The Indian economy in the recent years has been harnessing the potential of the religious and spiritual nature of the Indian polity to drive inclusive and continuous economic development of all Indians. The construction of the Kashi-Vishwanath Corridor, the restoration and construction of many ancient temples like the Ram Mandir, and the Infra-connectivity for the Char Dham Yatra, all work on the same principle of boosting pilgrimage, and spiritual activity in the country. This has had the following impacts:
- Boost in infrastructure development in terms of roads, airports, buildings, highways, etc.
- Increased economic activity in terms of small shops, merchants, hotels, and other businesses coming up in the region.
- Boost to services and goods-based trade like coconuts, flowers, etc; through increased spending by the devotees.
- The money spent gets invested back into the local economy benefitting the poorer sections of the society.
The Ram Mandir inauguration projected generation of Rs. 50,000 crores worth of economic activity on the first day of the Pran Pratishtha. Uttar Pradesh attracted 476.1 million tourists from January to September 2024, with Ayodhya alone attracting 135.5 million tourists. Ayodhya is also set to play a crucial role in making Uttar Pradesh a $1 trillion economy. The underlying reasoning for the same is specific rituals and religious practices tailored towards driving benefit of the economic growth to the grassroots of the society.
However, with industrialization, we saw a complete shift from these older traditions and focused more on either private accumulation of capital leading to a few becoming highly rich or a complete state control of resources which again forbade meaningful development for the poor. Added to that concerns of environmental damage due to pollution and over-consumerism, violation of labour laws, money laundering among other activities have become characteristic of all commercial and non-commercial entities in India. With this context, a new mechanism is needed that balances the importance potential of wealth creation through private players, and ensures all benefit trickles down to all sections of the society.
Background for the Mechanism:
The idea behind such a mechanism is fairly three-tier. Firstly, marketisation of all the entities making use of societal resources and derive economic benefit from it. Secondly, this marketisation is organized in the form that makes public all information regarding their contributions to the society, ensuring accountability and compliance with the required laws. Thirdly, based on this an incentivising or penalizing mechanism for the entities can be created decided on by free market forces and regulated by the set legal standards.
The Vedic Economy as stated earlier worked on an integrated system of philosophy and market activities, where moral principles of fair play, production for the needs of the people keeping in mind the natural constraints of natural resources, and prosperity for all stakeholders were actively practiced. The ancient temples of India were not only sights for praying and practicing Hindu rituals. They also created and ran institutions for promoting education, healthcare, trade, banking among other vital socio-economic activities. The Hindu festivals and ensuing rituals, from ancient times blended spirituality and trade, to benefit small traders, manufacturers among other people as discussed earlier. The Maha Kumbh in 2025, will add Rs. 25,000 crores to Uttar Pradesh’s economy.
Factoring in these principles and the economic potential of Indian spirituality, the new mechanism being proposed shall aspire for firstly, revival of cultural heritage and knowledge systems of ancient India. Secondly, creation of a collaborative investment platform, whereby small businesses, social institutions can raise funds for positive socio-economic initiatives. Matching such contributions with incentives-based programmes.
The Social Stock Exchange: A Karmic Credits Mechanism:
The Social Stock Exchange (SSE) was created by the Government of India in 2019, which works on a similar concept, allows social enterprises to raise capital, hence, encouraging marketization of funding mechanisms to maximise social impact. As many as 65 Non-profit organizations have been registered with the SSE so far, with 8 NPOs even raising Rs. 11 crores for their initiatives. Now a Karmic credits mechanism in addition to the already existing SSE can further the object of its creation.
This mechanism would firstly work on identifying and categorizing philanthropic activities into five elemental dimensions – Earth (Prithvi), Water (Jal), Fire (Agni), Air (Vayu), and Space (Akasha). Second, evaluate the impact of philanthropic initiatives, considering the holistic contribution to societal well-being and environmental harmony. Thirdly, creating a centralized registry to record and track Karmic Credits earned by entities engaging in philanthropy, ensuring accountability and recognition for their positive contributions. Fourthly, developing incentives within the Vedic Exchange ecosystem for entities accumulating significant Karmic Credits, fostering a culture of responsible and compassionate business practices.
This exchange won’t be limited to social enterprises, but also corporates, individuals and other organizations aligning their operations with the Vedic principles of spiritual values, economic prosperity, and social welfare.
A Vedic Exchange: Reviving India’s Spiritual Significance:
In addition to this Karmic Credit Framework, a new Vedic Exchange could be created. This Exchange, would enlist all organizations working towards promotion of spirituality and philanthropic activities for social good. In essence, it would work on a metric for measuring the positive contributions by these organizations in terms of spirituality, protecting the environment, and social welfare among other factors, to enable them to raise financial resources through a formalized crowdfunding system.
To this effect, the Indian temples would play a crucial role in this process. For long, Hindu Temples have been placed under government control through the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HRCE) Act at the central and similar laws in individual states. This has made Hindu temples susceptible to heavy taxation, no autonomy over usage and allocation of the funds they receive or other assets like land, etc. Moreover, this hampers their ability to sustain ancient rituals and practices efficiently with less than Rs. 10,000 being the annual income of many small temples. As a result of this extreme bureaucratic control, these temples which once ran many socially beneficial institutions like schools, hospitals, and conducted huge philanthropic activity, haven’t been able to sustain this ecosystem. As a result, the social and economic benefit to many poorer sections of the society has been hampered for decades due to such archaic laws.
Freeing Hindu temples from government control and instead mandatorily listing them on such a Spiritual Exchange, will ensure that firstly, the temple administration has full autonomy over use of their funds. Secondly, listing them on this Exchange and making them susceptible to the spirituality metrics to be adopted, would make their financial and administrative decisions transparent to the devotees. Thirdly, all donations received by them, among other sources of funding would have to be made publicly available information, based on which this exchange will help in measuring their contribution to the society as other organizations hence, achieving the dual objectives of unlocking full autonomy for temples and holding them accountable to the devotees to ensure the funds are utilized in line with the Vedic Economic principles.
