The society can be visualized as a tree having the visible external parts, the branches, which represent the behaviour and the invisible parts, the roots, which represent the values. The deeper the roots, the more prolific the branches. There is always a value system that is beneath the surface and perpetuates a behaviour pattern in every society. A society, which does not mind exploitation of the poor and weaker sections, has somewhere in it deep rooted exploitative values which have to be identified and abolished.
Of late a major part of human society is getting increasingly drawn towards desperate measures due to degradation of human values and anarchy in socio-political discipline. This desperation originates at craze for cut throat competitions and ends at restless individualism and consumerism.
This is how Mother Nature and human society have been duped and drained by the hypocrites in the social, political, religious, economic and cultural sector. Driving out the sense of insecurity and reducing the predominance of violence, obscenity and perversion from the minds of the people, and inspiring them for truth, love, brotherhood, and righteousness is a challenge today.
Self awakening
Each one of us is endowed with immense potentialities. We have to explore and carve out possibilities on the strength of sustainability with faith, vision and subtle vision. Only this can help one to overcome all the weaknesses and liberate oneself from bondages, originating out of fear, ignorance and temptations. The more there is oneness in a person’s thought, speech and action, the more one is liberated and realizes higher truths of life beyond Ahankar (Ego), Akanksha (Ambition) and Aasakti (Attachment).
In this state of mind, one becomes ruler of the self, behaves accordingly and thus becomes an inspiration for others to be true to themselves. This is governance by intuition. This enlightenment alone has led us from knowledge to scientific experiences and ultimately to ‘wisdom’. Perfection in understanding and performance of few seekers in a mission mode may again enrich community with spontaneity, volunteership, mutuality and cooperation.
The Motivating force behind such actions is not material gains but inner convictions and spiritual bliss of life… Bliss that is in the all-round expansion of the consciousness and sensibility of a man of truth; the joy that comes in being a lamp of light for others. Today our society is waiting for such light because it has in all ages got transformed by a few such leaders who inspired millions of followers, though not necessarily in their lifetime.
A bad precedent has been set
When one looks back at the last 160 years, one can see persistent efforts of the overarching Government and short sighted Market to encircle the community with conflicts; entangle them in false glittering attractions and temptations; engage them in survival, career and entertainment with no time to think or act independently; degrade their values and spoil their sustenance base in Nature so as to make them eternally dependent for their livelihood and security…one doesn’t see any urge for creative thinking on burning problems, nor the pain of running away from problems!
Disharmony and imbalanced relationship among Nature, Community, Government and Market is resulting in complete mismanagement of the Jal, Jangal, Jamin, Jan, Jantu i.e., water, forest, land, human and animals. Development potential has therefore gone haywire. System has legitimized centralization of power and capital, demeaning the dignity of labour, under valuation of products and services from villages and over-rating of factory products and services from cities. The selfish alliance of politicians, brokers, officers and businessmen are using it for their benefit by luring the common people in the guise of a welfare scheme declaring it a democratic system.
Change of attitude from spontaneity, voluntarism, mutuality and cooperation to individualism, consumerism, hypocrisy and chauvinism has pushed the simple and self-esteemed persons to poverty and humiliation. It has helped the clever ones to grow powerful and moneyed, with tacit support from centres of authority, and Constitutional maneuvers. Passiveness of civil society has aggravated our fall from grace.
The huge gap between the government and the people has been exploited by vested interests that exist in the business, the bureaucracy, and the social/ religious organizations. Delayed and biased judgment and corruption in the Judiciary have crippled the justice system. Media has an insatiable appetite for TRP (Television Rating Point). It has lost its impartiality by leaning towards power and money play.
When civilization is going downhill, then who will raise voice on the marginalization and disempowerment coupled with rapacious denudation of natural and human resources? Who should worry that consistent degradation of the human values, perpetuated by opportunist market and ‘welfare’ Government, has pushed the marginalized communities to the brink…people who are forced to become meek beneficiaries and silent observers, with eroded self-respect…who have developed tendency of begging by hook or by crook from the government?
Community awakening
Development is a maze. Today many are stuck and lost in its vortex. No Government wants a society to be self-governed, and sustainably developed with the fear that it would result in decline and collapse of their absolute authority. Ignorance, irrational attitude and irresponsible behaviour have dwarfed the growth of the community. It does not have the courage nor the knowledge to truthfully assert, exercise their rights; perform their duties and responsibilities.
It is said “that is the best government which governs the least.” This ‘least’ denominator is the harmony in relationship among Nature, Market, Government and Community. It is essential for the growth of any civilization. The prime responsibility of the Government is to protect the nation from external invasion, internal unrest and facilitate community in its organic evolution process, varying according to person, place and time. A Government that distributes freebies or a Market that is demand-driven, does not play a vital role in peace and progress of any community. We get a Government we deserve. An awakened community CAN modify the ways of the most powerful Government in no time.
