123–124 Descartes, Rene 188; Cartesian 70, 86–88 devadāsī system 520 Devībhāgavatapurāṇa 469 Devi, Amrita 226 Devika, J. 322–332 Devi, Mahasweta 390 Devi, Rukmini 523–524 Devji, Faisal 449 Devī Māhātmya, goddess 350–351 dhammanī 104 dhamma of Buddha 266 Dhammapāda 306 dharma xxvi, xxviii, 8, 14, 17, 66, 69, 176, 223, 463–465, 476; ahiṃsā (non-harmfulness) 224; concept of xxxi; for environmental ethics 223–225; as ethics of rights and virtues 225; and injustice xxv, 2; and legislature 154; moral actions/choices 346; notion of cosmic, social and ritual 223; as religion 224; rural environmental ethics and Bishnoi 225–226; Swadhyaya Movement and Vṛkṣamandiram 227–230; texts 111, 465 dharma/dhamma 267 dharma-nīti 8 Dharmaśastras xxiv, 105, 109–110, 466–467, 480, 519 Dharma Jāgaraṇa Maṇḍala in Maharashtra 156 Dharma/righteousness 472 Dharmas 473 Dharma sastras 2, 109–110, 256, 286, 288, 463–464, 467, 474, 480, 519 dharma as Virtue Ethics: dharma, duty/virtue 286–287; in Hindu epics 287–289; karma and character as destiny 289; rules and virtues 284; virtue aesthetics in Gandhi 285–286 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)/DSM-V 86–87, 89 dietary ethics 269–274 Dietz, Mary 329 Disgrace 366–368 District Criminal Injuries Boards 417 District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) 421 Āditi 256 Ādityas 110 Donors, Devotees, and Daughters of God 520 do not resuscitate (DNR) 155 dowry 125, 130; in contemporary India 479–480; as customary institution 480–482; death of Vismaya Nair 479, 485; Goody’s interpretation 481–482;

531

Index hypergamy 481–482; Kerala society 484–485; modern 482; political economy of 484; punishment for 480; rationale of contemporary 484–485; Section 304B 480; Section 498A 480; system 482; transformation of 482–484 Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 480 Dreyfus, George 447 drugs 80–82, 112 dualisms 313 Dumont, L. 287, 481 dundubha 204 Dwivedi, Om P. 54–61, 346 Dworkin, Ronald 66 Dāyabhāga 480 Dyaus, the sky 339–340 Dyava-Pṛthvī 338 Eagleton, Terry 387–388 Earth (Pṛthvī/Bhūdevī) 198; corporeal form 337, 339, 341, 344–346; feminine form of 338; as that of a woman see humanizing the feminine Earth; vision of 350 Earth Summit 1992 212 ecofeminism 335, 351; deeper claim of 313; ecological feminism 324; vs. feminism 314–317; and Keralan Model of Care 323–325; profit motive 314; true/pure 325 ecofeminist thinking 314, 316 ecological self, yoga practice 240 ecology 224, 229, 313 eco-moralism 268 ‘economic other’ 435–436 economic reason 62, 168, 320 Economic Recovery Program (ERPs) 40 Edgerton, Franklin 287 egotism (asmitā) xxx Eighth Five-Year Plan Report 131 Einfuhlung/empathy 87 electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) 90 electroencephalographic (EEG) 105 E-MANAS 95 embryo 103–105; killing of 110–111 embryonic research 65 Emoto, Masaru 200 energy/fire (tejas) 198 Engels, F. 454 environmental ethics 188–189; alternative approaches to 189–190; human development and 190–194 environmental hazards 164 environmental justice 331 environmental pollution/damage 166 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 216–218

epistemology xxviii, 2, 8, 64, 172, 179–180, 316, 513 equality of capabilities 4 ether (ākāśa) 198 ethical: commonality of being 363; debate 37; goal 378, 382; implications 65, 69; policies on genetic research 64; questions 1, 20, 37, 63, 267, 431, 448, 450 ethics: contemporary thinking 1; within feminist frameworks 130; metaethics xxxi, 2–3, 14, 21, 444; see also metaethics; and politics 18, 378; and politics in Tagore and Coetzee see Pratichi; qua ethics 2; and religion 257; and technology 70 Ethics and Epics 283 Ethics and the Routledge History of Indian Philosophy xxviii ethics of location 381, 385; Indian feminism and postcolonial theory 379–382; move to activism 382–384 ethics of surrogacy in India: altruistic surrogacy 140; commercial surrogacy 135, 137–139, 430, 433n21; cultural realities and role of law 140; gestational and genetic surrogacy 136; law in context 138–140; legal practice of surrogacy 137–138; non-altruistic surrogacy 136; women’s reproductive labour 136–137 Eurocentrism 233 European civilization 27–28 Fanon, Frantz 31, 87 Farmer, Paul 490 Febvre, Lucien 25 Federal law 118 Federation of Farmers Association (FFA) 69 Feldhaus, Anne 224 female infanticide 15; century of reform and legislature 129–132; desire for male child 124–125; generational transmission of 121–122; girl child 133; prejudice 132; religious roots of gendercide see gendercide, religious roots of; sex-selective testing, abortion and law 125–129; structural factors 121 ‘feminine’ caregiving 327, 329, 332 femininity 328, 338, 396–397, 471–472, 474–475, 477, 521 feminism 314–319, 387, 423; beyond deconstructive justice 390–392; as form of groundless solidarity 389; justice 389; see also justice feminist: care ethics 499–501; critique of Gandhi 514–516; ethics 21, 473, 509–510; ethics in action 489–497; ethics of care 510; non-western feminist ethics xxv, 18, 23, 122,

532

Index 327, 378–382, 390, 498–500; scholarship 379; self-perception 477; theorizing in ethics 498 fertility myths 201 fertilization 65, 69, 109 The Fifth Report of the Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes 408 Fineman, Martha Albertson 58 Finnigan, Bronwyn 447 First and Third Worlds 184–185, 187–191, 193 first information report (FIR) 414–418, 421 First National People of Colour Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991 331 Fitch, Ralph 297 Fitzgerald, Timothy (Tim) 223 flesh (māṅsena) 101 Fletcher, J.C. 130 Floor Space Index (FSI) 215 Folbre, N. 325 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 80 foreign imperialism 144 Foucault, M. 39, 86, 369, 420 Fox, Michael 297 Frankfurter, Felix 27 Fraser, Nancy 389 freedom 7, 76, 79 Freudian theory 122 Freud, S. 122, 202 Friedman, Marilyn 500–501, 504 Friedman, Thomas 32 Frydman, Maurice 174 Fukuyama, Francis 63–64, 66 Galston, William A. 5 Gandhi, Maneka 260 Gandhi M.K./Mahatma 18, 25–33, 72, 143, 161, 170, 229–230, 300, 402, 489, 508, 522; ahiṃsā 446; anti-humanistic tendency 449; barometer for GM food technology 163–165; Bubbling Up Theory of Growth 440; civilization 165; conception of morality 165, 513; concepts 449–451; doctrine of swadeshi 456–458; economic constitution 440; economics 458–460; egalitarianism 440; ethics of simplicity 438, 455; ethics of political economy 441; Father of the Nation 454; freedom/swaraj 511; idea of truth 445–446; ideas themselves 448; inequality in consumption 438; interlude 255; khadi 439–441, 458; metaethical study/queries 444, 447–450; metaethics 444–452; method 172; moral experiences 509; moral ideas 444; moral insights 511–512, 516; moral philosophy 12, 163, 450; morals and politics economy 437–438; moral theory 448; Nai Talim/New Education 176, 181n4;

