Question 14
Write a short note on :-
a) Amartya Sen on Development.
b) Satyagraha as a model of civil disobedience.
Guys word limits upto 150 or max. 180 words each.
a) Amartya Sen on Development.
b) Satyagraha as a model of civil disobedience.
Guys word limits upto 150 or max. 180 words each.
a) Amartya Sen argues that human development is about the expansion of capabilities. There are three main approaches followed while assessing the impact of development on people which are as follows:
ReplyDelete1. The bentham approach or the utilitarian approach which deals with people's happiness as a measure of development being done to them.
2. Resource based approach- It is this approach which paves the way for the genesis of capability approach to development of Amartya sen. This approach in simple terms justifies development being done to a particular section if they are equipped with the basic resources for development. But here comes the role of capability of that particular individual which has the resources but not the right capability to utilise it properly. [ short film I'm Kalam can be seen as an example].
The capability approach which is the third one dstates 5 components for assessing the capability according to Amartya sen-
Importance of real freedoms, Individual differences in the ability to transform resources into valuable activities, Multivariate nature of activities giving rise to happiness, Balance of materialistic and non materialistic factors in evaluating human welfare and concern for the distribution of opportunities within society.
It is this individual capability which lies in the inner core of utilitarian approach and is more holistic way of ensuring development in the entire growth paradigm of people as also evident from the fact of UN adopting it for devising Human development Index, Gender inequality index and many other similar indexes of development.
b) Satyagraha as a model of Civil Disobedience:
ReplyDeleteSatyagraha, the brainchild of Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of Political Action, is defined etymologically as "Satya" (Truth) and "Agraha" (Insistence). In Gandhian Political Thought it is thus defined as a moral, truthful insistent resistance where there is a stress on Non-Violence even on the threat of violence (Principle of Ahimsa). Gandhi expressed Satyagraha as a method of resistance against evil, not evil doer.
Civil Disobedience arose in Western Political Thought on the lines of Thoreau, defined later by Rawls as a temporal public and demonstrative suspension of legal obligations in form of passive resistance and conscientious political action for the sake of the Constitution to protest against State decisions that go against the spirit of the Constitution. We therefore see that Satyagraha is uniquely different from Western model of Civil Disobedience.
Firstly, Satyagraha is not merely passive resistance, as the element in Satyagraha is reformation of injustice. Satyagraha is thus not a tool of conducting conflict like Passive Resistance, instead it is a tool of reconciliation to prevail truth and justice. The Gandhian model of Satyagraha thus seeks not merely to protest injustice, but as a duty to protect justice.
Secondly, Gandhi demonstrated that Satyagraha can be used as a model of civil disobedience even in non-democratic illiberal polities like the British India of 1917 where the triumph of Champaran Satyagraha was an unprecedented success of this philosophy. Here Gandhi has substituted 'for the sake of Constitution' into 'for the sake of conscience'.
Finally, the most important aspect of Satyagraha is its organization along military science. Because of Gandhi's insistence that a Satyagrahi must be prepared to face death under the leadership of his commander, he was able to successfully conduct nationwide non-violent mass struggles without repeating the Himalayan Blunder of 1919's Rowlatt Satyagraha.
In conclusion, we can see that Gandhian Satyagraha is a markedly different model of civil disobedience as compared to the Western model. Nevertheless Gandhi was influenced from the Western model and Gandhian Satyagraha in its turn, too, influenced the later growth of Civil Disobedience movements in the West, as evidenced from the Civil Rights movement in 1960's USA and the non-violent struggle led by Martin Luther King.