By Naveen Vasudevan

Helena Norberg Hodge has documented the effect of globalisation and conventional development on Ladakh over 30 years and come to the conclusion that there is a middle ground between staying in the past and embracing globalisation to the total annihilation of the local culture

Helena Norberg Hodge first visited Ladakh in 1975 to study its culture and language. Fascinated by its gentle people and their earth-based way of life, she kept returning every year since then and made it one of her homes. Being the first of the settlers since the Indian government’s opening up of the region to the outside world gave Helena a unique vantage point of observing, over three decades, the effects of globalisation and Westernisation in Ladakh. Her book (and film) Ancient Futures, a firsthand account of these changes, has been translated into nearly 40 languages. Helena is also director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC), a world-wide grassroots organisation working towards spreading critical understanding of the globalisation process and promoting local and sustainable alternatives. She is a co-founder of the International Forum on Globalisation and was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1986 for her work in the region

You have had a long association with Ladakh. What took you there and made you return year after year?

I first went to Ladakh in 1973 as part of a film crew. The Indian government had recently made a decision to open up the region to development, yet the traditional culture was very much intact at that point. I spent my first years in Ladakh analysing the language and collecting folk stories for studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

The written language, which is used in all religious texts, is classical Tibetan. Colloquial Ladakhi, described as a dialect of Tibetan, is different enough to be a separate language. Traditionally, it was a spoken language only. For much of the time, I worked with a Buddhist monk, Gyelong Paldan, on a Ladakhi-English dictionary, writing the language in Tibetan script for the first time. One of Ladakh’s leading scholars, Tashi Rabgyas, became my guide in trying to untangle the complex grammar, one of the world’s most complicated. These two soon became my close friends.

Speaking Ladakhi fluently, I had the unique vantage point of both outsider and insider. In Ladakh, I discovered a society in which there was neither waste nor pollution, in which crime was virtually non-existent and communities were healthy and strong. I had never before met people who seemed so emotionally healthy, so secure, as the Ladakhis. One of the important factors was the sense of being part of something much larger than yourself, of being inextricably connected to others and to your surroundings. The Ladakhis belonged to their place on earth. They were bonded to that place through intimate daily contact, through knowledge about their immediate environment with its changing seasons, needs and limitations.

Before I went to Ladakh I used to assume that the direction of “progress” was somehow inevitable, not to be questioned. As a consequence, I passively accepted a new road through the middle of the park, a steel-and-glass bank where the 200-year-old church had stood, a supermarket instead of the corner shop, and the fact that life seems to get harder and faster with each day. In Ladakh, however, I was beginning to see that another way was possible. I returned year after year to learn more and also to do what I could to help protect Ladakh from the onslaught of globalisation and conventional development, to help Ladakhis make their own informed choices about their future rather than having a one-size-fits-all Westernised development model thrust upon them. That was why, in 1978, I set up the Ladakh Project.

What are some of the sweeping changes (cultural, environmental, social) that you have seen in Ladakh in the three decades that you have been associated with it?

Ladakh had of course experienced change before the 1970s, from year to year, from generation to generation. However, around the time I first arrived, external forces began descending on the Ladakhis like an avalanche, causing massive and rapid disruption. There have been changes at every level -- environmental, cultural, economic, social, psychological; conventional development leaves nothing unaltered.

The profound changes in the way people thought and how they interacted with each other were reflected in the Ladakhi landscape. 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. A five-minute-walk in any direction from the town centre took you to barley fields dotted with large farmhouses. For the next 20 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 soul-less, cement boxes spread into the dusty desert. The once-pristine streams became polluted, the water undrinkable. For the first time, there were homeless people. Within a few years, unemployment and poverty, pollution and friction between different communities appeared. All of these things had not existed for 500 years.

The sudden influx of Western influence caused some Ladakhis -- the youth in particular -- to develop feelings of inferiority. The combination of increased economic pressures (unemployment and competition) and psychological pressures led to tensions between Buddhists, Muslims and Christians culminating, in 1989, in violent conflict.

What brought about these changes?

