If you develop yourself, your country will develop automatically.
Since 1947, we have indeed covered quite a journey together. Sometimes there were dire times, such as the year of 1962, when the Chinese army was savaging the borderlands of our nation, and at other times the victorious flag of India decorated the skyline in all directions, as in 1971. Since 1991, situations have improved even more, with India finally opening its doors to welcome foreign direct investment and liberalizing trade by minimizing tax barriers. And today, like Edward Luce writes in his book 'In spite of the Gods: the rise of modern India', we can see more and more prosperity across the cities and towns, and even in the remotest of villages. Problems continue as usual, such as corruption and honour killings, rape and robbery, lack of healthcare and family-planning mechanisms, but that doesn't mean we have acquired nothing. The fact that such problems are now coming into our view now is itself an indicator that we've civilized our nation to a great extent, and the chance of developing and civilizing it even more lies ahead.
What is India? A change of viewpoint
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, one of the greatest authors India has ever known, was among the first to denote India as 'Mother India, the mother of Indian race'. He dreamt of a united race, united under the banner of one land stretching from the frozen vastness of the Himalayas to the serene shores of southernmost Tamil lands. In his immaculate novel 'Anandamath', Bankim described his feelings for the united India, starting with Bengal as a reference point and the rest of India circling it.
Before, India was only a landmass, but Bankim's bold words 'Vande Maataram' turned India into something godly and divine. He identified religion with devotion to the motherland, and he was very right to do so at that point of time. Over the years, 'Vande Maataram' has been transformed into a chant that echoes all over India even today, though not uttered by the voices we expect to utter them. Thousands of honest men and women are working very hard without verbally chanting 'Vande Maataram' so very often (like some political parties prefer doing), but their work itself is the silent echo of 'Vande Maataram'.
But the thing to be pointed out here is that, even though Bankim was very right in stirring emotion among thousands and millions by calling India 'Mother', we must look at India logically, and not only emotionally. Logically speaking, the nation of India is more than just a landmass. Yes, the landmass is an important component of India, but it doesn't constitute India as a whole. 'India' is a giant system, made up of thousands and millions, crores and billions of individuals like you and me. India is an immensely complex hotchpotch of complexities, and no one person can claim to have 'seen' or experienced or known it all. Thus vast is India, our nation.
Now, let us apply the principle of Reductionism to India as a whole. Don't worry, I'm not talking about seeing India as a set of different smaller entities or advocating further partition in any way. Basically, we should see India as a set of uncountably many different sub-systems, groups of people and even individual people at the lowest level. And like it is said, 'revolution begins from the bottom'. For any change, positive or negative, to affect India as a whole, it should start right from the lowest level, the individual level.
What? Me? How can I develop India? I'm alone!
Yes, we all are 'alone' at certain points of our lives, and yet we live on. Like in the case of the superposition principle in physics, we can see that the electrostatic interaction between any two point charges is not affected by the presence of other charges, and at any arbitrary point, the total electrostatic potential is the sum of individual electrostatic potentials contributed at that point by each charge independently. Similarly, if you work for the development of India, never mind who else does. When you're contributing to the cause of India's development, YOU ARE making a difference, no matter how small the difference is. And one man can begin a revolution, whereas I believe we have thousands of volunteers.
No matter what you do, no matter wherever you are, no matter what your qualifications are, if you wish, you can contribute to the growth of our nation. And by working for the development of India, we are indeed working for ourselves. Because when we make ourselves better men, India becomes a better country. And when we make India a better country, the logical, economical and mass-psychological conditions become right for the evolution of better men.
How can I develop India?
Like I said, for any one of us alone, developing India as a whole is impossible. India is so big, and there are so many people who think, speak and act differently. But no matter, when you're working for something good, you're making a difference. And then, impressed and inspired by your example, others might join the cause in their own ways, and ultimately these 'small differences' caused by each of the participants get stacked up or integrated to form one large 'difference', which can happen to make a change.
