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

Economy of Permanence
limited adoptions with just a few variations to suit local needs, nor will it be
called to perform the functions of an expanding market in the interests of
manufactures of material goods, nor will it be based on sectional needs ignoring
the wider range of responsibilities. Life so planned, will not only meet
individual and sectional needs, but it will also be set as to lead to the
happiness of all and open up wide fields of opportunities for personal
development and expressions which will not fall foul of the welfare of one's
neighbours.
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XI. STANDARDS OF LIVING
For the reason discussed in the last chapter it becomes imperative that the
daily life of the people should be so regulated as to enable them to express
their personality. What we eat, wherewith we are clothed and what manner of
lives we lead, all have a bearing, not only on our own lives, but also, on the
future of mankind. Just as each person expresses himself through the scale of
values he uses so also his manner or living will expresses his personality. To do
this there should be norms for all people to adhere to, and these norms or
standards must be arrived at from purely objective considerations calculated to
afford every person that opportunity in full measure that is needed to develop
all his faculties and thereby his personality. The suggested norm or standard
should relate not only to bodily and material needs but also to all those
innumerable items that go to enrich and ennoble life and raise it above the
level of mere existence. Of course, it will naturally deal with food that is
required to maintain a level of human performance with adequate medical aid,
with clothing that will not only cover nakedness but will also afford room for an
expression of art and beauty, with education which will widen and brighten life
while developing the inherent faculties with congenial work that will open up
opportunities for the creative propensities of man and with all such other
accessory facilities that will help in the progress both of the individual and the
group.
A standard that is to fulfill all these requirements will naturally be one that has
to be acceptable both to the individual and to society. It cannot be chosen
merely from a one-sided consideration. If the individual is allowed to follow his
own sweet will without any other restrictive consideration, if he is one in the
House of Imitations or that of Adoptions his mode of life will not contribute
anything to progress but may ever harm society. If he belongs to the House of
Material Creations his innovations may clash with those of others and retard
progress thereby. A producer left to his own machinations will utilize the
opening to lay down ways by which he can push his own goods by propaganda
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and by setting up fashion favourable to his business. On the other hand, if it is
left to society alone, the individual citizen may be crushed and turned into an
unquestioning automaton. Such is the fate of the common man today under
Capitalism, Imperialism, Fascism, Nazism and State Socialism. The world is
largely under the heels of the producer who calls the tune and sets the pace.
This has led to chaos as even these interested parties have no agreed plan or
rule of life to guide them. Each manufacturer freely follows his own whims. As
a result there is widespread confusion in the methods of living.
It is difficult even to understand what people mean when they talk of a
standard of living. It is a delightfully vague term. Hence it becomes convenient
to bandy these words about without fear of committing oneself to anything
definite. Each person may have his own notion of a standard of living and as to
what it comprises. To one a radio set and a motor car may fall within the
barest minimum. To another two meals a day may be a rare luxury. Therefore,
it is necessary to work out an objective standard taking into consideration the
conditions obtaining in our land. Should this standard have an economic basis or
follow cultural considerations or social needs? What is meant by 'high' or Mow
standards? By the former standard is meant full satisfaction of a wide range of
material wants and by the latter a very limited enjoyment of worldly goods?
In previous chapters we have discussed the many ways of looking at life and
their respective scales of values. We have come to the conclusion that life is
not to be valued purely on a monetary basis nor by what looms large in the
immediate present, but that a well-balanced economy leading to permanence
and nonviolence calls for a comprehensive consideration of various factors
making life broad-based. In such an economy money is of the least importance.
"Man does not live by bread alone" but by everything that affords him
opportunities for the free expression of the whole man-his body, mind and
spirit-for all that will make him approach perfection.
The standard of life in England is generally spoken of as being high. There a
gardener may live in a two storeyed-cottage with three or four bedrooms
upstairs, with a flush lavatory and a bathroom. Downstairs there may be a living
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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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desirable that which calls into play the highest faculties in man, then the
Dewan's life follows a higher standard than the British gardener's whose
standard now becomes 'low'. For a standard based on material considerations
the more suitable terms will be 'complex' and 'simple' rather than 'high' and
'low'. We may then say that the Dewan's standard of life is 'high' but 'simple' and
the British gardener's is 'low' but 'complex'. It would appear as though the
present terms have been specially devised to convey a psychological preference
for the 'complex' standard which is the foundation of a good market for the
manufacturers. Who will rationally fall for a standard which is dubbed
'complex'?
