Man's Fate and God's Choice by Bhimeswara Challa (ereader for textbooks TXT) 📖

Harvey. The Return of the Mother. 2001. Tarcher/Putnam. New York, USA. p.12.

198 Cited in: Robert Andrews. The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations. 1989. Columbia University Press, USA. p.113.

 

the process of governance; and the crafty and clever capture the levers of governance. The British-American author Thomas Paine phrased the dilemma well when he said that the best of governance is a necessary evil, and the worst intolerable. Plato wrote that “the punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the

government of worse men.”199 The dilemma endures. Every form of governance, from City- State to Nation-State, to the League of Nations to the United Nations, has failed to measure up to its intent and expectations. Mankind remains fragmented and fractured, and has not been able to create any collective institution that can truly project and pursue the human cause. And the human will remain in this state unless he himself changes and transforms from within. We must give serious thought to the question as to why human intellectual and creative capacity, which has been so productive in so many fields, has never been able to actualize Lincoln’s elevating concept of ‘government by the people, of the people and for the people’, in which everyone can find avenues for full utterance of their inherent potential without exploiting anyone else. The problem is not with the institution; nor with the ingenuity or the lack of its founders; it is the mind of man that does not know how to govern or be governed.

Yet the thirst for ‘good governance’ is as old as human civilization, as old as the idea of utopia, where everyone lives in a society that enables every individual to rise to his full potential while also contributing to the common good. The air is thick with talk of ‘good governance’ and ‘globalization’; but rarely in conjunction with each other. What the world needs is ‘globalized good governance’, a paradigm and a process at the global level, which lends itself suitably and sensitively to a truly planetary approach to planetary problems, and which empowers and enables an institution that is charged with that responsibility. The United Nations, as it is now structured and operates, cannot play that part. The truth of the matter is that the earth, as the heart and home of humankind, can no longer be sustained by a post-war fabricated international institutional framework like the United Nations and the World Bank. The main stumbling block is nationalism — which Einstein called ‘the measles of mankind’, and Erich Fromm, ‘our form of incest, …our idolatry, …our insanity’ — and our almost compulsive inability to put the world ahead of the nation, and the nation ahead of the individual. Few care to know what their governments do to others ostensibly for their sake. No inhumanity is too much if it is supposed to protect or further ‘national interest’. And if a nation is in a ‘state of war’, declared or undeclared, then all bets are off on what it would not do; blowing up a hospital or bombing a nursery is called ‘collateral damage’. The very code that governs ‘being human’ becomes inoperative, even unpatriotic. The phrase ‘good governance’ itself has become an oxymoron; governance has to be participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective, equitable, and inclusive. It is doubtful if we will ever find a paradigm that encompasses all those elements, at least in the present state of mind of humanity. Aldous Huxley summarized the human dilemma and wrote that “one of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their

home-made monsters.”200 We continue to grope, and things are getting no better. There is

 

 

 

 

199 Plato. WorldofQuotes.com: Historic Quotes and Proverbs Archive. Accessed at: http://www.worldofquotes.com/topic/Government/2/index.html

200 Aldous Huxley. Finest Quotes.com. Accessed at: http://www.finestquotes.com/select_quote-category- Organization-page-0.htm

 

almost a universal sense of dissatisfaction and disenchantment with the structure of governance, whether it is local or global, municipal or national. Some say we get the governance we deserve; others say it is our leaders who have failed us. The malaise is systemic, not institutional. Whether it is the leaders or the laymen, representatives or the represented, they all come from the same stock, human, and their behavior is a reflection of their position and placement. The bottom-line is the mind, which quickly adjusts to the context and tries to take full advantage to further its own agenda. The prevailing political paradigm, in many ways, perhaps the worst of the lot thus far, is the structure of a sovereign state. Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian political theorist said that “the state then is the most

flagrant negation, the most cynical and complete negation of humanity”201. The State has almost displaced the world, even the universe, and the family, as the center of human attention and allegiance. The rulers of the modern ‘militarized’ State exercise more power and control over the citizens than in any other model of governance. Even Plato conceded that the rulers of the State are the only ones to have the privilege of lying. Of course they all do, and more than that, they have the privilege — and legitimacy — to wage war, murder, torture, lie and cheat, all in the name of ‘just’ governance and to ‘protect’ the lives and liberty of the people. A citizen is a subject and a supplicant, if not a slave of the State. National interest overrides human rights and morality is the first casualty. Next only to religion, it is the state-sponsored nationalistic fervor that contributes most to human killing.

