Sohail Inayatullah
Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar is well known as a social philosopher, political revolutionary, poet, and linguist. He has also been described as the complete renaissance man. These descriptions come as a result of his numerous books and articles in the fields of natural sciences, world history, art, health, and political-economy, his creation of the Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT) and his role as spiritual teacher of the social service, spiritual movement Ananda Marga.
And, now we continue from yesterday with our discussion of Sarkar’s thoughts on the human future.
Science and Technology
This new era, however, for Sarkar is not one that pits spirituality against science. Sarkar believes that technological development controlled by non-capitalists, by humanists, will lead to increased economic growth, intellectual development and social equality. Sarkar, in fact, sees the development of technology that will have “mind” in it, that is, technology that will have some level of self-awareness. Most likely this will result from developments in artificial intelligence. Sarkar also forecasts that once full employment is reached, and once the untapped potential of humans, individually and collectively, is increasingly realized, instead of massive unemployment because of productivity gains from robotics, we will simply reduce our work week, such that “one day, we may only work five minutes a week. Being not always engrossed in the anxiety about grains and clothes, there will be no misuse of mental and spiritual wealth. [We] will be able to devote more time to sports, literary discourses and spiritual pursuits.”22 Struggle then will largely be in intellectual and spiritual realms; in the constant effort to reduce the gap between the finite and the infinite, between the present and the ideal future.
Sarkar sees the problem of food solved primarily through the cooperative economic structure. Each region will utilize its own raw materials and develop industries appropriate to the local environment. By encouraging self-sufficiency and self-reliance, some of the advantages of global trade will be lost in the short run–the North in particular will face a reduction in its standard of living–however as regions develop and as economic gains are redistributed, then trade between different regions will flourish. Trade then will be between equals, not centers and peripheries, not the powerful and the emaciated. Sarkar also forecasts that food tablets will be invented to deal with any temporary food shortages that may arise. In addition, “medical science will increase longevity”23 to perhaps to 150 years, and “in certain fields (we) will even be able to infuse life in the dead.”24 Sarkar also predicts that by “changing individual glands, a dishonest man may become an honest man.”25 However, glandular changes will not be able to transform root behavior structures; only spiritual practices, according to Sarkar, can fundamentally transform the structure of the human mind. However, he, unlike some futurists such as F.M. Esfandiary, who predict that we are on the threshold of immortality and that we may soon uncover “an aging gene,”26 believes that death cannot be escaped as brain decay cannot be postponed.
Sarkar also forecasts that children will be born in “human reproduction laboratories,”27 and parents will choose the characteristics of their children. Sarkar forecasts that in the long term future we will become thin beings with large heads and will lose our physical reproductive facilities. We will become primarily intellectual/psychic beings. According to Sarkar, we will gradually take on the functions now done by Cosmic Mind (loosely “Nature”): we will in mythic language become as “Gods.” This image should be contrasted with that of other spiritual visionaries and futurists who believe that technological development should be severely limited and that we should not tamper with “Nature.”28
Sarkar has developed a new theory of information transfer based on the existence of microvita. These “entities” can be used to transfer ideas and viruses throughout the planet. There are positive microvita which increase feelings of well being and negative microvita which lead to individual and social sickness. Microvita are also responsible for the creation of life and its evolutionary development. Their evolutionary energy can be harnessed by humans thus increasing the speed of human and planetary evolution. However, this harnessing cannot be done through physical technological means but through the use of intellectual and spiritual resources of humans.
Along with microvita changing human development, there will be other gigantic changes. Richard Gauthier in the article, “The Greenhouse Effect, Ice Ages, and Evolution,” presents some of Sarkar’s future-oriented scientific thinking. “In 1986 Sarkar indicated that major pole shifts of the Earth are generally associated with ice ages. More recently he emphasized that there will be an ice age with the coming polar shift. There will be major biological, historical, agricultural and human psychic changes both before and after the ice age 29.”
In addition, as mentioned earlier, while for Sarkar, history moves in structured patterns, on occasion there are galloping jumps. According to Gauthier: “A pole shift is such a jump. History moves into a new era at this time. The threshold of the new era has already been crossed. Before the ice age here will be big intellectual and biological changes in human beings, animals and plants.”30
In the long term future, we will become an increasingly technologically developed society with spirituality as the base and the goal of life. We will look back at the days of the nation-state and the great capitalist and totalitarian communist empires and wonder why it was ever doubted that they could not be transformed. And eventually, we will become primarily psychic beings travelling to other planets through space technology (the conquest of space will be in the forefront given the upcoming Martial Era)31, and even through our minds, that is, we will be able to leave our bodies in one place and travel with our minds. The stars will eventually become our home. We will have granted legal rights to all humans as well as plants. What of the threat of nuclear war? For Sarkar, mind remains more powerful than matter and nuclear weapons are fundamentally matter. Thus, he believes that we will discover ways to counter nuclear devices, especially with the end of the arms race and the military-industrial complex that capitalist and communist poles have created.