nonviolence (ahiṃsā) 446, 490; nonviolence in moral truth 446–447; political ethics 437; political literature 449–451; political notion of swarāj 446; Poorna Swaraj 177; primary texts 444, 447; principles of self-reliance 491, 494, 496; principles of truth and nonviolence 491; religious perspective 454–456; secondary literature 444, 447, 449; Swarāj and Sarvodaya 176–178; Swarāj as self-rule/self-restraint 176; system of economic thought 439; and technology 165–166; thought 446, 448, 451; ‘Utopia,’ challenges and relevance 178–181; vegetarianism 254; vision of moral development 513; writings 445, 447 Gandhian critique of globalization: economic perspective 458–460; ethical perspective 456–458; religious perspective 454–456 Gandhian ethics 12–13, 162, 456–457, 490, 495–496, 509–510; civil disobedience 170, 174; metaethics xxxi, 2–3, 14, 21, 444; nonviolence (ahiṃ sā) 173, 283; reconstructing 511–514; and socio-political philosophy 163; truth (satya) 173; workers in ‘righteous struggle’ 491 Gandhian studies 448 Gandhi, Krishnadas 174 Gandhi, Leela 26 Gandhi, Maganlal 174 ‘the Gandhi of Cambodia’ 306 Gandhi’s views on science and technology: civilization 171; Constructive Programme 170, 174–177; critical of technology 171–172; critique of modern industrial civilization 174; econominc reason 62, 168, 320; Hind Swaraj/India Home Rule (1906) 171; Khadi movement 174; mechanization 172; social epistemology of science 172; Swadeshi approach 173 Gaṇeśa-atharvaśīrṣam 200 Gaṅgā 198, 202, 204 Gangaram Bishnoi 227 Gangotri 198 garbhacyuti/garbhasrāva 111 garbha/foetus 101–102, 104–105, 108–119, 126, 128, 202, 426 garbhahatȳa 110 garbhapāta 111 garbhasrāva 110 garbheśayana 109 Garbhopaniṣad 102–103 Garuḍa Purāṇa 257, 465 Gaston, Anne-Marie 522 GATT Treaty 40 Gautama Buddha 243 Gautama Dharmasūtra 465, 475

533

Index gay marriage 137 Geller, A 39 gender 422; discrimination 129; divide and equal regard 18; justice 11; and marginalization 11 gendercide, religious roots of: birthing 122; socio-historical considerations 123–125 gendering of ethics 19 Gene Campaign 70–71 genetic abnormalities 126 genetically modified (GM) foods 161–162 genetic engineering 63–67, 161 genetic manipulation of embryo 66 genetic modification (GM) technology: crops/ crop cultivation 166; Gandhian barometer for 163–165; Gandhi’s ethics-based economic development 166–167; virtue ethics 162 genetic screening 66–69 genocide (2021) 56 George Washington 371 Gerald Kelly, S. J. 298 gestational and genetic surrogacy 136 Gewirth, A. 76–80 Gewirthian formulation of human rights 76–80, 82 Ghare Baire/The Home and the World (1914) 397 Ghosh, Abantika 57 Gier, Nicholas F. 12, 283–290 Gilligan, Carol 11, 510, 513–514 Giroux, A. Henry 55, 57 global activism 394 global agribusiness 70 globalization 24, 31–32, 130, 184, 315, 317, 323, 382, 435, 454, 496; Gandhian critique of see Gandhian critique of globalization global justice 384, 391, 394 global North 383–384 global South 137, 382–384, 390 global warming 32, 184 God 229, 316, 455, 512, 514 Goffman, Erving 87 Gokhale, Pradeep 2–3 Gold, Ann G. 224, 229 Goswami, Shweta 420 Gottileb Roger S. 335–336 Goulet, D. 16, 190–192 Government of India 212, 220 Government of Karnataka (GOK) 95 Government of Maharashtra 44, 415–416 Government of Rajasthan 229 Govindaswamy, M. V. 90–91 Goyal, Samiksha 444–452 Gramsci, Antonio 379 GRASSNET 496 grassroots women in Kerala 327, 331–332

Gray, Chris Gables 63 Great Rebellion of 1857 24 Greek Philosophy 66 Green, Stephen A. 87 Gregg, Richard Bartlett 174 Grimshaw, Jean 474 Gṛhya-Sūtras 110 gross domestic product (GDP) 56, 211 Gross, Rita M. 17, 313–320, 337, 348n2 Gītā 2, 13, 100, 248, 257, 446 Gujarat 129 Gujar, Bhoju Ram 229 Gupta, Jyotsna Agnihotri 67 Gupta, Rajendra 57 Gupta, Sanjukta 353 Guru Jambheśvara (1451–1536 CE) 226–227 Habermas, Jürgen 64–66 Hacker, Paul 286 Halappanavar, Savita 115 Halli, Shiva S. 483 Hall, Stuart 31 hard paternalism 139 Hardt, Michael 428 Hare, R.M. 78 Harijan 402 harmonious justice 395 Harvey, David 430 Haslanger, Sally 7, 22 Hazare, Anna 229 healthcare: doctor-population ratio in India 56–57; form of care duty 60; private sector investment in 56; situation in state of Uttar Pradesh 56; system 54, 59 health equity 60 Health for All 54 health inequities 39 health tourism 136 Hegel 2, 8, 13, 88, 233 Heidegger xxx, 271 Heideggerian notion of Dasein 87 Hekman, Susan J. 11 Held, Virginia 473 Henry Salt’s Vegetarian Society of London 254 Hettinger, E.C. 78 High Court (HC) 418 Highly Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) 48 High Tide Line (HTL) 212, 215–216 hijab 388 hiṃsā/violence 163, 256 Hind Swaraj 13, 28–29, 445 Hindu(s) 172, 254; agrarian civilization 398; bioethics 69, 106; caste system 398; civilization 223; community 150, 297; concepts and beliefs 350; daily ritual of 200; Dharma 115; diaspora 466; epics 283–284;

