Modernization And Philosophical Tradition India And Third World

Author(s): Sachindranath Ganguly
Publisher: Sachindranath Ganguly

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56 PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIAL ACTION
Unless the proper political and economic as well as life-style dialectics of the peasantry are dealt with strongly, mere industrialization may fail to modernize a Third World country in the true sense of the term.
mode of production. Whether there is a developed proletarian class with a different culture of their own and whether they are the vanguards or the poor peasants are the vanguards of revolution is a serious controversy into which we do not intend here to enter. What we suggest is that a thoroughgoing modernization primarily deals with the peasant phenomena. We shall not deny that indirectly intend to controvert Fanon's idea of the role of the lumpen proletariat in the Third World or Marcuse and Oglesby's new left orientation of a class-less revolution. But, however important, the assessment of the revolutionary class is, We are not dealing here with that problem directly. Our emphasis on this general peasant phenomena springs directly from a belief that unless the proper political and economic as well as life-style dialectics of the peasantry are dealt with strongly, mere industrialization may fail to modernize a Third World country in the true sense of the term. That is why perhaps in spite of Marx's hopes, introduction of Railways in India did not modernize the country in a meaningful sense. In other words, mere technocratic planing without an overall human (peasant class) consideration may never succeed ; and India presents such a case of discontinuous, technological bias in her industrialisation programme without attention to the major human factor-the peasantry. Consequently, the necessary model of an agriculture-industry continum is clearly absent in our country.
It is exclusively the peasants in a colonized country which reflect a set, die-hard, determined life style compared to any other group. Therefore, traditional challenge becomes most intense in terms of the peasants. We are inclined towards the view that in a colonized country the surepstructure grows in importance and weight more than that of the so-called developed countries. Hence, any structural change has to be relevant and intense enough to affect our agricultural population primarily.
Indian Philosophical Doctrines :
We have already pointed out that there is no unique and universally acceptable value system for every Indian irrespective of their class and caste. As a matter of fact caste system is such a sinister method of human oppression that those who enjoy the privileges of the system have to rationalize and mystify human life into an incredible metaphysics of renunciation, vairagya, moksa, transitoriness of this life and karma-phala, Especially because a man's caste is a cage he is born into, once born, unless he renounces this life there is no reasonable way to escape its oppression. Thus tradition in the sense of station in life determined by