Aparigraha the Humane Solution

Author(s): Kamla Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

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APARIGRAHA - THE HUMANE SOLUTION
cannot have consumption of single isolated products. This is the logical conclusion of increased consumption. A satisfactory relationship between supply of privately produced goods and services and those of the state is what is called the social balance. The need for such a social balance becomes obvious when we see more cars than the roads can cater to. Similarly, when we notice the road congestion, air pollution, and poor sanitation around us, we definitely feel something is wrong somewhere. And it becomes clear that there is increased disequilibrium of excessive production and public services. There is yet another factor which shows social disharmony to be a function of mindless production, and that is conspicuous consumption by a few leading to social inequality and the big gulf between scarcity and abundance. The existence of this inequality has been accepted by us as a reality and we feel that nothing can be done to overcome it. This apathy is a disturbing sign. Social harmony can to some extent reduce the gulf between scarcity and abundance. This gulf can be bridged by production of socially desirable goods meant for the masses rather than by the production of unimportant goods meant for a select few. The aim here is therefore not to attack production but to ensure the right kind of production of the right kind of goods. The attack is on the production of goods that are irrelevant but are made to see as very relevant. It is here that the fallacy lies, and it is here that the gulf between scarcity and abundance widens. If people will not see newer and newer things every day no catastrophe would befall on them but it will certainly be very close to them if the craze for new things continues, with scientists, technologists, industrialists and then ultimately with the consumer. The new and different has taken the place of one of the supreme values of mankind i.e. beauty (sundaram). Aesthetics seems to have shifted its goal of beauty to the goal of 'new' and different'. It is this that has produced a crazy society. The lines of Keats, 'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, its loveliness increases, it never passes into nothingness', seem to have themselves passed into nothingness. They have changed into “A new thing, good or bad, is ajoy for the moment'. There is nothing like a 'thing of beauty', and there is nothing like a 'joy for ever' in the present economic set-up. Terms like 'new', 'change', 'modern', 'dynamic' have become cardinal virtues, as