Freedom Paradigm of Development

Thus spake Yajnavalkya

Achieving development both in individual and collective level is a prime issue of discussion with a historic expansion. Throughout the life significant portion is lost finding the answer how to live and live nicely. We can remember the proverbial conversation between famous Vedic saint Yajnavalkya and his wife Maitreyee. Maitreyee asked whether it is possible to achieve ‘immortality through gaining the whole earth full of wealth’. ‘No’ responds Yajnavalkya, ‘like the life of rich people will be your life. But there is no hope of immortality by wealth.’ Maitreyee remarks, ‘What should I do with that by which I do not become immortal?’ This mythical question remains still making its face towards us even today. Hence proceeds the humanity towards the capability to live really long and to have a good life while alive- rather than being immortal like Maiteyee.

Paradigm shift in development

The concept of development changed over time. It implies change in mostly 3 different areas: Economy, Technology and Political participation. If we look behind we will come across an evolutionary pattern in the dilemma of development. During the 1950s development was being measured in terms of economic growth only (Development as Economic Growth). Only GDP, GNP- those hardcore macroeconomic indicators were applied to judge a nation’s achievements. During 1960/70s policy makers became convinced that there exist some more issues other than economic growth to be taken into consideration. The concept of Development as Modernization took its lead during those decades. During 1990’s humanity lifted a long significant leap with the revolutionary concepts from renowned Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and his close colleagues James P Grant and Amartya Sen. The Human Development Index (HDI) evolved and development could be measured through a holistic approach (Development as Holistic Process). In late 1990s the issue of sustainability was added to it giving birth to Sustainable Development concept. But did the humanity stood still since then? Let’s see the answer.

Development as freedom

Humans have an inherent tendency to earn more and more. It does not require Samuelson and Nordhaus to conclude that human wants are limitless. But this income and wealth is not required for its own sake. Rather it is needed for one’s having more freedom to lead the kind of life one have reason to value. As my perspective of need is different from yours so the mode of fulfillment of those needs also different. This concept is being neglected by the international community and the policy makers as well. They tend to prescribe a generalized formula of development for all the countries without considering the huge diversities they contain. But this is not as easy as mentioned above, because some societies have such rituals, customs or believes that can never be accepted from humanitarian points of view. Only relying on the way people values to live does not ensure freedom from income poverty and capability deprivation. So, there is a real debate how to allocate freedom among the stakeholders.

Concluding remarks

Visualizing development in terms of freedom still requires significant amount of knowledge of human behavior. There are several areas of debate and controversy in determining the real definition and modalities of freedom. Before people are asked for deciding what they value to lead their life like, they need proper education. Then come the provision of political freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective security. But again all these things do not ensure equity as evident from the lives of American blacks or some other vulnerable groups in developed world. There is a debate whether political freedom should come first or economic emancipation? What about authoritarian regimes bringing economic solvency, compromising some so called basic humanitarian freedoms? Political freedom without economic growth again pushes people toward more grave loss of freedom-how to handle that? I don’t know the answer, do you know?

[Many of the concepts used in this article are taken from the book ‘Development as Freedom’ by Amartya Sen]

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