More than a century ago Radhakamal Mukherjee, a Professor of Economics who hadn't studied Economics at all, wrote-
“In India more than in any other country the great intellectual, social, and religious movements have originated in villages,
But those movements were so utterly shit that a couple of thousand British dudes were ruling over an Indian Empire larger than that of Ashoka or Akbar.
and, nurtured by their thoughts and aspirations, at last reached the cities.
Where they were told by Turks or Europeans to fuck off back where they came from
The soul of India is to be found in the village, not in the city.
It was the soul of a beggarly, infantile, shithole. India, as the Americans were pointing out that time, wasn't a Colony. It was merely a dependency too stupid, ignorant, weak and lazy to police or protect itself.
In modern Europe, on the other hand, the discoveries in intellectual or social life are made in the city and are then communicated to the village, which receive them as gospel truths.
Nonsense! The villages had their own Parish Councils and elected Members of Parliament who shaped government policy. In India, the British District Magistrate/Tax Collector and the British Police Superintendent ran things. The Villagers had no votes or other voice in the formulation of Government policy.
The city sets the example. The village imitates...[In India] the village is still almost self-sufficing,
Fuck off! It couldn't even police or protect itself- forget about contributing to national defense or national policy making.
and is in itself an economic unit.”
Which is why, but for the British famine code, its poorer members would starve to death periodically. Still, it must be said, some villagers did manage to end up as indentured laborers in South Africa or Fiji or Trinidad. They were the lucky ones.
Mukherjee could be considered a precursor to Elinor Ostrom. He wrote ' in the Indian village communities there are minute communal relations of the supply of water to prevent the mutual rights of the cultivators. To prevent a tyrannical use of property, India has sought to establish a kind of communal ownership of tanks and the distributory channels of irrigation — the most important instruments of agricultural production.”
Mukherjee hadn't noticed that those 'minute communal relations' were utterly shit. Vast numbers of villages had been assigned to some Turkic or Pathan war-lord or, at a later date, to some tax-farmer or 'Zamindar'. The villagers had no fucking power save such as would suffice to fuck each other over. On the other hand, the British run Canal Colonies of the Punjab, where water supply was wholly out of the hands of the villagers, were thriving. Indeed, they were exporting food even as far as Europe.
Even if the villagers had prevented tyrants emerging amongst themselves, they had failed dismally, for a thousand years, to prevent the whole country being ruled by foreign tyrants.
One may as well say 'Indian birds and animals have prevented any bird or animal from exercising tyrannical power through the acquisition of rights to private property. Monkeys and parrots, in India, have originated great spiritual and philosophical traditions. In the West, men- that too city dwellers!- have originated Science and Technology. That is why the West is such a mess. Did you know, Prime Minister Asquith is not even able to fly into the air and shit upon the head of Lloyd George? This is because instead of following the example of nice rural pigeons, the Brits, very foolishly studied the works of Isaac Newton who wasn't even a monkey or a donkey. That fucker was a man! Also he lived in a City! How fucked is that?'
Mukherjee believed that 'applied human ecology is the only guarantee of a permanent civilization'. He hadn't noticed that a civilization which can't defeat invaders dies out- save in some backward villages. You can't apply ecology or economics if you don't control resources. But to control stuff you have to defeat others who might want to grab that stuff. This could no longer be done by muscular dudes wielding swords. The sinews of war could only be provided by technological industrialization. But, it was a very expensive business. Private ownership of land and water and other resources permitted the taxation of the revenues thus derived. This could pay for a standing Army as well as a the maintenance of internal law and order. True, as Netaji Bose suggested, a one party totalitarian state could, in theory, extract surpluses to create infrastructure. But, Indians- because they are villagers at heart- are simply too corrupt, incompetent, or lazy or crazy to take this road.
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