The Economy of Permanence: A Quest for a Social Order Based on Non-violence (स्थायी अर्थतन्त्र)

Economy of Permanence
room and a dining room along with a kitchen store and washroom attached. All
windows will have glass shutters sheltered by curtains and blinds. The doors
will have heavy curtains to keep out the draught. The floors will be carpeted
and the walls well-papered. Every room will have its appropriate and adequate
furniture though simple and inexpensive. For instance, the dining room will
have a dining table with proper armless chairs, sideboard, perhaps fitted with a
mirror, with a requisite supply of table-linen, crockery etc. The table service
itself, though not very elaborate, will furnish appropriate dishes, plates, forks,
spoons, etc., for the various courses such as soup, fish, meat, sweet, and
dessert, for it is not the proper thing to eat one course with the equipment for
another. Knife and fork for fish is of one kind, knife and fork for meat is of
another, while the service sets are still different. When one person sits down to
a meal there will be at least about 50 pieces to wash up. Such is generally
accepted as a 'High' standard of living.
In India, a really cultured man, perhaps a Dewan or a Prime Minister of a State
presiding over the destinies of millions of people, may have hardly any
furniture in his house though it may be of palatial dimensions. His reception
rooms may have floors of marble, mosaic or polished tiles and will be washable
and clean. There may be hardly any carpets to accumulate dust and dirt. The
Dewan himself will go about barefooted at home as the best of persons do in
the South. Our Dewan may squat on an asan on the floor and eat, perhaps off a
plantain leaf. He may not have been initiated into the art of wielding knives
and forks, for it is an art not easily acquired, following sacred rules not meant
for the common folk—he may use his nature-bestowed fingers, and when he has
finished his repast, the leaf will not have to be washed but may be thrown
away and may be readily disposed off by a goat which will turn it into milk for
its owner! There will be only his fingers to be washed. By contrast this will be
termed a 'low' standard of living.
Is this an appropriate use of terms 'high' and 'low'? If the standard or norm must
contain a multiplicity of material wants artificially created, then only these
terms will have any significance. But if we choose to be perverse and regard as
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