The complex standard converts its devotee into a drudge. From dawn till
nightfall the British gardener's wife, if she means to be reasonable clean, has to
toil away at sweeping the carpets with a vacuum cleaner, polishing the window
panes, washing the curtains, bed and table linen, the dishes, plates etc., and
cooking utensils, apart from attending to her daily round of duties such as
shopping and kitchen work. To clean even one fork properly between the
prongs will take more time and labour than washing one's hands. Is it a wonder
that where such complex standards prevail, women prefer to be rid of the
'nuisance' of having children? "Children and dogs not allowed" is an ubiquitous
notice board to be seen everywhere in such countries. Motherhood, of course,
adds to the already overcrowded time-table for the day, but the choice of
complex standard is a reflection on the scale of values prevalent. By various
means at their disposal- propaganda, advertisements, setting up fashions etc.-
the manufacturers are able to induce the house-wives to adopt this mode of
life and become their devoted customers. Let us beware of such traps which
will enslave us to material wants, but offer nothing in exchange for filling our
time with wasteful details which ought not to be allowed to encumber our
lives.
The interested parties glibly talk of creating leisure for the house-wife by
introducing labour-saving devices, but no sooner is a machine allowed to oust
human labour than some other invention is brought in to absorb the money and
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time saved by the former device, leaving the second state of the house-wife
worse than the first.
The two ways of dining
For example let us revert to our friend, the British gardener's wife. Formerly
carpets were beaten and cleaned by casual human labour. The vacuum cleaner
made its appearance. It dispensed with outside labour. A travelling salesman
would have visited the gardener's wife and waxed eloquent over the marvellous
performance of his commodity for sale-the vacuum cleaner-and would have
appealed to the thrifty house-wife by showing her how much she could save
every year by not having to call in human labour to do this heavy work of
carpet cleaning and how much such saving will amount to in her lifetime with
interest added ! As a result of this high pressure salesmanship she would go in
for a vacuum cleaner and would, no doubt, save a few shillings a year but she
has to do the cleaning herself with this 'labour-saving-device'. After a few
years, when she has saved a few pounds this way, the travelling salesman will
make his appearance again to sell her a newly invented dish washing machine.
He will again expatiate over the performance of the machine. If her savings
scraped together happen to fall short of the amount needed to pay down cash
for it, the salesman obligingly will offer an installment payment scheme or a
hire purchase system by which she pays a small deposit immediately, all that
she may have in ready cash and the machine is left with her for use for which
she should have to pay a small hire annually for five or seven years, after which
the whole machine will become her sole property. She falls a victim to this
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temptation and pledging her future savings instals a dish washing machine! She
can now dispense with the service of the neighbour, an old woman perhaps,
who came in to help wash the dishes for half an hour daily, thus perhaps saving
two shillings a week, but she has now to 'attend' to the machine herself. If the
vacuum cleaner or this dish washing machine needs attention, the company will
send its visiting mechanic to set it right and, of course, make a small charge for
his time. In this manner both the labour and the money saved by dispensing
with human labour is quickly absorbed by the manufacturers, while the simple
gardener's wife sloggers on like a donkey having displaced the help of other
human beings. She has to put in extra work attending on those-her mechanical
servants. The leisure promised to her proves illusory and whatever she saves up
goes towards the purchase of some other 'labour-saving-device'. She is no better
off in the end. If anything she has to work harder, all by herself driving her
machines. The human labour that has been driven out of employment here will
ultimately turn up at the factory gates of the manufacturers for work and
wages. The story of these we shall trace later.
Has the standard of living of the gardener's wife changed so as to allow her
opportunities for the free play of her higher faculties? Has this complex
standard given her more time for thought and reflection? On the other hand, as
she has to attend to everything single-handed she may have no time even to
look into a magazine. She drudges from morn till night. All this for what? Her
time is filled up with work that brings little of real life. Is this 'living' in the
proper sense of the word? It is worse than mere existence.