Fundamental to these negative changes was a shift away from an economy based on local resources and local knowledge to a global economy based on capital and technology from the outside. Suddenly, the local market was flooded with all sorts of foreign goods, including subsidised food. In addition, media, advertising and tourism gave an idealised impression of a consumer culture of infinite wealth and leisure, which led young Ladakhis to see their own culture as backward and inferior. Modern education also contributes to the dismantling of Ladakhi culture. It not only ignores local resources, but worse still, makes children think of themselves and their culture as inferior. It isolates children from their culture and from nature, training them instead to become narrow specialists in a Westernised urban environment.

Against this backdrop, could you throw some light on ISEC’s work in the region?

Over the past 30 years, the Ladakh Project has worked with thousands of Ladakhis in hundreds of villages to help strengthen and rebuild the local economy and cultural self-esteem. The Ladakh Project is now part of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC), an organisation that I founded in 1990. Through our programmes, we provide Ladakhi leaders with information about the impact of conventional development on other parts of the world while exploring more sustainable patterns of development in Ladakh itself, based on the use of local resources and indigenous knowledge.

ISEC’s work includes collaborating with a number of Ladakhi organisations, many of which ISEC helped to establish. With the Ladakh Ecological Development Group (LEDeG), ISEC set up one of the largest renewable energy projects in the developing world. Through establishing the Centre for AmchiMedicine and assisting The AmchiAssociation, ISEC has been helping Ladakh’s traditional doctors, or amchis, to keep their ancient knowledge alive. ISEC also works closely with the Women’s Alliance of Ladakh (WAL), a rural women’s organisation that now has over 5,000 members from around the region.

During the tourist season, ISEC runs daily workshops as part of the Tourist Education Programme. The workshops are focused around a showing of the film Ancient Futures (based on my book of the same name) followed by a facilitated discussion. These workshops help tourists see beyond the surface impressions of Ladakh and associate the changes they see in their own communities with the same economic forces that are eroding Ladakhi culture and sustainability. ISEC also sponsors Ladakhi community leaders to come to the West on Reality Tours, which serve to balance the glamorised image of modern, urban life that is spread through advertising, television and tourism.

ISEC’s Learning from Ladakh Project offers the opportunity for foreigners of all nationalities to live and work with Ladakhi families for a month during the summer. For participants, the project provides invaluable insights into both the strengths of the traditional culture and forces threatening to undermine it. For Ladakhis, having foreigners show such interest in their way of life reinforces a sense of pride in their culture, which, because of widespread images of the Western consumer culture, many now look upon as primitive and backward.

In part because of ISEC’s work, a new sense of confidence has emerged in Ladakh and development is now seen in a different light; while in the world outside, the story of Ladakh helps to highlight some of the foundations necessary for a sustainable future.

But hasn’t globalisation got some positive aspects too, like enhanced communications, the exchange of cultures, sharing of experiences, and cross-pollination of solutions? How would your vision of the world balance the positive aspects of globalisation against the negative?

It is important to make clear that it is economic globalisation that is causing so many problems in the world. Proponents of the global economy would have us believe that its spread brings democracy, peace, prosperity, sustainability and even respect for human rights. However, it is the exact opposite that is true. Economic globalisation has done more to create corruption, poverty, pollution, exploitation and inequality than even colonialism. I am very much in favour of the globalisation of genuine cultural exchange. This is something that I call “counter-development” -- countering development propaganda with real information so that people everywhere are empowered to make informed decisions about their future.

It is vital that more committed people in the Third World have the opportunity to spend time in the West, in order to see, firsthand, something of the dark side of modernisation. Whether it be fears about nuclear contamination, the realities of car gridlock, or public concern about the overuse of industrial chemicals. An honest picture of life in the West with all its problems needs to be highlighted and communicated truthfully.

Everyone with experience of Western culture can play a part, without the need for special expertise. We can help provide information to the less industrialised parts of the world, as a kind of “reality-check” against globalised media and advertising propaganda. Equally importantly, those of us from the more “developed” countries should have the opportunity to comprehend the value of indigenous cultures in which knowledge, wisdom, and methods of livelihood are finely tuned to the local ecosystem. The idea that the Western development model, far from being “the answer”, is culturally, psychologically and environmentally unsustainable then gains real meaning.

