In his essay Three Disciples, B R Nanda wrote, “It would have been difficult to think of a more unlikely candidate for the discipleship of Gandhi in 1929 than J.C. Kumarappa” (Nanda, 2002). Looking at the phase of his life before meeting Gandhi shows that this proposition is beyond question.

Joseph Chellandurai Kumarappa’s age was 37 when he met Gandhi for the first time in 1927. At that time, Kumarappa was a graduate in Business Administration at Syracuse University in New York, Chartered Accountant with 10 years of auditor practice in Bombay. He had no interest in politics and never had a glimpse of Gandhi. In 1928, he presented a thesis Public Finance and India’s Poverty at Columbia University for his Master’s Degree in Economics. With his thesis, Kumarappa “added his own contribution to…lineage with many an illustrious predecessor like Dadabhai Naoroji and R. C. Dutt” (Govindu & Malghan, 2016) whose works Poverty and Un-British Rule in India and The Economic History of India Under Early British Rule respectively explored the economic exploitation in India under British Rule.

Kumarappa wanted to publish his work Public Finance and India’s Poverty in India and when he was in search of a publisher, on the advice of his friend, he sent the manuscript to Gandhi. Kumarappa got an appointment to meet Gandhi on 30^th May 1929. His first meeting with Gandhi is better described in his own words:

On the way up, I saw an old man seated under a tree on a neatly cleaned cow-dunged floor, spinning. Having never seen a spinning wheel before, I leaned on my walking stick and standing akimbo was watching, as there were still ten minutes for the appointment. This old man after about five minutes opened his toothless lips, and with a smile on his face enquired if I was Kumarappa. It suddenly dawned on me that my questioner might be no other than Mahatma Gandhi. So I, in my turn, asked him if he was Gandhiji; and when he nodded I promptly sat down on the cow-dunged floor regardless of the well-kept crease of my silk trousers! Seeing me sitting without stretched legs, more or less in a reclining position, someone from the house came rushing down with a chair for me, and Gandhiji asked me to get up and sit in the chair more comfortably. I replied that since he was seated on the floor I did not propose to take the chair (Kumarappa, 1949).

In the meeting, Gandhi understood the potential of Kumarappa and asked him if he can do a Gujarat Rural Economy survey with assistance from Gujarat Vidyapith, National University in Ahmedabad. Refusing Gandhi’s request is beyond question. Gandhi gave one advice on methodology “that the ‘Indian Economy had to be built by a method of securing rock bottom facts and drawing from them, by the most rigid process of reasoning, scientific conclusions which no amount of juggling could controvert’” (Nanda , 2002, p. 185).

Kumarappa went on to do the survey and the results of the survey revealed the deprivation that is prevalent in the Indian Villages. This survey brought out an ‘On ground Economist’ in Kumarappa.

Later when Gandhi commenced the salt march, he sent Kumarappa to help Mahadev Desai and write articles in his journal Young India. This brought out Journalist in Kumarappa. His sedition writings in the journal made Britishers put him behind the bars. Kumarappa used his time in Jail to study and understand Gandhian ideas. In his jail days in 1944, Kumarappa wrote the Economy of Permanence, which is an exploration into Gandhian Economic thought. Gandhi presented a “vision of a utopia in which economic behavior had a far secondary role to the philosophical and political purposes of his idea” (Rosen, Jan 1982) and this idea is reflected in Kumarappa’s work.

Exploring various types of Economics in Nature, he advocated two forms of Economies for mankind: the Economy of Gregation and Economy of Service. The economy of Gregation is “an extension from self-interest to group-interest and from acting on the immediate urge of present needs to planning for future requirements” (Kumarappa J. , 1945) like Honeybees that work for benefit of many.

The economy of Service is when a living being works “neither for its present need nor for its personal future requirement, but projects its activities into the next generation, or generations to come, without looking for any reward” (Kumarappa J. , 1945). These two forms reflect a modern-day notion of Sustainable Development, which is the need of the hour. Gandhian Economic thought is very close to the environment. Gandhi advocated in protection and maintaining the permanence of Nature. In 1928, Gandhi warned:

God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the West. The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom (England) is today keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300 millions took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts. Unless the capitalists of India help to avert that tragedy by becoming trustees of the welfare of the masses and by devoting their talents not to amassing wealth for themselves but to the service of the masses in an altruistic spirit, they will end either by destroying the masses or being destroyed by them (Gandhi, 1928).

The above warning clearly shows Gandhi’s vision to link Environment and Economics and not going in ‘the manner of the West’.

Kumarappa set to implement Gandhi’s thoughts when he was appointed as secretary of All India Village Industries Association (AIVIA) in 1934 by Gandhi. AIVIA aimed to revive the rural economy and reform the agricultural methods.

Even after Independence, Kumarappa remained a strong voice against Nehruvian Economic ideas, which completely renounced Gandhian ideals of Self Sufficient and Self-Reliant Village Economy Model. In 1948, burying “an urn containing the Mahatma’s ashes in a pit in Sevagram Ashram….he murmured: ‘Instead of burying Gandhi deep in our hearts, we are burying him deep into the earth’” (Nanda , 2002, p. 190). Kumarappa died on 30^th January 1960, a sad man with anguish and pain in him as Gandhi was when he died (the same day Gandhi was shot in 1948).   

References

Bhattcharya, S. (Ed.). (1997). The Mahatma and The Poet. New Delhi: National Book Trust.

Gandhi, M. (1928). DISCUSSION WITH A CAPITALIST. Young India.

Govindu, V. M., & Malghan, D. (2016). The Web of Freedom: J. C. Kumarappa and Gandhi’s Struggle for Economic Justice. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Koshal , M., & Koshal, R. K. (1973). Gandhi’s Influence on Indian Economic Planning: A Critical Analysis. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

Kumarappa, J. (1945). Economy of Permanence. Varanasi: Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan .

Kumarappa, J. C. (1949). Lessons From His Life. In C. Shukla (Ed.), Incidents of Gandhiji’s Life (pp. 131-132). Bombay: Vora and Company.

Nanda , B. (2002). Three Disciples. In In Search of Gandhi: Essays and Reflections (p. 183). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Rosen, G. (Jan 1982). Gandhian Economics: A Schumpeterian Perspective. Journal of Economic Issues, 435.