Of God and Mammon: J.C. Kumarappa’s Religious Theory of Economics as a Counterpoint to the Religion of Economics

This study explores, against the backdrop of GATT/WTO with their meticulously planned network of intricate trade regimes, the work and personality of Professor J.C. Kumarappa, a twentieth century prophet of economics, who understood economics as a science of morality. Kumarappa’s tireless work for Indian freedom struggle and his attempt to define economics as sustainable, intermediate and appropriate, on the norms of the permanence of nature’s cycles, were designed in close collaboration with Gandhiji. Most of the agreements of the above mentioned trade regimes, to which India too is a signatory, call for a radical revision of the "villagism" that Kumarappa stood for. It is the author’s contention that in the long run these will prove to be even more detrimental to an Indian economy oriented to self-sufficiency rather than export. Worse still will be the ghost of colonization taking on a new incarnation under the cover of these trade regimes. Colonization of the new era will be one of technology. The technologically advanced countries will be the captors, and the less technologically advanced the captives. As the gap between the captors and the captives widens, the tactics of the former will become more predatory and terrifying for the third world, and particularly for India, especially when two of the areas badly hit by the above global trade regimes in India are pharmaceuticals and agriculture which have a direct bearing on the welfare and livelihood of the vast majority of Indians. Will the welfare of the poor of Indians of whom over seventy per cent are marginal farmers and daily wage-earners remain the preferential option? Will those who have nothing to sell but their labour be again made the sacrificial victims in the bargain? These are some of the questions for which answers are sought in the present study.