Sustainable Development Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) Published online 5 November 2008 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/sd.381 Gandhi’s Technoscience: Sustainability and Technology as Themes of Politics Anup Sam Ninan* BIGSSS, Bremen, Germany ABSTRACT Based on an in-depth examination of the original writings of Mohandas Gandhi, spanning over 98 volumes, and the compendium of works by his associates J. C. Kumarappa and Vinoba Bhave, this article explores the technoscientific notions of the Gandhian school of thought to broaden the technology–sustainability discussions. Premised on the idea of nature, the varying nature–human definitions were crucial for Gandhians in pursuing their political activities. Positing nature methodologically as an unproblematic abstract category, Gandhians formulated, redefined and appropriated technoscientific spaces; thereby facilitating their technological choices and artefacts to embody the values of sustainability, decentralized autonomy and labour-intensiveness. They engaged science and technology as a contextually contingent social process and integrated it into a mass political movement by identifying technoscience as a site of political action. This article adds to the STS discussions on democratization of technology, and the socially embedded nature of scientific ingenuity and multivalency of technological choices. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. Received 23 December 2007; revised 30 April 2008; accepted 2 May 2008 Keywords: sustainable development and Gandhi; technology politics; technological determinism; STS and Gandhi; Gandhian critique of modern technology; social shaping of technology Introduction D URING THE LATER HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY, THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICES OF MOHANDAS Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948) drew considerable attention and followers, particularly in the anarchist tradition of the green movement, even to the extent of overshadowing the influences of the 19th century French and Russian anarchist thinkers (Galtung, 1986). The deep ecology of Arne Naess, peace research of Johan Galtung and economics of E. F. Schumacher are argued to have been deeply influenced by Gandhi (Weber, 1999). Similarly, social struggles and environmental movements from various parts of the world adopted Gandhian modes of resistance (Bhat, 1982; Linkenbach, 1994; Shiva and Bandyopadhyay, 1986; Swain, 1997), and Gandhi is considered to be a key figure who forged the conscious method of non-violent action (Martin, 1997). Gandhi’s cultural and political significance in the post-industrial and post-colonial analysis has also been * Correspondence to: Anup Sam Ninan, Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), Postfach 33 0440, D-28334 Bremen, Germany. E-mail: asninan@bigsss-bremen.de Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment 184 A. S. Ninan subjected to deeper explorations of late (Brantlinger, 1996; Hunt, 2003; Sahasrabudhey, 2002).1 Further, in the wide-ranging discussions on sustainable development (Hopwood et al., 2005; Redclift, 2005) Gandhi is figured sometimes even as a central theme (Saravanamuthu, 2006). Despite being closely integrated into the political programme of Gandhian critique of colonial imperialist subjugation and the proposal for a possible model of democratic independent nationhood of India,2 the technoscientific notions of the Gandhian school of thought remain as one of the least explored areas of academic analysis. This article is aimed to review the school’s technoscientific notions, which may broaden the contemporary technology–sustainability discussions as it can throw insights on the ‘apparent tensions’ (Stirling, 2007) in the social choice of sustainable technology. Based on the evaluation of the original writings of three major thinkers of the Gandhian school – Gandhi, Kumarappa and Vinoba – this article examines how the school articulated the technoscientific notions as part of its political activities.3 Science and technology was central to Gandhian political practice and their technoscientific articulations formed a part of varying range of activities such as strategies, symbols, metaphors, actions, mobilizations and future visions that could club a wide array of concerns, some of them conflicting or mutually incompatible. The article has three broadly different but interrelated discussions in investigating the Gandhian notions of science and technology. In the brief following part, we identify the underlying methodological premise of Gandhian articulations of technoscientific politics. For them, Nature (capital and singular, as Latour (2004) denotes) is the absolute basic category for understanding the universe, from which the rules and properties of existence emanate. It is to Nature that one has to look while formulating new practices or transformations. On the basis of this fundamental understanding, we try to observe Gandhian ideas of science and technology in the next section. The fourth section briefly looks at how technological artefacts and the semiotic orientations were crucial in their political practice. The following part sums up the evaluation. Nature as a Basic Premise To Gandhians, science and technology, like their other social and political articulations, are deeply integrated into the understanding of nature. They defined the fundamental aspects of their wide-ranging political and economic ideals such as truth, non-violence, self-reliance, decentralization, self-sufficient village economy, rural and small scale industries, and sustainable agricultural practices on the basis of the nature–human relationship. It also remained as the basis on which the ideas of spirituality and morality were incorporated into the larger context of politics, social relations and even artefacts. Nature was an underlying ‘truth’, the source and the basic benchmark for legitimizing their arguments. Science and technology, thus, was a means to truth.4 1 Sahasrabudhey notes that ‘Gandhi is the first major philosopher of a post-industrial age and that his philosophy constitutes a major challenge for modern science by in fact opening new avenues for an alternative scientific development as part and parcel of a new mode of organisation of life and society’ (Sahasrabudhey, 2002, pp. 3–4). 2 This forms a part of the wider articulations during the period about the possible visions of future independent India. While exploring the underlying notions of progress, self-government and nation building contained in the development goals that were articulated in the latecolonial period, Benjamin Zachariah (2005), in his remarkable work, identifies three distinctive groups who were part of the process. There were the British Indian administrators, the Gandhians and the other nationalists referred to as modernizers. From another perspective, Irfan Habib (1995) notes that the three parties to the struggle of national movement were imperialism, bourgeois nationalism and Marxism or working class movement. Bourgeois nationalism itself was comprised of different groups. This paper emphasizes one of the groups for its exploration and attempts to observe how its protagonists constructed the narratives of science and technology as part of their political practice. It does not intend to assess how this rhetoric was translated into the practical schemes by the promoters or how it was contested by the contending ideological categories. Despite the fact that the Gandhian proposals of development were met with considerable challenge by the 1930s, and that it nearly gave way to the ‘modernizing’ school by 1950s, this paper tries to emphasize a part of the intense and instructive phase of a debate wherein the fundamental aspects of science and technology were under close scrutiny. 