It is time that our economists pay attention to the virtuous aspect of planning before the moral crisis overwhelms the whole economic system, says Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj Ji

Among leaders of all the political parties, it has become conventional these days to discuss in detail about the annual budget or economic plan as to whether it promotes public or private sector and whether its proposals are labour-intensive or capital-intensive. However, hardly have our planners and economists ever bothered about the moral climate plan and whether that climate would be congenial to its implementation. Nor, for that matter, have they ever given a serious thought to the need of reforming the institutional mechanism. In fact, our statesmen and economists have not fully realised how seriously the moral state of a society affects even secular matters like economic planning and how it affects public morals. They forget that the feverish growth of unaccounted money, the collusion of bureaucrats with contractors to cheat the law and the exchequer, lack of devotion to work and the loss of integrity in public life can make even the most meticulous economic plan seem to be inefficient. If the work of implementation proceeds at a slovenly  pace, if political parties collect funds in all sorts of devious ways and if the moral authority of our leaders gets increasingly eroded, not the best of plans or budgets can improve the economic situation. In such an atmosphere, it is only the vocal, combative and the clever, who gets the benefit from the planning.

It is, therefore, necessary to see what collaborative efforts can cultivate and internalise the values and to reform the institutional mechanism so that the plan is properly executed and the benefits of the plan can reach the poor people. It does not generate system, which impels every individual, family or group to maximise its own gains, unmindful of what happens to the rest. As our system stands at present, it reproduces inflation, pollution, consumerism and social violence in an environment of wide-spread poverty, dishonesty, income-concealment, tax-evasion etc. It generates loss of moral values. Therefore, it is time that our economists pay attention to the moral aspect of planning before the moral crisis overwhelms the whole economic system and the society.

Today we are witnessing fall of many governments, empires, kingships and democracies across the world. The reason behind their collapse is because the values and aims of both the leaders and people are not clean. The seed of difficulties in our system is the lack of awareness and practice of values such as cooperation, honesty, serving, self-examination and self-discipline. This is mainly because since childhood we have been taught to compete fiercely in order to succeed rather than to develop individual talents to complement each other; to possess and accumulate more as a means of security rather than sharing our resources and realising that security comes when there is unity, a sense of belonging among everyone in the society.

This ignorance towards values brings sufferings to humanity due to which vices are created bringing further misery to our lives. It would thus be wrong for politics to use religion, culture and economics for selfish ends or to satisfy one’s own hunger for power. Instead,it should learn its lessons from ethics and economics of people’s welfare and use the power it has gained towards the common goal of purity, peace and prosperity.