Bridging Divides: How Ethical Values Shape Democracy and the Economy

The topic of ethics and communal harmony and its impact on sustainable development is of grave importance in the context of today’s world. It influences just not us as individuals but hugely impacts society, the environment around us and the process of development as indeed the economy. An ethical community is not only desirable in its own right, but what Professor Amartya Sen would call its intrinsic value, not only because it is just and fair but also because it is a necessary condition, what would be its instrumental value, for sustainable economic development, reduced poverty and enhanced prosperity.

Since childhood we learn of the criticality of ethics in our life. But what is ethics or an ethical life? Is it morality or a combination of morality and reasoning? There are many aspects to it. The ethics that a Raja must follow—what we call Raj Dharam. Through the ages we have heard of this of kings, and rulers. It implies ethical values to rule. Through history we have examples of aggression by kings that rebooted themselves for change Ashoka after Kalinga and some failed despite efforts, like Marcus Aurellius who lived in the battlefield but would prefer a life of philosophy and poetry.

Then there is the ethics of religious people, an example strongly set by Sufis and followers of the Bhakti movement like Baba Nanak, Bulleh Shah or Kabir. These are poets of the heart Rumi and Bulleh Shah living several centuries apart but sharing the same mystical experiences with belief in the ethics of pure love. They question the reason for their existence—the purpose of life itself.

Rumi asks: “what can I do my friends, if I do not know?
I am neither Christian nor Jew, nor Muslim nor Hindu,
What can I do—not of the East, nor of the West, not of the land, nor of the sea,
Not of nature’s essence, nor of circling heavens, what can I be?”
And Bulleh Shah:
“Bulla kii jaana main kaun?
Not a believer in the mosque am I
Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I
I am not the pure amongst the impure,
Neither Moses nor Pharoah am I
Bulla, kii jaana main kaun?”

These people took ethics in their lives to a different level. They spoke only of love of humankind and of God the final mingling of man’s Atma with the ultimate Atma that created this world.

What Adi Shankaracharya says:
“Nirankar Roopam shivoham shivoham
I am not any aspect of the mind like the intellect, the ego or the memory,
I am not the organs of hearing, tasting, smelling or seeing,
I am not the space, nor the earth, nor fire, nor air, I am the form of consciousness and bliss, am Shiva..
Nirankaar Roopam, shivoham shivoham”

This is exactly akin the concept of “wahdat al wujuud” in Islam that believes that we are all part of the ultimate being the world is his creation, as are we, indeed parts of the eternal whole.

But then from the esoteric we transcend to the real world. Away from the mystical dimensions that are within realms of possibility but never obtained through greed, avarice and rage that lead to constant conflict all around.

We believed Democracy could be a panacea that too despite a poor start when the jurors in Greece ordered the hemlock for Socrates. And then in 1938 Thomas Mann warned an American audience that democracy must put aside the habit for taking itself for granted. What he meant was that most of times principles and ethics take a back seat when the elected ones get a sense of power or a feeling of insecurity. So much so that ethics, morals, principles can be given a go by.

And, therefore, today we see a challenge to liberal democracy—worldwide. It comes from right wing demagoguery. In 2021 the V-Dem Institute of Gothenburg, Sweden, produced the largest global data set on democracy, covering about 200 countries. The Institute’s findings are grim reading.

Autocracies now rule majority of people in 87 countries. This is home to 68% of global population.

Liberal democracies diminished over the past decade from 41 to 32 a population share of just 14%.

About 1/3rd of world population about 2.6 billion, live in nations urging “autocratisation” -just 4% live in regimes that are becoming more democratic. India with 1.4 billion once the world’s largest democracy is now described as an electoral autocracy due to shrinking space of media, civil society, and political opposition. Attacks on freedom of expression, right to private assembly, assaults on media, academics, civil institutions are intensifying across the world. In many ways it’s becoming increasingly clear that assassins of democracy use the same democratic institutions subtly, legally to throttle it. This is clear in Hungary, Russia, and Turkey in recent years.

Another area where ethics takes a back seat is resurgent nationalism. In the name of democracy resurgent nationalism all around the globe is one of the narrow, divisive, tribalistic ethno-nationalism that rides rough shod over diversities, suspicious of dissident groups and sees minorities as potential 5th columnists. This crude form of majoritarianism endangers civil rights of minorities but is attractive to populists from majority ethnic groups -catholic nationalists in Poland, Hindu nationalists in India, Islamists in Indonesia and Turkey, white evangelicals in the US and Brazil, or Zionists in Israel. And here lies serious concern as we look around the world in democratically elected governments.