Although only a few centuries old, the political model of Nation-State serious questions are being raised about its durability and its relevance to the so-called ‘flat world’ and to solve global problems that require global, not national, solutions. Some argue that it has already become a major source of discontent, division, and disarray in human affairs. Many think that its days are numbered, but no viable alternative is visible on the horizon. Sovereignty has become a straightjacket, shorthand for unquestioned and unaccountable authority, requiring implicit and total acceptance and obedience to its diktat. Not only does the modern State trample upon its citizens, but also the very logic of its survival often requires that it should be in a state of hostility with at least one other State, to compete for hegemony, resources, influence, and ideology. The doctrine of absolute State sovereignty has come to mean that the government of the day can do what it chooses to do with its subjects without any outside interference. The world has witnessed rulers like the communist leader Mao Zedong, who preferred to let 30 million of his country’s citizens die in the years 1958- 1961 due to famine, rather than seek outside help, fearing ‘loss of face’ and ‘erosion’ of China’s international standing. With rare, if any, exceptions, most of the ruling elites are those who do not believe or practice what was written about the ideal ruler more than three thousand years ago. In the famous Indian classic Arthasashtra, Kautilya writes, “In the happiness of his subjects lies his [the King’s] happiness; in their welfare his welfare. He shall not consider as good only that which pleases him but treat as beneficial to him whatever

pleases his subjects.”202 The State has turned out to be a competitive body which believes that its own survival and strength depend not on its intrinsic worth, but on the demise and weakness of other states. Modern technology has given to the State awesome powers of surveillance, control, and subjugation of its citizens.

 

 

 

 

201 Mikhail Bakunin. Ethics: Morality of the State. Accessed at: http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/ anarchists/bakunin/writings/ethics_state.html

202 S.K. Agarwal. Towards Improving Governance. Kautilya on Governance, Self-Discipline, and Riches. 2008. Academic Foundation. New Delhi, India. p.22.

 

The wide disparities in the size, resources, and strength (economic and military) of States, have, among other things, skewed global resource utilization and decision-making. The emergence of the environment as an important global issue has added a new element. In earlier times, human beings largely lived in harmony with Nature, and there was no need for any institutional authority to enforce harmony. The absence of any effective global institutional authority today has pushed global interests to the back burner. What is urgently needed is the cooperation of the States, particularly the strongest ones, in protecting the environment, and thereby ensure the welfare of the unborn generations. The fact is that both individual and global interests are fast becoming casualties at the hands of the modern sovereign State.

The moot question is whether the world would move towards gigantism and centralization, à la the English novelist George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), or shift gears towards a mix of strong grassroots and global governance. Man needs to move at once in two apparently opposing directions: proximate local governance, and institutionalized planetary governance. Many have dreamt of a world government but, given the human condition, it will remain largely a dream unless the mindset of man changes radically. The fact is that not only the States but even the ‘citizens of the world’ want a world government that is empowered to exercise the kind of powers that national governments currently exercise. Furthermore, one is not even sure if an executive global government would not turn into a kind of Orwellian ‘Oceania’ (a fictional state), a colossal coercive and possessive apparatus. That risk is always there, but it is debatable which portends a greater risk: the present paralysis and regression caused by the clash of ‘national interests’, or an imperfect but effective global government. A decade or two ago, one could make a persuasive case from both ends. But no longer now: none of the serious problems the world is now facing, from terrorism to climate change, can be seriously addressed with the status quo. The world needs a strong, truly international, not intergovernmental, organization to take care of the global issues, and to settle the plethora of inter-State and even intra-State problems without giving way to violence and war, and the resultant global catastrophe. As the perennial but abortive ‘reform’ of the United Nations demonstrates, no true change can occur because those whose consent and cooperation is required are the direct beneficiaries of the present intergovernmental power structure. In the absence of any strong global constituency at the grassroots level, there is no pressure for global governance from any quarter. Even at the national level, interpersonal governance has to be necessarily local. Power has to be proximate to be responsible and responsive. The power to raise revenues and cater to human needs must rest with the representative body closest to the people. The corridors of power have to be within easy reach for policy corrections. The ideal would be to return to the model of City-States and village republics as the principal political centers of governance. And what we now call country or State, would have only those powers and resources that are commensurate with its responsibilities at that level.

That is the only way we can solve the riddle posed by Paul Valéry, the French poet: “If the State is strong, it crushes us, if it is weak, we perish.”203 Sovereignty should be with the people, and the bulk of governance should be at two levels: at the grassroots level, and at the global level. Proximate governance can be strong, representative, and responsible, and global governance can take care of global issues free from the shackles of intergovernmental,

‘zero-sum’ interplay. Many thoughtful people are of the view that we may be present at a

 

 

 

203 Cited in: Robert Andrews. The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations. 1989. Columbia University Press. USA. p.253.

 

historic time of decay and death of