534

Index ethical construction of womanhood 469; literature 288; metaphysics 100; mythology 122; nationalism 403; philosophy 351, 519; pride 30; reform 406; religion 153; sacraments 111; sacred texts 109; social order 464; texts 105, 468; texts as Śruti, Smṛti and Śāstra 472; tradition 65–66, 99, 111, 292, 405, 463; worldview 351 Hindu-Brāhmaṇism 274 Hindu Code Bill 467 Hindu ethics 13, 105, 287–289, 463, 472; native and diasporic 378, 385n3 Hindu ethos 465 Hinduism 69, 109, 111, 283, 287, 406, 468; concept of person and consciousness in 100–101; embryology and sentience in 101–105; human life in 106; as ‘sanātana dharma’ 100 Hindu Kush Himalayan region 207 Hindu rights violence in Gujarat 426 Hindustan Times 51 Hindu Tantra: concepts of nature of feminine 352–353; creation from Śakti’s Womb 353–354; feminine principle and nondualism in 354; motivation and morality in 355–357; ontology of 350; panpuritism in 354–355; sacred immanence, the world 351–352; tantric philosophy 357; tantric theology 358; traditionally 357–358 Hindutva 255 ‘hints’ (ābhāsa) 395 Hiraṇyagarbha 100, 201 Hiriyanna, Mysore 235 HIV/AIDS 76; and Pharmacon 48 Hobbes 7, 438 HOMENET 495 Hongladoram, Soraj 68 horse sacrifice (aśvamedha) 111 Howard, Veena 267–269 human beings 234, 236–238, 313, 335, 379 human beings’ natural genetic coding 63 human bioethics 145 human biotechnology 63, 69 The Human Development Report for Kerala (2005) 323 human dignity 65, 67, 152, 367, 440, 489–490, 495 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) 47–48, 51 humanitarian law 12 humanity 3, 64, 99, 106, 238–239, 371, 383, 399, 425, 435 humanizing the feminine Earth: deities in Vedic texts 337–338; earth-subjugation and depersonalization 341–343; ecofeminist ethical turn on traditions 344–348; Mother as Wife 339–341; Mother Earth in Veda-s

338–339; terrestrial Earth and goddess 343–344 humankind 162, 236, 238 Human Organ Transplant Bill of 1994 42 human rights 75–76, 83, 128, 489 humiliation 20, 402, 404–405, 407, 409, 485 Huntington’s disease 67 Hunt, Jacqui 403 Hunt, Paul 75 Hursthouse, Rosalind 296 Hutchings, Patrick xxiv, xxvi, 257 hymn 198, 200, 203 hypergamy 481–482 hyper-productivism 273 hysterectomy 44–45 The Idea of Justice 7 Ideology of the Aesthetic 387 Illich, Ivan 180 Imaginary Maps 390 imagination 394–401 imperialism’s burdensome progeny 88 Indian: ethics xxviii–xxix, 2–3, 12; metaphysics 2; moral philosophy xxx; philosophical system 166; society 121; vernacular literature 197 Indian agrarian ethos 165 Indian bioethics 38, 60 Indian Coastal Zone 211 Indian Constitution 4, 57, 406 Indian Council for Medical Research 137 Indian Ethics Volume I (324–326) 205 The Indian Express 56 Indian healthcare infrastructure 55 Indian Medical Council 91 Indian Medical Ethics (ME) 42 Indian National Congress 404 Indianness 88 Indian Penal Code (IPC) 90, 148–149, 416, 480 Indian Science Congress in 1946 90 The India Red Cross 43 India’s: Crime Records Bureau 125; new “farmer mentality” 71 Indira Gandhi 123 individual autonomy 68 indriyas 101 Indus River waters 207 Indwelling Divinity (antaryamin) 228 inequality 19, 436–438 inequities 16, 28, 39, 93, 184, 193 informational technology 68 injustice xxv, 3–4, 143, 166, 174, 181, 317, 389, 436 injustice informing theory of justice 7–12 insanity 88–89, 91–92

535

Index instrumental reason/rationalism 10, 260, 323, 327, 330 Integrating Ecofeminism, Globalization, and World Religions (2005) 315 intellectual ahiṃsā 296 intellectual property rights (IPR) 70, 72 International Institute of Social History 432 International Labour Organization (ILO) 495 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 18, 316 ‘International Women’s Year,’ India 123 The Intimate Enemy 27, 31 in vitro fertilization (IVF) 37, 127–128, 136–137 IPC S.309.A 151 Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar 466–467 Islamic law (Shari’ah) 115 Ismail, Mirza M. 90 IVF technology 127–128 Iyer, Jayasree K. 76

deconstructive 390–392; Feminist Theory of Justice 9–10; form of translation 392; for international feminism 392; issues of 392; non-western feminist theory of 10–11, 13, 18; see also Ahmed; (nyāya) 8; pragmatic strategies of 389; Rawlsian ‘justice as fairness’ 387; universal concept of 9, 11; universalist model of 387–390 jīva 102–106, 143, 267–268, 275n5–n6 jīva/jīvātman 103

Jain Center of Southern California 299 Jain, Devaki 435–441 Jainism xxix, 17, 272–273, 437–438; animal ethics in 264–269; and human agency, karma effects 293–294; normative ethics 296–297; Sallekhanā/Santhārā 297–298; visions of activism 298–300; vows of 294–296 Jain(s)/Jaina(s) 198–199, 254, 256; base sallekhana see sallekhana; and Buddhist eco-moralism 270; community 142; ethics 12, 16–17; karma theory 297; Live and let live 299; nonviolence of 300; ontology 143; philosophy 451; position 150; practice of sallekhanā 16; in relation to dying 143; religion 153; tradition 147, 273, 297 Jain, Pankaj 223–230 Jain, Sulekh C. 267 ‘Jal Jeevan Mission’ (Water for Life) 206 Jal Shakti Ministry 205 Jambūdvīpa 198 Jamison, S. W. 346 Jawaharlal Nehru 25, 28–29, 31, 180, 439 Jeevan Reddy, B. P. 132 Jensen 67 ‘Jarer Kheya’ (The Boat in Storm) 399 Jharkhand 57 jñānīs 465 Johnson, Lawrence 189–190 Jonas, Hans 67 Josef, K. 368 Joy, Morny 11, 378–386 Judaism 114, 254 Julien, Isaac 31 Just, Adolf 173 justice 1, 6–7, 389, 422, 515; archē of 9; distributive 4, 6; feminism beyond