It is not the community which wants centralization of power and money in the name of development, but we want them to be developed in our style and of course behind us. We, the people close to power, want the lesser mortals to follow our style and stand after us in the queue of development. Let us, who are more knowledgeable, stay ahead and have the good fortune to lick off the entire bounty. Some hangers-on will be eager for whatever is left over, they should be obliged. Then the scraps that are left should be distributed while beating the drum of charity and expecting applause from the bowed head of the needy.
We are meek members of our republic with a beggar’s attitude, we have created ourselves and the environment as such. We know that this is our country, our land, our motherland. If we are determined, then we can give unprecedented cooperation to Mother Nature and the government, we can inspire the market to think right and take right steps; we can also become the beacon for the public. But most of us are unaware of our power and responsibility; we are poor in thought, busy in ‘necessary’ work.
Famous scientist Stephen Hawking admits, “The entire advancement in science and technology and other sectors has resulted in disaster to community and Nature. Communities have lost grip over their own life, lifestyle and livelihood. Their peace and sustenance are jeopardized in the name of their development.”
A sensitized community should have the right to decide what it wants and how they will satiate their wants without harming others. They should bear the responsibility (immediate and ultimate) to gratify their wants. Government has a minimum role of facilitation, modification and consolidation.
Ancient Vedanta talks about a harmonious solution. It has been defined by Albert Einstein as ‘Cosmic Religion’, based on causality and the immutable laws of Nature.
Einstein defined religiosity as a “rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.” In a 1932 letter to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium he wrote, “One has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists. If such humility could be conveyed to everybody, the world of human activities would be more appealing.”
Conceptualization of ideas to build organizational process and characters for Swaraj
The Vision
| Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam |
Generate consciousness for unity in diversity through societal processes and forces in order to conserve the Nature; uphold truth, love, justice and righteousness; sustain the autonomy and dignity of the habitats; protect the vulnerable and weaker sections on the basis of human values; assist the Government and Market in right thinking for sustainable development of all i.e. SARVODAYA — an unfinished agenda of the Indian Independence Movement.
The Mission
| Satyagraha |
The conscious young citizens have dedicated themselves to form a powerful civil society
1. Which may be organically catalytic to spring Cultural evolution that will ensure harmony in relationship among Nature, Society, Government and Market in accordance with the laws of Nature and its symbiotic relationship with indigenous communities and endangered species.
2. To develop synergistic, participatory, inclusive and integrated governance structures that recognize community as primary stakeholder and not meager beneficiary. To bridge the gaps in governance and public relationship for non-corrupt and time bound functioning, optimum delivery of services and redressal of the grievances.
3. To build the National character that inculcates the spirit of spontaneity, voluntarism, mutuality and cooperation. It will produce integrated human beings enriched with spiritual realizations i.e. abundance of love for all.
Who are we?
| Premaagrahi |
We, as a family, meet people, tell the truth, and enjoy inner peace with a selfless, actionist approach to …
– Save the human civilization, doomed with violation of its basic principles and anarchy in socio-political discipline originating from craze for cutthroat competitions, restless individualism and consumerism
– Nurture an environment of love and respect for all stakeholders for integral and inclusive growth of the Mother Earth through learning-dialogue-discussion-decision-action-reflection-modification praxis
– Establish dignity of labour, honesty, accountability, transparency, democracy, dynamism and mass-base
– Prevent persons with personal agenda, ego, hypocrisy and vested interests from this process
– Proactively build this process as non-violent and apolitical with a committee of dedicated leaders, wise masters and selfless entrepreneurs who realize that they are indivisible part of the entire creation and not petty individuals. Such enlightened humble souls can awake India, guide and empower the society to live with dignity, and stop disharmony between village autonomy and Nature.
– Focus on scientific perception; logical behavior and philosophical understanding; imbibed with alertness towards callousness in government; sensitivity and empathy for the eroding eco-system, and the marginalized. It will lead to negotiations and collaborations.
Objectives
| Renaissance |
1. Focus on the Indian Constitution; uphold its spirit and principles; its effective implementation and reforms.
2. Moderate for direct democracy i.e. confederation of six lakh villages with acentralized governance system and oceanic circle of structural management as visualized by Rishi Sri Aurovindo and Mahatma Gandhi.
3. Set vision and faith in local leadership to weld their thought, speech and action into one, upkeep diversity and their identity to revitalize the gram sabhas and mohalla sabhas. Their unity may culminate in Desa Sabha or People’s parliament to express people’s voice with a sense of responsibility and accountability.
