What should be a people-led Emergency Response to UN failure to prevent Third World War amidst the unfolding geopolitical crises, bio-fascism and ecological catastrophe
Are we witnessing a specter of mass hypnosis under the guise of Pandemic Control leading to Colony Collapse Disorder, as it happens with bee colonies when they lose their navigation intelligence due to infringement from EMF radiation hazard? This is far more alarming than a conventional Third World War.
GAIA Earth Sansad (GES) is a people-led ‘Emergency Response’ to address the global health and ecological crises that has brought Humanity to the brink of extinction. Its express purpose is to present a suitable alternative of a truly democratic and representative world body that transcends the present maladies created by the abject failure of the prevailing United Nations system.
A primer on Gaia Nation as an Emergency Response to the global governance crises that has pushed humanity to the brink of extinction.https://t.co/fMcWMgtToB
GES is conceptualised based on nearly two decades of observation and research on the impacts of globalisation and on providing both incremental and transformational solutions to global problems that has evolved as the LACE-GAIA Model. In this model, we also propose a one-time population redistribution to balance human habitats with their natural population carrying capacity for ecologically responsible as well as restorative living. This includes trainer’s training programs and overall capacity building to create win-win for both the skilled migrants and for the host countries.
The need to form a new world body arises from a deep-dive investigation into the role of the United Nations, on how its conduct over this considerably long period betrays its own Charter in over 75 years of its existence:
‘WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
· to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
· to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
· to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
· to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom’
Over the past 18 months of the Covid Pandemic, there is clinching evidence of the highly questionable conduct of United Nations, especially its agency World Health Organisation (WHO) raising suspicions about its true intent and moral character. WHO, whose stated objective is ‘to connect nations, partners and people to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable – so everyone, everywhere can attain the highest level of health’ has done just the opposite with ill-informed and misleading Covid Protocols rife with medical malpractice, hiding its real intent of deceptive psychological and biological warfare against the people of all nations, in what is unambiguously a Third World War.
In such a grim and grave situation, we the co-founders of GAIA Earth Sansad call upon all of Humanity to rise to the occasion. We are looking for suitable candidates as Regional Coordinators / Co-founders from each of the GES Regions that correspond to ~ 600 million population each for a total global human population of ~7.8 billion. Their broad roles and responsibilities are as follows:
1. To propagate the need for GES in their respective regions as an Emergency Response and to further its agenda to stay true to the UN Charter, as shared above.
2. To form a team and set up a Regional Program Office.
3. To appoint CNS Directors for 5-7 sub-regions with a population of ~100 million that form Community of Nation-States in case of smaller countries and of provinces in case of large oversized ones.
4. To participate in the forthcoming #H13Summit2021 in the month of October.
5. To coordinate grassroots demonstration projects in their region for capacity building and to implement the LACE model.
The Road Ahead
Development of LACE-GAIA model with key salient features as follows: a. Motoring Tracks not Cycling Tracks b. Transform brownfield to greenfield c. In a cradle to cradle approach it not only reduces GHG emissions but create effective Carbon Sinks world over to heal climate and ecological damage d. Appropriate but limited duration use of modern technology in the transition period till Peak Civilization of Sone ki Chidiya is restored.
2001-2021Development and Attempted Implementation phase Setting the ground for its adoption worldwide; Already presented in workshops in 14 states in India and in 6 different countries in past 20 years; 4 international papers on various aspects of LACE-GAIA Model – United Kingdom 2003; Japan, 2004; Singapore 2005; Sweden 2009; United States (Ohio), 2009; Canada 2017; Australia, 2019 Covid Crises as an admission of collapse of modern industrial anti-civilization but leaving large section of human population afflicted by mass psychosis due to prolonged exposure; Blessings in disguise – Creates opportunity to transcend present maladies to a livable equitable and sustainable world and usher towards a holistic and harmonious world order.
2021-2031First Cultural Revolution From Car Culture to Cycling Culture with LACE-GAIA model By 2031 global human population will decrease from 7.8 billion to 6 billion. Many of the avant garde city dwellers will adopt ways as forest dwellers as cities from their very dense core begin to give up cars and turn into forest cities. The projected proportions of global population by 2031 is as follows: City:1 billion Village: 4 billion Forest: 1 billion
2031-2041Second Cultural Revolution From Cycling Culture to Pastoral Culture with LACE-GAIA model By 2041 Population 6 billion to 5 billion City: 0.5 billion :: Village 3 billion :: Forest & Pastures 1.5 billion
2041-2061First Civilizational Leap Deadstock Civilization to Livestock Civilization (cows goats sheep camel) Pastoral Culture to Forest Culture (Tribal)By 2061 Population 5 billion to 4 billion City 0.35 billion :: Village 2.65 billion :: Forest 1 billion
2061-2081Second Civilizational Leap Augmented Livestock Civilization(Horses, Elephants, Camels…)Forest Culture (Tribal) to Deep Forest Culture (Aranya Sanskriti) By 2081 Population in steady-state at 4 billion City 0.25 billion :: Village 2.5 billion :: Forest 1.25 billion
2081-2100 Peak Civilization and steady-state (Arrival of Golden Era) Sone ki Chidiya (Restoration of Peak Civilization levels upto 1600 AD as per peer reviewed research for that period and notably the works of Dadabhai Naoroji) City 0.1 billion :: Village 2.4 billion :: Forest 1.5 billion
(Here is a poem I wrote out of my old love for Goa from a trip in 2002. I was there for a week in September 2012 to meet with then CM Manohar Parrikar for a sustainable transport system pilot in Goa. 20 years later, in 2022, in a month-long trip I was shocked and sad to see the place and people’s spirits in shambles. Yet, I could see hope for Goa to rise up from its ashes. This poem is a tribute to the kindred spirit of Goa, what it was and what it could be as a global destination)
‘East is East West is West The twain shall never meet’ So said Rudyard Kipling In a bygone era.
This is true When resources are a-plenty To feed the voracity Of the monstrous city Bleeding the countryside With several centuries Of loot and plunder.
As the resources dwindle East and West Must come together.
That time has come As Covid strikes Reducing humanity To ‘hackable animals’ In Harari say.
Paralysing economies Spiralling crises ‘Manufactured consent’ As Chomsky warns.
Signalling the end Of the turbocharged industrial era With its promises of prosperity Exposing its lies and hoaxes The real HIV pandemic Of Hubris Ignorance and Vanity.
Gaia is a bridge Between east and west Reclaiming the Indigenous As the soul of Humanity Discovering our unity Amidst all the natural resplendent diversity As the elixir of life As we regenerate Our natural ecosystems.
Of rivers forests and mountains. Piecing together the torn shreds Of our Indigenous wisdom Of noble kings and Kingdom With renewed hope and vigour.
With care compassion and nurture Reviving the pristine glory Of ancient civilisation and culture That live and thrive for long times In love and harmony with nature.
Gaia is a bridge that connects Not just East and West It also connects Sparring ideologies Warring Nation-States Worn out minds and bodies That are tearing apart.
To help them rediscover That they are soul and spirit United together In the unbounded wholeness Of the cosmo-genesis.
Be a bridge and not a wall Even if walls create A false sense of security Trapping us into narrow lanes Of bigotry and prejudice.
Whipping up nationalistic fervour To protect the manmade boundaries. Be a bridge Even if you are trampled upon And run all over.
A bridge that connects Not only the world outside It also brings together Our body mind and soul Into a blissful whole.
From the furious frenzy of Instant gratification To the everlasting joys Of eternal bliss.
Goa is Gaia They both come From the same roots Of Mother and Goddess Earth.
As confluence of East and the West Bring out our best In symbiosis and synergy Of ideas and practices That unleash boundless energy And channelise them For our material and spiritual progress.
Bridging the mechanistic compartments As unity in diversity
Of its Catholic fervour Wanton beaches and peppy nights Of its Gomantak glory and Kalyan pride Rejuvenate the forests and pastures As the global hub of Gaia As the global Indigenous sovereign That heralds a new Golden Era.
The gateway to Kalyan Wellbeing for all Is Kalyan-gute That we fondly call as Calangute Let this revelation open new gateways To explore all the possibilities To lasting peace and prosperity.
हिन्दी के लिए इस लिंक पर जाएँ) (Draft 1.0 – Kindly share your feedback and comments to the letter and to the Hon. Minister’s article in the comment box before dispatch by 10:00 IST on Sat 4 June 2024)
To
Hon’ble External Affairs Minister Government of India New Delhi, India.
Subject: Repurposing Viksit Bharat and Vishva Bandhu Bharat in the bigger frame of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam
Date: Friday 03 May 2024
Dear Dr Jaishankar,
Namaste!
Your article this morning in the Indian Express on the theme of Vishwa Bandhu Bharat – ‘How India is making friends and influencing the world’ (here) makes a delightful read.
As you also aptly note in your tweet with this article, ‘a strong sense of Bharat First’ as the big change after 2014 in India that breaks away from a more subdued approach of the earlier Congress regime (2004-2014).
Your bold and assertive stance indeed deserves a rich and loud applause on how you have amply displayed ‘both the confidence to think through the pathway and using national interest as the primary metric of judgment’. You mention how this has encouraged you ‘to pursue a multi-vector diplomacy that maximizes partners and minimizes problems’.
On a closer scrutiny, there are always lessons to learn from some of the small and big mistakes on the way and move further, as you gear up in preparation for another term in office, in a few weeks from now, as the national election results are declared on the 4th of June.
As a geopolitical observer and proponent of a civic society led world government (here) to fill in the vacuum in the apex of global hierarchy, I have been interested in your thinking and actions, more closely since your ‘India and the World’ speech in Nov ’22 as I share in this article.
In between, I also noted with some disappointment, a derailment in the momentum in the earlier phase of your term – first with ‘China is a bigger economy’ and second with ‘India stands against terror except when it comes to Israel’. In a subtle but certain way, this ‘doublethink’ in your approach affects your articulation of Viksit Bharat and Vishwa Bandhu Bharat despite your good intent and overall stellar track record, as I would like to share in this letter for your kind consideration.
Hon. Minister Sir, in your aforementioned article you write:
“In a world where everything is being weaponized, India has to ensure that its basic needs and critical infrastructure are nationally developed. That is why ‘Make in India’ is so vital.”
Paradoxically, your notion of Viksit Bharat is entrapped in the same ‘weaponisation of everything’ dynamics of Destructive Global Competition that you worry about the world at large. The sum of evidence clearly points out that Destructive Global Competition is already running out of any control and continues to drive us all to destroy the planet on which we depend. The main barrier to solving global problems is that no government can move first or act alone because doing so would make its national economy uncompetitive, risking unemployment, capital flight, and economic decline.
You write: “The big change now is a strong sense of “Bharat First”, where we have both the confidence to think through the pathway and using our national interest as the primary metric of judgement.”
This notion of Bharat First is unmistakably pitted against America First or China First is so symptomatic of the DGC thinking and on the same page as the notorious case of ‘American Exceptionalism’ that prompted US President Joe Biden to call India and Japan as ‘xenophobic‘ recently commenting on their immigration policy. Invariably, as countries get locked into this dynamics where ‘national interest is the primary metric of judgement’, they must set aside our common global causes that need contributions and sacrifices to solve critical global crisis and for the larger global good.
As former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said, “The blunt reality of the politics of climate change is that no country will be willing to sacrifice its economy in order to address this challenge.”1 This remains true for all global problems. In a globalized economy, it will always be so. Governments are therefore caught in a “Prisoner’s Dilemma.” It’s not that they don’t want to solve global problems, but that they can’t. That, indeed, is why the wider movement has achieved little: because it demands change from those—i.e., governments—who are incapable of delivering it. Given its complexity and scale, the higher education system in India has a responsibility and opportunity to lead the formation of a world government, starting with the setting up of Centre of Global Governance Studies. As time is running out this needs an Emergency Response.
Entrenched in the DGC mode, Viksit Bharat thus runs loggerheads with the spirit of Vishwa Bandhu Bharat which needs, what we can call as Harmonious Global Cooperation (HGC). Without the HGC spirit and action, the inherent dichotomy of Viksit Bharat and Vishva Bandhu Bharat will inevitably land India’s image as another strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Viksit Bharat, in a new light, is one that has the humility and strength of character to accept and learn from its mistakes. A Viksit Bharat at the same time must rise above pettiness of nationalistic competition where ‘national interest as the primary metric of judgement’ masquerades the greed, apathy and selfish behavior of its ruling elite to espouse high standards of love, compassion, kindness and generosity not just for Bharat but for Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam.
You write: “This has encouraged us to pursue a multi-vector diplomacy that would maximise our partners and minimise our problems. Where we have to take a stand, we do not hesitate or come under pressure. At the same time, there is a constant assertion of our relevance. This is Vishwa Bandhu Bharat.”
To Grow the Pie and for a global order that works for everyone, as the Munich Security Conference set its theme for its annual event in February this year, we need to rethink the underlying assumptions, motivations and deeper beliefs for India’s aspired role as Vishwa Bandhu Bharat, as you propose. This is a new doctrine of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam that moves the world away from the dark and self-destructive dungeons of Destructive Global Competition mired in treachery and deception to a new light of Harmonious Global Cooperation marked by truth and transparency, honesty and integrity.