Kafka, Franz 368, 370, 375 Ka Hok 236 Kajer Pata 372 kalpanā (imagination) 397–398 Kamala Nehru 439 Kandalammacchi (‘grandmother of the mangroves’) 328 Kanpur 404 Kanthaka 266 Kantian: deontological perspective 162; Golden Rule 76; justification for universalist theory 4, 6; lectures on anthropology 7–8; moral tradition 510; theory of race 8; universalism 11 Kant, Immanuel xxiv, xxix–xxx, 2, 8, 10, 68, 162, 239, 288, 363–364, 369–370; ‘categorical imperative’ 32 Kapadia, H. R. 296 Kapila, Shruti 449 karma xxviii, 65, 69, 284, 289, 318; in Jaina’s 294; law of 289; stowage of pride 294; thirty types of 293 karma-rebirth 14 Karnataka 205–206 Karnataka Rajya Ryata Sangha (KRRS) 69 Katakam, Anupama 417, 423n1 Kathāsaritsāgara of Somadeva XXIII 110 Kauśika’s’ dharma 288 Kaza, Stephanie 17 Keith, Arthur Berridale 339 Kejriwal, Arvind 52 Kelly, Amal Dhru xvi, 135–140 Kerala Model 322–323 Kerala State, India 127, 322; developmentalism in 323; ecofeminism and Keralan Model of Care 323–325; economy of childcrafting 325–327; Malayalee women into politics and public 327–331 Khairlanji incident 402, 404, 409, 411 Khan, Aga 179 Khan, Nagma 211–220 Khasi mythology 236 Khasis of Meghalaya 236–238 Khilnani, Sunil 28–29 King Aśoka 256–257

536

Index kingdom-of-ends (artha-kāma-dharma) 225 King Nahuṣa 286 King Pṛthu 342–343 King, Sallie B. 17, 302–312 king Veṇa 466 Kinsley, David 346 Kipling, Rudyard 27 Kiran Helpline 94 Kirby, Alex 428 Kirby, Justice Michael 42, 47 kiryngkew ki basa 236 Kisan (Farmer) Coordination Committee (KCC) 69 Kishwar, Madhu 508–509, 514–515 Kālidāsa’s Abhijnāna Śakuntalam 395, 466 Kāma/pleasure and ultimately 472, 474 Kodoth, Praveena 479–486 Kohlberg, Lawrence 510, 513–514 Kolge, Nishikant 448 Kosambi, D. D. 202 Kreuzer, H. 67 Krishna 8, 135, 248 Krishna Iyer, V. V. 153 kṛtibhakti 229–230 Kuhn, T. 172 Kukathas 10 Kulacūḍāmaṇi Nigama 352–353 Kulārṇava Tantra (7. 75) 353 Kumarappa, J. C. 167, 174 Kumarappa's theory of ethical evolution 167 Kumkum, Sangari 379–380 Kunbi and Kalar agricultural castes 402 Kunhe, Louis 173 Kusum 127 labour-intensive farmers 165 Lahore 439 Lal, Sanjay 454–460 languages of protest 424, 432 Larson, Gerald 230 Laski, Harold 27 Latin texere–‘to weave’ 364 Law Commission of India 137 The Laws of Manu 286 Lazreg, Marnia 380 lebenswelt (lifeworld) 253 Lee, Gary R. 480 Leelakumari Amma of Peria Village 330 Le Feminisme ou la Mort (Feminism or Death) 313 legal equivocations 150–151 legal philosophy 142 Levinas, Emmanuel 363–364, 367, 383–384 liberal democracy 13, 406 liberal ideology 10 liberalism 64

liberty 4, 6, 9, 19, 59, 68, 70, 79, 149, 152, 187, 287 Lightfoot, Louise Mary 523 Lingat, Robert 287 linguistic philosophy 436 linguistic pragmatics 25 Lipner, Julius 111 literary reading 368–369, 371, 383 Lok Sevak Sangh 177 Lolimbarāj, Acharya 112 Los Angeles Times 142 Lotus Sutra 467 Lovibond, Sabina 19 Loy, David 319 lunatic asylums 89–90 Lurie, David 366–367 Machan, T.R. 77–79 MacIntyre, Alaisdair 283 MacKinnon, Katherine 4 Maclaren, Margaret A. 10 Macy, Joanna 319 Madan, T.N. 481 Madhya Pradesh 57 Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason 86 Māhābhārata 2, 8, 68–69, 103–104, 135, 201–203, 225, 267–268, 286, 464–466, 468–469, 475–476 Maha Ghosananda 306, 310 Mahānārayaṇopaniṣad 200 Mahānirvāṇa Tantra 352–356 Maharaja Abhay Singh 225 Maharashtra 129, 402, 404–405, 408, 415, 420 Maharṣi Punarvasu 103 mahāvidyās 353 Mahāvīra 269, 272 Mahāyāna 272–273 Mahboob Ul Haq 437 Mahendra Singh Dhoni 227 Maitrāyanī Saṃhitā 471 Majlis Legal Centre in Mumbai 413–415, 417, 422 Malayalees 322–323 Malayalee women 326–331 Mallik, Bidishi 38, 170–181 Malmoud, Charles 269 Mammon worship 168 Mandela, Nelson 371, 373–374 Manodarpan 94 Manodhairya Yojana/Manodhairya scheme 416–417, 420 Mantena, Karuna 449 mantra of modernization 28 Manusmṛti 14, 20, 110, 140, 475 Marcuse, Herbert 19

537

Index marginality 381 Mariamma of Kumarakom 329–330 marriage 111, 125, 127, 419, 479–486 Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa 350 Martin Luther King Jr. 369 Maruti Shripati Dubal v. Bombay High Court, Maharashtra 151–155 Marx, K. 279, 375, 383, 438, 448, 454 masculinity/masculinization 425, 427–428 Massachusetts to Perumal on 20 August 1893 26 Massey, Andrianne 67 Matilal, Bimal K. 12, 14, 283, 287–289 Matsya Purāṇa 203 matter (prakṛti) 65 Max Super Specialty Hospital 55 Mayo, Katherine 521 McClymond, Kathryn 265 McFague, Sallie 319 McLaren, Margaret A. 421, 489–497 medical: care 132; ethics 37, 99; research 106; technology 42, 126, 130, 136 Medical Council of India 41, 43, 127 Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 113, 126 medicine(s) 37, 82, 99 Meduri, Avanthi 523 Mehta, Karan Balraj 138 Mehta, Nikita 55 memory (smṛti) 101 Menon, Usha 519 Mental Health Act 153 Mental Health Act of 1987 91 Mental Healthcare Act (MHCA) 149 Mental Health Care Act 2017 94 Mental Health Policy of 1986 91 Merchant, Carolyn 19, 315, 328, 347 mercy killing 146, 153 Merleau-Ponty 233 metaethics xxiv, xxviii, xxx–xxxi, 2–3, 14, 21, 444–452 Meuret, Leuren 428 micro-ethics of empathy 133 Middle Path of Buddhism 304–305 Midgley, Mary 254 Mies, Maria 19 Mill, James Stuart 189 Mill, John Stuart xxix, 79, 284 mind (antaḥkaraṇa) 104 Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFC) 215–217 Ministry of Health and Family Welfare 138 Ministry of Home Affairs 408 Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) 94 Miri, Sujata 233–238 miscarriage (prasūti) 112, 115