Strategy
| Spiritual quest |
[Bottom up approach aptly blended with top down management of the Government programs and system]
1. Advocacy for a shared vision that ensures holistic growth of the Nature and human community
2. Build mutually caring partnerships with all like minded individuals, organizations and institutions
3. Comprehensive solution-oriented platform to unite stakeholders with action research on conflict resolutions
4. Decentralized planning, execution & management as per the available knowledge, resources and felt needs
5. Endangered species of living organisms and traditional wisdom systems conserved and propagated
6. Fostering an enabling environment for progress of all sections of the society with love and compassion
7. Growth in agro and forest-based livelihoods, health services and practices for better quality of life
8. Habitats promoted as centers of learning and practice of sustainable living – every village as college
9. Inter-sectoral coordination among stakeholders and convergence of programs at the village, Gram Panchayat and Mohalla level
10. Judicious institutionalization of village and Mohalla level conflict resolution mechanisms through traditional / newly formed bodies
11. Knowledge sharing through community governed institutions; technology demonstration and incubation; development of scientific temper for students to learn at their own pace – a ‘People’s Learning Centre’.
12. Local community facilitated for problem diagnosis; identification of solutions; prioritization of interventions; managing implementation through a mechanism that is compatible with the Government and market, but not disturbing the Indian constitutional values and ethos
13. Mobilize funds from genuine individuals for any collective program and process with total transparency and accountability to the donor and to the public with whom we live and work for transformation
14. Nurture apt mix of reliance on indigenous and traditional knowledge and infusion of needful external know-how
15. Organizational impetus to address the crisis in school education & health care through systemic advocacy
16. Promote logical synergy between science and spirituality to establish human values beyond religion, rituals, caste and emotional bias
17. Questioning the party-based democracy, which is unconstitutional, and move towards party-less democracy with an aim for direct democracy (as desired by Mahatma Gandhi), instead of representative democracy
Action Plan: at Community, Institutional and Government levels
| Purusharth |
Effective and dynamic actions to ensure that the entire development paradigm: should reckon the community as sensitive primary stakeholder; is able to avail the infrastructure, organizational interaction and institutional access at grassroots level; has appropriate convergence and proper monitoring; has inherent process of sustainability and replicability integrated within the implementation mechanism resulting in community ownership, institutionalization of effective human and natural resource management.
Complete Change in Attitude for Community Convergent Actions is the need of the hour. These actions can be constructive as well as resistive. We must envisage programs for community education, and mobilization; organize for creative actions and confrontation (whenever required) to empower and establish village autonomy. That’s how the issues of disintegration, disempowerment, deprivation and marginalization can be addressed and rapacious denudation of natural resources and human values can be reversed. The steps are as follows:
1. Promote Gram Sabha and Mohalla Sabha with all voters as its equal members. Facilitate their empowerment to ensure creation of community assets and social capital to ensure support structures for farming, forest and working community
2. Interface with intellectuals, officers, professionals, technocrats etc. to get their critical input and support
3. Life support issues will be addressed by involving community and administration in a responsible manner
4. Individual issues of the needy to be addressed by volunteers, the latter can be guided by advisors and supporters.
Committed local groups to be promoted, strengthened, assisted in their impetus, and handheld to develop their road map, and upkeep their identity and autonomy. Later they can be linked to the National process.
5. Engage in dialogue with the Government to address critical community issues; bridge the gap; resolve the conflicts and confusions propelled by the vested interest groups. Regulate middlemen and the market.
6. Facilitate life support infrastructures and build model villages with transfusion of biodiversity and livelihoods through sustainable management of the land, water, forest, human and animal resource potential
7. People’s Assembly to design policies for peoples’ development and advocacy with Government for its legislation
8. Dialogue with corporate, political & religious leaders for behavioral change and for being socially accountable
9. Ensure inter-sectoral coordination among all stakeholders like central and state Government Departments, academic and research institutions, social and business organizations for integrated and inclusive development
10. Ensure holistic policy for agrarian products, minor forest produce, medicinal plants, fish & cottage products with cost effective market price, regulated production, preservation, processing and marketing mechanisms.
Research institutions should directly benefit the farmers, fishermen and artisans, not through companies.
11. Judiciously chosen differential parameters in rating of industrial products and agricultural/ forest products, services of rural and city workers and professionals.
Improper attention to conservation, production, collection, processing and marketing of agro-fish-forest-cottage products should be considered as a crime that must invite serious intervention at the policy level.
12. Retreat, reflection and self-analysis at regular intervals by the team leaders for their spiritual growth to emerge as role models for the community. Constructive criticisms in behavior and modifications in operation are essential.