3 While Mohandas Gandhi is the most iconic symbol around whom the whole Gandhian ideas are based, this study employs the term Gandhian school of thought to refer the larger political framework that emerged in the development debates of early twentieth century India. Thus, it attempts to explore the views of Joseph Cornelius Kumarappa (1892–1960), ‘the principal preceptor of Gandhian economics’ (Govindu and Malghan, 2005, p. 5477), and Vinoba Bhave (1895–1982), who is referred to as the spiritual successor of Gandhi (Prasad, 2001), also to understand how the political movement interpreted the question of science and technology. Kumarappa is also considered to be one of the earliest proponents of ‘green thought’ in India (Guha, 1992, 2001). 4 For Gandhi, ‘truth’ is an ‘experiential notion’ rather than a ‘cognitive’ one. See the philosophical underpinnings of the concepts of ‘truth’ and ‘non-violence’ in Gandhian thought in the work of Bilgrami (2003). Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/sd Gandhi’s Technoscience: Sustainability and Technology as Themes of Politics 185 Nature thus became a basic category of reference to juxtapose and compare human actions. Gandhian ideology posited itself as a reforming force, a corrective method against the deviation from the pure forms of nature–human relationships, particularly with the onslaught of western industrial capitalism. For the purpose, it resorted to constructing two mutually integrated parallel explanations. Primarily, it presumed a pristine, absolute cosmology of nature that existed or was believed to have existed cross-temporally over time and geography.5 The school integrated spirituality and the whole cohort of moral principles into political practices as an extended sphere of nature. They simultaneously constructed its other by attributing what is understood as the deviation from the truth or the absolute Nature, ‘within a universalist rather than a nationalist particularist philosophical position’ (Zacharaiah, 2005, p. 160).6 These two parallel explanations remained as the underlying orientations of their social and political interventions. Nature was interpreted as an abstract, absolute reality; within its immutable laws all living and non-living (insentient and sentient according to Kumarappa, 1945a) beings are organized. It is the larger code and source through which humans have to consciously regulate their micro and macro level actions, humans being the species that ‘interfere’ with the immutable laws of nature the most, whereas the beings of ‘lower order’ are aligned to it ‘by instinct’. Even the physical ailment of an individual is understood to be due to the violation of the laws of nature. Disease springs from a wilful or ignorant breach of the laws of nature. It follows, therefore, that timely return to those laws should mean restoration. A person who has tried nature beyond endurance, must either suffer the punishment inflicted by nature or, in order to avoid it, seek the assistance of the physician (Gandhi, 1946).7 And precisely hence, one has to turn to the ‘cycle of life’ while attempting to alter the prevailing human and natural world. The school considered nature as a teacher, a regulator and often a legitimizer to interpret the social and political ideas both at metaphorical and practical levels. (While) studying the human institutions, we should never lose sight of that great teacher, mother nature. Anything that we may devise if it is contrary to her ways, she will ruthlessly annihilate it sooner or later. Everything in nature seems to follow a cyclic movement. Water from the sea rises as vapour and falls on land in refreshing showers and returns back to the sea again . . . A nation that forgets or ignores this fundamental process in forming its institutions will disintegrate (Kumarappa, 1930).8 Science is deemed as the absolute laws of nature codified by ‘man’ in a system of knowledge. Thus, science has to be inherently ‘natural’ and the deviations from the natural order or the ‘partial understanding’ of it causes violence and destruction. Nature works in well-defined grooves according to the immutable laws. When man understands its laws and reduces them to a system of knowledge, we call it science. It follows, therefore, that any course of action to be termed scientific should conform to nature in all its bearings and where we deviate from nature, to that extent we are unscientific. Man may understand vaguely the lines which nature works, and makes use of that partial knowledge for his own purpose, deviating by so doing from the course ordained by nature. Such deviation will lead ultimately to his own destruction because he himself is a product of nature (Kumarappa, 1945a). 5 The apparent lack of historical evidence for such a proposition was countered by redefining history as ‘a record of an interruption in the course of nature’ (Gandhi, 1909, p. 68), wherein the absence of a historical record was construed as the originality or the ‘naturalness’. 6 Gandhi lamented that the modern western civilization has deviated from its own spiritual roots at one level, whereas, while looking at the social vices existing in India, he says ‘attempts have always been made and will be made to remove them’. He asserts that, ‘nobody mistakes them for ancient civilisation’ (Gandhi, 1909, p. 55). 7 Gandhi MK 1946. Harijan 15 September 1946. Gandhi’s references from the collected works are mentioned in the footnotes, unless they are from published books, for convenience of referring. The references in the footnotes are from the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi, 1967) published by the Publications Division of the Government of India in 101 volumes (98 volumes and three volumes of index). 8 See the metaphor elsewhere ‘. . . the taxes should rise as the vapour from the sea, from the sections of the populace who would best pay, and should be precipitated like rain on the needy as when the rich are taxed to pay for the education of the poor’ (Kumarappa, 1930, pp. 3–4). Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/sd 186 A. S. Ninan Nature, thus, constitute an argument, reason and explanation for the Gandhian ideals of technology, economy and progress. It runs throughout the Gandhian scheme of ideas. For instance, while opining that ‘railways accentuate the evil nature of man’ (Gandhi, 1909, p. 40), Gandhi argued as early as 1909 that man is so made by nature as to require him to restrict his movements as far as hands and feet will take him . . . God set a limit to a man’s locomotive ambition in the construction of his body. Man immediately proceeded to discover means of overriding the limit . . . In thus attempting the impossible, man comes in contact with different natures, different religions, and is utterly confounded. According to this reasoning, it must be apparent to you that railways are a most dangerous institution (Gandhi, 1909, p. 42; italics added).9 The thesis of ‘economy of permanence’ by Kumarappa that forms the fundamental treatise on the school’s conception of the nature–human relationship identifies Nature as a model for emulation, a source of rules of social and economic organization and the foundation that establishes the moral superiority of the Gandhian ideas over other alternatives such as communism. Ideas of Science and Technology10 The above scheme of the nature–human relationship is the foundation on which the Gandhian ideas of science and technology were articulated. As it was part of an integrated whole, there is a quite blurred borderline between its usage of science, technology, machine, machinery etc. Gandhians held the view that technologies are embedded in certain political values that are manifested to the society through the production process, artefacts and systems of exchange. Thus, according to the Gandhian school, the technological process is inherently a social process that is integrated into political, social and economic contexts. While the basic tenets of the school’s orientation remained more or less the same over the period of activities, the proponents engaged in expanding the interpretative terrain of the orientation as per the emerging political scenarios. We identify these areas of Gandhian ideas of science and technology to observe how the school dealt with certain themes that become focal issues of academic explorations later, with the emergence of science, technology and society studies (STS). The choice of technological options and the content of science and technology put forward by the Gandhian school marked the distinctive technopolitics it stood for. The school, while proposing ‘village republics’, wanted its technological choices to embody the values of decentralized autonomy, equity, constricted chains in production and consumption, labour-intensiveness and ecological sensitivity. Besides rejecting technological determinism and situating science and technology contextually, it emphasized the primacy of producers and users, the agency of scientists, the choice of research area and the design of the artefacts to explicate these political concerns. Rejection of Technological Determinism One of the most astounding outlooks of Gandhian ideas of science and technology is its outright rejection of the then overwhelmingly prevailing technological deterministic convictions in science, technology and general polity. Rather than finding science and technology an autonomous and technically pre-designed system of knowledge and operation, Gandhians ventured to exert varying strategies to approach it – it was criticized at one level, redefined at another and appropriated at a different plane. Further, they attempted to view it as a process corollary to daily life, socio-economic relations, political choices and all pervasive national identity and the nation’s development. 9 Apart from the argument, it has to be noted that his views about technology/machinery in general and of railways in particular have become balanced and more reasoned by the mid-1920s. For instance, he says ‘I had no quarrel with rail roads, steamers and many machines as such, but that I protested against the abuse that was at present being made of them, either for exploiting many nations of the earth or for destroying them’ (Gandhi, 1925). We discuss this in the coming section. 10 See also Prasad (2001) for a ‘detailed contextual collation and analysis’ of Gandhian views about science. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/sd Gandhi’s Technoscience: Sustainability and Technology as Themes of Politics 187 As political rhetoric, the anti-deterministic position on science and technology was expressed in different ways. As famously dubbed,11 there were anti-technology traces in the school’s argument, particularly during the early phase of its political engagement.12 In October 1909, on a letter to Lord Ampthill, Gandhi wrote, ‘railways, machinery, and corresponding increase of indulgent habits are the true badges of slavery of the Indian people as they are of Europeans’. In the letter, he advocates the British to discard ‘modern civilization which is ensouled by this spirit of selfishness and materialism’ and asks them not to impose it on Indians.13 Similarly, in Hind Swaraj, he condemned ‘machinery’ throughout and opined that it has ‘begun to desolate Europe’. Ruination, he continued, ‘is knocking at the English gates’ (Gandhi, 1909, p. 81). He did not find ‘a single good point in connection with machinery’, whereas ‘books can be written to demonstrate its evils’ (Gandhi, 1909, p. 83). Similarly, Gandhi found that many scientific discoveries ‘stained with innocent blood’, as in the case of vivisection, as of ‘no consequence’ and termed it as ‘unpardonable slaughter of innocent life in the name of science and humanity so called’.14 He urged the scientists as well as the public not to engage in such scientific practices and their accrued benefit. The orientation to reject modern science and technology concentrated more on the materialist or anti/nonspiritual undercurrents of modern science and technology, the subsequent economic exploitation among peoples and countries and the resultant social disintegration. These figurative descriptions were part of the larger political argument against colonial subjugation. These opinions, particularly in the earlier phase, during the first decades of the 20th century, in a way were the protracted efforts to carve out or consolidate a space for an anti-colonial platform where the boundaries needed to be explicitly definite. Another means the Gandhian school employed to counter the technological determinism, particularly later, was by redefining the location and content of science and technology by strategic political action. At one level, it analysed the ongoing technological transformation both as artefacts and as systems reported from some or various parts of India. In most cases these innovations were part of the large, modern, technologically supported capitalistic driven ventures, as with, for instance, the case of sugar and rice mills.15 The issues were problematized in the broader colonial context but always specifically argued on the ‘scientific’ terms on how certain other (decentralized, indigenous, low technology) options are more physically and materially rewarding. It questioned the content of the process and the products to put forward the ‘scientifically substantiated’ technological alternatives in lieu of the prevailing model. Thus, for example, it argued for pounding rice at the village level not only to distribute the wealth from the process, but more importantly on the ‘scientifically proven’ advantage of unpolished rice as the product, as the mill-produced polished rice ‘lose some of (its) nutritive value because of the loss of pericarp’ (Gandhi, 1960, p. 32). Thus the redefinition of the technological process was often a functional prerequisite for appropriation. The process of appropriation intrinsically involved the rejection of technological determinism.16 Science and Technology as Contextually Situated As the later strategy of rejecting technological determinism engaged more science and technology specific arguments, it closely connected the understanding to the context of operation. This is where one of the fundamental understandings of Gandhian technology emerges. Gandhians considered that a technological practice or an artefact is contextually situated and it is inherently linked to the social, political and economic spheres of life. Though almost all the previous arguments that prompted the rejection of modern technology were continued, more emphasis was 11 There was a wide section of the elite in the national movement who were uncomfortable with Gandhian attitudes towards technology, considering it as primitive and anti-modern, including Nehru and Tagore (Sharma, 1994). It was also criticized elsewhere (Nanda, 1985). 