The problem of power and exploitation will not go away, of course. Most likely it will be fought at the mental realm, between ideologies and perhaps even at the level of psychic warfare. The martial era will then naturally develop its own contradictions as the centralization of the polity may eventually lead to oppression. New visions of the future will then emerge.
Sarkar’s vision of the future is also a program for spiritual, economic and political change. He, along with others, has initiated PROUT movements throughout the world. Although the self-reliant, cultural people’s movements are still small, Sarkar believes that eventually they will reach a critical size and then pose a significant challenge to the present world system.
Alternative Futures
While the vision above presents Sarkar’s thinking, it does not place it in the context of other images of the future. By placing Sarkar’s vision in the context of other images we will better be able compare his thought. We use as our points of comparison, the images developed by futurist James Dator. 32
He has attempted to identify compelling images and visions of the future. The first image is that of Continued Growth (progress and developmentalism, capitalist and socialist). The second is the Steady State image (no or slow growth, environmentally conscious, beta in structure, largely the Gandhian image). The third image is that of the Collapse of civilization (either through external factors such as the environment or internal social factors such as depressions), and finally the last is that of Transformation (new technologies changing the very nature of nature, and thus leading to an anarchic, individualistic, but gentle world). These images begin the process of comparison and to some extent they include action-commitment given that they are empirically and historically derived images of the future held by various actors, movements, and peoples.
—Continued Growth
This image assumes that what worked in the past will continue to succeed albeit with minor adjustments. Politically this is liberal pluralism, that is, the liberal democratic party system works fine, we just need better leaders, or less political action committees, or more watchdog groups. Capitalism, in this image of the future, is the provider of goods and freedom. Through the market, needs can be met and wealth accumulated. The problems with capitalism can be handled through government intervention, global economic summits, the coordination of exchange rates, or through various fiscal and monetary policies; in general, “muddling through.” In this image the US is seen as the home of the entrepreneur (“if we can just free up regulations, the US can continue its march forward”).
The previous communist nations even with their many recent dramatic changes too can be categorized as “continued growth” given that their assumptions of reality are similar to capitalist states; they too are concerned with nationalism and economic growth. Their methods are simply state (party/military) bureaucratic, not state corporate. Thus, even as they attempt changes they remain within the growth model.
The image of humans in this scenario is that of industrial man with work as the prime motivation; females, the elderly, and the other races (the internal as well as external third world) are seen as secondary. The self in this image is determined by matter, that is, it is constituted by the brain and knowledge is understood by reason. Science, then, is the primary explainer of human phenomena and the harbinger of increasing levels of progress. Progress and knowledge are linear and cumulative with clear stages, such that the West is on top and the rest of the world on bottom. The process of the transformation of the rest of the world into the image of the West is often called technology transfer, modernity, or in the language of critics, colonialism.
This model has been increasingly hampered in the past few decades with the decline of the US, the increasing instability of the world economy, the environmental crises, the rise of Islam, and the development and growth of alternative visions of tomorrow. However, a new variant of this model which does offer promise to the system as whole is that of the Pacific Shift or Pacific Co-Prosperity. In this, the problems of the US (and Western) debt, consumerism, alienation and declining wage rates are resolved through the Pacific Rim countries. Thus, there is a shift in world culture, polity and economy from Atlantic to Pacific, with the Pacific providing the goods and the US consuming them, both in desperate need of each other and both committed to capitalism. The system continues; it is only who runs it that changes. In addition, this new form of capitalism manages to coordinate labor/management, government/business, and labor intensive/capital intensive.
Sarkar, of course, rejects the corporate, state and Pacific variants of this model. Sarkar defines progress quite differently (for him, only spiritual progress is real progress, and the goal of society is not profit, but closeness to the Great). Economic development exists so that people can develop themselves spiritually and intellectually. And obviously the Self is not constituted apurposefully, nor materialistically; rather the self is spiritual, part of the larger mystery of the Cosmos; the self’s existence is teleological–that of enlightenment, a return to the timeless Source.
