Today, the discussion on growth and development is no longer an unfamiliar subject. This notional instrument has permeated every individual and become the new virtuous common sense. Anyone with an alternative view to that of human happiness through ceaseless production growth and burgeoning material goods is considered backward, existing at the lower growth-development scale incapable of moving up.
This understanding of development associated with the unilinear/unidirectional notion of growth and progress of a society was animated during the industrial revolution in the west where material advancement became the determinant. Fetching prime standing over other aspects and it is perceived that only through it, social and political progress can be achieved.
This one-way idea of growth is a western construction of its image fashioned during their new frontier exploration to make sense of themselves concerning others. Ordering and categorising others in a unilinear conception concerning their growth was thus projected, creating the understanding of stages of development of different colonies. Accordingly, societies are classified as developed and underdeveloped where the former knowing the stages of growth will aid the latter by guiding them to the future material growth.
A wary dimension of this conception is the (ideological) prescriptive undertone to which in the virtue of progress and growth, the powerful, experts and politicians justify their means and quash all things that are not in tune with their canvas. Giving themselves power, privileges, ethical validation to accelerate aggressive consumption at the cost of man-nature relations and the ‘commons’.
However, this is achieved not by the brute force of the regime alone but by rallying on consensus to the idea of the end social-political improvement.
This growth addiction with attributes of self-interested individualism, high competition, aggressive expansion and endless production and consumption is what is driving societies today. Countries in the global south are rapidly racing to catch up with the global north by taking the same linear path and mimicking their ways. However, this road of continual growth is attesting to be unsustainable and self-destructive causing environmental, social and economic crises.
Actions to increase growth simultaneously increase the pressure on the ecological systems, which, in a long run, will not only erode its systems but also the social-economic systems and life itself.
Looking at recent episodes of Meghalaya, it is apparent that thestate and its functionaries are appealing to this idea of growth and expansion where material advancement outweigh the socio-cultural, socio-natural, ecological aspects.
Starting with the river Umngot Hydroelectric Project that aims to produce 210 MW to address the power shortage takes priority over the livelihood and cultural relations of the indigenous people with their natural setting.
Even though this project will affect the downstream villages spread between two districts, the river and ecology itself, yet the rhetoric of growth and progress justify and supersede other concerns.
The same case can be seen with the Environmental Clearance given by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to M/s Star Cement Meghalaya Ltd for the mining lease of limestone and shale in Brishyrnot, East Jaintia Hills District. The proposed mining site is just 1.46 km from the Narpuh Wildlife Sanctuary and 0.25 km from the Eco-sensitive Zone of the same sanctuary.
However, consumption and wealth extraction fit their notional vision rather than otherwise, hence, the clearance is obtained through illegitimate means overriding and circumventing norms that do not serve their purpose. Another case is the expansion of Shillong-Tamabil road, which recently provoked outrage from citizens over the felling down of 100-year-old pine trees along with the Eastern Air Command stretch.
Yet, when the project was discussed at the initial stage, few questioned the purpose and intention for the expansion. Perhaps, the expansion will attend to ease traffic congestion or the transportation of the extracted resources to create more wealth for consumption? Nevertheless, since the project is under the premises of growth, a green light is given without a second thought.
Ironically, mimicking the west, we are pushing for this ideal growth, when the west who conceptualised the very idea is questioning it now. They have realised that this fixation on growth is neither sustainable nor desirable and they have come to a threshold that this growth will no longer secure employment or welfare for the people.
Now, a substantial number of individuals and groups in the west are proposing ‘De-growth’ as a way forward by gradually downscaling production and consumption and altering socio-economic configurations that will respect man-ecological relations and that increases wellbeing.
Simultaneously, discouraged western systems to be implanted in non-western societies for they tend to disrupt local systems of resistance and self-reliance. Here the reduction of GDP is not the goal but rather the transformation of worldview and changes in the political-economic organisation.
We find numerous individuals seeking an alternative in indigenous communities and one case in point is Julia Watson, a lecturer and landscape designer, teaching and practising in New York, who is looking at indigenous practices that offer solutions to climate change.
In her venture, she explores the practices ranging from the floating island of Peru, the agroforestry system of Chagga of Tanzania, Bheri Wastewater Aquaculture in Kolkata, the root bridges of the Khasis and many others.
These practices according to her, increase biodiversity, lessen flood, clean the water, counteracting carbon emission, to name a few. Calling everyone to look at the principles of indigenous practices that may help mitigate global crises and be resilient for the future.
Here, not just her works but there are abundant cases and works of different indigenous peoples talking about their practices and worldview, which is perhaps an alternative to the promised happiness in the unilinear destructive growth.
For instance, an important lesson we can learn from the Ojibway people of Turtle Island that any action with the ecosystem should be carried out keeping in mind the effect it will have on the seventh generation.
Likewise, the Khasis share this parallel worldview like other indigenous peoples, having a symbiotic relationship between culture and nature where all-natural entities having both living and spiritual attributes and co-exist in equilibrium as one.
These principles and practices are passed down to uphold this balance for the continuity of life and to ensure the same to the next generation. However, such a worldview is outside the legitimate knowledge system and does not fit the narrative, hence, ideas such as fast consumption, material growth, immediate gratification are the knowledge we consumed in a consumerist society, and the outcome is as expected.
Nevertheless, these practices and understanding can still be found in our community and such knowledge systems should be recognised and appreciated not only by outsiders and western partners but also by the indigenous people themselves and deliberate in our knowledge sharing system.
An alternative is what we need. The destructive progress will not end as long as the rhetoric of endless growth is well regarded by all and can rally a consensus, which usually serves few powerful interest groups.
At the same time, this is by no means promoting the western de-growth movement(s) uncritically without understanding their privileged position and without taking into consideration the socio-economic context of the State and the global south in general, whereby downscaling may not be relevant and favourable in the case of Meghalaya.
Still, the notion that challenges the idea of limitless growth, its hierarchical power structures that degrade both man and nature is worth looking at. The revolution and transformation come not by reacting to events but by building alternative perspectives and values that will change the organisation. The question remains, Are we prepared for this?
The author is a scholar at the Delhi University. Views expressed are personal.
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