Reforms, Change, Growth, Sustainable Development and many such terms have been part of fashion of our erudite sections of the society. It is surprising to see the ease with which topics get started over a drink and end with blaming the “system” over dessert. We continue to project utopian ideas for the future and defend the actions of the past and present. This had been happening for nearly 5 decades now and would continue to happen for the next 5 decades, if some radical shift in thinking is not brought about, by each one of us.
Many of us ride high on the projected economic boom, professionally churned out data on economic indicators, social indicators and do scientific regression analysis to make our masters happy and the reality is easily brushed under the carpet. Growing rate of farmer deaths , 30 million pending court cases in various courts of India, growing vehicular population when 70% of fuel in the country is imported, high corruption index , low health spending, low education spending, low human development index etc. has to be brought into our sophisticated calculations to realise and understand the real picture of where we stand.
Electoral, political and governance reforms is a widely discussed topic and we may find “n” number of articles and research papers in libraries and internet. But my question is to who reads them? Is it part of our everyday learning? Are our practitioners really bothered about bringing about a change in their style of working? Is the need for change really voluntary? Let us look at some examples of how some reforms were started.
Who used to know election commission before 1990? Only after the arrival of Mr. TN Seshan and his fire-brand personality and out-of-the box thinking that he was able to take the “bull” (read politicians) by the horn. His style of functioning was also very unconventional. Fortunately, his legacy has been continued by many more dynamic officers at later dates (probably he broke the shackles for many others to follow).
Converting India from a milk deficient country to the world’s largest producer of milk and milk products was the vision of the father of the “White Revolution in India” - Dr. Verghese Kurien, who through his relentless efforts and much opposition was able to create a brand for the revolution. Many of his close associates tell, that his style of functioning was also unconventional and he was responsible for breaking many myths generally associated with functioning of governments.
Only 10 years back, using a telephone was a status symbol. But one man thought of revolutionising the communication world and he irrespective of the political parties in power led the telecom revolution to this stage. Mr. Sam Pitroda is known as the person responsible for India’s communication revolution.
There are many more examples from the Indian soil who have brought about a change in a small or a big way but we should look at what was that made these people do things differently . If we analyse, there may be a common string attributes which would be common to all like-
1. Hunger to know more – The hunger to know more and keeping their learning curve high. Knowledge is something which gives us ideas to do things differently and also establish our credibility.
2. Doing away with “chalta hai” attitude – The people in our society have become self centred to the extent that anything beyond their personal domain is insignificant for them and leads them to blinding oneself with the harsh realities. Questioning only when it pertains to you and not when it pertains to other has become a way of life, which leads us to the importance of the “power to question”.
3. Power to question – The ability to question is not ingrained in our society. The education system is responsible to an extent for this, which neither gave us the liberty nor the ability to question. Questioning is regarded as revolt or opposition in our society rather than constructive feedback. People who learn the art of questioning excel and prove as change leaders.
4. Following one’s instincts – The social pressures compel us to many of our actions which are otherwise not required. We subdue our instincts, feelings and knowledge to be with the stream. The Newton’s first law of motion states “An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by a net force”. People who follow their instincts develop that force to change the direction of an erstwhile motion.
5. Simplicity – When we talk of simplicity it is not the lifestyle it is the state of the mind. Simplicity is often argued with ambition and is genreally treated as an “either-or” state but if we change the connotation and regard ambition and simplicty as complimentary to each other it becomes a powerful tool for the change leader.
6. Taking a stand (Nerves of steel) – Another attribute to be a change leader is the abilty to take a stand on an issue/s. It is very easy to be susceptible and equally difficult to be stubborn. But again stubborness does not have a negative connotation. It is a strong feeling/ understnading on an issue and fighting your way through the powers of opposition.
There might be many more reasons to a person being a change leader but more important that is recognizing the fact that these attributes (and others) should somehow be instilled (injected) in our people for a large scale reform OR the theories, papers, small experiments and innovations would only ornamate the international journals and discussion forums.
Many of us ride high on the projected economic boom, professionally churned out data on economic indicators, social indicators and do scientific regression analysis to make our masters happy and the reality is easily brushed under the carpet. Growing rate of farmer deaths , 30 million pending court cases in various courts of India, growing vehicular population when 70% of fuel in the country is imported, high corruption index , low health spending, low education spending, low human development index etc. has to be brought into our sophisticated calculations to realise and understand the real picture of where we stand.
Electoral, political and governance reforms is a widely discussed topic and we may find “n” number of articles and research papers in libraries and internet. But my question is to who reads them? Is it part of our everyday learning? Are our practitioners really bothered about bringing about a change in their style of working? Is the need for change really voluntary? Let us look at some examples of how some reforms were started.
Who used to know election commission before 1990? Only after the arrival of Mr. TN Seshan and his fire-brand personality and out-of-the box thinking that he was able to take the “bull” (read politicians) by the horn. His style of functioning was also very unconventional. Fortunately, his legacy has been continued by many more dynamic officers at later dates (probably he broke the shackles for many others to follow).
Converting India from a milk deficient country to the world’s largest producer of milk and milk products was the vision of the father of the “White Revolution in India” - Dr. Verghese Kurien, who through his relentless efforts and much opposition was able to create a brand for the revolution. Many of his close associates tell, that his style of functioning was also unconventional and he was responsible for breaking many myths generally associated with functioning of governments.
Only 10 years back, using a telephone was a status symbol. But one man thought of revolutionising the communication world and he irrespective of the political parties in power led the telecom revolution to this stage. Mr. Sam Pitroda is known as the person responsible for India’s communication revolution.
There are many more examples from the Indian soil who have brought about a change in a small or a big way but we should look at what was that made these people do things differently . If we analyse, there may be a common string attributes which would be common to all like-
1. Hunger to know more – The hunger to know more and keeping their learning curve high. Knowledge is something which gives us ideas to do things differently and also establish our credibility.
2. Doing away with “chalta hai” attitude – The people in our society have become self centred to the extent that anything beyond their personal domain is insignificant for them and leads them to blinding oneself with the harsh realities. Questioning only when it pertains to you and not when it pertains to other has become a way of life, which leads us to the importance of the “power to question”.
3. Power to question – The ability to question is not ingrained in our society. The education system is responsible to an extent for this, which neither gave us the liberty nor the ability to question. Questioning is regarded as revolt or opposition in our society rather than constructive feedback. People who learn the art of questioning excel and prove as change leaders.
4. Following one’s instincts – The social pressures compel us to many of our actions which are otherwise not required. We subdue our instincts, feelings and knowledge to be with the stream. The Newton’s first law of motion states “An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by a net force”. People who follow their instincts develop that force to change the direction of an erstwhile motion.
5. Simplicity – When we talk of simplicity it is not the lifestyle it is the state of the mind. Simplicity is often argued with ambition and is genreally treated as an “either-or” state but if we change the connotation and regard ambition and simplicty as complimentary to each other it becomes a powerful tool for the change leader.
6. Taking a stand (Nerves of steel) – Another attribute to be a change leader is the abilty to take a stand on an issue/s. It is very easy to be susceptible and equally difficult to be stubborn. But again stubborness does not have a negative connotation. It is a strong feeling/ understnading on an issue and fighting your way through the powers of opposition.
There might be many more reasons to a person being a change leader but more important that is recognizing the fact that these attributes (and others) should somehow be instilled (injected) in our people for a large scale reform OR the theories, papers, small experiments and innovations would only ornamate the international journals and discussion forums.
1 comment:
Good thoughts. Aaur likhein.
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