Mitākṣarā 480 Mitra, Piyali 99–106 Mitra, R. 522–523 Mitṛa 338 Model Penal Codes 155 modern Hinduism 255 modernity 10, 13 modern theory of knowledge 233 Modi government 403 modus operandi 56 Mohanty, Bidyut 278 Mohanty, Chandra Talpade 10, 379–381, 384–385, 388, 496 Mohanty, J. N. xxvi, 13–14, 100, 224, 287, 289 Mohanty, Manoranjan 16, 277–280 Mohenjodaro and Harappa 122 mokṣa 225 Mokṣa/emancipation 472 Monsanto 70, 72, 164, 279 moral: antinomies 254; argument 143–145; condition 508–509; deliberation 499–500; failure 60; fallibilism 113; ideals and modernity 12–15; judgements 510; philosophy 3; psychology 2; responsibility 75–83; theory 64; traditions 16 Mother Earth 336–337 Mother Ganges (Gaṅgā Ma) 198 mothering and caring 328–330 Mother Nature 315 Mouffe, Chantal 389 Mount Meru 198 Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament (MIND) 424 mrityumajhe 367 Mughals 206–207 multinational companies (MNCs) 76 Mumbai (Bombay) 41, 57 Murdoch, Iris 511–512 Murthy, S. R. N. 338 Muslims 396, 426 Muslim Uyghurs 115 Mutiny of 1857 89 nāḍis 102, 104 Nadkarni, M. V. 168 Naess, Arne 239–240, 242, 260 Nagarajan, Vijaya 347 Nagler, Michael 170 Nandy, Ashis 27, 31, 72, 396 Narain, S. 205 Narayana Rao, Velcheru 520 Nārayaṇopaniśad 200 Narayan, Uma 379 Narayan, Yamini 259 narider pakhya niye 397 Narir Manusatya 396

538

Index Narmada 205 Narmada Bachao-Andolan 204 Narmada Dam project in Gujarat 205, 208 Narveson, J. 79 National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA) 215 National Commission on Population (NCP) 124–125 National Consumer Dispute Commission 45 National Crime Records Bureau 403, 479 National Dalit Movement for Justice 403 National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2019–2021 417–419, 421–422 National Green Tribunal (NGT) 220 National Health Account (NHA) 51 national healthcare system 39 National Health Service in United Kingdom 52, 95 National Human Development Report (2002) 129 National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) 127 National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) 1982 93–94 National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 54–55 National Tuberculosis Programme (NTP) 45 natural duties 254 natural resources 278–279 nature 236–237; gendering of 335; natura naturans 198, 201; and sacrifice 256 nature and humans: from conquest mentality to partnership 279–280; Spirit of Things 280 navame daśame vāpi 102 Nayar, Pramod K. 60 Negri, Antonio 428 Negussie, Y 39 Nehru’s ‘licence rāj’ syndrome 225 neo-Kantian Rawlsian liberalism 389 neoliberal capitalism 432 neoliberalism 54–56 Network for Western Buddhist Teachers 303 Ngo Dinh Diem 307 Nichols, Bob 428 Night-Line 454 nigoda 199 nijer ami mulya bhuli 398 1989, the Prevention of Atrocities Act 407 1993 World Bank Report 56 Nirbhaya case (Delhi gang rape) 414–416 nirvana 311 Niyāma, Habits of the Heart: austerity (tapah) 246–247; contentment (santoṣa) 246; dedication to Īśvara (Īśvara-Praṇidhāna) 247–248; Purity (śauca) 245–246; self-study (svādhyāya) 247

niyoga 123 niyogavidhi 466 No Development Zone (NDZ) 215–216, 219 non-foundationalistic/pragmatic justifications 389 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 41, 91, 123, 131, 204, 206, 417, 419, 422 non-injury see ahiṃ sā non-possessiveness (aparigraha) 240, 243 Non-resident Indian (NRI) 375 non-sentient (ajīva) 200, 268, 275 non-sentient (acetana) beings 256 non-theft (asteya) 242–243 nonviolence (ahiṃsā) 12, 17, 173, 240–241, 257, 491, 496; see also ahiṃ sā normalized Orientalism of Indology xxx normative ethics/normativity xxviii, 2, 12, 108, 111, 115, 142–145, 155, 296–297 Norplant and RU-486 46 Nozick, Robert 5 nuclear: attack 428; destruction 425; devastation 426; obliteration 425; power 427–429; proliferation 432 nuclear future, marking time: July 2005 Indo-US nuclear agreement 424, 432n1; neoliberal climate 429–430; normalization of nuclear power 427; normalization of violence 426; place of ‘reproduction’ 430–431; presentism, form of 431; transnational configurations and state 427–429 nuclearization 424–425, 427–429, 432 nuclear violence 424–425, 427, 429, 431 nuclear weapons 424, 427, 429, 431–432 Nussbaum, Martha C. 3–4, 186, 284 Nyāya doctrine 104 objective act-consequentialism 80–81 observances (niyāma) 240 Ohnuma, Reiko 265 oikos 224 Oja 102–103 Okin, Susan Moller 5 Oldenburg, V. 480–482 Oregon 118 Organisation for the Development of People (ODP) 206 Orr, Leslie C. 520 Ortner, Sherry B. 519 Orwell, George 448–449 ‘othering’ in civil society 427 Padmapurāṇa 203 Pakistan 90 Panca-mahābhūta-s 101, 198 panchayats 131–132 Pandurang Shastri Athavale 227–230

539

Index Parama Puruṣa 100 Parliament of Religions 25–26 Parry, Jonathan 484 Paryay 45 Patanjali Āyurveda Ltd. 91, 241, 248 Patel, Sujata 508–509, 514–515 patent protection 79–80 Pathologies of Power (2003) 490 pativrata 520 Patkar, Medha 204, 260 patriarchal control mechanism 114 patriarchal religions 351 patriarchal violence 426–427, 431–432 Patton, Laurie L. 256, 265 Pavola, Anna 523 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) 299 persistent and incurable vegetative state (PVS) 155 personal liberty 59, 152 personhood (manuṣyatva) 114 Perumal, Alasinga 25 phantasias 252 pharmaceutical companies 75–77, 82 Phule, Jotirao 406 Phule, Jyotibal 19 Phule, Savitri Bai 19 placenta (jarāyu) 112 Plaskow, Judith 472 Plato xxix, 450 Plumwood, Val 498 Pocock. D.F. 481 polio 128 Pollan, Michael 253 population control and social dumping 45–47 postcolonial: criticism 31; legality 405; literary genre 86; reason 22, 53; theory 379–382, 384 postcolonialism 378, 382 postpartum trauma 113 post-postcolonial ethics 378, 385n1 post-swadeshi Tagore 398 poverty 10, 82, 207, 437, 490–491, 493–494 Prabhu, Joseph xxv–xxviii, 283 practical reason 162, 190, 284, 287–289 pragmatism 390 Prakṛti 100, 102–103, 201 prāṇa 102 prasāda 228 Pratichi: ‘Apoman’, Tagore poem 365–366, 374; Aristotle poiesis 369; ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ 370; Cordelia, in text of King Lear 366–368; democracy 371; intertextuality 365–366; J. M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace 366–368; Kafka’s The Trial 368, 370; Kant, ‘What Is Enlightenment?’ 369; literary