12 At the same time, one should not presume a neat logical transition in the views. Earlier viewpoints have cropped up later too in different hues. For example, in 1946, Gandhi writes that ‘I do not believe that industrialization is necessary in any case of any country. It is much less so in India. . . . At the same time, I believe that some key industries are necessary’ (Gandhi MK 1946. Harijan 1 September 1946). However, one finds few similar arguments with Kumarappa and Vinoba Bhave. It may be possible that they understood the issues at a different level than that of Gandhi. It is all the more possible that they engaged these questions quite a long time after the school commenced discussing these questions in the political sphere and the political experience would have conditioned their views, something that is very clearly seen in latter day Gandhi. 13 Gandhi MK 1909. Letter to Lord Ampthill 30 October 1909. 14 Gandhi MK. 1925. Young India 17 December 1925. 15 Gandhi MK. 1936. Harijan 20 June 1936. 16 See the section on redefining science and scientists for a more detailed discussion. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/sd 188 A. S. Ninan given to better technological options conducive for a populated, economically degenerated and sociologically different country such as India. Gandhi observed that, ‘what is good for one nation situated in one condition is not necessarily good for another differently situated. One man’s food is often other’s poison’.17 Thus, the school framed the arguments against what it called the western modern science and technology while simultaneously incorporating it into its political mobilization against colonial masters. Redefining science was a crucial aspect of incorporating it. The school invented new idioms, agents and focal areas for science.18 Issues of equity, employment, labour-intensiveness, ownership and control of technologies were discussed along with its semiotically compatible forms of ecologically sound, decentralized rural and village industries with self-reliant technologies and organizational structures. They believed that ‘real progress and the best utilization of natural resources are best achieved through village and cottage industries’ (Kumarappa, 1947, p. 15) as the ‘main consideration about the machinery is that it should not displace labour of those who cannot be otherwise employed’ (Gandhi, 1929).19 Gandhi further argued that I hold that the machinery method is harmful when the same thing can be done easily by millions of hands not otherwise occupied. It is any day better and safer for the millions spread in the seven hundred thousand villages of India scattered over nineteen hundred miles long and fifteen hundred broad that they manufacture their clothing in their own villages even as they prepare their own food. The villages cannot retain the freedom they have enjoyed from time immemorial, if they do not control the production of prime necessaries of life . . . If the craze of machinery method continues, it is highly likely that a time will come when we shall be so incapacitated and weak that we shall begin to curse ourselves for having forgotten the use of living machines given to us by god (Gandhi, 1931).20 At a later stage, Vinoba Bhave (1955) explicitly argued that science or rather technology cannot decide as to what kind of machinery will be used for which society. The decision has to be made by taking into consideration the social situation, the population problem, the land– man ratio, the employment situation and such factors into considerations and different countries will come to different conclusions as to the type of machineries they will adopt. These decisions will also change with the passage of time. . . . Thus particular form of technology will depend upon and vary according to prevailing circumstances21 (Bhave, 1955/2000, pp. 71–72). Further, the contextual situatedness of technologies also denoted its connection to social and political values and its organizational manifestations: In economics, large scale industry is the antithesis of democracy in politics. It is not by chance that the western nations have come by their economic organization. It is a result of their way of thinking in terms of autocracy. They find themselves with dictatorships in political organization, and centralized industries in the economic field. These two go together and we cannot have the one without the other (Kumarappa, 1945b, pp. 114–115). The Gandhian school does not put forward an effort specifically to ‘spiritualize machinery’; rather, according to Gandhi, it attempted to introduce a ‘human spirit’ among the ‘men behind the machinery’ as the prevailing organization of machinery concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few. Under this scheme, ‘men in charge of machinery will think not of themselves or even of the nation to which they belong but of the whole human 17 Gandhi MK. 1929. Young India 27 July 1929. We discuss this later in detail. 19 Gandhi MK. 1929. Letter to Giri Raj 4 October 1929. 20 Gandhi MK. 1931. Young India 2 July 1931. 21 It should be noted that Vinoba’s views lack the rigor of Gandhi’s or Kumarappa’s, when one finds the intrinsic link the latter two attribute to certain technologies with certain forms of political organization. Also, it would be interesting to note that – causing a great deal of consternation to peace activists who find solace in the Gandhian school – in 1955 Vinoba dreams that small villages ‘could be made self-sufficient with the aid of atomic power’ (Bhave, 1955, p. 28). He says it would help in ‘production and decentralisation’ of self-sufficient small villages (p. 29). 18 Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/sd Gandhi’s Technoscience: Sustainability and Technology as Themes of Politics 189 race’.22 It can be broadly argued that Gandhian ideas of science and technology emerged on the basis of the school’s critique of modern machinery, particularly on the choice and content of its technology and the decontextualized application.23 Primacy of Producers and Users The proximity of production and use is a major concern of Gandhian understanding of technology, as it is symmetrically integrated into the decentralized, self-reliant and autonomous village economy. The Gandhian solution for alienation is based on a production and consumption process ‘correlated to the life of the people around’ (Kumarappa, 1945a, p. 89). While advocating for an ‘economy of permanence’, Kumarappa argued that, if we increase productivity of the masses and direct consumption, so as to afford a ready market, the standard of living of the people will automatically rise. Such a natural formation of a standard will proclaim the culture and genius of the people, and will be permanent being rooted in the life of the people (Kumarappa, 1945a, p. 89). In this way, he continued the life and thought of the consumer is closely entwined with the life and creative faculty of the producer, each attempting to solve the problem formulated by the other ((Kumarappa, 1945a, p. 90). While proposing its larger thesis against modern industrial products, the school argued that the ‘lifeless machines’ are ‘producers without any creative faculty’, which is antithetic