India Backlog 13: Helena Norberg-Hodge

That Being Said, we need to address our reasons why we should categorically reject China's efforts to "modernize" Kashgar. It will help to look at the most vocal objector to modernization of Central Asia, Helena Norberg-Hodge.

When I first arrived in Leh, the capital of 5,000 inhabitants, cows were the most likely cause of congestion and the air was crystal clear. Within five minutes’ walk in any direction from the town centre were barley fields, dotted with large farmhouses. For the next twenty years I watched Leh turn into an urban sprawl. The streets became choked with traffic, and the air tasted of diesel fumes. ‘Housing colonies’ of soulless, cement boxes spread into the dusty desert. The once pristine streams became polluted, the water undrinkable. For the first time, there were homeless people. The increased economic pressures led to unemployment and competition. Within a few years, friction between different communities appeared. All of these things had not existed for the previous 500 years.

Ms. Norberg-Hodge is still actively involved in Ladakh, and in August i attended a seminar at the Womens' Center hosted by her. In attendance were a whole mess of Western tourists and several classes from the Moravian school on Changspa.

Ms. Norberg-Hodge's basic thesis is this: Development of "third-world" countries comes with the implicit assumption that "first-world" societies are somehow better than the local society. The economic aspects of consumer culture that we take for granted--centralization, accumulation of wealth, appliances, etc--are completely foreign to groups of people without any contact with the first world. By no means are they inherently desirable. Instead, the first world compels the third world to accept our way of life and conform. Just consider the loaded terms first- and third-world. We do not tell them about the environmental and psychological impacts of a developed life.

Probably three people in the room disagreed: Jason, the schoolteacher, and me.

Jason's disagreement, which i echoed at the time, was structural. Development brings advances that are undoubtedly useful. Medicine is the most obvious, but also infrastructure that was necessary to support Leh's population (which has quintupled in 25 years). Also communication: telephones, the internet, et cetera, that connect people to the global society (global society was a big kick we were on in India). The overall advancement of the human race is Jason's primary philosophical stance. How could you endorse action that would stall it?

The schoolteacher's disagreement was more philosophical. First off: the teacher was from further south and was exceptionally educated. He touched on Jason's points as well--agricultural advances in particular--but the main thrust of his argument was How can you, a foreigner, a Westerner no less, come into Ladakh to tell us how to live our lives?

He didn't explicitly state this but was getting at what makes me uneasy about Ms. Norberg-Hodge's anti- or counter-development projects: her argument is really just the other side of the same coin. Regardless of her message, it's still a Westerner telling a Local how to develop their country. To some extent this approach is necessary to further her goals, which are by no means unjust in and of themselves. The forces of conventional development are too strong to adopt a passive opposition. However, her argument still does not allow Ladakhis to decide for themselves how to develop.

This is really the principal problem facing Central Asia. None of the outside parties allow the locals the power of self-determination, whether it is the Indian, Pakistani, or Chinese governments, Wahhabis, philanthropists, or tourists. Even Greg Mortenson's approach is not pure: he has repeatedly stated that his schools stand in opposition to the development of madrassas and Islamic fundamentalism, which like Norberg-Hodge's projects may be a necessary evil. When we talk of development of any so-called third-world country, we should not object to new policies because they are culturally damaging, politically motivated, or Islamic. The only legitimate opposition that outsiders can offer is objection to plans that do not allow the local population the power of self-determination.