Development and human freedom

Social policing is, perhaps, more detrimental than the physical and legal aspects of policing but less palpable in terms of its impact on the persona of our being. In my article for these pages, titled ‘Structural violence and freedom’ (September 30, 2016), I argued that the structural violence of the modern world has crippled the mind and soul more than the physical violence of the medieval world that could only harm the body.

Structures that are geared towards the coercion and control of the mind and soul can be countered with alternative institutions and discourses of transformation. Modernity, therefore, is not only about a set of institutional structures. Instead, it is about the possibilities of freedom which are achieved by supplanting the coercive structures with countervailing structures of liberation and transformation.

The mind – as the cognitive and intellectual state – and the soul as a psychological dimension of human life are conditioned in the objective world of institutions that goes beyond the control of individuals. Individual expressions are, therefore, not discretionary. They involve the interplay of structural forces that shape the collective consciousness of our modern society.

Those who strive to trespass the institutional discipline and discourse of conformity of the existing structures are classified as miscreants and troublemakers. The discourse of liberation and transformation is reduced to a set of disconnected and commonsense questions of gender equity, sustainable development, individual responsibility, etc. New jargon is crafted to obfuscate the discourse of transformation. As a result, these spaces of discourse formation become political spaces. Knowledge production in the modern age is not a choice. Instead, it is a process that provides intellectual legitimacy to the system that controls the mind and the body. The development agenda of an anarchist would be content with a counter-narrative of systemic control. However, a transformational agenda will question the structural foundations of knowledge and the prevalent ideology.

Modern coercive structures are diffused into a set of social spaces as breeding grounds of ideological hegemony. Civil society has assumed this role in the neoliberal era. It facilitates the benign control of the mind and soul and also promotes disconnected discourses as an antithesis of the narratives of social transformation. An assertive mind becomes an alien in the modern human museum where the mediocre thrive for their ability of conformism and adaptability to the existing structure. Institutions of structural coercion manufacture human choices. Those who defy this modern enslavement of the mind become misfits in a world of mediocrity.

The structures of control sublimate the intrinsic human spirit of freedom into a language of obedience, docility and submission. It is a fallacy to believe that civil society is a non-denominational, apolitical and a neutral space. Instead, it is the domain for the ruling classes to neutralise the human spirit of freedom.

Human history is full of examples of individuals who – out of valour and intellectual assertion – could steer the course of human civilisation beyond the stretches of the imagination of the modern mind. Modern institutions – whether it is the state, market or the entities of civil society – are therefore social institutions with the political intent to impose and reinforce the existing order.

This brings me back to my previous article, ‘Moving beyond the jargon’ (May 18) which was published in these pages. The article generated a heated debate on social media, through emails and WhatsApp messages. While the article was less rigorous than my previous articles on civil society, it went viral on social media owing to its intrepidity to provide a critical assessment of unthoughtfully adopted notions of development. It also offered a set of critical perspectives on civil society by delineating the broader contours of discourse rather than dwelling on a locally-crafted debate around the received notions of piety and profanity of a certain civil society.

Most of my readers from the development sector have been providing feedback on my articles. This has always been an enlightening experience. Writers are not necessarily political activists, development practitioners and change-makers in the real world. Therefore, they can lose sight of the objective reality beyond their world of interpretation. However, the irreconcilable conflict between the angst and agony of the real world and the idealism of inner world of a thinker helps produce creative writing. Having worked as a development practitioner for last 15 years, I believe that critical reflection is crucial for the development sector to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world.

My critique of civil society is about its inability to serve the cause of the oppressed classes of Pakistan. If civil society replaces the role of the state and reduces the citizens to recipients of aid and grants, it kills the very spirit of citizenship. My critique of Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) as the pioneer of rural development in Pakistan was aimed at generating a productive debate. As a development practitioner, I have always been a great admirer of the AKRSP and other NGOs working in Pakistan for poverty alleviation. But one must counter the discourse of infallibility and piety.

The role of these organisations must be analysed in a secular domain and in the context of contemporary debates of civil society. If civil society fails to generate a discourse of transformation and the collective voice of the citizenry for political representation, social inclusion and economic equality merits critical assessment.

The human passion regarding the will for freedom, the firm belief in the possibilities of the transformation of the self and the material reality has been lost to the residual management of the body and soul. The tyranny of institutions, structural controls and the freedom-neutralising impact of civil society must be countered. This profanity may invite the wrath of our power-embedded social development gurus and proponents of a mediocre civil society.

As development practitioners, if we believe that a better world is possible, we must show courage to resist the hegemonic ideologies that begin to control the mind and soul. Social and political transformation requires a multidimensional development strategy that goes beyond a donor-driven and docile role to an assertive ideology of liberation. Development is about human freedom. It is about creating conditions where the poor have the wherewithal and the confidence that they are the ones who determine the destiny of change. People are not mere beneficiaries of a development programme but the primary actors who must be trusted to become change-makers. 

The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.

Email: ahnihal@yahoo.com