Leafing Through India's Ancient Culture and Epics as Recipes for Its Revival

Abstract

In the complex issue of growth and development of countries general rules may not apply. Working on a ‘laundry list’ of measures may even backfire. Each country is a human society or a civilization having values of its’ own. It is imperative to look for them as complementarities to any prescriptive economic solution. Indian’s approach of ‘slow and steady wins the game’ will keep it in great stead. It needs to work on certain structural impediments. Since their origin lies in the ‘de-learning’ of its cultural ethos, the solution needs to stress on a scientific ‘relearning’ of the same. Since Epics and contemporary philosophical writings speak of the ‘mode of thinking’ of the society at large, it would be useful to educate the current generation of Indians on those ideas. Since spiritual wealth was India’s competitive advantage over others when it was materially quite wealthy, it would be appropriate to accumulate them again to regain the same status as before. As such, solutions to issues in the nature of ‘sharing of economic wealth across the populace equally’, ‘imparting health and education as a social good to everyone’, ‘use of women as a massive economic force’ etc. may not be found through regression equations, one has to necessarily go back to the basics.