By Yumlembam Khogen Singh
In accordance with the prevailing narrowly defined and often ineffectually articulated definitions of development, ‘development’ signifies ends like increased income, reduced poverty, and transition to modernity palpably reflected as better roads and architecture, improved means of communication and transportation, etc. which are achievable through narrowly defined means like ‘science and technology’. Against the claims of achieved development, hard facts suggest that irrespective of developed, developing or underdeveloped countries, present world is facing development induced displacement and environmental crisis. On the prevailing development discourses, some theorists put forward that there are three main perspectives on development namely – Mainstream Perspective on Development (MPD), Alternative Perspective on Development (APD) and Post-Development Perspective (PDP). MPD originated from colonialism and its civilizing missions, it pursues development through modernization and westernization. It assumes development as a homogenous process thereby underestimating diversity and complexities. Rebuffling the singular notion of modernization, APD emerged as an alternative model and strive for development through participatory and self-reliant strategies, i.e. it advocates people-oriented development. And thereafter, under the influence of post-structuralism, PDP questions the very notion of modernity and development; and it comprehends development as treatment for the maladies invented by modernity. These development discourses seems complementing as well as critiquing one another for a better model of development, but the hunt is still unfinished. It can also be argued that whether it is socialist, capitalist or mixed model of development there are always cognitive blackouts in displacement, disparity, distress and discrimination in the prevailing dominant discourses on development. Thus, the leading development discourses can be criticized for their omissions and cost, and there is need for a broader perceptions, methodologies and strategies to deal with the issues concerning development. There is still need for a better model of development. Here, what we can do is to re-question the desirability of the existing conceptions of development. Imperative questions are- whether we are having development or mal-development, and whose development we are concerned about?
When the writer attended the 14th North West Indian Sociological Association Conference on ‘Challenges of Social Development in North-West India’ at MDU, Rohtak on 3rd March 2011; in his inaugural address, world renown sociologist and Padma Bhushan awardee Prof. T. K. Oommen theorized some unanticipated consequences of the prevailing ‘homocentric’ model of development and explained four unanticipated Ds of development: disparity, displacement, discriminations and distress. Sagacious people can also see how disparity exists despite of the so-called development, e.g. male-female, rural-urban disparities, etc. and how development becomes axiomatic with displacement, say displacement of tribal by big development projects. The prevailing divides like gender discrimination, caste discriminations, etc. against the slogan of ‘equality for all’ are unacceptable and the odd distress like increasing rate of suicides despite development in the developed countries insinuate towards flaws in the existing development models. Escalating ‘Genocides’, ‘Culturocides’, and ‘Ecocides’ further substantiated the above mentioned unanticipated consequences of development. Unfortunately the United Nations’ definition of genocide given in 1994 excluded some forms of genocides like killing of an ideological group by the State and killing of people by displacement resulting from huge development projects. If W.H.O. termed such killings as silent genocides; for human rights activists and cultural revivalists, the acts of destroying the characteristics of a group, prohibition of the use of their language and destruction of their cultural heritage should also come under the category of genocide. Prof. Oommen (1986) called such systematic destruction of people’s life in general and the systemic liquidation of cultural identities of minorities in particular as ‘Culturocide’. For a social environmentalist, the deliberate destruction of the ecology of a group of people or the ecological degradation in general is ‘Ecocides’. Thus the ongoing development projects guided by homocentric view on development can be accused of causing such consequences like ‘Genocides’, ‘Culturocides’, and ‘Ecocides’.
As replacement for development, ‘sustainable development’ as a long-term proposal grew out of the ‘Limits to Growth’ debate of early 1970s and it became fully established in late 1980s. As a broad concept it was first widely publicized by the World Conservation Strategy and the term itself was coined in October 1987 when the Brundtland Commission released a document titled ‘Our Common Future’ or ‘Brundtland Report’, and the report defined ‘sustainable development’ as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Nevertheless, it can be argued that the present model of development being adopted in the present world is still ‘Homocentric’ in view, guided by excessive individualism and rigidity with prime focus on human generations, thereby neglecting other living beings and non-livings like culture, identity, etc. Till the early 1990s, almost all approaches to sustainable growth or sustainable development seem endorsing the same core ethic of intergenerational equity that future generations are entitled. However, human distress as an unanticipated consequence of development can only be reduced if we reduce such excessive individualism and excessive rigidity.
The critique of anthropocentric value system started a few decades ago. In 1980s, American philosopher J. Baird Callicot with his profound knowledge of religious studies made an impact in the development of environmental ethics. Callicot’s (1984) main argument was – “An anthropocentric value theory, by common consensus, confers intrinsic value on human beings and regards all other things, including other forms of life, as being only instrumentally valuable, i.e., value only to the extent that they are means or instruments which may serve human beings. A non-anthropocentric value theory on other hand would confer intrinsic value on some non-human beings”. Amartya Sen (1998) also emphasized matters of life and death, well-being and illness, happiness and misery, freedom and vulnerability in the conceptual debates of development. As Giri and Ufford (2003) also says that notions of ‘can do’ (management) rather than ‘must do’ (responsibility) are increasingly dominant in the problems of definition of development.
As an improvement, twenty-first century’s recent development in the concept of ‘sustainable development’ aims to include ‘cultural sustainability’/ ‘institutional sustainability (say good governance)’ as the fourth domain into the previously existing three constituent parts of environmental, economic and socio-political sustainability. Even though we have an evolved concept of ‘sustainable development’ to mitigate the ill consequences of mal-development, the problem with the present conception of ‘sustainable development’ is that even if we achieve sustainability in our development, still we are having homocentric view of development. Men’s generation, men’s future, men’s needs, etc. That is, the philosophical basis or thought behind the conception of ‘sustainable development’ is inadequate. Hence, for harmonious existence of ‘nature’ and ‘human’, it is high time to craft a holistic vision that bestow due importance to nature and confer intrinsic value on non-human beings. Therefore, the need of the time is to have a model of development which considers all forms of life, culture, and non-living things as equal beneficiaries of development.
(The writer teaches at the Department of Sociology, Manipur University )