The dissemination of real information would move beyond specialisation and fragmented expertise to reveal the systemic underpinnings of an industrial society. It would show up the hidden subsidies of a society based on fossil fuels, and draw attention to the consequences: global climate change, disease and death due to poor air quality, economic instability and international conflict. Environmental damage, family and community break-up, illness and accidents would be judged as the failures that they are, rather than boosting GDP. At the same time, it would promote and popularise a new, wider, and more humane definition of progress. It would highlight some of the innumerable local initiatives around the world that are exploring more sustainable alternatives.

You are an active proponent of “localisation”. What does this mean?

Fundamentally, localisation is about shortening the distance between producers and consumers, wherever possible bringing the economy back to a human scale. It is about restoring democracy and empowering people. It is about meeting everybody’s needs without compromising the earth’s ability to sustain life. It is about honouring diversity, both biological and cultural. It is about reconnecting with each other and with nature to build a healthier world. It is the only solution that can be adapted to every culture, every landscape, every community.

Why is there so much emphasis on local food in the localisation discourse?

The negative impact of globalisation is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in the food economy. Food is reduced to a commodity, farming is becoming ever more specialised, capital-intensive and technology-based, and food marketing ever more uniform and artificial. These trends are proving disastrous for consumers, farmers, local economies and the environment. Since food is something that everyone, everywhere, needs everyday, even small changes in the way it is produced, marketed and distributed can make a significant difference.

Local food is, simply, food produced for local and regional consumption. For that reason, “food miles” are relatively small, which greatly reduces fossil fuel use and pollution. There are other environmental benefits as well. While global markets demand monocultural production -- which systematically eliminates all but the cash crop from the land -- local markets give farmers an incentive to diversify, which creates many niches on the farm for wild plant and animal species. Moreover, diversified farms cannot accommodate the heavy machinery used in monocultures, thereby eliminating a major cause of soil erosion. Diversification also lends itself better to organic methods, since crops are far less susceptible to pest infestations. Studies carried out all over the world show that small-scale, diversified farms have a higher total output per unit of land than large-scale monocultures.

Local food systems have economic benefits too, since most of the money spent on food goes to the farmer, not corporate middlemen. Small diversified farms can help re-invigorate entire rural economies, since they employ far more people per acre than large monocultures. Wages paid to farm workers benefit local economies and communities far more than money paid for heavy equipment and the fuel to run it: the latter is almost immediately siphoned off to equipment manufacturers and oil companies, while wages paid to workers are spent locally.

Local food is usually far fresher -- and therefore more nutritious -- than global food. It also needs fewer preservatives and additives. Farmers can grow varieties that are best suited to local climate and soils, allowing flavour and nutrition to take precedence over transportability, shelf life and the whims of global markets. Animal husbandry can be integrated with crop production, providing healthier, more humane conditions for animals and a non-chemical source of fertility.

Food security worldwide would increase if people depended more on local foods. Instead of being concentrated in a handful of corporations, control over food would be dispersed and decentralised. If developing countries were encouraged to use their labour and their best agricultural land for local needs rather than growing luxury crops for Northern markets, the rate of endemic hunger could be eliminated.

Global food is also very costly, though most of those costs do not show up in the supermarket price. Instead, a large portion of what we pay for global food comes out of our taxes -- to fund research into pesticides and biotechnology, to subsidise the transport, communications and energy infrastructures the system requires, and to pay for the foreign aid that pulls Third World economies into the destructive global system. We pay in other ways for the environmental costs of global food, and we will be paying for generations to come.

What are some of the other urgent shifts that we need to make today, if we are not to be overwhelmed by the globalisation juggernaut?

To shift from a globalising path to a localising one, we will need to take steps on several levels. Already, there are many individuals and organisations that are working around the world to make changes at the grassroots level. Yet these efforts must be accompanied by policy changes at the national and international level. This means examining and reforming trade agreements, public expenditure, regulations and development policies.

