 connections. I'm your host, Grace Cheng, talking to Dr. Mark Gilbert, the National Endowment for Humanities Chair, Endowed Chair of World History at Hawaii Pacific University. And we're going to be talking about India and the contemporary global economy. So I'd like to welcome you, Mark, to the program. Nice being here. Thank you. Thank you for coming. And very excited to hear that your book on South Asia and World History, published by Oxford University Press, has recently been released. Just released last month. Very exciting. Can you tell us a bit about what the book is about? Well, there's a field called World History. And it's looking at larger patterns, you know, rather than, let's say, a national history, you know, a very in-depth, detailed look at one country. Instead, we look at patterns that exist almost in all countries. But we don't just compare them. It's a way of getting a deeper understanding, actually, of any individual culture, nation civilization, because they're not in isolation. Whatever they're doing, they're doing it because something has happened external to their own culture. They've either hybridized it, synthesized it, or adapted to it. I think Japan is the most homogeneous culture. But its religion doesn't come, Buddhism does not come from Japan. And the form of Buddhism that comes to Japan is both global but unique to the Japanese. So that's the kind of thing we like looking at. And India provides many, many examples of that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a very diverse and large civilization, just the civilization itself, like we think of it as a country. But, and your book covers, like, just an impressive range of historical periods from 5000 BCE to the present, which we hope to catch up today. Yeah, like what? That's 7000 years. What is it? National history is easy. World history is hard. But those patterns are, for example, every Neolithic civilization has its own patterns. And yet they do have commerce with each other. Then after the commerce starts growing and cultures become in more contact, then you start seeing more borrowing, not so much borrowing, but using what they learn from other cultures. Of course, the West is so much so a part of that process. But we're so proud of what Western civilization is, we don't recognize that it comes from, let's say, Greeks through Muslims. Right. I mean, yeah, that's the thing is that we're fed a big diet of national history, which is really like, you know, establishes boundaries as to like what people in our nation have achieved in the past. But I mean, really the reality is with what I think world history illustrates is that there is so much cross-ferralization throughout all of history, among all different groups throughout the world. And you might argue that kind of approach is needed more than ever, because we have this tendency towards turning inward going on throughout the world in almost every culture, trying to identify a kind of er, you know, basic nature of who they are. And yet nobody is a product of that. That's a, if in fact, when you dig deep enough into that origin, it turns out either to be very diverse or not politically correct for the people who are saying, we have a, you know, this very special, exceptional culture. Turns out they're no more exceptional than anyone else. Yeah, certainly. And so we're interested in kind of talking, hopefully, you know, we'll cover the Indian role in the global economy today. So, you know, I know your book starts off really far back in history. And of course, Indian civilization is so ancient and rich. But talking about more contemporary or more recent connections, you know, I think most Americans know India best for Mahatma Gandhi and, you know, and so there's that link, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and their kind of civil disobedience movement. Yes, yes, exactly. Well, it's really interesting because there are kind of layers that you can pull back. Gandhi grew up in a part of India, Western India, Gujarat, which was a center of what's known as Jainism, a religion that believed in harmlessness to all living things, and that if you harm living things, you do so as an act of will that is attachment to the world and it soils you. You don't have to kill things in order to survive a living thing that experiences pain. So the result is that you have this religion that is extremely opposed to any form of violent act. So he has that background kind of in his in his blood in the soil that he lives in. But he came to nonviolence through a process of self reflection, but also because of influences of others. The India had an ancient tradition of civil disobedience. When you have a caste system and social hierarchies, there have to be ways in which justice can be done, despite divisions between people by social rank. So there are holidays in India where the low rank throw gets to throw stuff. So there have to be ways of negotiating it, negotiating those spaces anyway. But Gandhi was impressed with three other people. One of them was John Ruskin, who was an Englishman who believed very deeply into, well he was very important in a craft's movement. It is going back to what we would call basics. It wasn't a hippie, but he was very influential in that aspect of looking into the soul and getting at the essential things. Also influential was Tolstoy, Count Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy had set up communities in Russia in which people practiced the art of living together rather than in competition. And Gandhi, of course, has this ancient tradition in India called an ashram. But the idea of having ashrams to gain a political consciousness within a community rather than the individual achieving moksha or nirvana. And so that impressed him greatly and had a great deal of influence on his retreats, which he lived in and worked in and operated from. Martin Luther King, of course, didn't know Gandhi, but he was a Christian. And Gandhi knew Christianity extremely well. His closest friend, CF Andrews, was a missionary. He's actually played by a wonderful actor in the movie, Gandhi. So you get a sense of how close emotionally they were to each other, basically definitely committed to the needs of humanity. And the result of that was the Sermon on the Mount made a great deal to Gandhi. And