From the Continued Growth perspective, movements like PROUT should not given much official attention, but secretly watched very carefully in case they begin to grow and are able to implement their policies against the overconcentration of wealth. In any case in the long run, by and large, the onward march of capital continues, and all ideologies eventually must deal with the bottom line, and there is only one system that can deliver that promise: capitalism. And as long as they remain non-violent, they can be left alone. If they become violent, there are ways to repress them, and if that is problematic, in the long run, rational self-interest will lead to cooption.
—Conserver/Environmental/Green
Critics of the Growth model, however, have been active in developing a new model, which in recent history is closely related to the Environmental movement. This model is interested in steady-state economics. Zero population growth and the development of economies that exist with nature and do not exploit the elderly, females and the third world. The key words in this image are stability, conservation and predictability–”we are going too fast, there is too much growth, we need to slow down technological development so as to determine its impact on humans,” it is said. This vision of the future is strongly anti-nuclear and anti-genetic engineering. The preferred economy is small scale, based on self-sufficiency in the context of decentralized bio-regions. Politically, this model is committed to local community-level democracy, to negotiation, that is, a process where the means are far more important than the ends. The present day Green movement is perhaps the best example of this image. This perspective is also largely concerned with expanding the isolated self/family to include the community. Recent efforts have included plants and animals as well. This model is resistant to consumerism, professionalism, and bureaucratization.
Obviously, one can see many strands of Sarkar’s thought in this vision. However, there are some serious areas of difference that should be mentioned. First, for Sarkar the debate should not be constituted as between high-tech and low-tech, that is, as between types of technology, but with the ownership of technology and the cultural and political messages embedded in any technology. That is, although technology is a culture in itself, it is because we are in the declining phase of capitalism that technology aids the wealthy and impoverishes the already poor. In an alternative polity, for example, the green revolution would not have had to result in the landless becoming laborless as well. Instead in a cooperative economic structure, there could be range of alternatives that would be progressive–such as reduced working days or employee ownership.
Furthermore, while various conservation groups and Greens prefer a decentralized polity, PROUT, like various socialist movements, acknowledges that capitalists will not give up power unless one takes power. A decentralized polity will easily be controlled by those with the greatest wealth. Thus Sarkar argues for a centralized polity although with strong civilian, populist overtones provided through the emergence of spiritual leadership.
Finally PROUT aims at the maximum utilization of resources (although in the context of equitable distribution, the needs of plants and animals, and the larger collective good) and thus is pro-economic growth, however economic development is defined as increases in purchasing capacity, not gross national product. While both PROUT and the Green perspective see the basic problem as the maldistribution and idleness of wealth; PROUT, however, emphasizes growth as well as the role individual initiatives can play in increasing economic development. Moreover, the Conserver image sees work as an integral part of human development; while PROUT sees employment as only an intermediate state, the final goal is full unemployment, the creation of a society where material needs are fulfilled so our intellectual and spiritual selves can be cultivated. Finally, PROUT does not locate the present global crisis in the population discourse, thus it rejects zero population efforts.
Instead of an expanding population, it is the values embedded in materialism and capitalism that PROUT believes to be the key problems. Moreover, PROUT is committed to the nuclear family, while the Conserver image tends to be more inclined toward alternative forms of the family (communes, gay families, for example). Finally PROUT does not totally reject nuclear power; it is cautiously open, believing that the solution to the nuclear crisis is political and technological.
All in all while PROUT shares some key similarities with this vision of the future and with various strategies to realize it, PROUT remains significantly different in key areas.
—Global Collapse
The next image of the future which is increasingly gaining adherents is that of global collapse. This image is constituted in various discourses. The first is the economic. In this perspective, the world economic system’s inability to deal with increasing levels of inequity (within nations and between nations), the international debt load, and rising speculation in the global stock markets will lead to a global collapse of epic proportions. Areas integrated into the world capitalist system will be particularly hard hit; those areas that are self-reliant will manage, though. This image is also constituted in the language of the return of the Vengeful God. Because Man has tampered with nature (through technological development–genetic engineering, space exploration, overindustrialization), nature is now striking back–we can’t escape our collective karma. What will result is environmental catastrophes such as the Greenhouse effect, earthquakes, nuclear meltdowns, water shortages, and other wonderful things one can ponder while one falls asleep at night. Religious groups, in particular, are eagerly awaiting this event, or series of events. For many it is the Armageddon, the return of Christ, the Madhi, or Amita Buddha. It is the collapse of the hope and promise of the science and technology revolution, of the rationality of the enlightenment, and of liberal democracy. While some imagine this collapse as leading to the arrival of heaven on earth, most see this world as that of the rise of the worst of humans, a post-nuclear society ruled by the mighty.
