His warning resonated with subsequent Congress leaders such as Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. These founders of independent India held that lasting solutions to economic and social problems could only come if colonial territories achieved self-rule. Freedom, they reasoned, would foster more mass-oriented policies. That belief, which eventually galvanized leaders in other parts of Asia, Africa and South America, led to the emergence of some130 independent countries from the 1940s through the ’60s.
Yet political freedom hasn’t brought a better life for most of the world’s people. More than a hundred years after Hume articulated his anguish, severe economic and social dislocations continue to afflict much of the developing world. As a new millennium dawns, the global imbalance of misery is far more dramatic than anything that Hume ever imagined: 2 billion of the world’s population of 6 billion live under the poverty line, subsisting on less than the equivalent of $1 a day. While industrialized countries are largely awash with prosperity, the benefits of globalization seem to elude growing numbers of people in more and more countries. For many of these people, it has been a transition from Raj to rags.
This isn’t to say that development investment through foreign aid and local mobilization has failed totally. (Donor countries have contributed more than $1 trillion in assistance to developing states in the last five decades.) There have been significant gains: a global increase in food production that has diminished prospects of famine; falling death rates because of better access to vaccines and primary health care; declining infant and maternal mortality; widening literacy. But such progress has hardly been commensurate with the hopes engendered by the flow of capital and technology, and the expectations of self-government. “The prosperity of globalization cannot be sustained by purely economic criteria,” says Ralph Buultjens of New York University. “What’s needed is a new dynamic of globalization–nothing short of a new compact between the forces of globalization and the reformist elements among the world’s dispossessed.”
What would constitute the structure of this “new compact”? What will it take to jump-start economic and social development in what was once called the Third World? Ultimately, all meaningful progress can only be accomplished at the local level:
Institution-building. Nehru’s signal contribution to postindependent India was his emphasis on strengthening local institutions of governance and parliamentary processes–village councils, district courts, among others. More developing nations need to institute such programs, perhaps in cooperation with international organizations that have the funds and expertise to help enhance local organizations.
Local leadership. The historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. points out that just 60 years ago there were only a dozen democratic countries; now more than half of the world’s population lives in states where elections are held. Still, there’s a shortage of youthful leaders in most developing nations: young professionals who might consider public service are often dispirited by rampant corruption. Shouldn’t Western universities, businesses and think tanks devise more programs for supporting the future leaders of developing countries? Training programs and access to an international support system could trigger a rekindling of participation in public life.
Educating women. Nehru once said that by educating girls, a nation “can revolution its economy and its society.” It’s been long established that educated women tend to postpone marriage, have fewer children and contribute significantly to economic productivity. But not enough developing countries do more than pay lip service to the notion of women’s education. They need a boost from Western institutions of learning and international aid organizations on specific projects promoting educational and employment opportunities for women.
New partnerships. There will be an unprecedented $10 trillion transfer of wealth between the generations over the next five decades in the United States alone–the primary beneficiaries being private philanthropies. Foundations need to construct more sophisticated programs that stimulate concepts such as individual entrepreneurship, so that ordinary people can have a greater stake in their own economic output. Nongovernmental organizations, too, should be doing more than man barricades in protest; more tending of the grass roots is needed, not travel to talk fests at fancy resorts.
This won’t be a new millennium for every culture–Buddhists, Chinese, Hindus, Jews and Muslims observe different calendars. But the year 2000 can be more than a marker in the widely used Gregorian calendar. This is an opportunity to foster what Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore called “a rising tide of peace and genuine prosperity.” Such a universal vision can only be realized by shedding shibboleths of the past, while learning from recent history. Otherwise, the new millennium will be just another rerun of our collective failures.