it should, to everyone, desire things for other people rather than yourself. Take care of people who don't have even what you desire before you seek it yourself. So as well as the other well-known passages. And that had a very important aspect of his life. So it's not surprising that Martin Luther King would actually find Gandhi appealing. What Martin Luther King did that Gandhi pioneered as a philosophy was a taking on the anger of your opponent as a means of forcing them to see what they are doing and have an opportunity to repent of the behavior. If you attack someone, they just get more angry at you. But if they attack you and you do nothing, it forces you to ask yourself, what am I doing? And this idea actually exists in the Mahabharata. It's one of the ancient epics of India. But this idea that you can resist by not resisting. And that sparks anger out of guilt. And that guilt can be handled. Someone who hates as a result of what they perceive as violence, it'll be very difficult to change their minds. But when you receive their violence and you don't fight back, it does force self-realization. And Gandhi argued that this was the only way when you're dealing with a superior opponent. He got in trouble with people asking who about Adolf Hitler after the Holocaust and said, would nonviolence have helped the Jews? And he had many, he had a lot of humor and sly irony about him. And he said, well, it wasn't tried in the 1930s. He said, but if it was a tried at the beginning of oppression of the Jews, enough public attention might have been raised. And he said, look at what happened with the alternative. But of course, Jews accepted that they were not going to be executed, that they lived in a civilized society in which there had been problems before. So they thought they could get past it. But the British didn't, the British used that against Gandhi and said, it's like when people like Spicer makes an error speaking for the government about the Holocaust, people are very sensitive when millions of people die. But Gandhi weathered that, explaining that in every other case that we know, governments have not been able to withstand a public protest that's nonviolent. When there's a mirror put up to them, they have to force themselves to look at what they are doing. And for other people to see that. To see that too. Look at the civil rights movement. Of course, this was what Martin Luther King was doing. But King was extremely fortunate because he lived in an age of radio and television. He could reach everyone. You need that publicity to work. Yes. And Gandhi had to do this without television, without, you know, what is it? Newsreels that only a few people saw and bear radio. And yet everything he did was so visual. But because of the drama of it, it managed to go around the world. My father, who was an Olympic swimmer and later a decorated soldier in World War II, he said that Gandhi was his idol. So when I said, I'm going to be studying Indian history, that was the first thing he said to me. So he had an effect. But I think Martin Luther King gets a special accolade because he had a population that he could, that was what do you call it, united. Whereas in India, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, etc., he had a united population. He knew how to appeal to them directly. And he knew how to be righteous before the Lord. And that was really amazing. Stands alone. But if you go to his museum, Martin Luther King National Center in Atlanta, there is an entire room devoted to Gandhi's publications that he collected. And his trips to India, where people were very excited to see him and identify Gandhi and Martin Luther King together. Yeah, yeah. Fascinating influences and how they travel. And going back to, Gandhi is known as also a great leader of India's independence movement, among other things. And interesting about India. So today we know India is kind of an emerging economic power. But really India and the other South Asian economies, after independence, they didn't, they didn't lean towards like a free market, competitive model. Maybe this is the Tolstoy collectivist. No, it actually has to do with Cambridge University. Oh, is that right? Oh, okay, another source. Yes, it's another story. What happened was in the 1930s, there was tremendous popular feeling about what the Soviet Union had accomplished in a very short period of time. Very few people were aware of the cost. George Bernard Shaw went to the Soviet Union and he said, oh, it's wonderful. They were shown Potemkin villages, all these other things. But young people, by the time they were going to school in the early 30s, were very impressed by the Soviet experiment. And people from the outside the developed world were also even more impressed because the Soviet Union was going from what they are, which an agrarian society, and moving very quickly into an industrial society. And as the 30s went on, that industrial society in the Soviet Union grew faster and faster and faster. So at school, they thought collectively going to school that this is the ideology they should pursue. And they had lots of left-wing teachers who had the same point of view. What a wonderful Soviet spy, I suppose. But anyway, the idea was that they came by genuinely. They needed a new solution. Capitalism was associated with imperialism. And so they needed another way. And you see this all over the world. Ho Chi Minh, for example, when he came to Paris, he would most be a socialist. But after World War I, where the West turned his back on the developing world, he looked for a more dynamic solution and found it in communism. So starting with the 1930s, people like Nehru, Jharul Nehru, the first prime minister of India, he left university in England to join Gandhi's campaign in about 1919, 1917, 1990. And he was a devout socialist, but the money that drove the nationalist movement was all for millionaires, like Birla's very famous one, textile industry, the owners of concrete, the Tata industrial empire. These were intravenous that were so successful, even the British couldn't suppress their factory activities. They tried hard, but they couldn't. And so they were giving money to the independence movement because they believed that Gandhi could get rid of the British. And I think they also believed in Gandhian