The simple life, on the other hand, can be 'high' and present all that is finest in
human life, perhaps, even better than a complex life which later kills
personality as it follows ways set by others.
Taking the occasion of dining, whether the meal is taken in Western style or in
Indian style there a little difference nutritively. The Indian method of eating
has advantages of cheapness combined with cleanliness and affords free scope
for one's ideas of art in serving. What is more colourful than a meal served on a
green fresh leaf? The cream rice or chapatties with yellow dhal, white dahi, red
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chutneys, brown pickles, multicoloured salad of fresh vegetables, red tomatoes
etc., make a pleasing sight to start with; when the meal is over and the leaves
have been removed only the floor remains to be washed out. The diners
themselves, who eat with their fingers, invariably wash their teeth and rinse
their mouths also after meals, which is a most desirable and hygienic habit. But
those who use forks and spoons have abandoned this wholesome custom. The
farthest they may go in this direction is to dip their finger tips daintily in a
finger bowl of water and after moistening their lips wipe them off with a
napkin! Wherein lies the superiority or higher quality of the most complicated
Western style? The complex manner of life increases expense without any
corresponding benefit in cleanliness or art.] Therefore, as has been already
observed, the distinction is more accurately made by calling the Western
method 'complex' and ours 'simple' rather than 'high' and 'low' respectively.
Within a definite mode of living there can be 'high' and 'low' standard indicating
differing qualities. A man who uses fine. counts for his dhoties has a 'higher'
standard than one who is content with coarser cloth; while one who uses suits,
cut and tailored in Western style with collar, tie and perhaps a hat, cannot be,
for that reason, said to have a higher standard than one who uses just a Dhoti
and Kurta. The hat wallah certainly has an imitation-complex standard while
the dhoti wallah is perhaps more original in having his dhoti designed and
woven to his taste locally and definitely more sensible in view of the climate.
Similarly, one who eats plain rich with chillies or pickles has a 'low' standard in
comparison with one who enjoys a well balanced diet.
The life of one in the 'Parasitic' or 'Predatory Economy' is certainly lower than
the life of one in "Service Economy". The standard of life of a multimillionaire,
however expensive it may be, is 'low' in comparison with that of an ashramite
devoted to the service of the land.
In the preceding example, we discussed the Indian Dewan, who belongs to the
Economy of Gregation, and has a higher standard of life, whatever his material
mode of living may be, than the British gardener who at best belongs to the
Economy of Enterprise.
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The trend in modern life is to follow fashions by increasing the complexity
competitively while lowering the human standard in so doing.
In America, home-life is being rapidly broken up by false ideas of living being
disseminated. A couple may live in a flat of one or two rooms with 'labour-
saving devices'. The husband will go to work in the morning and so will the
wife. Each will have a snack breakfast on the way in some cafeteria, perhaps,
lunch at a factory refreshment bar or grill, and the two will meet in the
evening and have their supper in a restaurant and, if their combined income is
big enough to support a car, will go for a drive and visit a cinema and return to
their rooms to listen in to the radio. There is no house-keeping, cooking or
other attributes of the home. They will not care to have bother of having
children nor can their 'high' standard of living allow of it. These are they who
are slaving away for the manufacturers who set the 'high' standard so as to have
'hands' readily available for the factories. The casual labour that helped the
British gardener's wife, the parlour maids and other household servants have
been driven to the factory gates and have had their standard of living 'raised'.
Such 'high' standards are advocated not for the betterment of the people from
altruistic motives but to serve the selfish ends of interested parties.
Manufacturers, apart from diverting servants into factory hands, paralyse the
freedom of action and movement of their employees by such standards being
set up. The bargaining power of labour is reduced in the proportion in which
material standards are raised.