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam in a Deeper Simplicity : A Quantum Leap for Humanity
Narrow-minded thinking of ‘this is mine’ and ‘that is not mine’ comes out of greed, apathy and selfishness entangled with ignorance, fear and insecurity. For past several centuries since the European Industrial Revolution with its predominant mechanistic and reductionist worldview to colonize the world through weaponization of trade and commerce, hoarding of material resources as ‘private property’ began to be celebrated widely, this narrow-mindedness seeped deep into the very fabric of modern culture and civilization. What used to be the ‘commons’ was now sold-off to private owners of fiat money as ‘sovereign’ states with a monopoly of organized violence and legitimacy in the present dysfunctional global order. These ‘sovereign’ states have been treacherously subjugated by a globalised financial cartel as their private armies. This is the nature of the global disorder today.
As we unpack this colorful and sassy patriotic brand of narrowmindedness, we can see thick toxic and murky discharge of ‘White Man’s Burden’ spilling out. This was disseminated through colonialist rape and plunder of indigenous societies worldwide that destroyed the relatively harmonious world order that had existed for thousands of years.
The wise and broad-minded, on the other hand, think of the world as a family, as the Sanskrit phrase Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam depicts. Even if such broad-minded are few and far between due to the rabid globalization of Popular Errors created by the narrow-minded, they hold on to the Unpopular Truth that love, kindness, compassion and generosity, truth, frugality and honesty are truly human virtues and the key to our health, abundance and prosperity for all.
This is the import of these verses from the Maha Upanishad, storehouse of the cosmopolitan indigenous wisdom, Verses 6.71–73:
This is mine, that is not, say the small minded, The wise believe that the entire world is a family (vasudhaiv kutumbakam). Be unattached, Be magnanimous, Lift up your mind, Enjoy the fruits of quantum freedom.
Harmonious Global Cooperation : Accompanying Principles of Hierarchy and Subsidiarity
Hierarchies are natural and necessary
Our predominantly postmodern worldview that rejects all hierarchies and all meta-narratives, champions decentralization, diversity, leaderless coalitions, horizontal networks, etc. Set against this fragmented, horizontal, uncoordinated mass of global justice initiatives, we have the single, overarching dynamic of DGC: a global, unified, all-pervading, top-down, destructive, out-of-control dynamic. A decentralized, non-hierarchical structure can never succeed against this. Without acknowledging the need for unity and some hierarchy, we have absolutely no chance of forming a civic society-led world government.
We need therefore to understand that hierarchies are natural and indispensable. The trick, however, is to distinguish between actualizing hierarchies (i.e., healthy ones) and dominator hierarchies (i.e., unhealthy ones). Being a global dominator hierarchy, DGC can only be overcome by a unified, global actualizing hierarchy—that is, by some form of globally coordinated, cooperative, citizen-driven global governance process that transcends and includes nation-states: an actualizing hierarchy that puts us, citizens, in the driving seat, rendering us capable of driving nations to agree to a global hierarchy with a world government at its apex and the reconstituted provinces, community-states and grassroots governance institutions, cooperatively implement the necessary policies to solve global problems. India with its pluralistic society and rich diversity, led by the higher education institutions and its vibrant civic society, plays an exemplary role in the formation of the world government.
Subsidiarity in the Global Hierarchy builds Unity
Another thing we are missing is that actualizing hierarchies promote unity where it is needed and diversity where it is not. Every coherent entity in the world is held together by some form of governance, whether it be an atom, a cell, your body, or a nation. Governance structures are also multi-level because, as societies expand, existing governance structures eventually can’t cope, thus necessitating the creation of new, higher-level governance structures. The operating principle between these levels is subsidiarity: what cannot be solved at the lowest possible level of Panchayati Raj or Local Governance institutions is taken up to the next-higher level. This promotes unity where it is needed, while leaving space for independence and diversity where it is not.
What is in it for the world democracy of ~8 billion people and for humanity at large?
Peace and harmony based on truth and transparency, justice and equity, sustainability and prosperity for all including our youth, children and coming generations
End of theocratic states. Religion will no longer, overtly or covertly, be the basis of nationalism or identity of any province or community-state in the proposed global order of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam. Culture will follow the indigenous way of life based on geo-climatic conditions. Religion must be universal and individual must be free to choose their faith and belief system in a spiritual way.
What is in it for the Central Government of India?
India, as the world’s most populous country, a vibrant democracy with its pluralistic and welcoming culture, and immense Soft Power is best placed to host the World Government.
Forming a World Government is an opportunity to abolish the undemocratic and offensive structure of the United Nations Security Council with Permanent Seats and Veto powers.
This will help resolve the border issues with belligerent and offensive neighbors such as Pakistan, China and others.
Wasteful and inappropriate expenditure on military-industrial-media complex and Destructive Global Competition will be now channelised in constructive projects and to heal and restore ecological wealth.
It will further bolster global respect for India and fulfill its long pending obligations to the Non-Aligned Movement, to the Global South, BRICS, Quad and other alliances and treaties that India is part of.
India will have the opportunity to create and steer a new global financial architecture with a new global currency.
There will be opportunity for national leaders to grow and rise in the new global order.
In the new global order, there will be opportunity to reform critical sectors of education and healthcare, energy and mobility services, as well as focus on cultural and spiritual upliftment enhancing the overall quality of life.
What is in it for the State Governments in the Indian Union?
With ~1.4 billion population, India will have 14 provinces. With greater regional and local autonomy, there will be 14 Heads of Provinces and 700 Heads of Community-States.
This will fulfill the common cause of collaborative federalism as 14 Provinces in India among 80 provinces worldwide.
This will be a great opportunity to even out regional disparities and restore ecology.
What is the urgency to organize in May-June 2024?
As shared in the agenda note, the world is in acute turmoil and needs an Emergency Response to mitigate the global metacrisis and a variety of super wicked problems.
As the global system further breaks down, the recovery will become even more difficult and will drive panic and drastic measures such as blocking out the sun which can have devastating effects on Earth ecosystems.
How India is making friends and influencing the world
In a world where everything is being weaponized, India has to ensure that its basic needs and critical infrastructure are nationally developed. That is why ‘Make in India’ is so vital.
Written by S. Jaishankar
May 3, 2024 09:00 IST
The pathway to reaching the goal of Viksit Bharat in the next 25 years will have many requirements. To begin with, it needs a vision for the nation and equally, the ability to deliver it on the ground. We can develop confidence in that through sustaining a track record. Steady advancement and continuing reform are also possible only in a climate of political stability. That alone would enable policy prescriptions of a long-term nature to be conceptualised and implemented. Much of this will be determined by the cumulative political choice of the Indian people in the coming weeks. But one crucial facet will be the international environment and its ability to throw up both opportunities and challenges for Viksit Bharat.
Ideally, countries formulate their foreign policy as best leveraging the world with a view to promote their national development. The targets are often increasing access to resources, markets, technologies and best practices. Those who have posted impressive growth performance in the last many decades are the ones who have clarity in this regard. In our case, that focus has been sharp since 2014, but for ideological reasons, was more diffused in the first four decades of our Independence. Swayed by imported prescriptions, we sometimes subordinated our own goals to the benefit of others. The big change now is a strong sense of “Bharat First”, where we have both the confidence to think through the pathway and using our national interest as the primary metric of judgement. This has encouraged us to pursue a multi-vector diplomacy that would maximise our partners and minimise our problems. Where we have to take a stand, we do not hesitate or come under pressure. At the same time, there is a constant assertion of our relevance. This is Vishwa Bandhu Bharat.
If India is to emerge as a leading power, it must develop deep national strengths. Much of that will emanate from expanding manufacturing as that serves as the foundation for technology. To overcome the neglect of the past, it is essential that we plan to leapfrog, especially in regard to critical and emerging technologies. This is best achieved through strong international collaboration built on trust and comfort. In a polarised and suspicious world, those doors can only be opened by effective diplomacy. The international economy is right now in the midst of rebuilding its supply chains and ensuring more reliable manufacturing. This is most starkly evident in competitive domains like semiconductors, electric mobility and green technologies. It is only a Vishwa Bandhu that can ensure that India is fully embedded in these networks.
In the post-Covid world, all significant nations are in the quest for strategic autonomy. Even the most developed are concerned about the hollowing out of their capabilities and dependence on over-concentration elsewhere. In a world where everything is being weaponised, India too has to ensure that its basic needs and critical infrastructure are nationally developed. That is why ‘Make in India’ is so vital, not just for our economy but even for national security. As we are already seeing in challenging domains like defence, it can open up possibilities of exports as well. India is also today increasingly positioned to emerge as one of the global hubs of research, design and innovation. It is only by a more intensive engagement with international partners that we can hasten our journey towards Viksit Bharat.
The growing realisation of the value of Indian skills and talent is also one of the welcome realities of our times. It is enhanced by the premium put on trust and transparency in the digital domain. Drastic demographic changes in the world are also creating new demands in various professions. Taking advantage of such prospects requires massively expanding our own education and training capacities. But they can be best harnessed only when our partners fully appreciate their compatibility with Indian values and practices. And when we can credibly assure our own citizens of their security, wherever they may be. Ensuring these today is a major goal for India’s foreign policy. We have already seen the conclusion, recently, of mobility agreements with European nations, Australia, Japan and others. The creation of a global workplace for Indians will not only widen personal opportunities but contribute to broader national capacities.
The era of conflict and climate change that we have entered has powerful implications for connectivity. Just as supply chains are seeking to become more resilient and redundant, so too are logistics. We have witnessed the consequences of tension in the Red Sea or the blocking of the Suez Canal. De-risking is only possible when enough countries come together for their shared enterprise to become serious.
Interestingly, many of the recent endeavours are focused on India. The IMEC corridor connects us to Europe and the Atlantic through the Arabian Peninsula. The INSTC one traverses Iran and Russia with the same objective. To our East, the Trilateral Highway can take us all the way to the Pacific.
The same logic applies to ensuring security and political balances in a changing world as well. Whether it is Quad or BRICS, I2U2, SCO or East Asia Summit, India’s interests have been at the core of its calculations. These initiatives involve a range of partners, often at odds with each other. It requires a Vishwa Bandhu to carry them all. That is why this is such an important element of Modi Ki Guarantee.
The writer is External Affairs Minister, Government of India
His Highness Maharaja Gaj Singh II of Marwar Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India
Dear Bapji,
India has had thousands of years of Kingship (Rajtantra) alongside localised consensus based democracy (Gantantra) in this land of Bharat. The sum of evidence, as I gathered recently on a family trip to Jodhpur, were long periods of health and prosperity for all with the visionary thinking, intelligence and valour of kings, some of which has been remarkably well-preserved at the magnificent Mehrangarh fort and in some parts at Umaid Palace. What we also see is how some of the finer elements of modern civilization has been embraced and enmeshed with the glorious ancient heritage in the spirit of the wisdom of Nav Nootan Chir Puratan.
With a careful study of human history, we also discover this pattern with similar underlying values and beliefs or respect and harmony with nature and all its creation in other indigenous cultures around the world such as in neighboring China and South-East Asia, Maya and Inka in South America and Axum and Ghana in Afrika.
In retrospect, the sum of evidence on the modern period of electoral democracy has left us with poor health and deprivation for large sections of people amidst overall decline in the quality of life even for the most affluent sections. Unlike the truth and integrity that we see in the earlier period, the modern period is marred by rapid and widespread damage to our climate and ecology, pollution and toxicity in food water and the air we breathe, war and genocides based on treachery and deception and psychological breakdown.
I have shared this historical backdrop and a vision for the future in this address at the General Assembly of World Council for Health in April 2022 as you can find on the link as follows:
Your Highness Sir, I shall sincerely appeal to you for your support for a global campaign for the Civic Society led World Government as a way forward for the people of Marwar, of India and for humanity as a whole. I have written to key people in the government and political parties on this including Hon. External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar. Please find the concept plan as follows:
Index
Agenda Note
Proposed Structure of Civic Society-led World Government
What is in it for the Central Government of India?
What is in it for the State Government of Delhi?
What is the urgency to organize in May-June 2024?
Why Civic Society-led World Government and not Civil Society?
1. Agenda Note
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam A Quantum Leap for Humanity
Narrow-minded thinking of ‘this is mine’ and ‘that is not mine’ comes out of greed, apathy and selfishness entangled with ignorance, fear and insecurity. For past several centuries since the European Industrial Revolution with its predominant mechanistic and reductionist worldview to colonize the world through weaponization of trade and commerce, hoarding of material resources as ‘private property’ began to be celebrated widely, this narrow-mindedness seeped deep into the very fabric of modern culture and civilization. What used to be the ‘commons’ was now sold-off to private owners of fiat money as ‘sovereign’ states with a monopoly of organized violence and legitimacy in the present dysfunctional global order. These ‘sovereign’ states have been treacherously subjugated by a globalised financial cartel as their private armies. This is the nature of the global disorder today.
As we unpack this colorful and sassy patriotic brand of narrowmindedness, we can see thick toxic and murky discharge of ‘White Man’s Burden’ spilling out. This was disseminated through colonialist rape and plunder of indigenous societies worldwide that destroyed the relatively harmonious world order that had existed for thousands of years.
The wise and broad-minded, on the other hand, think of the world as a family, as the Sanskrit phrase Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam depicts. Even if such broad-minded are few and far between due to the rabid globalization of Popular Errors created by the narrow-minded, they hold on to the Unpopular Truth that love, kindness, compassion and generosity, truth, frugality and honesty are truly human virtues and the key to our health, abundance and prosperity for all.