principles, but they also knew it was in their self-interest. So when independence came, I don't think most Indian leaders wanted to bite the hand that fed them. I think that's an exaggeration. I think that people are motivated by more things than just money, at least in India, all the time, anyway. And so the result was that a mixed economy made more sense. Kwame and Krumah said, Sikhi first the political kingdom, and then everything good will come from it. The idea was the government should operate from the commanding heights, and that would be a power transportation, the main industries that very often become monopolies in terms of private enterprise. So the result was you had a mixed economy with the government owning these the larger means of production, but entrepreneurial is a rife as it would always be in a country that was entrepreneurial from the day one. Harappa, around 5,000 years, well, 2,500 B.C., were enterprising merchants all over the Indian Ocean and as far as Egypt. So we can expect them to continue on in that tradition, and they did. But there were problems, but you might know there was a thing called essentially rule by regulation, and there was just so much bureaucracy it was actually holding back industry. And Rajiv Gandhi, as Prime Minister in the 90s, simply attacked it and also sponsored new technology and a service economy over a manufacturing economy. And the result was by 2,000 over 6% growth every year. So we'll come back and continue this conversation, Mark. Okay, so you're watching Global Connections with Grace Chang and Mark Gilbert talking about South Asia and the contemporary global economy back in one minute. Hi, I'm Carol Cox. I'm the new host of Eyes on Hawaii. Make sure you stay in the know on Hawaii. Join us on Tuesdays at 12 noon. We will see you then. Aloha. Freedom. Is it a feeling? Is it a place? Is it an idea? At Dive Heart, we believe freedom is all of these and more, regardless of your ability. Dive Heart wants to help you escape the bonds of this world and defy gravity. Since 2001, Dive Heart has helped children, adults, and veterans of all abilities go where they have never gone before. Dive Heart has helped them transition to their new normal. Search diveheart.org and share our mission with others. And in the process, help people of all abilities imagine the possibilities in their lives. You're watching Think Tech on ThinkTechHawaii.com, which broadcasts five live talk shows from noon to 5 p.m. every weekday and then streams our earlier shows all night long. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Aloha. Welcome back to Global Connections with Grace Cheng. I'm joined by Dr. Mark Gilbert, the NEA's Endowed Chair for World History at Hawaii Pacific University. So, Mark, we're going to continue our discussion about South Asia. And we're interested in specifically, especially India and the global economy today, but we're talking about what's distinctive about South Asia. Just talk about, touch upon another South Asian country, Bhutan, which is probably less well-known, but it is known for its idea of trying to reach the highest level of gross national happiness. Yes, instead of gross national product. Right, right. Yes, exactly, gross national happiness. In contrast to the economic goal, yeah. Well, we're very fortunate here in Hawaii because the NEH National Government Humanities Council in Hawaii and also the Museum of Art, I had a massive Bhutan exhibit a few years ago. And so we should hear in Hawaii be better than most people when you just say Bhutan. It's true, yeah. But Bhutan is a very special place because it's really all that's left of traditional Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhist culture. It was a monarchy for hundreds of years. The British, like Nepal, chose to allow these states to be independent or at least autonomous in their internal affairs with a resident that would watch over it. But unlike Nepal, Bhutan was able to remain aloof from most of the rest of the world and developed a very environmentally sustainable way of living and also developed a monarchy that was very identified itself with the people. So about two decades ago, the king decided that with the way things were going in the world, what we call rapid cultural change globalization, as if the people never left Africa and spread throughout the entire world. It's the pace of connections between peoples and cultures and continents that is different. And he saw this change coming very quickly and he knew that Bhutan could not keep pace with it. So he decided that he would abdicate eventually. But he would put in place a system of education, of democracy, and of development that was suited to the Bhutanese people. And that's what's known as the movement towards gross national happiness. But what's interesting is the people didn't want it. For the most part they love their king. I remember there was a unionization of a business and the manager prevented unionization simply by taking really good care of his employees and making sure that they were happy. Then there was no need for unionization. I'm speaking of my father, by the way, who was pro-union. But the issue is that the king managed the state so effectively that people saw no need for him to abdicate. But the real benefit, of course, was that this gradual process enabled his much younger son to be able to start off as king, as a mature adult, and with a wide understanding of the rest of the world. And also did away with the idea of what England is facing now in a different minor key, which is a queen that simply keeps living. May outlive her son, for all we know. And so this enables the idea of transition, it becomes more possible. And there are lots of educated Bhutanese who saw the value of it and also saw the pitfalls. But Bhutan is very fortunate amongst other countries besides its kind of Buddhist sense of collective good and also a king that believed in it. But it happens to have water resources. Because it's in the Terai and then the Himalayas itself, it has plentiful water which everybody wants. It's a big problem in India today. And also China, indirectly or more directly. But the important thing is that they decided to take Chinese money and build gigantic power generating and, well, water generating plants that produce electricity