Concept of growth needs change: Gurukkal

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MARCH 18. Is economic growth realised through capital and energy intensive industrial enterprises the yardstick for authentic development?

Unfortunately, such a notion of `development' has taken deep roots in the minds of the people, according to Dr. Rajan Gurukkal, social scientist.

In a paper presented at a seminar on `Globalisation and Kerala's Resistance', currently on at the AKG Centre here, he said that development founded on this notion could never last long. There are well-established ecological arguments pointing to the frailties of such development.

"Even developmentalists are now-a-days constrained to admit that this kind of development is a socially and environmentally unjust paradigm. Still, development discussions centre on this view, as though there exists no alternative," Dr. Gurukkal said.

This notion made everyone incapable of thinking about development except in terms of the measures and parameters of economic growth. Though all the developed countries these days talk about sustainable development, none of them was prepared to check its unsustainable GDP growth, he said.

Dr. Gurukkal noted that the poor countries, striving to come up since the Second World War, had been diligently following the advice of the developed world. Development aids for enhancing export earnings had made several of them highly indebted poorer countries requiring even over 100 times of their export earning for debt servicing. Why do they fail to realise the myth of development? May be, the illiteracy of the mass in such countries was a major factor, he said.

He wondered how the same kind of ignorance prevailed in highly literate Kerala and why the discussions on the topic were still centred around the invalid assumptions about the dominant concept of development.

Dr. Gurukkal said this popular notion of development had been influencing the very thoughts of the people, eroding their power to be insightful. It had even depoliticised and incapacitated them. The notion had become sort of an all-dominating `knowledge', the authenticity, credibility and authority of which were established through a variety of means.

He said that the critical knowledge (about the frailties of development founded on the popular concept) actually existed in society, but it hardly circulated. This was because of the absolute hold capitalism enjoyed over the production and distribution of knowledge. The educated thus became intellectually neutral and incapable of being involved in policy debates.

According to Dr. Gurukkal, social scientists were the worst- affected by this curious situation. They unwittingly became the tools for spreading erroneous knowledge without realising its negative impact on society.

He said that the problem being encountered in Kerala was one of `political underdevelopment', with the social scientists abdicating their role in lifting the perception level of society due to their intellectual impoverishment and inability to counter the hegemonic hold of capitalism over the thoughts of the people.

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Section  : Southern States
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