This is the import of these verses from the Maha Upanishad, storehouse of the cosmopolitan indigenous wisdom, Verses 6.71–73:
अयं बन्धुरयं नेति गणना लघुचेतसाम् ।
उदारचरितानां तु वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम् ॥71II
भावाभावविनिर्मुक्तं जरामरणवर्जितम् ।
प्रशान्तकलनारभ्यं नीरागं पदमाश्रय ॥72II
एषा ब्राह्मी स्थितिः स्वच्छा निष्कामा विगतामया ।
आदाय विहरन्नेवं सङ्कटेषु न मुह्यति ॥73II
This is mine, that is not, say the small minded,
The wise believe that the entire world is a family (vasudhaiv kutumbakam).
Be unattached, Be magnanimous, Lift up your mind, Enjoy the fruits of quantum freedom.
Dangerous ‘vacuum’ in the Global Hierarchy with the Collapse of the American Empire
Michael Brenner, Professor Emeritus of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and a Fellow of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at School of Advanced International Studies – Johns Hopkins is one among the few broad-minded people today. In a scathing indictment of ‘Western’ leaders, Prof Brenner writes on the West’s Reckoning in this article on 8 March 2024 here:
“Western leaders are experiencing two stunning events: defeat in Ukraine, genocide in Palestine. The first is humiliating, the other shameful. Yet, they feel no humiliation or shame. Their actions show vividly that those sentiments are alien to them – unable to penetrate the entrenched barriers of dogma, arrogance and deep-seated insecurities. The last are personal as well as political. Therein lies a puzzle. For, as a consequence, the West has set itself on a path of collective suicide. Moral suicide in Gaza; diplomatic suicide – the foundations laid in Europe, the Middle East and across Eurasia; economic suicide – the dollar-based global financial system jeopardized, Europe deindustrializing. It is not a pretty picture. Astoundingly, this self-destruction is occurring in the absence of any major trauma – external or internal. Therein lies another, related puzzle.
Some clues for these abnormalities are provided by their most recent responses as deteriorating conditions tighten the vise – on emotions, on prevailing policies, on domestic political worries, on ginger egos. Those responses fall under the category of panic behavior. Deep down, they are scared, fearful and agitated. Biden et al in Washington, Macron, Schulz, Sunak, Stoltenberg, von der Leyen. They lack the courage of their stated convictions or the courage to face reality squarely. The blunt truth is that they have contrived to get themselves, and their countries, in a quandary from which there is no escape conforming to their current self-defined interests and emotional engagement. Hence, we observe an array of reactions that are feckless, grotesque and dangerous.”
The West, though is no longer a geographical pointer, but widespread among the factory educated, as I refer in this 2009 article here titled ‘The Derailment Of Western Civilization – Does It Need A Bail-Out?’ “Western civilization is no longer about geography – it’s a stereotype for greed, addiction and overt and covert forms of white-collar crime; or perhaps, of a debauched asylum, taken over by its inmates. This doesn’t need no BAIL-OUT. That’s a serious misdiagnosis of the real problem. It needs REHABILITATION.”
Prof Brenner writes in a 2017 article here: “Psychosis can stem from trauma and acute stress. In the American case, our traumatic event was 9/11. The ensuing terror psychosis is well into its second decade. It shows no signs of ameliorating – even though there have been no serious attacks against the United States over the past 13 years.”
Dominique de Villepin, former French Prime Minister, warns the world of the incumbent French premier Emmannuel Macron’s utterly irresponsible rhetoric on sending NATO ground troops to Ukraine and the extreme danger behind his and some other NATO leaders’ attempt to escalate the conflict into a full fledged World War:
“For this debate [over sending ground troops] to have been useful, it would have first been necessary for us to be able to answer 5 questions. Five risks associated with this escalation, this step we would be taking if we were to send ground troops, send fighters. Five risks.
The first is the expansion of the conflict. If we send ground troops, do we know if on the Russian side others will send, on the other side, ground troops? Will we face African fighters, will we face Asian fighters, will we face Middle Eastern fighters in this global south that also wants to take on the West?”
The balance of power in the chaotic multipolar world is already undergoing a megashift. Economist James K. Galbraith, professor at the University of Texas at Austin explains why the Western sanctions on Russia backfired, and why they were never going to succeed in the first place..
“This is a situation in which the sanctions were imposed by one important sector of the world economy which then cut itself off from resources that it needs – and that’s particularly true of Western Europe – in return for cutting Russia off from various things that Russia doesn’t really need.”
“If you go back to the period before the introduction of the sanctions […] the Russian economy was very heavily colonized by Western firms. That was true in automobiles, it was true in aircrafts, it was true in everything from fast food restaurants to big box stores. Western firms were present all throughout the Russian economy. A great many of them […] either chose to exit Russia or were pressured to exit Russia after early 2022. So on what terms did they leave? Well, they were required, if they were leaving permanently, to sell their capital equipment, their factories and so forth, to let’s say a Russian business which would get a loan from Russian banks or maybe have other sources of financing, at a very favorable price for the Russians.
So effectively a lot of capital wealth, which was partly owned by the West, has been transferred to Russian ownership. And you now have an economy which is moving forward and has the advantage compared to Europe of relatively low resource costs because Russia is a great producer of resources, oil and gas and fertilizer and food stuff and so forth. And so while the Europeans are paying maybe twice in Germany what they were paying for energy, the Russians are not, they’re paying perhaps less than they were paying before the war. So again I characterize the effect of the sanctions, in fact as being in certain respects a gift to the Russian economy. And this is, I think, quite different from what the authors of the sanctions expected. […] And the essence of the situation is this would not have happened without the sanctions.
You could have had the war, and it would have gone pretty much as it has gone. But the Russian government in 2022 was in no position to force the exit of Western firms. It didn’t want to, wouldn’t have done that. It was in no position to force its oligarchs to choose between Russia and the West. It didn’t wish to do that. These choices were imposed by the West, and the results were actually, in many respects, favorable to the long-term independent development of the Russian Federation’s economy.”
A close scrutiny of influential expert opinion even from America sees the emergence of Russia as a widely respected great power that not only survived the collapse of Soviet Union after the protracted 40-year Cold War phase of the continuing Second World War where the belligerent occupier colonialist state of America is finally seen as imploding under the massive weight of its own contradictions. The 2024 US elections, if it manages to survive by then, will mark the final nail in its coffin.
How did we get here?
“Hang the cost! Full speed ahead! Death or victory right now! Forward into growth! I guess that shows a faith that if we create too many problems in the present, the future will learn how to deal with it.” Kenneth Boulding, economist and former president of the American Economic Association called it ‘heroic ethic’. The economic ethic OTOH says: “Wait a minute, there’s benefits and costs. Let’s weigh the two. We don’t want to charge right over the cliff. Let’s look at the margin. Are we getting better off or worse?”
“Selfish behaviors are reward driven and innate, wired deeply into the survival mechanisms of the primitive brain, and when consistently reinforced, they will run away to greed, with its associated craving for money, food, or power. On the other hand, the self restraint and the empathy for others that are so important in fostering physical and mental health are learned behaviors – largely functions of the new human cortex and thus culturally dependent.” – Peter Whybrow,
Peter C. Whybrow is former Director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA. In American Mania: When More is Not Enough (2006), he grounds the extraordinary achievements and excessive consumption of the American nation in an understanding of the biology of the brain’s reward system offering for the first time a comprehensive and physical explanation for the addictive mania of consumerism. He offers a bold analysis of the cultural disease that afflicts us all. American Mania presents a clear and novel vantage point from which to understand the most pressing social issues of our time, while offering an informed approach to refocusing our pursuit of happiness.
Despite an astonishing appetite for life, more and more Americans and by contagion, people around the world caught in the rat race, are feeling overworked and dissatisfied. In the world’s most affluent nation, epidemic rates of stress, anxiety, depression, obesity, and time urgency are now grudgingly accepted as part of everyday existence; they signal the American Dream gone awry. ‘American Mania’ is sweeping across the globe powered by the dubious US dollar on various counts.
One, there is intergenerational fraud. Costs are passed on to coming generations. Two, in a large highly iniquitous country like India – this is Flaw of Averages. Three, air pollution, water pollution, land degradation, psychological and spiritual degradation are all brushed aside as ‘negative externalities’.
In the concluding passage of the final chapter on Meditation inhis book 21 Lessons for 21st Century, popular author Yuval Noah Harari shares his experiences of a Vipassana meditation course and regular practice since, on advice of his good friend who suggested that he should put aside all the books and intellectual discussions for a few days.
‘Self-observation has never been easy, but it might get harder with time. As history unfolded, humans created more and more complex stories about themselves, which made it increasingly difficult to know who we really are. ..As technology improved..it became easier to delude people. In the near future, algorithms will make it well-near impossible for people to observe the reality about themselves. It will be algorithms that will decide for us who we are and what we should know about ourselves.
For a few more years or decades, we still have a choice. If we make the effort (to mediate), we can still investigate who we really are. But if we want to make use of this opportunity, we had better do it now.’
This echoes what philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin says in a recent article, ‘Faced with the polycrisis humanity is going through, the first resistance is that of the spirit’. With an increasing number of wars, climate change and the rise of authoritarian regimes, the world may be heading for disaster, but we must resist hatred, argues the sociologist and philosopher as he writes:
“Prodigious technological and scientific progress in all areas is the cause of the worst regressions of our century. ..Though difficult to conceive, we must realize that the progress of knowledge, through the multiplication and mutual separation of disciplines, has caused a regression of thought, which in fact has become blind. Linked to a dominance of calculation in an increasingly technocratic world, the progress of knowledge is unable to conceive the complexity of reality, especially human realities. This leads to a return of dogmatisms and fanaticisms, as well as a crisis of morality with the unleashing of hatreds and idolatries.”
Greed, apathy and selfishness, pull us down to protect the nation-states as a vulgar projection of ego where nationalism is used deviously not only to treat others as outsiders and enemies, overtly or covertly, both outside the national boundaries but also to suppress sub-national resistance, in the neo-progressive worldview. They subversively engage in what Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General in his recent speech at the Munich Security Conference on 16 February 2024 calls out as ‘aggressive opportunism’ and ‘miscalculations’ with ‘no accountability’. The existing global order, he says, is not working for anyone.
“Our world is facing existential challenges, but the global community is more fragmented and divided than at any time during the past 75 years.
Multipolarity has created important opportunities for balance and justice, and for new leadership on the global stage.
But the transition to multipolarity without strong global institutions can create chaos.
When power relations are vague, the dangers of aggressive opportunism and miscalculation grow.
Today we see countries doing whatever they like, with no accountability.
Impunity seems to be the name of the game and so we must all be determined to establish the primacy of the rule of law.
As the Munich Security Report makes clear, relative gains through competition between countries are being prioritized over absolute gains for all through cooperation.
Crises are multiplying, linked to competition and impunity.
A global order that works for everyone must address these gaps and provide solutions.”
Economic prosperity in various indigenous societies of the world before the modern European industrial development was no less. Far more prosperity has been around for centuries in many nations and societies (than the unprecedented economic prosperity that is being attributed only to Europe) even before the 18th century in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Congo, Male, Sudan, Nubia, India, China, Tibet, Japan, Mongolia, Mesopotamia, Sumer, Iran (Persia), Iraq, Turkey, Ottoman, Thailand, Indonesia, Java, Sumatra, Champa, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Korea, Vietnam, etc.
Many of these countries have been much more advanced in technology than 19th century Europe — millennia ago. The facts about China are well known. Europeans learned many types of scientific techniques from China like gunpowder, printing, paper making method, map making, watch making, meteorology and irrigation system, seismology, anatomy etc. England learned the technology of steel making, smallpox vaccine, silver foil making methods etc. from India. The excellence of Maya, Aztec, Inca, Egypt, Sumer and Babylonia civilizations in astronomical calculations and architecture is world famous. Ghana had no match in gold reserves and prosperity. The richness of the Saraswat civilization of Harappa is well-known by now.
Thus these diverse countries have been more or at least equally prosperous for centuries without any extra conceit and without adopting any craze for luxury as many countries of Europe and now the United States of America have been in the past 300 years. These countries did not show enmity towards nature. They did not barbarously exploit natural resources and produce consumer goods for monstrous consumption, in the name of technology.
The reason for this is not that the peaceful and non-violent societies did not have knowledge of technology. Or they did not have that skill and aptitude or did not have scientific vision and intellect. Rather they had a rich understanding of the rhythms of the universe, of truth and ever-changing reality (ऋत), of the universal-individual, the cycle of creation and the cycle of time. They were so assured by their traditional knowledge. In their vision, adopting the madness of looting all the resources in a short time, in the name of development, would be suicidal. They considered it a terrible injustice to our future generations and would be a sin from this point of view. This is the reason why these prosperous societies and nations, despite their advanced technology, restrained their consumption and their production. Whatever information remains today about the prosperity and lifestyle of these societies, it is proven that the prosperity in these societies was mainly associated with a non-violent lifestyle. The traditions of frugality in consumption and fulfillment of essential needs from the point of view of social harmony, have always kept these societies balanced and restrained.
