Wealth and well-being

Gaviotas sounded like a never-never land when I heard of it six years ago. The State of The World Report 2004, brought out by the Worldwatch Institute, had a box item on ‘the Gaviotas experience’ in a chapter titled ‘Rethinking the good life’.
For beginners, Gaviotas is a tiny village tucked away in Colombia in South America. According to the report, its 200 residents (nearly 50 families) paid nothing for meals, medical care, education or housing. All adults had work, and music and other cultural events were a regular part of life in the village. What’s more, the community had had no police force, jail, or mayor for three decades since its beginning!

Not Utopia, but a real place.

If that seems like yet another example of ideal community living, hang on. Gaviotas is self-sufficient in energy, making use of solar and wind power and biogas. All agricultural activities here are organic. The people here are also engaged in the reforestation of thousands of hectares of the savannah. The villagers extract and sell resin from the Caribbean pine grown here.
Gaviotas is known worldwide for its many inventions too. This includes “a water pump that village kids work as they ride their seesaw, windmills designed for the gentle breezes of the Colombian plains, a pressurised solar water heater, and a pedal-powered cassava grinder”. None of these inventions is patented; there are hundreds of Gaviotas-model water pumps or windmills all over South America.
In 1989, the United Nations’ Regional Project for Overcoming Poverty published a set of three volumes containing details about appropriate technologies for developing societies. Gaviotas accounted for more than 50 of them!
Gaviotas is the brainchild of Paolo Lugari. He was joined by the likes of Dr. Jorge Zapp, who left the “priesthood of science” in which experts deliver knowledge to “the masses” and involved ordinary people in developing their own solutions.
It was never Lugari’s intention that other societies should copy the Gaviotas model. Instead, he wanted to show the world that it was possible to live sustainably by drawing on local resources.
In the beginning, many felt that Lugari’s was a pipe dream. “It’s just a big, wet desert out there,” he was told repeatedly. “The only deserts,” he would reply, “are the deserts of imagination.” (www.friendsofgaviotas.org)
Closer home, a village called Elappully in Kerala has become an oasis of imagination and hope.
Till a few years ago, farmers in the tiny Palakkad village were on the edge of survival. Many had left paddy cultivation, the mainstay of the village’s economy, because of the high cost of farming and low returns. The panchayat pushed dairying as an alternative option and assisted women in the village to set up dairy units.
A detailed study conducted to identify the factors leading to the low production of milk was revealing. One of them was shortage of fodder. The panchayat’s next initiative was to grow fodder on 50 hectares of land. The Elappully Government Higher Secondary School students too pitched in by growing fodder on two acres of land. That was proof enough of the positive attitudinal change in the village. The panchayat also set up a model veterinary hospital.
In two years, the production of milk was doubled. Last year, the production increased fourfold to 10,000 litres and the combined turnover crossed Rs.7.5 crore. “Elappully Farm Fresh Milk” is a new brand now!
Dairying had a beneficial effect on paddy cultivation too. From 1,830 hectares, paddy cultivation has spread to 1,870 hectares now. The panchayat solved the shortage of farmhands by leveraging the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The crowning glory came when Elappully won the best panchayat award in Kerala in a social reality show (www.greenkeralaexpress.org).
That is another great story. Titled Green Kerala Express, the daily 40-minute show hosted by Thiruvananthapuram Doordarshan was a welcome break from the usual mind-numbing reality shows on TV. All the local self governments in the state — (then) 999 grama panchayats, 57 municipalities and five corporations — were invited to join a competition by producing a 10-minute video on any sustainable developmental model in their respective places; 150 panchayats were shortlisted from among 200 applicants.
The programme was in the format of a travelogue, with anchors taking the viewer on a tour of the village on a bicycle. (What better motif than a bicycle to promote sustainable living?)
The visiting teams came back and produced two short films on the basis of their impressions. One of this was on the cultural and historical profile of the village. The other was on the developmental model itself, but in a modified form. The films were screened before an eminent jury who, based on their interactions with the selected panchayats, chose the winners. Viewers were also encouraged to send SMS votes.
Elappully bagged the Rs.1-crore award from among the 15 finalists while Akathethara from Palakkad and Adatt from Thrissur district came second and third respectively. Ottapalam came first among municipalities to win Rs.50 lakh.
All this leads one to believe that there is a growing awareness among people on what is meant by the ‘good life’. Does the gross domestic product (GDP) of a country reflect the standard of living of its people? What is true wealth? Is it just economic capital? What about other forms of capital — the health and biodiversity of the natural environs, the strength of communities, the well-being and happiness of people?
What is wealth without well-being?

