Human beings as we know them today can be traced back to about 100,000 years, perhaps a few thousand years less or more. For about 90 per cent of this time, there was a remarkable continuity in the life of humanity. Mostly they lived in relatively small groups, gathering various kinds of fruits, roots, leaves and other wildly growing edibles and to a lesser extent met their basic needs from sporadic hunting. Their survival and success necessarily required a good deal of cooperation and mutual help.

There was respect for women and high recognition of their important roles. There was no rigid distinction between high and low, and the groups operated on the basis of equality and sharing, not on the basis of exploitation or expropriation. If there was difficulty in meeting needs, the group was more likely to simply move on to a better place, without snatching from others or fighting others. At a late stage some people started learning that some of the wild grains and fruits could be grown closer to the living place by saving seeds. Some groups found this more comfortable, and took up settled cultivation. Hence the first small villages with their cultivated fields were established. These continued to function on the basis of cooperation and equality.

Thus, for most of its history, humanity functioned on the basis of equality, cooperation, peace and sharing. Hence there is no truth in the myth spread by several people in modern times that humanity is guided by narrow selfish motives, or that hierarchy, dominance, aggression, exploitation and violence come naturally to human beings. In fact these trends were not the main or dominant trends for most of human history, which was instead characterized by equality, sharing and cooperation. However, as the settled villages were dependent on weather conditions and sometimes faced droughts or other kinds of adverse weather, an increasing need was felt for priests who could offer elaborate prayers or perform rituals for more conducive conditions.

Unfortunately some less industrious groups found it easier to plunder the stores of the more industrious ones, and so the need for warriors who could protect the stores also grew. As the stores grew bigger, there were questions regarding who would manage them. Those who were relatively free from cultivation work the priests or the warriors, sometimes a combination of both – emerged to offer their management services. However once they had control over the surpluses, had more authority and weapons as well, they started using the surpluses for their own benefit and also started appealing to ordinary farmers to make higher and higher contributions.

Then, they started forcing ordinary people to do so. Most of the stored surpluses could be diverted to building mansions and supporting the luxuries of the leading priests and warriors. To add to this, at the time of clashes with other groups, slaves were obtained for toiling for the new masters in even more exploitative ways. By the time what are called the first great civilizations emerged in various parts of the world, these trends of exploitation, slavery, divisions between high and low and hierarchy had started becoming more dominant. The so-called great civilizations accentuated these trends as masses were exploited to support not just the luxuries and palaces of kings and priests but also to construct the most lavish memorials for dead kings.

The more powerful and lavish the civilization, the more was its imperialist spread and the higher was its cruel exploitation of deprived people and slaves, as seen at the peak of the Roman Empire. To support the endless greed of the rulers, there was also overexploitation of resources, which soon started resulting in the decline and ruin of several civilizations with excessive water-logging, floods and decline of land fertility. At the same time, there was revulsion among growing numbers of people against these injustices and the endless greed on which these civilizations and empires were based.

This was reflected in several revolts and rebellions, particularly those involving slaves. The biggest of these revolts against the Roman Empire was led by a slave named Spartacus. On the other hand, there were spiritual movements which questioned this life of cruelty, war, violence and greed. These movements and their great teachers revealed alternative paths based on simple living and high thinking, on non-violence and peace. In India the sixth century B.C. was a particularly fertile time for such movements, led by such great persons as Gautam Buddha and Mahavir Jain, to grow and spread over a wider area.

Such was their impact that even a great conqueror like Emperor Asoka came under their impact and instead of conquering more territories renounced violence and devoted himself to the spread of dhamma or an order of ethical life, piety and welfare of all. Several centuries later, another round of conquests and wars in India led to the emergence of Bhakti and Sufi movements led by such great persons as Sant Kabir and Guru Nanak who again showed humanity the path of simple living and high thinking, non-violence, peace within and with the outer world, inter-faith harmony and equality. The impact of all these great persons continues although centuries have passed.

At the end of many twists and turns of the history of the last 7000 years or so, we see clearly that the belief of a steady progress of humanity is largely a myth. There has been no steady, continuing, linear path of progress for humanity during this period. At certain places in certain times, humanity progresses; at certain times humanity regresses. It is important to have an understanding of the conditions under which humanity progresses truly in the sense of advancing its welfare and that of other life-forms in sustainable ways. The decisive factors are in terms of commitment to justice and equality, peace and non-violence, protection of environment and biodiversity.

Whenever this commitment increases, there is real progress. Whenever this commitment is violated, there is a decline of humanity. The saving grace so far has been that whenever humanity has blundered in big ways, some reformist steps have also been taken. However with wars and weapons becoming extremely destructive and several related serious environmental problems also accentuating, the space and time for being able to correct serious mistakes are diminishing. Humanity has reached a critical time in its history when any failure to embrace firmly the path of peace, non-violence, justice, equality, protection of environment and biodiversity will lead to adverse results so catastrophic that it will be difficult to recover from them.

(The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, Earth without Borders and a Day in 2071.)