Translated from ‘Prosperity can also be Non-Violent’ by Prof. Kusumlata Kedia and Prof Rameshwar Mishra ‘Pankaj’ Pg. 183-184
In the name of modern development, this book presents in detail the facts of destruction of many civilizations of the world by Europe and destruction of its environment and nature’s surroundings on the basis of European evidence and its philosophers, historians and sociologists in this matter. Keeping in front the views and facts propounded by
Presents the Indian non-violent vision as well as the new vision of life that has emerged through European and American scientists, especially New Science, in which the Gaya principle, considering the entire universe as a conscious biological entity and on the basis of which the principles of innovation of comprehensive universal values. has been brought to the fore, quoting them from the books of the scientists themselves and then presenting the fact of both philosophy and history of India, proves that although the history of more than 1000 years tells that only violent destruction and Prosperity has come to them only through loot and those societies have achieved prosperity only through loot of other societies but there is also a non-violent way of prosperity which is propounded in detail in Indian philosophy and Indian polity and Indian sociology and theology and By following them, it is possible to achieve prosperity in a non-violent way. Publisher of this book Samagra Prakashan, Mumbai.
Capt Richa Sharma Katyal – The Principal Salwan Public School, Mayur Vihar, New Delhi
Lt Gen Arun Shahni – Director General Indian National Association for The Club of Rome
Dr Ajay Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India
Prof Rishikesha T Krishnan – Director IIM Bangalore
Mr Graeme Maxton – Climate Change economist, former Secretary-General of Club of Rome, Author of Resetting Our Future: A Chicken Can’t Lay a Duck Egg: How Covid-19 can solve the climate crisis
Prof Mattias Desmet – Professor of Clinical Psychology at Ghent Univ. Belgium, Author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism
Prof Rangan Banerjee – Director IIT Delhi
Mr Ashank Desai – Chairman Mastek
Prof Shishir Jha – Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies IIT Bombay
Dr Vishal Massey- Chief Executive Officer / Secretary Indian National Association for The Club of Rome
Subject: The Climate Clock, Global Metacrisis & Intergenerational Injustice: Saving Our Children from Greed Selfishness and Apathy that is snatching away their future?
Dear Mme/Sir,
Season’s Greetings!
I write this mail to all of you with earnest hope for timely collective action to stop what was unthinkable about the world in which we grew up, in the ’80s and ’90s.
Our parents and their generation then, to the best of their abilities, protected us. Many, like my parents, made huge sacrifices in their lives for our education and the opportunity to grow up on a livable planet sustainably. Frugality, back then, at least in my part of the world, was a celebrated virtue. Simple living and high thinking was a powerful influence, from great souls.
The same however, the Right to Life, is being snatched away from our youth and children, mercilessly. Somewhere down the line, in the years following economic liberalisation in India and the ‘dotcom’ boom in the late ’90s, Greed is God mantra began to take over. This set the agenda for Development fueled by shameless and callous hyper-consumerism and a diabolical disregard for ecology and social justice. In the first two decades of the 21st century, globalisation made deep roots, destroying the traditional value system alongside the marauding onslaught of what Dr S Jaishankar Hon. External Affairs Minister of India calls as ‘weaponisation of everything‘. In the past 4 years since the Covid Pandemic, this has rapidly devolved into a full blown global metacrisis, with ugly and murky wars in Ukraine and Palestine and flare ups in several other hotspots.
This ‘deadline’ is set as an Emergency Response to save our children’s future, even as for most people sleepwalking on the climate data, this might seem too ambitious and even impossible. The governments in India or elsewhere cannot do this on their own, because as this article points out, they are trapped, locked into and practically paralysed by the Destructive Global Competition without a CSWG to act on their own.
This was reconfirmed to me in my hour-long video conference with Lt Gen Arun Shahni, two days back, who shared how the Chinese side is bullying India to keep the national territory issue out of their bilateral discussions, and India must therefore further beef up its economic muscle. This is a surefire agenda for Mutually Assured Destruction through DGC intertwined with military warfare, compounding the Global Metacrisis. Lt Gen Shahni is Director-General of India chapter of Club of Rome. We discussed we should next meet with Padma Bhushan Mr S Ramadorai, who is its Chairman.
I have known many of you for more than two decades and thanks to your moral support, I have survived and thrived to further grow in my conviction, to sail against the tide of selfishness, greed and apathy that was sweeping across the globe.
I write to all of you, with great hope, at a critical juncture for humanity as a whole.
Hope, as Vaclav Havel, statesman and global visionary said and I quote, ‘is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” Havel has been one of my key inspirations for the World Government alongside Tagore, Einstein, Gandhi, HG Wells and Sadguru Sadafal Deo Ji Maharaj, founder of Vihangam Yoga who wrote Vishva Rajya Vidhan in 1952 (a vision and principles for world state).
My firm conviction for a Civic Society led World Government comes from a deep-dive understanding of a highly complex scenario based on a multi-disciplinary approach that this is the only way we can reset the Climate Clock to safety and sustainability. This has been bolstered over time from having practiced an ‘ultra-low carbon living’ since 1998 that I preach, with great support from my wife Alka, without whom, this would never be possible, with a family with 2 teenage daughters in a status conscious milieu in Delhi.
My long struggle and a strenuous schedule over past 15 years as a multi-disciplinary researcher, strategist and activist has taken a toll on her health (she is presently recovering from air pollution and stress-induced bone density deficiency) and my urgency for the mission also comes from the need to relieve her of the economic burden at the earliest. She presently runs the household with her earnings as a Music Teacher. Many would judge this as too harsh on my family but probably our collective sacrifices will not go in vain.
Magically enough, our two princess, who will be 21 and 16 this year, turned this adversity to their advantage and have been a great motivation to get through the rough and depressing times, when almost all seemed lost.
I first tried this with the older IITs – IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi most recently, IIM Calcutta, AIIMS Delhi but they are already deeply entrenched into the Destructive Global Competition just like the national governments and mainstream media. They cannot do it alone. We need to ‘catch them young’ in their formative years at the School stage.
Meeting with Capt Richa Sharma Katyal
I had the pleasure to meet Capt Richa for the admission of my younger daughter Parnika Chandra for Class XI in Arts & Humanities. I am thankful to her that unlike some of the other schools in the area we visited, my daughter’s choice for Arts & Humanities was respected and the school did not try to sell her a complementary coaching package for the IITs and other such ‘Cash Courses’.
These schools are woefully unaware of how the job placement market at IITs is crashing (with nearly one-third students not finding jobs) after their unplanned and mindless expansion has beaten the famed IIT system hollow and put them on a collapse course. My recent visits to IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi along with other sources confirm this. In my daughter’s case, at the Principal’s behest at Salwan, she now has the choice of studying Psychology and Mathematics, which was not in the regular choice list, as I recommended her. (Prof Mattias Desmet, who is recognized as the world’s leading expert on the theory of mass formation hypnosis as it applies to the COVID-19 pandemic, is a good example to follow.)
My elder daughter Akarshita Chandra, who studied Science for her Class XI-XII at the same school, wrote this widely appreciated poem Denial in August ’19, a scathing inditement of the intergenerational injustice. She is now studying B. Design in 3rd year at Delhi Technology University. In May that year, few months before, I made this presentation on behalf on the #FridaysForFuture climate campaign team in India, led globally by Greta Thunberg.
Greta, who is 21 years now, a few months older than my daughter, can be seen in this recent picture from 6th April 2024 in The Netherlands, a telling commentary on how we treat our ‘outspoken’ youth who refuse to be muzzled, after such astounding progress of human civilisation. Many eminent scientists, philosophers and the last remaining humans are beginning to call out this f%&%ry in no uncertain terms.
Just a day earlier, to my presentation on Greta’s story on May 16, 2019, this young girl, then 16, had proudly tweeted this pic:
To that perhaps, her compatriot Akarshita, ends her poignant poem with these lines:
If you ask me, I will tell you The human race is flawed It can only see half of the world at a time Philosophies well spun that revolve around threats
Conceal the threat itself With a gratifying chime.
.
It is a cycle that goes on – We take an intelligent step ahead For mankind
Then take two back
In the interests of our
Selfish minds.
Perhaps, teachers, who teach children on good moral values, know better.
The Climate Clock
What also struck me about this school is that it is one of the few schools in Delhi NCR that has a Climate Clock. At the time of writing this email, this clock shows, effectively, how long can the planet we call Mother Earth sustain human life, at least for most people in the cities, where the school is located.
Fact check: Based on most recent climate data, we have already crossed 1.5 degrees for the past 9 months and at present, the 365-day running average is at 1.58 deg C above pre-industrial levels of 1850-1900. Unlike what the Climate Clock projects, even the 3-year running mean which is used as yardstick, will happen much earlier than 5 years. At the same time, countries are far from reaching global consensus to phase out fossil fuels. It has actually increased in the past 9 years since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Time is running out.
‘The science is clear: The 1.5-degree limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce. Not abate. Phase out – with a clear timeframe aligned with the Paris Agreement goal. The fossil fuel industry – the giant behind the climate crisis – is finally starting to wake up. But recent promises from several oil and gas industry members clearly fall short of what is needed. There must be no room for greenwashing.’
– Address by António Guterres Secretary-General of the United Nations on December 6, 2023 at the #COP28 of UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai.
I call out upon all of you for help. I would request Capt Richa Mme to convene a meeting with all the people addressed on this email. To build a shared understanding and chart out a plan of action, I would like to meet you at the earliest possibility to together save the future of our youth and children, as our solemn responsibility.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
There is the true joy of life; to be used by a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; to be thoroughly worn out before being thrown on the scrap heap; to be a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that life will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
सेवा में, केंद्रीय सचिव (उच्च शिक्षा) भारत सरकार नई दिल्ली, भारत
दिनांक : रविवार 03 मार्च 2024
विषय : भारत में उच्च शिक्षा संस्थानों के लिए चुनौतियाँ और अवसर और सभ्यता के पतन की बड़ी तस्वीर
प्रेषक: चंद्र विकास आईआईटी खड़गपुर (बी.टेक 1993) आईआईएम कलकत्ता (एमबीए 1997) संयोजक – गैया अर्थ संसद I संस्थापक-संरक्षक – एमएएस मूवमेंट कंपनी दिल्ली राष्ट्रीय राजधानी क्षेत्र
प्रिय श्री संजय मूर्ति, प्रिय आईआईटी और आईआईएम के प्रतिष्ठित निदेशक, प्रिय राहुल दा, प्रिय सभी,
अपने विचार साझा करने के लिए राहुल दा को धन्यवाद ( यहां पिछली पोस्ट के जवाब में )। एक गौरवान्वित और देशभक्त भारतीय, वैश्विक नागरिक और इंसान के रूप में, मैं अन्य सभी से आग्रह करूंगा कि वे अपनी सहमति या असहमति और उसके अनुसार अपनी कार्रवाई साझा करें। मैं उपरोक्त ग्राफ़ को शनिवार 02 मार्च 2024 से वैश्विक औसत तापमान विसंगति डेटा पर साझा करता हूं।
यह वैश्विक औद्योगिक सभ्यता के चल रहे पतन और सार्थक हस्तक्षेप की खिड़की तेजी से बंद होने के साथ बड़े पैमाने पर विलुप्त होने के कई अन्य संकेतकों में से एक है।
हम यहाँ कैसे आए?
“अंधाधुंध खर्च करो! अत्यधिक तेज़ गति के साथ आगे! मर जाओ या जीतो! विकास की ओर अग्रसर! मुझे लगता है कि यह इस विश्वास को दर्शाता है कि यदि हम वर्तमान में बहुत अधिक समस्याएं पैदा करते हैं, तो भविष्य सीख लेगा कि इससे कैसे निपटना है।” अर्थशास्त्री और अमेरिकन इकोनॉमिक एसोसिएशन के पूर्व अध्यक्ष केनेथ बोल्डिंग ने इसे ‘दुस्साहस की नैतिकता’ कहा। इसके विपरीत विवेकपूर्ण आर्थिक नीति कहती है: “एक मिनट रुकें, लाभ और लागत दोनों देखने हैं। आइए दोनों का आकलन करें। हम सीधे चट्टान के ऊपर से खाई में कूदना नहीं चाहते। आइए लाभ-हानि पर नजर डालें। क्या इस निर्णय से हम बेहतर हो रहे हैं या बदतर?”
