At a recent celebration of NaMo victory, at the Hindu Temple in Queens , New York , I met with someone after a long time. He was obviously a little concerned about the presence of so many Hindus at the temple who , for the first time perhaps , felt proud being a Hindu and had great expectations from the new Government. The Hindus have so far been made to feel that they were a benign and an irrelevant majority in their own country, given the much talked about secular principles and values of which every political party other than BJP held claims to ! Since BJP was a Hindu party it couldn't potentially lay a claim to being secular despite the fact that Hinduism and Hindu practices are remarkably secular and democratic in theory and practice !! India has never led a program to extend the territory either via religious proselytization or political expansion via a war!
As the conversation moved forward about the opportunity , expectations , fear and realities , I was told "Big troubles are coming.. soon" !
It is true that NaMo win has indeed created hitherto unknown expectations and ambitions in the people of India. Perhaps rightly so. We read reports about the new work timings and ethics set by the PM himself that ministers and bureaucrats are trying hard to cope up with and adjusting to the new norms. There is so much to do and there is almost so little time , given that expectations are running wild amongst the supporters. If there was ever a real need for patience , it is now. To overhaul the practices overnight , set in place by the 60 plus years of Congress party rule , is expecting miracles to happen at your own will. That's not going to happen unless the new Ministers are able to handle the smart , intelligent bureaucrats who are designed to protect the status quo and historical lame precedence's. What India needs is a change and unshackling from its past and far beyond the games of thrones played by people who cant go beyond being " Yes Minister and/or Yes Prime Minister" !
Mr. Modi is following Mahatama Gandhi's famous statement about being the change that you want to be and bring about, in every sense of the term a work environment of service , governance and performance that we have not known before. Indian leadership needs big declarations and big actions to fulfil the promises made to the people with full awareness that incrementalism will just not work. India needs transformational practices to replace incremental behavior and practices which has become a cultural disgrace of what is called the common minimum program... translated in simple language means doing something for the namesake.
So what steps need to be taken to avoid the "big troubles" ?
One of the worlds greatest scientist , Albert Einstein said , that "any intelligent fool can complicate a simple problem, it takes a courageous one to move in the other direction" ! India , Indian leadership and the Indian people need to urgently recognize this priceless advice that no consulting company or a bureaucrat will offer. It is in the nature of creating complexity that we seek greater solutions, while in reality , the best solutions emerge when we remove the clutter and confusion that breeds inefficiency and inaction. Just as you can't lose 20 pounds of weight overnight , despite having full knowledge about how to do it, likewise to transform the current culture of mistrust , cynicism , apathy , corrupt practices which breeds mistrust in the system and process , will take time and real undoing of old practices. Habits die hard and to that end to break that strangle hold of old habits , new practices need to be put in place. Many people at the moment must be waiting for old habits to return to churn the same old again ! There are two potential areas where one can visualize big troubles emerging from. One relates to the real high expectations of a real change from a frustrated and unhappy people who voted congress out and welcomed Namo's call for growth and governance. The second relates to the communal harmony and the disease of fear factor in the being ignited in the minds of the minorities.
The newspapers are full of advices from ten point to fifteen point agendas which in essence are good directions and pointers for issues that need immediate attention by the government. But most of them point out the obvious urgency for s many things to be attended to. The need of the hour, however, is to introduce PRACTICES that changes the paradigm. For example , the country has got into a mind set of "cheapest tender lowest bid, " for every tender notification be it for civil work or whatever. Since the government has been the owner of these public projects , resource conservation has been the rationale for the "cheapest and lowest bid" . Consequently , the public works itself suffers due to lack of quality and poor performance in every sense of the term. The projects are in conditions of virtual and constant repair all the time resulting in poor outcomes, huge inconveniences for the public and waste of resources. This leads to a general malaise of quality suffering in almost all aspects of social and economic life and causes the reality that India does not produce quality products. We admire and appreciate the "quality" work done by the foreigners but never ever attempt to do it ourselves. And all this while India has the largest number of Deming Juran certified engineers in the world !! There are many more items we could talk about but I will restrict to this one single item for the moment. The essential message being to enforce quality as a means to living and dispel the concept of common minimum program which has translated into an apology for doing very little. Of course this does not mean not to do the bare essential to survive, after all stich in time saves nine ! Setting expectation is key to prevention of disappointment.
The other problem seems to be emerging out of the politically crafted fear factor that the minorities are somehow no longer "safe" in the country with a real good Hindu at the helm of leadership. This is nothing else but a canard and a farcical fear factor imposed by the British and as though only the Congress party is the protector of the minority interests. We must tell the world and everybody in India , a well known fact , that the Hindu way of life is perhaps the most democratic and pluralistic in essence and practice for all concerned. Hindus have never led a war to extend territories and never indulged in proselytization. For example , the believers in Arya Samaj do not fight with Brhama Samajis and Krishna worshippers do not claim that Krishna was better than Lord Ram in any sense of the term and vice versa. Ganesh worshippers do not quarrel or kill Durga worshippers and Kali worshippers are as non violent as Lakshmi and Saraswati worshippers ! And all of these Gods are housed and prayers are offered under a single roof in a temple most of the time. There is an undeniable move to further divide India on religious lines which is evident from the statements made by irresponsible people and incidents created by miscreants. The time is for vigilance and not vigilantism. Sanatan Dharm serves a purpose and has been relevant for ever. The world must know that and we must educate the world about how our Dharma is essentially peaceful and our process a proven example to emulate. The real challenge lies in the fact that we are, in truth , the only country where about 1.2 billion Hindus live. As a country we are truly alone ! Rest of the world is either Christian or Islamic. Therefore the world immediately reacts to any incident of minority abuse whatever it might be. While India is home to virtually every religious practice in the world , few know about it. In addition that India is only country in the world that was under the rule of minorities for the last ten years is hardly known around. We must tell the world that in the last ten years , a Sikh was the Prime Minister , a muslim and a woman were the President of the country , a Roman catholic Italian woman was the leader of the ruling party! How many countries in the world can talk about a record of this kind ? Therefore if the minorities suddenly begin to feel unsafe , it is actually their own make belief world.
Finally, the Hindus must come out and teach the world about the values and principles of Hinduism as it is today. There can't be any shame doing so , in fact it is that moment in the life of humanity to begin a conversation that God did not create religion, people did , inspired as they were by whoever. God does not ask anyone to kill other people but insecure people do kill in the name of God and that must be exposed , stopped and prevented from doing so.
By Vibhuti Jha , President , Human Potential Project (June 2014)
No comments:
Post a Comment