Where Wealth Accumulates And Men Decay

                Poems and Poets

              6.Where  Wealth  Accumulates
                                 
                                    And Men Decay
                     Pamper Luxury and Thin Mankind

The history of India since Independence is mainly the chronicle of the struggle for economic 'development.' First it was the planned economy, mixed economy, socialistic pattern, etc which ended in near total bankruptcy on external account by 1991 when India had to pledge gold with the IMF for loan to meet the crisis. Then we hitched to the LPG star- Liberalisation, Privatisation, Globalisation. But our old colonial mind set, our political class and bureaucrats  have ensured that things remain as they have been; when we talk of change, we mean the same things in different words.

We are bombarded with all types of statistics, which make no sense to any one, other than those who use them.. Claims are made for growth on the basis of GDP ( whatever it may mean) and other such indices. Education has spread, scientific manpower has grown,all types of cars and motor vehicles are running on roads.Surely these are taken as signs of prosperity.

If we are critical, the same statistics will show growing inflation, unemployment, and poverty. Those below the 'poverty line'- however it may be determined- are supposed to make up 30% of our population. We then wonder what all this talk about economic development means. It is as if statistics have become prosperous. It is as if like Alice, we have all been running for 60 years to remain in the same place!

But if we look around, our 'places' have become worse. If like me, you come from a semi-rural background, you will notice how our old rural habitats and communities have disappeared; how all the old trades and crafts have gone; how all the lakes and rivers have gone dry or become unusable due to pollution and the land become parched. If you live, like me, in a big city, you will notice how many lakhs of people have flocked here  from even distant rural areas in search of a living. To that extent, the villages are desolate.

Almost all cities and towns are 'developing' ie growing and expanding in all directions. They, with their interconnecting roads, railways, highways, airstrips  gobble up farmlands by thousands of acres, displacing the people. The govt itself brokers change by acquiring land on behalf of the industry. Recently,  agriculture dept ofKarnataka govt decided that its office may be closed down in Rural Bangalore dist, because it is no more 'rural'- all farms having disappeared.

Economists, politicians, sociologists have their never ending say. But how will a poet look at these developments? If I have to invite a great one for the exercise, I will invite Oliver Goldsmith!

Oliver Goldsmith- his times.

Goldsmith lived in the 18th Century-1728-1774. It witnessed the disappearance of the old economy and the rise of the Industrial Revolution. London was spreading horizontally and vertically, swallowing the neighbouring farmlands. Population doubled between 1700 and 1800. Toll roads were taking over from the old tracks. The roads were full of filth, drinking water pipes running under them. The well heeled sought to create exclusive residential areas. Nearly 25% of the common lands were "enclosed", ie reserved for the exclusive use of the wealthy. Agriculture was declining, rural artisans like hand loom weavers were losing out to textile industry and becoming labourers. With the rise of industrialism, new products were introduced and 'consumerism' was rising and spreading-fast. Small agricultural landholders declined. The gap between the wealthy and others- both monetarily and culturally- was widening. (English poetry has been influenced by historical circumstances through the ages. For a fascinating account of this, please see: Paul Poplawski ed : English Literature in Context, Cambridge University Press)

Does some of this sound familiar to us now?  Yes, these very things are happening, right in front of our eyes. Those who forget history are bound to repeat it, said George Santayana. We are repeating history, because we never read it, or read it right, in the first place, leave alone forgetting. May be, we are even copying some others' history! But Goldsmith had 'excursions' in the country and on the continent often on foot for five years between 1751 and 1756 and witnessed these developments first hand. He did not have a camera, but has given graphic accounts of what he saw and felt in his celebrated  long poem 'The Deserted Village'.

The Deserted Village

Goldsmith describes the village as it was- "where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain"; 'where humble happiness endeared each scene"; where "toil remitting lent its turn to play"; where "the bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love" were met by the matron's glance of reprove;where sports like these "taught even toil to please".etc.


Decline of the Village

But with the coming in of commercial culture, the " sports are fled" and "all the charms are withdrawn"

Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green......
And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away, thy children leave thy land.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish , or may fade;
A breath can make them as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

Let us Indians remember how many agriculturists have committed suicide in the recent past!