to the ‘healthy cooperation’ among ‘different sections of the society’ (Kumarappa, 1945a, p. 91). Thus, they believed that the production process should be ‘designed to bring together the consumer and the producer into such intimate relationship as to solidify society into a consolidated mass which alone can lay claim to permanence’ (Kumarappa, 1945a, p. 92) as it will ‘promote healthy growth without destruction by violence’ (Kumarappa, 1945a, p. 88). In the same vein, it also deemed the design of artefacts as a crucial element in technological practice. Designs and Artefacts as Value Ridden The Gandhian school considered that technological designs and artefacts are deeply integrated into the sociopolitical context of their existence. The political activities forged against British colonialism, and the simultaneous process of nation-building, employed the material and symbolic attributes of designs and artefacts, particularly of the spinning wheel the home-spun cloth, for its mass mobilization. Besides this, the school developed or revamped a wide range of technologies and systems of rural and village industries under the aegis of the All India Spinners Association (AISA) and All India Village Industries Association (AIVIA).24 At one level, they emphasized the mutual compatibility of certain forms of production process and the material reproduction of some specific social and political formations. You cannot build non-violence on a factory civilization, but it can be built on self-contained villages. Even if Hitler so minded, he could not devastate seven hundred thousand non-violent villages. He would himself 22 Gandhi MK. 1925. Young India 17 September 1925. This, however, did not discourage it from making use of scientific argument to further its political interests. Rather it could use it as a legitimizing agent, as we shall see later. Zachariah (2005) argues that science was discursively placed as a legitimizing argument during the late colonial development debates in India. 24 ‘The function of All India Village Industries Association . . . (is) to encourage the existing industries and to revive, where it is possible and desirable, the dying or dead industries of villages according to the village methods, i.e., the villagers working in their own cottages as they have done from times immemorial’ (Gandhi MK. Harijan 16 November 1934). 23 Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/sd 190 A. S. Ninan become non-violent in the process. Rural economy as I have conceived eschews exploitation altogether and exploitation is the essence of violence. You have therefore to be rural minded before you can be non-violent, and to be rural minded, you have to have faith in the spinning wheel.25 Thus, they viewed that certain artefacts can have inherent political and social values. Beyond the intrinsic quality of designs and artefacts to have values, some values can also be attached to them on the basis of context and their broader links to various processes associated with production and consumption. The Gandhian school believed that certain ‘moral values are always attached to every article exposed for sale in the market’. For instance, it held that ‘goods produced under condition of slavery or exploited labour are stained with the guilt of oppression’. Moreover, those who consume ‘such goods become parties to the existence of the evil conditions under which those goods were made’ (Kumarappa, 1945a, p. 36). Gandhians, further, explored the democratic potential of technological options. As mentioned earlier, they argued that the decentralized technological options are corollary to democratic political organization, as the centralized method of production is to centralized control and regimentation, which lead to dictatorship. It is not the negation of machinery; rather, it is the negation of enslavement to machines associated with the process. The Gandhian school argued that the technological options that are systemically integrated into the centralized industries are ‘anti-social’ by their ‘very nature’ (Kumarappa, 1945a, p. 163), as they are embedded in antidemocratic values in their functioning and in products that result in enslavement to machines. Kumarappa cites the case of textile-mills: textile mills are antidemocratic because there are thousands of people working under a boss who is an autocrat within his little sphere – the Mill. His word is law, he is the Czar whose word must be obeyed. There should not be a place in democracy for such antisocial elements. Democracy must be pure everywhere (Kumarappa, 1945a, p. 165). Precisely hence, it wanted to develop devices that are infused with its political priorities. Gandhi told the constructive workers You would have to see if the charkha (spinning wheel) increases your non-violent powers . . . There may not be politics in the spinning wheel of the Charkha Sangh (AISA); but you would have to see if it is there in your spinning wheel . . . see if it increases the strength of the people and whether, in free India, the economic provisions of swaraj (home-rule) could be based on the spinning wheel. Would it turn people into mere automatons capable of physical labour or would it make them nonviolent soldiers of swaraj . . . You would not merely improve the tools, but also see their conformity with our principles.26 Thus, as per the Gandhian understanding, artefacts and forms of technology are embedded in the social and political organization, though the systems and artefacts can have intrinsic qualities on their own or through their relation to the organization. In other words, the school believed that artefacts can have politics, particularly with its closer adaptability to certain forms of social and political organization. Redefining Science and Scientists The Gandhian scheme for science has to redefine the premises and objectives in order to propose its alternative reading, in the context of its outright criticism of ‘western’ ‘modern’ science. They introduced new meanings and domains of scientific knowledge, and practices closely linked to the political processes they engaged, particularly of nation-building. Three distinctive activities were undertaken in this process. First, the process redefined 25 Gandhi MK. 1939. Harijan 4 November. We shall see the importance Gandhian technological understanding attached to the spinning wheel in a later section. 26 Gandhi MK. 1940. Speech at Gandhi Seva Sangh Meeting-III, Malikanda, 22 February 1940. