While today’s leaders have largely failed to be worthy role models, as the ruckus in Parliament and the corruption scams stand proof, idealistic youngsters have shown the way, most recently by refusing lucrative job offers
As Parliament debates the words and sentences of one Union Minister’s universally condemned speech that caused pain, astonishment and anguish, one ponders over the impact the episode may have had on young boys and girls in schools who repeatedly watch telecasts of the Minister’s speech and the ruckus it created in Parliament for days together.
These children also read about the ingenuities of the Engineer-in-Chief of Uttar Pradesh Government who is reported to have amassed vulgar levels of wealth while handling projects in Noida, Greater Noida and along the Yamuna Expressway. The only positive news report that comes through is the rejection of lucrative job offers, from multinationals, by students of some elite educational institutions. Such decisions emerge out of the idealism of the young, that has brought about attitudinal transformations, whenever such a transition becomes inevitable for the onward march of civilisation.
Though the canvas of educational access has expanded considerably, the young do experience the dearth of genuine role models. When law-makers disrupt Parliament, why should they not set an example by forfeiting their emoluments and allowances for the dayIJ
Those occupying positions of power on high pedestals generally ignore the fact that people look to them, and that the young seek to emulate them. The protests against the Minister’s speech was necessary, though the people will not approve the manner in which these protests were being pursued.
Also, soon enough everyone was remembering other ‘luminaries’ who had taken liberties with their language in ‘their days’. Prominently mentioned among them were Messrs Salman Khurshid, Azam Khan, Giriraj Singh, Asaduddin Owaisi as well as Yogi Adityanath. Members of Parliament invariably forget how their disruptions, a regular and established feature now, adversely impacts the young. The rejection of lucrative offers by young spirited Indians should now become an instance of ‘reciprocal learning’ for the ‘generation that controls the reins of power’.
This may be tough for those who have not learnt any lesson out of the infamous scandals, as more cases of graft have emerged in the form of the Commonwealth Games lootfest, ‘Coalgate’, and now the Noida engineer’s corruption scam! Where do children stand in the world of such rulersIJ The global average of malnourished children is around 25 per cent; in Uttar Pradesh, it is at 52 per cent as against the national average of 43 per cent. If a survey is to be conducted on migrant labours in Noida and Greater Noida, one can confidently say that the rate of malnourishment will be somewhere around 80 to 90 per cent.
We all know how the Gandhian principles and practices have been gradually evicted out of just about every area of human endeavour. However, for genuine reforms in any sector, one is invariably reminded of the Mahatma who was a prophetic visionary.
He wrote in a letter, on January 24, 1922, that, “We should remember that immediately on attainment of freedom, our people are not going to secure happiness. As we become independent, all the defects of the system of elections, injustice, the tyranny of the richer classes as also the burden of running administration are bound to come upon us. People would begin to feel that during those days, there was more justice, there was better administration, there was peace, and there was honesty to a great extent among the administrators compared to the days after independence. The only benefit of independence, however, would be that we would get rid of slavery and the blot of insult resulting therefrom.”
The defects of election are not only universally known but people also know how they are made to suffer. Rare exceptions apart, no common man can think of fighting an election based on a principled stand. The rich and the neo-rich seem to have a field day: Persuade the Government to acquire the land of farmers on one pretext or the other; give them a pittance as compensation and promise jobs on paper; then, get the land allotted, move the right strings to change land-use, and earn a fortune. The silent partners in the deal will be ready to help you out and will not hesitate to cry from roof tops that that it was just an act of an intelligent business brain; nothing wrong in it!
Be it the unacceptable usage of words, the brutal manipulations to deprive poor farmers of their livelihoods, the dependence of political parties on unaccounted ‘donations’ or the ever-increasing greed of the rich, the seeds of reforms have to be shown by the people through sincere public initiatives. These initiatives have to at the schools. The guiding principle would be that immortal sentence of the Mahatma: “My life is my message”. Are you aware of anyone who can say this todayIJ