What makes a nation tick? Make it leap ahead of others? Bounce back from a crisis?
The overarching answer I could think of is ONE ideology - a common ideology - ONE that binds the entire nation - ONE that inspires every one in the nation irrespective of their age, sex, profession & socio-economic status. Prominent examples where ONE ideology worked would be revolutions, freedom-movements, national war etc. Japan's demolition in 1945 and raising from ashes is a good example. It's similar to companies having ONE sound vision with stakeholders' buy-in doing much better than others.
Ok, let's shift our focus to India. Yes, India has amazing diversity in culture, language, religion and what not, ideologies - I greatly admire and being proud of the same. But is this really helping in the progress of our ultra-capable nation. Ideologies like "My religion is superior", "Need a separate state for us", "THE Champion of Political party XYZ", "Cinema actor fan club", "Reservation for my caste", "Job preference to sons-of-soil" etc are like 16 horses trying to pull the chariot in innumerable directions. Beyond a point, all of these just take away people's time and energy than adding real value to the progress. Wait, by ONE ideology, I didn't mean that people shouldn't have any other ideologies - rather the ONE ideology should be the "primary" ideology for most people - people can freely have N+1 secondary ideologies.
The immediate questions that pop-up are -
- ONE ideology stems from the assumption of "progress" being the priority of the nation. But who decides this priority? - one says "progress", another says "diversity", third one "freedom". My opinion: freedom without power & progress is like big empty pot - you can 'someday' fill it with all you want, but when? It has been more than 60 years! Adding 'Diversity' may not help much - just makes the pot - a big 'beautiful' pot.
- Does the boundary of 'Nation' make sense in today's 'flat' world? Only 0.008% of India's population works for Infosys. In my opinion, the entire nation hasn't progressed to the level of thinking / talking about ONE world.
- What's the ONE ideal ideology? Is it possible at all to come up with only one? Yes, It's going to very very challenging. But the example of "CHANGE" ideology pepped up by young Obama gives us the hope of YES WE CAN! (the actual execution of the ideology is yet to be witnessed, but getting it right with people's buy-in is half-job done!)
- Who will promote, champion, lead this ideology? Who will empower & inspire others to live this ideology? Are our politicians sane enough to think of national interest? Is it going to be business man or a social worker or a public figure or media? Will we get another M.K.Gandhi? Who is the ONE?
1 comment:
I am sure 'one ideology' can work wonders but I think it might need 'one big mess up' to happen. Examples are the same that you have mentioned. I think they were all driven by a deeply ingrained sense of failure affecting anybody and everybody. But it does not necessarily mean that a mess up is absolutely essential; small but determined changes can lead us there too as you have pointed out. The world is like a spring. If you want the spring to reach heights, press it as hard as possible and release it. It will automatically bounce to new heights or else gradually stretch it but do it with a lot of strength. If necessary call more people to help ye.
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