Widening disparities and
Integral Humanism
By Jagmohan

If we subject the contemporary world - the world that has come into being after World War II - to close scrutiny, we will find that it is full of complexities and contradictions. Could the concept of integral humanism help in understanding these complexities and resolving these contradictions?

Indisputably, the contemporary world has seen mind-boggling revolution in science and technology and also an unprecedented increase in the wealth of some of the nations. Take, for example, medical sciences. Many dreadful diseases are being contained or eliminated. Heart bypass surgery has become as routine as appendicitis operation. Gene transplant from higher organism holds the promise of raising the physical and intellectual level of mankind. The chemists have already synthesised over eight million compounds. Biotechnology is on the threshold of providing thousands of new material. Electronic mail has practically conquered time and distance. Never before in history such profound, dramatic and all-pervasive improvements have taken place.

There has also been remarkable upswing in economic development, and the world economy has gone up by about $15 trillion during the last decade. Setting up of the United Nations has been another significant feature of the contemporary world. Freedom from war was not the only aim. Freedom from hunger, diseases and ignorance was also sought. To effectuate these aims and objectives, a number of agencies - FAO, WHO, UNESCO and UNDP - were established. And with a view to making the international system more equitable and just, quite a few high-level commissions - the Pearson Commission, the Willy Brandt Commission, Brundtland Commission, etc. - were appointed. Scores of international conferences on population, health and environment were also held, and hundreds of declarations made and covenants signed.

With all these advances, one would expect that the present-day world would be a veritable paradise on earth. But what is the position?

There are about 1.2 billion people - about 20 per cent of the world population - who are absolutely poor and live on less than $1 a day. About two billion people earn less than $2 per day. About 2.4 billion have no access to sanitation. About 1.7 billion go without pure water supply. About 5,00,000 women die each year in pregnancy and childbirth, and 30 times that number suffer injuries. In cities alone, about 600 million people are either homeless or living in what the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements has described as a "life and health threatening environment".

Despite the ratification of the Convention on Right of the Child, more than 200 million children still live on a semi-starvation diet. Vitamin A deficiency impairs the physical and mental faculties of about 40 million children. "Every hour," according to the 2005 Human Development Report, "more than 1,200 children die, away from the glare of media attention. This is equivalent to three 'tsunamis' a month, every month, hitting the world's most vulnerable citizens."

According to Mr Juan Somavia, the Director-General of International Labour Organisation, world unemployment is at the highest level ever, particularly among youth. More than one billion people are unemployed, underemployed or working poor. Youth unemployment reached an all time high of 88 million in 2003. Young people make up 25 per cent of the working population, but almost half of them are openly unemployed.

All is not well with the developed world as well. For example, in United States, on an average, about 15 million criminal cases are reported to the police annually. About three million children are abused every year and about 7,000 children, that is, 20 a day, suffer gun-shot wounds. The annual expenditure on narcotics alone exceeded the combined GDP of 80 developing countries.

The United Nations agencies have also failed miserably to reduce income disparities. In fact, the disparities have been widening. During the 1970s, the top 20 per cent of the world's people in the richest countries had 32 times the income of the poorest 20 per cent, growing to 45 times in 1980, 59 times in 1989 and 78 times at present.

The political ideologies of the contemporary world have proved ineffectual in providing remedy for most of the current maladies. Marxism is the latest "god that has failed". The mechanism of Neo-Liberalism has the potential of turning out to be nothing more than an unguided missile, which could cause havoc in a good part of the globe. Nobel Laureate Joseph E Stiglitz has significantly pointed out: "In much of the world, there has been in recent years a slowing of growth, an increase in poverty, a degradation of the environment, and deterioration of national cultures and of a sense of cultural identity."

Why, with phenomenal knowledge and skill at mankind's command, should things be falling apart? Why, despite unprecedented affluence in today's world, should there be widespread hunger, diseases and death? Why the United Nations and its agencies are failing to attain their objective? Why, in spite of repeated warnings, is ecological disequilibrium growing? And, why are political and economic ideologies of the times unable to provide solution?

The current complexities and contradictions have arisen because the post-World War world has continued to be guided by the old attitudes, values and reflexes, because earth is not being viewed as an integral parts of a cosmic web; and because sea, soil, forests, clouds, mountains and the teeming millions, spread over all the continents, are not being treated as intermeshed items of the same organic entity.

Today, the dominant powers refuse to take a holistic view of the reality and help in development of a system in which requirements of body, mind, intellect and soul are integrated in a harmonious pattern, and in which human societies function as complementary units of the same universe. They do not fully understand that if one or two aspects of human personality or one or two arenas of human society alone are catered to, or are not accompanied by proportionate advance in complementary spheres, then unhappy results would accrue, and overall cause of enlarging human happiness would not be served. For example, knowledge, a desirable item in itself, would not bring happiness or harmony unless it is accompanied by corresponding advancement in spiritual field. As Bertrand Russell puts it, "Unless man increases in wisdom, increase in knowledge will be increase in sorrow."

If the world community wants to replace the contemporary scientifically, technologically and materially advanced, but socially and morally retarded, civilisation by a truly just, humane and enlightened civilisation, then it has to include integral humanism in the core of its ideology. Besides, it has to work for the development of integrated, balanced and harmonious individuals, societies and states, operating within an international order which is organised on mutual complementarities and overall sense of underlying unity.