A mill-owner, who desires that his 'hands' should not seek periodical digression
but should be regular in their attendance so that his mill production may be
steady and not fluctuate, will plan on his workers leading a complex standard
of existence which he will be pleased to call a 'high' standard of living. To
achieve this end he will pay his workers higher wages, support a liberal-
welfare schemes, and get them accustomed to amenities of factory life such as
clubs, tea rooms, games, cinemas, good housing etc. The result of all this will
be, that the worker who gets used to live on this level of a complex standard of
the American couple we noticed, will be loathe to change places even if his
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principles were violated by the factory owner. Such a standard is expensive and
so he will have no reserves to fall back on, in case of being put out of
employment, and being habituated to spending money on material wants, these
would assume the role of necessities without which, he is led to believe, he
cannot live. Thus are his freedom of movement and bargaining power curbed
and the worker is glued down to his work bench. Such a standard functions like
a nose-string to a bullock. It is placed there to neutralize his freewill and to
make the worker amenable to the will of the employer.
The high salaries paid to public servants under a foreign government are of this
nature. Many a patriot has been drawn away from his path of duty by such baits
and has been so caught in the meshes as to deaden his conscience into adopting
strong measures against his own people which he would never have consented
to in his untramelled and detached state. Such persons have their sense of
values distorted and their will to act has been paralysed by the lure of colourful
and comfortable existence.
Again, looking at it from the point of view of the bargaining power of capital
and labour, if any dispute should arise between the employer and the workers,
the former, having greater financial reserves, can bide his time and wait till
the power of resistance of the workers is broken. The workers who live on their
wages cannot hold out long before they are faced with dire need and
starvation. But workers, whose method of living is simple and, therefore,
inexpensive, can resist longer than those whose living is complex and
expensive. Hence also is the employer interested in advocating a complex
standard of living for his workers so that his workers may not be in a position to
bargain with him long. Apart from these reasons concerning his workers, we
have already seen how the complex modes of living afford good markets for the
manufacturers as in the case of the British gardener's household. So both on the
side of production and that of sales, the complex standard is a profitable one
for the manufacturers.
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Industrial nations, like America follow such a policy as being one of 'enlightened
self-interest' but it is inimical to man's freedom of action and growth of
personality.
There are other objectives in introducing or following a complex standard of
life, but as these do not concern the masses intimately we shall but give a
passing notice to such.
Ostentation calls for a complex standard. A person may put his servants in
uniform to attract attention or appear distinguished. A uniform sinks the
personality of the servant and makes him a mere functionary. He ceases to be
'Rama' of 'Din Mohamed' and becomes 'Boy', Bearer, Peon, Chaprasi, 'Driver' etc.
Such servants (poor creatures that they are) do not possess such finery in
private life and so hug these uniforms and are proud of them. Ostentations
spending has been well termed 'conspicuous waste'. Such habits, in a poor
country like ours, must be regarded 'criminal waste'.
Then exclusiveness can only be ensured by a complex standard. Travelling first
class or paying high rents to live in aristocratic localities are of this category.
For our country no one standard can be fixed. Any form chosen will have to be
selected after fully taking into consideration the local demands of nutrition,
climate, facilities for human progress, opportunities for expressing personality,
etc.
In South India, rich as staple food may be adequate but it must be unpolished
and balanced with other articles like milk, dhal, vegetables, fat, etc. The
climate here may not call for much clothing or any foot-wear and a mat may be
sufficient bedding. In the North, wheat may do duty as a staple with other
articles to balance the diet. The severe cold of winter may call for more
clothing and foot-wear, charpoys or cots etc. So what is a necessity in one
place may be a superfluity in another. Hence the need to judge the mode of
life in close relationship with local circumstances and environment.
If the norm chosen is to lead to permanence and non-violence, it should fit into
the local economy of the people. We have, in an earlier chapter, noticed how
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nature works in cycles, the life of one unit forming the complement of another-
and how, if this cycle is broken, violence is generated accompanied by
destruction. The accepted standard of living, besides providing the opportunity
for the development of one's faculties and laying out the method of expressing
one's personality, should also form a link between the various members of
society whereby the better equipped help the less fortunately placed ones.
The British gardener's beds may be equipped with spring mattresses. These are
manufactured in factories with the labour of those who formerly, were helpers
in the gardener's household cleaning carpets and washing dishes-but were
displaced by labour-saving devices and drawn away by the factory owner by the
lure of a complex standard of life. Such mattresses are made of steel springs
which are themselves factory products. If any part of the mattress requires
attention the factory's 'service squad' will have to be called. There is no organic
unity between the life of the people and the production of such a mattress.
