FAST FORWARD TOWARD CIVILIZATIONAL GREATNESS: AGENDA FOR INDIA

This book has been conceived through grief as well as cheer. Grief is from the carnage that is going on, with a few exceptions, across the world, thanks to unbridled greed, fanaticism, fury, and the reign of falsehood. As the Irish poet William Butler Yeats put it, “...The blood-dimmed tide is loosed upon the world, / The ceremony of innocence is drowned;...”. And yet, peel away the negative news bombarding us everyday, and you get to know of cheering news of goodness, positive creativity and excellence. The larger purpose of this book is to reveal this world of goodness so that we can collectively tilt the balance in favour of goodness. The more specific objective is to start a conversation about the fate of civilization, especially in what has come to be called the Third World of developing countries, particularly India. In this troubled world much good is being done but needs to be uncovered; and much more good can be achieved. This book’s aim is to provide a slew of ideas about how civilization in developing countries, especially India, can rise to greater heights. To me, a civilization is great when there is widespread humaneness, creativity, and performance excellence, for then the likelihood is that the changes and innovations that a society and its institutions come up with are likely to be humane and well executed which then further reinforce humaneness, creativity, and performance excellence. Through this book I want to demonstrate that the quest for civilizational greatness is a feasible quest despite the turbulence of our times. When we think of socio-economic development in a developing country, we essentially talk about the growth rate of per capita income, rate of industrial development, and improvement in the quality of life indicators such as mortality rates, literacy rates, environment-related indicators, health indicators, life satisfaction, etc. I have no quarrel with these indicators, and indeed welcome progress on these indicators. The question I want to raise is: Does socio-economic development make people more humane, more creative, more performance excellence oriented? Does it lead to a better civilization? If not, then what kind of governance, business, and civil society ecology do we need to create that not only yields economic development but also makes a nation more caring, creative and performance excellence oriented, thus raising the bar of its civilization?BothhavebecomeessentialpillarsofmodernizationandIamcommittedtoboth.But both market economy and democracy are driven by greed – greed for money and greed for power. Unless restrained by nobler concerns and effective regulatory institutions, such greed often leads to erosion of ethics and values, and a get-rich or get-power quick at any cost culture tends to emerge. Developing countries are widely engaged in largely state-funded and state-administered socio-economic development through investment in health, education, welfare, infrastructure, etc.Unfortunately, the state in many developing countries is poorly managed and there is also extensive corruption. Such development may make people better off materially but it corrodes life’s quality. As I mentioned earlier, this book is meant to initiate a conversation about what kind of superiorcivilization we want to co-create.It does not purport to provide a detailed blueprint, but only a number of potentially useful action points that can be elements ofan agenda of transformation. Such an agenda,with suitable modifications, can move a nation like India, many other developing countries, and possibly also developed countries towards civilizational greatness. I will be happy to receive viewpoints at pradipkhandwalla@yahoo.co.in