13. Significant creation of livelihood opportunities through conservation of local biodiversity in villages and urban areas using provisions under Biodiversity Act 2002 (73rd and 74th Amendment of Constitution) to reduce marginalization, discrimination, distress migration
14. Measures to ensure S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) improvement in socio-political status of women and backward communities through cooperative federalism and cultural integration
15. Open the avenues for augmented institutional collaborations with varied actors in social, technical, health academic, policy formulation and administration sectors.
Spearhead a two-pronged strategy for socio-economic and attitudinal transformation – micro level mobilization and models supported by macro level advocacy.
16. Regular process documentation, data collection, advocacy, monitoring and impact assessment
17. Promote life skill education in Yuva to focus on development of real-life applications of knowledge that helps them in owning greater responsibility; personal hygiene; environmental sanitation; practice good health behaviors and positive attitudes.
Develop and strengthen their psycho-social capabilities and general interpersonal relationships; life-skills like assertion; negotiation; conflict resolution; group dynamics; collective thinking and working together; empathy building and stress-coping skills that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of daily life.
Paving the Way with Pioneers
| Sehbhaagita |
Awakened youth will not only level the fertile land of creative thinking and joint labor, but will also keep adding fertilizer of inquisitive experiments on it. Tender buds of innovative solutions will bloom, inviting bees and butterflies to spread pollen and create a green world. The branches bowing with the fruits will reach us to suggest the best solutions to the basic issues so that we live and let live a settled – blossomed – full life.
A well thought out institutional process is capable of bringing out the best in young minds. Possibilities and pathways are as follows:
· Market influenced circumstances (in family, in educational institutions and in society) have contaminated the young minds with fear, greed, envy, ambition, temptation, attraction and inertia leading to restlessness that overshadows their inner joy of life. They need to be transformed with a sense of care, compassion, courage, contentment, quest for knowledge (accumulation of a bunch of information is not knowledge) and creativity.
· Pupils need to learn life skills (Self-awareness, Empathy, Critical thinking, Creative thinking, Decision making, Problem Solving, Effective communication, Interpersonal relationship, Coping with stress and Coping with emotions) and to face challenges with a smile. They should be enabled to face the situations and persons that they come across efficiently, effectively in their own beautiful ways.
· Interaction with sensitized youths/ students to enrich them with knowledge, life and livelihood skills and inspire them to be masters, innovators, organizers, entrepreneurs, leaders but not gulams or dalals.
· Capacitate local youth and students (selected by Gram / Mohalla Sabha) as change agents, technology adopters, promoters and social engineers. They will be enabled to lead the transformation process while self-sustaining themselves.
· Mostly learning should be out of classrooms and through question and answer methods. The teachers will be a part of the learning process therefore they will spend time with the learners apart from regular teaching hours. This is essential for an empirical and experiential knowledge of the teacher and the taught.
· Actual learning of technical skill will be slow, and practicing it successfully will be time consuming. Hence it would require incessant effort to make pupils internalize and practice with confidence.
Leadership
| Courage |
· Unbiased understanding about the realities of life can only come from a tranquil mind prepared for critical analysis. Patience, perseverance and penance to bear the risk and responsibility is needed. The Motivating force behind such selfless endeavor and philanthropy should be heartfelt bliss and not external gains. Incessant inquisitive thinking can help evolve original personality that can conceive innovative ideas, deliver needful contributions and appropriate solutions to fundamental issues that engross us today.
· The realization of self in others and others in self will help one to rise beyond the temptations, exude spirituality and charm fellow beings with inner fragrance. A benefactor of this stature can penetrate every heart and reform them from isolated crazy individuals to enlightened persons, imbibed with holistic vision and non-dual faith.
· Such awakened persons can transform people towards self-restraint, self-esteem, self-rule and contentment.
· A National process from bottom to top level to be visualized by students and youth blessed with an independent mind, guided by teachers and facilitated by dedicated change makers. Gradually a people’s organization process will build up taking along persons with wisdom, integrity, and burning desire for liberation. Its viability will depend upon specific and measurable decisions, and tangible outcomes attained within a specific time frame, aiming at SWARAJ as the end goal.
Monitoring & Evaluation
An independent committee will monitor and evaluate the process. The existing mechanism of monitoring the utilization of funds will be dovetailed with benchmarks reflecting environmental, bio-physical and socio-economic improvements at grassroots. Public audit involving stakeholders is to be conducted yearly.
Conclusion
|Ekaatmakta|
The crisis is deepening. Civil society must rise to the occasion, and courageously act to save the planet through building independent, nonviolent people’s power from village level to global level under young leadership to guide the sovereign state as well as market forces towards emancipation of humanity. The Sun is waiting for our efforts, it will rise only when we sit in its illuminated chariot and bring it along.