We must think of ourselves as cells constituting a body, and this body is India. So, let us take a look at some ways which are easy to perform and maintain, and yet they can benefit India:
1. Maintaining good habits and practices, developing ourselves
Being a good individual overall is quite an achievement nowadays, with so many evils alluring us in every direction, from alcohol to smoking, from illicit sexual relations to drug addiction. But we should all try to make ourselves better, in our own eyes. That automatically contributes to India's growth. When we refrain from cheating others, from taking advantage of a disadvantaged person, we're acting nobly. And thus, we are making the wheel of India move forward. We're gradually making our country a better place.
Why exactly do we need to do, to make ourselves better? If I'm a student, I can study more and learn my concepts better, more regularly. If I am a policeman, I can at least try to stay unaffected by bribes, and do my duty as nicely as I can. If I am a teacher, I should try to teach my students as much as possible, and help them not only in their fields of study, but in solving social problems and quarrels as well.
Gandhiji had said it rightly "If you want a change, be that change". By living as nobly as we can, we can become shinning examples for others to follow. Another thing to remember is that, if you stand for nothing, you can fall for anything. Thus, we should take moral pride in being noble, in being hard-working Indians.
2. Contributing bits to the welfare of our locality
This should not however be confused with regional politics. I am an Indian first, and that's my identity. However, our localities are our 'fields of work', as I like to call them. For example, the unsung hero Tukaram Omble, who caught Ajmal Kasab bodily, and died fighting the terrorists during the 2008 terror attack in Mumbai, used to care a lot about Mumbai, his city. And he died for India, as much as he died for Mumbai. The essence of my statement is that, we should all try to do whatever we can do make our localities better, and the combined result will be betterment of India as a whole. It is rightly said "Take care of the small things, and the big ones will fit in properly for you".
For example, if you find a busy road that's not maintained properly, we should write a letter/e-mail to the respective authorities. Additionally, we can post an article about it online. We should make use of social networks such as Google+, Facebook etc. to spread the word about it.
3. Not giving in to 'youth unrest'
And unsurpsisingly, the media is paying too much attention to these attention-mongers. For example, after the Delhi rape incident, thousands of protesters clashed with the police, and even killed a valiant officer, Subhash Chandra Tomar. Rapes happen, and the true way to protest against them is to spread the word of caution, take active and passive measures against it, not making a big issue out of everything.
4. Being a source, not a sink
We may contribute to the growth of our country, or else we may contribute to its downfall, no matter how little our contribution matters. And the proper way to do something for the country is to be a responsible individual. We should all try to be polite and gentle, because good behaviour doesn't cost a buck. Likewise, encouraging others and not laughing at others' disadvantages or failures should be practised by everyone.
In fact, the problem with today's Indians of almost all age groups is that, most of them have little to nil self-respect. And people who don't even respect themselves can't respect anything or anybody else. This is to be avoided.
5. Combating superstition, social evils and wrong beliefs
Likewise, many evil practices are still strong in our country. For example, have you ever seen a Bengali marriage ceremony? So many idiotic things are done that it's almost next to laughable. The same goes for Bihari, Marathi and Punjabi ceremonies too, albeit in different forms. We should at least abstain from taking part in these utterly ridiculous activities.
6. Caring for the environment
We should not harm plants, animals or human beings for no apparent reason. For example, plucking of flowers should be discouraged. Religion might support it, but environmental science and its principle of sustainable development does not. Likewise, watering a plant is much better an action that visiting your local temple/mosque/church.
Minimizing the usage of electricity, using mass-transit systems as much as possible etc. should also be practised.
7. Being more responsible online
Especially for today's youth, social networking has become the trendiest thing to do. These irresponsible folks don't even use correct spellings online, typing ridiculous things such as 'gdnt frnzzzzz', 'gd mrn, sme 2 u'. This isn't English, it's rather gibberish or Engrish, if you prefer. We should try using more sophisticated and meaningful sentences.
The internet is crammed with information, that's true. But as for India, the level of availability of information and data is very less. For example, recently my cousin requested me to find a piece of information for him online. The query was very simple, to find out the year the first police station was established at Labhpur (a block in the district of Birbhum, West Bengal). And I just couldn't find it anytime soon. When I had given up all hope, I happened to come across a poorly structured government-maintained site on Birbhum, and got the information there.
As Indian users, we can always continue to post information bits of information online, on various blogs and so on, which can help other users and vice versa. Thus, instead of spending hours typing smilies on Facebook, we should actually do some real work online.
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