MACHINERY IS EVIL !!!! - Gandhiji. -KARMA /WORK ANALYSIS !

Introduction.

Work extracted through Machinery is evil. That is why modern society is caught in the quagmire of EVIL, since machines of all kinds are extensively used.  The West  addresses  this problem  of doing away with  social evils, with  technology and more and more machines.  Eg. The equipments for security and  surveillance and the ubiquitous  camera that you see everywhere. But then the problems do not vanish and it redounds with multiple and complex negative effects, threatening biological life on this planet . Thus it  is evident that the WEST does not fully comprehend the  human  spiritual, mental and physical constitution, essential for  devising  effective and long-lasting solutions conducive to peaceful living and happiness.  Their incomplete knowledge  of human nature & processes prevents them from conceiving  BENIGN Management /Work  Theories and Practices, essential for harmonious living. The deficiency of the West stems from its lack of understanding of the COSMIC process. Their Cosmology is weak and erroneous.

A chunk of modern machines run on electricity. Though businessmen and management experts consider the  chronic power shortage in Tamil Nadu  to be a bane, it  should be considered as a boon in disguise. People are inadvertently being conditioned to reduce power dependency and thus are weaned away from machinery.

Western Machinery Fetishism

In  the blog-posting  'PAUL & THE RIGHT TO BE LAZY' , it had been pointed out that Paul Lafrague had blundered badly, in advocating more and more industrial machinery to rescue the working class from drudgery.  Further  he had advocated the duration of work to be limited to  maximum three or four hours a day. And to  dispense off with manual labour  he  suggested the desirability of inventing more and more machinery. This was in the year 1883.

 In 1908, Gandhiji  wrote  The Hind Swaraj, a very fundamental work  , touching  all aspects  required of  peaceful national living.  In 1921, in  the foreword to a  later edition of the book ,  Gandhiji has said that the book was written  “in answer  to the Indian School of violence  and its prototype  in South Africa” (The full text of 'A Word of Explanation' by Gandhiji is provided in the scanned images in the blog-post).  According to Lord Lothian, a Britisher,  what Gandhiji was trying to teach India and the world “now lay in the germ in that little book which deserved to be read and re-read in order to understand Gandhiji properly”. One chapter of Hind Swaraj addresses the 'evils' due to machinery.

TO THE ‘MODERN’ WORLD GANDHIJI PRESENTED ‘MODERN’ ARGUMENTS AGAINST MACHINERY.

Gandhiji was not advancing naïve  arguments against MACHINERY. His reasonings against Machinery  are sound, and today we  experience  that, it had withstood the tests of TIME.  Gandhiji  appeared very candid, when he said that “the impetus behind  it  all(machinery) is not the philanthropy to save labour, but GREED.”   Paul Lafarge also desired  more and more machinery for rescuing humans from drudgery (saving labour) without worrying about its negative consequences. But  Gandhiji  is  more  pragmatic  with his total understanding of  human nature . Further  it was Gandhiji’s caution that machinery will help concentrate the wealth in the hands of a few. This is very conspicuous today, and  frequently we read in the media  about the trillionaires list and the FORTUNE 500 companies.

Gandhiji also believed that machinery will atrophy the limbs of man, and will encroach upon his individuality. This aspect of machinery we are experiencing constantly, in our daily life. Not only our limbs, but our intellectual  faculties are atrophied. Our privacies are invaded and personalities distorted. The machines are ruling our life, in our house as well as in the work-place  For primary needs of man  like food and clothing (ploughshare and needle ,spinning wheel and sewing machine)  Gandhiji was agreeable  to  the usage of limited machinery.

 

ULTIMATE VIEW ABOUT MACHINERY & GITA  18 : 11

Gandhiji   likens his body to a most delicate piece of machinery. At a very personal level, as a Indian, he understands that the body stands in the way of  salvation, ie absolute liberation of the soul.  Gita 18:11 states that One who is in embodied form cannot fully dispense away with KARMA (action/momement/work).  And  Gita 18:48 , says that all KARMAS have negative side-effects,  the degree of NEGATIVITY depending on the KARMA, ie. good or bad.  Non-karma, ie perfect stillness represents the state of Moksha. Negative-karma ie Vikarma generates Vasanas or tendencies, which will lead to further karma. Whereas positive ( as per shastras) karmas burns up one’s  karma-generating-vasanas from this life as well as previous lives, helping in advancing in the steps towards liberation.

