On service & duty

One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds.

– Mahatma Gandhi

To begin nonchalantly on such a broad issue is a momentous task. To spare myself the trouble and the reader all the verbal nimiety, let me begin by asking myself: what is service? A service is work done by the individual as substitution for the duty that is due another individual. When you exercise your right or perform your duty, it does not constitute service because both of them are for you to do so. It is when you offer to help someone or to give up some time of your own in order to do someone else’s work does it become service. At a restaurant, the waiters perform a service when they deliver the food to your tables. The price it comes at is money. On the warfront, when a soldier fires his gun and kills a terrorist, he performs a service for his nation. In both cases, it is not their duty to do so. The waiter earns money in the bargain, and the soldier does it out of either the need for survival or in gratitude of his nation’s gifts. The world around you and me would indeed be drab and devoid of any humanity were it not for the services of those around us. Self-sustenance in this scenario is a highly impossible state of living. We can hope to progress only by standing on the shoulders of giants.

As a 20 year-old, service does not usually take on such magnified proportions for me. I live in a small world around me. My duties, from day to night, include washing the plate I have eaten in and dusting the mattress I have lept on. The food I eat is prepared in the kitchen by my mother. the water I drink seems ready available when I open the taps. However, what I do does not seem like any service to me. It seems a frail triviality as soon as I step outside my door and begin to walk the busy streets outside my house. The either sides of the streets are lined with tens of shops and what seem like small malls, and the floating population on the road at any time of day stand between 5,000-10,000. With no regard for, at the very least, the cleaners who sweep the road at night, garbage lies strewn all over the place. Now, would you imagine me walking up to a stranger outside a saree shop who just threw down a plastic bag full of emptied food packets, and asking her to pick the bag up and put it in the garbage bin? That is what I did, and the woman turned around and ran. She thought I was mad.

Suppose 5,000 such men, and 5,000 such women. Petitions to the local municipal councils don’t help – all I did was ask for them to impose a fine upon those who littered. Their reply: “All that garbage is inevitable. Do you expect each and every one of them to find a garbage bin and throw their stuff in there?” Yes, I do. I replied so, and the counselor looked away. What is wrong in expecting such behaviour? If I can do it, why can’t you? If I could wake up to the day when each and every one of those individuals on the street uses the garbage bins provided, I will be a happy man, for that will be true service. The support you can provide the nation with does not stop at finding work within the country and boosting up its economy. In fact, that is not service at all if you don’t live in gratitude of what the country seems capable of giving you day after day, free of charge. It is like your house; rather, it is your house. Keep it clean. Would you litter your bedroom with rotten vegetables just because the maid cleans it for a fee everyday? I am sure you wouldn’t. It is for this reason that I would, if given the chance, enter into politics. I would like to impart this objectivity in thought, this simplicity of cause, to everyone around me. When Mahatma Gandhi called out for all “brothers and sisters to enter politics, to better this nation”, our nation, the likes of Lal Bahadur Shastri and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari came together. Of course, I can go on about corruption in the form of bribes and what not, but what I want to stress is the dereliction of duty. Glaring in contrast to the glory of days past, what irks me most is that, today, the performance of one’s duty happens to be the rendition of a service. That is a shame.

Many of us look to a service as optional. It is not, but neither is it obligatory. Today, it is required. Like in a game that involves no luck, when a point is lost to the opponent, a lead can only be established when all players put in some extra effort. Similarly, looking at the state of the nation in terms of one’s recognition of one’s duties and responsibilities, a difference can be effected only when we step out of our way, only when we put in some extra effort. The preparedness to do so manifests as true hope, and the will of action manifests as the vision. As a 20 year-old, I believe I should hope, and this is one of the many paths that seem to readily open its gates. Switch off all unnecessary electronic appliances when you leave a room. We don’t need a ‘World Earth Day’ or a ‘World Energy Day’ to make us do that for one hour in a year. They do that to make us aware. If you want to respond, don’t mimick. Act. When you walk the streets, don’t litter. If you see someone littering, do not ignore. That is where you make the real difference. With all the intelligence we boast of at the places where we study and work, we don’t seem to have to put any of it into action. We look to win the Nobel, we look to make money. If that is what you ultimately seek above all else, then you will have come into this world and left without a sign of gratitude.

Salaam Bombay!

