Is Development a Process of Expanding Freedoms?

An Editorial in the Kashmir Images argues that Freedom and Development are two sides of the same coin


What is Freedom

Historically speaking, economics, a science inherently smitten by the desire to quantify, has often been too narrow in its approach to development. An empirical science, as it is seen, its gurus have all along prioritized the material needs of humankind over equally pressing emotional and psychological needs.

Ironically while discussing what motivates economic growth, which usually entails the use of elaborate equations and complex graphs; when ends and means of sustaining economic progress are suggested, little heed is paid to the intricate interdependence of various needs and the causal factors that are the major stumbling blocks in the way to securing the general welfare of the population. Understandably then, most of what is written about economic problems and development fails to strike a humanistic chord.

It is here in this uncanny world of hard-fact and thick-skinned economic terms, theories, concepts and policies that some economists come in with a new brand of softer, gentler, humane and wise economics emphasizing the importance of social by placing the well-being of humans at center-stage of economic policy so that it is seen as both the goal and the means for development, and not simply a side-effect. By linking the economic progress and development with the political freedoms enjoyed by the people, this brand of economics suggests that political freedoms are, and truly so, subservient to the economic well-being of the population. Indeed the very concept that “freedom promotes development” is a pleasant depart from the conventional wisdom that prioritizes economic growth over political enfranchisement.

Development should be seen as a process of expanding freedoms. "If freedom is what development advances, then there is a major argument for concentrating on that overarching objective, rather than on some particular means, or some chosen list of instruments". To achieve development, therefore requires the removal of poverty, tyranny, lack of economic opportunities, social deprivation, neglect of public services, and the machinery of repression. Unfortunately even when the “freedom” has been much-publicized slogan in Kashmir during the past decade and a half, not even those selling their political merchandize in its wraps have ever bothered to talk about poverty, social and economic opportunities or the issues of public services and utilities. Instead everything has been made secondary to the politics so much so that even the economic hardships of the day-to-day life fail to evoke a stir anywhere.

Unfortunately here again, both separatists as well as mainstream politicians cut a very sorry figure as neither has displayed any understanding of and sincerity toward peoples’ welfare. Understandably, ‘freedom’ has been relegated to a hollow slogan meant for political rhetoric only. Now in the aftermath of the recent ‘economic blockade’ of the valley, together with all sorts of miseries and hardship it brought to the people, it is very much pertinent to expect that the Kashmiri leadership would try and deduce some lasting lessons from it. And they certainly must because people of Kashmir have really paid a very high price of human lives!