reading 368–369, 371; Marx’s text, philosophy 375; Mozart’s Don Giovanni 365; Pratichi Report 373; ‘Reading poriyechhe’ 372; secular imagination 369; Tagore’s own translation 364 Pratichi Trust in India 128, 371 prāyaścitta 466 prāyopraveśana 143 pregnancy 111–113, 117–118, 126 Preimplantation Genetic Diagnoses (PGD) 65–66 Prevention of Atrocities Against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes 408 Primeval Person (Puruṣa) 100 primitive societies 233 Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC) 75–79, 81–82 principle of parasparopagrahojīvānām 143 private-public partnership (PPP) 51 private voluntarism 374–375 privatization 50, 430–431, 496 Privy Council 480 profit-making 78 pro-life activists 116 ‘pro-life’ versus ‘pro-choice’ 116 The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 415–419 Protection of Civil Rights (PCR) 408 Protection of Civil Rights Act of 1974 407 protest (satyāgraha) 493 proximity 391 Pṛthvī 339 Pṛṣṇi 256 pṛthiviṃ dharmaṇā dhṛtam 224 public health infrastructure 55 public interest litigation (PIL) 212, 217 pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps 294 punarvivāha/women’s remarriage 467 Punjab 129 Purāṇas 20, 466–467, 474 purdah 388 Puri, Bindu 508–516 Pūrvamīmāṃsā 2 Purple Cow 299 Puruṣa 100–101, 109 Puruṣa and Prakrti 100 purusārthas 225 Puruṣa Sūkta 224 Putnam, Ruth Anna 9 putra (son) 110 Pyarelal (Nayar) 171, 457 Quine, Willard xxx, 448 Radhakrishnan, R. 381, 386 Radhakrishnan, S. 30, 235

540

Index radical pluralism 293 Rahat 413–415, 417 Rahul Singh 403 Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder 11, 379, 381 rājanīti 202 Raja Rammohan Roy 467 Rajaram, Sneha 413 Raja Shivaji II 520 Rajasthan 129, 224, 226, 229–230 Rajasthan High Court 149, 154, 298 Rajchandra Bhai, Srimad 438 Ramabai, Pandita 19 Ramamirthammal, Muvalur 522 Ramasamy Naicker, E. V. 406 Rāmāyaṇa 466, 469, 475, 519 Ramdev, Baba 91 Ram, Kalpana 379 Ranganathan, Shyam xxviii–xxxi, 14 Rank, Otto 202 Rao, Anupama 402–411 rape 402–404, 410 rape victims 414–416; conviction rate 416; IPC for 416; Manodhairya Yojana 416–417; Nirbhaya case 414–416; Spanish rape case 416; trial process in case of rape 416; Vishaka’s case 417–418 rasa 395 rasatanmātra-s 198 Rational Self of traditional moral theory 498 Rawlsian: philosophy 66; political liberalism 10; theory of justice 4–5, 9; universalism 4–7; veil of ignorance 6 Rawls, John 4–7, 10, 387 Rayner, Amy xxix, 12, 413–423 Ray, Ratnaboli 91 R&D into diseases 80–81 Reagan administration 55 Real and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture and Postcolonialism (1993) 381 Reardon, David C. 116 Reason, (rational) 66, 72, 84–88, 162, 234–236, 363, 466; see also Cartesian; economic reason; instrumental reason; practical reason re-conceptualization of self: Buddhist theory of (No)-Self 498, 501; care particularization 500–501; feminist, ethics of care 499–501; skandha-particularization (pudgala) 501–504 Reddi, Muthulakshmi S. 520–521 Reitz, Charles 20 relational self-of-care ethics 500 religious identity xxxi religious nationalism 302, 428 religious texts 336 Renuka, Sharma 337, 346; see also Sharma, Renuka

Reports on Moral and Material Progress of India 25 reproductive dumping whorehouses 128 reproductive technology 126 The Republic 447 Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RESTE) 70 Resnik, D. 77 Ṛg Veda 100, 256, 265, 338–339, 343, 346, 469, 472 RiceTec 70 Rifkin, Jeremy 63 right to abortion 114 right to freedom 79 right to health 59–60, 75 right to life 152 the Right/the Good xxx Right to Die as a Fundamental Right 142, 150–156 rivers of India 198, 200, 203 Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey 116–119 Rome 88 Rome Statute 12 Rose, Kalima 492 Rostow, Walt Whitman 28 Roy, Arundhati 260 Roy, Prafulla Chandra 174 Rubin, Gayle 410 Ruether, Rosemary Radford 17, 315–316, 319, 351 rural environmental ethics 225–226 Rushdie, Salman 30–31 Ruskin, John 177 Russell, Bertrand 448 sacred duties 125 sacred texts 336 sacrificial animal (yājniya paśu) 256 Sadācāra 474 Sādhāraṇa dharma 464, 469, 474 sadyovadhu 475 sage Bṛhaspati 465 sage Medhātithi 467 Sahai, Suman 70–72 sahara tree 277, 280 Sahitya O Saundarya 396 Sakthivel, M. 211–220 Śākta theology 351 Śākta traditions 472 śakti 351–352, 519–520, 524; dance with controlled 522–523; śiva and 354; manifestation 353; power of 353; uncontrolled and controlled 518, 520–523; universe 356 Śakuntalā 395, 398

541

Index Śakuntalam 395, 466–468 Sakyadhita, International Association of Buddhist Women 311 Sakyamuni Buddha 501 Salleh, Ariel 326 sallekhanā 146, 148; bioethical–debate on 151; and euthanasia 15; Jains base 143; legality 148–150; phronesis of 144–145, 149 Sallekhanā/Santhārā 297–298 Salman Khan 227 Sāṃkhya-kārika 103 Saṃkhya philosophy 100 samprodayik (sectarian) attitudes 396 saṃsāric life 320 saṃvṛti/vyāvahārika satya xxx Sandel, Michael 137 Sangari, Kumkum 10, 136, 379–380, 424–433 Śaṇkara 257 Sāṇkhya xxix Sanskrit 197 Sanskritic tradition 136 Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra 499, 502 Sarabhai, Anasuya 490 Sāriputra 467 Sarkaria, R. S. 132 Sartre, Jean-Paul 436 Sarvodaya Samaj 181 Śāstras 467 Śatapatha Brāhmaṇ a 100, 110, 203, 471 Sathya, Sai Baba 28, 206; see also Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust satī (‘suttee’) 123, 353, 387, 466–468, 521 Sattler, Sandra 518–525 satya 163 Satyāgraha (nonviolent protest) 439, 489 satyāgrahi 439 saundarya (beauty) 396 savarṇa feminism 19 Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes 406–408 scheme, sabho dawai, sasti dawai 51–52 School of Youth for Social Service 307 Schüklenk, U. 78 Schumacher, E. F. 173 Schweitzer, Albert 14, 143, 260 scientific community 72 Scott, Walter 467 Scottish Enlightenment 25 SC/ST Commissioner’s Reports 408 Second World War 24 secrecy 428 secret lovers (jara) 123 Selective Primary Health Care 54 Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) 489–496 Self-Employed Women’s Union (SEWU) 495 self-identity 498