Lost men and missing women

One of Rembrandt’s famous paintings is 'The Return of the Prodigal Son'. It is a moving depiction of the younger son kneeling before the father, who has his arms clasped around him tenderly. One of his sandals is off, perhaps to show that he was running to meet his father. There are some who believe that, contrary to what we read in the parable (Luke 15:11-32), the elder son is also present at the scene, yet cold and aloof. Modern retellings of the parable have always posed the question as to who is the lost son.
The parable (and the painting) throws up yet another question. Where is the mother in this great homecoming story?
Rembrandt’s painting inspired Dutch priest Henri Nouwen to write a novel by the same name. The painting bothered him as to which of the sons he identified with. Nouwen says: “Looking into myself and at the lives of other people, I wonder which does more damage, lust or resentment? There is so much resentment among the ‘just’ and the ‘righteous.’ There is so much judgment, condemnation and prejudice among the ‘saints’. There is so much frozen anger among the people who are so concerned about avoiding ‘sin’.”
Perhaps we need to know a little bit about the economy during Jesus’ time to understand the elder son’s resentment and the mother’s absence.
1. According to the laws of inheritance prevailing then, it is said, a man’s wealth got divided among his sons after his death. The firstborn received a double share of what his brothers got. That is, if a man had two sons, the elder son inherited two-thirds of it. By law, even the father could not change the laws of inheritance.
The prodigal had already inherited his property before his father’s death and squandered all the wealth.
In other words, though he gained his relationship back with his father he could in no way regain his property. His brother had to be his keeper now!
That is reason enough for the elder son’s anger. The father has to remind him that, “Everything I have is yours, but this brother of yours was dead and is alive again….”
Many of us have this feeling that we have earned “the good life” with our hard work and that poverty is due to “lack of self-discipline”.
We hear this morally superior talk at other levels too. For instance, when developed nations blame developing nations for environmental degradation and carbon emissions and price rise (caused by over consumption). Is it the rich man’s burden or his moral obligation to help the poor?
2. According to the law of Moses, daughters inherited property only if there were no sons. After their father’s death, the five daughters of Zelophehad of the tribe of Manasseh raised the issue of their right to his property (Num. 26, 27; Josh.17:3). Moses took their case to God, who told him that their plea was just.
Later, the family heads of the tribe of Manasseh appealed to Moses that if Zelophehad’s daughters married men from another tribe, their share would be added to the portion of the tribe into which they married. So Moses instructed that the girls could marry only from among their own tribe.
Every daughter got a dowry from the father’s estate, but the husband had the right of its use. In short, women in first century Palestine had limited access and control over the resources. They only had the ‘silent’ role of taking care of the family members and home. Like, perhaps, the mother in the parable.
There are many women ‘missing in action’ in 21st century too. This gets reflected in contemporary narratives.
A book, Women in Malayalam Cinema: Naturalising Gender Hierarchies, I read recently speaks about how by and large films still tend to portray “woman as someone ‘who loves to cook and clean, wash and scrub, shine and polish for her man’.” Kerala, no doubt, has made rapid strides in terms of socio-economic status, health conditions and general standards of living. Yet, the book says, “education and social grooming have been kept at conservative levels with continuing emphasis on the ‘feminine mystique’ teaching girls that they are essentially wives and mothers”.
What about the news media? The fourth edition of the Global Media Monitoring Project, a research and action initiative on gender in the news media coordinated by the Canada-based World Association for Christian Communication, says “the news presents a skewed picture of a world in which women are almost absent in positions of authority or responsibility outside the home” (www.waccglobal.org/en/resources/media-and-gender-monitor.html).
It needs no gender monitoring initiative to find that Jesus’ ministry was very inclusive, much more than what we would have it now. He always challenged patriarchal assumptions.

