.

Echoes of Eco

In this issue:

Extracts from our book “Samagra Vikas” –

The Happenings

Visions of Wisdom:

Production and its Shadow

So called Standard of Living

Negative Technology

O Agni! Lead us in the

righteous way for the

enjoyment of the fruits of

(past actions). O Lord! You

know all the actions. You

destroy our deceitful sins. We

serve you with manifold

obeisance.

- Atharva Veda

Prayer to Agni Devata

June, 2016 Vivekananda Kendra- nardep Newsletter Vol:8 No:4

In the fragile biosphere, the ultimate fate of humanity may depend on whether we can cultivate a deeper sense of self restraint

– Alan Durning

Extracts from our book “Samagra Vikas” – Development

with a Human Face

Man – Machine and Employment

Shri.N.Krishnamoorthy

Prelude

The Ruler : Tenali Rama, so many of our educated boys and girls are

sitting idle. We have to give some sort of employment to them. And

you sound so helpless about starting more industries for solving our

problem of unemployment

Tenali Rama : Starting industries and computer centres for solving

the problem of unemployment is like pouring oil to quench a fire.

Machines did not create employment. They created the whole host of

problems connected with unemployment. And computers take off

from where machines left—in replacing man by mechanical devices.

The Ruler : What is wrong with machines? They are mere tools in

the hands of a creative man?

Tenali Rama : No, Sir. Hand Tools extend man's range of action and

extend his skills. They are like his fingers and hands elongated with

more flexibility while, machines replace men. Machines condemn man

to repetitive soulless action. Tools help man to express his feelings

and creativity his inner self. Machines strangle and snuff them out.

Unless man learns to work with his body, his feet and fingers, he will

be lost to a mechanical, repetitive non-creative life. Gandhiji calls

man "a finger brained animal".

We have to show that the quality of life can be improved when material consumption is decreased. Without this change in emphasis, the changes that are desperately

required will not take place – Ian Roberts

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra – nardep, June 2016, Vol.8 No: 4

His social and spiritual growth begins from his finger -

work - work by his hand. Tools help man in this

process. Machines on the other hand condemn man to

enforced idleness, and unproductive leisure.

The Ruler: The Western Civilization glorifies leisure

and you praise body labour!

Tenali Rama: Yes, Sir. And the West treats work as a

punishment. Sisyphus was given work as a punishment.

For us, work is an opportunity to work away our karma.

Ours is a large country with teeming millions in need of

employment, work as a means of earning wages, work as

a way of keeping ourselves meaningfully, productively,

creatively employed. Work has a physical component,

and emotional, intellectual, spiritual, social and moral

components. To throw them all away and submit

ourselves to the tyranny of a machine is a big waste! a

great loss!

The Ruler: But our young boys, fresh from their

schools and colleges, do not want to work!

Tenali Rama: No, Sir. There is no evidence for that.

Surveys conducted all over the world show that our

children look upon work not only as an occupation and a

means of wage earning but as a gesture showing that

the society accepts him or her. Deny them employment,

they feel rejected as persons.

The Ruler: But they do not want to work in our farms.

See how many people are running away from our

villages, agricultural and related occupations!

Tenali Rama: That is because the agricultural

products are sold at artificially depressed rates to

placate urban people. Urban people are better

organized, have better political clout, have their

salaries linked to costs of living. Agricultural pro-

ducers are less educated; less organised, and has

less political power. Therefore all governments

force them to sell their produces at unconscionably

lower prices. Plus the poor facilities obtained in

villages drive the people away seeking 'paid' em-

ployment elsewhere. We should remember that in

agricultural occupation you will have to earn your

living. In industrial employment you are paid, there

is much weaker link between productivity and wages.

That is, it is easier to run away from your karma in a

culture of paid jobs than in agricultural work.

The Ruler: Come back to machines and computers! What is wrong with computers? They spell efficiency. Train new people for new life. Give them job opportunities.

Tenali Rama: The very philosophy of computers is to

replace man by machines, replace one machine by a

more sophisticated machine and so on. It can never

solve the problem of unemployment anywhere in the

world. Further, all machines convert reality into

symbols which can be manipulated. While search for

truth has to be a process of de-symbolization. Com-

puters and machines do the exact opposite.

The Ruler: Even then computers have created jobs.

Tenali Rama: True. But in all technology

upgradations, retraining of old workers who were

working with obsolete technologies, costs money,

time, energy and causes stress and heartaches. And

not everyone can be retrained with the same ease.