self-imposed immaturity 239 self-realization 239 self-reliance (swadeshi) 489, 491 self-restraints (yāma/yama) 512, 240–245; non-possessiveness (aparigraha) 240, 243; non-theft (asteya) 242–243; nonviolence (ahiṃsā) 240–241; sexual continence (brahmācarya) 243–245; truthfulness (satya) 241–242 Sen, Amartya 6–7, 11, 16, 30, 56, 58–59, 126–128, 184–194, 371, 375, 389, 435 Sen, Kshitimohan 365 Sen’s development ethics 186–188 sentient (cetana) 256 Serageldin, Ismail 436 serpents 203 SEWA 489–495 SEWA Cooperative Bank 494 sex determination 126, 128 sex-identity issues 318–319 sex selection 426 sex-selective abortion 490 sex testing 125–127 sexual: abuse 419; assault 403, 414, 416–417; awareness about sexual boundaries 419; continence (brahmācarya) 243–245; desire 410; economy of caste 410; violence 402–403, 409–410, 420 Shah, Nitin 145 Shah, Pravin K. 299 The Shailesh Nayak Committee report 219 Shakespeare 375 Shakespeare’s Tempest 395 Shakti Mills case 414 Shakuntalā 398; see also Śakuntalā Shankerlal Banker 490 Sharma, Arvind xxvi, 108–119 Sharma, C. D. 235 Sharma, Renuka xxiv–xxvi, xxviii, 4, 18, 86–88, 121–133, 156, 337, 346 Sharpe, Jenny 382 Sherdupken Buddhism in Arunachal Pradesh 234 Sherma, Rita D. xxii, 16, 338, 350–358 shiksha alochana 364 Shinde, Tarabai 19–20 Shiva, Vandana 19–20, 70–72, 207–208, 226, 260, 279, 315, 323 shoman adhikar–equal rights 373 Shulman, David 520 Sichel, Diann 365 Siddha-Tantrika 95 Siderits, Mark 502–503 Singer, Peter xxiv, 2, 83n6, 147, 156n1, 163–164, 189, 254 Singh, Jyotsana 55

542

Index Singh, Savita 18 Sinha, Gunjan Pradhan 161–168 Siow, A. 483 Sisters and Brothers of America 25–26 Sītā 288, 341 Sivaraksa, Sulak 17, 318 skin (tvacha) 101 Smart, Jack (J.J.C) xxvi, 81 Smart, Ninian xxiv, 156n1, 230 Smith, Adam 189, 319 Smith, Frederick M. 224 Smṛti 474 social development 322 social disparities 58 social experiments (prayogs) 229 social-historical epoch 135 social institutions 77 social justice 8, 60, 391 social milieu 122 Social Science Research Council 432 social selves 240 social transformation 423 social welfare 58–60 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 254 socio-political ideology 163 Soneji, Davesh 520 soṇiṭa 102 Sonya, Vaze 127 Soper, Kate 425–426 Sorabji, Richard 262–263 Sorabji, Soli 132 soteriological goals 264, 265, 273 South Africa 372 South Asian philosophy xxviii–xxix South Asian tradition xxxi South Korea 185 ‘Sovereignty’ (ādhipatya) 395 The Sovereignty of the Good 511 Speaking of Faith 435 Spelman, Elesbeth 11 spirit (ātman) 65 spiritual ethics 16 spiritual practice 148 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 10, 30, 46, 363–376, 378–379, 381–385, 390–391, 394 śramaṇa traditions 265 śrāmāṇic (stoical) attitude 256 Sri Aurobindo 13, 477 Sridhar, M. K. 108–119, 197–209, 226, 267–270, 273–274 Sri Digambar Jain Lal Mandir Temple 299 Sri Lanka 114 Srinivasan, Amrit 518 Srinivasan, P. 480 Srinivasan, Sandhya 126

Srinivas, M. N. 482 Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust 206 Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences in Puttaparthi 51 Śruti 257, 286, 472–474 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 296 State Coastal Zone Management Authority (SCZMA) 215, 220 state of Karnataka 69 Stein, Edith 87, 131 Stephen, Leslie 284 Stone, Davis 71 The Story of My Experiments with the Truth (1927b) 445 STREETNET 496 strīdhanam 343, 466, 480–482 Strīdharmapaddhati 469 Structural Adjustment Program (SAPs) 40 structuralism 363 structural violence 425, 431–432, 432n6, 490 Studies in Gandhism 456 subaltern 379, 381–382; ethics 21; woman 391–392 subjective act-consequentialism 80–81 Subrahmanyam, Sanjay 520 sub-Saharan Africa 127 suchita (bodily purity) 396 Śukla 102 sun (ādityādāpo jāyate) 200 supernatural intervention 110 The Supreme Court of India 40, 46, 59–60, 116, 118, 137, 154, 218; ruling on S.309 155–156 Suśruta-saṃhitā (SS) 102–103, 105, 109, 112, 475 Sūryopaniṣad 200 Svaḥ (heavenly plane) 338 Svarāj see swarāj Swachh Mansikta Abhiyan 94 swadeshi 163, 456–458 Swadeshi movement 396 Swadhyaya movement 227–230 Swadhyayis in Gujarat 17 Swaminathan Committee 219 Swami Nirmalanda 149 Swami Vivekananda 25–27 swarāj 162–164, 168, 176–178, 180, 181n2, 446, 450, 511–512 Swasari Coronil kit 91 Swinburne, Henry 469 Tagore, Rabindranath 18, 24–25, 27–28, 30–33, 363–376, 394; anti-swadeshi novel 397; artistic imagination and global harmony 395; bhakta/devotee 399–400; Gora (1910) 397, 399; harmonious imagination 395; harmony

543

Index and justice 400; ‘peoples’ history’/manusher itihas 400; regional approach 395; Sadharan Meye 398; swadeshi songs 395; traditionalist nationalism 396 Taittirīya Brāhmaṇ a 100 Taittirīya Saṃhitā (IV-1-8) 201 Talpade Mohanty, S. P. 380 Tambiah, Stanley 286 tantras 467 tantric Buddhism of Assam 234 Tantric tradition 477 Tāsikal Mocavalai allatu Matiperra Mainar 522 Tattvārthasūtra 295 Taylor, Mark C. 87 Tellis, Ashley 31 ‘terminator’ agreements 279 terminator technology 69 Texas 118 Textile Labour Association (TLA) 490–491 Thailand 114 thalaikothal 142 The Laws of Manu 286 theo-ethics 16 theory of justice 11 theory of self-identity 498 theory of Third World development 185 Thich Nhat Hanh 307 Thich Quang Duc 307 third world difference 388 third world woman 379–380, 388 ‘Third World’ woman’s agency 327 Times of India in 2018 419–420 ‘Totem and Taboo’ 122 Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) 40, 75–76, 80–82 traditional India 472 traditional theology 40 traditions of intimacy 121 transcultural psychiatry 87 transnational capitalism 428 Trautmann 481 The Travancore Christian Committee 484 A Treatise of Espousal or Matrimonial Contracts 469 tribal awareness and self-awareness 234 tribal communities 233–234, 237; of north-east India 236; River God 237, 237; sacrifice 238 tribal religion 235–236 triumphalism 279 truth-seeking (satyāgraha) 446 truth/truthfulness (satya) 173, 241–242, 512–513 Tryambakayajvan 469 Tuberculosis (TB) 44–45 Tukol, T. K. 154

