My manifesto: not that it matters…………
vyakti ( individual), vichar ( idea), vyavahar ( practice) and sanskar (embedded values).
The Dissent lies at the heart of democracy: great leaders are judged by the extent to which they brook diversity of views and then try to recognize the value of climbing ladder: vyakti ( individual), vichar ( idea), vyavahar ( practice) and sanskar( embedded values.
We will never find a perfect leader, but we can create situations in which imperfection is continually debated and improved upon. There is no doubt that Country wants Change, change from Inertia to action, indifference to engagement, treating people merely as hands, mouth and legs to people with a mind, a purpose; changing mindset of using natural resources recklessly and saving every drop of water ( as tried in mizoram and many other parts of the country).
We have to ask questions as to why saurashtra can have more than hundred thousand check-dams and farm ponds through people’ participation ( people had died in firing afew years ago in junagadh distt protecting against shortage of water, and Vidharbha has only suicides and long dry stretches with hardly any in situ water harvesting), elsewhere farmers use 60-70 hp engines to pump water from thousands of feet, non sustainable use (worse many industrialists pour untreated waste in underground wells)?
Why should education in government and municipal school be dealt with so much contempt and indifference because only the children of AAM AAurat study there? Why should not it be obligatory for children of all central and state departments of education to study in in the schools run by them? The quality will go up immediately. How can a service provider say that quality standards for provider and the clients be different?
Why should 65 per cent people of this country be given subsidized food when only about 30 percent people need it? Why should not absolute poverty be eliminated instead from the poorest fifty districts every year in the next five years?
Why should people’s knowledge, creativity and innovative potential not become the fulcrum for evolving policies, institutions and processes of governance? Why shouldn’t we ask hard questions as to what difference National Innovation Council made to the lives of creative and innovative youth, forget the rest of the people? Why should not science and technology be treated with greater respect than have eight cabinet minsters in ten years, Ah!!!
Why dont we have open source multi-media, multi language content made by students in IITs and AIIMS IIMS and IISERs available in seven lakh villages in one year? This will need the support of youth and not just government. Why should not twenty million people traveling by train every day be challenged to think about the problems of the country and also exposed to sustainable life style tips? Isnt it a shame that for the last one decade P and T department ( to engage 1.6 lakh rural post officers covering seven lakh villages) and Railway Board have been sitting over proposals to engage with masses to involve them in the ideation process for the nation and diffusing socially useful knowledge. Why can not we book for a digital course/s to be completed while buying tickets and pursuing our long distance bus or train journey? will not that make india learning and knowledge society. people will start thinking about life long learning and divert their mind from meaningless cribbing. Why should not Sanitation capital of Gujarat be not built in Raj samadhiya village which has not collected much fine these days because no body throws any paper on road, or dirties common lands or waters? similarly, why should not sanitation and roof top water harvesting capital fo the country be shifted to mizoram rural.
Why should not at least 0.01 per cent area of all infrastructural projects be set aside for in situ conservation of biodiversity?
Why doest not any party claim that with in the first hundred days of coming to power, they will make roof top water harvesting compulsory? With in six months, high quality local language content will be delivered to every school? Radio and Tv and mobiles system will be used for educating masses and children on priority. Public media no more gives space for poetry, art and culture the way it was needed and as it was done earlier. Why not? Can a country survive in the long term without poetry? Can we think of ourselves, our sanity without Kabir and Rahim? can we live with unsafe streets for women, children and delayed court cases for ever, just like that?
Ensure that people in Dhemaji in Assam will not have to drink high iron content water and continuously suffer, have two dozen small rivers with no bridge over them; people in Bastar will not have to extract oil from non edible tree seeds using ten thousand year old technology? Why should these priorities of marginal people, regions not be reflected in our priorities and so called manifestos!!!! Ah!!!
Why should AYUSH system of medicine and allopathy not be integrated as done in China? Why should not do-it-yourself kits for making water filters be shared with all poor households in first 250 days of new government? why should not small scale industries and start up be given prime attention in the policy making system? They provide the most jobs after all. It is time to ask hard questions, but why are not we hearing about them?
We need an impatient system of governance, empathetic system of engagement, intimate system of involvement of knowledge rich-economically poor people in governance along with educated and wealthy elite which cares for the country, trusts that an inclusive and sustainable India is in the interest of the world, not just ourselves.
A society where prayer for any sectarian benefit is prohibited, how can it not pursue amity and cultural pluralism as a credo…
In our vedic prayer, we pray not just for believers in Ram or Shiva, not just all human beings, but all living beings, such an embracing philosophy can not be allowed to wither away..
Sarvey bhavantu sukhinah….