Of course, authoritarian leaders have an advantage over their democratic peers in situations that require quick decisions while democracy is excruciatingly slow. However, I would argue that such advantages are transient. By its very construct, a functioning democracy is more deliberative, but electoral processes manage social conflicts better and lend stabilising legitimacy to policy decisions that grow from conditional consent of citizens. Yes, it can often be chaotic and maddeningly slow, but the fact remains that democracies enrich individual autonomy and freedom, participation and deliberation which may be regarded as an important part of human development itself. On the other hand, abuses that are routine in authoritarian countries make the quality of development poorer.

An ethical community recognises and respects the dignity and agency of an individual’s identity, irrespective of one’s caste, creed, religion, gender or sexual orientation. These are all its critically important intrinsic values. But I want to extend my argument further: in addition to these intrinsic values, an ethical community also has an instrumental value which enables it to prosper, to more effectively fight the scourges of poverty and be a more fair, just and equitable society.

So let me now come to instances when elected democrats have behaved in a bizarre, obnoxious, illegal and unacceptable manner and all ethics and principles are given a go by. And, in the process, they harm and hurt not only the targeted victims but the society at large making it poorer, more unfair, less just, more unequal: in other words, more diminished.

The United States seems to have forgotten the brazen attack on Capitol Hill in 2021 by Trump supporters and has accepted wild conspiracy theories. The illegal, ruthless and unwarranted bombings of Iraq by the United States and the UK in search of non-existent nuclear arms where drilling bombs were used on innocent civilians; bombs that could drill into the bowels of buildings and homes at temperatures of 3000 degrees incinerating all human life and Gen Colin Powell at the UN when he couldn’t move his lips without lying.

The use devastating weaponry and ammunition in the mountains of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in search of the allusive Mulla Omar and Bin Laden.

The unprecedented cruelty unleashed by Benjamin Netanyahu on the women and children of Gaza, and now Lebanon. It’s a novel horror in human history to watch a genocidal war on our mobile phones—where men, women and journalists live tweet and put pictures moments before dying.

India has been different. Long before we started understanding our glorious past through William Dalrymple many others have written of our great history. A.L. Basham wrote of The Wonder That Was India, even as Romilla Thapar dug deep into understanding our richness.

While Chanakya’s Arthshastra became the bible of administrative and governance principles, we had the first Republics of the world in Magadha. Nalanda became the fulcrum of profound education making knowledge spread its wings beyond India’s boundaries. The kingdoms in the South— the Chalukyas, Cholas and Rashtrakutas set new bench marks not just in fine administration but in arts, music and architecture. Similar processes unfolded across the dusty plains of North India in an epochal sweep and carried with them beliefs, traditions, rituals, cultures, mythologies, music, food, literary expressions and much else.

The mainstream, with its many tributaries and distributaries, was a celebration of diversities, a river flowing across centuries, meandering, stumbling and bursting through obstructions. India became a fabulous fabric interwoven with humanity, indeed life. And the seeds of expression scattered in the fertile polyglot soil of the Indo-Gangetic plains planted and replanted again and again in varying soils and climes across centuries were to grow into newer and richer strains.

Later the Mughals left an indelible contribution to arts, music and architecture, with incrusted words in gold on the Peacock Throne in Delhi’s Diwan-e-Khas: “agar firdaus e bar rooh e zameen ast, hamiin ast o hamiin ast o hamiin ast (if there is a paradise here on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here).”

Our stories for freedom from British rule are tales of folklore. If India did produce revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Batukeshwar Dutt, Rajguru, Chandrashekhar Azad, Mangal Pande, Rani Jhansi, Ashfaqullah Khan, Ram Prasad Bismil, Begum Hazrat Mahal, Hasrat Mohani (I could go on and on); then it also had a pacifist like Gandhi or constitutionalists like Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru and Babasaheb Ambedkar. Hundreds went to jail, gave up homes, gave up wearing western clothes to resort to simple hand-woven Khadi. India lived a revolution that was hitherto unknown to the world.

And then on November 26, 1949- 75 years ago we gifted a magnificent constitution to ourselves. Years of debates in the Constituent Assembly by patriots of the highest order, politicians, poets, teachers, men and women—some of whom had spent years in British jails gave us phenomenal Directive Principles of State Policy and guaranteed Fundamental Rights. Despite the horrible partition, the riots, Gandhi’s assassination, we rose above all that.

But as Thomas Mann had said in 1938 there are always dangers ahead. Seasoned politicians foresaw this. Writing in 1953/54 under the pseudonym of Chanakya, Nehru describes himself as a Caesar passing by, who might turn dictator with a little twist. While Nehru did not become one, his daughter certainly turned the Constitution on its head. She refused to abdicate power after the High Court declared her election to the Lok Sabha illegal. A so-called Emergency was declared for the whole country, opposition leaders incarcerated, as most of the press crawled to her commands. Everyone crawled. Judges were made Chief Justices superseding ones that upheld the Constitution. We have lived through those 19 months and make no mistake -very similar to Germany many of us applauded the emergency and were in fact happy when dissident voices, particularly those of students or labour unions were suppressed.