This above tallies with  Gandhiji’s constant refrain that one cannot  or it is IMPOSSIBLE  for one to realize perfect Truth and Ahimsa, so long as one is imprisoned in this mortal frame.  Gandhiji  had fully understood the MATHEMATICAL  EQUATION provided by the Gita  with respect to realization of perfect Truth and Ahimsa. Once again consider Gita 18: 11 & 48. Embodiment =Body =Karma=Negative Consequences.  Gandhiji had equated the body to a delicate machinery. Body=Machine=Karma=Negative  effects (karma-bandham), which hinders the liberation of the soul. If body itself is  a hindrance, what about Machines, which mostly  contributes to increase in NEGATIVE  KARMA in GEOMETRIC PROPORTION. ? Today the world is in the grip of excessive negative karma, facilitated by MACHINERY of all kinds. Any thinking and feeling person cannot totally ignore this fact !!

Like our body , Gandhiji says that Machines are inevitable and is a NECESSARY EVIL.  Neverthless all should strive for transcendence. That means first we have to limit the use of  Machinery and totally dispense with it. This  will ultimately prove to be good for the individual as well as society/nations. This  represents  SANE Management /Work  practice.

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Quotes  from the book ‘The Hind-Swaraj  about Machinery & Scanned Text --(References)

GANDHIJI "IDEALLY , I WOULD RULE OUT ALL MACHINERY........

In the ‘PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION’  published in 1938, there is a conversation recorded, that happened  between Gandhiji and a 'questioner'. (Pages 74 and 75, scanned pages provided). This was his response about machinery " Ideally, I would rule out all machinery, even as I would reject this very body, which is not helpful for salvation, and seek the absolute liberation of the soul. From that point of view I would reject  all machinery, but machines will remain because, like the body, they are inevitable.  The body itself , as I  told you, is the purest piece of mechanism; but if it is a hindrance to the highest flights of the soul, it has to be rejected." (p.75)

Further, in A WORD OF EXPLANATION written by Gandhiji himself  for the 1921 edition of Hind Swaraj   his views about MACHINERY were  ".................I am not aiming at destroying  railways or hospitals, though I would certainly welcome their natural destruction. Neither railways  nor hospitals are a test of a high  and pure civilization. At best they are a necessary evil. Neither  adds one inch to the moral stature of a nation. Nor am I aiming at a permanent destruction of law courts, much as I regard it as a 'consummation devoutly  to be wished'. Still less am I trying  to destroy all machinery and mills. It requires a higher simplicity and renunciation than the people are today prepared for."

Chapter XIX of THE HIND-SWARAJ is titled  MACHINERY.

Quote "When I read Mr.Dutt's  Economic History of India, I wept; and as I think of it again my heart sickens. It is machinery  that has impoverished India. It is difficult to measure the harm that Manchester has done to us. It is due to Manchester that Indian handicraft  has all but disappeared......

.........Machinery  has begun to desolate Europe.  Ruination is  now knocking at the English gates, Machinery  is the chief symbol of modern civilization ; it represents a great sin.

The workers  in the mills of Bombay have become slaves. The condition of the women working in the mills is shocking. When there were no mills, these women were not starving. If the machinery craze grows in our country, it will become an unhappy land...........

Reader: Are the mills, then to be closed down ?

Editor (Gandhiji) : That is difficult. It is no easy task  to do  away with a thing that is established. We, therefore say  the the non-beginning of a  thing  is supreme wisdom. (Is Gandhiji considering 'Sarvarambha-parithyagi' of Gita 12:16 &  14:25 !!??)...............

........Machinery is like a snake-hole which may contain from one to a hundred snakes. ..........I cannot recall a single good point in connection with machinery.

..Do not, therefore, forget the main thing. It is  necessary to realize that machinery is bad. We shall then be able gradually to do away with it. Nature has not provided any way whereby we may reach a desired goal all of a sudden. If, instead of welcoming  machinery as a boon, we should look upon it as an evil, it would ultimately go.