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/sd Gandhi’s Technoscience: Sustainability and Technology as Themes of Politics 191 non-western, non-modern systems of knowledge into ‘science’, as in the case of Ayurveda and Unani systems of medicine. Posited as alternatives, they were explored, critiqued and evaluated in comparison with ‘modern’ medicine. Second, certain skills and practices such as village crafts and handloom spinning were incorporated into science. Besides the redefining of science that happened in the first activity, here, incorporation into science was also meant to legitimize this knowledge and skills as ‘scientific’ alternatives to prevailing or emerging modern options. Third, all those who practiced any of these became ‘scientists’, or the school made science a possibility for everyone. The agency of the scientist was crucial, as research and practice have to be integrated into the larger objectives to uplift the most unprivileged and the downtrodden in society, rather than the training or affiliation of the hands. The Gandhian notion of reforming science is based on its fundamental conviction about the objective of science: ‘to enable man to work along the lines on which the universe moves’ (Kumarappa, 1945a, p. 119). As ‘any deviation’ would lead to ‘violence and disorder’, the basic objective of science is to enhance a sustainable coexistence of human and non-human beings. Modern science was critically looked at on two grounds. As explained earlier, for Gandhians, it marked a deviation from the basic tenets of nature–human relations. On resource utilization, for instance, Kumarappa points out that ‘a scientific use of resources should mean that we get the fullest benefit out of what we find around us’ (Kumarappa, 1947, p. 4, italics added). He cites the case of modern paper mills as against the production of handmade paper. The modern mill – ‘the so-called scientific industrialist’ – clears up the entire forest, from the tender bamboos onwards, for the raw material, whereas the handmade paper industry makes use of the used up bamboo for the purpose. He goes on to explain how unscientific and wasteful the resource utilization of ‘modern scientific’ industry is. Thus, at the preliminary level, Gandhians attempted to explore, criticize and evaluate modern science and scientific practices in juxtaposition with the proposed alternatives. They tried to posit these alternatives as more scientific than the western modern counterparts. Further, the school criticized them on the basis of falsifiability of scientific truth. Thereby, they attempted to establish their own superiority, as derived from the pursuit of truth, and as opposed to the possible falsifiability of modern scientific truths. In a letter to a college student, Gandhi stated you should understand . . . that I never reject a scientific truth that has been established. But you should also note that in (the realm of ) science what has come to be accepted as truth today is not unlikely to be proved as untruth tomorrow. Sciences founded on deduction are always bound to suffer this basic imperfection. We cannot therefore regard it as an absolute truth.27 Thus, while complaining ‘against the direction that the spirit had taken’, Gandhi had ‘nothing but praise for the zeal, industry and sacrifice that have animated in modern scientists in the pursuit of truth’. He continued, to his predominantly traditional medical practitioners audience in Delhi, that they do not ‘exhibit that spirit in any mentionable degree’ that resulted in the deplorable condition of traditional medicine in comparison with modern medical research.28 While the above process attempted to redefine science through its own internal logic, the second layer of activities attempted to incorporate a set of skills and knowledge practices into science. The school selected skills and practices closer to their political and social orientations and devised methods for establishing, evaluating and producing a range of products and practices. They formulated systems of training and dissemination and categorized them as science. The ‘science of spinning’ was prominent among them, though the programme of ‘science for villages’ ranged from ‘scientific beekeeping’ to ‘science of sanitation’. AISA based at the Satyagraha Ashram in Ahmedabad was the nerve centre of ‘Khadi (homespun cloth) science’, which undertook research, training and production of Khadi besides coordinating various publicity activities.29 They adopted the terminology of science and technology to explain artefactual specificities as well as theoretical aspects. Spinning, thus involved defined mechanisms of testing the strength, count of yarn, ginning and carding. The school imbibed science and 27 Gandhi MK. 1933. Letter to a College Student 17 January 1933. Gandhi MK. 1921. Speech at Opening of Tibbi College, Delhi 13 February 1921. 29 Vishvanathan (1998) observes that Gandhi’s ashrams were ‘combination of hermitage and laboratory, (and) were locations for scientific experiments, especially on waste management’. 28 Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/sd 192 A. S. Ninan technology into its semiotic sphere of political action as it found that there is ‘no use (in) merely making speeches or giving lectures; we must make scientific experiments and declare from the housetops the results of our experiments’ (italics added).30 While explaining the advantages of palm based small-scale sugar production, to cite a case of semiotic incorporation, Kumarappa noted that even if sugar be required to be produced by hand, the ‘rab’ prepared from the palm juice can be centrifuged, and having obtained the sugar, the molasses left can now be converted to edible ‘gur’, rich in minerals and salts. Molasses produced from the sugar mills, as they are affected by the use of sulphur compounds in the process, are not fit for human consumption and have to be wasted or converted into intoxicating drinks (Kumarappa, 1947, p. 5, italics added). The third approach involved in the process of redefining science was the way in which the school observed the agency of the scientists. Closely parallel to its analysis of science and technology, the Gandhian School engaged in criticising the prevailing direction in which scientists proceed under the modern science. The ‘best brains of a country are being prostituted into the paths of destruction’, it referred once (Kumarappa, 1947, p. 25).31 However, as noted earlier, the school, particularly Gandhi, appreciated their ‘spirit of inquiry’ on the ‘pursuit of truth’. In his talks to students and scientists, he urged them to utilize their learning and expertise in science for the betterment of villages and the nation and asked them to emulate the examples of great scientists such as J. C. Bose and P. C. Ray.32 He held that ‘all research will be useless if it is not allied to internal research, which can link your heart with those millions [of poor]. Unless all the discoveries that you make have the welfare of the poor as the end in view, all your workshops will be really not better than Satan’s workshops’.33 Thus, the school assumed the moral agency of working scientists as a major sphere of concern. Their reformation on the research objectives was considered to be a crucial issue in the functioning of science as a social institution. However, the more radical proposal of the school regarding the agents of scientific practice is the depiction of ‘community workers’ as ‘scientists’. The organized attempts to deal the science and technology questions, with its above discussed social and political situatedness, were mediated mainly through three outfits: the Gandhi Seva Sangh (GSS), AISA and AIVIA. These organizations, together with their larger platform, the Indian National Congress, organized a large battery of volunteers named ‘community workers’ basically for nation-building activities called the ‘Constructive Programme’. By the mid-1930s, particularly after Gandhi’s resignation from the primary membership of Indian National Congress and the widespread launching of AIVIA, the school began to delve more into scientific education and practice. They formulated Nai Talim (New or Basic Education), where ‘craft, art, health and education should be integrated into one scheme’34 for ‘imparting the whole art and science of a craft through practical training’. Gandhi wanted GSS to be converted into a ‘postgraduate institute for research’ and to function as a central platform for promoting science for villages. The community workers needed to be grassroots scientists working amongst the villagers with ‘technical and mechanical skill of a higher order’.35 They were not mere ‘skilled labourers’; rather, they had to be ‘expert craftsmen and scientific researchers’ (Gandhi, 1940).36 The school aimed at a thorough reorganization of scientific practice as it attempted to broaden the boundary of institutional arrangements in science by relocating the centres and laboratories of research to society. This was closely keeping abreast with the redefining of science this article dealt earlier. The community scientists were the medium through which the sciences of everyday life such as khadi/spinning, food processing, waste management and sanitation were disseminated. 