मुझे इस बात पर कोई आश्चर्य नहीं है कि भारत में कॉरपोरेट फैक्ट्रियों में ट्रकों में भरकर लाए गए ज़ोंबी (मूढ़) और पालतू भेड़ें आपके गोद में खेलेंगे। संदिग्ध अमेरिकी डॉलर के दम पर ‘अमेरिकन पागलपन’ दुनिया भर में फैल रहा है।
“स्वार्थी व्यवहार इनाम से प्रेरित और जन्मजात होते हैं, आदिम मस्तिष्क के अस्तित्व तंत्र में गहराई से जुड़े होते हैं, और जब लगातार प्रबलित होते हैं, तो वे धन, भोजन या शक्ति की लालसा के साथ लालच की ओर भागेंगे। दूसरी ओर, आत्म-संयम और दूसरों के प्रति सहानुभूति जो शारीरिक और मानसिक स्वास्थ्य को बढ़ावा देने में बहुत महत्वपूर्ण हैं, सीखे गए व्यवहार हैं – बड़े पैमाने पर नए मानव प्रांतस्था के कार्य और इस प्रकार सांस्कृतिक रूप से निर्भर हैं।
– पीटर व्हाईब्रो, एएम अप्रैल 2006
फिर भी, आप जिस बात की वकालत करते हैं वह तीन मामलों में आपराधिक उकसावे की बात है। एक, यह अंतरपीढ़ीगत धोखाधड़ी है। लागत आने वाली पीढ़ियों पर थोपी जाती है। दो, भारत जैसे बड़े अत्यधिक अधर्मी देश में – यह औसत का दोष है। तीन, वायु प्रदूषण, जल प्रदूषण, भूमि क्षरण, मनोवैज्ञानिक और आध्यात्मिक क्षरण सभी को ‘नकारात्मक बाह्यताओं’ के रूप में खारिज कर दिया जाता है।
जैसे-जैसे स्थिति बदलती है, अब हमें नागरिक समाज के नेतृत्व वाली विश्व सरकार के साथ एक ‘समानांतर संरचना’ की आवश्यकता है। SIMPOL के संस्थापक जॉन बंज़ल के पास महान अंतर्दृष्टि है जो 16 फरवरी को म्यूनिख सुरक्षा सम्मेलन में एंटोनियो गुटेरेस ने जो कहा था और हरमन डेली ने बहुत पहले जो साझा किया था, उससे मेल खाता है:
1. हमें एक विश्व सरकार की आवश्यकता है
आज, हमारे पास वैश्विक बाजार है लेकिन केवल राष्ट्रीय शासन है। इस “प्रशासन अंतर” को देखते हुए, यह आश्चर्य की बात नहीं है कि विनाशकारी वैश्विक प्रतिस्पर्धा किसी भी नियंत्रण से बाहर हो रही है और हम सभी को उस ग्रह को नष्ट करने के लिए प्रेरित कर रही है जिस पर हम निर्भर हैं। वैश्विक समस्याओं को हल करने में मुख्य बाधा यह है कि कोई भी सरकार पहले कदम नहीं उठा सकती या अकेले कार्य नहीं कर सकती क्योंकि ऐसा करने से उसकी राष्ट्रीय अर्थव्यवस्था अप्रतिस्पर्धी हो जाएगी, जिससे बेरोजगारी, पूंजी पलायन और आर्थिक गिरावट का खतरा होगा। जैसा कि ब्रिटेन के पूर्व प्रधान मंत्री टोनी ब्लेयर ने कहा था, “जलवायु परिवर्तन की राजनीति की कठोर वास्तविकता यह है कि कोई भी देश इस चुनौती से निपटने के लिए अपनी अर्थव्यवस्था का बलिदान देने को तैयार नहीं होगा।”
यह सभी वैश्विक समस्याओं के लिए सत्य है। वैश्वीकृत अर्थव्यवस्था में, ऐसा हमेशा रहेगा। इसलिए सरकारें “कैदी की दुविधा” में फंस गई हैं। ऐसा नहीं है कि वे वैश्विक समस्याओं का समाधान नहीं करना चाहते, लेकिन वे ऐसा नहीं कर सकते। वास्तव में, यही कारण है कि व्यापक आंदोलन ने बहुत कम हासिल किया है: क्योंकि यह उन लोगों से बदलाव की मांग करता है – यानी, सरकारें – जो इसे देने में असमर्थ हैं। इसकी जटिलता और पैमाने को देखते हुए, भारत में उच्च शिक्षा प्रणाली के पास विश्व सरकार के गठन का नेतृत्व करने की जिम्मेदारी और अवसर है, जिसकी शुरुआत वैश्विक शासन अध्ययन केंद्र की स्थापना से होगी , जिसमें आईआईटी बॉम्बे में एडीसीपीएस और आईआईएम बैंगलोर में सीपीपी इसके नोडल होंगे। केन्द्रों. चूँकि समय समाप्त होता जा रहा है, इसके लिए आपातकालीन प्रतिक्रिया की आवश्यकता है। गैया अर्थ संसद, एक नागरिक-समाज पहल जिसे मैंने ग्लोबल एकेडमी फॉर इंडिजिनस एक्टिविज्म ( जीएआईए ) के साथ 5 साल पहले स्थापित किया था, 2006 से इस दिशा में काम कर रहा है।
2. पदानुक्रम स्वाभाविक एवं आवश्यक हैं
हमारा मुख्य रूप से उत्तर-आधुनिक विश्वदृष्टिकोण जो सभी पदानुक्रमों और सभी मेटा-कथाओं, चैंपियन विकेंद्रीकरण, विविधता, नेतृत्वहीन गठबंधन, क्षैतिज नेटवर्क आदि को खारिज करता है। वैश्विक न्याय पहल के इस खंडित, क्षैतिज, असंगठित समूह के खिलाफ सेट, हमारे पास डीजीसी की एकल, व्यापक गतिशीलता है : एक वैश्विक, एकीकृत, सर्वव्यापी, ऊपर से नीचे, विनाशकारी, नियंत्रण से बाहर गतिशील। एक विकेन्द्रीकृत, गैर-पदानुक्रमित संरचना इसके विरुद्ध कभी सफल नहीं हो सकती। एकता और कुछ पदानुक्रम की आवश्यकता को स्वीकार किए बिना, हमारे पास नागरिक समाज के नेतृत्व वाली विश्व सरकार बनाने की बिल्कुल भी संभावना नहीं है।
इसलिए हमें यह समझने की आवश्यकता है कि पदानुक्रम स्वाभाविक और अपरिहार्य हैं। हालाँकि, चाल वास्तविक पदानुक्रमों (यानी, स्वस्थ वाले) और प्रभुत्व वाले पदानुक्रम (यानी, अस्वस्थ वाले) के बीच अंतर करना है। एक वैश्विक प्रभुत्ववादी पदानुक्रम होने के नाते, डीजीसी को केवल एक एकीकृत, वैश्विक यथार्थीकरण पदानुक्रम द्वारा दूर किया जा सकता है – अर्थात, विश्व स्तर पर समन्वित, सहकारी, नागरिक-संचालित वैश्विक शासन प्रक्रिया के कुछ रूप से जो राष्ट्र-राज्यों से परे और शामिल है: एक वास्तविक पदानुक्रम जो डालता है हम, नागरिक, ड्राइविंग सीट पर हैं, जो हमें राष्ट्रों को अपने शीर्ष पर एक विश्व सरकार के साथ वैश्विक पदानुक्रम पर सहमत होने के लिए प्रेरित करने में सक्षम बनाता है और पुनर्गठित प्रांतों, समुदाय-राज्यों और जमीनी स्तर के शासन संस्थानों को सहयोगात्मक रूप से वैश्विक समस्याओं को हल करने के लिए आवश्यक नीतियों को लागू करता है। . भारत अपने बहुलवादी समाज और समृद्ध विविधता के साथ, उच्च शिक्षा संस्थानों और अपने जीवंत नागरिक समाज के नेतृत्व में, विश्व सरकार के गठन में एक अनुकरणीय भूमिका निभाता है।
3. सहायकता आंदोलन की एकता का निर्माण करती है
एक और चीज़ जो हम खो रहे हैं वह यह है कि पदानुक्रमों को साकार करने से जहाँ एकता की आवश्यकता होती है वहाँ एकता को बढ़ावा मिलता है और जहाँ इसकी आवश्यकता नहीं होती है वहाँ विविधता को बढ़ावा मिलता है। दुनिया में प्रत्येक सुसंगत इकाई को किसी न किसी प्रकार के शासन द्वारा एक साथ बांधा गया है, चाहे वह एक परमाणु हो, एक कोशिका हो, आपका शरीर हो, या एक राष्ट्र हो। शासन संरचनाएँ भी बहु-स्तरीय हैं, क्योंकि जैसे-जैसे समाज का विस्तार होता है, मौजूदा शासन संरचनाएँ अंततः सामना नहीं कर पाती हैं, इस प्रकार नई, उच्च-स्तरीय शासन संरचनाओं के निर्माण की आवश्यकता होती है। इन स्तरों के बीच परिचालन सिद्धांत सहायकता है: जिसे न्यूनतम संभव स्तर पर हल नहीं किया जा सकता है उसे अगले-उच्च स्तर तक ले जाया जाता है। यह एकता को बढ़ावा देता है जहां इसकी आवश्यकता है, जबकि स्वतंत्रता और विविधता के लिए जगह छोड़ता है जहां इसकी आवश्यकता नहीं है। इस समग्र संदर्भ में, श्री मूर्ति से मेरी हार्दिक प्रार्थना है कि यथाशीघ्र एक असाधारण आपातकालीन बैठक बुलाई जाए।
सिविक सोसायटी के नेतृत्व वाली विश्व सरकार क्यों और सिविल सोसायटी क्यों नहीं?
नागरिक नागरिकता इस बात से संबंधित है कि लोग राज्य संस्थानों के साथ कैसे बातचीत करते हैं (मतदान करके या निर्वाचित कार्यालय के लिए दौड़कर, करों का भुगतान करके, या कानून के तहत अपने अधिकारों की पुष्टि करके), जबकि नागरिक नागरिकता इस बात पर ध्यान केंद्रित करती है कि लोग एक समुदाय के भीतर कैसे रहते हैं और बातचीत करते हैं, चाहे वह कोई भी हो पड़ोस, एक शहर, एक जातीय प्रवासी, या वैश्विक स्तर पर। नागरिक विश्वदृष्टिकोण में, राज्य समाज का एक अभिन्न अंग है और उससे अलग नहीं है, जैसा कि नागरिक विश्वदृष्टिकोण के मामले में है।
नागरिक नागरिकता हमेशा राष्ट्र से संबंधित होती है, लेकिन नागरिक नागरिकता राष्ट्रीय सीमाओं से परे पहुंच सकती है और वृहद स्तर, वैश्विक नागरिकता तक ज़ूम कर सकती है, या यह सूक्ष्म, हाइपर स्थानीय नागरिकता तक ज़ूम कर सकती है।
यह संयोगवश वसुधैव कुटुंबकम या एक परिवार/गांव के रूप में विश्व का सच्चा आयात है, जिसका अर्थ बड़े पैमाने पर विश्व के एक सूक्ष्म जगत के रूप में परिवार/गांव भी है।
Microcosm is Macrocosm. (Yatha Pinde Tatha Brahmande)
एलएसीई-गैया मॉडल ज्ञान साझा करने के लिए वैश्विक मामलों में वैश्विक नागरिकता के साथ-साथ जलवायु और पारिस्थितिकी को ठीक करने और मरम्मत करने और स्थानीय स्तर पर हमारे दैनिक जीवन का प्रबंधन करने के लिए आपातकालीन प्रतिक्रिया के रूप में ‘कार्बन सिंक’ जीवन शैली के साथ हमारे दैनिक जीवन के लिए हाइपर-स्थानीय या जमीनी स्तर की नागरिकता दोनों को बढ़ावा देता है। जहां तक संभव हो।
संदर्भ:
1. स्थानीय ही भविष्य है @ ऑस्ट्रेलिया में सस्टेनेबल सिटीज़ कांग्रेस, नवंबर 2018
2. स्वस्थ, सामंजस्यपूर्ण और समग्र विश्व व्यवस्था और जीवन के स्वदेशी तरीकों की दिशा में एक बेहतर तरीका @ वर्ल्ड काउंसिल फॉर हेल्थ जनरल असेंबली मीटिंग #37 18 अप्रैल 2022 को
‘अब हम इस तथ्य का सामना कर रहे हैं कि कल आज है। हम अभी की भीषण तात्कालिकता का सामना कर रहे हैं। जीवन और इतिहास की इस उभरती पहेली में बहुत देर हो जाने जैसी बात भी है। विलंब अभी भी समय का चोर है. जीवन अक्सर हमें खोए हुए अवसर के साथ नग्न, नग्न और निराश खड़ा कर देता है। ‘मनुष्यों के मामलों में ज्वार’ बाढ़ पर नहीं रहता; यह उतरता है। हम उसके मार्ग में रुकने के लिए समय की बेताबी से दुहाई दे सकते हैं, लेकिन समय हर गुहार को अनसुना कर देता है और तेजी से आगे बढ़ता है। अनेक सभ्यताओं की प्रक्षालित हड्डियों और बिखरे हुए अवशेषों पर दयनीय शब्द लिखे हैं: ‘बहुत देर हो गई’।
Proposed Structure of Civic Society-led World Government
What is in it for the Central Government of India?
What is in it for the State Government of Delhi?
What is the urgency to organize in May 2024?
Why Civic Society-led World Government and not Civil Society?
1. Agenda Note
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam A Quantum Leap for Humanity
Narrow-minded thinking of ‘this is mine’ and ‘that is not mine’ comes out of greed, apathy and selfishness entangled with ignorance, fear and insecurity. For past several centuries since the European Industrial Revolution with its predominant mechanistic and reductionist worldview to colonize the world through weaponization of trade and commerce, hoarding of material resources as ‘private property’ began to be celebrated widely, this narrow-mindedness seeped deep into the very fabric of modern culture and civilization. What used to be the ‘commons’ was now sold-off to private owners of fiat money as ‘sovereign’ states with a monopoly of organized violence and legitimacy in the present dysfunctional global order. These ‘sovereign’ states have been treacherously subjugated by a globalised financial cartel as their private armies. This is the nature of the global disorder today.
As we unpack this colorful and sassy patriotic brand of narrowmindedness, we can see thick toxic and murky discharge of ‘White Man’s Burden’ spilling out. This was disseminated through colonialist rape and plunder of indigenous societies worldwide that destroyed the relatively harmonious world order that had existed for thousands of years.
