INDIAN ECONOMY AND MANAGEMENT: A JEWEL TO BE DISCOVERED AND RESTORED

 

 

INDIAN ECONOMY AND MANAGEMENT: A JEWEL TO BE DISCOVERED AND RESTORED

A lighthouse for India and the world of today and tomorrow

Dr. Narendra Joshi

Introduction:

The word management as it is prevalent in modern times is considered synonymous with the art and science of optimum utilization of men, materials, machines, methods and money to mimimize cost, time and efforts and maximize quality as well as output. The aim is perpetually the same throughout the long history of the entire mankind but the means are largely limited to those understood, proclaimed and supposedly practiced post industrial revolution by western nations, especially by Europe  and US and then blindly aped by the rest of the world. The nations which is  still struggling to ‘decolonize’ themselves. The word economics is also seen only with reference to the works during last couple of centuries by some thinkers while thinking on questions like how there can be maximum well being of maximum number of people with unlimited wants and limited resources by optimum creation, use and distribution of wealth. The science and growth of Economics as a branch of knowledge is attributed to Adam Smith and his work ‘The Wealth of Nations.’ which came in last decades of 18^th century.  In the second half of 19th century we see a rise of the subject of ‘Management’ esp. Scientific management, also called as Fordism and Taylorism through the works of F W. Taylor, Ford and Gilbreth. 

What was this western idea of rational management or scientific management? Even after industrial revolution when industries were busy extracting mineral wealth, processing it and making usable marketable products of need and luxuries, the whole process was very haphazard and there was no application of reason to the process. Taylor was particular to use scientific method of analysis, classification, experimentation and deduction to an industrial set up. He asserted that each job should be defined, and also time needed for it, there must be a fair day’s work decided for each person. There has to be standardization. Ford brought with his famous assembly line idea that each person should do only smaller part of the whole work repeatedly and that will build his skill, increase speed and the whole product can be ready in lesser time. Gilbreth couple worked tirelessly to find micro elements of each motions and found standard time to complete a specified job by a qualified worker.

Indeed all these persons were great thinkers and men of heroic mould who pulled the society from infrarational, conventional and unscientific chaos to the well ordered structured and systematized work in industry, in society and in national plans. In the Human cycle there are stages like Infrarational, Rational and Suprarational. We can say that the era of Taylor and Smith was natural application of the dawn of scientific revolution which brought in the age of reason. The age when Newtonian, Cartesian, Baconian and above all Descartein thought of reductionism and materialism ruled the world. Reason was used to its highest possibilities in the decades to follow till the beginning of 20^th century. This was indeed great turn in human history else the organized but faith based irrational religion on one side and the autocratic and exploitative rulers ..both rulers in state polity and in industry had reduced human beings to unthinking, irrational slaves and subjects. 

The problem persists:

However, the solutions they provided were thought of and rationalized from the level of mind. They were far from the higher truths or the Ultimate truth. A great awaken-er for societies in Tamas or slumber, a dire need of that time but not a long term solution to the basic objective of human well being. However every prism ( an outcome of human mind ) ultimately becomes a prison ( another bondage and limitation )! As a part of Eurocentricism, a product of the arrogant power driven ‘Columbus within’ or ‘The White Man’s burden’ it bulldozed the native systems of   most of the third world nations. Such was the inertia and slavish mentality of the neo educated classes of the pre independent nations like India that they were more than eager to adapt the European model as the great saviour in education, polity, sociology and so on. Unfortunately after independence Indian industries were made to follow the model of Western management. India economy was subjected to European ideas and standards. It is ironical that  India in spite of her much longer history, not just longer in time but greater in substance, clearer in motive and outstanding in the final aim of it, had to become a docile pupil of the West and repeat the failed experiments of western management and economy for the past 70 years.

Ironically Indian civilization is not just existing but even shining since more than five thousand years. It is illogical to suppose that a culture which can be at a pinnacle of glory in material, mental and spiritual pursuits, a lighthouse to rest of the humanity, was having no sound foundation in Management and Economics. That it had no worthwhile contribution to the world thought in the fields of human knowledge like Management, Business and Economy and its unparallelled prowess in trade, business  and exports and its top rankings in world GDP share  for several centuries was mere  accidental, a fluke or  a myth.

The  Gross  Domestic  Product  (GDP) figures for  India since   the  beginning of  the   Common   Era   (CE) show very clearly the economic performance of India.  Angus Maddison, anoted Economic researcher  has provided  these   details and  his  works areextremely imporatnt to show perhaps for the first time that the blinded eye of Columbus has done much harm to the colonised nations in destroying thier centuries old economic prowess in world economies. See the following statistics for example :

At the beginning of the 0 AD

Total  GDP of the  world  $102.5 billions.

India  was  the  largest contributor to  the  global  GDP  $33.75 billions.

China was following India with  $26.82  billions.

Africa's  contribution was  $7.01 billions, 

while  that of Japan  was  $1.2 billions. 

That means India’s share of world GDP  was  32.9 per  cent almost 2007  years earlier.

(Indian Models of Economy, Business and Management (Bible) Paperback – 2012 by Kanagasabapathi P (Author)

 

From the massive 32.9 % the share fell down miserably to single digit and almost nowhere after British rule gripped India and destroyed the beautiful Indian model of Economy and Management

Even after independence it could not rise up substantially for few decades as shown below:

TABLE: INDIAN GROWTH 1900-2000

Colonial Post-Independence Reform Period

	1900-1950	1950-1980	1981-1990	1991-2000
GDP growth	0.8	3.5	5.6	6.2
Per capita growth	0	1.3	3.5	4.4

 Sources: 1900-1990: Angus Maddison (1995), Monitoring the World Economy, 1820-1992 (Paris:OECD); 1990-2000: World Bank/IMF.

***