30 Gandhi MK. 1941. Speech at AISA Meeting-1, Sevagram 1 September 1944. The use of scientific metaphors and the interpretation/practice of science/technology were central to political and individual activities, particularly to Gandhi. At the personal level, there are many instances of such. He titled his autobiography An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth. See also his controversial experiments on celibacy in the work of Lal (2000). 31 The statement is made on the report that more than five-sixths of the Federal spending on scientific projects is spent on war research in United States. 32 Gandhi MK. 1925. Speech in Reply to Students’ Address, Trivandrum 13 March 1925. 33 Gandhi MK. 1927. Young India 21 July 1927. 34 Gandhi MK. 1946. Harijan 10 November 1946. 35 Gandhi MK. 1940. Speech at Gandhi Seva Sangh Meeting-III, Malikanda, 22 February 1940. 36 Gandhi MK. 1940. Speech at Gandhi Seva Sangh Meeting-III, Malikanda, 22 February 1940. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/sd Gandhi’s Technoscience: Sustainability and Technology as Themes of Politics 193 Choice of Research As observed in the previous sections, one of the fundamental concerns of the Gandhian school with regard to science and technology was the content and direction of its process and outcome. Hence the choice of research area was of primary importance for the school. The underlying imperative for the choice of research as per the Gandhian understanding is its negation of the autonomous process in scientific and technological advancement. As it is a socially and politically mediated process, the school held that the direction and area of research is a conscious choice by its proponents and the larger society. Even in its earlier phase, when it tends to criticize ‘machinery’ in the ‘modern civilization’ as inherently problematic, the school was more critical about the content and direction. But during the later phase, from late 1920s onwards, they attributed undemocratic priorities and choices as the lacunae in science and technology. While detailing the laborious tasks to be undertaken by AIVIA at various fronts such as business acumen, expert knowledge and scientific training, Gandhi wrote in 1934 that, his request for seeking the chemical analysis and nutritive value of routine local food items such as polished and unpolished rice, palm sugar etc to several well known doctors and chemists was responded to with helplessness. He found that it is a ‘tragedy that no scientist should be able to give me the chemical analysis of such a simple article as gur’ and finds ‘the reason is that we have not thought of the villager’ (Gandhi, 1934).37 Moreover, the school measured the relevance of science and technology on the basis of the socially productive role it carries. Gandhi considered Khadi as a ‘noble’ science because ‘it touches millions of people (and) . . . know of no other science save agriculture which has such universal application’.38 However, having problematized the choice and direction of research as a socially and politically mediated process, the school wanted to incorporate its ideological priorities into the very definition of the problem. The practitioners were to adhere to the science of peace and non-violence39 (Bhave, 1955), rural mindedness and thereby catering for the ‘varied and growing requirements’ of the people of the nation (Gandhi, 1938).40 They emphasized the democratic control within the purview of this definition, as ‘the prevailing situations alone should decide whether science should be ordered to produce big machines or small ones’ (Bhave, 1955, p. 26). Setting these ideals to be the focal issues of Gandhian technological politics, the proponents linked it to the mass movement through different narratives of technology by employing symbolic representations. Narratives of Artefacts While redefining science, scientists and their practice was a crucial element in the organization of Gandhian politics, the narratives around science and technology as political ideas, practices and future visions played a significant role in the emergence and the popular involvement of the mass movement.41 Primarily set in the anti-colonial struggle, the semiotic attributes of technoscientific artefacts were crucial for its mass mobilization, along with other political symbols. Charkha, the spinning wheel, was one of the foremost artefacts of Gandhian propaganda.42 It encapsulated the values of economic self-sufficiency, mastery over machinery, social and political harmony between the rich and the poor, and the value of swaraj or national independence (Parel, 1969, p. 517). The Gandhian programme integrated the spinning wheel into the reconstruction of the past and formulated it as the political possibility of the present. In 1920, Gandhi wrote in Young India that I feel convinced that the revival of hand-spinning and hand-weaving will make the largest contribution to the economic and moral regeneration of India. The millions must have a simple industry to supplement agriculture. Spinning was the cottage industry years ago, and if the millions are to be saved from starvation, they must be 37 Gandhi MK. 1934. Harijan 7 December 1934. Gandhi MK. 1927. Letter to Jugalkishore 29 May 1927. 39 Gandhi MK. 1945. Interview with Ralph Coniston 25 April 1945. 40 Gandhi MK. 1938. Harijan 9 July 1938. 41 See the work of Ninan (2002) for a similar case where the role of technologies, artefacts and popular movement is explored. 42 Parel (1969) considers that Khadi together with spinning and the spinning wheel constituted the foremost among the Gandhian symbols of political practice. The other three symbols he identifies are fasting, the cow and Harijan. 