Our Dewan, leading a high but simple life, may sleep on a mat, not necessarily
a coarse one. It may well be a 'Patumadai' creation with silk warp and made of
reeds split into thirytows or even finer. Those mats are cooler than quilts or
mattresses and they are local products. The making of these provides scope for
the matweavers to develop their sense of art and skill in workmanship and
affords an outlet for their creative faculty; thus it helps in building and
expressing their personality. These mats have various artistic designs worked
into them and are so supple that they can be folded like silk. They are clean
being washable. Of course, the high quality ones are expensive. Mats may range
from 8 annas a pair to Rs. 200 each according to the material used and
workmanship involved. What the Dewan may spend on these will go directly to
support and maintain the artisans and their families and so forms a complete
cycle with the locally available reeds which constitute the raw materials. Such
an economy does not require the Army, the Navy and the Air Force to secure
their raw materials, find or make the markets and to keep the long ocean lanes
open and safe. Hence, they have no need of violence, as would be the case if
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the Dewan patronized spring mattresses made in Britain and included them in
his 'Standard of Living'.
Similarly also the Dewan's dhoti and other clothing, being of fine Khadi, made
to order, will encourage local spinners and weavers and afford them full scope
for development.
In such a manner, everyone of our requirements should be so linked up with
local production and the life of the people around us as to form a solid well-
knit economy. Only then will it lead to permanence, as it will promote healthy
growth without destruction by violence.
Frequently, the standard of life is described in terms of money and materials
without any reference to the lives of those around us. Such standards are
artificial and so are unstable and being superimposed and superficial will not be
permanent having no root in the very life of the people. The British gardener's
standard of life is laid out in that fashion. Such lead to regimentation and
standardization which are soul-killing.
There is no need thus to determine all the details that go to make life. What
we need to do is to take care of the minimum that is essential, and direct the
productivity of the people by conditioning their environments and making raw
materials etc. available to them, and then safely leave the rest to their
initiative and their ingenuity without further interference. Just as, if we want
to raise the level of water in a tank, all we need to do is to increase the
quantity of water in the tank. The level will rise of its own accord in obedience
to nature's laws without any further aid from us.
If people in our country are starving or going about ill-clad, they are neither
sliming for a beauty contest nor are they following the cult of the nude! They
know how and what to eat and what to put on. What is needed is not a
schedule but the goods-articles of food and clothing. We have to take steps to
make it possible to produce these in needed quantities.
If we increase productivity of the masses and direct consumption, so as to
afford a ready local market, the standard of living of the people will
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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.
The British gardener's standard of living was strictly individualistic in that it was
not correlated to the life of the people around him. It was confined to the four
walls of his house. It is said "An Englishman's house is his castle" Yes, it
effectively shuts out the world however much of material creature comforts it
may provide for those inside. Such isolation from the life currents around them
is caused in our country also by those who follow western modes of life.
The norm we seek for is not for a single family or even a class or group but for
the local population as a whole. This means the norm will interlink the life of
everyone. In a way, our ancient village organization attempted something on
these lines when it tried to assure every inhabitant his subsistence by allocating
an annual share to each from out of the total produce of the village, in the
form of 'Baluta', 'Padi' etc., to its members who serve as barbers, chamars,
mochis. This system recognized that they all formed one corporate whole. But
what we want, is not merely provision for bodily existence, but a provision also
for opportunities of development of the higher creative faculties of man.
To refer again to our Dewan, when he wants a leather case for his papers, he
would call in the mochi, specify the quality of leather he requires, and the
shape, size and accommodation needed. The mochi, in his turn may get the
chamar to tan the required quality leather. All this will present several
problems which will have to be solved. This provides scope for ingenuity and
resourcefulness. Thus the Dewan's demand opens up opportunity for the
exercise of the creative faculty of those around him. If instead, the Dewan
walked into a British store and bought a readymade article, such a brief case
may not be exactly what he wants as he had only to choose out of the ready
stock. Besides, he may not even have exercised his mind as to what he wants.