47 years since the Emergency have gone by but how much is the change? Despite economic development and progress, we go through the same tribulations as of a backward country. Dalits struggle to find space, as repeated communal riots shake the confidence of Muslims. Sikhs cannot forget 1984, as Christian padris and nuns are harassed at hand of religious bigots.

Even now so many are incarcerated in the Bhima Koregaon case and denied bail for years. Father Stan—82 years old, a man far from any form of violence dies in jail begging for a sipper. Prof Sai Baba is kept in jail for 10 years. He is 90% immobilised. When granted bail, the Supreme Court of India held a hearing on a Saturday and rejected the order of the lower court giving no reason for this rejection. Umar Khalid, a young man stays in jail for over 4 years. He has entered the fifth now. His bail is rejected 11 times judges recuse themselves, judges are on leave etc. His offence is the charge of sedition when his entire speech is on video. Police prepare charge sheets of thousands of pages, making sure no judge can go through it with care.

In India there have been over 2000 custodial deaths between 2021 and 2022. Who is accountable?

Over 154,000 homes have been demolished by bull dozers. Mostly of Muslims.
These are not the defining characteristics of an ethical community. These are not the necessary building blocks of a society which is in harmony with itself. And, as I have stressed so far, these are not helpful in any way for our economic development.

This is the land where Baba Bulleh Shah sang:
“Holi Khelungi, kah bismillah, naam nabi kii ratan chadhi boond padhi allah allah”.

This is our India. A bouquet of syncretic culture. Where a Muslim, Nazeer Akabarabadi sings peans in praise of Lord Krishna and Ram, where Mian Miir is called upon by Baba Nanak to lay the foundation stone of the Golden Temple.
Where thousands of Hindus and Muslims visit the Golden temple, heads covered in reverence or thousands of Sikhs and Hindus wishes being fulfilled.

And so we cannot have Nagas under virtual army rule, or a shattered Manipur waiting for resolution, or Adivasis in Chhattisgarh and the Maharashtra /Andhra border living under the fear of CRPF as foresters evict them from lands to make place for industry and are moved to destitution, or minorities living in fear of violence, lynchings or hate speeches, skilled and patriotic public sector workers demonised for inefficiency, women—urban, rural, rich and poor—crushed by patriarchy.

In the midst of all this, of course there is development. The Sensex booms and the rich grow richer. But is this sustainable if we are faced with continuing attempts to divide us? We have forgotten when G.D. Birla or Jamnalal Bajaj walked hand in hand with Gandhi. Birla supported the independence movement even while building ethical enterprises. Bajaj integrated Gandhian principles into business and the Godrej family remained committed to environmental sustainability long before it became fashionable. How little is known that under Gandhi’s influence Birla and Bajaj contributed funds to the Jamia Millia Islamia when this University ran out of funds in the 1920s. Jamnalal Bajaj became the treasurer for the Jamia Millia Islamia. We seem to have forgotten the achievements of the Tata group that built a vast business empire, that symbolised in many ways the genius of India’s enterprise in an ethical way. We should bow our heads to Azim Premji who lives even now conducting his business while upkeeping the highest moral standards and is indeed a torch bearer for immense philanthropic initiatives.

Readers, we cannot reach the heights we want to or are capable of with economic inequality at such unprecedented heights as it exists. Environmental degradation threatens our existence. And dare I say corporate influence where money buys power and influences governments—undermines the entire democratic process. It is when corporate money influences elections, when crony capitalism raises its ugly head, when environmental regulations are diluted for profit, when labour rights are compromised, when there is growing power of monopolies then there are bound to be issues that endanger the country.

The stoic philosopher Seneca said: “Life is like a play: its not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.” So today’s business leaders must ask: What excellence are we pursuing?

Our challenges in sustainability and inequality must become opportunities for innovative solutions. Businesses must emphasise ethical practices, develop metrics beyond profit and foster democratic corporate governance.

As the country strives to preserve its democracy and carry on the fight within Parliament and the Courts to preserve and nurture it, business leaders must step forward not just as wealth creators but as ethical stewards of our collective future.
So India stands at critical crossroads. While the Constitution stands for a complete undiluted, uncompromised, secular democracy—an ethical community living in social harmony, political interests are nudging it towards a state of continuing conflict. This must be resisted. We as Indians have to rise above our communities, beyond our castes, beyond our mohallas, streets and families and look at a world that our forefathers dreamt about as they fought for our freedom.