SALAAM BOMBAY! I have never been to Mumbai. I don’t know the language they speak. And I know of only a handful of people from there. But the ongoing terror strike gripping the city has brought me from indifference towards an unexplored city to a firm believer in the spirit of the people who inhabit it. Even though the terrorists have taken into consideration that Mumbai is the financial capital of India, an important port and dock location, and the capital of a very politically prominent state, I have come to realise that it is the people who make it all of this, and these are the people who are now in grave danger of losing their lives at the hands of hubristic individuals who think they are causing damage. I can agree that buildings worth crores and crores of rupees are being brought down, along with them their value and history, and I can agree that tourists are being unfairly targeted in a country which is not their home, but I will also contend that we Indians will stand and fight as though those buildings were our homes, those people were our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. The spirit to stand and fight is, here, not restricted to patriotism, but towards a greater order of peace that we believe in. There is a Sanskrit sloka that goes like this:

Loka samastha sukhino bavanthu

It is a prayer chant that means “may there be peace in this world”. Loka is Sanskrit for world as well as universe, because ‘loka’ is our home in the living. It is a line that does not invoke religion or any a God, but invokes only peace.

Pakistani insurgents are not strangers to us, and we have steadfastly borne the brunt of the anger of those seek to part us from our people and our lands. The ‘Deccan Mujahideen’ may have claimed responsibility for the attacks, but we care not for who they are or where they are from. Our concern is not terrorism. Our concern is not death. Our concern is well-being. Death is not our business, life is. In the footsteps of our fallen brother, we will have many more tomorrow who will hate you not for who you are, but for what you have done. Trespassing patriotism is the betrayal that comes with disloyalty towards those whose salt you have consumed, but going the other way, we believe that an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind (quote by Mahatma). What is the purpose of the guns you fire? What is the purpose of the grenades into our homes? What is the purpose of the sirens you set off in the peaceful nights? Do you believe in a conspiracy theory? Do you believe in our division? Do you believe in the death of our spirit?! If you do, then you think wrong. In the all-pervading prevalence of truth and justice, how long can you hope to live as such?

My salutations are to the people of Mumbai, their spirit, their will, and their strength in being able to bear attack after meaningless attack and still be able to wake up the next morning, wash the blood off the streets, say their prayers and walk out the door. It is the belief we have in our neighbours and in our friends and family that keeps us going. And when the day comes that all the bullets are exhausted, when all the guns are starved, when all the militants are strangled and when terrorism is but a word that will hang limply in the air, we are the people you will be in the midst of.

The Greater Divide

When the state governs my way of living and the culture that douses my thoughts and shapes them into the actions I perform, it becomes my religion because it is my source of life . The life I come to establish for myself is done so according to my desires, but the objects of desire and the resources I have to attain them are both materialised in what the state can provide for its citizens. However, this is where the preaching ends; most people confuse this feeling for patriotism. Belief in your fellow brothers and sisters is patriotism – when you can rest assured that the nation that is now your home will always foster only the people who believe in themselves, and thereby imbue the soil of the earth with a belief in life, then you are a patriot. But when you adopt your society as more than a home, and even as a religion, then you are beyond patriotic. You are just a philosopher. The notion of the state developed from the government itself, which could govern only when a law was enforced, only when the belief, which is as strong as the weakest believer, in itself amongst its subjects could be planted. The lay man must not be allowed to rely on any other organisation other than that which he has elected; this notion is not because the state wants to restrict us with fear or force, but because then, the function of such an organisation becomes smoother and the restricted individuality you will come to assume later on will be manifested in your conformity to the state’s laws. But patriotism is independent of the state itself. It is a steadfast belief in the nation that houses its people. The difference between a patriot and a politician is observed in its most fundamental level here. A patriot will look towards his fellows for help in governing a nation, not a state. A politician has to begin from being a leader amidst his people and climb the political ladder until he can be the leader of a state. A patriot is not governed by laws because he does not conform to the state; and by virtue of being a patriot, he will need no laws to abide by as he is the ideal citizen. But a politician is a leader moulded by the laws he conforms to and abides by even as a citizen of the nation, and is therefore a son of the state.