The wise and broad-minded, on the other hand, think of the world as a family, as the Sanskrit phrase Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam depicts. Even if such broad-minded are few and far between due to the rabid globalization of Popular Errors created by the narrow-minded, they hold on to the Unpopular Truth that love, kindness, compassion and generosity, truth, frugality and honesty are truly human virtues and the key to our health, abundance and prosperity for all.
This is the import of these verses from the Maha Upanishad, storehouse of the cosmopolitan indigenous wisdom, Verses 6.71–73:
अयं बन्धुरयं नेति गणना लघुचेतसाम् ।
उदारचरितानां तु वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम् ॥71II
भावाभावविनिर्मुक्तं जरामरणवर्जितम् ।
प्रशान्तकलनारभ्यं नीरागं पदमाश्रय ॥72II
एषा ब्राह्मी स्थितिः स्वच्छा निष्कामा विगतामया ।
आदाय विहरन्नेवं सङ्कटेषु न मुह्यति ॥73II
This is mine, that is not, say the small minded,
The wise believe that the entire world is a family (vasudhaiv kutumbakam).
Be unattached, Be magnanimous, Lift up your mind, Enjoy the fruits of quantum freedom.
Dangerous ‘vacuum’ in the Global Hierarchy with the Collapse of the American Empire
Michael Brenner, Professor Emeritus of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and a Fellow of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at School of Advanced International Studies – Johns Hopkins is one among the few broad-minded people today. In a scathing indictment of ‘Western’ leaders, Prof Brenner writes on the West’s Reckoning in this article on 8 March 2024 here:
“Western leaders are experiencing two stunning events: defeat in Ukraine, genocide in Palestine. The first is humiliating, the other shameful. Yet, they feel no humiliation or shame. Their actions show vividly that those sentiments are alien to them – unable to penetrate the entrenched barriers of dogma, arrogance and deep-seated insecurities. The last are personal as well as political. Therein lies a puzzle. For, as a consequence, the West has set itself on a path of collective suicide. Moral suicide in Gaza; diplomatic suicide – the foundations laid in Europe, the Middle East and across Eurasia; economic suicide – the dollar-based global financial system jeopardized, Europe deindustrializing. It is not a pretty picture. Astoundingly, this self-destruction is occurring in the absence of any major trauma – external or internal. Therein lies another, related puzzle.
Some clues for these abnormalities are provided by their most recent responses as deteriorating conditions tighten the vise – on emotions, on prevailing policies, on domestic political worries, on ginger egos. Those responses fall under the category of panic behavior. Deep down, they are scared, fearful and agitated. Biden et al in Washington, Macron, Schulz, Sunak, Stoltenberg, von der Leyen. They lack the courage of their stated convictions or the courage to face reality squarely. The blunt truth is that they have contrived to get themselves, and their countries, in a quandary from which there is no escape conforming to their current self-defined interests and emotional engagement. Hence, we observe an array of reactions that are feckless, grotesque and dangerous.”
The West, though is no longer a geographical pointer, but widespread among the factory educated, as I refer in this 2009 article here titled ‘The Derailment Of Western Civilization – Does It Need A Bail-Out?’ “Western civilization is no longer about geography – it’s a stereotype for greed, addiction and overt and covert forms of white-collar crime; or perhaps, of a debauched asylum, taken over by its inmates. This doesn’t need no BAIL-OUT. That’s a serious misdiagnosis of the real problem. It needs REHABILITATION.”
Prof Brenner writes in a 2017 article here: “Psychosis can stem from trauma and acute stress. In the American case, our traumatic event was 9/11. The ensuing terror psychosis is well into its second decade. It shows no signs of ameliorating – even though there have been no serious attacks against the United States over the past 13 years.”
Dominique de Villepin, former French Prime Minister, warns the world of the incumbent French premier Emmannuel Macron’s utterly irresponsible rhetoric on sending NATO ground troops to Ukraine and the extreme danger behind his and some other NATO leaders’ attempt to escalate the conflict into a full fledged World War:
“For this debate [over sending ground troops] to have been useful, it would have first been necessary for us to be able to answer 5 questions. Five risks associated with this escalation, this step we would be taking if we were to send ground troops, send fighters. Five risks.
The first is the expansion of the conflict. If we send ground troops, do we know if on the Russian side others will send, on the other side, ground troops? Will we face African fighters, will we face Asian fighters, will we face Middle Eastern fighters in this global south that also wants to take on the West?”
The balance of power in the chaotic multipolar world is already undergoing a megashift. Economist James K. Galbraith, professor at the University of Texas at Austin explains why the Western sanctions on Russia backfired, and why they were never going to succeed in the first place..
“This is a situation in which the sanctions were imposed by one important sector of the world economy which then cut itself off from resources that it needs – and that’s particularly true of Western Europe – in return for cutting Russia off from various things that Russia doesn’t really need.”
“If you go back to the period before the introduction of the sanctions […] the Russian economy was very heavily colonized by Western firms. That was true in automobiles, it was true in aircrafts, it was true in everything from fast food restaurants to big box stores. Western firms were present all throughout the Russian economy. A great many of them […] either chose to exit Russia or were pressured to exit Russia after early 2022. So on what terms did they leave? Well, they were required, if they were leaving permanently, to sell their capital equipment, their factories and so forth, to let’s say a Russian business which would get a loan from Russian banks or maybe have other sources of financing, at a very favorable price for the Russians.
So effectively a lot of capital wealth, which was partly owned by the West, has been transferred to Russian ownership. And you now have an economy which is moving forward and has the advantage compared to Europe of relatively low resource costs because Russia is a great producer of resources, oil and gas and fertilizer and food stuff and so forth. And so while the Europeans are paying maybe twice in Germany what they were paying for energy, the Russians are not, they’re paying perhaps less than they were paying before the war. So again I characterize the effect of the sanctions, in fact as being in certain respects a gift to the Russian economy. And this is, I think, quite different from what the authors of the sanctions expected. […] And the essence of the situation is this would not have happened without the sanctions.
You could have had the war, and it would have gone pretty much as it has gone. But the Russian government in 2022 was in no position to force the exit of Western firms. It didn’t want to, wouldn’t have done that. It was in no position to force its oligarchs to choose between Russia and the West. It didn’t wish to do that. These choices were imposed by the West, and the results were actually, in many respects, favorable to the long-term independent development of the Russian Federation’s economy.”
A close scrutiny of influential expert opinion even from America sees the emergence of Russia as a widely respected great power that not only survived the collapse of Soviet Union after the protracted 40-year Cold War phase of the continuing Second World War where the belligerent occupier colonialist state of America is finally seen as imploding under the massive weight of its own contradictions. The 2024 US elections, if it manages to survive by then, will mark the final nail in its coffin.
How did we get here?
“Hang the cost! Full speed ahead! Death or victory right now! Forward into growth! I guess that shows a faith that if we create too many problems in the present, the future will learn how to deal with it.” Kenneth Boulding, economist and former president of the American Economic Association called it ‘heroic ethic’. The economic ethic OTOH says: “Wait a minute, there’s benefits and costs. Let’s weigh the two. We don’t want to charge right over the cliff. Let’s look at the margin. Are we getting better off or worse?”
“Selfish behaviors are reward driven and innate, wired deeply into the survival mechanisms of the primitive brain, and when consistently reinforced, they will run away to greed, with its associated craving for money, food, or power. On the other hand, the self restraint and the empathy for others that are so important in fostering physical and mental health are learned behaviors – largely functions of the new human cortex and thus culturally dependent.” – Peter Whybrow,
Peter C. Whybrow is former Director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA. In American Mania: When More is Not Enough (2006), he grounds the extraordinary achievements and excessive consumption of the American nation in an understanding of the biology of the brain’s reward system offering for the first time a comprehensive and physical explanation for the addictive mania of consumerism. He offers a bold analysis of the cultural disease that afflicts us all. American Mania presents a clear and novel vantage point from which to understand the most pressing social issues of our time, while offering an informed approach to refocusing our pursuit of happiness.
Despite an astonishing appetite for life, more and more Americans and by contagion, people around the world caught in the rat race, are feeling overworked and dissatisfied. In the world’s most affluent nation, epidemic rates of stress, anxiety, depression, obesity, and time urgency are now grudgingly accepted as part of everyday existence; they signal the American Dream gone awry. ‘American Mania’ is sweeping across the globe powered by the dubious US dollar on various counts.
One, there is intergenerational fraud. Costs are passed on to coming generations. Two, in a large highly iniquitous country like India – this is Flaw of Averages. Three, air pollution, water pollution, land degradation, psychological and spiritual degradation are all brushed aside as ‘negative externalities’.
In the concluding passage of the final chapter on Meditation inhis book 21 Lessons for 21st Century, popular author Yuval Noah Harari shares his experiences of a Vipassana meditation course and regular practice since, on advice of his good friend who suggested that he should put aside all the books and intellectual discussions for a few days.
‘Self-observation has never been easy, but it might get harder with time. As history unfolded, humans created more and more complex stories about themselves, which made it increasingly difficult to know who we really are. ..As technology improved..it became easier to delude people. In the near future, algorithms will make it well-near impossible for people to observe the reality about themselves. It will be algorithms that will decide for us who we are and what we should know about ourselves.
For a few more years or decades, we still have a choice. If we make the effort (to mediate), we can still investigate who we really are. But if we want to make use of this opportunity, we had better do it now.’
This echoes what philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin says in a recent article, ‘Faced with the polycrisis humanity is going through, the first resistance is that of the spirit’. With an increasing number of wars, climate change and the rise of authoritarian regimes, the world may be heading for disaster, but we must resist hatred, argues the sociologist and philosopher as he writes:
“Prodigious technological and scientific progress in all areas is the cause of the worst regressions of our century. ..Though difficult to conceive, we must realize that the progress of knowledge, through the multiplication and mutual separation of disciplines, has caused a regression of thought, which in fact has become blind. Linked to a dominance of calculation in an increasingly technocratic world, the progress of knowledge is unable to conceive the complexity of reality, especially human realities. This leads to a return of dogmatisms and fanaticisms, as well as a crisis of morality with the unleashing of hatreds and idolatries.”
Greed, apathy and selfishness, pull us down to protect the nation-states as a vulgar projection of ego where nationalism is used deviously not only to treat others as outsiders and enemies, overtly or covertly, both outside the national boundaries but also to suppress sub-national resistance, in the neo-progressive worldview. They subversively engage in what Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General in his recent speech at the Munich Security Conference on 16 February 2024 calls out as ‘aggressive opportunism’ and ‘miscalculations’ with ‘no accountability’. The existing global order, he says, is not working for anyone.
“Our world is facing existential challenges, but the global community is more fragmented and divided than at any time during the past 75 years.
Multipolarity has created important opportunities for balance and justice, and for new leadership on the global stage.
But the transition to multipolarity without strong global institutions can create chaos.
When power relations are vague, the dangers of aggressive opportunism and miscalculation grow.
Today we see countries doing whatever they like, with no accountability.
Impunity seems to be the name of the game and so we must all be determined to establish the primacy of the rule of law.
As the Munich Security Report makes clear, relative gains through competition between countries are being prioritized over absolute gains for all through cooperation.
Crises are multiplying, linked to competition and impunity.
A global order that works for everyone must address these gaps and provide solutions.”
Proposed Structure of World Government
As the tide turns, we now need a ‘parallel structure’ with a civic society-led world government.
This must begin with the setting up of the Centre of Global Governance Studies in every higher education institution in India with a centrally-coordinated and integrated Design & Policy Research Program on diverse topics through collaborative teams of users, industry, media, civic society and government.
This is an Emergency Response to develop a symbiotic relationship between academia, industry and government bodies. We can together find meaningful solutions for the country and humanity at large in a world which as our Hon. External Affairs Minister says, the very nature of our existence is globalized, and lead policymaking to drive change where the competitive aggression and impunity of the unbridled nation-states and a hapless United Nations poses a grave threat to humanity and snuffs out the prospects of any future for our children and coming generations.
Conventional notions of sovereignty and the nation-state in international relations and international law need to be revisited in light of the stark indictment of the current global order shared by Hon. Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres at the Munich Security Conference on 16 February 2024.
This comes at a time when a mountain of evidence is pointing to the need for a new global order to address what have been called ‘super wicked’ problems characterized by four additional features – they need emergency response, they need a central authority, they need decision makers who do not have vested interests and they need whole systems design and visionary leadership for farsighted solutions.
John Bunzl, founder of SIMPOL, has great insights that echoes with what António Guterres said on 16 Feb at Munich Security Conference and what Harman Daly had shared since long back:
1. We need a World Government. Today, we have a global market but only national governance. Given this “governance gap,” it is not surprising that Destructive Global Competition is running out of any control and continues to drive us all to destroy the planet on which we depend. The main barrier to solving global problems is that no government can move first or act alone because doing so would make its national economy uncompetitive, risking unemployment, capital flight, and economic decline. As former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said, “The blunt reality of the politics of climate change is that no country will be willing to sacrifice its economy in order to address this challenge.”1 This remains true for all global problems. In a globalized economy, it will always be so. Governments are therefore caught in a “Prisoner’s Dilemma.” It’s not that they don’t want to solve global problems, but that they can’t. That, indeed, is why the wider movement has achieved little: because it demands change from those—i.e., governments—who are incapable of delivering it. Given its complexity and scale, the higher education system in India has a responsibility and opportunity to lead the formation of a world government, starting with setting up of Centre of Global Governance Studies. As time is running out this needs an Emergency Response. Gaia Earth Sansad, a civic-society initiative that I founded 5 years back along with Global Academy for Indigenous Activism (GAIA) has been working in this direction since 2006.