The PROUT perspective, first of all, is not focused on the collapse (although Sarkar has predicted a depression this century), but on ways to avoid collapse, on ways to transform society so as to reduce human suffering. How can PROUT prevent the collapse is an appropriate question? This is quite different from the view that basically says: “I can’t wait for the collapse, so all the greedy capitalists will get their due; or California should be punished for its sins.” In fact, Sarkar sees these efforts as similar to blaming the victim ideologies historically perpetuated by fundamentalist priests and currently perpetuated by right wing developmentalists. For example, developmentalists often believe that the third world is poor because something it has done, that people in Bangladesh suffer because they don’t have Protestant or Japanese values. These assertions forget colonialism and the larger world economy, and the concept of imposed karma. Here it is noteworthy that PROUTist thinking differs from traditional Hindusim, for Sarkar argues that while causality exists, it is not so simple to determine clear cut, single variable reasons for human suffering and pleasure. In additon, one’s own suffering could be a result of imposition from outside, from structural imperialism, for example.
Moreover, as mentioned earlier, Sarkar’s image is that humans have not exceeded their boundaries; in fact, the process of evolution entails humans becoming as gods, gradually taking on the powers of Cosmic Mind. This is not to say that science and technology have not been guilty of hubris; the problem however is in the development of a science that is valueless, that is divorced from various spiritual traditions and from nature. Of course, we can argue that it is the epistemology of science that has resulted in the above, but that is a different historical discourse itself.
Finally, while for collapse and self-sufficiency proponents, nature is absolute; from the PROUT perspective, nature is relative, it is problematic and ever changing; it is who we are, the Noumena, that is eternal. From the collapse perspective, the PROUT movement remains too committed to the present system and the various attempts to salvage and manage the crises; nothing really can be done, except preparing for the crash.
—Transformational
There are other visions of the future as well. There is that of the transformationalists, who, like Sarkar, too, see humankind on the verge of an incredible revolution, but for them this is technological such that changes in technology will fundamentally change who we are. Computers will lead to true democracy, advances in health will reduce suffering, and death will be beaten back–it will be the death of death. It is argued that in the next twenty years we will see more change then what we have seen in the last two thousand. We will soon be in space, living a life of leisure surrounded by robot slaves. The problem of scarcity will be solved; the real question will then be those of a philosophical nature. We are presently, it is argued, in the midst of the third wave. The first was the agricultural revolution, the second the industrial revolution and the present is the computer/information revolution. What will result will be a high-tech, individualized and highly decentralized society. Moreover, the human of the future may be unrecognizable to us today; instead of a divine being as Sarkar might posit, he or she will be half-human and half robot–a cyborg. In any case, we will soon be able to do what we desire to do: play, love, and search for new challenges and understandings.
In contrast to the technological orientation of this image is the spiritual New Age movement which too sees this as a time of fundamental change–it is the age of Aquarius, a time of global peace and love, of meditation and the development of a world consciousness. “If we all just think of peace, everything will be all right, smile and the world will smile at you,” it is commonly thought. The real changes are not technological but personal and psychic; through unity and through the expansion of our minds, the impossible will become possible; people will become rational and lay down their weapons, all for the greater good. “Even the arms merchants will decide that they would rather be working in a health cooperative, after all didn’t a channeled message from the Masters of the MX Zone tell them to do so,” it is believed. It is the beginning to the era of the “Eternal Hug.” In general, the argument is that capitalism has solved most of humanity’s problems, except that of meaning. Traditional religions, East and West, are too hierarchal and bureaucratic and thus the need for a new individual orientated spirituality; one that incorporates the best of the ancient (yoga, visualization) with the best of the new (biofeedback, bodywork, and therapy). The goal of the New Age movement is that of developing one’s inner potential so “one can be all that one can be.” From the New Age perspective, Sarkar is far too hierarchal, disciplined and political to be of any socially or personally interest. While Sarkar’s PROUT movement shares in many ways the spirit of these two transformational visions of the future, Sarkar reminds us of the way that power and struggle is constituted in who we are. Even in the high-tech transformational world, there will emerge an elite. While we may not phrase this elite in terms of the non-productive parasites or 14th century social philosopher Ibn Khaldun’s virile Bedouins turned lethargic by luxury, there will still be difference in the apprpropriation of value. Sarkar’s vision is not a utopia, it does not predict the end of exploitation and struggle; rather it is a eutopia, a good place, where not only will there be good forces, but evil forces as well, thus requiring structures and safeguards to the amassing of power and wealth. Moreover, it is not technological revolutions that will lead to the death of death, but spiritual practices. And these spiritual practices must be based on rigor, discipline, and selfless service to the Other, not solely on good feelings and the search for spiritual pleasure.