Twine, Richard T. 327 two-tiered healthcare system 131–132 udakumbha vṛata 200 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 128 unethical alliances 42–43 UN High Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights 76 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 32 Union Health Ministry 51, 57 United Nations (UN) 40, 75 United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) 278 United States 9–10, 26, 30, 70, 78–79 universalism 387, 389; critique of 389; violence of 388, 390–392 universal theory of justice 3–4 University Hospital Galway 115 Unāni (Arabo-Persian) 95 Unāni (tibb yūnānī) 91 Unto This Last 177 Untouchability Offences Act (1955) 407, 409 untouchability, practice of 406, 409 Upadhyay, Nishant 264–275 Upaniṣads 109, 111, 235 Urban Health Resource Centre in New Delhi 437 Uṣās 256 US Supreme Court 27, 109 Utilitarianism 80, 162, 288–289 ‘utility of the ends’ theory 162 utkarsha (essence) 396 Uyl, D.J.D. 77–79 vaccination 56, 59–60 Vāgbhaṭa 112 Vāgbhaṭa’s Aṣṭāṇgasaṃgraha 109 Vaid 95 Vaishnavism of Sri Sankardeva 234 Vajrayana Buddhism 320 Valpey, Kenneth R. xxiii, 239–240, 265, 267, 275n3 Varāhamihira 471 varṇa 464 varṇāśrama dharma 14, 267, 464 Varuṇa/Parjanya 338 Vasantasena 329 The Vatican 117 Vatuk, Sylvia 482 Veda-s/Purāṇa-s 336 Veda-s/Vedas xxix, 224, 465; deities in Vedic texts 337–338; reproductive Mother Earth in 338–339 Vedic: corpus 265; hymns 256, 265; sacrifices 265, 269–270; texts 265, 267

544

Index Vedānta 13, 235 vegetarianism 269–273, 298; see also ahiṃ sā; animals veil of ignorance 11 Venkatachaliah, S. N. 132 Verma Committee 416 Verma (Seth), Gauri 75–83 Vettilla Thuruthu in Vembanad Lake 218 victim-centric approach 413 victims/survivors of sexual violence 413–423; see also rape victims Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti 404 Vidyalankar, Srimathi Satyawati 439 viśeṣa-dharma 465, 474 Vietnam 307–309 Vietnamese Struggle Movement 310 vigour 244 Vijayanagar empire 206 Vinoba Bhave 149 violence and humanity: atrocity and ‘the human’ 410–411; Dalit girls 403; against Dalits see dalit(s); institutional outcomes 407–408; Khairlanji incident 402, 404, 409, 411; Lakhimpur Kheri district 403; rape 402–403; sex of caste 409–410; sexual 402–403, 409–410 vīra-bhāva 355 vīrya 244 Virodhmulak Adarsha 397 virtue ethics 283–290; see also dharma virtue ethics The Virtue of Nonviolence: From Gautama to Gandhi 283 visionary women 325, 327–328 Vishalakshi xviii Viṣṇupurāṇa 203, 256 Vivekananda, Swami 27 Vlastos, Gregory 447 Vṛkṣamandiras 228, 230 vyavahāra 369, 466 Wadley, Susan S. 519 Warnock, Mary 117 Washington 118 water: based rituals in Hindu-Brāhmaṇic praxis 200; deities 200; ecology in Indic traditions 203–204; fertility myths 201; golden floating womb 201; harvesting and indigenous water management 205–207; in Indic traditions 208; inter-molecular structure 200; in Jain moral worldview 198–199; legends concerning 203; milky ocean, churning of 201; romanticism to contemporary challenges 204; and serpents 203; wars 207–209 water (āpaḥ) 198 Weber, Thomas 170

Web of Deceit 522 Weil, Simone 512 Weisberger, Andrea 254 welfare and well-being 41 Wertz, D.C. 130 West Bengal 373, 382, 386n6 West Bengal Board 374 West Bengal High Court in 1992 91 Western approach 380 Western-based deconstructive intervention 380 Western Buddhists 317 Western civilization 27 Western colonization 395 Western ecofeminism 324 Western feminism 379, 387–389 Western feminists 388 Western gaze 233 Western institutionalism 40 Western interpretation xxxi Westernization 13 Western knowledge 390 Western medicine 96 Western modernity 10–13 Western moral philosophy xxiv, 3 Western philosophy 2, 20, 68 Western society 66 Western systems of knowledge 72 Western tradition xxx Western world 316–317 Whicher, Ian 249 Whitehead, Alfred North xxviii White, Lynn 317 Wilde, Oscar 285 Williams, Owain 55 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1 Witzel, M. 337, 346 Wolf, Susan 448–449 womanhood and femininity 471 women: alleged moral superiority 330; as autonomous legal subjects 139; bodies 431; devadāsī 518; dharma of 463; and the earth 316; and ethics in Hindu thought and practice 463–469; justice for 20–21, 389; see also justice; in Kerala see Malayalee women; knowledge 330; migration of labour 496; nature 474; property 481; ‘protection’ of 484; reproductive labour 136–137; rights 473, 489; traditional ethics for 19–20; and values in traditional India 471–478 Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) 495 World Bank 18, 40, 76, 316 World Health Organization (WHO) 45, 47–48, 56, 92 World Inequality Report 2018 437 The World Is Flat 32

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Index World Mental Health Report: Government Initiatives for Mental Health in India 93–95; India’s mental health challenges 93; World Health Organization 92–93 World Trade Organization (WTO) 18, 40, 55, 76, 316, 319, 430 worldview adjustments 316, 318 W. R. Grace 70 Yangtse Three Gorges Dam project 205 Yājñavalkya Smṛti (YS) 101–102, 474

Yājnavalkya Upavan 228 Yoga as therapeutic animal ethics 239–250; see also Niyāma, Habits of the Heart; self-restraints (yāma/yama) Yoga-Sūtras of Patañjali (YSP) 239 Young, Iris Marion 500 Yunnus, Mohammed 494 Zaehner, R. C. 235 Zimmer, H. 203 Zysk, K.G. 38, 123

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