Bringing about a social change or a new idea may be considered the most difficult aspect. It takes shape over many years and may not even happen in the lifetime of a generation. There is lot of uncertainty involved as well both in the situation as also for the players. If we look at the great transformation that happened to our freedom movement post-1920, some elements of our discussion will come out clearly. The pettiest constitutional reforms under the British regime, as we know, had just been obtained in the preceding era, but largely through petitions and resolutions of early nationalists. They deliberated and passed resolutions sitting in committee rooms. They were nationalists no doubt but generally had the belief that the British rule was benevolent and would do some good to the people of the country. They did not challenge its moral foundation. By extension, it also meant that the demand had to be orchestrated through perfectly legitimate methods.
This scenario underwent absolute change under Mahatma Gandhi. His civil disobedience movement and satyagraha were mass based. He challenged the moral foundation of the British Empire. This approach and strategy totally transformed the freedom struggle. It spilled over from the boardrooms to the streets. Another change of another dimension happened around this time in Turkey where their new leader, Kamal Ataturk proclaimed a new constitution modernising Turkey and promulgating revolutionary ideas like emancipation of women by prohibiting burqa and veil and going to the extent of abrogating the institution of khilafat. This would have long lasting impact on the political and cultural contours of the two countries. But we must not forget that efforts of these two statesmen were resisted, opposed, ridiculed and even suppressed in the beginning.
So change is dynamic and is therefore, often considered result-oriented. However, change as we also know, is often resisted as well and sometimes ignored. Change may have different orientations; it could be relating to structure, technology or about processes. It could be about norms, attitudes, habits, like Information Education Campaign (IEC) or Behaviour Change Communication (BCC). But the most difficult change, which becomes a challenge for its protagonists, is to attempt introducing a new idea. From the earliest times, when the philosophers of new ideas were tortured or put to death, to the French Revolution, Industrial Revolution, liberalisation, et al, passed through several vicissitudes before they came to be accepted. Momentous events in human history leading to clash over ideas, more commonly or largely interpreted as religious or ideological, brought about the most contentious change but unfortunately also led to grave human errors and tragedy. The cult-based philosophy of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were responsible for millions of human lives lost. Similarly, the totalitarianism of State and Stalinist purges in erstwhile Soviet Russia, Cultural Revolution in China and turmoil of political ideas in various countries resulted in large number of killings.
Taking the concept of change further ahead, it may be said that it is easily adopted where the society is more loosely structured or its culture is less integrated. Where social dependence is less on each other and where people are more literate and educated and therefore, more self reliant and individualistic, change is more easily accepted. On the other hand, where the society is fully integrated and where communities have lot of mutual dependence, change is more likely to be resisted. It is after all the idea that individual has to change. Only when the individual changes that the collectives of individuals become subject of change. The change of individuals therefore, becomes the cornerstone of a change management policy, eventually causing the multiplier factor. While analysing the difficulties in bringing change or in evaluating resistance, we may specially underscore some elements: (A) Fear of the unknown: It is generally human to be wary and suspicious of change unless the idea is well conveyed. Thus, they fear that the change may bring about some negativity in their lifestyle or to their families. (B) Distrust: Sometimes the people wanting to introduce change may still be stranger for the change agents or vice versa. Either because of ignorance or because of some negative reputation or mistrust between the two, they become adversaries.
(C) Bad timing: Even a good idea can be misconstrued or misunderstood if the time is not correct. (D) Individual stance: It may happen that the individual being approached has little tolerance or has fixed ideas and therefore, not susceptible to new ideas. Any change first occurs in the mind and is often in the form of an idea that would gradually take bigger shape and get transported to the field of activity. So it eventually means sharing or rather selling of an idea. This selling of an idea through social marketing is now increasingly relied upon by both private and public players.