PARAKEETS AND PARCHESI
565
The inmost law of industrial civilization is the reduction of costs.
In the era of machines, this law decrees the substitution of mechanical
for human energy-machines instead of men. This is the principle that
gives meaning and warmth to Western ideas of the "useful" and
"rational" in moral conduct as well as in business and production. The
Indian economy has not (with local exceptions) entered the era of
machines; nor does Indian conduct accept even the deeper root prin–
ciple of the reduction of costs. Therefore, inevitably, the absurdity in
our eyes, the irrationality of so much of the Indian pattern of behavior.
The law of our civilization commands: for each task, the smal–
lest possible expenditure of human labor. For India, with so many–
so irrationally and absurdly many-humans, and so few machines, the
opposite law prevails.
If
there is a slower or more laborious way to do
it-whatever it may be, to clear passengers through customs or clean a
room or till and water a field--then that is the better way.
One day we saw the grass being cut on a lawn within the Red
Fort at Delhi. The small mower was being drawn by four men, with a
fifth as-driver, I suppose he must be called. A rough calculation shows
that, in the United States, the wages of four men for three days will
pay for a motor-driven mower.
Therefore.
(even limiting attention to
this particular reduction of the problem), four men do not pull lawn–
mowers in America. And
therefore
(quite rationally for this example) in
India they do. Or, again, at many of the Indian airfields, individual
porters take bags one by one to load on the plane: porters are cheaper
than the familiar little trucks, and porters with a one-bag capacity are
relatively cheaper (in food, clothing, etc.) than those strong enough
to handle several. Such equations, though odd, are understandable
enough.
But how are we to assimilate to the Benthamite categories of
our Western understanding the fact that Indians also violate the ultimate
principle of the reduction of costs, and that they are quite capable of
refusing to "improve their standard of living" even when it is easily
possible for them to do so.
By slaughtering about 40 per cent of its cattle, and by controlled
breeding practices applied to the remainder, India could have-West–
ern reason can demonstrate-the most productive cattle and dairy in–
dustry in the world. The cows, however, are divine, and they are there–
fore not to be slaughtered-or restrained, even if their milk output is
an ounce and a half a day, and their strength not enough to pull a
six-inch plow, no, not if their holy legs are broken, their ribs caved
in
and their sides covered with sores. Thus the cows strip the land of food,