Energy production provides a good example of the sort of policy shifts required: from nuclear reactors to big dams, coal-fired power stations, and even the large-scale production of bio-fuels are today heavily subsidised and the environmental costs largely ignored. Phasing out these multi-billion-dollar investments while offering real support for locally-available renewable energy supplies would result in lower pollution levels, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and less dependence on dwindling petroleum supplies and dangerous nuclear technologies. In the South, large-scale energy plants are systematically geared towards the needs of urban areas and export-oriented production, thus promoting both urbanisation and economic globalisation. Supporting decentralised and renewable energy infrastructures instead would strengthen villages, smaller towns and rural economies in general and thereby help halt the urbanising process.

We also need to take a look at national and international regulations that consistently favour large-scale, globally-oriented businesses at the expense of smaller, more localised enterprises. “Free trade” policies are leading to greater power and freedom for corporations, while leaving national and local economies ever more vulnerable and constrained. Instead, a careful and, ideally, internationally agreed policy of using trade tariffs to regulate the import of goods that can be produced locally would be in the best interests of the majority. Such “protectionism” would not be targeted against fellow citizens in other countries; rather, it would be a way of safeguarding jobs and defending local resources worldwide against the excessive power of transnational corporations. Devising more accurate and complete measures of economic health would help reveal many of the hidden costs of our present globalising course. Currently, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is woefully inadequate as a measure of societal wellbeing. It is simply a gross measure of market activity, of money changing hands. Increased expenditure on cancer, crime, car accidents and oil spills all lead to rising GDP, but any reasonable assessment would count these as symptoms of societal ill-health rather than wellbeing.

In addition to these policy and regulatory shifts, we need countless other small, diverse, local initiatives of the kind that are already emerging. For example, the Transition Town movement in the UK aims to transform towns, villages and even cities, so that they will not only survive, but prosper, in a carbon-free future. The extensive North American network of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) is working to connect and support local businesses, thereby helping to build living economies. The numerous eco-villages, large and small, around the world exemplify key principles of localisation: community and sustainability.

Farmers markets and other local food initiatives are also gaining ground in many countries. Economic localisation implies an adaptation to cultural and biological diversity; therefore, no single “blueprint” is appropriate everywhere. The range of possibilities for local grassroots effort is as diverse as the locales in which they would take place. If supported by policy changes, such initiatives would, over time, inevitably foster a return to cultural and biological diversity and long-term sustainability.

How can indigenous communities (like the Ladakhis) protect themselves and their cultures from the onslaught they face in the name of “development” or “modernisation”?

The most important defence is accurate information. Development propaganda and glamorised images of life in the West in media and advertising are overwhelmingly persuasive -- they are designed to be. In the West, we are equally susceptible and a whole range of social and psychological problems can be traced back to these insidious forces of globalisation.

The global economy has built a monoculture of ideas and consumer goods and is foisting them on people in every corner of the world. Information about the long-term effects of everything from powdered milk for babies to a dependence on fossil fuels tends not to reach the least developed areas of the world. Without the benefit of such information, people in the Third World are likely to take far fewer precautions. When one travels around the South today, one can find people happily handling toxic chemicals of all kinds, using DDT containers for salt-shakers, even sprinkling pesticides and fungicides directly onto grain and vegetables without being remotely aware of the dangers. Furthermore, they believe, because they have heard from what should be reputable sources, that the trappings of modernisation, including new roads, large-scale fossil-fuel-powered energy installations, processed food, etc, are not only harmless but necessary.

These seductive images in the media and advertising are not accompanied by warnings about toxic waste, the erosion of farmlands, acid rain, or global warming.

People in developing countries are also unaware that in response to such problems, many individuals in the industrialised parts of the world are seeking ways of regaining a balance with the earth. They do not hear that people who have been crowded into large urban centres, starved of real community and contact with nature, are beginning to question the assumptions behind “progress”. They do not hear about the social and environmental side-effects of the automobile, and the fact that many who are dependent on them would rather use trains or bicycles, or walk.

It is not publicised that a growing number of consumers in the industrialised world are willing to pay more for unprocessed food free from chemical residues, and that even some governments are beginning to encourage farmers to move away from a reliance on chemicals, towards organic methods.

