Something is wrong with me

Something is wrong with me

My Grandfather was wont to deprecate himself a lot and would often blame himself for things that sometimes he was not even remotely connected with. This would always bemuse me. Till one day he narrated another very interested anecdote which for me did shed light on his psyche.

It was about Vinoba Bhave, the Gandhian to the core, and no less a Mahatma than the Mahatma himself. The man who walked endlessly day on day, four times the circumference of the earth to collect to distribute amongst the landless, 4 million acres of land taken from landlords. No mean achievement, nay a gargantuan achievement in a country where land is scarce, where the system is feudal and status is tied and even measured in terms of ownership of land.

This peripatetic saint - Vinoba Bhave, and I say peripatetic, as I too am, like most of my English medium educated friends are bound by the limitations of western rationalism which would never comprehend Tapa - had walked to a mofussil town in UP.

Vinoba once reached a school and demanded to use the play ground of the school for holding his Bhoodan meeting. Overawed by Vinoba, the principal agreed. But it being a government school, just to be on the safe side, he called up the District Inspector of Schools (DIOS) for a formal approval. This “kaan me baat daalna” and that too post facto, is as you can see not a new phenomenon with bureaucrats, and is a pre-existing condition with them. The DIOS cited some fine print of the rule book denying use of government schools for political purposes and reprimanded the principle for allowing the saint the venue.

On learning that he had been equated with political parties, this saint imbued with righteous indignation stood under a tree and started slapping himself. Panicking, the DIOS reported the matter to his superior - my grandfather - who unlike the others was alien neither to Vinoba’s stature nor to his ways - who rushed to the venue of this melodrama. Sorry, Vinoba's tree of penance.

Vinobas was cursing and blaming himself, muttering, “there must be something wrong with me, that the DIOS equated my cause to a political one”. And he would not relent. It was quite a while before my grandfather, diminutive in stature to the Gandhian, but a man of significant erudition and indefatigable spirit himself, could finally calm the saint. Interestingly, he had to resort to slapping himself, as the deeply offended saint would not give in to anything less than his own remedy.

Vinoba was personification of Tapa which was inspiring Dana and even Tyaga. His Tapa was urging people to donate land. He was also a man who would internalize the blemishes external to him and try to heal them from within.

In a land that gave birth to him and many greater than him, how could we have thieves all around now.

A Full Circle?

A Full Circle

My favorite refrain for many years - when Bihar will become Magadha, India will become Bharat. As CEO, an activity that I keenly pursue is attending conferences. All my other colleagues are always neck deep in work to do so. And conference after conference I notice two penchants of speakers - one, to dissect and descant upon the story of a precariously poised India at crossroads, debating on the Hamletian dilemma of to grow rapidly or not to grow so rapidly and two, to compare India with China. These speakers who look at India from a typically onlooker standpoint see India in flux, try to capture in a snapshot an ever changing panorama and then use that snapshot to hatch their very own projection of the future of India.

At one recent conference, some very successful practicing consultants crystal ball gazed and predicted that Indian Pharmaceutical companies will become increasingly local and inward looking. Based on what cues only he would know. For me this not contrarian, this is simply stupid. This is like Indian pharma retracing steps undoing the milestones already crossed.

For me there is hope. The Bihar electorate’s verdict was an enlightened one.
In India despite corruption having become a way of life, there is still a huge population of people who are honest to the book. When these people come to positions of influence and power, which is not so common - usually the important positions are usurped by their more “networked “colleagues - these men of probity do make a difference. Unfortunately the impact that they make stays mostly at the top. If the change made stays only at the top, it is not sustainable, till it percolates to the bottom. Even the impact of revolutions takes generations to set in. Slow paced transitional change takes much more. Corruption and greater than that lack of intellectual integrity or rampant intellectual infidelity are the two woes that shall continue to daunt each stride that India takes.
If corruption has to be really addressed, then retribution must be speedier. If intellectual integrity is to be inculcated, then importance of country before self has to be emphasized. For this, the kindergarten generation has to be attended. The values that they imbibe need to be different. The environment that they get should be different from what we got. The goals that they set for themselves should be different that we set for ourselves. This intervention will best be made by schools. If responsibility of values formation is left to parents, the survival instincts will dilute the intentions of even the well meaning parents. The teacher enjoys a third party legitimacy that a parent does not. Kids always view the intervention of parents as that of an interested party, till they are old enough to imbibe the purport. But if the schools have to deliver, the teachers have to be good. If the teachers have to be good, the right orientation people have to come in the teaching profession. If the good people have to come in teaching profession, then they have to sacrifice more lucrative alternative options. If they do so, then the society has to compensate them with extreme respect and reverence. In which case, our newly acquired value system needs to metamorphose quite a bit and knowledge / erudition / sacrifice or simply said adhyaatma and tyaaga have to have precedence on material wealth and attendant frivolous contraptions that announce it. Are we then returning to the rhetorical rectitude representative of the stereotype golden period “shikshak”. Will some champion of social engineering scream - Brahmanical manuvad? Do we come back a full cycle. But do we have an option?