The thinking would have been done in advance for him by the manufacturers,
not for him in particular, but as a general preposition. When he orders a thing
locally he himself thinks of the various details and decides the kind of article
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he wants and then directs those around him to produce it. In this way, the life
and thought of the consumer is closely entwined with the life and creative
faculty of the producer, each attempting to solve the problems formulated by
the other. Our lives are not independent entities but are closely one with
another. A proper standard of life will then be the silken strand which strings
together the goodly pearls of life-individual members of society. Such is the
Dewan's standard of living in that it connected up his life not only with those of
the spinners, weavers, mat-makers, chamars, mochis etc., but also with his
dumb fellow creatures such as the goat that fed on his dining leaf. No man
liveth unto himself. When factory made articles are used there is no such living
touch with the people around. Then the standard of living is coupled to lifeless
machines which are producers without any creative faculty that can be
developed.
Hence, our norm of life must be such as to bring together as a living organizm
the various sections of society in healthy cooperation. Such a norm will not be
calculated to be of use to isolated and segregated individual only but will
function as a binding cement of society as a whole. There will then be mutual
trust, unity and happiness which will be a source of strength and not of discord,
n that society.
The Nude cult and ill-clad poverty
The staple of raw cotton taken by itself is flimsy and weak. But when thousands
are spun together and the strands are twisted into a cabled rope it will be
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strong enough to tow an ocean liner. Such should be the result produced by a
satisfactory standard of living. It 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.
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XII. WORK

Although a most commonly used word yet 'work' is perhaps one of the few
words whose meaning people never take the trouble to consider. What is work?
What function does it perform in the economy as ordained by nature?

One of the great problems facing the nations today is the provision of work for
the millions, so it is imperative that the significance of work should be fully
comprehended. In an earlier chapter, we considered how in natnre the various
factors that make for continuity and permanence are brought together by
natural agents to serve the eternal order of the universe-worms as fertilizers of
the soil, birds' as carriers and sowers of seeds, bees as fluidizers of plant life.
Such is work and such is the life mission of these creatures in nature.

As regards man also, we discussed what life was, and what its constituents
were, apart from mere existence. As distinct from the lower orders, man could
exercise his freewill and bring together diverse units of nature to serve their
purposes better. In so doing he himself can develop his faculties and also be
able to express his personality through the application of his scale of values in
solving the practical problems before him. This then constitutes work for man
and also its function.

For a proper understanding of what work is, it is necessary to consider the
simplest form of it in the early history of man, shorn of all its manifold and
confusing appendages with which it is enshrouded today. The origin of work, in
its purest form, can be traced to the early days of man when his ways began to
diverge from those of the instinct-driven animals when he began to make
himself tools out of stones. His work was to supply his own needs using his
intelligence forethought and resourcefulness in a way similar to how a bird
builds itself a nest and goes about in search of food. Man worked to serve and
please himself. There was no wage other than the satisfying of his personal
wants. This activity was healthy enough to sharpen his faculties and to let him
grow as a thinking animal. He brought his finds and kills home, to his simple
cave-dwelling where his woman dressed them and got them ready for eating.

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Thus began housekeeping as the beginning of woman's work. To this day, at least in our country, women's work follows this pure form of supplying one's needs oneself in one's own home.

Constituent Elements of work: When work is analysed it is found that it is a compound of many parts, each contributing its share towards the achievement of the final goal. In the main it consists of routine and rest, progress and pleasure. We cannot isolate any one of those from the others and constitute it into a living unit capable of existence by itself, we cannot give the routine part of it to one man and the resting part to another, neither can a third party appropriate all the pleasure to himself. In music, each note has its characteristic timing or rest, which forms an integral part of the note itself which would have no meaning without that period of rest. A man, who aspires to become a musician, has to put in hours of routine practice of scales and chords, only by so doing can he ultimately obtain the joy of rendering in music his deep emotions. This routine cannot be * detailed out to one so that another may feel the joy of success. One may passively enjoy music-tune in the radio. But, that does not make a musician of one. Similarly, everything that is worth doing demands repeated practice.

To take another example, a proper diet is constituted of roughage, nutritive elements and taste. One who desires to have the taste only without the bother of masticating the whole meal, may, with the help of modern science, get what he wants but he will not be able to sustain himself on it for any length of time. So also the roughage in our diet plays the most important part of aiding digestion and full assimilation. Similarly, all the constituent parts of work are essential to get the best out of it and to let it serve its definite purpose ordained by nature.

