With the rise in religious fundamentalism around the world, it is increasingly difficult to talk about one’s deepest beliefs, says Gurcharan Das

 I was born a Hindu, in a normal middle-class home. I went to an English-medium school where I got a modern education. Both my grandfathers belonged to the Arya Samaj, a reformist sect of Hinduism. My father, however, took a different path. While studying to be an engineer, he was drawn to a kindly guru who inspired him with the possibility of direct union with God through meditation. The guru was a Radhasoami saint, who quoted vigorously from Kabir, Nanak, Mirabai, Bulleh Shah and others from the bhakti and sufi traditions.

In January this year, President Sarkozy of France, former Prime Minister Tony Blair of England, and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, kicked off a debate in Paris on the nature and the future of capitalism. It was in response to the global economic crisis. This article--my inaugural column for the Times on Saturday--is a contribution to this debate.

The idea that an ancient Indian epic might offer insight into capitalism's nature, on the face of it, appears bizarre.

When Polonius said in Hamlet, 'to thine own self be true', he was not thinking of Part I of the UPA government's forthcoming Budget. Polonius was saying that integrity and success lie in being true to oneself. This Budget is expected to announce a massive give-away of rice and wheat at Rs 3/- per kilo, and the scheme is likely to fail because it fails Polonius' test. Eighteen years of slow, incremental economic reforms have fashioned a certain kind of nation which was captured brilliantly in the film, 'Slumdog Millionaire'. If the movie caught the character of the nation's poor, the Indian Premier League (IPL) of cricket mirrors it for the middle class. The character quite simply is of a vibrant and energetic private sector that is hemmed in by an arid eco-system of weak governance. As if to underline this, our bureaucracy has recently been rated the worst in Asia in a survey of twelve countries.

The most damaging fallout from this economic crisis may well be a loss of trust in the democratic capitalist system, especially if those who are unemployed and suffering begin to believe that "anything goes" in an unfair world. In the rush to rewrite the rules of the game, policy makers might consider the message of dharma from Indian philosophy and literature, which offers a more nuanced answer to moral failure and the ethics of capitalism.