Some people do lag behind. Gandhiji used to say that

a machine robs a man of his flexibility, his ability to

think and change himself. That is why the era of

industrialization has given rise to so many stress

related problems. Further, a society like ours has

“Deep ecology is a process of ever-deeper questioning of ourselves, the assumptions of the dominant world view in our culture and the meaning and

truth of our reality – Bill Devall & George Sessions

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra – nardep, June 2016, Vol.8 No: 4

to contend with a large number of unskilled

labourers, who have never undergone any skill

training. To talk of their being retrained and being

absorbed at higher niches of the technology chain is

absurd. Further, unfortunately, the growing trend in

industries is to require higher and higher

investments per job created. A cottage industry may

employ a person with a few thousand rupees of

investment. But a very sophisticated technology may

require a few crores ) of rupees of investment to be

able to employ just a few people.

The Ruler: With such arguments we will lever be

able to acquire and employ any sophisticated

technology. Nor can we have good science.

Tenali Rama: At whose service will the technology

be finally? Is it technology for man or man to be

sacrificed at the altar of technology? And who is to

decide what s good Science and Technology and what

is bad. A perfectly functioning hand plough may

represent better science and technology than a

leaking and creaking nuclear power plant. If our

nation ever lopes to distribute the wealth created,

with any semblance of equity and justice, it has to

be by giving jobs to more and more people, by

employing low investment, yet efficient and

appropriate technology, decentralizing production,

marketing of products as near the production centre

as possible, to avoid transit costs. Otherwise

unemployed hands and unoccupied minds are going to

create havoc in the society.. And we have to excise

out of our thinking the notion that science and

technology that consume less external en-orgy are of

lesser worth. A gobar gas plant Ls as much scientific as

the thermo-nuclear device.

The Ruler: Still, we will have to wean away a large

number of our people from their dependence on land

and employ them in industries. Our lands can take no

more load".

Tenali Rama: I will not bet my future on

that. Our farmers' love of their land have a lot to do

with our patriotism. A man is more rooted in his soil

than a village tree. Such bonding provides much

emotional relief and consolation to a man. In the early

years of the communist revolution in Russia, the Rulers

there got split into two camps. Trotsky and his group

wanted the peasants of Russia to be eased out of the

ownership of their land holdings and the whole revolu-

tion should be centered on industrial labourers. The

peasants would make communism a patriotic movement

and rob it of its international scope. The opposite camp

warned the rulers that the farmer divorced from the

ownership of the land would lose his motivation for

producing adequate quantity of food for the Nation.

Trotsky gained the upper hand. Peasants suffered, food

production graph plummeted terminating the red rule in

just two generations. All that we may have to do is to

encourage man ’s love for his land and help him find

additional work for his hands in the off season. See

where the farmer ’s money goes and help him to satisfy

those needs by locally manufactured goods. This will

have impact in reversing urbanization and stopping all

related problems.

The Ruler: You seem to have a cynical lust for

drudgery, physical work, and self-inflicted torture in

the name of employment.

Tenali Rama: No, Sir, loving, creative, productive,

physical work is an exercise, a joy and a pleasure. It is

enforced leisure and idles-ness that torture man. Keep

your citizens meaningfully engaged and you will have a

healthy and just society, free from loafers.

***********

Training programme on "Enriched Bio-

manure Preparation" was held at

Technology Resource Center on 4th June.

06 participants attended the training.

Smt.S.Premalatha was the resource

person.

Training programme on "Terrace Garden"

was held at Stella Maris Convent,

Kovalam on 14th June. 20 participants

attended the training. Smt.S.Premalatha

was the resource person.

Happenings this month:

Sustainable Agriculture

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra – nardep, June 2016, Vol.8 No: 4

Happenings this month:

Sustainable Agriculture

Happenings this

month:

Green Health Home

Green health home which is very

popular with the local communities

worked for 7 days and treated 173

patients.

Training programme on "Azolla – enriched Cattle feed" at Technology Resource

Center on 25th June. 10 participants

attended the training. Smt.S.Premalatha

and Shri.S.Rajamony were the resource

persons.

Workshop on Awareness,

Documentation & Standardisation of

Varma medical practices was held at

Technology Resource Center on 6th

and 7th June. 55 participants

attended the training.

Dr.V.Ganapathy and his team acted

as resource persons.

Interactive session on the field

Practical demonstration on Bio-manure technology

Classroom session on Azolla technology

Dr.V.Ganapathi explains about Varma therapy

Training programme on "Roof Top Garden"

at Stella Maris Convent, Kovalam on 25th

June. 29 participants attended the

training. Smt.S.Premalatha was the

resource person.

Programme on "Organic farming" at

Govt. Middle School, Elanthaiyadivilai

on 24th June. 80 students attended the

training. Shri.S.Rajamony was the

resource person.