Indian politics is governed by the 31 or so states it comprises of. At the time of independence, these states were carved out on the basis of the language of its peoples. Consequently, as each language represented different but similar cultures, the caste system in each state developed independent of each other. However, since these different systems encompassed people living in similar economic climates, they blossomed (if that) into an almost equal stage of complexity, intricacy and seepage down the strata of the society. When the people under a same national government are divided amongst themselves in the election of a local government, the politicians and their political parties must unite these people in order to secure a majority. This is where the FC (forward classes) and the BC (backward classes) come into the picture. The FC comprise of, primarily, Brahmins, and have been around for about 2,000 years. The BC have also been around for an equally long time, but they constitute a larger number of divisions of people. The BC can further be sub-divided as SC (scheduled castes), ST (scheduled tribes), etc. Therefore, in trying to establish a majority in the senate, the fractions of FC and BC voting in the elections play a very, very important role. The FC don’t trust the BC and vice versa, which is only natural given the history of each sect of people. I am from Tamil Nadu, a state in south India, and we have had a 69% allotment for BC in all our educational institutions for quite some time now. Whereas, the scanrio in the northern states is completely different. When the national government introduced a minimum 27% quota in the state-administered IITs and IIMs, there was a great uproar among the FC, who faced no such quota because they were all from urban backgrounds, and now had to concede part of their available seats to a group people who were now eligible for a first class teaching process just by virtue of their class.

Tell me this. What is a government to do when:

1. It finds it unable to channel sufficient funds for the education of the people of the backward classes. Now, I don’t think you can always blame a government of corruption just because the funds are vanishing into thin air every time they are announced. The villager will point at the local panchayat leader, who will point at the district MLA, and so on and so forth. If all you can do is point and shout, then you are not doing all you can.
2. The FC prevent the government from seeking a solution for this crisis by itself when it announces a 27% quota in the IITs and the IIMs. I agree the the quality of the students graduating from the institutes will also project a 27% chance of lowness.

By having so-so party the centre, we must not forget our duties while fighting for our rights at the same time. If you want the local or national government to uphold your rights, then you should expect the government to expect its citizens to fulfill their duties. I am not placing the blame on either of the sides here, but I am just asking both sides to consider their actions in the light of this dilemma. The election of a government is like electing your king, your sire, your leader. You cannot then all sit down and expect things to happen around you. If you want to protect the quality of the institution you are studying in, then you must make sure that all the people who want to seek admission there possess a certain quality themselves. We must not just seek answers to all the questions we have to ask. We must be in a position to answer them ourselves.

I have always believed the college as being an institution with importance equaling that of the primary schools. Primary schooling sows the seeds of knowledge in the child, whereas the college makes use of an education that has fermented this knowledge into a mature and applicable form. During the college days, the student will develop from being someone dependent on others to the one who is dependent on himself. At this point of time, everything around him or her will seem like a resource, and his or her productivity will see an exponential increase and decisions will come to be more informed. However, if he wishes to enter politics, it is considered an exception to the rule! But this fact can always find itself rooted in the requirement that the candidate for the local election has to be a man of the people. By this, I mean that he must have understood the actual problems that rock the nation as it were, and he must be able to, at least, circumnavigate around these problems if he can’t find a solution for them. And even amongst these problems, you can difference between those harassing the FC, and those, the BC. The BC won’t vote for an FC candidate and vice-versa. And since most of the FC have emigrated in search of better jobs, while the remaining lose faith in the local government by the second, the BC prevail in the end. When it is time for a re-election, the FC again lose faith in a government that has been run by the BC, and give up their chance to make a difference. The worst is when this cycle is called a vicious cycle!

This is no vicious cycle! It can be vicious if it spawns itself! What is there to spawn?! You spawn your own decline of faith! A government and all your people cannot be blamed for that! Even if you somehow lose hope in a government not run by people of your class, the right to vote is the most fundamental and most important of all! It is a right! You don’t fight for it! You don’t pay for it! And even if you believe in the division of people into classes and castes, it is not mandatory that your son has to believe in the same. Give the future generations a chance to make a difference. Even if you think there is no need for a difference, you must also know that their future is not yours to govern. The want to make a difference is not a mandate. It is, after all, an option. And your faith in your children can only be displayed in its fullest when you let them make their own decisions. When the FC and the BC stop thinking of each other as different people but people coming form different parts of the same nation, patriotism will be projected at its most glorious. And only a patriot will know what the nation needs, not a politician.