38 Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/sd 194 A. S. Ninan enable to reintroduce spinning in their homes, and every village must repossess its own weaver (italics added).43 He posited the spinning wheel against the organization of machinery that concentrated wealth and power in the hands of few and resorted to exploitation as a means of functioning. He argued that the movement of the spinning-wheel is an organized attempt to displace machinery from that state of exclusiveness and exploitation and to place in its proper state.44 On the basis of the above understanding, the movement resorted to infusing multilayered programmes centring on the artefacts; among these the spinning wheel and hand-woven cloth assumed the foremost significance. The school formulated political narratives through these artefacts and their associated activities to visualize the nation and to invoke participation in the movement. Through the oral, written, performing and visual media these narratives addressed the diverse population and its imagined nation.45 The spinning wheel, thus, was integrated into the continuum of history; to be reinvented for the requirements of the present. By the 1920s, the spinning wheel, the act of spinning and the adherence to home-spun cloth (along with the simultaneous denunciation of foreign cloth) represented the Swadeshi politics. There were ceremony, drama and participation in the propaganda.46 The narratives were effective means of political communication for the Gandhians. For instance, Charkha imbibed the value-laded relation of means and ends that the school preached. While encompassing Charkha as an ‘indispensable article for every home’ Gandhi argued that it is the symbol of nation’s prosperity and therefore freedom. It is a symbol not of commercial war but of commercial peace. It bears not a message of ill-will towards the nations of the earth, but of good-will and self help.47 Thus, along with the appropriations of science and its terminology, the narratives around the artefacts were crucial for the Gandhian practice of politics. Gandhians wanted the common people to perform political activity at both the individual and collective levels, despite the deep and often conflicting regional, cultural and economic diversities, unified through the symbolic integration to the technological artefact of Charkha and its product, the khadi cloth. They created a meaning of national identity and self-reliance along with a sense of cultural and economic alternative by affirming, and constantly reiterating, the association with these artefacts. Concluding Remarks The above sections have approached the question of science and technology as articulated by the proponents of Gandhian School. The idea of nature was a fundamental aspect of Gandhian techno-politics. The nature–human 43 Gandhi MK. 1920. Young India 21 July 1920. Gandhi MK. 1925. Young India 17 September 1925. 45 Lisa N. Trivedi (2003) describes in detail the visual and performing aspects of swadeshi politics and the imaging of the ‘nation’ between 1920 and 1930. 46 Parel (1969) notes that Gandhi encouraged his followers to imitate his daily practice of routine hand-spinning, for at least two hours. Similarly, ceremonial spinning was part of the nationalist campaign on holidays and important occasions. During his political tours, he often auctioned khadi products. In his tours, he made a point of taking haircuts only from khadi-wearing barbers. Parel (1969) also notes the khadi franchise that Gandhi introduced, to have an option of producing 2000 yards of hand spun cotton per annum as substitute for membership dues in the Congress. A contemporary observer points out that spinning was made compulsory in all educational institutions started by the Gandhians, where teachers and students learnt spinning and wore khadi, and parents at home were persuaded to do the same (Motvani, 1930). On the other hand, he further observes, animals attired in foreign clothes and styles were paraded in the streets to excite general ridicule. Similarly, large numbers of community workers went around the cities and towns on a regular basis, collecting foreign clothes from houses and shops to make bonfires in open public places (Roberts, 1923). 47 Gandhi MK. 1921. Young India 8 December 1921. 44 Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 17, 183–196 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/sd Gandhi’s Technoscience: Sustainability and Technology as Themes of Politics 195 relationship and its varying definitions were crucial for the Gandhian school to pursue its political activities. Premised as an unproblematic and abstract methodological category,48 for Gandhians, nature was the underlying model and inspiration from which the methods and yardsticks of legitimacy were derived. The school formulated, redefined and appropriated technoscientific spaces by putting forth the arguments, reasons and explanations using the rhetoric of nature. Being integrated into a mass political movement, these negotiations clearly identified technoscience as a site of political action. In the process of intervention they attempted to infuse their socio-economic preoccupations and ideological predilections into the idea of science, technology and artefacts. Similarly, the school identified and promoted technological artefacts as an effective political medium. At the same time, it should be also noted that Gandhian politics strived to redefine science and technology within the larger framework of modern ideas. Its so-called criticisms of ‘modern’ ‘machinery’ were also closely integrated into ideas of democracy and equality, which were to an extent alien to the ‘Indian civilization’ from which the school projected to have sourced its ideas.49 Moreover, there are ample studies that suggest that the political and value orientations of the Gandhian school were mostly derived from direct western influence, with even the criticisms of ‘modern civilization’ having its direct lineage from the west’s own critical traditions.50 However, these issues, along with other criticisms, are beyond the purview of this article. Acknowledgements This paper was written during my stint as a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society (IAS-STS), Graz, Austria. I thank the Institute and colleagues, and gratefully acknowledge the funding by the Austrian Development Cooperation (OEAD) for facilitating it. The comments by Corinna Bath, Alex M. George, Les Levidow, Ingmar Lippert and Rosmin Mathew on an earlier draft were extremely useful at different points and I am indebted to them. I am grateful to Professor Neeraja Gopal Jayal as a much earlier version of this paper was a term paper for her course, Politics and Ecology, years back. Subsequent comments by Professor Avijit Pathak and encouragement by Professor Anand Kumar are duly acknowledged. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the Sixth Annual IAS-STS Conference (Austria) in May 2007 and the Workshop on Environmental Management at Brandenburg University of Technology (Germany) in January 2008 and I am grateful to the participants for their comments. The usual disclaimers apply. References Bhat VV. 1982. Development problem, strategy and technology choice, Sarvodaya and socialist approaches in India. Economic Development and Cultural Change 31(1): 85–99. Bhave V. 1955/2000. Science and Self Knowledge. Varanasi: Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan. Bilgrami A. 2003. 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See the work of Jodhka (2002) to find how two fundamental methodological categories of the school – the village and the nation – were reflectively constituted as generic pan-Indian characteristics. 49 In the view of Irfan Habib (1995, p. 7), ‘Gandhi’s reading of Indian culture cannot be justified by any reading of historical texts’. Moreover, it cannot be seen as an assertion of the traditional against modern values. Rather, ‘what we get is the assertion of modern values in traditional garb, a re-reading of Indian culture in a totally ahistoric way, but (in an) extremely creative fashion’. 50 Gandhi himself has mentioned the deep impact that the works of John Ruskin, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Edward Carpenter and Ralph Waldo Emerson had on him. See also the work of A. L. Herman (1969) and Stephen Hay (1989). Howard Spodek (1971) finds some interesting connection in Gandhi’s Gujarat heritage and the political methodology. 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