Contented but Happy People

The people were not rolling in wealth but

For him light labour spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life required,but gave no more:
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

Let us recall what Shakespeare said of shunning ambition and seeking what one needs. And let us also remember  that great liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith , the US Ambassador to India,who said in the 60s,referring to the inner strength of Indian masses, that there was "a richness in their poverty".

Mercantile Culture Destroys


..........trade's unfeeling train
Usurp the land and dispossess the swain;....
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose;
And every want to opulence allied,
And every pang that folly pays to pride.
And rural mirth and manners are no more......

But now the sounds of population fail,
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale....
For all the bloomy flush of life is fled.

The Poet's Sensitivity: Contrast Between Pleasure and Happiness

Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One NATIVE CHARM than all the gloss of art;
Spontaneous joys where nature has its play,
The soul adopts and owns their first born sway;
Lightly they frolic over the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain.
And even while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.
Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey
The rich man's joys increase , the poor's decay,
It is yours to judge, how wide the limits stand,
Between a splendid and a happy land.

The midnight masquerade ...indeed. Those of us in Bangalore  actually saw how leading newspapers  carried on a crusade for the extension of time for the bars and night life well past the midnight hours, as if their life depended on it!

What Does Commercial Culture Do?

......The man of wealth and pride
Takes up space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his parks' extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
Has robbed the neighbouring  fields of half their growth:
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies:
While thus the land adorned for pleasure,all
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.

Think now of the gated communities in the big cities, with their swimming pools, club houses etc. Horses have of course been replaced by cars, where each such family has more than one. It is an exclusive space. Just think of the slums around them, from where the domestic helps come- who thinks of them except a stray  Shabana Azmi? Our mangoes, onion, etc -sources of cheap nourishment for the poor are exported, for all the cheap Chinese stuff imported! See how the prices of industrial products- right from the toothpaste and toilet soap are routinely increased without a noise, while agriculturists have to agitate for every little increase in the 'procurement price'. Think of the ease with which a car loan is obtained, and think of the pain and strain of repaying small agricultural loans, failing which our farmers end their lives, while large industrial loans are 'rescheduled', written off or 'settled one time', while those who have borrowed millions and defaulted still strut about in all their attired elegance.

The Plight of the Poor, and their Flight

Where could the poor people go? They go to towns and cities, because that is where 'the action is'. But what happens?

If to the city sped- What waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined,
To pamper luxury and thin mankind;
To see those joys the sons of pleasure know
Extorted from his fellow creature's woe.

Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes like these no troubles ever annoy!
Sure these denote one universal joy!
Are these thy serious thoughts? Ah, turn thine eyes
Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.

In Goldsmith's day, the poor could go to colonies like Australia and America. But even here, it is our rather rich and educated people who go to these countries, to earn even more. The rattling chariots have been replaced by glittering BMWs, SUVs.

Commercial Culture Destroys Taste for Poetry

Goldsmith  being a sensitive poet is touched to the quick by the decline in public appreciation of poetry.

And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
Unfit in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart or strike for honest fame;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
That source of all my bliss and all my woe,
Thou foundest me poor at first, and keepest me so;
Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue,fare thee well!

Is Goldsmith exaggerating the importance of poetry and the idea of its fall from  public favour?
I do not think so. Poetry is a state of mind. Excessive materialism cannot foster its true spirit. Visual arts appeal to the eye, but poetry goes to the mind. Where it is occupied by thoughts of vulgar lucre, lyrics would hesitate to linger there. Goldsmith indeed takes poetry as indicative of  all "nobler arts". Not only that; he is going to say Poetry will teach us the Truth!

Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth, with thy persuasive strain
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him that the states of native strength possessed,
Though very poor may still be very blessed.

Enter Dr. Johnson

We have it on the authority of Boswell  that Goldsmith had left the poem here, and that Dr.Johnson added four lines to round it off.

That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As the ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.


Oh, what a splendid philosophical rounding off, indeed!