The newspaper and the Bible

Imagine we had the chance to give an emoticon for every article that appears in the paper. It would be a smiley for the story on Saina Nehwal’s win in a Super Series tournament. Or a winking smiley for the story on Aamir Khan travelling disguised for the promotion of 3 Idiots. But I know I would give a frowny face for the story of Shanti Devi and Fatima.
Shanti Devi, a Scheduled Caste woman, died minutes after giving birth to a premature baby girl. She had not eaten for three days before her delivery. A year and a half earlier, Shanti Devi, pregnant for the third time, had a miscarriage; the foetus died in her womb. But four different hospitals turned her away because she could not pay the bills….
Fatima, another young woman, gave birth to a baby girl under a tree in the crowded Nizamuddin locality right opposite the Commonwealth Games car park. Her mother approached a maternity home run by the corporation but was turned away. (www.civilsocietyonline.com/may10/may107.asp.)
Haven’t we heard of another woman who had “no room at the inn”? Has the smiley Christmas story of a “prince being born” overshadowed it? Let me try to “report” the birth of Jesus:

Bethlehem
December 25, 3 B.C.
By Staff Reporter
Mary, a poor young woman from Nazareth in Galilee, gave birth to a baby boy in a manger in a crowded locality here yesterday. She and her husband, Joseph, had just arrived from their home in Nazareth, about 150 kilometres south to Joseph’s ancestral home in Bethlehem in Judea, to register in the Census of Quirinius when she went into labour. Joseph is said to be a descendant of King David and Bethlehem is David’s birthplace.
The couple knocked at the doors of many inns, but was turned away. Finally, a kind innkeeper offered them a stable for the night, where Mary delivered the child.
The baby is said to be healthy. “It is an event of great joy,” said one of the shepherds who came visiting the family after they heard the news while guarding their flocks in nearby fields. The child was swathed in white cloth when they saw him.

The nativity story gives us a picture of the society into which Jesus was born. The fact that Mary and Joseph brought a pair of doves (not the lamb of the wealthy) to the temple for sacrifice shows that they were indeed poor.
This is not to say the situation in Jerusalem 2000 years ago is anywhere close to what it is in India today. But you can draw shocking parallels to it from contemporary society. That, to me, is the relevance of the Bible.
Jesus’ preaching reflected the obvious socio-economic tension of his times. So, the parable of the labourers who receive the same wages (Matthew 20:1-16) brings to mind the sight of unskilled labourers who wait at street corners not knowing if they will get work for the day. The minimum resources required for a person to support his or her family are the same.
I am not discounting the spiritual meaning of this parable. But Jesus used everyday problems to illustrate a point.
The gap between the rich and the poor were wide, as it is today. There were landowning farmers and absentee landlords who lived in cities at one end of the spectrum and labourers who worked for them and wandering shepherds at the other extreme. Then there were the high priests, the temple administrators and taxmen who lived fairly well and craftsmen like Jesus and his fisherman friends.
Under imperialist Roman rule, there were questions of identity and political unrest too among people, as our country has been through.
Other Bible narratives too hold a mirror up to contemporary society. The episode of Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21:1-16) is the story of the abuse of authority. King Ahab, Queen Jezebel’s husband, wanted to own a vineyard near his villa at Jezreel. Its owner, Naboth, would not sell. Jezebel gets Naboth killed so that ownership of the vineyard was passed to Ahab. Farmers and tribals are still helpless against the mighty and powerful.
Dear friends, if you are indifferent to news around us, think again. You and I are part of the structural violence that makes all this happen.
Here are more killer facts. According to the multidimensional poverty index of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, 421 million people in eight states of India live in extreme poverty. This is more than the total number of similarly impoverished lives in the 26 poorest African countries put together.
The National Crime Records Bureau states that 199,132 farmers in India killed themselves between 1997 and 2008. That makes it nearly 45 farmers a day.
So, if we are far too complacent with the everyday reading of the Bible, it is time for a rethink. As the great theologian Karl Barth advised, “Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”