that are literally buried in mountains. So you can't actually see them. And they're engorges that don't have people that need to be removed. Because essentially in India, you have to flood lots of terrain and then essentially, and with the angst, three gorges. Lot of controversy. People don't get the removal benefits they thought they'd get. And in India, the Supreme Court has simply turned away from them. We can talk about that if we want. But the idea is that it doesn't harm the environment. It generates things that people need. And at least for the next 50 years or so, there'll be plenty of glacier melt for them to profit. Because India will buy all the energy and all the water use that they can get. The problem is, yes, they're a small country. As things get hard and harder as the environment changes, well, we'll all be in that same boat here in Hawaii and everywhere else. So it'll be interesting to see how they negotiate that space. As I'm always interested in seeing how my students will write papers on the subject and come to some kind of conclusion that isn't depressing. Because it is a remarkable, remarkable experiment in building a nation and a community. Oh yeah. And I mean, in this kind of coordination at the regional level to be able to do this in a thoughtful manner, not kind of in a rush to reach high levels of growth. And so I think that's, yeah, that's promising. That's a good thing to hear. And there's also another thing, this problem of immigration. Almost everybody has migrant workers who have become part of their society and find themselves identifying with it. And many Nepalese had done that under the old regime in Bhutan. And when the new regime took over, they saw the necessity for pushing some of them out. And this was very controversial. More recently, some have been let back in. So that could be a lesson to everybody. Back into Bhutan. Back into Bhutan. So listen to everybody that, you know, how you handle what I'm sure it's in the Sermon on the Mount. How you handle your immigrants is how your soul represents itself to God. So it's interesting that the Buddhists in Bhutan understand that. Yeah. I mean, this migration, we're hearing a lot of this controversy, right, with the Rohingya migrating, being forced to migrate into Bangladesh. I mean, the region, these kinds of national borders are creating all of these kinds of controversies. I mean, you know, moving of people historically is quite natural. But you know, some of the reasons for it, right, is problematic. But you know, back to India as an emerging economic power in the world. And we hear a lot about India and China. But you know, what do you think? Do you think that there is a claim that the Indian economy might pass the Chinese economy in the future? Well, at least be number two to China. And the United States being third, I think, in that particular thing. Well, it's interesting because, of course, we all live in a precipitous view of the world, right? So China is this rising dynamic economy. American money from purchasing Chinese goods is vastly expanding the Chinese economy. People, the group of tourists that Hawaii is looking for in the future are Chinese. They spend more money and spend more every day as tourists than Japanese tourists. Passing on the consumerism. Passing on the consumerism. There's no question about that. Yes, there's a thing called capitalism in China, but it's known by the word, what is it? Socialism with Chinese characteristics. And the problem is that the population is aging rapidly in China. The one child per family was a very good policy considering the alternative, which was massive overpopulation before the Chinese economy could even cope with it. But now, you know, they have raised a bunch of very spoiled children in a way to replace those who are aging. And China is grappling with that all by itself. Also, China is about the same size as the United States, but it only has the arable land of the 13 colonies. So it's very vulnerable. It has not been successful in attempts to stop desertification. It's working hard, planting trees. But as recently just happened in Beijing, it's been the dust has raised it to 800 units. And 100 units is helpful. And how does India compare as far as land resources? Well, if you look at Delhi, the same thing. Delhi is becoming rapidly unlivable because of industrialization in that part of India and the prevailing air currents, which is off the desert as well until you get to the Himalayas. So India has a younger population. It is a democracy. China is not. China has the advantage of long-range planning for big industrial development. India has thousands upon thousands of entrepreneurs. Going back to its roots as almost literally an international civilization. And so the result is that you can expect India to achieve the same things that Western economies have achieved. For example, they make generic drugs equivalent to that. And they don't charge $100,000 a month. What's interesting is that India is part of a consortium of essentially selling retroviral drugs to Africa for virtually cost. Whereas the American capitalists, even Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, having stood up for that, Bill Gates has of course helped eradicate the river blindness. But you don't see that kind of international commitment that Indian corporations have made. Because it's good business in the future. And Indian merchants in the past, as a kind of adjunct to British colonial enterprise, were seen as a kind of suspect merchant class. And there is this entrepreneurial, as well as innovation in the spirit that we can see. Given the limitations that both the Indian Chinese economies have, but that innovation in entrepreneurial spirit is quite important. Which you address. And we hopefully can have you back to talk about this in more detail. Because we are out of time, unfortunately. Or new things like Bangladesh. Oh, yes. I mean, South Asia really is a fascinating region. Many things to discuss these days. So thank you so much for being here, Mark. It was a wonderful being talking to you. Some other time, please. All right. Thank you for tuning into Global Connections with me, Grace Chang, and my guest, Dr. Mark Gilbert from Hawaii Pacific University. Join me here every Thursday at 1pm. See you next time. Aloha.