Training programme on "Enriched Bio-

manure Preparation" at Stella Maris

Convent, Kovalam on 27th June. 25

participants attended the training.

Shri.S.Rajamony was the resource

person.

Attentive students

Understanding the difference between our temporary material identity and our true spiritual identity is the key to solving the environmental crisis. The

foundation for an environmentally healthy planet is a science of consciousness that incorporate knowledge of the soul

– Mukanda Goswami

Awareness programme on “Bio-methanation Plant” were held at the following districts of Tamilnadu for IFAD

(International Fund for Agricultural

Development) Shri.V.Ramakrishnan was

the resource person.

Date Place No. of

participants

14th Kancheepuram 100

15th Kanyakumari 50

27th Tiruvallur 40

28th Villupuram 60

29th Cuddalore 60

30th Nagapatinam 70

God sleeps in the rock, Dreams in the plant, Stirs in the animal and awakens in man

– Ibn-al-Arabi

Happenings this month:

Renewable Energy

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra – nardep, June 2016, Vol.8 No: 4

Happenings this month:

Water & Networking

Happenings this

month:

Water & Networking

Training programme on "Water

Management – Need of the Hour" at

Technology Resource Center on 18th June.

45 participants attended the training.

Shri.V.Ramakrishnan was the resource

person.

Attentive participants – Water Management

Students from Jnana Prabodini,

Maharashtra visited Gramodaya Park and

interacted with Shri.G.Vasudeo on 7th

June. 25 students and 3 staff participated

in the meeting.

Pasumai Vikatan published article on

“Biogas and Bio-methanation

Technology” on 25th June written by

Shri.V.Ramakrishnan

One no. of Deenabandhu type

100 cum Biogas Plant

constructed at Chennai

One student from Gandhigram Rural

Institute, Gandhigram, Dindigul

undergone internship training from 1st to

30th June at Rameshwaram.

One student from Gandhigram Rural

Institute, Gandhigram, Dindigul

undergone training from 20th to 25th

June at Rameshwaram.

Staff numbering 100 from DRDA,

Perumbalore underwent training on

various technologies on 10th June.

Shri.V.Ramakrishnan explaining the Bio-methanation technology

DRDA trainees going round J.C.Bose nursery and trying to understand various

Agricultural practices

The essence of technology is by no

means technological. We have always

thought in the beginning that

technology is technological, and that

is has nothing to do with the human

person, that it has nothing to do

with our peace of mind, with our

value systems, with our social and

cultural patterns, and with our

psychological structures. We

thought of it as just a tool, just an

instrument, only a machine, and

therefore technology presented

itself in the beginning more as being

technological. But the truth is that

technology in its essence is

pathological, even negative, and

sometimes even hysterical.

We may not understand this, much

less accept it, because we are used

to it, because the changes are slow

and imperceptible.

We now know, however, that it is

necessary to look at production and

its shadow, disvalue. Industrial

production requires, it seems, as its

necessary condition, a principle of

irreversible degradation. But this

principle is not the outcome of some

inexorable law of nature but, rather,

of historically identifiable

processes. These processes are the

progressive denial of traditions

favouring subsistence, denial of the

human condition as culturally

determined. Disvalue, which makes

industrial production possible, is

also the historical root of the

modern ecological catastrophes.

We have already crossed the limits

and to regain some balance economic

production must be reduced world-

wide.

Production and its shadow

So called standard of living

Negative Technology

The currently dominant categories

represent a radical form of cultural

imperialism. It is not only that

happiness and the joy of living in

countries of the Third World are

reduced to the paltry level of GNP

per head by this globally imposed

statistical butchery, but the very

reality of diverse other arts of living

is flouted and misunderstood in their

richness and potentialities.

With all the well-intentioned efforts

to measure the standard of living in

the Third World and to push it to

higher levels, a tragic farce has been

staged. To bring about well-being has

contributed increasingly to the very

negation of being. The wealth of the

‘other’ has not only been denigrated (even in the other’s eye), but its very

foundations have been torn apart.

Wealth and poverty are clearly

relative concepts.

Jean Robert Swiss Architect lives

in Mexico and contributed in the

famous book – The Development

Dictionary

Vivekananda Kendra – nardep, Kanyakumari-629702 Phone:91-4652-246296 www.vknardep.org

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra – nardep, June 2016, Vol.8 No: 4

Dr.V.Madhusudana Reddy Was a Professor in Osmania

University. Hyderabad. Made a profound study of Sri Aurobindo’s

philosophy

Serge Latouche A French Economist

and Philosopher Author of “Farewell to

Growth”

Visions of Wisdom

Development promises economic equality for the distant future; what it does

now, after more than 60 years, is produce devastating inequality – C.Douglas Lummis