Since time immemorial, man has used his freewill in trying to break up work into its component parts, passing on the routine to those who are helpless to resist and appropriating to the strong the pleasures to be derived from work. The routine was shouldered on the slaves while the master enjoyed the fruits of his labour. The civilizations of Greece and Rome were based on such

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misappropriation of pleasure and avoidance of routine. Consequently they have
perished leaving behind just their ashes of greatness to tell their tale as a
warning to us. Not heeding this, the modern industrial empires are repeating
the same effort to reserve for the manufacturing countries the benefits and
pleasures, while shifting unmitigated drudgery to raw material producing
countries. Being contrary to the order ordained by nature, such attempts are
bound to fail. In our own times we have a visible demonstration of the
devastating violence generated by such efforts to thwart nature. These
periodical global wars are the means through which the empire countries are
trying to impose their will on the rest of mankind. For a while they may appear
to succeed, but since the seed of destruction and decay is in it, any such
organization brought about by violent means will perish in due course.
We noticed, in previous chapter, how the makers of 'labour- saving-devices' by
their successful high pressure sales organization drove out household servants,
farmers and field labour, and converted them into factory 'hands' for
themselves to tend their machines. Such a transformation in England naturally
left its countryside uncultivated as there was none to attend to the farms and
fields. No country can live on coal, iron and tin. It must have food. This made it
imperative for England to hold other countries in political subjection to obtain
its food supplies and other materials, as it cannot afford to depend for such
essentials on the tender mercies of others or leave it to the vagaries of unaided
private commerce. Other countries, naturally, will not meekly submit to such
subjection, and, hence, violence has become the foundation stone of life in
England. Every alternate generation sheds its youth and talent on the battle
fields to accomplish and maintain its organization. Is this a sensible
arrangement? Generally speaking, the man in the street will acknowledge the
futility of this method which has to be sustained by periodical slaughter of the
innocents. Therefore, to confuse the issues, all the means available-advocating
a complex standard of living, a system of education giving false values,
glorifying violence-have been used to mislead the public, whose unquestioning
support is needed to maintain such an order. The devastating effects of such
propaganda are to be noticed in mothers' sacrificing the lives of their sons with

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pride for such a purpose, and wives urging their husbands to risk themselves on
the battle-fields. It is natural for a mother to take pride in the fact that her son
has been trained to murder other innocent sons on a mass scale and get killed
himself in the effort? Can a loving wife contemplate the sacrifice of her
beloved on the altar of International Robbery? Yet, these results have been
obtained by infusing into the minds of the people a scale of false values, which
treacherously enforces them to use their freewill to stray into paths of violence
and destruction, which in their normal lucid thinking they would naturally flee
from.
To make such a perversion possible violence has been glorified. Murder in retail
is visited by capital punishment. But murder in wholesale of innocent young
promising lives is rewarded by national honour being accorded to the doers of
such dastardly deeds, by the conferment of titles, by erecting monuments in
their memory in holy places of worship such as the Westminster Abbey or St.
Paul's Cathedral. Is there not something radically wrong in a system which has
to resort to such devious ways to maintain itself? The public is rendered sense-
less by having its finer feelings benumbed by this topsy turvy order. The
complex standard of living, we considered in the previous chapter, is helpful in
that it leaves the people no time to contemplate the situation in calmness. It
keeps them self-satisfled and complacent, leaving those in power to pursue
their ends unhampered.
The modus operandi is simplicity itself. We saw that as ordained by nature man
works only to satisfy himself. So his wants are the direct stimuli for him to put
forth the effort. Increase his wants and the greater will be his effort. Here is
the raison d'etre of the advocacy of a created multiplicity of wants, in other
words, of the so-called 'raising' of his material standard of living or making it
complex, which we noticed functioned like a nose-string to a bullock. It curbs
man's will restricting his freedom of movement and action and directs him into
the ways desired by the one who holds the reins. The one who is under such a
lead is soon bereft of his reasoning faculties and follows unquestioningly.
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