Can moral values, justice and non-violence guide economic progress? Insights from Gandhi

A good way to begin this essay on Mohandas Gandhi’s ideas about nonviolent ways of satisfying the basic economic needs of human societies is by recalling Joseph Cornelius Kumarappa (1892-1960). Most Indians do not know who he was. An economic philosopher and architect of the Gandhian rural economics programme, here was a Tamilian who obtained degrees in public finance and business administration at two prestigious American universities: Syracuse and Columbia. A lucrative professional career lay ahead of him. However, after his very first meeting with Gandhi in 1929 at Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, Kumarappa gave up his three-piece suit, took to wearing khadi and became a lifelong preacher and practitioner of Gandhian economics.

Religion is the chief source of Gandhian economics. And at the heart of his understanding of religion is the care of the poorest, weakest and most vulnerable members of society. Kumarappa, who crystallised Gandhi’s economic philosophy in his book The Economy of Permanence, lived his life by this religious diktat. In J.C. Kumarappa: Mahatma Gandhi’s Economist, his biographer Mark Lindley writes: “Kumarappa in his last seven years resided in a one-room house, the interior decoration of which consisted of a picture of a poor man. When asked who it was, he would say,...

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