The present day growth of mega-cities; based on the gains made through competitive capitalism can only lead to ecological disasters. These centres of high population and conspicuous consumption place enormous demands on the Earth’s resources in the vicinity of these cities. Highly expensive schemes are executed to provide water and power to these concentrated population centres, and the effluents and gas wastes discharged into the Earth, its rivers and the atmosphere put a heavy burden on these eco-systems to purify the waste materials. Large projects are then required for purification of waste, and with diminishing returns on the capital invested in these projects, pollution of the air and water continues unabated.

The big cities are populated by the ‘affluent fifth’ of humanity. In a book by the World Watch Institute¹, author Alan Thein Durning says: "the consumer life style born in America and now emulated by a billion people worldwide causes the lion’s share of ecological ills. Yet consumption is usually overlooked in in environmental discussion". The author goes on to point out that: "if the Earth’s abundance is to survive, we in the consumer society will have to adapt an ethic of sufficiency and follow a technologically sophisticated version of life style of those who are economically backward". The principles propounded by Mahatma Gandhi for his Wardha experiment recommend themselves for emulation and a technologically up-dated version could actually provide most of the comforts of life.

Unfortunately, Gandhi’s precept of building self-contained rural settlements on the pattern of his Sewagram near Wardha was not followed in India and multiplied in all its districts, as Gandhi would have wished. Instead, the country followed a centralised system of planned economy that went on to set up mega-projects at enormous cost with inefficient returns and the facility for leakage of investments through corruption that only enriched the politico-bureaucratic complex. The latter was to grow in size and power, to further hinder the economic progress of this country. The system at Wardha puts its society as part of a cyclic chain of production, consumption and regeneration that also formed part of the national market and its cyclic commercial operations. What was missing from the system was the incentive for individuals to become millionaires, but what was uniquely provided was a model for social peace and contentment.

The advantage of establishing updated Wardha type settlements or of converting older small towns and villages to become such settlements is that the pressure on cities would be greatly reduced. Such habitats using updated technology would provide near self sufficiency in power needs (using biogas, wind and solar plants), a commercial system of cooking gas supply, gas or solar power lighting for streets, low power domestic electrical installations, international television channels and a satellite linked communications system. Local police, health and transportation services could be integrated with wider district networks and good roads served by bus services (including subsidied ones that used solar powered batteries, thereby reducing the consumption of increasingly scarce oil resources and also reducing air pollution), specialised health care centres with on-call emergency services and wider administrative network.

The advantages of reducing the pressure on cities are obvious. Indeed, settlements of the Wardha type would encourage a movement away from the cities, where millions migrate in search of jobs and the bright lights of modern entertainment. If these are provided by the new Wardhas, the need to risk the often heart-breaking trips to cities in search of jobs could be avoided. Employment pattern in Wardha catered for those that could be under-employed, thus reducing the burden of the State on caring for the unemployed. The little units would learn to share jobs in over a hundred odd agro-based enterprises and several dozen cottage industries, besides offering large industries a population that could easily adapt itself to running them.

The competitive capitalist system that promises the illusory ‘infinite growth’ to masses living in cities could be replaced by the Wardha systems that promised a cyclic commercial order of people and offered to meet virtually all the needs of a society that could live in peace and contentment largely in the countryside. Large rolls of the unemployed could be replaced by larger groups of the under-employed living in the neo-Wardhas that would provide them greater leisure, better living conditions (than the slums of the inner cities) and the respectability found in a society that willingly shares and lives by the principles of brother/sisterhood of Mankind.

* Cdr. Sinha is a retired officer of the Indian Navy devoting his time to geo-political and strategic matters, history of the ancient Vedic peoples, as well as an ecological project concerning the river system of north India. He has published several books, including "Security in the new world order", Chanakya Publications, Delhi, 1993.