World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

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air travel and automotive transport have increased exponentially, resulting in a faster pace of life, and, to an extent, an increase in disease. The AIDS problem has been exacerbated in India by truckers, patrons of sex workers, bring the disease home to remote villages.
Railways, steamships, private cars, and airplanes have accelerated the flow of goods in ways nearly unimaginable in 1910. Gandhi could not have imagined the new corporate colonialism brought about by reliance upon oil. Oil powers the bulk of our electricity, drives the engines of our automobiles, provides the fertilizers for our crops, and lies at the root of ongoing wars and turmoil worldwide. Yet, in his critique of the railroad, he imparts an enduring wisdom. Gandhi asks himself, "What, then, of tram-cars and electricity?" He responds, "If we are to do without the railways, we shall have to do without the tram-cars. Machinery is like a snake-hole which may contain from one to a hundred snakes.... where means of artificial locomotion have increased, the health of the people has suffered.... Nature has not provided any way whereby we may reach a desired goal all of a sudden" (Parel, 110-111). He advocates the slow-paced life of the village, wherein all needed goods and services and provided locally. The simplicity advocated by Gandhi would entail little or need for transportation of goods or persons. By adhering to a village economy, and by remaining content within one's community, basic human needs could be fulfilled.
Today, great virtue is seen in scaling back our modes of transportation. Emphasis is being placed upon mass-transit options and rides sharing. In quiet ways, Gandhian principles are being reasserted by individuals who compost, grow their own vegetables, and minimize their own transport and oil consumption needs by living close to work, who drive rather than fly when possible, purchase low emission vehicles, and preferably walk or bicycle frequently. Though Gandhi could not have anticipated the massive looming problem of global warming, he certainly saw the ills that accompany complexity. His call for simplicity and abstinence from reliance on machinery remains relevant.
As the planetary population continues to urbanize, a host of difficulties arise: reliance on agribusiness, alienation from the rhythms of nature, and a loss of a sense of community. With the shift to service economies in the developed world, the male gender tends to become marginalized as seen in the steady decline of male participation in higher education. In the developing world, which now provides the bulk of manufactured goods, we see the increase of what Gandhi lamented in Europe a century ago, when he wrote "Machinery has begun to desolate Europe. Ruination is now knocking at the English gates. Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilization: it represents great sin" (Hind Swaraj 107). With great prescience, Gandhi wrote: "And those who have amassed great wealth out of factories are not likely to be better than other rich men. It would be folly to assume that an