Humanity versus

Vandana Shiva’s Dangerous Idea of ‘Growth = Poverty’ explained the concept of consumerism in relation to eco-sustainability

BY JYOTI sHANk AR

Three years ago, on November 3, 2010, Vandana Shiva won the hearts of many a Sydneysider with her fiery oration at the Sydney Peace Prize lecture at the Sydney Opera House. On exactly the same day this year, she was back at the Opera House presenting her lecture at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas on Growth = Poverty. The fire still smouldering within her, Vandana enthralled an almost full to capacity audience with her views on why the present measure of the world economy, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is a “rogue concept creating rogue economies the world over”. Vandana also spoke to Indian Link the day before the lecture on globalisation, seed banks and her views on patriarchy and culturally perceived poverty.

Opposing patriarchy

Being one of the leading ecofeminists, Vandana’s views on the effects of the patriarchal society we live in has often offended numerous men. However, she offers no apologies for these views. “We need to be more aware of structures of patriarchy today as they have taken more virulent forms,” says Vandana. “Traditional patriarchy based on structures of religion and caste have now joined forces with capitalist patriarchy based on the rape of the earth. This is increasing the violence against women”. No one can deny the truth of her fundamental arguments, in spite of her inflammatory remarks and fierce rhetoric. She clarifies that it is the patriarchy she is against, not the male sex.

“If we want to use pleasant words, but our women still get raped every day, that is a choice we make. For me to speak the truth is the very basis of my existence and my conscience,” stated Vandana.

She has witnessed first-hand the relationship between women and ecology way back with the Chipko movement in the 1970s, when women formed human circles around trees to prevent their felling. As an eco-feminist, Vandana suggests that a more sustainable and productive approach to agriculture can be achieved through reinstating a system of farming that engages women, works with nature, respects ecological limits to growth, understands the interconnectedness of all living things, and celebrates bio-diversity.

Patriarchy as a masculine mode of thinking has a mechanistic view of the world. It has created huge corporations that are trying to transform the world into a supermarket, where growth of an economy is measured by the narrow concept of GDP.

Grouse against GDP

“The first poverty is at the level of the mind, that humanity should have shrunk its mind so deeply and reduced the amazing plurality of options we have on how to produce and how to consume, to one number, the GDP,” she said in her lecture. Being a quantum physicist herself, Vandana says that she can appreciate the beauty of the abstract. Looking back to her school days, she reminisced that she never liked to speak at school assemblies, or write essays when five lines of equation would do. “I believe that the abstract as abstract is fine, but when it starts becoming the measure for the real world, that’s when the destructiveness comes in,” she explained.

“We are sacrificing our entire world for this flawed abstraction,” she said, giving an example of how the GDP does not measure the hydrological cycle of nature but takes into account what Coca Cola produces, though its processes use ground water extensively and leaves behind pollutants and heavy metals. In the act of eating and by making a choice in what we eat, we can make a difference. Vandana says that to this day she cannot bring herself to drink Coca Cola,