2. Hierarchies are natural and necessary: Our predominantly postmodern worldview that rejects all hierarchies and all meta-narratives, champions decentralization, diversity, leaderless coalitions, horizontal networks, etc. Set against this fragmented, horizontal, uncoordinated mass of global justice initiatives, we have the single, overarching dynamic of DGC: a global, unified, all-pervading, top-down, destructive, out-of-control dynamic. A decentralized, non-hierarchical structure can never succeed against this. Without acknowledging the need for unity and some hierarchy, we have absolutely no chance of forming a civic society-led world government.
We need therefore to understand that hierarchies are natural and indispensable. The trick, however, is to distinguish between actualizing hierarchies (i.e., healthy ones) and dominator hierarchies (i.e., unhealthy ones). Being a global dominator hierarchy, DGC can only be overcome by a unified, global actualizing hierarchy—that is, by some form of globally coordinated, cooperative, citizen-driven global governance process that transcends and includes nation-states: an actualizing hierarchy that puts us, citizens, in the driving seat, rendering us capable of driving nations to agree to a global hierarchy with a world government at its apex and the reconstituted provinces, community-states and grassroots governance institutions, cooperatively implement the necessary policies to solve global problems. India with its pluralistic society and rich diversity, led by the higher education institutions and its vibrant civic society, plays an exemplary role in the formation of the world government.
3. Subsidiarity builds movement unity. Another thing we are missing is that actualizing hierarchies promote unity where it is needed and diversity where it is not. Every coherent entity in the world is held together by some form of governance, whether it be an atom, a cell, your body, or a nation. Governance structures are also multi-level because, as societies expand, existing governance structures eventually can’t cope, thus necessitating the creation of new, higher-level governance structures. The operating principle between these levels is subsidiarity: what cannot be solved at the lowest possible level is taken up to the next-higher level. This promotes unity where it is needed, while leaving space for independence and diversity where it is not.
2. What is in it for the world democracy of ~8 billion people and for humanity at large?
Peace and harmony based on truth and transparency, justice and equity, sustainability and prosperity for all including our youth, children and coming generations
End of theocratic states. Religion will no longer, overtly or covertly, be the basis of nationalism or identity of any province or community-state in the proposed global order of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam. Culture will follow the indigenous way of life based on geo-climatic conditions. Religion must be universal and individual must be free to choose their faith and belief system in a spiritual way.
3. What is in it for the Central Government of India?
India, as the world’s most populous country, a vibrant democracy with its pluralistic and welcoming culture, and immense Soft Power is best placed to host the World Government.
Forming a World Government is an opportunity to abolish the undemocratic and offensive structure of the United Nations Security Council with Permanent Seats and Veto powers.
This will help resolve the border issues with belligerent and offensive neighbors such as Pakistan, China and others.
Wasteful and inappropriate expenditure on military-industrial-media complex and Destructive Global Competition will be now channelised in constructive projects and to heal and restore ecological wealth.
It will further bolster global respect for India and fulfill its long pending obligations to the Non-Aligned Movement, to the Global South, BRICS, Quad and other alliances and treaties that India is part of.
India will have the opportunity to create and steer a new global financial architecture with a new global currency.
There will be opportunity for national leaders to grow and rise in the new global order.
In the new global order, there will be opportunity to reform critical sectors of education and healthcare, energy and mobility services, as well as focus on cultural and spiritual upliftment enhancing the overall quality of life.
3. What is in it for the State Government of Delhi?
Delhi emerges as the global hub and grows as a world city.
As World Capital Region and one of the 80 provinces, Delhi will have all the administrative powers.
Delhi has an extensive metro rail and bus service network. This will be adequately utilized and augmented with state-of-art Mobility-as-a-Service.
With a global mandate that will check and reverse the Destructive Global Competition, there will be greater scope to address various other civic problems – mitigate water crisis and air pollution, create localized food supply, create zero-to-landfill waste to wealth and overall localized abundance and circular economy with LACE-Gaia Model.
4. What is in it for the other State Governments in the Indian Union?
With ~1.4 billion population, India will have 14 provinces. With greater regional and local autonomy, there will be 14 Heads of Provinces and 700 Heads of Community-States.
This will fulfill the common cause of collaborative federalism as 14 Provinces in India among 80 provinces worldwide.
This will be a great opportunity to even out regional disparities and restore ecology.
5. What is the urgency to organize in May-June 2024?
As shared in the agenda note, the world is in acute turmoil and needs an Emergency Response to mitigate the global metacrisis and a variety of super wicked problems.
As the global system further breaks down, the recovery will become even more difficult and will drive panic and drastic measures such as blocking out the sun which can have devastating effects on Earth ecosystems.
Annexure: The Question of Indigenous
Are you indigenous or non-indigenous? Why does this question stump so many and often draw a blank and bewildered response?
The ‘non-indigenous’ barbarity disguised itself as a new kind of Civilisation and with passage of time, packaged as the ‘realist’ world order. Through several generations of subjugation and conditioning, it has rubbed off on the newly acquired subjects and slaves of the colonizers, infusing them with a ‘slave morality’. (The whiteness of racism incidentally was an afterthought to ‘divide and rule’ the colored slaves from the white skinned ones.)
Rest is history of the past few centuries, or at least the dominant view, taught in most of the textbooks in schools and colleges in most parts of the world that are even today mired in the shadows of neo-colonialism under different nomenclatures from the neo-conservative and the neo-liberals.
This narrow-mindedness of materialistic corpulence has bloated the new ‘standards of living’ way beyond actual human needs even for the most healthy and vibrant lifestyles. It has grown monstrously in the aftermath of the yet inconclusive Second World War. Here is what actually happened.
Instead of a defeat of the Axis of Evil of Nazi and their Zionist allies as is claimed and the victory of Allied Powers – mainly America, Britain, France and USSR, this War did not actually end. With America as its mastermind, the war morphed its form and became more treacherous and deceptive with a pervasive ‘weaponization of everything’. Both the Nazis and Zionists escaped and were rehabilitated in the occupier, settler-colonialist state of the United States of America. The diabolical tactics of the American state and its agencies such as the CIA, Federal Reserve Bank, propaganda machine bear a distinctive blueprint of the Nazis and the Zionists. They were joined along with similar narrow-minded but powerful elites from many other parts of the world as ‘human shields’ to hide its nefarious agenda, similar to how Israel was ‘settled’ in the 20th century. “The US is more than a protector of Israel. It is now an accomplice in its genocidal attack on the Palestinian people of Gaza,” Jeffrey D. Sachs, a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, wrote and published on Common Dreams in December 2023.
The conceptual arrangements of this treachery and deception of this One World against Many Worlds is much older though, and is coded into the very inception of America, after the genocide of 60-70 million people in the erstwhile Turtle Islands. Earlier called the United Colonies of America, USA is founded on the now repudiated Doctrine of Discovery and is the precursor to the cliched phrase used more often in the context of the Middle East – ‘A land without a people for a people without a land’. The liberal and lucrative scholarships, jobs and venture funding handed out to the ravaged and/or ravenous refugees from various Third World countries, apart from being ‘human shields’ double up as smokescreens to hide the skeletons in the cupboards and the mountainous heaps of bones of the livestocks of the native peoples who they killed and captured their land.
This ‘classical’, ‘realist’ and increasingly perceived as ‘practical’ narrow-mindedness added tinges of balancing ‘liberalism’ with the passage of time. It became vulgarly advertised in the new impetus on GDP growth as the key yardstick of the new mammonic religion of Development. It was now legally protected, programmed into the government machinery of even the newly de-colonised ‘independent’ countries; socially sanctioned as ‘upward mobility’ and incessantly fed into young minds since early childhood through factory education. Over time, this mechanistic and reductionist worldview has created conflicts that entangle into a vicious cesspool of trauma and violence, scarcity, deprivation and debauchery.
This is where we are largely today, at the rock bottom of human degradation, teetering at the brink of extinction. Only a few among those who are ‘factory educated’ manage to escape and survive to hold the mirror even when such notions of progress become a Popular Error.
Why Civic Society-led World Government and not Civil Society?
Civil citizenship pertains to how people interact with state institutions (by voting or running for elected office, paying taxes, or having their rights affirmed under law), whereas Civic citizenship tends to focus on how people live and interact within a community, be it a neighbourhood, a city, an ethnic diaspora, or at a global level. In the Civic worldview, state is an integral part of the society and not separate from it, as in the case of Civil worldview.
Civil citizenship is always related to the nation, but Civic citizenship can reach beyond national borders and zoom out to macro level, global citizenship, or it can zoom in to micro, hyper local citizenship.
This incidentally is the true import of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam or World as a Family/Village which also means Family/Village as a microcosm of the World at large.
Microcosm is Macrocosm. (Yatha Pinde Tatha Brahmande)
LACE-Gaia model promotes both global citizenship in global affairs for knowledge sharing as well as hyper-local or grassroots citizenship for our daily lives with ‘carbon sink’ lifestyles as Emergency Response to heal and repair climate and ecology and to manage our daily lives locally as far as possible.
Reference:
1. LOCAL IS THE FUTURE @ Sustainable Cities Congress in Australia, Nov 2018
2. A Better Way towards healthy, harmonious and holistic world order & indigenous ways of life @ World Council for Health General Assembly Meeting #37 on 18 April 2022
‘We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The ‘tide in the affairs of men’ does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ‘Too late’.
– Martin Luther King
“There is the true joy of life; to be used by a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; to be thoroughly worn out before being thrown on the scrap heap; to be a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that life will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
George Barnard Shaw
And finally..
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
References:
1. A Better Way towards healthy, harmonious and holistic world order & indigenous ways of life @ World Council for Health General Assembly Meeting #37 on 18 April 2022
To The Union Secretary (Higher Education) Government of India New Delhi, INDIA
Date: Sunday 03 March 2024
Subject: Challenges & Opportunities for Higher Education Institutions in India and the Bigger Picture of Civilizational Collapse
From : Chandra Vikash IIT Kharagpur (B.Tech 1993) I IIM Calcutta (MBA 1997) Convenor – Gaia Earth Sansad I Founder-Mentor – MaaS Movement Co. Delhi National Capital Region
Dear Shri Sanjay Murthy, Dear Distinguished Directors of IITs and IIMs, Dear Rahul da, Dear All,
Thank you Rahul da for sharing your thoughts (in response to the earlier post here ). As a proud and patriotic Indian, global citizen and human being, I would urge all others to share their agreement or disagreement and our course of action accordingly. I share the above graph on global average temperature anomaly data from Sat 02 March 2024.
This is just one of the indicators among several others of the ongoing collapse of the global industrial civilisation and mass extinction with the window for meaningful intervention closing fast.
How did we get here?
“Hang the cost! Full speed ahead! Death or victory right now! Forward into growth! I guess that shows a faith that if we create too many problems in the present, the future will learn how to deal with it.” Kenneth Boulding, economist and former president of the American Economic Association called it ‘heroic ethic’. The economic ethic OTOH says: “Wait a minute, there’s benefits and costs. Let’s weigh the two. We don’t want to charge right over the cliff. Let’s look at the margin. Are we getting better off or worse?”
I am not surprised that zombies and sheeples, belched out by truckloads in the corporate factories in India will lap you up. ‘American Mania’ is sweeping across the globe powered by the dubious US dollar.
“Selfish behaviors are reward driven and innate, wired deeply into the survival mechanisms of the primitive brain, and when consistently reinforced, they will run away to greed, with its associated craving for money, food, or power. On the other hand, the self restraint and the empathy for others that are so important in fostering physical and mental health are learned behaviors – largely functions of the new human cortex and thus culturally dependent.”
– Peter Whybrow, AM April 2006
Yet, what you advocate is criminal abetment on 3 counts. One, this is intergenerational fraud. Costs are passed on to coming generations. Two, in a large highly iniquitous country like India – this is Flaw of Averages. Three, air pollution, water pollution, land degradation, psychological and spiritual degradation are all brushed aside as ‘negative externalities’.
(I share this note in response to a popular opinion shared here By Startup Investor Brendan Rogers.)
Getting the Conceptual Clarity
As the tide turns, we now need a ‘parallel structure’ with a civic society-led world government. John Bunzl, founder of SIMPOL, has great insights that echoes with what António Guterres said on 16 Feb at Munich Security Conference and what Harman Daly had shared since long back:
1. We need a World Government
Today, we have a global market but only national governance. Given this “governance gap,” it is not surprising that Destructive Global Competition is running out of any control and continues to drive us all to destroy the planet on which we depend. The main barrier to solving global problems is that no government can move first or act alone because doing so would make its national economy uncompetitive, risking unemployment, capital flight, and economic decline. As former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said, “The blunt reality of the politics of climate change is that no country will be willing to sacrifice its economy in order to address this challenge.”
This remains true for all global problems. In a globalized economy, it will always be so. Governments are therefore caught in a “Prisoner’s Dilemma.” It’s not that they don’t want to solve global problems, but that they can’t. That, indeed, is why the wider movement has achieved little: because it demands change from those—i.e., governments—who are incapable of delivering it. Given its complexity and scale, the higher education system in India has a responsibility and opportunity to lead the formation of a world government, starting with setting up of Centre of Global Governance Studies, with ADCPS at IIT Bombay and CPP at IIM Bangalore as its nodal centres. As time is running out this needs an Emergency Response. Gaia Earth Sansad, a civic-society initiative that I founded 5 years back along with Global Academy for Indigenous Activism (GAIA) has been working in this direction since 2006.