At the same time, there is an information gap in the West about the realities of aid and development in the Third World. The majority of taxpayers are largely unaware of the impact of the projects that they are helping to fund. They are told that they can support poor countries by buying their products, without realising that rural communities in the Third World would be better off in the long term growing food for themselves and local markets, rather than coffee, cocoa, or rice for markets in the West. Very little is heard of communities that are relatively independent economically and would prefer to stay that way.

What’s the role of tradition and cultural assertion in all this? Most educated people, even within these communities, see it as backward and that they need to “move on”.

There is a middle ground, so often overlooked in popular culture, between “staying in the past” and embracing globalisation to the total annihilation of the local culture. Development can be approached in a way that is sensitive to the local culture and adapted to the needs of people and to the environment. There are many examples of initiatives that bring the benefits of “modernity” -- technology, education, medicine, etc -- to communities, while respecting and protecting the cultures that evolved there naturally over generations. Many of these were set up by educated people within these communities.

The Ladakh Project has consistently promoted this type of appropriate development, while working to maintain cultural integrity. For example, in 1983, we set up the Ladakh Ecological Development Group (LEDeG). Today it is one of the most influential non-governmental organisations in the region. It develops, promotes and installs a wide range of technology adapted to the Ladakhi climate and landscape, including solar panels, solar ovens, Trombe walls, greenhouses, and gravity-powered hydraulic ram pumps.

Higher standards of living need not mean abandoning economic independence or traditional values. With localisation we can maintain the rich global tapestry of unique cultures, while benefiting from modern technologies and enabling everyone to meet their basic needs.

How have the Ladakhis, especially the youth, received your views?

In recent years there has been a noticeable shift in attitude amongst the Ladakhis. There is a much greater awareness of the importance of maintaining the traditional culture than when we first began working in the region. Membership of the Women’s Alliance of Ladakh increases each year and other similar organisations are growing in size and influence. Even the local government has been more amenable to cooperating with us­ -- we are now collaborating on a project to strengthen local agricultural diversity with the agriculture department. The youth remain the most susceptible to pressures of the modern economy and the siren song of the West. Yet, there are promising signs that attitudes are also changing amongst young people. Two years ago, we were pleasantly surprised to arrive in Ladakh for the summer season and see, very prominently in the centre of the capital, Leh, a new restaurant called Ladakhi Kitchen. It was started by a group called All Ladakh Unemployed Youth Association (ALUYA), and serves exclusively Ladakhi dishes. In Leh, where for the last couple of decades it has been difficult to find fare other than pizzas, hamburgers and other foreign foods, this is progress indeed!

You are a big inspiration to many. I am curious to know who and what your inspirations are. And also what drives you to do what you do.

The following have been a great source of inspiration to me: the book Small is Beautiful by E F Schumacher, Vandana Shiva in India, Wangari Mattai in Kenya, Arundhati Roy in India and Richard Douthwaite in Ireland. Perhaps, most importantly, countless individuals in both the North and South who have the courage to question the values of the dominant culture.

My work is motivated by great concern for the enormous environmental problems and social breakdown that we will all face if we don’t wake up to the need for fundamental change in economic policy.

When you look ahead, what gives you hope?

In these difficult times, the greatest sign of hope is that more and more people are becoming aware of the root causes of our social and ecological crises. Despite the opposite trend among our political leaders, there has been a shift towards more holistic ways of thinking: a growing recognition that social, environmental and economic issues are inextricably intertwined. Increasing numbers of people understand that human health and the health of the planet are one and the same thing, and that the same policies that destroy jobs are also destroying the environment.

If you look close to the ground, “beneath the radar” of the mainstream media, you will find many inspiring efforts to heal the planet, to heal society. Each year I have the privilege of meeting and collaborating with people from all over the world. It gives me great hope to see that in spite of what seem like overwhelming odds, people continue to work to re-weave the local, the small-scale, the intimate, the natural­ -- doing what they can to make the world a better place. This coming together of a love and respect for nature along with the rebuilding of community is what we mean by “localisation”. It is my sincerest wish that our work at ISEC continues to support projects like this and helps light the way towards a more positive future.

(Naveen Vasudevan is a freelancer based in Vellore. He is currently interested in exploring new forms and wholistic approaches to social change)

InfoChange News & Features, April 2008