India: Land of Synthesis
I introduced my new book The Frugal Economy and interacted with Deepa Prahalad Abhyankar at Design Open
Design Open is an annual gathering of creative leaders and decision-makers hosted by Spread Design in their beautiful studio Design Barn in Bangalore, India.
Deepa, a world-renown innovation/design consultant, noted: “India is the Land of Synthesis”.
I fully agree with Deepa.
Indian philosophies warn us about reductionist thinking and teach us holistic and systemic thinking.
Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist texts all include the “blind men and the elephant” fable where several blind men describe an elephant by touching its different parts. Each person believes his partial description represents the whole animal.
The moral of this parable is this:
“Humans tend to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people’s limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true.”
India, the land of Vedic mathematics and sciences, teems with analytical thinkers (engineers, IT programmers) who can solve complex problems by dissecting them.
But India is also the land of syncretism where we combine multiple beliefs, perspectives, and practices into a coherent whole that is more valuable than the sum of its parts.
Sri Aurobindo, an Indian Yogi, was a synthetic thinker who combined Vedanta and Tantra to develop a holistic philosophy: Integral Yoga, or Poorna Advaita.
Sadly, an insightful The Times of India article, aptly titled “The Closing of the Indian Mind”, warns India is losing its open-minded capacity to synthesize multiple perspectives.
The article points to the rift in India between advocates of modern, science-based medicine and proponents of traditional medicine based on millennia-old Ayurveda and Siddha.
Alarmed by the growing gap between Gyaan (philosophy) and Vigyaan (science) in India, the article calls for Indian colleges to evolve into synthesizers of Gyann and Vigyaan.
My new book The Frugal Economy shows how India can apply synthetic thinking to lead what I call “systemic transition” — a holistic approach to drive economic growth while respecting planetary limits.
Unlike the reductionist “energy transition” undertaken in the West, a systemic transition aims to regenerate people, communities, and biodiversity synergistically.
It’s more “frugal” for governments to lead a systemic transition than manage multiple transitions (social, ecological, economic, digital) independently.
Read my Sustainable Brands article on how India can regenerate people, places, and the planet altogether.
Design is a discipline steeped in synthetic thinking.
At a time when US firms are laying off designers, Indian firms should hire more designers to synthesize and implement holistic strategies to achieve a Viksit Bharat that truly benefits people, places, and the planet.