The New Age movement from the PROUT perspective is overly concerned with the psychic model of human development and its adherents tend to be first world, middle class oriented, often concerned more with their own development, than with the suffering of humanity. It is naively apolitical. For Sarkar love is important–in fact it is the ground of any lasting social change–but so is the struggle involved in challenging the assumptions and ideas that govern present-day institutions. There exist real global problems that neither a new computer nor a hug from a friend can solve. Centuries of the misappropriation of wealth are not solved by wishes or creative visualization only. Sarkar’s new era, sadvipra samaj then is about spiritual progress, but also about hard thinking, and hard work. Antonio Gramsci said it well. In his Prison Notebooks he wrote: “It is necessary to create sober, patient women and men who do not lose hope before the worst horrors and who are not excited by rubbish.” 33
Critique
Of course, Sarkar’s vision of the future, his idea of the good society and his predictions can be critiqued forcefully from a variety of perspectives. Very briefly, as the purpose of this paper is the presentation–not systematic critique–of an unconventional view of the future. First of all, the maxi/mini limits on land and wealth run counter to the liberal-democratic ownership principles of capitalism. The spiritual basis of PROUT also contradicts the laissez faire ideology of self-interest leading to harmony for all. PROUT movements, thus, as they gain support, will be severly challenged by the world capitalist system. As the history of anti-systemic movements such as the International Socialist movement has shown, we should not discount the ability of the capitalist system, on the world and national level, to stifle and coopt anti-systemic movements. In addition, instead of transforming capitalism and communism, Sarkar’s cultural/ethnic movements may lead to various forms of ethnocide and race wars. He also appears to discount the possibility of nuclear holocausts. All in all, his vision appears overly idealistic.
PROUT’s concept of leadership is also problematic. Sarkar’s spiritual leadership, although obviously necessary to transform capitalism and to ensure the humanistic applications of technology, does the raise the possibility of an authoriatarian religious leadership developing over time. Finally, neither his view of history, nor his predictions of the future, at present, have any “empirical” basis. For example, how can we reliably deduce which regions are in which era of the social cycle? In addition, will all regions be in one global Martial era, or will some have their own internal cycles.
Of course, for all these critiques Sarkar does have responses. Again, very briefly, for him the world capitalist system will transform due to its own contradictions. The cultural movements will primarily emphasize spiritual unity and universality and secondly attempt to polarize the ruling class and the exploited classes. The development of a populist spiritual leadership will be balanced by increased educational development among the public and by strengthened judicial institutions. Finally for Sarkar, his theory of history and his forecasts are intentionally interpretive and intuitional. Although empirical validation is important to him, transforming the world is more so.
The New Human in the New World
Although Sarkar is idealistic, he does emphasize the precarious struggle ahead for humanity. He warns us of the possibility of a world destroyed by pollution and ravaged by human greed and evil. Yet his vision remains optimistic. But we should not be surprised as Sarkar has written: “I am an incorrigible optimist, for optimism is the essence of life.”34 Sarkar’s vision is a global vision, and although he develops a partially deterministic theory of history, it is women and men who still must courageously act, who must bring about preferred visions, who must with their intellect develop new scientific possibilities and societal futures, and thus develop the new Human in the new World. As Sarkar states in his classic mythic language:35
Let the cimmerian darkness of the interlunar night disappear. Let humanity of the new day of the new sunrise wake up in the new world.
I am life which wills to live, in the midst of life which wills to live. As in my own will-to-live there is a longing for wider life and pleasure, with dread of annihilation and pain; so is it also in the will-to-live all around me, whether it can express itself before me or remains dumb. The will-to-live is everywhere present, even as in me. If I am a thinking being, I must regard life other than my own with equal reverence, for I shall know that it longs for fullness and development as deeply as I do myself. Therefore, I see that evil is what annihilates, hampers, or hinders life. And this holds true whether I regard it physically or spiritually. Goodness, by the same token, is the saving or helping of life, the enabling of whatever life I can to attain its highest development. 
