Reasons for the Proposed Model
The philosophy and education system of the Bhaaratiya Darshan Shastra and Bhaaratiya Shikshan Vyavastha has inbuilt components to acknowledge this violence, to acknowledge pain and suffering caused to other living beings through human actions.
The culture, or Sanskriti to be more accurate, of the original Bhaaratiya Samaj Vyavastha has checks and balances of Dharma. It brings the awareness of harmful, mindless or unethical component of the human life sphere to the centre stage of designing life systems and has cultivated the Bhaaratiya Praja to have a sensitivity towards other beings and awareness of their actions and intentions.
We see industries of recycling, recycled products, natural products, green technologies, sustainable businesses and housing models, clean fuel, carbon credits, people making eco villages, moving to the rural and natural areas and a whole host of efforts aimed at to reducing the damaging impact of products and services currently used.
However, recycling, recycled products, clean fuel all need massive new technological infrastructures and lands cleared of their ecosystems to house these infrastructure. Then come the new technological and logistical networks to get them to us.
So they are not clean and neither are they green. The reduced impact of damage claimed by them dont equal the total impact of their existence. Developing these efforts further also won’t lend the earth (or humans) what is needed.
Bhaarat was a highly developed civilization since thousands of years.
If the Westerners mean a life infrastructure catering to all needs of human existence with finesse, efficiency, order and justice, then……Bhaarat had it.
Pathshalas and Gurukulams, Ayurveda, Jyotish Shastra, Architectural Shilp Shastra, 64 skills of women and 72 skills of men which covered a range of life and occupational skills, traditional sciences and engineering and an astounding number of Shastras on all sciences of existence- life was full of solutions and thought processes for all complexities of life.
Bhaarat was a developed country in the era before the Mughals, before being Colonised and before Electricity.
The most noteworthy point is that humans and animals existed in synchronicity. Some animals have always been used by humans and been taken care of by humans. They were not used with the intention of being raw materials for humans in an industrialized manner. They were reared by households as family members and made to work just as all family members played their part
A certain amount of violence was always there and always will be. Worldly needs, pleasures and desires of humans are not possible to fulfill without taking from the world around.
This brings us back to the civilizational ethos of Bhaarat. Being aware of this fact, life systems are designed to take minimally, be ethical towards all living beings, with natural laws in the centre, with intention of inflicting less harm, governed by Dharma, and with the aim of creating pathways of spiritual upliftment for all the citizens. The aim of Moksh of our civilization exposed the consciousness of the citizens to a life growth in the direction of less harm to others more capacity of deep mindfulness.
This was a life that functioned on the power of human and animal energy.
Here is a life function map of what such a lifestyle looks like and the fundamentals of its functioning.
The true understanding dawns not when we compare on the basis of illusionary words like progress, education, development etc….but when we are able to grasp the magnanimous web of life and care which this violent development model has replaced.