2. Hierarchies are natural and necessary
Our predominantly postmodern worldview that rejects all hierarchies and all meta-narratives, champions decentralization, diversity, leaderless coalitions, horizontal networks, etc. Set against this fragmented, horizontal, uncoordinated mass of global justice initiatives, we have the single, overarching dynamic of DGC: a global, unified, all-pervading, top-down, destructive, out-of-control dynamic. A decentralized, non-hierarchical structure can never succeed against this. Without acknowledging the need for unity and some hierarchy, we have absolutely no chance of forming a civic society-led world government.
We need therefore to understand that hierarchies are natural and indispensable. The trick, however, is to distinguish between actualizing hierarchies (i.e., healthy ones) and dominator hierarchies (i.e., unhealthy ones). Being a global dominator hierarchy, DGC can only be overcome by a unified, global actualizing hierarchy—that is, by some form of globally coordinated, cooperative, citizen-driven global governance process that transcends and includes nation-states: an actualizing hierarchy that puts us, citizens, in the driving seat, rendering us capable of driving nations to agree to a global hierarchy with a world government at its apex and the reconstituted provinces, community-states and grassroots governance institutions, cooperatively implement the necessary policies to solve global problems. India with its pluralistic society and rich diversity, led by the higher education institutions and its vibrant civic society, plays an exemplary role in the formation of the world government.
3. Subsidiarity builds movement unity
Another thing we are missing is that actualizing hierarchies promote unity where it is needed and diversity where it is not. Every coherent entity in the world is held together by some form of governance, whether it be an atom, a cell, your body, or a nation. Governance structures are also multi-level because, as societies expand, existing governance structures eventually can’t cope, thus necessitating the creation of new, higher-level governance structures. The operating principle between these levels is subsidiarity: what cannot be solved at the lowest possible level is taken up to the next-higher level. This promotes unity where it is needed, while leaving space for independence and diversity where it is not. In this overall context, it is my earnest plea to Shri Murthy to convene an Extraordinary Emergency Meeting at the earliest possibility.
Why Civic Society-led World Government and not Civil Society?
Civil citizenship pertains to how people interact with state institutions (by voting or running for elected office, paying taxes, or having their rights affirmed under law), whereas Civic citizenship tends to focus on how people live and interact within a community, be it a neighbourhood, a city, an ethnic diaspora, or at a global level. In the Civic worldview, state is an integral part of the society and not separate from it, as in the case of Civil worldview.
Civil citizenship is always related to the nation, but Civic citizenship can reach beyond national borders and zoom out to macro level, global citizenship, or it can zoom in to micro, hyper local citizenship.
This incidentally is the true import of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam or World as a Family/Village which also means Family/Village as a microcosm of the World at large.
Microcosm is Macrocosm. (Yatha Pinde Tatha Brahmande)
LACE-Gaia model promotes both global citizenship in global affairs for knowledge sharing as well as hyper-local or grassroots citizenship for our daily lives with ‘carbon sink’ lifestyles as Emergency Response to heal and repair climate and ecology and to manage our daily lives locally as far as possible.
Reference:
1. LOCAL IS THE FUTURE @ Sustainable Cities Congress in Australia, Nov 2018
2. A Better Way towards healthy, harmonious and holistic world order & indigenous ways of life @ World Council for Health General Assembly Meeting #37 on 18 April 2022
‘We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The ‘tide in the affairs of men’ does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ‘Too late’.
PhD in Environmental Planning And Management from CEPT University Distinguished Alumnus Awardee of IIT Kharagpur Social Activist and Development Practitioner
Date: Thu 29 Feb, 2024, 11:29
Subject: Re: Extraordinary Emergency Meeting at 4pm on Tue 27 Feb ’24 at IIT Bombay Director Office: Challenges & Opportunities for IIT Bombay (contd)
Dear Chandra Vikash,
Thank you for your mail. Our Alma Mater, IIT Kharagpur, had the tagline – “Dedicated to the Service of the Nation”. However, the question is which nation because India is a highly inequitous one.
The latest data from the Income Tax department shows that there are only 20 million people with annual incomes above Rs 5 lakhs and 75 million with annual incomes above Rs 2.5 lakhs. Assuming that each of these tax return filers represents one household and that each household has 5 members it means that the proportion of households with annual income above Rs five lakhs is 10020/1400/5= 7.8% and the proportion of households with income above Rs 2.5 lakhs is 10075/1400/5= 26.8%. Actually quite a few households among these are double income ones and so these proportions are likely to be less.
Thus, we can conservatively conclude, 75% of households in this country are surviving on an income of Rs 685 per day or less or a per capita income of Rs 137 per day or less. This is a very sad state of affairs and it is this vast underprivileged section of the nation that the IITs need to prioritise in their service. Unfortunately, this is not happening currently because in their rush to compete with the universities of the West in cutting edge technologies, the IITs are paying minimal attention to the technologies needed not only for those living on the edge of survival but for the survival of humanity as a whole, seriously threatened as we are by climate change.
These survival edge technologies are simple and time tested – communitarian ecosystem restoration, sustainable agriculture, distributed generation of renewable energy through biogas, solar, wind and gasification of agri and forest biomass, water harvesting and recharge and used water treatment and restoration. The crucial factor in all these is the conscious participation of the community, both men and women equally, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, which states that work that can be done at the local level should be planned and implemented by the community and not directed remotely by centralised authorities.
Rahul’s story recently featured in Episode 4 of Love Storiyaan on Amazon Prime
There are many organisations in the non profit sector which are doing this with aplomb including ours but the IITs have little connect with them. While most of these organisations are poorly funded and so are operating at a minimal level, the IITs comparatively have more funds. My interactions with IIT academics have revealed that the funds they have are inadequate to pursue research in cutting edge technologies as compared to universities in the west but since survival edge technologies need much less funds, they can gainfully work on these and produce results that will not only benefit the nation but the whole of humanity by effectively combating climate change. Chandra Vikash has made many efforts to get the IITs and other institutions including our Alma Mater IIT Kharagpur to work on his circular economy and grassroots governance model but with little success. I hope this latest attempt of his to bring IIT Bombay on board for implementing his circular and down to earth LACE-GAIA model will meet with more success.
Regards Rahul Banerjee PhD in Environmental Planning And Management from CEPT University Distinguished Alumnus Awardee of IIT Kharagpur Social Activist and Development Practitioner
To Prof Subhasis Chaudhari The Director IIT Bombay
From: Chandra Vikash IIT Kharagpur (B.Tech 1993) I IIM Calcutta (MBA 1997) Convenor – Gaia Earth Sansad I Founder-Mentor – MaaS Movement Co. Delhi National Capital Region
Date: Tuesday 27 February 2024
Subject: Challenges & Opportunities for IIT Bombay amidst Ongoing Collapse of IIT System, of other Eminent Higher Education Institutions in India and the Bigger Picture of Civilizational Collapse
Dear Prof Chaudhari,
It was nice to meet you briefly y’day amidst your extremely busy schedule, as you shared. This incidentally is symptomatic of the ongoing collapse of IIT Bombay, just as for every other higher education institution which has been forced into mindless, unplanned expansion in past decade.
“Without question, the Indian Institutes of Technology, or the IITs, are the crown jewels of Indian higher education. They are world-renowned for the quality of their graduates and for their academic programs in a range of fields in technology and engineering — and in the past decade, in research and innovation through research parks as well. They are among the few Indian higher education institutions that do reasonably well in the global rankings. However, for the past decade or so, and according to current plans, the IIT “system” has expanded beyond its capacity to maintain its high standards and is in danger of sinking into mediocrity. The recent decision of the University Grants Commission to permit select IITs under the ‘Institutions of Eminence’ category to set up campuses abroad could further weaken these already stretched institutions. It is time to rethink the changing role and mandate of IITs in order to ensure that quality and focus are maintained — and by prioritising the needs of India, but with a 21st century twist.”
I had a chance meeting y’day and again today morning with the author of the above report from July 2021, Prof Philip Altbach (Research Professor and Distinguished Fellow, Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, US) who is here on the IIT Bombay campus with Prof NV Varghese on the deeper simplicity underlying this global crises.
Market pressures coupled with unbridled greed, apathy and selfishness have turned the Higher Education System globally including IIT Bombay from being Head of the Global System to its Tail.
These institutions, despite the checks and balances, have unambiguously become a debauched marketplace to justify vested interests, lies and hoaxes through peer-reviewed research on one hand and a glorified Employment Exchange to effectively subjugate ‘free’ sovereign nation-states back into being subjects and slaves of neoliberal colonialism what amounts to an Economic, Informational and Psychological Warfare. This has been described by Hon. EAM Dr S Jaishankar as ‘Weaponisation of Everything’ in a lecture at IIM Calcutta on 2nd November 2022. They have thus become anti-national forces, trojan horses and traitors in the national contexts.
Agenda Note
Challenges faced by IIT System & Opportunities for Mitigation and Adaptation based on a Master Solution Framework for ‘Super Wicked Problems’
Challenges:
Expansion Strain: The increase from 5 to 23 IITs raises concerns about maintaining quality standards. Especially, newer IITs in smaller towns struggle with infrastructure and academic excellence.
Faculty Shortages: For example, IIT Dhanbad has filled only 301 out of 781 approved faculty positions, indicating a widespread issue across the institutions.
Infrastructure Challenges: Newer IITs lack world-class facilities, affecting their ability to provide top-tier education and research.
Isolation from Local Communities: IITs, primarily academic-focused, have limited engagement with their local regions, missing out on community collaboration.
Struggle to Attract Global Talent: While IITs are selective and prestigious, attracting international students and faculty remains a challenge. This is crucial for global recognition and collaboration.
Balancing National and Global Roles: As IITs expand globally, there’s a challenge in balancing their foundational role of serving the national interest with the new global outlook, particularly in setting up campuses abroad.
Opportunities for Mitigation and Adaptation based on a Master Solution Framework for ‘Super Wicked Problems’
Interdisciplinary collaboration on a master solution framework called LACE-Gaia Model (Localised Abundance & Circular Economy in a global framework of Gaia global federation of community-states) solves a variety of super wicked problems such as degeneration of higher education system due to unregulated market pressures which is inextricably linked to a variety of other ‘super wicked’ problems of land degradation, climate change, water pollution and depletion, air pollution, farming crisis. Many of these problems have local challenges that should ideally be resolved locally.
The Bigger Picture
However, as the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres shared a week back at the Munich Security Conference, in a global atmosphere of aggressive competition, miscalculations and impunity of nation-states and the intertwined state of supply chains, trade and finance architecture, they need a global framework for the local implementation to be robust and resilient. I share an overview here on this link here:
This needs interdisciplinary design and policy collaboration as well as support from higher levels of authority within IIT Bombay for its interdisciplinary nature, complexity and size. After a fruitful meeting with the Centre for Policy Studies this morning, we have requested a meeting with the IITB Director in this regard.
The challenges are great and at once daunting to many. Philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin puts it in a nutshell here. “a global paradox inherent to humanity. Prodigious technological and scientific progress in all areas is the cause of the worst regressions of our century. It enabled the scientific organization of the Auschwitz extermination camp; it made possible the design and manufacture of the most destructive weapons, including the first atomic bomb; it makes wars increasingly deadly; driven by the thirst for profit, it has created the planetary ecological crisis.
Though difficult to conceive, we must realize that the progress of knowledge, through the multiplication and mutual separation of disciplines, has caused a regression of thought, which in fact has become blind. Linked to a dominance of calculation in an increasingly technocratic world, the progress of knowledge is unable to conceive the complexity of reality, especially human realities. This leads to a return of dogmatisms and fanaticisms, as well as a crisis of morality with the unleashing of hatreds and idolatries.”
The Curious Case of Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies at IIT Bombay – Microcosm is Macrocosm
I was drawn to explore how IIT Bombay, as one of India’s premier higher education institutions and hub for interdisciplinary studies by the CPS mission and founding ideas here: “To encourage a sustained dialogue between academia and other policy stakeholders in order to promote evidence informed and inclusive policy making and analysis; and create capacity for policy studies in the country.”
“IIT Bombay has a strong tradition of interdisciplinary research—an approach at the heart of Policy Studies. Along with its core strength in traditional science and engineering disciplines, IIT Bombay has a fully integrated Humanities and Social Science Department, a business school (SJMSOM), and a number of interdisciplinary centres such as one for design (IDC), and one for the study of technology alternatives for rural areas (CTARA). The Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies aims to collaborate with and contribute to these various disciplines, borrowing their strengths and offering policy expertise.”
I was especially inspired by this note from Prof Shishir Jha at CPS here:
Given such uncertainties surrounding the policy space, the Centre for Policy Studies at IIT Bombay has begun its journey in real earnest. With five post doctoral fellows, thirty doctoral students and eleven masters students on board in the last three years; and with several new faculty eager to join us, there is a palpable sense of dynamism and joie de vivre coursing through it. The Centre is keen to collaborate with institutions and organizations that are fellow travellers on this journey of curious engagement with a rapidly changing world. There is much to learn from our mutual perspectives and experiences that shape the direction of our collective and eventful lives.
GAIA - Global Academy of Indigenous Activism 