Crucial Questions

Is Goldsmith realistic here, or is he imagining things, or at least exaggerating?
People were not wanting even in those days who felt he was describing an idyllic situation and not the actual state of affairs. George Crabbe who also wrote about the neglect of rural life felt that Goldsmith was being sentimental, describing the suffering and poverty of the rural poor, and not treating of their laziness and dishonesty.He wrote:
.......the Muses sing of happy swains
Because their Music never knew their pains

 I feel this is not correct. The rural people had their doses of defects, as we all have ours even now. But Goldsmith was describing what was happening to the whole rural  environment, though he had to take one village as a model. In this he was like the very village preacher he describes in the early part of the poem:

Unpracticed he to fawn, or to seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;..
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay......
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

It is very likely that Goldsmith was quite aware of the vagrant, the beggar, the spendthrift, the broken soldier, etc. But what made them what they were in the first place? It was the inexorable march of time, the rise of a new industrial-commercial culture. This was what Goldsmith was trying to point out.

Goldsmith was no economist or political philosopher, like Adam Smith or Karl Marx. But even they did not deal with this problem  effectively. Both dealt with an urban, industrial economy!  Earlier, the French Physiocrats had pointed out that  agriculture alone was truly productive and that it was due to the natural and indestructible powers of the soil! That it was the net product of agriculture ( Produit net) that circulated as income/wealth in the economy. But this insight too was swept away by the industrial tide.It was only Mahatma Gandhi who tackled the problem of rural poverty  or idleness head on. His writings on Village Swaraj, Swadeshi, Sarvodaya, Khadi etc analyse the problems and prescribe the solution too. But any takers?

Goldsmith was himself aware of such critical views. He wrote to Sir Joshua Reynolds:
     ..."I know you will object the depopulation it deplores is nowhere to be seen, and the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet's own imagination....I sincerely believe what I have written...I have taken all possible pains, in my country excursion, for these four or five years past, to be certain of what I allege; and all my views and inquiries have led me to believe those miseries real which I have attempted here to display. 
          I must remain a professed ancient.. and continue to think those luxuries prejudicial to the states by which so many vices are introduced, and so many kingdoms have been undone."

In a sense, whether Goldsmith was describing what he actually observed is not relevant now. Economic history has shown depopulation, desolation, degradation of the rural side to have actually happened. AND IT IS HAPPENING NOW IN INDIA BEFORE OUR VERY EYES! Which newspaper or economist is not talking about the migrant labour in the cities? Who is not aware of the problem of urban poverty now, and its squalor? The planners go on planning merrily, while the number of those who escape its net and wait for something to trickle down, also keeps  growing! So long as the poverty lasts, our economists and politicians are assured of full employment! But who will end the suffering ,and how? Economics is not only a dismal science, as Carlyle said, but a disastrous one too.

The modern economic engine is focused on numbers and figures, not really on people or their problems. Sure, there is some superficial prosperity as seen in the financial indices. But such is the irony of GDP that it will keep growing, even as our misery mounts. Every one wants to jump on the bandwagon.

 The celluloid poet S.H.Bihari wrote over 50 years ago:

Ye hansta huva karvan zindagi 
       ka na poocho chala hai kidar
Tamanna hai yeh saath chlte rahen
       ham na beeten kabhi eh safar.

This pageant of this caravan of this world,
           Why should we question where it is headed?
Let us hope to join it, and keep moving, 
        And never to be left out.

 Just keep meddling with the speedometer, don't mind the road!
So long as we keep moving, what does it matter where we go!


Goldsmith may not be counted as a great poet in the canon or by the establishment. Though he wrote much, his literary reputation  is based on the comedy 'She Stoops to Conquer' and his poem 'The Deserted Village'. No less an authority than Dr.Johnson said of Goldsmith that he was " a plant that flowered late" and " whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do."
Man, this is from Dr. Johnson!

Over 55 years ago, I read in one of my college books that Goldsmith "wrote like an angel  but talked like the poor poll".I don't remember the source. But one comment I read then still lingers in my memory: "By what other surmise can we expect this ugly duckling of literary history  to have been elevated to that coveted honour"- of being admitted to the closed literary circle of Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson?

The poem is longish 430 lines, but really good. I would expect my friends to read it fully and then judge for themselves. And I am sure they would have learned at least a couple arresting lines by heart by the end. 

This is a gem of the purest ray serene, I have cherished for over 50 years.